#426 Maggie Freleng with Jason Walton

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. Open your free iHeartRadio app search, Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hota Kotby is presented by CVS. My first guest is Paris Totten, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. I 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 Starburst. Lemonade. This is Sweet 305. Here, oversharing is encouraged. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lela Ponds on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brenn and on the Discretsland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and 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 Up, where that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Discretsland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. It was early Sunday evening in November of 2005 and a pop-up street fair was in full swing in South Central Los Angeles. The neighborhood had turned out to enjoy the rides, carnival games, hot dogs and cotton candy. Crowds of people were milling around the entrance at the corner of rodeo road and second avenue. Suddenly, half a dozen shots rang out and two kids fell to the ground. 14-year-old William Cox was shot twice in the torso and died at the scene. His friend Edward Williams, also 14, was shot in the heart, but somehow he survived. At the hospital, Edward gave police the names of several rival gang members who might have been the shooter. They opened up the book of all the people that they believed were members of the man's fields. This is Jason, he's a man's field, what not, and that's where things just started to snowball and I became target number one. That night, Jason Maltin had been hanging out with a group of friends, miles from the crime scene. His alibi was solid, but once the police had fixed their sights on him, the truth was meaningless. I don't feel like they also cared about the victim, more myself is like, okay, well, one gang members did, one gang member shot, one gang members in jail, we've had a three-foot-one in and away. This is Grover Tell Link, you have a pre-paid call from. Jason, Dan, if you want. And in May, at the California State Prison, Lancaster, California. From Lava for Good, this is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling. Today, Jason Maltin. My name is Jason Robert Walton. I come from Los Angeles, California. I was arrested and ultimately wrongful, he can get to November 17, 2005. Jason was a real fun-loving kid. He loved sports, he collected basketball cards and things like that. This is Jason's mother, Francille Johnson, most people call her Fran. She mostly raised me alone. I did sometimes go and visit my father, but living with my mother was where I was most comfortable where I wanted to be. We always had a big dinner on Sundays at my parents' house, and either my mom would cook or my dad would barbecue. I thought I was rich, I thought the world was perfect, and I love to play video games, collect sports cards, or just anything that you collect. My hobbies can fit the building things and fixing things. If he saw a radio or portable TV that was sitting on the curb or near the alley, he would want to take it home and try to fix it. And quite often, it would work. I grew up at a young age, and I grew up at a young age, because I can take a box, take the kit out, and I would never remove the instructions from the box. I can put the whole card together. Jason was a pretty typical kid, into cars, bikes, video games, and sports. Swimming, fishing, and anything that they'd involve being outside. I love to push the envelope. I was somewhat of a daredevil. So whether that was trying to ride a bike on one wheel for the whole length of the block or holding on to the ice cream truck, to a James D, to try to jump over a makeshift lamp that we made. Jason describes himself as a class clown, someone who loved to make people laugh. But he also had more serious ambitions. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was younger, because I loved the debate. I loved just the art of being able to verbally laugh while I guess you can say. But for Jason, school just wasn't a big priority. As a teenager, Jason started cutting class, hanging out with his friends, and smoking weed. Jason's older brother Antoine belonged to a local gang, the Mansfield Crips, and it wasn't long before Jason followed in his footsteps. That side of town, being in a gang or being from a gang, it really wasn't like we were gang bangers. We just hung out together, we went to school together. After school, we were just hanging out, we're just having a good time. We weren't just so armed with, or we're young, we were selling drugs to support our family. That wasn't our story. As Jason remembers it, being in the Mansfield Crips was a way of learning the ropes and learning about life. He says the older members of the gang were actually a good influence. They never told me anything wrong. They always encouraged me to stay in school. So, you know, if they're dropping me off at school, they're picking me up from school. We're going on these trips, we're going camping, we're going to the snow, and they're encouraging me to do the right thing. When people are saying, "Oh, gang banging is bad, gang members are bad." I'm not saying that because these are the same people that I know are gang members, but they're telling me good things. Friend, you know, we were talking about how he wound up