#420 Maggie Freleng with Wilson Rivera

Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hota Kotby is presented by CVS. I'm Jake Brenn and on the Discrease Land podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard. The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison or the bizarre crime lady Gaga's Accused Up, where that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Discrease Land on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Harris Totten, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Have surprises, many surprises. Welcome to the Sweet 305 podcast where the Gutech comes to life. You're the only person I know that loves the Yellow Starbursts. Lemonade. This is Sweet 305. Here, oversharing is encouraged. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lille Ponds on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In September of 1993, Wilson Rivera and his friend Roger Murphy relying on wait to rob a pizza delivery driver in South Detroit. They'd been tipped off that the pizza guy was carrying a couple thousand dollars in drug money. But the payoff was less than they expected, only a few hundred dollars. A few nights later, two masked gunmen burst into a nearby house. 20-year-old Doug Williams and his mother Lavonda were both shot and killed. The investigator's theory was that Doug had known about the robbery and was killed to keep him from snitching. The police wasted no time in rounding up some local gang members for questioning, including Wilson Rivera. They arrest me at my house. I'm under the assumption that they're looking for me for the robbery. And so when they take me to homicide, I'm thinking that this is a trick that they're paying on me for that I could go ahead and admit to the robbery. Wilson had a solid alibi for that night. But one by one, the other suspects were dropped from the investigation. By the time Wilson went to trial, he was the only one left. From Laval for Good, this is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling. Today, Wilson Rivera. Wilson Rivera was born in 1974 in Southwest Detroit. My whole family's daughter, my mother was born in Chicago, but my father I was born in Puerto Rico. So we have family on both sides of the ocean, if you will. I spent most of my time, so I was a teenager in Detroit, but I was raised in Puerto Rico. My mother tells me that as a child, she said I was pretty lively in the near-death of the child. I'm animated, hyper, to a degree. But always she said I was always smile. But the family had its troubles. Both of Wilson's parents struggled with substance abuse. My father was an alcoholic. He was as far as I could remember. Images I could see my father being an abused, getting the next to go to use. My mother ended up engaging drugs, drinking, and so her life at that time she got, my mother had a lot of personal issues and personal demons that she was struggling in again, that she never could deal with at the time. So her life was spiraling out of control. Wilson's parents separated and his father ended up moving back to Puerto Rico. His mother did her best to care for Wilson and his brother Antonio. For most of his childhood, Wilson went back and forth between their mother in Detroit and their father in Puerto Rico. In 1984, when he was 10, they moved back to Detroit. But he struggled in school. I had the language area. We didn't really speak English. They placed the place of bilingual classes where basically we were just putting a classroom and as far as I could remember, just left there. So you become kind of like authorized and at the beginning to recent school, I was constantly getting into fighting school and getting trouble. The trouble continued through his teens. I used to be a member. We were two or three again, camelboys and corporations, CBI and consequently we were involved in a lot of mischievous behavior as in the neighborhood. And I started getting trouble, shoplifting and things of that nature at that time. And skipping out of school. But soon the neighborhood mischief was escalating into something else. About 1987, South West Detroit began to receive an influx of national gangs. There were two or three primary gangs for Chicago who ended up coming to South West Detroit and they began to recruit individuals. And what ends up happening, local street gangs in the neighborhood, we all banded as one together and we were confident fighting with these other gangs. In 1990, when Wilson was 16, one of his friends was shot in the face by a member of a rival gang. This led to an incident that would end up having deep repercussions for Wilson. Basically one of my other friends wanted to go to a weapon, a shotgun, and brought me the shotgun and I overs fired at the rival gang and as I said the scene, I came face to face where the member of the Detroit police. I pulled the weapon out and as I pulled the weapon out, I discharged it and it didn't hit him. Later on the following day, I was arrested and essentially I pled guilty to the offense. He was charged with attempt to commit bodily harm on a police officer. That's what I want