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- 91 - "C-Murder Killed My Brother" | George Thomas, No Limit & Corey Miller
George Thomas shares his family story of dealing with the tragic death of his brother Steve Thomas at the hands of rap star and No Limit Records recording artist Corey Miller also known as C-Murder, the brother of founder Master P.
George goes into detail with Woody Overton and Jim Chapman on Bloody Angola Podcast regarding the case itself, responds to calls from Kim Kardashian to "Free C-Murder" and the impact the case has had on his entire family.
Timestamps
02:15 Diverse Crime Stories
03:42 Personal Backgrounds and Music Influence
05:07 Upbringing in New Orleans
06:54 Temptation of Street Life
08:51 Military Influence
10:20 Life in Leavenworth
15:39 Shocking News of Brother's Murder
18:16 Involvement of C-Murder
20:48 Brother's Love for Rap Battles
22:13 Fond Memories of Brother
32:46 Concealed Information and Media Control
35:53 Emotions in Courtroom
35:56 Uncovering the Truth
38:32 The Wine Flowers Incident
39:31 The Emotional Testimony
40:09 Dealing with Threats
40:53 Unveiling the Industry
42:06 Facing Public Scrutiny
46:32 Reflections on Remorse
46:56 Remembering the Victim
52:39 Seeking Justice
54:15 Seeking the Truth
55:10 Respecting Intentions
56:30 Unexpected Apologies
59:07 Sharing the Story
59:57 Choosing Redemption
1:00:41 Making Life Choices
1:03:14 Making a Difference
1:03:55 Sharing Personal Journeys
1:05:22 Seeking Peace
1:08:45 Speaking Hard Truths
#kimkardashian #cmurder #nolimitrecords #stevethomas #rap #podcast #masterp #deathrow #bloodyangola
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 25 Apr 2024 - 90 - Part One | The Deathmen
In this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast, we explore the dark history of executioners throughout civilizations, from their origins to their roles under tribal leaders and monarchs.
Woody and Jim delve into the lives of infamous executioners like Derek and John Crosland, revealing chilling details of their deeds. Various methods of execution over the centuries are discussed, including the guillotine's introduction by Dr. Joseph Guillotine, transforming the landscape and speed of executions.
01:30 Introduction
03:45 Origins of Executioners
12:48 Unique Identification Methods
19:27 Love in the Dungeon
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 11 Apr 2024 - 89 - The Legend of Lead Belly
In this episode, we explore the life of Lead Belly, a prominent blues singer originating from the infamous Bloody Angola prison. Spanning the 1930s, we witness Lead Belly's turbulent journey from incarceration to musical stardom, showcasing his exceptional 12-string guitar skills and prestigious performances at locales like Carnegie Hall and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
We delve into the harsh realities of life in Bloody Angola during the Great Depression, shedding light on inmate challenges and the vital role of correctional officers in maintaining order. Additionally, we touch upon the evolving landscape of law enforcement, the complexities detectives encounter, and the significance of adequate funding for police departments.
Timestamps
0:53 Lead Belly's Story Begins
14:23 Lead Belly's Violent Altercations
15:53 Lead Belly's Murder Conviction
20:58 Lead Belly's Recording Opportunity
21:57Lead Belly's Release and Musical Success
26:14 Lead Belly's Hit Song
30:24 Reflections on Lead Belly's Legacy
36:51 Challenges Faced by Correctional Officers
42:45 Law Enforcement Challenges
44:00 Investigative Prioritization
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 04 Apr 2024 - 88 - Horror Show
Woody and Jim into the history of the electric chair, discussing various executions that took place in the past. William Kemmler's execution in New York in 1890 marked the first time the electric chair was used, aiming to replace the gruesome public hangings of the time. The podcast highlights the mishaps that occurred during electrocutions, such as William Taylor's legs ripping off during the process. It also explores how Louisiana transitioned from hangings to using the electric chair in 1940 and eventually to lethal injection in 1991.
Additionally, we want to acknowledge the support of Lori Johnson, a Louisiana community figure participating in a fundraising event for the Big Buddy Program. If you would like contribute to the cause and show support for Lori, we provide her specific link below.
Timestamps
0:03:57 The History of the Electric Chair
0:06:49 Public Executions and the Shift to Electric Chair
0:14:19 Transition to Electric Chair in Louisiana
0:15:31 Introduction of Portable Electric Chair in Louisiana
0:19:44 Increase in Louisiana Executions via Electric Chair
0:28:05 History of Executioners in the US and Bloody Angola
0:29:30 Exploring Alternate Forms of Execution
0:33:11 Reflections on the Justice System and Executions
0:35:22 Shout-Out to Lori Johnson's Fundraiser
0:37:24 Wrapping Up and Rodeo Plans
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 21 Mar 2024 - 87 - Part 2 | The Richest Man In Bloody Angola: Wilbert Rideau
In this Part 2 we wraps up this series "The Richest Man in Bloody Angola" .
In this episode, we dive into the story of Wilbert Rideau, a man who spent 44 years in prison for a crime he committed in 1961.
We explore his journey from a young man involved in a tragic incident to his time in prison, including solitary confinement and his reflections on regret and survival.
We discuss his various trials, legal battles, and ultimately his release after being found guilty of manslaughter in his fourth trial. Wilbert's transformation during his time in prison, his accomplishments as a journalist, filmmaker, and author post-release, and the challenges he faced reintegrating into society are all highlighted.
We also touch on the perspectives of the victims' families and the complexities of forgiveness and redemption.
The episode explores the question of rehabilitation and whether Wilbert Rideau, now a successful author and consultant, has truly changed from the person he was in 1961.
Ultimately, we reflect on Wilbert Rideau's journey and the contrasting feelings of justice, forgiveness, and the ongoing impact of his release.
Timestamps:
0:01:51 Facing Regrets and Solitary Confinement
0:03:37 Hope in Solitude
0:06:30 The Hope of Clemency
0:09:39 Linda LaBranche's Support
0:13:55 Legal Dream Team with Johnny Cochran
0:16:47 Judicial Rollercoaster
0:21:33 Opening Statements of Fourth Trial
0:26:01 Conclusion of Fourth Trial
0:28:44 Rideau's Release and Community Divide
0:37:00 Concerns and Plans Post-Prison
0:39:14 Wilbert Rideau's Biographical Success
0:41:58 The Richest Man in Bloody Angola
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 14 Mar 2024 - 86 - Part 1 | The Richest Man In Bloody Angola: Wilbert Rideau
In this episode of Bloody Angola, Jim Chapman delves into the story of Wilbert Rideau, a prisoner with a remarkable journey. Rideau achieved significant accomplishments behind bars, winning prestigious journalism awards and making substantial reforms within the Angola prison. Chapman vividly describes Rideau's background, including his upbringing in Louisiana and his involvement in a fateful armed bank robbery in 1961. The detailed account of the robbery and its consequences on Rideau's life are presented, highlighting the tragic events that unfolded that night.
Chapman delves into Rideau's multiple trials, each resulting in a first-degree murder conviction and a death sentence. Despite Rideau's claims of panic and lack of premeditation, the courts repeatedly found him guilty. The emotional impact on the victims, especially Dora McCain, a surviving bank teller, is powerfully portrayed through their statements during Rideau's clemency hearings. The tension between Rideau's rehabilitation and the severity of his crime is a central theme throughout the episode.
The episode captures the complex emotions and moral dilemmas surrounding Rideau's case, including insights from journalists, D.A., and Rideau's mother. Despite his outstanding achievements in journalism and documentary filmmaking while in prison, Rideau faces the ongoing challenge of seeking clemency and ultimate release. The episode ends with a hint of a forthcoming episode, promising a continuation of Rideau's story and the surprising turns it takes. Throughout the episode, Chapman's narrative style immerses the listeners in the compelling and controversial story of Wilbert Rideau and the Angola prison.
Timestamps:
0:03:20 Rideau's Accomplishments and Reforms
0:04:53 Recognition and Fame
0:05:13 Wilbert Rideau's Upbringing
0:06:50 The Bank Robbery
0:11:54 The Bank Robbery - Confrontation
0:14:30 The Bank Robbery - Panic Sets In
0:20:32 Publicity Surrounding Rideau's Case
0:23:16 Legal Battles and Appeals
0:26:47 Interview Reflection on the Crime
0:33:54 Rideau's Notable Achievements
0:38:19 Rideau as Editor of Angola
0:41:04 Rideau's Clemency Hearing
0:45:29 Public Response to Rideau's Clemency
0:47:11 Clemency Decision
0:50:41 Rideau's Success in Prison
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 07 Mar 2024 - 85 - The Profile
In this episode of Bloody Angola podcast, we delve into the chilling world of serial killers and the intricate process of catching them. Drawing from the case of Derek Todd Lee, a notorious serial killer in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana, we discuss how the FBI profiling of serial killers has evolved over the years. We highlight the challenges law enforcement faced in accurately profiling Derek Todd Lee, who defied the initial FBI profile by being a person of color. The episode delves into the power of DNA evidence in catching serial killers, using examples like Brian Koberger's case, where familial DNA played a crucial role in identification.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 29 Feb 2024 - 84 - Prison Solider: Cop Killer Wayne Felde
In this episode of Bloody Angola, the podcast we delve into the life story of Wayne Felde, a troubled individual who was born in 1949 and grew up in a family with a history of military service.
Wayne's father was abusive and struggled with alcoholism, which deeply impacted Wayne's upbringing. Wayne enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War, hoping to become a war hero, but the harsh reality of the war quickly changed his perspective on conflict. He endured traumatic experiences in Vietnam, including exposure to Agent Orange, which had long-lasting detrimental effects on his health.
After returning from Vietnam, Wayne struggled with PTSD and alcoholism, leading to a series of tumultuous events in his life. Tragically, Wayne ended up in a confrontation where he unintentionally killed a friend due to a PTSD-induced episode. Subsequently, Wayne was involved in a fatal incident with a police officer, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment. Despite attempts to take his own life and a tumultuous legal battle, Wayne was sentenced to death and ultimately executed in the electric chair at Louisiana State Penitentiary on March 15, 1988, just days before his 39th birthday.
The podcast reflects on Wayne's complex life, the impact of war trauma on his actions, and the justice system's final verdict on his fate. The story highlights the complexities of PTSD, accountability for one's actions, and the tragic end that Wayne faced. Through detailed storytelling and historical context, Bloody Angola provides a deep dive into the life of Wayne Felde and his ultimate demise in the electric chair at the notorious prison.
Timestamps:
0:02:16 ]: Wayne Felde's Childhood
0:05:58 ]: Wayne's Enlistment in Vietnam
0:10:03 ]: Impact of Agent Orange
0:14:02 ]: Wayne's Return to the U.S.
0:15:24 ]: Wayne's Struggles after Vietnam
0:22:31 ]: Wayne's Murder Trial
0:30:09 ]: Wayne's Escape
0:34:56 ]: Wayne's Time on Death Row
0:36:37 ]: Wayne's Execution
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 22 Feb 2024 - 83 - Bad Girls
In this episode, we explore the history and future of the Louisiana's Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW). We discuss the challenges faced by women at LCIW, including limited access to education and overcrowding. We also highlight the appointment of Kristen Thomas as the second-ever female warden and the construction of a new facility with improved amenities.
#BloodyAngolaPodcast #LadyConvicts #LCIW #Podcast
Timestamps
0:02:20 Women's fate after leaving Angola: LCIW and its history
0:04:04 Construction of St. Gabriel, a female-only prison near Baton Rouge
0:04:31 Early years of LCIW: Housing, Orientation, and Behavioral Assessments
0:06:37 Work release program and healthcare at LCIW
0:14:58 Female warden appointed to increase diversity in leadership
0:19:18 Groundbreaking for new LCIW facility in September 2022
0:27:14 Success Stories: Horticulture, Upholstery, and Welding Classes
0:29:13 Re-entry Programs and Support for Incarcerated Women
0:36:43 Inside Knowledge of Prison Life and Security Measures
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 15 Feb 2024 - 82 - Preparing to Die
In this episode of the Bloody Angola podcast, we explore the Louisiana State Penitentiary Execution Manual. We discuss the procedures and requirements for executions, the role of witnesses, and the importance of professionalism. We also touch on the legal process and the rarity of exoneration.
Timestamps
0:03:20 Chain of Command and Roles in the Execution Process
0:05:48 Incarceration and Transport of Death Row Offenders
0:07:02 Communications and Media Regulations
0:09:11 Visits, Visits with Family, and Special Visits
0:15:47 Preparation and Security Measures for Executions
0:18:13 Witness Selection and Pool Reporters
0:23:25 Execution Process and Post-Execution Procedures
0:28:34 Execution process and the role of the coroner
0:30:13 Paperwork involved in the execution process
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 08 Feb 2024 - 81 - Smiling Jack
A 16-year-old brutally murders an 8-year-old while biking in Saint Francisville, Louisiana. Trevor Reese confesses which leads to a sentence in Bloody Angola for life without parole. We discuss the horrific crime, the legal proceedings, impact statements in this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast.
Timestamps
0:04:24 Background on Clinton and St. Francisville
0:12:44 A typical summer day in Louisiana
0:14:32 Tragic encounter with Trevor Reese
0:16:36 Monique's Desperate Attempt to Save Jack
0:18:10 Trevor Confesses to the Carpenter
0:18:34 Trevor's Brutal Crime
0:20:11 District Judge rules Trevor eligible for prosecution as an adult
0:22:54 Arraignment: Not guilty by reason of insanity plea entered
0:23:42 The shocking murder and the grief-stricken parents
0:26:06 Trial dates set and the plea deal confusion
0:28:14 Judge Carmichael questions Trevor's plea and explains the process
0:30:49 Trevor's monstrous nature and absence of remorse examined
0:32:15 Dr. Scott speaks about Monique's trauma and PTSD
0:34:04 Monique's realization and the horrifying details of Jackson's injuries
0:35:56 Jack's grandfather's heart-wrenching victim impact statement
0:36:32 Devastation and Hatred: The Scar You Left Behind
0:37:39 Jack's Father Pleads for Maximum Sentence
0:40:04 Trevor's Admission of Guilt and Sentencing
0:42:31 The complexity of victims on both sides
0:43:04 A Father's Responsibility and the Change in Law
Thank you to Cyndi Overton for her assistance in researching this case.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 01 Feb 2024 - 80 - The Decision | How Henry Montgomery Gave Life to Lifer's
In todays episode we discuss the Louisiana Supreme Court decision called Montgomery v. Louisiana, which involved Henry Montgomery, the longest-serving convict in Angola Prison's history.
Henry was released in 2021 after spending 57 years behind bars. We start with the events of November 13th, 1963, when Officer Hurt encountered Henry at a park which led to the murder of the officer. The community goes into lockdown, and Montgomery is eventually found, confesses to the shooting, and is convicted of first-degree murder.
Despite initially receiving a death sentence, he is later granted a new trial, resulting in a life sentence. The 2010 case Graham v. Florida, in which the Supreme Court deemed juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional for crimes other than murder was the start of some life changing Supreme Court rulings for juvenile offenders.
Miller v. Alabama followed and was used as a precedent to have Henry Montgomery's case reviewed by the Supreme Court, resulting in his life without parole sentence being thrown out.
Known as Montgomery vs Louisiana this ruling became one of the most historic rulings in history as it relates to juvenile lifer's.
You are going to want to tune into this one! It's FIRE!
Chapters
0:07:17 Officer Charles Hurt and Henry Montgomery's Fateful Encounter
0:11:27 Confrontation Turns Dangerous with a Pistol Drawn
0:15:18 Montgomery's Trial and Sentencing
0:22:14 Montgomery's Eligibility for Parole
0:28:02 Tough Decision: Denying Parole
0:33:12 Henry Montgomery's Release and Reflections on Freedom
0:42:19 A Police Officer's Perspective and the Verdict
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 25 Jan 2024 - 79 - Correcting the Record | Response to Changing of the Guard
This emergency drop is in response to information received regarding the most recent drop of Bloody Angola titled "The Changing of the Guard".
For the article referenced in the "Changing of the Guard" episode, see the attached link below.
https://www.fox8live.com/2023/12/21/governor-edwards-pardons-57-inmates-october-through-december/
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyFri, 19 Jan 2024 - 78 - The Changing of the Guard | The Pardons of John Bell Edwards and Gov. Jeff Landry's Solution
***We are retracting the portion of this podcast referencing that all of these inmates received a full pardon, we like most of the general public received incomplete information. While all received "a" pardon", most received clemency meaning they got a reduction in sentence, However 5 inmates in particular did receive a full pardon. The episode following this episode contains the details of this retraction.***
In this episode of Bloody Angola, we explore the recent transition of power with the election of Governor Jeff Landry as it relates to crime and the recent pardons of outgoing Louisiana Governor John Bell Edwards..
Previous governor, John Bel Edwards, is known for his leniency in crime and numerous acts of clemency. We delve into the governor's authority to grant sentence commutation, the role of the pardon board in reviewing applications, and the different types of clemency that exist.
We focus on the actions of John Bel Edwards, who commuted the sentences of many prisoners and granted several inmates full pardons.
The current governor, Jeff Landry, known for his tough stance on crime, Landry stands firm on his commitment to restoring law and order.
Chapters
0:02:07 Changing of the Guard: New Governor, New Policies
0:05:36 Clemency Applications and Eligibility Requirements
0:14:09 John Bel Edwards' High Rate of Sentence Commutations
0:16:03 Pardons explained
0:17:12 Pardons of Convicted Individuals.
0:19:07 Continuation of List: Pardons.
0:21:03 Additional Pardons for Murder and Other Crimes
0:28:29 Jeff Landry's Tough Stance on Crime
0:30:26 Jeff Landry's Anti-Crime Ads as Governor Candidate
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 18 Jan 2024 - 77 - House of Shock
In this episode of Bloody Angola, Woody and Jim share the firsthand recollections of the harsh and violent environment at the prison as told by Clifford Hampton. Hampton sheds light on the meager funding, strict work routines, and rampant violence in the mid to late sixties in Camp H. Hampton vividly describes the physical demands of farm labor and the presence of sexual activities.
#bloodyangola #cliffordhampton #prison #camph #podcast #crime #truecrime
Chapters
0:01:33 Introduction to Bloody Angola podcast
0:03:47 The Story of Camp H and Inmate Clifford Hampton
0:11:13 Change of Plans and Placement in B Block
0:20:29 Daily Routine on the Farm
0:23:02 Dorm Life and Lack of Security
0:30:49 Life in Camp H Prison
0:34:51 Jeff Landry's commitment to the letter of the law
0:36:23 Thanking Patreon members and encouraging sharing of the podcast
0:38:32 Imprisoned and Bound: Life Behind Bars
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 11 Jan 2024 - 76 - Lifer Affirmed: The continuing Saga that is C-Murder
In this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast, Woody and Jim bring you some new details and insight into the C-Murder case and a revamped edition of our top downloaded episode of 2023!
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 04 Jan 2024 - 75 - She-Man | unreleased episode from the vault
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman Kelly Jennings if Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings joins Woody and Jim and shares some stories about her time in Angola.
This episode has never been released to the general public and prior to today only available to patreon members but due to the extreme popularity of our patreon we decided to make it available to everyone.
Kelly's podcast can be found wherever you listen or on her website at:
Our patreon and Apple subscribers get Bonus episodes not released to the public at least once per month so if you enjoy this episode, we would love to have your support on Patreon!
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 28 Dec 2023 - 74 - Revolving Door
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman the guys tell give you current updates on the teens being housed at Angola as well as female inmate being recently moved to the facility.
#bloodyangolapodcast #revolvingdoor #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #womeninprison #teensatangola
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 21 Dec 2023 - 73 - The Black Code
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they discuss and give you the full details regarding the history of Women incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary before it was known as Bloody Angola and was simply known as "The Walls".
This episode though hard to hear is an important part of our past that should we forget, we would be doomed to repeat.
#bloodyangolapodcast #convictleasing #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #womeninprison #thewalls
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 14 Dec 2023 - 72 - Targeted: The Crimes of Kenneth Gleason
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they tell you the story of one of the most notorious Hate Crime serial killers in history.
Kenneth Gleason made headlines in 2017 when he was charged with the execution style murders of 2 black men in Baton Rouge, LA in which a massive manhunt lead to his arrest, his eventual sentence to life inside Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, his eventual death at Angola, and the insane precident that threatened to wipe his record clean before the Louisiana State Supreme Court intervened.
#bloodyangolapodcast #kennethgleason #murder #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #hatecrime
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 07 Dec 2023 - 71 - The Lake House Murder Part 3 | The Crimes of William Lee Jr. and ACT 104
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they wrap up the case of the murder of Audra Bland. In 2007 William Lee Jr. was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana State Penitentiary. A new law passed in 2021 made way for a reduction in his sentence, but that was just the start of a winding roller coaster ride that eventually led to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and a landmark decision pushed by Governor Elect and Attorney General Jeff Landry.
Christine Tillman joins them in this Woody Overton.
(part 3 of a 3 part series)
#bloodyangolapodcast #Thelakehousemurder #williamleejr #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #louisianaact104
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 30 Nov 2023 - 70 - The Lake House Murder Part 2 | The Crimes of William Lee Jr. and ACT 104
In this PART 2 episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, woody and Jim continue to bring you into the case of the murder of Audra Bland. In 2007 William Lee Jr. was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana State Penitentiary. A new law passed in 2021 made way for a reduction in his sentence, but that was just the start of a winding roller coaster ride that eventually led to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and a landmark decision pushed by Governor Elect and Attorney General Jeff Landry.
(part 2 of a 3 part series)
#bloodyangolapodcast #Thelakehousemurder #williamleejr #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #louisianaact104
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyTue, 21 Nov 2023 - 69 - The Lake House Murder | The Crimes of William Lee Jr. and ACT 104 Part 1
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they bring you into the case of the murder of Audra Bland. In 2007 William Lee Jr. was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana State Penitentiary. A new law passed in 2021 made way for a reduction in his sentence, but that was just the start of a winding roller coaster ride that eventually led to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and a landmark decision pushed by Governor Elect and Attorney General Jeff Landry.
(part 1 of a 3 part series)
#bloodyangolapodcast #Thelakehousemurder #williamleejr #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #louisianaact104
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 16 Nov 2023 - 68 - Life Means Life
In today's podcast episode of Bloody Angola we tell you 3 short stories of Life at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola including the story of Warden John Whitley who started his professional life and ended it at Angola, the story of Billy Blake Johnson who lost his life attempting to escape Angola, and the Prison View Golf Course which makes "Life" better for the Correctional Officers at Angola.
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TRANSCRIPT
BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST: LIFE MEANS LIFE
Jim:Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Bloody Angola, a podcast, 142 years in the making the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. And I'm Jim Chapman. Woody Overton could not join us today. We're working on some big, big stuff. And Woody's on assignment, that's all I can say. But there's going to be some really big stuff coming around the bend for everybody, so look forward to that. And I thought today, it would be fun to tell you some of the stories of Angola that you may not be familiar with, that aren't necessarily stories that can fill up, like, a whole hour of content, but at the same time, need to be told and are really good stories. So I wanted to share those with you, and we're going to jump right into it.
The first story I'm going to tell you about is actually about a former warden of Angola by the name of John Whitley. And John Whitley was actually the warden of Angola from 1990 until 1995. Look, John Whitley, the prison warden, was probably as prototypical as you can get to a prison warden when you would think of one. Kind of like the opposite of Burl Cain. Burl Cain was someone that, when you saw him, you wouldn't think he was the warden for the largest maximum-security prison in America. Same thing with John Whitley, but on the total opposite end, he is exactly what you would picture. He was a cowboy character. Actually, wore a cowboy hat and dressed with button up shirt. The picture I'm actually looking at now, he has a vest. It's almost like a leather vest over that button up shirt, and wears glasses, mustache, just looks like someone you would picture as a warden. And had a short but storied history at Angola relative to being a warden. Although he started off at the very bottom, and we're going to tell you all about that.
John Whitley attended Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, which is actually probably about an hour and 20 minutes from Angola. From where we record, right outside of Baton Rouge, it's actually about a half hour from us. It is I guess the second largest college in Louisiana outside of Louisiana State University. Good college. Whitley attended that college. He was actually born in Hammond, Louisiana as well. So he went to school same place he was born in. Now, after he left college, he ended up graduating in 1968. He enlisted in the United States Army. That's important. That was an important step in his life, because that was kind of in the heyday of Vietnam. People weren't necessarily just enlisting into the army. They were getting drafted. So it shows you John Whitley's courage and his commitment to his country that he would enlist in the United States Army. He actually served during the Vietnam War and was discharged in 1970.
Now, shortly after that, he started his career in corrections. So Whitley started that career at Angola in 1970, and he rose pretty much through those ranks quickly. He eventually became a deputy warden, and then he was promoted to warden of another Louisiana prison. So he was deputy warden at Angola. I know you've heard about us talk about Hunt Correctional Center, which is a prison, it's kind of like the baby brother to Angola, just a smaller, not so violent a prison as Angola. They needed a warden, and he actually got promoted to the warden of Hunt Correctional. From there, he left the state, and he ran a private prison in Texas. I know you've heard us talk about that with the private prisons are actually-- they're not ran by state employees. They're ran privately, and the state pays them for that service, and Texas has several of those, and he ran one of those private prisons in Texas.
Now, in 1990, Louisiana was like, “Man, what's going on here? This guy is in Texas, and he's got all this experience. He's a Louisiana guy, and we need him at Angola.” This was 1990, and Angola was in just a mess at that point, and they needed someone to restore order there, basically. At the time that they were seeking out John Whitley, they were having frequent, very frequent stabbings, suicides. They were dealing with a lot of escapes. And a US federal judge had actually declared, what's known as, a state of emergency at the prison in response to an ACLU lawsuit against the state specifically for the horrendous conditions at Angola. So it was a situation where they needed someone, not only with some Louisiana ties that really cared, but they also needed someone that had the experience to handle such a prison. John Whitley started there, rose all the way up to deputy warden. That was back since 1970. He was the perfect candidate for that. And so he took that job.
Within two years, Whitley had pretty much stemmed all of that violence. He established incentives for good behavior, which is something they did not have in Angola prior to his arrival there as warden. Some of those incentives for good behavior, he'd allow the inmates to have extra visits. He would increase the educational opportunities for the inmates. If you were good, maybe you had the opportunity to learn a trade that you had to have good behavior in order to get to learn, like maybe welding or something. I mean, you don't want someone that's causing a bunch of trouble in Angola getting a halt to a welding machine. So those things, he figured out-- He figured out the important thing-- When you're running a prison, and that is you've got to have incentives for the inmates. If there's no incentive for good behavior, they're not going to be good. That's just the bottom line.
So that was something he really stemmed, education wise for them. Also, literacy tutoring, computer and paralegal courses. He started bringing those into the prison not quite at the level that Warden Cain did later on, but the infancy of that is a credit to John Whitley and the things that he did. So he also enabled some trustworthy and deserving inmates to travel outside of the prison as part of some athletic teams and inmate bands that provided entertainment for-- They would entertain churches, they would entertain nursing homes and other charitable organizations throughout the area. John Whitley was kind of the guy who came up with the idea to start offering these things as a deterrent, if you will, against violence. He knew that these programs were the way to start.
So he also launched an outreach program to all the criminal justice programs in the state of Louisiana. So he would basically send prison officials and inmates, and they would go into these college classrooms, and they would help, both the students and the faculty better understand the realities of not only managing a prison, but life in prison as an inmate. Those things weren't done, at least with Angola inmates, before John Whitley became warden.
Now, one thing that's very important in prison, but is not commonly practiced, I guess you could say, is having an open-door policy with the media. Take it from me, y'all know that I love to research. It's not easy at all to find information about Angola, or probably most of your state prisons, and that is, they keep things that go on inside that prison, and you got to really dig to find information on stuff like that. But he was committed to, what I would call, an open-door policy with the media, and even The Angolite, which-- We've done several episodes about The Angolite and read many, many articles on that.
Well, The Angolite, the biggest concern with that magazine as time went on, and I noticed this as I was reading it was, it got a little farther and farther away from what was actually happening. What they were printing was the truth. But where in the 40s and 50s, when The Angolite was produced, they were talking about all these escapes and stabbings and all the things that happened inside that prison. When it got around to the 80s and 90s, it was a lot softer. There were things going on, but they weren't allowing The Angolite publishers or editors, rather, to print that [chuckles] or talk about it. And so didn't necessarily mean it wasn't going on. It's just the editors weren't putting it in there. But he wanted to have a welcoming nature with the media and try to cooperate with them rather.
And so one of the things that he allowed The Angolite to do was to produce material for radio and television journalism inside the prison, which-- Believe it or not, they have their own radio station there. They have a lot of film equipment there. They can actually film documentaries and stuff. The prisoners actually learn how to do this, and are as good as-- They got some producers in Angola that are as good or better than I am at doing that. Some of them probably better, and just amazing people out inside that prison that produced these things. But he didn't want them censored. The claim is that John Whitley did not censor the radio shows and stuff that were coming out of Angola, which is very interesting.
So he's continuing on and he's starting all these programs. Shortly after his first year at Angola as a warden, it was actually July 1991, some inmate welders were ordered by the corrections department to build a “hospital examining table.” So they soon learned that it was a gurney to enable executions by lethal injection. Now, this took place hours after an execution by electric chair had taken place. One of the welders actually had a brother who had been executed at the prison. And learning of these plans that this “hospital examining table” was actually going to be the table they were going to use for lethal injection, he didn't like that too much. So of course, as we told you, inmates like to gossip, inmates like to talk, and so he goes around and he starts firing up inmates and telling them of this plan. They're not making us build a hospital examining table, they're wanting us to build the table for the lethal injections. He's riling up these inmates, and they're bucking up. So they decide to stage a work strike. This is hundreds of fellow inmates.
Now, when Whitley learned this was happening, what does he do? He locks up all the guys that are striking. He says, “Okay, y'all-- Are all getting locked up in solitary.” He brings in the SWAT teams and he tells them to get prepared for that strike. He also told the media that deceiving the inmate workers was wrong and the work order should have never been issued. He understood that it put the inmates in a bad position and he wasn't going to subject them to building the lethal injection gurney.
When the inmates heard that, they basically ended that strike. There was no violence. And honestly, Whitley gained a lot of respect, not only with the inmate population, but also with his security force over coming out and saying, “Hey, this was a bad call and a major lack of judgment.” And look, regardless of what you may think about inmates inside of Angola, I agree that it's not right to ask inmates to build the lethal injection table for death row. I can see why they'd get pissed off about something like that. And he did too, and he admitted to that that was a little bit too much to ask.
The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, let's talk about them for a second. They're the premier paper I guess in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and are no fans of Angola, to say the least, especially with Burl Cain, The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate and Burl Cain have a long history of hatred, to say the least. So they're a very conservative paper. Even they commended him in two editorials for admitting that the prison had screwed up and made a mistake by asking the convicts to build that table. They went as far to say that was a refreshing thing to have a warden actually come out and admit that mistake. He was nationally even accredited for that with national magazines such as Time magazine, which had a glowing article that they put out on John Whitley. So I'm going to go ahead. I want to read you that article because this is really going to paint a picture of who he was, and then I've got another story I'm going to tell you about the prison view golf course. There's actually a golf course in Angola that we're going to talk about, but I'm going to go ahead and read you this article by Time magazine that was put out Monday, December 14th, 1992, and the headline says, Bringing Decency Into Hell: JOHN WHITLEY.
So it says, When John Whitley wanders into the courtyard of Camp H, he's not just any visitor. He is the warden. The Man. Yet his presence stirs hardly a ripple. He inspects a flower bed, points to some asbestos dangling from a pipe. Mostly he just loiters, signaling that he is open for business. Slowly, as if they have all the time in the world, which, of course, many of them do, half a dozen inmates drift his way. One complains about missing laundry another asks that recreational time be extended. All are polite, but none display the eagerness of someone anxious to please.
Whitley, 48, listens intently, asking occasional questions in a gravelly twang. Nothing in his courteous demeanor suggests, “I am the keeper, you are the kept. You understand that even if it's a small problem, it may be the biggest problem they have,” he says later. You don't just blow anyone off. Conditions were not always so relaxed and congenial at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Just three years ago, the main prison and five outcamps at the 18,000-acre facility were rocking with murders, suicides and escape attempts. The mood was so tense that a federal judge declared a state of emergency, which included a state investigation and tightened federal oversight. Discontent among the 5,186 inmates could be summed up in a word, hopelessness. Prisoners, the vast majority of them lifers in a state where a life term means life, blamed their despair on tough parole laws. At risk was a reprise of the chaos that in the early 70s earned Angola the dubious distinction of being the nation's bloodiest prison.
Enter John Whitley, a quiet-spoken Louisiana native with a lazy smile, whose cowboy hats and elephant-hide boots, hey, y’all, I like that, make more of an impression than his low-key manner. In just 32 months, he has turned Angola around, relying on little more than his sense of decency and fairness. The number of stabbings, hangings, and escape attempts has dropped dramatically. The malfeasance has lifted. Security officers say that Whitley has improved communications between the prisoners and the 1,500 member staff. Inmates credit Whitley with providing new educational and recreational programs. Most important, inmates feel they have an advocate in Whitley at a time when the courts and the Louisiana legislature seem bent on locking up felons. The way inmates and security guards tell it, “Whitley sounds like the hero of a movie. He is open-minded, impartial, considerate.” “Warden's pretty cool people,” says Curtis Kyles, one of 35 inmates on death row. "He sees people as individuals, not throwaways."
To illustrate their point, prisoners start with an incident that occurred on July 22nd, 1991. At 12:10 on that date, Whitley presided over Louisiana's final execution by electric chair. Later the same day, orders reached the prison metal shop to construct the gurney that would henceforth be used for lethal injections. Two inmate welders balked, then 375 convicts joined their work buck. Confronted by every warden's worst nightmare, a prisoner rebellion. Whitley did the unthinkable, he backed down. He publicly called the idea a bad one and said a private contractor would build the table instead. "He admitted he was wrong," says lifer Patrick DeVille. "Wardens just don't do that." So, y’all can see he was earning their respect there.
Initially, some prisoners interpreted Whitley's reversal as a sign of weakness. But many changed their mind. A few months later, after the state legislature imposed a strict October 1991 deadline for inmates to challenge their convictions, Whitley, alone of Louisiana's 12 prison wardens, helped inmates beat the cutoff. He authorized the prison printshop to run off 5,000 appeal applications. He instructed the prison radio station to hold a question-and-answer program, brought in a lawyer to field questions, then ordered all inmates to listen. He also made sure that illiterate inmates which is about 70% of Angola’s population got help filling out the forms.
So you can see there that he was building up this rapport with the inmates. And then the article goes on later. Whitley describes himself as very conservative on crime. He favors the death penalty and believes executions would serve as a deterrent if they were carried out more swiftly. He has presided over two executions. After each, he said, he went home and fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep. Whitley also says that his number one concern is security and that he has no-- his number one concern is security rather and that he has no moral problem locking up an inmate for life as long as citizens understand that it'll cost them. As a starry-eyed corrections rookie, Whitley admits, "I was going to save them all." 22 years later, he thinks it's a complete farce to speak of rehabilitating inmates. They must do that for themselves. "All we can do," he said, "is provide the opportunity. Does he believe a person can really change? Sure, I've seen it. They've aged. They've matured. They've shown they can handle their emotions." Would he give some of them a second chance? "Sure," he said. Coaxed, the warden allows that there are a couple hundred he could set free tomorrow and he would have no reservations.
Now some of those men were inmates back in 1970 when Whitley first started out at Angola as a classification officer. Armed with sociology and zoology degrees from Southeastern Louisiana University, he tried and failed to secure an appointment to the state police. Disappointed, he settled for a corrections job. After nine years at Angola, he moved to Louisiana's Hunt Correctional Center, where in 1983 he became The Man. "I never really had a desire to be a warden," he says. "I just kept being promoted up." Sybil, his wife of 17 years counters that She says, “He says he's not ambitious, but I say he is."
After retiring from the civil service in 1989, he became warden of a privately run prison in Texas. When the call came from Louisiana asking him to return, Whitley's first reaction was to laugh. "I couldn't see coming back to a prison of the size and the problems of Angola.". He set what he believed to be an unreasonably high salary. Get this y’all, $70,000. Then found the joke was on him when his price was met. These days, Whitley's stiffest challenge is finding time to himself. The 28 square mile domain over which he reigns is as demanding as any small town. There are fire and sanitation departments, a civilian population of 300, which is mostly security staff and their families. A cemetery, a community, swimming pool and even a post office with its own zip code.
Although Whitley and his wife and seven-year-old daughter, Susan, live in grand isolation in a spacious brick house atop a hill overlooking Angola, the sense of privacy is just an illusory. He can't even see Susan's swim meet without someone saying, “Hey, boss, I've got a problem. So when you live on Angola, you not only high access to the prisoners that are constantly complaining but you're employees that are constantly complaining.” That was one thing about Burl Cain when he was at Angola. If you remember, he didn’t live on the B-Line. He actually kept his house, which was at Dixon Correctional Center. I would imagine some of that might have been he foresaw these issues. Now the article goes on, it says, when Whitley took the wardenship, he signed on for three years. Extending his stay, he says, it would depend on how much he feels he can accomplish. It is clear he wants more. More medical, culinary and maintenance staff, a bigger hospital, more classroom space like every other warden in America though he runs up against budget limitations.
Let’s talk about that second. That is the biggest issue with any state prison. Nobody, including myself, wants to pay for prisoners. And wardens from every prison in America will tell you they never have enough money. It makes sense in a way. I mean, “I don't want to pay extra tax dollars to lock someone up. I know it needs to be done, but I don't like to have to pay for that." So some of these programs are very expensive. When you have to rehab a prison, it's very expensive. And although I know there's a need there, nobody likes to pay for it. So these state prisons always have budget issues. “It was short sighted,” he said. What you send out of prisons is going to reflect what you had in them, if that includes the warden, Angola’s graduates are now just a little more likely to come out to fair, decent, straight up people just like The Man[?].
That was written by Time magazine, another magazine that you wouldn't expect necessarily to be very complimentary of wardens. But in this case, it was. That should tell you a lot more about who John Whitley was. Just a reminder there. He served right before Burl Cain. So Burl Cain came in and the foundation was built. It wasn't what Burl Cain brought it to while he was there, we all know, and we did a three-part series, so I'm not going to harp on this too much. It wasn't what Burl Cain did after he got there, but it laid the foundation for that. Whitley did a good job of that. So there's a little bit about John Whitley. We're going to try to bring you more information on some of these I guess Angola's wardens from the past every now and then, so you can hear that.
Now, I made mention of telling you a little bit about the golf course at Angola. It may surprise some of you that they actually have one. They do. It was actually built by the prisoners at Angola. It's located on the grounds at Louisiana State Penitentiary, and it's operated by the Louisiana State Penitentiary Employee Recreation Committee. It offers players a challenging round of golf. It's a nine-hole facility. Meaning, most of your golf courses are 18 holes. This is a 9-hole facility, so you would basically play those nine holes twice to get a full round of golf in. It's a really beautiful golf course. The number one tee box is actually elevated 75 yards above the ground. It's set in the Tunica Hills. The entire course, it's a par 72 course. It measures around 6,000 yards in total. There's 37 sand bunkers, and there are some water hazards there as well. It features a restaurant serves po-boys fried seafood, hot dogs, cold drinks, and other assorted snacks.
Now, the course was designed by the prison dentist, which is a guy by the name of Dr. John Ory. It's O-R-Y, y'all, so we'll call him Dr. John. The course was built with prison labor and funds generated from the Angola Annual Prison Radio. No public funds were spent to build that course. It is open to the public, so you can actually go play that course. The course opened for play in 2004. Now, if you're interested in playing the course, you have to present valid state ID, and play may be suspended anytime due to the institutional needs or at the warden's discretion. So if someone escapes, they're going to say, “Yeah, you got to get off the golf course.” Convicted felons and individuals listed on any inmate visiting list are not allowed access. And of course, you can't bring firearms, drugs, alcohol, or contraband items to that golf course either. But a really beautiful golf course. I'll try to put some pictures of it on the Facebook page and maybe some special pictures on the Patreon page.
So I'm going to read you another good article here quickly. This was put out by the New York Times in 2004 when that golf course was built. It's pretty interesting because they actually talk with some inmates who help build that course. And it says, Golf Course Shaped By Prisoners' Hands. Golfers who step onto the new 9-hole course here encounter a rarity. The green felt fairways of Bermuda grass were graded and seeded by hand. The sand pits were actually dug by workers using shovels, not heavy equipment. More striking is the view. The first tee, a perch carved from the Tunica Hills near the Mississippi River, and provides a survey of all 18,000 acres of the prison. And that explains the hard labor. Prisoners built the course, which is on penitentiary property and open to the public. Though they cannot play, a few inmates have earned the privilege of tending the greens for 20 cents an hour at what is officially the Louisiana State Penitentiary but better known as Angola, which is 45 miles northwest of Baton Rouge.
Lester Wright, who is serving a life sentence says, “Watching golfers on the course as he rides his mower is a bittersweet pleasure. 'When I look at them, I look at all the hard work that we done trying to fix this thing for them.” It's like, “Man, we did all this here and look at them dudes out there playing. Sometimes I do want to play.'' The course, called Prison View, was conceived by the prison's warden, Burl Cain, a man who views incarceration with a sense of humor. Visitors to the prison can buy T-shirts that say ''Angola: A Gated Community,'' along with Guts and Glory hot sauce, named for the prison's famous rodeo, at which inmates play chicken with angry bulls. At the golf course, the tees are marked with handcuffs. I do like that, nice little touch.
Warden Cain brushes off the suggestion that some prisoners might dislike the markers. ''No, they think that's cool,'' he said. ''They wear striped shirts in the rodeo. They like it.'' But Mr. Wright, 49, said he was not amused. ''What are they doing with handcuffs out here?'' he says. ''Everybody knows it's a prison. It really offended me when I first seen it. After that, I just passed by and mowed the grass, it don't matter.'' Well, Mr. Wright, you're in prison, brother. Mr. Wright added, ''They're going to do what they want, we have to accept it, so that's all it is. It's all in trying to stay at peace with them and yourself.''
The course was built primarily for the use of prison employees, many of whom live on the grounds in a little settlement called B-Line. The course lies near Camp J, the 'behavior modification unit. Y’all, Camp J was the-- we did a whole episode on Camp J and how horrible-- how bad the reputation for Camp J was. It's no longer open. From the seventh hole, it is possible to wave to inmates on the Camp J basketball court, where they are permitted to spend three hours a week.
On a sunny Sunday, the course attracted a handful of players, including a pecan sheller, an oil executive, and a telephone network manager, from nearby towns. Players said the charms of the course, its doglegs, short drives, and a lake with an island went beyond novelty. ''I've played a lot of courses, and I've paid more money to play a lot worse,'' said Joseph Lamartiniere, a corrections colonel at the prison, as his 3-year-old son, Peyton, hit a 15-foot drive. The transformation of the property from bull pasture to golf course took two years. Warden Cain said, it was the type of job that gave inmates a sense of accomplishment and taught them useful skills like groundskeeping and horticulture.
Richard Mikkelson, a 47-year-old prisoner from Alexandria, Louisiana, was on the work crew and he said, it is indeed proud sight to see. ''I don't know how they build these things out here on the streets, but we did it with shovels and rakes and hoes.'' James F. Moore, the Director of Construction Education for the United States Golf Association said, he had a hard time envisioning a course built without modern equipment like mechanized levelers, seeders and powered trenching equipment. ''My guess is it's the only golf course built this way in at least the last 50 years. I'd have to see it to believe it.''
Mr. Mikkelson, who like most of the prisoners is serving a life sentence said, if he ever gets out of Angola, which would require an act of clemency, he would know exactly where to go for networking opportunities. ''A golf course is a place to meet people,'' he said. ''I've been told the main two places you go is to a golf course and church. That’s where you can get certain types.” Dr. Ory, who designed the course said, ''We want to go from a fun place to play golf to where people come back and say, that's a first-class deal. The fairways he said are planted with 419 Bermuda, as good as any country club. The whole course was built for $80,000, paid for by the employees' recreation fund and donations. A typical course costs $4 million to $7 million. And course fees are low. A membership is $200 a year, and the greens fee and cart are $20.”
Dr. Ory said, “The hope is for the course to pay for itself, with some money to buy better equipment. The inmates have also learned a gentleman's sport. The par depends on the hazards and the length of the fairway,” he explained. ''From building the course and learning what each particular thing is as we built it, we knew how to play.” They just couldn't swing a club yet, and that's something we're not going to be allowed to do. Warden Cain draws the line at letting inmates caddy. “We're going to avoid the hint of impropriety,” he said. Some of the inmates who work on the course are known as trustys because of their good behavior records. And though Mr. Wright longs to play on a real course, he says he would not choose prison view. “I would like to play as a free man,” he said. “I would want to learn all I can. But once I get out there free to play like I want to, I'll enjoy it more.” So there you go. Look, I'm going to go play that course sometime, hopefully soon, and I'll give you all a report on my personal experience with it.
And lastly, for today, I'm going to give you a quick story. Look, we got to have an actual story for you on Bloody Angola every week, right? So I'm going to give you one that I'm almost sure 99% of the people listening have never heard. Billy Blake Johnson was born on December 3rd, 1933, in Texas. He was the son of Emmett and Edna Johnson. And Emmett and Edna, his mom and dad, divorced when Billy was just a young boy. And by 1940, his father remarried and the family moved to what is known as Kern County, California, where Emmett worked as a truck driver. Nothing further is known about Billy growing up. But in 1951, he joined the Marine Corps and was stationed at Camp Pendleton.
His military career would be short lived, and in January of 1952, Private First-Class Billy Blake Johnson was being held in the Camp Pendleton Brig for robbery. So he's starting some trouble. Then on July 18th of 1952, Johnson was able to open his cell door with the aid of a screwdriver he had acquired, and he then overtook the guard along with his firearm. Now, armed with a weapon, he commandeered a car belonging to Captain George Atkins and made his way off the military base, headed to Los Angeles. So what do you think they do? They put out an APB, an All-Points Bulletin, and eventually two LAPD officers spot a stolen vehicle occupied by Johnson. So he gets ordered out of the car, he comes out, and he's shooting, just like one of these old fashioned shootouts, and he shouts, “This is it.”
Officers return fired, but he's able to escape injury somehow. He jumps several fences before he was taken into custody. And after his capture in LA, he was returned to that brig at Camp Pendleton and was sentenced to five years for burglary and theft, among other charges. He sits in that cell for several months and likely, what do we always say on this show? You got nothing but time in prison. He's contemplating his next move. And on a Saturday in late June of 1952, he escapes again. This time, he had an accomplice, someone by the name of Bobby Davis who had enlisted in the Marine Corps a year prior. The two make their getaway at 03:30 AM that morning in a green 1952 Chevy convertible with Texas plates. It's reported that the two were armed and known to be dangerous, and no details were really given as to how they managed to escape the brig, but they were apprehended a week later in Arizona.
Guess what happens? There's another escape, a third escape in subsequent. Capture, and Billy Blake Johnson, eventually he serves his time and he gets paroled. But y’all, that did nothing to rehabilitate him. So in January of 1962, Johnson went to a service station in Texas, in a little suburb kind of south of Fort Worth, Texas, he buys $3.43 of gas, which back in 1962 might have filled up your whole car, and then he pulled a gun on the attendant and he says, “Act right or I'll kill you.” Johnson then takes $100 from a cash register and he forces a woman by the name of Hilleary Beck into the car with him. Beck tries to fight him off, and Johnson, in the vehicle, further threatens to kill her with this firearm.
After driving about a mile, he then orders her out of the car and into a ditch, and he tells her, “Lie down,” and he drives away. Beck gets out of the ditch. She goes to a nearby home and calls authorities. So law enforcement, they're in hot pursuit. They're looking for him everywhere. They spot Johnson and they start chasing him. And both parties are like firing at each other, sticking guns out the window. Picture it. They're shooting back and forth at each other. Police set up a barricade to catch him. They set up a perimeter and they know he's heading in a certain direction. Johnson approaches Denton, Texas, and a patrolman by the name of A.C. Ballard leveled down on the hood of his truck with a sawed-off shotgun, and he blows out one of the tires of Johnson's getaway vehicle. The car goes out of control, y'all, it rolls over, it lands upright in a ditch. He somehow manages, again not to get hurt. He escapes serious injury in this.
So he gets out of the car and runs. [chuckles] There's like a major man. This guy is like, impossible to catch. Major manhunt ensues and he eventually gets captured at a ranch in Denton County, Texas. Now, while in custody, he tells the arresting officers he had escaped three times from military prisons and had served time in four civilian prisons. He gets treated at the hospital for some very minor injuries, and then he's taken to jail. He goes to trial for all of this. But they find him to be insane, legally insane by a jury. here's not really, in the research I did, there's not really a whole lot of information as to how they came to that conclusion. So his criminal career doesn't end there, y’all. In 1964, Johnson went to Bonham, what's known as the Bonham, Texas jail for the sole purpose of breaking out an inmate. So it's important to note that a jury actually released-- when you were found to be insane, it's not like nowadays where you still stay in jail or whatever. He actually got released.
But in 1964, he goes to a Bonham, Texas jail, and his whole point of going there was to break out an inmate by the name of Walter Ray Crews. He has a gun, and he literally breaks into the jail, overtakes a guard, and he forces the jailer to release Crews, and the two men haul ass. The pair makes it some 35 miles southeast to a city called Commerce, Texas, where they steal a car, and they drive 300 miles to Fort Polk, Louisiana. Now, while stopped on the side of the road, a state trooper pulls over to check on them. He sees them, doesn't realize at the time that they're escaped convicts. He just figured they were broke down, he was going to help them. Johnson, what does he do? He robs the trooper, which is a guy by the name of Jerry Raines at gunpoint and handcuffs him to a tree with his own handcuffs. Crews and Johnson then return to the stolen car and speed off. They head north. The trooper is able to eventually free himself with a spare key, and he, of course, radios in. “Hey, I just got handcuffed.” I'm sure that was an embarrassing conversation. But the duo ends up getting caught by an armed roadblock near Leesville, Louisiana.
So Johnson gets sentenced to 15 years, and this is when he get sent to Angola, the notorious Angola prison. Bloody Angola, if you will. So he goes to Angola, and they're thinking, “Okay, he's not going to escape Angola.” Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that. On February 22nd of 1969, Johnson and two other inmates, armed with knives and a pistol, overpower guards in two separate dormitories. The guards were locked in a closet while the escapees cut the power of the main prison. Kester Lee hall, serving 189 years for murder, was captured just outside the prison. But Johnson, along with Philip Hudgins, had managed to avoid capture, but they didn't make it far. Authorities closed in on the two fugitives who were found in the swamps that surrounded the prison. Billy Blake Johnson, however, had made his last escape. Overtaken by the waters of the backed-up Mississippi, Johnson could not battle his way through the swamp. Hudgins tried to assist him and even carried Johnson for several hundred yards until he realized Billy was no longer breathing. He propped the body up of his fellow inmate against a fence and just waited while guards closed in.
Exhausted Hudgins surrendered to law enforcement, and believe it or not, he would be released from prison in 1981. In 1983, he took a butcher knife and slashed the third of his wife and stabbed two others incidentally. Billy Blake Johnson was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Ladonia, Texas. Although a cold, calculating, and elusive criminal, his mother still loved him. It's like Woody always says, “There's a mom somewhere and a dad and a sister and stuff that love you no matter what you've done.” His mother still loved him. His headstone was engraved with the simple epithet “Son.” So there you go. That's a story I bet you're not going to hear anywhere else, the story of Billy Blake Johnson.
Look, I appreciate each and every one of you, Woody as well. We love, y'all. We couldn't do this without our patrons. Thank you so very much. We have a “big” thing coming to you very soon, and that's why Woody's not joining us this week. But he'll be back next week, I promise. I want to bring y'all something a little different. I hope y'all liked it. Just a little bit of everything. Golf courses, Billy Blake Johnson, and even the story of a famous warden at Angola.
And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. And for Woody Overton, we are your host of Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Peace.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 09 Nov 2023 - 67 - To Kill Again
Woody is stuck in the snow on the way back from Wisconsin, but it did not stop Jim from making sure you got your Bloody Angola fix for this week! He broke a previously unreleased episode from the Patreon vault out of jail!
In this episode Bloody Angola Podcast covers several stories of serial killers who were released from prison on parole only to commit more murders.
#bloodyangolapodcast #tokillagain #serialkillers
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TRANSCRIPT
BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST: TO KILL AGAIN
Jim:Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. And I am Jim Chapman. And as you probably noticed, Woody Overton was not helping me with that intro. And I promise y'all, he's going to be back next week. Super-secret mission.
Today, I thought it would be fun to talk a little bit with y'all about paroled, murderers and serial killers. And this is going to be kind of a companion podcast. We're not going to be talking specifically about Angola. There's just so much content out there, y'all, with all the presence, all these historic presence throughout the nation. And so today, I wanted to bring y’all something a little bit different. So first of all, just to discuss a little bit about parole.
So parole is when you get released, but you're still in the charge of the prison system. So basically, they're letting you out back into society, but there are certain parameters you have to live up to. A lot of times, these folks that get paroled, they are under, what's called, supervised parole, where they have to report into a parole officer. Many times, you have to wear the little ankle bracelet that is basically like GPS and those sort of things. A lot of times, you can't leave a certain area. They've got to pretty much know where you are at all times, which is a great thing. But a lot of people think, when you get paroled, you're getting released from the system. You're not.
Basically, they're saying you can serve out the rest of your sentence in society and you don't have to be, in Angola's case, behind the wire. But if you do anything wrong, you have to serve out the remainder of your sentence. And in some cases, a lot more than that, because then you're breaking another law. And that's a whole another case you just caught in many instances. So that's what parole is.
Now, there's a lot of killers that you wouldn't believe were paroled nationally, and I'm going to give you a few of those today. We'll start with Kenneth Allen McDuff. So who is Kenneth Allen McDuff? Well, he was paroled not, so he could necessarily adjust a life, not to reduce recidivism, which is basically re-offense in all criminal justice systems, whether it's the United States or anywhere else. They track recidivism, which is, you get out of jail and then you continue to commit crime and you end up back in jail. Well, the United States has a high rate of recidivism. Many, many an extremely high percentage of prisoners that get released back into society do recommit, and end up back in prison. There's a lot of reasons for that.
Sometimes they're just bad people and they're never going to quit doing what they do, and then sometimes they get released and really do try to change their life around. But for whatever reason, they end up recommitting like, maybe they couldn't get a job because they had a felony. So they resort back to the one thing they know. If they were someone that robbed people, they continue to rob because that's the only way they know to make money, and that's not making an excuse. But in some cases, some do try to change. And the way society is set up, in some ways, that's hard to do when you've got felonies on your record and you spend a long time in prison. So I would say the vast majority are just bad people and they just recommit, but not all of them are thrown into that bucket.
So Kenneth Allen McDuff, well, he was paroled not because of any of those reasons and not because he no longer posed a threat to public society. He was paroled to reduce overcrowding, y’all. Big problem right now. Let's talk about that for a second. Overcrowding. So I would say the vast majority of the people in prison definitely deserve to be there. Do people go to prison that didn't do anything wrong and get wrongfully accused of a crime? Absolutely. It happens. As a matter of fact, I've seen stats as high as 5% to 6%, even higher than that in some cases. But if you find the average on those percentages, I've seen it's around 6% actually didn't commit the crime, they're in jail for a crime they didn't commit. And so it does happen.
That contributes somewhat to overcrowding. A lot of it is the people that are in prison, there's a lot of people that aren't necessarily drug dealers, but they got caught with drugs, they're in prison. In a lot of cases, prison is not going to help rehabilitate a drug addict. And most drug addicts that have turned the corner and gotten on the good side of life, I guess you could say, they will tell you, prison a lot of times will make it worse. They need other types of help. But the prisons are full of drug addicts. And so that is probably the number one cause of overcrowding.
Now, from 1966 to 1992, Kenneth McDuff, get this, committed between 9 and 22 murders in Texas. 9 to 22 murders, and they released him free into society on parole. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara described McDuff as a “cold-blooded psychopathic killer who was more evil than the devil himself. Going as far to say McDuff never should have been released,” and I didn't have to read you that quote to figure that out. 9 to 22 murders, damn right he should have never been released. So he was on death row for actually murdering three teenagers in 1966. This dude was on death row, but his sentence got reduced to life with the possibility of parole in 1972. And that happens in a lot of cases. There's many, many lifers in Angola and in all kinds of prisons throughout the country that actually got their sentences reduced and changed to life in prison. So no different for McDuff.
In 1972, his sentence was reduced to life. But get this, he was released in 1989 due to prison overcrowding. Absolutely crazy. Now, in 1990, the parole board actually had a chance to send him back to prison after McDuff was arrested for chasing and threatening black teenagers. That was enough. Remember what I told you? They let him out of prison, but he is still under all those prison parameters. Meaning, if he commits any crime, he has to serve out the remainder of his sentence, which in McDuff's case was life.
So he chased down and he made a bunch of threats to these black teenagers. But neither of his actions nor the racial incentive he expressed at his parole hearing returned him to his prison cell. He just didn't go back to prison for it. I guess they figured it was just threatening. He didn't actually do anything. They regretted it because he killed at least three women between his release on parole and his return to prison finally in 1992. And he actually went to prison at that point for abducting and murdering a convenience-store clerk named Melissa Northrup and an accountant named Colleen Reed. He never expressed any remorse for his crimes. And he was finally executed by lethal injection in 1998.
So this dude actually got released from prison. Well, first, he got his sentence changed from the death sentence to life in prison, then he gets released, then he kills at least three more people that they know of. He gets convicted of two of those, goes back on death row, and gets executed by lethal injection in 1998. So if you want to learn more about this asshole, you can definitely-- I invite you to go to google and just google Kenneth Allen McDuff. It's a pretty crazy story that one day we're going to bring to you.
So I'm going to tell you about another one. His name is Loren Herzog, spelled L-O-R-E-N. So it may be Loren, but we're going with Loren, just because I'm not quite sure exactly how it's pronounced. But he was known as the California Speed Freak Killer. His last victim appeared to have been himself. Now, after committing a number of murders with Wesley Shermantine, who was a friend of his since childhood, he was sentenced to 78 years to life for murdering and raping Cyndi Vanderheiden. In 2004, an appeals court found that his confession may have been coerced, and a new trial was ordered for him.
Now, when offered a plea deal, he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 14-year sentence, and he was actually paroled in 2010. Can you imagine? That sentence is 78 years to life. And over what was basically a technicality, his sentence gets reduced to manslaughter and he gets out of prison in 2010. So two years later, the parole agent who was monitoring him using GPS technology, just like I told you about at the beginning, those ankle bracelets and such, found that the tracking bracelet had a low battery. When Herzog failed to answer his telephone, the agent notified police and they found Herzog dead inside the trailer he inhabited on a fenced off property outside of the prison. So police basically investigated his death as a possible suicide. So the motive for a suicide was basically thought to have been his knowledge that Shermantine intended to tell police where the bodies of their victims were located. So he wasn't doing none of this alone. Sacramento bounty hunter, Leonard Padilla, relayed this information to Herzog shortly before Herzog killed himself.
It's possible, he and Shermantine might have faced charges for additional homicides depending on the number of identities of the body's authorities recovered based on Shermantine's information. So, there's another one for you that was released and continued to murder. Again, you want to check him out, learn more about him? He's definitely our piece of shit number two for today. But you can google Loren, L-O-R-E-N Herzog, H-E-R-Z-O-G, and it'll tell you more information on him.
So let's talk about Michael Keith Moon. Now, Michael Keith Moon was a career criminal who had numerous, y'all, numerous chances to reform. In 1981, he was convicted of stabbing a woman to death in Reno, Nevada. After his release from prison, in 1991, he was convicted of attempted murder for stabbing a man in a bar in Woodstock, Illinois. He was released again in 2005, and three years later was convicted of a second-degree murder after killing a 24-year-old man in California. So he goes back to prison. And guess what? In 2014, he was again granted parole and began living in a halfway house in downtown San Diego. Now, a detective by the name of Chuck Gaylor believes he committed even more murders between his time in Reno and his latest arrest and says that, “Chuck Gaylor is most likely a serial killer.” I don't even know what to say about that. You've even got detectives telling you this guy is a serial killer, and you're letting him out, just totally blows my mind.
So let's go on to the next one, and that's Louis van Schoor, and that's spelled S-C-H-O-O-R. Now, in 1992, this serial killer, who was of South African descent, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for committing seven murders and attempting two others. So he was sentenced for those seven murders and the two he attempted. That's 9 total, 20 years in prison. That's all he was sentenced to. I couldn't believe that when I was researching this. Now, in 2004, he got released, and after serving 12 years, walking straight into the arms of his fiancé. So this guy actually was living a happy life after he committed all these murders. It was only 12 years after his conviction in 1992.
Now, responding to silent alarms and businesses, van Schoor, who was a member of the police canine unit and security guard at the time of the murder, said he shot as many as 100 people between 1986 and 1989. And you just heard me right. I was saving that as a surprise. van Schoor was a cop. van Schoor said he was glad to be back in society and he hoped people would judge him by his future rather than his past crimes. Initially, he had nothing to say to his victims' families, but later conceded he'd appreciate their forgiveness. Absolutely freaking crazy. That's just nuts, y'all.
Now, let's talk about William Huff. So calling himself The Phantom. Serial killer, William Huff murdered seven-year-old Cindy Clelland and six-year-old Jenelle Haines and targeted a third girl before he was arrested. The murders took place in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Now, on April 30th, 1967, Cindy had been collecting bottles in exchange for candy at her neighborhood store. Following the discovery of Cindy's naked body on May 2nd, the police received a handwritten note. The note basically said, “I am The Phantom. You have found my first victim. My next victim lives on Steffan Street. Nine years old,” and in the parentheses he put (Fools!!!) and three explanation points. Now when police provided the targeted girl with 24 hours protection, Huff apparently decided to kill Jennelle instead, which was a military colonel's daughter. She was playing by a pond near the Lakeside Officers Club on June 22nd when Huff abducted her. Later that day, Janelle's body, just like Cindy's, was found naked. Six-year-old girl, y'all.
Now police had already suspected Huff a neighborhood teenager at the time, and following Jennelle’s murder, the police chief saw Huff leaving the army post at which the Officer's Club was located. A handwriting sample obtained from Huff matched the note from The Phantom.
Now, upon conviction for the girl's murder, he was sentenced to 15 years for one homicide and 40 for the other. And in 2005, the parole board voted unanimously to grant him parole. In 2006, he began living under house arrest in a halfway house in Tucson, Arizona. Ellen Kirschbaum, who chaired the parole board said she couldn't predict whether Huff might murder someone else. Absolutely fucking bananas, y'all. Crazy. This dude killed a six-year-old girl in addition to two others and was walking free.
Let me tell you about Vernon Tatum. In 2017, after serving 13 years for raping and murdering several elderly women, serial killer Vernon Tatum was paroled for good behavior while incarcerated. After living in a halfway house downtown, Tatum planned to return to the Kansas City neighborhood in which he committed the crimes. Local police were disturbed at the thought a killer would soon be back among them. “He's one of the most dangerous individuals I've ever dealt with,” police detective Lester Scott said. 13 years for raping and murdering several elderly women considered a serial killer, not considered he was. And he's walking free.
Let me tell you about Arthur Shawcross. Now, he began his career as a serial killer at the age of 27. In 1972, when he killed a 10-year-old boy, he had lured into the woods on the pretext of going fishing with him. The same year, he sexually assaulted and murdered an eight-year-old girl, who he led to a deserted area and showed her a new bicycle. He was arrested after eyewitnesses identified him as the man they had seen with their children, and he confessed to both murders. Confessed to him. But in a plea deal, he was charged with only one count. It wasn't even a murder, it was a manslaughter, which is a slap on the wrist in comparison. Now, because he was a model prisoner, he was paroled after serving 14 years only of a 25-year sentence. His criminal records were sealed.
He settled in New York. And in 1988, guess what? No surprise. He starts killing people again. He would get prostitutes, he would kill them by asphyxiation, choke them to death, and then he'd mutilate them. A helicopter pilot happened to spot him near a murder scene, and he was arrested. He admitted to committing 10 murders, y'all. 10 murders. And he was sentenced to 250 years in prison. But I want you to think about this. Had they just kept him in prison the first time, 10 people may have been alive today that are not because he got out. Absolutely crazy.
Let me tell you about Louise Peete. Yep, that's a female, Louise Peete. And I swear she looks like just your regular, everyday lady. Now, after serving 18 years for the murder of Jacob Charles Denton in 1920, Louise Peete was paroled. She was arrested again in 1944 after the decomposing body of Margaret Logan, who was 60, was found in a grave in the victim's California backyard. Peete admitted to burying her body but refused to say anymore. Now, in a written statement, Peete later claimed that Margaret's husband, Arthur, had shot his wife to death after first attacking Margaret. Peete said she waited for Arthur to retire for the night before burying the dead woman in Logan's backyard, afraid she'd be convicted of the murder and return to prison if the body was discovered. So her story essentially was, “I didn't kill her. Arthur did. But I went ahead and buried the body because I knew y'all would think I killed her because I'd already been in jail for murder.” So she was tried for Margaret's homicide, and Peete was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and at this time, they sentenced her to death.
Prosecutors proved Arthur couldn't have killed his wife at the time, because he was already dead, having passed away in an insane asylum prior to the discovery of Margaret's body. So they were able to basically date even back then. Way back in 1944, they were able to date that body back to a particular time period, and they were like, “Wait a minute, he was already dead, so he couldn't have killed this lady.” And so Peete gets executed at San Quentin state prison’s gas chamber. They had the gas chamber in 1947. The motives for her crime were monetary, basically. She just wanted money. By shooting her victim, she hoped to gain their property and their estates. And as she was about to be executed, she told the prison's warden, who was Clinton Duffy at San Quentin that, “I've been ready for a long time.” And then she inhaled that gas. I hope she took the deepest breath she ever took in her life and just choked and burned. When you suck in that gas from the gas chamber, it's going to burn your throat, and I hope she suffered.
So let me tell you about Gerald Gallego and Charlene Williams. Gerald was twice paroled before committing multiple sexual assaults and 10 murders. He was paroled in July 1961 after serving less than a year, y'all, in a boy school for committing lewd and lascivious acts with a six-year-old girl. So he rapes this six year old girl and serves less than a year in a boys school for it. And then in 1963, he gets arrested again and serves two years for armed robbery. Now, after five marriages in which he abused his wives, he meets Charlene Williams at a poker club in Sacramento, California. And together, in 1978, they began abducting girls in California and Nevada to serve as sex slaves.
The first two victims were 17-year-old Rhonda Scheffler and 16-year-old Kippi Vaught, both of whom he shot dead following an apparent trust with them in a secluded wooded area. In all, by November 1980, the couple had racked up 10 victims, all teenagers, most of which they kept as sex slaves before murdering them. A friend of the last two victims, Craig Miller and his fiancé, Mary Sowers, saw the couple get into Gallego’s vehicle and wrote down its license plate number. At a remote location, Gallego shot Miller killing him before he and Williams drove to another location, where he sexually assaulted and murdered Sowers.
Now, when Miller and Sowers didn't return home, the witness gave Gallego’s license number to the police. Convicted of the murders of Miller and Sowers, Gallego was sentenced to death in 1984. For testifying against him, Williams received a short 16-year, 8 months sentence and was paroled in 1997. And definitely google these. Not a bad looking couple. Definitely not a couple you'd look at and think they were having sex slaves and killing them and all this sort of stuff. Williams is still around, I mean, running free. So paroled for testifying against her husband or her boyfriend rather.
Now, let's talk about Richard Marquette. Richard Marquette was a cannibal serial killer who chopped up and froze his victims. He'd save them to eat later. And his fellow inmates believed he'd kill again. But he was found fit for parole after serving only 12 years of his sentence. This is a dude that would kill people, freeze them, freeze their body parts, chop them up, freeze them, and eat them later on. And after 12 years, he was found fit for parole. Now, shortly after his release, as you would assume, he committed more murders.
His first victim was Joan Caudle. She was 23. He said he met her in a Portland, Oregon bar on June of 1961. He strangled her when they argued after having consensual sex. Chops up her body to make it easier to dispose of her remains. He was arrested on June 30th of that year and got convicted in December of 1961 and sentenced to life in prison. Now paroled after serving 12 years, he killed again, but this time, the murder went undetected. He wasn't as lucky when he murdered and dissected Betty Wilson, however, in Salem, Washington. And guess what? He was sentenced to life in prison yet again. Crazy. Crazy.
So that's just some of the probably hundreds of people that have been released after being serial killers or murders. They walk amongst you every day in some cases. You just never know who you're dealing with. And I thought that all of you, Patreon supporters, would appreciate hearing about several different parolees that sure as hell don't deserve to be walking amongst the free. I do want to say, and I know I speak for Woody when I say how much we love and appreciate all of you. Next time that we bring you something, I promise you, Woody will be with me. I hope y'all enjoyed my little solo stuff here. I don't do the solo stuff as much as Woody does. Typically, I'm more interview style. So with my podcast, which is Local Leaders: The Podcast, I interview business owners and with Real Life Real Crime Daily. Obviously, it's a three man deal with me, Woody and Mike Agovino. And so I've rather enjoyed talking to y'all.
I'm not really talking by myself or talking to myself, because I'm talking to y’all, but I'm in here by myself and I've rather enjoyed it. This may be something that I consider doing more often at some point. But much love, I appreciate all of you. Please, please, please, very important before we get out of here. Obviously, if you're a supporter of Bloody Angola. You like the content and you definitely appreciate what we do. I would ask that just two requests. Number one, if you haven't reviewed us yet, I'm sure the majority of you have, please do so. Go to Apple podcast, if that's the app that you would get podcasts. Normally if you weren't listening on Patreon, go there and give us a review. If you're a Spotify person, please do that. Reviews are so important to our rankings. And the higher we rank, the more that they share our podcast with the world. So it's just so important.
Also, please, if you could share us on Facebook, you can share the link from your Patreon and just say, “Hey, I love supporting Bloody Angola podcast.” If you'd like to join their patron, here's the link. If not, we understand, we totally get it. Times aren't great right now, financially for a lot of people, and we totally get it if someone can't do that. But they could sure join, they could listen on for free with ads included on iTunes and all that sort of stuff. So we're just trying to build this and make it as successful as we possibly can. Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman, your cohost of Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making a complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Peace.
Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe DeRouen in Studio 433, with vocals by Thomas Cain, created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Woody.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 02 Nov 2023 - 66 - River Parishes Serial Killer Part 2 | The Hunt For Daniel Blank
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A True Crime Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we bring you inside the hunt for the River Parishes Serial Killer Daniel Blank who terrorized the Parishes of Ascension, St James, and St John Parish in 2007 & 2008.
#DanielBlank #Serialkiller #louisiana #riverparishesserialkiller #bloodyangolapodcast #truecrime
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TRANSCRIPT
BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST RIVER PARISHES SERIAL KILLER PART 2
Jim: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: We're in Part 2-
Woody: Part 2, baby.
Jim: -of the River Parishes.
Woody: Serial killer.
Jim: Yes. Just real quick, where we left off in Part 1. Of course, Victor Rossi, October 17th of 1996, was murdered. On April 9th of 1997, Lillian Philippe was found murdered. On May 18th of 1997, Barbara Bourgeois was found murdered. On May 9th of 1997, Sam and Luella Arcuri found murdered. May 14th of 1997, Joan Brock found murdered. And July 7th of 1997, the attempted murder of Leonce and Joyce Millet. And on November 14th of 1997, Daniel Blank finally arrested in Onalaska, Texas. So we're going to pick up from that point. They bring him back to Louisiana.
Woody: This is after he confessed, y’all.
Jim: And look, these are small town detectives, and they got a serial killer in the back of that vehicle. And one of the comments that the detective made was when they pulled into the parish, you had droves of people on both sides of the road and give you goosebumps and they're cheering. And these detectives, this meant something to this community, what these guys have done. So, they start, obviously you get back, and now you've got this guy off the street and you're starting to piece things together at this point.
Woody: Just because you make an arrest doesn't mean the case is over by a long shot. You're going to continue to work and gain more evidence to get the prosecution ultimately.
Jim: And especially one like this, where there was no physical evidence. I don't know if I'd say he was smart enough, but for whatever reason, he didn't leave behind fingerprints, he didn't leave behind DNA, which was amazing considering the brutality of these killings.
Woody: I would imagine he was gloved up.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: He wasn't a dummy.
Jim: No.
Woody: Doesn't mean he was formally educated. He was smart.
Jim: That's right. And so, they do, they start investigating it. And guess what they do?
Woody: Here we go, y'all. Not only was he arrested, but his girlfriend was arrested. And we'll go to an article, it says Destrehan. Y'all, that's another town in St. John, I believe. The article from the AP Wire says, "Investigators have arrested the woman who lived with Daniel Blank in Texas, saying she drove the accused serial killer to the homes of the people he killed and robbed in Louisiana River parishes. Cindy Bellard, 35, was taken into custody late Monday evening at her sister's home in Destrehan. Bellard, who moved with Blank and their children to Onalaska, Texas, in late July knew his intent, authorities said. Sheriff Jeff Wiley--" and I'm going to interrupt real quick. I've worked a lot of cases with Jeff Wiley. I think he's a state senator or something now like that. But he's retired from sheriffing and he's a great guy. But it says, "Sheriff Jeff Wiley said she was booked into the Ascension Parish jail one count of principal to first degree murder, two counts of principal to attempted first degree murder, and principal to aggravated burglary."
"Blank, 35, was booked last week on charges of beaten and stabbing to death six River Parish residents from October 1996 to July 1997. He tried to kill two more people in an attacking Gonzales, authorities said. Authorities said Blank, who robbed to support a gambling addiction, has confessed. It was that gambling habit that eventually cemented the case against Black, Wiley said. In Texas, where Blank was picked up for questioning last Thursday, Polk County Sheriff Billy Ray Nelson Jr, said authorities had been tipped to Blank's lavish spending at Louisiana casinos, including one where Blank was throwing around $100 bills as if he were a wealthy man."
"One of the houses where he killed, he stole $100 bills, Nelson said. Nelson said authorities weren't expecting a confession when they searched his auto repair shop and home last Thursday. But about eight hours into interrogations, Blank began giving details of the crimes, launching into half-hour accounts of each attack, Nelson said. In one incident, he told investigators how he had killed a woman in her backyard and then dragged her into her home, Nelson said. In some cases, Blank told authorities he lurked around the victim's homes for hours before killing them. What he said was just so creepy, Nelson said. Wiley said Blank would hang around the victims’ homes in the dark of late night or early morning, hoping the occupants would eventually leave. Unfortunately, the people didn't leave, Wiley said. Leonce and Joyce Millet, both 66, of Gonzales, survived an attack in their home last July. The victims in the other attacks were Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant, Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina, Lillian Philippe, 71, of Gonzales, Sam Arcuri, 76, and Louella Arcuri, 69, of LaPlace, and Joan Brock, 55, of LaPlace."
"Wiley said Blank often used weapons he found inside his victims’ homes. Wiley said he didn't know if Bellard would be connected to Blank's alleged crimes in other parishes. Efforts to contact other authorities Monday night were not successful. Wiley said Bellard was questioned when Blank was arrested in Onalaska. Bellard told investigators that she and the children were returning to Louisiana to stay with her sister and brother-in-law in Destrehan. Investigators always had a strong suspicion that Bellard had helped Blank, Wiley said, adding that it was impossible for her to have lived with Blank for several years without knowing of his crimes. In some cases, Blank stole victims' cars to transport stolen safes, which he took to his home in Paulina to break open, Wiley said. He said two of the safes have been recovered, one in St. John and one in Ascension. She's living with a man, spending a significant amount of money with very little income, Wiley said. He's gambling, buying a house, tools, setting up a business. Someone living with him had to wonder where all that money was coming from."
Jim: Right.
Woody: Great article.
Jim: And I'll tell you, that to them was also a piece of a puzzle because remember, no physical evidence. So, if you're thinking like I'm thinking, and I'm sure Woody's thinking, you can look at this girlfriend two ways. You can look at her as a suspect or you can look at her as a witness. And they had more value in her as a witness. They were concerned. They were concerned because although they had just tons of circumstantial evidence and people do get found guilty strictly on circumstantial in some cases, but it's a roll of the dice. So, what do they do? They go to her, and they say, “Look, we'll go ahead and we'll drop these charges against you. We'll drop them all. But you got to agree to testify against--”
Woody: You got to give up the juice. And certainly, she had to know.
Jim: Absolutely. And so, what does she do? She says, “Hell yeah.”
Woody: Because, y’all, look, principle two, it means you're just as guilty. And she's looking at every charge that he's looking at and give her the out. But I'm sure it was the prosecutors that are like, “Hey--" First of all, they have to agree to drop charges if she testifies. But they needed her to testify.
Jim: That's right. They needed it desperately in this case. So, she agrees. She says, “I will testify.” And they say, “You testify, we'll drop the charges and it'll be all over with.” Whether you agree with that or not, this is a case where I see that they needed that person. So, we're going to fast forward a little bit and we're going to bring you to December 12th of 1998. And this is in the middle of the trial. And I found this interesting because this centers around the lie detector test. And so, I'm going to read you this article.
"FBI Agent Testifies Suspect Blank Failed Lie Detector Test. An FBI agent testified in court Wednesday that accused multiple murderer, Daniel Blank, failed a lie detector test on the day he was arrested in Texas. Near the end of a day-long hearing on a motion to suppress the video and audio tape confessions of Blank, Assistant District Attorney Charles "Chuck" Long asked FBI Agent David Sparks of Houston, Texas why he questioned Blank after administering the polygraph test to him in Onalaska, Texas, on November of 1997."
Sparks said he wanted to find out why Blank "had problems" with the test. "Did you find out?" Long asked. "No, he didn’t tell me why he failed the test," Sparks replied. Defense Attorney Glenn Cortello immediately objected, arguing the results of polygraph examinations are not admissible in court. Long countered that Cortello and his co-counsel, Andy Van Dyke, contended in their motion to suppress evidence that police officers lied to Blank about the results of the test in order to get him to confess. Therefore, Long said he had the right to show Blank failed the test and there was no reason for detectives to lie to him about the results."
"23rd Judicial District Judge John L. Peytavin did not immediately rule on the issue. Ascension Parish Sheriff Detective Mike Toney and St. John the Baptist sheriff’s Detective Todd Hymel testified at length Wednesday about the 12 hours they questioned Blank about six slayings, and two attempted murders. In Ascension, Blank is charged with murdering Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant and Lillian Philippe, 71, of Gonzales, and attempting to murder Leonce and Joyce Millet, both 66 at the time they were assaulted in their home on the outskirts of Gonzales. In St. John Parish, he is charged with the killings in LaPlace of Joan Brock, 58, and Sam Arcuri, 76, and his wife, Louella, who was 69.
Woody: Y'all, they're trying the cases in Ascension Parish first, even though there's six victims, because they were in different parishes, that's a different jurisdiction, they have to try them separately.
Jim: Yeah, he's got to answer for all those crimes separately. And then so the very next day, something happens. I guess Daniel Blank was getting a little bit nervous. The prosecution is putting on a heck of a case.
Woody: Mm-hmm. And this was published on December 11th in 1998. It says, “Suspect in murders attempts to escape by John McMillan of the River Parishes Bureau. Mild-mannered accused multiple murderer, Daniel Blank, Thursday broke out a window in a second floor restroom of Ascension Parish courthouse in Donaldsonville and leaped to the ground below, where he was a free man for less than a minute."
Jim: Now, y'all, take that in. You just had the River Parishes serial killer break out a window and escape.
Woody: Right.
Jim: So, what are you going to tell you how the hell that happens?
Woody: "Within 30 to 45 seconds, he was apprehended and back in custody, Ascension Sheriff Jeff Wiley said, departmentally, we've responded in a quick fashion, but it shouldn't have happened. There was a security breach here to an extent. Blank, who usually registers no emotion in his court appearances and is described by his attorneys as very quiet, was being brought into the courthouse for a hearing when the escape attempt occurred. The hearing was on a motion to prevent the use of a videotape confessions he made to six River Parish slayings and two attempted murders. Wiley said four correctional officers brought the small, slightly built defendant into the courthouse from the Ascension Parish prison."
It's funny, I'm going to interrupt so y'all, understand this. The Ascension Parish prison is actually outside of Donaldsonville. Ascension's Parish is actually split. The Mississippi River splits it right in half. It has a Sunshine Bridge is what they call it, that goes over to where that-- and I've been in that prison many, many times.
"Handcuffs, leg shackles, and a bulletproof vest were removed from Blank in an anteroom between the two courtrooms on the second floor of the old courthouse building to make him presentable for court, Wiley said. After those items were removed, he told officers he had to defecate bad, Wiley said. Two of them walked him back to an area that's used as a juror room or judge's chambers that has a bathroom. They made a decision to let him take care of his business, Wiley said. The officers partially closed the bathroom door and Blank sat down on a toilet in a stall. In rapid fashion, he leaps up and slams the bathroom door shut and locks it and grabs an old antebellum window shutter and breaks the glass and leaps out, Wiley said.
Jim: All right, I'm going to stop you real quick. You're an officer and this dude's taking a shit, the door slams and locks. What's going through your mind?
Woody: Oh, fuck, I'm about to lose my job.
[laughter]
Woody: Let me tell you what. I had so many bad guys, especially during the interrogations, etc., a lot of times, they get nervous and had to take a shit right before they give me a confession. And you better believe every one of them, I stood in there with a stall open and I listened to them shit, and I watched some shit because I wasn't taking my eyes off of him. I mean, this dude killed six people, man, and attempted to kill two more, right? [crosstalk]
Jim: He just shut and locked the door on you.
Woody: He slammed, that's the “oh, shit” moment.
Jim: Unshackled.
Woody: Unshackled. Yeah. You could poop with the shackles on, but they just fucked up on that one, no doubt about it. He breaks the glass, y'all, and he jumps out. And the sheriff said Blank landed on the roof of a one-story building adjacent to the courthouse and then jumped to the ground. Sheriff's deputies outside the courthouse spotted him and chased him down.
Jim: I could imagine, seeing this dude jump on the ground and they're like, “Ah, that's a serial killer.” Oh, my God.
Woody: “Ah, that's a serial killer.” "He didn't get far, Wiley said. Blank was then put in the prison van and taken back to jail, Wiley said. The sheriff then called District Judge John L. Peytavin, who was conducting the hearing, and the judge asked that Blank be brought back to court to complete the proceedings. The judge’s order was carried out and the hearing, with Blank present, was conducted. The judge said he would study the motion to suppress Blank’s confessions before issuing a ruling." Y’all, this isn't a trial. This is one of the many motions to suppress and all kinds of stuff that the defense tries to do. It's a free shot for the defense to find out what the prosecution has, but our article continues.
"Later, Blank was examined at Prevost Hospital in Donaldsonville where it was discovered he had a broken heel bone, the sheriff said. Blank was being treated for his injury at a state hospital that he declined to name. "I don’t want to blame it, the escape, on an antiquated courthouse, but we’ve always been at a disadvantage in that old courthouse," Wiley said. "It has no bars on the windows. The reality is, we have no inmate bathrooms, no inmate-holding facility, but the primary cause was our inattention." "You don’t partially close the door on a murder suspect,” the sheriff said. "We had sufficient personnel. "Our options were to tell him "You can’t use the bathroom," but we’re all sensitive to his constitutional rights and they made the call to let him. They should have reshackled him or stayed on each side of him while he used the toilet," Wiley said." The sheriff said he met with the warden of the parish prison and the supervisor of the detail guarding Blank and, "I’m looking at some administrative changes."
[laughter]
Somebody’s ass getting fired. "Nobody was intentionally derelict, but I’ve got to make sure the people involved in guarding Blank are more attentive. The security detail will not be involved with such a defendant in the future," Wiley said. "I hate this for the community and for the victims’ survivors," the sheriff said. "The last thing the public should have to worry about is this guy escaping. They should be able to rest comfortably knowing that my department is on top of it. What happened leaves a little bit to be desired. It shouldn’t have happened," Wiley said. Blank’s next court appearance is scheduled Wednesday when Judge Peytavin will hear arguments regarding evidence that can be presented during the sentencing phase of the trial should he be convicted."
Jim: Now two things, y’all, it's obviously not funny. Thank God he was caught. I'm pretty sure somebody probably got shitcanned over that deal. [crosstalk] Could you imagine being the one to have to call the sheriff?
Woody: Oh, my God.
Jim: I mean, I bet they were all like, “I ain't calling.”
Woody: I mean, we had it happen-- [crosstalk]
Jim: And that's what my second part of this was going to be.
Woody: Gerald Bordelon and John Priest escape, the two worst we had in Livingston Parish Jail at the time. And they left them out on a walkway, like for their outside time, the walkway just has that chain link fence. And they had a maintenance cart they left on the hallway and the maintenance cart had a pair of pliers. So, when the guys in the control room aren't paying attention and there's nobody watching them from other side, they got the pliers and snipped the damn fence, and ran and jumped over and got out.
Jim: And, y'all, one of these individual's on death row right now.
Woody: Well, one of them is dead on death row. He's the last person executed in South Louisiana. John Priest lured homosexual men into things and robbed them but the last one he robbed-- he just got out of jail that day. He robbed him and then pulled all his teeth and then set him on fire so his body couldn't be identified.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Yeah. And he's a bad dude. That dude's evil. He's doing multiple life sentences, but--
Jim: He's in Bloody Angola.
Woody: He's in Bloody Angola, sure is. We might have to do a story one day.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Because he was a bad-- He's a young kid too. Just fucking evil as fuck. So, yeah, pretty sure you want to have your hands on this cat at all time.
Jim: Oh yeah. Whoever that was didn't last long. I'm sure now in any trial the defense is going to-- you might as well expect it, they're going to do profiles, or rather they're going to get with psychiatrists. And these psychiatrists [crosstalk] yes, do these evaluations. And Daniel Blank was no different. And during the trial, as is standard with pretty much all your violent murder cases, he undergoes this evaluation with a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with what's known as schizoaffective paranoia disorder.
Woody: That’s bullshit.
Jim: [laughs] Now, if you're wondering what that is, it's a mental health disorder that is marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms such as depression or mania. There are two types of schizoaffective disorder, both of which include symptoms of schizophrenia. There are bipolar type, which includes episodes of mania and sometimes major depression or depressive type, which includes only major depressive episodes. And it affects people differently. According to psychiatrists, it was also discovered that he had a learning disability that hampered his verbal ability as well as his understanding of abstract concepts, which is a fancy kind of like psychobabble jargon, basically saying he didn't know how to deal with his emotions like a normal person. Well-
Woody: Whatever.
Jim: -cry me a fucking river. I don't give a shit. You killed six people.
Woody: Every death penalty case we do, they put on these so-called experts and they come up with the same shit every time. What they're trying to do is ultimately, if he's found guilty, they're going to say, “Hey, look, here's a mitigating circumstance why he shouldn't be put to death because he doesn't think like the rest of us.” And the death penalty phase, series 1 through 10, they did the same thing. They brought in two different neuropsychologists and then a psychiatrist and they said the same shit and whatever.
Jim: Well, here's the way, if I were a prosecutor, kind of poke bullshit in this whole thought process is in regard to his cognitive ability. I would say he probably had some upper-level cognitive skills because that's-- cognitive ability, y’all, is the ability to problem solve basically. This guy was a master mechanic.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: That's all about problem solving.
Woody: Not only that, he didn't leave any trace of himself at the crime scenes. That shows planning and that he was smart, like I said earlier.
Jim: That's right. And he wasn't book smart, as a matter of fact, he only made it to the eighth grade. His reading was on a third-grade level, they say, but his IQ was an 85, which is on the lower side of normal. And IQ test, you know.
Woody: Yeah, I'm sure that if I'm facing a death penalty, I can play dumb on an IQ test too.
Jim: So, they go through the trial, y’all, and eventually they come back with a verdict. What we're going to read you now is the verdict for the Joan Brock case. Well, he was sentenced to death this. So, Woody?
Woody: Article is on April 11th of 2000. Says, "The jury took less than 45 minutes Monday to sentence Daniel Blank to death for the slaying of LaPlace housewife, Joan Brock, on May 14th, 1997. Saturday, it took the same jury seven hours to find Blank guilty of the same murder. Wearing the same wrinkled, blue work shirt, tan pants and tennis shoes that he wore throughout the six-day trial, Blank showed no emotion as both decisions were read to him."
"On the other hand, during the reading of the death penalty decision, several of the jurors were weeping. “I feel better now,” said Douglas Brock, widower of Joan Brock, as he walked out of the St. John the Baptist Parish courthouse in Edgard. “I really do feel better.” Brock’s murder is one of the six attributed to Blank in a 10-month killing spree in 1996 and 1997. He allegedly broke into people’s houses to steal money to feed a video poker gambling habit. During the burglaries, six people died. Blank has already been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Lillian Philippe, 71, of Gonzales. It took 40th Judicial District Judge, Sterling Snowdy, and attorneys 26 days to pick an impartial jury in Avoyelles Parish." Y’all, they had to move it because of the publicity of trial. Avoyelles way up river.
"Snowdy has ordered the jury selection in Marksville because he wanted to get a jury that was not tainted by the publicity surrounding all the homicides. The prosecution, led by St. John Parish Assistant District Attorney George Ann Graugnard, presented the jury with more than 25 pieces of evidence and 13 witnesses to prove the state’s case against Blank. The centerpiece of the prosecution’s attack was a four-hour videotape of Blank’s confession. Contained in the tape, a sometimes-sobbing, sometimes-cool Blank told detectives Todd Hymel of the St. John Sheriff’s Office and Mike Toney of the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office how he climbed over the fence of the Brock residence in the Riverlands subdivision and hid for several hours in the backyard waiting for the Brocks to leave that morning. "
"When he thought the house was empty, Blank then tried several doors to gain entry into the house. Finding the back door unlocked, he entered and went straight to the bedroom where he knew the Brocks kept a safe. As he was dragging the safe out of the house, he heard a sound, walked outside and surprised Joan Brock in the backyard. She screamed and in response, Blank stabbed her four times with a butcher knife he found in her kitchen. Blank then tried to drag Brock’s body into the house, but he couldn’t manage it. He then rolled the safe out to his car in the garage, put the safe in the car, found the car keys in the kitchen and fled. Blank took over $30,000 and jewelry from the safe."
“She was a nice woman,” said a sobbing Blank in the videotape. “I had nothing against her. She was a sweet woman.” Blank, who was looking for money to feed his gambling habit, had worked for Douglas Brock as a mechanic several years before the murder. He felt that Brock had double-crossed him out of backpay, and he knew that there was money in the house. Blank’s defense attorney, Glen Cortello tried to persuade the jury that Blank could not have lifted the 260-pound safe by himself. However, in a dramatic demonstration, Detective Hymel, dressed in a white jumpsuit lifted the safe easily and placed it on a small cart."
Jim: Smart.
Woody: Right. That counteracts that. Later, in her closing statements, Graugnard said that Blank could also have easily levered the safe into the car by placing it against the back seat and lifting it up.
Jim: I don't mean to interrupt you, but this just occurred to me. This is someone who is used to lifting heavy things, engines and things like that. I'm not saying he picked up engines by himself, but he's used to lifting deadweight.
Woody: Yeah, and also, he went there to get that son of a bitch and he's going to get it out one way or another. And you'd be surprised what you can do after you just murdered somebody. The defense’s only witness was FBI polygraph expert, David Sparks, who interviewed Blank before he made his confession to Hymel and Toney. Cortello argued that Sparks had coached Blank in the details of the murder prior to the videotaped confession. Sparks admitted to telling Blank the time and date of the murder, and a description of the Brock house. Sparks added he told Blank where the body was discovered and the position of the body. He also told Blank what had been stolen from the house and that the safe had not been recovered.
But on cross-examination, Graugnard showed that Sparks had not told Blank other important details about the case, such as the amount of money and the jewelry in the safe, where the car keys were, or how weeds and cigarette ashes were found in Brock’s car after it was recovered. Douglas Brock had testified that he had just cleaned the car before the murder and that no one in his family smoked. During his taped confession, Blank gave specific instructions to the detectives where to find the safe he had dumped into the bayou about a mile from Sorrento. He also drew a detailed map of the Brock house with descriptions of his actions. In the backyard, near the house, he wrote, “Here is where I killed her with a large knife.”
In closing arguments, Graugnard told the jury that there was specific intent when Blank killed Brock. “When he heard her and saw her shadow, why didn’t he just leave through the front door?” Graungnard asked the jury. “No, there was specific intent. He was not going to leave that house without the money. He went out back and surprised Joan Brock. He hacked her four times with a 20-inch weapon.” Cortello’s closing centered on the confession, insisting that the confession had been coerced from Blank, and that Hymel had “hypnotized” Blank into confessing. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to connect my client to the crime except for the statement,” said Cortello. On rebuttal, Graugnard told the jury, “Not to be fooled by the smoke. Blank made his confession voluntarily without any pressure from detectives.”
During the penalty phase of the trial, several psychiatrists were brought in to testify that Blank does have a mild learning disability and brain dysfunction, but neither of the doctors said that these two factors would impair Blank from committing the crime, or from knowing the difference between right and wrong. They said that there was no evidence of any psychosis. During the penalty phase after conviction, the Brock family testified that the loss of Joan Brock had a devastating effect on their family. The jury was also told at that point about the other five homicides attributed to Blank, which shocked most of the jury since Snowdy had ordered that no mention of the other crimes could be mentioned during the evidentiary phase of the trial.
Blank still faces trial for the first-degree murders of Victor Rossi of St. Amant, Barbara Bourgeois of Paulina; and Sam and Louella Arcuri of LaPlace. After sentence was passed, Joan Brock’s daughters were asked if the sentence of death had helped their state of mind. Stephanie Brock Sanchez said, “We feel a little better about things. But it will never be the same,” added Stacey Brock Sardenga. “We don’t have a mother anymore.”
Jim: Wow.
Woody: That's powerful. And again, y’all, what happened, like the psychiatrist and the other crimes cannot be admitted as evidence of this dude being a badass during the guilt phase of the trial. And once just the facts on that murder after that, when you go into the death penalty phase, that's when the guns come out. You can get to any prior criminal history, acts and statements and the facts showing that, “Hey, this dude gets out, they're going to do it again.”
