#519 Jason Flom with Marcus Blalock

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. Things are getting eerie this week on Snap-Foo with Ed Helms. My favorite murder hosts Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hard Stark join me for the unsolved kidnapping of William Morgan. It's a great true crime story filled with secret society intrigue and murder. For your Mason files. Karen, you just birthed a conspiracy and I'm here for it. Yay! Listen to Snap-Foo on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Michael Rappaport and my podcast, The I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcasts, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. If you're looking for strong opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid to Far Jackson should absolutely positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rappaport on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On March 24, 2001, the body of Howard Rose was discovered inside a burnt out pickup truck on Interstate 90 in Pennsylvania. The night before police had responded to suspicious activity outside the Ohio home of Arquita, Willis. Two men sped off and were apprehended. Both of whom gave statements that Willis had killed Rose and asked them to help dispose of his body. Soon after, Willis was arrested, threatened with a death penalty, and she told police that her former fling, a guy named Marcus Blalot, was the shooter and that he had dispose of the body on i90 alone. Despite obvious falsehoods and multiple changes to her story, not even 19 alibi witnesses could save Marcus. This is Rompal Conviction. You're listening to Rompal Conviction. You can listen to this in all the Lava for Good Podcasts one week early and add free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. [Music] Welcome back to Rompal Conviction, where today we have another case out of Cuyahoga County. I mean, it's just they just keep on coming. And this is one of the capitals, if not the Rompal Conviction capital of this country, and joining us is one of our favorite attorneys, who's very active in this space. Kim Coral, welcome back. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And joining us from an Ohio correctional facility where he never belonged, but he's been there for over 24 long years. The man himself, Marcus Blalot, Marcus, thank you for joining us. I'm sure I appreciate you. And Marcus was originally boarding Cleveland, but soon moved out to a nearby suburb called Maple Heights, or really a subsection of that suburb. We moved out to Maple Heights 75, 76 at the time. It's a predominantly white area, and the area that I grew up in was called President's Road. The railroad tracks run behind it. So those houses are cheaper. So they put the blacks in that area. So the blacks in that area, they kind of stuck together. So I had a good childhood. I placed boards, football, wrestle, ranch, track, and then at the age of 14. Now I got a job working at the local hardware store and the community stuck together in that area. I appreciated that, but what I didn't appreciate was the police because the police were very prejudiced, not even a brown person, not a black person, not an Asian person, nothing just all white police force. You're saying white kid across Broadway, get their bike stolen. First place, they're coming to look for that bike is in President's Road. And then it seemed like I was being singled out. And it was one main cop who ended up turning into a detective. Why is he always asking me about this and about that, but I come to find out that he was also working at Sears, my mother retired from Sears. So he knew my mom and the other cop who ended up being the detective, all Henderson went to high school with my old sister. So I got these cops asking me questions just periodically if somebody's having a house party and a fight breakout seemed like I was always the integrity like, hey Mark, who was doing all the fighting now? Who was doing this? I don't know. I got over. I'm not saying I was angel. I got into mischief stuff like my last year, a high school, even though I worked. I had a little hustle. I caught with some marijuana and some other drugs. I ended up getting probation or whatever for that. So that kept the police on me, even when years later when I stopped. Now we've seen a lot of cases where a connection to drugs made our guests the target of a frame job, but by 2001 mark was 32 years old and he had built a successful landscaping company. At landscaping company end up being very profitable for me. I end up having a lot of contracts with the county, some with the city and helped me with money to put down to buy a house for my family. That was also livid. And while Marcus had moved into the white part of town, it was so if there's all the cleanses from president's row, Dionne Johnson, Ernest McCauley and Arquita Willis, who dragged him into this case. Arquita growing up, she just wasn't my type at the time, but years later I ended up having a friends with benefits or so. You want to say relationship with her that turned into something else and then what I cut it off. It wasn't cooking in a great way. It was like she hated me after that, but Dionne was a friend and he cut here. He's a barber. So used to cut our hair or whatnot. And honest, he was a friend of mine and when he was released from a federal prison after doing five years. I got this business. I got this home on giving my job. He also gave him a cell phone that was registered to Mark's landscaping business, which was about to score a major contract. And this contract was the service the children's playgrounds and the top locks in the city, but this