you to do when I'm born. Wilson spent over two years at the Maxi Boys Training School, a juvenile correction facility, about an hour outside of Detroit. And when he was released in 1993, he still hadn't graduated high school but he did manage to find a job in a factory. At the time I was working but then I had suffered a hand injury or a gunshot wound where I couldn't really use my hand and keep up with the production so instead of being fired, I quit the job and the way that I would survive, it would be either petty hustle or I would be engaged in small and I'm not minimizing it but it was what we would consider small rivalries and the neighborhood and it would be dope killers or things of the source. Wilson got by on the petty crimes and was still running with the camel boys. But when he was around 19, his girlfriend told him some news that made him want to change his lifestyle. I was excited when I found out that she was pregnant. I wasn't I wasn't scared but I knew that I wanted to make like a shift in my life. I wanted to be present for my daughters. And to Wilson that meant leaving gang life behind. But he found that was easier said than done. I had started applying for jobs. I wanted to try to see if I could get back into old factory where I was working at but maybe in a different position where it didn't require for me to work in the machines that I had to be working on before. Unfortunately though I still live in the same environment though. The neighborhood where I lived as like my house was smacked in the middle of basically all the rival gangs that I was in my fights with. So there was one of them being able to kind of constantly going back and forth. Wilson was living in the neighborhood spending his nights at his girlfriend's house and leaving early in the morning to try and avoid the other gangs. I figured that it me going home in the mornings will be a lot safer if opposed to you know coming home at midnight or or late at night time because that's that time to do rival gangs because you got your home. Wilson had decided to give up the petty crime and gang life but he hadn't found a job yet and he was still involved with the same crowd. One of his friends Kalmata was in a gang called the cash flow posse, a gang that the camelboys had an alliance with. Kal also worked at a local pizza shop and one day Kal approached Wilson and his friend Roger Murphy with a scheme to make some easy money. What he had informed us was that there was a guy that was delivering pizzas, but he was doing so while at the same time selling drugs. We were led to believe that this person had at least $2,000 from drug proceeds on himself. On September 12, the 1993, Wilson and Roger were armed and waiting to rob the pizza guy along his route. But he was taking longer than they expected, so they thought they might have missed him. Roger knew a guy named Douglas Williams who lived across the street, and he went over to Doug's house to ask if he could use the phone. He eventually reached the delivery guy comes and we robbed the guy and he didn't have no $2,000, he didn't have $800, the individual actually only had $400. So when Cal comes to their apartment and asks if he gets out of work at 10 o'clock, then he asked for his portion of the money. I told him he wasn't going to get the money because he lied about what the guy had. And so we fell out over that. And that should have been that robbery and a small argument over a few hundred dollars, but it wasn't. Twenty-year-old Douglas Williams lived with his parents LaVonda and Daniel Brown. In three days after the pizza man was robbed, two men burst into their house wearing ski masks. One of the intruders shot and killed both Doug and LaVonda, but Daniel Doug's father survived. When he talked with police shortly afterwards, Daniel told them that Doug had known about the armed robbery from a few days before. Daniel Brown said that his son, Doug, had told him that Wilson Rivera and Roger Murphy were the two individuals involved in that armed robbery. This is Wilson's post-conviction attorney, Rachel Wolfe. There was plenty there for the prosecution to latch onto and for the police to investigate because they knew exactly who Roger Murphy and Wilson Rivera were at the time. And one member of the Detroit Police Department, Officer Gerald Packard, had his own reasons for focusing on Wilson. The officer that Wilson had shot at back when he was 16, Officer Ayala, was Packard's partner. So Officer Packard knew Wilson. He knew that he had gotten what I imagine Packard would assume is a short sentence for something like that. He was not on the homicide team. He was not part of the homicide investigation, but he was the one when he heard that Roger and Wilson were potentially suspects. He was the one that went to Wilson's apartment knocking on the door and then ultimately, once the warrant was obtained, just busted right in to the apartment. And when they arrest me at my house, I'm under the assumption that they're looking for me for the robbery. And so when they take me to homicide, Sergeant Morrell tells me that he's arrested