Jim: That’s right. And so, he did get sentenced to death. And eventually, just to fast forward there, he was convicted and sentenced to death in that murder of Joan Brock, Lillian Philippe, he was also sentenced to death by lethal injection for the Arcuris. He took a plea on those and pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to two irrevocable life sentences. So, when all the dust settled there, he was convicted of everything he did, including two death sentences. But there was a problem. Anytime you're dealing with the judicial system and especially when you get sentenced to the death penalty, you can believe there's going to be 20 years of appeals, and relooking at evidence and fighting it.
Woody: One of the reasons he took a plea on the other cases is because he figures it's easier to fight two death penalty charges than it is to fight six. And he was able to concentrate on those.
Jim: So, he gets sentenced to Bloody Angola. He's serving his time.
Woody: He's on death row.
Jim: He's on death row. He's doing his appeals, as is sadly standard these days. And on February 17th of 2016, he was granted a stay of execution. And I'll just read you the quick article on that.
A stay of execution has been granted for convicted serial killer, Daniel Blank, by the Louisiana Supreme Court on Wednesday. Convicted serial killer, Daniel Blank, 53 as of that time, was scheduled to be executed on March 14th. However, officials with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections stated they do not have the drugs necessary to carry out the execution. A stay of execution is court ordered to temporarily suspend the execution of a court judgment or other court order. And it goes into all of the people that he killed, but they were having a problem with the drugs that they still supposedly have a problem with, and so--
Woody: Won't be a problem anymore. Jeff Landry just got elected governor and he's very pro-death penalty.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: He's about to end all that.
Jim: So, he's still appealing, and he got that stay of execution. And one of the things that he tries to work on these appeals is they were basically trying to say he was misled into why they wanted to meet in the first place, the police. Remember in the prior episode we told you that they went, meaning the detectives, went to Texas to formally interview him, I guess you could say, and they released some of that transcript. And so, I'll read you a little bit of that because it's interesting and we'll get Woody's thoughts on it.
The detective says, “Do you think we traveled this distance to speak to you about casino winnings, do-do you think legitimately that's why we're here?" Daniel Blank says, “Well basically you wanted to know where I got all my money from and that's why I gave him the papers,” meaning the papers documenting money won at the casino. The detective then says, “Well, we want both, both of us took a good number of notes and we've been speaking to you for about an hour and a half now.” And Daniel Blank says, “Uh-huh.” And the detective says, “Every single question that we asked you, we knew the answer to. And we do that for one reason, to see if you're going to lie to us.” Sound accurate, Woody Overton?
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: So, sounds like this detective knew what he was doing. Daniel Blank says, “Right.” And the detective continues, "There is a few points that you did and there is a few things that you did withhold from us. We're not going to ask you a question that we don't know the answer to already.” Daniel Blank says, “Yeah.” And the detective says, “We've been doing this for far too long and we're pretty good at what we do.” And Daniel says, “Right.” And the detective says, “We're not going to come here half stepping and I'm not going to travel five hours and come speak to you without having all my ducks in a row.” The detective then says, “Okay, you have absolutely no idea why we're here to speak to you, is that what you're telling us?” And Daniel says, “Well, you want to know where I get my money from.” And the detective says, “Have you ever been questioned or spoken to by any other sheriff's office in the past for any crimes that have taken place?” And Daniel says, “Oh, I was called in about that deal about Rossi.” And the detective says, “Rossi homicide?” And he says, “Yeah.”
That's just kind of an example of how he was playing dumb. He knew, he knew exactly why they were there. He's the guy that killed these people, but he's totally playing stupid. But that's also a great example of detective work that they were letting him know we already know the answers to the questions--
Woody: They're establishing psychological control over him and preparing to cut off any denials, etc. And that's one of the things you do. You got to immediately cut off his denials. Now you give him enough rope to hang themselves and say whatever, but then they were like, “Hmm, you weren't there. Bull shit.”
Jim: So then, they continue on. And then it's the FBI agent. And if you'll remember in the last episode, he not only interrogated Daniel Blank, but he also did the polygraph. So, the FBI agent is talking to him, and he says, “You bet it's okay. But something occurred, and you decided you wanted more in your life. You thought you could take it the easy way. You thought you could get some money from somebody.” And Daniel Blank says, “No.” And then, the FBI agent says, “And then, something happened.” And Daniel says, “Un-un.” And then, the FBI agent says, “And when you went in there--” and he's talking about Joan Brock's residence, “when you went in there-- oh, don't shake your head. I know you don't deny it. Okay?”
Woody: He's cutting off the denials.
Jim: Yeah. “So, the investigation has been going on for six months, son. Okay? This didn't happen yesterday. We didn't just come down here in the middle of nowhere. We want to know what's going on. We already know what's going on. What we're trying to figure out is why. Because why this occurred is important.” “I don't know." Daniel Blank says. And then he says, “I want you to tell me, Daniel. Don't sit there and shake your head now. Come on. Let's be honest with each other, okay? Let's be honest with each other. It's time to have a meeting of the minds, okay? It's time for you to sit down and accept what you've done. Accept what you've done and let it go, okay?” And Daniel Blank says, “How can I accept something I ain't done?” And he says, “Yeah, yeah, but you have. You did, okay? And when you say you can't accept something you hadn't done, that's good, okay? Because that means in reality, you're going to say, ‘I can't accept I didn't do it because I did do it.’ That's what you're trying to tell me in your own streetwise way, that's what you're trying to tell me. Something happened. Something occurred in your life 16 months, 18 months ago, something made you snap all the way to here. I don't think it was drugs. I think it was something you said, I have to take care of my family, and I have to take care of my family now, and the time has come for me to take care of my family. You decided that you would take the easy way out. You didn't plan on hurting anybody, did you?”
Woody: Right. And giving chances.
Jim: So, what do you think about that?
Woody: Genius. Exactly what I said that you got to cut off any denials. You're establishing rapport. You're not totally going aboard his ass yet because you don't want to scare him off. Look, a good homicide interrogation doesn't even start until after five hours. That's when you start to get the juice, you start to break people down. I mean, people don't realize how long it takes them. One of the things I would have said was at a certain point, if you stick in and you get them to change the story, blah, blah, blah, and you stick in, I'd be like, “You know what, homie? The next time I ask you a question, if you feel like you have to lie to me, then don't say a fucking word. Because then you're going to insult my intelligence, and then I'm going to have to insult you.”
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: And as you're giving that thing, “Let's stay on the same page. I can help you, but don't keep fucking with me.”
Jim: Right. Exactly. And another thing came out in these appeals, and that was-- obviously in the appeal, one of the things that the police are trying to say is, “We knew he did it because he knew details that we never released to the public. Only the killer would have known about that. And when we interrogated him, he brought them up.” So, Woody's going to read, y'all, a part of the interrogation where he's talking about Ms. Philippe's death and exactly what took place in that death that I thought you may find interesting.
Woody: Right. So, Daniel Blank says, “Then, I went back in and turned the light back on and started looking some more, and I didn't find anything, so I gave up on it. I turned the light off. And when I come out, that's when I saw something swinging at me.” And the detective says, “You saw something swinging at you?” And Blank says, “Well, I saw a shadow of something. The light was off. The only light on was, I think, the bathroom light. And when I saw something coming at me with the shadow of the bathroom light and just put my arm up and then I grabbed it and pushed her.” And Detective says, “When you say you saw something swinging at you, was it a person?” Blank, “Yeah, it was the woman swinging something at me. I don't know if it was a lamp. I didn't see it. I just grabbed it. And it could have been a lamp, it could have been a trophy. It kind of felt more like a trophy. I don't know, it could have been one of them little skimpy lamps. I don't know. Well, that's when I pushed her. And then she comes at me with I don't know if it was a knife or one of them letter openers or something. I don't remember what it was. I didn't see it.” Detective says, “She had it in her hand?” Blank says, “Yeah, that's when I hit her with the thing I had in my hand, and then I grabbed it and I cut her with the knife. I don't remember where I cut her or how I did it, it just happened so fast. I just freaked out then and I left after that.”
Detective, “All right, so you're saying while you was in the closet, you heard some noise and you turned the light out in the closet?” Blank says, “Right.” Detective says, “And then, you wait a little while and you turn the light back on?” Blank says, “No, I turned the light off when I heard a noise and then I kind of opened the closet door and peeked out, and I didn't see anything or didn't hear anything. And I waited a couple of seconds and then I closed the door back and turned the light back on. And then, when I was ready to get out after I had looked around and they had all kinds of stuff in there, I kind of emptied the drawers out and stuff like that and didn't find anything. And I just decided to leave.” Detective says, “Okay.”
And Blank says, “And then when I come out, that's when I turned the light off and opened the door and come out, that's when she was standing there and she had something in her hand and swung it at me.” And the detective says, “And you took it away from her?” Blank says, “I put my hand up like that and it hit me on arm and then I grabbed it and pushed her back onto the bed. And then she grabbed something off of the coffee table, and it could have been a knife or could have been one of them letter overs. I don't remember.” Detective, “Okay, so when she went to grab this, you had this trophy?” Blank says, “She come up.” The detective says, “Or lamp in your hand?” And Blank says, “Yeah, she come up, and all I seen was like a shadow because there was no light. And the light was where I shined in front of the bathroom and the bathroom door wasn't all the way open, it was kind of cracked. And well, then she come back at me with the knife and I tried to grab it, but I couldn't see her arm to grab it. And I just kind of ducked to the side and I hit her with the thing that I had in my hand.”
Detective says, “What part of the body did you hit?” He says, “I think it hit her in the head. I ain't sure. I think that's where I hit her.” The detective says, “And what does she do?” Blank says, “Well, after that, I pushed her and then I grabbed her hand with a knife, and I know I cut her. I don't know where.” But detective says, “Was she standing up when you cut her or—” then Blank interrupts and says, “No, she was laying on the-- I think when I pushed her, she was laying across the bed or at the edge of bed. And after that, I did that and then I left.” And detective says, “But you hit her with the knife too then?” Blank says, “Yeah.” And detective says, “Okay. You left.” Blank says, “I grabbed her arm or hand or something and went back with it. And then, I took the knife and I ain't positive, but I think I hit her twice with it. I ain't sure. I don't remember. It just happened so fast, and I was just scared and I just took out and left.”
Jim: Now, you're going to know all those details, and you didn't do it.
Woody: That tells me this guy's smart. He's actually replaying it in his mind. It's not like he's reading the script. He's like, “Oh, yeah, that's right, because the bathroom light was on." It wasn't this light. It was the bathroom light. "And then I saw something coming at me and it tried to freak me out and I grabbed it, and I don't know if it was a lamp or it was a trophy, maybe,” but he's not totally clear on everything. But he knows enough, like I said, “So, she was standing when you stabbed her?” And he's like, “No, she was laying on the bed.” Why would you say that?
Jim: Right.
Woody: Why would you make that up?
Jim: The detective questioning him, he already knows where she was stabbed and all these things. I would imagine what you're doing at this point is trying to build a case. [crosstalk] You're proving that he knew.
Woody: Confirm the evidence that you have.
Jim: Yeah. So, good job by them. One other thing that came up on the appeal, and a good thing to ask you, Woody, is the polygraph itself. And Daniel Blank tried to say that he didn't know he could get out of a polygraph.
Woody: [crosstalk] You have polygraph rights, they have to read it to you before every exam.
Jim: There you go. And here was just a short conversation that took place between him and the detectives when they asked him to submit to a polygraph. Daniel Blank, “What choice do I have?” Detective, “Well, it's your choice.” And then the other detective says, “It's your choice.” And Daniel Blank says, “If I refuse it, then what?” And the detective says, “That's your prerogative. I mean, this is something that we ask you before, if you're responsible for committing to these homicides, and you stated no.” And Daniel Blank says, “I mean, if I refuse it, then what are y'all going to do to me?” And the detective says, “Well, I got to be honest with you, if you're looking from an investigative standpoint, it doesn't look too good. But that's only my opinion. I mean, that's just my opinion.” Daniel Blank says, “Well, what I'm saying is if I refuse to take the polygraph, what are you going to do? You're going to arrest me?” And the detective says, “You're not under arrest.” You have that conversation, it's recorded. That proves that they're telling you they're not threatening to arrest you.
Woody: They never threatened.
Jim: We're just saying it don't look good if you refuse.
Woody: [crosstalk] it didn't, they weren't lying about that. Let me tell you something. Getting people passed, giving permission for a polygraph is probably the hardest thing today, especially the guilty people. Now, there's two kinds of people that take the test. The ones who take it because they know they can pass it and the ones who take it like Daniel Blank, because they know their ass is in a crack and they're hoping by some miracle that they'll show a no deception indicated.
Jim: That's right. Long story short, he exhausts his appeals and now he's in a position where he is just awaiting his death-
Woody: Oh, it's coming.
Jim: -in Bloody-
Woody: -Angola. And he's on the row. And guess what? He was one of the ones that did this recent clemency push or whatever-- push for clemency hearings. But time is up. The new sheriff's in town per se with Jeff Landry coming in because he's the one that's been fighting the governor about, and the governor basically in the end came out and said he didn't believe in executions and all that.
But I'm going to give a shoutout to investigators. Sheriff Jeff Wiley, Ascension Parish. Look, great guy. I actually did my internship for my polygraph license. They had a certified polygraph examiner by this time, Greg Landry. And Jeff Wiley had to prove it, I had to go over there every week and stuff and work with one of his detectives who was a polygraph guy. Look, Ascension Parish sheriff’s house, one of the best equipment wise and training wise and everything else. And Mike Toney has been there forever. He's got to be retired now, but I knew him and worked cases with him. But he was the lead investigator on the case for Ascension Parish.
And then, Willy Martin who is the sheriff of St. James Parish, great guy, shoutout. And Sid Berthelot was the first respondent officer of St. James Parish, shoutout to him. And Todd Hymel was the lead investigator for St. John Parish, shoutout. I mean not that often they get to work these. And CJ Destor was the investigator for St. John Parish who assisted and Dowell Brenn, the investigator for Gonzales police. I don't believe he's there any longer. And Dan Funk, who was the FBI special agent. These guys caught probably one of the most prolific serial killers you never heard about.
Jim: Absolutely. So, shoutout to just amazing detective work by a lot of those guys and something very admirable. If you know any of those guys, and they're still around and would like to do an interview with us, we'd love to have them on, sit down and talk to them.
Woody: I think Sheriff Wiley is a senator now-- a senator or congressman or something. Not meant congressman, but I saw him at the Chamber of Commerce when I did the Chamber of Commerce.
Jim: Oh, did you?
Woody: He was with Jason [unintelligible 00:54:09].
Jim: Okay. Well, it’d be great if we get him on.
Woody: And Jason said, “You remember Jeff Wiley?” I said, “Sheriff, yeah, I remember.” I told him about the polygraph thing, he laughed and he was [unintelligible [00:55:34] case and all the big cases [crosstalk] but he's since retired and moved on.
Jim: We want to remember the victims of these cases. And I'm sure there's a lot of family out there that are listening to this right now. Matter of fact, I know one in particular that her cousin was involved in this. So, shoutout to you. And Victor Rossi, Barbara Bourgeois, Lillian Philippe, Sam Arcuri, Louella Arcuri, Joan Brock, all murdered, but you're in our thoughts and prayers and your families.
Woody: It's a ripple of fagging time, someone's murdered, people just hear the headlines of the murder victims, but every one of them have families.
Jim: Yeah. And Leonce and Joyce Millet, who were not killed, they were survivors. And I'm sure they have family still out there.
Woody: Yeah. And Patreon members, thank you again for your support. Y'all, go to patreon.com and type in Bloody Angola. We've got a bunch of different levels, a bunch of different ways that things that you can get for showing us support the Patreon. If you can't be a Patreon member, we get it, we love and appreciate all you all. Please go leave us reviews and like and share and help us continue to grow. Hey, and we are for, 2023, Bloody Angola won the best history podcast in the world.
Jim: In the world.
Woody: Because of y'all. You rock.
Jim: Because of y'all. That's right. And we appreciate that so much. So until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Woody and Jim: Peace.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 26 Oct 2023 - 65 - River Parishes Serial Killer | The Hunt For Daniel Blank
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A True Crime Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we bring you inside the hunt for the River Parishes Serial Killer Daniel Blank who terrorized the Parishes of Ascension, St James, and St John Parish in 2007 & 2008.
#DanielBlank #Serialkiller #louisiana #riverparishesserialkiller #bloodyangolapodcast #truecrime
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 19 Oct 2023 - 64 - Bucking Up at the Angola Prison Rodeo
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we take you inside the Angola Prison Rodeo and supply you with the history and facts behind the oldest prison rodeo in the country.
#Angolaprisonrodeo #buckingup #podcast #truecrime #louisianastatepenitentiary
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 12 Oct 2023 - 63 - "DUCK" | The Interview with Donald "Duck" Sharp
When they needed a confession from the real “Dead Man Walking” …They Called “Duck”.
Check out this once in a lifetime in studio interview with Donald “Duck” Sharp who performed the interrogation and gained the confessions from Robert Willie and Joe Vaccaro sending Willie to the death chamber.
#deadmanwalking #duck #robertwillie #podcasts #truecrime #bloodyangola #JosephVaccaro
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 05 Oct 2023 - 62 - The Notorious Charlie Frazier Part 2
In this part 2 of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we continue the story of Angola Inmate Charlie Frazier.
Charlie was one of the worst criminals in U.S. History and ran with the likes of Bonnie and Clyde. He rose to notoriety during the 20's and 30's during the bootlegging period in American History.
An escape artist, murderer and the very reason the Red Cell Block inside of Louisiana State Penitentiary was built, this is an episode you have to hear.
#Louisianastatepenitentiary #angolaprison #charliefrazier #eldridgerobertson #redhatcellblock #angolaprison #podcast #bloodyangola
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 28 Sep 2023 - 61 - The Notorious Charlie Frazier
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman the story of Eldridge Robertson, more known as the notorious outlaw Charlie Frazier is told.
Charlie was one of the worst criminals in U.S. History and ran with the likes of Bonnie and Clyde. He rose to notoriety during the 20's and 30's during the bootlegging period in American History.
An escape artist, murderer and the very reason the Red Cell Block inside of Louisiana State Penitentiary was built, this is an episode you have to hear.
#Louisianastatepenitentiary #angolaprison #charliefrazier #eldridgerobertson #redhatcellblock #angolaprison #podcast #bloodyangola
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 21 Sep 2023 - 60 - S.W.I.M.
In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We drop a classic episode from Woody Overton's Real Life Real Crime original series entitled S.W.I.M. as we prepare for the Season 5 premier of Bloody Angola!
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 14 Sep 2023 - 59 - The Wrap
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they wrap up season 4 of the podcast and give you an amazing sneak peek into season 5!
#thewrap #truecrime #bloodyangolapodcast #podcast
BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST: THE WRAP FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jim: Hey everyone and welcome back to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And Woody Overton, we've been doing 18 episodes. This is the 19th episode of Season 4.
Woody: Wow. Sounds like it's time for a wrap [crosstalk] right? Jim: It must be.
Woody: That is a lot.
Jim: That is a lot. And, y'all, we have so much fun doing this. We just go and go and go, and before you know it, we've got four seasons and one. But we love it that way. And so, today we thought it was fun to not only kind of wrap up the season and discuss our thoughts on the Episodes that we did drop, but give you a sneak peek into what, Woody Overton, I think is going to be our best season ever.
Woody: It's absolutely going to be the best, because we got the best stuff coming up. Jim: Oh, yes.
Woody: And you did the best research and we got guests and everything else.
Jim: Yeah. We're raising the bar to say the least for Season 5. But let's talk about Season 4, which, y'all, our most successful season to date. We had so many different subjects that we covered and when we envisioned this podcast, that was one of the things that we envisioned was being very broad about how we covered Angola.
Woody: Right. We told you every story would be different. We've had some that were uplifting, we had some that were mentally disturbing about crime and we had just everything. We're going to talk about some, but it's all varied and all true.
Jim: Oh, yeah. And we started off Season 4 with The Rise & Fall of C-Murder.
Woody: That's right. Great one. We got a lot of response from that.
Jim: Really kicked off the season.
Woody: Really, really excellent. Loved it. I didn't really understand that he was such a legend in Louisiana.
Jim: Yeah, he really was. And what a story. A lot of what we covered surrounded the fact that his case, there was never a whole lot of, say, proof. There was a lot of circumstantial
stuff. And we covered some of the holes in that case and also covered some of the things that pointed towards C-Murder being involved. But we left it up to the listener to kind of judge for themselves what they thought.
Woody: Right. We brought to you a lot of facts on it, researched and watched documentaries and everything else. And then, you got it from our perspective, and you the story and me the detective on it. So very interesting. If y'all hadn't heard it, you need to go listen to it.
Jim: That's right. And then went straight from there into When Evil Escapes, which was the story of Casey White and Vicky White.
Woody: Yes. That's crazy. And, y'all, it ties back into Bloody Angola because that's unfortunately those relationships develop. That's a very real deal. And here you have this career lady. I mean, her whole life's been about this and then she falls under the spell of this monstrous-
Jim: Monster, yeah.
Woody: -big dude. And the story that unfolds is just so crazy and how they end up.
Jim: The ending on that one was fire. And we want to remind everyone you can go back and listen. If you hear us mention an episode that you haven't listened to yet, you can go back through and you'll find it. Just scroll down through Season 4. In Episode 3, we started our Death Sentence series which covered the death row exonerations with DNA and things like that taking place in Angola specifically.
Woody: Yeah. And those cases were phenomenal. And I know a lot of people are against the death penalty and always say, "Well--" You come home and find your kid raped and mutilated, etc. But this shows the other side of it and their valid argument that, "Hey, you know what? Sometimes they get it wrong." So, we gave you the unbiased truth on these people that got out. And what actually ultimately happened to them. Go back and listen to it because you'll find a common thread on every one of them that got released. Didn’t do so well.
Jim: That's right. And then we felt it only right to cover those that were executed, I guess you could say, for the right reasons. There was preponderance of proof and that was with our Death Chamber Part 1 and just covered those guys that walked down and sat in Gruesome Gertie.
Woody: Right. And not we only told about their crimes, we told about some of the [unintelligible 00:06:28] stuff, but then last meals, last words. And again, I think you find in most of those that some of the last words are almost the same and I don't want to ruin it for you, so go listen to it. But I've always been super fascinated by the last meals and last words.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: And some great, great two-part series, wasn't it?
Jim: Yeah. Well, yeah, two parts.
Woody: Because there's that much information and that much fire in it.
Jim: After that, we kind of got back to telling you the stories of some people that-- this guy in particular is still sitting in Angola and that is Principal to Murder, Justin Granier who committed some crimes in Gonzales, Louisiana.
Woody: That's right, yeah. Very, very interesting to say the least.
Jim: I found that as well because Justin is one that gained popularity on TikTok and some other places because he was on a show that featured Louisiana State Penitentiary and his work through several programs that they offer and does appear to be someone that is very resentful of his crime and all those sorts of things. But we're not going to ruin it for you. Go listen to it. Season 4, Episode 6, we covered The Escape From Angola in 1953. That was Ricardo Escobar who's--
Woody: That’s right.
Jim: --a little home invasion.
Woody: He did. And my grandfather actually ruled in this case. My namesake, actually, or I guess I'm his namesake and my son has the same name, but it's different time in what happened in this case. I think the first time ever any kind of verdict had come down like that in the state of Louisiana for an escapee.
Jim: Yeah, it's a good one. Check it out. Season 4, Episode 7, we finally did it. We brought you becoming the warden. Burl Cain Part 1.
Woody: Yes. [crosstalk] -legend- Jim: Wow, that was good.
Woody: -and such, an early influence on me in my professional career when I worked for him before he became the Warden of Angola. He was the warden of Dixon Correctional Institute. Y'all, this story is amazing.
Jim: It really is. And continues to this day. Woody: And we actually did several episodes.
Jim: We sure did. As a matter of fact, Season 4, Episode 8 and 9 are the second and third parts of that series.
Woody: Yeah. It covers everything from him coming up as the warden in Angola, to how he turned Angola around. Even to Hurricane Katrina coverage, and the bus station and all. Go listen to it. I get goosebumps. That dude just is amazing.
Jim: Oh, yeah.
Woody: Sorry, Warden Cain, I said dude. Jim: [laughs]
Woody: That gentleman is amazing.
Jim: He really is. And if somebody's listening that knows him, we'd love to talk to him. We can do whatever, we can go up there, we can record him remotely, whatever, but I do know that he has paid some attention to our page and we'd love to sit down and talk to such a
legend. Season 4, Episode 10, we went back to the death chamber. Had a lot of people wanting us to follow up on that with more execution stories. And we brought you Death Chamber Part 2. And then Episode 11, we wrapped that series up with a Part 3. We actually covered all of them from 1980 on.
Woody: That's right. And then all the way up to Gerald Bordelon.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: Which was the last one put to death and he's right here out of the Livingston Parish.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: Very, very interesting. And you get to see the true nightmare of evil these people are.
Jim: Absolutely. And then, Season 4, Episode 12, we went ahead and did a part 2 to death sentence and talked about more exonerations that have happened due to DNA or other technicalities. It doesn't necessarily mean-- when someone's exonerated, it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't do it. It just means there was-- unless it's a DNA situation, it just typically means that there was a technicality that was discovered later on that may have changed that sentence from death to life in prison.
Woody: Right. They may have commuted it or what have you, but it's very interesting on each individual case, no two are the same.
Jim: Then, we went and brought you to Season 4, Episode 13, and we started The Angolite Files.
Woody: Yeah, that was fascinating. Jim: Those are fun, man.
Woody: Where we go back, y'all, to the oldest editions that Jim found and the wording they use in. We read the actual articles and most of them are just really, really short, but it's like they didn't have any entertainment. They didn't have TV or radio station back then, the Angola's radio station. But the wordings are just crazy. And the things they talk about-- I know people, that's one of our most popular series, so y'all got to check it out.
Jim: A little plug on Real Life Real Crime here, but it's funny that Woody, okay, so he just wrapped a really, really good series that you got to go here when we were, I guess you can say marketing this, one of the things that I put out there was that this was your seat inside a courtroom during an actual death penalty trial. And Woody really brings you inside of that as he goes over these transcripts that were very important and needed to be included. But you do something unique, which is-- and I end up doing the same thing from time to time, which is your voice almost changes and you go into this role and it's great because--
Woody: Because you're in a character.
Jim: Oh, yeah. He gets into that character and he's like, "Let me ask you something." Love it, man. So, go listen to that on Real Life Real Crime for sure if you have the opportunity. In Season 4, Episode 14, we brought you the Elite Chase Team.
Woody: Ooh, what a great story.
Jim: Ah, that was a good one.
Woody: The best of the best at what they do, and not only for bloody Angola, they're so
famous, they get calls for assistance everywhere.
Jim: Absolutely.
Woody: If you going to run, that's one group of men that you don't want coming after you.
Jim: Yo, you don't.
Woody: And they've got it down to the science.
Jim: They really do. So, go listen to that. Learn all about this Chase Team that is probably one of the best, if not the best in the nation.
Woody: I'd put them up against anybody.
Jim: Season 4, Episode 15, we had so much response on Becoming The Warden that we dropped an episode called Catch Your House, and it was Woody and Unspeakable's Kelly Jennings joining him as a guest on that show. And they discussed their relationship with Burl Cain, having both worked for him.
Woody: Right. Very, very interesting. You get to hear from an old correctional officer's point of view and then a classification officer's point of view. And, of course, two totally different jobs. And KJ has awesome stories too. It's a great episode.
Jim: Yeah. And then, we just continued on, and something happened in Louisiana that was generating a lot of talk in the news. And because we have a lot of ambiguity with this show, we bring you current stuff too, if it's making these kind of headlines. And we felt like this was something important. And the response we got from people that listened after the fact let us know that it was important. And that was The Louisiana Clemency Debacle Part 1.
Woody: And that's actually a worldwide watch situation now because it's the first time it's ever been done in the history of certainly the state of Louisiana, but in the history of the United States and probably the history of the world. And then, you have both sides. Certainly, the people that wanted these things to go through and then I just don't understand it still.
Jim: You and me and million other listeners, apparently. We actually, y'all, got some very special messages from families of people who are actually facing this, and they wanted to just thank us for shedding light on that. Of course, no thanks needed. That was our honor to do and all those sorts of things. But it really hit home to both of us the importance of what we're doing as it relates to situations like that.
Woody: And we ended up telling, y'all, where they were from, what their crimes are, and it's just-- you got to listen to it.
Jim: Yeah. And then, we continued on with Season 4, Episode 17. That was part two of the Clemency Debacle. And then after that, we even dropped a bonus episode called-- just for patrons, called The First 20 that covered the first 20 of these clemency hearings, the first 20 inmates that are coming up for these hearings.
Woody: What it covered, y'all, everybody got the base list of the crimes and where they're from, etc. For the patrons, and thank you, patrons, the show wouldn't run without you, and
Apple subscribers now, we really delved into their crimes. We told exactly what happened and who was murdered and why was aggravating circumstances and the whole nine yards.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I mean, you can't get any deeper than what we gave them.
Jim: That's right. And so, that episode just was absolute fire. And then, Season 4, Episode 18, we went back to The Angolite, and we did 1954 Through The Inmates Eyes and covered several Angolites in and around the year 1954. And one thing that's really great about those Angolites is it really does give you the view from that convict's standpoint. [crosstalk]
Woody: Right. Again, the language they use, of course, most of those terms wouldn't be not only politically correct today, but just flat out strange to hear some of them. And we didn't read the whole magazine, y'all. We just picked out certain little articles throughout. Everything from dude who stole and got busted stealing peanut butter, which they put it in their all own words to such and such. And they worded a different way, but basically-
Jim: Fights.
Woody: -who got stabbed. And such stories today, spung a leak, or however they say, but you got to go listen to it. If you love Bloody Angola, and you love the history of the show, I mean, these articles and the wording and all the history, just the day-to-day life on the plantation back then is crazy.
Jim: It really is. And the great thing was, back in those days, they didn't censor things that got out of Angola like they do now. Those Angolites, I mean, they really talked about some stuff that would make you raise an eyebrow that no way it would get out now.
Woody: Right.
Jim: But back then--
Woody: And back then, really, though, it was really put on for the convicts and then it became nationally known and everything else and people would get subscription. Hell, I had a subscription to it in the early 90s. But back then, it was more like their newspaper.
Jim: Yeah, that's right. And so that was the season that our most fire season so far as Woody would say. And so, when we're looking back at this, we're like, "Man, we just set a real high bar for Season 5," but we're up to the challenge.
Woody: That's right.
Jim: We're up to the challenge. [crosstalk] We're going to tell you more. That's right. Woody: We'll take it to the next level maybe.
Jim: The next level. That's what we do. And so, we're going to give y'all a look right now into Season 5 and some things that are definitely going to take place. And look, anytime you start off a season, you look for that one story, that one character that really grabs an audience because you're constantly gaining listeners. So, that's kind of your goal, is I want to put something out there first that people can really get attracted to and we found that.
Woody: We definitely did.
Jim: Charlie Frazier--
Woody: Probably the most infamous convict ever. Well, I can't say that. Jim: I would say in the South for sure.
Woody: Certainly, the Brent Miller killings and stuff like that--[crosstalk] Jim: Yeah.
Woody: But this guy overall, what he did, how he lived his life. And what he did to eventually end up in Angola and all the things that happened, holy smokes. Y'all, we're going way back in history here. It's not a stretch to say that-- our episode in whatever season, the Red Hat Cell Block, it's not a stretch to say they built that cell block for Charlie Frazier. He was a bad ass. He could escape from anywhere. But we're going to tell you everything about him.
Jim: And he did.
Woody: And Jim Chapman has outpunted his coverage this time. Jim: Oh, my God, ever, ever.
Woody: Wait till you see in Patreon, you'll get to see more than anybody else because all the documents and news stories and photographs and it's going to blow your mind. And as any proper great story that I've learned over the years doing on Real Life Real Crime, it's going to have to be a multi-part series. And you're going to want it to be a multi-part series. The only thing you're going to hate is when that episode ends because you're like, "Argh," till the next one.
Jim: There's no doubt about it.
Woody: And the patrons, of course, will get it commercial free and early releases.
Jim: That's right. Look, with this particular guy, ever since we first started this, Season 1, I have been digging, digging, digging. It is very, very hard to get information on this particular guy, Charlie Frazier, for a multitude of reasons. One, back then, they just didn't keep records like they do now.
Woody: No social media.
Jim: Yeah, there's things that happen every time things get lost. Woody: There's no cable news, no TV channels or whatever.
Jim: No doubt. This guy, I'm telling y'all, I'll make a promise to you. In my opinion, this will be the definitive history of Charlie Frazier. No doubt about it. I have over 100 pages' worth of information. Now, we're going to freeball this thing. Freeball, that’s kind of weird-- but we're going to freeball it. We might not wear no underwear in the studio today. [chuckles] But we're going definitely talk off the cuff about this guy.
But Patreon members, I want to say this just for you people. Look, everybody that gets this show outside of a Patreon or outside of an Apple Podcast and we're going to talk about that in just a minute. Anybody that gets information outside of that is getting it for free. And we love that. Look, everybody cannot be a subscriber. So, what we ask for those people to do is if you want to pay us back for the hours and hours we spend doing this stuff, all you have to
do is share the podcast. And that is all we would ever ask for those that just are not in a position where they can support any other way. We appreciate that, we love it, we get it, and so those people, we thank as well.
But our Patreon members, they have a financial investment in our success and that's huge. We love, love all of you, whether you do that or not. But for those folks, we give them something extra for that.
Woody: We give them a lot extra- Jim: Yes.
Woody: -Patreon members for Bloody Angola. Unless we are doing a little TikTok right now because--
Jim: We don't do enough of that, right? [crosstalk]
Woody: For the BA, y'all, on TikTok, we're discussing the ending of this season and the
beginning of the next and the fire stories. And we love y'all.
Jim: Yes. That's right. We actually just dropped it, so check out that TikTok, by the way, Real Life Real Crime on TikTok. And you'll see all kinds of great stuff. But getting back to that, this particular Charlie Frazier episode, y'all, I have newspaper articles, clippings. I have actual records from where Charlie Frazier checked into hotels and signed his name. I have actual pictures of the places where people were killed. All of that, we're going to put just for patron members.
Woody: We really think it's going to be such a success-- somebody's going to want to do a documentary on, and you've already done all the work.
Jim: Yeah. If you're not a member yet, join in the next couple of weeks. We're also going to talk about a little guy by the name of Huddie Ledbetter who is otherwise known as Lead Belly. Look, for those of y'all that aren't familiar, he is probably the most popular or one of the most popular convicts ever in Bloody Angola. He was a blues musician that actually got released from prison-
Woody: Because he was a blues musician.
Woody: -because he was-- some people say he's the best blues musician ever. So, we're going to be covering the story. His story is absolutely unbelievable. Phenomenal story. We're going to be doing that this season. How about-- y'all ready for this? Look, we've been working on getting someone on the show that would-- I've never seen an interview that this guy has done.
Woody: Me either.
Jim: But he has done something that is worldwide famous, and that is he was the detective
that actually caught Robert Lee Willie and Joe Vaccaro.
Woody: Not only caught them, he's the one that actually got confessions out of. FBI and everybody else also was there, and they flew Mr. Sharp in. They flew him in and he got the confessions.
Jim: So, this season, Detective Donald Sharp, for those of y'all, Robert Lee Willie and Joe Vaccaro, well, let me tell you this. Sean Penn played the character in Dead Man Walking that these guys were based after.
Woody: I think he won an Academy Award for it.
Jim: I believe he did as well. This exclusive interview with Detective Donald Sharp coming at
you this season, get ready for it.
Woody: And we would want to thank him ahead of time for coming in and doing this. [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, he don't have to do it. I want to thank his daughter who reached out to me and kind of got me in contact with Detective Sharp.
Woody: Thank you.
Jim: Yeah, thank you very much. And a fan of the show, and listens to the show, shoutout to
her.
Woody: Right. That’s amazing.
Jim: Also, how about there's something in Angola that we've been requested since Season 1 to talk about, and that is the Rodeo.
Woody: Rodeo. And by the time we get to this story, the Rodeo happens four weekends, every weekend in October, every year, and then I think one weekend in April. But anyway, it'll be that time by the time this story comes out. It's just a whole different world.
Jim: Yeah. We're going to bring it to you.
Woody: We're going to bring it to you and it's so much that goes on and all that.
Jim: So, we're going to be bringing you the Angola Rodeo. And how about something that I get a lot of requests for and that-- Actually, a lot of people are shocked, they know that at some point through listening to our show that women were imprisoned at Angola.
Woody: My grandmother was actually a correctional officer there for the women part of the prison. When my mama was a baby girl, they lived on the B-Line.
Jim: There you go, and I haven't even talked to Woody about this yet, but I actually have been doing an enormous amount of research on women in Angola specifically. I have a heck of a show that we're going to be bringing your way specifically about the women.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: So, you're going to love that.
Woody: If the master historian researcher says he's got it, then-- [crosstalk]
Jim: I got it. I got the juice. [laughs]
Woody: He loves to give me the juice for the fourth time, and I'm like, "Oh, wow."
Jim: Yeah, man. When I found the juice on Charlie Frazier, it was 11 o’clock at night, I'm texting Woody.
Jim: I was like, "Yes, yes."
Woody: "You're not going to believe what I got my hands on."
Jim: When we finally do get to take the tour of Angola, we're going to be able maybe teach them something.
Woody: Oh, yeah. In addition to that, we're going to bring you a couple of single cases that have really made a lot of headlines in Angola. One of them is just a horrible individual. We're going to talk about, not only his time before he was incarcerated in Angola and what he did, but we're going to tell you about what he did when he got there, which includes escape attempts. And it's a guy by the name of Brandon Scott Lavergne. We're going to be bringing you that finally after a lot of research. And we're going to bring you another one that I have my eye on, but we'll leave that one a surprise. We'll let you wait. Now, so that's some upcoming stuff that we have.
And we also want to tell you about some new features that we have on Bloody Angola that we've been constantly working towards. When you're running these podcasts and you're doing these things, it's a constant work because you have to stay up with technology. And one of the things that I felt like we, and Woody also felt like we had a gap in, was our Apple Podcast listeners that we have a Patreon and let me tell y'all, the Patreon is where it's at, as far as detailed bonus content. There's no limitations to Patreon. You can have several different tiers and all that, but some people just don't do it. They're just not fans of it, maybe of that website or whatever. We want to make sure we didn't leave them out. So, we partnered with Apple Podcast to where you can get bonus episodes and early releases right from Apple Podcast. You don't have to sign up for another source. I think they just bill your Apple account like they do the App Store and stuff.
Jim: The other thing about it is, Jim, is they get to try it.
Woody: Yes, it's a seven-day free trial.
Jim: Free trial, we're offering a free trial for seven days.
Woody: So, go in and listen to content. If you don't like it, great. But I can promise you, you're going to love it.
Jim: Yeah, you're going to love it.
Woody: Like you said, it's different from Patreon and I get that. But some people just want to
be able to go and punch a button and listen.
Jim: Absolutely. And hey, look, were honored to have Apple Podcast approve us for that. That's an approval process. It's not automatic like some things are, so it spoke highly of our show that they would approve us for that, wanted us on board and pushing us and all those sorts of things. Also, another reminder on that front, two quick things. Bloody Angola, follow the Facebook page because we post all kinds of fun stuff on there. Sometimes, it's just updates. Sometimes, it's just what we're doing.
Woody: Jim always comes up with the coolest artwork for each episode. [chuckles] [crosstalk]
Jim: I love it. I'm so proud of my artwork. That is another thing I text Woody at 11 o’clock, "Check this out."
Woody: "Woody, look at this," and I am like waiting outside of my box [unintelligible 00:32:21].
Jim: [laughs] Yeah, no doubt about it. So, check that out. And we also have a website where you can purchase Bloody Angola swag. Look, we just added a couple of things. Another thing that our highest tier Patreon members get, they get a quarterly gift. We don't want to send the same t-shirt 10 ten times or a different t-shirt every time. So, every time we send that quarterly gift, it's something different. So, those of you out there that I know are listening right now that got one of those, maybe post a picture of you holding it, maybe a selfie, and send it to me and maybe I'll send you something extra and put it on the page.
Woody: Not only is it Bloody Angola related, this latest round, we even signed it. Jim: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Woody: Jim and I both signed them.
Jim: That’s right. And we'll be offering those also for purchase, I just got to get those uploaded to the website and you can buy. We have a few of those left and you can be styling in some Blood Angola swag. But don't forget about the website and the fact you can listen to all the episodes directly from it if you chose to. It has a swag store. We also do some blogging on there. So, I'm sure I'm going to be doing a lot of blogging coming up with these crazy episodes. But you can check those blogs out and those are great things to share on Facebook pages and stuff for people that may be interested.
Woody, our growth, which is what you look for is nothing too short of staggering.
Woody: Y'all validate us. And it's amazing. I want to say this, I think it's September 30th?
Jim: Yeah, for the Podcast Awards? Yeah, September 30th.
Woody: I want to remind you all, y'all voted and made us a Top 10 finalists for the History category-
Jim: Huge honor.
Woody: -in all podcasts in the world, in the History category. And it's a huge honor. Hey, just to make the finals is fire, and the Top 10 in the World in History? We're already winners and I think we got a real legit shot because of you fans.
Jim: Yeah. I do too. September 30th, another thing with the Facebook, we're going to post the link where you can go watch it live. They have a little award ceremony online. You can click on that and you can actually watch the whole Podcast Awards online. And they'll announce the winners and play little videos, acceptance videos.
Woody: I just want to thank y'all again for getting us there, just under a year old.
Jim: And we love it because with this award ceremony in particular, the fans vote on it. It's
not a panel of people that don't know us.
Woody: It's people's choice. Y'all did it. The top 10 belongs to y'all, not Jim and I. And if we win it, that'd be another blessing. And the award belongs to y'all.
Jim: That's right. Just a last little thing today. This will be a shorter episode than normal because it's a wrap-up show. But we want to let you know that next week, we're going to do a little episode swap, and we're going to have everything. We're going to be prepping for Season 5, but we're going to put a fire episode of Real Life Real Crime on the feed here with Bloody Angola.
Woody: Absolutely. It's going to be love, and I love it. We hadn't done one of those in a long time. We're also going to put a Bloody Angola episode on Real Life Real Crime Original.
Jim: That's right. Because everybody that listens to one, then listen to the other, our numbers will be exactly the same. [laughs] So hopefully, someone will hear that maybe they'll introduce other people to the family.
Woody: And y’all, this is a process, and certainly it is a business. So many podcasts come and go, but we have grown and grown and grown, and we've made it. And yes, Patreons, thank you so much, now our Apple subscribers. And thank you to our advertisers.
Jim: Oh, yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that. HelloFresh, which is advertising on this episode.
Woody: Look, I'm a foodie, and I'm not just giving a senseless plug. They've been sponsoring me through Real Life Real Crime since like 2019. And the food is phenomenal.
Jim: It is.
Woody: I guess I get stuck in my old Cajun cooking ways or whatever. They send me this box of stuff and I'm like, "Oh," but all the sauces and the fresh meats and everything are in there, and I've never been disappointed. Sometimes, I tell my wife, like, "I'll reorder that right now." And it's a great deal.
Jim: It really is. And in the show notes of this episode, you can get that, and I believe it's 50BLOODYANGOLA.
Woody: That's the code.
Jim: And you get all kinds of perks. It's like 50% off 15 meals or something like that. Woody: It's way cheaper than going out to eat or having something delivered.
Jim: Especially with that code but make sure you use that code, y'all, and we'll link it. We're going to talk about it in the description of this podcast. Just scroll down and you'll get all the information you need on that deal. And it helps support the show. It helps keep your grocery bill down.
Woody: And it helps filling your stomach with some great food.
Jim: That’s right.
Woody: You'll be looking like a crackhead like me for that box to be delivered. Jim: [laughs] That's it. And it makes you look like a heck of a cook.
Woody: Oh, yeah. If you want to impress somebody, oh, yeah, it's--
Jim: Yeah. So, check them out, HelloFresh. We're very thankful for them. And look, on another note on that, and the last thing we'll bring up on sponsors, I've had a few local folks to Louisiana ask about sponsoring Bloody Angola. If you want information on that, just shoot me an email, jim@localleadersthepodcast.com or bloodyangola@gmail.com. I check the first one quicker than the second one. So, that one I check every five minutes, so the Local Leaders is the best one to use. But I can give you some information on how you can be a local sponsor for the show.
Woody: Yeah. And a lot of different options on that. And we have a huge listener base, especially here in Louisiana.
Jim: Absolutely. And we give you guys a special deal because you're local folks and we want to help you out. So, until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. I'm blessed and love all y'all. Jim: Yes, your hosts of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim and Woody: Peace.
[Bloody Angola theme]
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 07 Sep 2023 - 58 - 1954 Through the Inmates Eyes
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman you are brought back to the 50's as Woody and Jim cover some of the more infamous stories regarding Louisiana State Penitentiary as told through the pages of the Angolite Prison Newspaper.
#TheAngolite #1954throughtheinmateseyes #bloodyangolapodcast #convict
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1954 THROUGH AN INMATES EYES: Bloody Angola Podcast Transcript
Jim:Hey everyone and welcome back to Bloody-
Woody:-Angola.
Jim:A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody:The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim:And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody:And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim:And we got some Angolites.
Woody:Right? I love these stories, man. True, true history from the past. Before we get started, we want to say our thoughts and prayers are with all our people in Florida and Georgia that are getting slammed right now, or got slammed yesterday and came ashore as a Category 3.
Jim:And continue to get slammed.
Woody:And it's just bad. And they said they haven't seen a storm like that in 125 years. So, just prayers for them. I guess you call it Idalia, I-D-A-L-I-A. It's just bad, prayer for them. We know what they're going through.
Jim:Yeah, we've been through a few of those ourselves. So, our hearts and prayers and thoughts are with those folks and the road to recovery. You will recover. It'll seem like you won't, but you'll come back. Look, we've done a lot of historical podcasts with relation to the Angolite, the prison weekly paper that Angola has put out for so many years. This is an award-winning paper all over the world.
Woody:And actually turned into a magazine because I had a subscription to it back in the 90s.
Jim:Absolutely. Some of the stories from back in the day, y'all, you just won't believe until we read them. We've had a lot of people ask for us to do another one. Got a lot of messages. So, we're bringing you another one today because we got our hands on a lot of them from the 50s and 60s. So, we kind of cherry pick what we feel like are the best stories out of those magazines, and we go over those with y'all. And I'll start it off. And this is an Angolite from April 21st, 1956.
Woody:Wow.
Jim:Yeah. That was a heck of a time in America, and even in Angola, as you're about to hear.
Woody:Definitely Bloody Angola, man.
Jim:Yes, for sure. And as a matter of fact, we're going to start off with a bloody story at Bloody Angola, and it was a headline. It said, "Two Dead, One Hurt. Tragedy trip hammered a triple blow at Angola last weekend, leaving two inmates dead and another maimed for life." It says one of the two dead suffered fatal injuries in an accident. The second died of a heart attack. Maimed with his right hand amputated at the wrist was a third.
Woody:Wow.
Jim:The dead Charles D. Clarkson, 24, of Caddo Parish. He had fallen under the wheels of a tractor last Friday. A broken rib punctured his lung. He died enroute to Charity Hospital, New Orleans. Lawrence Virgil Turley, 55, a carpenter, died Sunday afternoon at the General Hospital of a heart attack. Injured only a half hour after he had been assigned to work on the Mammoth Press at the Tag plant, Venice Landry, 20, had his right hand mangled under the giant bolster ram.
Woody:Wow.
Jim:Which is the thing, y'all, that stamps it.
Woody:Slams.
Jim:Yeah, slams that steel and stamps those plates. His hand was amputated at General Hospital Saturday. Pretty, pretty wild stuff going on at Angola. And look, these days, they don't give you those reports. Typically, you really got to dig for them.
Woody:The General Hospital really wasn't a hospital. That's when the nurse, the angel-- they call her angel, was there, there was no doctor and all that. It's crazy, right?
Jim:That's right.
Woody:And the language they use in these, y'all, is really comical.
Jim:And you've got to remember, this was a different time. So, you'll hear things like colored and whites.
Woody:It's their words, not ours.
Jim:That's right.
Woody:All right, so the next one says, "Two Fail in Brief Freedom. Wallace McDonald and Norman Stroupe are in a tight, locked cells today following a brief bid for liberty Tuesday night. Security officials said the two took off from the transportation department in Downtown Angola-" That's funny. "In Downtown Angola Tuesday about noon. They were recaptured within a six-hour period by local authorities, both formerly bedded down at Camp H2," the report said.
Jim:[laughs]
Woody:Kind of brief on that.
Jim:Yeah. Basically, they turned a jet-- and that's what I really like about these, is they do tell you about the escapes and stuff. I mean, they don't hold back.
Woody:Downtown Angola.
Jim:Yeah. [chuckles] Well, how about this one? "Cleaver in an attack tried," says, "John Newton, a new prison kitchen worker, was jailed Monday on a charge of felonious assault with a meat cleaver." Yes, sir. "Newton is said to have sliced Albert Johnson upside his head following an argument. Johnson was hospitalized with lacerations."
Woody:Jeez Louise.
Jim:Yeah. So, Mr. Johnson got a--
Woody:Meat cleaver to the head.
Jim:You don't attack people with meat cleavers.
Woody:Bloody Angola for sure.
Jim:That's right.
Woody:So crazy. And then this next one, y'all says, "Heavy equipment acts to rush free houses. Using earth from the miles long embankment of the old Louisiana and Arkansas right of way, the LSP Heavy Equipment department-" That's funny. "Under Superintendent Dennis Johnson was last week engaged in an all-out operation to fill a five-acre plot of ground for the construction of 21 new free personnel houses. The plot is located on the B-Line at the foot of the old receiving station hill. It is to be filled to a depth of 36 inches. Johnson says he expects his department will wind up with the earth fill operation within two weeks. Construction houses will then start, he said." It's funny. They're talking about building part of the B-Line, another 21 houses added.
Jim:Yeah. So, this is back, y'all, for those that may just be joining us, the B-Line is where all the free people live.
Woody:Inside the wire.
Jim:Inside the wire. And this was during the construction of that way back in 1956.
Woody:And my mama lived there during that time.
Jim:And we'll go on to another page of this one. And there's an article, it says, "More crippled birds. A second group of crippled pelicans, each with the wings broke by hail in the recent storm, were sighted last Sunday by deck passengers on the Angola ferry. The birds have roosted on the log a few feet from the shore and near the middle of the ferry landing. Observers said the wings will heal in time and that it is no rescue operation."
Woody:That's crazy.
Jim:And the reason we included that one is, it's interesting that they try to keep you up to date with what's going on the outside. And the only way they know that is to look out those bars in that wire and actually see it. A little story on pelicans. Who knew hail could injure their wings?
Woody:The news of the day, right?
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:All right. This one says, "O, let us spray. An old-fashioned mattress spraying bee was held at Camp E last Monday, under the eagle eye of the unit captain, A. Couvillon. The action was aimed at eliminating any wandering insects who had hoped to make the unit their dwelling place this summer."
[laughter]
Woody:It's spraying for bedbugs, basically.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:That’s funny.
Jim:And something that you had to do up in Angola for sure.
Woody:It had to be really bad for them to do it for the convicts.
Jim:That's right. And then, we'll continue on. And there's one that says, "Falls upstairs, breaks his jaw."
Woody:Uh-oh.
Jim:That's right. "Joseph Tornabene, Camp H-1 juvenile, fell upstairs one day last week and broke his jaw in three places."
Woody:I bet that didn't happen.
Jim:[laughs] "The adolescent was returning to his bunk after a shower, according to the story told to the hospital. He was taken to Charity Hospital in New Orleans for treatment." So, they're basically trying to say--
Woody:They beat his ass.
Jim:[laughs] Broke his jaw--[crosstalk]
Woody:"You better tell them you fell up the stairs, boy."
Jim:Yeah, that's it.
Woody:That's funny.
Jim:Broke his jaw in three places from a slip. That was one that I really thought painted a picture of the times in prison.
Woody:Funny. I think that's when they had the convict guards too. All right, so here we go. The title of this is "Pocketed Razor Draws Jail Time." Says, "He told arresting officers he was just going to shave, but they didn't believe him. He is James B. Shivers of the STU, and he was caught with a straight razor. The board assessed a term on bread and duck because they said only blades for a razor are lawful."
Jim:[laughs] [crosstalk] Jesus Christ. And when they caught him, he said, "Well, I was just using it to shave."
Woody:"Yeah, I was just using it to shave."
Jim:"What's wrong with that?" All right, how about this one? "Fresh fish leave sheltered cloister as labor beckons. 34 fish, until recently swimming unfettered in the administration unit tank-" And, y'all, when they refer to fish, they're talking about new prisoners. "-At the General Hospital have been screened, tested, probed, and activated by members of the classifications board at a recent session. Purpose of the session was to ascertain whether the fish can earn his bed and board. A few whose records indicated they were unlikely to run were made trustys on the spot. Others who must wait and further test went on jobs under the gun. [crosstalk] 18 of the fish are today assigned to the Angola Cane Corn and Cotton Company as field laborers."
[laughter]
Jim:"In the number were those who will live at Camp A, H and H-2. Culinary work attracted three men, a clerkship and garage work for a third and a welding for a fourth." So, they were classifying them into jobs. And of all those people, 34 fish, only three were made trustys. So, that tells you most of them, they were like, "Eh, you're going to run--[crosstalk]"
Woody:Those three had probably been there before, and then the ones under the gun, that's the shittiest job in the world. Can you imagine, like this summer, when it's 105 and then 116 with a heat index out there all day long, swinging a hoe? That’s crazy.
Jim:Yeah, that’s insane.
Woody:But they did something to get there.
Jim:That's right.
Woody:This one says, "Brown bags chops. John Hunt told the man he was hungry, and he had purloined the poke chops-", and they spell it P-O-K-E, y'all, "-for a midnight snack. The man sighed and put his pencil in notebook and told John, 'Put them back.' But on going through the gate again, the same suspicious bulge was evident."
Jim:[laughs]
Woody:Right. "Searched for chops, were confiscated, as was also Hunt's trusty pass from Pine Ford dormitory, his mail is now being sent to the local jail."
Jim:Which means lockdown, basically.
Woody:That's funny.
Jim:They locked his ass down.
Woody:Extra poke chops out the kitchen.
Jim:Poke chops.
Woody:Poke chops.
Jim:Yeah. So that was from that one, and we're going to do another one here from August 11, 1956. And there's a headline on there. It says, "Angola's Informal Hot Seat. Someone at Angola that I'm not going to name, that I neither know nor care was almost burned to a cinder one day last week."
Woody:Uh-oh.
Jim:Oh, this guy must have been mad at him. "It seems that this 'worker' presumably was doing a little digging under the steel plate that separates the medium from the trusty compounds, which is located beneath the walkway directly below the snitch box at the medium security gate." So, this dude was digging a hole--[crosstalk]
Woody:He wanted to get out.
Jim:"He quit in a hurry-" it gets better, "-when a bolt of sizzling lightning momentarily blinded him and luckily did not fry his hide. His shovel had cut through one of nine cables, each of which was live with 2300 volts of crackling death."
Woody:What?
Jim:Yes, sir. "The soil around the cable was burned to charcoal, and if the lucky bum had come into contact with that current in that cable, they'd have been buried right there where they found him."
Woody:Wow.
Jim:"Take this information for what it's worth and continue grave digging. The Angolite or dig your own grave, literally, with the assurance that the Angolite will make your name famous throughout the state. It's up to you."
Woody:That’s funny.
Jim:[laughs] That guy was [unintelligible [00:15:55] trying to escape.
Woody:[crosstalk] -dig out and dug into the cable lines. [crosstalk] -signs you see, "Don't dig here." They didn't have those back then. Crazy. All right, here we go, Bloody Angola. So, this one's called "Dumbbell Opens Passoit's Scalp."
Jim:Uh-oh. [laughs]
Woody:"Veral Passoit, was removed from the cell block to the hospital, August 8th, with a head wound. Veral, who was removed from the cell block area, August 8th, with a head wound, which he claimed to have suffered when a weight he was lifting fell on his noggin. Hospital records show that he is getting along very nicely despite the 15 or 18 sutures required to close the clean tight wound."
Jim:Somebody hit him with a dumbbell. [laughs]
Woody:Hit him with a knife. Dumbbell wouldn't leave a clean, open wound, it'd be smashed.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:But they weren't going to rat on each other.
Jim:Mm-hmm.
Woody:[crosstalk] -take your lick.
Jim:And y'all imagine this, now this is the 50s. These guys, there is no TV and all that. I mean, this is the only entertainment you get, and the only way you can keep up with what's going on in prison as an inmate.
Woody:It was a huge prison, right?
Jim:Yes. So, we'll move on. This is February 21st, 1959 edition. And the headline says, "New Prices at the Camp Store." And I really enjoyed this one because I'm going to give you actual prices, but it says, "Mr. James Thornton, Chief Administrative Officer, announced new price levels for many items at the camp store this week. And we have printed the price list on page 6." So, when you go to page six, I just highlighted some of these, and I'm going to read off to you that I found interesting. So, back in 1959, if you needed some Alka Seltzer, it was going to cost you 28 cents.
Woody:Really?
Jim:28 cents. Cheez-It's, 10 cents.
Woody:I can't believe they still had Cheez-It back then.
Jim:Yeah. No, it surprised me. Cigarettes. You want some king size cigarettes? It's going to cost you 30 cents.
Woody:What?
Jim:So, if you want some kings and then some regulars, 29 cents.
Woody:Yeah, but that was their currency back then. That's what they paid each other with.
Jim:That's right. Community coffee, 40 cents.
Woody:Community coffee, way back then.
Jim:Way back then, and it was instant. Noxzema, 19 cents.
Woody:I was using Noxzema in prison.
Jim:[laughs] That's a great-- Look, they got nail clippers for 20 cents.
Woody:Keep yourself properly clean.
Jim:That's it. Potato chips, 5 cents.
Woody:Really?
Jim:Yeah. Shampoo, White Rain brand. Who knew that was around then? 41 cents. Rolling tobacco, 12 cents.
Woody:Wow. That's a big deal in prison too, when I used to be there and they still had cigarettes, you could tell who was a really poor convict because they had the Bugler in the can or that blue can. The Bugler was a yellow, red, white, blue, and the other one was just a light blue can. But they were the ones that couldn't afford the Camels or the Marlboros or whatever and had to roll their own cigarettes. And the ones who couldn't afford any of those, when the other ones would throw their butts out, they'd go pick up the butts and smoke the butts.
Jim:Oh, come on. Ugh. Toothpaste, everybody's got to have toothpaste. Well, it cost you 12 cents for Colgate.
Woody:Wow. It's cheap.
Jim:Yeah. Vicks salve, 35 cents. And they had Vaseline hair oil back then. That was 14 cents. So, I'm going to take this and I'm going to post it on the Patreon.
Woody:Yeah, because there's a lot of stuff.
Jim:Yeah, it's a lot of stuff, but pretty cool to go through. They got pork skins on here. They got all kinds of stuff. Liver pills.
Woody:Liver pills. [chuckles]
Jim:What they call hives, which are like crackers back then. So, we'll post that on there so you patron members can look through it and really have some fun.
Woody:Yeah, that's funny.
Jim:Checking that out. And we'll go to September 10th, 1955. Woody is going to start us off on that one.
Woody:All right. So, September 1955. "Airport here averages plane per day. Attendance at the Angola airport were a shade busy last week. Logged in and out were three planes." They were real busy, huh? "Monday, the Paul A. Lambert Cessna arrived and departed. Tuesday the Jas F. O'Neill craft. And Wednesday, a Red two plane bearing number N970246."
Jim:Oh, my God, they even knew the tag number.
Woody:[chuckles] I know my mom when she was on the parole board, they used to fly them around the state because more cost efficient and quicker to get them there and stuff. But I can't believe they had it back in the 50s.
Jim:Yeah, planes have been around a while. They were flying them in World War II and all.
Woody:Yeah, but not passenger planes.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:I mean some, but I guess it was probably military surplus.
Jim:Yeah. "One on the lam still running," it says. "Police in four states--" and I'm going to look up this case, y'all, because I was like, wow, this would be a good one to cover. "Police in four states are today looking for Ray Coughron, 28, a 15-year termer, formerly domiciled at Camp H-2. Donning a correctional officer's uniform, Coughron quietly slipped out of the yard gate last Sunday. Bloodhounds failed to pick up his trail."
Woody:He must have somebody waiting on him.
Jim:Well, they have to have checked out [crosstalk] never heard of that.
Woody:I mean, he had a CO uniform and then he got out. And if the Angola Chase team couldn't get on him? He's gone.
Jim:Yeah. And he did.
Woody:If I was going to run, you--[crosstalk]
Jim:He got correctional officer's uniform. Must have worked in a laundry or something.
Woody:If I was going to run or you were going to run, you'd have somebody waiting on you, right?
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:I wouldn't be running those hills or trying to swim the river.
Jim:And I guarantee, y'all, one difference because I've read a lot of these Angolites between then and now is they don't post escapes in the Angolite anymore. They don't want any other prisoners reading that.
Woody:It's kind of like the mass shootings nowadays. We don't say the shooter's name. Like the one that just did it in Dollar Store, he copied the one in the same city five years before and mentioned it in his manifesto.
Jim:That's right.
Woody:But anyway. All right, so let's go to September 10th, 1955. That's 73 years ago, y'all, next week or the week after, says, "New laundry washes for all. For the first time in the history of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a centrally located laundry is now handling washing and ironing for the entire institution."
Jim:Oh.
Woody:Right. "Today, wheels are rolling at the new prison and a crew of 15 men is daily turning out clean sheets, towels, pants, shirts, and personal linen of male inmates at all camps. The work formally had been done in part at the women's unit. The other part at individual camps. Set up in preparation for the time when all male inmates are housed at the new prison. The laundry, under the managership of Captain Bill Kerr, is currently turning out 1100 pounds of dry wash hourly. With the mangle of four ironing sheets, the plant will later on press pants and shirts. 'Ten pressing units have been ordered and are to be installed,' Captain Kerr said. A schedule has been worked out to handle washing five days per week. Saturday is general cleanup day for the plant. The plant at the woman's camp now handles only free personnel laundry."
[laughter]
Woody:They want to mix them up. That's your job. Another one building, they didn't have AC and they turned out 1100 pounds.
Jim:Oh, yeah.
Woody:It's crazy.
Jim:And it's interesting that back then, 1955 is when they started just finally having this main laundry facility for the--[crosstalk]
Woody:One thing they don't mention in there is underwear. So, when you get in, they give you prison-issued underwear. But when you do send your stuff into the laundry, most inmates keep their underwear and have their bitch wash them. That's why I say you'll be tossing salads and washing dirty drawers. They'll actually rent out their bitch to wash people's dirty underwear in their sinks. And they hand scrub them with soap and wash them and they hang them and make them fresh for whomever for like a couple of cigarettes.
Jim:Wow. There you go, straight from the wolf, right there. "Prison guard post reaching skyward," this one says. "Those new two-story steel skeletons you see poking skyward with the yellow-painted girders are indications it won't be long. They're the structural steel columns for the new guard towers at the new prison. Each will be complete with glassed-in cupola and searchlight."
Woody:And they're still there today.
Jim:And they're still there today. Yeah. They made them to last back in those days, but built those new guard towers way back then.
Woody:Yeah. The funny thing about those is when you go up in them, the outside doors lock, but they're manned 24/7, never take off. I've worked them before. You go in, they actually sit on the outside of the fence. So, inmates can't get to that door. So, you have to go to the door and holler up at the guard, the CO, and they lower you a key down and you unlock it and it's on a string. They pull it back up and you go in and you lock it from the inside. And it's got a spiral staircase. You come through, like a trap door, and it's a round room. That's where your rifle and your shotgun is and your lights and stuff like that.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:It's pretty cool.
Jim:Awesome.
Woody:And then a telephone. That's the only other thing you have. You might have a radio, but pretty interesting. All right, so let's go to, again, on September 10th, 1955, says, "Free Ferry soon to open at St. Francisville. According to the Plainsman of Zachary-" That's the plainsman. It is the Zachary newspaper. "According to the Plainsman of Zachary, named The Feliciana, the vessel costs $200,000 and it may take a load off the Angola ferry. Visitors may enter via the front gate."
Jim:Interesting.
Woody:I have to ask my mom about that one because it didn't run for long.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:Now, they have the ferry that still to this day that runs across into-- I think it might be [unintelligible 00:28:20]. It runs across the river and a lot of free people live over there. Or they'll drive into that ferry and the ferry drives them across and they come in. But this one would-- imagine how many COs lived in St. Francisville, which is back then, you had to take that long ass, hour-long road out, then get to St. Francisville another 10 or 15 minutes, I guess, they just ran them right up the river about a 15-minute ride.
Jim:Yeah. Back then you had to have a ferry to go across that.
Woody:Yeah. There's no bridges. You're right.
Jim:Continuing on. This one is hilarious, y'all. It says, "Voodoo-Hoodoo. You've seen those copper wire amulets and necklaces of beans and so on. Voodoo stuff, maybe. Anyway, Edward Harris of Camp A walked up to the man last week and said people were after him. He didn't elaborate whether he had been hexed or just plain conjured. They locked him up lightly in the sneezer until the bug doctor examines his head."
[laughter]
Woody:We'll call it [unintelligible 00:29:33] of a mental case. The man said, "They're after him, so lock him up."
Jim:The funny thing is with that particular deal is this guy's exposing him to the whole prison.
Woody:Yeah.
Jim:So, these guys, look, they gossip worse than anybody you've ever seen, and they're all nosy.
Woody:They've got nothing else to do.
Jim:That's right.
Woody:Basically, he went to the man and ratted himself out. Crazy. Put him in the sneezer.
Jim:Sneezer.
Woody:"Ex-guard hurt in camp fracas. Frank Peoples, who until last Saturday was a guard was busted back to trusty-ship that day." So, that means he was an inmate guard.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:"The following morning, he was rushed to the General Hospital suffering with a knotted head."
[laughter]
Woody:"He's resting well on the colored ward today." Think about this, the prison guards and we talked about that was a way for them to save money and everything back then, but at nighttime, they might have had one CO per camp, in nighttime, they just locked them in. And the prison guards in there were like gods. And you can get one taken out, he got demoted, and he got his ass beat that night.
Jim:[laughs] Love that. And we got a couple on this page, and they're short, so I'm going to read a couple. I'll let Woody read a couple. The first says, "Bathing to be enforced." Yes. "Beware your long-eared scouts and men of wrath who nothing fear except a bath. White dormitory at the new prison were all set to give one of their number a dunking last week on account that he hadn't put the showers to use since he entered the joint, which is a violations of the rules, besides." [chuckles] So that was a little short one.
Woody:Even most of the convicts don't like a stinky ass.
Jim:That's right.
Woody:You get some people in there, not only have they not ever followed the rules in civilization, but they don't have any personal hygiene. So, I think what they're probably saying is the inmates drug them in there [crosstalk] ass down.
Jim:That's exactly what they did. Gave him a GI shower. [laughs]
Woody:[crosstalk] -stinky motherfucker.
Jim:They basically forced his ass take a bath. He must have been stinking. Imagine you're working out in those fields all day. Oh, my God.
Woody:Nasty. No deodorant and everything else.
Jim:You would think you'd want to take one. But anyhoo, "Localite knifed in camp affray. Henry Davis at Camp F underwent a ham stitching at the emergency ward of the General Hospital one day last week. Henny ran afoul of a knife in the hands of an unidentified assailant."
Woody:[crosstalk] -he's unidentified.
Jim:[laughs]
Woody:He ran afoul of him.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:That's crazy.
Jim:Yeah. I love the way they wrote back then.
Woody:I love it.
Jim:It's a totally different dialect.
Woody:Nobody was ratting anybody out. They just did.
Jim:Yeah. Unidentified, I'm sure.
Woody:And again, this is still September 10th, 1955, and says, "Cuts out early, ends in jail. He was trying to get to camp early for dinner, Calvin Mitchell, a camp aid trusty, told officials last week. Cutting grass with a crew, Mitchell was missed at a field count. A chase ensued and the lad was found wondering. They put him in the hole, pending DB action." The disciplinary board, y'all. Crazy.
Jim:Yeah. Basically, he tried to say, "I was just hungry, going early to eat."
Woody:[crosstalk] -get that meal.
Jim:[laughs] Wandering.
Woody:The next one. "Pipe used in knotting spree. When Warren Guidry of Camp of F uses a pipe, he uses a big one. One and a half inches. One day last week, he wielded it with painful and telling effect upon the noggin of Manson Powell, authorities said. Guidry is awaiting the outcome of a trial. Powell is awaiting the taking off of bandages."
[laughter]
Woody:That's funniest shit.
Jim:That's crazy.
Woody:It's like every day, this one's getting knifed, this one's getting hit.
Jim:I'm telling you--
Woody:In the noggin.
Jim:Yes, the noggin. And look, we're going to go way back to 1954, November 27th. And the headline on this one really struck my interest. It says, "34 shot in rabies try-out."
Woody:What?
Jim:Yeah. Now, y'all got to remember there was a time there was no rabies shot. You got rabies, you just went nuts or whatever. And a lot of times when they would get these shots, they would try them out on like inmates.
Woody:New medical procedures.
Jim:Yeah. They would be the guinea pig.
Woody:Drug companies come in and basically pay the prison to get their test subjects.
Jim:Yeah. So, it says, "34 Angola inmates, six of them women, are today nursing slightly sore arms in what is said to have been the first guinea pig effort ever made here in the interest of medical science. The 34 last Saturday and Sunday were given the first of a series of inoculations aimed at testing a new type of vaccine for the treatment of rabies. All were volunteers," the prison management said.
Woody:Yeah, bet.
Jim:[laughs] They might have paid them something, I don’t know.
Woody:[crosstalk] -cigarette.
Jim:Yeah. "Under the auspice of the School of Medicine at Tulane University at New Orleans, the inoculations were given by Dr. DP. Conwell, a Tulane medical staffer." There you are, at the start of the rabies vaccine in history. And who knew Angola played such a big part in that?
Woody:Well, I had actually heard something before about them trying new procedures on convicts, because who were going to complain? And they gave them a couple of smokes. They were like, "Whatever."
Jim:That's it.
Woody:[crosstalk] "-anyway. Give me the shot." That's crazy. That shit wouldn't fly nowadays.
Jim:No.
Woody:All right, so let's take you to the next one we're going to do. And it says, "Count soars, official--" And that's spelled count soars, S-O-A-R-S, "Official sore," S-O-R-E, "Fresh fish may find no room." And then, y'all, we're talking about fresh inmates. "Today's inmate population swelled to a total of 2810, brought consternation to camp officials and worried frowns to the management last week. For the headcount is the highest here since the end of World War II, an authoritative source said. Already overcrowded at most units, Angola camp chiefs have been hard put to find sleeping room for their new borders. The count is suspected to hit 3000 by mid-year of 1955."
Jim:Dang.
Woody:That's crazy.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:It's double that now.
Jim:And they've added on--
Woody:They've got a bunch of other prisons now too. They didn't have DCI and Winn and all those other prisons back then.
Jim:Yeah. And so, we're still in 1954. And it says, "Here's that stuff again. Like the old saying about the character who, every time he opened his mouth, put his foot in it, last week, The Angolite carried a story about a patch of that nauseous stuff, okra, [laughs] situated just outside the fence of the woman's camp. And proving that the dames don't look into other people's backyards, as soon as she had read the account, buxom Alice said-," buxom Alice, they called her buxom Alice. "Buxom Alice said, 'Where's the okra? Why, I just love okra.' Yesterday at all units the food service department ordered for supper, you guessed it, boiled okra." Yuck.
[laughter]
Woody:That's funny.
Jim:They didn't like that boiled okra.
Woody:They're feeding them-- [crosstalk]
Jim:I kind of like okra myself.
Woody:[crosstalk] -especially my [unintelligible 00:38:15]-- Didn't cost them a whole lot to feed them.
Jim:Buxom Alice, she liked her some okra.
Woody:Right. Buxom Alice. That's funny. Well, y'all, I'm going to read you these next two. "Four men fail to rise, shine. Captain says your neck is mine. Four localites who bed down at Camp A were collared by police at that unit one day last week and charged with failing to rise and shine in the morning, as is customary in places like this. The four, Claudius Wall, Victor Stewart, Howard D. Keyes, and Robert Lewis, were escorted to the camp lockup to weigh the action of the disciplinary board. Because the quartet was asleep when they should have been awake, the camp count was snafued. Nothing will irritate a prison management as much as a fouled-up count of heads, it was said."
[laughter]
Woody:You messed up the count, you were going in a hole. That still happens today. And these dudes just didn't want to get up. That's funny. All right.
Jim:Love it.
Woody:Let me read this one. "Loader whops, hurts worker. Sammy Robinson of Camp F was hospitalized Monday for injuries when he met up with a cane sling while working on a loader near the unit. Robinson is said to have been whopped about the head by the loader slings, which broke loose."
Jim:Oh, my God.
Woody:"He's on the colored ward." Wow. So, I guess one of the things flew off the machine or somebody probably hit him in the head with one of those [unintelligible 00:40:02]. That's crazy.
Jim:Yeah. They're not going to rat each other up.
Woody:Yeah.
Jim:All right, we'll go to 1955, June 18th, and this headline says "STU-", and I'm not sure what STU stands for.
Woody:It's going to be a Special Lockdown Unit.
Jim:There you go. "STU men stage short-lived buck. Residents of the STU, disgruntled over the quality and distribution of the food and a few other items, refused to enter their mess hall Wednesday evening, declaring a camp wide buck."
Woody:Uh-oh. That's right. "When the people came, however, the usual conversation settled everything." [laughs]
Woody:They're like, "I'm about to shoot your ass."
Jim:The usual conversation. I love it.
Woody:That's funny. So, bucking up, y'all, and I've been a part of a couple of them, but they were like, "Fuck it, we're not doing it, and we're going to protest." And Warden Burl Cain, we talked about this on an episode, came in. He said, "Give the first one--" They weren't going to work in a crawfish plant. "Give the first one a direct verbal order, and as soon as they say no, arrest them." You still get arrested. So, bucking up. And the usual conversation was had, probably the same thing, like back then, "We're going to shoot you if you don’t go to work."
June 18th, 1955. "A little girl wants her dog. Tuffy, where are you? A farm-wide search has failed to produce any sign of Tuffy, the six-year-old Boston terrier who was owned by plumber foreman, Harry Dwyer, who'd made his home at Camp E and claimed the yard there as his personal domain. Dwyer says he is sure Tuffy is not dead. His body would have been found by this time, he reasoned. Meanwhile, Tuffy's little mistress, eight-year-old Nickie Dwyer, sent the following message to the Angolite. 'My dog's name was Tuffy. He was eight years old at the time he disappeared. He was a faithful dog and I loved him so. I was raised with Tuffy. He was smarter than most dogs. I do have three other dogs, but they will never mean as much to me as Tuffy. Please bring him back to me, Nickie Dwyer.'"
[laughter]
Woody:I wonder if my momma knew her.
Jim:That's crazy. So, this was apparently a plumber foreman. He had a dog that hung out at the camps.
Woody:And they were all inside--[crosstalk]
Jim:Daughter sent a plea to the Angolite.
Woody:Let me do another real quick, says, "Stray dog round-up now in operation. In accordance with an order from the management, all stray dogs on the farm are being rounded up for disposal each evening. The drive will be in effect through July 4th." So, they were looking for--[crosstalk]
Jim:Oh, my God.
Woody:Stray dogs, they were killing their ass.
Jim:Yeah. For disposal.
Woody:Right.
Jim:That's crazy.
Woody:What if they cooked them?
Jim:1955, y'all. All right, "What's in a name?" This was a good one. "James Williams, who boards at Camp I and has a Yankee accent, which he acquired in Madison County, Wisconsin, wishes the management would learn that he is not James A. Williams. It's a little confusing at first, but not so very difficult once you get the hang of it from Williams. 'Their James A. Williams lives at Camp A,' he explained earnestly, as our eyes began to get glassy. 'Like last October. I almost went to the Red Hats,' he continued. 'Or November, when they called me to the visiting room and walked me into a family of total strangers,' he continued. 'It's getting so I never know who I am, much less where I am.' Williams said it happened again last week. He came within a split second of appearing before the parole board with a lawyer and four relatives, but not his relatives. 'I keep wondering what's going to happen when this other boy's time is up,' he sighed, shaking his head dolefully. It is an interesting thought at that."
Woody:What was his name?
Jim:James A. Williams. But they had two James A. Williams.
Woody:They probably had five of them. He's from Wisconsin. Boy, you know he was doing a hard time [crosstalk] Wisconsin the other day, it was 50 degrees in the morning. I got in Louisiana, it was 100 degrees.
Jim:Come on. Jesus. Well, James A. Williams, hopefully they released the guy--
Woody:[crosstalk] -Madison County where the guy was from.
Jim:Wow.
Woody:All right. "Busy tag plant takes short order," from June 18th, 1955. "An order for 40 large game preserve signs, each with replicas of the bobwhite quail in the corners, was turned out on time by the tag plant last week. They are on 24-hour duty producing a million new auto licensed tags for 56."
Jim:Unbelievable.
Woody:"Plus hundreds of steel bunks for the new prison. Sheet metal gutters and what have you."
[laughter]
Woody:Most of these, y'all, are just like a little bitty short articles. All right, the next one says, "Knife victim has loss of memory." I can imagine. "Hyde Walker of Camp F was hospitalized Tuesday with superficial knife wounds on his left arm and shoulder. Stricken with a lapse of memory, says he was unable to recall how he got hurt. Security officials suggested that he might have got careless while shaving."
[laughter]
Jim:That is great.
Woody:They weren't even worried about him.
Jim:And they might have been the ones that hurt him. He might have got lax while shaving. Yeah, that's crazy. Here's one I found interesting. It says, "Dental clinic cracks own record. The biggest week in the history of the dental department went on record during the seven days from June 5th through the 11th of 1955, according to their bookkeeping department. The figures show a total of 115 patients were handled. Seven plates were complete and fitted, and 12 others were put into process. There were 51 extractions, 34 marked miscellaneous, and a variety of other entries." So basically, they're pulling teeth left and right. That one week, they pulled 51 teeth. I thought that was interesting.
Woody:[crosstalk] -too many feelings when they could just rip them out.
Jim:Yeah. And I'll give you this one. It says, "Two use razorblade, put cells in stitches. Two unidentified colored women from Camp D were treated for minor lacerations at the emergency ward last Tuesday. Weapons used is said to have been a razorblade. Following treatment for both, they were released and returned to camp." So, they tried to commit suicide. Two women.
Woody:I wonder if they got in a fight with each other. Maybe they did. Two unidentified women from Camp D were treated for minor-- They might have gotten in a knife fight with each other.
Jim:Maybe.
Woody:Maybe it was suicide. I don't know. All right, September 18th, 1954, y'all. "Uniforms for free personnel soon. For the first time in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary, correctional officers will be garbed in uniforms." Wow, this is interesting. "'Hats, coats, trousers, and shirts are on order and will be issued,' Secretary Chief W. H. Maynard said Wednesday. The uniforms will be of a forest green hue with beige-colored shirts, the official said. There will be no badges, however, nor any marks of rank worn. A shoulder patch will designate the wearer as an LSP officer."
Jim:How about that?
Woody:1954 is when they had got the first uniforms. That's crazy.
Jim:That's crazy. It had been around since 1901 as a state prison, and it took till 1954 to get-- so they just wore whatever they wanted, I guess. Button up shirts or something.
Woody:Blue jeans and something. Real quick, at the top of this page, it says, "Dixie's only prison weekly, The Angolite." And it gives Volume 2, number 41. Angola, Louisiana. September 18th, 1954, 10 pages. But then, it had this box that says "Warning!!!! Laggards are warned. Monday, September 20th is the deadline for filing your petition for the October Pardon Board. Don't get stuck out."
[laughter]
Jim:Even in Angola, inside of Angola, you have thieves that steal from other inmates. "Dees, the barber shop got looted. The barber is offering a reward." In this article, it says, "Yes, sir. It never rains, but when it rains, it pours. Seems a fella has to get down in bed sick to find out who his friends are. Monday, Dees, the rotund Camp E ex-barber, woke up one day at the General Hospital where he is suffering from a diabetic onset, to find out that his shop at Camp E had been burglarized. Missing, he said, is $300 worth of barber tools and unfurnished leather goods. Dees has posted a $25 reward for the arrest and conviction of the miscreant. Or, he'll pay it for the return of the goods, no questions asked."
Woody:$25 back then, shit, you can always buy a car for it.
Jim:Yeah. And he was basically saying, "Look, if you took it, if you just give it back to me, I'll give you $25, or I'll pay someone $25 to find out who it was."
Woody:That’s pretty much their craft. And each camp would have one. That's an esteemed position, most of them--
Jim:And $300 worth back then? Inside prison, that's a million dollars.
Woody:Yeah. September 18th, 1954. "Free inmate menus now the same. For what is believed to be the first time on Angola, menus for free personnel and inmates were identical last week, with the exception of breakfast. The innovation is by order of food services manager, J. H. Bonnette. A huge saving is expected to result from the consolidation, the food department said. Breakfast in the inmate dining rooms are planned, but for free personnel consists of short orders only."
[laughter]
Woody:I guess if you're free personnel, you can order your eggs over easy or whatever, and the rest of them are just getting shit on a shingle. That is funny.
Jim:Yeah. So, you actually have a choice if you're free personnel. If you're not free personnel, you get what they throw on that plate. I'm going to read a couple of these, and I'll let Woody read the last one we're going to do for you today. And this was a correction from Old Wooden Ear. And he says-- Old Wooden Ear. He says, "Irate Camp Fers have asked for a correction. Seems one Freddie Armstrong, whom The Angolite said last week had been stabbed in a humbug, was not from Camp F, but from Camp A. The Angolite is happy to make this correction and with the hope that if any others get stabbed at Camp F, they won't bleed."
Woody:That's funny.
Jim:Even The Angolite had to issue retractions. And then, this one says, "Escapee, guards play hide and seek. Guard lines were still out yesterday for Ulice Baker, 28, a colored Camp C trusty who was found to be missing last Saturday. Baker, serving a seven-year sentence, is thought to still be hiding somewhere on the farm." How about that? Look, they were escaping left and right back in them days.
Woody:The way it was they're still trying to, but they got a whole lot more security stuff in place, razor wire and all that and the wolfdogs. All right, this one says, big headlines, "Frazier is oldest! A glance at the records settled the question once and for all who's the convict with the longest time in point of service on Angola. Records showed Charlie Frazier--" We need to talk about him.
Jim:Yeah.
Woody:"Records show Charlie Frazier Camp H-2 hospital steward was received in September of 1933 with one sentence of 18 years, one of 28 years, and a life term, all stacked on top of the other. Charlie is registered number 23409, is the oldest on the books. His discharge date, however, is still 20 years away. The book says December 3rd, 1974." Now, look in the DOC, you're known by your inmate numbers. Now, they're alone. Fucking that means he was the 23409th inmate when he came in, ever to go to the gates of Angola. After the Civil War when they started.
Jim:And probably one of the most notorious-- really, in American history, there's a whole big, long story for Charlie Frazier, and we will tell his story one day. He's a tough one to research because this was so long ago, but I'm going to come up with some stuff for him. Just two quick short ones, and then we got to wrap it up for today. This one says, "Toe whacked off. Andrew Peters, a resident of the STU, lost the third toe on his right foot via surgery last week. The operation was performed at the Angola General Hospital." So, something happened, he had to whack his toe off.
Woody:He had diabetes or something.
Jim:And then, the one below it says, "Three and a hassle. Three juveniles at H-1 were sporting an assortment of moused eyes, puffed lips, and other sores today as the result of a free-for-all hassle last Tuesday. The trio, all of whom were unidentified, were given first aid, a piece of steak for their eyes and sent home--"
Woody:And they run a piece of steak with a baloney.
Jim:[laughs] Yeah, there was no steak, I can promise you.
Woody:We need to look in that too, because they're housing the juveniles there now and they're so fucking pissed off about it. But [crosstalk] back then they had women and juveniles too.
Woody:Yeah, they sure did. And so, we'll be bringing you stuff on that. Appreciate all you patrons out there that follow. Look, we dropped a bonus episode Monday just for patrons, where we covered the first 20 death row inmates that are requesting clemency and got those hearings. We went into an in-depth breakdown of each of those, dropped that on Monday. So, if you're not a patron, join Patreon, you can get that. Another quick announcement, Apple Podcast. For those that don't do Patreon for whatever reason, we're now on Apple Podcast as a subscription option as well. You just go to your Apple Podcast app, and you'll see it. I'm going to label all those. It'll say Apple Podcast Bonus Episode.
Woody:Yeah. Also, what happens on Apple Podcast, anytime you go to the Apple Podcast player, and you type in "Bloody Angola," it'll pull it up and it'll give you, like, I think it's free trial for whatever, for seven days. It'll list episodes and everything else. Pretty cool deal, I think.
Jim:If you're not and you want to try it, there's a free trial going on.
Woody:Some people [crosstalk] either they don't know what Patreon is or they don't want to use it. I have that on the regular Real Life Real Crime.
Jim:Well, some people want-- and they want to listen to their podcast through one particular app and not have to go different places. So, Apple Podcast enables that.
Woody:So, if you like it and you want to try it and then get your free seven-day trial and go listen to some bonus episodes because we got a ton of them.
Jim:We got a ton.
Woody:And thank y'all and we love you so much. We appreciate each and every one of you.
Jim:Yeah. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody:And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim:Your host of Bloody-
Woody:-Angola.
Jim:A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody:The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim and Woody:Peace.
[Bloody Angola theme]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 31 Aug 2023 - 57 - The Louisiana Clemency Debacle Part 2
Woody and Jim continue with part 2 of The Louisiana Clemency Debacle. In this episode they give a short breakdown of the crimes of all 56 Death Row inmates requesting clemency.
#Louisiana #clemency #TrueCrime #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #pardon #johnbelledwards #JeffLandry #AngolaPrison #deathrow #Convict
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 24 Aug 2023 - 56 - The Louisiana Clemency Debacle
56 Louisiana Death Row inmates (nearly all of them with all but 1 currently housed at Angola) in a coordinated effort of historic proportion submitted Clemency request in mid-June of this year.
Of course, Woody and Jim were paying attention, but...what appeared at first glance to be just another crazy story from Bloody Angola has turned into quite the s*&t show that you are going to want to hear.
We have every detail from the original request to what happens next in over 40 hours of research. You may be shocked at the risk involved in this monumental move that you may have only had one eye on.
#Louisiana #clemency #TrueCrime #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #pardon #johnbelledwards #JeffLandry #AngolaPrison #deathrow #Convict
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 17 Aug 2023 - 55 - Catch Your House | Patreon Jailbreak Release
*Patreon Bonus Episode Sneak Peek*
In this Patreon Jailbreak special release bonus episode of Bloody Angola, Kelly Jennings of Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings, joins Woody Overton and Jim Chapman as Woody and Kelly discuss 1st hand experiences of working for Burl Cain.
#Catchyourhouse #BurlCain #TrueCrime #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #Patreon #Jailbreak #LSP #AngolaPrison #ChaseTeam #PrisonEscape #Louisiana #Convict #Escapee #SRT #Swatteam
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 10 Aug 2023 - 54 - The Elite Chase Team at Louisiana State Penitentiary
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, the guys tell you the facts of the LSP at Angola elite Chase Team from the qualifications to actual escapes not only involving their "home" prison but all over the country!
#LSP #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #AngolaPrison #ChaseTeam #PrisonEscape #Louisiana #Convict #Escapee #SRT #Swatteam
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 03 Aug 2023 - 53 - The Angolite Files
The Angolite is the inmate-edited and published magazine of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, The Angolite has been published since 1953 and there were even a few issues before that!
Jim Chapman has managed to get his hands on some of the very first issues of The Angolite ever published and the content there in is something Woody Overton and Jim Chapman could not wait to share on this episode of Bloody Angola.
#Theangolite #podcasts #bloodyangola #convict #prison
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In this episode of Bloody Angola, Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell additional stories in continuing with the stories you will have to hear to believe regarding inmate of Louisiana State Penitentiary who were sentenced to DEATH ROW getting exonerated after DNA evidence or other substantiating evidence cleared them of their crime and saved them from getting the needle.
#DeathSentence #DNA #InnocenceProject #BloodyAngola #Podcast
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 20 Jul 2023 - 51 - Death Chamber Part 3
In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We wrap up the Death chamber covering the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.
#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #Podcasts #Deathchamberpart3 #deathchamber #Execution #Convict
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DEATH CHAMBER PART 3 FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jim: Hey, everyone. And welcome back to Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. I got something to say before we get started.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: We are nominated under the People's Choice Podcast Awards for 2023 under the History section.
Jim: Love it.
Woody: We're nominated as one of the best in the world. We need y'all to, please, go and vote. It's podcastawards.com. And they'll have you enter in your email and a password, and that's to stop people from cheating the bots. But you can enter as many times as you want to from different emails, and then they'll send you a confirmation email. But right underneath that, when you fill it in, they ask you, "Would you be a final judge?" So, what happens is this process, when it closes at the end of this month, they're going to take the top 10 in each category that make the finals and then like 20,000 of the people that vote it, they're going to randomly select them to be final judges. And so, if you would check that you'll be a final judge. You don't have to judge in every category, and you don't have to vote in every category, but you do that and you go under it.
And I've been nominated and Kelly Jennings has been nominated for Unspeakable, our Dear Friend for the Adam Curry's People's Choice Podcast Year Award. I've been nominated for best male host in the world for Real Life Real Crime. Both Kelly and I have been nominated under Best True Crime. Real Life Real Crime and Real Life Real Crime Daily, and original Real Life Real Crime nominated under drama and storytelling. And you can also fill out the most influential podcaster, you could do that also. Oh, and Bloody Angola is nominated under the-- we found out last night that Bloody Angola is also nominated under the The Adam Curry's People's Choice, which is the biggest one, y'all, of the year award. So, thank you so much and we love y'all. Voting is going to close in the next--
Jim: 31st.
Woody: Yeah, 31st. Huge honor for Bloody. Bloody deserves it. And it's a history podcast
basically. I mean, we're telling you the history of America's bloodiest prison. Jim: That's right.
Woody: And so, thank you so much. It's such an honor and I know it's a pain in the ass to take the time to go do that, but it really validates what we're doing and gives us a shot in the arm and-
Jim: Helps us to bring you more.
Woody: -help us to keep going and bring more content to you. And speaking of that, our Patreon members, thank you so much. We appreciate you. You rock. Couldn't do the show without you. And, y'all, look, how old are we now?
Jim: You know, Woody, that's a good question.
Woody: It seems like it's been forever but in a good way.
Jim: Yeah. I think we're coming up on our year.
Woody: Yeah, it's got to be close to the year. I mean, like real close. Jim: I have to look that up next episode, I'll tell y'all.
Woody: Very sweet to be nominated for both at The Adam Curry's People's Choice Award and then under the History section. It's just a real, real testament to what we're doing and that y'all love the show. So, thank you so much.
Jim: 100%, and History, both Woody and I are big history buffs and so that's a cool category for us to be nominated in. It's different. Both of us have been nominated for other podcasts that we did in the past. But this is kind of a cool one because we both just love history, and we know all y'all do too.
Woody: This is our first one that we've done it together. Jim: Yeah.
Woody: So, it means a lot to me too.
Jim: Absolutely. Me as well. And so, we're going to get into-- we brought you a couple of episodes with Death Chamber talking about these guys telling a little bit about their crimes and their executions and all that. And this is a continuance of that. This will be the final Death Chamber that we cover. I want to say this before we start for our patron members, we're going to do a bonus episode with the true final Death Chamber, which is the last few that we're not going to cover right now here. But after we're done with this, keep in mind, we've pretty much covered all the people since 1980 that have been executed via Gruesome Gertie or lethal injection at Angola.
So, we're going to go ahead and start it up and we're going to tell you first about Alvin Moore. He was executed by electrocution in 1987. I'm going to tell you a little bit about his case. And it starts with Aron Wilson. So, Aron Wilson and his wife Jo Ann and their four-month-old daughter, Regina, lived in Bossier City, Louisiana. Alvin Moore was a former neighbor and coworker of Aron's at the Veterans Administration Hospital there. On July 9th of 1980, Moore picked up Arthur Lee Stewart, Jr, and Dennis Sloan in his automobile. So, they're riding around, and at some point, Moore goes to the Wilsons' house, and he decides he wants to get some money. They apparently supposedly owed him some money. So according to Sloan, who was with him, Moore knocked on the door and Jo Ann Wilson answered it. She and Moore talked briefly, and Moore entered the house. Five minutes later, Sloan followed Moore to the door of the house. The door was slightly ajar, and Sloan saw Moore and Jo Ann making sex, as he would call it, on the floor of the living room.
Woody: Really?
Jim: Sloan returned to Moore's automobile, and he was going to tell Stewart about it, what was going on, of course. "Man, they're in there doing it on the floor." Stewart and Sloan then
entered the house. Moore and a crying Ms. Wilson had gone into the bedroom. She's crying. Yeah. Where baby Regina was also crying. Moore was going crazy, ransacking the house. Jo Ann Wilson was described as panicky and scared. She also appeared to be frightened of Moore. So, Sloan, in testimony, said that Jo Ann Wilson said, "Take whatever you want. Just get out of my house." Sloan also testified that Ms. Wilson asked Moore not to hurt her or her child. After being threatened, Ms. Wilson gave Moore a box of Kennedy half dollars. Sloan took a white bucket with $18.80 in pennies. And Stewart took some stereo components. This is back in the days when they had the--
Woody: Yeah, when [crosstalk] had the Hi-Fi.