contract was not publicized. The same Italian company were getting this contract for the last five years. So at the time, Maple Heights had just elected their first black councilman. So he came to my mom and told my mom, hey, have Marcus call me. It was like they got this contract coming up. They haven't even publicized it. They keep giving it to the same company. We're going to back you and make sure that you get this contract. And even though he had the lowest bid, the contract went to the incumbent company. So the council member encouraged Marcus to contest that decision at the upcoming meeting. Now mind you at this council meeting. You have the chief of police, the mayor, seven council people, the fire chief. You have one of the two detectives that framed me for this crime. I have a hand in your run is what Maple Heights police order police period. And over five years, everything is going smooth for me. My business is going great. So I'm kind of leery to go to this council meeting. So when they get to the awarding of the contracts and did anybody have anything to say. I sent up and said, yes, I do. My name is Mark on marks landscaping. I had a lower bid, but I didn't get the contract papers is shuffling. They shut the mics off. They're looking up there whispering to each other. They cut the mic back on and was like, it seems to be had been a mistake. The contract has already been awarded. But Mark will make sure that your company will get work into the future. Let me tell you something. Two months later, I'm arrested for this case. So that brings us to the end of March 2001 when Marcus was growing his business and supporting his family and their newly purchased home in the white part of town. He had also been fortunate enough to be able to help send his cousin to the University of Cincinnati. So this cousin invited Marcus to an alumni event over the weekend of Friday, March 23rd into Saturday, the 24th of 2001. They're having their first annual black student reunion hosting it in Cleveland. He lived in Cincinnati. So he's coming to clean. This is my cousin. I supported him. All why he went to college. I know most of his fraternity friends, people that he went to college with. So normally when they have things, I'm always in attendance. The on Johnson had even given Marcus a haircut during the day on March 23rd, but after they parted ways, according to Johnson's police statement, he and Ernest McCauley were contacted by Arquita Willis. She had been entertaining a known drug dealer named Howard Rose, who had been fatally shot and Willis needed help with disposing of his body. So around 1130, the next door neighbor and great aunt of Arquita Willis, Dorothy Evans makes a call to police concerning suspicious activity. She states that she heard noises like someone moving furniture outside her bedroom window near Arquita Willis's home and then look to see if Willis's car was in the driveway, but it wasn't. She saw a dark vehicle. She didn't recognize in the driveway and she calls the police and while on the phone with the nine. when one dispatcher, she saw two individuals dressed in black, exiting the home next door. A little while later, Willis arrives at the front door of Evans' home. Willis asked Evans if Evans had called the police. And when Evans asked Willis, what was going on, Willis responded, saying that someone was helping her do something. And that's all she said. When the police officers arrive, they observe a car fleeing the scene. And after a short chase, they apprehend two individuals, Ernest McCulley and Deanne Johnson. Johnson and McCulley were arrested for trespassing, while the police did a safety check of our cutest home. And they saw a puddle of blood on her driveway. They returned to Willis's house and they're like, what's this puddle of blood in the driveway? They went to the backyard. They find a back window unlocked. They go to the bathroom and find lit candles around the bathtub, a warm bathwater with Sophie Residue, and drying blood, and a pager with blood on it. And this blood later is tested and found to be the blood of Howard Rose. Now, the police leave the bathroom, move to the bedroom, where they see a box spring without a mattress, and no bedlin' invisible. As of now, there was no body. And according to later statements from Marquita, at this time, Rose's body was in his truck parked on a side street, while she went to work where the police could easily try to turn down. And they asked her to come to the station so they could ride to the house together. And she explained that Johnson and McCulley were not intruders. First, she said she had some friends over there moving some furniture. Then when they asked her about the blood, they found in the driveway where did it come from. She said what the blood came from a dogfight. She was hosting a dogfight at her house. Oh, obviously, dogfighting. It's as ridiculous as it is sinister. It's not what I would have gone with, but that's what Marquita Willis goes with. When they go to her house, she's a company bench with like a thin black male with a Jamaican accent. By the name of Omar, he was present while police questioned Willis outside her home. Willis refused to allow the officers to do a second search of her home. And even the police reports, they report that Willis is evasive and uncooperative. And then they left. They appear to have lost all interest in Omar. And it's believed that at this point, the body was disposed of near exit six on the interstate 90 in Pennsylvania. In the early morning hours of March 24th, Pennsylvania police are called to the scene of a fire on I 90. A pickup truck with Ohio plates as engulfed in flames, Howard Rose