in a gang. Do you remember finding out about that or what that was like? Well, when you live in certain neighborhoods, there are gangs. It's not a protection thing, but they know who you are because you live in the neighborhood. And you know who they are, but you're not always necessarily participating. I'm not saying he didn't associate, but he never had any problems with the police or criminal activity that involved association with a gang. No. You know, we did have conflicts or verbal spats or physicals with other kids or whatnot, but it wasn't so much of a violent thing. It was more of a unit, a family, a togetherness, as when we were younger. But there was a time when Jason found himself in a confrontation with someone from another gang. It was the fall of 2005 when Jason was around 21. Jason was driving around South Central with his girlfriend, Amber Jones, and his two young nephews. They stopped by Amber's house on rodeo road, which was on the turf of the Roland 30s, a rival gang. And being from the gang, I was hyper-amert. I was always aware of my surroundings. I had my two younger nephews with me, so that made me more vigilant because I couldn't afford for something to happen to these two kids. So when we pull up our part and I see the kid walking on the opposite side of the street, coming my direction. The kid was 14-year-old Edward Williams, Amber knew him through a friend of her uncles. She's like, "Yeah, he's a little kid. He's just big for his age. It's okay. No problem." When he realizes that it embers into car, that kind of made him escalate with his antics as far as. reaching like he had a gun and posturing and throwing up gang signs or whatnot. Edward was a junior member of a gang called the Roland 40s and they were in Roland 30s territory. Jason knew that all Edward's showing off could lead to trouble. They're direct rivals. This is a serious rivalry. He was asking me where was I from. At that time even though I was young, I wasn't focused on the day-to-day gang banking. I wanted something different in life. So I wasn't worried about a reason from what color you wearing that nonsense. I also was trying to let him know, "Hey, you're on rodeo boulevard. This is a main street that leads to the jungles, which is a predominantly blood-maverin burden. So while you're going up gang signs at me from across this busy street, you don't know who's driving up and down this street that might see you that you're putting the target on yourself." But despite Jason's warning, Edward kept it up. Finally, Jason did get out of his car. When I got out of the car and I approached him, I let him know that I was from Mansfield. I didn't want no problems with him. I got back in the car. That was the end of the conversation. That was the end of the, I guess you can call it an altercation. And that was the last time I had ever seen it. Two weeks later, Jason was driving down Pico boulevard. As he passed Roscoe's chicken and waffles, he spotted a fellow Crip who had recently gotten out of prison. So, I stopped. We're talking more people than we know are starting to pull up and we're hanging out with Smokein and we were waiting for his sister. His friend's sister was on her way with tickets to a concert, but she kept calling to say she was delayed. "It will be one excuse after the other. We stop to get drinks. We'll be there in 10 minutes. Oh, my friend left something at our house. We'll be there in 20 minutes. Oh, we stopped here. We'll be there in 15 minutes." That stretched out for over an hour or so to the point where they never ended up arriving. So ultimately we just hung out at Roscoe's for a couple hours just doing what we did on the regular, talking to people, talking to girls, smoking and just hanging out. And that was Jason's entire Sunday evening, just kicking it with friends in the parking lot at Roscoe's. Meanwhile a few miles away, a very different drama was unfolding. So there's Carnival in town, it's a Friday night. It's a pop-up carnival in a parking lot. It's on the corner of rodeo, road and second avenue in Los Angeles. And there's a lot of people there. This is Michael Cimanschik, executive director of the Innocent Center. There's cars everywhere and there's kids and there's probably, I think I've heard reports there might have been 30 or 40 people just outside the carnival gate. So on the evening of November 13th, 2005, just after 7pm, an individual opened fire and fired five to six rounds, a couple of rounds struck a child named William Cox, I believe was 14 at the time, and another couple of rounds struck and injured Edward Williams. The same kid from the Roland 40s that Jason had had to run in with a couple weeks before. Edward Williams was transported by ambulance to the hospital shortly thereafter and was in critical condition until a few days later. And William Cox died at the scene. And to put this incident into context, we need a little background on the gang situation in South Central at the time. So there were two gangs that were at war at the time of the crime. It's the Roland 30s and the Roland 40s. The 30s and the 40s were fighting over the territory right where the carnival was taking place. Edward Williams was part of the baby hustlers, also known as the baby 40s, and he had recently been jumped into the 40s. The 30s were comprised of this individual named J. Rock, who Edward Williams first mentioned at the hospital. Another individual named Terrell, who was in a dispute with Edward