Jim: Exactly. Sloan and Stewart left the house and heard Jo Ann Wilson screaming behind them. Moore runs out of the house five minutes later, he's carrying a knife in his hand. Stewart testified that this was the same knife that Moore had on the backseat of his car when the group drove up to the house. Moore told Stewart and Sloan, "I'm fixing to trip y'all out. I stabbed that bitch nine times." The three then drove to Church's Fried Chicken and McDonald's. Jo Ann Wilson--
Woody: Paid in pennies, probably.
Jim: Yeah. Jo Ann Wilson managed to call 911. The call was received by the Bossier City Police Department. A unit got dispatched and a patrolman arrives at the house two minutes later. He knocked on the front door, but Jo Ann Wilson said she was unable to open it. He kicked the door in and found blood, of course, all over the living room. Officer Fields found Ms. Wilson lying in the bedroom and both rooms were in disarray. The victim was nude from the waist down, was bleeding from her vagina, chest and arms. She was having difficulty breathing and told Officer Fields she was dying. He asked her who stabbed her, and she responded, Alvin. Fields asked her that was the patrolman if she knew Alvin. And she replied he was a black guy that used to live down the street. It was obvious to Fields that Ms. Wilson was dying and she died about ten minutes later. So, they go, they arrest Moore at 01:00 AM the next morning. Of course, they find those stereo components we told you about, the white bucket and pennies were found in the trunk of his car.
So, they had all the evidence there. He goes through trials, he's found guilty, and he was executed in 1987. Moore made no final statement to the public. His attorney said his last words were to him, in which he said, "They can kill my body, but they can't kill my soul."
Woody: You better hope your soul was right.
Jim: Yeah, your soul might be headed somewhere you don't want to be. Woody: You were playing God when you killed your victim.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: You raped her and stabbed her and all that. It's crazy. These stories, y'all, are disturbing. But you know what? These are death penalty cases. And there's a reason we have the death penalty. Some people don't deserve to breathe.
I'm going to tell you about Benjamin Berry. On January 30th, 1978, Benjamin Berry and David Pennington drove from Baton Rouge to Metairie, which is about a 40, 45-minute drive, Metairie being on the outskirts in New Orleans, y'all, with the intention of robbing the Metairie Bank and Trust Company. Berry entered the bank and drew a 9mm automatic pistol, and there was an exchange of gunfire between Berry and Cochran. Now, Cochran was a
Jefferson Parish deputy sheriff working as a guard in the bank. Y'all, that's a common thing. They work extra duty is what it's called, their side jobs.
When they started shooting, Berry fired three shots, and Cochran fired one shot. Cochran's shot struck Berry in the lower left chest. Then, two of Berry's shots struck Cochran in the shoulder and the neck, causing Cochran to die. Berry and Pennington fled the scene and hauled ass back to Baton Rouge, where they were both arrested. Now, Berry was indicted for first degree murder. So goes through, and naturally, he gets found guilty. I don't know what type of surveillance cameras they had in '78, January 30--
Jim: Probably not too great.
Woody: But you got a lot of eyewitnesses, and I'm sure they did whatever, because death penalty cases, they have to have a lot of shit. But he was indicted for murder, found guilty, and Benjamin Berry was executed on June 7th, 1987. So, what, nine years after. And Berry was convicted in the fatal shooting of Robert Cochran, JPSO deputy I told y'all about. And guess what, Jim? He made no final statement, but I'm going to read y'all an article from the New York Times, dated June 8th, 1987. It says, "A high school dropout condemned for murder in a guard and a bank robbery was put to death early today in Louisiana's electric chair."
Jim: Oh, Gruesome Gertie.
Woody: Gruesome Gertie. "'Benjamin Berry, 31 years old, was executed shortly after midnight,' said C. Paul Phelps, Secretary of Department of Corrections in Baton Rouge. He was the 76th prisoner executed in the United States and the 8th in Louisiana since the United States Supreme Court allowed states to restore the death penalty in 1976. Mr. Berry's appeals ran out late Friday when the Supreme Court refused to stop the execution." And old buddy of mine and dear friend of my dad, good, bad, and different, and my mom served on the parole board underneath him, Governor Edwin W. Edwards refused to pardon him and he wouldn't step in. Apparently, Mr. Berry had already accepted that his sentence would not be stayed. And on Thursday, he asked the warden of state prison in Angola to move him off the death row to the isolation cell down the hall from the electric chair so he could be alone."
"Mr. Berry was convicted in 1978 of killing Robert Cochran, a bank guard in a bank robbery in Metairie on January 30th, 1978. This was his 8th execution date. The others had been canceled by appeals. He spent Saturday visiting members of his family. The prison warden, Hilton Butler, said about 30 people held a candlelight vigil in front of the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge to protest the execution, and roughly a dozen people gathered for similar protests in New Orleans. Several death penalty supporters gathered outside the prison's front gate. They wore shirts lettered with the message "Justice for All, Even the Victims." The execution was the first of five scheduled in Louisiana and the next two weeks, and the first in the state since January 4th, 1985."
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Governor Edwards didn't play. He's like, "You want a what? Ride the lightning,
bitch."
Jim: And I heard you say Hilton Butler--[crosstalk]
Woody: We talked about Ms. Ann before and everything, and my mama knows them all. Well, they grew up in St. Francisville wherever they live-- I think they still live there-- When I was in school, they were still living there.
Jim: I believe they still do. As a matter of fact, the son of Hilton Butler is a listener of Bloody Angola.
Woody: Shoutout.
Jim: Who was also lifelong Angola employed correctional officer and has reached out to us
a few times, mainly fact checking. [laughter]
Woody: That's cool because the history doesn't mean-- everything that comes out of books isn't always right. It's definitely not as valid as the people who lived it.
Jim: That's right. We'd love to have him on the show, I know you're listening.
Woody: Absolutely. Shoutout to you. Hey, shoutout to all you correctional officers at Bloody
Angola in the past, current, and the wardens and everybody else.
Jim: Yeah. A lot of them listen to us and they do reach out and let us know.
The next guy we're going to tell you about is David Dene Martin. And he was a killer of four, minimum here. He killed these four people in Terrebonne Parish.
Woody: Terrebonne down south.
Jim: Down south. And he was executed by electrocution in 1985 as well. So, a lot of 85s in
there. And we're going to give you the facts of the case.
In 1977, David Martin's wife, Gloria, began to work in a restaurant lounge owned by Bobby Todd, who was a victim. The next day, she had sexual relations with Todd. That's not good. The following day, she informed her husband of this fact. She refused Martin's request that she quit working for Todd. So basically, she goes home, says, "I'm sleeping with my boss." And he says, "Well, you got to quit." And she says, "Nah. I'm not going to quit."
Woody: Keep my benefits.
Jim: Yeah. That night, Martin goes and he steals a friend's Colt Python .357 Mag.
Woody: That's a bad pistol. Yeah, second largest-- It used to be the second largest caliber in the world.
Jim: So to make matters worse, the firearm was loaded with hollow point bullets, and Martin later purchased an additional box of shells for it. On August 13--
Woody: Shit, it's a revolver, how many bullets do you need? Jim: Yeah. Mike said he's going to kill him good.
Woody: Kill him good.
Jim: That’s what Mike would say. On August 13th, Martin visited his next-door neighbor, Raymond Rushing, and Martin told Rushing he was going to shoot Todd. He explained that he was jealous of his wife's relationship with Todd. On August 14th of that year, Martin told another friend, Chester Golden, that his wife was working at the restaurant and would not quit. He indicated that he had a bone to pick with Todd and had waited for the last two nights
outside Todd's restaurant for an opportunity to get Todd. So, he's telling everybody about this. Martin showed Golden the stolen pistol. He told Golden that because he stole the gun from a felon, its theft would not be reported.
Woody: True.
Jim: Golden told Martin that he looked pretty drug out and had lost weight. Martin replied that he had been up for two nights and had not been eating. That evening, according to accounts he later gave, Martin drove to the vicinity of the trailer in which Todd lived. He parked down the road from the trailer so he could approach it in the guise of a hitchhiker on foot. So, he's pretending like he's hitchhiking. He entered the trailer, and he confronted Todd who offered him a roll of bills. "Here, let me give you some money."
Woody: [crosstalk] -makes up for banging your wife?
Jim: Yeah. Martin, he ignored that. He basically said, "I just want you to know my name."
Then, he shoots Todd twice in the chest.
Woody: Wow.
Jim: He proceeded to shoot three other people in the trailer. Woody: Wow.
Jim: Todd's bodyguard, he had a bodyguard, and two nude females. Woody: What?
Jim: They must have been doing something in there. [crosstalk] Come in, yeah. So, Martin inflicted multiple bullet wounds on each of those four. One of the women was first wounded in the abdomen. She told Martin she was in pain, begging him to finish her. He shot her in the head and killed her.
Woody: Wow.
Jim: Martin then took the roll of money to make it look like a robbery and left. Around 08:00 PM, he returns to Golden's home. He was excited. He asked Golden, he says, "Take a ride with me." During the ride, he tells Golden, "I killed four people at the restaurant." Martin said he had not touched anything, and although the authorities might suspect him, they had no proof that he committed those, although the fact that he told 1500 people. Martin confessed to four more people that night. He had told one of them, Pamela Wilson, that he had thrown the gun in the bayou. Martin was arrested a short time later. The sheriff who made the arrest told reporters that Martin appeared strung out on dope at the time, probably was. Martin's brother retained a Texas attorney with 10 years' criminal experience and some experience with capital cases. The attorney associated a Louisiana lawyer with limited criminal experience and no experience in capital offenses.
Woody: Most of the times, big shot attorneys come out of state, because they're not licensed to practice under Napoleonic code of law, they have to get local representation, and then they can take over the case and act under that guy's license.
Jim: Yeah. There you go. And that is definitely what happened here. And using the words, "Walk me or fry me," Martin told counsel in the first meeting to either seek a full acquittal or the death penalty. So, how do you like that? "Walk me or fry me." He didn't want to spend time in jail, in other words.
Woody: I got kind of respect for that, actually.
Jim: So, they decided to fry him. And David Martin was executed on January 4th, 1985. He was convicted, obviously, of all four of those murders. That's quadruple murder, y'all. All of them, of course, being shot to death. And that mobile home, in case you're curious, that was near a town called Homa, which is way down south.
Woody: [crosstalk] -down south actually, I drive through it every couple of weeks to go fishing.
Jim: Yeah. And he was for sure a drug addict, that came out during his trial. He made no final statement during his execution but a pardon board clemency hearing the afternoon before his death, Martin said, "To take someone's life is out of character for me. It's not David Martin. I am devastated of what I'm done, but I can't remember it. My life has been dedicated to saving lives, helping people, not destroying people. I know I wouldn't willingly take another person's life. Something bad went down, but it's not me. It wasn't right. I don't know. That's all." That's what he said.
Woody: Hey, idiot, you didn't just take one, you took four. That's a really, really interesting point. One of the mitigating circumstances in any death penalty case in the series I'm starting next week, I'm not going to give the name up yet. It's death penalty cases. And I don't get this, and I don’t understand and maybe they changed the law or something, but if you're high and you commit a death penalty infraction, if you will, then they can use that in a death penalty phase to get you off. I don't get that. I believe you chose to get fucking high, and whatever you did after that, you're still responsible for it.
Jim: Yeah. And another thing with that case is, and I notice this with a lot of cases, when you have a crime of passion of some sort, and even though this wasn't against-- was because of his wife, it wasn't against his wife. But it seems like these killings are more overboard. They're overkill, if you will.
Woody: He can't say he didn't plan it out because he bought bullets and he stole the gun. He told everybody.
Jim: Told everybody.
Woody: And I don't care how high you were, you weren't high for that long. But certainly raises some questions when-- not victim shaming or blaming, but homie had two bodyguards-- and two bodyguards?
Jim: Well, he had a bodyguard, two new females with him.
Woody: It must have been a titty bar or some-- I don't know. Shame that happened. He
didn't give any final last words, just to the pardon board.
Jim: Yeah, just to the pardon board. Nothing at the actual execution itself.
Woody: Yeah, well, very interesting. I did not know about the case. I may have to look into it some more one day. I have some good friends down there. And anytime you have something, especially from-- and Homa is not that small now, but an older crime like this, scenario like that, you can go to that town and find somebody that's of that age range and they'd be like, "Holy shit, I can tell you everything."
Jim: Oh, yeah. [crosstalk]
Woody: All right, let me take it to the next one. Ernest Knighton. Ernest Knighton, y'all, he was from Bossier Parish-- or the crime occurred in Bossier Parish, and Jim talked on the first one at Bossier Parish and Shreveport, they're just right across the river from each other, y'all. Literally, the river separates the two. And it's in the far northwestern corner of the state of Louisiana. Literally, when you leave Shreveport, I think it's like 15, 20 miles to the Texas line. But let me tell you about Ernest Knighton. And the facts are taken from the testimony of Mrs. Shell, who was the victim's wife, and are as follows.
Mr. and Mrs. Shell were working at the Fina Station on Benton and Shed Road in Bossier City between 8:00 and 8:30 PM. The defendant and another man, Anthony White, entered the station. White asked for a package of cigarettes and gave Mrs. Shell a dollar bill. This tells you how long ago, y'all, this was-- it was murder, it was on March 17th, 1981, I was 11. I don’t know if I was smoking yet, but I was probably getting really close. Dollar a pack, saying about right on the price. Anyway, he gave Mrs. Shell the dollar bill. When she returned his change, so they were even cheaper than a dollar, he walked around the service counter and told her, "This is a stick-up." Holding a gun, the defendant also went behind the counter and asked Mr. Shell where the money was kept. Ms. Shell, who had been talking on the telephone, went into the small room in the back of the station to retrieve the money and gave it to the defendant who had followed him into the room. Mrs. Shell heard a shot, Mr. Shell was wounded.
From her location, Mrs. Shell could not actually see her husband but said that he offered no resistance and said nothing to provoke defendant into shooting him. The defendant then ran out and told White to bring Mrs. Shell along with him. Anthony White grabbed Mrs. Shell who broke loose at the doorway, and retreated back inside the station and locked the door which then separated her from the two thieves. Mr. Shell died as a result of shock from blood loss from a single gunshot wound through the arm, abdomen, and chest. That's a hell of a shot.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Arm, abdomen, and chest. Maybe he was standing above him-- Jim: Somebody's-- like the John F. Kennedy [crosstalk] went into-- Woody: The magic bullet.
Jim: The governor--
Woody: He had to be above him or something, maybe he's getting out of the safe. That's the only way you can get that angle. That's crazy. Additional testimony by Wanda Smith, a woman who had driven with defendant, Anthony White and another man, Wayne Harris, to the Fina station, revealed that the defendant and White ran from the service station, jumped into the car, and had Wanda Smith drive to a motel and get a room. There, an argument over the money began. And waving the gun he used to shoot Mr. Shell, Earnest Knighton stated in Wanda's presence that, "The man's hand looked like it was fixing to move, so I had to shoot him." Y'all, that all comes from the trial, and naturally, he was found guilty.
Ernest Earnest Knighton, Jr. was executed on October 30th, 1984. Knighton was convicted of the shooting of death of Ralph Shell, a Bossier City service station proprietor, during an attempted robbery on March 17th, 1981. I want you to notice how fast these executions were. This is three years. And the longest one we did today was nine years. Now, they don't execute them anymore. We've covered the people have been on death row 28 years plus years like that. Fuck that, they just need to kill them.
So, they get Knighton into Gruesome Gertie, strap him down, and we told y'all about the tie-down teams and all that, and basically drug them in, strapped them down and they say, "Hey, dude--" they didn’t say dude, they read the death warrant.
Jim: No, they might have. [chuckles]
Woody: Yeah, right. They read the death warrant. "You've been sentenced to death by the State of Louisiana, da, da, da. Do you have any final words?" And this is what he said. He said, "I am sorry. More sorry than I can say Mr. Shell is dead and that I am responsible. I feel sorry for Mrs. Shell and all of Mr. Shell's family and friends. I feel sorry for my mother, my family, and everyone else who will grieve for me. I have asked God to forgive me. I have to say that what you are doing is wrong. If I thought my death would bring back Mr. Shell or save someone else from a murder, I would volunteer. But I know it won't work. You don't teach respect for life by killing. I urge you not to kill anyone else. I ask God to forgive you for killing me. And I now ask God in the name of Jesus to receive my spirit."
Jim: He had me on the first part, lost me on the second. Woody: I know, right?
Jim: I'm glad he took responsibility and admitted.
Woody: And when he started in on the "I forgive you for killing me," they're doing their job, dude. They didn't make you go into that bank and rob them and all that. I don't know, but at least he tried to say something. But let's talk about the death penalty for a minute. When I was in college and studying criminal justice, they talked about criminal deterrence. How do you stop crime? The ultimate one being the death penalty. But the studies have proven, for a crime deterrent to be effective, it has to be swift and certain. Meaning that if you leave here today and you go and Lori Johnson, best banging chick in the world, Hancock Whitney, right down the street, that's where I do all my shit. But if you go in that bank and you kill someone, you're on camera, you're going to get convicted, etc. But nowadays, you're going to go sit for 28 years and appeals on death row and all that, it's not effective as a deterrent.
Now, let's take it we don't live in this world, let's put you in Woody's world. If you walked in the bank and you did it, and they caught your ass and they put you to the nearest tree and strung you the fuck up, that's going to stop the normal person. A lock keeps an honest man honest. That would certainly deter people more than what you do now because even like the Manson murderers, dude got out of prison yesterday, or the chick got out of prison yesterday. But it has to be swift and certain. The problem with our justice system is it is nothing if not slow.
Jim: Yeah. The wheels of justice turn slow, as they say, and I agree 100%. And they have a lot of technology now that they didn't have then. Look, we have another series that we do every now and then that talks about exonerations, and certainly those happen. Certainly, you never want to think about people being sentenced to death that did not commit a crime, but it's happened.
Woody: I'm sure it's happened. Well, they probably committed some crime. It's not that one.
Jim: Right. So, it certainly does happen. But the good thing about technology these days is it's almost impossible to get away with something very long like it used to be. And I think about serial killers in particular because DNA has come so far. You almost can't breathe on somebody without being able to figure out who it was.
Woody: And when I started, we couldn't even get DNA done, but I'll take it a step further and it trips me out, because I think about it every day, everywhere I go, because of what you told me. And that is that you're on camera up to--
Jim: It's like 46 times per day on average.
Woody: On average. So, everywhere you go, you're on camera. But now, that's 46 average. If you go somewhere and you're showing your ass, look how many videos are going viral. Everybody wants to shoot a video and post shit. Not only advances in technology and DNA and forensics, and the familial DNA, and just everything. The computers they use to reenact crime scenes, and trace the bullets and everything else, all this technology as it gets better, but you also have all these cameras and people are more aware. And you have social media now which, shit, you didn't have back in 80s. The internet wasn't invented.
Jim: Yeah. When you're looking for a suspect, the sheriff's office can just post that on social media and automatically thousands and thousands of people see it. Back in the day, when Woody was doing cases, you had to go door to door sometimes.
Woody: You had to go to door every time, and you waited and you had to haul ass. I can tell you so many cases that I had to haul ass to Channel 2, Channel 33, and Channel 9 to get them the press release before they went on air at 6 o'clock or 10 o'clock, or whatever, just before Fox was even in Baton Rouge. That was it. That’s all you had. And you only have a small percentage of the population that watches the fucking news, the local news.
Jim: Yeah. Great point.
Woody: And I agree with you, certainly we don't want anybody to be wrongfully executed. And we've talked about and given shoutouts on the stories that people who have been exonerated. But as the technology advances, as the DNA advances, so do the crimes, and the defenses for the crimes, meaning that there's no more respect for life. Everybody just thinks you pull the trigger and there's no consequence. They have never worked a homicide scene. They've never had to sit with a crying family and all that. But more importantly, the defense, because all these trials and all these cases have come in years before, these lawyers are learning about it in law school. And if you choose to do the criminal path, you're going to know about it. And all these cases have been cited. So, you have volumes and volumes and volumes of more information, just like the DNA is so far advanced now and all these other crime fighting techniques, the defense has so many more techniques to use against prosecution. And that's why we got people, like one guy who's the second longest living on death row, and damn it, I can't remember his name, he and his lover murdered that little boy and raped him right here-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. You did a--
Woody: -on the river. And I did a story on that, but he's been on death row like 29 years now. The other dude, his accomplice was on death row, fuck, he died of natural causes. This dude's like 80 years old now, something like that. So, it is what it is. And we want to bring y'all this series. And Jim's got one more, and then the [unintelligible 00:38:50] series will be locked up for patron members.
Jim: Patron members. So, we're going to tell you about Elmo Sonnier. Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. And many of you, it may click, and we'll tell you after we do this particular segment and why it did click for you. And Elmo Sonnier was executed in 1984 by electrocution, Gruesome Gertie. Give you the facts of the case.
On the evening of November 4, 1977, David LeBlanc, who was 16, and Loretta, and Bourque, who was 18, attended a high school football game. Later that evening, the couple, they go park in a remote area in St. Martin Parish. Look, back in those days, that was parking. You take your girlfriend, and you go somewhere and you make out a little bit.
Woody: [crosstalk] LSU lakes and call it the submarine races.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: "What are you doing here, son?" "Watching submarine races."
Jim: Watching submarine races, yeah. So, they go parking, I guess you could say. That area of St. Martin Parish, it was kind of like a lover's lane. That's kind of where everybody-- it was pretty little lake and the girls would feel romantic. I think it was romantic or whatnot. Later that night, approximately 01:00 AM, Elmo Patrick and Eddie James Sonnier were rabbit hunting together, and they come across a couple's car. Rabbit hunting at night, huh, Woody?
Woody: Yeah, right. That’s not legal.
Jim: Yeah. [laughs] Using a badge one of the brothers had obtained while working as a security guard and both armed with .22 caliber rifles, the two approach and enter LeBlanc's car. The victims were informed they were trespassing and that they would have to be brought to the landowner to determine if that landowner wanted to press charges. This is young kids. So, they believe that. They also confiscate each teen's driver's license to kind of further their act of, "We are the cops." Ms. Bourque and Mr. LeBlanc were then handcuffed and placed in the back seat of their own car.
Woody: And they brought handcuffs too.
Jim: Brought handcuffed, which tells you, [crosstalk] this wasn't their first rodeo. Leaving their own car behind, the Sonnier brothers take the teens' car and they basically drive the couple 21 miles to a remote oilfield located in Iberia Parish. And Iberia Parish, this is oilfield country. Everybody just about in Iberia Parish works in the oilfields.
Woody: Except for Tabasco.
Jim: Yeah, except for Tabasco. That's right. The other famous Iberia employer. Now, this is an area that was well known to the defendants. Once at the oilfield, both victims were removed from the car. David LeBlanc was taken into the woods, and they handcuffed him to a tree. Loretta Bourque was taken a short distance away, and she was raped by Elmo Sonnier. She then reluctantly agreed to have intercourse with Eddie Sonnier on the condition that they will release her and Mr. LeBlanc afterwards. Upon completion of the rapes, Patrick Sonnier removed the handcuffs and brought them back to the road where they were parked. At that point, Patrick Sonnier told his brother, he starts freaking out, and he says, "I'm going to be sent back to Angola," that’s the exact quote, he had done some time in Angola, should the victims notify police. So, David LeBlanc, Loretta Bourque, were then forced to lie side by side, face down, and each were shot three times at close range in the back of the head. So, execution style, pretty much.
The Sonniers then drove LeBlanc's vehicle back to the original site where the couple was first accosted in order to pick up their own vehicle. Remember, they left that at the scene.
They get there and the car has a flat tire. The brothers use a jack from the LeBlanc's vehicle, and this is important. They use that jack to apply a spare tire. And that jack was later seized by police from the trunk of Sonnier's car. So, there's your evidence. These two rocket scientists use a jack.
Woody: And then, put it in the--[crosstalk]
Jim: In their own car, yeah. Dumbass. The brothers then destroyed the victim's driver's license. And the following day, the rifles, they dispose of those, they actually buried them in remote areas. Investigations also revealed that between $30 and $40 were stolen from the victims prior to the arrest. They noticed this money missing, and of course, they tied that back to them. The Sonniers were arrested on December 5th 1977, following a tip from a local man who reported seeing the blue Dodge Dart parked in a remote area during the early morning hours of November 5th. They were advised of their rights, taken to the sheriff's office in New Iberia. And there, Patrick Sonnier, he starts singing like a canary, signs, verbal and written confessions, and was transferred to the parish prison. While en route, he starts making other statements to the officer. So, he's singing. The following day, he even agrees to let him videotape a confession. And all three statements indicated that Patrick had participated in the abduction and had personally shot them.
The police, after the basic directions from Patrick Sonnier, recovered the two rifles that he buried. Ballistic test indicated that the bullets taken from the victim's head and brass casings were from that actual rifle. So, they've got everything they need. The defendant and his brother, they get indicted on two accounts of first-degree murder. And in 1978, they basically go to court. Of course, they plead not guilty because they have nothing to lose, but they do get convicted, and they get executed. I'm going to read you just a Times-Picayune, which Times-Picayune is the--
Woody: Major newspaper from New Orleans. Jim: Right. Huge, huge newspaper there. Woody: New Orleans and Mississippi area.
Jim: And in 1984, they got executed. Sonnier gets executed for that double murder. And this is Elmo Sonnier. He was convicted of the slayings of Loretta Bourque and her fiancé, David LeBlanc. He was the third person executed in Louisiana in four months at that time. Robert Wayne Williams was executed December 14th for killing a Baton Rouge supermarket guard. And he was the first person executed since 1961. So, there was a big delay between '61 and--
Woody: Yeah, they put the moratorium on it.
Jim: Yeah. So basically, when they got out of that moratorium, they started executing
everybody. We got some people waiting in line. Woody: Tired of feeding you.
Jim: That's right. And at that time, Woody and listeners, Ross Maggio was the warden at Angola. And he said that Sonnier spent his last day with Sister Helen Prejean, a New Orleans nun who served as a spiritual advisor and a female friend who was a lawyer but not involved in his case. The condemned man ate a steak dinner and was kept up to date as the five courts turned down his 11th hour pleas of stay. So, when you get executed, you basically, that last 24 hours of spent by your attorneys trying to get everyone to stay your execution. So, he didn't have any of that and they went on with it.
As he was led to the execution chamber, he looked at LeBlancs, and Mr. LeBlanc, the father basically of LeBlanc that was shot and killed. He says, "I can understand the way you feel. I have no hatred in my heart as I leave this world and I ask God to forgive what I have done." He then asked LeBlanc for forgiveness. Immediately after, Godfrey Bourque, the father of the other victim, who also witnessed, said, "He didn't ask me," which is-- he obviously and rightfully felt offended for that.
Both fathers sat expressionless with their arms crossed as the execution was carried out. They declined to talk to reporters afterwards. Sonnier last words were addressed to Prejean. He said, "I love you," and she replies, "I love you too." Sonnier, wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt, was then strapped to the death chair. Witnesses said he appeared to be smiling. At 12:07, his body was jolted with 2000 volts-
Woody: Light it up.
Jim: -of electricity, followed by 500 volts for 10 seconds. The 2000 volts was for 20. The sequence was repeated, and there was no movement after the second jolt. So, as Woody has told us in the past on this show, they don't just lift that lever and jolt you one time. They leave it up, pull it down, leave it up, pull it down.
Woody: And 20 seconds is a long time.
Jim: It's a long time, man. But his victims didn't even get that last 20 seconds. Sick.
Woody: Can you imagine laying side by side and you pretty much know they're going to kill you, but then you hear three shots from one rifle and whoever the boy or the girl got shot first, what was the other one thinking? I mean, you know you're dead.
Jim: Yeah. You went to your death scared to death. And that's just horrible. And so, you may have obviously, recognized Helen Prejean if you've listened to our show. These brothers, the Sonnier brothers, as well as Robert Wayne Williams, that was the character for Dead Man Walking, basically, where they based that character was really off of two separate people. In the opening scenes of Dead Man Walking, that's where it shows that lover's lane murder that we just told you about. And so, it was a real deal, Sister Helen Prejean, real person, she's still alive to this day. And regardless of where you sit on the death penalty, her heart's in the right place. I don't fault her. We may not see eye to eye on certain things, but I think she's a wonderful human being and still alive to this day.
Woody: Yeah, she is. We'd love to have you on the show.
Jim: Yeah. If you happen to be listening, Sister Prejean, we'd love to have you on and share
your views.
Woody: If one of y'all listeners know her, yeah, that would be a great show.
Jim: Yeah, it really would. So, if you know her out there and get word to her that we love-- we come to her if she needs us to, no problem. And so, that is a wrap on that series. For you patron members, just a few that we're going to do just for you guys. The final, I think it's four or five that we have left to feature on that series just for you guys. And we saved some good ones for you patron members.
Woody: And if you want to become a patron, go to Patreon and type in Bloody Angola. Jim: Yup.
Woody: Right.
Jim: That's all you got to do, it'll pull it up. We have several different tiers, of course. I know a lot of y'all like those transcriptions. We do transcribe all those episodes just for patron members. And we put them in PDF format so you can download those. You can actually print them out and you can read them like a book. Some people like to read.
Woody: Yeah, I still like to read too. I think that's a pretty genius idea.
Jim: Absolutely. And don't forget, as we mentioned at the beginning, vote, vote, vote.
Woody: Hey, mom. I know you're listening to this because you love Bloody Angola, and I know you read every single night. My mom likes it--
Jim: Love it.
Woody: She's in her early-- well, I won't tell her age, but she works out every day still. But
she listens to us when she works out.
Jim: Ms. Overton, we appreciate you. Thank you. Woody: But she likes to read more.
Jim: Yeah, she's a sharp lady.
Woody: Mom, you can get the PDF of transcripts. Jim: That's right.
Woody: We love all y'all. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. You rock. Thank you again for getting us nominated for Best History Podcast, and then, the overall best in the world, Adam Curry's People's Choice. Go to podcastawards.com and vote for us if you would, please. We only got, I think, less than two weeks left.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Hey, just to be nominated is fire. To make the finals would be sweet. To win it all--
Jim: Blessing. Total blessing. And we love you, appreciate you all, y'all very much. Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim and Woody: Peace.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 13 Jul 2023 - 50 - Death Chamber Part 2
In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We continue to cover the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.
#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #Podcasts #Deathchamberpart2 #deathchamber #Execution #Convict
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Full Transcript Death Chamber Part 2
[Bloody Angola theme]
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody- Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. Thank y'all for listening and liking and sharing. Please continue to do so. Leave us a review wherever you listen up in your podcast. And Patreon members, we appreciate y'all, you rock. Thank you for your continued support. This one, we're going back to one that got a whole lot of interest and-- [crosstalk]
Jim: People loved it.
Woody: Well, I love it.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I guess, you're twisted y'all, right? We're going to tell you about- Jim: Death chamber.
Woody: -death chamber stuff.
Jim: Yeah, Part 2.
Woody: Execution. Yeah, Death Chamber Part due. Jim: Part duh.
Woody: Duh.
Jim: Yeah. So, we're going to get into it and what we do with these folks-- If you hadn't listened yet, you can go back and listen to Death Chamber Part 1. The good thing about these is we cover just individual convicts that were executed at Angola. We tell just a little synopsis of their crime, and they got some really interesting final words in there for these guys.
Woody: [crosstalk] -things like that.
Jim: People just loved it the first time, so we're going to continue with it. I'll start out with our first convict up for, I guess, grabs today, and that is Leslie Lowenfield. Leslie Lowenfield was executed in 1988, and he rode the lightning.
Woody: Yeah, he graduated-- [crosstalk] Jim: Electrocuted. Gruesome Gertie. Woody: Gruesome Gertie.
Jim: He had a seat in that chair. And to tell you a little bit about this guy, he was a native of Guyana. He came to Louisiana from Canada in 1981, and he met his primary victim, which was a lady named Sheila Thomas.
Woody: I think he's well-traveled. I think Guyana is like in Africa or somewhere.
Jim: Yeah, then he goes to Canada.
Woody: And then he comes to south, to Louisiana.
Jim: He figured it out. He figured out the USA was where he wanted to be, I guess. And we didn't want him here after--
Woody: To make [crosstalk] Gruesome Gertie.
Jim: Yeah. Sheila Thomas was his primary victim. She was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana,-
Woody: JP. Yeah.
Jim: -which is around the New Orleans area.
Woody: Actually, it's one of the largest parishes geographically, because it expands all the way around Orleans, all the way down to Grand Isle. Did you know Grand Isle is in Jefferson Parish?
Jim: I did not.
Woody: Absolutely. There it cut across all that marsh and everything else, land wise,
Tangipahoa is the longest parish in the state. North and south, I think JP is the biggest. Jim: Interesting. I didn't know Tangi was the longest.
Woody: Yeah, Tangi is longest state north and south. Very longest parish--[crosstalk]
Jim: Very interesting. So, Sheila Thomas was a deputy sheriff. And Ms. Thomas, along with her daughter, young daughter, who was Shantel Osborne moved in with Lowenfield in the summer of 1981. So, you can already see. Uh-oh.
Woody: Right.
Jim: Lowenfield and Ms. Thomas, they lived together off and on for about a year. During that year, Ms. Thomas left Lowenfield on three separate occasions and returned to live with her mother. So, they're probably fighting, having arguments.
Woody: Off and on. Went off and on.
Jim: Yeah. Lowenfield became increasingly bitter following each separation. So, every time
she would leave, he would get more and more pissed.
Woody: Right.
Jim: When Ms. Thomas returned to her mother's home for the last time, he repeatedly threatened and harassed Ms. Thomas and her mother, victim, Myrtle Griffin. In the late afternoon of August 30th, 1982, Owen Griffin, Sheila Thomas' stepfather, was in a vacant lot near his home in Marrero, which is like an outskirts of New Orleans. He was playing cards with friends. Owen Griffin, all of a sudden, hears shots ring out from their home. He runs to the house, rushed inside, where more shots were fired. When police arrived, they found five bodies sprawled about the living area of the house, they found the bodies of Sheila Thomas, her four-year old daughter Shantel, Owen Griffin, his wife Myrtle Griffin,
Woody: Wow.
Jim: -and Carl Osborne, the father of Shantel. All of the victims had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, each had been shot in the head at close range.
Woody: That's crazy. Well, think about that last seconds when you're sitting there and whatever pops off and he shoots the first one. You're like, "What the f--?" And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Jim: Just blasting--[crosstalk]
Woody: You're just sitting there. You know, I'm sure someone trying to scramble and get
away, but he's close enough to shoot them in the head. Jim: No doubt about it.
Woody: No mercy. Animal.
Jim: No mercy, and total animal. And he goes to court, gets convicted, gets sentenced to death. And eventually, as a matter of fact, in 1988, he does get executed. His final statement included remarks directed at his two attorneys, Wayne Walker and John Craft, who had worked on his trial and appeal. His last words were, "I hope you feel satisfied. Don't give up on me. Although my life will be over tonight, because the one responsible is out there."
Woody: Wow.
Jim: Yeah. Deny it to the end. "There is no reason to hold anything against me. And the rest who would lie when I'm gone, the body will be gone, but the spirit will live on. Mr. Walker and John Craft, your job was more important than my life. I hope you feel satisfied. Thank you to all of you, and peace."
Woody: Did he say peace?
Jim: He said peace. That was his final words.
Woody: Peace-- [crosstalk]
Jim: How dare he use the word.
Woody: Right. Road to hell. Yeah.
Jim: [chuckles] Yeah.
Woody: [crosstalk] -use a moniker.
Jim: But here's an interesting thing about this entire case. Dale Brown, the head basketball coach at that time, actually attended his execution.
Woody: Oh, I didn't know that.
Jim: They had been corresponding since Dale Brown toured Angola years earlier with the LSU basketball team actually became friends, and he attended that execution. I found that very interesting.
Woody: Wow. That’s crazy. So, that was the real deal execution. Gruesome Gertie. I got to sit in probably around that same time, and the chair would not, obviously, get executed, but think about the difference between what they do now. They just put him asleep, in a Gruesome Gertie,-
Jim: Oh, yeah.
Woody: -they strap you in and you about to ride, "rahhh." Jim: Yeah, lights.
Woody: Yeah, lights in. And off-on. rahhh. They don't just hit him once. They did it like, three or four to five times. So, fuck him, and he got what he deserved.
Jim: Yeah. And don't use our peace anymore. [laughs]
Woody: Yeah. Never use the peace. Tell the devil peace, son of a bitch. Jim: That's right.
Woody: All right. I'm going to take you to a guy named Timothy Baldwin. And the date of the murder was April the 4th, 1978. He killed a lady named Mary James Peters. Now, what's unusual about this killing one person and getting a death penalty? Well, Mary James Peters was 85 years old. That's bad, right?
Jim: Yeah. Elderly.
Woody: But she was blind.
Jim: Oh, my God. That's horrible.
Woody: He beat her to death with a skillet, a stool, a small television, and a telephone. You would think, me being retired from, say police, I would have all these pronunciations correctly, but I'm going to say this one wrong, because every time I say it, somebody corrects me. But I say Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, which is, y'all, is all the way up northeast in Louisiana. Great fishing and hunting. He was electrocuted in Louisiana on September 10th, 1984. Let me tell you about the case.
Timothy Baldwin, and his wife Rita, and their seven children were neighbors of Mary James Peters in West Monroe, Louisiana. Again, y'all, that's way northeast Louisiana. He was roommates with them from 1971 until 1977. Mrs. Peters was godmother to their youngest, Russell. During the latter part of their stay in West Monroe, William Odell Jones also resided with the Baldwins. Okay.
The group went to Bossier City for six months, and now, y'all, Bossier City is on the other end of the north part of state by Shreveport. All right, so probably about a three-hour drive. The group went to Bossier City for six months and then moved to Ohio. The oldest daughter, Michelle, remained in West Monroe with one brother. A second son entered the service. Marilyn Hampton and her three daughters stayed with the Baldwins in Ohio. Marilyn, Timothy Baldwin, and her children then left, accompanied by Jones. Baldwin and Jones worked together in the business of installing aluminum siding. After the departure of her husband, Rita Baldwin got into financial difficulties and was picked up on bad check charges. Her four younger children went to live with Michelle in West Monroe. Meanwhile, Timothy Baldwin, our bad guy, Jones, Marilyn Hampton and her three children led an itinerant existence. Their last means of transportation was a 1978 black Ford van which had been rented in Tampa, Florida.
On April 4th, 1978, Marilyn Hampton and Timothy Baldwin drove the van to West Monroe. Jones and the children stayed at a cabin in Holmes State Park, near Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi is not that far. Ouachita, however you want to say it in the Monroe is pretty much on the Mississippi, Louisiana. And just north of that is the Arkansas line. So, about an hour from there to Jackson. So, Baldwin and Marilyn Hampton visited Michelle's apartment in West Monroe but left there around 8:00 PM. Shortly thereafter, a van was seen parked in front of Mrs. Peters' house. A man and woman were observed leaving the residence between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM. Shortly before their departure, passersby saw and heard indications that someone in the Peters' home was being beaten.
Baldwin testified in his own behalf and admitted that he and Marilyn visited Mrs. Peters that evening but denied the murder. Mrs. Peters, who was 85 years old, was beaten with various things, among them a skillet, a stool, and a telephone.
Jim: Oh, my God, and this is a blind woman. Woody: Right.
Jim: She doesn't even know it's coming at. Woody: Right. Yeah.
Jim: Poor. Damn.
Woody: That's unimaginable, right? Jim: Poor lady. Argh.
Woody: Think about the one I had Ms. [unintelligible [00:12:39] had the 57 blows. It was from a base and a Coke bottle, but she was on a walker and stuff. But at least she could see it coming, yeah?
Jim: Yeah, that's awful.
Woody: Anyway, she remained on the kitchen floor overnight and was discovered the next morning shortly before noon by an employee of the Ouachita Council Meals on Wheels, who was bringing her noon meal. Although helpless and incoherent, Mrs. Peters tried to defend herself against the police officers and the ambulance attendant who took her to the hospital.
Jim: Poor woman, man.
Woody: She doesn't know who they are. Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Dr. A. B. Gregory saw her in the emergency room around 12:30 PM on April 5th, 1978, and found her in a semi-comatose. Her left cheekbone and jawbone were shattered. She had brain damage from multiple contusions and lacerations. According to Dr. Gregory, Mrs. Peters could not communicate rationally. She died of the injuries the following day. Dr. Frank Chin, who performed the autopsy, attributed her death to massive cerebral hemorrhage and swelling, secondary to external head injuries. So, brain bleeds ultimately killed her and it didn't kill her instantly. Can you imagine that, living there, laying there on the floor all night?
Timothy Baldwin and Marilyn Hampton were subsequently located in El Dorado, Arkansas. Remember, y'all told you, Arkansas is just north. Timothy Baldwin signed consents for the search of their motel room and the van. Two blue bank bags, one empty and one containing savings bonds and certificates of deposit payable to Mary James, were found in the van. Jones, to whom Marilyn Hampton and Timothy Baldwin had made statements both before and after the crime, helped police officers locate a safe that had belonged to the victim in the LaFourche Canal in West Monroe. Baldwin's finger and palm prints were found on various items in the Peters' home, a cigarette lighter, a television set, and a coffee cup.
Baldwin was found guilty, and the jury did what they should have. They recommend the death sentence. So, Timothy George Baldwin was executed on September 10th, 1984. Baldwin was convicted of beaten to death the 85-year-old blind woman, Mary James Peters. And Peters, who was a former neighbor of Baldwin's and the godmother's of his youngest
child, was beaten with everything I told y'all about. Baldwin maintained his innocence and gave this final statement. He said, "I've always tried to be a good sport when I've lost something, and I see no reason not to leave this world with the same policy. After all, it was a hell of a battle. I therefore congratulate all those who have tried so hard to murder me. I definitely have to give them credit as it takes a very special kind of person to murder an innocent man and still be able to live with themselves."
Jim: Victim [unintelligible [00:15:37], huh? Woody: Burning in hell.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I'm going to tell you something. Jim: Hella jail as usual.
Woody: Hella jail. But you go through all these years, he sat on death row for shorter time than they do now. You know, you're strapped down and that's going to be your last words. I'm thinking about trying to find me some Jesus.
Jim: Amen.
Woody: Even if I don't believe them and be like, "Oh, Lord, if you could please forgive me if
you're really there and bring me home." But he's saying, "Mm, I didn't do it."
Jim: What a horrible human. Wow. Yeah, we're getting real on this one. Look, these guys, they were executed. So, you're going to hear some disturbing stuff, but we're real with this stuff.
Woody: Executed for a reason.
Jim: That's right. I'm going to tell you about Sterling Rault. And Sterling Rault was executed, y'all, by electrocution, Gruesome Gertie in 1987, August 24th to be exact. And this is an interesting case, because a lot of these guys that end up on death row and executed, they come from really hard upbringings, and a lot of them didn't have money their whole lives. Sterling Rault was a little bit different. He had a good job, he was a Comptroller at a company called LUTEX. And there was a lady there named Janie Francioni. And Mike, if he were here, could help me pronounce that Italian last name.
Woody: Right. [crosstalk] -for sure.
Jim: But we're going to go with Francioni. She worked as a secretary. On the evening of March 1st, 1982, which was a Monday, fellow employees observed Rault and Francioni leaving work together in her car. Less than an hour later, three U.N.O. students, which is University of New Orleans inside of New Orleans, they saw the two struggling in the campus parking lot. Francioni screamed at the students, asked them to call the police and make him leave her alone, because he was attempting rape. The students closest to the car observed what appeared to be splashes of blood on her clothing. Rault repeatedly said he had to get her to the hospital, before throwing her into the car from the driver's side all the way to the passenger's side and driving away.
Woody: He was saying [crosstalk] the witnesses.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: "Oh, I got to get her to the hospital." [crosstalk]
Jim: Basically, grabbed her and threw her so hard into the car, she went straight into the passenger seat. So, he was probably a strong guy.
Woody: Right.
Jim: Approximately 9:20 that evening, a state trooper driving north on Paris Road in an isolated area of New Orleans East stopped to investigate what appeared to be a brush fire and discovered a burning female body.
Woody: Ah, worse way.
Jim: Close by were partially used five-gallon cans of gasoline and Francioni's blood stained car, which smelled strongly of gasoline. So, he's trying to burn the car in her. A spent bullet was even found on the floor of the car. The victim had a man's belt wrapped around her neck and a jagged wound on the right side of her neck. She had been shot twice. One bullet had struck her in the thigh, traveling into the abdomen, through the small intestines, stomach and liver before exiting the left side of her chest. The pathologist actually testified that this that this would have caused extensive slow bleeding. The wound would have been very painful and would have resulted in death in less than a matter of hours.
The second bullet entered directly into the abdomen, and damaged blood vessels in the right kidney and the large blood vessel known as the interior vena cava, before lodging in the spine and would have also caused really rapid bleeding. That wound would have been fatal in 5 minutes or 10 minutes. So, we're painting a picture of here is how she suffered. It was just horrible. The victim was dead-- [crosstalk]
Woody: [crosstalk] twice. Yeah.
Jim: Yeah. The victim was dead when the neck wound was inflicted and she was set on fire. Thank, God. Her fingernail scrapings have human blood on them. So, she fought. She's a fighter. Janie Francioni had been with her mother and a friend during the preceding weekend and had had no sexual encounters. I'm sure they tested for that. Her mother took her to work on Monday morning. However, she had engaged in sexual activity 12 to 24 hours prior to her death. Vaginal swabs showed semen fluid but no sperm. Sterling Rault had a vasectomy in 1979.
When police searched the area, they detected movement under a nearby bridge. As they approached, a man broke out and ran. After a brief chase, he turned around, threw up his hands, and hollered, "I'm Sterling Rault".
Woody: Ran like a bitch.
Jim: Yeah. He appeared quiet, calm and relaxed. He was dressed in casual clothing. He was lacking a belt. What his detective brain can put two and two together on that one. And he had a strong aroma of gasoline. So, there were several fresh red scratch marks across his chest. His right hand was swollen. After being advised of his rights, he claimed two men in ski masks kidnapped him and Francioni and raped her. Of course.
Testimony at the trial revealed that Rault had been embezzling funds from LUTEX, and his secretary was about to basically ride him out. So, in December, 1981, .25 caliber semi-automatic weapon had been sold to a buyer with a driver's license in the name of Jerry Jones. In executing a search of Rault's residence, they recovered a gun box or the pistol, a box of .25 caliber cartridges and a Mississippi driver's license in the name of Jerry Jones.
Woody: Jerry Jones.
Jim: So, there it is. They end up taking him to court, obviously, and he gets the death penalty. So, he got executed on August 24th, 1987. He was convicted of raping, stabbing, shooting, and burning the body of Jane Ellen Francioni, a 21-year-old secretary, as we told you. And his final statement was, "I would like the public to know that they are killing an innocent man at this time."
Woody: Yeah, three for three. All innocent, huh?
Jim: Crazy. "I pray that God will forgive all those involved." How nice of you. "I, personally, do not hold any animosity towards anyone. The country professes to be 'One nation under God,' but the death penalty goes against the word of God. Into the arms of--" [crosstalk]
Woody: So does murdering, shooting, laid twice, and choking her with a belt and everything else.
Jim: Yeah. "Into the arms of love of God I now go. I love y'all. May God bless y'all." There was a little write up in the paper shortly after these. It was interesting, because he was fighting to try to get these stays of execution, as are typical, but unsuccessful. He rode the lighting as he deserves.
Woody: I'm so glad Gruesome Gertie was still involved in all these stories. Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I just think that's such a good way for them to go. I know so many people hate the death penalty, and I don't want anybody that's innocent, but these people-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Hear some of these stories. You know what?
Woody: It's like having a migraine. Everybody knows about someone, not someone about murder, but unless you're going through it, unless it's your loved one. I've seen people who said before their family members got murdered, they were against the death penalty. And after their family members got murdered, they wanted the death penalty.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: You understand it, but you don't get it. Jim: That's right.
Woody: Well, let's take to our next winner, Antonio James. And, y'all, he's a murderer during some robberies, and he killed two people in January of 23rd, 1979, and was arrested on the 26th of 1979. He was born in 1954, so he was at 1964, 1974, so he was like 24, 25. This happened in Orleans Parish. He actually, this winter, got lethal injection instead of Gruesome Gertie.
Jim: Got the needle.
Woody: Right, got the needle. Let me tell you about it. So, James had amassed a very extensive juvenile and criminal record by the time he was tried for the murder of-- He murdered two people, y'all, Henry Silver, age 70, and Alvin Adams. I don't know what Adams age was. But James had amassed a very extensive juvenile and criminal record by the time he was tried for the murder of Silver. The post-sentence investigation report-- Let me tell you about that. Anytime you get convicted of any crime, especially you're going to do a lot of time, there's actually a division of the parole officers and probation officers who do, what they call a PSI, presentence investigation report on you, and they tell your whole prior
criminal history, work history and everything else, drug use, whatever, and then they write a synopsis on whether to tell the judge whether or not they're likely to offend again.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: So, that helps the judge determine how many years or whatever they're going to
get.
Jim: I didn’t know that.
Woody: Unless it's automatic life in prison. The post-sentence investigation report prepared for the sentencing court listed 37 juvenile incidents. 37. That's the ones that they called [crosstalk]. That's the ones that they called him for. Think about all the ones he got away with.
Jim: Probably double it.
Woody: Right. James was ordered confined to the Louisiana Training Institute at age 14.
And, y'all, that is basically the Angola, we need--[crosstalk] Jim: LTI.
Woody: LTI.
Jim: [laughs] That's what you used to call it.
Woody: That was right down the road from me. We're going to actually cover that one day, because that's real shit there too. But most of these guys, a lot of them go to death row. But anyway, he was locked up in basically juvenile prison which was a very bad place at age 14.
In 1973, he was convicted of attempted armed robbery and sentenced to serve three years at the state penitentiary. During this period of confinement, he was convicted of attempted simple escape. He was released in 1975. I don't understand all these years, because armed robbery carries 99 attempted, I think is 40 up to, and then the simple escape alone is 10 years. Anyway, he was released in 1975. In 1978, he was charged with aggravated rape. That's a mandatory life, if not death penalty. But the charge was later refused by the prosecution.
James was convicted of the first-degree murder of Alvin Adams on January 23rd, 1979 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Okay. The first-degree murder, he could have got the death penalty. He was convicted on January 26th of 1979. So, just shit, three days later, armed robbery of Robert Hooten and was sentenced to 99 years for this offense, the maximum under Louisiana law. Now, we go to Henry Silver.
On January 1, 1979, James approached 70-year-old Henry Silver as the latter was getting out of his car in his neighborhood in New Orleans. James placed a gun to Silver's head and demanded his money. When Silver shouted for help, James placed the gun under Silver's right ear, cocked the hammer, and fired a shot into Silver's head. James then rifled through Silver's pockets and removed his wallet containing $35. He drove away in a nearby waiting car. Silver died a few hours later at Charity Hospital.
Now, let me tell y'all this, I used to go there all the time back in the day. It's closed now after Katrina, but Charity Hospital was rated as the number one trauma center in the world for gunshots [crosstalk] you know why? Because it handled all New Orleans shit. In the 1990s, the Orleans was the murder capital of the world. So, I've seen some crazy shit in there. But anyway, he obviously lived on the machine for overnight. James was arrested on January
26th, 1979 when he bungled another armed robbery attempt and was shot with his own gun. He was indicted for first degree murder.
At trial by Orleans Parish grand jury indicted in first degree murder. In December 1981, jury found him guilty as charged at a trial where the principal witness against James was his accomplice, Levon Price. After deliberation, the same jury unanimously recommended that the defendant be sentenced to death. Rightfully so.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: So, let's go to March 1st, 1996. All these years later, that's 15 years later, James
was executed by lethal injection at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, listeners know it as- Jim and Woody: Bloody Angola.
Woody: -at the age of 42. The execution team had difficulty locating a vein to insert the catheter into his arm in order to commence the execution. Our hero, Warden Burl Cain requested that James make a fist in order to assist the process. James complied to this request. James declined to give a final statement. However, when Warden Cain later said that James stated, "Bless you," as he was strapped to the execution gurney. His last meal was fried oysters and crab gumbo.
Jim: Wow. Good choice. I'd say that. Woody: It made me hunger.
Jim: Yeah, dang.
Woody: James' execution was the subject of an ABC News documentary on Prime Time Live. In the UK the BBC broadcast a 40-minute piece on April 18th, 1996 on Radio 4 about this case, with particular reference to the role of the British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith in providing adequate defense. So, there you go.
Jim: Yeah. Antonio James, we talked about him a little bit on our-- [crosstalk] look, go back and listen to that series, the Burl Cain series, we just wrapped up.
Woody: Three or four parts.
Jim: Well, it was three parts.
Woody: Three parts and then me and Kelly. So, it's four parts. Jim: Yeah. So, the patron, we did an episode with Kelly Jennings. Woody: That's right.
Jim: Only available to patron. So go join that patron. Listen to that one. But we discussed Antonio James, and it was interesting. That was the second execution for Burl Cain and the one that he said, "I'm going to do this one right:"
Woody: Because the first one-- y'all, go listen to series.
Jim: It's really good.
Woody: Super powerful. Burl, we're still waiting on you to come on the show, buddy.
Jim: You know what I notice about that whole thing? Yes, we are. What I notice about that whole thing is, he's the first one we've come across today that didn't blame it other people.
Woody: Yeah, that's right. The first one that didn't-- [crosstalk] Jim: He just said, "God bless, and I'm out."
Woody: Yeah, God bless and riding out.
Jim: Yeah. At least took it like a man. That's right. So, John Ashley Brown. Let's get to him. John Ashley Brown was executed by lethal injection in April of 1997. I'm going to tell you a little bit about this crime. On the night of the murder, Mr. Laughlin and his wife had eaten dinner at a restaurant near the corner of Dauphine and Touro Streets in New Orleans. Very famous.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: Yeah, area of New Orleans. At approximately 11:45 PM, they left the restaurant and began walking to their car, which was located about a block away. Brown exited a nearby vehicle and he confronted the Laughlins. He pinned them against their car, and demanded money from Mr. Laughlin. Mrs. Laughlin screamed and ran back towards the restaurant. When she returned to the scene, her husband was dead.
According to NOPD, who had arrived at the location, the victim who had arrived at the location, the victim was found lying face down in the street and bleeding profusely. An autopsy later revealed that Mr. Laughlin had been stabbed 13 times.
Woody: It's a lot.
Jim: Mrs. Laughlin provided the police with a description of the perpetrator and the vehicle which she had seen him get out of prior to the attack. She also told police that a woman with dark hair had been driving. So, Sergeant James Scott of the NOPD was stopped at a traffic light when heard the description of the crime and saw the suspect being broadcast over the radio. He looked to his left, and there's Brown sitting in a vehicle that matched the description given by the victim's wife. And there was a female at the wheel of the car.
Brown’s vehicle was pulled into a nearby service station, and Sergeant Scott followed, believing that the occupants of the car might be the suspects. The officer watched as the woman put gasoline in the car while Brown walked over to a water hose and he began washing his hands. He then-- [crosstalk]
Woody: [crosstalk] -blood all over him.
Jim: He then re-entered the car. Good point. Sergeant Scott approached the vehicle and ordered Brown to step out and place his hands on the hood, when Brown did so, the police officer observed scratches, marks and droplets of blood on his forearms. He also observed blood between Brown’s toes, which were visible through the sandals that he was wearing. In plain view on the floor of the car was a New Orleans shopper's card which belonged to the victim. Wow, the evidence is mounting up, right?
Woody: Right.
Jimmy: He was arrested, taken into custody, and a search yielded Mr. Laughlin's wallet. A second search pursuant to a properly secured warrant led to the discovery of a Bowie knife which had been concealed underneath the front seat of the car on the passenger side. Mrs. Laughlin positively identified Brown from lineup and basically nailed that, "This is the guy that attacked my husband and killed--"
Woody: For those of you who don't know, Bowie knife is a big ass knife.
Jim: Yeah. So, obviously, he goes to court, he gets convicted, he gets sentenced to death. And on April 24th, 1997, he was put to death by lethal injection at Bloody Angola. His final words were, "Let my baby sister know I love her and the rest of my family, for supporting me. I love you very much. I'm ready to go now." As he felt the lethal drugs enter his system, Brown stated, “Wow.”
Woody: Really?
Jim: That's it.
Woody: Wow. That's crazy.
Jim: Pretty crazy stuff. And those final words, man. But I guess, credit to the guy for not denying it.
Woody: Yeah, saying, "You got me bad. Go find the real murderer," and all that shit, right? Jim: Yeah.
Woody: And he said, "Wow."
Jim: "Wow," when he felt that stuff-- [crosstalk]
Woody: [crosstalk] -saw face of Jesus. Jim: Yeah, it could be.
Woody: All right. So, now, y'all, we're going to take you to our next, whatever you want to call him. His name is Willie Watson, and he's a murderer. And not only he is a murderer, he's a rapist and a kidnapper and a robber. This offense took place on April 5th, 1981. And Willie Watson was born in 1951. And he killed a lady, Kathy Newman, who was 25 years old, who was a Tulane University medical student. If you don't know that, if you're not from Louisiana, Tulane is basically the Harvard of the south. He did so by shooting her in St. Charles Parish.
On the evening of April 5th, 1981, Willie Watson abducted Kathy Newman, a third-year Tulane University medical student, at gunpoint as she arrived at her apartment building in the Carrollton section of New Orleans. Very familiar with that. Watson forced Newman to drive to an isolated area in St. Charles Parish, which would be towards El Paso, he drove her across the bridge, anyway, where he robbed her of her jewelry and raped and sodomized her. [unintelligible [00:37:42]
Watson then instructed Newman to dress herself, and as she did so, he shot her in the back of the head, killing her. Watson later confessed to the murder, stating that he shot Newman because he feared that she could identify him. On June 5th, 1981, Watson was found guilty of first-degree murder. And Willie Watson was executed on July 24th of 1987. Watson was convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder, like we told you, of Kathy Newman. When they asked if he had any last words, Watson calmly shook his head, "No." Let me read you the article.
Jim: Mm, no last words.
Woody: This article is from The New York Times. It's right up after execution, dates July 25th, 1987, New York Times. "Willie Watson went calmly and silently to his death in an electric chair of Gruesome Gertie." They didn’t say that, y'all, it's me.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: "Early today, for the rape, robbery and murder of the Tulane University medical student. He was the sixth murderer executed in Louisiana since early June and the second this week--" [crosstalk]
Jim: Wow. They making it happen back in those days.
Woody: The student, Kathy Newman, 25 years old was abducted, raped, and shot. Now, not just raped, y'all, sodomize I'll say, also and shot to death in 1981. Mr. Watson, 30, confessed that he killed her, attributing the crime to his drug addiction while an adolescent growing up in New Orleans housing projects. Look, back then they were real and legit projects. Did I ever tell you about that? You could be on where Mike's house is on St. Charles and go two blocks in any direction, they had the project-projects. The big high rises and shit. They had their own New Orleans police authorities for it. It was so bad. They wouldn't go in there in the daytime unless they had three units at a time.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: But anyway, this is a-- [crosstalk] Jim: So, he grew up rough.
Woody: That was rough shit, the concrete jungle. So, the execution, which had been scheduled for midnight, was delayed two hours after the US Supreme Court rejected Mr. Watson's appeal on a 4-to-4 tie vote. And Mr. Watson's lawyers made a last-minute plea to Governor Edwin W. Edwards, my boy, in Baton Rouge, and he refused the final statement. At 1:58 AM, Mr. Watson walked into the death chamber. His head had been shaved of the shoulder-wide afro, because he had a big fur, y'all, hairstyle he had the day before when he appeared at the state Pardon Board in a futile appeal.
Asked if he wanted to make a final statement, Mr. Watson shook his head, "No." He was then strapped into the wooden electric chair before his face was masked. Y'all, they do that because the eyes fry out of the head and the scalp will catch on fire. Before his face was masked, he looked at his spiritual adviser, Sister Lee Scardina, and mouthed ''I love you, Sister Lee.'' Then he received the first of four jolts. Remember I told you earlier, hit it, they go, "Hit it. [imitating electric sound]." Turn it off. And they did, "Hit it," four times. Anyway. So, then he received the first of four jolts of electricity at 2:02 AM. He was pronounced dead at 2:09 AM. After it was over, the spiritual adviser went to Jed Stone, Mr. Watson's lawyer, who was outside the death chamber, and cried on his shoulder. Outside the prison, six advocates of the death penalty marched in the darkness.
Now, I remember back in those days that basically the neighbor in parish where I grew up and-- Shit, I remember, they were rolling [unintelligible [00:41:39] Governor Evers was in office. My mom was on the parole board, parole and pardon board. Anyway, he was good friends with my dad.
Jim: Wow. That was like six minutes, they were jumping.
Woody: Yeah, they give him for a minute, turn it off, give him another minute, and then--
[crosstalk]
Jim: Good. Very good.
Woody: Nothing more but fuck you. Jim: Yeah. [crosstalk]
Woody: Killed 25-year-old, she was going to be a doctor. He raped her and butt raped her.
Jim: Awful. All right, we're going to tell you-- Look, and this one's disturbing, so prepare yourself. But we're going to tell you about Andrew Lee Jones. And he was executed by electrocution on July 22nd of 1991. Tell you about the crime. On February 17th, 1984, 11-year-old Tumekica Jackson was living with her mother, grandparents in the Scotlandville section of Baton Rouge. Tell them about Scotlandville, Woody.
Woody: Yeah, I'm just going to tell you. I'm about to do a full-blown episode. I have all the research and everything on this case, and it's bad.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Scotlandville, y'all, it's in north Baton Rouge almost to Baker, what they call Baker, Louisiana, which is really Baton Rouge just runs into Baker. It's all still east Baton Rouge Parish.
Jim: Bad part of Baton Rouge.
Woody: Yeah, it's-- [crosstalk]
Jim: A lot of gang activity in that area. It used to be way back in the day, a decent area.
Woody: Decent. Back in this time, it wasn't that bad. But this dude is that bad. Again, Real Life Real Crime original episode, you're going to get all the details, we'll get you.
Jim: There you go. So, at 04:00 AM on February 17th of 1984, the grandmother discovered that the child, the 11-year-old Tumekica Jackson was missing from her bedroom. The police discovered that someone had broken the screen of the rear den window and had opened the back door. In the muddy ground, near the house, police obtained a cast of an imprint made by the left shoe from a pair of size 8 1/2 tennis shoes. There were no signs of a struggle inside the house. The investigation immediately focused on Jones because his stormy romantic relationship of several years with the victim's mother. It had been broken off the week prior to this incident. The victim knew Jones well, and he had been in the home many times. On the evening of the child's disappearance, Jones had called the mother's home three times and had told the grandmother that he would not be responsible for his actions,-
Woody: Not going to be responsible.
Jim: -if the mother continued to refuse to see him. About 6:30 AM, the police went to the apartment where Jones lived with his sister, Terry Jones, and his half-brother, Abraham Mingo. Jones told the police he had been home all night, and Mingo and Ms. Jones confirmed his story. A few hours later, Ms. Jones called the police and said she may have been mistaken about that. After questioning her further, the police obtained a written consent to search the apartment. When no one answered the officer's knock, Ms. Jones used her key to open the door and officers found Jones in the bathroom washing a pair of size 8 1/2 tennis shoes. The bath tub was full of dirt and leaves. The officers seized the tennis shoes and a pair of green gloves, and they requested that Jones give them a statement. After signing a waiver, Jones gave the police a tape-recorded statement in which he denied any knowledge of the offense.
Woody: "I don't know nothing."
Jim: Lack of evidence, so they had to allow him to leave with his sister. But approximately 06:00 PM, the victim's partially nude body was found in a drainage canal.
Woody: In a ditch.
Jim: An autopsy established a child had been beaten, raped and manually strangled. The police again questioned Mingo. Although he initially told conflicting stories, he eventually gave a detailed account of his activities with the defendant on Friday night and Saturday morning. According to Mingo, he and Jones were out with the defendant on Friday evening, but dropped him off in Scotlandville. About 1:00 AM, Mingo and Jones went to the Snowflake Lounge, but Jones left alone about 30 minutes later, and Mingo returned to the apartment.
Now, at some point between 04:30 AM and 05:00 AM, Mingo was awakened by Jones, he knocked on the door, whereupon he let defendant in and went back to bed. When Mingo and Jones were alone in the apartment later that morning, the defendant told him that he should've stayed home, that he did something he didn't want to do, and that he done fucked up. Jones gave Mingo a TG&Y bag and asked him to throw it away, which he did without looking inside. At Mingo's direction, police recovered a TG&Y bag from a dumpster near a grocery store. The bag contained socks, a pair of blue jeans and a pink sweatshirt, which were wet, muddy and stained. Of course, they put some analysis on that and identified the stain is a mixture of blood and semen fluid.
Woody: This is before DNA.
Jim: Mingo also told the police about a pair of boxer shorts that he had found in the bathroom of the apartment. The shorts belonged to Mingo, but Jones had worn them on Friday night. Pursuant to Mingo's written consent, the police recovered a pair of stained brown and white boxer shorts. Analysis confirmed the presence of blood and semen fluid on the boxer shorts. On the basis of this information, they finally got a warrant. They arrested Jones. Jones gave a videotape statement in which he asserted that he and Rudolph Springer had gone to the victim's house on Saturday morning to commit a burglary. They were scared of being recognized, so Jones remained in the car while Springer entered the house. When Springer returned carrying the victim, Jones got in the backseat and pulled his cap over his face.
After a few minutes, Springer drove Jones to his apartment. That was the last time the defendant saw the victim. That was his story, they didn't buy it. And eventually, he gets sentenced to death.
So, he was executed on July 22nd, 1991, by electric chair. While he did not make a final statement, at a pardon board hearing three days before he was executed, he said, "There's a possible chance I did it. A possible chance I didn't do it. If I had not been drunk, nothing like that would have happened. I'm like anybody else. I don't want to die or anything like that." So, that was his statement after that. I hate it when it involves children. It's disgusting.
Woody: Yeah, I actually have some more in-depth knowledge on that case. I'm going to bring it to you on a original RLRC episode in the future.
Jim: Oh, very good.
Woody: He is a real piece of shit. I know of Mingo personally, and I'll explain all that. Jim: I look forward to that, fellas.
Woody: Right. Let's take to the next one. John Brogdon. I'm going to give you the facts of the case. On the evening of October 7th, 1981, Rubeta Brown and her 11-year-old sister, Barbara Jo, walked to a convenience store near their home in Luling, Louisiana. Y'all that is in St. Charles Parish. Again, down there in the El Paso area and all that kind of outside New
Orleans, but across the swamp. So, they walked to use the telephone. 19-year old Brogdon and his 17-year old friend, Bruce Perritt, arrived at the store while Rubeta was on the phone.
Perritt approached Barbara Jo and put his arm around her. Rubeta called her sister away, and the two left. On the way home, Barbara Jo asked her sister if she could visit a neighbor's home for a few minutes. Rubeta allowed her sister to leave her to do so. Rubeta went to the neighbor's house, about 10 minutes later to pick up Barbara Jo. Barbara Jo wasn't there. And after short search in the neighborhood, Rubeta informed her mother that Barbara Jo was missing. And they called the sheriff's office.
After that, a friend of Barbara Jo's came forward to say that he had seen Barbara Jo earlier that evening in a car seated between Brogdon and Perritt. Two men discovered Barbara Jo's body later that evening behind a levee. Again, y'all levee are high dirt walls, usually dirt, sometimes cement, hold back the rivers in the water. But anyway, they saw him behind the levee in Luling. And look, you get no fucking business being behind a levee, period.
Jim: Yeah, especially in Luling.
Woody: Right. Perritt's car was found parked a short distance away. Two other men later informed authorities that they had seen Brogdon and Perritt walking on the road near this levee. Brogdon was without a shirt and appeared disheveled. Brogdon and Perritt were arrested that evening at Brogdon's home on suspicion of Barbara Jo's murder. After being informed of his Miranda rights at the sheriff's office, Brogdon waived his right to counsel and confessed to the murder and aggravated rape of Barbara Jo. In his statement, Brogdon told how he and Perritt tortured and killed her. Instead of visiting the mother's home that night, Barbara Jo had returned to the convenience store and met with Brogdon and Perritt. The confession-- Well, that's their story, y'all. Confession admitted that after they picked her up at the convenience store, Brogdon and Perritt drove her to the levee where her body was later found.
They repeatedly raped her and forced her to perform oral sex on them. All during these acts, they beat Barbara Jo with their fists. They also broke bottles on the cement and then stabbed her repeatedly with the edges. Perritt also struck Barbara Jo in the head with a brick that he found lay nearby. Brogdon then beat her with the brick. The two also used pointed sticks to pierce her body. Brogdon and Perritt left the scene of the crime and Perritt's vehicle when they heard another car approached and they hauled ass in Perritt's vehicle.
Brogdon was convicted by St. Charles jury of murder and aggravated rape and sentenced to death. So he was executed on July 30, 1987. Brogdon and his co-defendant Bruce Perritt were convicted of raping, beating. We told you about all that. Perritt received a life sentence, y'all, because the jury deadlocked in the penalty phase. I don't know what fucking--
Jim: Some juror. Yeah.
Woody: -idiots on that jury. Brogdon made no formal final statement. As he turned to seat
himself in the electric chair, his last words were, "God bless y'all." It's crazy, right? Jim: Horrible.
Woody: We do some really uplifting stories. We've done some great, great shit. But sometimes, you got to let it be known. Wow.
Jim: How the cow eats a cabbage.
Woody: Right. [crosstalk] -the worst fucking place in the world.
Jim: Yeah. These people that are getting executed are not always angels. Woody: They did everything to that girl. Poor-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Blind woman. That's just awful. Thank y'all so much for supporting us. We hope y'all enjoyed this episode. We've got a Part 3 that we'll drop at some point that you'll really like as well. But we just thank y'all for all you do for us.
Woody: Definitely patron members, hope you're enjoying your commercial free, early releases, and all your bonus episodes, and everything else. And you want to be a patron member, you can go to patreon.com, type in Bloody Angola.
Jim: Yes. And it'll pull it right up.
Woody: Follow us on Facebook, and look for Bloody Angola announcements and everything Real Life Real Crime, including Real Life Real Crime app, and follow our other show, Real Life Real Crime Daily, [crosstalk] me and Mike Agovino.
Jim: Yeah, absolutely.
Woody: Original Real Life Real Crimes like the one I'm going to tell you about with Mingo
involved in it. It drops on Tuesdays as of now, y'all. Jim: Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Everton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: Complete story of America's bloodiest prison.
Jim and Woody: Peace.
[Bloody Angola theme]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 29 Jun 2023 - 49 - Becoming The Warden Part 3 | The Legacy and Legend That Is Burl Cain
n this episode of Bloody Angola Woody Overton and Jim Chapman wrap up this amazing series with part 3 of the story of legendary Warden Burl Cain. Burl Cain was the longest serving Warden in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary and his vision and reforms changed this historic prison forever. This docu-series is the most anticipated and sought after we have ever done on Bloody Angola Podcast and it starts now!
#BloodyAngolaPodcast #BurlCain #Becomingthewarden #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonWarden #Podcasts #Dixoncorrectionalinstitute #DCI #MDOC
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 22 Jun 2023 - 48 - Becoming The Warden Part 2 | The Legacy and Legend That Is Burl Cain
In this episode of Bloody Angola Woody Overton and Jim Chapman continue with part 2 of the story of legendary Warden Burl Cain. Burl Cain was the longest serving Warden in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary and his vision and reforms changed this historic prison forever. This docu-series is the most anticipated and sought after we have ever done on Bloody Angola Podcast and it starts now!
#BloodyAngolaPodcast #BurlCain #Becomingthewarden #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonWarden #Podcasts #Dixoncorrectionalinstitute #DCI #MDOC
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 15 Jun 2023 - 47 - Becoming The Warden | The Legacy and Legend that is Burl Cain
In this episode of Bloody Angola Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell the story of legendary Warden Burl Cain. Burl Cain was the longest serving Warden in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary and his vision and reforms changed this historic prison forever. This docu-series is the most anticipated and sought after we have ever done on Bloody Angola Podcast and it starts now!
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW
BECOMING THE WARDEN: THE LEGACY AND LEGEND THAT IS BURL CAIN PART 1
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And we're back, Woody Overton.
Woody: Back in the saddle.
Jim: Back in effect.
Woody: Back in effect.
Jim: And we're bringing y'all a hell of a story today. Highly requested.
Woody: Yes. A legend.
Jim: Legend. Someone you have some experience with.
Woody: I do. I have a lot of years of experience with him. Solid dude. They can say whatever they want to. Everybody's going to have their haters or whatever. And certainly, he marches to the beat of a different drummer, but he's a visionary and has affected so many lives.
Jim: Boy, he sure has. And I'll tell you, as far as research, I've probably enjoyed researching this man more than just about anyone I've researched.
Woody: I've read his book years ago when it came out. Of course, I have the family history at Angola and all that, and of course, my personal history with him. Just super, super intelligent, super unique.
Jim: Yeah, very. I think that's a great word to describe him. And of course, if you're hanging by a thread right now trying to figure out who we're talking about, it is the legendary warden of Angola, Burl Cain. So, we're going to start off and we're just going to take you through a journey of his life.
Woody: Yeah. And I think it's so important, this research that you put together, a lot of it I didn't know, especially about the early years. And I don't know how they haven't made a movie about him yet, honestly.
Jim: It's got to be coming at some point.
Woody: Y'all, we've done a couple of series before, but not real long ones or anything. But it's going to be several parts to this. But you got to stay tuned because every one of them is going to kick you.
Jim: Yeah. So, to start off, he was born in Pitkin, Louisiana, and I was not familiar with Pitkin.
Woody: Small town in Vernon Parish.
Jim: Vernon Parish. And for those of you that are kind of wondering where Vernon Parish is, that's on the Texas line. It's in the center of the state all the way to the westernmost.
Woody: If you're familiar with Toledo Bend, the largest lake and kind of splits Louisiana. Texas too, but fantastic for fishing, all that. It's real close to that. Kind of a piney woods area, but really, really rural. Shit, there's not even any major highways to get over there. From off the Interstate 49, which runs north and south, splits the state. Shit, it's probably hour and a half, two hours from there.
Jim: Yeah. And he actually described it in an interview one time, and he said, "We didn't even have a stoplight."
Woody: Yeah, well, my hometown still doesn't have a stoplight.
Jim: [laughs] So, you think about that, folks. He went from that to warden of the largest maximum-security prison in the United States which, first of all, goes to show you that it doesn't matter where you're from, it doesn't matter, hard work and really destined. I think he was kind of touched by God to do what he does. He's 80 years old as of today.
Woody: So, he is a couple of years younger than my dad. Actually, maybe one year because my dad was born the week before Peral Harbor, and he was born on July 2nd, 1942.
Jim: And still going.
Woody: Still going, very, very healthy.
Jim: We're going to get into that.
Woody: But he grew up on a farm, y'all, that's where he developed his work ethic. And let me tell you something, this dude can work.
Jim: Let me tell you, if you're 80 years old-- look, if I make 80, I'm considering that a success. When you're 80 and you're still working, that tells you who he is as far as his work ethic is concerned. He grew up on a farm that would play a huge role in his future development. And he grew up in a very religious house.
Woody: Right. Back then, not knocking it, but a lot of people, especially ones that were raised on farms, their parents had to raise them as help. I mean, they worked.
Jim: That's right. You needed help, you had another kid.
Woody: Talking about throwing hay, tending animals and cows and everything else and working the gardens. And hey, there wasn't any PlayStations and cable TV or anything. Hell, they're lucky if they had electricity.
Jim: And you woke up 4:30 in the morning to milk them cows and do all those things.
Woody: You didn't have a problem going to bed at dark with your ass tired.
Jim: You were tired. And his household was very religious, y'all, extremely religious. He attended church, as he described it, every time the doors were open since birth. And he didn't even dance. He wasn't allowed to dance or attend dancing--[crosstalk]
Woody: And I had a lot of people that I grew up with that were the same way. That just wasn't acceptable. People talk about Bible Belt, I can't say Vernon is directly, but I know there's some count-- not counties, parishes over there that are actually dry. They don't sell alcohol. They're Bible Belt. So, down here where south Louisiana, where everything goes, and then you hit that area of the state, it was borderline to the west of Alexandria and all that, but they were really, really country, and the farther north you go, the more country getting. There's a couple of dry parishes in the state, and this area would have been one of them.
Jim: No doubt. At his age, being born in '42, he was kind of hitting those late teenage years when Elvis Presley-
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: -was big. So, I'd love to sit him down and ask him, "How did you avoid dance when Elvis Presley came on the radio?"
Woody: He didn't have a radio.
Jim: [laughs] Yeah, that's it. That's probably exactly what he would say. "I was out there milking cows. I wasn't worried about the King." Also, Burl Cain never dreamed he would be a prison warden growing up. Of course, being from such a small town, that'd be like most people dreaming they were going to be an astronaut. It just didn't seem possible. As a matter of fact, he remembers vividly fearing Angola, as it was common for his mother to tell him, "If you don't straighten up, you're going to end up in Angola." It was a threat, matter of fact.
Woody: And one thing they did even back then, believe it or not, is most schools, once a year, certain age group of kids, they bus them to Angola. And of course, it was educational for them, and they didn't hold back. They took you down the walks and stuff like that, and they fed you the prison food, and they were like, most girls be crying and shit like that, and they're like, "I ain't never coming to this motherfucker."
Jim: Yeah. It was used as a form of threat. And so, he had another dream. And believe it or not, y'all, he wanted to be a veterinarian.
Woody: Yeah, he wanted to be a vet. And when he graduated from high school, he went to LSU Alexandria campus, y'all, that's a satellite campus, and they have one in Alexandria and one in Shreveport to do just that. But he struggled coming from a small town where the chemistry side of school basically was a fight for him. And they just didn't teach a whole lot beyond the basics, like the element charts and stuff like that at his high school. So, he switched to something that was more prevalent in the areas from and that's agriculture, education. Let me tell you something, vet school is tough. You might as well go and become a doctor. Nowadays, you got to have a four point whatever just to get in, and there's no guarantee you're going to make it. And it's heavy, heavy on sciences.
Jim: A lot of people don't realize LSU has probably the best vet school, if not one of the best in the country.
Woody: So, imagine this, coming from probably my hometown, I graduated we had 28 in my graduating class. Still don't have a red light to this day. I submit to you that his town was smaller. And back then, they didn't test for the kids to pass the test. You just got the books, you know Jim, it was a different type of education. And they were just giving your basics.
But the ag part, growing up on a farm, he already knew tons about it. And pretty much everyone in his family were teachers. So, he settled on basically just working towards a life of teaching after college, which I think is very unique now that I know him.
Jim: Right. You look back on that life and you see how those skills benefited him, even though he wasn't in the world of education when he really got going. So, he graduates from LSU in agriculture education. He starts teaching at a high school, and [chuckles] he figures out in about three months' time that teaching is not easy.
Woody: Not at the high school level.
Jim: Yeah, not at the high school level. So, he figured, "This ain't for me." He lasted about three months, and he went to work for the state of Louisiana at what's known as the Louisiana Farm Bureau.
Woody: Yeah, Louisiana, of course, our number one industry is oil and gas. It's kind of a tossup between the two, but then you have seafood, and then it's agriculture. And the seafood and agriculture are kind of on the same level. Like, where I'm from, it's all farms, we raise trees. So, agriculture is beyond just raising cows. It's growing trees. It's everything that you can profit from in the long run by growing it or raising it.
Jim: That's right. And he was a master of that, having grown up in it, and then got official education in it. And in 1976--
Woody: '76, I was six years old.
Jim: I was two. [laughs] In 1976, he finally starts his career in state government, and he started out with the Louisiana Department of Corrections as the Assistant Secretary for Agribusiness.
Woody: And that's huge. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, and this is just a straight-up truth, and it's how I got my state government job, my first one with the Department of Corrections. Actually, when I was in high school, I got a job. One of the local state reps got me a job cutting grass at the state-run old folks' home and the Villa. So, when he gets this job with the state, there's a lot of things that go along with that. One of them is, and I have some personal knowledge of this, I'll tell y'all probably on the next episode, one of them is you're civil service. And there's a lot of protections afforded to you through the civil service. And you get your guaranteed raises. You're never going to get rich, but you have protection. There's a certain comfort level of that.
Jim: Yeah, they can't just fire you.
Woody: Right. Real quick. When I left the university PD, we were civil service, to go to the sheriff's office, and they were like, "Why would you leave a civil service job to go somewhere where you're an at will employee?" I said, "Well, I don't need civil service to save my job." But civil service, and this is the truth, this is how much protection you have, if I was state police and I walked in my captain's office and I got on his desk and I took a shit on his desk, the first time, all they can do is give you a verbal warning. The second time, I go in and take a shit on his desk, then they can write you up for it. And the third time, they can fire you. There's only certain offenses like drugs or whatever that they can fire you for on the spot.
Jim: Did you ever take a shit on his desk? [laughs]
Woody: No, I didn’t. I didn't have a captain either. I answered to the colonel. But just an example. And they say, it's like the Snark missile. For you who don't remember, during the Iraq War, Saddam had these missiles called Snarks. Every time they were developed and every time they fire them, the fuckers blow up. And so, they said, civil service employee is like a Snark missile. You can't fire and you can't make it work. That's not true. A lot of the best people in the world are lifetime state employees, and a lot of my dear friends are.
Jim: Absolutely. And look, y'all, this is 1976, so the economy is down at this point in time. That was a really good job. And of course, look, any sort of state job at that level, sometimes you got to know somebody, Woody Overton.
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: That ain't changed. That's been that way since the beginning of time.
Woody: [crosstalk] -is and it's Louisiana.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: I got my job at Department of Corrections because my dad pulled some strings with politicians.
Jim: Sure. And that was a good job. And this was a downtime in the economy. So, Burl freely admits, and he said this on many interviews, that his brother was instrumental in getting him that job. His brother, y'all, and whether you're aware of this or not, was a senator from the state of Louisiana.
Woody: They look almost identical. I'm surprised that they're not twins.
Jim: Yeah. So, he starts that job, and he's a rockstar at it. He's doing great, and in 1981, he gets an opportunity.
Woody: 10 years before I went there. In 1981, he became the Warden of Dixon Correctional Institute, known as DCI. And he was only 38.
Jim: Only 38, warden of the prison.
Woody: When I met him, it was in '90 or '91, and of course, he had been the warden for 10 years. DCI, y'all, it's a mixed security prison, and this is kind of a misnomer here too, but mixed security, meaning it has medium, maximum, and some trusty camps. The trusty camps would be like-- Jackson, Louisiana, is full of state-run facilities. Villa, like I was telling you about, geriatric home, state run. The hospital from mentally insane, which is basically on DCI property, right across the street from their Claiborne. And it has the state-run mental hospital. If you don't have healthcare and you legitimately to be, I'd say crazy, what's politically correct term?
Jim: Nuts. [laughs]
Woody: If you're literally nuts, you went there. Look, I had an aunt who spent most of her life in that hospital. Then, you have DCI. It's all these state run-- the war vets home was there. Biggest state war vets home is there. So, you have all these state-run facilities. And I guarantee you, all my people from Jackson, I've got family from there, all of them were state employees, one facility or another. So, DCI is located right outside of Jackson, y'all, which is about 40 minutes north of Baton Rouge. Small town still to this day. One major road running through it. And then, DCI is off of one of those roads.
But the mixed security, the main camp at DCI where I worked, you had two maximum security camps. And then, they had the satellite, the trusty camp at the state mental hospital. And that's because they took everything there. They were orderlies and took care of the grounds and the whole nine yards. And I used to go to little peewee football practice on the state ground. And there, the prisoners would line up on the fence, all the trustys. And years later on extra duty shifts, I would go pick up and I'd go be the guard at the trusty camp there. But they do that for economic reasons, and Burl had them do that for economic reasons because they didn't have to bust them back and forth to work every day.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: And so, they were there around the clock. And they were instrumental in all the state-run facilities, the trustees, the cow barns and everything. I'm talking about, look, DCI wasn't 18,000 acres, but it was a lot, but spread out in different areas. The cow barns and all that, shit, they raised cattle for the state of Louisiana. But anyway, it was there. Burl--
Jim: 38 years old.
Woody: Yeah, I didn't know that--[crosstalk]
Jim: Damn, when I was 38, there's no way I'm running a prison. I'm lucky to stay out of prison.
Woody: You're right. I was in Texas still when I was 38.
Jim: Yeah, really amazing and a huge opportunity. And guess what? It was his first experience as being a warden, what he would become just an absolute legend for it. At that time, DCI had about 1400 inmates. That was its capacity. And it was female and male, which made it different from other prisons. It was also relatively new. It had been built in 1976, so it was only six years old. That's like the state-of-the-art presence, especially compared to Angola at that time, which was hundred years old.
Woody: By the time I got there in '91, there were no females there. It was probably like 2500, they had added on to it.
Jim: So, no females at that time, gotcha.
Woody: And then, the other kicker is, and I forgot to mention this earlier, so I say it's about 40 minutes north of Baton Rouge. Well, guess what? It's only 30 miles from Bloody Angola. It's East and West Louisiana. I was born and raised in Clinton, where my grandfather was a judge, but West Feliciana butts up to it. My mama was from West Feliciana, where her daddy was the DA during this time, actually. But that 30 miles is deceiving because back then, they had the old road to Bloody Angola and that wound up the Tunica Hills and part of it's gravel and shit. And when you turn it off at 61, it took you another 40 minutes to get from there, the last 10 miles to get in.
Jim: It seemed like 300 miles. It was not what you would call picturesque. You're not looking at the Rockies when you're going down the highway. This is where Cain coined what would eventually be one of his most famous phrases. He started at the facility, and as is common, your first day on the job as warden, you're going to have a meeting with all of your people, and you're going to learn the ins and outs of this prison, things that maybe the outgoing warden didn't tell you. And one of the things he found out was that they had no worship services for the inmates. And it was where he kind of coined the phrase, "moral rehabilitation."
Woody: He carried that [crosstalk] to talk about it, but he still carries to this day. And he was serious about it.
Jim: Yeah. It was, as a matter of fact, one of the first things he changed at Dixon, was bringing religion into prisons, something that, look, we're going to talk a lot about. So, he becomes a rockstar again. He's just killing it at Dixon.
Woody: Let me tell you just a couple real quick stories, and I know I'm going off script, but I met him the first time, I think it was 1990 or 1991, and I got hired. So, he had what they call the White House. And the White House was an administrative building. I had to go to the White House, do paperwork and stuff like that, but I hadn't seen him. And then they put me on the largest rec room-- after I got back from Angola, doing my training and all that. They put me on the largest rec room at DCI. And long story short, I ended up getting in a fight with him because the captain told me, you give them direct orders like, "Hey, do this," and if they don't do it, you can arrest them for it. And so, one of them I told to come with me, and he turned around, ran out in the yard, and I had to hit my pager and get the captain to come. And the captain went out there and got him and arrested him. He said, "But next time you do it, you hit your pager, and you use whatever force necessary to bring the situation out of control."
Well, it wasn't two weeks later, Sunday night, they turned off the lights in the dorm, and I told him to clear the rec room, except for the night guys that were up. And one guy was standing on the back wall by the water fountain with his foot up on the wall. And we said, "Get to your house." And I told him, "Get to your house." And he just kind of looked at me. I said, "I'm not going to tell you again. Get to your house." And he didn't move. And so, I hit my pager, and I said, "Well, you're under arrest. You're coming with me?" He said, "Fuck you." And he turned around, walked into the dorm, which was closing down at that time. The lights and the inmates are shuffling back and forth, getting the water, going to the bathroom, and I tackled him, and the fist fight was on.
So, Captain Raymond Newman said, he said, "Man, when I hit that rec room door, and I was long ways away from it," he said, "And I didn't see you." He said, "I knew it sure had turned to shit. I knew shit was going down." And what happened was that there's a couple of fireable offenses. One, if you get caught having sex with an inmate or you get caught bringing in contraband or sleeping on duty, civil service doesn't protect you for that. And the biggest one is if another officer is in a fight and you don't help them, then you can be fired on the spot.
Well, there's two sergeants on the dorm. I'm fighting with this guy. I didn't think I could start a riot. And I'm fighting with this guy, and he's a big dude, and one of the sergeant is trying to help me, the other froze up, didn't want to do anything. Newman came in. Long story short, we get him out. We were punching, we were punching. My eye was swollen and stuff. Long story short, Ray gets me to the office. He said, "You got to go home." I'm like, "Fucking getting fired, man." I said, "Ray, you told me, use whatever force necessary. He wouldn't stop and put my hands on, and he went to fight." And he said, "You could have started a fucking riot, man. You realize that? You got to go home, and we'll call you." I'm like, "Fuck, I'm getting fired." So, they called me on Monday morning, and he said, "You need to report to Warden Cain's office."
Jim: [chuckles] Oh, shit.
Woody: My first time in a life on the carpet, besides the military, being called on the carpet, it means you know you're going to get your ass shoot to get fired or whatever. And he brought me in, and I'll never forget it. He actually got up from behind his desk and he shook my hand. He said, "Sergeant Overton, come on in. Have a seat. Boy, tell me what happened." I said, "Warden Cain, Captain Newman, he was in there." I wasn’t trying to throw him on the bus. I said, "This is what happened before. He told me next time, use whatever force necessary to bring the situation under control. And so, I did. We ended up fighting." He leaned back and steepled his fingers a little bit, kind of like [unintelligible [00:26:36] would. Warden Cain, he's not big in stature, he's not tall, but he's not fat, but he's kind of-- I don't want to say heavy set, he's more of a round of shape. You wouldn't think this guy has such a presence, but he does, but he was just super, super nice.
He said, "All right, son, I get that. I appreciate you taking an initiative. But I'm going to send you somewhere where you could fight every single night." I said, "Well, where is that?" He said, "I'm going to send you to the working cell block. That's where we have our worst of our worst, and somebody's going to be--" You know what, he would curse sometimes. As religious as he was, and he probably did say ass-- when he got mad, he'd curse. But he said, "I'm going to send you back there." And believe me, I passed this down to all the guys I trained over the years. I would tell them, I say, "Look, you don't have to go out of your way put your hands on somebody to look for shit because there's enough assholes out there that are legitimately going to give you a reason to fight them, when you go to arrest them or whatever." He said, "I'm to going put you back there." And I did it, and I rose up as a superstar. And every time he'd see me, he'd say, "How are you doing, Sergeant Overton?"
Jim: Love that story, and I'm sure you've got several. And what we're going to do, folks, is this is going to be a docuseries. So, this is going to be three episodes. In the third episode, we're going to have Kelly Jennings, who also has some experience with Burl Cain on the show. And it's going to be storytelling time with Woody and Kelly. And they're going to tell some stories that are just fire.
Woody: We need to promote that.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: The last episode is going to be The True Stories.
Jim: The True Stories.
Woody: From Woody-
Jim: From Woody. [chuckles]
Woody: -and female Woody.
[chuckles]
Jim: Yeah. You can't get no better than that. Look, I got the best seat in the house, and I'm going to be kind of the moderator of what will be an amazing episode coming up just in a couple of weeks. We're going to move on. Look, Warden Cain, he became an absolute star. He made a name for himself. And of course, he had a brother that was in politics. And so, they knew the Cain name. And in 1995, the warden of Angola, a guy by the name of John Whitley, who at some point we're going to do a story on, but John Whitley was retiring. And so, secretary at that time was Richard Stalder.
Woody: And he was the head of the Department of Corrections when I was there also.
Jim: That secretary he is kind of like who is the boss of the wardens.
Woody: He's the boss of all the prisons.
Jim: Yeah. Outside of the governor, he is the top person in the prison system. And he announces the new warden will be the warden at that time of DCI, which was Burl Cain. Now, you may be surprised to know something. Burl Cain did not want that job. [laughs]
Woody: Yeah. And that's because he knew that wardens in Angola didn't last long.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: I think they averaged just over five years of service because Angola was so bad, y'all, and somebody had to be the scapegoat for the bad things that happened. But he wasn't left much of a choice. He had the most experience of any warden in the state of Louisiana with his 14 years at DCI. So, he took it.
Jim: Secretary Stalder just basically said, "You're going to be the warden of Angola."
Woody: When he took it, I tell you, it was truly bloody Angola, and they were under all this federal scrutiny and everything else. And he's like, "Mm, don't want to do it." I'm sure it was a challenge to him, but he didn't want to lose what he had going on.
Jim: No. You're 14 years at one place, you have a system, it's working. You're looked at as a rockstar in the system, and now you're being sent another challenge. You're comfortable. You don't want to have to do that. But also, Angola had some issues. There were 300 attacks on the staff and 766 inmate-on-inmate assaults, half of which were--
Woody: That was in one year, the year before he went there. And this was right around when I was getting out of corrections, he left right after I left DCI. And he went up there but, fuck, I knew about it. I mean, you heard about it. It didn't make the news every day, but it made the correctional officer grapevine. It was bad shit.
Jim: Yeah. I remember when he was announced as the warden of Angola, and if you were from the state of Louisiana, I mean, that was big news. Big news. Side note to that, this may or may not seem out of order, but I'm going to mention it now. He was actually still living at DCI throughout-- Wardens typically live at the prison they're at.
Woody: They have very nice homes that are provided to them by the state at no cost. It's part of your salary, and it's maintained by the convicts and all that. He took the job. But shit, nobody wants to move-- especially back then, wants to move to Angola, not even on the B-Line, because it's so fucking far away. I knew his wife at the time, and then he was there, and he's got kids and the whole nine yards.
Jim: Well, and you may wonder who took his place at DCI. Well, Jimmy Le Blanc took his place there. They were good friends.
Woody: Jimmy was an underwarden to Burl at the time. And so basically, Burl Cain tapped him to take it over.
Jim: Right. And he made a deal with him. He said, "Look, take it over. I think you would be a great replacement for me, but I ain't moving out of my house." [laughs] He literally said that. And Jimmy Le Blanc was okay with that. In the state of Louisiana, they gave Jimmy Le Blanc kind of a stipend for the home he was already living in, because that's considered a perk. It's a huge perk.
Woody: It's a big part of your salary. And I'm sure you have it in here, Jim, that when Stalder retired, Jim Le Blanc ultimately became the head of the corrections--[crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, we'll be getting into that. But just to finish that point up, Cain lived at DCI, y'all until 1999. And what prompted him to actually leave was the murder of Captain David Knapps in Angola. And we'll get into that in the second episode.