me for murder. That this is a trick that they're paying on me so that I could go ahead and admit to the robbery. But Wilson knew nothing about the homicide. The night of the shooting, he had been with his girlfriend and her mother at their house. He didn't learn about the shooting until the next day when he found out that Roger had also been arrested. I seen Roger at homicide, and when they put him in a bullpen, and that's when I asked Roger what's going on? And he explained to me what had actually taken place with the murder with the homicide. Now again, I'm operating under this concept of lurch that we have within the gang. So I'm not going to say nothing. They're not going to say nothing. And we just take it out and see what happens. And my mind, I'm assuming that essentially the facts are going to bear me out since I don't have nothing to do with it. It's just a matter of time before I'm clear. Unfortunately, if we could see that, that would end up taking place. Hey, I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hota Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hota Kotby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. You have many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305 where the good chat comes to life. What up? What up? It's like a form of a sweet, like, "Hola amiga. Hola mejor amiga. Hola hermana. What up?" Look, I've never seen you talk to anyone. Except with my children. My children, yes, yes. Yes. Se mi amante. Ooh. Oh, she's incredible. Ya la te lo no ve la. It's a woman. No, it's not. I mean, I don't know. No, it's someone who needs you. How do you say? I would like to collaborate with this person. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Ponds as part of my Tiltura Podcast Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers. If you haven't heard, Arnie Podcast is called, "Hey, Jonas." And this week we're hanging out with someone we're really big fans of. Millie Bobby Brown. That's right. 11 herself. We talk about her new movie and all of home's three family life and all the amazing things she has going on right now. Of course. Of course. This is where my mind when I saw this, Millie Bobby Brown. You have over 60 animals. First of all, how do you even keep track of everybody in second? Do you have favorites? Who are they and why? Yeah, I need to know about this. Okay. I don't know where the number 60, and I really got to figure that out. And I could actually have over 60. I just need to really know that number. There have been plenty of sheep in my bed and. It's a big bed. In the bed, literally sleeping in the bed, yeah. Plus, we find out what she really feels about stranger things in here. Five seasons, almost 10 years of your life. I could have never have guessed it. I started when I was 10 years old. Our conversation with Millie Bobby Brown is out now. Go check it out. Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. In the aftermath of the shooting, the Detroit Homicide Squad, headed up by Officer Kerry Russell, rounded up a number of local gang members and charged them with the murders. One of the first to be arrested was Kalmata. They knew they were looking for Wilson and Roger. They went to this house that was a known location for both the cash flowpossi gang and the Campbell Boys gang. So, they came in, they arrested Kal at that time. He was the only person in that apartment with a number of firearms. They also found a ski mask and a jacket inside of that apartment that they ultimately seized and ended up admitting at trial as well. While in custody, Kal told Officer Packard that he had heard Wilson and Roger talking about Doug Williams, calling him a snitch. Kal took that to mean they were going to take steps to make sure Doug couldn't report them for the robbery. The police also brought in a couple of other gang members for questioning, Armando Campos and Ephraim Garcia. Both of them were in the cash flowpossi, and according to Wilson, Ephraim was trying to climb the ranks in the gang. The way that the gang was operating was that in order for an individual to move up in the ranks, right, they'd be coming in for a third or a treasurer or whatever, other upper echelon in the gang, what they would have to do is they would have to what we call back then put in work. You know, whether it be if you robbed somebody, if you shot somebody, if you jumped somebody in the schools and all that, the reputation of that, whatever you do, go to the gang. So in order for Ephraim to move up into ranks in his gang, he wanted to put in the work. And in this case, the work was to keep Doug Williams from snitching about the pizza robbery. Wilson says that that day at the jail, Roger told him exactly how it had gone down. And so Roger and Ephraim go to the house where the witness of the robbery was and Ephraim kicks down the door and opens fire and hits Doug and then Roger comes to the other side and hits Doug and then as Doug's mother tends to flee the residence, Roger opens fire on him. and he has heard well. After what Roger told him, Wilson was confident that the truth would come out