Williams at a Halloween party about two weeks before this incident. And four or five other individuals that were all spotted at the scene at the carnival that night. So we had both a group of 30s and then we had Edward Williams, who was a 40s self-admitted member. And William Cox was not claiming a gang. And in fact, I believe he had actually told Edward Williams not to be involved in the gangs because he thought it was dangerous. After the shooting occurred, police and ambulances were soon on the scene. And Edward was taken to the hospital. I believe he was in critical condition when he arrives. And he's on a bunch of medication, but he's jotting down notes because he can't speak at this point. And he writes down that it's J. Rock, J. Rock from Roland 30s. But somehow over the next few days, someone else entered into Edward's narrative. And two days later, he then switches to saying it was Amber's friend who did it. And I don't know if it's entirely clear that we know how that shift happens, where he goes from thinking it's somebody in the 30s to thinking it's Jason. Remember, Jason was in the Mansfield Crips, not the Roland 30s. But going back to the night of the shooting around 10 or so, Jason left the gathering at Roscoe's to go pick up Amber from work. We came back to my mother's house and that was how we ended the night. The next morning, she woke up and being that her family knew the family. Her mother let her know that Edward was shot last night. I didn't even put one in one together that the kid from weeks prior was Edward until later on when she had said, you know, that was the kid. And it's like, wow, this is the shot on the same very street that we had had what they were called in altercation weeks prior to what they said was going the same thing. Being out gang banging, you know, bringing that attention to herself. A few days later, Jason was out having lunch with his two nephews. I had just picked my nephews up from school. I came to Oki Dolls. I ordered them something to eat. I was standing at the table. A squad car cruised by outside and Jason recognized one of the cops, Officer Gutierrez. So when he passed by, he threw up the P-Fine away, daddy, and means rebellious. I believe I flipped him the bird. He smiled. That was the relationship between the officers and the neighborhood and the youth in the neighborhood. But this friendly exchange soon turned into something else. Jason had no idea that the police were out looking for him to charge him in the carnival shooting. The squad car swung back around and pulled it at the restaurant. Jason was arrested and taken to the Wilshire Division Police Station. Once I was placed in the hold and tank, I guess you can say, actually charged with the crime. My mind raced as to where it was at because it blew my mind that I was in jail for homicide. But so at the hospital, Edward had named several rival gang members in the shooting. How did the police wind up getting your name? So I don't know because he always worked shift in way. If you just let him talk, he will say it was the guy from the Roland 30s. He even named the guy multiple times. He named people that lived on his street by name and begged the police. Go talk to them. They'll tell you who the guy was. That shot me. The police never did a proper investigation. They never went to go talk to anyone that had information that made sense. And I figured out later one day when he was in the hospital, one of his older brothers was in the hospital room when he was talking to the officers. And I guess he just heard him say, "Oh, Amber's boyfriend," or he was talking about multiple incidents. And he talked about the day that we had seen each other in front of Amber's house. He was talking about a fight that took place at a Halloween party. I had never been to this Halloween party. But the police were jumbling everything together as if it was one situation, one day, one event. So I guess when the brother heard Amber's boyfriend, he asked Amber's uncle, "Who's Amber's boyfriend?" And he just knew that my name was Jason and that I was from Mansfield. The detectives ran Jason's name by officer Gutierrez and the other officers at the Wilshire Division. They opened up the bloke of all the men. the people that they believe were members of the MAMS fields, they identified them to the detectives. This is Jason, he's from MAMS field, what not. And that's where things just started to snowball and I became target number one. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can listen to this and all the Lava For Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava For Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's 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 HotaCott be on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Karen Sultan, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Sam Nidae, Gracie. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305 where the good chat comes to life. What up? It's like a form of a friend. Hello friend. Hello friend. Hello sister. Look, I've never seen anyone with me. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. Sit me amante. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Incredible. You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starbursts. I'm a leader. No, I'm a leader. I don't want to work with this person. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Ponds as part of my culture and podcast network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan. And on the Discretsland Podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. You're Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons right there alongside Yakuza Gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga is being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Discretsland on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I didn't know what waffle condition was. I never thought that that would even happen. I knew I didn't do anything, but I didn't have to tell you remember where was I. Nothing in my life told me that I have to remember where I am and what I'm doing every second of the day, every day, every night. After hours of questioning, Jason was transferred to Southwest Division and placed in a holding cell. That night he called Amber to help him remember where he had been the night of November 13th. We're replaying events and she let me know if that was the night that you were supposed to go to the concert. Okay perfect. That means I was at Roscoe's. Jason and Amber were able to call Roscoe's and speak to the manager who had been on duty that night. So we said, "I asked him, do you have the surveillance camera?" She said, "Yeah, we still have takes." So he asked where around with time was it. I said, "The little before 7. So he fast-forwarded and he's watching and I remember him saying, "I got you, I got you." When he's recognized my car pulling me. He said, "Yeah, I got you. You're on camera. You pulled in at this time." So it started with the surveillance camera as an alibi. And there was something else that placed Jason at Roscoe's that night. There was a cell phone tower, one block north of Roscoe's chicken and waffles on the braille and sandwiching tank. So my calls are being picked up off of that cell phone tower. Okay, well now I feel good that I'm going to end up getting out and everything's going to be okay. I got proof. But nine months later, in August of 2006, Jason went to trial in front of Judge Larry Findler. The prosecutor was deputy district attorney Paul Cam. Yeah, the prosecution's theory at the time of trial was that Jason had had this prior an erection about a month before the crime where he got in an argument with Edward Williams. And that's the only interaction that Jason ever had with Edward Williams. And so the prosecution alleged that this interaction preceded Jason seeing Edward Williams and William Cox at this carnival in cell central LA. And when he sees these two individuals, he has a gun in his hoodie pocket. And he shoots through his hoodie and kills William Cox and wounds Edward Williams. And then flees the scene. So one of the things that the prosecution said was that you would have been able to go from Roscoe's to this carnival. Is that possible? It's not possible at all. By no stretch of the imagination. Remember Jason was seen on the surveillance video for nearly the entire evening. I was only off film at Roscoe's, I believe, for maybe 12 to 18 minutes. That wouldn't have been enough time to make it from Roscoe's to the carnival. Is my clothes lying in way? Find Edward. Officers took the stand and claimed that it was possible for him to make the drive, change his clothes, talk to the girls, do the shooting, change his run, change his clothes, get back and get on camera. We've done time trials ourselves. The quickest we've been able to do it is seven minutes. The average was actually nine minutes driving. The prosecution also presented an alleged witness. A carnival worker named Richard Gray. Gray had given police a statement soon after the shooting, but by the time of trial, his story had already changed several times. Richard Gray says he initially says I only saw the shooter fleeing and I only saw him from behind. Didn't get a chance to see his face. Doesn't initially say he's able to make an identification and then a week later he picked Walt and out of a six pack photo lineup. At trial, he has like a soft recant, I'll call it, or says I wasn't really able to see him not entirely sure. But the thing about Richard Gray and what's so interesting is that Richard Gray from the point where he says he was standing could not have seen the shooting take place. The shooting happened on the corner of rodeo road and second avenue in the street just outside the entrance to the carnival. Richard Gray was stationed at a ride inside the carnival area, a short distance back from the entrance. There was a row of poor bodies that were blocking Richard Gray's view between him and where the shooting happened on just off the corner where it occurred. Edward Williams also took the stand and identified Jason. Even though he admitted he hadn't seen the shooter's face and had not even seen a gun. And then they also had gang experts that identified Walt and as a member of the Mansfield Crips, which at the time were allegedly allies with the Roland 30s gang, which was at war with the Roland 40s. And so that's essentially the crux of the prosecution's case. Jason's defense attorney is Regeri Kaplan and Helene Farber. The defense attrial was that Jason Walton was in fact at the Roscos. That there were these other individuals that could have possibly been interested in doing harm to these two individuals and that it was an eyewitness misidentification. One of the things that Edward Williams had said was that the shooter was on the curb and Edward Williams was on the street. From the curb, the shooter was still