Woody: Captain David Knapps was a multi-generational correctional officer, and he lived on the B-Line. And that's all he ever knew. His father done and his grandfather done, his brothers and everybody-- he lived there. And he was brutally murdered in '99 during an attempted prison escape. And we're going to cover that. Ultimately, he's a superhero, but Burl would have been his boss for almost five years at that time.
One thing I'm going to tell you about Burl Cain, is as any good leader in any good spot, if your people take care of you, you damn well going to take care of your people. And you're going to know who they are, and you're going to promote them up and everything because, unfortunately, and I've said this many times, and I felt this, I truly did believe this, some of the people that you worked with in corrections were shittier than the convicts. I think that plays into the whole civil service thing, because you can't fire them, you can't make them work, and they knew the rulebooks and all that, but absolutely 95% of them were the best people in the world. But Burl knew who were his rising stars and who would run whatever, and David Knapps was one of them.
Jim: Look, being a good leader, one of the best attributes you can have is being able to spot other good leaders.
Woody: And I've had so many, and I'm telling you, I think he is probably one of the best leaders I've ever had. And I'm talking about my military career, my police career, my corrections career, whatever.
Jim: Yeah, you've been around a lot of them.
Woody: And I took a lot of his leadership skills from him. Like that day when I was trouble in his office, I mean, if I'd have been a turd, he'd have fired me. But no, he gave me freedom to run. And he knew I was going to handle my business.
Jim: Yeah. So, imagine you're Burl Cain, it's 1995, February, and you're now in charge of the largest maximum-security prison in America. 18,000 acres of sheer intimidation.
Woody: And the worst of the worst.
Jim: And the worst of the worst.
Woody: I would put those guys up there against any convict in the world as far as the horrificness of the crimes, etc.
Jim: So, warden gets there, and one of the first things he did was he outlines his philosophy to the inmates, and I'm going to quote him here. He said, "Your dorm is like a city or a community. The beds and houses along that are the street, with the street being the aisle itself. So, three beds down is like saying three houses down. You should visit your neighbors."
Woody: He'd actually say that, yeah.
Jim: "Counsel your neighbors and be concerned for each other. Keep your city free from drugs and violence. And don't curse. Once you start cursing each other, violence is sure to follow." That was his philosophy.
Woody: Absolute genius. And do you know that to this day that's what they call their bunks and stuff as their houses?
Jim: Yeah. Well, it essentially is.
Woody: And the aisles, because these big long aisles that run in between rows of bunks and they call them their streets.
Jim: That's their streets.
Woody: Isn't that crazy?
Jim: It is.
Woody: I never knew Burl was the one that coined that phrase.
Jim: Yeah. And so, I'm going to tell you a quick story here, Woody and I both, and this is about when he went to Angola, he had to deal with one thing he didn't have to really deal with at DCI, and that was executions. I don't care who you are, I don't care how blessed you are to deal with certain things, that's hard for anybody.
Woody: And keeping in mind that Burl-- when I knew him, as far as I know to this day, he's a very strong Christian man.
Jim: Absolutely. His first experience with that was with an inmate by the name of Thomas Ward. And this would play probably-- I bet, if Burl was sitting across from us, and Warden Cain, if you'd ever like to sit across from us, we'd love to have you. I've tried to reach out to your guy. But if he was sitting across from us, he'd probably say this changed him more than anything else he's ever done.
It was just after midnight, Warden Cain found himself alone. He was in the death chamber with Thomas Ward. And without one word, Woody, he lifts his hand, he gives a thumbs down signal, which he would later say he hated. He hated doing that. It did not feel right to him, but it was a signal that was common to give to the executioner. This was lethal injection. So, when you would issue that lethal dose, he would give that thumbs down signal. The lethal dose gets administered, and six minutes later, Ward was dead. It was Cain's first execution.
Now, immediately, Cain began to regret that signal, as I told you. His uneasiness, it started to grow. He felt guilty because he never found out Ward's spiritual condition that night or before. He just basically ordered the lethal dose to be administered. Warden Cain actually was quoted as saying, "He didn't utter a word as we strapped him to the gurney. When the time came to ask him if he had anything to say, he didn't answer. He just choked up." The execution took place only three months, y'all, after Cain took over as warden and completely spearheaded the change that we're about to tell you in that prison.
Woody: So, real quick, let's go back to that. We've talked about executions before on the show, but now in the execution chamber, the warden is the one that's in there, and they have to read the death warrant. But giving that thumbs down, he didn't know what he was going to feel. It's the first time he ever basically legally murdered someone, and that's it. But I know as a Christian man, he just saw somebody being murdered, even though it's legal murder. He just saw the state of Louisiana take a human being's life, and he knows that he's not in there for being a choir boy, but as a Christian, he's thinking, "Mm, you know what? I should have talked to him. And even if he told me, 'Go to hell, I don't believe in Jesus,' I'd have done my job as a Christian to try to spread the word, to give him a chance to call on Jesus to repent."
Jim: That's right. And he had a conversation with his mother, Woody, after this. It bothered him that much. And his mom said, "You need to do everything you can to get those guys spiritually ready to meet the Lord, because you're going to have to answer for that."
Woody: Because--[crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, me too.
Woody: When you have that opportunity, and so very few people do, to ever have an opportunity to talk to someone that you know is about to die, and even like I said, even if they reject you, you don't take that opportunity, you have to answer for it.
Jim: You're going to have to answer for it, and it bothered him. Literally, this was the start, y'all, and we can't even dictate into words how huge this is. But this was the start of a change at Angola. Not to sound like Donald Trump, but like nothing you've ever seen. Just unbelievable. He started instituting what he called, and this was another phrase that he coined, "cultural change." The first thing he did, and thank God, Woody was not working there at this time.
Woody: Right. I'd have been damn sure been in trouble for it.
Jim: He banned cursing by guards and inmates. Now, you can only control that so much, but it was definitely frowned upon. I think that's why he banned it.
Woody: Actually, they put it in the rulebook after that that you can't curse.
Jim: Yeah. And he believed that cursing led to other things. It wasn't the curse word itself. Now, as Woody said, he said one every now and then, but it was when it was appropriate.
Woody: I said it, I'm not going to lie.
[laughter]
Woody: What he's talking about-- I got to interject again.
Jim: Sure.
Woody: What he's talking about is, I would carry this later on. When I talk to the younger guys and say, "Listen, most of the time when you're dealing with people, you're dealing with them on their worst day. They're going to be upset, they're going to be screaming, they're going to be cursing. So, you should start out nice as can be." Look, when I was in the street, unless we were fighting or something, we didn't curse people. Will Graves [unintelligible 00:43:37] would have hung your ass or any department I work for. I said, "You always start out low and treat them super kind, even if they're cursing you and berating you, start out low, because then if you need to jump up and escalate, they'll be surprised."
But one person cursing at another one, it's not going to end well usually. Especially between men, and one of them has never had any respect for authority in their entire life, and they hate you as a correctional officer. What is he doing with this just simple thing? By taking out curse words or trying to take out curse words, he is making a mutual level of respect. You take that off, that gasoline that can do no good. Somebody's going to feel degraded, somebody's going to be pissed off, say, "Fuck you, Jim Chapman. You're a dick," where's it going from there?
Jim: That's right. Fisticuff.
Woody: If you give me a direct verbal order, and I'm like, "Yessir." Then, I can go write you up. There's other ways to handle it. So, that was genius on Burl's part.
Jim: It really was. And he also instituted cleanliness, like we told you earlier, he had this conversation with the inmates where he said, "This is your house. Keep your house clean. Encourage your neighbors to keep their house clean. Cut your grass."
Woody: Most of them come from lifestyles that they never had anything clean. They lived in the hoods, they were raised around cursing, they had no respect for anything. And he's just trying to give them the base things. Just because you're in prison, doesn't mean you're not living.
Jim: That's right. And he started inviting kind of the outside world. Look, let me tell y'all real quick. One of the hardest things to do for me in preparation for these shows is research. And why is that? Because we're dealing with a prison where not a lot gets out, for obvious reasons and I get it, but it requires an enormous amount of work to dig up some of this stuff because it just doesn't get out. He, at the beginning, was very open with inviting people into the prison, letting them see-- look, Barbara Walters, which we'll tell you a story on later, came into the prison and actually did I think it was a 2020 special on the executions that take place there. So it was a huge thing on that front. But his message initially was, "We don't have anything to hide, and we want to let people in here, see what we're doing to change what is in a horrible situation."
Woody: Yeah. "Not that we're perfect by far, but we're not hiding anything." The culture in the past was, shit, loose lips sink ships. What happens in Angola, dies in Angola.
Jim: So, I know y'all are ready for something here. And that is what was one of the more historic changes that he made right off the bat, well, we got it for you. One of the first, maybe one of the most controversial changes that he made, but this is Burl Cain genius right here. So, he's sitting there-- I'm assuming he's sitting at his desk one morning, this is how I'm picturing it. And he says, "We got a problem. Our death row inmates, most of them can't read and they can't write." It might surprise y'all to know that they didn't offer any sort of education, even as simple as reading and writing to death row inmates.
Woody: They just locked them up.
Jim: Yeah. So, you might say to yourself, "Well, who cares?" Burl Cain cared. And the reason he cared was not-- these are condemned men, so they're probably not getting out. Although we have done many stories with you guys where people were exonerated and didn't do it. So, there are those situations. But his thing was, if they can't read and they can't write, especially if they can't read, they can't read the Bible. That was a problem for him. He didn't like that.
Woody: That's exactly right.
Jim: And so, it was the first change he made, was he said, "We're going to offer education to our death row inmates." That's huge, Woody Overton.
Woody: That’s huge. Like you said, most of them had never had any kind of education. Right?
Jim: Right.
Woody: Ultimately, y'all, during this time, the death penalty put on hold and stuff like that, years later and stuff. But what do you give somebody who's locked up 23 hours a day and then they're all by themselves? That's where people go crazy and then they got nothing to do, they didn't have TVs, they didn't have all this stuff. So, he gives them, we say the word "hope," not hope that they're going to live, but he gives them something to do besides sit there and rot.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: And if you're going to sit there and rot, if the Bible is the only book you can read, maybe you glean something from it. And it goes back to what his mama said, you got to give them the opportunity.
Jim: You got to give them the opportunity. And that's just what he did. It was controversial. Look, there were people screaming, "Why are we spending money to educate death roommates?" And yes, most of them did horrible things. But his thought process was, the way he felt about it, "I'm not only in charge of their imprisonment, I'm in charge of their soul. And this is between me and God and what I am doing to try to help these men." And that's the way he thought. And the prisoners themselves really started to take note. This guy seems like he cares. I mean, it was probably an absolute shock to them.
Woody: He didn't judge them for what-- And I got this from his time too, and he told me this. He said, "Your job is not to punish them. Your job is to keep them safe and keep the public safe from them escaping. They're doing their time for their crime. Your job is not to punish. You treat them like a human being." And nobody had ever done that.
Jim: Nobody had ever done that. He does another historical thing right after that, and that is, he was the first warden to invite, and in this case, it was the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, to come in. And basically, they had like a satellite seminary right there at Angola. For those of you that don't know what they do, they offer degrees in the field of seminary so you can become an ordained minister.
Woody: Basically, it's like a Bible college.
Jim: Yeah. This was genius. I cannot stress enough how genius this was, because in his long-term vision and if anybody can say anything about Burl Cain, he had vision. In his long-term vision, he saw inmates changing other inmates through God. And that's what was missing in prisons, in his opinion. That was probably, looking back on it, one of the most successful programs he ever had. Those graduates, they would be allowed to travel, not only to other prisons in Louisiana, but eventually all over the country. They were going all over the country speaking at these other prisons, and he called that imposing morality.
Woody: And back to you, now, you get a degree from a college, then you have a little bit more self-worth. And these college studies aren't free. They were funded by outside donations. And Angola offered a four-year college degree in ministry, including instructions in Greek and Hebrew, as well as lessons on how to preach.
Jim: Yeah. And it really changed the lives of not only these inmates themselves and gave them self-worth, but it enabled them to go out and then work to change others.
Woody: And this gives me the bumps again, if you're doing that and you get self-worth for the first time in your life, guess what you're not doing? You're not raping and killing. Inside the prison, there's still raping and killing.
Jim: Mainly hit it right on the head.
Woody: Look, we're going to talk about Christianity and God and all this stuff a lot during this series, but here's the deal. I don't care what you believe in. And there certainly are convicts at Angola that were like, "Fuck you, I don't believe in anything. I'm an atheist," whatever. And that's fine too. But they were given an opportunity because Burl was raised that way.
Jim: That's right. And he knew that the principles in religion were sound things that would keep people out of trouble.
Woody: He also knew Angola was full of the darkness. He was trying to shine a little light and make the darkness back up.
Jim: That's right. So, he started thinking about this and looking at the things that were missing from Angola. This became pretty successful. And he knew that work was or learning to work was critical in rehabilitation. Many of the inmates in Angola, y'all, they had never learned to work. They basically grew up in life, they robbed, they raped, they pillaged, and they murdered to survive. So, he instilled what he called meaningful work.
Woody: Well, yeah, and let me tell you this, another famous Burl Cain saying, when you get to prison, he introduced himself and he said, "Welcome to the Department of Corrections. You're here for however long you've been sentenced. We're not here to punish you. We're here to make you secure. But you're sentenced to hard labor. Religion is an option. You'll have that opportunity while you're here to get religion, but work is not. You're going to work every day, and everybody has a job." And that goes back to him teaching the basics. Like I said, most of them never even knew how to work. They weren't raised like-- my daddy raised me, and your daddy raised you with a good work ethic.
Jim: That's right. And it also gave them that pride that they were seeking, obviously, teaching these inmates to work. And he wasn't done yet. And this is probably-- well, it definitely is another part of his vision in those early days. And that was he founded a program in Angola called Malachi Dads. He did this with some inmates who came to him. Now, Warden Cain, he took note, y'all, of the fact that almost all convicts on Angola grew up in a broken home with the father typically being absent. Look, that's at any prison in the country, overall, it is not even close.
Woody: It's not something we're making of.
Jim: It's an issue.
Woody: We're not people we're picking on or whatever. It's just the way it is.
Jim: Yeah, I mean, you're talking 6000 inmates and most of them were fathers, but they came from broken homes. And so, it didn't take a genius for Warden Cain to figure out maybe that's part of the problem. Now, you can't fix the people that are in there. They can't be at home with their kids, they're in prison. But this program--
Woody: And they're there in prison for the worst. [crosstalk]
Jim: The worst of the worst. So, he knew that there's kids out there and they're now growing up without a father because he's in prison.
Woody: Well, also, I'm going to interrupt you again, there are generational prisoners in there. There are fathers and whose sons, or grandfathers, or dads whose sons murder and grew up because it's the only thing they ever knew, right?
Jim: Absolutely.
Woody: And they got sent to Angola. I'm telling you, there's generational. Their grandson, the oldest one now, who's old, old timer in Angola whose son is down now for life of murder, that guy's son would come in for murder. He's looking this and he's like--
Jim: It's a pattern.
Woody: Oh, yeah. It's proven. And you're right, him being a forward genius thinker, he's like, "Mm, you know what? Why wouldn't I try this? Why wouldn't I try? If I can make a change in one person's life, it'd be something special." And nobody had ever done what you're about to tell about.
Jim: That's right. He gets with about, let's say, these six trusted inmates that he had that they were all graduates of this seminary. And he says, "Do y'all see the same problem I do?" And they said, "Not only do we see the problem, we can institute a program where we teach other inmates how to be fathers behind bars." It's possible. Look, I got chill bumps again. They form what they call Malachi Dads. Basically, this is one of the best programs he ever instituted. And it was a program in which fathers that were incarcerated learned how to parent their kids from inside of prison. We're going to play you a clip real quick. These are the inmate founders of Malachi Dads. And they're discussing a little bit about Warden Cain and a lot about that program. We're going to play that right now.
[video recording of Malachi Dads]
Ron:My name is Ron Hickson. I've been incarcerated for 25 years. I'm serving life sentence for second-degree murder.
Darryl:My name is Darryl Waters. I'm from Gibson, Louisiana, and I was sentenced for second-degree murder in 1992.
George:My name is George Gilliam. I am from New Orleans. I'm currently serving a life sentence for a second-degree murder. We discovered in 2006 that a child of an incarcerated father had a 70% likelihood to come to prison and so we discovered those statistics and God gave us favor and that became Malachi Dads. Just because you're locked up in prison, that does not give you the right to not still be a father. Healthy people, who have a heart that's healed, who have a soul that's whole, they want to help, they want to give back. And that's what we do every day.
Interviewer:Why do you think violence has come down in Angola?
Inmate:When Warden Cain came on the scene, what he did was open up the door of opportunity. He was able to see, "If I can get these guys to start coming out to success because what success do, it change the way you think." If I can achieve something, I feel better about myself.
[clip ends]
Woody: Wow. Super. There's so much to be said, y'all. I'm going to do one more part that is-- maybe I don't want to say shows a harsher side, because it's not a harsher side, but it shows the business side of Burl.
Jim: And a good story.
Woody: He's all about trying to shine the light in the darkness and see what kind of positive things can come about it. But he's also all about, it's his prison and who's going to rule it. But listen to this story. This is crazy. And Jim researched this, and I had never-- believe it or not, I had never even heard of this. But as we told you many times on the show, Angola is huge. It's sprawling over 18,000 acres. And that's mostly-- the camps are spread out. It's mostly agriculture, big fields, Tunica Hills, Mississippi River, shit ton of wildlife. So one day, one of the convicts saw a huge 400-pound black bear on the property, and they freaked out and they're like, "Holy shit." Most of these guys are city boys, etc.
Jim: They don't like the wolfdogs.
Woody: Right. Until two years ago, I had never seen a bear in the state of Louisiana. But in Jackson, where DCI was, the first restaurant I've worked at was called Bear Corners. Back in the day, black bears were preliminary in the area. And now, they're coming back because of strict hunting ban, etc. But you got this mass 18,000 acres, and as rare as they are, there's a bear.
Jim: In the middle of the prison.
Woody: Massive black bear living in the middle of Angola. And you know what Burl thought?
Jim: [laughs] [crosstalk]
Woody: You know what? Kind of scared me, And I know it scared them because they came running to me. And he's like, "That's just extra security."
[laughter]
Jim: That's exactly how he said it.
Woody: And I'll quote him. He said, "I love that bear being right where it is. And I tell you what, none of our inmates are going to try to get out after dark and wander around when they might run into a big old bear. It's like having another guard at no cost to the taxpayer." He was about business. We keep talking about all these good things that he's doing, let me tell you something, and we'll talk about it in later episodes in the series. I've seen it, that's one dude you don't want to see mad. And it's one dude that knows his business, right?
Jim: That's right.
Woody: Anyway, the bear was first seen by an inmate crossing the road in the prison. And it was taking a stroll near the center of prison, where about five and a half square miles were mostly untouched piney woods, y'all. And the prison workers measured the bear's footprints, which were six inches in diameter. Now, every inch that they can measure equals 75 pounds. The biologists have figured this out. So, that made that bear about 450 pounds. And Cain said, the wildlife people told us they think it's a big female they've been tracking for a while. And Warden Cain estimated at the time that 8 to 10 bears lived on that 18,000 acres.
Jim: Holy crap.
Woody: You better believe he promoted the shit out.
Jim: Oh, yeah, I was about to say that. He told every inmate.
Woody: When they come in, "Hey, if you out in the field, you see a bear, you ain't going to be the fast. You just got to be fast from one of the other convicts. We might not shoot you if you're running from the bear, but if you go out there at night, that bear is hungry. Bears got to eat."
Jim: Y'all, we're just getting started.
Woody: Yeah, just getting started.
Jim: But we got to cut this one off. We've gone over an hour.
Woody: Still though, I'm going to say it again, wait until you hear-- we talked a lot about-
Jim: Oh, my God, we ain't scratched the surface.
Woody: -the positive side today, which is something. But I'm going to tell you something, tough dude, bruh. There's a reason he lasted as long as he lasted and is still doing what he does. But it's the totality of circumstances of the man, which to me makes him a legend.
Jim: Just to give you a little sauce for what you can look forward to the next episode, we're going to talk about a little bit about Billy Cannon and how Burl Cain was instrumental in bringing him into Angola. We're going to talk about Hurricane Katrina and the effect that that had on Angola prison. Y'all going to love that story. Look, this is stuff you cannot find anywhere else.
Woody: We're going to talk about some executions.
Jim: Yeah, how about his second execution, different than the first, right?
Woody: And then what happened following after that. Just a whole--
Jim: Captain Knapps.
Woody: Captain David Knapps.
Jim: A bunch more to bring you.
Woody: Can't wait to bring you. And we appreciate and love each and every one of y'all.
Jim: Yeah. Thank y'all for-
Woody: Patreon members-
Jim: -everything.
Woody: -you rock. Our Patreon members, the show couldn't run without you. We appreciate y'all so much. Y'all, look, if you want to be a patron member, go to patreon.com/bloodyangola.
Jim: We've got a bonus episode coming next week. So, what we're going to do next week when we record our second episode of the story of Burl Cain, we're also going to record our bonus episode just for patron members. And what it's going to be on, y'all, is we released the first episode to the general public, it was on executions and we kind of told a little bit of the story and it was great. We've got more for you, but it's only going to be for patrons, that second one, it's a good one.
Woody: Y'all, we have all the different tier levels with all the different benefits. And I'm telling you right now, I've been doing this over five years, podcasting, and Real Life Real Crime original probably doesn't have as many patron episodes locked up as [crosstalk] of Bloody Angola.
Jim: We got a ton of it. That's right.
Woody: If you like Bloody Angola, go subscribe. If you can't be a patron member, we love you just as much.
Jim: And transcripts. People love the transcripts. We've got all of our episodes transcribed on Patreon for some of the tiers, and these are not transcriptions, y'all, that are like the AI versions. This is actually someone sitting down typing because our southern accents don't cross over too well. [laughs]
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: Unfortunately, it's horrible.
Woody: Look, we have merchandise. People love the shirts and--
Jim: Hats.
Woody: What about the Bloody Angola wine?
Jim: Oh, yeah. We got limited wine in there for you, ladies.
Woody: And that's good stuff. We sold out of at the live shows. But anyway, y'all, please share us-
Jim: Review us.
Woody: -like us and leave us a review if you're so inclined. And we appreciate you and love you. And wait until you hear what's coming next.
Jim: Oh, yeah. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim and Woody:Peace.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 08 Jun 2023 - 46 - The Escape from Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1953
In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman they cover an escape from Angola in 1953 that resulted in the invasion of a home off prison property and the shooting of the homeowner.
#Escapingprison #RicardoEscobar #BloodyAngola #truecrimepodcast #prison #Podcast #Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #Escape #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonEscape
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 01 Jun 2023 - 45 - Principal to Murder | The Crimes of Justin Granier
Kelly Jennings of Unspeakable:A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings graciously filled in for Woody Overton today and joined Jim to dive into the murder case and the life inside of Angola of Justin Granier, who, in 2001 was involved and eventually convicted as principal to murder and sentenced to life without parole in Angola for the murder of Luke Villar , a teenager working at a grocery store in Gonzales, LA during an attempted robbery.
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#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #GruesomeGertie #Louisianastatepenitentiary #Angolaprison
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 25 May 2023 - 44 - Death Chamber | The Crimes of the Condemned at Angola Prison
In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they cover the several of the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.
#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #GruesomeGertie #Louisianastatepenitentiary #Angolaprison
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 18 May 2023 - 43 - Death Sentence!
In this episode of Bloody Angola, Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell you some stories you will have to hear to believe regarding inmate of Louisiana State Penitentiary who were sentenced to DEATH ROW getting exonerated after DNA evidence or other substantiating evidence cleared them of their crime and saved them from getting the needle.
#DeathSentence #DNA #InnocenceProject #BloodyAngola #Podcast
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jim: Hey, everyone. And welcome back to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The complete story of America's bloodiest prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And we're going back to our roots, Woody Overton.
Woody: Right back inside the wire.
Jim: Back inside the wire. Just when you thought we got out. Just coming back here.
Woody: Yep. [crosstalk] They made me come back in.
Jim: That's right. Look, we talk a lot on this show about the advancement, especially DNA, something you've worked with in the past many times.
Woody: Yeah. This is a huge testament to DNA. When I started, it was really coming in its own. Now it's so much more advanced. I remember putting rushes on murder cases, and it taken six months to get the results back.
Jim: That's crazy. Even back, we talked about Sean Vincent Gillis, and that was really probably one of the first times they were ever able to really rush something to the point where it really helped because you had to get that serial killer off the street.
Woody: Derrick Todd Lee too. Still, even the rush back then took a long time. Not like it is now.
Jim: Right.
Woody: You know what? I'm totally for it. And let me do this real quick. I want to give a shout out to all our patrons. We love and appreciate each and every one of y'all. We love all you listeners, and bloody shooting to the top of the charts. It's because y'all are listening, liking and sharing. Please continue to do so. And we love y'all very much. Back to the DNA, it's just come leaps and bounds that continue to change every day. We always tell you Bloody Angola is going to be different, and this is different. You would think, oh, hard ass like me, lock everybody up, I don't believe in that. I believe if you're innocent you're innocent.
Jim: If you're guilty, lock them up.
Woody: If you're guilty, you- [crosstalk]
Jim: Don't wait [crosstalk]
Woody: [crosstalk] -you'll pay hella jail.
Jim: [laughs] Hella jail, that's right. We did want to preface this episode with some of these guys were exonerated from DNA. Some of them, it was other reasons. And we're going to get into that. The intriguing thing about today's episode is many of these guys that we're going to tell you about were actually serving in death row. They've been sentenced to death.
Woody: Today, we're going to be talking about people or convicts who were exonerated and released from Bloody Angola.
Jim: Yes. We want to kind of start this off. I'm just going to tell you about the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck, y'all, familiar with him through OJ. It was basically formed to assist incarcerated individuals who could be proven innocent, primarily through DNA testing. Although sometimes they find so many holes in a case, they'll pick up a case where there's so many problems that they take that case on and look for exonerations in those cases. The average prison sentence before they'll take on a case is 14 years before their exoneration or release. And so, it's a process, even with those guys, but we're going to them to it.
Woody: They don't just take anybody, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: One of the ones I can tell you about if-- ready to get started?
Jim: I'm ready.
Woody: Is John Thompson. John Thompson was from Orleans Parish. I'll just read you some of the facts of the case, some of the highlights, and what ultimately ended up happening. Shortly after midnight on December 6th, 1984, Raymond Liuzza was shot several times in the course of an armed robbery just around the corner from his New Orleans, Louisiana apartment. When the cops arrived, they found Liuzza laying on the ground, but he was still conscious. He told them he was robbed and shot by an African American male and then took him to hospital and he died. On December 8th, responded to tip, the police arrested two men in connection with the crime. John Thompson and Kevin Freeman. Photos of the two men were published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and soon afterwards, police received a call from a family that had been carjacked several months earlier, claiming that Thompson looked like the person who had robbed them. Thompson was charged with the murder. Meanwhile, Freeman agreed to testify against Thompson in the murder trial, and in return, prosecutors charged him only with being an accessory to the murder. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. We're talking about Freeman, y'all.
The world-famous New Orleans district attorney, Harry Connick, Sr,, not Junior, that's his son, the singer and actor, decided to try Thompson for the carjacking case first, knowing that a conviction could be used against him in the murder trial. Based primarily on the eyewitness testimony of the three carjacking victims, all of whom were minors, Thompson was convicted on April 4, 1985, and sentenced to 49 years in prison. That is for the carjacking. Y'all, always told you that eyewitness testimony is the worst testimony there is, but doesn't mean it's not true.
At his murder trial, held shortly thereafter, the prosecution demonstrated that Thompson had at one time been in possession of both the murder weapon and a ring taken from Liuzza’s finger. Thompson decided not to testify in his own defense because if he did, his felony carjacking charge would have been admissible to the jury. As a result, he was unable to tell the jury that Freeman had sold him the murder weapon and the ring. Freeman, the main witness for the prosecution, claimed that he and Thompson had robbed Liuzza together and that Thompson had shot him. This testimony was contradicted by the statements of eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen only one man running from the scene of the crime. Richard Perkins, who had originally called in the tip implicating Thompson and Freeman, also testified for the prosecution, claiming that he had heard Thompson make incriminating remarks. Thompson was found guilty and sentenced to death on May 8th, 1985.
Fast forward a whole bunch of years, y'all, and events took a dramatic turn in April 1999, 30 days before scheduled execution, an investigator discovered that there was a blood stain from the robber on the clothing of one of the carjacking victims and that this evidence had never been disclosed to the defense. It's Brady, y'all. If they had it, they got to give it up. The prosecutor had ordered testing to determine the blood type of the stain, and in fact, they had rushed the test. But when the blood type was determined-- I guess this was before DNA. Blood type was determined and was different from Thompson's. They concealed it. Defense attorneys then obtained an affidavit Michael Rielhmann, a former district attorney, who said that five years earlier, in 1994, Gerry Deegan, one of Thompson's prosecutors, admitted on his deathbed that the blood evidence was intentionally suppressed and that he left a report about it on the desk of James Williams, the lead prosecutor. Williams denied ever seeing the report. Defense attorneys also learned that Perkins, the witness who testified that Thompson had admitted the murder, had received $15,000 from the Liuzza family as a reward. When this evidence was presented to the trial judge, he granted a stay of execution and dismissed Thompson’s carjacking conviction, but he denied Thompson’s motion for a new trial on the Liuzza murder. In 2001, however, he reduced Thompson’s death sentence to life in prison without parole.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Pretty crazy, right?
Jim: Very crazy.
Woody: In July of 2002, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal overturned Thompson’s murder conviction and remanded the case for retrial, ruling that the false robbery conviction obtained by deliberate government misconduct had deprived Thompson of his constitutional right to testify on his own behalf at the murder trial. Y'all, I'm not against that. I mean, give him a new trial, if it was messed up. At the second trial, Thompson was able to explain that he purchased the murder weapon from Freeman, and the defense called several new witnesses who claimed to have seen only one man fleeing the scene of the murder. They said that the man did not look like Thompson, but did resemble Freeman who, in the meantime, had been killed in a shootout with a security guard. On May 8, 2003, a jury acquitted Thompson after deliberating for 35 minutes, and he was released from prison the same day. Y'all, 35 minutes is for conviction? That's outstanding. But for exoneration, I mean, that's unbelievable. It normally takes hours--[crosstalk]
Jim: They were pretty convinced.
Woody: Yeah, they want to make sure. In 2008, Thompson won a $14 million civil suit against the District Attorney’s Office. That judgment was reversed by the US Supreme Court in March 2011 on the grounds that the misconduct in the case was not the result of a deliberate policy or systematic indifference by the New Orleans DA's Office. He got $330,000 in state compensation. But you know what? That's a long time to be on death row, and you didn't do it.
Jim: He's a good example of someone that it wasn't necessarily DNA evidence that exonerated him, but it was the facts of the case.
Woody: I have heard this case before, and actually, I think it's pretty well documented-
Jim: Thank you.
Woody: -but what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. But you know what the sad thing is? In 2017, Thompson died of a heart attack at age 55.
Jim: Yeah, man. And you nailed it when you're talking about those bloodstains. Back when he was convicted, it was '85. There was no DNA.
Woody: I think it was like '92 when the first time it was used successfully. Even then, most prosecutors thought it was junk science. So, it had to be used over and over again successfully and tested and tested and tested and it grew to what it is today.
Jim: That's right. Let me tell you about another case out of death row in Angola that was actually--
Woody: That place you don't want to go.
Jim: No, you don't want to go there. But was actually reversed over DNA, and that is the case of Ryan Matthews. So, Matthews was 16 years old, y'all, at the time he was sentenced-- or arrested rather, and was 17 when he was sentenced to death for shooting of Tommy Vanhoose, who was a convenience store owner in Bridge City, Louisiana. You familiar with Bridge City?
Woody: Yeah. That's where the juvenile prison used to be.
Jim: There you go. So, in April of 1997, a man wearing a ski mask entered the store and demanded money. When Vanhoose refused, the perpetrator shot him four times and fled, taking off his mask and diving into the passenger seat of a window of an awaiting car. Several eyewitnesses viewed the perpetrator's flight. One woman was in her car and watched the perpetrator run from the store, fire shots into her direction, and leap in the car. So, these guys were hightailing it. They done shot somebody four times. When she was later showed a photographic array, which is like a six pack, y'all, she tentatively identified Matthews as the assailant. By the time of the trial, she was sure that Matthews was the gunman. Two other witnesses in the same car watched as the perpetrator shed his mask, gloves, and shirt as he fled. The driver claimed to have seen the perpetrator's face in his rearview mirror while he was being shot at and trying to block the escape. The witness and his passenger were brought to a show-up hours later. The driver identified Matthews. His passenger was unable to make an identification.
As per our previous case, identifications not very reliable now.
Ryan Matthews and Travis Hayes, both 17 at the time, were stopped several hours after the crime because the car they were riding in resembled the description of the getaway car. They were arrested and Hayes was then questioned for over six hours. His initial statements to investigators, Hayes claimed that he and Matthews were not in the area where the crime occurred. Hayes eventually confessed that he was the driver of the getaway car. He stated that Matthews went into the store, shots went off and Matthews ran out and got into the car. Both boys were described as borderline intellectually disabled. In 1999, based mainly on identifications, Matthews was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Woody: There you go.
Jim: Hayes was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Matthews had maintained his innocence since the arrest. The defense presented evidence that forensic testing of the mask excluded both Matthews and Hayes. A defense expert also testified the car the two boys were driving, the reason they were stopped, could not have been a getaway car because the passenger side window that Matthews allegedly jumped through was inoperable and could not be rolled down. How do you get around that? I don't know, but they did. Other witnesses to the crime described the shooter as being much shorter than Matthews as well, which that's not necessarily that reliable. Height is hard to determine.
Woody: You can put four people in the room and four people may get the different height and weight or whatever on. If it's a correct identification, basically you can bring them back two weeks later and they can still pick out the facial features.
Jim: That's right. So, y'all ready to hear how this person got exonerated? Well, DNA testing in another murder case proved to be the keys to proving Matthews' innocence, another murder occurring shortly after Vanhoose's death in the same area. A local resident named Rondell Love was arrested. He pled guilty, and Love bragged to other inmates that he also killed Vanhoose. And that happens, y'all, you'd be surprised.
Woody: Street cred.
Jim: This got back to Matthews' attorneys, I'm sure, through Matthews, and they began to investigate Love. DNA test results from the second murder were compared to the results from the Matthews' conviction, indicating that Love had been wearing the mask that was left behind in the Vanhoose's murder. Testing on the mask, gloves and shirt had already excluded Matthews and Hayes, but they became conclusive after Love's profile was included.
Woody: There you go.
Jim: So somehow, even though they were excluded from all that DNA in the first trial, there was no one to necessarily pin it on. So, it got pinned on them. Well, you can't get around it when someone else's profile shows up. Over a year after this information was discovered, he was granted a new trial. He wasn't released. He was just granted a new trial. But he did eventually get released. The new trial, he was found not guilty and became the 14th death row inmate in the United States proven innocent by post-conviction DNA testing.
Woody: That’s crazy.
Jim: After two more years of legal battles, you'd think he'd get out right away?
Woody: They got to make sure.
Jim: Yeah. Travis Hayes was released in December 2006 and exonerated in January of 2007. You may think that someone in this position, they must have got a ton of money. I mean, you sentenced to death, for Christ's sake. He received $252,000 in state compensation and another $133,000 from the federal courts. To tell you how resilient this cat is, in 2019, Matthews graduated from Texas University with his bachelor's degree.
Woody: Cool.
Jim: I get chills from that because, man, look--
Woody: They were going to kill him.
Jim: They were going to kill him.
Woody: I get it, not to get into death penalty arguments, whatever, but I'm telling you this I'm glad John Thompson got off death row, and I'm glad he got off a death row, but I promise you, there's some monsters up there deserve to be there.
Jim: Oh, there's no doubt about it.
Woody: Don’t deserve [crosstalk] to breathe.
Jim: Well, it's like you always say, just make sure you get it right. That’s the important thing.
Woody: Yeah, that’s it. If you're going to do it, do it right. Especially when you're talking about taking somebody's life. That's why they have the appeals process the last 20 plus years before they kill them. Let's talk about Glenn Ford. Glenn Ford from up in Caddo, that's where Hugo Holland--
Jim: That's right. Caddo--[crosstalk]
Woody: He was another one, y'all, sentenced to death. He was convicted in 1984. But let me tell you about it. On November 5th, 1983, a 56-year-old Isadore Rozeman, a jeweler and watchmaker, was found shot to death in his shop in Shreveport, Louisiana. His pockets were pulled, and items were missing from the store. One of the first people to be questioned was 34-year-old Glenn Ford, an affable man who did yard work for Rozeman. Ford denied being involved in the crime, though he admitted he had been near the store at some point earlier in the day and witnesses told police they saw him near the store. In February 1984, items from Rozeman’s store turned up in a pawnshop and a handwriting analyst said that Ford had signed the pawn slips. Marvella Brown told police that her boyfriend, Jake Robinson, Jake’s brother, Henry, and Ford were at her house on the day of the crime and left together after Ford asked "if they were going." Brown said Ford was carrying a brown paper bag. When the men returned later that day, Ford was carrying a different bag and had a gun in his waistband. Jake Robinson also was carrying a gun. Brown said Jake showed her a bag containing watches and rings. That is suspicious.
Ford, along with Jake and Henry Robinson and a fourth man, George Starks, were charged with capital murder and conspiracy to commit armed robbery in February 1984. November 1984, Ford went to trial. And Ford was represented by two appointed defense attorneys, neither of whom had ever handled a criminal trial, and one of whom had never handled a criminal case of any sort. That's kind of bad.
Jim: Yeah. That's not the attorneys I want to represent--
Woody: Right. When you're on trial for your life.
Jim: Oh, my God.
Woody: If you're in Livingston Parish, you want Jasper Brock handling your business. [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. This is a death penalty trial.
Woody: If you're anywhere else over on that side of Louisiana, you want Thomas Davenport out of Alexandria to handle it, because that's what they do. These guys had never even handled a case like this.
Jim: It's crazy.
Woody: Anyway, Brown fell apart on the witness stand and said on cross-examination that detectives had fabricated her responses and she had lied in her testimony. She said she had been shot in the head earlier in her life and the bullet was never removed causing difficulty with thinking and hearing.
Jim: Makes sense.
Woody: Several witnesses testified that they saw Ford near the victim’s store on the day of the shooting, but no one testified that they saw the crime. A gunshot residue expert testified for the prosecution that after Ford had voluntarily come in for questioning, he recovered gunshot residue on Ford’s hands. A fingerprint analyst said he lifted a single fingerprint from a paper bag found at the scene. He said that the print contained a “whorl” type pattern and that Ford had such a pattern, while the Robinson Brothers did not. Dr. George McCormick, Caddo Parish coroner, testified that he had analyzed the scene of the crime, including the position of Rozeman’s body and a duffel bag found next to the body with a bullet hole in it. McCormick said he concluded that the victim was shot by someone who held the gun in his left hand. Ford is left-handed and the Robinsons are right-handed. Not looking good for Ford.
Jim: No, not at all.
Woody: McCormick also said that Rozeman had been dead for as long as two hours by the time the body was discovered, a time when witnesses said they saw Ford near the store. Ford testified on his own behalf, which most of them don't, but he testified and denied his involvement in the crime. He admitted selling items to the pawn shop, but said he'd got them from the Robinson brothers.
On December 5th, 1984, the jury convicted Ford of capital murder and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Following the jury's recommendation, Ford was sentenced to death on February 26th, 1985. After Ford was convicted and sentenced, the prosecution dismissed the charges against the Robinson Brothers and Starks.
Jim: Let me just say this, okay, the inexperience of the lawyers that you mentioned is glaring when they allowed him to testify in his own defense in a death penalty case. Holy crap.
Woody: I don't know when they changed the law, but I know Jasper Brock in Livingston Parish-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. Jasper Brock would say, "He ain't talking." [chuckles]
Woody: And I know Thomas Davenport, they're certified in death penalty cases. You have to actually get certified to defend somebody in death penalty cases now.
Jim: Yeah. Probably, this case caused it.
Woody: Probably one of them I mean, they should've known this shit was going to get done the way--[crosstalk]
Jim: That’s crazy.
Woody: Still, I believe everybody has the right to a fair trial. Ford goes to death row. His appeals were unsuccessful until 2000 when the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered a hearing on post-conviction petition for a new trial filed by the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana. At the hearing in 2004, a defense expert testified that McCormick's attempt to reconstruct the crime had no connection to known facts and were speculation at best, and I agree with that, they're talking about the coroner. You can't tell somebody's left-handed from a bullet hole and a duffel bag. Anyway, another defense expert said that the gunshot residue evidence was meaningless because it was gathered more than a day after the crime and that Ford could have easily picked up the residue merely by being in a police station where such residue is extremely common.
Another defense expert said that the prosecution's fingerprint expert misidentified the fingerprint on the paper bag, and it could have been left by the Robinson Brothers. All very, very true. Ford's lawyers at the trial testified that they were very inexperienced in criminal cases.
Jim: Even the lawyers.
Woody: [crosstalk] -Jasper and Thomas Davenport. And had no training in capital defense. If I was Ford, I'd be raising hell. I'm like, "You got me two guys that are wet behind the ears. Give me a pro."
Jim: Crazy, man.
Woody: Jasper Brock or Thomas Davenport. They're even saying that he deserves--
Jim: Yeah. They go on the stand and say, "Yeah, we pretty--" [crosstalk]
Woody: One of the lawyers who specialized in oil and gas law had never tried a case to a jury, either civil or criminal. That's like my brothers. One's a tax lawyer and one's a maritime lawyer. They've never been inside a courtroom. The extent of his prior criminal work was handling two guilty pleas. That's easy enough. The other lawyer, who was out of law school less than two years and was working at an insurance firm handling personal injury cases. Both said they were unaware they could seek court funding for defense experts, shocker, and didn't hire any because they couldn't afford to pay out of their own pockets. Both were unaware of how to subpoena witnesses from out of state. So, Ford's family members, who lived in California, did not testify for Ford at the guilt or punishment phase of the trial. The defense presented numerous police reports that had never been disclosed to the defense.
The report showed that Shreveport Police had received two tips from informants implicating only Jake and Henry Robinson in the robbery and murder. Other police reports showed that some detectives had falsely testified at Ford's trial about statements Ford made during his interrogation. Testimony that the prosecution should have realized was false, the defense claimed. Moreover, other police reports that were withheld from the defense contained conflicting statements by Marvella Brown and by the witnesses who said that they saw Ford near the store at the time of the crime. Reports could have been used to impeach the witness testimony at trial.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: But still, the post-conviction motion was denied. In 2012, the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office began reinvesting the case, and in 2013, disclosed that an informant told authorities that Jake Robinson had admitted shooting Rozeman.
Jim: Oh, wow.
Woody: So, the honorable and right thing to do, in March 2014, the prosecution filed a motion to vacate Ford's conviction and death sentence in light of the newly discovered evidence from the informant. On March 11th, 2014, a judge vacated Ford's convictions, and the prosecution dismissed their charges, and Ford was then released.
Jim: How about that?
Woody: Even after all that, they'd fallen so hard in the second trial, etc. They came forward-- I think, you know what? I don't know if Hugo Holland was still the prosecutor up there at the end. I'll have to look it up. Maybe I'll ask him. He just messaged me last night. But that's an honorable thing to do. But in March 2015, a Caddo Parish district judge denied Ford's request for state compensation. Judge ruled that Ford knew the robbery was going to happen, did not try to stop it, that he attempted to destroy evidence by selling items taken robbery, and that he tried to find buyers for the murder weapon. Unfortunately, in June of 2015, Ford died of lung cancer.
Jim: Yeah, that's a good kind of segue for a second, Woody, just to talk about, look, not all the guys we're going to tell you about today are Citizens of the Year. Some of them definitely committed some crimes or may have withheld some evidence, like in this case. But that's a long jump from being sentenced to death for a murder you didn't commit.
Woody: Look, we have our legal process for a reason. A lot of my cases are bad cases where the witnesses are like really shady people or they're criminals themselves. Well, guess what? A lot of these crimes don't happen with a bunch of choir boys. You know what I mean? You're not running with choir boys when you're going to murder somebody and steal the jury.
Jim: You're going to put them to death--
Woody: But having two inexperienced attorneys and all the other stuff and the guy saying about-- whatever, that's not enough to kill somebody.
Jim: That's right. We're going to give you a two for one right here. And you're not going to believe this.
Woody: Let me tell you real quick, I know I keep talking about [unintelligible 00:31:23]. I don't know if this is-- we'll have to get him on. This part, he's a part of this Innocence Project, but I don't think it's the same one. Barry Scheck is another one. He got a guy off a death row.
Jim: Wow. He'd be great to sit down and talk to.
Woody: He got a guy off a death row. He told me about the case, and I was like, "Holy shit." But I think it was out of Missouri. He's in all federal courts and everywhere else, Thomas Davenport, but he believes everybody deserves a criminal defense. And I agree with that. If you're a cop and you got it right, you got them right. Don't sentence them to death, don't send them away for life on some bullshit.
Jim: That's right. We're going to tell you about Michael Graham and Albert Burrell. Now, both of these gentlemen were sentenced to death back in 1986.
Woody: I was 16 years old.
Jim: That was a long time ago. Long time ago. On the night of August 31, 1986, 65-year-old William Delton Frost and his 60-year-old invalid wife, Callie, were fatally shot in their two-room home in Downsville, Louisiana, which is almost like a plantation area of Louisiana, very rural. The front door had been smashed in and police believed the motive was robbery because Frost didn't trust banks and was believed to keep cash in a suitcase in his home. A lot of older people, especially in those times, they didn't put money in the bank. They put money everywhere but the bank. The shots appeared to have been fired through a window and their bodies were discovered a couple of days later.
Now, six weeks after the murders, in October of 1986, Janet Burrell told police that she had met with her ex-husband on the night of the crime and that he had $2,700 in $100 bills and blood on his boots. That don't look good. She said he admitted firing the shots and she saw Frost's wallet on the front seat of his car. Wow. That's dead to rights. So, Burrell was arrested within the hour. Not long after, Kenneth St. Clair, another witness, told police that he had come to Louisiana with Michael Graham to find construction work. St. Clair told police that on the night of the crime, Graham and Burrell left the trailer where Graham was living near St. Clair about 8:30 PM returned, Graham had blood on him, St. Clair said. Now, you've got another person seeing that blood. At the time, Graham was in the Union Parish Jail on forgery charges for stealing a checkbook from a woman who hired him in St. Clair to do some work and then cashing about $300 worth of checks.
Woody: Like you said, everybody in these stories aren’t angels.
Jim: Yeah. On October of 1986, Graham and Burrell were each indicted on two counts of murder. Two days later, Graham's cellmate, Olan Brantly, told authorities that Graham had admitted he and Burrell committed the crime [crosstalk] [chuckles] that's it. And that Burrell had fired the fatal shot. So, Graham goes on trial in 1987 in the Union Parish Courthouse. The state's key witnesses were Janet Burrell, who we told you about, and Brantly, we also told you about. So, they got him dead to rights although police reports said that Frost's wallet was recovered in his home. A deputy testified that he believed Burrell had returned to the Frost home and put the wallet back because he suspected his wife had seen it the night they met.
Woody: That makes a lot of sense, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Why wouldn't you just throw it the fuck out-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, that's a stretch and a half right there.
Woody: If you go back to the murder scene to put the wallet back, you got to think, "My wife might have seen it."
Jim: [chuckles] Yeah. You're dumping it in the ditch or something. You're not putting it back. Another witness, 14-year-old Amy Opiel, who had spent the night of the crime with the St. Clair Family testified that she saw Graham Burrell sitting on the couch of a trailer with a suitcase and stacks of money. So, Graham was convicted on March 22nd, 1987, and sentenced to death. Burrell went on trial in August of '87, and he was also convicted and sentenced to death on pretty much the same evidence as Graham. Five months after Burrell was convicted, Janet Burrell, who by then was remarried to Burrell's brother James, I told you this was a good one, recanted her testimony, Woody Overton. She said she lied because she wanted to get custody of their child, which had been awarded to Albert Burrell prior to the murders. That's called motive to lie. So, the Louisiana Supreme Court, they grant--
Woody: That’s cold hearted.
Jim: Yeah, that's cold.
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: That’s as cold as you can get.
Woody: How shitty of a mom does she have to be for the dad to get custody in the state of Louisiana? That’s a rare deal.
Jim: Well, somewhere along the line, her conscience weighed on her and she admitted she lied. The Louisiana Supreme Court granted Albert Burrell a hearing. A hearing. But at the hearing, Janet Burrell changed her testimony back, she's figuring it out, "Uh-oh. I might get in trouble for this," to her original story. The motion for a new trial was denied. Eventually, the conviction and death sentence got upheld by the Louisiana State Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Graham, don't forget about him, his case was also sent back for a hearing in motion for a new trial because of all this going on. His lawyers, they continued to get extension after extension, and they began to cover new evidence. By 1995, Janet Burrell shows up again. She says, "I'm going to recant my testimony again."
Woody: She's unreliable now.
Jim: Yeah. The crazy thing was, the execution date was in August of '96, she recants it in 1995. The lawyers, closer it gets to that execution date, they're 24 hours a day trying to get you a stay. 17 days away from his death, Burrell's lawyer obtains a stay. In 1998, Amy Opiel shows up again and recants her testimony, claiming she was pressured to lie and that it was St. Clair she saw with blood on his clothes and counting money. It wasn't Burrell. Okay, so Graham, he finally gets a hearing in 2000 where lawyers present all these recanted statements, as well as evidence that prosecutors failed to turn over, exculpatory evidence and impeachment evidence, including that Brantly had cut a deal with prosecutors on a pending charge, and then he was taking medication to control his mood swings. So, Brantly had a little bit of an anger problem, probably. On March 4th of 2000, Graham was granted a new trial after the Third Judicial District judge, Cynthia Woodard, ruled that prosecutors have misled the jury and failed to turn over exculpatory evidence. Woody, what is exculpatory evidence?
Woody: Anything that could possibly make the jury find them not guilty.
Jim: Yeah. On December 28th of 2000, they dismissed charges against Graham, and he was released from prison. This is a man that was 17 days from getting the needle.
Woody: From executing.
Jim: Yes. On January 2nd, you may wonder, "What about Burrell?" January 2nd of 2001, charges against Burrell were dismissed and he was released. Now, in 2016, a state appeals court upheld a lower court ruling denying Graham and Burrell compensation from the state of Louisiana. Burrell and Graham filed a federal lawsuit, but a jury ruled against them.
Woody: They never solved the crime now. That's a cold case.
Jim: Cold case. And here's the interesting thing. You may wonder why they're denying this money.
Woody: It's hard. It's almost impossible to get a nickel for being wrongfully convicted.
Jim: Exactly. Especially when you don't have DNA evidence to back it up, because basically that was so many inaccurate statements, but it didn't necessarily mean you didn't do it. It just means the people that said you did it were lying.
Woody: A lot of times, if they have find gross negligence, they have to prove that DA actually did what they said that you did or whatever.
Jim: That's it.
Woody: Really, people don't really care about people that are exonerated, basically in paying--
Jim: Those are two for one right there for you.
Woody: A lot of states have a set amount. If you get exonerated, it's just whatever, which is crazy. There's no amount of money worth being on death row. In Angola, much less on death row.
Jim: Yeah, the guy that was the singer that we did the episode.
Woody: Yeah, Archie.
Jim: How can you give that guy enough money?
Woody: You can't.
Jim: And he was exonerated on DNA evidence. He did not do it.
Woody: You cannot give him enough.
Jim: You can't give him enough. So, why are you putting a ceiling on it? Because every situation is different. Someone like that, you can't give them enough, but Goddang, you need to give them millions.
Woody: They should never have to work or do anything.
Jim: Period.
Woody: Y'all, we will tell you another one, and this one is a rape and a murder. It's the case of Damon Thibodeaux, which is a good, strong Cajun name. And another Louisiana man that was sentenced to death row at Bloody Angola. On July 19th, 1996, at around 05:15 PM, 14-year-old Crystal Champagne left her apartment in Marrero, Louisiana, to walk to a nearby supermarket. When she didn't return home as expected, her mother went looking for her. At around 6:45 PM, her father and 21-year-old stepcousin, Damon Thibodeaux, also went out to look for her, as did several neighbors. The search continued until the following afternoon, when friends of the family heard that a girl who looked like Crystal had been seen walking on the levee. Y'all, if you're not from South Louisiana, levees are manmade walls that hold back the rivers or the bayous or whatever. Said Crystal been seen walking on the levee in previous evening. Not long after, Champagne’s body was found near the levee. She was partially naked and had been strangled with a wire.
Before the girl’s body was found, JPSO investigators began interviewing people who had been with Champagne before she disappeared. An officer was interviewing Thibodeaux, who had been at the Champagne’s home when Crystal left for the store. When he was informed that her body had been found, a homicide detective then took over the questioning. Thibodeaux initially said he knew nothing about the murder. He agreed to a polygraph test, which police said indicated deception regarding the girl’s death. Uh-oh.
Jim: And you being a former polygrapher--
Woody: I'm still a polygrapher, actually-- it's just so hard. Basically, at that point, the polygraph is an interrogation tool. It's hard to clear somebody who's accused of murder if you're not good as fuck like me.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: No, seriously. You got to set the questions, the questions that they lied to, their response has to be stronger than, "Did you rape and murder this girl?" Well, fuck you, you're in the hot seat. You're looking at a death penalty. It's hard to do. So, they failed him, whoever it was, I don't know who it was. They failed him on the polygraph, which, let me tell you, the polygraph is a long process, but it's basically made to break people down if they're guilty. And it's five or six hours. But I always said a good homicide interrogation doesn't even begin until after five or six hours. That's when you really start to get in that ass.
Eventually, after nine hours of questioning, Thibodeaux said that he had raped and murdered Crystal. He was arrested and charged with both crimes. After he was allowed to eat and rest, Thibodeaux quickly recanted his confession, but was ignored. At Thibodeaux’s 1997 trial, the prosecution built its case around his confession to the rape and murder. Dr. Fraser MacKenzie of the JPSO Coroner's Office, who performed autopsy on Crystal, testified the girl had been strangled to death and had injuries to her right eye and forehead consistent with getting hit by a bat or a rock. He noted bruises on the girl’s buttocks, which he said indicated a struggle. He estimated Crystal had been dead about 24 hours before she was found. Separately, Dr. Lamar Lee, a professor of entomology at Louisiana State University, testified about the insect samples taken from Crystal’s body. He said flies will lay eggs on a carcass within a couple of hours after death but will not lay eggs after dark. He said that the eggs were laid before nightfall--
Jim: That’s true?
Woody: Yes.
Jim: [crosstalk] as hell.
Woody: Came out of the body farm originally out of Tennessee, but I didn't if they used maggots and the generation of flies, and they could tell you how long a body's been down like almost within 15 minutes.
Jim: Damn.
Woody: On July 19th, 1996, and calculated the age of the fly larvae or the maggots at between 24 and 28 hours old. They eat until they turn and fly, die and have more babies in cycle. There was no physical evidence linking Thibodeaux to the crimes, and though Crystal was found undressed, they found no semen on her body and no other physical evidence that she had been raped. A police officer testified that the semen could have been eaten by maggots. I guess.
A week after the crime, detectives questioned two women they found walking on the levee. Both said they saw a man pacing and acting nervously on the evening of the murder. Both women picked a photo of Thibodeaux from a photographic lineup, and both identified him at the trial. Thibodeaux’s attorney argued that detectives coerced the confession and suggested facts of the crime to him during their interrogation. On October 3rd, 1997, a jury convicted Thibodeaux of first-degree murder and rape. He was sentenced to death.
Jim: Oh, my God.
Woody: It's another one of our boys going up to death row.
Jim: Death row.
Woody: So, fast forward ten more years, in 2007, the JPSO district attorney's office agreed to reinvestigate the case with the Innocence Project and other lawyers who volunteered to work on the case. Now, DNA testing as well as other forensic testing was performed, and investigators interviewed numerous witnesses. The investigation revealed that the women who identified Thibodeaux as the man they had seen pacing near the crime scene had seen Thibodeaux’s photo in the news media before police showed them the photo line-up. Moreover, the date of the sighting turned out to be the date after the body was found, when Thibodeaux was already locked up.
Jim: That could be a problem.
Woody: Right. Well, you know what, you got to give props to JPSO DA's office for even trying to reopen and look at this, because most of them are like, "Fuck you. I [crosstalk] conviction."
Jim: Yeah, you did it.
Woody: And he's on the death row. But extensive DNA testing on items recovered from the scene of the crime failed to detect any trace of biological material connecting Thibodeaux to the murder. Tests also showed that despite Thibodeaux’s confession to rape, Crystal had not been sexually assaulted. And DNA testing on the cord used to strangle Crystal identified a male DNA profile that did not belong to Thibodeaux.
Jim: Uh-oh.
Woody: Well, doesn’t totally excuse him. It could have been anything. Somebody else could have held the cord, and Thibodeaux could have been wearing gloves, we don't know. But the reinvestigation established firmly that Thibodeaux's confession was false. He claimed to have raped Champagne when in fact, no rape occurred. He said he strangled her with a gray speaker wire he took from his car, when in fact she was strangled with a red cord that had been tied to a tree near the crime scene. The prosecution consults an expert in false confessions who concluded that the confession was the result of police pressure, exhaustion, psychological vulnerability, and fear of the death penalty.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Yeah. I mean, it can happen, y'all. I hope every day that I didn't get the juice from somebody on the wrong level, and I don't think I did. Anyway, on September 29th, 2012, he was released from death row. Thibodeaux later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that was put on hold in January 2017. Like most of our guys, he died in August of 2021.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: But you know what? I know false confessions do happen. It's a real deal.
Jim: Yeah. You'll confess to anything if you're tired enough.
Woody: You had your ass [unintelligible 00:49:06].
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: [laughs] -eight, nine hours not eating, I mean, you're going to get the needle, da, da, da. It might have been, "Help me help you. You tell us what happened, we're going to tell that you cooperated." But the fact that he confesses and then they give him some food and he's like, [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. All right, we're going to give, y'all, one more today. We're going to tell you about a guy that definitely did not do it, was exonerated by DNA evidence, and that is Mr. Rickey Johnson. I saved this one for last today because he was in prison a long time for a rape he didn't commit. Matter of fact, he was in prison 25 years.
Woody: That would suck.
Jim: Yeah. One day in prison for something you didn't do, it sucks. All right, imagine 25 years. Let me tell you about the crime. In the early morning hours of July 12th, 1982, a 22-year-old woman awoke in her Northwest Louisiana home to find a man holding a gun to her head.
Woody: Wow.
Jim: The man raped the woman twice, stayed at her house for four hours. He told her his name was Marcus Johnson, and he mentioned several details. He claimed they were about his life. He claimed to be looking for an ex-girlfriend of his from Many, Louisiana. He said he was on probation. He was from Leesville, Louisiana. He even said he had relatives in the town of Natchitoches and Monroe. The weird thing is, he raped this chick twice and then he starts telling her his life story. It's almost like he felt like, "Now, we have a connection."
Woody: Yeah, I got this special nut dumping connection.
Jim: Yeah. What do you think the victim did?
Woody: Pillow talk.
Jim: She reports the rape the next morning, and at which point she told police her attacker was an African American man. He was between 5'6" and 5'8", and he weighed about 140 pounds. He had facial hair and a scarf tied around his head. A detective from the Sabine Parish Sheriff's Department contacted the Leesville Sheriff's Department to ask if they had a man named Marcus Johnson on file. There was no record of Marcus Johnson, but Leesville officers did tell detectives about Rickey Johnson. They said, "Well, we got another Johnson here. His name is Rickey. He's African American," and he was on probation for a traffic violation, a misdemeanor. Rickey matched some of the details that the lady provided of the perpetrator. He was from Leesville, he did have a child with a woman in Many, and he had relatives in Natchitoches and Monroe. So, he becomes a suspect. Nothing wrong with that. Police showed the victim a six pack, but it was actually only three pictures in this one. So, we're going to call it a three pack.
Woody: Three pack.
Jim: Yeah. It had Johnson's photo, which was at the center.
Woody: I don’t know how you get away with that.
Jim: That picture was eight years old, and it was in the center. That's important. Mentally, you go to the center picture first. The victim told police that she had ample time to see the perpetrator's face and she identified Johnson as a perpetrator, even though he had a prominent gold tooth, which was never part of her description of the attacker. If a guy rapes you or a girl rapes you and they have a gold tooth, you're probably going to mention they had a gold tooth.
Woody: You mentioned facial hair and everything else, and the gold tooth would stand out.
Jim: Two days later, what do you think they do? They go arrest Rickey Johnson and they don't even investigate any other suspects at this time. They think they got their man. Johnson asserts his innocence. He says, "I didn't do any of this crap." Six days later, they conduct an in-person lineup with five individuals. Again, Johnson, they put in the center. And again, the victim identifies him as the assailant. The lineup was not presented at Johnson's trial because it was ruled inadmissible since Johnson did not have an attorney present at the lineup. I mean, it happens. Doesn't mean he didn't do it. Tests at the Shreveport Crime Lab determined that evidence collected from the victim at the hospital included sperm and serological testing that showed Johnson and 35% of the African American population could have been the contributor. So, that's basically no evidence. Too many people.
Woody: Too many people are-- [crosstalk] African American.
Jim: 35% of the entire population. Johnson was charged with aggravated sexual assault and tried before a jury in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. The victim identified him at trial saying she was positive.
Woody: Game over.
Jim: Positive that was him, and there was no question in her mind. She said the apartment was dark until about 15 minutes before he left. Prosecutors presented the victim's photo ID of Johnson and the serological evidence that his blood type matched the blood type of the perpetrator as determined--
Woody: Back then, they didn't have DNA. They could give you blood types, basically.
Jim: That's it. So, long story short, he gets convicted by the jury and he's sentenced to life without parole.
Woody: Bloody Angola.
Jim: Bloody Angola, baby, that's where you're going. So, Johnson contacts the Innocence Project at the suggestion of a guy named Calvin Willis, who was also a fellow inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary. Willis was exonerated in 2003 after the Innocence Project secured DNA testing that proved his innocence. He basically called his boy and said, "If you really didn't do this, I got some people you need to talk to." Now, in late 2007, that DNA testing was performed on the sperm from the perpetrator of the crime. Remember, we said they had sperm. And the results proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Johnson could not have been the attacker.
Woody: Wow.
Jim: This is the first DNA exoneration using the new technology with DNA at this time called Mini-STR, which allows labs to accurately test degraded or extremely small samples. First time. [crosstalk] In January 2008, they do what anybody would do, they took that DNA profile and now they have a database in 2008.
Woody: CODIS.
Jim: Uh-oh.
Woody: They got somebody else.
Jim: They got a hit, Woody Overton. And John McNeal, who was already in prison serving a life sentence for rape committed in 1983 in the same apartment complex incidentally as the crime for which Johnson was convicted.
Woody: How the hell do you not investigate that?
Jim: It's crazy, ain't it? He's already in prison for that rape committed in the same complex. And so basically, they offer their apologies. After 25 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, Rickey Johnson was released and exonerated in 2008 after 25 years in prison. The state of Louisiana later awarded him $245,000 in compensation. That ain't even close to what he needed.
Woody: Did Johnson go beat that other guy's ass? [crosstalk]
Jim: [chuckles] That's a good question. I couldn't find the answer to that. I'm sure he wanted to.
Woody: [crosstalk] -find, you could.
Jim: He would've got some inmate justice.
Woody: Yeah. "Bitch, you knew I've been here all this time for this," and you know they all know what they're down for.
Jim: Oh, yeah.
Woody: You get your David Constance been in there lying, saying, "My wife put me up, but not on rape charge."
Jim: No.
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: In the same apartment complex.
Woody: No doubt. That is crazy.
Jim: It's freaking nuts. You would think that guy's already serving another life sentence. Why not just come clean and say, "I raped that girl"? Yeah, that's exactly right.
Woody: Even convicts don't like rapists.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: Especially kid rapers and all that.
Jim: That's right. So, long story short, he got $245,000 from the state of Louisiana. A federal wrongful conviction lawsuit was settled confidentially in 2011. So, he did get some money federally. Doesn't say how much. [crosstalk] Look, we hope y'all enjoyed these.
Woody: We got to do more of these.
Jim: Oh, yeah.
Woody: These cases you find, criminal mind is always fascinating to me, but this shit is--
Jim: Love it.
Woody: Hey, we're all about the Gerald Bordelon getting executed for raping and killing Courtney LeBlanc. We're all about--[crosstalk] Almost every one of these, except for Rickey Johnson was on death row.
Jim: Yeah, something. There's been actually, for those of you out there that are playing trivia games, there's been 11 people released from Angola alone from death row based off of either DNA evidence or strong evidence to force an exoneration.
Woody: I get that why people are against it. They say, "Oh, you kill one wrong, it's too many, shut it down." You haven't sat across the table or looked at the dead bodies and shit that I've looked at and looked in the face of evil. But hey, I'm a champion, and would go on-- As you know Jim, after my law enforcement career, I went on and defended people that were innocent, that I believe they were innocent. So, it is what it is. We're not totally one sided, but hell or jail or freedom.
Jim: That's it.
Woody: It's another great episode.
Jim: Yeah. We loved it. Thank you, patrons, couldn't do it without you.
Woody: Yes.
Jim: If you're not a patron member, go join Patreon. We may do some of these just for patron members.
Woody: Patrons get commercial-free, early release episodes and locked up episodes, which we probably have more locked up for Bloody Angola than I have locked up for Real Life Real Crime, so a bunch of them. All different kinds of stories. So, y'all go check it out. You can go topatreon.com and type in "Bloody Angola."
Jim: Yep. /bloodyangolapodcast will pull you right to it. We appreciate it. We love each and every one of you. And until next time-
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman, your host of Bloody-
Woody: Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim and Woody:Peace.
[Bloody Angola theme]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 11 May 2023 - 42 - When Evil Escapes | The Crimes of Casey White & Vickie White
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell the story of Casey White and Vickie White who just last year led authorities on an 11 day manhunt following Casey White's escape from prison in one of the most adrenaline filled escapes in United States history.
#CaseyWhite #VickieWhite #PrisonEscape #Podcast #WhenEvilEscapes
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jim: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And we're back with a new episode.
Woody: We're back, y'all. And, hey, patrons, thank y'all so much for supporting us. And as any show does, eventually, we took, what, a two-week hiatus?
Jim: Yeah, we dropped just for patrons for a couple of weeks.
Woody: Right. But we've had meanwhile-- it's funny, we take the little break, and we go to number five again and we're kind of going viral on Bloody Angola and we won't take much time off, y'all, but sometimes it is what it is. That being said, we want to thank everybody and we welcome all you new listeners to this edition of Bloody Angola. What we told y'all, or I've told y'all in every episode of Bloody Angola, is you're always going to get something different. Today's case is really different, because while the story is not directly related to Angola, I can tell you it's directly related to Angola.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: The case is about a guy named Casey White, who was a convict, and Vicky White, who was a correctional officer. And we're going to get into it but let me tell you this. I can tell you, I've seen it, I've arrested people inside the prison for doing it. What it boils down to is correctional officers and inmates fucking.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: You wouldn't think, Jim, that that would happen, but it probably happens more than inmates doing it. I think the convicts use-- certainly some of the people locked up in prison are geniuses and they are master manipulators for whatever the crimes may have been. They find that weak person, male or female. We've done an episode on Bloody Angola about the lieutenant who was banging a convict. But it happens, male and female. So, it's a very real deal inside the prison. I told you, anytime you go behind those gates or the walls, that that normal rules don't apply. And it is what it is.
Y'all, I've actually seen it. I'll tell you one case that really sticks in my head. There was a politician's daughter, and she was an attractive female, who was a correctional officer. Now, naturally, he got her the job and they gave her a cush job. She was in the canteen. She worked where they got all the snacks and shit from. She had an orderly who worked with her when-- we called him, really working her from behind, literally.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: And somebody else had snitched on them. So, we set it up and waited for the opportunity and busted in. They were butt naked, and he was balls deep. She didn't get arrested because of who she was, but she got fired, and he got swung to the working cell block.
Jim: Oh, very nice.
Woody: But this story is super, super interesting. You know what? I told you correctional officers, some of the best people in the world, and then some of them that you work with that are worse than inmates. This story really shows how the human psyche can roll out, because you can be the best correctional officer for years and then sugar turns into shit.
Jim: That’s right. This is a good example of it. As Woody just told you, it's one hell of a story. The best place to start is, I want to give you guys and gals an idea of the background of these two subjects that we're going to talk about. The first one is Casey White, y'all. Now, to call this guy a stone-cold killer would really be putting it mildly. The first thing you notice when you see Casey White is his size. He's just flat out a giant of a human being.
Woody: Like a freak of nature giant.
Jim: Freak of nature, 6'9", weighed 330-- [crosstalk]
Woody: There's not that many players in the NBA that are 6'9".
Jim: There's probably not a bunch of people on Earth that are 6'9" and 330 pounds. And, y'all, this ain't fat. This is solid prison muscle. And prison muscle, as you've heard Woody talk about many times on Real Life Real Crime, is different than free people muscle. [laughs]
Woody: Jim and I have been here before, and somebody came in to be a guest on the show, and I was like, "Oh, shit, that's prison muscle."
Jim: Oh, yeah. You spot it right off, and that's what he had. The next thing you'll notice about this guy is his tattoos. Now, he has tons of them, but this isn't your typical barbed wire or if you're in the navy, you've got an anchor on your bicep or something. These are mostly white supremacist related tattoos. He was associated with the Alabama-based white supremacist prison gang, Southern Brotherhood. So, not a nice individual. In addition to being a freaking Jolly Green Giant.
Woody: We need to cover this one day, and we will on prison gangs, different ones, maybe episode on each one. Let me tell you about the Aryan-based prison gangs. They're like the military. On your yard time, you have to work out. They work out in formation. They stay to themselves, etc. The prison muscle deal, if you don't work out and you're not swole, they'll beat your ass. If you don't do what they order you to do, they'll kill you. But at 6'9", 330 pounds, I bet you he was a shot caller.
Jim: Oh, yeah. What we're trying to do here is paint y'all a picture of how intimidating this guy is before you even know even a shred of his criminal record. Now, you may wonder what's that look like. Well, get ready for this.
Woody: Well, in 2006, Casey White was arrested on a domestic violence charge. But, Jim, it wasn't his wife. Domestic violence doesn't mean it's your spouse. In this case, he was arrested for beating his mama's ass. His own mother. Four years later, in 2010, he pled guilty to attacking his brother, another domestic violence, with an axe handle, and was sentenced to six years in prison.
And, y'all, in December 2015, Mr. White went on another crime spree where he tracked down and tried to kill his ex-girlfriend. The rampage spanned both Alabama and Tennessee as he held victims at gunpoint, shot one woman in arm, killed a dog, and carried out a home invasion and staged multiple carjackings before he was finally captured in a dramatic police chase. Now, this spree unfolded on the morning of December 1st, 2015, when he broke into a home and stole two guns. Later that night, he turned up at his girlfriend's house armed with the stolen guns and opened fire on her and two men inside the home.
Jim: Didn't even hesitate.
Woody: He had it on his mind. After that, White then broke into another home and stole a man's car and another gun. Around an hour later, he shot another woman in the arm in an attempted carjacking in Tennessee before carjacking another person at gunpoint.
Jim: This is all the same freaking weekend.
Woody: He's just rolling. I mean, he's just straight up thug life. White was finally captured in a dramatic 100-mile-an-hour police chase that ended in a standoff back over the border in Alabama. Now, he's in a standoff. And during the standoff, he demands to speak to the sheriff and threatened to shoot himself in the head. He asked for a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a Sun Drop soda before he surrendered.
Jim: [laughs] Got to have them Marlboros.
Woody: Got to get me them reds.
Jim: That’s crazy.
Woody: Got to get that voice right. Well, he knew he was going back to prison. In 2019, White was convicted on multiple charges over the rampage, including attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend, and he got 75 years in prison.
Jim: So, that's what kind of guy we're dealing with here.
Woody: Real winner.
Jim: I guess you could say, walks the walk and talks the talk when it comes to it.
Woody: When you tat yourself up with Swastikas and shit, you're pretty much not going to get a job as a whatever, as an accountant. I mean, you're in for the thug life. He's proven it, and he has total disregard for the law and anything going on with it.
Jim: Yeah, so he's right where he belongs. And while serving this 75--
Woody: He's the reason they build Bloody Angolas.
Jim: Yeah, that's right. While serving this sentence of 75 years, he's also awaiting a trial for the 2015 stabbing and murder of a 58-year-old mother of two named Connie Ridgeway. Now shortly after he got locked up for that 75-year stint, he provided a confession for that particular murder. Now, she was found stabbed to death in her apartment. This was in Rogersville, Alabama on the 23rd October of 2015. The case went unsolved for five years until White sent a letter to the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office confessing to the crime. During a subsequent interview with authorities, he allegedly gave details about the crime that had not been made public which only the killer, y'all, would have known. Prosecutors say he was paid to carry out that hit.
Woody: Got to make a living.
Jim: Got to make a living. Look, his whole life, that's how he generated money, I'm sure. In 2020, he was charged with two counts of capital murder. Now, after confessing to the murder in which he initially pled guilty, he changes his plea to not guilty by reason of mental illness.
Woody: See how that works out for him.
Jim: Yeah, primarily because they were going for the death penalty if he was convicted in that case. So, there's no way at that point he's going to plead just straight up guilty. Now, if that's not enough to paint a picture of how evil this guy is, there's also the mysterious disappearance and death of his 2008 girlfriend. Casey White's then girlfriend, back in 2008, Christy Shelton, was shot in the chest by a sawed-off shotgun inside an Alabama home belonging to White's mother.
Woody: The same mother he beat the shit out of.
Jim: Same one he beat the shit out of. Ms. Shelton, who was 31 at the time, died at the scene. Now, White was in the home with her at the time of the shooting, but somehow, Woody, was ruled out as a suspect.
Woody: Ah, look at that.
Jim: That was his history. Back then, officials ruled the 31-year-old deaths as a suicide and the case was closed. So, he probably made it look like a suicide somehow. Ms. Shelton's family, of course, always doubted that version of events and it was never solved. That is the crimes, Casey White was convicted of and the ones he still faced justice for in 2022 when the incident we're about to tell you about took place.
Woody: It's just a long, long storied history of being a piece of shit.
Jim: His whole life.
Woody: A hardcore piece of shit.
Jim: Start out beating his mother and his brother.
Woody: I mean, he's just the gift that keeps on giving. But again, that's why we build prisons, for murderers and pieces of shit like this. Let me tell you about the other side of this story. And that is about Ms. Vicky White. Now listen, they have the same last name, y'all, her and Casey White, but they're not related at all. They weren't married, not blood related, nothing. Just chances, I guess. White is a pretty common name. But Vicky White was a total opposite of Casey. At 56 years old, Vicky White was almost getting ready to retire from her career as a correctional officer. Rick Singleton, the sheriff in Lauderdale County, Alabama, was quoted as saying she was a model employee in all her coworkers. All the employees in the sheriff's office, the judges and all had the utmost respect for her. Now, Vicky White was a widow with no children and never had so much as a speeding ticket in her entire life. She was clean as a whistle. She is 5'5" and weighed 145 pounds. Now, we told you about him, 6'9", 330.
Vicky, in 1997, she joined the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office and she went on become the office assistant director of corrections. That's something special for a female. I mean, that's a big deal. In 2002, she and Tommy White got married. Now, that's not Casey White, y'all. That's her husband. They got married and she was six years younger than him, and they raised cattle on a farm. She later left him when his drug problems got out of hand in 2006 and she divorced him. But she was so respected and well liked. In fact, between 2015 and 2022, her peers voted her as supervisor or employee of the year four times.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: I mean, she was just jam up. After her divorce with her husband, Tommy, she remained friendly with him. In January 2022, he died from complications related to Parkinson's disease. She's getting ready to retire. She's 56 years old. She's put in almost her 30 years. She's risen as high as she can get in corrections, sans a warden, I guess. Then, she's liked by everybody.
Jim: Yeah. Just a stand-up citizen in all--
Woody: All aspects.
Jim: Total opposite of the other guy. Now, I know you're wondering, you're probably saying to yourself, "What happened? How the hell did these two completely different individuals just get intertwined?" Well, in 2020, while serving down his sentence at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, which is in Jefferson County, Alabama, Casey White came into contact with Vicky White. Let me tell you how they came into contact. He was at a state prison, but they would transfer him to her jail whenever he would have court appearances. He'd get transferred to the jail, he'd see Ms. White and he wanted to get him a little something-something, probably wink at her or whatever. Look, this is a big dude now. He ain't blended in nowhere.
Woody: Yeah. I'm sure he started out, he floated her a little wink or something and she didn't reject it. So, that opens up his can of worms. Like, "Every time I'm going down, I'm going to try to lay a little smackdown on this girl."
Jim: That's right.
Woody: If can be honest with you, I'm totally confident in my sexuality, I could say this. But I think you look at a 6'9" guy that's 330 pounds, and you think everything is big on that dude.
[laughter]
Woody: He probably got 14-- [crosstalk]
Jim: An anaconda in his pants? [laughs]
Woody: At 14, his anaconda, but he don't fold it in half for anybody.
[laughter]
Jim: Indeed. And I'm sure she was thinking the same thing at the time.
Woody: She's 56 and [crosstalk] husband for a while. That's still cracker.
Jim: So, they would see each other. Speculation now is that the flirting started, and she started calling him. She would call him at his state prison, and they just shoot the breeze. Look, this became a two-year thing.
Woody: Yeah. Once I submit to you on that first phone call, it's going to be a shitty--
Jim: Yeah. "What are you wearing?" That was what that question was on that first phone call. "Is it red panty night?" [laughs] [crosstalk]
Woody: That may have been the second phone call. The very fact that he got it across that line of calling me-- now, I'm sure they say, "This is a collect call from an inmate at correctional center, da, da, da," she had to take the charge.
Jim: That's right. They start this kind of phone thing and visiting thing, and it becomes a two-year ordeal. As a matter of fact, during the next two years, they formed a relationship and other inmates-- and look, inmates talk and inmates after the fact, after all the dust settled and this case became obvious, they came forward and said he would get extra food and special privileges from Vicky White every time he was at that jail. And they were pissed. They're not going to rat out the 6'9", 330-pound beast for sure. Now,
in the months and weeks leading up to what will become his escape from prison, aided by Vicky White, and of course, unbeknownst to officials, Vicky was preparing. Vicky announced plans to retire on April 29th, 2022, which incidentally, y'all, was the same day of the escape. She sold her home on April 18th of 2022 for $95,550. Now, that's important because it was well below the market value of $235,000.
Woody: Yeah. She wanted that quick money. She had plan.
Jim: She wanted that quick money. Yeah. First person looked at it, "What if I charge you 95,000?" They were like, "Okay." She ended up selling it for a third of its value. She then moved in with her mother, Pat Davis, for about five weeks after selling that home. She started taking money out of the bank. She had a number of different banks. She was taking cash out of everywhere. So, she was preparing. She even went shopping for men's clothing at a local department store, Woody Overton. Then, she goes to the adult store.
Woody: The men's clothing, she had to look in the big and tall section.
Jim: Oh, yeah. You had to get probably some special stuff there. She goes to the adult store even and buys lingerie and sex toys.
Woody: We had to put on the kinky.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. This is all going on the weeks before the actual escape, and she even purchased, which would become an important point, a 2007 Ford Edge that was orange under a false name.
Woody: Right. Now, we set it up for you. You know who he is, what he's about. The two faces that she put on, the professional face and now she's got-- well, they had a common face. She's lining it all, and he's telling her to do all this. But I think $95,000, we can get by, have some good times on that. On April 28th, 2022, Vicky White stayed at a Quality Inn hotel in Florence, Alabama. It was this day that she positioned the orange Ford Edge at a parking lot about 10 minutes from the detention center.
On the day of the escape, at 09:30 AM, Vicky White told another deputy that she planned to take Casey White to a mental health evaluation in court and then would seek medical attention because she wasn't feeling well. While the jail policy states that inmates are always accompanied by two deputies, because she's who she was, Vicky White, and everyone loved and trusted her, no one even second guessed her decision. That's really using your power and your authority and your reputation.
Vicky White then took Casey White, who's wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, and put him in a patrol car, and she drove away. As they left the prison, Florence City Council member, Bill Griffin, was outside shooting a commercial for his council district, and he saw Vicky drive past him with Casey White in the backseat. Well, not unusual. Griffin knew White and waved at her, and she waved back to him twice before driving off. Just a day at the office.
She drove the patrol car from the detention center to a nearby shopping center parking lot and left the vehicle there. They then got into the orange Ford Edge that had been left there the night earlier and drove away. The patrol car was found abandoned in the parking lot around 11:00 AM by someone on a lunch break. Imagine that, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: When we say patrol cars, even every jail or prison, especially sheriff's offices, they have jail units. It looks just like a patrol car, like a uniform deputy patrolling in. But they have jail units that they can transport one inmate or time or go do whatever jail functions they need to do. That's what she did in this case.
Officers at the jail became concerned and tried to call her but her phone kept going straight to voicemail. Then, they realized that Casey White had not been returned to the jail. The Ford Edge was found locked and abandoned in the middle of the road in Williamson County, Tennessee, about a two-hour drive north of Lauderdale County. Unaware of its origin, a tow truck driver, Robert Keynes, transported the vehicle to a local tow lot. At about 03:30 PM, officials realized Vicky and Casey White were missing. Now y'all remember when she bought the Ford Edge, she did it under assumed name so it's not tied to her.
Once they realized that Vicky and Casey were missing, the Lauderdale County sheriff's office put out an alert on their Facebook page just before 6 o'clock in the evening.
Jim: Wow. You can imagine the panic, y'all. This guy was a stone-cold killer. He just escaped your jail. I mean he is the worst of the worst. There's probably going to be violence at some point. Now in addition, you're assuming Vicky is a victim. Nobody is thinking at this time Vicky helped this guy escape. They're all thinking he must have overpowered or got out of his handcuffs or something. So, you call the cavalry. And that's just what they did. On May 1st, the US Marshals offer up to a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Casey White. Vicky White was described as missing and endangered.
Woody: In case you don't know, anytime there's an escaped inmate or convict, the US Marshals, they have a specialized division just in tracking down escapees. Everybody else would have been looking for them also, the sheriff's office and all the state police. But when you call in the US marshals, this division, all they do is eat escapees.
Jim: Yeah. As Woody said, they start investigating and they figured out, and they figured out pretty fast. As a matter of fact, by the next day, they figure out that Vicky White was somehow involved in aiding him in this escape. On May 2nd, a warrant is issued for Vicky White, charging her with permitting and facilitating escape in the first degree. So, something happened.
Woody: I'm sure they figured out that he actually didn't have doctor's appointments. She made all that shit up.
Jim: Absolutely. And some other things. Actually, she and Casey White were caught on camera as well, which in reality, look, that was going to happen sooner or later. People don't realize it, but all of us are on camera. An average, y'all, you, whoever's listening right now, all of you, you're on camera an average of 70 times per day, whether it's going in and out of stores, pumping gas, sitting at red lights, whatever.
Woody: Considering the Chinese spy balloons.
Jim: Yeah, that's right. [chuckles] The particular video of the two that kind of tied it in for them shows Vicky White driving the patrol car straight from the detention center to the parking lot where it was found. She made no stops in between and that was an indication to police that there was some planning involved. On May 3rd, the Marshal service releases images of the orange Ford Edge that the fugitives were last seen driving, what they picked up in the parking lot. They left the patrol car, they got in the orange Ford Edge and the marshals added a $5,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Vicky White. So it's up to 15,000 now. The subject should be considered armed and dangerous and may be armed with an AR-15 rifle or a shotgun, the marshal's office also reported.
Woody: And that would have been out of the marshal unit, y'all, the jail unit, they keep them in the trunk.
Jim: It was at this point and still not discovered by police that Casey and Vicky ditch the Ford Edge and they pay $6,000 cash for a Ford F150. It is also at this time that they purchase a Cadillac, and they continue their escape with one following the other into Indiana.
Woody: Interesting.
Jim: Yeah. Look, this was actually well planned. Just to set the scene for, y'all, there's panic now. This guy is as bad as they get. He's on the loose. Now, you've got a former employee on the loose with him, because I'm sure she got fired quick. Casey and Vicky White drive that car into a car wash in Evansville, Indiana.
Woody: That's a long ways from Alabama.
Jim: Yeah, that's right. Their last location before that that was known was Tennessee, a place called Williamson County, which was 175 miles north or south of Evansville.
Woody: And then, to Indiana is a long ways from there.
Jim: Yeah. Period.
Woody: He's smart. They're putting in miles. The more miles in, the less news coverage and all that.
Jim: There you go. So, they pull into that car wash. They leave the F150 sitting in the car wash stall, and they get into the Cadillac, and they drove away from the car wash. Now, at this point, law enforcements still assume they're in that orange Ford Edge.
Woody: Right. Well, what they did not know was that tow truck driver had towed the Ford Edge two days earlier after it was left in the middle of a roadway. When he saw a news report on May 5th looking for that vehicle, he recognized it, and he called the cops and told him what tow yard it was in, and he brought them to it. The US Marshals found the Ford Edge in the tow lot and confirmed it was the one used by Vicky and Casey White.
On May 8th, a few days later, another big break in the manhunt took place when investigators were notified about the Ford F150 abandoned at the car wash and its possible connection to the fugitives after the curious car wash attendant viewed surveillance video to try to find out who left the truck in his car wash and then recognized the fugitives.
Jim: Naturally.
Woody: And they're pretty easy to recognize. Remember, it's anaconda and shorty.
[chuckles]
Woody: So, on May 9th, US Marshals release images dated May 3rd from the Evansville car wash surveillance camera of a man believed to be Casey White in the Ford F150. Y'all, they're also established in what direction they're headed, basically and that they're swapping vehicles. And the car wash surveillance video showed the suspects leaving the F150 and getting into that Cadillac.
Jim: So now, they know what they're driving, at least at that point.
Woody: Right. At this point, the Evansville police, where the two were last seen, had the Cadillac burned into their brain and they were looking everywhere for it. An Evansville police officer spotted the Cadillac vehicle at a Motel 41 and alerted other investigators. They began the surveillance of the motel and observed Vicky and Casey White exiting the motel and getting into the Cadillac. Police began to pursue the Cadillac and the fugitives fled north on the US Highway 41 in Evansville in the Cadillac. In the pursuit, Casey White and Vicky White drove onto a grassy field and parking lot near an industrial area of the city. A law enforcement officer rammed a vehicle into the car, flipping it onto its side in a ditch. It's like movie shit. You can't make this up, right?
Jim: Yeah. And this was the Evansville, Indiana police.
Woody: That's called a PIT maneuver. And maybe they didn't do it correctly. They flipped a Cadillac, dude. Officers reached the duo in the car, and they took Casey White into custody and found Vicky White with a gunshot wound to the head, and what investigators believed the time to be a self-inflicted or suicide y'all. She died in the hospital that night from her injuries. The Indiana coroner's office ruled the death as a suicide. During the arrest, Casey White referred to Vicky White as his wife and said he did not shoot her. They were not believed to have been married, talking about Vicky.
Jim: Yeah, he just called them. They weren't legally--
Woody: Hell, he might have got an ordained minister through the thing or whatever, he might have married them in the hotel room. It's funny, it's not the Motel 6. It was the Motel 41.
Jim: Motel 41. Only the best for that guy.
Woody: Investigators found four handguns, a semiautomatic rifle, three magazines. That's not GQ magazines. People commonly refer to them as clips, magazines with bullets. They found wigs and about $29,000 cash in the vehicle. Casey White spoke for a lengthy period with investigators and said that they had planned to have a shootout with the police. The fugitives had been staying at the Motel 41 in an attempt to lay low for a while and had paid for a 14-day stay after paying a homeless man $100 plus the room cost to book the room for them. So, they had somebody else book it for them.
Jim: Yeah. A homeless man at that.
Woody: Now let me tell you this, anytime I had a BOLO for somebody that might be in my area, guess where I'm going to check first? The Motel 41 or whatever the local one is. In Albany, it was the Albany or whatever. I mean, you're going to cruise those places first. What they didn't know was cops had the Cadillac. If they didn't have a Cadillac, they'd have got away with it. If they didn't have the Cadillac on video like you're talking about, we're all on video so many times.
Jim: That's right. That was a big key. There were a lot of questions to be answered, especially in regard to Vicky's death. We're going to play the 911 call for you now. One thing we didn't tell you in what we just told you was that right before the Cadillac got rammed, Vicky placed a 911 call. However, the operator picks up and she doesn't respond to the operating. They pick up, they say, "911, what is your emergency?" Normally, someone would say, "I'm in a chase with the cops," or something. "We don't want them shooting at us." She doesn't respond to that. It sounds like someone that would have dialed the phone in their lap and just left it sitting there so that the operator could hear what was going on. This is my impression, but I'm going to kind of let you gather your own impression. Right now, we're going to play that audio for you. This is Vicky White calling 911.
Vicky:Hi.
Operator:Evansville 911.
Vicky: Oh, my Good.
Operator:911.
Vicky:Please stop, the airbags are going to go off and kill us.
Operator:Hello?
Vicky:Casey. Oh, God. Airbags are going off. Let's get out and run. We should've stayed at the fucking hotel. [screams]
[police sirens going off]
[background noise]
Operator:Hello?
[police sirens going off]
[background noise]
Jim: You hear things in that audio like, "Wait," "Stop," "Airbags are going to go off and kill us." Soon, you hear a loud noise. Now, the first of at least four loud noises to happen in about 15 seconds. It's unclear in each instance what the noise represents and it's kind of unclear from the audio when the car was rammed, when it rolled over and when the gun was fired. You do hear a woman, which is Vicky, saying, "God, airbags are going to go off. Let's get out and run." And she even mentions a hotel. The second noise you hear, you hear kind of shriek. And at least two more noises follow, followed by another shriek. You can hear sirens in the background. But this is the question I want y'all to ask yourselves, and that I certainly asked was if you're about to kill yourself, you're not worried about airbags going off, you're certainly not worried about getting out and running. So, I kind of call bullshit on that.
Woody: And you wouldn't have dialed 911.
Jim: And you wouldn't have dialed-- yeah, I call bullshit.
Woody: I personally think what you're thinking is at some point in her pursuit, she realized, "Holy shit, he's going to kill me. I want 911 to at least be able to listen to it." Basically, what you just played is Vicky, a voice from the grave saying-- naturally, she knew she was culpable in all this, and at some point, she realizes, "Holy shit, he's going to kill me."
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Jim, you may be 100% correct, but while Casey has not been charged with pulling the trigger against Vicky, he is being charged with felony murder in connection to the death of Vicky White and he's been indicted. The indictment says Casey White is responsible for Vicky White's death because it happened during Casey White's escape. Well, I get that, and that's a whole lot easier to prove than the fact that he killed her in a car. But I'm saying that he killed her in the car. Y'all want to read you a news release from the Lauderdale County Alabama's District Attorney.
This news release is titled "Casey Cole White indicted for the felony murder and the death of Vicky White, July 12, 2022." On July 6, 2022, a capias warrant was issued for the rest of Casey Cole White for the offense of felony murder regarding the death of Vicky White. The warrant was issued based on the grand jury indictment. White, who is in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections serving a 75-year sentence due to the convictions from Limestone County, was served with the warrant yesterday at Donaldson Prison. He is also charged with capital murder for the 2015 murder Connie Ridgeway. The felony murder indictment alleges that during the course of an in furtherance of committing escape in the first degree, White caused the death of Vicky White, who died from a gunshot to the head. As are all criminal defendants, White is presumed innocent of the charge. No further information will be released by this office at this time. Chris Connolly, Lauderdale County District Attorney."
Jim: That's pretty interesting because even though they're still saying that she killed herself, they're saying because of his involvement with her, that was almost the cause of it.
Woody: It's the same thing. I go to rob a bank and you're driving a car and I kill somebody inside the bank, you're getting the murder charge also. In this case, because of the pursuit and whatever, she wouldn't have been in that situation.
Jim: Right. Very interesting. One thing I will throw in here is a little caveat and a fun fact for y'all. The Motel 41 that you brought up, get this. Six months after that murder, tt was completely booked up. The same room that they stayed in for all that time.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: Yes, people love it. "Yeah, I want Casey White's room." They could actually say that they slept in Casey White's room at the Motel 41.
Woody: That's crazy.
Jim: So, Motel 41 was loving it. [laughs]
Woody: They're probably still loving it.
Jim: Probably still loving it.
Woody: They're going to love it after this episode.
Jim: Yeah. Go check out the Motel 41. Maybe they'll sponsor Bloody Angola. [laughs]
Woody: Yeah. Right. They can give us a free room when [crosstalk] Casey White room. We do a TikTok.
Jim: The Casey White honeymoon suite.
Woody: Very unique story.
Jim: It really is.
Woody: It happens every day. Think about all the ones, especially Angola, where these people, 6000 of them, certainly a certain percentage have to be masterminds and master manipulators. I've dealt with a lot of them. Like David Constance. He's not as dumb as he looks. He looks like a little troll, but the dude's a genius. Not formally educated, but he's a genius on playing people. It happens. Correctional officers are begging inmates, correctional officers are the largest reason that inmates get contraband, whether it's cell phones or dope or whatever. You can get more dope in prison than you can on the street. And it's probably cleaner, less fentanyl. But the sex part, everybody is here because two people screwed. Everybody on this earth, they just happen to find the vulnerable ones.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: And do what they do.
Jim: You may wonder what's next for Casey White. I mean, he lived. He's back in jail. Well, in August of this year, 2023, he'll finally go on trial for the 2015 rampage that we told y'all about.
Woody: Yeah, he should get death penalty.
Jim: In that particular instance, he's charged with killing two people. As Woody discussed earlier in this podcast, he will most assuredly spend the rest of his life, if not get the death penalty for that.