and he'd be released. But Roger never confessed to anyone else, and the homicide team continued to question Wilson. And I told him exactly where I was at. I told him I was spending the night with my daughter's mother and she was at the time I was 20 and I was pregnant. And in my mind, I know where I was at. So I gave him the elevator and gave him everything where I was at and everything. And my expectation was that there would go talk to my daughter's mother, but that never took place. When Armando Compos was questioned, he told police that the day after the homicide, Roger had turned up at his house, desperate for money. Roger said, "I just smoked someone. I just smoked someone. I need as much money as possible. I got to get out of town." And then when questioned a little further, Armando also said, "Yeah, he mentioned Wilson too. He mentioned Wilson was there too." Wilson and Roger were now the primary suspects and both were charged with the murders. In September of 1993, a joint preliminary hearing was held at which Cal and Armando testified, both repeated what they had told police. But when Roger Murphy went to trial in April of 1994, Armando changed his story. Armando recanted everything he had said at the preliminary examination. He said, "No, I never made those statements. The only reason that I made those statements is because I was arrested." You know, I was charged. I was threatened by the police. I said exactly what they wanted me to say. Roger, of course, was acquitted of all of the charges. But Wilson remained in jail. He went to trial a few months later on September 6, 1994. The judge was Helen Brown and the prosecutor was Lisa Lindsay. As far as physical evidence, there wasn't much for the state to present. We don't have fingerprints. They didn't fingerprint the shell casings or anything in the house at the time. Obviously, there's no DNA or anything like that. It was a really quick homicide. Officer Packard and the homicide squad had searched Wilson's home the day they arrested him. And they find two firearms and two ski masks, one of which was black or dark blue in color. The other one was a multi-colored. Those guns were tested against some of the shell casings that were recovered in the house. And there was a bullet I believe recovered from Doug's body during the autopsy. And there wasn't a match. So, conclusively, neither of the weapons found in Wilson's home were involved in the homicide. They were allowed, however, to admit them at trial, along with a bunch of ammunition that they found in Wilson's home, none of which was the right caliber to be involved in the homicide either. But they presented it as if it could be they sure did. Yeah, they presented all of that to the jury. The state relied heavily on police and witness testimony to make their case. But there wasn't much of that either. Daniel Brown testified to the armed robbery and named these two co-defendants as perpetrators of that armed robbery. And then they also had testimony from one other witness, Cal Mata. Cal repeated the statement he had given the police that he had heard Wilson and Roger talking about getting rid of Doug Williams. And that was about it for the prosecution's case. The officer in charge of the case, you know, who was basically the one that was responsible for taking out the testimony from all these witnesses and all that. She felt a shoulder for my trial even though she knew my trouble set for that day. And so all of these things that was taken place, I'm looking at what was going on. I was like, yeah, at least in my mind, I was hoping that the judge was going to say, you know, I'm going to interfere in this thing here and I'm going to dismiss it for the lack of evidence. And because of what was going on with the prosecutor's judge, produce their witnesses. And not only that, Wilson had an alibi. Remember on the night of the murders, he'd been with his girlfriend, but she never testified at trial. And surprisingly, Armando Compos did not appear either. So when my attorney, Mr. Krip asked to have a due diligence hearing, asked why Armando is not shown up to testify. We find out that the prosecutor at the time has failed to subpoena Armando. And so he never showed up to testify because he never knew. I think ultimately it's entirely possible that Roger was acquitted and Wilson was convicted because of the absence of Armando Compos's testimony. On September 9th of 1994, the jury found Wilson Rivera guilty of the premeditated murders of Donald Williams and the Vonda Brown. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [MUSIC] After I came to prison, I think within the first year, I witnessed an enemy getting to a fight and he got stabbed. He essentially hit the eyes from the stab wound and hit the blood out. And so they locked us down and I told myself, yeah, that's not going to happen to me. You know, so I wanted to hope that the best of posturing and any issue that I had, I was going to get into a fight. I was going to wait for anybody to stab me, try to kill me in prison. And so what I ended up doing, I started acting on first. So if I felt that we had an issue, I would act first. And I actually caught a couple of assault tickets in prison. I spent several years in Mexican security, several years in the hole. I didn't care much about where I was at in prison at that time. I had just turned 20 and being sentenced to life without parole. And the only thing that kind of set me to a degree, balance out, was that I wanted to see my daughter. While Wilson was in jail awaiting trial, his daughter, Sierra, was born. The first time that I got a chance to see her was actually doing my sentencing. So the time that I'm being sentenced to life without parole, I'm actually paying more attention to my daughter, who basically just a few months old at the time, you know. He's been in prison my whole life. So what I do know is from the relationship we formed with him being in prison. This is Wilson's daughter, Sierra Ramirez. He's funny, he's intelligent. But I hear a lot of like, very talkative. He's an encourager. You know, it's only 15-minute phone calls at a time, but I feel pretty open when I talk with him. What was that like growing up only knowing your father from prison, from visiting rooms? I guess for me it was a norm. I didn't see it as anything weird because it was all I knew basically. You know, when I started getting older and going to my friends' house and I'm like, "Oh, okay, this is a little bit different." You know, there's a different dynamic that comes from having your dad in your life. And I had him to an extent, but not fully. And now it's an adult when I look back, I see how that impacted me. Just as a woman, as a girl growing up, you know, as a white how it impacted me. Did you ever feel angry or resentful towards your dad? I did feel some anger with him when I was younger. I felt very abandoned and I did tell him I was angry at him and felt like he made the choice to leave me. No, and I was coming. He was very receptive, you know, he apologized and he's definitely done what he can as a father to his best of his ability, you know. Whether when I was young, he would send me, you know, we're Hispanic. He would send me tapes to learn Spanish and he would send me these books and make me bracelets and stuff like that. He's always caught. I've always seen him. He's always sent cards. He's definitely done what he can. I give that to him for sure. Hey, I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hota Kotby. This podcast lets us uncover all of that together. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum retrashing. My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Samira and Gracie! I'm so excited! On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. What up? What up? No, no, no, no. Mira, nunca lo he videoblado con nadie. Excepto con mis hijos, mis hijos sí saben. (Música) - Sí. - Se mi amante. - Uff, no. - Uff, que increíble. Ya la té la novela. (Música) - Yo no soy la única persona que me gusta a los cargos. - ¡Ura man! - No hay alguien que te falta como que te dice. Me gustaría colaborar con esta persona. (Música) - "This is Sweet, 305". "This is Sweet, 305", con "Lelipons" como parte de mi "Solduda Podcast" en el network. En el "I Heart Radio App", "Apple Podcast" o en donde puedes hacer las podcasts. - Hola, todos, es "Jones Brothers". Si no ha hablan "Jones" en "Jones". Y este día, estamos hablando con alguien que es una gran fanza. - "Milly Bobby Brown", que es la verdad. 11 de la persona. - Nos vemos en el nuevo video y todos los familiares y todos los más importantes cosas que tiene que ir. - Claro, claro. - Me voy a ver cuando me he visto la "Milly Bobby Brown". - "Mil de 60 animals". first of all, ¿cómo puedes estar en la casa de todos? ¿Y qué? ¿Y qué? - Claro, me necesito saber sobre esto. - Ok, no sé dónde es el número 60 y me ha llegado a ver. Y yo podría tener el número 60. Yo creo que realmente no sé esa número. Tengo que ser pleneta en mi bed y. - Es un gran bed. - En mi bed, literalmente, en mi bed. - Además, nos vemos lo que realmente se parece sobre las cosas extremas. - 5 años, casi 10 años de tu vida. - Yo podría haber visto que era una gasta. Estaba en la casa cuando era 10 años. - La conversación de "Milly Bobby Brown" es ahora. - ¡Gracias! - ¡Gracias, Jonas! - En el "I Heart Radio" ap. Apple Podcast, o "Whore ever", que es tu podcast. - "Soon" después de su convicción, Wilson's Attorney filed a direct appeal, en el conducto de prosecutorial, y su visión de la casa de la casa de la firearms que se ha sido de acuerdo con los muertos. El coro se ha llegado a la appeal y Wilson se ha llegado a la casa de la casa de la casa de la casa de la firearms. Y que se ha llegado a la casa de la casa de la casa de la firearms. El coro se ha llegado a la casa de la firearms. ¿Qué convente de su innocence o qué les da a seguir de la casa de la firearms? Cuando empezé a hablar a personas y especialmente, como las leras de la pasión de la pasión de la casa de la firearms. Y algunas otras personas que se han vuelto a la casa de la firearms. Cuando empezé a la casa de la firearms. Estamos hablando de 2 a.m. 3 a.m. Wilson's girlfriend never testified