is inside. He's identified through an autopsy and it's determined that the cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the head. The investigation produced information that Willis was with Howard Rose on the day he was killed. And they determined that the death they were investigating had initially taken place in Maple Heights. And so reshifting our focus back to Ohio, Ernest McCulley and Dianne Johnson, who had been arrested on the 23rd, were released from Maple Heights jail. And for some reason, their property is all returned to them, including the bloody clothing that they were wearing. Who knows why? Perhaps since they had been so forth coming with whose blood it was, as well as that it was Arquita who had spilled it. They all pointed the finger at her that she was the one that did it. She was the one that called them to help remove the body clean up the whole night. I guess cooperation can buy you a lot. Case in point, Arquita was soon arrested. Pressed again about her ridiculous dogfight explanation threatened with the death penalty and somehow was still able to come out of this with a plea deal for obstruction and evidence tampering, receiving only four years. Willis is initially charged with aggravated murder, burglary and kidnapping. Those charges are dropped in exchange for her testimony against playlock. All she had to do was write a statement, put the gun in my hand and send that I killed this guy over a drug deal gone bad, which was all alive. Because I never was at her house doing a drug deal before or after he was killed. It was her and that you're making, guys, that accompanying her to PA and New York when she disposed of the body. However, at this point, according to Arquita, Marcus had driven the body out to Pennsylvania alone. But how does one return to maple heights when the burnt-out pickup truck was still out on I-90? Well, that would require another adjustment in her story. But for now, upon this dubious statement, Marcus was arrested. It was April 6, 2001. I'm riding with my contractor. We just come back from Home Depot from picking up some materials. It looked like a hundred toy soldiers. They ran out of my house, my garage, my neighbor's house. With black on, with mask on. Telling me to get out the truck, get out the truck. I get out the truck and when the guy left this mask up, this guy's been messing with me for years. He said, "I finally got you. I wanted you to make one false move so I could have killed you." Looking at this too, like, "Are you serious?" I get to the police station. They tell me what I'm being arrested for. I said, "Are you sure?" I said, "I don't have nothing to do with you, Dad." Let me write a statement. Did he tell you, "I'm about to let you write a statement when I get done with you. You're going to be guilty." That was the last conversation I had with that guy. Oh, besides him telling me, "They're wounded. I think I was to buy a house of my boys." Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it, or simply hope it into life, 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. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Entertainment Legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Joy after a breakup, Joy is an empty nester, Joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. But did black music, food, and culture teach us about who we were becoming. Plane 16 was sort of that last era of monoculture, where we still consumed things in community. From Beyonce and Rihanna, everybody wanted to be Beyonce. I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna. To soul-sue, memory, identity, and the stories we carry through black culture. What does it mean to be black and eat in America? So we were this group of people who knew how to work the land, who knew how to live with the land. We make it do what it do. Therapy for Black Girls is bringing together the conversation shaping Black life right now. You will never make me feel bad for being a black girl, for being a black American girl ever. Therapy for Black Girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Here at the Happiness Lab, we are serving up some hot takes for the summer. Big ideas that just might reshape how you think about your wellbeing. Like we've been thinking about the loneliness epidemic all wrong. You can be lonely in a marriage. You can be lonely at a party. I don't think loneliness is actually about solitude loneliness is about something much bigger. Or that we should get rid of small talk altogether. We talk about current events. We talk about what you do for a living, but not do you love what you do for a living. Is this your dream job? Or that the mental health crisis isn't what we think it is. And that kids today are doing better than we assume. It was really disorienting for us as researchers to be so wrong about our hypothesis. We are so scared that we are going to under-react, to a severe challenge that we tend to over-react. For more surprising ideas backed by psychological science, check out our new series, Happiness Hot Takes. Listen to the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos, on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. On April 9th, Arquita Willis said that Marcus had taken her car to Pennsylvania. So they searched her car for many physical ties to Marcus. And yeah, you guessed it, they found nothing, but this still begs the question. Who actually drove the pickup that, which was answered in another narrative change at the preliminary hearing? Willis, at this point, according to the third version of her story, now claims that she and a person by the name of Omar, follow the truck containing Howard Rose's