shorter than Edward Williams. So this suggested that the person that was the shooter was probably 5'4" or 5'6". Now Jason Walton at the time of the crime was 6'1". And then the witnesses who saw Jason at Roscos did they testify at trial? Yeah, I believe the two that testified at trial, there was an individual named Nico who was a gang. intervention specialist who recognized Jason and saw him at the seat at at Roscos and then I believe it was the manager of Roscos testified to the security camera footage and then confirmed that he saw Jason at Roscos from six six something until after eight o'clock at that night. But that wasn't enough to convince the jury. On August 14th 2006, Jason was convicted of the first degree murder of William Cox and attempted murder of Edward Williams. He was sentenced to 50 years to life. He was 21 years old. I was confused. I was heartbroken. I was lost and it just wasn't real to me that I was convicted. I just really mind-mine that something is going to happen. They're going to realize a mistake was made and I'm going to get out. It took years of even being in prison to realize that hey this is real like my life doesn't mean anything they don't care. 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 gonna 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. 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. Many surprises. What up? Look, I've never seen you talk to anyone. My children know. Yes. It's my lover. Oh, it's incredible. The TV is over. It's a woman. No, it's not someone who needs you. Like what you said, I would like to collaborate with this person. This is sweet 305. Listen to sweet 305 with lelepons as part of my Toyota podcast network on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan and on the Discretsland 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. Imagine that. Your Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. In your doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons, right there alongside Yakuza Gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. Listen to Discretsland on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I was put in Salinas Diely maximum security prison on the 180 yard. Within my first 24 hours there, I seen an officer attacked and beaten. Within the first week I witnessed the first person of many people, unfortunately, stabbed and murdered in prison. The first time that I've ever seen certain levels of violence. The first time I've seen death, the first time I've seen savage beatings and stabbing and people just normalized it was in prison. And this is where I was dropped off and I'm expected to walk on egg sales. To be honest with you, I only went to trial maybe once or twice. I just couldn't do it. It was too devastating for me. When her son went to prison, Fran was grief stricken. I still have a lot of anxiety. I might wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep, heart pounding, very stressed. I'm his mom, his best friend. And he knew how I felt because we, we cried about it. He said, "Mom, I'm not gonna, he said I didn't do this and I'm not gonna be able to make it." I ultimately felt that in order to get out, I would have to advocate for myself. I would have to have my family and Fran advocating for me to get into the tension and awareness from people that are advocates and that are fighting for justice so people would understand how does a young man have a surveillance camera, cell phone records? How does he have an Taliban like this? And ultimately, he still be found guilty. Jason appealed his conviction to the trial court numerous times. But it seemed no one wanted to listen to the truth. They would deny me time after time with anything and everything that was submitted in my favor. After maybe seven to ten years, I felt like my life didn't matter. I'm just another black kid from the streets and a gang member. I don't feel like they've also been cared about the victim more myself. It's like, okay, well, one gang member's dead, one gang member's shot, one gang members in jail. We've got a three for one in a way. It started during trial where all the evidence, it just seemed like everyone was against us. No one was in Jason's favor. The original lawyer, he left a little bit to be desired we also had an appeals attorney. He didn't follow through. So yes, there were so many things that did not appear to be in our favor. Just a few days after Jason was convicted, his son Tyler was born. I was determined to be a good father. That meant something to me to make sure that I was a part of my son's life and the choices that I had made that led me to prison or the things that I had been through that put me in prison didn't affect my son as far as, oh, I don't have a father. So his first steps, his first words were captured on a cell phone and sent to me. He would call me when he wanted something and if I had to sacrifice getting a package or going to a commissary this month, so I can use that money to buy him the things that he wanted or that he needed, that's what I did. He's great. He's really great. He's on top of school and activities, things that Tyler may have going on on the weekends. He's a good dad. How did you describe things to Tyler when he wondered, you know, what happened with his dad when he was a kid? I explained exactly what happened and his mom had newspaper clippings. He knows what took place. He knows the accusations. He knows that his dad went to court. He knows