to this at trial. When Rachel interviewed her, she found out why. Because she was scared. She says an individual in a suit approached her in the hallway outside of the courtroom and said, "Look, we're holding your brother. He's currently facing these additional charges." If you go in there and testify, you know, we're going to reconsider the severity of the charges and the possible sentence against your brother. And so she was too afraid to testify. And I think her testimony probably would have made a difference. Rachel says she's spoken with other potential witnesses from the neighborhood. People will have knowledge of what actually happened. But they have similar reasons for not coming forward. They're all afraid of the police. They're all afraid of the prosecutor and of coming into court just because I think that's what their lived experience has taught them to fear. They are hesitant to come in a court. And that's made the investigation of this case a little more difficult as well as that. I have witnesses who were willing to provide me with information that are not willing to come in and testify in court. They're not willing to talk to, you know, the prosecutors, conviction, integrity unit. They're just not going to do that. That's so interesting. They're more scared of the law enforcement than they are of snitching and being a snitch on the street. Yeah, at least that's what they're telling me. According to Rachel, all of this is tied in with the culture in the Detroit Police Department at the time. People in the community had little reason to trust the cops and plenty of reason to fear them. They had this practice, they called it witness roundups. You're not supposed to arrest somebody without probable cause. But what they would do, and they did it in Wilson's case, they would go and everybody who they thought was a possible witness, they would charge them with the underlying offense. So in a homicide investigation, you're all charged with homicide. And then they would bring them in, hold them, interview them. The place was Detroit Police Headquarters at 1300 bobian. And it was notorious for being the seat of police corruption. All the witnesses, all the clients that I have, you say 1300 bobian, everybody knows exactly what you're talking about. That interview room that they used to take people is awful. Like cockroaches are in there. They don't give you food. You know, you can't see out. So you'll see, through the 1990s, these witnesses, all testifying, like, I was held for like three days. I was charged with the homicide. And of course they weren't involved. You know they weren't. But that's what DPD was doing. So in the late 1980s and all throughout the 90s, there was significant corruption within the Detroit Police Department. In the year 2000, seven years after Wilson's conviction, the Department of Justice ran an investigation of the DPD that turned up a number of significant violations. In 1995, Carlos Rodriguez, who was one of the investigators on Wilson's homicide team, was indicted, along with four other officers for operating on narcotics, bringing it through the fourth precinct in the city of Detroit. The entire DPD Forensics Lab was shut down into 2008 because the investigators had found widespread errors in their analysis and then a few years later at David pouch The firearms examiner in Wilson's case was found to have Intentionally fabricated Ballistics evidence to obtain a conviction in a 1992 case So a year before he testified at Wilson's trial. He had intentionally fabricated ballistic evidence that Individual to his case his name is Desmond Ricks. He was also exonerated on that basis With all of this new information to present Rachel is hopeful that Wilson will be granted a new trial Short of a Commutation or pardon from the governor There's one other way you can get out of prison when you have a life without parole sentence And that is through a motion for relief from judgment So basically what you do is you go back to the state court back to the same court that convicted you in the first place And you say you I'm entitled to a new trial for this reason this reason and this reason So do you investigate the hell out of everything because you only get one chance so Now that we have all of that evidence collected there are Some significant legal challenges that we can raise one of them of course is the Brady violation Wilson should have had information that E from Garcia was given a polygraph examination and failed it So that he would be able to properly investigate that avenue of defense and he wasn't so that's certainly one of our claims I think we were prepared to go to court Probably about two years ago and so we'll be moving forward very quickly now And in the meantime in addition to becoming a prison paralegal Wilson has accomplished another important goal in May of 2023 He graduated magna cum laude from Calvin University What's going for a bachelor's degree in faith and community leadership of the minor and social work? The highest grade I have completed was the seventh grade. I never went to high school and so being