Woody: Some people just don't-- a rabid dog need to be put down because if he gets out-- he's proven, if he ever gets out, he's going to kill and maim and do whatever. This dude's definitely living for the moment. They found $26,000 out of the $95,000 something she sold her home for. He's living for the moment in the end. He planned on shooting out with cops anyway. He's like, "I'm going to be the--" [crosstalk]
Jim: He told them that in interviews after.
Woody: "I was going to shoot it out with y'all. I was going to kill as many of y'all as I can." Basically, he wanted to get killed too.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: He wanted to be that bad ass motherfucker, right?
Jim: Yeah. The thing is, Woody, he's even said many times that had the vehicle not been flipped, he would have had that shootout. He just couldn't get out. He was pinned in.
Woody: So, that 6'9", 330-pound anaconda. [crosstalk]
Jim: Monster, man.
Woody: Big dude. I don't know if I've ever met anybody-- Well, Shaq, I think it's a little taller than that, but that's a monster of a dude. Think about this, y'all, for every extreme case like this where they help him escape and all that, think about all the correction officers that are getting laid every day by convicts that never get found out.
Jim: Never get found out. And you mentioned Shaq. Look, we're going to deviate just a second because I got a good Shaq story for y'all that I'm going to tell y'all, you may like. For those of you that may not realize, we record out of Baton Ridge, Louisiana area. And, of course, Shaquille O'Neal, Shaq played for LSU and back when he was in his college ball days, he was very well known around here. And much like Casey White, and it's worth pointing out those sized people stand out no matter where they're at. So, the first thing that I wondered with Casey White was he never would have been able to ever, ever, ever go in public anywhere for the rest of his life anyway because he stands out like a sore thumb. Just look for the guy that's 6ft 9in tall with tattoos.
Woody: With swastikas.
Jim: Yeah, I mean, it would have been obvious in that situation. But back to my Shaq story. I was in the mall and at the time, I was dating a girl and she was like 5ft tall, literally. I was probably 17 at the time. He might have been a sophomore at LSU. We're walking through a mall in Baton Rouge, and there he is. He's like looking at watches like in the breezeway there. I was coming out of Dillard's with my girlfriend. I asked the lady for a paper bag and a pen. So, she gives it to me. I told my girlfriend, I said, "Go get Shaq's autograph." She walks up to him and gets it but, y'all, Shaq is like 7'2". Standing next to my girlfriend, he's signing this thing, this is before cell phone cameras, sadly, but I saw it in person, it was like a two-year-old standing next to a full-grown adult. That was the size difference between those two.
Woody: I got a couple I'll throw on you real quick. The same time, Shaq and Chris Jackson and all of them [crosstalk] I was at LSU. Reggie's, which we talked about on the last episode of Real Life Real Crime Daily, it's where Madison Brooks got overserved, that used to be called the Tiger. I lived in the first apartment right behind the Tiger. I'd go to the Tiger every night. Shaq, he was in the bar, and I went up, stood beside him, he was like a mountain of a man.
Jim: Yeah. And Woody's tall.
Woody: Yeah. I'm 6'2". But fast forward, I don't think anybody knows this. Shaquille O'Neal was a commissioned officer with the Killian Police Department.
Jim: I forgot.
Woody: Now I am going to tell you why. Not only did he have a house down there, but he is a big diver, scuba diver. He bought all the scuba diving equipment and the boat and everything for Killian Police Department. They're on the water down there on the [unintelligible 00:46:52]. He was instrumental in funding the dive rescue team and recovery team.
Jim: Really?
Woody: Killian Police Department. Yeah.
Jim: I didn’t know that.
Woody: And he's [crosstalk] with them. Super, super cool guy, down to the earth. He's getting up there in age like me. But it is what it is. One of the best. Now, how we got on that from Bloody Angola, I don't know.
Jim: [laughs] Well, we're talking about height and how these people stand out and that was just a few little for me and Woody, but just an enormous human.
Woody: You're right. They absolutely would stand out like that. But this dude took it-- I'm talking about Casey White, took it to the whole next level, on getting tatted up with racist tats. Who's going to come up to him and say shit? Shaq might have said something to him but anyway.
Jim: He is, Woody, the prime example that you can point to as someone who never, ever needs to be out of prison, ever.
Woody: Yeah. Absolutely.
Jim: Just a horrible human.
Woody: They build prisons for that dude.
Jim: They build prisons for them.
Woody: Patreon members, thank you so much.
Jim: Couldn't do it without them.
Woody: I couldn't do it without you. Y'all, if you want to be a Patreon member, there's a ton of episodes locked up and get commercial-free early releases.
Jim: And let me say this, Woody. I had a few people reach out, and I just want to explain this. They were asking with the regular episodes weren't dropping them every week. I just want to explain, and we appreciate all of you. Look, I love it when people say, "Where's the next episode?' I love that. I want everyone to understand, when you're a patron member, you don't miss any weeks. We're going to give you something, whether it's just Woody, whether it's just me, whether it's both of us, you're going to get extra and you're going to get bonus stuff. Sadly, this stuff is not free. And it is expensive for us to produce this podcast. It requires a lot of time, a lot of research. And so, with the regular feed that is just absolutely free, we unfortunately have to limit what we can put out there. If we were to a point where Nike would sponsor us or something, look, we're all over it. But if your Patreon member is $10 a month for the starting tier, and you get episodes every week.
Woody: Even the higher tiers, I came in yesterday to record, you had a stack of packages that were going out.
Jim: The Warden Team members.
Woody: Warden Team members. I'll be looking for those. [crosstalk]
Jim: I've got some good little swag this time.
Woody: We give you a lot of benefits in that, and that's just a way to help us keep going and we give back, whether it's in the form of the commercial-free episodes or the episodes that nobody else is getting, the ones that are locked up. Look, some of those, I consider to be my favorite, the ones that are locked up haven't been released to the public.
Jim: That's right. We've got probably about 10 of those now. If you're not a patron member yet, look, you can go to Patreon right now. It's $10 a month for that opening tier, and you got 10 episodes in there you ain't never heard.
Woody: And you get commercial-free early releases. Basically, you get episodes if we have weeks of not dropping them.
Jim: That's right. Don't forget about the other things we do. Woody, Real Life Real Crime Daily, Real Life Real Crime.
Woody: Real Life Real Crime Daily. I would have let the cat out of the bag here first. Real Life Real Crime Daily has been such a success, about to take it from three days a week to four.
Jim: Boom.
Woody: Starting-- that's next week.
Jim: Big deal, y'all. That means you're going to get either a Real Life Real Crime original or a Daily every day of the week.
Woody: Five days a week. And Bloody Angola. It's a lot of recording, it's a lot of time. But you know what? The numbers don't lie. Y'all are the best fans in the world, and we appreciate you.
Jim: That's right. We love doing it.
Woody: And we're blessed.
Jim: Yeah, don't forget about the app. Bloody Angola. You can get episodes straight through the app.
Woody: That’s the Real Life Real Crime community app.
Jim: The Real Life Real Crime community app. So, you can download that on Apple Podcast. You can also do it on whatever Google's-- for Android.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: Google Play Store.
Woody: Yeah, just go you go to the App Store and download it.
Jim: Yeah. So, that makes it easy, y'all, you can get it there.
Woody: Respond to everybody in one place. We just have so much other social media, it's almost impossible now.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: It's a good problem to have, Jim.
Jim: Yeah. [crosstalk]
Woody: Y'all are a great problem to have. We love you.
Jim: We love you very much. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim and Woody:Peace.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 04 May 2023 - 41 - The Rise & Fall of C-Murder | Bloody Angola Podcast
This Thursday on Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman We bring you the story of Corey Miller, the brother of famed rap entrepreneur Master P and sibling to a business dynasty known as No Limit Entertainment.
In 2009 C-Murder was sentenced to life in prison with no parole and made his way to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola but has always maintained his innocence.
With stars such as Kim Kardashian and Monica advocating for his release, Woody and Jim bring you not only the case itself but some information you will hear for the very first time.
#nolimitrecords#masterp#CMurder#truecrimepodcast#rap#truecrime#kimkardashian#louisianastatepenitentiary#angola#woodyovertonpodcast#bloodyangola #JimChapmanPodcast #WoodyOverton #RealLifeRealCrime
The Rise and Fall of C-Murder!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jim: Hey, everyone. Welcome to this edition of Bloody-
Woody: Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Look, we've gotten more requests of this really in the past couple of months than we've ever had.
Woody: Right. It's a really, really interesting case, actually born out of Louisiana, but known worldwide.
Jim: Global.
Woody: We're going to tie it into Bloody Angola but let's tell you about the case first. See, y'all today we're going to be talking about Corey Miller, also known as C-Murder, and he was a famous Deep South rapper. Corey was part of No Limit Records, and his brothers include the founder of No Limit and rapper Percy Miller known as Master P. And Vyshonn Miller known as Silkk the Shocker, and his nephew, Romeo Miller, known as Lil' Romeo.
Before we tell you the full story regarding C-Murder, we have to tell you where he came from. He was born and raised in the very rough 3rd Ward Calliope Projects of New Orleans. His oldest brother, Percy, known as Master P, was a basketball star in high school and received a basketball scholarship to play for the University of Houston. However, Percy dropped out months into his freshman year and transferred to Merritt College in Oakland, California, to major in business. After the death of his grandfather, Percy inherited $10,000 as part of a malpractice settlement and opened up a record store called No Limit Records.
Jim: That's right. In 1990, his older brother Percy released his first cassette tape. Yep, cassette tapes, remember, y'all?
Woody: Cassette tape. [crosstalk]
Jim: It was called Mind of a Psychopath. In that same year, he became Master P.
Woody: Master P.
Jim: Now, that same year, Corey's brother Kevin was killed in New Orleans. Master P, he kind of used that as motivation to get his record label off the ground and get his family out of the New Orleans projects where they were from, y'all, in the third world, the Calliope Projects. Very, very, tough, tough neighborhood.
Woody: Let me tell you about this real quick. Let me interject. In the prison system in Angola or DCI, wherever you're at, all the convicts will refer to-- someone asking, I'll say, "Where are you from?" "The city." Well, the city means New Orleans. They automatically say, "What ward?" New Orleans is broken down into wards, most famously known for the 9th Ward. But each ward had its own project. Now, that's not a derogatory term. Back then, before Katrina, you literally couldn't go two blocks in any direction, even if you were on St. Charles in the richest neighborhood and you hit--
Jim: Where Mike lives.
Woody: Right, where Mike Agovino lives, and you hit projects. These are big high-rise buildings that the government used for low-income housing. They had their own police force even though they're part of NOPD, but they wouldn't even go in there for a shots fired call unless they had two or more units.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: It was rough.
Jim: Yeah, it was rough. Obviously, oldest brother Percy, known as Master P, it was his goal to get his family out of the ghettos of New Orleans. It was kind of from this start that No Limit Records became a full-blown empire. Master P, in particular, became a beast in the way of business investments. I mean, just about everything this guy touched turned into gold. He was no idiot at all. No Limit invested in all kinds of successful ventures. They had an energy drink company, a sports management company, a publishing company, fast food companies. No Limit Enterprises became so successful, in fact, that in 1998 alone, the company grossed $110,000,000.
Woody: That's a lot of duckies.
Jim: That is a lot.
Woody: Homegrown, right?
Jim: Yep.
Woody: Corey Miller was growing, y'all, at this time as a rapper, and his rap name was C-Murder. I know y'all have heard of that. Corey was the top of his game, and he had been the focal point of No Limited Records, and he was one of the wealthiest and most popular artists on the label until February 12th, 2002, when a Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted him for the murder of 16-year-old Steve Thomas in a New Orleans nightclub.
In the early morning hours of January 12th, 2002, Deputy Brian Singleton received a call to respond to a shooting at the Platinum Club in Harvey, Louisiana, y'all, which is a suburban yours. When he arrived, Officer Singleton observed a large crowd of over 100 people screaming and running out the door of the club in a hectic state. As he made his way through the crowd, he observed over 100 to 150 people still inside. It was at this time he saw the victim, later identified as 16-year-old Steve Thomas, lying on his back, suffering a single gunshot wound to his chest. Deputy Singleton leaned down and tried to speak to the victim, but the victim was unresponsive, and the deputy radioed for medical assistance.
Jim: Now, other deputies, they started to arrive, and Deputy Singleton then requested that all the doors be locked and all the officers start canvassing the club. They were going to get statements.
Woody: Right. It's an active crime scene.
Jim: Darnell Jordan, he worked security at the club that night, and he stated that a fight broke out between the pool table and the dance floor, and 15 to 20 people were beating down the victim. He said the victim was lying on his back and kind of trying to cover himself up. Turtling, as we call it. He was getting kicked and punched. That is when he kind of ran in and he tried to break up the fight.
He said he grabbed C-Murder and told him, "Hey, man, chill out." C-Murder responded, "Aight." He then said he heard a gunshot. He also stated he never saw C-Murder kick or punch the victim, but he was about a foot away when C-Murder reached his hand into the pile of people, and the next thing he knew, he saw a flash at the end of it. In the 911 call, it's important to mention that Darnell never mentioned knowing who the shooter was. It's also important to mention that his story has changed many times regarding the identity of the shooter.
Woody: Right. Which makes his testimony not worth a shit. But Denise Williams, who was also interviewed that night and said that the shooter was an individual named Derek Taylor. Detective Donald Clogher, who had been handed the lead in the case, stated that he could tell she was not being truthful, and later she admitted to having lied. She stated it was because she was fearful for her own safety, although she never identified C-Murder as the shooter. Corey Miller agreed to give a statement but was not willing to offer a recorded statement. He said he was, in fact, at the Platinum Club the night of the shooting, and he was talking to the DJ when heard the shot and was pushed out of the club at that point by an unknown individual.
One of the key points, y'all, is that the detectives made note of during the questioning was that he asked about specific facts of investigation, inquired as to if witnesses were cooperating and was fishing to find out who they were. The detectives believed he was asking all these questions so that he could ascertain anyone who was cooperating with police to make threats upon them if they talk. They're talking about C-Murder, y'all.
Jim: Yeah. And, Woody, you've interrogated countless amounts of individuals. Is that something that would raise a flag with you if they were asking--?
Woody: Yeah. That's almost like people coming back to revisit the crime scene to watch or whatever and interjecting themselves in an investigation. The fact that he's coming back in and he's like, "Who's talking? Who's talking?"
Jim: Yeah. "Y'all got any information on the case?"
Woody: "Who's talking?" That's definitely the right red flag.
Jim: Almost showing too much interest in what's going on. Kenneth Jordan was also a witness at the club that night. Now, he stated that the celebs, they get to skip the line and that although a metal wand is used for weapons checks, y'all have all seen that, the airport or whatever, they scan you up and down with that metal wand. He stated they don't really do that for celebrities, of which C-Murder was one. At this time, y'all, he was big. He was killing it everywhere, everything he touched.
Woody: No pun intended.
Jim: Yeah, [chuckles] no pun intended. He stated there was a rap contest that night, and the victim was in the contest. He said after the victim got off the stage, someone in a CP3 hoodie ran up and attacked the victim. And, y'all, let me tell you about CP3. CP3 stands for the Calliope Projects. It's basically CP and then 3 is for Third Ward, which is what hood C-Murder grew up in. Kenneth Jordan continued to say that the victim was fighting for his life when he got jumped by six or seven people and that C-Murder was not throwing punches and just watching the fight. He said once the fight was over, Corey Miller stood over the victim and shot him once in the chest.
Now, it's important to note that this entire statement by Kenneth Jordan took place about a year after the murder. The case was brought up to Kenneth Jordan when he was in another case as a material witness involving the death of his baby. He said he did not initially speak to police because he feared for his life.
Woody: Yeah, that's--
Jim: A year later.
Woody: So, on February 28th of 2002, C-Murder was indicted, y'all, for the murder of Steve Thomas. In September of 2003, he was convicted. However, in 2006, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and Corey Miller was granted a new trial based on the claim that prosecutors improperly withheld criminal background information on three of their witnesses. The defense, who was not made aware of the criminal records of the witnesses, stated they would have attacked the credibility of those witnesses if that information had been turned over. That's Brady, y'all. Everybody, you've got to turn it over.
Jim: I do wonder though, Woody, you would have thought a defense attorney, when they see a witness list, they would just run a background check.
Woody: But they don't have to, because under the Brady law, everything the prosecutor has in their file, they have to give it to them. So, the criminal records would have been in the file, but guess what? Somebody pulled them out.
Jim: I got you. Technicality.
Woody: That's why it was turned over. The state of Louisiana decides in 2009 to give it another shot. They set a trial date for August of 2009. This is where things get stupid crazy. Just three weeks from the trial date, a friend of C-Murder's named Juan Flowers comes out and says that he killed Steve Thomas. The questionable thing really was his confession, or with his confession was Juan Flowers was already serving a life sentence in jail by this point. It's not uncommon for lifers to try to admit to other killings to save their friends. Believe it or not, the other issue is that he changed and recanted that confession several times after that. So, the trial moves forward, and on August 10th, 2009, Corey Miller, C-Murder is convicted again and sentenced to life with no parole in Bloody Angola.
Jim: Wow. Look, that confession by Juan Flowers, that's something that the attorneys for C-Murder and those that are fighting for his release, that's something they bring up. The issue with that is this guy really had nothing to lose. He was going to spend the rest of his life in jail.
Woody: He was going to die in prison.
Jim: He was a friend of his.
Woody: If he can get C-Murder, this famous rapper off--[crosstalk]
Jim: Famous friend.
Woody: Famous friend. And get him off by saying, "Hey, you know what? I did it."
Jim: Yeah, he can get favors in jail for the rest of his life.
Woody: I mean, his family would have been taken care of and everything else.
Jim: Yeah. He did come out after making that statement and basically recanted the whole thing and said, "I didn't kill him." So, C-Murder in Bloody Angola. Two weeks after he was sentenced, guess what? He gets an additional 10 years added to his sentence for a court case involving the attempted killing of two people in a Baton Rouge nightclub in 2001, y'all. And I remember this vividly. Now, Miller was in Club Raggs. That was a club in Baton Rouge, which was very, very popular.
Woody: Hotspot.
Jim: Hotspot. He got in an argument with security after refusing to allow them to search him. He yanks a gun, pulls the trigger on a bouncer, and the nightclub owner, and guess what? Gun jam.
Woody: Gun jam.
Jim: Thank God for that. He's probably glad that it jammed too, because he didn't get charged with murder right there. This was all captured on camera. One of the bullets actually ejected after the jam. That's how close it was to going off. So, you know that he actually pulled the trigger if one of the bullets ejected.
Woody: It just didn't fire.
Jim: That's right. It's really important to mention that he was free on bond with that case when the case with the nightclub incident involving the killing of Steve Thomas took place. That's huge.
Woody: It's crazy.
Jim: You know what? Stay out of the bars at that point. You're already in trouble, and you go out and this happens. Time marches on, and C-Murder, he's kind of working through this appeals process, which it pretty much gets exhausted in 2014. Then in 2018, Kenneth Jordan? You remember those two Jordans I told you about, which incidentally, they're not related. Kenneth Jordan, one of the prosecution's star witnesses, comes out and states he was pressured to finger Miller for the killing or face a 10-year sentence for another crime he was involved in. Then the very next month, the prosecution's other star witness, Darnell Jordan, recanted his statement, stating he was detained and locked in a hotel room by police who pressured him to testify against Miller. And, y'all, as I said, these guys are not related. They just share the same last name.
Woody: It's crazy. I'm going to interject a little bit of a personal knowledge about C-Murder, Corey Miller, y'all. So, he's up in Angola. He's doing his time. He's famous. Like I said, he's doing his time. Whether he could have told who the actual shooter was, if he wasn't or whatever, he's living by the street code. He ain't saying dick. But he's doing his time, not letting his time do him. Now, my mother-in-law was the head of security for the visitation room at Bloody Angola. Guess who is very popular to be visited? Corey Miller. All right, I'm going to tell you, I talked to her. My wife talked about it and I listened last night because I remember her telling me about C-Murder back in the day when you brought the story up and said, "Call her and ask her anything that she could tell us about him." All right. What she said, he was very tall, maybe 6'6".
Jim: Listed as 6'4".
Woody: But this is her memory. She said he was skinny, not real muscular, but it showed that he worked out some prison muscle, but he was still skinny, but said he was very nice. He liked you. He was super polite to you. And he liked you, he let you know it. Master P, his brother, would fly in on a helicopter and land inside the wired Angola, and they took him to the ranch house. Now, we talked about the ranch house in past episodes. Ranch house is where Burl Cain would hold his meetings with dignitaries, and they would cook them the prison meals and all that. Well, guess what? Master P got to have his visitation in the ranch house. It's pretty cool. She said that they developed this personal relationship, and she called him C instead of Corey Miller. Sometime during his incarceration, he had a video that came out, and C actually asked my mother-in-law to go watch and say, "What do you think of the video?"
Jim: Wow.
Woody: She told him about what she thought of it. She said there also was another famous short rapper in there, she couldn't remember his name, that couldn't stand C-Murder.
Jim: Come on.
Woody: Yeah, so there was a beef between them. They couldn't have visitation at the same time, everything else. They probably would have killed each other.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: So, she was made aware of that. He told her directly. He said, "You know what? I believe I have more purpose in this life." She said he would stop in the visitation room while other people were there in there. It's a massive room, y'all, with all these tables and some vending machines, and they get screened. Family members come in, and people would come up to him while he's in his visits, say, "Hey, will you give me your autograph?" And he'd do it. Said he was a cool, nice guy. Said he took good care of his girlfriend. His girlfriend came every other weekend to visit. She doted on him. Also, the son of the girlfriend thought of C as his daddy. And he had a big family, and they would come see him almost all the time, every chance they could. The family also went to every one of his court dates during this appeal process we're talking about. But check this out, C-Murder, all hardcore, right? Was a mama's boy.
Jim: Hmm.
Woody: Absolutely doted on this mama. She said his mama was a big woman, big boned, and she always wore a T-shirt that said "Free C-Murder" when she came to visit.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Master P ended up buying their mama house on Tchoupitoulas. She got to hang out with him and talk. You know what she said? If you didn't know he was in prison for murder, she said, "Hell, we were friends. He could have spent the night in my house."
Jim: Wow. You've got some scoop there, Woody Overton. Look, that's inside info.
Woody: That’s the Bloody Angola scoop.
Jim: You can't get nowhere--[crosstalk]
Woody: Bloody Angola scoop. So, that's a personal account. Of course, she's now long since been retired, probably five or six years.
Jim: Very interesting. A helicopter, huh?
Woody: Helicopter flying inside the wire and getting private visitation at the ranch or whatever.
Jim: That's pretty cool.
Woody: All right, so, y'all, he was popular. In 2020, a series of tweets were placed by a very well-known celebrity and influencer, Kim Kardashian. Everybody knows about Kim. She joined the fight to free C-Murder after hearing all the inconsistencies in his case. In a series of Twitter posts, she stated she is teaming up with R&B singer Monica, C-Murder's ex-girlfriend, in the fight to get the 49-year-old rapper's murder conviction overturned. "My heart goes out to the family of Steve Thomas. I can only imagine how hard this is. My intention is to never open up this painful wound, but to help find the truth behind this tragedy. True justice for the young man requires that the person who actually killed him be held responsible and that Corey Miller be returned home to his kids." Y'all, that was Kim Kardashian's statement.
Jim: That's right. With no further ado, we'd like to welcome our guest, Kim Kardashian, to this sh-- No, we-- [crosstalk]
Woody: Kim, how are you doing?
[laughter]
Jim: But, Kim, if you want to come on--
Woody: Kim, didn't you just graduate from law school? I think she did.
Jim: [laughs] I think you're right. She's not really here, y'all.
Woody: Yes, she is.
Jim: If she'd like to come on, come on.
Woody: You can just bump up the ratings. Kim, come on down.
Jim: That's it. Yeah. A lot of people out there advocating for C-Murder and think that he, for lack of a better term, got screwed on his conviction. As recently as March 3rd, y'all of this year, so just occurring-
Woody: Last month.
Jim: -last month, C-Murder is making headlines, and his manager released a statement related to a recent hunger strike he's undergoing to protest conditions at Elayn Hunt, where he was transferred in 2018 from Angola. In 2018, commonly-- well, I don't know how common it is, but prisoners will get transferred to different prisons after being at Angola so long. [crosstalk]
Woody: It could be some security reasons also. Like that little rapper my mother-in-law was talking about, it could be he used his influence and maybe Master P can't afford a helicopter anymore. And Elayn Hunt is a hell of a lot closer to New Orleans than Angola is, being right outside of Baton Rouge, y'all, in St. Gabriel. It's pretty crazy.
Jim: In these hunger strikes that they do, this is common. One of the most powerful ways that convicts have to protest, especially conditions in prison, is through starving themselves. And it gets attention.
Woody: Not Burl Cain's, let me tell you that.
Jim: Not Burl Cain, yeah.
Woody: Burl Cain is on tape. One inmate or convict came up and said, "Warden, I need to talk to you." Well, Burl Cain knows his business. He told him, the inmate, the convict, said, "Aren't you on hunger strike?" He said, "Yes, sir, I am." Burl said, "Well, boy, I'm not goi--" Not boy.
Jim: [chuckles]
Woody: He said, "Sir, I'm not going to talk to you while you're on hunger strike. You go ahead and get you a good meal and I'll come back and talk to you."
Jim: There you go. So, he didn't put up. But we're going to read this statement from his manager regarding that. It says, "On behalf of the Miller Family in an ongoing campaign to have justice served, Lisa Jackson, publicist, and Steve Johnson, manager for Corey Miller/C-Murder, are requesting the release of information to the public about Corey and his current situation at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center. We are asking Kim Kardashian, as the prison reform legal team representing Mr. Miller, to help bring immediate public awareness to Corey's situation, wrongful conviction from the state of Louisiana, the state of Louisiana's suppression of evidence, inhumane treatment conditions at the prison, and it is imperative now more than ever that a quick strategy move is made as his health has significantly declined due to the prison system's inhumane conditions. Fortunately, and unfortunately, we have a disturbing visual and written information about Mr. Miller's situation."
He goes on to say, "Mr. Miller recently passed out. He received no follow-up medical care in response. And because Mr. Miller asked for and did not receive an investigation in the circumstances of his passing out, he was placed in solitary confinement as retaliation. Corey continues to suffer from chronic dental issues that have led to significant weight loss and have been denied much needed thyroid medication because the state of Louisiana says they cannot obtain the necessary medications. Because conditions at Elayn Hunt have not improved, Mr. Miller is engaging in a hunger strike that began on February 23rd to bring awareness to his and all his inmates' neglect and abuse at the hands of the penal system. The neglect of inmates in the penal system has been well documented by Mr. Miller and others." So, basically, his manager, he's basically saying Corey Miller ain't doing so well right now.
Woody: Yeah, well, you know what? Listen, I'm going to call bullshit--[crosstalk]
Jim: I knew you would. [chuckles]
Woody: You can only go like five days without eating or less time without water. I'm pretty sure C-Murder has gotten couple of Ramen noodles passed through his door or whatever. The whole medication thing and all that, if that's true, they better believe they're going to get that shit straight. But one of the reasons they may have moved though to Elayn Hunt is they do have a, believe it or not, a better medical staff. I can't say better, but they have more access to the local hospitals and everything else. So maybe he's needing to see specialists? I don't know.
But the problem with this, y'all, is Steve Thomas is dead. From what I understand, this garnered a lot more national attention. What was the show? I like that show. They go in and investigate cases and see if there's been an injustice in it. He was on this show. And, Jim, you sent it to me. Actually, he was on it by phone interview but his family, his ex-wife and his daughter brought this cracker jack investigative team in, one that was a defense attorney, the other one was a career criminal investigator like me, and they investigated the case.
Jim: Yeah. And it was called Reasonable Doubt.
Woody: Reasonable Doubt. That's it. I think it's like Season 2, Episode 3 if you want to check it out. They worked it. And C-Murder basically said on the phone, basically he knew did it, but he ain't saying.
Jim: Yeah. The interesting thing about this show was they brought up several key points of evidence. One was the fact that somebody had confessed to it. We already told y'all the story there. The guy just is not believable. He keeps changing his story. In addition to that, they brought up a chain. There was a chain that-
Woody: That Steve Thomas was wearing.
Jim: -Steve Thomas was wearing that when he got killed. Somebody yanked that chain off him.
Woody: Yeah, during that fight with the beat down.
Jim: The DNA did not match C-Murder's DNA.
Woody: It really didn't match anybody.
Jim: Correct.
Woody: He couldn't be excluded or whatever, but it doesn't matter, y'all. DNA is not like you think it is. Just every time you touch something for a second, doesn't mean your DNA is going to be on it. They proved it by an expert that if somebody just grabbed and yanked it off, chances of their DNA being on there are very slim.
Jim: Yeah. They basically dispelled most of the cases, I guess, for his release. There just wasn't anything there. In that interview, as Woody said, where C-Murder was actually on the phone, I guess you could say he alluded to the fact that he kind of knew who did it, but he has a code that he lives by.
Woody: One of the witnesses said that it was one of C-Murder's crew that actually pulled the trigger. They exited the club and when they asked them where the weapon is, and they said they threw it in the Mississippi over a bridge coming back in New Orleans because Harvey is across the bridge.
Jim: Yeah, and the problem with that was C-Murder was with them and he becomes a what?
Woody: Accessory.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Same thing. He would have got-- Principal 2-- Louisiana Vice Statute 1427 principal 2, basically accessory and he'd have gotten the same charge. But they said he's standing up and doing his time. It is what it is.
Jim: It is what it is.
Woody: I don't know how you get it, but he's no longer in Bloody Angola. But he did some time.
Jim: Yeah, and as of this recording, he's still serving the rest of his life in prison for this. Look, man, if you didn't do it, you're going to have to say who did or you're going to ride that sentence out till you die.
Woody: That's it.
Jim: That's just the bottom line. We wanted to bring this episode to you. We had a lot of people ask us too. There were a lot of questions with regard to C-Murder. He's a very popular part of society, even still 21 years after this has taken place.
Woody: Well, people don't even know that he was a veteran.
Jim: Yeah, he was. That's right.
Woody: A military veteran. The same war that I was veteran of, the first Gulf War. You'd think him and Master P, they display themselves as the gangster life, whatever. Master P got a college education.
Jim: Let me tell you, that is a persona and that guy is a businessperson. You cannot reach that level of success in life without being very smart and have a very high business acumen. That's the bottom line.
Woody: I think when you start believing your own height, and certainly you're the most popular person at nightclub held about 400 or 500 people, y'all, Platinum did or Platinum, whatever they call it. Supposedly, Steve Thomas was on stage rapping. It was like a rap battle. He got off the stage and maybe C-Murder's crew didn't like it and they gave him the beatdown.
Jim: Well, there was even a rumor out there saying that in that contest, he out-rapped everybody else and a lot of people were saying he was better than C-Murder, and that basically he was killed because of that. And C-Murder responded to that in that TV interview and said, "Man, I have way too much to lose. I'm not going to kill a guy because everybody thought he was better than me that night or whatever." I believe that. I don’t think that’s why.
Woody: A lot of people said that Steve Thomas was actually C-Murder's biggest fan. Yeah.
Jim: Yeah. His own family. His mom and dad said he had posters of Master P.
Woody: He's a huge C-Murder fan.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: He ended up dying, [unintelligible 00:34:08] for them. You know what? The silent code-- A lot of times I say the streets talk, that's what they say. The streets talk, but a lot of times, they don't. In this case, he wants to die in prison for that. Now, I think it's too late. All these people recanting stories and all that, it's just to validate you as a witness on the appeals process. My prediction is like Rocky 3. They ask Mr. T, "What's your prediction?" "Prediction is pain." My prediction is C-Murder is going to die in the custody of the Department of Corrections.
Jim: Yeah. Just a tragic waste to what-- He could have kept on going and just rocking it in the rap world. We say it all the time, I say this a lot, and that is you're one decision away from ruining the rest of your life.
Woody: One split second, man. [crosstalk]
Jim: All it takes.
Woody: That's it.
Jim: Yeah. And he's a prime example of that, sadly.
Woody: Lifestyle called him. Y'all, I want to thank our Patreon members. You are absolutely the best.
Jim: Oh, they are. Couldn't do this without them.
Woody: Curious every single month. Our Bloody Angola is rocketing up the charts. This past week, it jumped 20 something.
Jim: 22 spots.
Woody: 22 spots. I predict next week after Real Life Real Crime Dateline--
Jim: 22 more spots. Why don't you put it in negative too? [crosstalk] [laughs]
Woody: We're going to be in negative too. I predict we're going to number one, y'all, but Patreon members, we couldn't do without you. If you want to become a patron, you can go topatreon.com and type in Bloody Angola. It has all the different tiers.
Jim: We do transcripts on there, Woody, for our upper tiers. But even the very first tier, you're going to get commercial-free early episodes every week. We release extra and bonus episodes as you go up those tiers.
Woody: [crosstalk] -episodes.
Jim: Yeah, we got several locked up that nobody's ever heard on the regular Bloody Angola series.
Woody: And never will. They're for our Patreon members. You know what? It takes money. This is a business and takes money. And we love doing it. We're always going to do it. Y'all have been so great to us. If you would, make sure you subscribe and like us, and if you get a chance, go, leave us a review.
Jim: Very important. Those have kind of slowed down as of late. So, please.
Woody: Leave us a review. We love and appreciate each and every one of you.
Jim: And look, we got a Facebook page. We don't want to forget to mention that. Go to the Facebook, give it a follow. It's been building. I love seeing those analytics on Facebook grow and grow. That's just what it's been doing. But nobody will know if you don't tell a friend.
Woody: Also, every week now, we're going to list every single episode of Bloody Angola in the Real Life Real Crime community app. Also, the advertisement, whatever the episode is going to be, if you're scrolling through that app, you'll be able to see it there also.
Jim: Yeah. Go to Real Life Real Crime, download the app and you'll have access to those episodes. Last thing we want to mention. This is Thursday, so tomorrow, 8 o'clock Central, 9:00 Pacific. Real Life Real Crime, two-hour special,Who murdered Courtney Coco? Dateline, NBC. 16 million viewers.
Woody: 135 million in 30 days.
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Between their podcast and everything else. And y'all, horrible story. We were very blessed to have Lifers and fans, and most of them are fans of Bloody Angola also, y'all helped solve that case. Go tune into it. Share it. It's a beautifully tragic story.
Jim: It really is. It'll give you the amazing story of this man across from me and what he did and went through to really see that justice was done for Courtney, which is amazing.
Woody: I'm going to do a little spoiler alert, if I could say it, spoiler alert. One day we can do an episode of Bloody Angola at the conclusion of a Dateline story because somebody's in Bloody Angola.
Jim: Yeah, that's right. Tune in, please. 9 o'clock Pacific, 8 o'clock Central on NBC on Friday. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Unison:Peace.
Jim: [laughs]
[Bloody Angola theme playing]
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 13 Apr 2023 - 40 - Breaking the Chains!
In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we bring you an amazing interview by our friends at TheP2P Podcast (Penitentiaries to Penthouses)
At 16, Kiana was convicted & sentenced to 2 life sentences without parole. While physically he was incarcerated, mentally he was FREE. Resilience is his name and after 17 years of living in the can God made a way for him to be in physical freedom.
#formerlyincarcerated #prisonstories #redemption #secondchances #bloodyangolapodcast #woodyoverton #jimchapman #truecrime #realliferealcrime
BREAKING THE CHAINS - FULL TRANSCRIPT - BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome to Bloody Angola. A podcast 142 years in the making. The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. And I am Jim Chapman. Woody Everton cannot join us today. He is on assignment. But we're bringing you something different today. We did a two-part series, if you haven't checked it out yet, it's called Second Chances. It features a former inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. He was actually the first juvenile released when the Supreme Court passed a law making it possible for juveniles who were sentenced to life in prison without parole to get a parole hearing after 25 years. If you haven't seen that episode yet, go check it out.
This week, we have a very special episode. The guy we brought you the story of and who actually joined us for the two episodes of Second Chances, we met through our friends at Penitentiaries 2 Penthouses. It's a podcast known as P2P, and they interview formerly incarcerated people that are doing well as they acclimate back into society. When we did the Second Chances episodes, they were a big part of that, certainly a big part of making the introduction to the gentleman that came on the show. So, thank you so much to P2P.
And they have an amazing podcast. So, we have decided that we're going to bring y'all one of their episodes and we're going to share it on our feed. We thought y'all would really enjoy it. We have some really, really big stuff about to pop off for Bloody Angola. I know that y'all are going to be real excited as we go through that process, but I think y'all will love this episode. It is with a gentleman by the name of Kiana Calloway who was in Angola for a very long time and has quite a story that you need to hear or that you will enjoy hearing.
Without further ado, here's the P2P Podcast in their interview with Kiana Calloway.
[P2P theme]
Scott: Welcome, everybody. This is Scott with Penitentiaries 2 Penthouse Podcast.
Shane: Yes, sir.
Scott: I'm your host. To the left of me, we got Mr. Beatty.
Beatty: Your best friend in real estate.
Scott: To the right of me, we've got our guest, Mr. Kiana Calloway.
Kiana: Swag out. What's happening?
Scott: Special gentleman he is. And then, we got my partner over here to the left, Mr. Shane Johnson.
Beatty: Big Shane.
Shane: Yes, sir. 24 years successful now.
Scott: There you go. We look forward to digging into today's message. Kiana, man has a powerful story. How I know Kiana is we work on a project together through the Justice and Accountability Center of Louisiana. Basically, that's nonprofit organization full of attorneys and policy people who march down to the state capitol every year.
Kiana: Shoutout, JAC.
Scott: JAC. And they do legislative work, so they propose bills, work with lobbyists, senators, representatives to pass criminal legal reform bills. The specific focus though is usually expungement legislation. For those of you who don't know what expungement legislation is, expungements are the things that guys like myself, Kiana, Mr. Shane over there need once we come home for opportunities. Whether it's employment, housing, life insurance, you name it, there's hundreds of things that we get denied for on a regular basis based on the fact that we made some mistakes in our lives and we've paid our time, we've paid our debt, and we're trying to get past that.
So, the work that we're doing revolves around expungements. A, changing expungement law, but B, getting the knowledge and information out there because the average Joe that comes home from prison-
Kiana: Don't even know about it.
Scott: -don't know about expungements, don't know how to go about getting expungements. Furthermore--
Shane: I am one.
Scott: Yeah, exactly. And they're expensive as hell. You could easily rack up if you have multiple felonies, several thousand dollars just in paying the state, the district attorneys, and the clerks of court's office, not even including legal counsel. That's the work that the Justice and Accountability Center does. Me and Kiana are working on a project to get the expungement app through Justice and Accountability Center, the information there out. So, we're going to be traveling, presenting workshops, getting the information out there so that people can access expungements equitably.
Kiana: Plug in, man, we're going to be in your areas very, very soon. Just being able to alleviate one of the collateral consequences that come after incarceration, I think that we're doing our part. And we'll be doing ourself a disservice, God, if we're not traveling, educating people about the work that we're putting in the state capitol. Keeping them informed that there's issues that you can get plugged into, but you just need to reach out. We can't do this in our silos. It's an honor to have run into a like-minded brother that's putting in work outside the bars because you are what you do, even when the camera is not on. [chuckles]
Scott: Yeah, for sure. It's easy to look good on camera. It's harder to make it happen on the outside. But that's what I like to do. I'm just passionate about-- and just like you, passionate about making sure that people have opportunities, man, because I was given opportunities and I've had a lot of challenges, man, and I just want to see people be able to breeze through that process instead of getting caught in the hiccups.
I do want to highlight a very successful human being today. As I said, I had the fortunate privilege of watching Kiana's documentary that's coming out real soon on a very, very national level. I told him today, and it's hard to get me to break down. And I told him, man-- [Shane laughs] Man, I watched it, dude, and they had some parts in it, I was just like [inhales deeply] and it'll really hit you.
He's had a very, very challenged life, a lot of injustices, and I'm going to let him explain that. A lot of people see the part of the justice system that WAFB, whatever your local news channel post out there about people who commit crimes and their wrongs or whatever, but they don't talk about all those mugshots that they post where guys really didn't do what they were being accused of.
I'm going to let Kiana take it from here, but if you don't mind, could you just kind of share a little bit about your upbringing and then what caused you or what led to the prison? And then we'll just kind of take it from there
Kiana: Well, actually, the system led me to prison.
Scott: Right.
Kiana: We have to understand that the system was built to do exactly what it's doing. People say the system messed up. No, it's not messed up. It's doing exactly what it was scripted to do. We must always bring that energy back into the space. Just so happened that I have been resilient enough to really surpass the test that the system has caused upon my life. I've seen individuals in the same space, same situation, same cell, and six months later, they hung themselves because they can't handle the stresses or the traumatic expressions about being, one, either fomerly accused and convicted of a crime, or, two, just trying to figure out, like, "Man, is this my life? Is this what I'm supposed to be?" Not to get too deep into that, because my documentary, it basically shows resiliency. It shows the true test of time. Like, you can go through these hard spaces, but you have to be prepared to bounce back because everybody bounces back.
Shane: Amen.
Scott: What you're referring to is the school-to-prison pipeline?
Kiana: Yes.
Scott: Okay. Got you.
Kiana: Everybody bounces back.
Beatty: Explain the school-to-prison pipeline.
Kiana: School-to-prison pipeline. Okay, I'm going to give it to you in layman terms.
Beatty: Let's go. I am layman.
[laughter]
Scott: That sounds like a good movie title.
[crosstalk]
Beatty: I am he.
Kiana: Okay, definitely. So, school-of-prison pipelines. I went to prison at 16 years old. If I was tested in the second or third grade and I read below a certain level, they built another cell for me. Just the way that it planned out, I ended up in that cell, that school-to-prison pipeline. If we understand the way that our America is functioning, three main attributes of human survival. Education, travel, and should I say-- I'll throw manufacturing and the building. Planes, the way planes first started, it crunk up, but now the evolution of planes is that it just takes off. They could probably put it on autopilot, ain't got nothing but to do the landing. And it's crazy, man. The car, it crunk up. Now, you pushed on. Why? Education is still the same. You sit in a single-file line. They teach you ABC, one, two, three and it never gives the whole individuality of the person.
So, when we speak about school-to-prison pipeline, I walked through a metal detector when I was going to elementary school. If this is an educational institution, they should be focused on my education and not my protection or not my apprehension in so many different ways. We learn how to stand in a single-file line, walking to child hall, cafeteria. What did you do? You stood in a single-file line, and you walked to the child hall. I understand the level of control, but that's how institutionalized that we can be. People never have been to prison and are more institutionalized than someone that spent 50 years in the junk.
Beatty: Concrete walls, fluorescent lighting.
Kiana: Hey.
Scott: Colors.
Beatty: White, blue.
Scott: Light blue. I guess to give that short synopsis of school-to-prison pipeline, at a young age, you experienced that-- we all do--
Kiana: It's a program.
Scott: And then, which eventually led to?
Kiana: Even since those days of single-file lines, straight line education, as today, we pump 72% of our state's budget into incarcerating someone instead of the education precinct. Only 13% or sometimes 7% of the budget goes to the adequate education of our youth. That shows the level of, should I say, support--
Beatty: Focus.
Kiana: Dependence, codependence, any word that we want to put into that space, because we must understand that it's systems that we're dealing with. These systems that we're dealing with has to be dismantled and it has to be dismantled from the inside. Scott just said that we have the privilege of working on the new task force, the Safe and Alternative Task Force, which is a governmental task force that was structured through last year's legislation, which gives us the opportunity to properly plan the effects of not only expungements, but the use of solitary confinement inside of our jails and prisons in the state of Louisiana.
And sitting at these tables with the state attorney, with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Department of Corrections, I really start to understand that we are the experts in this field. Like, people are holding these positions and really don't know.
Unison:Mm-hmm.
Kiana: They really don't know the outlook of putting a face to incarceration. That's what we need to try to understand. Who are we incarcerating? How can we lead the nation in crime, but we have--
Shane: The highest incarceration rate.
Kiana: Yeah. Let me kind of bring this back. How can we be less in the nation in education, but highest in the nation in crime and incarceration?
Scott: Going back to you being sentenced at a young age or going to jail or prison at a young age, can you share with us what happened and then jump into your experience?
Kiana: I'm going to XYZ it because a lot of it is in the film.
Scott: Yeah, don’t spoil it.
Kiana: Yeah, I don't want to do a spoiler alert, but, man, I look at my life as not a needle in the haystack. Yes, I was falsely apprehended, falsely accused, falsely convicted, sentenced to two lifes without the possibility of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. Was said in the trial for my life to be deliberated on, like, "You either going to get life in prison, or we're going to send you to death row."
Shane: Wow.
Kiana: This is at the age of 16, just making 17.
Scott: Swallow all that at the age of 16?
Kiana: I had to swallow all of that, and now I have the opportunity to regurgitate that because now my pain is turning into passion. It's turning into my why. That's why I love waking up every morning. That's why I love opening my refrigerator. That's why I love playing with my daughter. Shoutout to my baby mama. Shoutout to my fiancé. I definitely got to say, what's happening T? I love you. A lot of these things that's taking place right now, I wouldn't do it without you on my side.
Shane: Amen.
Kiana: Yeah, definitely throw that in the space. The evolution of life sometimes, like even riding up here today, I've never been to Denham Springs a day in my life, but it felt like an epiphany. Getting off of this bridge, making this exit, I'm like, "Dang, they got a Cane's right here."
[laughter]
Kiana: I was tasting Cane's. It's basically trying to figure out, I am walking in the steps of my higher power, my divine energy. When I was laying in the cell, and I was like, "God, man, something got to happen." I woke up the next day, and I woke up the next day, and I woke up the next day. So, I'm looking at that right now, if we can kind of just think back to our prophetic literature that's in the books, and I'll say the Bible, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, that's the acronym that I placed on it. Inside of this book, they have stories of great men. I placed myself inside of these great men while I was in that cell looking at these cinderblock walls, I had a 55-inch TV, so I read the story of Paul. Paul was a gangster. Paul wrote probably 85% of the book.
Scott: And he marked a whole lot of people.
Kiana: Man, he was a gangster. Paul used to rob, Paul used to steal, Paul used to kill, Paul was taking lives. That's for me. Let me get that move around.
[laughter]
Shane: He was more definitely--[crosstalk]
Kiana: Move around, let me get that. Let me get that. Paul was incarcerated over 75% of his existence.
Shane: Yes.
Scott: And wrote a good portion--
Shane: And he was a great man.
Kiana: Paul was incarcerated 75% of his existence.
Shane: He was a great man.
Kiana: He wrote books that stand the test of time till today. Prophetic hymns, metaphorical narrative that any culture can take and put it into their own existence. Every line, every piece, every scripture, every sentence, every dot, every comma means something. That's what we need to pay attention to in life. Every comma means something. If I had to trade my chicken plate so I could get on the phone, see people don't understand that type of narrative though. People don't understand that type of narrative. You see what I'm saying?
Beatty: Tell everybody-
Scott: Tell the laymen.
Beatty: -what that means.
Kiana: I spent 18 months in one of the most dehumanizing places that ever could have been created for a human being, and that was Camp J.
Shane: Angola, Louisiana.
Kiana: Angola, Louisiana. The Farm. Yes. So cooler one, cell 11. They got cell 10. Cell 11 was the last cell. They had a guy named Money that slept on side of me for 10 months. Every morning, he woke up singing, [in a singing tone] "It's been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gon' come."
Scott: Is that Money from RCC?
Kiana: No, not that Money. This is the old Money--
Scott: [crosstalk]
Kiana: Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Money name was Alfred Baker. When I went to Camp J, Money had all been in Camp J for like 14 years at this time.
Shane: Wow.
Kiana: He got caught up-- [crosstalk] in that same cell. In that same sale. That's why I fight for solitary confinement today.
Scott: Talk a little but about that, because I did hear you'd mentioned about solitary confinement kind of messed you up, so make sure touch on that. But solitary confinement, man, you'll go crazy sitting in--[crosstalk]
Kiana: I've seen it.
Scott: How did it affect you?
Shane: Hold on. Chicken for the phone.
Scott: Oh, yeah.
Kiana: Okay.
Shane: Keep us on point right there.
Beatty: No. Are we talking trades? What are we doing?
Kiana: So here we go, we're talking trades. So, I was in Camp J. The man come down, shift change, 6:00 and 6:00. We know shift change. 06:00, man come down. "Who wants to use the phone?" Friday, what's on Friday?
In Unison:Chicken.
Kiana: Exactly. Who wants to use the phone? Everybody hands coming out the bar. "Okay. Let me get them plates. How many people are not getting the chicken plate?"
Beatty: [laughs]
Kiana: Listen, I didn't talk to my--
Beatty: This is the guard?
Kiana: This is the guard.
Scott: He's trying to eat.
Kiana: He's getting chicken so he could swing it on the other side of the town.
Shane: You have to make an executive decision.
Kiana: They got Joe's around the corner. So, you know it's a whole situation here. You only get one phone call every 30 days in Camp J at this time.
Scott: Really?
Kiana: I haven't talked to mom then. This was in '98. My mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. You've seen the space, my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn't know for like two and a half years that she was even-- She comes to see me one time, and her head was bald. I didn't know what was going on.
Scott: Wow. She didn’t tell you then?
Kiana: She still didn't tell me. She just broke down crying. I'm like, "Baby, don't worry about it. We got this. I'm going to be able to give you your roses while you're still here." Shoutout, mom, she's still home. Every day, yes, I give her roses while she's still here.
Scott: [crosstalk] -strong woman.
Shane: Big love.
Kiana: As you can see, my life revolved around the strength of this queen, and it shows. I'm going to try to amplify that to the best of my ability. Shoutout, mom, I love you. Anyway, I haven't talked to my mom in like three months at this time. What's going on? Every time I call, now I know that she was going through chemo, so she didn't even want to get on the phone weary. So, I'm talking to my sister, I'm talking to my brother, talking to my nephews. I'm talking to everybody but mom. I know, I know something ain't right. Something ain't right. She never did this. I was blessed my entire 17 years. Well, I spent 17 years in prison as a result of that conviction and still have 17 years on parole. I'm currently on parole.
Scott: Unjustly.
Kiana: Unjust. And currently on parole. Have 6 years remaining, been home 11 years. That was my main source of everything. Every month, Molly Diggs sent $100 to my account. Every month for 17 years. Man, if that's not a blessing, you know what I'm saying? Within itself because I used to take my $100 and split it down the middle so I could feed-- you were on the dome, you know what's happening.
Shane: Yeah.
Kiana: You know how'd that go.
Shane: Believe me, I do.
Kiana: This work that I'm doing out here, this is work that was prophetically distributing and manifesting itself in a can. I love brothers, I love you. It's how we do this. It's work that we got to do. But I'd be damned if I trade my chicken plate again though.
Shane: That's right.
[laughter]
Kiana: I'd be damned if I traded that chicken plate again.
Scott: Since we're talking about solitary, man, if you don't mind just kind of sharing a little bit about, A, how it affected you, how long you stayed in solitary, and then kind of tell the folks out there what solitary does to the mind. Because I have my own personal experience, I spent 11 months in solitary myself, sitting in cells. But I want to hear your take on it, and then I'll kind of chime in with mine.
Kiana: Okay, so you want my professional take, or you want my personal experience?
Scott: Personal experience.
Shane: Personal. And keep it for the who? Layman?
Beatty: Yeah, laymen, please. Name of the next movie, Only for the Layman.
Kiana: When we're speaking about solitary confinement, let me put a definition to that first. Solitary confinement is a person placed in the one- or two-man cell for 23 hours or more without the ability of education, personal contact, air, exercise, everything that you are being deprived of. I'll just say deprived of all liberty and growth with no access to human contact. Basically, the first time that you are apprehended, when you get into a police car and they put the handcuffs on you and you go to a holding tank, let's call that solitary confinement. Some people may be placed in the cell with 14 people. Some people may be placed in the cell with two. Some people may be placed in the cell with one. Okay, so the effects of solitary confinement, what we're triggering here in Louisiana is the term "post-incarceration syndrome", and that is when a person who have spent a long time inside of any incarcerated state has mental transformations that may impede the normal ways of thinking.
Now, that's where the tunnel comes in. It could be a mental disorder. It could be some similar to posttraumatic stress disorder. You could deal with insomnia, you could deal with claustrophobia, you could deal with depression, you can deal with-
Scott: Anxiety.
Kiana: -anxiety. There's so many different-- [crosstalk] yes. There's so many ways that you can kind of figure it out. So, when I first came home, I knew what I experienced personally. When I go to the bathroom, I take one leg on my [crosstalk] to take me a crap. Why do I do that? Because when I was in prison, I knew I had to be on guard at all times.
Shane: All the time, every day.
Scott: You can't stand up and fight with your pants down.
Shane: No.
Scott: [crosstalk] -free access to move around.
Kiana: The thing about it is, when I came home, I still was continuing those traits until I realized, "Man, I could take my pants off. I could just slide them down right here. Nobody's going to come in the door and do me nothing." When I sit down to eat, my arm's on the table, and I'm doing what I'm doing because I know I got to be finished before this last dude is sitting down. That's a trigger for us. We all eat fast.
Shane: I suffer from it right now.
Scott: I still do. I've been home nine years, and I eat faster than most people. I'm in and out like that.
Shane: [laughs]
Kiana: So, I kind of compiled a lot of triggers that I identified as being posttraumatic effects of incarceration.
Scott: From your stints in the cell blocks--[crosstalk]
Kiana: Yes. Smell, sounds, certain things that I touch, certain things that touch me. Certain people that get around. I can't let nobody sit behind me while I'm in the car, if I'm in a movie theater. I can't go to a club. Like, a lot of those things were affecting me. During COVID-- this is when my father came into place. During COVID, I said, "You know what? The only way I'm going to understand my problem--" because I know it's a problem, but when I look around, I'm like, "Well, shit. What is normal? I'm not normal, but I see this dude here. He never been nowhere, but he more fucked up than me. He got issues. He got problems. You've been on here forever, and you calling me every day asking me for $20, $15, your daughter need shoes."
Scott: Not Shane.
Kiana: No. I'm just saying in general.
Scott: I just want to clarify in case--[crosstalk]
[laughter]
Scott: Shane is a mooch. [laughs] Damn.
Kiana: Just kind of figure it out, I traveled around Louisiana, I talked to over 275 individuals, and we talked about anything from-- and all of them were formerly incarcerated people.
Scott: That's when 40--
Kiana: That's when 40 for 40 Worldwide came into, during COVID.
Shane: That's dope.
Kiana: I knocked on doors. I took the camera to meet them where they were. We're going to talk about where you came from to become who you are today. Every individual that I talked to, they talk about every situation that I've experienced, situations that I may stumble across in the future. They gave me possible solutions that I could pull logic from. I'm like, "Damn, what can I do with this project? Okay, we're going to name it 40 for 40 Worldwide because I'm going to pull 40 of the most influential pieces out of this space, and I'm going to build a campaign in Louisiana that will allow people to come home and holistically heal." Whether it be through arts, whether it be through song, whether it be through poetry, whether it be through broadcast, whether it be through construction, whether it be through welding, whether it be through any mechanism, I feel we can do that as a channel. We can do that as a body of individuals.
40 for 40 Worldwide was to amplify the voices of formerly incarcerated people that have been through horrendous events in their life while serving time, ultimately gaining momentum to build 40 other individuals in 40 other states to implement some type of federal legislation that will add people returning home from incarceration into a protected class. Because there are over 40,000 collateral consequences that stop you from getting a job, from going to school, from getting insurance, from going to real estate school. There's so much that hinders you. It seems like people returning home from incarceration is the only social group that America still has permission to openly hate.
Scott: I got denied for life insurance. Can't even get life insurance.
Kiana: You see what I'm saying?
Beatty: Yeah.
Kiana: So, how can we humanize this space? In Louisiana, one out of every three individuals have been impacted by incarceration.
Shane: Yes.
Kiana: And we right here, three out of five, I don't know if the cameraman has a buddy or sister or brother or even if he'd been to prison.
Cameraman:I'm just lucky I ain't been. [crosstalk]
[laughter]
Scott: Going back to the solitary thing, how long would you say in your 17 years that you spent just in solitary? Not in dormitories, but solitary.
Kiana: Solitary confinement, out of 17 years, I've spent probably eight and a half. Close to nine.
Scott: In solitary? Years?
Kiana: Yes.
Scott: Damn.
Kiana: In Camp J, I spent close to 19 months. That was just from 1998 to 2000. When I first made it to Angola, me being a juvenile, they put me in the cell, they let me out to go into the dog pen for a while, and that was basically for a year. After that, minor offenses, because now I'm a boy transforming into a man in the man institution.
Scott: You've got prove something.
Kiana: It's not really proving it. It's just making sure that they don't prove me. I'm not here to prove who I am.
Beatty: Preventive maintenance.
Kiana: Yes. That's the type of person that I have been, is that I'm not here to prove that I'm a man. I'm here to prove that you're not going to fuck with me.
Beatty: Yeah.
Kiana: You know why? Because much respect is given, much respect is required. That's how I walk in life. I can have a relationship with Shane, and I can have a relationship with Scott. At the same time, my relationship with Shane and Scott is going to be identical because y'all deal with me identical. You feel what I'm saying? I'm not going to differentiate anything dealing with any situation in life. When I first went to Angola, my first time in the field, they called me Looney Tune. My number was 372220, I'll never forget it. I was at the end of the line. We in a line of 375 people do stuff with tools on their hand, and every time that man look around, they was [mimicking a shotgun] because I'm in the back trying to keep up. "Man, that dude crazy. Come here, Looney Tune. They're going to shoot you."
Scott: Oh, the guards [crosstalk] shotguns--[crosstalk]
Kiana: Yeah, because I can't keep up with the hose. I got locked up, every day is my first out in the field, I can't keep up with the hose.
Shane: What did you say, Deuce Deuce?
Kiana: That mean they lined up in tools.
Beatty: Okay. I knew that.
Kiana: You're not that lame.
Scott: For the viewers.
Kiana: For the viewers.
Scott: For the viewers out there that don't know, when you go to Louisiana Department of Corrections State Penitentiary, you go onto the field when you get there.
Kiana: You're picking cotton, man.
Scott: Actually, we got Fat on here the other day, and he told his story about how they tried to make him go out there and pick cotton.
Kiana: You're picking cotton, man, or you're going to ride like Fat.
[laughter]
Kiana: I'm telling you.
Shane: As a [crosstalk] you're the number one.
Cameraman:Camp J was so brutal.
Kiana: That they shut it down.
Cameraman:Yes. They closed--[crosstalk]
Kiana: I had a hand in that.
Scott: Talk about it.
Kiana: I had a hand in that, man. So, it was a campaign. That was in 2013.
Beatty: We're talking about the shutting down of Camp J if you didn't hear.
Scott: Camp J is solitary confinement at Angola.
Shane: It started in 2008.
Kiana: Yeah. The campaign started in '08 but it actually got shut down in '13. Basically, man, just being able to lay in those cells and be like, "Man, this shit ain't right. I wish I had some people standing out fighting and fussing for me." When I came home, my first objective is, how can I get engaged? How can I get involved? What can I do? Man, I really would like to salute again. It's going to be a shoutout hour. You heard me shout out VOTE, Norris Henderson. Matter of fact, Norris's brother just got killed, man. So, we're going to lift him up, little daddy, man. Salute the little daddy. We lost a soldier. We lost a soldier, man. Definitely, I would like to give VOTE a shoutout in the space. They've been holding it down.
Scott: Long time doing fighting work that most people, A, don't want to do, but, B, they can't do. Those guys, all formerly incarcerated, are leading the pack on criminal legal reform work in Louisiana. They got their hands in every-- dang, every piece of legislation that goes in front of state capitol for--[crosstalk]
Shane: They're built to do that.
Kiana: Definitely.
Scott: They just opened up the little building too, right?
Kiana: Yeah, definitely this year. I was a volunteer for VOTE when I first got into the game. Like in 2012, 2013, we did a lot of work around restoring the voting rights for formerly incarcerated people in Louisiana. Act 636.
Scott: Then, they had a campaign to end solitary confinement in Camp J.
Kiana: Well, no, this was kind of before. The Camp J space, I was on some freelance stuff. I partnered with The Village Keepers. That was the name of Jefferson Parish. I partnered with The Village Keepers, and they were doing some work around solitary confinement in Jefferson Parish. The work that I did toward Camp J was basically I told my story twice, how it was inhumane and how I laid in the cells and really like phantom and wondered if people were really out there putting in work. I didn't have the opportunity to speak at the capitol, but I knocked on some doors and passed out some flyers, got people involved, did a lot of work toward that end, but that was basically a backend thing because DOC was ready to kind of make amends with that space. Man, it was a dungeon.
Shane: [crosstalk] -reparation for people.
Kiana: Yeah, it was hell. What they did in '08 was they shut down the Boot tiers in 2008, they shut down the Shark tiers. The Shark tiers, they were like cells inside of a cell. You've got the cells and then you had had the big old Boot that slammed-- boom, slamming the front with the little trace slot right there. That's all you had to really move around. In 80--
Scott: Wait, wait.
Shane: In other states.
Kiana: Oh, yeah, definitely.
Scott: I'm trying to picture my own experience in solitary. When I've been on it, it's a cell block-- Is it something different than that? I haven't been on Camp J--[crosstalk]
Kiana: This is the view. A lot of people may not picture this, but you can get it. If you're walking down the Beavers working cell block, imagine you take half of the hall out, where the cell doors are originally there, you take half of that tier out and you bring that out further with concrete blocks. Like a concrete steel block will come all the way out. On that concrete block, you have a steel door that slams, boom, with the [mimics locking]. You come through that door, and then you walk down that narrow hall, maybe halfway from here to like that door, and then the cells open and then you go on the cells. So, they lock the cells.
Scott: So, they don’t rack them back--[crosstalk]
Kiana: No, they don’t rack them back until they come to the cell and then handcuff and shackle you. Then, they come step out of that boot door and rack them back close, now you just in the space and then they open up the big door.
Shane: In other states, states like Illinois and Chicago, Indiana, they call them two-door cells, because you have your first door, open that up. When they walk in, it's like maybe 6ft of space, officer walks to that cell, handcuff you, shackle you and everything and then leaves you out.
Scott: Mind you, if something were to happen in your cell, whether it's medical or if you're sharing, I don't know how Camp J is, do they share [crosstalk] space?
Kiana: That’s one-man cell.
Scott: If something was going down in the cell and not only are you behind bars, but you're also behind this barricaded force, you have no way of getting in touch with the guards to come, "Hey, I'm having a heart attack."
Kiana: Can't even hear you.
Scott: They can't hear you. So, you're just left to die. A lot of people that are on Camp J are awaiting trials. Especially if they're high-profile cases and different things like that, they might not necessarily be guilty of the crime, but they're sitting back there and they can possibly die because, A, all types of things happen medically when they become incarcerated.
Kiana: Oh, man. They were coming through the walls.
Shane: Breaking cinderblocks.
Kiana: Coming through the walls. Busting through the walls.
Scott: Who was?
Kiana: The inmates. They bust through, they could bust through the walls.
Scott: They come get you?
Kiana: Yes.
Scott: Oh, wow.
Kiana: If they want you, they bust, they coming through the walls. I'm talking about there's so many times that they had to replaster the cinderblocks.
Scott: So, they just going to get moles coming through?
Kiana: Moles?
Shane: No.
Scott: How they getting through--[crosstalk]
Kiana: You can use--[crosstalk]
Shane: [crosstalk]
Scott: Oh, you're talking about the guy on the side--[crosstalk]
Kiana: In 1998, they took the block-- you know in the cellblock, they have the flap where you put your stuff in there? You take that up out of there, and you can go through the wall.
Scott: No shit.
Kiana: Yeah, you can go through the wall.
Scott: Dudes are getting jugged up.
Kiana: Going through the wall.
Shane: Getting raped.
Kiana: Listen to me, going through the wall.
Scott: That’s wild, man.
Kiana: Listen, man, that is a world inside of a world, man. So, being mindful enough, and that's what I mean by, you guys are survivors. I didn't acknowledge my self-worth. I didn't acknowledge my value. But I think my job now is to pump that into you guys, because y'all are survivors, and y'all are experts in the way that this criminal justice world is about to be reformed. We cannot continue to allow people to plan meals for tables that they never slid a seat under. How can you give me cheese and I'm lactose intolerant? I don't eat cheese and ice cream. I can't deal with that. But you're still putting that on my table, and you wonder why I got diarrhea.
Shane: Because you just don’t know.
[laughter]
Kiana: You wonder why I got diarrhea.
Scott: That’s a nice analogy.
Kiana: You wonder why my communities are underresourced. I got to go find it. I can't buy toilet paper, so I'm going to come shit on your lawn.
[laughter]
Kiana: I'm just trying to figure like that, because that's what we got to understand, man. Life is about who we are. We are life. We are the movers and shakers. We create every sphere, every business. Like the United States of America is a 501(c)(3) organization. It is a nonprofit. We bought into that. When we were born, our family signed our birth certificates and Social Security cards and put us into this entity. We have to understand, we need to pull control of that entity. Use our democracy, get out there and vote and put people in positions who have your best interests at heart.
Don't just come to my house [chuckles] and shoot me some sugar. And now I'm walking, I've got a banana in my tailpipe. I'm blowing up every time I go somewhere. It's crazy. And that's what we're allowing, that's what we have been allowing. And I hope that people understand that this work I do, I can't put a tag on it, bro. I do everything. I do reform. I do litigation. I do policy. I do programs. I do training. I hold peer support groups, like the same groups that we held inside with Project Detour.
Beatty: Shoutout.
Kiana: Shoutout Project Detour. That was started in RCC.
Scott: Turn around, show the back. Can you turn around?
Kiana: I could, but we're going to wait [crosstalk] shot at the end.
Beatty: We'll put that later.
Scott: Like a whole baseball player.
Kiana: Definitely, man.
Scott: He did homerun.
Kiana: But, yeah, this was an organization that we started in Rayburn, man, in RCC.
Scott: Okay.
Kiana: We started this in RCC, and we've seen the impact on the individuals on the tier with it.
Scott: RCC is Rayburn Correctional Center in Angie, Louisiana. It's a state penitentiary.
Kiana: Yes. We've seen the impact on individuals on the compound, people that didn't give a rattin' ass about nothing.
Scott: Give us an example of one of the guys.
Kiana: Reggie.
Scott: Quetan?
Kiana: Yes. Reggie was in the block. As a matter of fact, Reggie is in Austin right now.
Scott: Okay. I knew he moved out there.
Kiana: Yeah, he's staying in Austin. I've seen him when I was on a fellowship with REDF. Shoutout, REDF, that's my accelerator teaching me how to turn my business into a business. Yeah, I needed that. Just floating on the wings, man. I want to say, yeah, man. Ooh. I did like 80 hours of training in like four days. But anyway--
Scott: Who is this?
Kiana: REDF Accelerator.
Scott: Is that a program or a guy?
Kiana: That's a program. My fellowship. I'm part of a fellowship. REDF Accelerator.
Scott: Okay, cool.
Kiana: So, yeah, definitely. Partnering with 18 other entrepreneurs across the state. They chose us out of like-- 500 employment social enterprises is what we're calling our business at this point. Just trying to figure out how can we figure out those key performance indicators, man, and make sure that double line bottom is on point.
Scott: You said you ran into Reggie.
Kiana: Yeah, I ran into Reggie, man. And Reggie now is a photographer. He's doing some great work.
Shane: Wow.
Kiana: He's doing some great work, man. Reg is really holding it down.
Scott: You ran into Reg at Rayburn.
Kiana: Reg was an asshole.
Scott: Yeah.
Kiana: You know, Reg stayed in and out the blocks. Reg will fight. Reg will curse you out. Reg will jump on the free man. He'll end up on Snow when he's housing on Wind.
Scott: Snow is the working cellblocks.
Kiana: Yeah. Shoutout Rayburn. But, yeah, definitely. Once we started Project Detour, started with Pat, Vladi, all of us was the board in that space. We've seen how Reggie-- there was countless other Reggies that was a part of that. We've seen a development in that space. Once we start showing them that they can take ownership in their own personal development, we've seen it, understanding that we're not just going to talk about Sigmund Freud and Eric Burns. We're not going to talk about the three personality traits. We know you understand what they are, but this is who created them and this is how they created them. And we can do the same.
Once we've seen that, built that brotherhood, and Reggie's turned from a writeup every week to a writeup and no writeups in two, three years. So, we see that it's working. We see that they start taking ownership and accountability for their own actions. Why can't that be replicated out here?
Scott: That's what you're doing now.
Kiana: I came home in 2011, man. Project Detour was founded in 2013, once I figured out how business was supposed to look.
Scott: So, you came home in 2011. Tell us about your transition out, some of the challenges you had, and then let's kind of talk about all of-- this dude's got his hand in 100 different pots that he created. I'm not talking about pots that other people created that he's jumping into. He created those pots. So, let's talk about that. Tell us about the challenges you faced coming home.
Kiana: I always was a smart guy, I could say. I know how to read and write. So, the challenges that I faced were systemic challenges because the physical challenges, I was able to maneuver around them. For an example, I came home on a Wednesday. Friday, I was working as a crane mechanic. Never touched a crane a day in my life. Don't know what a crane looked like, but I was hired as a crane operator. Riding down Fourth Street, turned down Engineers Row, see [unintelligible 00:45:21] "crane operators, hiring now. Crane operators, hiring now." I pulled into H&E. Shoutout to H&E Equipment. Pulled into H&E parking lots, sat down. One guy comes out, I said, "Hey, man, what do you do?" He said, "I'm a crane operator." I said, "What y'all operating?" And he said, "Man, [unintelligible 00:45:38] it's a walk 7200s, 41000s, 4000s."
[laughter]
Kiana: I'm like, "All right, cool."
Scott: I got that.
Kiana: I go home--
Scott: I got my driver's license.
[laughter]
Kiana: I just got my driver's license. I'm 34 years old, man, I just got my driver's license for the first time in my life. I'm happy. So, I go home, YouTube University. YouTube University. I jumped on YouTube.
Beatty: Shoutout to YouTube University.
Kiana: Jumped on YouTube, man. Put in "manual to [unintelligible 00:46:03] 4100s, 41000, 7200s, 72,000s." They told me, man, like, "This is what you do. This is how you start it. This is how you grease your lines. Check your lines before you get in there." Next day, I went over there. I went back to H&E, filled out an application. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? I checked no. If I check yeah, they're not even going to talk to me. Right?
Scott: Right. I don't blame you.
Kiana: Yeah, I check no.
Scott: I'm all for it. I support it.
Kiana: I check no. They took my application that day, they called me back the next day. Actually, I was at the head, because minority crane operators are nine and void.
Scott: High demand.
Kiana: Yes, nine and void. Really, really nine and void. I ain't no shit about no crane. I know you can make $50 to operate the crane for 10 minutes.
Shane: Yes, sir.
Kiana: I didn't know that. $50 an hour, and you up there 12 hours a day, but you're only working for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. They called me, and I went in the next day. I had my nice shoes on, my suit, I'm job ready. I'm ready for this. I'm prepared. And that's what a man like-- you could start at 41? I'm like, "Yeah, I can start." He said, "Come on, let's go. We don't need the interview. I just want to see if you could do it." So, we went out there, I walked around the crane, looked up under it, popped the bottom where the lines were at. I always checked the grease lines. When I did that, said, "Hey, man, we're going to get you trained."
Scott: We got one professional.
Kiana: That was basically all it took. I worked there for my first two and a half, three years.
Scott: Let me ask you a question. The no box on the application, that never came up?
Kiana: It never came up until my passion of what I wanted to do in life. It started really burning me because I started getting frustrated with waking up in the morning.
Scott: Working for somebody else?
Kiana: Not really working for somebody else. I'm not aligning myself with what I'm supposed to be doing.
Scott: Okay, I feel you. I understand that.
Kiana: I'm making good money. At this point, I'm a crane mechanic. I went to training. I just started getting some things to really put me in a position to be this operator. But I'm waking up in the morning and I'm like--
Shane: You're not happy.
Beatty: Yeah.
Scott: You don’t feel like you feel--[crosstalk]
Kiana: I'm in the tool room and the conversations that I was having a year ago, I'm not having these conversations with these people. I'm not feeling it. I'm starting to see myself drift more into Project Detour, because now I'm starting to take my check, and I'm taking young kids in my community, and we go and get some chicken and sit under the park and talk for 45 minutes, asking them what they need. Now, I'm taking my check, and now I'm helping them get school uniforms and putting shoes on their feet and attending the football games and trying to help out with the coaches and talking to the students.
Then, I started actually getting in tune with the courts because a lot of my young brothers had records. I had to sign them off on my [unintelligible [00:44:53] because their daddy in jail and their mom out on drugs. So, I started seeing that I was needed in the space that I wasn't occupying. I was getting money. I'm straight. I'm driving a Range Rover, this is in '13, I got a 12 Range Rover, just came out, of BMW. I'm doing good.
Scott: Bought by H&E crane money?
Kiana: Yes, definitely.
Shane: Mechanic money that is.
Kiana: But when you're not aligned with your values in life, man, you can have all the riches in the world, it's not going to sit right with you. It's not going to feel because right now, man, I feel I'm in the best place in my life that I have been in my life, and I look at every day as me getting better than I was yesterday, because my worst day out here subsides the best day I had inside of there.
Shane: That's right.
Kiana: It oversees, it just demolishes.
Scott: From H&E, you just said, "Hey, look, I'm going to--" [crosstalk]
Kiana: Yeah, I've got to go. I've got to start what I want to do. I want to start my passion.
Scott: So, what was next?
Kiana: So, Project Detour was next. Project Detour, full-fledged. Got the board, got the bylaws, got the policies and procedures in order, got everybody on the card. We just started doing a lot of mentoring in the city, and then I went back to school. Now, it's me running the organization, attending Delgado Community College full time. Shoutout Delgado.
Shane: Big shoutout--[crosstalk]
Scott: What’s their mascot?
Kiana: The Patriot.
Scott: The Patriot.
Kiana: Yeah, they're a patriot.
Scott: Delgado Patriot.
Kiana: If I got you wrong, shoutout Delgado.
[laughter]
Kiana: Something like that a buccaneer or a patriot. But, yeah, definitely I'm getting my criminal justice degree. Actually, I have eight more credits that I need, so I'll be graduating next year.
Scott: Are you still going right now?
Kiana: Yeah, I'm attending SUNO right now. Shoutout SUNO. It's a lot that I'm doing, man. I'm trying to better myself in all aspects, not just my personal outside life, but my internal being. All of that comes into the space, and I don't think that I'm going to be fully, fully healed until I get exonerated. So, that's what I'm working on right now.
Shane: Fulfilling that passion, that burning desire.
Kiana: I'm working with the district attorney now with Jefferson Parish. We've been having maybe a few meetings, a couple of meetings, and that's how I want to close the film with him saying, "Yeah, Kiana, we think that you have done everything that you've need to need to do in the course of your life, man, and we want to honor your wishes." [crosstalk]
Scott: Are you working with--?
Kiana: Paul Connick?
Scott: No, the organization that does the--
Kiana: The Innocent Project?
Scott: Yeah.
Kiana: Funny story about that, man. The Innocent Project, they don't work with individuals who's free.
Scott: Oh, they only do incarcerated.
Kiana: Yes. That was a problem that I really didn't understand when I went to them, because, trust me, I probably ruffled every feather in the state of Louisiana trying to see what can I do, until I was just like, "You know what? Just keep walking in your purpose. It's not what you're doing, is where you're going." That's the overall piece of this entire synopsis, man. I think that's when I'm going to get completely holistically healed. Well, I could be able to get exonerated. I've done a lot of work and then once I get exonerated, I want to continue to be a force.
Scott: I want to ask you this. I'm completely guilty of all the crimes that I committed. So, when I was in prison, I had to-- go ahead.
Beatty: Allegedly committed.
[laughter]
Scott: No, I did all that.
Kiana: He was convicted, so it's over.
Scott: It's over. I was in prison, and I had to swallow the pill, "Okay, you've done a lot of dumb shit and I'm paying for it." But I can't imagine the mental that a person must go through in your situation that spent 17 years in prison and not have done the crime. Dude, I don't want you to go into great detail because I know, but what's the mental process for that?
Kiana: It was basically piggybacking what you just said. I have done a lot of shit in my life. I wasn't a choir boy when I was out here. A lot of things that I didn't do, it shouldn't have amount to that sentence, that such severe sentence. But just being open minded, you can imprison me physically, but you can't entrap my mind, that was kind of like the cage bird sings. I strive myself on education because I was so uneducated sitting in this trial. Only thing I could understand is objection, overrule, sustained, objection, overrule, sustained. What does that mean? I know when they say that, the judge say something that counters what they say. So, I felt stupid. It felt like I was in Charlie Brown. [onomatopoeia] That's how my entire trial felt. And my trial was like nine days, the first one. Might I add that it was a non-unanimous jury? Shout out to the UJC.
Scott: [crosstalk] -nonunanimous jury. You want to explain what that means real quick for our layman?
Kiana: Yeah, for the laymen. Non-unanimous jury, I was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder, non-unanimously, meaning that 1 person out of the 12 said that I was innocent, saying that the state did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, which the law states that you should be judged by a jury of your peers and unanimously deliberated upon. Louisiana and Oregon were the last two states that upheld the non-unanimous jury pool, which means that 10 people can say that you're guilty, and two people can say that they don't believe that you're guilty, and you still can be sent to prison for life. And that happened to me twice. My first trial was 11-1. I was found guilty and sentenced to life. In 1998, with the great help of Christopher Aberle, my appellate attorney, shoutout Chris, He put together a wonderful brief, and my case was remanded and set aside for further proceedings.
I was sent back to Jefferson Paris, tried again for second-degree murder, and I was found guilty again. That jury deliberations were 10-2. Two people said this time that, "Oh no, he didn't do that." And 10 people said, "Yes." I was found guilty again on a lesser charge, which was manslaughter. They sentenced me to 34 years under Act 138, which gave me 17 years inside of a penal institution and 17 years remaining on parole. Honestly, we have right now currently over 5700 people that are incarcerated, serving life or high numbers on a non-unanimous jury. That PJI, shoutout PJI, Promise of Justice Initiative, they're working closely trying to get those individuals home on that. In 2018, I had the-- man, that was one of the peak campaigns in my existence.
Scott: I do want to talk about the documentary that I had the fortunate privilege of watching.
Kiana: Kiana's Mission.
Scott: Yeah, man. I said at the beginning of this podcast, it takes to make me cry. My wife would say different. She says I'm a big teddy bear. I don't believe that. I believe I'm a big lion. But I did, and I teared up and it touched me on multiple spots in the documentary. I want you to talk about that a little bit and then talk about 40 for 40 and then Roots. Just tell everybody about what inspired the documentary and how long you've been doing it.
Kiana: Definitely. Kiana's Mission is a documentary, like I said a little bit earlier, it's a story about resilience. It's a story about overcoming the hurdles of life and coming out the end still feeling prosperous. I've been shooting this documentary maybe about-- what we in '22 now? So, maybe about nine years, having the ability to get introduced to a camera. When I came home, I learned that the camera is therapeutic, being able to sit down and tell pieces about you and not feel vulnerable, because eventually somebody may see this and it may help change their lives.
What I did was I just walked around with the camera with me all day taking basic photos, and then I was like, "You know what, bro? I think it's time that you start putting your life in perspective. How can you get your story heard?" Because everybody has a story. Not everybody makes it to cable. Everybody has their intention. So, just having the ability to be in a position to where my life work, it needs to be televised. So, I'm working with Roots of Renewal. Shoutout Roots.
Shane: Shoutout big Roots.
Kiana: I'm the ED over there.
Scott: What’s Roots?
Kiana: Roots is a reentry organization geared to our young men, 18 to 26, reentering home from incarceration.
Scott: Is that in New Orleans?
Kiana: Yes, New Orleans. Actually, we're in three different parishes. We're in New Orleans. We're in Jefferson and we're in Terrebonne. Just being available for those young men. What we do is we purchase blighted properties throughout the city's area, rehab them, give the guys job skills so that they may be productive in the construction field if they choose to.
Beatty: That's awesome.
Kiana: Yeah, definitely.
Scott: They get any type of certification?
Kiana: Yes, definitely. So, I pride myself on training.
Scott: Okay.
Kiana: I think that we can't go through life without the proper tools. Once they come to Roots, what we do-- In the documentary, you can see that I have that camera setting up, interviewing my young men, because that's the first initial engagement. I want you to understand that I want to know how you were when you first came to me. And then throughout the middle course of this pace, we're going to do another one, just to do a recap, a summary on what you have done. I use the Poverty Stoplight method. Shout out Dr. Martin Burt. He's running for president of Paraguay. Man, I got you, you're my dog. I'm on your team.
Beatty: You've got my vote.
Kiana: You already know. I was introduced to the Poverty Stoplight, Dr. Martin Burt, maybe in about 2017.
Scott: Is he from New Orleans?
Kiana: No. He's from Paraguay.
Scott: Oh, Paraguay. That’s the country?
Kiana: Yeah.
Scott: Where is that at? I'm geographically challenged.
Kiana: That's like in the Middle East over there by Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, but not in that area.
Scott: Oh. He's running for the president of that country.
Kiana: Of that country, yes. He's already the secretary.
Scott: Hey, my boy got president friends.
Kiana: Yeah, definitely. I'm actually in his book. You could go check it out Who Owns Poverty. Kiana Calloway is in that space. He's a professor at Georgetown University.
Scott: I'm going to get your autograph before you leave.
Kiana: Oh, man. I got some things--
Scott: [crosstalk] -now before you blow really big.
Kiana: I've got something on the horizon, man.
Scott: I bet you do.
Kiana: So, working with Dr. Martin Burt, we sat down, and he told me about how broke poverty down into six dimensions. Income and infrastructure, education and employment, housing and motivation, and integrity and insurance. It shows how we can put these indicators into a life map so that you can actually see what poverty looks like. Instead of feeling it, now you can see it.
Scott: How does it work as far as showing the guys? Is it a progress chart or something?
Kiana: Yeah, definitely. It gives back in data on-- it comes into the red, yellow, and green. What I did was I restructured that model because the way that poverty looks in Paraguay, it don't look this way in Uptown New Orleans.
Shane: That's right.
Kiana: What we did was we developed the New Orleans spectrum, I'm the parenting hub here in the United States that had this data tool. Anyway, so what we did was we identified, if you're coming home from incarceration, it's practically like you're bankrupt. You're coming home after filing bankruptcy. You have nothing. Income, transportation, housing, internet access, a clean bed to sleep in, all of those are indicators of poverty, but we don't understand that, so when we come home--
Shane: And it's vital.
Kiana: Very vital. They're vital to you reentering, and they're vital to recidivism. If you start with Roots of Renewal in the 26 survey, and out of the 26 questions, you have 25 reds, we got work to do. Like, we got work to do.
Scott: So, they fill out an assessment.
Kiana: Yes.
Scott: And then, you track their progress based on that assessment.
Kiana: As we work forward, the tools that they need.
Scott: [crosstalk] -red to yellow to green.
Kiana: Reds to yellows to greens.
Scott: Nice.
Kiana: We try to achieve that in four months because Roots of Renewal is a 16 week job training program. Inside of that program, which Project Detour, is over the programming side of it, it gives personal development courses, financial literacy courses. It gives critical thinking, transaction analysis. We deal with the rehabilitation of the being because--
Shane: Of the individual.
Kiana: Of the individual. We need you to be in the right space if we want to send you to this job. So, we've got to help you build this resume. We partner with local construction companies throughout those areas so that long-term employment is definitely in the realms.
Scott: After the program.
Kiana: Exactly. Along with lifetime membership, alumni perks, because once you get in the Roots, man, you're a brother now. It's not that you just come through a program or a project. No, you got my seven numbers. You could call my seven numbers at any given time, and they do that right now.
Scott: It's awesome, man.
Kiana: Yeah, definitely. So, that's Roots of Renewal. I began to be the ED at Roots of Renewal in 2019. I started there as the programs manager, just dealing with the programs with Project Detour. I was contracted in through Amy and Brendan, who were the actual founders of this space, as the programs manager. I definitely just dealt with peer support groups. Like, how can we develop a curriculum that's going to show the impact of these individuals actually reentering? We got a non-recidivism rate of 98.9%. Only one brother, and that's Javelle. He comes home next month, I believe. Shoutout, Javelle, we got you when you get out here, man. Just trying to stay active, implying myself into a space the way I know that I'm desperately needed.
Scott: Man, you're doing it. Also, an Instagram page that caught my eye that you also set up, and it's a project that you work on 40 for 40. Tell the audience about the 40 for 40, A, what they need to look up, and then, B, what prompted it and how that went.
Kiana: 40 for 40 Worldwide. Definitely, man. Like I said, during COVID me, Durado Brooks-- Shoutout, Durado. Mark Kerry. Shoutout, Mark. We traveled Louisiana, man, and we had an opportunity of interviewing over 400 individuals that's formerly incarcerated. Over 400 formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs. A lot of these individuals have their own businesses, started their own businesses. We went to donut shops, we went to sandwich shops. We went to Twisted Wings, Twisted Burgers. We went out there while people were cutting grass and washing cars. Everywhere that they were, when we say we were in their space, we were pulling up on them for like an hour. We had the conversation, man. "Tell me what it's like after incarceration?" Man, the stories were beautiful. I just had to try to figure out how can we take that collage and turn it into power because our stories are powerful within themselves.
So, during COVID, me, Durado, Mark, we sat down on the videos, we kept going over them. Actually, this year, I said, "Man, we need to do something with this. Let's drop a Black History Month project." So, that's where the Instagram came from. We drop one story every day of Black History Month-
Scott: For 28 days.
Kiana: For 28 days, you're going to see 28, and we're going to do the same thing next Black History Month. We're going to try to replicate that.
Scott: It's like an annual thing.
Kiana: Yes. It don't make sense to just have it once. We correlated stories, we drop one every day, and we correlated these stories of impacted survivors today. If you could read the actual captions, we're putting them in the spaces of W. E. B. Du Bois. We put them in the spaces with Medgar Evers. We put them in the spaces with Fred Hampton. Like, we're putting them in the same energy to let them know that man, the narrative that our ancestors were speaking-- and I don't say ancestors, I'm talking like, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, 60 years ago. The same narrative that they were speaking, we're still saying that same narrative. I think that we need to wake up and understand, how can we put a face to pain? They went through a lot, but they're overcomers. They're survivors.
So, yeah, go punch into Instagram, 40 for 40 Worldwide. If you are in any other state that has a jail, contact us, because we're coming into your state.
Jim: All right. I don't ever do this, by the way. I normally sit back behind that camera unless I'm running my podcast. But I'm going to tell you what you inspired me--
Scott: What’s your podcast?
Jim: Local Leaders: The Podcast, Bloody Angola. I produce Real Life Real Crime with Woody Overton and got a bunch more coming out. I've listened to everything that you said, and inspiring. Inspiring shit. I'll tell you--
Kiana: Appreciate it.
Shane: Real shit too.
Jim: Yes, exactly. What impresses me the most about you is you said something a few minutes ago. You give back a lot. A true leader gives back. We are raised in our lives to believe being first in anything is the leader, winning. No, giving back is winning. You have done nothing but have people-- in my opinion, people try to hold you down, and it seems like the harder you get held down, the harder you push back. And that's an innate quality. It's rare and impressive, man. I want to obviously shout you out for that. But I have one question. Before all this happened in your life, were you always someone that was resilient like that, just had that mindset?
Kiana: In the film, that's the question I asked my mom, because when I went to prison at 16, when I was a boy, I thought as a boy, I acted as a boy, and I moved as a boy. When I turned into a man, I had to toss those boyish ways to the side. So, I forgot how I was before 16. But when I asked my mom that in the documentary, that's the very first sentence that I asked her, because I had to try to fathom, like, "Damn, where was I?" I have these memories, I have these ideas. I knew I was a dog in football, I should have posted in Florida State. They were looking to recruit me quarterback, wide receiver. I had a future. And I ended up in prison. When I asked my mom that, that's the first thing my mom said, "You always were resilient. You always were a leader. You got your ass whupped, broke a lot of fingernails, but you always were that leader."
That puts me into this place that she felt that I was a leader, but I always knew that I was a great follower because I never tell nobody to do nothing that I wouldn't do. And that's with campaigns. I'm going to knock on doors. I'm not going to sit here and plan something, say, "Okay, you're going to knock on 100,000 doors. You're going to knock on 100 doors. You're going to knock on 60 doors. I'm going to knock on 700 doors."
Jim: Love it.
Kiana: Because I know that just got to get done, and if I don't do it, it's not going to get done.
Jim: Yeah. People would see you do that, and that's inspiring to them. I used to tell people, you want to be a great leader, find your broom.
Kiana: Yes.
Jim: Always. When you're leading other people, always show them what to do by doing it because if you're going to do it, if you own a company and you're out there sweeping the floor--
Kiana: They shouldn't have nothing to say about sweeping the floor.
Jim: That's right. Find your broom, people.
Kiana: Exactly. And that's the whole thing. A lot of people want to get engaged into anything dealing with life, profession, building. But first you need to understand is what is your why? Why do you do what you do? If you don't wake up in the morning and love where you go, you're going to hate yourself.
Scott: Amen.
Kiana: God gave us all something that-- He sprinkled in something inside of all of us that only you have, and that's what you can wake up and do effortlessly. Like, you come in here and set this up effortlessly. You could close your eyes and put everything in the space because you know that's what you have to do. And it's not an institution. It's not a program. It's because I know this. This is what I want to do. And that's what I feel like. My situation is not demeaning, I'm not angry, and that's the best thing about it. When I sit down with DAs and attorneys and sheriff officers and making these connections, they're like, "Well, why are you coming in here?" "No, y'all didn't do that. The system did this." What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to build a bridge to where this don't happen to another Kiana. I'm not mad at you. I'm not angry with you. I don't want to come home and be no disruptive person or individual. I want to come home, live my best life and see how can I be a preventative method for any other young, at-risk, black, underprivileged kid that don't have any resources, single-mother household, don't have to go through and endure the pain that I've had to endure.
I'm a flagpole, I'm a model and I walk that space. I walk it like I talk it, and I'm in every space. I know, we could sit down and talk to the governor. I'm going to speak my mind. I'm going to tell him what I feel to believe is efficient in this area. But it's not my words. It's because my boots are on the ground. I have townhalls, I have community teaching sessions. I sit down and ask my community, "What do you want, need, and desire? Write it on a piece of paper. Let's figure out because we have people in position that that have our best interests at heart. If you don't voice your opinion, you will never know. Practice your democracy. Figure out who's running. Don't just put nobody in no seat because then the meal is going to go up. You know what meals are? That's your taxes."
Scott: Yes. Our society has feared putting people like Kiana in positions with power, political positions. And to be quite frank, these are the people that we need to be there to be a voice for the community. If you don't have somebody from the community, they're not going to be able to speak for the people.
Kiana: At all.
Jim: That's right. And I for one, I'm glad you're not operating a crane no more.
[laughter]
Kiana: Me too.
Jim: Because you're living in your gift right now, my brother.
Scott: The whole purpose of the podcast is to do exactly what Kiana did today, is to highlight, A, the trials and tribulations. But, B, to really hone in on the success story. Kiana is the epitome of success, Shane's a success story in and of itself. I'm glad you were able to come today.
Kiana: Man, I'm glad you invited me. We talked about it, and I'm like, "Get me in there." [crosstalk] -get started.
Scott: We [unintelligible 01:13:39] recently at Mike Anderson.
Kiana: Mike Anderson.
Scott: I told him I need to have him on. But, man, I knew a little bit about you, but now I know a lot about you, man. You're just an inspiring dude, and I can understand why you got a lot of guys in your area, just wherever you go, they look up to you, man, because you're just full of wisdom. So, keep on doing it. I appreciate your time for coming.
Kiana: I appreciate you.
Jim: I want to thank my boy, Scott, because I'm going to tell you what. It's the second week in a row-- you know Vlad?
Kiana: Yeah, I know Vlad. [crosstalk]
Jim: Second week in a row, he's had somebody come in and inspire the hell out of me.
Kiana: Knocked it out the park.
Jim: I've got chill bumps both times. Just amazing people. Like you said, everybody has a story. My premise for Local Leaders: The Podcast is every business owner has a story, and I want to tell it, because that's a struggle when you own a business. Same thing with life. You don't necessarily have to be a business owner to have a story.
Kiana: Exactly.
Jim: And your story is amazing. I look forward to hearing this gentleman's story--
Scott: Shane is coming back.
[chuckles]
Scott: Tell them where you get that hat at, Shane?
Kiana: I got this hat at a free market on the West Bank of New Orleans.
Scott: Algiers?
[crosstalk]
Scott: West Bank, the best bank?
Shane: Hey, man, look, before we close out, 24 years, that's how long I've done in prison. I'm going to say probably at the 15-year mark or the 16-year mark, I lived by this model. Starve my distractions and feed my focus. Now that I'm free, I live it even harder now because distractions are more because of my liberty. I have the liberty to go wherever I want to go now. So, the distractions are even more devastating because they come with a penalty. If I make the wrong choice or wrong decision--
Kiana: A harsh penalty.
Shane: That's right. I go back, it was 100 years ago, to 1800s, and I live under the 10-2 law, the non--
Scott: Non-unanimous jury.
Shane: Jury all over again. I live by that, man, and I pride myself. That's a great man, Kiana [crosstalk] mentor.
Scott: That was Shane's intro to his next podcast.
Kiana: Yes, sir.
Scott: Stay tuned. Appreciate y'all watching today.
Kiana: Appreciate you, man. Plug in.
[music]
Jim: All right, so I hope y'all enjoyed that. What a story. This man still maintains his innocence even though he has been-- he served his time, he went back out into society and he maintains his innocence and is on a mission to exonerate himself. We'll keep you informed on anything that develops with that, but I hope you enjoyed that. You can follow P2P, Penitentiaries 2 Penthouses. They do a video version on YouTube, and they are also on every audio platform. You can just go to whatever your favorite audio platform is and search either P2P, and that's the number 2, P, podcast or type in Penitentiaries 2 Penthouses and it should pop up.
Can't tell you how much we appreciate y'all for listening. To all of our Patreon supporters, could not do it without you. That is just the facts. So, we really appreciate your support. We're going to be bringing you some amazing bonus episodes coming up. We just dropped one here in the last week only for Patreon members. If you're interested, it's $10 for the first tier and that'll get y'all our episodes with no commercials. From there, you can step up to our other tiers and with that, you get bonus episodes. When we do events, we're going to offer VIP access to those higher tiers. Also, we even do transcripts on there for some of our higher tiers. So, check that out.
Thank you so much. We love all of you. Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman and for Woody Overton, we are your hosts of Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making. The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Peace.
[Bloody Angola theme]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 06 Apr 2023 - 39 - Laying out the WIRE in the Penitentiary
Woody and Jim discuss the facilities at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and cover the entire 18,000 Acres of devices available there, some of which may surprise you!
#LouisianaStatePenitentiary #AngolaPrision #BloodyAngolaPodcast #Podcast
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 30 Mar 2023 - 38 - Second Chances Part 2 | A Juvenile Lifers Story
Part 2 of this amazing story is here!
In June 2016, Andrew Hundley became the FIRST juvenile lifer in Louisiana to be paroled following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Miller and Montgomery decisions that prohibited the mandatory sentencing of children to life without parole. It was clear that he was not the same 15-year-old who went to prison in 1997 to the parole board who approved his release.
Since his release from Angola, Andrew has earned a Masters degree in Criminology, is founder of the Louisiana Parole Project and is known in all circles of justice as the real life Andy Dufrane.
Whatever side of this issue you sit, you will not want to miss this episode.
In this episode Woody and Jim sit down with him for an in depth interview you are not going to believe on Bloody Angola Podcast.
#BloodyAngolaPodcast #LouisianaParoleProject #AndrewHundley
Louisiana Parole Project website:
https://www.paroleproject.org/
Check out P2P Podcast (Penitentiaries to Penthouses) Here:
SECOND CHANCES PART 2 TRANSCRIPT
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Bloody- Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And we're back for Part 2, Woody Overton.
Woody: Part 2, Second Chances with our main man.
Jim: Andrew Hundley. How are you?
Andrew: I'm well.
Jim: I feel like we just talked to you. [laughs]
Andrew: Thanks for having me back.
Woody: Yeah, [crosstalk] right. Andrew, I just want to say that it's an amazing story, y'all. You've got to go listen to Part 1. I don't think we've maybe done one or two series on Bloody Angola that-- actually series, one or two episodes that went past episode 1.
Jim: The only one that we did was Archie Williams.
Woody: No. Brent Miller.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: So, two, you'll be the third. Thank you for being here, I really appreciate it. Y'all go back and listen to the first one if you haven't.
Jim: Yes, please do.
Woody: When we left off last, you were at state police barracks out at JESTC, and you got
to finish telling me how you got swung.
Andrew: Yeah, I had unauthorized female visitor, to keep it PG. [laughter]
Andrew: I had a female friend who visited me at the office I worked at one evening. I knew that wasn't supposed to happen. It happened. And I understand that you keep visitors off of the premises because you never know who's going to be coming out there, what they're going to be bringing out there.
Jim: I ain't hating on it. I don't blame you. [laughs]
Woody: [crosstalk]
Andrew: [crosstalk] -I'm not the first guy to get in trouble and probably not going to be the
last guy that got into that kind of trouble. Jim: Some things are just worth it. [laughs]
Woody: Everybody you see today and the rest of your life got there because two people had sex.
[laughter]
Andrew: But it was against the rules. They actually didn't move me immediately because my job that I had--
Woody: They didn’t want to release you.
Andrew: I had to finish some job responsibilities. But they said, "Hey, you're going to have to
go." I said, "I want to go to Angola."
Jim: And wow. Before you say anything else, that's just like-- Woody: You're one of the only people ever said that--[crosstalk] Jim: Yeah, you might be the only one to utter that sentence.
Andrew: Well, and I recognize and I had done enough time and met enough people who had been to Angola and who, in prison speak, were successful at Angola. They had done well. And I wanted to be a trustee. At state police barracks, I was a trustee but the only place as a lifer going if we say back into DOC, I couldn't go to DCI or Wade or Hunt or any of these other prisons [crosstalk] have to go to Angola.
Jim: What year was this?
Andrew: Oh, that was in 2012, 2013. Jim: So, it was post Burl Cain? Andrew: No, Burl was still there. Woody: Burl was still there.
Jim: Okay.
Andrew: When I first get there, I actually go to Bass. For my first couple of months, I was a cell block orderly at Bass, paying my penance. As soon as I got there, they told me, "Look, keep your nose clean, out of sight, out of mind for a couple of months, and we've got a job for you." They told me this as soon as I got there.
Woody: That's really cool.
Jim: Your reputation preceded you some way probably.
Woody: Another unique thing about what you're saying is, I don't think people understand-- I would say you might have a better number on than me. Most people at Angola are never
getting out, like 80% or something like that. But to go in and have to do 10 years to make trustee without a low court or high court writeup, holy shit, bro, that's almost impossible. So basically, they're telling you, "Keep your nose clean, lay low for a couple of months and you shake it out, we got a job for you," basically, you almost were like getting credit for time served already.
Andrew: Right. They gave me credit. Look, I had a unique experience. Woody: Meaning, credit under the trustee program.
Andrew: I used to tell people I did my time like Benjamin Button. [laughter]
Jim: In reverse.
Andrew: Yeah, I did my time in reverse. Most people start at Angola and they're either going to die there or there are some old timers who after they've been there for a few decades, they'll allow a transfer to a prison closer to their home if they request it, if they have space. For me, I ended at Angola and did my last few years there.
Woody: I got to interrupt because I'm visual. You ask to go to Angola, and had you ever been to Angola before?
Andrew: I'd been only for boxing matches. I had been there for those kind of trips.
Woody: So, you're taking that ride up, or they giving you the ride up and you hit the gates and you go inside the wire the first time. Do you have any different impression? What was your impression?
Andrew: I was thinking, "Oh, man, I hope I made the right decision." [laughter]
Woody: Right, because this is like the Harvard of convicts.
Andrew: Yeah, because I'm starting to second guess because it's like, well, if I would have gone back to the smaller prison, I was big fish in a small pond. And now, I was telling myself, "You're just another lifer here. You're going to be lost in the shuffle." But thankfully, I wasn't lost in the shuffle. Thankfully, my reputation did-- I did have a good reputation.
Woody: I'm sure somebody called and gave them a heads-up and say that, "You better get your hands on this dude because he's the bomb."
Andrew: I got there. You go on this review board as soon as you get there, and it's medical, mental health, security, classification, and they're trying to figure out where they're going to send you. A lot of guys will start off in a cell block, or some guys will go into medical facilities. Some guys will be under mental health observation. And never having lived at Angola but new Camp J is not the place to be.
Woody: Right.
Jim: Don't send me to Camp J.
Andrew: The major who was on the review board is like, "Hey, I got a call about you. Let me see what they want--" He's telling pretty much everyone on the review board like, "Someone's about to make a decision where this guy's going to go. We're not going to make the decision." He gets off the phone and says, "We're sending him to Bass." And I was like, "Okay. Where is that?" He's like, "You're going to Camp J." And I'm like, "Oh, my God. I thought I'm coming here to be a trustee."
Jim: You're sending me to lockdown.
Andrew: And I'm going to lockdown because you go to J when guys on death row screw up. They get sent to J, to the cell blocks at J because people would rather be in their cell on death row-
Woody: Absolutely.
Andrew: -than be at J because J is wild. Now look, today J has been shut down for a few
years because of talk about-- Jim: [crosstalk] -reason for that.
Andrew: Look, Camp J is four cell blocks and one dorm. They have a few guys in a dorm that are cooking for the guys there. They're taking care of the place, taking care of the yard. You hear J, you assume the cell block. Just having worked in the cell blocks, these are guys with significant mental health issues.
Woody: Most of them, yeah.
Andrew: They're throwing feces on each other. They're throwing stuff on the guards. They're guys who've been back there so long and there's this mentality in prison, bar fighting. And you make enemies in a cell and you throw stuff on so many people. You've seen this guy, he comes out on the tier for his shower. Y'all stay up all night cursing at each other because that's just how time is done. And then, you get into it with so many people, you're back there a couple of years and they say, "Okay, it's your time to come out." Like, "Oh, no, I can't go into population because I've threw crap on so many people."
What these guys don't realize is, look, all y'all have thrown crap on each other. Y'all cursed each other out, talked about threatened to kill each other. You get out, chances are, "All right, man. We're in population now, we're going to put that stuff behind us." But so many of those guys, they've developed these enemies, and then they just dig their hole deeper and deeper. There are guys who've been back there decades and refuse to come out of their cells.
Jim: Damn.
Woody: The listeners know, like you're talking about, to get sent to Camp J, not the dormitory, but to get housing and cell on Camp J, you had to break a rule in prison. Not just regular fist fighting. It's fighting with weapons or attacking an officer or raping someone or whatever it may be, it's a serious infraction. You don't get classified and sent to Camp J immediately, most people. You get sent to wherever, and then if you're so bad that you can't follow the major rules inside-- those rule infractions, they could be a street charge too. But if you're so bad that you can't live in the general population with the worst of the worst, or what's considered to be the worst of the worst in America, you got to send to Camp J. It's a huge mental issue. I agree with you, like 90% of that shit is mental.
Andrew: They call it the Behavioral Management Unit.
Woody: Yeah, right.
Jim: [chuckles] That’s one way to put it.
Woody: You lock them up and throw away the key.
Andrew: The reason that they had to shut it down was it's an old cell block, and they couldn't repair the cells. Guys would open up cells, jump on guards.
Jim: Oh, my God.
Andrew: [crosstalk] So, whenever they sent me, they said Bass, which is the name of the dormitory, the general population dorm for the guys that work and serve. Luckily, it was like, "No, we're sending you back here," they did me a favor because it's like, hey, they recognize, "This is a guy that's done a lot of time. We have something in mind for you. So, we're going to put you on timeout."
Woody: And show you what the worst could be if you want to fuck up. Jim: Yeah.
Andrew: They told me, "Give us a couple of months." Those couple of months, it's like no one else talks to me after that. I remember day 30, day 45, I'm thinking to myself, "These people told me-- they've forgotten all about me." I remember seeing the assistant warden over the camp after I'd been there about two months, said, "Hey, I don't know if you remember me," he's like, "Yeah, I remember you." "You haven't looked at me. You haven't acknowledged me. Just want to make sure." He said, "Have you hit your two months yet?" "I'll hit my two months at the end of this week." He said, "Okay, we'll see what happens." Two days after I hit my two months there, they came to me and said, "Hey, we're moving you to Camp F, and you're going to be working out on the range crew. We're going to make you the clerk on the range crew."
Jim: That's awesome.
Andrew: What it ended up being, obviously Camp F is the old timer camp, class A trustee. I
was in my 30s, I was the youngest guy at Camp F. [laughter]
Andrew: By like 20 years.
Woody: Yeah.
Andrew: The youngest guy. There may have been guys that weren't quite that much older than me. But I go back there, and I have this job and I didn't realize how great of a job they were giving me. 18,000 acres, the thing that's awesome about the range crew is you have trustees that get to leave whatever camp, leave the main prison, get outside the fence, be on the property. But the thing that's awesome about the range crew is cattle there-- on just one little spot of the prison, there's cattle from the front to the back of the prison. So, when you're on the range crew, you have access to the entire prison. When I say the entire prison, I mean the property.
Jim: So, you were a cowboy?
Andrew: I was a cowboy. I wasn't born a cowboy. Jim: [laughs]
Andrew: I learned how to ride a horse. Learned how to take care of cattle. The cows at Angola are 2000 head of cattle, not counting the bulls and not counting, given time of the year, when mamas are dropping calves. There are actually a lot more cattle there but every cow is on state property control. They're branded, they're tagged.
Woody: Oh, my God. I remember-- [crosstalk]
Andrew: When John Kennedy was State Treasurer, he used to give DOC hell, "How the heck do you lose a cow?" I was a guy that if I read that in the paper, I would think the same thing, "Well, how the heck do you lose a cow?" And I learned on 18,000 acres, it's really easy to lose a cow because if a cow goes in a drainage canal and dies--
Woody: Or a gator gets--[crosstalk]
Andrew: You're hoping that the buzzards are going to tell you where they are. So, part of my job was to keep up with the cattle that were on state property control and to do continuing inventories, order the meds, order the vaccines, along with just general clerical responsibilities around the range.
Woody: You have a brain that I don't because my entire state career every fucking year when I had to fill out these property forms and serial numbers and I hated that shit. I'd rather be kicked in the nuts than have to fill out one of those. You were doing it every day all across the whole scale.
Andrew: And then, another job responsibility I had once I got the job was assisting with the management of the rodeo as it relates to the rides. In my job, I was responsible for the fall and spring rodeos, to get the riders signed up and to assign the rides. There are people who-- the stock contractor comes in. There's, obviously, Alan Barton and his crew are managing what's going on inside the arena. There are acts coming in. Security is getting the public in. There's the hobby craft. There's the concessions.
But the guys that are participating, someone has to organize them, someone has to decide who's getting what ride. It's sort of interesting because that's really a high-pressure thing because everyone wants a ride and everyone wants to be on this shoot. My responsibility was being the guy that fairly distributed rides for people who signed up. In the middle of the rodeo, you'll have guys who are on a horse and then they hurt themselves, but later in the day they were supposed to be on the poker table. So, I have to keep track of that and replace them in real time.
Jim: Wow. Did you have anybody helping you?
Andrew: I had people that would help me, but I'm the kind of guy that- Woody: Nobody is going to do it--[crosstalk]
Andrew: -nobody's going to do it as good as you.
Jim: [laughs]
[crosstalk]
Jim: Struggle with delegation. [laughs]
Woody: You were the CEO of everything that state workers--
Jim: Well, if you do it, it's done right. [laughs] Or if it's wrong, it's your fault. And that's important.
Andrew: But I can remember people ask me often about what I'm missing. I think there'll come a point in my career where I'll move out in the country, get a piece of property and have cow because there are days when you work around cattle, you just get this gunk in your nose at the end of the day, especially when we're pushing cows, got them in a catch pen, working them, and you just get all this muck in your sinuses, I miss that. I had to be in prison to really feel this sense of purpose and enjoying-- there were times I forget I was in prison. I forget I have my-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Wow. It's almost like [crosstalk] you're so involved.
Andrew: -sentence because I was in nature. I was working around these animals, got run [unintelligible [00:19:15] people. I think people have this idea that brahma bulls, the meanest thing that you could come across and know a mama cow that you're pulling the baby from will run your ass over. Well, I've been run over quite a few times and been kicked by cows. So, it was a great experience for me.
The other thing I should say about my experience at Angola that was totally different from everywhere else I had been. Obviously, I was an outlier everywhere else I was having a life sentence. I would see people come and go. There were a handful of lifers at Wade, a handful of lifers at DCI. But when you get to Angola, everyone has life or everyone has 50, 100 years. They're not going to do that sentence. You every once in a while got a guy that somehow ended up at Angola that's going to be going home, but that's the outlier.
And I got to meet so many older guys who had been there for decades. Some of the best people I ever met with in my life, I met in prison, and they were in prison for murder. I know that the general public can't get that, or they think I must be twisted to see that. But you see who a person becomes. I'm not meeting people in their worst moment. I'm meeting people years later after they've developed, they've taken responsibility for whatever brought them to prison and they've changed their lives. So, I think that had a big impact. Frankly, seeing a lot of death at Angola, going to funerals at Angola and seeing people buried and their headstone being on the penitentiary property, it's life changing.
Woody: We did an episode on the Lookout Point and the call for making-- and all that stuff, that Burl really stepped up the game on.
Jim: That's exactly right.
Woody: [crosstalk] -we missed an episode. My mama sent me the article afterwards. Governor Edwards, when he passed, they had them make his coffin and he was buried. But then, his wife or some family member had him dug up and cremated. But so, we did Billy Cannon's. [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. We definitely talked about that. It'd be a good point to bring up Burl Cain brought two very, very important things to Angola, in my opinion. He brought religion and he brought education at a level no prison had ever seen in the country. Everybody makes mistakes, Burl became very powerful, and with that, there became maybe some problems. But probably the most well-known warden in the history of the country, I would say. Would you agree? Did you ever have any dealings with him?
Andrew: Oh, certainly. My favorite story about Burl, and he would do this to a lot of people, you always knew Burl was the boss and Burl had the vision. If you were going to work for Burl, you were going to carry things out the way Burl wanted it done. Burl had a whiteboard in the ranch house where he would often hold court around lunch. If there was an assistant warden, staff member who had to see Burl, Burl had a convict he wanted to come see him, you'd get called up to the ranch house and he had a whiteboard. Burl used to draw a circle on the whiteboard and then put a dot in the middle of it. He'd hand you the marker and say, "That's where I am. I'm the dot. Show me where you are. Are you in the circle? Are you outside the circle?"
Woody: Wow.
Jim: [chuckles] That’s pretty awesome.
Andrew: And he would tell you, "Draw it. I want to see. Where are you?" If you'd put that dot inside the circle next to him, "So, well, let me know if you're with me, because if you're not with me, we'll draw your dot outside of the circle." I think that's a perfect encapsulation of who he is. He had a vision. He knew how he wanted to do it. Obviously, it's hard to stay in one place. He was at Angola over 20 years. That's unheard of. No one will ever be warden of the penitentiary--
Woody: I know this off the record that numerous times, and actually tapped Jimmy Le Blanc to be head of the Department of Corrections, he turned it down. He believed in so much in what he was doing in Angola. When he was warden at DCI, when I started-- I trained at Angola, I think it was Camp F is where the--
Jim: Yes.
Woody: Yes, I slept in a dormitory there and everything, but my mom was raised on the [unintelligible [00:24:08]. So, we say Bloody Angola, the Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. That's more of a catch-all. Certainly, it's not a nice place to be, but it's certainly not to 19--[crosstalk]
Jim: '65, '64.
Woody: -when they had [crosstalk] yards and shit like that. I forget the name of certification
program, it's a national thing run by the government. Andrew: HOST?
Woody: Yeah, that certifies prison. You got to really-- Andrew: Oh, ACA.
Woody: American Correctional Accreditation, something like that. But Angola was nowhere near that when Burl got there, and he did all that too.
Jim: Right. Leader of men, there's no doubt about it. Now, I believe the head of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Andrew: Correct.
Woody: Most listeners don't know the Montgomery case comes out, how did you learn about it? How did you hear about it? And what happens next?
Andrew: US Supreme Court actually has made a series of decisions that affected how we sentenced juveniles. I mean, it's not that long ago the first decision where they looked at adolescent brain science was Roper, and it was new science. It's sort of what everyone who was a kid or had kids, knew kids or immature kids are impulsive. And the Roper decision, that's when they said, "You can't execute a juvenile anymore." I mean, that's just in the last couple of decades that we haven't been able to execute-- The Supreme Court said, "Stop executing juveniles."
Woody: I was a police officer when that came out.
Andrew: And they said, "Hey, kids are different from adults, and we have to treat them different than adults." Eventually, there was the Miller decision. And all these decisions, we're in prison, we're watching the news, we're reading the newspaper, we're keeping up with it. The guys who are going down the rabbit hole, staying in the law library are telling everyone what's happening. So, we're just watching it. The Miller decision came out in 2012, and that decision said that you can't give a juvenile a mandatory life without parole sentence. Well, if you remember in the first episode, I said when my judge sentenced me, there was only one sentence.
Woody: Mandatory without.
Andrew: If my judge would have had an option and gave me life anyway, the Supreme Court decision wouldn't have affected me because the Supreme Court didn't say you can't give a juvenile a life without parole sentence. It said it couldn't be mandatory. The judge has to have leeway. But Louisiana and some other Southern states--
Woody: They still followed it.
Andrew: We're fighting it, the retroactivity, because they said, "Okay, well, this only affects new cases. It can't affect all these old cases." I actually went back to Acadia Parish in 2013 after Miller. I was fortunate my family could afford to hire an attorney for me. The judge who was there for my trial was still on the bench.
Jim: Oh, wow.
Andrew: He agreed for me to come back in. He said, "Now, I have an opportunity to give you a different sentence. I'm going to sentence you to life with parole, and I'm going to let the Department of Corrections figure out what that means," because there wasn't a law in the book that said what does-- life is still life in Louisiana, whether you're a juvenile or not. The parole board wouldn't schedule a parole hearing for me, obviously, because there's nothing that says that.
Woody: To set the precedent.
Andrew: Yeah. We're hearing from all of our attorneys that this isn't going to affect old cases. So, in January of 2016, the US Supreme Court ruled in a case called Henry Montgomery, Baton Rouge case. A black guy, he was 17 years old, when he shot an East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy. Not to argue that case, Henry, he shot someone who happened to be a sheriff's officer. He didn't know it was a sheriff's officer, but still, he shot a sheriff's deputy, and he was held accountable and was initially given the death penalty, ended up with a life sentence. His case made it to the Supreme Court. I remember we initially thought, "Man, that's such a bad case to make it to the Supreme Court," because everyone in prison knows you don’t--
Jim: When it involves a police officer--
Andrew: You don't commit a crime against a police officer because you're not going to get
any mercy.
Woody: So the listeners know, when they submit to Supreme Court, Supreme Court has a right to turn down the hearing of the case. They don't have to hear it.
Andrew: Right. So, they agreed to hear it. In January of 2016, they reviewed it favorably. Henry Montgomery, what his attorneys were arguing was that Miller's retroactive, and it affects Henry and people who've already been in prison, not just new cases. The Supreme Court agreed, and it put me at the front of the line.
Jim: When he says the front, the very front.
Andrew: The very front. It's not because I obviously wasn't the person who served the most time. I wasn't the person who had the most certificates. I was at the front of the line because most other guys in my position, they couldn't afford to hire attorneys, and other courts didn't want to fool with it. There weren't any local judges that were looking to start resentencing people. Everyone's like, "Oh, let's wait and see what the Supreme Court does." Well, my judge looked for the-- was happy to hear when my attorney went and said, "We were going to file for a hearing for a change in sentencing." He says, "Let's set a date."
Woody: I'm sure also, I know what he told you originally, but I guarantee that the judge looked at-- that you did your time, you didn't let your time do you. You totally turned your life around, or you've been on a straight and narrow other than the one time at JESTC. [chuckles]
Andrew: That's true. He put all that stuff into the record, and that obviously helped me. So, when the Montgomery decision came down, my attorney petitioned the parole board and said, "You owe him a parole hearing." At that point, the state of Louisiana had not issued-- the legislature hadn't changed any laws. So, he was arguing because of what the Supreme Court said, "Because his district court already sentenced him, you have to give him a parole hearing. You can't hold the legislature's inaction against him." The parole board agreed and actually got an opinion from the attorney general's office that said I was parole eligible.
I go before the parole board in June of 2016, I'll be honest with you, even though I knew I was rehabilitated, knew if I get out, I'm going to do well, I still know I committed a horrible crime. I was in my 30s. I was 34. I'm telling myself, "I'm going to be denied," and I'm preparing my family, I'm going to be denied. This is the sort of a process and every couple of years I'll be able to reapply. And in 10, 15 years, they're going to get tired of telling me no, and I'm going to come home one day. And I'm going to tell y'all, my biggest fear, I didn't say this in the first episode. My biggest fear while I was incarcerated wasn't about someone hurting me, wasn't about being raped or being stabbed or even not getting out of prison. That wasn't my biggest fear. My biggest fear and what would keep me up at night was the fear that my parents would die while I was incarcerated.
Woody: Yeah, I get it.
Andrew: Because I've seen men whose parents died. Mom's the last person with you. And
when mom goes, everyone else goes.
Jim: And they had your back the whole time you were in prison.
Andrew: They didn't make excuses for me, but they showed me love. They visited me.
Woody: Shoutout to your folks, man.
Andrew: They answered my phone calls, and my mom and dad just sustained me. I went to prison as a 15-year-old, and even although my body matured, there was part of my-- I never went off to college. I never got that first job.
Woody: The growth experience.
Andrew: I was emotionally dependent on my parents' love and affirmation. So much of me furthering my education and doing good things in prison was so when my parents would come and visit me, I could say, "Guess what I'm doing?"
Woody: They could be proud.
Andrew: I say all that to say that whenever I had the parole hearing, I prayed, and I just prayed. "I know I'm not going to make it this time, but please, God, just let me come home while my parents are still alive so then I can be there for them as they've been for me for my whole life." Luckily, that day, I have a parole hearing. Generally, they tell you after the hearing, you've been granted or you've been denied. They threw a curveball, and they said, "We want to take this under advisement. We want to think about it." I understand I was the first juvenile lifer after Montgomery with a parole hearing. The parole board generally doesn't hear at that point, murderers going up for parole.
I go back to my life in prison. I tell myself, "You're going to be denied. You're going to get a letter in the mail in 30 days that said, 'You've been denied. Apply again in two years.'" I'm back on the range crew. I'm back doing my job. I'm worrying about cattle. I'm worrying about inventories. I remember it was 10:30 on Thursday, June 9th. My supervisor is a guy named Alan Barton, June 9th, 2016, his phone rings, and he answers it, and he looks at me, and I could tell whatever that the call was about, it was about me. And so, I'm wondering, "What's this about?" Nowhere did it come into my mind this has something to do with parole. And he's like, "Okay, okay, okay." He hangs up the phone, and he looks at me, and he says, "Pack your shit." In prison, when you hear, "Pack your shit," it's usually one of a couple of things, but it could also mean you're going to the cell block.
Woody: Right. It could mean you're getting swung. The other one is you're going home.
Andrew: You're going home. This is how much I didn't allow myself to believe I was going home. I was prepared to go home. [crosstalk] Immediately, in that split second, "What are the things--? Do they know I brought a brick of community coffee back to the dorm to get to this old timer. What do they know? I got some extra chicken out the kitchen." And he says, "You're making parole." And I was just like, "Wait. What?" He's like, "The parole board granted you, and you're releasing now." I lived at the office of the range crew at the lake house, at the hog lot, this is prison jargon. Like, 80% of my properties out there because I go back to the dorm to sleep and then come back to work and work all day. He says, "Pack your stuff," and I was like, "Man, if this is a bad message, I don't want to pack all my stuff. So, let me go to the camp and see." He's like, "I'm not bringing you back. You're going home."
So, it took me going to the camp and then giving me my release papers to sign before I believed it. They said, "Do you want to call anyone?" I said, "Yeah, I want to call my mom." So, they give me the phone, I call my mom. She answers, and I said, "Hey, do you know anything about me?" She says, "Yeah, we're coming to get you." I said, "How long have you--" My mom knew one hour before I did.
Woody: Wow.
Andrew: My attorney called her from the parole board to say, "Hey, the parole board just called me in to say that they're granting Andrew's parole." It was great that my mom knew for an hour before I called her. She knew she was waiting on that call. My sister had just graduated medical school. My parents were packing her up, getting ready to send her off for her residency. So, just thinking, my younger sister finished medical school, they're packing her up, and at the same time, their son's releasing from prison.
Jim: What a day.
Andrew: I was told at 10:30. I got up that morning thinking, "I may die here. I may get out in a few years." At 10:30, they said, "You're going home today." At 04:00, I was walking out the front gate with my family.
Woody: Wow. One of the few people--
Jim: For the first time outside since you were 15. Woody: Outside of the gates of Angola.
Andrew: Right. Packing, getting all my stuff gathered, and all these old timers and these juvenile lifers who've been there all this time are coming up to me, "We're so happy for you, man. This is awesome." I remember thinking to myself, "Man, how much grace that they have," because if I was in their shoes, I would be saying, "Why this guy?"
Jim: Yeah. People try to sabotage people getting out sometimes in prison. Andrew: "This guy's only been here 19 years. Why is he getting out?" Jim: You would almost think there'd be jealousy there.
Andrew: Yeah, and I'm sure there was but guys were just showing me so much love. The last two guys I talked to before I get out were two juvenile lifers. One had been in for 40 years. One had been in for 50 years.
Woody: Wow.
Andrew: They say, "You're going to be the guy that helps the rest of us get out." I don't think they meant literally, but like, "You're going to get out, and you're going to show that people can get second chances. Man, you could do well." I was like, "Man, I'm sorry that it's me." They're like, "No, no, man, get the hell out of here. You're going to do well." We're driving down that road that I didn't know if I'd ever leave. My sister asks me, "Well, now what?" I had all these plans on paper, but now it's like, "Oh,-
Jim: Now, it's real.
Andrew: -it's real." I told myself what came to me is, "I've got to find a way to help people. I've got to find a way to help these people that I've left behind." So, through that guilt of leaving my friends behind was born Louisiana Parole Project.
Woody: Wow.
Jim: And what a beautiful project, and we're going to get into that. I do want to say, because I sense you had a little bit of guilt with you that you were the first, and there were these people that in your mind are more deserving because they had spent longer time and all of
that. For me, looking from the outside, I think you had a lot of-- and I don't even know if you felt this pressure, but I would have thought you would have had a lot of pressure on you because anybody who was against that ruling is watching you to wait for you to fail. "Y'all going to see. Y'all going to see, they let these guys out and watch what happens. They're going to screw up again." Wow, were you the total opposite of that, number one. Probably far exceeded even people with the best of intentions, expectations, and that's what we want to get into. But you did. You were the first, and that was great.
You also were carrying a heavy burden, just like these guys told you, you're going to be the one that they use as the example. So, I'm sure in the back of the mind, they were thinking, "Be a good example because you can screw it up for all of us." [chuckles] So, you were just that. Now, I want you to tell us about your Louisiana Parole Project and what it does and the value of that for these released convicts, inmates, people.
Andrew: I come home in June of 2016, I recognize-- my dad gives me a truck. I knew I couldn't go back to Eunice, Louisiana. Everyone knew me for the worst thing I did. They either loved me or hated me but there weren't opportunities there. And I wanted to go to college. Heck, I was 34 years old, getting out of prison from this life sentence, smart guy. I've already earned these credits. Testament to the prison system, I felt getting out, like, "Man, I've earned all these credits. I have to go to college." Whereas if I wouldn't have had those opportunities, I might look and go, "Damn, I'm not ready to invest four years of my life. I got to go into the job market right away." So, I enrolled for college right away. But then, I started telling people, "Man, I want to find a way to help these guys. I realize I'm coming out and with this ruling, I'm just the first. There are going to be other people coming home. How do we create opportunities for people when they come home?"
I'm going to be okay because my family is going to make sure that I have opportunities to be successful. I had built a network for myself in prison that I know, "Hey, I'm going to take advantage of this network to find a good job and to hang around good people and have volunteer opportunities." The guys coming home and I had enough common sense to know that, "Hey, the first few people who come home are going to affect it for everybody. So, we need to make sure the first guys who come home are successful so that stakeholders, namely parole board, governor, judges, keep giving people chances." This was an abstract idea and literally just starting, building it out from my experience, from the experience of the first few people that came home, what did they struggle with when they first come home. And we've built a program. We're a nonprofit organization, so I had to figure out how to build a nonprofit organization, how to set it up.
Jim: Not easy.
Andrew: My first job was actually someone clued me into working at Pointe Coupee Detention Center. I taught pre-release at the detention center for a short time. There's a curriculum, and it's actually this curriculum I taught in the inside at Angola, at Camp F in my spare time. So, I have a job. My first paycheck goes to chartering the organization with the Secretary of State's office and the local clerk at court's office. And then, applying to the IRS for the 501(c)(3) status. All that costs money. So, I'm just figuring out the administrative part of building the organization, asking funders for money. It's the chicken before the egg. I'd say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do." Well, funders would say, "Well, what have you done?" "Well, I haven't done anything."
[laughter]
Jim: "That’s what we need you for."
Andrew: "We need the funds." "Well, come back to us whenever you've done something." A lot of volunteer work, part time, going to college. And then finally, we had a couple of funders that took a chance on us. I mean, fast forward from 2016 to today, we operate a residential reentry program in Baton Rouge. We work with people who've been convicted all over the state that are coming home, and we work with people who've done 20 years or more, because we recognize these are guys who are more likely to listen to their peers. And it's a pure mentorship program. Same concept with AA. If you're an alcoholic who's going to AA, your sponsor is going to be another alcoholic.
Woody: Somebody's who been through it.
Andrew: Who's been through it and so we had the same mindset. We're going to have people who've come out of prison, who've been successful mentoring other people who come out of prison. Initially, that was an odd mindset for law enforcement, for probation and parole for DOC, because their job is usually keeping ex-cons away from each other. But today, we own and operate nine transitional houses in Baton Rouge. We own these homes outright. Seven houses for men, two houses for women. When they come home from prison, we're giving them a safe, stable place to stay. We have rules, we have expectations, but some of the things, our clients have served 20, 30, 40, 50 years in prison. So, it started out with these juvenile lifers coming home. And the legislature passed a bill in 2017 that also allowed something-- some people call it 40-Year Lifers, some people call it Disco Lifers. There's a group of about 120 lifers during the 70s that had parole eligibility before the legislature in '79 made life, life without parole. There was a bill that restored parole eligibility to some of those guys.
Woody: I didn't know about that.
Andrew: We helped some of them get back out. Jim: Wow.
Andrew: And the governor has been signing commutations. And a big part of why he's signing commutations is because we say, "Hey, if you give this person a second chance, our program is going to help them rebuild their life." He took a couple of chances on people, and he's been signing more and more commutations. He's in the last year he's in office. Last week, he signed commutations for 12 lifers. These people are going to come through our program. To date, since 2016, we've had over 370 men and women who were once serving life or de facto life sentences have gotten out of prison. I know people hearing this go, "Wait a minute, 370 lifers?" Yeah, 370 lifers and de facto lifers, people sentenced to 50 years, 99 years, 200 years have come home. The reason you haven't heard about it is because they're not going back to prison.
Jim: Period.
Woody: Because they had made-- [crosstalk] Jim: Yes.
Andrew: Our recidivism rate is 1%.
Jim: 1%, y'all. Let that sink in.
Woody: But you got to give them the other side of the scale. The average just on general recidivism rate is in the 40% range.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Which means almost one out of two that get out without Andrew's program are
going to offend again. Jim: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Andrew: I said this to y'all before we went on air. I have a unique perspective where I did time, I'm a criminal justice practitioner, and I got my master's degree in criminology. So, one thing I learned actually getting the book education is when we hear like, "Almost one out of two people return to prison," the problem is it's the same couple of guys that go back and forth, back and forth. And they actually--[crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah. Quadruples the number.
Woody: Regardless, take those guys out of the equation, 1% is a stupid, crazy number in a
good way.
Andrew: We start working with our clients before they're released.
Woody: Let's do it like this. You showed a picture of two people that you picked up yesterday, tell us what the process is going to be for them, from where you start until hopefully where it is.
Andrew: Sure. So, two lifers came home yesterday. One served 41 years, one served 38 years. We started meeting with them months ago when we knew they had opportunities to come home. One was given a commutation by the governor, went through the pardon process successfully. The other guy was actually resentenced by the Orleans District Attorney because it was determined that he was overincarcerated. He was someone, after reviewing his case, they decided that he was less culpable than his co-defendants and he shouldn't have got a life sentence. So, they made a deal with him. He pled guilty to time served, came home. Anyway, we started working with him and it's just how much what our organization's reputation is. We go in, ex-cons--
Woody: I was going to say, you go to Angola.
Andrew: Go to Angola and the warden lets us in to go and see guys and prepare because they know we're not going in to bring in contraband. We're not trying to get anyone to escape. We're trying to get people out the right way, but we've got to go and prepare them for what to expect. To be frank, I've got to go in and determine, is this someone I want to help? Not everyone who applies to be our client, we accept. We turn down a lot of people. We look at the prison record and we also read between the lines. Having done time, someone who's done time or worked at Angola--[crosstalk]
Jim: Real knows real. Andrew: Real knows real. Jim: [chuckles] As they say.
Andrew: We want to make sure that it's someone who's taken responsibility for their actions and addressed the things that brought them to prison and bettered themselves and they're ready to come home. People, you're different at 25 than you were at 15. You're a different person at 35. You're a different person at 45.
Jim: Amen.
Andrew: A lot of my clients are 60- and 70-year-old men who are taking up unnecessary
space at Angola.
Jim: If you're judged by your worst mistake you ever made, everybody would hate everybody. Everybody, stop for a second, think about the worst mistake you've ever made, and then think about if everybody knew about that if they'd hate you or strongly dislike you. People change.
Andrew: We pick our clients up at the front gate of the prison when they're released. We bring them to our program. Our clients, things we all take for granted, they've never used a cell phone, they've never used a debit card, they've never paid for gas at the pump, they've probably never opened a bank account. Who has been incarcerated for decades and still has their birth certificate and their Social Security card? These people, if they came home and didn't have the support, they'd just crumble, like, "Where do I start?" And their families, many of them have outlived their families. The ones who do have families, families love them, but they don't know where to start. So, our job is to prepare people to be successful. We're not putting people up for life and giving them a place to stay. We're training people to be self-sufficient.
Woody: Like a transition.
Andrew: It's a transition. We want you to learn the skills you need. I give someone their first cell phone they've ever had. [crosstalk] After a week, they're going to be like a 10-year-old with the first one. So now, we got to teach you how to put the phone down. Now, we've got to teach you what workplace etiquette is. We've got to teach you that when you went to prison, what was considered flirting is considered harassment. We've got to teach you what this institutionalization that you've had, "Hey, in society, we're more accepting of different people, different ideas. You've got to let that old thinking go." A lot of guys obviously come home with skills, and now we're--
Jim: Mad skills, especially trade skills.
Andrew: So, we're looking to do-- and I shouldn't just say, guys, we work with women too. Once they go through our initial program, we feel confident. Now, we're working to find them jobs. We give them transportation. We're going to transport them to their parole officer. We're going to transport them to their job. We bring them to the grocery store. We bring them to their medical appointments. Initially, "Hey, we're going to take care of all your needs. Now, we're going to teach you how to be self-sufficient." Our goal is we're turning tax burdens into taxpayers. We're not just getting people out and saying, "We're saving the state money, because that's one less person you have to pay for," we're turning these people into taxpayers. We're not just turning them into taxpayers when they're working. We're getting them volunteer opportunities. They're volunteering in the communities they live. I tell clients, "Go join a church." Some of them say, "Hey, I'm not into church." And I say, "You go find your church, find you an AA group, find you some group. Start showing up. After you're there three or four times, someone's going to recognize you and say, "Hey, you want to go to lunch? Hey, tell me about yourself.'"
Woody: Integrate them into the community.
Andrew: When people get in trouble, 9 times out of 10, it's because their family doesn't know what they're doing. There are no connections. What we find that's worked is we want all these tentacles into them. I'm going to tell you we're a parole officer's best friend because our parole officers have no problems with their clients because oftentimes, the guys out on
parole, mama may not know where you're at, but that parole officer is keeping in contact with you, a Parole Project client. These are people who were convicted of the worst crimes, and they're the most successful group out there.
And then, the mode is some of our clients who've come out been successful, we've had people start their own small business. We have homeowners, state employees, carpenters, welders, cooks. The people, you walk into Walmart and you don't realize the guy who's checking out next to you just got out of prison doing 30 years. You're in church, the person in the pew next to you is someone who came home. And that's the point. What does someone who's been in prison look like? We're training them to not only to blend in, but to give back to the community.
What I would say is we've proven in Louisiana, a place where life without parole is something that is exactly what it means. And we've just accepted that, "Well, we give people life, and we can't let them out because they've done something so bad, they can't get out," or we keep them there so long, they can't adjust to society. We're proving that wrong, and we're proving that. And this isn't like a bleeding heart speech, because I'm not a bleeding heart. I don't believe-- there is a reason we have prisons, there's a reason we hold people accountable. Well, we can hold people accountable, and then we can take a look back and see, is someone worth redemption? Is someone rehabilitated? Someone worth a second chance? And it's a resounding yes. There's a way that you can support someone.
One thing I hate to hear is, "He's been in so long, how can we let him out?" What I say is, "Shame on us as a society if we keep someone in prison so long, the reason we can't let them out is because we've kept them in prison so long."
Jim: That's a great way of putting it. And you know what? I think your nonprofit does more than anything else, is the same thing that you get inside prison from the staff if they're doing it right, hope. The biggest reason that people reoffend, in my opinion, is they try other things, they hit a bunch of roadblocks, and it's the only thing they know. If you have a felony on your record and you go apply for a job and you have to disclose that felony, and you do, you're doing the right thing, it's hard. Look, I'm not saying they didn't earn the right to have to struggle with that, but it's hard for people to give you a second chance. It is not easy. I'm not someone that lived in that life, but I've seen a lot of people pass through my life that have had that struggle. I've seen people turn back to the only thing they know, because it's the only way they can make money, is by slinging drugs or doing whatever it was that put them in prison to begin with.
Your program is really helping them adjust and teaching them that there's another way because anybody who's respected, even the worst of us, when you're respected for the right things, for being a good person, paying your taxes, all those things, you have a self-respect that you don't want to go back to that life.
Woody: And then, second chance also-- Jim: It's hugely important.
Woody: -what you just hit on, people come out and they can't get the jobs or people are like, "I'm not hiring a con," through second chance, through your program, somebody did take a chance. They're probably the best damn employee in the world. They're like, "Can you give me like 10 more of them?"
Andrew: I was about to say two points I want to respond to as it relates to second chances, there is not an employer that we've gotten someone connected to-- a lot of times, it's a lot of work, getting this employer to take a chance, and I understand it. He's got to think, how is
the public going to feel about it? How are my other employees going to feel about it? There's not an employer who doesn't come back and say, "Hey, if you have another guy, I'd be willing to hire another guy." We have multiple employers, car dealerships in Baton Rouge, state government agencies that have multiple clients working for them.
As it relates to hope-- We talked about Warden Cain, the current warden of Angola, Tim Hooper, is really a good man, and he's doing good things up there. But as it relates to hope, prisoner-on-staff violence is down at Angola. Prisoner-on-prisoner violence is down at Angola. Participation in educational and self-help programs are up. Why is that? Because people in Angola are seeing people go home. And not only go home, but they're seeing them stay home and stay successful. They know guys' success, guys communicate, and it gives people hope.
Jim: So, light at the end of the tunnel.
Andrew: What I tell people, even the hardest person who says, "I don't believe in any of this, lock them up. Why should I care about prison conditions?", if you don't care about the thousands of people who live in Angola, care about the employees who work there.
Jim: That's right.
Andrew: Because they should go into a safe environment. What I can tell you is, it's a safer place to work whenever there are people going home and there is hope in the prison. Hope is a good thing.
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: This is a damn good episode. One more thing-- Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: Chills. How can people help support your program? Woody: Say the full name.
Jim: We're going to link all of that too.
Woody: [crosstalk] -links and everything. We're going to put it across all our stuff because I believe what you're doing is really awesome. Y'all, they are nonprofit, and you fund it through donations and stuff, right?
Andrew: Yeah. Jim: In grants. Woody: Grants.
Andrew: Grants and individual donations. So, our name is Louisiana Parole Project. Our website is paroleproject.org. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, @paroleproject. Check us out, you'll see-- If you're wondering what does someone look like coming out of prison, take a look at our social media. We call it the Money Shot, is the guy walking out of the front gate.
Jim: [laughs] I love it.
Woody: Hey, I'm going to follow--[crosstalk]
Jim: The Money Shot.
Woody: When we leave the studio, I'm going to go follow.
Andrew: And people can donate to our organization online at paroleproject.org. Your donation, no matter how large or small, helps us buy someone coming out of prison, a pair of shoes, helps someone go to driving school, fund the cost to getting their driver's license, gets people started. We are a nonprofit organization, and all of our money goes to supporting people. It's a good investment. What I could tell you is, is it costs taxpayers thousands of dollars to keep people in prison for life. The older you get, the more expensive it costs.
Jim: Doubles.
Andrew: It does. It's a good return on the investment. We have been ill served by politicians who have fostered the idea that keeping people in prison forever makes us safer. We've led the country in incarceration because of life sentences, and it didn't affect crime. The people who are committing crimes today are not the guys getting out of Angola. So, there's a difference. When we hear some people are like, "Ah, I'm not into these reforms that are happening," what I can tell you is without a doubt, because I see it, I work with these guys, they're not the guys committing crime. They're the guys who are paying taxes, giving back to their community.
Jim: Well, thank you for that and keep up the good work on that end. One more thing before we let you get out of here. You got a child and a wife now and we haven't even mentioned that. His wife's a doctor, y'all. How about that?
Woody: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. I'm a lucky man. God's shown me a lot of favor. The best job like I've ever
had now is I'm dad to an 11-month-old daughter. Jim: Beautiful.
Woody: Aw. Congratulations.
Andrew: It's been a wonderful experience. Woody: Congratulations.
Jim: Well, keep killing it, man. Keep doing the good work.
Woody: Hey, you know what? I would like to ask you back again sometime. Jim: Please.
Woody: Because this is [unintelligible [01:02:21]. This is important.
Jim: Very important. Thank you.
Woody: Thank you.
Jim: Thank you very much. We appreciate you.
Andrew: Thank you.
Woody: Our favorite episode we've ever done. Episodes actually that we've ever done.
Jim: Yeah, it was great. We hope y'all enjoyed this. Follow the Patreon, subscribe to us, if you'd like more information, and hopefully you would on the LPP, we're going to link all of that in the description of this podcast. Just scroll down, you'll see it there. You can click on it and help.
Woody: When you hear it, if you're moved like I was, share it because we want everybody to know this story.
Jim: That's important. Yes.
Woody: And we've told you, it'll always be something different coming out of Angola. This is
as far in the positive spectrum as we've ever been. Jim: 100%. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim: Peace.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 23 Mar 2023 - 37 - Second Chances Part 1 | A Juvenile Lifers Story
In June 2016, Andrew Hundley became the FIRST juvenile lifer in Louisiana to be paroled following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Miller and Montgomery decisions that prohibited the mandatory sentencing of children to life without parole. It was clear that he was not the same 15-year-old who went to prison in 1997 to the parole board who approved his release.
Since his release from Angola, Andrew has earned a Masters degree in Criminology, is founder of the Louisiana Parole Project and is known in all circles of justice as the real life Andy Dufrane.
Whatever side of this issue you sit, you will not want to miss this episode.
In this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast Woody and Jim sit down with him for an in depth interview you are not going to believe on Bloody Angola Podcast.
#BloodyAngolaPodcast #LouisianaParoleProject #AndrewHundley
check us out on the web for past episodes!
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 16 Mar 2023 - 36 - Sons of Guns | The Story of Rapist Will Hayden
At one point Sons of Guns was the most watched television show on TV.
The show which centered around the Hayden family gun shop Red Jacket Firearms, was headed towards a lifetime of income from the season renewals and growing popularity.
however all that was soon to change!
After five seasons, the show was cancelled on August 27, 2014, as a direct result of William Hayden's arrest on various sexual charges.
On April 7, 2017, Hayden was convicted on two counts of aggravated rape and one count of forcible rape.
On May 11, 2017, Hayden was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years in prison to be served consecutively, for rape of two girls between ages of 11 and 13.
Bloody Angola host (s) Woody Overton and Jim Chapman break down the case, and give you the truth of this monster you will not hear anywhere else!
#Sonsofguns #Williamhayden #BloodyAngolapodcast
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 09 Mar 2023 - 35 - The Real "Dead Man Walking"
In this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast, Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell the story of Robert Lee Willie who was executed at Bloody Angola in 1984 and his story was part of the inspiration for the movie "Dead Man Walking"
Woody and Jim Cover the victims, the crimes and the eventual execution of willie via electric chair.
#DeadManWalking #BloodyAngolaPodcast #truecrime #robertwillie #prison #convict #podcast #susansonrandon #seanpenn #hollywood #serialkillers #louisiana
Full Transcript
THE REAL DEAD MAN WALKING
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Y'all, we have got, Woody, I'd say one of the most highly requested stories we've had since we started.
Woody: Right. I agree with you but when people request this, they are thinking about a movie. They don't know the real story.
Jim: They don't. As someone who, in preparation of this episode, actually watched the movie again, I can say it's nothing like it.
Woody: No doubt you did your research and the homework on it. Once again, you found out things that I didn't even know. But I knew the true story, and I knew when I saw the movie, it was two different things put together. But this is-- some of this, y'all, is going to be hard to hear, but we always told you it'd be different on Bloody Angola.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: So, we're going to get to talking today, and we're going to call the name this episode The Real Dead Man Walking. And y'all, we're talking about Robert Willie. Okay, so I'm going to start telling you about Faith Colleen Hathaway. Now, Faith was born in Orlando, y'all, in 1961, but she grew up in Mandeville, Louisiana. Mandeville is about an hour east drive of Baton Ridge and right across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Faith had been around, her family traveled a lot. Her family had left Louisiana for a few years and then the mid-1970s to travel, and they spent a lot of time in Ecuador and Haiti. I guess maybe they're doing mission work or something.
Jim: Yeah, primarily mission work.
Woody: Well, going to these different countries helped Faith develop a love for learning different languages and sparked her interest in joining the military. She knew that soldiers who were bilingual were desired and sought after by the US Army at the time. By her senior year of high school, she signed her commitment to join army, just like I did. So, immediately following graduation, she was going to get shipped out to basic training.
Jim: That's it. On May 21st, 1980, she did just that, Woody Overton. She graduated from high school, and at 18 years old, she had her sights on reporting to active duty. That was like a week later, on May 28th of 1980, she was to report.
Woody: She's rolling.
Jim: She's rolling just a week after graduation, but sadly, she never made it. On May 27th, 1980, Faith awoke, she had breakfast at McDonald's in Mandeville, which is a smaller town back then. Now, it's-
Woody: Yeah, it's pretty big.
Jim: -pretty big. But back then, it was just a little Podunk town. And she did some shopping. She actually shopped for support bras because her recruiter mentioned she's going to probably need those for basic training and she was running out of time to have to report as basic training, as we told you, was the next day. She returned to the apartment complex her mom managed where her and a friend, they shared a separate unit from her mother and stepfather. She's 18, and it was the 70s all. It was different. Nowadays, you think about that and it's like, "What?"
Woody: Right. "I'm not going to let my daughter do that." But totally different time, totally different world.
Jim: Totally. She decided she wanted to go swimming in the pool. So, she did that. Then, she gets dressed and she had kind of her last day at work before joining basic training and she worked at a local restaurant.
Woody: Yeah. The difference between her and I, when I went eight years later, I wasn't trying to work in the [crosstalk]
Jim: [chuckles] I wouldn’t either.
Woody: That shows her commitment. I was getting drunk to shit for probably a week before.
But she was go-getter.
Jim: Worked all the way to her last day at work. After working her shift, she had some friends who contact her. Well, one friend in particular. She said, "Hey, let's go out for drinks after you get off work. It's your last night in town." And so, that's what they did. They go to a local bar and celebrate her leaving the next day for basic training.
Woody: The next morning comes and that's May the 28th and Faith's mom went to Faith's room or her apartment, whatever you want to call it, to spend some time with her before her army recruiter showed up to pick her up and bring her to the military bus that would take her to basic training. When Faith's mom opened the bedroom door, she was surprised to see that Faith hadn't slept in her bed. She woke up Faith's roommate and asked her to say, "Hey, where's Faith at?" And her roommate said that she had gone to bed early the night before and hadn't seen Faith since she left for work the prior night. Faith's mom then calls-- now y'all, there was no cell phone, Faith's mom then calls the friend that Faith had drinks with the night before and she was hoping that Faith had stayed the night at her house, but she hadn't.
So, naturally what do moms do? Because this wasn't like Faith. Her mom panicked. And she got in contact with Faith's biological father who lived in New Orleans. And Faith was really tight with him, and she told him, said, "Hey, I can't find Faith. And she never came home evidently." He jumps into action and went straight to the police and reported her missing, both to the Mandeville Police Department and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office.
Jim: Yeah, this guy just kind of got into action. Went dad mode, and mom was in a panic, understandably. Thank God, one of them could keep a level head long enough to think about what to do. On the following day, which was Thursday, May 29th, 1980, a multi-state alert was basically put out on her disappearance. By Sunday, personal articles of clothing were
discovered in a remote 47-acre tract of land in Franklinton, Louisiana, which is about an hour's drive north, y'all, of Mandeville, where she was last seen.
Woody: In Washington Parish. Really, really rural. Jim: Yeah. Very rural.
Woody: [crosstalk] -over there is papermill.
Jim: That's it. And you can smell it when you're passing through. The belongings were discovered really by mere chance. There was a family. They were picnicking in the area, and their seven-year-old daughter walked up to them, and the daughter had a tube of lipstick. The mother asked her, she said, "Where did you get that?" And the child said behind a tree. There's a lot of stuff back there. So, the family kind of goes back there and looks, and they discover a full case of makeup, a bunch of clothing that turned out to be Faith's. How they kind of knew it was her was they found a billfold with her driver's license in it, and it had some other belongings. They go straight to Covington, Louisiana, and return those to the sheriff's office, not realizing at the time that this person was missing. They were just being good citizens.
Woody: They know Faith's missing, and now they know basically you don't get a female doesn't go anywhere without her purse or makeup and ID and all that, but her clothes were there. So, they jump into action, and a search party was formed. On Wednesday, June of 4th, 1980, Faith's body was found in some thick underbrush just 200 yards from where her belongings were found five days earlier. Faith had been brutally raped, and her throat had been slashed. Her body was locked up in rigor mortis in a spread-eagle position, legs forced open, arms above her head, several severed fingers. This is a sign, y'all, naturally. The severed fingers is a sign that Faith tried to defend herself, but ultimately it was futile. She had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck with a large knife and had a total of 17 stab wounds [unintelligible [00:10:40]. The cut across her throat was so deep that her necklace was embedded into her flesh. The pathologist who performed the autopsy said that her death was not immediate and had to be excruciating. Basically, it took long enough for her to bleed to death. It's a horrible, horrible death.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: This isn't like in the woods, y'all. You can imagine being out there fighting for your life, and somebody just slicing you. 17 stab wounds is a lot. But then, you slice the neck so hard that you embed the necklace deep into your neck. It's crazy.
Jim: It really is. Woody: 18 years old.
Jim: 18 years old, and just about to leave for basic training the morning all this went down really.
Woody: Whole life ahead of you.
Jim: Whole life ahead of you. Now what no one suspected at the time outside of the police was, well, when Faith's body was found was that a connection was being made. On May 31st, 1980, just three days before the disappearance of Faith Hathaway, another abduction had taken place in the same area. Mark Brewster, who was 20, parked his car near the Tchefuncte River, and that was a lover's lane, and he had a 16-year-old girlfriend. Different time, y'all. I'm not saying I agree with that but it's a different time. It was more common then
than now. Two men approached the vehicle. They were armed with guns, and they forced Mark into the trunk of the vehicle while driving to Alabama and repeatedly raping his young girlfriend.
Now near Wilcox, Alabama, the two men stopped the vehicle in a wooded area. They pull Brewster out of the trunk. They tie him to a tree and they shoot him twice in the head with a .22 revolver before slashing his throat and leaving him for dead.
Woody: That's crazy.
Jim: Wilcox, Alabama is not a stone's throw from here. Woody: That’s away.
Jim: It's away. The two men then drive back to Louisiana, repeatedly raping the young girl again the entire way back. Originally, these two assholes brought the girl back to a third man's trailer in Folsom, which is basically halfway between Franklinton and Mandeville in Louisiana. They were using this trailer as a hideout. The man, the third guy, starts making kind of sexual advances towards her. Obviously, these are some real winners, right?
Woody: Yeah, right.
Jim: However, the girl mentioned at some point that she was raped by the other two guys. And the man starts to panic. So, he goes to the two guys that have really kicked off this whole thing and he says, "Look, you got to let this girl go. We're going to be in a shit pile of trouble." So, that's what they do. They kind of drove her out to the middle of nowhere and dropped her off. She walks to a nearby home and knocks on the door, beats on the door. The occupants, thank God, grab her and bring her to the police station.
Woody: Right. On Monday, June the 2nd, miraculously, she was able to lead the cops back to the location of Brewster despite having been locked in the trunk when Brewster was tied to a tree, shot twice, and had his throat slash. When police and the girlfriend arrived on the scene on Tuesday, June the 3rd, Brewster was still alive.
Jim: Can you believe that?
Woody: The other thing about that I want to say real quick, not only those injuries that he
had, but you're out there in Alabama and- Jim: Tied to a tree.
Woody: -in the middle of the summer, can you imagine mosquito bites? I had a case like this. A husband and wife went into the woods around the same time of year when it was hot like that, and they even brought the cat. He shot the cat, he shot her, and shot himself, and she lived. But when I found her, she didn't look like a human being because she had millions of mosquito bites on her. Because her heart was still pumping, the mosquitoes were on it. So, this guy on top of being shot, everything else had to be just absolutely, almost unrecognizable as a human being. Brewster was immediately brought to the South Alabama University Hospital. About the time he underwent surgery, three suspects were arrested in Texarkana after they were recognized by the composite drawings from descriptions made by Brewster's girlfriend. The suspects were Robert Willie, 21, of Covington, Louisiana, Joseph Vaccaro, 28, of Pearl River, Louisiana, and Thomas Holden, 26, of Folsom, Louisiana, y'all. Now, upon suspecting that the crimes were related and one of the crimes taking place across Louisiana state lines, the FBI was brought in to lead the interrogation.
The FBI wasn't having any luck at interrogating Willie, and he was saying nothing, but St. Tammany Parish sheriff's deputy named Donald Duck Sharp had known Willie since childhood and was flown up to Texarkana to assist in an interrogation. Within 30 minutes of starting to talk to him, y'all, Lieutenant Sharp produced a picture of Faith Hathaway, to which Robert Willie responded, "I killed her." When pressed further, Willie said that he didn't actually kill her, that Vaccaro slashed her throat. Lieutenant Sharp then went into the interrogation room with Vaccaro and played the tape of Willie stating that Vaccaro slashed Hathaway's throat, to which Vaccaro denied and said that Willie was lying and that he is the one who killed Hathaway. And that's typical interrogation techniques, y'all.
Jim: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. As an interrogator, is it critical to play one against the other--? [crosstalk]
Woody: Absolutely. Look, you think your homie is you ride or die until, "I killed her, but no, actually, I didn't kill her. He killed her." You go play it for him and then it's "he said, he said" and you're both getting hooked.
Jim: Yeah. I found it interesting that the FBI had the wherewithal to actually admit, "We're not going to get anything out of this guy." That's got to be hard. I mean, as an interrogator, you think you can get everybody to talk.
Woody: The thing about the FBI, and I'm not throwing shade on them, and I've worked with them on task force and everything else, they're experts at federal crimes. Okay, they're not expert interrogators, but they were smart enough to know that they needed to bring somebody in to make that personal connection and to give them a start to at least to try to roll. Now, look, I've done it. I've brought in everybody from wives to preachers to high school teachers, whatever the fuck you got to do to get the juice.
Jim: Absolutely. This guy having a long history with Willie being that they had known each other since childhood, he was, I guess, someone that Willie would have trusted, and they felt like he would open up to a little more. And how about the name Donald Duck Sharp. Love it. I wonder if he's still around St. Tammany. If you are, we'd love to have you on Bloody Angola.
Woody: Let's see, in the 80s, that's what, another 40 something? Yeah, we'd love to have you.
Jim: Absolutely. If any of you are listening to this and actually know him or you're listening on Facebook and you can find him, shoot him a message to him, we want him on Bloody Angola. We love to talk to him about his experience with all this.
Woody: Props up to him for what he does in this case.
Jim: 100%. Now, Lieutenant Sharp goes back in the room with Willie after he talked to Vaccaro and played the tape for him. He says, "Man, y'all are having conflicting stories here." He starts pulling out photos, just tons of photos of the murder scene.
Woody: Another absolutely classic interrogation technique. Jim: Really?
Woody: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Jim: So, what is he aiming for?
Woody: He's aiming for shock value. If you were truly wrong-- somebody's a vicious fucking killer, but someone's a leader, someone's a follower. If you reach a certain point, you got both of them saying this and saying that, you throw it down in front of them and you try to strike a human emotion, being like, "Oh, shit." Because a lot of times in our brain, they may have been drunk or whatever, but they don't remember the real damage. And you see it there-- I would assume, being in color photographs by this time, you see that-- And I've used this in so many cases, you see that, then that'll break most people down.
Jim: And you're watching for body language, and how they react, all of those sorts of things. Interesting. He does, he pulls out tons of photos of the murder scene, the body of Faith Hathaway. He kind of goes through them with Willie. Willie is looking at these pictures, and he sees the one with the severed fingers of Hathaway, and he says, "You see her fingers? She tried to grab the knife when Joe was trying to cut her. I reached up and grabbed her hands and I told her to behave."
Woody: Oh, my God.
Jim: That's horrible. Lieutenant Sharp pressed Willie even harder because now he's starting to kind of talk a little bit more, and he takes that advantage and he says, "You mean you told her to behave while you were cutting her?" And Willie responds, "Yeah." Willie and Vaccaro both told Lieutenant Sharp that Faith told them to let her die in peace, with Willie stating he did not rape Faith, that she wanted to have sex with him.
Woody: Oh, yeah, that’s why they had to cut her fingers off.
Jim: Yeah, and Vaccaro raped her after. However, when Lieutenant Sharp goes to Vaccaro and questions him, he states he couldn't get hard, and although he tried to rape her, he could not get an erection, and that Willie did the raping. Before we go any further on, that just this quick thought. That's okay with them. "I tried to rape her, but I couldn't get hard, so I'm not guilty." You got the other one saying, "Oh, she wanted me to screw her." Freaking crazy. And they think they're going to get out of this? During Lieutenant Sharp's questioning of Willie, Willie told about a third victim that police were unaware of in the same short period as the other two crimes, where Willie and Vaccaro on the same night as the Brewster abduction, attempted to abduct another woman. She screamed, she hollered, she went nuts, and they kind of drove away. That's probably what you should do. If somebody's trying to abduct you, no matter how old you are, flip out.
Woody: Fight all you can. It shows their progression that they were progressing in the nature of the crimes, and as seen in this case, they grew to the point where they completed it. But y'all, Willie wasn't any stranger to the cops, and he had a long and distinguished arrest record, including auto theft, trespassing, disturbing the peace, criminal damage property, ag assault, several counts of burglary, all before he was even an adult, before he even turned 18.
Jim: And that's a big deal. This guy, before he turned 18, he had a rap sheet.
Woody: That's the ones he got arrested for. I tell you that for everyone he got arrested for, there's probably 20 that he was never tied to. Hey, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. John Willie, who's Willie's dad, was serving 27 years in Angola for a bunch of crimes. And in 1954, he went back to Angola for theft of cattle. He was released--
Jim: In Angola. [chuckles]
Woody: Right. I'll tell you what, there's still a lot in the books in East Louisiana Parish, if you steal cattle, you can be hung. It's not enforceable but--
Jim: Look, I'm watching 1923, that's a big deal back then too.
Woody: You're taking everything from them. John Willie was released, and guess what? 1964, he was sent back to Angola again, this time for second-degree murder and received a life sentence. But that sentence got commuted to 10 years, and he was released in 1972. But he then went back to Angola for aggravated battery and was released for the last time in 1983. But not all of Willie's bloodline contained convicts. His great grandfather, John Avery Willie, was a deputy for 35 years for the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office and his grandfather for two decades.
Jim: Yeah. That's crazy.
Woody: That's probably how he knew Donald Duck.
Jim: Somewhere along that line, that bloodline changed from heroes to convicts.
Woody: I think actually think there's a very fine line. I think the best cops were probably OG convicts-- [crosstalk]
Jim: [laughs] They were walking that line.
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: [laughs] I hear you. Just a little history on that, people, a lot of times want to know what the family history was like. Now, the trial for the rape and murder of Faith Hathaway starts. In court, Willie made easy work on the jurors who were looking to send it to him to death. He was a total asshole. He even stated at one point that Cuevas enjoyed being raped. Cuevas was the young lady who was now identified as she was an adult, that was the one who was raped-
Woody: [crosstalk] -all the way to Alabama.
Jim: -all the way to Alabama and all the way back. He actually had the balls to say she enjoyed that. Vaccaro was found guilty. Although the death penalty for Vaccaro was assault, the jury was not unanimous in the death penalty and Vaccaro receives a life sentence.
Woody: Back then, you only had to have 10 out of 12 to get a guilty verdict. On a death penalty case, if you're going-- there's two separate phases. You have the trial phase and if he was found guilty, would have been first-degree murder. Then, you go into the penalty phase. For the penalty phase, if you get the death, it's got to be 12 out of 12. So, somebody felt guilty and didn't want him sentenced to die.
Jim: No doubt about it. Now, Willie's mother, Elizabeth Oalman, who would help her son evade police, pled guilty to accessory after the fact and she served one year of a five-year sentence. That was the one thing in the actual movie, Dead Man Walking, they did talk about her prison sentence for helping him kind of evade police after the fact. So, Robert Lee Willie was found guilty of the murder of Faith, and he was sentenced to death. However, there was a technicality, happens a lot in cases. It could have been he wasn't read his rights at some point.
Woody: The deal is a death penalty case is scrutinized much harder. I mean, had it been a regular burger case or whatever, probably they wouldn’t have been looked at so hard that they could actually find technicality.
Jim: Right. No worries because the evidence was stacked against him, he appealed. It had to be retried and he was again found guilty and sentenced to death. Now, next up was a trial for Brewster and the 16-year-old Debbie Cuevas, who I just told you about. You see, in the trial for Faith Hathaway, Debbie Cuevas actually testified. Obviously, she wasn't involved in that court case from a victim standpoint, but she testified maybe to the state of mind of these individuals.
Woody: It shows that they're beasts.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: And that Hathaway wasn't the only one.
Jim: 100%. Now, because Brewster and Cuevas were taken across state lines, this became a federal case under the Federal Kidnapping Act, which was brand new back then in 1980, and basically gave federal courts jurisdiction over any kidnapping that goes over state lines. They just have more resources than your state government.
Woody: They can coordinate. Smart criminals go across state lines because even now with the FBI and this act, but back then, especially because law enforcement agencies didn't have the communication resources they do now. If you go across state line, it makes it harder to get help in another jurisdiction.
Jim: 100%. Now, during the trial, Willie was up to his old tricks with Cuevas. In the trial where she was going to get justice, he's blowing kisses to her. He actually would draw his finger across his throat while she would look at him. That's how much of a piece of shit this guy was. In the middle of the trial, and this is where it gets very disgusting, now, Willie and Vaccaro were both tried at the same time. All of a sudden, middle of the trial, they both stand up and they say, "We want to go ahead and take a plea." They stand up in court, they take the plea, and the judge says, "What do you plead?" And they say, "Yeah, we're guilty. We just wanted to put y'all through this," looking right at Cuevas, who had to testify in detail about the many rapes she endured at their hands. That's insane.
Willie and Vaccaro plead guilty to two counts of kidnapping, one count of conspiracy to kidnapping, and they both received life sentences. Now, although Brewster did live, he was partially paralyzed after the incident.
Woody: Horrible.
Jim: Holden, you may wonder about Holden. "Well, what about the guy in the trailer, the third guy?" Well, he actually was charged with accessory to federal kidnapping, and he took the coward's way out. He committed suicide in his cell by hanging himself shortly after the trial.
Woody: Crazy.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Just death everywhere. Hell of jail for him. Jim: Hell is probably where he's at.
Woody: It's just crazy. While on death row in Bloody Angola, Robert Willie pled guilty to yet another murder because he had killed Dennis Hemby. In 1978, Willie and his cousin, Perry Taylor, beat and drowned Dennis Hemby, who was 19 years old, to steal weed Hemby had in his possession. Just winners, right?
Jim: Weed.
Woody: Yeah, probably a bag of weed. Not like pounds or something. But Dennis Taylor pled guilty to manslaughter in the case and received a 21-year sentence. Willie pled guilty to second-degree murder and received another life sentence. What else? How many life sentences can you do? Willie also confessed to the 1978 murder of Louis Wagner, who was a St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's deputy, and he implicated three other men. Wagner was killed in retaliation for repeatedly arresting one of the four men. Charges were brought against all four but were dropped against all, but Robert Willie after Willie recanted his statement and said the men had nothing to do with the deputy's murder. He pled guilty to second-degree murder in that case and received another life sentence. It is alleged that Willie recanted his story after his father told him he had violated the honor code of convicts regarding being a snitch. Father of the year.
Jim: Father of the year. Snitches get stitches.
Woody: If all that's not crazy enough, serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole confessed to killing Wagner. When they confess, Willie completely recanted his story again saying the only reason he confessed the murder is he assumed he would stay in the St. Tammany Parish jail for a trial which he knew would be easier to escape from than Angola. It's crazy. Willie also claimed to kill two other men, one being a hitchhiker and the other being a brick truck driver. He gave no details on the hitchhiker but said he killed the brick truck driver after robbing him and then disposed of his body in a pond along the interstate in St. Tammany Parish.
Jim: Absolutely crazy.
Woody: Yeah. Fuck, I lost how many murders--[crosstalk] Jim: Total serial killer.
Woody: Yeah, absolutely a serial killer.
Jim: Just to back up for a second on something you just mentioned, Woody, and that was the name, Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas. We're not going to go into-- that's a whole another episode. We'll tell y'all about those jokers. But I will tell you they were sexual partners, openly gay serial killers that had confessed to over 250 killings throughout their, I guess, serial killer reign. Just a whole other story with those guys. As a matter of fact, Ottis Toole is if you remember the Adam Walsh case back, I was a young buck back then and that scared me to go play around in a mall because he got beheaded after being kidnapped from, I believe, it was a Sears department store. Of course, his father, John Walsh, became a huge advocate for the milk carton stuff where you see the kids on milk cartons. That was John Walsh that spearheaded a lot of that. Whole another story. I'm getting chills thinking about it because that's important to tell.
Woody: Also, America's Most Wanted.
Jim: America's Most Wanted. Ottis Toole, to sum that up, is who confessed to that murder, and as a matter of fact, his lover actually confirmed that. There'll be more on that in another episode.
If you've seen the movie, Dead Man Walking, like I just talked about, it's based off of a book and that book was written by Sister Helen Prejean. Now, Sister Helen Prejean's book is centered around the facts of her experience as a spiritual advisor for the Angola condemned. It really is an amazing account, y'all. Believe it or not, she's still alive and a really amazing lady. I think anyone that commits to religion as she has, in her mind, everything she's doing is for good. Who am I to argue with that? That being said, the movie is very-- and I mean very loosely based on the reality of Robert Willie. It's Hollywood, y'all. They didn't want to show accurate accounts of Willie's murders because, let's face it, if you had known what I just told you about this guy, you're not going to feel sorry for him. You're not. At the end of the movie, if you didn't know any better, I almost felt sorry for him.
Woody: Yeah, that's crazy.
Jim: It really is. Now, her work as an advocate against the death penalty, it's known worldwide, and she's 83 years young as of today and resides in the Slidell area, I believe, just an hour from where we're currently recording this episode. So, hey.
Woody: Still St. Tammany Parish.
Jim: Sister Prejean, if you're listening, Woody and I would love to have you on the show.
Woody: We would love to have you on, sister. I respect what she does.
Jim: 100%.
Woody: Can you imagine-- Actually, if I'm not mistaken, Willie's case was the first one that she actually took on.
Jim: Yeah. She was young. Woody: Right. Yeah, it was the first.
Jim: You remember exactly right. As a matter of fact, they were pen pals. She was writing to inmates and had never even met a death row inmate before.
Woody: And then went over there and called a lot of flak for it. Just think about this gap, Willie. You know the one thing I think they probably got true in the movie is when he tried to make sexual advances at her. He's a fucking animal. Let's go to Robert Willie's execution. Right before Robert Willie's execution, John Willie, who's the dad, said his son deserved to die and that Vaccaro should be executed along with him.
Jim: Father of the year.
Woody: He said, "If a man did me wrong, I'd have no problem with killing him like I'd kill that chicken out there," he said. "But I could never do anything to hurt a woman, a child or a young person," because you got to have some morals, huh?
Jim: [chuckles]
Woody: When Faith's parents, Vernon and Elizabeth Harvey, went to John's home and asked him if he believed in capital punishment, he said he was willing to pull the switch
himself. Well, you know what? If he'd been a better daddy, they would have never had to ask that question. Robert Willie's grandfather, a former sheriff, also said his grandson most likely deserved to die. He said, "Her life was precious to her and he took it, and they ought to take his life," Keaton Willie said. Vernon Harvey admitted that he had twice considered killing Willie during the trial.
Jim: Good for you, Vernon.
Woody: I think everybody that has to sit through their kid's murder trial thinks that too. He said in the courtroom during his second sentencing trial, "The deputy sheriff was standing less than 2ft in front of me with his unstrapped holstered .357 magnum pistol." He said, "I thought about stepping up and grabbing it, but there were other people too close to Willie," said Harvey. On the other occasion, Vernon saw that Willie had federal marshals driving him and he considered ramming the car. He said, "I contemplated ramming the car and trying to push it into lake. But then I figured the federal marshals hadn't done me any wrong." Willie was executed on December 28th, 1984. And I tell y'all the fires in hell burned a little bit brighter that day. He was a sixth man to be executed at Bloody Angola in a 13-month period. He rode the lightning Gruesome Gertie style. He was 26 years old.
Jim: Amen. I'll tell you, before you go any further, in the movie, it's lethal injection he gets. Here, he didn't get lethal injection. He rode the light sponge.
Woody: [crosstalk] sponge on that shaved head and-- Jim: Put that sponge on there.
Woody: [crosstalk] -would say, killed him good. All right. Y'all, Willie asked Sister Helen Prejean to be with him on the day of his execution. He was also visited by his mom and his brothers. Sister Prejean attended the execution at his request, and he winked at her right before they threw the switch. Willie's last meal consisted of fried fish, oysters, shrimp, French fries, and a salad. Prior to his execution, he said to Hathaway's mother and stepfather, Elizabeth and Vernon Harvey, who were there as witnesses y'all for the prosecution, he said, "I hope you get some relief from my death. Killing people is wrong. That's why you put me to death. It makes no difference whether it's citizens, countries, or governments. Killing is wrong."
Jim: Coming from someone who would know.
Woody: Yeah [crosstalk] killed more people than we even talked about today. But Debbie Cuevas, the teen who endured all those horrible rapes from both Willie and Vaccaro, wrote a book on her experience and stated in the book that Willie never felt remorse. Asking Sister Prejean, did he show any real remorse before he died? To which Sister Prejean responded, "No. And you know, Debbie, I'm not sure he was capable of that."
Jim: Good call, Sister Prejean. You're probably right.
Woody: That’s psychopathic [crosstalk] she was honest. Psychopath to the end.
Jim: Yeah, really. Just so many lives affected from this guy. It just sickens me. Debbie Cuevas later married and had a son and daughter. And then, as Debbie Morris, she still struggled to come to terms with her experience. She eventually forgave both Willie and Vaccaro for their crimes against her. And she even wrote a book, y'all. In her book titled Forgiving the Dead Man Walking: Only One Woman Can Tell the Entire Story, she tells of her spiritual journey. She writes that she had decided to forgive Willie for the crimes he
committed. Now, after her book was published, she began writing to Vaccaro in prison. Through this period, Morris also established a friendship with Sister Prejean.
She's a lot more forgiving person than me, I can tell you. Morris opposes capital punishment. She has said in her book that she believed her testimony contributed to Willie being sentenced to death and executed. Now, Michael L. Varnado, the detective in the case of Faith Hathaway, also wrote a book, and it's called Victims of the Dead Man Walking, and it recounts his views of the case.
Woody: It's crazy. Back then, or even when the movie came out, books were more widely read than they are now. But these would have come out using the name of the movie, Dead Man Walking, so they could tell their side of the story.
Jim: Absolutely. Look, when this movie came out, and I think everybody in that movie won some sort of award, it was up for an Academy Award for best movie at that time. Good for these victims to take advantage of that to maybe help their income out and help get their story out. I'm sure some of them, it was about getting the story out, not even [crosstalk] the income.
Woody: For me, it'd be like, you Hollywooded it up, let's tell the real story.
Jim: Yeah. That's what I love about doing Bloody Angola, is that's what we just gave you. We gave you the real story of who this guy is. I'm sure a lot of you have seen that movie. If you're a true crime fan, I'm sure you watched it. I can tell you, you're probably like me after I finished this research and that was, "Holy crap, this is nothing like I thought. I thought this guy may have made one mistake in his entire--" oh, no, this guy was a full-blown piece of fucked.
Woody: Serial killer, man. He just killed so many people, destroyed so many lives. That's the ones that we know about. Anyway, we want to thank y'all for listening to this episode. Our Patreon members, you're getting more episodes than probably any other podcast in the history of the world gives. We hope you're enjoying them. Y'all, if you want to be a Patreon member, you can go to--
Jim: You can go to Patreon. Just type in "Bloody Angola Podcast," it'll pull up. Or you can go to the Facebook page, we've got our little link tree there. You click on that and that's got our links, not only to our Patreon, but all of our--
Woody: Everything.
Jim: Everything we pretty much have now. We have different levels on Patreon. It's
everything from our Chase Team, to our CERT Team, to our Tie Down Team.
Woody: To the Warden.
Jim: To the Warden Team. As it goes up, you get more and more perks. Please go to the Chase Team-- or the Patreon team site and you can see what those different membership levels will get you. But it's really the only way we can continue to do the show, is through our Patreon team.
Woody: We even have the option and you get the discount, if you sign up for a year at a time. We want to thank everybody that's done that. That's growing, because it's growing and we're getting more Patreon members, we're able to lock up more of these bonus episodes. This one not being one of them, obviously, but you're getting way more than I ever heard of in podcasting. So, go check it out. Hey, you can't be a Patreon member, we get it. We love
you anyway. Please, if you feel so inclined, go leave us a review, like us, remember, wherever you listen to the podcast, hit subscribe. That way, anytime we drop an episode, you'll get the notification and it'll be there waiting so you never miss another episode of Bloody-
Jim: -Angola. We want to shout out real quick. Each episode we're going to take a different team and we're going to kind of shout out those members. Today, we want to shout out our CERT Team members.
Woody: Right, straight up. Y'all, CERT Team is our affectionate name for-- we're trying to keep it all in the prison names. CERT Team is basically the SWAT team. They're the ones who train to respond for everything from cell extractions to hostage situations to whatever, special kind of security.
Jim: We do want to mention, the CERT perks include ad-free episodes. You get early access to those episodes, obviously, and you also get access to our companion episodes. This would be considered a regular episode of Bloody Angola.
Woody: Commercial free.
Jim: You get commercial free and all that as a CERT Team member. But you also get those companion episodes that are in our sally port that we do all kinds of stuff with. We've got about 20 different companions that we put out. $15 a month, y'all. You get all those perks with the CERT Team.
Woody: And it's love-- Like Jim said, you can check out all the different perks you get, but for $15 a month, if you like Bloody Angola, you're going to love being a CERT Team member. The first one, I want to thank is Ms. Tisha Dubrock. Tisha, we really appreciate you being a CERT Team member. Thank you.
Jim: And we also want to thank Ms. Tasha Brown. Thank you so much for joining the CERT Team and supporting us.
Woody: And Tabitha Amall, that's a good, strong Cajun name. Thank you, Tabitha. We really do appreciate you.
Jim: The next one I want to thank, and I'm going to pronounce it both ways, it's either Renee or Rena. Make a comment or something below this and correct me. I'm not even going to go-- it's one of those two. Last name, Walton.
Woody: I'm going to go with Renee.
Jim: There you go. Woody is going with Renee. Ms. Walton, we appreciate you so much for
supporting us.
Woody: Thank you. And Payton Myers. Payton, thank you. We appreciate you. Couldn't do without you. Thank you.
Jim: All right. Mamu Wama.
Woody: I'm going to say Mimu.
Jim: All right. So, you comment too below that, you can tell us which one is right. Woody: You let us know who is right.
Jim: But thank you.
Woody: Thank you so much. And Michelle Carter. Thank you, sweetie. We really appreciate
you backing us and supporting us.
Jim: Woody gets all the easy names. [chuckles] All right. I'm going to go with Leah? Woody: I'm going with Leah too.
Jim: Fuselait.
Woody: Fuselait. I'm going with that too.
Jim: Thank you so much. Let us know if we got it right.
Woody: Let us know if we got it right, Leah, but thank you for your support. He's right because I got another easy one. Catherine Ford. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We really do appreciate your support.
Jim: This next one, we know. She's an OG from way back on everything we do. And that's Ms. Jennifer Lamley.
Woody: Jennifer Jerram Lamley. Sweetie, you know we love you and thank you for always supporting us. We really do appreciate it. Shoutout to CERT Team members. We appreciate, y'all. Thank you.
Jim: Thank you so much. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years into making.
Woody: A Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim and Woody: Peace.
Jim: Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production, in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe DeRouen in Studio 433, with vocals by Thomas Cain. Created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Wood Overton.
[Bloody Angola theme]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 02 Mar 2023 - 34 - The Black Rhino
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman of Bloody Angola Podcast tell the story of Clifford Etienne and the Louisiana Prison Boxing Program at Louisiana State Penitentiary and other prisons.
#cliffordetienne #theblackrhino #bloodyangolapodcast #podcast
Full Transcript
Bloody Angola Podcast ( THE BLACK RHINO)
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. Welcome, y'all, back to another episode of Bloody Angola. And we appreciate you listening and liking, subscribing, and all that good stuff.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: We want to thank our Patreon members who are very instrumental in the show. Y'all stay tuned at the end of the show and we're going to talk about that some more. But, Jim, today we've got something-- We always said it'd be different. Today, this is a very, very interesting story, which I do have a lot of personal connection with.
Jim: I think we can title this one The Black Rhino.
Woody: The Black Rhino. Absolutely. I knew the Black Rhino when he was becoming the Black Rhino. This guy's name was Clifford Etienne. And that's, y'all, not from South Louisiana. It's E-T-I-E-N-N-E. Clifford Etienne grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana, home of tabasco. We call it affectionately the Berry. If you're from South Louisiana, they just call it the Berry. I got paternal brothers from down there and Bobby [unintelligible 00:03:03], if you're listening, shoutout, Probation And Parole, State of Louisiana.
Jim: But there's not much out there either. It's the tabasco plain if you're going to New Iberia pretty much.
Woody: It's growing up a lot over the years, but back then, and specifically in this time frame that I'm going to be talking about, Clifford Etienne was coming up and he was truly, basically a stud.
Jim: Yeah. He dominated in wrestling. He played baseball. Woody: Linebacker in football.
Jim: Track and field. He threw the disc and the shot. Woody: 6'2", 290 pounds.
Jim: Big boy. And was recruited by LSU, Nebraska, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, which these days are dominant, but back in those days were extremely dominant.
Woody: And recruited as a linebacker. And he just was a stud-stud. But sometimes, life happens and people try cocaine or different things or they hang with the wrong crowd. And that's what Clifford started to do. He could have had the world as his oyster, and he would it in later years and seems like history repeats itself, unfortunately. Back then, on a certain day in Lafayette, Louisiana, when Clifford was a young man--
Jim: Yeah, he was 18. As most 18-year-olds do, he was getting away with what he could, and him and four friends decided it would be a good idea to rob some customers at a shopping mall in Lafayette.
Woody: It was the only shopping mall in Lafayette at the time. And that was in 1988. I was there in 1989. And when USL was USL, now it's ULL. Go, Cajuns.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: But they robbed some people. And ultimately, he got busted.
Jim: Yeah, he got sentenced to 40 years. The first stint was Bloody Angola. That was where he first went.
Woody: And 40 years, y'all, would have been the minimum on armed robbery. It carries up to 99 years in the state of Louisiana. I think he was like 18 years old, he gets sentenced and they ship him to Bloody Angola.
Jim: That's right. Eventually, after a few transfers, he ends up at DCI.
Woody: That's Dixon Correctional Institute, y'all. That's where I would come to know him. What happened was I was working the working cell block, which y'all heard me talk about before. It's different than admin seg, because there's two men to a cell. But working cell block is where you only get sent for major rule violations. Basically, for street charges, whether you're smuggling, dope, you attack an officer, you rape somebody, or you fight with weapons. Now, I had two tiers of the working cell block that I ran and I can remember distinctly, Clifford Etienne was in the cell with a guy from Livingston Parish, a white guy from Livingston Parish. Now, Clifford Etienne is a black man, and they were in the next to the last cell at the end of the tier. The tier only had cells on one side, y'all, face the screen windows. They had a couple of black and white TVs down the tier.
But I would stop and talk to them all the time because the guy from the LP, I knew him from the street, and I knew him back from the club days. We knew some of the same people. You're not supposed to become friends and stuff with the convicts, which I submit to you that when you are working 12-hour shifts in two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off, but even on my days off, the Department of Corrections was always short and they had an on call list. Basically, I could work 30 days a month.
But I'm doing time just like they're doing time. I was doing time just like they were doing time. They locked those doors behind you on that 12-hour shift, you can only shower them and feed them and have nurse calls so much and shit gets a little boring. So, I would stop, and I did a couple of years back there-- and I say it, I'm like a convict, but it [Jim chuckles] really was like doing time. Did a couple of years back there. When you get locked up on the working cell block, once you get locked up, you have to do 90 days without a low court or a high court write-up. You go back before the board and they basically hear your case as to whether or not you can be released in general population. Well, the problem with that is, y'all, in the working cell blocks, basically, they're worst of the worst because these are people that can't even follow the basic rules in prison, even the small rules, and the ones that, like I said, were back there for serious charges. Now, the white guy in the cell was back there for having or suspicion of having sex with a female guard. That's a no-no, but it is what it is, right?
[laughter]
Woody: If you can get over and do what you do, that's what they're going to do. Now, his cellie was Clifford Etienne. So, I began to talk to him. Look, this is a massive dude. Now, I was 6'2", probably 250 at the time. And he's 6'2", 300 pounds but he was all muscle. I mean, like solid as a rock. But he was a really cool dude, and I say that. I know he robbed people and shit like that, but he could have been an asshole to me or anything else, but I would hang out and stand in front of the cell late at night and shit. I'm entertainment for them also. We were talking and I found out that Etienne was a boxer, and he was actually on DCI's boxing team, but also found out that he was an accomplished artist.
He asked me when we're talking one night, said, "You married? You dating someone?" I said, "I'm dating someone." "Can you give me a picture of her?" "Bro, I'm not bringing you a picture of my girlfriend." [Jim laughs] He said, "No. I'm an artist. I'm going to draw a picture and you can give it to her." So, the next time I came back to work, I got a little snapshot and I gave it to him. The next evening, I came back to work, and he had hand sketched an exact likeness of this girl. And I can't remember her last name. I think her first name was Debbie. It was just fucking piece of artwork and I was blown away. It's on a basic piece of paper done in pencil. I'm like, "Bruh, you got talent." I didn't know what I would come to find out later on and what we're going to talk about.
Also, I talked to him about boxing because I like boxing, and I like to box. Both of my grandfathers went to college for boxing, one at USL and one for LSU. They boxed on the college boxing teams. I asked him, I said, "You get into a fight--" just more like bullshit. I said, "If you're going to hit somebody." He said, "Woody, if you're going to hit somebody, I want you to hit him hard as you can in the stomach. Don't let him know it's coming. You rear back, full body swing. Hit him in the stomach." And I said, "Why is that?" He said, "Because if you do it right, you're going to knock the air out of him. Then, they're defenseless. You can just beat him to a pulp."
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: He would go on to become the Interprison Boxing Champion for the state of
Louisiana. Y'all, each prison has their own boxing team, and it's big shit.
Jim: Yeah. I'm going to tell you about his reputation in prison and a little bit about a trainer that had actually started working with him in prison. There was a guy named Valrice Cooper. And Valrice Cooper had a nickname. It was Whoop. They called him Whoop because of boxing. Whoop, whoop. That's how he would say when you punch. It was a whoop. Everybody knew Whoop in the prison system. He was a steward of the Louisiana prison boxing scene. He was an inmate himself. Whoop, he didn't have the pleasure of meeting Etienne until after the boxer-- He was already the most dominant prison fighter in Louisiana. As Woody said, these different prisons have their own boxing teams. Angola has one, DCI has one. There's one in North Louisiana.
Woody: Hunt.
Jim: Hunt has one. This is a big deal in prison, these boxing teams. Whoop was the guy
who kind of managed that, even as an inmate.
Woody: Basically, helped Etienne perfect his craft better.
Jim: Absolutely. He had heard about this guy, this 6'2", 290-pound fighter, and he started working with Etienne. From the first second he saw him, he could tell from his movement, he had a ton of natural talent. He countered right, he stepped back right, he circled correctly. As a matter of fact, Whoop would describe him as a prison version of Muhammad Ali, y'all. That's how good he was. Anybody describes you as Muhammad Ali, you're good. But the
prison version of Muhammad Ali from a guy who really knew that sport was amazing. Etienne continued to dominate in the prison world. He actually won 30 bouts, never lost.
Woody: Y'all, real quick. Certainly, they would practice amongst themselves at Dixon Correctional Institute, etc.
Jim: Shadow box.
Woody: Right. Well, you're locked in a cell, you got a lot of time to shadow box. Jim: [laughs] That's right.
Woody: These bouts we're talking about that, they would actually go to other prisons, or sometimes they would host it there, and they would fight against other prisoners in the state. At the end of the year, whoever had the most wins got the banner.
Jim: That's right. And these were big deals. As a matter of fact- Woody: Huge.
Jim: -family of these prisoners would go to the boxing matches and they would have to pay. They would have to buy tickets. It was $5 for adults, $3 for children back then, and you would watch as if you were watching sanctioned event on HBO.
Woody: Even though they wore headgear, the bouts were three 3-minute rounds. I would bet you people love to go see the radio because they care about getting hurt and laying up in an infirmary in the air conditioner rather than a cell block. I bet you these guys got in there-- I wish I would have got to see one and just tried to absolutely annihilate each other.
Jim: I'm sure there was a lot of first-round knockouts. Headgear or no headgear. Woody: Headgear really doesn't mean shit.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: It's not like you're wearing the NFL helmet.
Jim: Oh, yeah. Some of these people are lifers, y'all. Look, they're in there and they're swinging. You've heard on Real Life Real Crime, Woody described like prison muscle. It's a totally different type of muscle and all these guys had it. He fought in the heavyweight and the super heavyweight divisions. So, he was fighting the baddest of the bad, the biggest of the big-
Woody: And beating them.
Jim: -and beating them. Just never losing, 30 bouts inside. And that gets around. Outside of the prison system, Don King and all these guys are hearing about this Clifford Etienne and how he is the toughest man in prison and winning all these bouts. After his 10th year in prison, he gets paroled.
Woody: Right, which is basically, y'all, I would tell you that that's because of the outside influences from these promoters. They were like, "This guy can be heavyweight champion of the world." They go in for the parole board, "Look, we got contracts. We're going to train him. We're going to keep him on the straight and narrow. He can be on parole if need be, but we need permission to get his boxing license and everything else."
Jim: Well, let me tell you how promoters think. Number one, you've got an extremely talented individual to start with. He's getting paroled from prison. Here's your chance. I don't know if this is fact, but I would imagine his success helped with his parole because in a parole board's mind, this guy can probably actually rehabilitate and change his life because he's going to have unique opportunities not everybody is going to have when they're released from prison. He was well known.
Woody: Let me digress for a second. The reason he was on the working cell block, he got in a fight with a guard, with a correctional officer--
Jim: Named Woody Overton.
Woody: No, it wasn’t me.
[laughter]
Woody: I wouldn’t have fought that dude. [laughter]
Woody: He got in a fight with a correction officer. Now, when they went to the board hearing, and I remember telling me this, he had already been on the boxing team. So, the board considered his hands deadly weapons. So, they charged him with fighting with deadly weapons on a correction officer.
Jim: Oh, wow.
Woody: That's why he got sent to the hole for that. Now, he did his 90 days, maybe a little bit longer, maybe he went twice, I don't remember. But he got out while I was still there. He was good. He was locked on the block. He was good. He was never any problem. He was actually a pretty cool dude. He got out. You know why he got out too? He wanted to box again. He was like, "Fuck that. Imma going to behave. I know my future is in boxing."
Jim: Yeah, he was just the shit, y'all, in the Louisiana prison system and really the national-- He was well known in prisons all over the country as probably the best boxer to ever come out of prison. You're talking about-- look, Sonny Liston came out of prison, and he was getting a lot of comparisons to Sonny Liston. These promoters, they're not only salivating at the chance to get a hold to a guy who has an extreme amount of talent, he also had a hell of a story, and they loved that. He had a nickname in prison, which was the Black Rhino. Come on, y'all, if that don't scare you before you fight the 6'2", 290-pound boxer, I don't know what does.
Woody: Basically, he got that because the most dangerous animal in the world, the Black Rhinoceros or the Black Rhino was the name that he embraced. Like Jim said, these promoters, holy shit, now you got the Black Rhino coming out of prison that would sell tickets regardless.
Jim: Look, you can't spin a better story with all this. He gets out and he turns pro in 1998. Woody: That was five years after I left him or after the last time I saw him.
Jim: So, how does he do? Well, his first four opponents, he knocked them out. As a matter of fact, three of those first four was inside of the first ring.
Woody: He's cold cocking people.
Jim: Cold cocking people. Ring Magazine actually named him-- believe it or not, y'all, he
was later named The Most Exciting Heavyweight Fighter of the 2000s. Woody: That's true.
Jim: How about that?
Woody: He absolutely was destroying people. I remember late 80s, early 90s, when Tyson was coming up, and when pay per view had first come out, and we had all put up $20 and got a keg of beer, and he knocked out Spinks in like 30 seconds or whatever it was. Black Rhino was doing the same thing. A lot of the times, when big guys fight, they'll get tired and they'll hug on each other and stuff. Black Rhino didn't have time to get tired. He was annihilating people, like Tyson did when he was young.
Jim: Yes. And loving it. And what's he doing? He's living his best life, y'all. He's making tons of money. He's knocking people out for a living. Everybody's courting him. And he does what sadly, a lot of-- seems like it's not just athletes, but it seems like they struggle with this because there's so much of an influx of money under such a short period of time.
Woody: And fame.
Jim: And fame and all of that, that he starts dabbling in cocaine. Woody: Right. A line here, a line there.
Jim: Yeah. Give me a little bit of that sugar, whatever you tell them.
Woody: In the beginning, you think you can handle, it makes you feel even better. You're already on top of the world. Remember, you came from a working cell block. First of all, you got out in 10 years instead of 40. You come from a working cell block. You build yourself up to the prison boxing system, and now you're building yourself up as one of the top heavyweights in the world.
Jim: That's right. And he continues on. He continues knocking people out, and eventually he scoops up the IBA Continental heavyweight title. He actually won that title in Baton Rouge.
Woody: In Baton Rouge. It was at the Belle of Baton Rouge in the atrium. I didn't get to go for whatever reason, but I remember when it was happening and the white guy from the cell reached out to me, said, "I can get you tickets. Do you want to come see him?" And I couldn't go for whatever reason. But yeah, he won that there. Even though that's not like the biggest championship in the world, it's still a championship belt.
Jim: That's right. And continues on. Eventually, he suffers his first loss, that was in March of 2001, and y'all, it was a beating. He actually got floored seven times in that bout.
Woody: Knocked down seven times, and on the eighth, I think the referee finally stopped it, but he said it was just basically like a blood bath. But Black Rhino never gave it up. You knocked me down two times, I'm probably going to stay down. Seven times, but he kept getting up and fighting back.
Jim: That's it.
Woody: Finally, the ref is like, "Number eight, I got to stop this shit, he's going to kill him."
Jim: Yeah, he went out on his shield and never quit. After that bout, you may start to think, "Well, that was it." Well, no. Etienne couldn't be stopped. He ended up fighting six more bouts after his loss and knocked everybody out. He was again the talk of the boxing scene. When you become that much of the talk of the boxing scene, eventually you're going to run into somebody you got to fight.
Woody: When he was talking to the boxing scene, basically, besides being the Black Rhino, and he was always compared to young Mike Tyson.
Jim: Yeah. They actually knew each other before the opportunity showed its face and always got along. If you're a Tyson fan, you would know that he grew up very rough. He was very similar to Etienne, except for Cus D'Amato discovered Tyson before he had gotten so far out of hand that his whole life would have been spent in prison. Much younger when Tyson got discovered at 12 years old by Cus D'Amato. Etienne and Tyson had a respect for each other because they both came from the streets, they were both super tough, both amazing boxers. And in 2003-
Woody: Memphis, Tennessee. Jim: That's it. Tyson come a calling.
Woody: Tyson came calling. That was the first fight-- if y'all remember this, that was the first fight that Tyson had the tribal tattoos on his face.
Jim: Yes. If Tyson wasn't scary enough, he comes out-- and look, Etienne, I'm sure, was intimidated just like-- Tyson can intimidate anybody. I don't care how tough you are. Yeah. Except for Holyfield maybe. [laughs]
Woody: Yeah, he bit his ear off.
Jim: He did do that. In 2003, Tyson, the pinnacle of boxing and the Etienne fight, and Tyson
beats the shit out of Etienne in 48 seconds.
Woody: Now, the same guy from the LP, I talked to him after that, and he told me that what happened is one of the first punches that Tyson landed hit the Black Rhino on his eardrum and it busted his inner ear. So, Etienne's equilibrium was off, and he couldn't even defend himself.
Jim: Yeah. Could you imagine how hard Tyson hits to bust your freaking inner eardrum? Woody: In one punch. To Etienne's credit, he tried to stand and do whatever, shit, your room
spinning. I can't imagine that. Tyson, he ain't going to quit punching.
Jim: [laughs] No, he ain't. And I will never forget the interview, because actually, I can distinctly picture myself when I watched that live. I actually watch that fight live. After the broadcast, Jim Gray, who was a famous interviewer in boxing, pulls Tyson and he says, "What did you think of Etienne?" and all that, "And how did your training go?" Tyson says, "I broke my back last week." [laughs] And I'll never forget. I was like, "What?" It was bizarre, y'all.
Woody: That's crazy.
Jim: He supposedly broke his back in training.
Woody: The reason they were fighting in Memphis, Tennessee, Tyson couldn't get licensed in Nevada or anywhere else because of the rape allegations and all that.
Jim: Yeah. If you're getting a little upset about Etienne because he lost and all that, don't cry for him too much.
Woody: He made a million bucks.
Jim: [chuckles] Literally a million bucks in 48 seconds.
Woody: Paid for 48 seconds, I think I could last for 48 seconds. He might have hit me in the back of the head, but I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. For 48 seconds, I'm going to give you a show for a million dollars.
Jim: For a million dollars.
Woody: I'll fight Tyson a day for a million dollars.
Jim: I'm telling you. Yeah. Etienne gets that million bucks. He unfortunately does what a lot of people who get money that never had money do. And that is he blows it. He buys sports cars, jewelry, multiple houses, and he actually got into a couple of businesses that suffered. He was in a busing company. It went nowhere. He opened a restaurant-- or he actually started a restaurant that never opened. He did the cardinal sin in any business which is, didn't pay his taxes.
Woody: Right.
Jim: I don't care who you are, ask Al Capone about that.
Woody: Tax man cometh.
Jim: Tax man cometh. So, he's spiraling downward.
Woody: Yeah. He's not surrounded by the best people either, taking advantage of him. Like I said, he never had so many cousins.
Jim: Okay. He's going along in life, Etienne, and he's making a lot of bad decisions. At some point, he decides it is a good idea to go get some money as he was spending all of his. [crosstalk] He figures, what better place to get money than a check cashing place, right?
Woody: Genius idea.
Jim: The only problem was he didn't have no checks. Woody: He didn't have a checkbook.
Jim: He didn’t have anything to cash.
Woody: I'll tell you what he did have, he had a pistol. Jim: He had a pistol.
Woody: He had a cocaine habit.
Jim: And a bad cocaine habit.
Woody: Getting as high as fuck, yeah.
Jim: That's right. Etienne goes to a check cashing place in Baton Rouge with a gun, and he pulls the weapon, and he decides he's going to hold up this check cashing place, and he gets a little-- I guess you could say a little pushback on that from the check cashing people. He takes a gun, and he shoots it in the air, and he says, "I will kill you, bitch." That's exactly what he said, because they have it on recording because she was dialing 911 while this was going on.
Woody: She was an African American.
Jim: African American female. Eventually, he gets in his hands $2,000 after he fires that
thing in the air, and he hauls ass out of there.
Woody: Right. Unbeknownst to him, the silent alarm had been hit and Baton Rouge PD was responding in force. They met him in the parking lot.
Jim: They did. They were there really fast for a specific reason. And that was that same day, sadly, an officer in Baton Rouge named Terry Melancon who was serving a warrant with some other officers in Baton Rouge was tragically killed.
Woody: They were making the entry-- we call it a high-risk warrant. It was a narcotics warrant. They were making entry in the door, and he was shot and killed. Rest in peace, brother. I was on the SWAT team at the time that happened. We went from serving high-risk warrants narcotics-- We used to do them every day without the SWAT team because the SWAT because it took so long. The policy got changed after that. Any high-risk entry warrant, you had to use the SWAT team. Rest in peace, brother.
Jim: Yeah. It was really just more bad timing for Etienne as this was going on, they were able to easily get there.
Woody: Before they got there, he's trying to make an escape. Well, you know what? I think he [unintelligible 00:31:37] this time, he goes rob a check cash in place with a piece of shit pistol, and he leaves, and he's trying to make his getaway, and he makes two attempts.
Jim: That's right. An officer with the Baton Rouge City Police Department, who was in an Exxon station across the street from the cash door, received a report of an armed robbery in progress. Comes over his radio, and the officer observed one of the check cashing employees actually outside of the business at this point, and he could tell she was panicking. At this point, he goes across the street and he starts talking to her and he says, "Did you report an armed robbery?" And she says, "Yes." A bunch of police officers at this time are pulling up. It becomes pandemonium. Etienne escapes into a little wooded area, and when he comes out of that wooded area, he sees a vehicle, and he just jumps in the vehicle. I guess he thought he was going to hot-wire it or whatever. He didn't realize when he jumped in there were two children in the back of that vehicle.
He goes to start it, realizes, "Oh, shit, there's no keys." The lady had ran into this beauty supply place and just left her kids in there while, I guess, she was quickly grabbing shampoo or something. He goes to steal that vehicle, realizes the keys aren’t on in it, and the cops are kind of on to him at this point. They're pursuing him through the woods, and he's panicking. He's in a bind and--
Woody: Still armed.
Jim: Yeah, still armed. He immediately exits the vehicle, and he has his weapon in his hand, and he aims it at two police officers.
Woody: Not only does he aim it- Jim: He pulls the trigger. Woody: -pulls the trigger.
Jim: And the gun jams.
Woody: Click. It's probably a piece of shit, high-tech 9-millimeter or whatever. I'm sure if it was an expensive weapon, he could have traded for coke instead of trying to rob a cash store. He pulled it and pulled it again.
Jim: He panics again, obviously, because at this point, y'all, Etienne just tried to shoot two police officers. If it wasn't for that gun jamming, he would have shot them, possibly killed them. So, he panics. He runs to a gold Pontiac Grand Am. He opens the door, and there's a driver in there. He puts the gun to the driver's head. He says, "Get out." The driver, he protests this. Why? Because his two young children are in the vehicle.
Woody: It's kiddie daycare around there.
Jim: That's it. Etienne pulls him out of the car physically, throws him to the ground, jumps in the car, and starts to drive away in reverse at a high rate of speed. He just basically goes backwards. He gets about 60ft. The vehicle hits a curb, and it stalls. Officers approach the vehicle with the weapons drawn, and they apprehend Etienne. How do you think that apprehension went?
Woody: I don't know, man. I mean, his weapon's jammed, and what we call a felony stop, I'm sure Black Rhino ended up getting some dirt in his face.
Jim: Oh, I can look. And then, don't forget, they are already dealing with that day a police officer getting shot and killed.
Woody: Absolutely. And you just tried to kill--
Jim: And you just tried to kill two more. If I'm a police officer, you're getting a fist to the face. Woody: Yeah, well, definitely.
Jim: Swim would have punched him.
Woody: Yes, Swim.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: Swim would have gave him some justice, that was just us. But he might have sprung a leak too. Anyway, he gets arrested, armed robbery, two counts of attempted first-degree murder on police officers. So, God or somebody was taking care of them and those officers letting that pistol jam.
Jim: Amen.
Woody: He gets prosecuted, y'all, by the Baton Rouge's DA's office. And the prosecutor was Prem Burns. Now, I don't think we've ever talked about her on Bloody Angola, but I know her. I've been in the courtroom with her. She is fire. They had their best prosecutor on it, Hillar Moore's best prosecutor. The DA generally, in bigger parishes, is a political figurehead who oversees all the cases, but they have their top lieutenants or generals, whatever you want to call them, that handle the big cases. Prem Burns was the one.
Jim: And well known for the serial killing.
Woody: Yeah. For Derrick Todd Lee. As well as every top case in East Baton Rouge. She said that across 34 years and 100 plus felony cases and even taking down meddling cartel members and serial killers that she recalls looking at Etienne and thinking, that dude is huge, she remembers the day he was sentenced, he said something to her like, "I'm so sorry. The drugs were just really bad for me." But Burns also remember the 911 call and the words Etienne barked out that were recorded on security footage says, "I'm going to kill you." She remembers using that against him in her opening remarks. She remembers the jury convicting the boxer quickly and easily.
Years later, the prosecutor picked apart Etienne's processing the trial, and he said he received insufficient representation. She was like, "Dude, you could have Johnny Cochrane and you weren't getting off on this charge." And the jury are possibly in prejudice. She was like, "Your victims were black. You're black. It's not a racial issue." Anyway, he got sentenced to forever this time, but for luck, he would have been on death row. Y'all, he got 160 years. And guess where he was going? Bloody-
Jim: -Angola.
[chuckles]
Jim: No doubt about it. And look, let's recap real quick. This is a guy that just a couple of years-- as a matter of fact, a year before this, had just gotten a million dollars and fought arguably the most-- I would say the second most popular boxer of all time outside of Muhammad Ali, which was Mike Tyson. Definitely the most popular boxer in my era, by far. And now, you just got sentenced to forever, as Woody aptly put it, the rest of your life, pretty much in Angola. Etienne actually, in 2004, for whatever reason, applied for a pardon to Mike Foster, the then governor, which was denied, obviously. I don't know if he thought his popularity might get him a pardon, but it wasn't working with Mike Foster.
Woody: I think he was also trying to say stuff about traumatic brain injury and CTE and all that other bullshit.
Jim: Right. Look, here's why I don't buy that at all. I definitely think that brain injury from boxing or pro football, absolutely, it affects your decision making and all those sorts of things. But you were doing this at 18. I mean, you were robbing people at 18.
Woody: This lawyer said he's entitled to a new sentence because the CTE should be a major consideration. He said, "It's not his fault. The science wasn't there ahead of time. So, he did not do all this bullshit." I'm not even going touch on that anymore.
Jim: Yeah, that's ridiculous. Now, one thing we haven't mentioned to you is a unique-- and when I tell y'all this is a unique and an absolutely God-given talent is his ability in the painting world. Art, paintings, canvas.
Woody: I told you about the drawing. I didn't know that he was a painter also, but he drew that picture of that girl for me.
Jim: Yeah. If you're a Patreon member of any sort, we're going to put this on Patreon. It's just some examples of his artwork. It is unbelievable, y'all. God definitely touched him and gave him a talent with artwork. So, we're going to put that up there. Look, Woody mentioned this earlier, and I want to read this to y'all. Woody had mentioned, "Hey, he was a nice guy."
Woody: Yeah. He was cool.
Jim: Great personality. Cool dude. I'm going to read you a letter that he wrote to a fan. This is in 2019, so this is fairly recent. I'm also going to put this up on Patreon. But a fan had just wrote to him and asked him for an autograph, basically, a boxing fan. He said, "Sorry I took so long getting back to you. Just rediscovered the letter you sent me at the end of May. I always take time writing anyone back since they took time to write me. All letters are screened for contraband, and because of some drug heads attempts to smuggle contraband in here, the mailroom discarded the index card you sent me to sign. So, I'm sending you this large piece of paper signed by me. To answer your questions, I am still healthy, and I look forward to a better future. I WILL GET OUT OF HERE." And he says that in all caps.
"I paint and I cut hair almost every day. Number three, I'm not in a cell. I'm in a dormitory with a bit over 100 guys. I do watch TV sometimes, mostly news and sports. I have a TV in the barber shop where I work. Number four, my whole boxing career was an interesting story. Started writing a book about it, but I haven't finished. Number five, fighting Mike Tyson was like fighting the other 30 fighters I fought. It was a job that took care of my family. I never got into all the hype. I met Tyson years before they even talked about us fighting each other. Number six, the most fun I had in boxing ring was every time the referee raised my hand as the winner after all that hard training. You take care of yourself, and I wish you and yours all the best. Clifford Etienne."
Woody: Pretty cool.
Jim: Reading that letter, that don't sound like a guy they tried to kill two police officers, rob a check cashing place. So, when Woody mentioned that, "Yeah, he seemed like a cool, nice guy," reading that letter that sounds like a guy that is out of prison right now, is living his best life, just doesn't sound like that type of character, does it?
Woody: But that cocaine shit, does funny shit, even less [crosstalk] to people and will never take away the fact.
Jim: Nose gold.
Woody: Not only did he try to kill those two officers, but who knows what would have happened to those kids in the car, etc., had he not wrecked it, and stalled it out. But when he went back in the prison this time, y'all, it wasn't without incident. He had issues, he survived an attack. He would start painting, but we'll talk about that. He would start painting. The last I had heard of him before we talked about this, was I was watching something on the Rodeo about Angola Radio and they had him selling his paintings and they were street scenes and murals. Now, you're not allowed to make money off your crimes. He's not painting trying to kill two cops, but he's painting like murals-- Not murals, but like oil paints. Shit would cost you $20,000 in a gallery, and it was fantastic. The one I saw was of a second line that's a funeral procession for those from Louisiana where they play the music, the jazz band does it and they go behind the coffin and all that. But he was very, very good at it. And his paintings are hanging all across the world, people commissioned to do paintings, etc. But even when he was in the painting room one time, somebody tried to kill him.
Jim: Yeah. So bad in fact that he had to get transferred.
Woody: Right.
Jim: I do want to mention on those paintings, a lot of people may be surprised to know that
one of his paintings hangs in the New Orleans Police Department. Woody: Oh, I didn’t know this.
Jim: Sure enough, yeah, I found that somewhere. [laughs] Woody: Only Jim Chapman can get that shit up.
Jim: I found that somewhere. There's a picture online where the two New Orleans PD officers are posing in the police department and his painting is hanging. I guess to them, it's an example of convicts have talent too somewhere. God touches us all, gives us all unique talents, and that was his. And it's just a shame. In addition to his boxing, which was also a unique talent.
Woody: I'm going to digress for a second when I said he attacked a correctional officer with fists, I believe now, I'm thinking back on-- I think it was just another inmate. But instead of being charged with a regular fist fight, which wouldn't send you to working cell block, they charged him for fighting with weapons because his hands were considered deadly weapons because he's such a renowned boxer.
Jim: I believe it.
Woody: Y'all, he would go on-- after that attack, he talks about surviving COVID when they put them all in cells. When everybody else in the world is trying to be separated, they were locking them down. He talks about that, but at some point after the attack, another inmate, a friend of his, told him, say, "Hey, man, basically you got to get shit together." I mean, he'd let himself go, he'd gained weight, he was dressing sloppily. And Etienne listened to him. So, he started dressing better. He shaved his head bald. He started to exercise every day at 5:00 in the morning. He said he stayed away from rats or dudes, they would never amount to shit in their lives. That friend asked him, "What do you need to start painting again?" Etienne told him. Two weeks later, the supplies arrived like magic, canvas boards, paints and brushes. The friend told Etienne, "You're the Black Rhino. The man who went from prison to pinnacle boxing." Eventually, Etienne returned to the painting room, hearing or no hearing, he had to move forward. Now, talk about his hearing, y'all, I told you his eardrum got busted.
Jim: By Mike Tyson.
Woody: By Mike Tyson, and his equilibrium was still off and all that. But he to this day paints. Jim and I have had several offers to attend the Angola Radio, and I said that's the last fucking place you'll ever catch me on the face of this earth because of all the people I've put up there. But if I ever do go, I'm going to go see the Black Rhino.
Jim: There you go.
Woody: And I guarantee he remembers--[crosstalk]
Jim: We need to do that trip soon, and that would make for a great episode. Incidentally, we do want to welcome Woody back. Last week, of course, I flew solo for you Patreon members.
Woody: I appreciate you doing that.
Jim: So, we did a bonus episode. It's only up on Patreon, so if you're curious to hear about it was called Iron Mike.
Woody: Iron Mike.
Jim: It's about a guy that could fight in prison for sure, but it's just an absolutely crazy story of a guy who killed three inmates inside of Angola and just some amazing stuff there. But Woody was on a special assignment, which in the future we'll be able to tell everybody about. And I also recorded another episode that I'll be dropping as a bonus episode. It's Boss Bitches Part 2. But I'm glad to have Woody back now because I have to freaking think all by myself, brother. [laughs]
Woody: I appreciate it but tell them about Boss Bitches 2.
Jim: Yes, Boss Bitches 2. Of course, if you listen to the first one, we feature Martha Stewart, M. Diddy, and a bunch of other lady convicts. And this one, much of the same. It's four other lady convicts. Look, join Patreon and you'll find out who they are. How about that?
Woody: Y'all, you go and check it out. We have numerous bonus episodes. Jim, I appreciate you covering me while I'm gone.
Jim: No worries, man.
Woody: The bonus episodes are fire, and as are all Bloody Angola. But the Patreon, we
have different tier levels now each, go look it up. It'll be in the show notes.
Jim: Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned it, because I want to shout out-- We've got over 130 members now. We're blessed to have that. They support us. We couldn't do this without them. So, we're going to read out real quick each of our Tie Down and Warden Team members, give them of a shoutout. Just to tell you really fast are what our teams include. The Warden Team is our top tier. You get ad-free episodes, obviously, early access to these episodes. You get full transcripts of all the Bloody Angola Thursday regular drops. Any shows that we do that are live, you get automatic VIP access. And you get a free piece of Bloody Angola of merch every quarter. So, four times a year, we're sending you something. I know I've sent out a bunch of merch lately to a bunch of people that are our Warden Team members, I appreciate y'all so much. If you're a Warden Team member, you haven't got that first piece of merch, please just message me and we'll get it to you.
Woody: If you're a Patreon member on any level-- because it's a lot y'all, but it's very important to us. If we miss something, we're human beings. Please, please message us, check into it.
Jim: Yes, that's our Warden Team. We also have our Tie Down Team, which they get ad-free episodes, early access, full transcripts of those Thursday drops, and they also get our Sally Port companion episodes like the Boss Bitches that we're going to drop as a bonus for them. Woody is going to read our Tie Down Teams, and I'm going to read our Warden Teams today.
Woody: And the Tie Down Team gets you--
Jim: That gets you the ad-free episodes, the early access, the full transcripts, and the Sally Port companion episodes.
Woody: Carol Hagen, you are a love. We appreciate you for being a Tie Down Team member. I hope you're enjoying your benefits. We appreciate you so much. All right, Kirsten Dahl. Now, Kirsten has been a Lifer forever, and she used to send me pickles and all kinds of stuff, Jim.
Jim: There you go.
Woody: But thank you, Kirsten, for supporting Bloody Angola also. We really, really love and appreciate you. You're awesome. Lisa Stevens, I know who you are. Thank you for being a Tie Down Team member. We love and appreciate you so much. And Tina Johnson. Tina, thank you for being a Tie Down team member. You rock. You kick ass. And we appreciate you. We couldn't do without you. Ms. Julie Easterday. Julie, thank you so much for being a Tie Down Team member. Enjoy those benefits, sweetie.
Jim: All right. We also want to thank our Warden Team members. Our Warden Team is our top tier. You just can't get any more than what we give those Warden Team members. They are high support. Look, if you can't even be a Patreon member, we still love you and appreciate you.
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: But we really, really appreciate the support of all our Patreon team, especially our
Warden Team members.
Woody: Especially in these hard times when eggs are $9 a dozen and you take the time to subscribe, we're going to hook you up.
Jim: That's right. So, Melissa Jewel, thank you so much for being a Warden Team member. Ms. Christine Spence.
Woody: Thank you, Christine.
Jim: Thank you so very much for being a Warden Team member. And how about Ms. Amber
Morrow?
Woody: Ms. Amber. Thank you. We love you. We appreciate you.
Jim: 100%. Ms. Lisa Marks.
Woody: Ms. Lisa Marks, we don't even have a term for you. You know we love you.
Jim: Double Warden Team member. [laughs] She's just amazing. Thank you so much. Love you. Mandy Oliver.
Woody: Mandy Oliver.
Jim: Ms. Mandy.
Woody: Thank you so much. She's awesome.
Jim: Leah [unintelligible [00:53:53].
Woody: A part-time researcher, full-time crime junkie. Jim: And hellraiser. [laughs]
Woody: You don’t want to mess with Leah. Leah, thank you so much.
Jim: That's right. That's our Warden Team and we really appreciate the support of all of those members. We're going to be shouting out as many as we can every week here going forward. Thank you so much. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: A Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim and Woody: Peace.
[chuckles]
Jim: Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe Derouen in Studio 433, with vocals by Thomas Cain. Created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Woody Overton.
[Bloody Angola theme]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 16 Feb 2023 - 33 - Dying In prison!
Woody Overton AND Jim Chapman lay out the details when prisoners incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola die.
What is the funeral procession like....Do family members claim the bodies...where and how are they buried?
Answers to all this and more on this 5th episode of Season 3 titled Dying in Prison.
#BloodyAngolaPodcast #Dyinginprison #Podcast #Podcasts #truecrime #prison #convict
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
BLOODY ANGOLA: A PODCAST BY WOODY OVERTON AND JIM CHAPMAN (DYING IN PRISON)
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome to Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And we're going to talk to y'all about some amazing programs that take place in Angola today. It's going to be a little different episode. No murder stuff going on today.
Woody: Right. Well, it's got a lot of death in it.
Jim: It sure does. [laughs]
Woody: Not necessarily murder. Some of them, I'm sure, were murders that occurred inside the wire.
Jim: That's a great point.
Woody: But ultimately none of us are getting out of this life alive.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: Always talk about almost 6000 inmates and how 80% of them are going to die inside the wire. Well, think about that, y'all. If you get sentenced to life Angola, let's say you're 20 years old and you're going to have family members and they care about you and love you and all that stuff. But over the years, what happens? Your mom and your daddy are going to die. Your grandparents are going to die. Your siblings are going to have lives of their own and life goes on. We've heard so many times that the inmates say everybody forgets about them. If you live another 50 years in Angola, then really you don't have anybody to care about you on the outside anymore but the people that you're locked up with basically become your family and your best friends.
Jim: That's right. A lot of these people or probably the vast majority are locked up for things that are just horrific, and you don't end up in Angola for life if you were an altar boy. In a lot of cases, family maybe turned their backs on them and was the black sheep of that family or whatever and they don't have anybody to pay those respects at the end of their life and so they get buried at Angola in the prison. We're going to go into of that information.
Point Lookout Cemetery is the prison cemetery in Angola. It's located on the north side of Angola. It's at the base of the Tunica Hills. This is obviously a situation where what we just told you about, family members are also deceased or there's just no family members that want anything to do with them.
Woody: Or maybe they don't have the financial means to come and claim the body when the inmate dies. So, they're forgotten about. But Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of any US state and of course, sentencing is extremely harsh. But at Angola, 73% of the 6250 inmates are serving sentences of life without parole. The average sentence for the remaining 27% that aren't serving life without is still 90.9 years.
Jim: Pretty much alive.
Woody: Right. Prisoners aren't even sent to Angola unless they're sentence is over 50 years. Y'all, I believe that's more likely 80 years, like I said in the past. Basically, the result of this is with sentences of this length, most inmates lose touch with the family members and there's no one to collect the remains when they die.
Jim: This prison has been around a long time. Go back and listen to The Walls and how Angola got started, but Angola has been around forever.
Woody: 140 some years.
Jim: 142 years in the making, if you want to get specific. During that time, they did have another cemetery. Woody's going to give you a little heads-up on what happened with that.
Woody: Well, the first Angola cemetery got destroyed by a flood in 1927. Now, y'all remember, Angola is surrounded by the Mississippi River on three sides, and every few years, it grows outside of this bank and floods everything. But in 1927, when the flood happened and the water receded, the remains and caskets were found along the levee, and it was impossible to identify anyone. The bodies were reburied in a mass grave in a new cemetery called Point Lookout. It was about two acres, but it was full by the mid 1990s. It contained 331 marked graves and an unknown number of people in the mass grave. An annex, Point Lookout 2, is now in use, and it has a capacity of 700 plots. Approximately 100 of those graves now have been filled, and with the aging inmate population, it will likely max out-
Jim and Woody:Near future.
Woody: In the past, convicts were buried basically in cardboard boxes, y'all. And today, thanks to Warden Cain, the deceased are buried in coffins made at the prison woodshops by an inmate master carpenter. That's his only job, y'all. These handmade caskets are constructed with brown stained birch and pine. It takes about a week to make just one. Other inmates make the shrouds for the coffins. I want to read you a quote of what Burl Cain said. He said, "Once a man dies, his sentence is complete, and there should be dignity in the passing," Warden Burl Cain.
Jim: There you go. You've heard us mention Warden Burl Cain before, and I can't wait to be in the future we're going to do an episode centered completely around Warden Cain, because like every other human being in the world, he had faults in his life, but be hard pressed to find a more respected warden than Warden Cain, and I'm talking nationally. This guy is well known to people that aren't even in the prison circles. So, that tells you who he was, absolutely-- and still alive today and runs the Mississippi Correctional-- the entire correctional system for the state of Mississippi. So, I don't mean to talk as if he's not with us anymore.
Woody: Y'all, I've known him for over 30 years. I've worked for him at Dixon Correctional Institute. He is a very religious man, but he's a nonsense man. But he actually cares about the prisoners, as strange as that sounds. He cares about them and he wants to give them dignity, even in death.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: He was very instrumental in bringing all the changes to Angola, from healthcare to prison inmate programs and give them hope and stuff like that. But he specifically cares about them in death. And even the executions, he stands with them he eats their last meal-- or he used to when he was in Angola. He would eat the last meal with them, whatever they chose. He was there with them when they took the last breath.
Jim: 100%. I'll tell you a quick story about how Burl Cain transformed not only the caskets themselves, but the entire process of conducting a funeral for these Angola inmates. When he was in his first year at Angola, they had a burial for one of the prisoners that he attended. At that burial, they were lowering the prisoner into the ground. At this time, they were essentially crates with cardboard--
Woody: Basically, like a cardboard box. A big, long cardboard box that holds the body.
Jim: They're lowering this inmate down and the bottom fell out of the cardboard box. If that wasn't bad enough, as they started piling dirt on, the top end of the cardboard casket collapsed. In Burl Cain's eyes, this has got to change. It was a total loss of dignity.
Woody: Right, dignity there.
Jim: At that point, he seeked out who was considered the best carpenter in Angola, talked to him and said, "Look, we want you to head this new program where we're going to build caskets for the prisoners." The guy was more than willing to do it, obviously. And off they went with the casket building that has become world renowned. We'll tell you later about some people you may have heard of that have actually been buried in caskets built by prisoners of Angola.
Woody: Right. Now, think about this, y'all. Everybody gets sentenced to Angola-- well, I can't say everybody, but a lot of them have certain crafts that they're masters of before they went in. This guy was a master carpenter. I mean, you have electricians, you have lawyers, you have doctors, you have painters, whatever. Burl sought out the best carpenter. I know they have a lot of them, but he sought out the best carpenter to make these caskets. Now, I know we're going to talk about more in detail but think about how much a casket costs. It costs you like $7000, $8,000 for a general casket for a funeral now, but think about how much it would cost you to have a hand crafted-
Jim: Custom made.
Woody: -custom-made, just beautiful piece of artwork so you can go to eternal rest in it.
Jim: 100%. And he also instituted some other programs.
Woody: In 1998, Burl, the funeral process, just taking a casket out there, even though it was hand built and all that in the back of a pickup truck, that still is not like a funeral procession. So, in 1998, he had inmates build a black horse-drawn hearse modeled after an 1800s vintage funeral coach for use during the burial rites. Now, this hearse is a beautiful piece of artwork in itself, and it's pulled by two large white Percheron horses. The hearse is driven by an inmate dressed in black tailcoat and a black high hat, which are also made in Angola in the sewing shop. And six pallbearer follow the coach on the road to the cemetery and assist with the burial. Inmate ministers conduct a service, and the living, traditionally sinned, they're departed away with acapella rendition, "Praise the Lord, I'm free. No longer bound. No more chains holding me. My soul is resting. It's just a blessing. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. I am free."
Jim: Yeah, it's a sight to be seen, really, these horse-drawn carriages, and so much respect is put into that. You may ask yourself, we're talking here about two cemeteries now that have been built since the one in 1927 flooded, and why is that such an issue? Well, to tell you a little bit about the issues, not only with Angola, but any prison in the country, most likely that's a maximum-security prison, is most people that are sent there, it's horrific crimes that they're going to spend a lot of their life, if not the majority, if not all of their life there. And it's caused a problem. The rise in lengthy mandatory sentences that have really come along as of late has caused a big boom in lifers in prison. As a matter of fact, there's about 2.1 million lifers in the United States right now, compared to about 500,000 in 1980.
Woody: Let me tell you this, Jim. In 1991, when I was studying criminal justice at Southeastern, the incarceration rate for the whole United States was only like 700,000 people. Now, there's millions. We do lead the world in locking people up, and a large percent of that are people who are going to die of prison.
Jim: Yeah, so it has caused quite an issue when it comes to what do you do with these people when they die? Not everybody gets cremated. Some may choose to get cremated, but a lot of inmates now, because the healthcare is so much better in the prison systems than it used to be, they're living a while, 70, 80 years old, and then they die from natural causes. As a matter of fact, that has risen over 40%, the death from natural causes in the last 10 years. That's why they're having to add to these graveyards and all of that. I would imagine family isn't what it used to be with collecting-- I don't know if the right term is collecting these prisoners after their death but claiming the bodies.
Woody: Again, they're down for so long, people die. Their family members die, or they just lose touch. Or, like you said, they don't want to have anything to do with them. Well, then the burden falls back on the state. Now, certainly they could just bury them in the mass grave. There's no rules on that, no laws on it. They don't have to do anything. They could just cremate everyone if they wanted to. But Burl Cain took it to the next level.
Jim: Yeah, he really did. Just another thing on Burl Cain now that we've mentioned him, is Burl Cain was also kind of a businessman in Angola. What I mean by that is he watched the dollars and cents and all of that really was an important part of how you ran a prison. One thing he figured out early on was that these flimsy cardboard crates, essentially, that they were burying these prisoners in, it was costing anywhere from $650 to $900 a piece to bury these guys. Well, he figured out, and he went to that carpenter that we mentioned earlier, and he said, "Look, what about $250, you think you can make a--?" The guy said, "Yeah, I can make one." And he wasn't paying the prisoner $250. He was saying how much would it cost for the wood and the nails and things like that. It came up to be an average cost of about $250. So, not only did he give them a more dignified, beautiful coffin that was handmade around their specifications, but he also saved about $400 a burial in the process.
Woody: That's crazy. Anyhow, Burl was a big champion of making Angola as self-reliant and I guess you call it self-producing, as you can, everything from the vegetables in the field to making license plates to whatever. Try to make it where it pays for itself.
Jim: That's right. Another reason why prisoners, convicts loved Warden Cain was when you do things like that, that's a respect thing with them. And it's obvious that Cain respected them.
Woody: Probably, respect is something they never got in their entire lives.
Jim: Yeah, right. So, very beloved, beloved warden of Angola and still active today in the system. Now, another thing that we want to bring up with regard to the burials is the process of taking care of these guys before they die. Now, there's hospice. If you're a free person, you have hospice when you get cancer at some point, or Alzheimer's or all these things, but you're not immune to that in prison.
Woody: That's right. Certainly, prisoners get cancer or-
Jim: Alzheimer's.
Woody: -Alzheimer's, every type of disease that free people get. I mean, it's there.
Jim: You may be surprised to know that Angola has probably the top hospice center in the country, relative to the prison system.
Woody: The majority of that care is given by other inmates to the dying inmates. So, there's a respect thing there. Certainly, they become attached to the people who are dying even if they didn't know them throughout their prison career.
Jim: That's exactly right. That was another brainstorm by Warden Cain, and that was to start a hospice care system. He already had a treatment center there, a medical center for your obvious injuries that you get every day in prison. Whether you getting shanked or-- [chuckles]
Woody: Back in the old episodes when they say broken backs and stuff.
Jim: Yeah, you're getting the bat applied to you. They had a treatment center and they realized that one thing they lacked was a hospice center, especially as cancer became more prevalent and Alzheimer's really reared its ugly head. You were having to deal with these inmates in a totally different way.
Woody: Basically, like we said, the average lifespan inmate grew tremendously.
Jim: Tremendously.
Woody: As long you live, certainly the higher percentage chance that you're going to contract some type of disease or illness.
Jim: Yeah, 100%. He did what he does, and he went to his inmate trustees, and he said he needed volunteers for a hospice unit to assist the medical staff there, and tons of these trustees volunteered. This was something to them that was an honor to get involved with. Actually, they had seminars for weeks and weeks on how to deal with hospice patients. So, you have these inmates that are in Angola maybe serving life themselves for murder and they were taking care of these cancer patients.
Woody: And probably some of the best trained hospice caregivers in the world.
Jim: There's no doubt. And he didn't stop there. He even went as far as to have sessions that were devoted to managing like personal stress and working through the bereavement process with families because you've got to remember, some of these inmates still had families that visited them every visit day. They were going to miss this person when they died. They're going through cancer or whatever it is. So, they actually even had certification classes on how to deal with family members. So, you would have these convicts actually counseling the family--[crosstalk]
Woody: They're basically the grief counselors.
Jim: Yeah, exactly.
Woody: Seven stages of grief.
Jim: 100%. One of the most well-known hospice care individuals was Wilbert Rideau who is the--
Woody: Award winning--[crosstalk]
Jim: Angolite editor. Yeah, just an amazing writer and very, very well known in Angola and all of that. One thing that we definitely wanted to impress on today is the care that Angola takes with that population. It is their own little world there, even down to their burials, even down to the hospice care treatment that they receive. You would never think, you would think these guys get Alzheimer's and they're just in their cell, not knowing who they are anymore. But very similar to what you would get-- not quite the facilities and things that you would get on the outside, but state of the art for prison.
Woody: Right. Certainly, the care level, the respect given to them, they could just lock them away and let them die, like you said, in a cell, but they didn't do that.
Jim: Yeah. An interesting stat for you to chart down in your mental brain is just last year, nearly three times as many inmates died at Angola as made parole.
Woody: Really?
Jim: Three out of four died in Angola. So, you've got to bury those folks or cremate them or whatever. I don't know really who gets a-- I would imagine the convict gets a choice of whether they want to be buried or cremated. If anybody knows out there, maybe comment, let us know. That would be interesting.
Now, one recent trend is in the favor of building geriatric prisons, where actually it's a prison centered only for older prisoners. They've even had, Woody, some recent success, and this is nationwide, not just Angola, but if you're a prisoner, you're 85, you get Alzheimer's, they slap an ankle bracelet on you and let you go home. I don't know what everybody's feeling, all the listeners feeling would be on that. But if they're considered absolutely no risk anymore to society and they're six months away from death--
Woody: And confined to wheelchairs and mentally, they're gone and stuff like that, it would be much cheaper for the state to-
Jim: Bingo.
Woody: -let them go. Not let them go because certainly they'll be monitored to a certain extent, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than housing and paying for the medical care yourself.
Jim: You just to hit the nail on the head. You're exactly right. It costs about $3,200 a year for ankle bracelet to be applied to a geriatric prisoner, versus over $10,000 a year it would cost to house one. So, if it's someone who had psychological and emotional damage, basically to where they had like Alzheimer's and they're no harm to society--
Woody: I mean, you can monitor them.
Jim: Eighty-five-year-old guy--
Woody: And electronically monitored. If they go outside their geofencing area-- which you're 85, I doubt that's going to happen. But if they do, then probation, parole gets alerted, they can go check in on them.
Jim: Yeah. Another interesting stat for you that you may want to write down as well, and this is from 2011. But in 2011, which is the last time this stat was released that I could find, state and federal prisons were housing approximately 100,000 inmates over the age of 55.
Woody: Hell, I'm almost that old.
[laughter]
Jim: And you're still in the free world, Woody Overton.
Woody: [crosstalk] every day.
Jim: [laughs] That's right. So, that was some really interesting stuff. From there, Angola's got this state-of-the-art hospice system. They've got these caskets that are just absolutely beautiful that you may at least consider a dignified burial if you're a convict. There's some pretty well-known people that have been buried in these, one of those being Billy Cannon.
Woody: Right.
Jim: We talked about him.
Woody: First one to ever win the Heisman for LSU and would spend his career at Angola.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Helping inmates.
Jim: Helping inmates. He was a dentist by trade. Eventually, he led up the entire medical department at Angola because he was such a leader. When he passed away, he requested, and it was one of his dying wishes that he be buried in a casket built by the Angola inmates. So, not only were they totally honored to do that for him, meaning the convicts, but they also paid for it, out of their own money.
Woody: That's right. Their own inmate fund. And, y'all, that casket was seen by thousands of people at the memorial service.
Jim: Yeah. Of course, Billy Cannon being buried at what's known as the PMAC-- Well, that wasn't where he's buried, but where his visitation was at the PMAC and the only person I'm familiar with that had a visitation at the PMAC.
Woody: I've never heard of that before.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Probably tens of thousands that came to pay their respects, and every one of them saw the casket that was built by and paid for by convicts.
Jim: That's right. We'll tell you about another famous individual that was also buried in an Angola casket that was built by convicts, and that was the Reverend Billy Graham.
Woody: That's crazy to think about.
Jim: It's unbelievable. I'm going to tell you the story of how that came about. But first, I don't even want to say, for those of you that aren't familiar with the Reverend Billy Graham because I can't imagine one person that's never heard of-- [crosstalk]
Woody: I'm pretty sure Billy Graham had a straight line to heaven.
Jim: I'm going to tell you what, he was an amazing, amazing person that I didn't know personally, obviously, but just following his life, and this is a man that could have as many millions as he wanted.
Woody: Oh, yeah. He could have been Jimmy Swaggart and built colleges and everything else, but he just--
Jim: Lived in a small house pretty much.
Woody: Right. He's a humble man and dedicated his life to God.
Jim: That's right. And you know he's not from Louisiana. You may wonder, "Well, how the heck did Billy Graham end up in a casket by Angola inmates?" Well, his son actually visited Angola. His name is Franklin Graham. As he was touring Angola, he ended up in the Casket Room, is what they call it, where they're building these caskets. And he was absolutely blown away. Could not believe what he saw. Thought it was the most beautiful caskets ever made. On the spot, he asked the casket maker, "I would like to order two of these," and this is going to sound morbid, "One for my mom and one for my dad," and they were still alive, but he was so blown away from him. He's like, "I want to go ahead, I'll pay for them right now. And when they pass away, we won't have to worry about caskets or picking anything out. I want something simple. My dad would love this."
Woody: Right. That's something that as a son, I can respect that because you can go to any funeral parlor and buy some mass-made-type whatever casket. But he saw the care and the ornate woodwork and the love that was put in this casket making, and he was like, "I want that for my mom and dad." That tells you what kind of awesomeness these caskets are.
Jim: Yeah. Set your eyes on them, just blow you away. The simplicity and beauty.
Woody: I'm pretty sure Billy Graham could have got any free casket from anybody in the world.
Jim: In the world. He could have got a gold casket.
Woody: He could have got a solid gold casket, yeah. But he wanted or his son wanted him to have caskets built in Angola.
Jim: Yeah. So he did. He went home and of course told his mom and dad about this. His dad thought it was the most beautiful gesture ever because it fit him perfectly. It fit his wife, Ruth, perfectly. These are simple, stained, beautiful caskets that have a cross, basically formed into them on the top. There's nothing that you would look at and it would be, "Oh, look at the shiny gold," or look at the--
Woody: The brass.
Jim: Simple beauty.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: No brass on the side. It's all made of wood and handcrafted and lathed and sanded just to this almost ice-skating rink.
Woody: I want to know how many hours go into building one.
Jim: Well, they say that the casket maker spends eight hours a day and it takes about a week for each one. So, you're talking about--
Woody: 40 plus hours.
Jim: Solid working.
Woody: Right.
Jim: To make one of these beautiful caskets. Of course, Billy Graham had a very full life and a very long life, a blessed life. He lived actually to the age of 99, y'all.
Woody: That is crazy.
Jim: 99 years old. He died and was laid to rest after lying in state for two days on the US Capitol rotunda.
Woody: Wow. Talk about Billy Cannon's casket getting being seen, president saw Billy Graham's and all congressmen and senators and everybody else. Two days laying in state.
Jim: Two days laying in state. [crosstalk] Millions of people, because it was televised.
Woody: Televised, that's right. So, if you saw Billy Graham laying in the state, you saw an Angola casket.
Jim: That's exactly right. Another interesting thing about Franklin Graham, when he went to Angola, he was really blown away by the history, much like you and me, Woody. He loved history, and apparently prison history, but especially as it relates to religion. In Angola, as we've talked about, you probably don't have more churches on a prison than Angola. A lot of that, again, credit to Burl Cain, who really is credited with bringing religion to Angola. When Franklin Graham visited, he noticed everything from the beauty of the pews in these churches inside Angola and all the woodwork, which obviously goes into building a casket as well. He even noticed the steeple for one of the churches was one of these high-up steeples. From death row, if you looked out of one of the windows in death row, it would be directly in front of the steeple. And that was never necessarily intended. It just kind of worked out that way.
Woody: Isn't that amazing?
Jim: Yeah. It was the perfect placement for that steeple because as you look out that window, the way he described it is all you saw was a cross.
Woody: Right.
Jim: Pretty powerful stuff. So, he was very touched by Angola, and obviously that is evidenced in the fact that he purchased the caskets for his parents from Angola. But what a story that is. We always want to bring you something different on Bloody Angola, and that's something that's different and unique about it.
Woody: Jim and I are going to go to Angola, and everything we're talking about, and we'll be able to bring you more information on it as we see with our own two eyes, right?
Jim: Yeah. We're not going to tell you exactly when we're going, but we're going to do an episode. [chuckles]
Woody: Security.
Jim: We're not going to tell you, but when we get back from that trip, we're going to give you an episode centered around our trip. We're going to tell y'all about it. It's going to be an episode just on everything we did and who showed us around, what we learned, what we saw.
Woody: I can assure you, we're going to the casket shop. [crosstalk]
Jim: Absolutely.
Woody: The place where they build the caskets, and Point Lookout Cemetery. I want to stand there.
Jim: I want to see everything. We'll see everything. So, look for that episode soon. I want to give you another little quick story, I thought y'all might find this interesting. We've been talking about prison cemeteries today, obviously, with Angola, and I thought it'd be kind of cool to tell one from something away from Angola, but definitely very historical and definitely a prison cemetery. I want to tell you about one in Yuma, Arizona, and you might be familiar with Yuma. Old West times, right?
Woody: Right.
Jim: Six shooters, pow.
[chuckles]
Jim: Yeah, draw it.
Woody: 3:10 to Yuma. Have you seen that?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: That's a good movie.
Jim: I've seen that. You may wonder back in those days, did they have prison cemeteries? And they absolutely did. I'm going to tell you about this one in Yuma. There were a total of about 111 prisoner deaths that occurred within that prison. This is during kind of the Wild West times, y'all. A total of 104 of those persons were buried at the cemetery in Yuma. So, the bodies of the other seven prisoners, those got claimed by the family. Think about that, y'all. Out of 111 prisoners, 104 of them, nobody wanted back or they didn't even realize they were dead or where they were. I mean, this is Wild West times.
Woody: It wasn't like that, social media. [crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, they don't have emails.
Woody: You don't get your loved one.
Jim: That's right. I mean, it was literally Pony Express back then if you find anything else. I'm going to tell you about a guy named Pete Devereaux. Pete Devereaux was a convict that on his way to Yuma, tried to escape by jumping off the train. He was going to Yuma prison, he couldn't deal with it, jumped off the train, hit his head on a rock on the way down and died.
Woody: That hurt.
Jim: Yeah. That was the 112th death that you won't hear about from Yuma. But only one female died in prison, and her name was Pearl Iker. There's not a whole lot of research on her. But people do wonder about, "Didn't females commit crimes in those days?" Yes, they did, but only one on record died in prison.
Woody: Only Jim Chapman can find this, y'all.
Jim: [chuckles] I'm telling you, I was digging. Now, burials were simple and quick, so I did. I was wondering about burials. A shallow grave was dug where a wooden casket containing the body was lowered. They would cover that with dirt and overlay it with rocks. They didn't have like the crosses.
Woody: Keep the--[crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, which incidentally, at Angola's cemetery, they do have the cement crosses for every prisoner that marks where their grave is. So, you may wonder what some of these prisoners died from, and this may or may not surprise you, but the majority of those prisoners died from tuberculosis.
Woody: Really?
Jim: Yeah. Wyatt Earp. He wasn't a prisoner, but he died-- at least that's what Tombstone, my favorite movie--
Woody: Yeah, [crosstalk] in Colorado cemetery.
Jim: I'm your I'm Your Huckleberry.
Woody: [crosstalk] - I'm Your Huckleberry.
Jim: Johnny Ringo. I love that movie, y'all. But 46 prisoners died of tuberculosis, which is known as consumption. They used to blame it on drinking alcohol.
Woody: Really?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: When I worked for Department of Corrections, I had to get TB tested. What they do is they give you like a shot in your arm and you have to come back a couple of days later. If you have a bump, guess what? You got the TB. TB is a very real thing in prison to this day.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: You think about COVID, but TB is the original COVID, I would guess.
Jim: That's right. My wife has to get a TB shot every year because she works at a hospital, and they take a chance of coming in contact with people with tuberculosis. So, they have to get checked for that every year and get, I guess, vaccinated or whatever for it.
Interesting thing is they figured out over time that tuberculosis was not caused by alcohol and they figured out it was more caused by people living in close quarters like you're speaking of, a prison.
Woody: Right. If you think it's not caused by alcohol, probably [crosstalk] living in the wrong time, y'all.
[laughter]
Jim: So, they figured that out. Of course, one of the ways that they figured that out, so if y'all were ever wondering how they discovered tuberculosis was people in close quarters, it was the majority of people that were getting it were locked up in prisons, and they were like, "Wait a minute, there's some commonality here." In Yuma Prison, 46 of them, that's what they died in. Most of the grave markers at Yuma prison, they remained intact until about 1950. Since then, all of them were kind of taken by souvenir hunters. Think about it, you see a gravestone that says "Yuma" on it, these souvenir hunters would steal them. A lot of them just deteriorated over time. I mean, 100 years, that's a pretty old cement back in those days. They were typically made from either cement, like we just mentioned, or sometimes slabs of wood. It would just be wood that was burned and with, "Here lies--"
Woody: Johnny Joe.
Jim: "Johnny Joe. He fell and stumped his toes."
[laughter]
Woody: Something like that. "And he'd be here no mo."
Jim: "And he'd be here no mo." I'm telling you, y'all, that's how they used to mark them things.
Woody: Those probably got taken. Johnny Joe's probably got taken--[crosstalk]
Jim: No doubt about it. Actually, they would mark at Yuma specifically the prisoner's name, number, and the date of death. So, they wouldn't even have the birth on there.
Woody: I'm pretty sure that there is no theft of headstones from Angola from Point Lookout [crosstalk] being that's inside the wire.
Jim: [laughs] Yeah. Ain't nobody looking to take that route. They might end up in there.
Woody: [crosstalk]
[laughter]
Woody: Grave robbery is still a very big thing to this day.
Jim: Oh, it's huge.
Woody: Don't bury me with any-- I don't wear jewelry anyway, but if I had it, I don't want to be buried. Thank God I don't have any gold teeth. Yeah, that's good. What kind of sick bastard does it take to dig up a grave?
Jim: I'm going to tell you, and then to take a gold tooth-- I mean, some of these people probably buried with nice watches and wedding rings, but I mean, you've got to be the one [crosstalk] right?
Woody: It's not like you know what's in there. It's a potluck. You're going around in the middle of the night digging up graves, hoping you'd find a gold tooth. Bro, get a job. [laughs]
Jim: Yeah, get a job, man. What are you doing?
Woody: Grave robber.
Jim: Grave robber. I'll tell you what, speaking of that, Woody, in Denham Springs, they had a situation where they just destroyed about 10, I guess it's headstones that sit up on the graveyard here and just tipped them over, broke them, a vandal. I'm like, "Man--"
Woody: What a disrespect.
Jim: "Bruh, you got problems."
Woody: Yeah, I worked a case, it just popped in my mind. It was in Tangipahoa Parish where the family members kept going out and putting flowers and little mementos on the graves, and they always come up missing. They tracked it back to a lady probably about my age, in her mid-50s, and she would go out there and steal the items off the graves, and she was a hoarder. She had them all stashed in her house.
Jim: Oh, my gosh.
Woody: That's probably a mental illness there.
Jim: Yeah, there's got to be. So, you may wonder, can you visit the Yuma cemetery to this day? The territorial prison cemetery they called it? You can. It's on South Levee Road in Yuma, Arizona. So, if you're in the Yuma area- [chuckles]
Woody: Go check it out.
Jim: -go check it out. You can also visit the Angola cemetery at certain times. You'll have to get in touch with Angola to find out when or when we get back, we'll tell you, how about that? So, we appreciate y'all listening. We want to bring you something this week. It's been a busy week for Woody Overton. He has on Friday, which would be tomorrow, the Real Life Real Crime Krewe Bash.
Woody: Starts, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Friday night, VIP event. Saturday night, the main event. And the tickets are on sale eventbrite.com for both. You can do one or both nights. You can just go to the VIP Friday night event, which we're having a huge auction for LOPA, or you can buy the tickets for both nights through the VIP. Or you can just buy Saturday night event.
Jim: Let's go through it real quick. On the Friday night, what do we have going on?
Woody: Friday night, I'm going to go in and take pictures and sign autographs with everybody that's there. We got Lifers already from all over the United States. A lot of them take this like a vacation week and come to South Louisiana and hang out, and it culminates with the Krewe Bash. But Friday night, it's more of an intimate setting, a couple of hundred people, and I get to spend time with everybody, and we drink. And then, we have so many donations that people donate everything from diamond necklaces and the earrings to cooking pots to [unintelligible [00:45:53] to whatever.
Jim: Tons of stuff, y'all.
Woody: iPads and iWatches and all this stuff. I'm going to get on the stage later on in the night after we had quite a few-- oh, including two hog hunts being auctioned off with me, yours truly, where you come stay at my place. Now last year when I was on stage, I had a little bit to drink, and somebody said I should auction off a hog hunt. Then, the money started going and up and he got up in the thousands and I said, "Hell, for that much you can sleep with me." I didn't mean with me, I mean in my house.
[laughter]
Woody: That's going to go on. And even Chase Tyler is going to be there. The two-time Louisiana Country Music Hall and Fame and [unintelligible [00:46:39].
Jim: One of my favorites.
Woody: Hanging out as a fan with his wife. If you want to meet him, he'll be there. It's just going to be a blowout chill time, Friday night, intimate gathering. Because Saturday night, the Krewe Bash, it's going to be packed. I'm going to take the stage and do a live, never-before-heard interactive adult podcast. If you've been to the Krewe Bash before, you know what that means. You know what it means on Sunday morning when you hit-- [crosstalk] More importantly, we're celebrating justice for Courtney Coco.
Jim: Amen.
Woody: And the conviction of David Anthony Burns after 18 years for her murder. The cold case we solved on Real Life Real Crime. We're celebrating all the awards we won this year, the podcast awards. My 53rd birthday will be at midnight, and Chase Tyler is going to play. Chase Tyler band is going to rock after I get done with my show.
But we also-- when I get down with the show and you'll be on the stage with me, brother, because you've done it again, we're doing our big raffle draw for LOPA, Louisiana Organ Procurement Human Agency. We've raised a lot of money for them in the last couple of years. I'm hoping to do that again this year, but we're going to have the drawings for all the big prizes and Local Leaders podcast is one of the donors, one of the many. And it's just going to be fire.
Jim: Look, it really is. I've been to every one of the Krewe Bash, and I can tell you, number one, prepare your liver.
[laughter]
Jim: Drink plenty of water before and after, even in between.
Woody: Now, they got this hydration packets.
Jim: Yeah. [chuckles]
Woody: Liquid I.V.
Jim: Liquid I.V. That's right.
Woody: Y'all should sponsor us.
Jim: Yeah, [chuckles] that's right. That's a free plug for them. I'll tell you, it is an absolute blast. You're there with nothing but true crime fans, which is--
Woody: It's like our family. Everybody's chill. Everybody's there to party and have a good time.
Jim: And it is. It's a great time amongst the hundreds and hundreds of your best friends. So, look forward to seeing any and all of you there. There's still tickets available. You can get them through Eventbrite, and you can get those links on any of the-- just trust me, go to Real Life Real Crimes Facebook, you'll find the link.
Woody: And the LOPA raffle tickets links are there also.
Jim: We love LOPA.
Woody: You don't have to be present to win the Saturday night, the big prize drawings. Friday night, you do have to be present to win or to bid on any of the auction items.
Jim: Yeah, those would be live auctions. Look, they're always a hit. And this is good stuff, y'all. We ain't giving away jelly of the month.
Woody: Right. [chuckles] Jelly of the month [crosstalk] that’s the gift that keeps giving all year long.
Jim: That’s right.
Woody: Thank you for everybody that’s coming and everybody's already here. It's crazy.
But what I want to do, Him, is flip it back for a second. I want to thank our patron members for--[crosstalk]
Jim: Absolutely.
Woody: You don't know what it means to us. Ultimately, this is a business, and we have expenses and things cost, and we could not do these shows without y'all. We hope you're enjoying your bonus episodes and your benefits.
Jim: Yeah, you've got everything from commercial-free early releases, which are a huge deal. If you're listening to this episode, it's definitely Wednesday because we release it on Thursdays to our non-patron members. So, if you're listening to it commercial free right now, it's on a Wednesday, you're getting that as a benefit for being a patron member and supporting us. There's benefits from there, including bonus episodes from time to time. And look, you get complete full transcripts, even with some of those upper-level tiers, and those are not cheap. We actually use the best transcription company. They transcribe these by hand.
Woody: We don't even have that for Real Life Real Crime. I don't know of another true crime, although this is true crime documentary, I guess you would classify Bloody Angola. I don't know of another true crime show that does it.
Jim: Yeah. I'll tell you, it's something where me and Woody got these good Southern accents. The problem with that is nobody can transcribe us right.
Woody: I can't even transcribe my own shit.
Jim: [laughs] The people that actually do this, they do it by hand. It's not a machine, so there's no errors in it. You can literally print that thing out and it's in PDF form. As a patron member, you get the PDF version of this. You can print it out and it's just like reading a book.
Woody: I have had, in the five years of Real Life Real Crime, numerous people reach out to me about that. I never pursued it. You had numerous people reach out to us about it and you pursued it, so hats off to you for that.
Jim: Tons of people just said they like reading better than listening.
Woody: There's also people who are deaf and can't hear it.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: So, that's a big deal.
Jim: Huge benefit for them. All those benefits are yours on our Bloody Angola Patreon page. So important to what we do here. We couldn't freaking do it without these members.
Woody: Tell them how to sign up for Patreon or go look go look it up.
Jim: Yeah, there's several ways you can do that. You can go to the Bloody Angola Facebook page, and there's a link tree on the home page there. You'll see it'll say L-I-N-K-T-R-E-E. You click that and it'll pull up the various links to get our media. The very first link you see will say Patreon page or say Chase Team. You click on that will bring you to the Patreon page. Or you can just go to www.patreon.com/bloodyangolapodcast, and that will bring you right to the Patreon.
Woody: It has all the different tier levels.
Jim: It does.
Woody: What the benefits are, what the subscription fee is a month. And we even have a yearly subscription fee now where you save money.
Jim: Yes. Two months off with that annual subscription, and you save two months off of what we consider already very fair pricing for what you're getting out of that Patreon. Look, it's really all love that y'all support what we do here, and we're just trying to continue to build it. Please share Bloody Angola with your family, friends, and even people maybe you don't like. [chuckles] If you hadn't rated us yet-
Woody: Yeah. That's a big one.
Jim: Huge. If you like what we're hearing, please go and leave a rating on wherever you're listing this, if it's Spotify, Apple Podcast, whatever. It helps other people to find the show, and it helps build our following.
Woody: The larger we grow, the more we get to do.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: We hope you enjoyed it. We love and appreciate each and every one of y'all. Hey, if you can't be a Patreon member, we get that.
Jim: Totally.
Woody: We totally get it. We love you, too. Right?
Jim: That's right. We love anyone that listens to us talk about the history of the bloodiest prison in America.
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host to Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast, 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim and Woody:Peace.
[chuckles]
[Bloody Angola theme playing]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 02 Feb 2023 - 32 - Kelly Jennings Talks Barry Seal Killer Miguel Velez in Angola
Kelly Jennings joins Woody Overton and Jim Chapman for yet another appearance and they discuss Angola prisoner Miguel Velez who in the eighties was hired to kill drug runner Barry Seal by Cocaine King Pablo Escobar.
#Barryseal #pabloescobar #drugs #gangsters #cartel #podcast #bloodyangolapodcast
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 26 Jan 2023 - 31 - Boss Bitches #1 | Bloody Angola Sally Port
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman bring you inside the world of female convicts in this Sally Port companion edition to Bloody Angola with "Boss Bitches"
In this first edition they cover 4 female convicts who graced the headlines in different times in history including Martha Stewart, Susan Atkins, Aileen Wuornos and Brenda Spencer.
#Marthastewart #susanatkins #aileenwuornos #brendaspencer #podcasts
#truecrime #bloodyangolapodcast
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyMon, 23 Jan 2023 - 30 - Camp J Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola
First it was the Red Hat, brutal.....Then upon the closure of the Red Hat Cell Block came its replacement, even more brutal was the notorious Camp J.
Closed in 2018 forever, Camp J was feared by even the convicts of Death Row and the most infamous solitary cell block in America.
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman of Bloody Angola Podcast share the story of Camp J and the details that made it so bad.
#CampJ #WilbertRideau #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePrison #SolitaryConfinement
FULL TRANSCRIPT
BLOODY ANGOLA: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman (Camp J)
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome to Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And we're going to talk about Camp J today, Woody.
Woody: Yeah, y'all. Camp J was always controversial, and certainly we can't cover all of Camp J in one episode, but we're not going to make a series out of this. We're just going to bring you some as we go along. Everything from Jim's phenomenal research on stuff and some of the stuff we're going to play today to, in the future, having former inmates that were in Camp J and all that. But let me tell you real quick about Camp J. If you go back on the history part, you remember when they closed the Red Hat cell block, they had to come up with a new area to house the worst of the worst, and that was Camp J.
Jim: If you're sitting there and you're wondering, "What is the Red Hat cell block?", well, we covered that, and I believe it was Season 2's opener of Bloody Angola. One thing I'll make sure I do is link that in the description, because this may be your first episode with Bloody Angola.
Woody: The Red Hat Cell Block, y'all, was notorious and they ended up shutting it down. How bad does a fucking place have to be if you're going to shut it down, when it's housing people that nobody cares about? But to get locked up in these places like the Red Hat before they shut it down and the new and improved Camp J when they opened it up, you have to be a real, real problem. Now, it doesn't matter what your crime is that you commit on the street, when you get to Angola, you get classified and most convicts do their time in dormitories. But you get locked down on Camp J was an extended lockdown-
Jim: CCR, Closed Cell Restricted.
Woody: -cell block. To get locked up there, you didn't just get in a fistfight with another inmate. That's a regular working cell block or admin seg thing. You had to either attack a guard with weapons, not just a fistfight. Weapons could be feces or urine also. Or get caught smuggling drugs and/or escape or try to escape.
Jim: Rape.
Woody: Rape. Yeah, you could call it raping somebody. You had to do something so bad that they wanted to lock you away from the rest of the prison population.
Jim: Think about it as a prison inside a prison. One of the questions you may have had was, "Well, you're already in prison. What else can they do to you?" Well, they have to have a place they can send you that is even worse than the situation you're already in. You're already in jail. You're already being told when to shit, when to eat, all those sorts of things. So, what can they do to you outside of that in CCR units or lockdowns or whatever you want to call it? Camp J was the place that you went to when you broke the rules in prison.
Woody: The worst rules. They like killed somebody or whatever.
Jim: Shanked. Jugged them up.
Woody: Killed them good.
Jim: Killed them good. [chuckles]
Woody: When you get sent to Camp J, you have to do 90 days before you come up for a review to be released back in general population. Now, that's 90 days without a low court or a high court writeup. And that means no rule infractions. If you're back there on your first day, and most of them do, and you fuck up, you do something wrong, guess what happens? You know you got to finish your other 89 days, or you're going to automatically get rejected. These guys aren't model convicts by any means, and they get the other 89 days to fuck up, and you can't do them anymore. So, when your review comes up again, you automatically get them denied, and then you get a clean slate for the next 90 days. But they got convicts in Camp J that are housed there forever.
Jim: Forever.
Woody: I mean, like so many years. I guess we should tell them a little bit about it.
Jim: One thing I want to go into before we do that, just paint the picture.
Woody: Oh, yeah. Paint the picture of the cells and everything else.
Jim: Think of it like this, y'all. If you were like me and you were raised and your parents would do this to you, maybe you'd say a cuss word, you see how that helps us [crosstalk] saying-- Cusswords every now and then. So, maybe--
Woody: [crosstalk] -get the soap.
Jim: Yeah, get the soap. That's one version. But a lot of parents would say, "Go in the corner, put your nose in the corner, and stand there till I tell you to come out."
Woody: My dad would just beat my ass-
[laughter]
Woody: -with a leather belt from Mexico which said "Mexico" and had dove imprints on there, it used to leave them on me. But I promise you, I deserved every one of them.
Jim: Every one of them. [laughs] But you put your nose in the corner and you'd have to sit there till your parents-- and 10 minutes seem like 10 hours. That's your parents' version of Camp J. That's their way of putting you solitary, by yourself, where all you have to do is focus on your nose in the corner. Well, that's what Camp J is, but obviously on a much higher level.
Woody: They're locked up 23 out of 24 hours a day. Most of the time, I would submit to you, they're locked up longer. They didn't get that hour out. Back in the day, they only gave them like one phone call a month. But if you got your hour out, it was for a shower and just sweep out your cell real quick because they weren't letting trustees in your cell. These are bad motherfuckers. And you get out. Now, I remember being a boy and going to Angola on a school tour, and they took us to Camp J. Outside the front of the camp, they had the exercise yards. Now it's not open yards, these were fenced in, wired-in yards, probably--
Jim: Dog pens, basically.
Woody: -were basically, yeah. I was going to say like 15 yards around. I remember going up and there was this convict, and he was shackled, but he only had one arm. He was shackled with his one arm and shackled to his feet and he's running that circle. But guess what? They called him Wingding. We've got an episode of Wingding. Wingding was trying to escape and they shot him at the gate and blew his arm off and they killed the other guy during the escape. We'll tell that story--[crosstalk]
Jim: Yes.
Woody: But Wingding was running around in circles and it's a bunch of impressionable kids and he's like, "Fuck you, you motherfuckers. Y'all coming in here and stare at us like fishing a bowl? You fucking motherfuckers, I'll kill all of you." What're they going to do to him?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: He's already--[crosstalk]
Jim: He's already in Camp J.
Woody: [crosstalk] -like 15 fucking years. He ain't getting out. He was going to speak his mind. But when Camp J opened, it was a brand-new facility and top notch. But guess what? They didn't put a lot of money in Camp J. It would become known as the worst cell blocks in the United States of America, and probably in the world.
Jim: You've heard of us talk about this before, but budgets are always an issue with prisons no matter where you are in the country. Angola is no exception to that because obviously, us as free people, the last thing you want to do is have to pay for prisoners. Now, it's a necessary evil. It's just like insurance. You've got to have it just because if we didn't pay for these prisons, you'd have everybody roaming free, and that would obviously be a problem. But Camp J, when it opened, it was brand new. Well, as budgetary things came through every year, they would cut the budget for Angola. So, what do they start looking at? "Well, we got to cut staff. We've got to cut we don't need to fix that air conditioner that broke," although Camp J didn't even have that. Whatever it may be, they cut where they had to, and Camp J got cut a lot more [crosstalk] parts.
Woody: Camp J got [crosstalk] cut more than anything else.
Jim: Sure.
Woody: Because nobody gave a shit.
Jim: Nobody gave-- yeah. It's CCR, right?
Woody: Now, think about it, y'all. If you had 6000 inmates or 5800, however many it was, you've got that certain percentage. Now, it's all rapists and murderers and armed robbers and just the worst of the worst, but most of them are doing their time, not letting their time do them but you have a real, real big factor on Camp J. I mean, that certain percentage of that population that's in Angola, they're in there for not obeying the laws, for murder and rape and everything else but a certain percentage, when they get there, they're going to continue to act out. It's the only thing they know. I'm going to tell you right now, a huge percentage of them have severe mental issues. I'm telling you like cray, cray motherfuckers. But you know what? The state, especially back in the day, they only have one doctor come in from Baton Rouge, whatever, these guys didn't get the treatment, especially the mental stuff that they needed.
So, the cells are so small, y'all. It's a single-man cell. It has a shitter, a little metal iron desk, and basically about it. I think it's like five steps down, five steps back. You probably can reach your arms out and touch both walls.
Jim: It's a closet.
Woody: You don't have any direct visual contact with anyone else. It's just the place that you didn't want to go. Now, again, it's used to take these worst of the worst, the ones that act so bad inside for the most serious charges, and they get them out of general population so they can't continue to rape, murder, or attack staff or whatever it is that they were doing in that general population to get swung.
Jim: Explain to them what "getting swung" is.
Woody: Getting swung, y'all, means that when you're in the general population and you're living in all these dormitories or whatever your job may be, if you do a rule infraction, you get-- that's the term, we call it get swung. They swung your ass to the cell block.
Jim: I remember when you were talking to Kelly Jennings and you used to say, "Did you swing your clerk?" And I'm like, "What? What is that term?" [chuckles]
Woody: Getting swung is something you didn't want to have happen, but it happens. Even like Kelly's clerk, I didn't have a clerk, but trustees that would have, if invariably they're going to try to get over on you or do whatever, and you swung their ass and they lost the privileges. They may go to admin seg before the hearing or whatever. If you're a real shit heel, like you attacked an officer or you raped someone or whatever, then they swung you to Camp J at Angola and you didn't want to go there.
Jim: Yeah, you didn't want to go there. Just the fact that it's Camp J guaranteed when you step foot on Louisiana State Penitentiary to Angola, and you know typically it's a life sentence. So, you step foot, word travels fast. I'm sure you're walking down that walk and they're catcalling you, the other prisoners. "Hey, hey--"
Woody: You remember what the one guy on the documentary said? The white guy who was coming out? I'm not being racist. I'll submit to you that if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger and you're white in prison, you got a problem. They're still going to get you. Because on a cell block, I would have if there's 100 inmates, 98 of them would be African American and you got your two white boys. That guy said they interviewed him on that documentary, and he said, "Y'all, I'll tell you what you don't want to do. Everybody knows your fish when you get there, and you're coming down the side for a walk, try to carrying all your shit, and they're like, 'Oh, let me help you carry your stuff.' Don't do that, because they come to your bunk at 9 o'clock at night and take your ass."
Jim: Yeah. "Remember, I helped you carry your shit?"
Woody: "Hey, man, I helped you carry that [crosstalk] bend over, boy."
Jim: That's it. That's life. That's real life there. Kiana Calloway, who appeared on P2P Podcast.
Woody: Which is?
Jim: Which is Penitentiaries to Penthouses.
Woody: Yeah, [crosstalk] check it out.
Jim: They're friends of our show, and he went on there and was discussing his firsthand look at Camp J but before we play you that clip, I want to read you something that he wrote. It was a blog online, and it says, "I was just 17 years old when I was sent to solitary confinement in Camp J, one of the most severe lockdown units at one of America's most brutal prisons, the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. I languished in solitary for 16 months. Back then, I didn't know that Louisiana was solitary confinement capital of the world. All I knew was that I had been convicted of a crime I didn't commit, and I had to maintain my humanity in one of the most dehumanizing places on Earth. It's called 23 and 1, because you spend 23 hours alone in yourself and 1 hour to take a shower and make a phone call if you're allowed."
"There's no education programs, you're stuck in yourself with just the voices in your own head and the cries of men who have already gone mad. Most of the other people in my unit were suffering from mental illness. I remember how they would ram their heads into bars, play with their own defecation, or throw urine or feces."
Woody: Getting gassed.
Jim: Yeah, getting gassed. "The hardest part of living in solitary is trying not to lose hope." Remember that word, hope. We say it all the time. "Each morning that I woke up in solitary, I would quote the same Serenity prayer. Remember my father reciting when I was young. 'Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.' The consequences are devastating. It's been 22 years since my time in solitary and 8 years since my release from prison. But I still have flashbacks and nightmares. Even when I'm with someone else, I can find myself secluded in my own mind. I call it being psychologically incarcerated. I'm learning to identify and deal with it, but I am still not normal."
That's what Camp J was doing to people. Before we go any further, I want y'all to listen to this clip. This was directly taken from the P2P Podcast show. You're going to hear a story that absolutely blew my mind that Kiana told on that podcast. So, it's right here.
Kiana:I spent 18 months in one of the most dehumanizing places that ever could have been created for a human being, and that was Camp J.
Interviewer:Okay. Angola, Louisiana.
Kiana:Angola, Louisiana, the Farm. So, [unintelligible 00:17:28] cell 11. They got cell 10. Cell 11 was the last cell. They had a guy named Money that slept on side of me for 10 months. Every morning, he woke up singing, "It's been a long, long time coming." Money's name was Alpha Baker. When I went to Camp J, Money had all been in Camp J for like 14 years at this time.
Interviewer:Wow. In the cell block?
Kiana:In that same cell.
Interviewer:Wow.
Kiana:In that same cell. That's why I fight for solitary confinement today. I was in Camp. J. The man had come down, shift change 6:00 and 6:00, we know it's shift change. 06:00, man come down, "Who all used the phone?" Friday. What's on Friday?
Interviewer:Chicken.
Interviewer:Chicken.
Kiana:Exactly. "Who want to use the phone?" Everybody hands coming out the bar. "Okay, let me get the plates. How many people are not getting the chicken plate?"
Interviewer:[laughs]
Kiana:Listen, I didn't talk to my--
Interviewer: This is the guard?
Kiana:This is the guard.
Interviewer:He's trying to eat.
Kiana:He's getting chicken so he could swing it on the other side of the town.
Interviewer:You have the biggest [crosstalk] decision.
Kiana:They got Joes. They got Joes around the corner. So, it's a whole situation here. You only get one phone call every 30 days in Camp J this time.
Interviewer:Really?
Kiana:It was coming through the walls, busting through the walls.
Interviewer: Cinderblocks.
Interviewer:Who were?
Interviewer:The inmates.
Kiana:They bust through the walls.
Interviewer:They come get you?
Kiana:Yes.
Interviewer:Oh, wow.
Kiana:If they want you, they bust-- they coming through the walls. I'm talking about there's so many times that they had to replaster the cinderblocks.
Interviewer:They just go and get moles and coming through.
Kiana:Moles?
Interviewer:How they get in through--[crosstalk]
Kiana:You can use--[crosstalk]
Interviewer:Oh, you're talking about the guy on the--[crosstalk]
Kiana:In1998, they took the cell block, they have the flap wall where you put your stuff in there, you take that up out of there, and you can go through the wall.
Interviewer:No shit.
Kiana:Yeah, you can go through the wall.
Interviewer:So,Dudes are getting jugged up?
Kiana:Going through the wall. [crosstalk] Listen to me. Going through the wall. Listen to me.
Interviewer:Getting rinked? That’s wild, man.
Kiana:Listen, man, that is a world inside of the world, man.
Jim:That was crazy to say the least, Woody. Busting through cell cinderblock to get in the other.
Woody:By the time Kiana was there, certainly Camp J was known for not being maintained. They would do patches here and there and stuff like that, but the walls were rotting, the cinderblock and everything else. If you're down23 and 1, which I'm telling you is a lot more than that, I can assure you. And you're crazy, or you're just a bad guy and you want to rape somebody or kill somebody, you just bust the fucking hole in the wall.
Jim: Just bust--[chuckles]
Woody: Bust the whole wall, "I'm coming to get you."
Jim: Yeah. They would rape, they would go in the next cell and rape people. Some of these guys have been in that same cell for years. Rules say no more than like three months or something like that.
Woody: They come up for the review in three months, but if they can't get out, they're not trying to rush them out.
Jim: Yeah. Depends on what you did.
Woody: Actually, the correction officers are trying to protect the other convicts and correction officers from these people, from whatever they did to get back in Camp J. Now, Camp J, y'all, the mental illness factor is a real deal. I'm talking about severe mental illness. You think about this. I believe the stat is something like, you can go insane after five days in solitary confinement. They've proven that. Not everybody does. Sometimes, it takes longer and what have you. But if you go back there and you go insane, [unintelligible 00:21:19] on the fucking rule. You can be back there forever. Like this guy that was in the cell block in the cell next to him, been back there 14 years and woke up singing every morning.
Jim: Every morning.
Woody: But also, right before Camp J closed, they were averaging one suicide a day. You're talking about 365 people a year killing themselves because they can't live in Camp J.
Jim: Yeah. That's absolutely insane. Now, one question you may have is what is it like from a correctional officer's perspective? Because if it's bad for the convicts, the correctional officers, just another day at work? You better believe it ain't.
Woody: Let me tell you this. I ran the largest rec room when I first started out at Dixon Correctional Institute and Burl Cain was my warden. I had a convict, I told him, gave him direct verbal order, which is a real deal to catch his dorm, because he was standing back and saying and he was like, "Fuck you." He walked out into the yard knowing that I couldn't go. I told the captain about it, and he said, "The next time that happens, you use whatever force you got to bring the situation under control." It was a Sunday night, convict is standing on the back wall. I cleared the rec room, and he wouldn't fucking leave the wall. I told him, I said, "Catch your dorm." He said, "Fuck you, white boy." I said, "Okay." I hit my pager and I jumped on right as he's starting the end of the dorm, and we went fisticuffs. One of the only fireable offences for civil service is not helping another correction officer when they're in a fight. My captain said he hit the door of the rec room and didn't see me. All the people with radios are coming. Then, he knew sugar turned to shit, it was a bad show. Came down there and he pulled me off. I'm in this big fight in front of hundreds of inmates. The correctional officer on the desk is like, "Fuck that. Ain't getting involved."
Why am I telling you this? They sent me home that night, I thought I was getting fired. Burl Cain brought me in his office the next day and he said, "Son, I'm going to send you somewhere where you can fight every night." The work in the cell block, which was the worst one at DCI and the two admin seg tiers. The rule was if you don't want to work back there anymore, you say, "I can't handle it because it's bad shit." It's like a mini Camp J, but not nearly as bad.
Jim: True.
Woody: But you're fighting every night and you get gassed.
Jim: Oh, my God.
Woody: Gassed, y'all mean, you walk down the tier and they have screens, not cell bars. They have screens. They'll will save up their shit and their piss and throw it on you. And then, they know you they're going to catch that ass whipping. Even if they act bad in that cell there, you've got to extract them and take them out and put them in Admin Seg until they hear them, whether they're going to fight, they flood, toilet flooded. Then, they'll cover themselves with shit and piss. So, you got to put your hands on and stuff like that.
Now Camp J, holy shit, if these people are killing themselves, yeah, I worked many suicides on the cell blocks, but none of them are easy. In Camp J, they're hanging themselves, or however they're doing, slitting their wrist once a day, the correctional officers, fuck, you have to be a special breed to work back there.
Jim: Yeah, you really did. Just to give y'all-- paint a little picture of the size of Camp J and things like that, it was four tiers.
Woody: Tiers being long rows of cells, y'all.
Jim: They were 13 cells on each side of these four tiers. At its peak, Camp J had as many as 400 prisoners. Now, you may do the math and say, "Well, wait a minute, that doesn't add up if you have one person in a cell." Well, there was a time they were stacking two in there, and it's because they had so many people acting out at Angola, and they had to send them somewhere. And Camp J was the answer. And so, hey, guess what? You just got a roommate in your five-foot-wide cell.
Woody: And you pray your roommate isn't mad. Not mad, like angry mad, but like crazy mad. Batshit. Y'all, Camp J, the names of the cell blocks are like Alligator, Barracuda, Gar, and Shark. Whereas, like Camp D is Falcon and Wet Bird [crosstalk] and stuff like that.
Jim: Yeah, they had units.
Woody: The main prison compound, the dormitories are named after trees, but Camp J was the worst of the worst. You told me this earlier, and I believe this wholeheartedly. Okay, I guarantee you to call in, and it's civil service, so you got so many days calling in sick and all that. They call in on Camp J, they're like, "Fuck, I ain't going in today." But guess what? Somebody else had to cover that shift, and they're correctional officers, they say, "Hey, you got to go to Camp J," they're like, "Fuck that, I quit." Y'all, what I am telling you about the correction officers, some of them just would rather quit than go work at Camp J. I'm going to read you from an article, so just bear with me. It's called Challenges at Camp J.
Camp J became infamous among officers and offenders alike, a spot where conditions were harsh and where severe mental health issues became commonplace. In a letter, Warden Darrel Vannoy wrote to LeBlanc- y'all, that would be Secretary LeBlanc, who's over the Department of Corrections, -in July of 2017, advocating for its closure. Vannoy explained that within one year, 85 correctional officers assigned to Camp J have resigned, retired, or terminated. The challenges staff encounter at Camp J are more complex than other areas of the institution," Vannoy writing the letter, "attained by the advocate in a public records request." "Numerous times upon an officer's knowledge that they will be signed to Camp J or loan to Camp J for work detail, they will leave work sick, walk off the job, or report to human resources to resign. Completed in 1976, Camp J has four cell blocks, each with eight tiers made up of 13 single-man cells. It was used to discipline offenders following grave infractions of prisons rules, such as fighting with a weapon or for behavioral issues, officials have said, with the opportunity for offenders to earn the way out after meeting certain conditions."
Vannoy wrote, "That the locks for the cells in Camp J had recently begun malfunctioning, sometimes opening on their own, and offenders had figured out ways to jam the cell doors. Often with toothpaste caps or buttons, circumventing security checks by making unlocked cells appear closed. Weapons use had been on the rise along with security breaches," Vannoy wrote, "with 44 weapons found at Camp J in the first seven months of July 2017."
Secretary Department of Corrections LeBlanc said he felt especially glad they closed the facility knowing of its compromised security after hearing about the inmate fight that killed seven in a South Carolina prison. "I think we made the right decision. It was a public safety issue. A staff safety issue and an offender safety issue," LeBlanc said. Advocates say Camp J rates of suicides and attempts have become a major issue in the desolate cells. Two suicides occurred on the same day in April of 2016 at Camp J. LeBlanc acknowledged there had been some suicides at Camp J, but said they unfortunately happened everywhere in the prison complex and were not the driving force Camp J's closure.
I may have got my shit wrong, but I heard from somewhere, probably somebody who worked there, that they were averaging one a day at some point.
Jim: Oh, I'm sure they were.
Woody: That shit never gets advertised, ever. Unless as I did in Baton Rouge, I did a story on that people at random the first day at Angola, he hung himself.
Jim: Yeah. One of the key things that was said in that article just now was 44 weapons. Me and Woody [crosstalk] in a couple of months.
Woody: But they're in their cells. It's not like they're out in the yard and hanging and going to work in the kitchen. Shit, they get they got 44 weapons in a couple of months.
Jim: Woody and I say it all the time, that prisoners, they have a lot of ingenuity.
Woody: Absolutely.
Jim: All they have 24 hours a day is to think about, "How the heck can we get weapons? How can we do this?" And they get them in there. You go out to a yard anywhere in Angola and you're going to find shanks buried in the ground. That's where they put them.
Woody: In cells, anywhere else. I mean, it could be anything from a melted state-issued toothbrush. It didn't take a lot to make a weapon, y'all. at Camp J, at its peak, housed more than 400 prisoners being disciplined in solitary cells for more than 23 hours a day.
Jim: Yeah. Imagine that you get out, and that's if you got out, I submit to you that Kiana said that a lot of times they wouldn't let you out.
Woody: Yeah, they never get out.
Jim: "Oh, we forgot you need to see the sunshine, you need your vitamin D." We're not saying some of those people that well deserved being in solitary, maybe they killed somebody in there or whatever, but very harsh, harsh environment. Now, interesting little sidebar fact for you. So, Harry Connick, Jr., who is a-- man, you get to New Orleans, you know now who Harry Connick Jr. is.
Woody: His daddy was a district attorney forever--[crosstalk]
Jim: And he's an amazing actor and singer.
Woody: And singer, right.
Jim: And Harry Connick, Jr., was studying for a movie, and I guess he was going to be a prisoner or something in that movie. He contacted Angola and he said, "Look, I want to stay like three nights in Camp J, and I want to really give him this role and know what it's like to be in solitary confinement." Angola was like, "Okay." They let him go, and he goes into Camp J. Y'all, he didn't make it one night.
Woody: Not one night.
Jim: Harry Connick, Jr., said, "Let me the hell out of here. I think I got it." [laughs]
Woody: "I got a taste of what that's about."
Jim: Yeah. I mean, not one night in Angola's Camp J. So, that tells you about it. Angola's Camp J was looked at as a punishment camp, as we explained earlier. It is where you go when you break law in prison.
Woody: Serious laws.
Jim: Serious laws. You're not permitted to have even the basic of things. You don't get toiletries. They give you toilet paper while you're in there, but you can't go buy at a--
Woody: You're not getting any canteen--
Jim: Yeah, at the canteen--
Woody: You don't have any of those privileges. And canteen is a privilege.
Jim: That's right. The food. Let's talk about the food for a second. You got a loaf when you went into Camp J. Y'all might be saying, "What the hell is a loaf?" Loaf is basically where they make everything for the general population that night. They might have peas, and they might have of sloppy joe, and they got a five-course meal. A loaf is at the end of the night when they take all of that and they dump it in the same trough, and they mix it up like you would your dog. They mix it all up. They make a loaf, almost like a meatloaf out of it and they just give it to you.
Woody: Give it to you. The deal is, the rules are you have to feed them. They have dietitians who work in the prison, y'all. Each convict has to have a correct amount of caloric intake and a balanced meal or whatever. But I submit to you, I don't want my shit blended up. Let's say it was mashed potatoes, hamburger steak, carrots, and a piece of cornbread and a piece of pineapple turnover pie. You just mix it all up and they serve it to you in one loaf.
Jim: In addition to that, another harsh living condition there was, they had no AC or heat or anything like that.
Woody: [crosstalk] -screens on the windows.
Jim: I mean, here in South Louisiana, it is 100 degrees in the sunshine. In a cell with no ventilation, you're talking about it being probably 130 in there during the day.
Woody: Stunk.
Jim: Stunk to high heaven. They would actually-- look, this was common, you'd strip naked and you would lay on the concrete because that was the coolest part of the cell, and that's how you would sleep.
Woody: Right. Imagine that. But here's a problem. For many, many, many years, they didn't even have insect screens on the windows. Now, you are surrounded on the Mississippi River by three sides and swamp and all these big open agriculture fields. The mosquitoes, I mean, I know how they are in South Louisiana anyway, but mosquitoes in Angola like sabertooth--[crosstalk]
Jim: Oh, yeah, they're eating that sugarcane--[crosstalk]
Woody: They like rattling the window--[crosstalk]
Jim: Terminator mosquitoes.
Woody: They come in, and look, you can't stop them. To me, that would make my ass go crazy.
Jim: Another inmate has told a story that they had a drain that was at the end of the tier and you would wash out the cells as people would, I guess, get put back in the general population.
Woody: Or when they gas officers and stuff, you still--[crosstalk]
Jim: Yeah, you get spray down.
Woody: You've got to get the shit and the piss out.
Jim: Oh, so gross.
Woody: I know when I used to run cell blocks and they got that hour out, they would clean their own cell, most of it, unless mental illness, a lot of them just didn't give a shit, but most of them don't want to be in any more stink than they have to be.
Jim: Right. As they would have these issues, they would spray down the cells and there was a drain at the end of the tier. The rats, y'all, the rats, and I'm not talking mice, I'm talking squirrels. [chuckles]
Woody: Killer rats.
Jim: They would come through the drains. From underneath, so obviously these drains have been eaten away underneath the ground by these rats and they fit through the whole of those drains, and they actually come up from the freaking ground, come out of the drain. And this was pretty much every night. The prisoners would have to throw things at them to keep them from coming in the cell. They'd sit there and stare at the prisoners, not unlike the Red Hat cell block, and they'd be like, "Food and cotton. I see you have some clothes on maybe at that moment."
Woody: "I'm about to get me some."
Jim: Yeah, because they're hungry too. Rat got to eat too, and you ate all the loaf.
Woody: Imagine the ones that fell asleep and did get eaten.
Jim: Just a horrible situation, staring at them.
Woody: As the years went on-- again we're going to tell y'all many, many stories. We should probably have our own Camp J episodes or companion episodes, but we're going to tell you many, many stories about it. It went down, opened in the early 70s and it just went to shit. They didn't care. They pretty much lost souls locked back there and I would think most of them didn't get out.
Jim: They even had, Woody, a death row inmate at one point that was placed in Camp J. And his name was Abdullah Hakim El-Mumit. He sued the prison. Let me tell you why he sued them. He sued the prison and said, "I want to be moved back to death row."
Woody: Holy shit.
Jim: Because Camp J was so bad, he's like, "Screw that, I'm on death row. I need to be in death row." [laughs]
Woody: Right. "Give me my death row privileges."
Jim: I mean, it tells you how bad this was, y'all. You're suing to get to death row? Oof.
Woody: Yeah. Well, a lot of them escaped by killing themselves and just the most unimaginable conditions. And no air-- Well, most of them don't have air conditioners, but not even fans, locked up 23 and 1. No canteen, no privileges, no church, no education or schools. All those things we talk about in the Bloody Angola Live, you've got to give prisoners hope. Ones that grab a hold of the hope, like the programs and stuff like that, it helps to control them from acting out. They're like, "Ah, I don't really want to lose these privileges." They don't have any fucking privileges in Camp. J.
Jim: No privileges. There's story after story of just these horrid things that went on. I've heard a story that there was a stairwell, and that stairwell did not have cameras like the rest of Camp J had. Prisoners, whether it was deserved or not, I don't know, but prisoners will be moved to this stairwell and just get shit beat out of them by somebody.
Woody: Where it can't be seen, yeah.
Jim: Yeah, where it can't be seen. So, it was a really bad place. It's important to remember how CCR in general, whether it was the Red Hat or whether it was Camp J, why those got started in Angola.
Woody: Closed cell restriction, y'all.
Jim: Yeah, Closed cell restriction. Those got started because of an escape back in 1933 that we told you about. That was in response to that because before that, Angola was just open camps. They actually have one little picture of jail cell at a city hall. They have one little jail cell in each camp. That jail cell was where the guy that basically was bad went. But after that escape, they're like, "We need to build a whole freaking facility." They built the Red Hat. Of course, the Red Hat, notorious and got closed, and made way for Camp J.
Woody: You've got to remember again that the Department of Corrections job is not to punish inmates for their crimes on the outside. Their job is to house the inmates while they're serving their term and to protect them from other inmates or protect you, John Q. Public, from these convicts escaping. Camp J, I think they probably started with good intentions, but it ended up being a hell hole nightmare.
Jim: Y'all, Camp J was four buildings. One was actually an open dormitory, and that open dormitory was not for the prisoners of Camp J. That was for the trustees. They had trustees just for Camp J. And they would be the ones a lot of times that were cleaning feces and spraying the--
Woody: Fuck, I wouldn't do it.
Jim: I wouldn't want to be a trustee for Camp J. Good Lord.
Woody: Yeah. I guess it's better than being in the fields swinging a hoe. Let me talk about this, Jim, real quick. I think you have a clip on it. Matter of fact, I know you do. I wanted to talk about even how other inmates think of Camp J. Now, you can say this interview was coerced, whatever, but it is by two of Angola's most famous inmates, Wilbert Rideau, who was the editor of The Angolite, and-- Wilbert is a black male. Billy Sinclair, who you heard us talk about in the Brent Miller episodes. At that time, Billy Sinclair was on death row when Brent Miller was brutally murdered. He talked about hearing the inmates being tortured and all that stuff during the Brent Miller investigation.
Years later-- it's not that many years later, when there became public scrutiny in like PBS and different news channels want to look into this, all this outcry and these horrible stories they're hearing about Camp J, now CNN, Fox News and social media and all that, what they put out for is pretty much what they put out. They have Rideau and Sinclair in freshly pressed blue LSP shirts and Billy Sinclair's hair is combed neatly and both of them are very articulate, speak very well, but they do this interview. Play it for you now, and then we'll talk about it.
[video clip starts playing]
Male Speaker:Members of the Louisiana Coalition on Jail say they have statements from former Camp J inmates attesting to the brutality within the facility. However, two inmates we questioned, Wilbert Rideau and Billy Sinclair, who are award-winning editors of the prison news magazine, have a different perspective on the nature of the violence at Camp J.
Wilbert Rideau:Look, prison is a very physical and criminal world. I'm not just talking about Angola, San Quentin, Attica, anywhere, that is prison. You're going to find violence, you're going to find force, and you're going to find criminality in it. I mean, that is the way of the world. That's the way it is.
Billy Sinclair:The reign of terror is definitely an overexaggeration. It's a play on words to capture media attention. The reign of terror would be the situation that you would have if you did not have Camp J. Camp J is necessary to prevent having a reign of terror.
Wilbert Rideau:The way I look at Camp J is like this. You've got all these prisoners who go into prison. When you walk through that gate, you've got a choice. You can end up living in population like everybody else. We live in population. You've got thousands of people living together. On the other hand, you can end up in a cell. Now, you've got thousands of people who've never seen Camp J. They've never been in it. Those who are in it, they had a choice. Apparently, they made the wrong choice. I'm sure they're a victim of circumstances every now and then, because you'd have that in any system. No system is 100% correct.
Billy Sinclair:What Camp J does, and places like Camp J, is it permits the penal administrators to remove that segment of prison population which wants wholesale narcotic distribution, which wants wholesale protection rackets, which wants wholesale homosexual slavery. You can take when you have a place like Camp J and you can isolate that segment of the prison population from the rest of the whole population who want to go about just like anyone else in the free community, who want to go about doing their time as peacefully and law abiding as they can.
Primary focus now is being dealt with Camp J and the alleged brutality that's being inflicted on the DMH at Camp J. We sort of seem to be confusing our priorities. The guys who got to Camp J and those people who are there, no one is focused upon why they're there. What about that 18-year-old kid that was raped, that was brutalized and was maimed both psychologically and physically by the guy in Camp J? What happened to him? He's lost in a shuffle and if the guy at Camp J because he throws a bowl of urine on a free man, gets rapped upside the head for doing it, that becomes brutality. But what about the homosexual rape that he inflicted upon some 18-year-old kid and the damage that was done to him?
That gets lost in a shuffle. We seem to be confused in our priorities. I'm not saying it because somebody raped an individual, you're probably taking with them with ball bats.
Male Speaker:Well, who's confused? Do you think these groups-
Billy Sinclair:The groups are.
Male Speaker:-that are filing suits?
Billy Sinclair:[unintelligible [00:47:15] group has not ever alleged or made any kind of statement or charges about the brutality of prisoners protecting [unintelligible 00:47:28]. Even now when you have the jail rapes or when you have the gangrapes or when you have the narcotic traffic, the whole bit, the reform groups are not interested in it. They're not interested in what prisoners are doing to themselves and ways of stopping it. The only thing that penal administrators can do is to try to stop it and if they have to, stop it physically because their job is to maintain control. Now, when they go too far and maintain its control, then the reform groups want to jump up and say that they're imposing a reign of terror.
[video clip concludes]
Woody: You just heard it from two guys, were they swayed maybe by the powers that be to do this? Maybe. But the deal is, the truth of the matter is I guarantee you they slept a little bit easier at night knowing that these ones are back in Camp J for the gang rape of the 18-year-old and all that, that even the convicts that were doing their time, not letting their time do them, they didn't want these fuckers around. They were security risk also to them and made hard time harder on them.
Jim: That's right. You say it all the time. People do their time and they let the time do them. There's a difference between convicts and-
Woody: Inmates.
Jim: -inmates.
Woody: And that being, y'all, an inmate's your fresh fish, the young guys that come in always getting in fights and dealing with drugs and doing the different things. Convicts, I mean, you know you're going to die in Angola. The hope one day that you can get a better trustee position and more privileges and stuff like that, those are convicts. They don't want people to break the rules. They don't want to draw attention and have any of their small privileges taken away.
Jim: No, they don't. I think it's important to, you've heard Woody use some terms on here, like working cell block. I wanted to define some of the different terms that you may have heard and you're like, "What's that?" Extended lockdown, for example, y'all, that's a single-person cell. Camp J will be considered extended lockdown. A working cell block is basically where the inmates or the convicts leave every day, they go out into the fields, and they work.
Woody: Usually, they have two to a cell there, but they still have to commit such a violent crime or such an outrageous crime. Same crimes that you would do to get sent to Camp J. But the working cell blocks, they would do that 90 days without a writeup, but they would send them out into the fields every day. Not for long, y'all, because by the time you fed them up for breakfast and they came and marched them out in the field, it was lunchtime. And then, they brought them back. They got out to work. And for them, that's a good deal. Camp J, you didn't have a job.
Jim: So, it was segregated but it was a working cell block. And then, you had other maximum security and that's segregated for more administrative purposes.
Woody: If you just get in a fistfight with Joe Blow and you get arrested or even while you're waiting for these court dates I'm talking about while y'all are inside the prison. When you're waiting for your court date, if you get swung, you go to admin seg first, administrative segregation. You're handcuffed, you're put in a cell until you have your trial outcome. When you have a trial outcome, they'll say, "Hmm, send them to Camp J," or, "Send them to a working cell block." Now, if you go to working cell block and you fuck up again, you rape somebody or you gas a guard or whatever, you going to Camp J.
Jim: That's right. And then, you also have protective custody. And that would be for example, we'll use Denny Perkins. That's segregated housing for offenders determined to need special protection.
Woody: Whether you're chomo like Denny--
Jim: You're a church leader that molested kids.
Woody: Or you're a cop that came into prison or whatever.
Jim: Then, you have death row. Of course, that's the highest security single-person cells. So you get to death row, definitely you're not going to have two inmates in the same cell on death row. That is the highest, most secure part of prison. That's where all your folks sentenced to death are going.
Woody: [crosstalk] -capital punishment, but even the guy, I can't remember his long ass name that you said, that even he got sent to Camp J from death row. I guess he was doing whatever, gassing guards or COs or whatever, he was like, "Fuck that, send me back to death row."
Jim: Yeah. [laughs] He didn't like Camp J too much. The last one is treatment segregation. That's where basically, for some medical reason, you're segregated. So maybe--
Woody: It can be suicide watch or anything like that.
Jim: In 2018, Camp J ceased to exist. Primarily, the letter that Woody read you a little earlier by the warden, Vannoy, that started that process. Definitely, the state looked at that, this is coming from the warden of the prison, and they said, "Wow, maybe we have a problem." And then, you've got people like Kiana who tell stories of inmates busting through walls like the Kool Aid Man, and raping other people, and that's real shit, y'all. He ain't making that up. They were busting through the walls.
Woody: Every night you go to sleep, you have to worry about somebody breaking through the wall.
Jim: Yeah. So, obviously, the place--
Woody: Or the rats.
Jim: Or the rats. So, just from a physical standpoint of the cell block itself, they had a problem. The second issue was it was completely overhoused. It was three times the population than it should have had in there, and that was because a lot of people were acting up, and they didn't know what to do with them. Eventually, they ran out of beds, and they were just, "Hey, if you shanked a guy, we don't have anywhere to put you. You're going to have to stay here in G-pop." And that caused a problem.
Woody: Good luck.
Jim: Yeah, good luck. From a physical standpoint, definitely, if not a closure, it needed to be remodeled, to say the least. But even on top of that, the conditions from a humane standpoint were a problem.
Woody: I'm like, "Mm, if you gas me, fuck you," but I don't think anybody should have had to live like that.
Jim: That's right. It did close in 2018, and you may wonder, "Well, what do you do? Where do you send these people?" Well, they didn't do away with segregation in prison, obviously. You have to have an answer to those acting out. So, they went to more of a CCR-type thing, where it's just closed cell restricted, but you still have access to things like basic toiletries and newspapers and stuff like that. Before that, if you were in Camp J, you had no communication whatsoever. They also ensure nowadays that you do get that hour a day, and you're not exercising it at the park, y'all. It's a little--[crosstalk]
Woody: Walking around a dog cage.
Jim: Little dog cage, but I mean, it's something. Keep you from going absolutely insane.
Woody: Well, I suspect some convicts are more successful to be going insane regardless, but either way, that's our first--
Jim: Some are already insane-- [crosstalk]
Woody: That's our first story on Camp J. The ones in the future, we're going to bring out some murder stories, some attempted escape stories. Anything you can imagine, and we'll bring it from the people who were there. But this, we want to introduce y'all to Camp J. You heard us talk about it a lot, and it is what it is. It's basically hell on earth, or what it was.
Jim: That's right. And we just did a live this weekend.
Woody: Two lives.
Jim: A weekend of lives. Just want to thank everybody who came out. We told the story of the just horrific prison murder of Captain David Knapps and the hostage taking of Sergeant Reddia Walker and Lieutenant Chaney. And it was fire--[crosstalk]
Woody: Very, very important story. We had fans come in from Dallas, from Tennessee, from Houston, or whatever, just to see us and we were blessed to have them. I think we did the story justice, and it was a great success. Thank you again, Southeastern and Krystal Hardison.
Jim: Oh, she's awesome. One thing we are going to do is we were videoing that particular live, and we are going to put it on for some Patreon members. If you're a Tie Down tier or above, you will get access to the actual video. If you couldn't make it, we're going to upload it as soon as we get it. It may be a week or two before we get it, but as soon as we get it, we're going to upload it to Patreon. If you're Tie Down team or above, and you couldn't make live, that's okay. You still get a chance to watch it. If you're not a Patreon member, you can join and take part of it.
Woody: We want to thank our Patreon members. You rock and help make the show go. And we're doing three [crosstalk] now.
Jim: Tell me about it.
Woody: We appreciate and love each and every one of y'all. Thank you so much. Continue to like and share and leave us a review if you're so inclined, and just can't thank you enough.
Jim: Look, one more thing, speaking of lives, there's Krewe Bash coming up on the Real Life Real Crime side of things.
Woody: That's right. That's February 3rd and 4th. 3rd is a VIP event. You can go to eventbrite.com and get your tickets. Also, Saturday night, split up, y'all, if you just want to go Friday night, there's a price for that. If you want to go Friday and Saturday night, that's the VIP package. You just want to go to Saturday night, that's another ticket for that. But go get them because they're not going to be there forever. We're only a couple of weeks away and LOPA, Louisiana Oregon Procurement Agency, which Jim Chapman and Local Leaders podcast are one of the many donors that have donated to our raffle. We have $50,000 in prizes or something like that. [crosstalk] $15 for one ticket, $100 for a book of 10. Get it. We're trying to raise money like we do every year for LOPA. So, appreciate y'all go check that out. Anywhere on social media, etc.
Jim: Yes. Beautiful organization.
Woody: Yeah. Great people. Hey, be a hero, Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency. Be an organ donor.
Jim: I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim and Woody:Peace.
Jim: Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe DeRouen in Studio 433 with vocals by Thomas Cain. Created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Woody Overton.
[Bloody Angola theme playing]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 19 Jan 2023 - 29 - Martin Luther King Jr. | Historic Prisoners with Jim Sally Port
In this Bloody Angola Podcast "Historic Prisoners with Jim" Sally Port. Jim Chapman discusses the imprisonment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of over 29 Times and performs his rendition of the historical landmark letter entitled "A letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Dr. King on this Martin Luther King day 2023
#drmartinlutherkingday
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyMon, 16 Jan 2023 - 28 - Last Meals of Death Row Inmates
The last meals of convicts, what would you choose if you were facing execution?
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman bring you another episode of Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman where the topic is some of the most infamous of those executed and what they choose to eat just before they ride the lightning or get the needle!
#deathrow #podcast #applepodcast #spotify #lastmeals #podcasts
Bloody Angola is produced by Envision Podcast Studios
Website
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman (LAST MEALS)
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The complete story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Jim: I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: And last meals, Woody Overton, are on our mind today.
Woody: I've always just been totally fascinated by the condemned and what they ask for their last meals.
Jim: That's a big decision. I mean, people don't really think about it, but this is the last meal you'll ever eat and I'm sure these death row inmates, like all of us-- people ask y'all the time, "What is your favorite food?" And sometimes people can't decide on that.
Woody: I know Angola, back in my time, during corrections, they actually had an inmate that all he did was prepare the last meals for the condemned.
Jim: Yeah. And I'm sure considered it like quite an honor.
Woody: I think they even did a cookbook of it. I'm going to have to look that up. We have to do an episode on that cookbook.
Jim: We might have to do a cookbook.
[laughter]
Jim: The Bloody Angola-- look, and I guarantee you some people going to message us down and say, "I'm a buyer, I want a cookbook."
Woody: We told y'all it would always be different. Today, we're not going to talk about Angola, we're going to talk about some really fascinating last meals from across the country.
Jim: Yeah. And last meals of death row inmates, they've been around a long time. Actually, they date back to the 20s in the United States, but in the UK, Europe, they were prevalent even in the 1800s.
Woody: Yeah, but they were killing a lot more people back then.
Jim: [laughs]
Woody: "Off with your head," and shit.
Jim: Yeah. I don't know how many people actually got to this side.
Woody: I think the [crosstalk] the public executions in England [unintelligible [00:03:20] were used until the early 20th century.
Jim: Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. And last meals of any sort-- and we're going to stick to the United States here, especially in the United States, when they were first invented or became in vogue or whatever, they were looked at as an act of mercy on the prisoners, kind of humanize them in the eyes of the general public.
Woody: "We'll feed you before we kill you."
Jim: Yeah. "He likes pizza and I like pizza. We got something in common," that kind of thing, I'm sure. It has become in vogue since the 20s. Usually, there's a certain time period in which these inmates have, it's not necessarily their last meal, it might be two days earlier that they get that special meal.
Woody: Yeah. In Louisiana, it is on the day of execution, but it varies by state to state.
Jim: Is every inmate entitled to a last meal?
Woody: No, they're not. Like I said, it varies state to state, including some states, you don't get your request for a last meal.
Jim: No last meal at all. You just eat whatever they got.
Woody: Texas was the first state to introduce last meals to death throw inmates in 1924. It was quickly shared among other states. And after death row inmates, Lawrence R. Brewer's extravagant large and expensive last meal that he did not eat. Texas said, "We're not doing this shit anymore," but this dude didn't even eat, like, his last FU to the state of Texas. "You spent that money on me, and I'm not even going to eat it."
Jim: In Arizona, state procedures on executions state that an inmate can request the last meal by completing a form 14 days before their execution. So, they can't wait till the last minute. They got to give them at least two weeks' notice just like when you're hired and fired from a job or whatever.
Woody: I can see that wouldn't be unreasonable to think that if you've been on death row probably for 20 years, you probably already know what you want probably way ahead of time. We're the state, right? We got red tape. Give us a form to sign.
Jim: That's right. Florida, just another reason for me to like Florida, other than the sunshine and the sand and all that sort of thing, Florida believes in local, and so when you have a last meal, it's got to be local.
Woody: And it's a $40 budget. Hey, it could be local, but you better not order a grass fed.
Jim: If you order a T-bone, you ain't getting a potato.
Woody: Yeah. $40.
Jim: So, that's interesting. Now in Louisiana, right here at home, the warden will join you.
Woody: Yes. Burl Kane was very instrumental in that, and I think he tried to show compassions to the inmates and that the state is really not their enemy. We're going to sit down. Actually, Warden Kane would eat the meals with him. Whatever they're eating, he would sit down and break bread with them right before he killed him.
[laughter]
Jim: Seems kind of bizarre, doesn't it? I'll tell you what, it's a show of respect, I think, more than anything else. Warden Kane actually started that program at Angola, and it continues today.
Woody: Remember, the Department of Corrections' job is not to punish the inmates, don't beat them every day for the murders they committed or whatever. You're simply to house them and stop them from escaping and hurting other people. So, even though you're going to kill them in a couple of hours, you can sit down and with their family members, usually, and break bread with them.
Jim: Yeah, right. If you thought $40 was wow, how can I make that stretch? I know what y'all are doing right now. You're sitting there and you're thinking, "For $40, could I get my favorite last meal?" Well, guess what? Be glad you don't live in Oklahoma, if you're not an Oklahoma listener right now, because in Oklahoma, you only get $25.
Woody: They say that a reasonable effort shall be made to accommodate the request, but the budget shall not be exceeded. [crosstalk]
Jim: You can't get a Happy Meal for $25.
Woody: Right. But in Maryland, they don't even offer a final meal selection. They say the death row inmate will eat the same as any other inmate in the prison.
Jim: That's right. States that maybe don't have the amount, I think of Vermont right off the top of my head, don't have the amount of executions. They'll let you go a little bit more crazy. They'll give you more personal choices of meal and things like that. That's just because their budget, it allows for that. They don't put a whole lot of people to death. Maybe they're just a small state, like a Vermont.
Woody: Right. Well, it's typically assumed that inmates sentenced to death can ask for anything they want for the last meal. It does, like we told y'all vary from state to state. Some states have budgets, and some have rules on locations of where the meals can come from, like Florida being local but some states don't allow last meals at all.
Jim: Yeah. Not only that, this is going to surprise y'all, no state allows cigarettes.
Woody: That's crazy. Back in the day, cigarettes were everything in the prison. According to the Department of Corrections, no states allow cigarettes. Under an order by former Texas Governor George W. Bush, who would become the president later on, cigarettes were banned for health reasons.
[laughter]
[crosstalk]
Woody: We won't let you have that last cigarette before we let you ride Ol' Sparky, right?
Jim: That's actually pretty good. Now, in 1997, there was an inmate by the name of Larry Wayne White. He requested a meal of liver fried onions, tomatoes, cottage cheese, and a cigarette. He got everything but his final smoke. How about that? I don't know if I'm picking liver as my last meal number one.
Woody: [crosstalk] -cottage cheese, livers, fried onions, maybe. Yeah, I probably like to have that cigarette but he didn't get it.
Jim: Now, you may wonder, well, they can't smoke, but can they drink? Actually, alcohol is not allowed.
Woody: But it's frequently requested. In the earlier years, alcohol was allowed, and it sometimes still is, but it depends on who it is and where it's being requested.
Jim: Now, they've even had inmates, and I could see some out there doing it. They have actually requested Dom Pérignon.
Woody: Dom Pérignon.
Jim: One death row inmate actually requested but they denied him.
Woody: Denied.
Jim: [crosstalk]
Woody: He didn’t even get a pink champagne either.
Jim: MD 20/20, baby. [chuckles]
Woody: But unorthodox or unavailable requests are replaced with similar substitutes, and it was not unusual for an inmate's final choices to reveal something about them.
Jim: That's what I find so interesting about this, and we're going to get into specific inmates and what they requested, and it does. It kind of reveals something about the inmate that you may pick up on by what they request for the last meal. Now, some decline a last meal in order to basically demonstrate contempt for the prison authorities. "I'm not going to give you the pleasure of giving me a last meal," or they're just so dadgum scared of going to the electric chair or getting a dose of the good ol' shot that they are unable to eat. Stomach's just in knots. They're not hungry. They're about to get the chair or get the needle, one of the two.
Woody: They might have a little upset tummy from the nervousness, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: But some inmates ordered things they had never tried before out of curiosity. Of course, some ordered their favorite foods to remind them of happier times. [unintelligible [00:11:43] thing, other kids had McDonald's in the neighborhood--
Jim: Ice cream. Oh, yeah.
Woody: [crosstalk] -Mama's soggy burger-- [crosstalk] [laughs]
Jim: [unintelligible [00:11:52] dough. Dough and a piece of meat.
Woody: Yeah, but [crosstalk] and later on in years of life, he'd love to have had that soggy burger, right?
Jim: Yeah, that's right.
Woody: Or piece of gourmet cheese.
Jim: Maybe you had a memory, you were at a circus or something and you wanted cotton candy as your last meal because you remember eating that when you were a kid at the circus. Who knows?
Woody: Yeah. But there are still 27 states that continue to authorize capital punishment. Well, y'all, that being the death penalty. The top 10 last meal requests in these 27 states, now, I don't know who's keeping these stats, y'all, but somebody did it. One of them is KFC.
Jim: Number one. The number one.
Woody: Number one is KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Jim: That don't surprise me.
Woody: Yeah.
Jim: Woody Overton told me his favorite meal at Angola was the fried chicken.
Woody: I like that better than I like KFC.
[chuckles]
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Give me some Popeye's or something.
Jim: Yeah, man, I'm telling you.
Woody: KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know what? That may have been all the parents could afford to feed them when they were a kid. The Colonel, right?
Jim: That’s right.
Woody: -[crosstalk] -like bucket.
Jim: That's right. And pie is number two. Don't surprise me. It doesn't specify whether it's pumpkin or whatever, but--
Woody: Blueberry.
Jim: Blueberry, pecan.
Woody: Rhubarb if you're a Yankee.
Jim: Yeah.
[laughter]
Woody: Another one, y'all, is ice cream.
Jim: That's number three on the list.
Woody: I mean, I guess takes you back to your kid days or whatever. I'm not really a sweet tooth here, but the next one--
Jim: That don't surprise me. Number four, a steak. Of course.
Woody: I'd be down with a steak.
Jim: Yeah. Number five, pizza.
Woody: Who doesn't like pizza? Right?
Jim: That's right.
Woody: They could be the 99 cent Tony's Frozen Pizza my 12-year-old still likes to eat or--
Jim: Number six.
Woody: Boy, I was going to say, most pizzas nowadays will bust a $40 limit.
Jim: Oh, yeah, you're right.
Woody: But how about this one? A lobster.
Jim: That's number six on the list. That would be my wife's last meal choice. There's no doubt about it. Wendy loves her some lobster--[crosstalk]
Woody: And how about this one? I guess you've never had steak. A hamburger.
Jim: Yeah, I [unintelligible [00:14:04]. I'd go with the steak personally but--
Woody: [crosstalk] -give me quarter pound cheese please, before you stab me with that needle.
[laughter]
Jim: Spaghetti, number eight on the list.
Woody: Spaghetti.
Jim: I can see that.
Woody: Unless they bust them out of can, but spaghetti in the list.
Jim: Yeah, Chef Boyardee. I wouldn’t want none of that. It better be homemade.
Woody: Here's one that Jim Chapman would probably choose. Sushi.
Jim: I could go with some sushi. Yes, indeed.
Woody: Take all you want, eat all you take.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: Number 10 on that list is crab potatoes or crab cakes, as we call it down here in Louisiana.
Woody: Is that what it is? Because I was thinking like, potatoes from a crab bowl, but I didn't really get that. But crab cakes, I get it. I mean, you got a lot of people that have crabs, I guess.
Jim: That's right. Can't beat a little crab cake every now and then. Now, we're going to get into some peoples that these are infamous inmates you may or may not have heard of, but their last meals, we knew you'd find this interesting. The first one on our list is a guy by the name of Bruno Hauptmann. You might be saying, "Well, who the hell is that?" Well, you've heard of the next person I'm going to mention, which is Chaz Lindbergh. Of course, that was Charles Lindbergh's son, the 20-month-old who was basically kidnapped for ransom.
Woody: Crime of the Century, that’s what they called it back then.
Jim: The Crime of the Century, that's right. Eventually Bruno Hauptmann, and I'm sure I'm mispronouncing his name, was convicted of that. He died by electric chair.
Woody: Electric chair. Ol' Sparky, but his last meal was celery, olives, chicken, French fries, buttered peas, cherries, and a slice of chocolate cake. Now, the celery, the olives, the chicken could all be put in a Bloody Mary is what I'm thinking.
[chuckles]
Jim: [crosstalk]
Woody: Fries, I like French fries, butter peas and the cherries. Actually, I like all that. I don't really care about the chocolate cake. But he got it and then they fried him. If the French fries weren't fried enough, they fried his ass and they fried them in his belly.
Jim: That's right. The next person we're going to get to is Victor-- Man, these names.
Woody: Feguer.
Jim: Feguer.
Woody: F-E-G-U-E-R.
Jim: He was from the SS or something.
Woody: But he died by hanging.
Jim: Yeah, he did.
Woody: He was convicted for kidnapping and murdering of a doctor because he wanted drugs. Basically, what he did, y'all, that’s when they had the Yellow Pages and doctors made house calls, he called all these doctors saying his wife or whoever needed some medicine and Dr. Bartels ended up going there and Feguer kidnapped and killed him. And then later found his body in a cornfield with a single gunshot went to the head. FEGUER was convicted. His last meal was, I love this one, he requested a single olive with its pit still in it. After his hang, the olive pit was found in one of his pockets. He had told the guards he wanted an olive tree to grow from his body.
Jim: Yeah, he was crazy, obviously. He wants an olive tree to grow out his body. Now, in 1977, gentleman by the name of Gary Gilmore who got death by firing squad. Now, he was convicted of two murders that were committed during armed robberies. His two victims cooperated with him, but he still shot and killed him and demanded execution for his crimes after the reinstatement of the death penalty by the Supreme Court in 1976. He basically fought for the right to be executed after a 10-year moratorium. During that time, he was wanting to die. Probably jail wasn't for him. So, he's ready to go ahead and get the needle or ride the lightning or whatever it was he was going to do, but ended up, he did get executed. His last meal was a baked potato, a couple of cups of coffee, hard-boiled eggs, a hamburger, and three shots of whiskey.
[chuckles]
Woody: Got to have a whiskey.
Jim: Hell, yeah.
Woody: I want to talk about him real quick. So, his execution was by firing squad.
Jim: And this was in 1976, y'all.
Woody: Right. Actually, I think Utah still has an option. You have like three different options, and one of them is firing squad. The firing squad is made up of volunteers and then put them behind a wooden wall with holes cut into it from the sheet through. The volunteers then picked loaded shotguns. Gilmore was strapped to a chair that looked like Gruesome Gertie that Angola used, and his head was covered by a hood. What they don't tell you in this is the volunteers, some of the shotguns had blank rounds in it, so the shotgun still went off, but you never know who actually killed it so that volunteers wouldn't feel guilty later on for killing this asshole.
Jim: That's right. In 1994, and we're to a female here, y'all, Margie Barfield, died by lethal injection.
Woody: Stuck her up.
Jim: She was known as the Caretaker Murderer. She was the only woman in North Carolina to be executed by lethal injection. She was a convicted serial killer who was convicted of one murder but eventually confessed to six in total. She killed her own mother, whom she had poisoned with arsenic. Now, after autopsies, it was confirmed that she had killed others she had been taken care of, including her second husband. She was North Carolina's Black Widow to Louisiana's Black Widow, Lynette Kirby. Look for some episodes maybe on our Bloody Angola Boss Bitches coming up at you in our companion episodes. Her last meal was cheese noodles and Coke.
Woody: I don't even know what that is. I know what Cokes are.
Jim: Cheese noodles is probably like macaroni and cheese or something, I guess. I'm taking a guess.
Woody: Real quick on her, they went back, and when they examined these other people that she confessed to, they tested them for arsenic, and a lot of them had it in there. So, she was slowly poisoning her victims, and I think it's appropriate that she got the needle and got some poison of her own.
Jim: Yeah. Now, 1989, someone I know a good bit about. I've been researching this guy since I was a kid. Ted Bundy.
Woody: I met one of his survivors.
Jim: Died in the electric chair. Now, he kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s, and they suspect possibly earlier. He typically strangled or bludgeoned his victims and even mutilated them after death. He would prolong the events, but return to the corpses at their dump sites, or even take them home in order to gain further sexual gratification. Somewhat not unsimilar to an episode we did on-
Woody: Sean Vincent Gillis.
Jim: Sean Vincent Gillis. That's right. He'd go as far as to sleep with the corpses until putrefaction became unbearable. And what's putrefaction?
Woody: The stink. Stunk.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: He just couldn't take it anymore, the smell.
Woody: Everybody knows pretty much about Bundy, but his last meal, he declined a special meal, but he was given the works. The standard death row meal of a medium rare steak, eggs over easy, hash brown, toast, milk, coffee and juice, butter and jelly. He did not eat a single bite. When asked why, his response was that he didn't choose it, talking about the meal.
Jim: And he was given a chance. Order whatever he wanted.
Woody: Even though he was given a chance and declined.
Jim: That's right. So, an asshole to the end.
Woody: Probably some of the trustee had a good meal that night.
Jim: Yeah, no doubt about it. I ain't wasting his food. [laughs] 1994 [crosstalk] another famous serial killer by the name of John Wayne Gacy, who's also known as the Killer Clown, died of lethal injection. He was a serial killer who raped, tortured, and murdered 33 young men and boys. Of course, he buried them in a crawlspace. Now, his last meal, 12 deep fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC original recipe chicken. He didn't want spicy.
Woody: That’s the number one.
Jim: Only original, and French fries and a pound of strawberries. That sucker put down a meal. He wasn't nervous to go.
Woody: He wasn't worried about-- [crosstalk]
Jim: No. He's like, "I can eat. I ain't worried about it."
Woody: All right, y'all, 1998, Jonathan Nobles from Texas died, they killed him by lethal injection. He was convicted of a double murder/stabbing of two women at their rented home in Austin, Texas, after consuming alcohol and drugs. Ironically, he had been employed by the Central Texas Crime Prevention Association of Round Rock. Y'all, Round Rock is just above Austin. After 12 years, he was executed. But during that time, he claimed that he had converted to Catholicism on death row, eventually becoming a lay preacher. People said he had no remorse and hadn't changed. His last meal, he requested the Holy Eucharist or communion for his last meal because he had found God. He had asked for seconds, but didn't receive them.
Jim: Asked for seconds.
[chuckles]
Jim: "I want two crackers."
[laughter]
Woody: "Two wafers please."
Jim: Yeah. Wow.
Woody: That's crazy.
Jim: Okay, so in 2001, another very infamous inmate, Timothy McVeigh--
Woody: I remember when it happened.
Jim: I do too. Oklahoma City bombing died of lethal injection. Now, he was convicted of domestic terrorism and, of course, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, where he killed 168 people. 680 others were injured, and it destroyed half of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building.
Woody: Y'all, in case you don't remember this, I actually watched this live on TV when they were doing recoveries. In that federal building, they had a daycare where you could bring your children if you worked in the building. So, 19 of his 168 victims were kids. In his last meal, he had two pints of mint chocolate ice cream.
Jim: That's it. Man.
Woody: [crosstalk] -that cools you off when you went to hell.
Jim: Yeah. In 2007, Philip Ray Workman died of lethal injection. He was convicted for a 1982 murder of a police officer following a robbery at a Wendy's restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, and was sentenced to death by lethal injection in 2012. For his last meal, Workman didn't have a last meal request for himself. Instead, he asked for a large vegetarian pizza to be given to a homeless person. They denied that request, and Workman said, "Well, if you ain't going to do that, then I don't want anything. I'm going on a hunger strike."
Jim: He's going to show them.
Woody: Yeah, he's going to show them. "I ain't going to eat nothing." That led to his outside followers to give away vegetarian pizzas to homeless like all over the place in Memphis, Tennessee.
Woody: That’s crazy. Hunger strike before you kill me by lethal injection.
Jim: I don't think they cared.
Woody: In 2009, John Allen Mohammed from Baton Rouge, aka the DC Sniper died by lethal-- he didn't die. They killed him by lethal injection. State-sanctioned killing. Mohammed and a 17-year-old accomplice-- we all know that his stepson, accomplice gunned down 13 people in Washington DC and were responsible for another seven murders across the United States. His last meal was chicken and red sauce. I don't think I've ever had that combination, Jim.
Jim: I don't either.
Woody: And red sauce?
Jim: I don't either.
Woody: I don't get it.
Jim: Interesting, John Allen. In 2011, Lawrence Russell Brewer from Texas, who was a white supremacist, was one of three suspects convicted in the Jasper dragging death of a 49-year-old handicapped man by the name of James Byrd until he was decapitated. They actually drug him until he was decapitated.
Woody: Until ripped his head off.
Jim: Disgusting. Brewer is one of three men charged in one of the most gruesome racial crimes of the post-Civil Rights era. In the early morning in 1998, him and some folks basically picked up a black guy and drug him on a chain around his ankles for three miles until his head was torn off by the jagged edge of the roadside concrete culvert.
Woody: [crosstalk] Like they were going to turn or something, his body went off, and the-- I watched the special. The culvert literally chopped his head off.
Jim: Here is the reason that Texas no longer allows special death row meals to be requested. His last meal, two chicken fried steaks with gravy and onions; one triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; an omelet with cheese, ground beef, tomatoes and onions, bell peppers and jalapenos; fried okra with ketchup and a pound of barbecue meat with a half loaf of white bread; three fajitas with all the fixings; a meat lover's pizza; a pint of Blue Bell ice cream and peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and three root beers. I kid y'all not.
So, Texas said, "Screw that. We're changing the law."
Woody: Right. I think he's the one that ordered that big extravagant meal and was like, "Fuck it, I'm not eating. The joke is on you."
Jim: That's right. So, get this. He ordered all of it and said, "I ain't eating none of it." That was the whole thing.
Woody: He just was trying to spend some of that Texas tax-
Jim: That's right.
Woody: -payer money. Crazy. All right. In 2019, John Bill King was executed by lethal injection. It was John who started this gruesome chain of events. He offered Mr. Byrd a ride home, knowing he was a handicapped man since he had known him all of his life. Little did he know that it would be the last ride he ever took. King had just gotten out of prison where he said he had been repeatedly gangraped by black inmates, and that was his motive. He was convicted in the death of Byrd by beating him with a bat and then dragging him behind the pickup truck. King met Brewer anywhere else but a maximum-security prison where he was there for stealing. His last words were cryptic and more hurtful to BR. Whitmer called the post execution letter insensitive and perhaps even harmful to the family of Byrd. This man," talking about King, "was treated a lot better during his 20 years in prison than Mr. Byrd was," Whitmer said. Lawrence Brewer was executed in 2011 for his part in the killing. And the third man, Shawn Allen Berry, longtime friend of King, was sentenced to life in prison. So, y'all, we're all talking about Jasper, Texas, and the horrible case when they drug Mr. Byrd to his death.
Jim: In 2012, Gary the Butcher died of legal lethal injection, so he got convicted of rape and murder and decapitation of his victims. His last meal, he became quite gluttonous. He requested a pizza, Super Supreme Deep Dish, double portion with mushroom, onions, jalapenos and pepperoni. Another pizza with three different cheeses in it. Ten 8-ounce packs of parmesan cheese, ten 8-ounce packs of ranch dressing, a family-sized bag of Doritos. I mean, this dude went crazy. He got a super-size order of McDonald's fries.
Woody: Eight-ounce jalapenos, nachos, cheese.
Jim: Two 20-ounce Cokes. Yeah, he went--
Woody: [crosstalk] -ounces of sliced jalapenos, two large strawberry shakes, two 20-ounce Cherry Cokes, one super-size McDonald's fries.
Jim: He would not--
Woody: Hey, I do like my McDonald's fries. With extra ketchup of mayonnaise and two pints of strawberry ice cream. His calories for that feast were 28,974. He ate one half of the ranch dressing and one half of Parmesan cheese.
Jim: There you go.
Woody: All right.
Jim: 2018, Edmund Zagorski died by electric chair. Zagorski requested the electric chair over death row. He was convicted for the murders of two men during a drug deal in 1983. He lured men into a wooded area under the pretense of selling them 100 pounds of weed before shooting them and slitting their throats.
Woody: This guy had a really refined-- what do you call that, a taste bud or a really refined palate.
Jim: Yeah, he really did. His last meal was a jar of pickled pig feet and a pickled pigtail.
Woody: [laughs]
Jim: Thomas Grasso, in 1995, was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma. Now, his last meal was two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, a double cheeseburger from Burger King, a half dozen barbecue spare ribs, two strawberry milkshakes, a half pumpkin pie with whipped cream with diced strawberries and a 16-ounce can of a spaghetti and meatballs served at room temperature. So, don't heat it up for him. Don't burn his mouth now.
Woody: That's spaghetti and meatballs in a can. Nothing says last meal like spaghetti-
Jim: [crosstalk] That's right.
Woody: -and meatballs in a can. They probably went to Dollar General Store and got the no-name brand.
Jim: Yeah. Now, he strangled an elderly woman using her own Christmas lights, stole $8 from her purse, $4 from around the house, and sold her television for $125. He then murdered an elderly man and stole his Social Security check.
Woody: You know what? Fucking--[crosstalk]
Jim: I wouldn't have given him all that food. He sounds like a bitch, mean--
Woody: I definitely wouldn't have given him a Chef Boyardee [unintelligible [00:32:24] or whatever.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: So, Dennis Bagwell, his last meal with steak, fried chicken, barbecue ribs, fries, onion rings, bacon, a dozen scrambled eggs with onions, fried taters. That's their spelling, y'all, not mine. Fried taters with onions, sliced tomatoes, a salad with ranch dressing, two hamburgers with everything, peach pie, milk and coffee, and iced tea with real sugar. Now, Bagwell had invaded the home in Texas of Ronald Boone, who returned home to find the bodies of his wife, Leona, his daughter, Libby, and his granddaughters, Reba and Tassy. According to reports, McBee and Tassy had been beaten and strangled, necks broken, and Tassy was raped. Libby was shot in the head, and Reba's skull was crushed with a hammer and a metal exercise bar. Bagwell was linked to the crime by a bloody shoeprint found underneath Tassy Boone's body. Bagwell denied any involvement in the crime. His lawyers implicated Tassy's mother is the killer, but she established that she was in California at the time of the crime. He was linked to another murder two weeks prior. He threatened law enforcement, and he was arrested claiming innocence, then tried to buy drugs. He was addicted to cocaine.
Jim: Imagine that.
Woody: Oh, Dennis.
Jim: In 1999, Allen Lee Davis was executed in a botched execution by electrocution, [chuckles] crime of pedophilia, rape, and robbery. He was convicted for the murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three months pregnant in Jacksonville, Florida. She was beaten beyond recognition with a. 357 Magnum and hit more than 25 times about the face and head. He was additionally convicted of killing her two daughters who were nine years old and shot in the face, and Katherine, who was five years old, who was shot as she tried to run away. So, he's a piece of shit, basically.
He was executed by electrocution. His execution was considered botched with witnesses reporting that Davis was still alive after the powered Old Sparky was switched off. Blood had also leaked from his nose during the execution, although prison officials claim this was caused by a nosebleed. Controversy, regarding the nosebleed, he was on blood thinners for his health. Because of the controversy, Davis remains the last person executed by electric chair in Florida. Basically, there was a bunch of people up in arms around that and so they made him the last inmate until they worked that out.
Woody: They swapped over to lethal injection and Florida has carried out all of them by lethal injection, although inmates can still choose to be executed by electric chair. Karma is a bitch.
Jim: It is a bitch. Davis had prior convictions for armed robbery. He was just a piece of shit. Now, for his last meal, Davis requested and received a dinner consisting of one lobster tail, fried potatoes, a half a pound of fried shrimp, 6 ounces of fried clams, a half a loaf of garlic bread, and 32 ounce of A&W root beer.
Woody: Crazy, bro.
Jim: Yeah. First of all, I want to thank someone who helped us research this and that is-
Woody: Leah Marie.
Jim: The Leah Marie. Thank you very much.
Woody: We love you, Leah. You are awesome.
Jim: You are awesome. We appreciate you.
Woody: Super, super cool. Very interesting. We're going to do more on these in future. I think this being presented the way Leah helped us do it is fascinating. You get to hear the crimes. We're making jokes about the meals, and of course our hearts go out to the victims of these crimes and we're not making light of that. I find these last meals fascinating.
Jim: Yeah, I do too. We hope y'all enjoyed that just a little bit, constantly giving you different stuff around here and this is just a little bit different that. We hope y'all enjoyed. Now, we got a live event and you're getting this on Thursday. So, it's tomorrow.
Woody: Two live events.
Jim: Two live events. Yeah, a live weekend.
Woody: Friday and Saturday night.
Jim: Friday and Saturday night. Sold out. Sold out.
Woody: Sold it your way.
Jim: I cannot tell you the amount of people who have messaged me wanting tickets and I posted it a million times on Facebook that it was about to sell out. So, thanks all of y'all who purchased tickets. And all y'all who were interested, I'm sorry that there was none left, but I do appreciate everybody who's coming out to the Southeastern Livingston Center to see Bloody Angola Live, brought to you by Sporting Center.
Woody: That's going to be heck of a story. We'll do more lives in the future, y'all. This is inaugural.
Jim: Yeah, the inaugural. We do want to mention that there'll be food and drink on site. So, if you're coming, they'll have some of the best-- I saw the menu yesterday and it is absolute fire. Tommy over at Sombrero is going to have a massive food truck out there. We've got an awesome lady who's going to be throwing drinks left and right at people with a food truck, complete with beer, wine, mimosas, you name it. MajestiK Mimosa.
Woody: Of course, we're going to have Bloody Angle swag.
Jim: Oh, yeah. Got three different styles of t-shirts going to be available. We've got some of the event posters that we're signing and putting up for sale. We're even going to have some scripts that we've signed that we're going to-- original scripts now, that would be some great little collectible items for you.
Woody: Right. Don't forget about the Bloody Angola wine.
Jim: Wine. [laughs]
Woody: It's good stuff, bro.
Jim: Yeah, it's good stuff.
Woody: $25 a bottle and we could sign it for you if you want.
Jim: And this ain't no cheap crap, y'all. This is good wine.
Woody: Yes. Everybody sends me pictures of the empty bottles of wine. They're saying, "Now, I need to get some more. Will you sign it for us?" We're like, "Hell, yeah. We'll sign it for you."
Jim: That's right.
Woody: And then, we signed it all day long and twice on Sunday. But the bottle, whatever type of wine--
Jim: Well, I'm going to tell you. You got a Fusion Red, which is-- what a Fusion Red is, it's a mixture between red and white zinfandel. You got that, so good. You've got a white wine and you also have what I would call a Rose.
Woody: Right.
Jim: Some people call it Blush.
Woody: And all delicious, but it has the Bloody Angola logo on it. We will be happy to sign them for you. $25 a bottle. But if you're a Patreon member, don't forget, one of the many perks we can give you is you get $5 off. Now, if it sounds like we're selling, well, we are.
[laughter]
Woody: We had to buy this stuff--[crosstalk]
Jim: Woody Everton is looking at me like, "We better not have nothing left." [laughs]
Woody: The $5 off. Hell, if you drink two bottles wine a month, you're-
Jim: Yeah. That's right.
Woody: -paying for your tasting--[crosstalk]
Jim: Get that wine for $20 nowhere else in the world. So, yeah, just come on down to Bloody Angola Live. Obviously, you'll be there. You got tickets and we're going to meet with you after sign anything you want us to sign. We're going to have some great swag there. We even got some lighters, y'all, with Bloody Angola on them because Woody constantly says, "It's fire," after everything. So, we've got the first inaugural "It's fire" lighters that he'll be glad to sign for you if you'd like him to, or me or both of us.
Woody: If you don't get to make it to the event and you're interested in the swag or the merchandise, just hit us up. Especially the wine or even the shirts, things that we can order. You see people posting the pictures and you want it, hit us up.
Jim: Yeah. And then also, Patreon, first of all, thank you to all our Patreon teams.
Woody: Thank you.
Jim: We have four or five teams now. We've got a Tie Down team, we've got a Chase team, we've got a Warden team, we've got a CERT team, and we're offering all kinds of new things on those, depending on which team you're on. I can tell you there's teams that have transcripts available. These transcripts are fire. It's like reading our episodes out of a book. These are full transcripts. Of course, there's an extreme cost to getting things transcribed properly, and I'm talking human transcription, y'all. You can't transcribe Woody's voice into an automatic transmission machine because it never comes out right. This is humans that are actually retyping this stuff. You bump up $5 a tier, you get that information. We're even giving quarterly swag out to our Warden tiers. Every quarter, you'll get a piece of swag that is-- I ain't just talking a bumper sticker or something like that. Some of this stuff is real good stuff.
Woody: Good stuff. Y'all, this show is not free for us to produce or have our time and the research and everything else.
Jim: [crosstalk]
Woody: Absolutely, Patreon members, thank you so much for your support. It really goes a long ways. If you can't be a Patreon member, we get it. If you like the show, please like it and subscribe and leave us a review.
Jim: And share it.
Woody: Yeah. Share it.
Jim: Every one of you.
Woody: Our growth is phenomenal. We're on the third season and we're blessed every day.
Jim: Absolutely.
Woody: And we're blessed because of y'all. We love and appreciate each, every one of y'all.
Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola-
Jim: A podcast 142 years in a making.
Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.
Woody and Jim:Peace.
Jim: [chuckles]
Woody: Great one.
Jim: Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe DeRouen in Studio 433 with vocals by Thomas Cain. Created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Woody Overton.
[Bloody Angola theme playing]
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 12 Jan 2023 - 27 - Inmates Unshackled #1 | Bloody Angola Podcast Sally Port
Scott Huffman who spent over 5 years in a Louisiana prison joins Woody Overton and Jim Chapman to discuss what landed him in prison, life inside of prison and how learning sign language completely changed his life upon his release!
Bloody Angola Sally Port are podcast companions to the Bloody Angola series and are released 2 times weekly!
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyTue, 10 Jan 2023 - 26 - The Personal Diary of Old Wooden Ears
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman open up season 3 of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman give you a ton of insight into Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola by reading you the actual diary of the founder of the "Angolite" magazine and editor Old Wooden Ears" from the 1930's!
#Louisianastatepenitentiary #AngolaPrison #Podcast #Applepodcast #spotify
Transcript of episode
2023 Jim: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: A Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: First of all, Woody Overton, it's Season 3.
Woody: Yes, love, right? [chuckles]
Woody: I can't believe that. Thank you everyone for liking us and sharing us and helping us grow. It's been amazing. Chase Team members and now all our higher levels of Patreon.
Jim: Warden.
Woody: Warden and C.E.R.T. Team. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. But yeah, Season 3, it's amazing. We've sold out two live shows now. Y'all's Response has been phenomenal. We appreciate you. You're about to start getting Bloody Angola three days a week.
Jim: And as is our tradition, Woody Overton, we always start with a classic story from Angola.
Woody: This is a classic story. Not only about the person it's about, but we are going to bring it to you from what should be a story in its own.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: The Angolite.
Jim: The start of the Angolite, which for those of you that are not familiar, that's a magazine that is released by the prison for inmates to read.
Woody: Not only inmates. I had a subscription to it back in 1992 or 1993 and they used to mail it to my house.
Jim: All we're doing is telling people how old we are. Woody: [chuckles] Okay, sure. Yeah.
Jim: [crosstalk] -Pony Express back then. [laughs]
Woody: Yeah, right. That was definitely snail mail. It always fascinates the shit out of me what the criminal mind does. This is after I worked in the prison system too. But it's a phenomenal award-winning magazine.
Jim: It really is. The guy who started that magazine is who we're going to really be talking about today. The interesting deal with this gentleman is that he was the original editor and the guy who started the Angolite. But not only did he do that, he also, in addition, kept probably one of the best diaries of Angola. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go ahead and say the best diary of Angola you would ever come across. And he had a nickname. I'm going to tell you about that nickname first. They called him Old Wooden Ears.
Woody: Wooden Ears.
Jim: The reason they called this gentleman that is he was beat by a correctional officer at some point during his early years in Angola and actually went deaf in one ear. So, he was known by the prisoners as Old Wooden Ears. We're going to tell you about the diaries of William Sadler, and we're going to name this episode Old Wooden Ears.
Woody: Wooden Ears.
Jim: The interesting thing with this episode is that we're going to actually read you the diary because we can't do this justice without actually reading you the entry. We're just going to take these back and forth. Trust me, this is interesting, y'all. This is the real diary.
Woody: Think about it. You don't have a whole lot to do in prison. At least this guy was keeping himself busy by keeping a diary.
Jim: And didn't hold back.
Woody: Right. He told the truth according to him.
Jim: Mm-hmm. That's right. We're going to start with January 1st, 1936. This was New Year's Day on Angola, and it was celebrated by all hands out in the field with the exception of Camp E, most of whom are assigned to the refinery. Sugarcane cutting going on full blast with no Sundays or holidays off until grinding ends, which will be about the middle of the month. Red Hats out in the cane shed.
Woody: Red Hats.
Jim: If you listen to our Red Hats episode, you'll find out a little bit more about them. But he's
already mentioning the Red Hat.
Woody: Yeah. On January 3rd, 1936, he writes, "There was hail on the Gola this day. The refinery has been making 100% white sugar and shipping it to the brokers in Chicago under the Pelican Refinery, Baton Rouge label, so consumers wouldn't get onto the fact that it was made by convict labor. The last month, some of those dudes loading freight cars at Camp B siphoned off sugar out of several sacks and filled holes with striped convict clothes. When the sacks hit Chicago in the retail market and a howl went up, this was heard way down here. The result? About 16 men caught the bat, anywhere from 30 to 45 lashes each. But those who were beaten weren't the guilty ones, strange to say. It seems their clothing had been stolen and shoved into the sacks. And since the dudes bore their laundry numbers, it made them automatically guilty. The actual perpetrators of the switch got off scot-free, which is often the case on this Angola."
Jim: How about that?
Woody: Right. Y'all, go back and listen to some of our other episodes. The bat was basically a big leather strap. That's what they're referring to. Now, that's pretty smart. Let me tell you
this real quick. When I was in basic training in the army, they had a guy on a cot across from me that snored every night, and I wouldn't get any sleep anyway, I've been on a light sleeper. So, before the lights went out, you had to line your shoes underneath the bunk, I stole one of his boots. When the lights went out, he started snoring, I reared back and I threw that boot, I hit him in his head as hard as I could. He jumped up and he was like, "You motherfuckers. I'm going to get you. I got your boot. When I turn on the lights in the morning, I'm going to find out who it is." But guess what? It was his. These prisoners were smart like that. They stole somebody else's clothes and other inmates' clothes and numbers and plugged the holes. They were hoping to get the uprising, which they got. But unfortunately, for the victims that they stole from, well, they got the bat.
Jim: They got the bat. 30 to 45 lashes, y'all. You're starting to see the brutality with Angola and why they called it Bloody Angola. Another thing that I found interesting about that entry was the fact that they would switch the labels. The reason they would do that, back in the 30s, people weren't down with convict labor like that.
Woody: They still do it. When I worked at DCI, they had the crawfish plant, and they ran 24 hours a day. They brought in two 18-wheeler loads of crawfish a day and they boiled them. The inmates had to peel 16 pounds of tail meat and they got to weigh it in their 12-hour shift. If they didn't peel the 16 pounds, they went to the hole. But guess what? They packaged it under Louisiana Crawfish Company and sold it. That's the shit you buy in the grocery store when you buy Louisiana Crawfish-- It used to be when you buy Louisiana Crawfish tails.
Jim: There it goes. The next time you buy, you think about that.
Woody: [crosstalk] -crawfish season, they made them cut onions and they sold the cut-up
onions like the Holy Trinity. But they damn sure didn't say it was done by prisoners.
Jim: That's right. We continue on. And you're seeing that brutality take place. "January 5th, 1936. Narrowly missed the bat myself this day. Captain JH Row-" that's a good cager name, "-of Camp A missed credit for a carload of cane which had been sent to the mill. There's always been more confusion out in the yard when the cane cars are brought in by railroad crews at night. In this case, the weight ticket evidently became lost, not by fault, but close shave nevertheless."
Woody: Wow, close shave-- [crosstalk] Jim: Yeah. And he narrowly missed that bat.
Woody: I can't imagine there were a lot of lights and shit on the trains, they were rolling. I think about sugarcane, y'all, that's what he's talking about. Look, there's a certain time you got to cut it and get it out and get it to the mill to get it pressed. I know they were working sun up to sun down.
Jim: Oh, yeah. And sugarcane was a huge commodity. Woody: Still is.
Jim: It still is, yes.
Woody: All right, y'all. So, the next one, his journal entry is on January 9th, 1936. He says, "It was cold and pouring down rain today. No slickers, no boots, no gloves. All camps that work in the fields, negro women cutting cane from on headland, white men from Camp G working toward them. John Henry on the turn row. Dinner served out in the open. Rain so hard, the whippoorwill peas bounce off your plate faster than you can spoon down. Menu
today, chicken, chopped grits, stove pipe gravy, soybean bread, and coffee made from horse beans for breakfast."
Jim: I'm hungry already. [laughs] Woody: Right? I can't imagine. Jim: Out in the rain, y'all.
Woody: Hey, it's raining so hard, you try to eat your shit before it gets any soggier, but the fat drops are hitting your plate so hard that your peas are bouncing off the plate? That's crazy. Hey, they didn't give a shit. They were getting that sugar cut.
Jim: That's right. "14th January, 1936. The whistle blew today for the end of the 1935-36 grinding season. Tonnage figures showed one of the biggest years in Angola history, but no sugar on the table. They found over nine tons which had been hidden in various places around the refinery for use during the coming year by the refinery crew. The hideouts were tipped off by the Black Cat, who as a convict had helped plan it. Two weeks ago, he was paroled to the state for work in the refinery, so his first duty was to put the finger on the hidden sugar."
Woody: Wow. Gave it up. Jim: Gave it up.
Woody: You know that went on, man. Sugar is a commodity. Even the free people that worked in the mill, I guarantee the inmates kept some too make that homemade brew. All right, y'all, so we're going to January 20, 1936, again from Wooden Ears' diary. He says, "Camps all at work in the field hoeing stubbles. Rainy and wet today. Wet clothes worn into the camp dormitories, which are heated only by a wood-burning stove made out of a discarded 50-gallon oil drum. Clothes are wet when you put them on next morning. This kind of work cut in the weather bring a siege of pneumonia in the free world. The old saying on the Gola is, "You can't kill a convey that easy.'"
Jim: You can't. [laughs]
Woody: First of all, when we talk about the stubble, after you cut the sugarcane, you got basically the stumps of the roots, and they had to clear that so they could plant the next year's crop.
Jim: Amazing.
Woody: And wet ass clothes. I guess they slept naked.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I wonder if he got the-- I guess the big bull near the door and got to put his clothes closest to the wood. You know what I'm saying?
Jim: Yeah. Shot caller. Woody: Yeah. The shot caller.
Jim: "February 1st, 1936. Those alert characters at Camp B have rigged up a new wrinkle to beat the daily shakedown at the gate."
Woody: Uh-oh.
Jim: Uh-oh. "Where every bit of garden produce was confiscated. It often became a problem to smuggle a contraband article into the yard and into the dining room. So, the dudes trained one of the various mongrel dogs to fetch and carry. Now, the garlic and even pokes of sugar outside the fence. The pooch scrambles underneath the wire and the guards' noses and brings it into the plant." [chuckles]
Woody: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I'm going to figure out how to get everyone. But on my birthday on February 5th, 1936, Wooden Ears writes, "it was cold and raw this morning. Camp G is working over on Monkey Island, getting in the spinach and radish crops off the overflow land before the rise of Mississippi gets them. It is said the long line must wade the bayou waist deep, going to and coming from the camp. Then, working the water over a foot deep to harvest the crop. And this in winter."
Jim: Crazy.
Woody: It's crazy. Y'all know Monkey Island is located where Louisiana and Mississippi meet at the rear of the prison and was a notoriously miserable place to work. An area border in Mississippi river, it remained flooded and marshy most of the year and was infested with mosquitoes and snakes.
Jim: Yeah, and that's a big problem with Angola that we're going to talk about in the future is the flooding. They've had to evacuate prisoners from Angola many times because the Mississippi river water was up. We're going to move on to February 8th, 1936. "Oscar Loki, the long line water boy, finished up this eight years day for day yesterday. A Yankee lad, he came out on Angola when he was 18. He made and sold out in the field and from his profits over the eight years saved a total of $74."
Woody: Whoa.
Jim: Hey, that's probably a lot of money to an inmate. "His best friend, Frenchie LeBlanc, was the last to tell him goodbye yesterday at the receiving center where he was dressed out. Oscar showed officials his role of hard-earned money, flipped off the rubber band under which was a dollar bill, and found the rest of the role was merely coffee coupons." Basically, this officer took all the money. "No one knows whether LeBlanc stole the money, but Loki said LeBlanc was the only one who knew where he kept it hidden." correction, LeBlanc, his friend, stole the money, put coffee coupons in there with a dollar on top of.
Woody: Thought he's rolling out with $74-- [crosstalk] Jim: [laughs] But he's got plenty of free coffee, apparently.
Woody: Crazy. "On February 9th, 1936, Bill Brazil, the guard at the finery, died today. He had only a few months to go to through a life sentence. A piece of metal, lead, the size of a fist had fallen from one of the beams and it struck Brazil square on the top of his head. Two characters who were working painting the steel structure three stories above Brazil were questioned to no avail. It is not clear how the lead, which had no business in the refinery anyway, happened to fall on Brazil like a bomb."
Y'all, Angola death records listed no one named Brazil dying in 1930s, but a William B. Brazil, inmate number 20030, is listed as dying at Camp B where the sugar refinery was located on April 20th, 1935. His cause of death was listed as broken neck caused by fall from being in the top of refinery. Records have also shown that suspicious deaths were often
listed as accidents. He is buried at the original Point Lookout Road where they bury inmates. That's crazy.
Jim: Yeah, it really is.
Woody: You don't want to say it's an inmate-on-inmate murder. The pen is mightier than the
sword, right?
Jim: That's right.
Woody: Whatever. He was there, I believe old Wooden Ears saw the lead.
Jim: Y'all, Old Wooden Ears tells the truth. This is his personal diary. He didn't know that anyone was ever going to see this.
Woody: He didn't know y'all were going to be listening to that.
Jim: Guaranteed he didn't know that, Woody Overton.
Woody: Almost 100 years later.
Jim: Yeah, so find that interesting too, because we talked about in old episodes how records back in those days were altered or not kept.
Woody: I even wonder, you've mentioned broken backs and shit. I'm like, "Oh, yeah. You break your back," you're not jumping out of a window.
Jim: Yeah, get that bat.
Woody: That's right.
Jim: "February 12th, 1936. Sweet potato stew for dinner and supper these days. Usually, there's a piece of meat somewhere in the pan, but you have to be mighty quick with your fingers to find it. Thank goodness they have stopped making bread with soybean flour, but they are still serving boiled soybeans on the table." Now, mills were served to prisoners in those days with typically the cheapest ingredients you could possibly find in order to save money. When the food items of any real quality appeared, it was often skimmed or outright stolen from prisoners or employees looking to make a little money.
Woody: Again, the soybeans shit is shit they grew. So, we're going to February 15th, 1936. "Vernon Hancock is a saddler, a wiser man at Camp E today. Vernon, who works in the Ice House, was a big shot gambler. He owned all the poker tables. So, two weisenheimers sent out and brought two decks of reader cards, marked, of course. They finagled Vernon into buying into the decks at a bargain price, seals unbroken. Then proceeded to sit into Vernon's game. This all began three weeks ago. Today, Vernon is broke and the pair has all his dough. The two friends who tipped the switch off to Vernon after it happened, he replied, 'Well, them cards wasn't marked. I broke the seals on the new decks myself.' Barely a fool and his money."
Jim: [laughs] I mean, they're running a casino in Angola.
Woody: Right. Gambling is a huge thing in prison, but it says no-- the entries, along with the entry in the opposite column are just more glaring examples of how good fortune, whether in saving for the future or perceived luck at the gambling table, often created problems for everyone involved.
Jim: No doubt about it. Old Wooden Ears going to tell the truth, like we said. Woody: He got no reason to lie. He's writing for himself, not anybody else.
Jim: That's right. Now, February 18th, 1936. "Well, these jailhouse swindles never cease. Mitchell Lafleur-", if you notice, a lot of these names are Cajun names, y'all, "-no-read-and-write cell room guard at Camp E also has been taken to the cleaners, financially speaking. Seems a dude had a catalog with some pictures. He induced Mitchell to pick out a dame who claimed to have $50,000 and was looking for a husband. The dude wrote in the letter for Mitchell. Of course, when the replies came, the dude read them to the guard. The love interests were hot. Finally, the dame said she would come see Mitchell and marry him. Only her $50,000 was tied up in a legal snarl. And as soon as they were married, she would sign over half to him. But right now, she said would Mitchell sent her $100 for the train fare. This is crazy. "He did." [chuckles] Now, this is a guard, y'all. He gave it to the dude to send for him, and that's the last he's heard or ever will hear. Even back in 1936, you had these hustlers, man, and they were, "Send me $100." Nowadays it's through email, back then, it was through a regular mail.
Woody: The calls from Jamaica, saying, "Oh, you won a million dollars. Send us $10,000 for legal fees."
Jim: Went on in 1936.
Woody: It only takes 1 out of 100 if you do it. If you're successful 1 out of 100, then you're
successful. Jim: Yeah.
Woody: All right. On February 21st, 1936, Wooden Ears writes, "Getting so they put the bat in action three times a day nowadays. During breakfast, after dinner, and after supper. Foreman calls out the unlucky ones and tells the captain they are lazy or insubordinate, and the poor devils usually catch from 20 to 30 lashes apiece. One yesterday had his third beating in 10 days. How long, O Lord?" I mean, he's just--[crosstalk]
Jim: Third beating in 10 days.
Woody: Probably, the correctional officers were-- to the inmates who are pushing the lines, what they call them the inmate guards, were like, "Hey, we're going to make an example out of somebody." Now, they're doing it three times a day. It helps keep the other people in line.
Jim: I wonder if it was the same guard that lost that $100, Woody Overton, [chuckles] taking it out on people. February 26th, 1936. "Little Doc Goodman at Camp E was strung up naked by his wrist to a beam in the ceilings in the camp lobby today and whipped with at least 50 lashes. Those who had listened said they lost count. Doc has been accused of laziness and insubordination many times in the past. His body is a mass of scar tissue from burns suffered outside. So, he seems to be immune to ordinary punishment. So, the idea of stringing him up naked was devised. He's supposed to hang there 72 hours without food or water."
Woody: Wow. Crazy.
Jim: Y'all, wrap your mind around that. When we tell you Bloody Angola back in the day wasn't no joke, it wasn't a joke. Now, the lengths that the prison or guard would go through to punish people apparently knew no bounds. Despite the dangers of whipping someone as
much as they whipped Goodman, hanging him by his wrist for 72 hours was infinitely more dangerous. Such punishments, with a body position aching to crucifixion, could easily cause suffocation by the pressure exerted on the lungs and the diaphragm by three days of such torture.
Woody: Not only that, three days, that's the maximum you can go without the water, right? Jim: We can never confirm or deny that that existed, but Old Wooden Ears says it did.
Woody: Yeah. [crosstalk] -again, it's all, I would say, to control the population. This guy being a repeat offender, insubordination, etc., like, "We'll show you." But anyway, let's go to February 28th, 1936. Wooden Ears writes, "Safe burglars intent on plying their trade even on Angola. Last night, burrowed through the tag plant wall into the general warehouse and broke into the safe there. They say over $1,000 is missing. Or is this a red herring to cover a cash shortage? How could those guys get out of the cell room building last night to do their burglarizing?"
Jim: That's freaking crazy. [laughs]
Woody: Well, he had a good point.
Jim: He had a good point [crosstalk] guard.
Woody: [crosstalk] -missing, and you've got to blame it on a convict, right? Jim: Yeah. $1,000. And they tried to say they burglarize-- [crosstalk] Woody: [crosstalk] -accused of $1,000 in '36, that's like $100,000 now.
Jim: Okay, so we move on to the next. March 1st, 1936. "Heard today Angola was going to have a doctor. Not like the one present joker who comes up from Baton Rouge once a week, but a full-time medical man. Maybe now they will start examining and classifying fresh fish so they won't be dying out in the fields of such things as exposure and exhaustion. Is this progress?" That's a good point that Old Wooden Ears brings up, Woody. That is when you're new to Angola, they put you out in the fields and bodies have to acclimate. So, these fresh fish, as he calls them, they go out in that field and they're not used to the sun 12-15 hours a day.
Woody: The episode we did with Kelly Jennings talked to one guy whose first job he ever had in his entire.
Jim: His entire life. Woody: Yeah. Jim: That's crazy.
Woody: Them bringing a doctor in wasn't because they gave a damn about the convicts. They just wanted to keep them alive. They cared about keeping them alive so they can keep them working.
Jim: That's right.
Woody: All right, let's go to March 3rd, 1936. He writes, "Pursuant to an edict from the pen of the warden, there are neither dogs nor cats on Angola today. His letter to all captains said,
'Dogs and cats are taking the place. I want them gotten rid of.' So, there was a general roundup and many of pet went to the river via croaker sack. They tipped me off that if farm superintendent, GAG, ever comes in to weigh on my scales, to be sure to tell him 20 to 30 pounds less than its actual weight. He's very myopic. When I wanted to know why, they said, If you don't, he'll beat the hell out of you with his stick."' Vanity. All these are interesting. Shit, this guy was very articulate for a convict in 1936.
Jim: April 27th, 1936. "The count at Camp E came up one man short last night." Woody: Uh-oh. [crosstalk]
Jim: "Dewey Brian, ice plant worker, was missing. He was found in the cold storage room dead drunk. The discovery touched off a smelling of breaths of having--"
[laughter]
Jim: This is so crazy. "The discovery touched off a smelling of breaths of having taken a covet nip of the local joy juice and everyone was pulled out and whipped." So, basically, if they had alcohol on their breath, they pulled them out and whipped them with the bat. "Brian was given 85 lashes for being dead drunk. Felt no pain." [laughs] "This morning, they had to cut him loose from his mattress where the blood on his back had dried and stuck into it. He is not the first, nor will he be the last."
Woody: Wow. Crazy. Jim: I mean, wow, y'all.
Woody: Yeah. [unintelligible 00:28:54] know some bad shit, but it ain't worth 80 licks, I can tell you that.
Jim: Stuck to the mattress.
Woody: Yeah, that's going to suck. And your whole back with scab. All right, on April 28th, 1936, he writes, "Despite a workday, which now begins at 05:15 AM and ends at 6:30 at night, the menu remains the same. For breakfast, grits, gravy and bread."
Jim: "29th April 1936, Gerald Red Kramer, who was shot four times by a convict guard in the okra patch near E, got a visit from his mother today." [crosstalk] "Kramer's bed is his coffin because he is expected to die. His mother talked to him across the coffin." And there's a note underneath, it says, "Camps where a prisoner died often pooled money to purchase materials for his coffin. Generally, the camp store kicked in also."
Woody: It's crazy. April 30th, 1936. "Pollywog Jones- Jim: Oh.
Woody: -who was shot in the arm and leg in the okra patch at the same time as Gerald Kramer has gone to work. The foreman drove him out of the Red Hat cells this morning with a stick."
[laughter]
Woody: He [unintelligible [00:30:18] beat him on.
Jim: Yeah, Pollywog going to learn his lesson eventually.
Woody: Pollywog got the stick.
Jim: I love this. "May 1st, 1936. A buyer of potatoes complained today his tubers were arriving skinned up. He was taken into the field where a long line of negroes were harvesting potatoes on their hands and knees. The buyer inspected box after box and the negro who had been skinning his potatoes was whipped. Several offenders caught the bat, they say."
Woody: Crazy.
Jim: Y'all, this is life back then in '36 in Angola.
Woody: Day in and day out. And he goes to May 2nd, 1936, "John Francis Carney died last week in the Camp E hospital. He had complained for weeks of stomach ulcers. Pleaded for milk since he could not digest his regular fare. Dr. Gwynn, the new LSP physician, had this to say about Carney in his report to the warden. 'I find nothing wrong with this man. He is faking and fully able to do fieldwork.' The autopsy showed the cause of Carney's death, stomach ulcers and peritonitis." That's crazy. There's a note underneath says, "Angola death records listed James Francis Carney's death as August 22, 1938. The official cause recorded was peptic ulcer, chronic malignant degradation, carcinoma stomach, etc. LSP records indicate he was buried at the prison. So, he resides at one of the graves with the illegible markers or perhaps in the communal grave where the remains from the various cemeteries located near defuncts camps were consolidated." Crazy.
Jim: "May 3rd, 1936. The orders gone out to all foreman in the field that they must carry a fever thermometer. When an inmate gets overheated, the foreman is supposed to take his temperature and give him a blow in the shade--" [laughs] "But most of these foremen can neither read or write. How will they take a temperature and read a thermometer?" That's a good point, Old Wooden Ears.
Woody: [unintelligible [00:32:35] what a blow in the shade means.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I'm assuming, y'all, that it meant a rest.
Jim: I assume as well. But he had some interesting [unintelligible 00:32:45] for that one.
Woody: May 4th, 1936, he writes, "Skinned-up potatoes brought an application of the bat to harvesters at Camp C today. 15 were given from 20 to 25 lashes each. 'Can't harvest a crop without leather,' the general manager says." I guess he means, you can't push the line without a beating.
Jim: That's right. "May 5th, 1936. The new issue of coffee from the warehouse today is half horse beans, parched and half peaberry." But that's good because it has been all horse beans before. There's a letter underneath that says, "Creative efforts were constantly made to enhance the poor quality of coffee available to the inmates. Any manner of items such as chicory or walnuts would be added to create a more palatable brew. But it rarely worked."
Woody: Shit. For sure, they thought it was a big thing in prison. All right. We go into May 6th, 1936, he writes, "Sundays will be worked until the potato crop is harvested according to the order issued to all camps today."
Jim: Now, that's the Lord's Day, Woody Overton.
Woody: Right. The Lord's Day, but that's also-
Jim: Workday.
Woody: They didn’t want the potatoes rotting in the ground. Then on the next day, on May 7th, 1936, he writes, "Milton Good, New Orleans sex fiend, got a dollar watch from the free world, thinking to make suction with the foreman. He gave it to the man today so he could tell knocking-off time. The man beat him over the head with the watch and chain, breaking the watch because he can't tell time."
[laughter]
Jim: That is so great. Woody: [crosstalk]
Jim: I mean, ruined a perfectly good watch. Now, "May 8th, 1936. George Buckley was awarded the line pusher to job today for his diligence in keeping the man informed on who was leaving potatoes on his row unpicked." So, he's a rat, basically, and got him a job based on telling on his boys. And then May 9th, he continues, and he says, "Mosquitoes in the cell room are making the night a veritable hell at Camp E. No screens on the windows. Oil lamps after 8:30 at night. Shower bath is a pipe 6 feet long with holes punched in it."
Woody: Wow.
Jim: Yeah. That's just a good look into their everyday life.
Woody: Mosquitoes on Angola are more like sabretooth rock breakers [crosstalk] fuckers down there on the river. On May 10th, the next day, 1936, he writes, "Shipments of potatoes to date total 253 carloads. All have gone to buyers in Chicago. Coals are being served on the lines tables at camps. It is said the tomato harvest will start about two weeks earlier this year."
Jim: That was obviously a big deal for them were-- crops. That was their life--[crosstalk] Woody: [crosstalk] -everything going in Chicago. There's no gangsters in Chicago, right?
Jim: [chuckles] Nah. That's it. "May 11th, 1936. I have been transferred to Camp B for the duration of the shipping season so that my job as a clerk for the packing shed will be handier. At B are about 150 teenagers who all should be either in school or at home with their mothers." Then, he continues on the 12th of May, he says, "Called camp B today over the phone and asked him for two refrigerator cars to be sent via the prison railroad. Henry von Schumer, who answered the phone, told me a fresh fish had grabbed the man's hickory stick and broken after the man struck him with it. The poor devil didn't know he had a session with the back coming when he got back to the camp. But it was poetic justice and I said, 'I'd have given $10 to see the melee.' Carried to Camp E this night where Henry, the butcher boy of New Orleans, and I painted signs until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning for Governor Elect Leche's Inaugural Ball which is to be held May 14th in Baton Rouge."
Woody: Wow. That's just crazy unreal.
Jim: And you can see, they used them for all kinds of things.
Woody: First, they hit them with the stick, like FU, took a stick from them and broke it. And now he's going to get away with it. That's the entertainment other than me saying you that shit was coming.
Jim: Oh, yeah.
Woody: And then writing signs for the governor? That's not illegal. Jim: [laughs]
Woody: He writes the next day, May 13th, 1936, "After 3 hours sleep, I awoke with the rest of the camp. Was taken into custody to the camp kitchen where Old Tangle Eye, the captain, was waiting for me. He asked if I had ever been whipped yet. When I told him I hadn’t, he told me to remove my clothes, for I was about to catch a dose of red heffer for wisecracking over the phone the day before. The captain then called in four men to hold my arms and legs, spreadeagling me so as I couldn't move. The first blow was liquid fire. It was as though I had been seared with a white, heated iron poker. I yelled and begged for mercy because if I hadn't, he would have beaten me until he could no longer wield the bat. Those trying to eat breakfast, as this was going on, told me later I caught 35 lashes. My back and up and down my thighs are all bloody where the skin has broken. I can't lie down. May God curse me if I ever forget this day, May the 13th." Note: Old Tangle Eye was Captain J. L. Carmichael, one of the more prolific applicators of flogging."
Jim: Holy crap.
Woody: [crosstalk] -with his first bat.
Jim: Yeah. 35 lashes.
Woody: You get lashed like that, I imagine you shit yourself, you piss yourself, if you don't throw up, everything from the pain. Can you imagine?
Jim: They make you strip. They have you take it all off. Woody: They don’t want to rip up prison clothes.
Jim: Yeah, that's a good point.
Woody: [crosstalk] -state property.
[laughter]
Jim: It is indeed. "May 14th, 1936. Back at work at the packing shed today despite my sore back, which keeps me from sleeping. A grapevine kike today tells me that Henry von Schumer received 25 lashes for telling me the incident of the stick and the man over the phone." They beat him just for talking about it. "The charge was for broadcasting camp business over the phone."
Woody: What?
Jim: Dang. I don't remember seeing that in the rulebook.
[laughter]
Woody: There are probably not the operators there anymore listening either, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: May 15th, 1936. He writes, "Old timers at work at the packing shed after looking at my back, tell me I got only a dusting. Where whippings are concerned, 35, it is said, is light. God Almighty, what is heavy?"
Jim: [laughs] This is nuts.
Woody: Next day, May 16th, 1936, he writes, "The captain of Camp B told me today he needs a good office man. I said, 'I was the best.' He said I'd get better food and private sleeping quarters if I took the job at his camp. But he added a sticker. He said, 'I want you to go over in the yard and find out what the men are plotting and tell me.' I said, 'Captain, any man who tells you about someone else will tell someone else about you.' I didn't get the job."
[laughter]
Woody: Surprising he didn't get another bat.
Jim: I'm telling you. Old Wooden Ears, turning down the job. Woody: Turning down the job.
Jim: "May 17th, 1936. My back and thighs are blue, black and still swollen. Well-wishers have given salve to keep my clothes from sticking to me. May the good Lord let me meet the man who beat me somewhere in the free world."
Woody: Yeah, right.
Jim: Look, he's praying for vengeance on that one.
Woody: He's still in the pain.
Jim: And all joking aside, y'all, I mean, beating them so bad that the clothes were sticking--[crosstalk]
Woody: Yeah. Your body can never fully heal because it's trying to scab over, your clothes are sticking to you, you have to rip that off and it makes it fresh every day.
Jim: [sighs] Jesus.
Woody: Crazy. May 17th, 1936, he writes, "Called back to the warehouse at Camp E today to check the LSP cattle inventory. This is a yearly affair. At the slaughter pins where the count was made, the tally came up 245 heads short. The cattle foreman, a free man, explained, 'The rest of them steers is up in the hills. Can't get them today.' They say the shorts has been stolen and sold to farmers over the Mississippi line." Now, you know this shit won't--[crosstalk]
Jim: Likely story.
Woody: I heard stories in 1990s about one calf went to the state, one calf dropped, went somewhere else. I'm not saying any names, I'm going to get [Jim laughs] [crosstalk] about it. I bet you, 235 heads? In the Tunica Hills? [unintelligible [00:42:35] -cows ain't in the Tunica Hills.
Jim: Nope. They're in somebody's belly. Woody: Right.
Jim: May 18th, 1936, "Preacher Doc Careway of Shreveport, a recent arrival, has laid his bible down today in the long line at Camp B. He raised his arms to the skies and discovered his belief in divinity. Said Doc, 'There can't be a god who would allow a place like Angola to exist.'"
Woody: May 19th, 1936, he writes, "The potato harvest is over for this year. More than 300 cars have been shipped at an average price of $286 per car. No account has been made of the cost in blood from Angola's 300 slaves, however. I have been transferred back to Camp E to work in the general warehouse this date." There you go. The next day, he writes on May 20th, he says, "Machinery at the Pelican Cannery here is being readied for the tomato harvest. The plant will be under the supervision of Captain JNW who is head man at the woman's camp. The canned products will be labeled Pelican Cannery, Baton Rouge, and will be sold in the open market, it is said." That's crazy. In the note, it says that, "Captain JNW referred to was captain J. N. Willis. In March 1940, the cannery was the subject of controversy following complaints about the labeling and pricing of the canned goods process there. The cannery was later destroyed by fire in October 1940."
Jim: "May 21st, 1936. My back is slowly healing from the beating I received last week-" Man, he started-- [crosstalk] I'm telling you, "-will leave only faint scars, I am told. But the mental scars will never heal. Today, Ray Carroll, Camp E office clerk, told me the record showed only 16 lashes. If Captain Tangle Eye had gotten his head all over the 16 he put on me, it would have killed him." We got to look up Tangle Eye.
Woody: I bet there's stories on him, yeah.
Jim: "May 26th, 1936. The women are to be worked alongside the Camp E long line in the cannery next week according to informed sources. The LSP policy on tomatoes is to eat what can't be canned, and can all you can't eat."
Woody: Informed sources. I love that. This is how he's writing, a convict in 1936. May the 23rd, 1936, writes, "Jack Dorset and Tom Abbottsford, the former having enacted for over a year as physician here and who was responsible for many an ill man being placed in the fields were brought back from furlough violations. Both have been nabbed while passing bad checks in New Orleans and each blame the other. They were soundly whipped and later engaged in an old-fashioned bareknuckle fight. Each continued to blame the other for their arrests. It's laughable because each was only too eager to run the water on the other. Where is that honor among thieves business you hear about? Both also were busted to the field detail."
[chuckles]
Jim: May 24th, 1936, "Artie "Gold Brick" Joiner-" man, they got some great nicknames, "-who slept adjoining me for 11 months and who shared my tobacco and coffee all during that time was last week turned out convict guard. Today, I inadvertently passed his guard post. He racked down on me with his double-barreled flat back and was all fixed to blow my head off. Our friendship, it seems, has now ended." [laughs]
Woody: Oh, my God. Jim: I love that one.
Woody: He's talking about convict guards. That's what they did to keep the cost down of securing the prison. Think that, his old--[crosstalk]
Jim: Cellmate for a year.
Woody: His own bunkie for a year almost, and they gave him a shotgun and he almost blew
his head off.
Jim: That's cold blooded of Old Gold Brick to do that.
Woody: Old Gold Brick'll have to eat some soggy potatoes or whatever.
Jim: I'm telling you. "May 25th, 1936. The warden put on a new sign at the Peckerwood Hill graveyard today." What a great name. "It straddles the entrance way and is a foot high in letters of old English font. It says, 'Through the sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' But since the sign facing the roadway, the convicts buried behind it can't read it, whose sign does it refer to?" It says underneath, "Note: Peckerwood Hill was a nickname for Point Lookout, the prison cemetery. The first recorded reference to Point Lookout was in 1935 for Jesse Anderson, who was buried on Row 2, Grave 11. His death was caused by cerebral hemorrhage and syphilis."
Woody: Oh, shit. We're definitely going to do an episode on Point Lookout. Jim: I can't believe they called it Peckerwood Hill. [laughs]
Woody: I'm not sure of this, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't bury blacks and whites together. Maybe they called it Peckerwoods for that, that being a derogatory term for whites. All right. May 26, 1936, writes, "There were several fallouts in the Camp B long line out in the field. Heat stroke. Foreman is supposed to let them blow in the shade [Jim chuckles] if they're [chuckles] overheated. The water boy carries the fever thermometer, but the bulb is broken off the end." It says, "Note: Comments about the lack of attention given to overheated inmates were common, as supervisors seemed to feel that overheating was an excuse for inmates to rest. Despite their excuses, in 1936, at least five inmates died of heat-related causes."
Jim: Wow.
Woody: Crazy.
Jim: Broke the [unintelligible 00:49:08].
Woody: Give them that blow in the shade there, boys. Jim: Yeah, give them a blow in a shade.
Woody: I want to get me a blow in the shade-- [laughter]
Jim: "May 27th, 1936. George Basil Weisenheimer, a lifer, was instructed this morning to sweep off the cannery steps and porch. He did. He also swept everything in the yard and into the porch. When asked who told him to give the yard a sweep, he said, 'God told me to.' They put 30 lashes on him. He was only recently released from an insane asylum and is definitely not right."
Woody: Nice. [chuckles]
Jim: "May 28th, 1936. Tomatoes are on the table, stewed in water. No seasoning. Meat ration for Camp E's 375 men is 135 pounds of forequarter beef per week." Per week.
Woody: Probably, one of those cows from up in the hill.
Jim: Yeah. "By the time the cooks and their friends get through with it, the long line gets a
chunk about as big as a thumb in the stew once weekly, if they're lucky."
Woody: Wow. Crazy. Yeah. The inmate guards were probably having t-bones. All right. May 19th, 1936, he writes, "They say the deducts are beginning to fly on Angola. Each employee from Captain down to Foreman must kick in from 10% to 25% of his monthly paycheck. It's either that or quit. They all pay off at the Camp E general warehouse to Nelson Beauregard, the Superintendent. The cash goes in the Governor Leche's campaign kitty, I'm told. No one knows for sure." It says, "Note: It was not unusual for politicians to apply suggestive pressure on employees and even inmates who were often conscripted as evidenced by [unintelligible 00:50:57] until 5/12/36.
Jim: "May 30th, 1936. Today, up in Yankeeland, it is Decoration Day and a holiday, but it is just another workday here on the field. By 4:30, we're in for supper, and at 7:15, to bed. And early to rise sure as hell don't make anyone on the Gola half healthy, wealthy, or wise." On the Gola. "May 31st, 1936. Today I saw the corpse of five babies in the doctor's office at Camp E General Hospital. They are preserved in bell jars and alcohol. The talk is they were born to women at Camp D. No one knows for sure."
Woody: Wow.
Jim: That's crazy. And there's a note underneath. "Rumors persist to this day about children born to women at Camp D. Few records are available. Yet according to a 1951 article in The Times-Picayune, a child was born to a newly incarcerated woman in February of that year."
Woody: I bet you some were born after they were incarcerated, the guards having a poke or whoever, right?
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: Remember in the first episode, it wasn't a crime for the women to be raped in prison. And if they had the baby-- now, this is 1936, a long time after slavery. If they had the baby while they were locked up, it became property of the state as a slave.
Jim: That's right. Woody: Fucking crazy.
Jim: Y'all, we hope you enjoyed that. That's just a little taste of his diary. What they did was they produced this in the Angolite last year and they had several issues they put out. We just read from a couple of those issues. But I'll tell you what, I enjoyed this episode.
Woody: I love the history, I love the insight. This dude is writing this daily, almost daily, the shit he saw, his perspective.
Jim: Yeah. I can only imagine-
Woody: [crosstalk] -Angola.
Jim: -years and years of that book, I'm a reader--
Woody: I wish he was alive so we could interview him.
Jim: Old Wooden Ears in studio.
Woody: Yes, indeed. Well, we told y'all it would always be different. This is another fine example, something that Jim dug up which I think is fire and we hope you enjoyed it.
Jim: Yeah. We thank y'all for allowing us to have a Season 3, all of our Patreon members. Of course, if you can't be a Patreon member, we totally get it and we hope you enjoy the episodes. If you are a Patreon member, thank you so very much. We couldn't do it without them.
Woody: Absolutely. Y'all, please, if you would be so inclined, go leave us a review on iTunes or wherever. Like and subscribe to Bloody Angola. Check out all our social media. Y'all want something really cool? Now, we have our own Bloody Angola wine.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: [crosstalk] -$25 a bottle. We'll sign it for you and send it to you. Tell them about it.
Jim: That's right. We have a white wine, a red wine, and we have a rosé, I guess is what they call it, wine. If you're one of the people that are going to the live at the Southeastern Livingston Center here in Livingston Parish, we'll have it there for purchase if you're interested in purchasing bottles. Otherwise, just message us on Facebook and we'll give you.
Woody: Yeah. And we're going to announce it for the first time today. If you're a Patreon member, you get $5 off a bottle.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: So, instead of $25, it'd be $20.
Jim: There you go. Always trying to give you more perks out there when you're a Patreon member and support what we do here at Bloody Angola.
Woody: And y'all check out on our social media, the new tiers levels, that we have for Patreon members, the different benefits that you get underneath that. If you're kind enough to support us by subscribing through Patreon, we'll give back to you as much as we can.
Jim: Amen. And we got transcripts available now, which is a big deal. That's something that y'all have really been asking for. Hey, we listen when y'all ask. We do have transcripts available now that we'll be uploading of each of our new episodes going forward. So, you can read along as you listen along.
Woody: Yeah, absolutely. And then next week, you'll be getting three Bloody Angolas.
Jim: Three Bloody Angolas a week. They're all going to be entertaining and good, and we're looking forward to bringing that to y'all. So, until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: Your host of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: And a podcast 142 years in a making.
Woody: A Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim: Peace. [laughter]
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As our last official swap we brought back a Real Life Real Crime favorite for those that may have not yet heard it!
False Positive parts 1 and 2 have been combined into a "Supersized' episode of Bloody Angola!
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The second season of Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman has wrapped but that did not stop this dynamic podcast duo from dropping a Christmas special episode in-between seasons!
Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Birthday Jesus!
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Woody Overton and Jim Chapman discuss the Wolf Dogs that guard Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola!
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Woody and Jim break down the case against Archie Williams who after 36 years in Louisiana State Penitentiary was exonerated of his crimes due to DNA evidence. This was a total breakdown of the justice system that must be heard to believe! One of the most powerful episodes of Bloody Angola Podcast to date! Part 2 of a 2 part series
For the complete video performance of Archie Williams America’s got talent audition it is linked here
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It is a happy Thanksgiving episode of Bloody Angola Podcast and we are pulling a switcharoo! After a special message from Woody and Jim they choose one of their favorite episodes from Woody Overton's Podcast Real Life Real Crime to introduce it to the Bloody Angola Base of Listeners. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Thu, 24 Nov 2022 - 20 - Bloody Angola Podcast LIVE is Coming!
Bloody Angola Podcast LIVE is coming to Livingston Parish on Saturday January 14th 2023. In this special drop Woody and Jim give you all the details on this special VIP limited event and how you can get tickets!
Link to purchase tickets below:
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Woody and Jim break down the case against Archie Williams who after 36 years in Louisiana State Penitentiary was exonerated of his crimes due to DNA evidence. This was a total breakdown of the justice system that must be heard to believe! One of the most powerful episodes of Bloody Angola Podcast to date!
Part 1 of a 2 part series
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Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman bring you a story of redemption today involving Heisman Trophy winner and great LSU Football All American Billy Cannon.
Billy Cannon's life was not free of scandal and although there were stumbles throughout, Billy persevered and the most beloved of LSU players not only found himself, but redemption in the most unlikely of places, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
It's a story you must hear told by two of his lifelong fans in detail.
Its the story of the redemption of Billy Cannon, Great All American!
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Sean Vincent Gillis terrorized the Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the late 90's and early 2000's. This Serial Killer was unlike most others and the FBI struggled to provide a profile prior to his capture.
Jim and Woody lay the entire case out for you from start to finish with this release exclusive to the chase team and not intended for the squeamish or those who cannot handle graphic details. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 03 Nov 2022 - 16 - The History of Gruesome Gertie | Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell a couple of crazy stories and give you the overall history of Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola's most famous piece of furniture, Gruesome Gertie.
What was the form of execution prior to the electric chair, who was the first person to "ride the lightning" on Gruesome Gertie and the story of the only convict to survive an actual execution via Gruesome Gertie are all discussed in this episode!
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Sean Vincent Gillis terrorized the Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the late 90's and early 2000's. This Serial Killer was unlike most others and the FBI struggled to provide a profile prior to his capture. Jim and Woody lay the entire case out for you from start to finish with this release exclusive to the chase team and not intended for the squeamish or those who cannot handle graphic details.
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Kelly Jennings is back by popular demand and shares the first hand story of her former clerk Vince Marinello, the popular sportscaster who was sentenced to Angola after murdering his wife in New Orleans in 2008.
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Life inside the wire is not always as clear cut as you may think and in some cases the abuse you receive may not be from another convict but from the staff itself.
In this episode Woody Overton and Jim Chapman break down one of the worst cases of sexual abuse you may ever hear inside of a prison, and the person accused and found liable in the civil trial may surprise you!
#BloodyAngola #PrisonPodcast #Podcast #AngolaPrison #Louisiana #LieutenantViolates
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In this first episode of season 2 Woody Overton and Jim Chapman bring you inside the infamous and notorious Red Hat Cell Block which was the FIRST solitary confinement cell block ever built at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1935. An infamous history, the red hat was used to house the most dangerous convicts and we dive deep inside to give you the raw details!
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Bloody Angola: A Podcast By Woody Overton and Jim Chapman discuss some current Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola breaking news affecting youth prisoners as well as review season 1 of the podcast.
Episode 9 "Angola Prison for Youths" is engineered and Produced by Jim Chapman and Envision Podcast Studios LLC
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Special Guest Kelly Jennings who spent time as a Classifications Office at Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola joins Woody and Jim for a second appearance and tells of a very serious Death Threat she received while working at the bloodiest prison in America.
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Special Guest Kelly Jennings who spent time as a Classifications Office at Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola gives us (and you) a view of the layout of the notorious maximum Security Prison located in Louisiana from a whole different perspective.
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Wed, 31 Aug 2022 - 7 - Rule Book | Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast #6 Woody Overton and Jim Chapman
So what are the rules of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola? Woody Overton and Jim Chapman have the Louisiana Department of Corrections "Rule Book" that is issued to both Inmates and Staff of Angola state prison. In this episode we cover the rules of the prison in detail, some may shock you! Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tells the history and stories of the bloodiest prison in American history, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
From the creative minds of award winning podcasters Woody Overton of Real life Real Crime and Jim Chapman of Local Leaders:The Podcast Bloody Angola is a no holds barred podcast based on stories and interviews of the bloodiest prison in America, told like you have never heard it!
Episode 6 "Rule Book" is engineered and Produced by Jim Chapman and Envision Podcast Studios LLC
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#AngolaPrison #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola #Podcast Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 25 Aug 2022 - 6 - |Brent Miller and the Angola 3 Part 3| Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman conclude this 3 part series covering the brutal murder of Angola Prison Guard Brent Miller with inside information and details you may have never heard.
This episode covers the convictions of Alford Woodbox and Herman Wallace of the Angola 3. Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tells the history and stories of the bloodiest prison in American history, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
From the creative minds of award winning podcasters Woody Overton of Real Life Real Crime @Real Life Real Crime Podcast and Jim Chapman of @Local Leaders:The Podcast Bloody Angola is a no holds barred podcast based on stories and interviews of the bloodiest prison in America, told like you have never heard it!
Episode 4 "Brent Miller and the Angola 3 Part Two" is engineered and Produced by Jim Chapman and Envision Podcast Studios LLC
#AngolaPrison #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola #Podcast Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 18 Aug 2022 - 5 - |Brent Miller and the Angola 3 Part Two| Bloody Angola A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman continue the discussion into the brutal murder of Angola Prison Guard Brent Miller with inside information and details you may have never heard.
#AlbertWoodfox #BloodyAngola #PrisonPodcast #Podcast
Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tells the history and stories of the bloodiest prison in American history, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. From the creative minds of award winning podcasters Woody Overton of Real Life Real Crime @Real Life Real Crime Podcast Jim Chapman of @Local Leaders:The Podcast Bloody Angola is a no holds barred podcast based on stories and interviews of the bloodiest prison in America, told like you have never heard it!
Episode 4 "Brent Miller and the Angola 3 Part Two" is engineered and Produced by Jim Chapman and Envision Podcast Studios LLC
Bloody Angola on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BloodyAngolaPodcast
Bloody Angola on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bloodyangola/
Bloody Angola on the web:
https://www.bloodyangola.com
Thank you to our sponsors!
A-1 Mortgage Services:
https://a1mortgageservices.com
Cajun Navy ground Force:
https://www.gocajunnavy.org
Stirgus Credit Repair:
https://stirguscreditrepair.com/
Performance Tire and Automotive:
https://www.performancetireandautomotive.com
Southern Rhythm Venue and Entertainment:
https://southernrhythm.com
Hustle Makes it Happen the Podcast:
https://www.hustlemakesithappen.com
The Brock Law Firm:
https://www.lawyerlivingstonla.com
Flourish Hormone Replacement and Wellness Centers:
https://www.flourishhormonereplacement.com
#AngolaPrison #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola #Podcast Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 11 Aug 2022 - 4 - Bloody Angola: Brent Miller and the Angola 3 Part 1
Woody Overton and Jim Chapman discuss the brutal murder of Angola Prison Guard Brent Miller with inside information and details you may have never heard.
Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tells the history and stories of the bloodiest prison in American history, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
From the creative minds of award winning podcasters Woody Overton of Real Life Real Crime @Real Life Real Crime Podcast and Jim Chapman of @Local Leaders:The Podcast Bloody Angola is a no holds barred podcast based on stories and interviews of the bloodiest prison in America, told like you have never heard it!
Episode 3 "Brent Miller and the Angola 3" is engineered and Produced by Jim Chapman and Envision Podcast Studios LLC
Bloody Angola on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BloodyAngolaPodcast
Bloody Angola on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bloodyangola/
Bloody Angola on the web:
https://www.bloodyangola.com
Thank you to our sponsors!
A-1 Mortgage Services:
https://a1mortgageservices.com
Cajun Navy ground Force:
https://www.gocajunnavy.org
Stirgus Credit Repair:
https://stirguscreditrepair.com/
Performance Tire and Automotive:
https://www.performancetireandautomotive.com
Southern Rhythm Venue and Entertainment:
https://southernrhythm.com
Hustle Makes it Happen the Podcast:
https://www.hustlemakesithappen.com
The Brock Law Firm:
https://www.lawyerlivingstonla.com
Flourish Hormone Replacement and Wellness Centers:
https://www.flourishhormonereplacement.com
#AngolaPrison #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola #Podcast Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 04 Aug 2022 - 3 - THE HEEL STRING GANG Bloody Angola Episode 2 - A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman
From the creative minds of award winning podcasters Woody Overton of Real Life Real Crime @Real Life Real Crime Podcast and Jim Chapman of @Local Leaders:The Podcast
Bloody Angola is a no holds barred podcast based on stories and interviews of the bloodiest prison in America, told like you have never heard it!
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola has a notorious history and the best in podcast storytelling and the best in interview style podcasting have joined forces to show bring a podcast experience like you have never seen!
Episode 2 "The Heel String Gang" is engineered and Produced by Jim Chapman and Envision Podcast Studios LLC
Bloody Angola on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BloodyAngolaPodcast
Bloody Angola on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bloodyangola/
Bloody Angola on the web:
https://www.bloodyangola.com
Thank you to our sponsors!
A-1 Mortgage Services:
https://a1mortgageservices.com
Cajun Navy ground Force:
https://www.gocajunnavy.org
Stirgus Credit Repair:
https://stirguscreditrepair.com/
Performance Tire and Automotive:
https://www.performancetireandautomotive.com
Southern Rhythm Venue and Entertainment:
https://southernrhythm.com
Hustle Makes it Happen the Podcast:
https://www.hustlemakesithappen.com
The Brock Law Firm:
https://www.lawyerlivingstonla.com
Flourish Hormone Replacement and Wellness Centers:
https://www.flourishhormonereplacement.com
#AngolaPrison #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 28 Jul 2022 - 2 - THE WALLS Bloody Angola Episode 1 - A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman
From the creative minds of award winning podcasters Woody Overton of Real Life Real Crime @Real Life Real Crime Podcast and Jim Chapman of @Local Leaders:The Podcast Bloody Angola is a no holds barred podcast based on stories and interviews of the bloodiest prison in America, told like you have never heard it!
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola has a notorious history and the best in podcast storytelling and the best in interview style podcasting have joined forces to show bring a podcast experience like you have never seen!
Bloody Angola on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BloodyAngolaPodcast
Bloody Angola on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bloodyangola/
Bloody Angola on the web:
https://www.bloodyangola.com
Thank you to our sponsors!
A-1 Mortgage Services:
https://a1mortgageservices.com
Cajun Navy ground Force:
https://www.gocajunnavy.org
Stirgus Credit Repair:
https://stirguscreditrepair.com/
Performance Tire and Automotive:
https://www.performancetireandautomotive.com
Southern Rhythm Venue and Entertainment:
https://southernrhythm.com
Hustle Makes it Happen the Podcast:
https://www.hustlemakesithappen.com
The Brock Law Firm:
https://www.lawyerlivingstonla.com
Flourish Hormone Replacement and Wellness Centers:
https://www.flourishhormonereplacement.com
#AngolaPrison #PrisonPodcast #BloodyAngola Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThu, 21 Jul 2022 - 1 - Bloody Angola A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton & Jim Chapman
On July 21st 2022 Award Winning Podcasters Woody Overton and Jim Chapman bring you "Inside The Wire" for a unique look at the bloodiest prison in America. Bloody Angola is a no holds barred look at the convicts and the "free people" of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Mon, 11 Jul 2022
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