that his dad was found guilty and there was no need to sugarcoat it or lie or make stories or excuses. He needed to know he's a young man. I'm very proud of myself and I tell him all the time he's an amazing kid. He's just turned 17 and August is named Tyler Woltan. I nicknames him King Tyler. At first I was as a kid I was nervous but when I finally sat down and face to face it was really more of a kind of like a wild woman like, "Hey, you know, this is who my dad is. Really an amazing person, you know." Do you tell people your dad's in prison? Occasionally, if I know them, I'll be like, "Yeah, this is what I go through. This is what I have to suffer with." But it's something that I know I can handle because I know it's not forever, obviously. What is that that you go through? A lot of stuff. a lot of thoughts, memories, emotions that I feel within myself. But I have learned to kind of have it understanding of them and accept them and use them as a way of motivation. And I've taken more as a learning opportunity if anything. So it's like I really have to make something of it and I have to do something that would show some light more than life has already been shown. And really kind of prove to everyone that the certain even with these circumstances you can still do great. I plan on having a very bright future, you know. When we spoke with Fran and Tyler over a video chat, they were wearing identical t-shirts. I couldn't read them from the screen so I asked them what they said. Yeah, it says Jason Walton was wrongfully convicted from a murder. Evidence used against him to use innocent love. How did Jason's case come to you? Jason wrote to us in the late 2000s claiming innocence and saying that he was not involved in any way in the case and then he was at Roscoe's chicken and waffles when the shooting occurred. So what made you really dive in and want to look at this? What was it about his case? Jason was on security camera footage at the Roscoe's chicken and waffles. And you know what's interesting about that is that the security camera footage was available at the time of trial. So from the start it was like he had this awesome alibi and for some reason it just didn't play to the jury. So that's really what sold me on this case. On top of that, as we dug into the case, we found all of these inconsistencies throughout the investigation as well as uncovered some incredibly motivated third party suspects that more likely committed this crime. One important key to unraveling the case was a man named Christopher Green, one of the witnesses who spoke to investigators after the shooting. Strangely, his statement was never brought up at trial. Christopher Green was a carnival ride operator. Him and Richard Gray were actually co-workers at this carnival and what Green told investigators that he went and left to go to a convenience store across the street. In 2016, Michael and the Innocent Center sent their own investigator to interview Christopher. He told them everything he had told the police. And as it turns out, Christopher Green may have been the only witness who was close enough to see what actually happened. On his walk back as he's making his way around the corner to go back into the carnival, essentially right where the port of bodies are that are blocking Richard Gray's view. Green's coming around the corner and he sees an arm extended, essentially over his shoulder and he sees a gun. And it's this gun that ends up firing five to six rounds and shooting and wounding Edward Williams and striking and killing William Cox. And he gets a look at the shooter but says he doesn't think he'd be able to identify the shooter because the shooter had a black hoodie on and the hood was up. Christopher Green is the only witness at the scene that's told police that he saw a gun. Edward Williams said he didn't see a gun. He thought the shooting happened from allegedly Jason Walton firing through a hoodie. So if Christopher Green actually saw the shooting, how did Richard Gray become the prosecution star witness? So in our subsequent post-conviction investigation, what we learned is that green went and told Gray everything that he saw. And Gray then either trying to be the savior or being pressured by police because of his own criminal liability that might have existed in other cases agrees to cooperate and takes parts of Christopher Green's story as his own tells police and makes this sort of soft identification. But if you talk to green, Green's unable to make the identification because the hoodie is pulled up over this shooter's head. And he also describes having seen the gun totally inconsistent with what Edward Williams says. Immediately after Edward Williams is shot, Green runs up to Williams and he gets down and he's like, hey, there's an ambulance coming. Someone's just called 911. And Edward Williams spontaneously says, I don't know who did this. I don't know who would want to do this. So that's a crucial piece of information because if Edward Williams knew who it was, then he would have said it in that moment. And he doesn't. He says he didn't know who did it. Well, if the police had all this information from Christopher Green, why didn't they use it at trial? Yeah, I mean, I think the most important things were that Christopher Green probably had the best vantage point for seeing the shooter and didn't play a part in the prosecution's case because it didn't fit their theory. Richard Gray wasn't able to see anything