able to Accomplish not just a teen in a college degree, but with a high GPA 3.93 It was personally a huge accomplishment and it just gave me a huge sense of our self self-work as well So your daughter CRO was telling me that she was able to go to your graduation? Yeah, to me right there. It isn't valuable. I mean it's a moment that I look at the picture And I'm filled with such a man. I'm extremely proud of my daughter That got fish. She's my heart It was nice, you know to be able to be there and watch him do like kind like this this normal thing It was awesome to see and maybe feel proud of him You know, I feel like it was a great example of how even given his circumstances He was able to accomplish something so great. It was very inspiring And Sierra credits her father with inspiring her in other ways. I've seen what a wonderful person he is And how someone like I said can make bad choices at one point in their life But then you know they can turn that around and not let that define them and contain them no matter where they're at being in prison I think it's important to know your own worth and not see other people's decisions as How worthy you are I guess because that's how I felt I felt like I was unworthy of love and I was Someone who just had this abandonment and you know, I guess it would be that doesn't define who you are as a person I guess for me was just you know learning my identity and who I am aside from that, you know So do you and your dad ever talk about maybe the future anything like that? He talks like when you know if he gets out he would love to move here Yeah, he would love to move here and you know sometime with me and my daughter And you know, I mean I have been able to have a childhood with him, but my children being able to have him around and You know see that side of him that I never got to see that I will grow to see I think that would be pretty awesome Wilson believes that his experience gave him a perspective that can make a difference to others even while he remains behind bars I see people depressed. I see people commit suicide. I think people tend suicide You know, and so this is the environment and I'll talk about the world because I have this education while I'm still fighting to prove my innocent I could be a sum of Assistants to these individuals around me as well. So when you get out what do you want to do? I would love to be able to work with you and gangs I Would love to be able to step out of prison and start programs mentoring programs to learn programs because I know the value of that Programs they help interpret, you know because I know how that feels not to be able to express your feelings Because you have to you don't have the proper words in English to do so So these are kind of things that I would love to be affected in my community as well I no longer kind of do myself As this individual who's just imprisoned and poor me, you know When I figured out that even though I'm still fighting for my freedom to prove my innocent I could still be effective in helping out individuals If you'd like to help support Wilson in his fight to prove his innocence go to free Wilson Rivera dot com We'll post that link in the episode description Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction with Maggie Freelink Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler and Kevin Werdas as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beale and researcher Shelby Sorrows Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Paulie with additional production by Jeff Clyburn and Connor Hall The music in this production is by three-time Oscar nominated composer Jay Ralph Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at lava for good and at wrongful conviction You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freelink wrongful conviction with Maggie Freelink is a production of lava for good podcasts in association with signal company number one Joy is essential and it's also elusive but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence Joy 101 it's a new podcast hosted by me Hota Kotby if you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy Tune into these candid uplifting and moving on air chats listen to joy 101 on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Joy 101 with Hota Kotby is presented by CVS I'm Jake Brenn and on the disgrace land podcast I explore the wild lies of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history These are the stories you haven't heard the kind you'll end up telling someone else Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's Accused Where that time blondies Debbie Harry is skate Ted Bunny listen to disgrace land on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts My first guest is Paris Hilton Shakira Luke and Yerin have surprises many surprises Welcome to the sweet 305 podcast where the new tech comes to life You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starbursts Lemonade This is sweet 305 here Oversharing is encouraged listen to sweet 305 with lele ponds on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts