Wrongful Conviction

Ben Bowlin, new co-host of Wrongful Conviction and host of the long-standing podcast Stuff the Don’t Want You to Know and Jason Flom from the Wrongful Conviction podcast had the honor of sitting down for many hours to speak with Leonard Peltier about his personal life, the historical context of the resistance movement and events that led to the attack on Jumping Bull Ranch in ‘75, as w...

On November 18, 2001, a woman returned home from church to a man burglarizing her apartment in Thunderbolt, GA. While wearing a pair of batting gloves, the man proceeded to sexually assault her and steal various items. In the days following, police found those items in the residence of a man named Sterling Flint. When the victim identified Flint as a possible perpetrator, Flint blamed a man named...

On April 5, 1985, around 11 p.m., a woman exiting her car in her apartment complex parking lot just north of Atlanta, GA was approached by an African-American man. The man asked her if she could help him find "Paul." He then pulled out a gun and told her to move into the passenger seat. He drove to a nearby dead-end street where he raped the victim. After the attack, he drove her back to the parki...

Coming of age in Honduras, Clemente “Shorty” Aguirre was faced with a choice: join MS13 or die. He moved to Nicaragua with his grandmother instead, but with no economic prospects, he chose to come to the United States as an undocumented immigrant. Life was calm for a while, as he worked as a cook and lived in a trailer park, where he had found a place in a nice community of friends. Th...

On November 21, 1997, Gene Artis and his sister Yvonne Giles were shot and killed at their apartment in Suffolk, VA. Six-year-old Travone Artis was the only witness who saw his mother and uncle get murdered, and he unequivocally told authorities that a relative of his was the shooter. Despite this, 18 year old Lerico Kearney became a suspect when police found out he and Gene gambled together. Ther...

In this updated special edition of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom & Maggie Freleng , we revisit the case of  Andre Brown , whose conviction was vacated in 2022 after newly presented evidence and witness testimony demonstrated he could not have committed the crime. Despite this, the Bronx District Attorney has shockingly overturned the vacated ruling—and Andre is now b...

On March 25, 1988, Harold Wesley shot and killed Jimmy Calibera in a drug deal gone wrong. The crime occurred in front of the Breukelen Houses estates in Brooklyn, NY where John “Divine G” Whitfield lived with his mother and sister. Divine G was scheduled to turn himself in on drug charges in May of that year, but due to the testimony of an unreliable and incentivized informant, and de...

On July 10, 1994, in Houston, TX, four to six armed men forcibly entered a house that was being used as a base for selling crack cocaine. The intruders kicked down the door and immediately opened fire. Willie Williams and Clifford Tyler were shot while trying to flee but survived. Alton “Bud” Brown managed to escape unharmed but Charles Monroe was shot and succumbed to his injuries and...

On March 24, 2001, the burned body of Howard Rose was found in a pick up truck in Pennsylvania. Rose had been shot in the back of the head in Cleveland, OH the night before. Investigators centered on four suspects, including Arketa Willis and Marcus Blalock. As a result of a deal with the prosecution, Willis testified against Blalock, blaming him for the murder. No physical evidence defended this...

On July 21, 1997 in Brooklyn, NY, Patrick Niles, a passenger in a vehicle, was shot in the head and killed. The driver of the car and surviving eyewitness, Carlos Bethune, initially reported that he did not recognize the shooter, but later identified the perpetrator as Jermaine Archer. Carlos’s questionable identification became the basis for the state’s case against Jermaine, and Jerm...

On Easter Sunday, 1991, 18-year old gas station attendant William Little was shot and killed during an apparent armed robbery in Bloomington, IL. Eight years later, despite his co-defendant being found not guilty, eye witness contradictions, passing a lie detector test, no DNA, no murder weapon and a veteran police officer testifying that Jamie Snow was not seen fleeing from the gas station, Jamie...

On the night of January 12, 2002, Corey MIller went to the Platinum Club in Jefferson Parish, LA. Corey, professionally known as “C-Murder,” lived in New Orleans and was at the peak of his rap career after being signed to the prominent label No Limit Records. A fight broke out at the overcrowded club, gunshots followed, and 16-year-old Steve Thomas was killed.  Eyewitness testimon...

On July 17, 1973, 40 year old father of two and local chef Ting Fong Chan was beaten and stabbed to death on his way home from his night shift in Manitoba, Winnipeg, CA. A witness saw silhouettes of 4 or 5 men with long hair. Under the assumption that the men were Native American, police began to canvas the local indigenous population. A man named Adam Woodhouse told investigators about a recent g...

On January 7th, 1997, the owner of the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City, OK was beaten to death with a baseball bat at his motel by admitted killer, thief, and methamphetamine addict Justin Sneed. Mr. Sneed, fearful of the death penalty, falsely accused his boss, Richard Glossip, of masterminding the murder for hire plot in exchange for leniency. Now, Richard sits on death row in Oklahoma. To lear...

On November 16, 1979, Boston, MA cab driver Jeffrey Boyajian was killed after suffering five gunshots to the head. Another cab driver came forward claiming to have seen the crime, and through various questionable hypnotic sessions he identified James Watson and his 16 year old co-defendant Frederick Clay as the killers. Despite a total lack of physical evidence tying James to the crime, he was con...

On October 27, 2008, Jodi Lynne Torok was at her Crofton, MD home talking on the phone with her close friend, Blair Wolfe, when a man, purporting to be a salesman, knocked on her front door. Jodi ended the call to respond to the so-called salesman, but thereafter never called Ms. Wolfe back or answered any of Wolfe's subsequent telephone calls. Growing increasingly concerned, Ms. Wolfe telephoned...

On the morning of August 4, 1992, a man and his wife discovered the body of 31-year-old Vernon Huggins while walking their dog in Toledo, OH. He had been savagely beaten to death. Toledo police investigated the crime but after three months, the case was labeled inactive. In December of that same year, the case was reopened after a call was made to Crime Stoppers. The police interviewed members of...

On July 23rd, 1991, Carlos Torres and Charles Rivera were shot and killed while in a car in North Philadelphia, PA. One witness who later recanted identified Pedro Reynoso as the shooter. Despite 2 alibi witnesses, travel documents and pictures showing that Pedro was in the Dominican Republic at the time of the shooting, he was charged, convicted and sentenced to life without parole. To learn more...

On Saturday, June 16, 2007,  Adrien Jackson and Tierra Pressley where shot multiple times outside of the Off Broadway Lounge in Camden, NJ at around 2:30am. Adrien survived but Tierra died at the hospital that same night. Initially, Adrien Jackson could not identify the assailant. But almost a year later, he speculated that Manfred “Baby J” Younger might have been shooter. Despite...

One day in May of 1992, 19-year-old Eron Shelman was driving around Detroit, MI with three of his buddies. Eron was at the wheel with his friend Antonio Knight beside him when suddenly, a shot rang out, and Antonio fell over, dead. “I almost crashed the car,” Eron recalls. “I had my dearest friend laying in my lap, bleeding out the back of his head.” Despite someone else co...

On January 18, 1995, 38-year-old Denise Raymond, a Federal Express executive, was found dead in her Bronx, NY apartment from two gunshot wounds to the head. Less than 24 hours later,  43-year-old Baithe Diop, a driver for New Harlem Car Service, was fatally shot on a nearby street in what police said was an apparent robbery. Police then found two women who told police that they had heard six...

In the early morning hours of September 14, 1982, a man broke into a home in Newport News, Virginia and beat 30-year-old Jesse Perron to death with a crowbar. Then, over several hours, the attacker sexually assaulted Perron’s 22-year-old wife, Teresa, leaving bite marks during the assaults. Teresa and Jesse Perron’s home was located near the shipyard where the U.S.S. Carl Vinson was ha...

  On August 4, 1991, at a nightclub in New York NY, some teenagers began taunting each other and words escalated to punches. When the teenagers came out of the club prepared for a fight, a man shot and killed16-year-old Raymond Blount. Police showed mug shots of several men to a group of Blount’s friends who initially identified a former classmate nicknamed “Wool Lou” ...

On Halloween night in 2012, shots rang out at a party on the campus of the University of Southern California. Four people were injured and no one died. Prosecutors went after 19-year-old Brandon Spencer for the crime. Despite the fact that Brandon had no criminal record and was known for his involvement in sports and community activities, prosecutors claimed he was seeking revenge in a gang feud a...

Since releasing the 500th episode of Wrongful Conviction earlier this month, we thought it appropriate to spotlight some episodes from the very first season of Wrongful Conviction. On the afternoon of November 4, 1986, the body of an African-American woman was found lying under a blanket near a busy highway in Brooklyn, NY. She had been strangled to death. A witness told Detective Louis Eppolito t...