and yet he played a major part of the prosecution's case because he had made that tentative identification prior to trial. And so it was kind of a situation in which the prosecution was cherry picking the information they were presenting in order to make it fit their theory. And I think that resulted in Jason's wrongful conviction. Michael believes the most likely scenario is that Edward Williams was being targeted by a rival gang. There was a witness named Drew Maxwell who told police at the time that Edward Williams had actually been shot at in the weeks leading up to this. And Edward Williams being this new jump in member of the baby 40s certainly made him a target and the graffiti and the fact that a number of people at the scene said they saw Jay Rock and another individual from the 30s named Terrell who had been at the Halloween party in gang cases like this. It's often difficult to get people to talk and let us know who actually committed to crime. I'm hopeful that we're able to develop at least a little bit more evidence that suggests it wasn't Jason. And in fact, it was another individual. It was somebody that is, you know, is still out there or is in prison or whatever. Yeah. So what kind of evidence are you looking for? So in Jason's case, we've attempted to get DNA testing on the shell casings at the scene and failed. The court rejected that because Edward Williams knew Jason Walton and said that Jason was the shooter. So it wasn't an eyewitness misidentification in the court's minds. It was there was no confusion. My position is that Edward Williams was mistaken that it wasn't actually Jason. And so DNA testing the shell casings would help us to figure out who at least loaded the gun that night. When that happens, Michael believes it will be a turning point in their efforts to prove Jason's innocence. Fran remains hopeful too. She says Jason's positive attitude has helped her gain perspective on the situation. He had told me that I should not feel like I'm the only mom that has a son who's been incarcerated or is incarcerated or accused of committing a crime that they did not commit because I was so afraid of what would be said or how people would feel about me, how they would feel about the family and how they would feel about my son. And as we're finding out, wrongful convictions is everywhere all over the world. My mother, my grandmother, who's 92 years old tells me she misses me and area if they come home and my son. That's those are my motivating factors and ultimately to clear my name. Fran Tyler and Jason's grandmother are all waiting to welcome him home and to cook some of his favorite meals. Big salmon, bok choy, saffron rice, steamed vegetables and fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, all that good hearty stuff. And there's someone else who will be there for Jason when he's finally released. My wife's name is Diamond Walton. We were friends for, since maybe 2012, our relationship grew from friendships and to desire to be with each other, a love for each other. It came from her always motivating me, praying over me, praying with me. We can life into me at times when I was feeling defeated and she motivates me a lot to stay focused, to believe in myself and know that I can achieve the things that I want to achieve and ultimately that is clearing my name and being accelerated. I've never done anything like this and I hope that people relate to me and understand that I'm more than a number, I'm more than a gang banker, I'm more than a dog, a prisoner, an inmate and ultimately I'm more than someone that was wrongfully convicted. And Jason has lots of plans to get started on when that happens, including reviving one of his childhood dreams. I would love to still be an attorney, I would love to be a part of an organization that I can give back, I can help bring hope to people that are in this position, that don't have hope, that don't believe that they're going to get out, that don't trust the system. I don't want that just to be the story of my life where all I can say is hey I'm someone that was roughly convicted, hopefully I can turn this negative into something positive where I can take something positive from it where people can learn. I do want to be a part of making sure that lawful conviction also becomes something that doesn't exist. I'm sorry if I have to put us all out of business and we have no one else to interview but that'll be a good day. To learn more and see any updates about Jason's case, visit theinnocentcenter.org. We'll have that link in the episode description and please consider making a donation to support the Innocent Center and the important work they're doing. 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 Polly 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 LavafordGood and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freelink. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink is a production of LavafordGood 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. Joy 101 with Hota Kot Be is presented by CVS. Five first guest is Paris Totten, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Welcome to the Sweet 305 podcast where the group check comes to life. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Ponds on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brenn and on the Discretsland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history. 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