body, driven by Blaylac, who she claims is a person who's set the truck on fire. She also claimed that after Blaylac set the truck on fire, he got in the back seat of her car and the three of them proceeded to New York City and stayed at Omar's relative's home in the Bronx. Curiously, this Omar character was never pursued. They never arrested this guy, but he's in my paperwork. With the prosecution, they sealed the investigative file before I even went to trial. My lawyers asked several times for discovery. We never received a discovery before trial, or trial. They have been withholding evidence since I was arrested in 2001. Does this date 2025, your steal fighting my attorney from getting post discovery, pre-trial discovery, and during trial discovery. So who knows what else they have and why they need to hide it and why did they completely let this Omar guy off the hook. In addition to that there's the grand jury where evidence of probable causes supposed to be presented to obtain the indictment. The transcripts of which are typically not made available to defendants but Marcus's attorney had reason to fight to have it unsealed both before and after the trial. Somebody told my trial attorneys that they need to get the grand jury transcripts if you want those charges thrown out. So they thought they get it. The judge said that she was doing an in-camera inspection and if she finds anything that will warrant the defense counsel to have it then she would turn it over to us. Well she denied of having it. And who knows what the judges' motivations were because what they discovered in post conviction is wild. What we see is that there's no probable cause for him to have ever been indicted in the first place. At the time they went to the grand jury. The police only had three statements about the death of Howard Rose. Both McCulley and Johnson's statements claim that Willis told them that she and not Marcus Blaylock shot Howard Rose in the back of the head. An only Willis's statement implicated Blaylock. Both McCulley and Johnson's placed the blame entirely on Willis and the only other evidence is Detective Joseph Airebar. So despite admitting at the preliminary hearing that he has no idea who shot Howard Rose, he tells the grand jury based on nothing that's documented nowhere that there were two lacerations on Rose's body and opined in an inflammatory way that those lacerations were the result of pre-mortem torture. Now it's later learned in trial that they were the result of the autopsy. But this misrepresentation was super prejudicial because you've got a detective saying without basis that it's Blaylock who did it and that he tortured him before he died. And it appears that this wasn't the only misrepresentation. They lied to the grand jury and said that they talked to me and I gave them a statement or I admit it that I was there or whatever. I never talked to you like that. I never admit it. But then he cleaned it up. This is Detective Airebar. That's what testified. He came right back and said, well, we never heard from Blaylock. Now which one is it? That I told you that I was there or is it that you didn't hear from Blaylock? That's the second one. You didn't hear from me because I never made any statements or anything. When I told you that I will make a statement giving you my alibi, you told me you didn't want to hear it. The only thing you want to hear is if I'm guilty. In addition, the grand jury questioned how Marcus became a suspect at all as Arquita is the only witness to mention Marcus while the other two named only Arquita. They said they had other cooperating evidence besides Arquita will a statement. Well, they didn't have anything else besides her statement. They didn't have any cooperating evidence. I was indicted on a presumption that there will be other cooperating evidence to go along with Arquita statement. Perhaps the judge was also fooled into thinking that they'd have cooperating evidence by the time of Marcus's trial. Maybe even the prosecuting attorney Richard Bombick had fooled himself by now. They already tried to use cell phones and say my cell phone was a cell phone. That was contacted to grow Arquita all that day. I haven't talked for almost two years. It's Ernest's phone. My friend who was just released from prison who I went and purchased a cell phone for was contacted. Hurry. You know years ago you couldn't just go get a cell phone. You had to have credit. His credit was messed up. I had a business account with Altil. I said I just put you on my account. You about to be working for Marcus landscape in any way. His family testified that yes it is in Mark's landscape. But it's not Mark's phone. It's Ernest's phone. So all they ever had was Arquita. She came in a courtroom. She'd get on the stand and they asked her you know she'd see the accused or whatever and she points at me. She's fake crying on a witness stand. Not a tear drop fail from her eye. Everybody in a courtroom witnessed it. It seemed like the judge played right along the tool because she handed her a box of clean next. So she's blowing and wiping her nose and there's nothing coming out. I'm listening to her and looking at her like this is crazy. She can't really recall exactly what she said. So the prosecution grabs her statements and he said well maybe I can give you this and this can draw your memory. He said we all know that you lied. It came out that you lied in your previous statements or whatever and you implicated Marcus Blake later on. Why don't you read your statement to the jury and to the court and point out where you told the truth and where you lied at. While under oath she admits to telling a different version of her story to the police to actually driving the truck that contained Howard Rose's body going to Pennsylvania to dispose of Howard Rose's body lying to the police and feigning ignorance about what happened to Rose lying during the March 23rd interview lying during the April 6th interview lying during the April 9th interview lying during the June 6th interview and lying in written statements and she admits to lying because will it not want the crime to be found out and she admits that she intended to lie to the police at each of those times. Super credible. It's very difficult to co-sign a witness his credibility if anything they've said is false but that's what they did. The testimony that was truthful according to this admitted liar was that before going to work she arranged from Marcus to buy drugs from Rose at her house. When she didn't hear from Rose she called Marcus who eventually told her to come home from work where she said that she saw Rose's body on her bed and Marcus admitted to shooting him. That McCauley and Johnson helped move the body to the truck and that she parked the truck on a side street before calling her friend Omar to drive her back to work and at some point her next door neighbor her great aunt Deb saw men in the driveway and called the cops. "Pro-un-justify that she would know me a mile away. I know what Mark drives. I know how Mark looks. I've been knowing since he was a little boy. No Mark was not one of the persons that I see now. I keep his testimony continued that after she got off work met with the police told them to lie about the dog fight and they left that she Omar and Marcus got a gas can and then they followed Marcus out to exit six on I-90 where he lit the truck on fire and the three sped off to New York City returning on Sunday March 25th around 8 a.m. But none of this was true or at least the part about Marcus's involvement. "It's no way possible that I could have been traveling to PA or New York. I'm not David Copperfield. I can't be in two places at one time. I'm in Cleveland. My cell phone shows that I'm in Cleveland. Back in the day you had Roman charges when you go out of your call area. None of my phones were in Rome. That's because I never loved Cleveland. But her phone is Roman in another state. That's because that's where she went and disposed of the body. So when they knew that fact she said yeah I drove the body out of town. But Marcus was with me. How was I with you? I was in Cleveland. I got witnesses to prove where I'm at and my cell phone records proved that I'm in Cleveland." Which was the site for the University of Cincinnati's first annual black students reunion for which he attended events on both Friday and Saturday nights. There was even photographic proof for Saturday the 24th. "I was on a picture that night. However, the prosecutor took it and twisted it and said there's no date on the picture. But behind it is a banner. This is the first annual reunion. So there was no other one. This is where I was on this particular night." And they brought in 19 alibi witnesses to corroborate his alibi for both nights. "People that were at the party, people who were with me that weekend. Some of them I didn't even know. My brother, I took my niece shopping that weekend. I had all those people testifying it on my behalf. But it made no difference. I could have put on 100 witnesses. It didn't make a difference." The police and the prosecutors, unethically and impermissively rely on testimony, which they know to be false. And the jury just gets it dead wrong. "Even though the prosecutor and the witness herself admitted that her testimony was fall of lies. And so Marcus was convicted." After I get found guilty, I'm distraught. My family's distraught. My mother's screaming like she just witnessed me getting killed. What they hauling me off, you can hear her screams echoing throughout the court's corridor. They sent me back to the coldest elevator wherever I was at. My lawyers come and tell me, "Hey, we're going to kill it. You got a case here. This isn't right. Appeals court. They're going to overturn this right away. I don't see how the jury found you guilty. There was no evidence presented. The girl even lied on the witness stand. I'm hearing them, but at the time I'm not hearing them. All I'm hearing is the judge sent guilty on all charges. And my mother's cries." Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life. 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, Haudet Cotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. Joy after a break up, Joy is an empty nester. Joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. Listen to Joy 101 on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. But did black music, food and culture teach us about who we were becoming. Plane 16 was sort of that last era of monoculture where we still consumed things in community. To soul food, memory, identity and the stories we carry through black culture. You will never make it. For being a black girl, for being a black American girl, ever. Listen to therapy for Black Girls on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatine's to Montagro so. He brought a team of executives. They were going to help the get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all. You got to get Bruce with it guys credit. They're Republicans. They don't give a f***ing amount of news now. On this season of drilled carbon cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. At the time I have a daughter, this 18 months old, and I have a nine year old son going on a team. And I'm everything to him. I am everything to both of my kids. My son, I didn't know until later I asked him years later, like how does this affect you? He was a teenager at the time when I asked him this, but I wanted to know like how does me being incarcerated affect you. And he said, I feel like I lost my best friend. Son is in the military now. He's in his fourth came to your United States Navy. He's a chief in the Navy. Not only do I have those kids, my two kids. Now I have grandkids who I don't want them to see me like this. They don't even know that I'm incarcerated. They never met me. They seem pictures of me, but they don't know me. And I just want that opportunity to be here to my mother's now. And I'm near 80s. Her health is failing. There's so many people that died in my family. My father has passed my older brother. We were tired. He's nine years older than me. He was a baby. He passed away in 2017 and a heart attack. So like this doesn't just affect me. This is affects my whole entire family. If it wasn't for my faith in God, I wouldn't be here talking to you now in this podcast. I'm doing things in here to try to keep me busy. I'm a mentor, a spiritual mentor. And even my heart, I still have hope that things would one day turn around. I don't know when, but I have faith that it's going to happen. And it's been an uphill battle despite many positive developments along the way. The first of which was getting one of the slew of charges and obstruction of justice conviction overturned way back in 2003. And at the same time, Marcus's attorney discovered all the lies and manipulation in the grand jury, which he tried to raise in the obstruction proceedings. When I received those grand jury transcripts, my lawyer sent me a one page letter like this is everything. We get in front of the judge when they're dismissing the obstruction charges. And my lawyer says, "Your Honor, we have the grand jury transcripts right here. There was no probable cause. My clients should have never been indicted. She says she didn't want to hear about it. We're not there to discuss the grand jury transcripts. She hit the gavel and it was over with and I was out the courtroom." At this point, his sentence was reduced to 28 years to life, while his co-defendants received very lenient deals for actually being involved. Arquita Willis was charged only with obstruction of justice and evidence tampering. Even though according to Dionne and Ernest, she was the actual shooter. "Shed up doing four years. Dionne did two years. Ernest got nine. I think he ended up doing seven and a half." So almost immediately after Arquita does her four years, she calls up Ernest McCulley. In the conversation, she admits that she falsely implicates play-lock in this case. Willis admits to killing Howard Rose. McCulley asked Willis when she decided to shift the blame to play-lock and Willis told McCulley that she didn't care about Mr. Blalock. McCulley says, "Listen, you took a soul. She says right." McCulley says, "Which would be Howard?" And she says, "Uh-huh. You could save two souls, which would be me and Mr.," she says, "Uh-huh." The conversation shows she's admitting that she and not play-lock killed Howard Rose. She states, "Although she had changed her stories to fit the date, she said detectives did not investigate." Willis said this show that the detectives had been dictabinist toward play-lock. She said she even told the detectives in front of her attorneys that she drove their body away and they fell out their chair laughing because they couldn't believe it. And they said, "Well, the difference just paid a 10% bond, whatever obstructing the justice and tampering, whatever this bond was, to get out." When McCulley asks Willis what her largest reservation about admitting that she killed Rose would be, Willis responds because she wants to be home too. She then discusses a fictional in Eric Quote's book, "She wants to write about the murder." And titled, "Murder One Was the Case They Gave Me." And then they talk about the contents in her book where she admits that she hates play-lock. She tells McCulley that she feels badly because of all the people in prison who didn't actually do the crime. She says it was easy to frame Marcus because she hated him. When McCulley tells Willis about lying being problematic because it necessitates more of lies, Willis says, "It isn't that hard. You get a story, you stick with it, and that's that." And that's a quote. "Moreover, Willis admits that she lied to her own attorneys about what transpired. And she admits that she couldn't believe that a jury convicted Marcus was solely on her testimony, giving how many times her story shifted." Prison phone conversations are recorded. So McCulley reached out to Marcus' lawyer, and they retrieved and transcribed the recording, adding it to his federal habeas, where you need to show that your constitutional rights were violated. And they bolstered the filing with this evidence of innocence. It's two, three hours worth of conversation that my lawyer ended up getting. And submitted it into evidence in my federal hate, and it changed the direction that my habe was going at that time. And I told my lawyer into file a state, and take that evidence back to the trial courts, so you can exhaust it. If the federal court's hearing before the trial court, then I'll be forever barred from bringing it back up. So what happened was he didn't listen to me. He said, "No, I'm going to file it both places. Whoever answers first, we're good. We got a confession from the actual murderer." So when it got included in the record, the magistrate just said that the conversation proves that the state of Ohio convicted the wrong person when they found play like guilty of the murder of roles. Those exact words. However, the court ruled that an innocence claim absent the constitutional violation was insufficient. So the recordings, having not been added to the record and exhausted in trial court, were now procedurally barred. But then, Arquita kept right on communicating with Ernest McCauley. She admits her guilt on multiple occasions in letters she's drafted to Ernest McCauley. Willis admits to killing Howard Rose and that Mr. Blag was not involved. And like the phone call, McCauley often refers to a soul that was lost or stolen because of Willis' lies. She wrote, "I guess when you take a life, you have to live with it. You really don't have a choice but to look at it different." She discusses her gratitude toward McCauley for his assistance in helping to remove Rose's body from her house. She describes her fear that McCauley harbors resentment towards her because your main incarcerated for the crime she committed. She says, "All of which we've been through, I still wonder if you hate me. I wonder if one day you'll break my neck because of what you're going through because of me." She goes on, "Right, I just feel like crying all the time and then I start questioning myself. All those lies I told. I never would have guessed they'd believe my statement. I just thought I'd get a plea bargain and they would find everyone not guilty because of all of the dishonesty in all of my written statements." This time, his attorney took it to the trial court. A judge decided that these letters and recordings you couldn't prove they were her. She would not testify taking responsibility for them. And so those subsequent post-conviction petitions were denied. They went back and forth through the court of appeals. At this point, it appears that the state offered earnest a deal for early release, which she told Mark is about in a letter two days after he made the deal and later testified to in 2014. This is what he said about the offer. Ernest said that he end up writing a statement later for the prosecution to get out of prison early. He told him that whatever he writes, "If this against me is going to be a lie because I'm innocent." What they said, "They don't care if he lied, they just need it to stop my post-conviction." And it did. A statement was drafted allegedly from Ernest that the phone conversations were just a setup and that Marcus was the actual shooter. And despite presenting a letter from Ernest admitting that the statement was just a means to get his own early release, Marcus didn't get any traction again on the now procedurally barred confession materials until a 2013 affidavit from one of McCauley's cellmates, Shannon Drake. And he just rolled into mix because Ernest let him listen to Archie on the phone, Sandy, Robert Affedadeva from my lawyer's family. He heard her stand how she set me up. In 2014, I'm back in the courtroom on an evidentiary hearing. Ernest came in there and got on the stand and Danny said that he ended up writing a statement and a statement is really no good until he testified to it. So now he's testifying that statement as far as the prosecution told him what to say. And as a matter of fact, that's not even my signature. Blakelock is in his sense. The judge doesn't make a ruling on it for two years and then when she comes back two years later in 2016, she denies saying that evidence was not new. Which goes back to the original sin that this phone conversation was presented in federal court but was never exhausted in trial court. So it was used up where it couldn't be effective on its own. And then they can say that this related evidence is not new. But there was a new hope in Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office. The creation had long last of a conviction integrity unit. Well I found an application to them for my wrongful conviction in 2018. I didn't hear nothing from them for two years. In 2020, during the pandemic, I had someone reach out to the head of that unit at the time. He said, "Oh, is ironic that you're calling me about the Blakelock case because something new has came up and I'm going to ask the head prosecutor for a special permission to re-review this case." So at this time, Marcus reached out to Kim. We agreed to represent him with the CIO. So I talked to the then head of the conviction integrity unit who says he won't confirm that they found something new but he doesn't deny that he's had this conversation with this contact person, Mr. Blakelock. But the whole time we're going through this, we can't get a response from them one way or the other like about what's going on, what the investigation is. However, McCulley is telling us, "Yeah, they interviewed me. We send our investigator out to talk to Willis who says, "Those prosecutors took me out to dinner and I told them the truth. I'm not going to say anything more than she slams the door in his face." Words to that effect. So we know they have some investigation which is favorable. And you would think if their answer was we don't have anything favorable to overturn that would have been said years ago. In the course of this, they had represented at some point that it moved on to the investigation phase and the voting phase. Now this CIO was assigned an independent review board made up of judges and community members whose purpose was to review the findings of these reinvestigations and vote on recommendations for the head prosecutor. I talked to the members of the board who said, "No, we've never heard about this case. We haven't met for over two years." And as a result, November of 2022, all community members of the CIO County Prosecutors Conviction Integrity Unit resigned, citing the unit's inactivity perceived lack of impact with a letter noting that the office had not even referred a case for review since prior to the pandemic. As far as I'm concerned, rural sailors the only case of exoneration by the Conviction Integrity Unit. Now there's a tabious Williams where he was voted to be exonerated, but instead they just gave him a judicial release which really compromises the idea that the purpose was ever about conviction integrity. And you can hear about both of those cases. We're going to have our coverage linked in the episode description. So Kim filed motions to compel the CIO to release anything they'd found because after all when Marcus filed with the CIO, they'd signed an agreement to share materials, not to mention other obligations to do so. As a result of the court sort of order that, well, if your beef is with a conviction integrity unit, the whole board resigns, so we're not sure that there are a thing anymore and therefore we can't compel them. These obligations exist out of ongoing Brady obligations, concepts of justice out of the prosecutor's ethical duty to pursue justice, and there's an ABA requirement that if they find subsequent evidence, they're required to turn it over. None of that seems to matter. The agreement doesn't seem to matter and here we are two and a half years until litigation just about whether they have to turn over the materials from this investigation because we need to establish that it was Willis who said this and Willis is not presently cooperative. Marcus Blalock's conviction should have never occurred but it should have ended the first time Willis made an admission that she had framed him. It's now been 20 years since that admission and the justice system is playing games about whether or not he should have access to the state's investigation of his innocence. That shouldn't even be a question. I mean, my public records request have been denied. My court filings have been denied. Now we're at a mandamus in the court of appeals and it's just every step of the way we're hit with obstacles about just having access to information and information should be freed everybody. So the path forward is we are not going to stop until we get this investigation because we know that what's contained in it is the basis to move forward. And the reason we know that is nobody would work so hard to protect nonsense. Is there anything that our audience can do to help? Yeah, I mean, I think public outcry call the prosecutors demand that they release information. Why are they protecting it? What is the purpose? What are they hiding? And if anyone wants to learn more about Marcus and his case, he's written a book. My book is out. My long journey to faith a new beginning by Marcus Blalock. I appreciate to somebody that knows about this case, that heard about this case, that maybe the winner has talked to in the past. Please come forward. Feel free to talk to my attorney. I have a website, the free mark, ma rc, blalock, blalock, ock.com. Okay. So we're going to link the book, his website as well as ways that you can contact Kim if you have any information about this case. And with that, we're going to go to closing arguments where, first of all, I think each of you for being here. And now I'm going to kick back in my chair and close my eyes and just listen to anything else you have to say. Kim, as always, let's start with you. And then you can just hand the microphone off to Marcus and he'll take us off into the sunset. This case is so obvious. How it got indicted is the original question. How there was probable cause to move forward with an arrest, with an indictment, with a trial, and how a conviction is sustained. Were questions that weren't answered until after trial, unfortunately. But we've known the answer for now more than 20 years. And the fact that we haven't been able to extend justice or procedure to Marcus blalock to give him access to tell the truth of his story is one of the greatest injustices I've seen. The fact that the prosecutor's office, an acknowledgement that it had information favorable to Mr. Blalock, did an investigation and won't turn that over, have spent thousands of hours and dollars just keeping this information secret is proof positive that the system is protecting what it knows to be a wrongful conviction. Something is hidden and you're not showing it. You're not showing your hand. But yet in steel, she shows her hand. I mean, it's not right. It's not right. You haven't been wrongfully convicted. Now, I'm going on 24 years. Support crime I didn't commit. And you use a self-admitted statement, a purchase statement at that, to convict me. I need prayers. I need prayers, support, phone calls, footage to go through. My lawyer is amazing, but I need a miracle right now. That's what I need. I need God to create a miracle for me. So I can be exonerated from this wrongful conviction. Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen to this in all the Lava for Good Podcasts one week early and add free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus, on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers, Jeff Campler, Kevin Wardis, and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production was supplied by three-time, Oscar-nominated composer, J. Rouse. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at wrongful conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram @it'sjsonflom. Wrongful conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with signal company number one. We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good. Joy 101. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. 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