Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
CONVICTED - One Person CAN Make A Difference
144 Plays4 years ago
Today I will be telling Lisa a tragic story of how one woman's life changed in an instant but how it never changed her. Sunny Jacob's life is a testament of that you can choose how to act no matter what circumstance you find yourself in.
We'd love to hear from you, so please reach out through any of our sources.
TwistedTalestruecrime@gmail.com
Instagram @ TwistedTales_Pod
Facebook: TwistedTales True Crime
Thanks for taking your time and joining us! Have a great week
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Twisted Tales Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning, afternoon, evening, and I just wanted to hit everybody. No matter what it was, yeah. Welcome to Twisted. Or you just got confused real quick. Sorry. Welcome to Twisted Tales, a two-crime podcast with Faith and Lisa, my unfortunate co-host. Unfortunate. For me, not you. Yeah, that's never unfortunate for me. Yep, thanks for joining us. We hope you like last week's, and we're scarred by the neighbor's tales.
00:00:28
Speaker
um just a quick notice a um just order a business if you will right so summer's coming up and the best part about summer is what lisa ice cream no whether you're young whether you're old vacation oh okay hands down the best there's no school there's no work unless you're me and i have worked hours on my vacation either here nor there
00:00:53
Speaker
but was on call but you know like vacation you get to unwind you get to go to the beach the mountains camping whatever your thing is so we thought it would be fun or get ice cream just throw it out there you can get ice cream on your vacation that has nothing to do with this podcast just like ice cream you asked me to guess again unfortunate choice of co-hosts
Debate: Is the death penalty justifiable?
00:01:14
Speaker
Moving on. Yet I'm still here. We decided it would be fun for starting summer to do a nice little podcast vacation road trip to the United States. So starting next week, we will be doing all 50 states. Lisa and I will take turns trying to pick some random horrible crime to entertain ourselves in you with the stories, not the crime, but stories. One from each state. We will actually do
00:01:43
Speaker
two episodes per week through this little series just because we want to be able to hit all the bases, all the bases, all 50 of them. And because, you know, we have such a plethora of followers. None. Thanks for not coming and joining us, people. I mean, what what better way to spend my entire summer than hanging out with you more? None. I hope everybody can hear the sarcasm in my voice right now. This is why people don't go to our Facebook. They assume we're just bickering and like slapping each other on Facebook. We don't slap each other like while we're recording. No.
00:02:14
Speaker
Anyway, so that's the order of business. I just wanted to tell you that was coming up. We're excited about it. We think it'll be fun. Yeah, tune in. It's going to be a good time for sure. Not original thought, but we just might be a sudden. Oh, oh, Lordy. Anybody that was trying to, I have to interpret for her sometimes, especially when it comes to her text messages.
00:02:38
Speaker
She just wants to have people tune in and listen and have a good time and enjoy themselves with us. And know what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, odd to tonight's episode. It's faithless. Tonight, I'm telling Lisa an episode. And I'm going to tell you, this episode, there's probably going to be more than once you're going to think I'm just reading a lifetime script. OK. Or like legit.
00:03:08
Speaker
a movie script, this is not real life. Really? This is 100% real life. It's, it's incredible. So anyway, um, I want to start by just a little bit of information. There's going to be a few little tidbits of information. I have no degree in law or, or anything of that nature. So I had to Google it. So if Google got it wrong, sorry, please feel free to correct me.
00:03:31
Speaker
Anyway, according to death penalty info.org, as of January 1st, 2022, there were approximately 2,436 inmates awaiting execution on death row. This figure includes those who have been sentenced to death and are currently facing capital retrial. A capital trial, do you know what that is? Enlighten me. I did not know. So it is an offense where
00:04:02
Speaker
I'm sorry, I'm not going to read the legal definition because it's got some words that I'm going to mispronunciate and obviously my mouth isn't working very great tonight. So we're going to go with layman's terms. A capital murder trial, only eight states use these, but it has a higher penalty. Typically when you hear about a murder trial or watch a murder trial on like law and order,
00:04:24
Speaker
It's first degree murder, second degree murder, aggravated murder, not capital. So the legal definition of a capital murder, it varies in the US, but it typically involves one or more of the following factors. The victim is a police officer, firefighter, paramedic, or similar public safety professional who was killed in the line of duty.
00:04:46
Speaker
The victim is killed during the commission of another violent felony such as armed robbery, kidnapping, arson, et cetera. The victim is tortured, raped, sexually assaulted, particularly if the victim is a child. Multiple murders are committed pursuant to one another.
The wrongful conviction of Sunny Jacobs
00:05:00
Speaker
Murder for hire, terrorism. The victim is murdered based on race, national origin, or other associated group. And the victim is a witness to a crime. So in 2022. Is there any trigger warnings?
00:05:15
Speaker
Uh, I put, I put a new rating on our shows explicit. We don't technically have to do trigger warnings, but no, there are no trigger warnings right now. There is death. Obviously. Cause we're talking about the death penalty. Well, that makes sense. I didn't realize that you had done that. All right. My bad. Sorry guys. I'm lacking. There's no sexual assault or anything like that in this episode. Thank God. It's about time. You'll get there. Okay.
00:05:40
Speaker
So in 2022 is estimated out of all those fitness death, only 2% of those inmates were women. It's also estimated that one out of 10 death row inmates are exonerated each year since 1973. I was going to say how many of them actually get the death penalty like one. Yeah, well. You know what?
00:06:02
Speaker
How do you feel about the death penalty, Lisa? How do I feel about the death penalty? I feel like, honestly and truly, if it is 110%, he is down, she is down by the crime that they have committed, every line connects to the dot, every DNA sample, everything points in one direction. And they are a horrible human being. You reap what you sow.
00:06:29
Speaker
but only if it's beyond the shadow of a doubt. Like that's the problem. The death penalty is.
00:06:37
Speaker
It's 12 people on the jury determining whether you're sentenced to death or not based on a crime you could have possibly committed a crime you could have possibly committed. And in talking about this case, the best definition ever of like what happens in a murder case because the district attorney is given all these facts. They decide which facts to try.
00:06:59
Speaker
And so she said it's like getting a deck of cards and the person who has the deck of cards determines which cards they're going to play with. So if I sat down with you and I had a deck of cards that I went through and decided which cards I was going to give you to play with, would you play with me? I cheated card games anyway. I don't like the way you phrase that. You know what I mean. Sorry. Well, here's a deal.
00:07:24
Speaker
It's one of those stupid little areas where you're either in the box or you're out of the box, but I straddle the box. Because there are certain people out there that absolutely 110% deserve to die. Like whoever stabbed Jeffrey Dahmer when he was in prison, thank you. Like that's how I feel about it. Let's see how you feel. But I'm also a miserable human being and you know. Appreciate it. You know, I straddle the death penalty issue after this case.
00:07:54
Speaker
Man, do I have some feelings? That's not an easy decision to have to make. And for anybody to take that lightly, you don't think things all the way through. Yeah. You are talking about a human life. But you're also talking about a court of law where human nature comes into play. And it's not about justice. It's about getting the win. I don't feel like it's that way, though. I feel like, in my personal opinion, when you have somebody like
00:08:21
Speaker
Ramirez or Bundy or they straight up admitted to their crimes. Yeah, that's different. It was 100 percent. No, but that's what that's the line that I follow. But that's not the line in the United States. That's what I'm saying. You can't you can't pick and choose death penalty is on the table or it's not. OK, first story that we ever told death penalty or no. Well, Jan and Christian. Yes, 100 percent. Yeah. And Chris News. Yes.
00:08:46
Speaker
but they swear up and down that they knew nothing, they heard nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. All right, well, let's get on with tonight and let's see where we go. You're right. All right, so let's get in our way back machine.
00:08:58
Speaker
Because we are going to travel back to the 1970s. Time travel. Well, that's where we are. I like the way back machine. That's interesting. I don't know where I heard that, but it just popped in my head. So I'm tired. Go for it. All right. So we're in the 1970s. There's no cell phones. There's no police body cams. There's no surveillance footage at every building. There's none of that, right? That's where we are.
00:09:26
Speaker
So, we're gonna start our story tonight with Sonya Jacobs, who goes by Sunny.
00:09:34
Speaker
She is a 27-year-old mother, two, nine-year-old son, and a 10-month-old daughter. She and her husband, Jesse Tafaro, are living in North Carolina. Jesse had a hard time finding work there. He did get in some trouble in his 20s, so he had some jail time. He was convicted of attempted robbery. Just leave that there. That's all it really says. There's not a lot about Jesse Tafaro on his past that I could find.
00:10:02
Speaker
But nowadays, Jesse is the father of two. He and Sonny live a self-described hippie lifestyle of creating art, vegetarianism, and spreading love and peace everywhere they went. Awesome. So, Jesse's having a hard time finding work in North Carolina. So, there's no real background story about this guy, Jesse? No. Okay. Just checking. Go. It attempted robbery in his 20s, kept his nose clean ever since.
00:10:28
Speaker
But there's no, you said there's no real background story other than he got in trouble once and then supposedly. He went to jail for attempted robbery one time. One time. He attempted robbery. That's it. But then you said no background story. But that's all it says. It's, oh my God. It's not, it didn't say like he robbed a bank. It wasn't grand larceny. He attempted robbery. So he attempted to hold up a Piggly Wiggly, if that helps you. I prefer 7-11, but. All right. Can I just ask a question? No, shut it.
00:10:55
Speaker
Thank you. All right. So Sonny went down to Florida. I'm sorry. He went down to Florida because he had a friend down there and he was going to go. His friend was going to give him some work. Mary, this is not working. All right. So Jesse couldn't find work in North Carolina and he went down to Florida to work with this friend who could get him some work for a little bit. And he went down there. He worked.
00:11:24
Speaker
get a mosquito about to bite you. So after he was done, Sonny and the two kids drove up to pick Jesse up and bring him back home. So that's kind of where we're starting. The morning that they were set to leave Florida, however, Sonny's car broke down and they got stuck.
00:11:46
Speaker
One of the other construction workers named Walter Rhodes offered to give them a ride to this middle ground place where they were going to stay until her parents could get them money to fix their car and get back home. So they all pile into Walter's car and start driving. I guess along the way at some point, not sure why, but Walter pulls over in the rest area and Sunny is in the car in the back seat asleep with her two kids.
00:12:15
Speaker
Now I'm gonna say, nothing puts me to sleep faster than being in the car. I'm not out of my driveway when I'm passed out.
00:12:22
Speaker
It infuriates my husband because legit I will sleep the whole way to Florida. Yeah, I was gonna say like you're a worthless like out like I couldn't stay away if you paid me money, right? And then only that you got two kids you're dealing with because she just drove from North Carolina, Florida. You don't know how long she stayed there. Now she's packing the kids up and every parent knows usually really late at night or usually really in the morning. So those kids sleep as long as possible so you don't have to hear their mouth, right? At least I could be a bad parent, but that's what we do.
00:12:52
Speaker
There's nothing wrong. Yeah. So I 100 percent get she's in the back just snoring away with her kids. She's just blissfully unaware and she's woken up when she hears a knock on the window. OK.
00:13:05
Speaker
So she opens her eyes and the knocking is coming from a Florida highway patrolman, Philip Black, who has got Donald Irwin with him. Some sources says he's also a Florida highway patrolman. Some Florida says he was a Canadian constable that was now a highway patrolman. I thought it was random that they'd be like he was a Canadian constable. So I feel like that has some merit somewhere. Well, maybe somewhere along the lines, it was a blame game. Either way, we're not really sure why they decided to knock on this window.
00:13:34
Speaker
It is seven o'clock in the morning. Right. And they're they're not doing anything. It's a rest area. They're sleeping. That's what rest. That's what everybody does until, you know, the Internet. You find out how many murders happen there. Now I wouldn't stop at one if you paid me money. Right. Right. But I remember when I was a kid, McDonald's. Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, we stopped there to sleep.
00:13:52
Speaker
So you don't know if they're doing like a routine check. You don't know if they think it's something suspicious. There's these kids, this woman, there's two guys, what's going on? The police off the notes state that they were doing a routine check. And during this routine check, they noticed a gun in the floorboard between the driver's feet. Okay. Now,
00:14:14
Speaker
Gun laws in America are pretty lax. A B, this is the 1970. I remember when I was in high school, guys had like rifles in the back of their pickup truck. Yeah. I'm like those mounts so they could go duck cutting afterwards. Right. You know, I went. Well, even during a routine check, like they have to ask for permission. So like, like they can't just be like, hey, get out of your car. Well, they say, can I search a vehicle?
00:14:36
Speaker
unless there is suspicion of something. Yeah, right. What happened was is they knocked on the window. They see this gun on the floorboard between the driver's feet. So they ask Walter and Jesse to get out of the car. They allow Sonny and the kids to stay in the car. Just say, you know, give me your ID. Sonny says Jesse was like super sketch about handing over his ID, but they all hand over their IDs. Police officers walk back to their car and run the plates and run the license.
00:15:07
Speaker
Well, the license comes back. Walter Rhodes is an ex-con currently on parole. And he's the one that had the gun between his feet. Naturally. So the next thing Sonny knows, the police officers are yelling, everyone frees anyone who moves to get shot.
00:15:26
Speaker
Well, that's a natural response. You got, you got, you got a parolee. We don't know what, I mean, he's an ex Connie's on parole. Yeah, but I thought, well, okay, man, I guess it's the seventies. So they don't really have like, you know, information at their fingertips the way they would now. So, all right. Correct. So I'm sure, I mean, think about, you are passed out with your 10 month old baby, your nine year old son. You're woken up to police officers and all of a sudden they're yelling freeze. Nobody moves. Right. Or die. You're, you're got to be like groggy and like, I'm dreaming.
00:15:55
Speaker
That's not real life. Like, I mean, I don't really know about all that. I don't think I've ever like if somebody if I woke up like, you know, I'm a light sleeper. I wake up at the cricket farts, but. I don't know, man, I don't know that I'd be groggy. I feel like I'd be scared. I feel like that's that's a quick wake up. But what the heck's happening? So Sunny says she looks at her husband while holding her 10 month old daughter and all of a sudden she hears gunfire.
00:16:20
Speaker
just rapid gunfire, so she shoves her little boy into the floorboard, bear hugs the baby and lays on top of both children. Okay. Because she- Mama bear. She's protecting her kids. Right. There's gunfire just going everywhere and she said it seems to go on for minutes and then all of a sudden nothing. It was dead as a grave and she honestly thought she was dead.
00:16:43
Speaker
because it was just so quiet. And she said she, you know, she could, she could finally, she started hearing herself breathe, feeling herself breathe, you know, her kids are breathing. And so she realized they're, they're alive and she looks up and when she looks up, she sees her husband, Jesse standing there frozen, like not moving frozen, just staring ahead.
00:17:07
Speaker
And Walter is frantically placing the car, clearly panicked, clearly agitated. Pacing the car. Like pacing around the car. Walter and Jesse were out. I didn't realize they were out of the car. I thought they were maybe sitting there. No. The police made them get out before they realized he was an ex-con and on parole. All right. Thank you. So all of a sudden, Walter pulls the gun on Jesse, tells him to get in the cop car. Then he turns the gun on Sunny and her kids and tells them to get out of the vehicle.
00:17:36
Speaker
And she is talking and she said that when her son is getting out of the vehicle, he slips and falls. And any mom, she goes down to help pick him up and realize what he slipped in is a pool of blood from two dead officers. Okay. And that's when she realizes. Welcome to the crap show. There are two cops that are dead. Yeah. What the heck's happening? So Jesse puts her and her children in the back of this cop car and they drive off. Could you, I couldn't even imagine. No.
00:18:06
Speaker
Like honestly, I'm sitting in the backseat of the car, I protect my kids, everything is quiet. And then again, some just maniac, I guess, lack of better word, right? Like get out. And your kid falls in a pool of blood, like pick him up and he's just covered in like ooze, like sticky blood. And my thing is, is when I first heard this, I thought the cops opened fire on him. I'm not gonna lie.
00:18:31
Speaker
Right. In today's day and age, that's what your mind goes to. Right. You don't think that. Like it took me else actually did something. Yeah. So. All right. So obviously it wasn't the cops fault. Yeah. So Walter puts sending her kids in the back of the stolen cop car just in the front and drives off like speeds off, she said. Now, in my mind, why would you steal the cop car? I don't know. Like you left your car registered to you with two slain officers.
00:18:58
Speaker
And then what's going to get you caught faster? Driving away in your own car or taking a cop car? Again, this is a 1970. That's stupid. There's no CTV. There's no body light cam. Drive off in your car and leave their cop car. That way you have some plausible deniability. Right. Well, I mean, not even just that, but how much faster are they going to find the freaking cop car than yours?
Sunny Jacobs' journey through solitary confinement
00:19:20
Speaker
Well, Walter understands that. I guess he messed up, too. So he's speeding down the highway.
00:19:25
Speaker
And he pulls off this random exit and he said, you know, he's got to get a new car. He's got to find a new car. Sounds like a big idiot. No, Walter's flies a fox at some point, but he gets off this exit and he drives on. He sees this old man out of his mailbox. Now he pulls up to him and he gets out of his car. We do in this elderly abuse thing. I don't like that either. No, just so Walter and Jesse get out of the cop car, walk up to this old man. Walter pulls the gun on him, says, get your car, get your keys, let's go. So
00:19:54
Speaker
This is where, and we'll get to that in a minute. I'm not gonna jump ahead. So, as they're getting this old guy in his car, Sunny says this is her like, this is her chance to save herself and her kids. They're going off, she's getting out and she's running. Problem is- She's a smart woman. Yes, but when you're in the back of a cop car, can you open the door? No. Nope, so she pops that handle and nothing, and realizes she's stuck.
00:20:25
Speaker
So Jesse comes back, opens the door, and says, Walter says, you need to get in this guy's car. We got to go with him. In my mind, run. Like, that's your point. Jesse went back to get her and the kids, run. Like, Jesse went with Walter to tell this guy, hey,
00:20:43
Speaker
I mean, Walter's a hundred percent. He was the only one with a gun when he shot the cops. Jesse was just kind of there. But I think Jesse was also scared because he was an ex con and he didn't want to get like just associated. Right. Honestly, I think that's his story. But then you also don't really know somebody's intentions. You know. And so like so this poor woman, really, OK, as far as as I'm concerned at this moment.
00:21:06
Speaker
Cause I don't know where your story is going to take off to you. She's the victim right now. 100% her kids. Oh, they're hostage. And her husband's kind of, uh, all right. So I can't use the word I'm thinking of. He's kind of a sissy. I think he's just trying to piece Walter cause he just watched Walter shoot two cops in cold blood. So at this point I have no gun.
00:21:30
Speaker
I have no weapon. I've got my wife, my infant and my child to protect. I have nothing but but just appease him. Like honestly, I've wait. I've waffled back and forth on Jesse like at first, but you but you had said that Walter got out of the car and approached the old man, but he made Jesse go with him.
00:21:49
Speaker
Got it. OK, so Jesse was so they get I was going to say, why don't we just jump gun real quick, get into the right spot and drive off? Like, no, he made Jesse go with him. So he's kind of holding Jesse is hostage closer to him and keeping the wife and the kids compliant because he knows that. Yeah. So Walter puts the old man and Jesse in the back of this old man's car. He stole and he put Sonny and the kids in the front seat. And it is a they went from a cop car super inconspicuous.
00:22:19
Speaker
to an orange Cadillac. Did it have neon lights? It did not. Actually, one podcast I listened to, hashtag vote for us on Wife of Crime was like. I feel like it's the same podcast. I do love them. He said, no, they stole a pitmobile and I laughed out loud because I thought it was funny. But anyway, so Walter takes off in this orange Cadillac and he zooms out and is stuck in 830 gridlock traffic in an orange Cadillac.
00:22:49
Speaker
with one, two, three, four, five hostages. And he's got soccer moms dropping their kids off to school and nine to five schmoes going to work. And they're just in a snail's face. Awesome. So this guy is a genius, by the way. Not a well thought out plan. He's super intelligent. So what the guy, what Walter didn't know is the old man's wife was watching him through their kitchen window to make sure he gets to the mailbox and back safely. They're old and in love. And she saw everything.
00:23:19
Speaker
So she called 911 and said, hey, my husband was at the mailbox getting mail and some guy just held him up with a gun, stole our car, made two women and children get in the front seat, made my husband and some other man get in the back. So the cops know there's multiple hostages, two children, like the woman saw this, the woman reported it all, she's freaking out. So back to our slow getaway on the interstate.
00:23:47
Speaker
So they're sorry. It's one of those who are like that movie with the snail turbo. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm envisioning. I was thinking about like SpongeBob when they're like one day later and nobody here has kids. OK, sorry. So they're stuck in traffic and Sunny says she hears helicopters and she just remembers thinking, thank God, they're going to save us. They're going to save me. They're going to save my kids. And for the second time, she's probably feeling immense relief today. OK.
00:24:18
Speaker
So did they mistake the bright orange for like maybe a putrid brown or something? They did not. They did not. There's there's helicopters in the air. The cops have a roadblock set up right ahead. There's all these police officers. I'll bet Russ turned around, which is not suspicious at all. There is no Russ. Oh, that's a different podcast. We're talking about Walter. Walter. Thank you. So the cops are sitting there at this at this roadblock with all with their rifles.
00:24:43
Speaker
you got to think they know this this this guy killed two two cops yeah so they are all out there so walter sees the roadblock knows they're going to get him so decides to take a hard left and when he takes this left exposing the passenger side of the vehicle the cops open fire
New evidence and Sunny's exoneration
00:25:03
Speaker
So for the second time today, Sunny is shoving her son into the floorboard, wrapping her infant daughter up and laying on top of them as guns are just being fired about on her and her children. So let me can I just pause and intervene for a minute? All right. So.
00:25:23
Speaker
They know. They know there's two children. They know there are victims in the car, that they're being held hostage, that they are being imprisoned by this man. Open fire. Open fire. Open fire. And he turns left. So he exposed them. Them. And that's and so for the second time in an hour and a half, Sunny is laying on top of her kids, willing to take a bullet to keep them safe. So I'm going to ask like a pretty genuine question here. To me, that's rage.
00:25:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, they're a cop, right? Like they've been triggered, right? Oh, yes. And I know that this this is something that really goes on probably a lot more than we think. OK, they fix and have to go tell their friends wife that they do picnics and holidays with your husband's death. OK, but do they not also take into consideration that we're going to have to also go talk to the.
00:26:18
Speaker
you know, the moms and dads of the people that we just shot for absolutely no reason. I don't even think like in that, in that high intensity of a moment, it's just like Sunny had not a second thought to throw herself on our two children to protect them. I don't even think the cops like thought he's going to get away. So that, that feels to me like a justification. It is a justification, but all we can do is try to justify actions. But when you're asking me about the death penalty,
00:26:44
Speaker
And they take justice into their own hands and they don't care who falls victim to it. That tells me that the, that the system itself is really lacking just in a lot of things. Oh, just save your savior. We're fixed. I have to pause multiple times. I've got like pauses built in for your reaction. Am I going to have to take a walk? You might.
00:27:07
Speaker
So they open fire, he wrecks into a semi-trailer, Walter does in his orange Cadillac, wrecks into a semi-trailer, the slow speed chase is over. The only person who got shot was Walter, the driver, he got shot in the leg. And the police swarmed the vehicle. So the old man is taken out and brought to an ambulance to be checked out. Walter, since he's been shot in the leg, is taken to another ambulance to be brought to the hospital.
00:27:37
Speaker
Jesse has pulled out of the car and immediately handcuffed. I hope that that particular ambulance got stuck in traffic. Nope.
00:27:46
Speaker
Just wait. Of course not. So Jesse's immediately pulled out of the car and he's putting handcuffs. Sunny is standing beside him holding his hand holding her infant daughter. Her son is sitting there and she said all of a sudden out of nowhere out of the crowd this cop comes with the butt of his gun and just bashes Jesse in the head making him fall to the ground. Okay. So he gets the pistol whipped. He's lying on the ground.
00:28:09
Speaker
Now, we've kind of already talked about this, but for the benefit of the doubt, these police officers are after individuals that just gunned down and murdered their two brothers. They do not know if Jesse is involved or not. Perception is reality.
00:28:24
Speaker
Jesse was in the front seat. And he was out of the car when the two cops got shot. They don't know Jesse Walter. They don't know who shot him. He's an ex-conda boot. Tensions have got to be just through the roof. Reason is out the window. Justice members for the families of their fallen brothers is all that's more than likely on their mind. And I'm not excusing their behavior because we will get there. They have no recourse for what they're about to do. But I'm just saying there are a lot of amazing cops out there. I have utmost respect for 98% of them.
00:28:54
Speaker
However, not all cops are good cops. I would agree. So Jesse's handcuffed. He's lying on the ground after just being pistol with by this cop. He looks up at Sonny and he tells her you better get away from me. They're going to kill me.
00:29:09
Speaker
Wow, okay. So the cops then and and Sunny's frantically I mean I'm sure she is not like logically saying sir this is AB it's I mean she's I'd be sobbing hysterically like it's not flying like gibberish just trying to hyperventilate explain because she's been in her second shootout with her children this morning right so she's trying to explain she's frantically she's crying they turn the guns on her they take her kids
00:29:35
Speaker
They put them in an ambulance. They call CPS because, um, the kids are in danger. So we're not going to get into the fact that they were mainly in danger because the police knew they were there and shooting them. But I know here's the deal. You've got two dead officers and one person's story, which would be the old lady that ratted them out. Now, as a cop,
00:29:58
Speaker
You don't know who's involved. Your number one priority is to clear the scene. Children are always looked at as the victim, no matter what. So whether they're separated from him. But when you're pistol-whipping people for no reason after they're handcuffed, they're not as resisting arrest. I thought you said they pistol-whipped him, then handcuffed him. No, he was handcuffed. OK. Yeah, that's stupid. Yeah, so they're standing there. She's trying to explain. They take the kid. They send the kids out an ambulance.
00:30:25
Speaker
And the next thing she knows, she's handcuffed in the back of this police car next to Jesse and the police drive off. Now the police don't know, but look, before you try to justify anything, let's not happen. No, no, no, no. That's not what I'm not trying to justify anything. I am simply saying that a normal human being who's being rushed into a situation like that, they don't have any background. They don't know. It's like what we talked about last week with Jean Pierre.
00:30:51
Speaker
where they only knew what was written down about him. According to the report, he was a violent criminal. They don't know. And that, I think, has got to be the worst part of being a police officer is you don't know what you're walking into. Sure. Now let's walk into the next part of this story. I don't want to now, because I feel like I just may have opened myself up pretty wide. So Sonny is handcuffed in the back of this police car with Jesse. Please drive off.
00:31:19
Speaker
And she says they go into this isolated part of town, literally stop on train tracks. OK. They get out and there's like five or six officers standing outside, doors, front doors of the car open. And she's listening to them arguing. Should we just shoot them now and say they tried to escape? Yep. What a shocker. Are do we bring them in? They're arguing. She said literally she's never been more terrified her entire life sitting in the back of that police car.
00:31:45
Speaker
Second, two shootouts in one morning, kids have been ripped out of her arms, she can go nowhere, she's handcuffed and she's listening to people argue about if they're gonna kill her in cold blood. There's like a saying, like a word for that. You know, like boondocks saying, what do they call them? Vigilante? Vigilante. It's almost like they're just going to commit the crime because they feel like their justice is better than the court of law. And I can't honestly say that not anybody's ever been there before, but to actually do it,
00:32:16
Speaker
is that's a moral thing but you keep going and we can talk about that maybe later on in the story. Somebody decided to do the right thing and they took him into custody. So luckily for the children, Sonny's parents were close so they came and took custody of the children. So they went to live with their grandparents during this ordeal.
00:32:41
Speaker
So they weren't, you know, processed or put in foster care or anything like that. They're they're with their their nana, papa, mama, papa, whatever. So Sunny is being photographed, fingerprinted and brought to an interrogation room. And she said the cops keep asking her what's happening. And she said, you got to realize back then they've got those big old like cassette tapes are like legit pressing the button to record me. And they're telling me what happened. Stop it whenever they want. Right. So they tell me what happened. And she tried to explain. I'm not really sure I was asleep. There was a knock.
00:33:09
Speaker
They told the guys to get out. I could stay in the back. I'm in the back of the kids and all of a sudden there's gunshots and I'm covering my kids. Like, I don't know what happened. I saw nothing. I was just trying to save my kids. Right. And they don't believe her. Of course not. And they keep asking questions and she said, you're trying to make me say something that's not true and I'm not going to do that. So they'd stop the recording.
00:33:29
Speaker
And that's the thing too, I think with police interrogation where they're just going to hammer one point and see if you finally break. If at some point they can point out a lie or a crack in the store, anything that could possibly not be feasible. Yeah. And so they say I didn't look up until the gunfire stopped. That to me is reasonable. You've got two children. One is a 10 month old.
00:33:54
Speaker
Right. It's a baby. Yeah. She was still breastfeeding the child. Okay. She is covering that. She is protecting her children. She cares nothing about what's going on. She doesn't know what's going. She wants to keep her kids alive. They say, we don't believe you. She says, you're trying to make me say something that's not true. I'm not going to do it. I don't know what happened. So they'd stop their courting start all over. Tell me what happened. I don't over and over and over again. So while this is happening across town, um,
00:34:21
Speaker
Good old Walter Rose is in the hospital. And for all Walter's stupidity so far and all his fault, apparently he's not a stupid man. Okay. He knows he's in big trouble. He knows he violated his parole. He knows he just killed two cops. And he knows his only option at this point is try to make a deal.
00:34:41
Speaker
What a piece of crap so he calls the I kind of feel like I know where this so he calls the prosecutor Who just happens to be about to run for district attorney? And this prosecutor now knows he can get three convictions instead of one right and not only that he can get three convictions on cop killers and save two innocent children so what a
00:35:06
Speaker
He makes a deal with Rhodes. He offered Rhodes three consecutive life sentences but took off the death penalty if he testified against Sonny and Jesse. Can I just intervene real quick? Sure. Words that I can't say. Go.
00:35:22
Speaker
Oh, okay. You're saying that's what's in your mind in my mind. So, um, so, so Roach takes this deal and to be able to take a deal like this at this point in time, you have to take a lie detector, a polygraph. Right. Walter takes the polygraph, tells the story that basically he was there, which we know now anything which we know now in twenty, twenty two. Yeah. But he passed the polygraph. So the prosecutor signed this deal with Walter.
00:35:50
Speaker
So at this point, Sunny is just in disbelief that this is even her life, that the justice system would fill her and she's so miserably. And honestly, I mean.
00:36:02
Speaker
up most respect for this woman, but she's just a dumb 27 year old who does not have the benefit of watching SBU and law and order and criminal minds to know how the justice is to work. But likely doesn't have the resources because I mean, you're looking at somebody now that you said is running for a government position. Okay. So anything from this point on, you're looking at buchus of money for any lawyer that's going to represent anything because you want to make yourself look hella good. Well,
00:36:30
Speaker
She actually stated that no one in a million years would believe I committed this crime or was even involved in something like this. I don't eat animals because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian. I don't like the idea of anyone or anything being hurt. I'm the least likely person to hurt anything. But in reality, though, like in reality, you could have like some horrible, evil human being saying the exact same crap, like, you know,
00:36:55
Speaker
Or Jeffrey Dahmer, only eight people. But she also said. He wouldn't kill a puppy. But in her mind, she said that like, honestly, any jury is going to look at this and realize this is crap. What innocent man is going to take three life sentences as a quote unquote bargain? Yeah. A rigged jury. Somebody. No. All right. So this is just in her mind. She's thinking nobody's going to think that an innocent person is going to take three life sentences as a quote unquote bargain.
00:37:23
Speaker
Right. And she didn't do anything wrong. Furthermore, she's literally innocent. Her fingerprints are on nothing. There's no gunshot residue on her. The entire time she's just trying to keep her kids safe. She knows nothing. She did nothing. She honestly thinks that like this is just going to be over.
00:37:40
Speaker
So the three of them are tried. Jesse's trial was first. And this is where I, I mean, I really did. I typed right here. I have conflicting ideas when it comes to Jesse. On the one hand, it seems like he just kind of trusted and befriended the wrong person and then got sucked down a rabbit hole that he just tried to survive. Either way, his trial, it took them four days to say that he was guilty and sentenced him to death.
00:38:08
Speaker
four days for the jury to say he was guilty and death penalty. Four days. Here's my question, though. And I know that. Like, OK. The prosecutors had to have come up with some kind of we're going to get the prosecutor. OK, so do I need to wait before I speak? Yep. All right. So according to Sunny, they were all assigned like legitimate attorneys. They don't have public defenders like
00:38:38
Speaker
the people that, you know, you can't afford a lawyer in a capital trial. You have to be, you have to be represented by an actual defense attorney that has their own law practice. So these aren't like Joe Schmoes. These are, these are people that you could go out and hire and pay a hundred thousand dollars for it. Okay. On the flip side of that, she said they're not making any money. So they put more of their efforts to their clients that make money. Correct.
00:39:04
Speaker
Her parents saw that pro bono BS. Her parents offered to put their house to second mortgage their house to get the money together to hire her a lawyer, which in the 1970s was going to cost about a hundred thousand dollars. And Sonny just said, I'm literally, I've got a great attorney. I didn't do anything wrong. There's no way the jury's not going to look at me and see, no, he's fine. So, um,
00:39:31
Speaker
But, you know, high-dollar lawyers, I'm sure, don't like to be voluntold to take a free case. No. So that's where we're at.
00:39:39
Speaker
All untold. Yes, I get vulnerable a lot. Yeah. And and Sunny said, and this is literally a statement from her. She said, I still believed in the American dream and justice in the law system and in Superman. Like she literally said in Superman. Right. She was like, I there was no doubt in my mind that like this was not like Jesse's been convicted and sentenced to death. But she's a woman. She's a mother. Like all she was trying to do is protect her kids. No doubt in her mind that she's going to be OK. Yeah. The probability like really leaned in her favor. Like she had not even the old man. Yeah. And the wife said,
00:40:09
Speaker
You know the one that called was like they put a woman and two children in the back seat like there's no yeah so Sunny's trial started and during the second week of her trial
00:40:23
Speaker
The jury is seeing all this. Like they're not dumb. They, I mean, they see that this, this quote unquote innocent bystander Walter who got sucked into their crazy, you know, Bonnie and Clyde situation. Right. Got three life sentences. So obviously something's not right there. Um, they don't believe that she actually played any part in this crime. They don't believe that she's a killer. She, they don't believe Walter at all when he testifies.
00:40:47
Speaker
Um, so they're, they're asking a bunch of questions. They keep talking about lowering the charges against her. So the prosecutor, again, running for district attorney goes to the prison and gets himself a jailhouse snitch. Okay.
00:41:05
Speaker
You know, um, he finds this young woman in, in jail who is on a minor drug offense. Her boyfriend got arrested there in jail. I bet she got a sweet deal after this. And basically she was told you come to trial tomorrow. You said we're going to put you in the same gen pop area. Sunny tonight, you go into jail tomorrow and you say, you tell us what Sunny told you, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and you're going to go walk free tomorrow and move on with your life. And if you don't,
00:41:33
Speaker
You're going to be trapped in here forever. Yep. Yeah. So this this drug lady went to trial and said that that night, the night before, Sonny told her she killed those cops. It was fun. She liked it and she'd do it again and she didn't care. OK. And Sonny said, who would actually say that in the middle of a trial like common sense people? I'm in the middle of a trial. Why would I open my mouth even if it was true? Like. Yeah, logically, duh.
00:42:02
Speaker
So, and just on a side note, I don't understand how jailhouse snitches are even allowed. I mean, you're getting to get out a free jail card. I'm gonna say whatever you want me to say.
00:42:16
Speaker
Now, I agree. Like, I'm fine with like, if you want to put an undercover cop in there who's wired and pretends to be a criminal and gets it all on tape. Sure. You even want to get a snitch that's been in there for a while and he just gets like a few perks while he stays in prison. And he's wired. Either way. Again, if they're wired and they can record the car, not just. Yeah. Not. Not some. He said not some random criminal. Who's on drugs? Who's on drugs? She's sitting on the stand with meth sores and no teeth. And she's like, yeah.
00:42:44
Speaker
This is what you said. So I'm sorry, guys, that's not funny. Oh, crap, I did it again. So this lady goes to trial and testifies in front of the jury, but the jury's still not buying it. They're not buying this whole thing. And thank you. They keep asking for a lower sentence and just nothing's changing. OK, so where's the way perjury is not the word I'm looking for. No, no. Against the prosecutor, the defense.
00:43:12
Speaker
Like her defense? No. The one who's making up crap to get her life in jail. Oh, oh. Why would there not be some kind of formal investigation against somebody who just random, again, this is all government protocol bull honky. So just a side note, just to make sure that you understand how. I am not a conspiracy theorist, by the way, but I also think if it is. No.
00:43:39
Speaker
that walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck. Let me give you a little bit more information about this trial. The judge who is on the case that is ruling on this case was asked to recuse himself but refused because he said he could be prejudiced. He's a former highway patrol officer. Oh my God, okay. Trying the case of two
00:44:04
Speaker
Highway patrol officers, and he said no. He declined to remove himself. He said he could be impartial. Liar, liar, pants on fire. His nickname was, at that point, and still, Maximum Dan. Because he gives the maximum sentences available. But again, why was he asked to refuse? Because they have to ask. Why wouldn't something like that be mandated? I think it should be.
00:44:33
Speaker
I know no qualms here but he was asked to recuse himself he said no which then he's gonna be mad because they're saying he can't be impartial his name's maximum Dan and let's just get this other little tidbit on there on his on his judge table whatever those things are called
00:44:50
Speaker
He's got his judge notes, he's got his little gavel, and the thing he hits the gavel on. And right next- I just want to say, guys, for everybody listening, that Faith just pounded an imaginary gavel when she yells at me all the time, but nobody can see her fingers. Nobody can see her reactions. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, next to his gavel, he has a little toy that is an electric chair that he presses a button and it goes,
00:45:19
Speaker
like it's electrocuting something. Okay. And he did that throughout the trial. Wow. So that is. Whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no, that that right there, though, like there. Oh, okay. When you have like a drug lord that gets arrested and then murders all the witnesses. Yeah. What there's a word for that.
00:45:39
Speaker
uh intimidating yeah intimidating yeah well he's not he's a judge he's not intimidating right he's just showing her where he's going exactly my thing she said literally he'd look at him he'd look at her and press that button she had to know where she was going like right then yeah can you imagine 27 years old this is your life i've taken the electric chair a little thing even bobber and been like if you're gonna serve me anyway let me shove this in a dark hole
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, so you're dark like like I said, this is like a movie like this doesn't happen in real life. He's pressing a toy electric chair in the middle of court. I'm telling you, I know that electric hair can go. So we'll bring some light to the dark in that one, buddy. Yeah. Well, her case, her trial only takes about two weeks.
00:46:22
Speaker
Her lawyer told her upfront, I am not going to present a defense for you because there is no defense. You're not guilty. There's nothing to argue. There's no fingerprints. I'm so sorry, but this this whole thing every every ounce of everything that you have said thus far. Crap makes me think that this was some kind of a setup for one man. Well, because what defense attorney in any any case at any point in time, even if somebody was proven innocent by DNA, whatever, whatever, isn't going to have
00:46:52
Speaker
some kind of a defense against, like that's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
00:47:00
Speaker
Well, that's what he said. He's not, but it's gonna put him in the best position. I'd like to see all of these people's bank accounts. Well, he said it's gonna put him in the best position at closing arguments to basically say, hey, we basically haven't argued a defense because there's no defense. She was on top of her kids saving their lives. She had nothing to do with this. She has no information to help anybody because she doesn't know. Her sole only focus was to save her kids. And he said that's basically gonna speak volumes. Right. Which is true. But he should have been hammering that the entire time.
00:47:30
Speaker
which he was but he didn't offer like all these witness testimonies because there is no witnesses there is no no because anybody that would have bared witness to anything except for the two people one that got sentenced to death and one that was like hey I can I can see my chains freeing by the second
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm not going to get the death penalty, but I mean, you have to think we're in the 70s. GSR residue like the test for gunshot residue has only been like approved in in in force for two years now. Like we're there's nothing here besides basically hearsay. Yeah. And that's that's the the the sucky part. If she doesn't really have anybody to place her an innocence.
00:48:10
Speaker
And for that reason and that reason alone, that to me would be, because it has to be reasonable doubt, right? Or criminal intent. You would think so. And if they can't prove that, then it's not beyond reasonable doubt and it's not criminal intent. So the court case takes two weeks and the jury is set to determine Sunny's fate.
00:48:38
Speaker
at this point maximum dan the judge explains to the jury that because sunny didn't put up a defense that they have no recourse but to convict her as guilty and that was the judge's decision not the jury the judge is telling the jury this like he's giving his little his little words of wisdom and saying she didn't even put up a defense you have no
00:49:02
Speaker
You have no recourse, but to say she's guilty, she didn't even defend herself. She knows what she does in defensible. You must scream set up. So the jury is feeling huge pressure to state that she was guilty, and that's exactly what they did. They handed back a guilty verdict. Now the jury has to decide Sunny's Senate seat.
00:49:24
Speaker
There's actually a great podcast called Wrongfully Convicted. And she is on this podcast. She and her daughter both speak and he tells her story. And she actually says that it is so important to realize that one person can make a difference. Because there's only one jury who held firm to his integrity, stood against the other jurors and said no.
00:49:48
Speaker
This is wrong. I don't think she did anything. I don't think this is right. And I refuse to send us her to death. Everyone else said death penalty. He said no. Yeah. And if you think about like when was the last time that you got a letter in the mail?
00:50:03
Speaker
to sit on a jury and you are like excited about it. Never. You know what I mean? And so like for me too, that's also just one more thing to just. But you're you're looking to top the pie. You're looking in a in a in a death in a death penalty case, right? All 12 juries have unanimously say death.
00:50:22
Speaker
Right. And this guy, they deliberated, they deliberated, they deliberated, and he said no. No, somebody. No, no, no, no, no. Somebody who said yes. I did not want to be a part of this. No, I didn't want to hear all this. No. I had to miss my job. I had to get paid less for missing my job. No, he had integrity and he said. But that's what I'm saying. Like he stood up for the most people that go into those jurors.
00:50:46
Speaker
the pickings or whatever it is. They're not even that. The jury said they felt pressured to do this because that's what the judge told him to do. Exactly. So they basically said, okay, when the judge told him. Finally, the jury, the jury sentenced her to life in prison, but no death penalty. Yeah, so lambs to the slaughter. Yeah. But they gave this, they gave this ruling in the court case. However, in three states, including this one, there's a thing called judicial override.
00:51:16
Speaker
Amen. Do you know what judicial override is? I assumed it was a good thing. That's where the judge can say, nope, you got it wrong. Death penalty. Okay. Crap bag. And that's what he did. Mr. Buzzer. Right. Maximum Dan said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna enact my rights for judicial override and I'm sentencing her to death. You got it wrong. So that's what happened. Um, Sunny became the only woman in the United States of America on death row.
00:51:46
Speaker
The only, only woman. Okay. They, they literally- Not say something super quick. I gotta, I have to make- We're literally not halfway through. You gotta, you gotta- But I just ride the lightning. Do you remember? Criminal minds- Yes. Where the- I do remember that. It was a horrible case. Like that one was emotion, I feel like that right now. It was emotionally devastating. So they put her on death row, but they have no place to put her.
00:52:13
Speaker
They can't put her on death row with the male infants, the male inmates. They have no female death row.
00:52:21
Speaker
So what they do is they go into the jail and there's this building there that they use. Um, basically it's, it's for when there's riots or when prisoners need to be reprimanded or put in solitary confinement. It's basically a prison inside a prison. So they take this building and there's like six cells. She said, um, and they put her there, they clean it out and she's in there. Okay. So not only did this woman not do anything wrong,
00:52:48
Speaker
uh but she then gets sent to solitary confinement where a lot of people just lose their mind yeah so she is in this in this this gel cell she said she is there's barbed wire fence around her inside the barbed wire fence um and this is her home in solitary confinement she is put there in a cell um she said she could reach both hands out and touch both walls
00:53:12
Speaker
There is a mattress on like a little slab. She's got a claustrophobia. She's got a toilet, a Bible, and a law book. And that is her life for five years. She's the only person in that building.
00:53:27
Speaker
Because she's put in solitary confinement, it's not like prison today like we've talked about before. There's no TV. There's no activities. There's no home act. She has no human interaction. No conversations, nothing. She's by herself.
00:53:45
Speaker
And let's just point out that death row inmates are permitted to have visitors from approved family and friends. They're allowed to have one hour of outside time per day. But because Sunny was placed in solitary confinement, those were not options for her. So I'm not sure if she was labeled solitary confinement based off the fact that she was the only one there and they didn't even have a guard. She was inside a building inside the prison and that's where she lived for five years.
00:54:11
Speaker
But she's in this tiny cell for five years with no visitors, no talks. She can't see the sun. She can't feel the sun. She can't talk to her children for five years. So when she went into this building, her baby girl was 10 months old. And when she walked out, that little girl was in kindergarten. She could talk. She could walk. She could run. She could form sentences.
00:54:40
Speaker
She went in breastfeeding this little girl, and the next time she saw her, she was a little person. She was robbed of all of that.
00:54:52
Speaker
So, she actually, she's got Ted talk about this time in her life and she talks about it on Wrongfully Convicted, the podcast. And she said at first, the only thing she could do was pace back and forth. And in my mind, I'm literally thinking like a lion in a zoo pacing back and forth. It's six steps one way, six steps the other. That's what she's got working with.
00:55:13
Speaker
And so for the first couple months, she's running through everything in her mind. She's going through what happened, what should have happened, what could have happened, and she's literally driving herself crazy.
00:55:26
Speaker
She's by herself, so she's a hippie, she's not religiously affiliated, but she's got to do something so she sits down to read the Bible, because she's got to distract herself. There's literally nothing else there. So she just looked through the Bible and she did say that while she's not a Christian, she gained some wisdom from it.
00:55:45
Speaker
But one day she opens the Bible and she does not remember or know what verse she read, but basically the verse stated, they can hold you hostage, but they can't take your inner peace and love.
00:55:57
Speaker
And there's tons of, like, if you just Google Bible verses for prisoners, you get a whole list of things. You've got Paul talking in the New Testament several times from prison, encouraging Christians of that day, stay strong, be joyful. Oh, there, but there's so many, even Paul himself. Yeah. He was in prison saying it. And guys, I'm sorry, but you know.
00:56:17
Speaker
We know things, right? Yeah. And it says in James 1, 2, 3, 4, count all joys, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, to know that the testing your faith produces is steadfastness. Let steadfastness have its full effect. You may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So God's basically just saying to you, no matter what situation you're in, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how stupid it is, find peace in it, because guys, the only thing that's ever going to get you through anything
00:56:46
Speaker
is peace. Yeah and she said and James 5 13 was another one I thought was really good in her situation. It says, is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. So she flips open the Bible and she sees they can hold you hostage but they can't take away your inner peace and love and this just resonated with her because remember she is a skirt flowing hippie who's all about love and peace so
00:57:11
Speaker
She realized that this is true. And she's and she's so beat down at this point and battered. But it's like a light bulb flip. She realized that they can they can walk her up. They can take away her freedoms. But they could not take away what essentially made her who she was. They could not take away her core values, her love, her peace, her goodwill for others. Those were her freaking core values. And she does not freaking waver from those. And that's incredible. So a lot of people get so
00:57:41
Speaker
It was just, it's like we said, you think things in your mind and you let your mind wander and you're angry and she has every right to be angry. Right. She took a right instead of a left, right? Where a lot of people that would be sitting in the same thing is like, okay, who can I hurt you? Like who, who did this to me? Like if I ever get out of here, I'm going to do A, B, C or D. And she said, nope.
00:58:06
Speaker
i'm gonna turn to the other side and i'm gonna say like you know what bro no matter what you throw at me no matter what you say no matter what you do i still have me yeah so i am still me and i will be me so she says at this point she realizes that the gel may own her body but she still owns her mind and she has to protect it so she decides to focus she said yoga meditation and prayer
00:58:29
Speaker
She said yoga gave her just it released the stress from her body meditation let her take her mind captive and prayer gave her just the the hope that something out there was stronger than the forces against her. So for the next five years that's what she did every day. She brought herself to a place of inner peace and she said it's literally the only thing that saved her sanity.
00:58:52
Speaker
So after five years, she finally gets her first appeal. During this process, they see that the judge had the judicial override, changed her sentence from what the jury stated, and did not even put a reason, just changed it. So she was granted her appeal, and her appeal changed.
00:59:15
Speaker
or pill change from death to life in prison which seems like crap but for her this was huge she got to eat with other people yeah she got to feel the sun on her feelings interaction for the first time in five years she but she said it was also a culture shock she said for five years she has lived in silence and alone and now she's got all these sounds and all the she said so i went from being a 27 year old mother
00:59:39
Speaker
to having my life completely changed and having to learn new normal of solitary confinement. And now it's again, because there's people and there's noises and there's all this stuff, but just above all that, she's super popular. Everyone in prison loves her, but all these perks paled in comparison to being able to sit down and visit with her parents and her children. She was finally able to look across at them and see them.
01:00:06
Speaker
It's the first time in five years. I could not imagine fathom. Think about not seeing my son for five years. Not going to happen. So about a year. That's why we're not. We're not even halfway. I just want to know when she was sentenced. Was it still in 75 ish kind of era? Seventy six. OK, so 81.
01:00:29
Speaker
No, we're not taking one yet. We'll get the baby one. Well, I thought you said she did. Oh, OK. You know, five years in confinement. So so about a year into this new life, her parents decided to take a vacation together to Vegas and on the way. Just. You can't even it literally is is like a script. They're playing crashes and they both die.
01:00:52
Speaker
What so not only does she lose her parents, but now her children are orphans in words of the state and they're placed into foster care. So her son at this point is about 17.
01:01:06
Speaker
So he's kind of on his own, but the little girl's six or seven-ish, and she remembers. In that podcast, Wrongfully Convicted, she talks about it. She says that she walked out a lot of her life. She has a lot of repressed memories, but she talks about her time in foster care. And actually, the host has to, when she stopped talking, he was just like, I have no words. So for the next seven years, her lawyers continue to work on her behalf to gain appeals and attempt to get freedom for her.
01:01:37
Speaker
Um, at this point, Jesse.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yes, Mr. Deck penalty execution comes up. Yep. So Sonny and Jesse corresponded through letters and she drew him and colored him pictures. Their little girl who's a woman now talks about her life at this point about how she had to take a seven hour bus trip by herself to go see her father in prison and that she'd have to take a plane to see her mom.
01:02:09
Speaker
How does that work? Oh no. So Jesse's execution comes out and I don't have this down and I apologize if I get this wrong. I was listening to the little girls or the woman now but I was listening to her talk about the day her dad was put to death and his parents were still alive. Why she didn't live with them and she went into foster care I'm not really sure but um before he was put to death
01:02:32
Speaker
her grandmother arranged a meeting for her to be able to see her dad. Like she said, she, she remembers just wanting to sit on his lap and kiss his face, like face. She said she just, she has this connection with both her mom and her dad. She just wanted to see her dad one last time. And so she did, and she hugged him and kissed him. And then she, she went home and the next day he set to be executed. And the, the,
01:03:02
Speaker
Sorry. She went to school that day. Her dad was going to be executed. And she said her foster parents were nice enough. They were blue collar, but well off keeping up with the Joneses is her exact words. And nobody really wanted. They didn't really want everybody to know where she came from. But her friends knew who her dad was and that he was being executed that day. And she should have stayed home from school, but she didn't want to.
01:03:32
Speaker
Well, no, because you know what's about to happen. You want some sense of distraction. Yeah, she gets on the bus. She's the first kid on the bus. And as she sits down and the bus takes off, she realizes the bus driver is listening to the execution of her father. Wow, that's OK. And she said that her friends, both of her friends get on and they realize what's going on and they just put their arms around her and held her and she tried to hold it together.
01:03:59
Speaker
She said she didn't, um, she ended up getting in trouble and getting sent home from school. Something happened. Um, and so the child's going to act out. Come on. So, um, the next day she's at the mall and her friend says, Tina, I'm so sorry about your dad. And she just says, you know, yeah, thank, thank, thank you. I know. And he says, it's just so horrible. And she said, I know I, I, I can't believe that, you know, he used to death. And she said, I mean,
01:04:28
Speaker
So her friend says, no, I'm just so sorry, I can't believe that went so badly. And she just looks at him and she's like, what do you mean? And that's when she is told at the mall by, I mean, it's not a stranger, but it's not who she should have been told to what happened in her father's execution. Oh my goodness. So her father Jesse was put on the electric chair, old Sparky. It was literally built by inmates, this podcast said.
01:04:56
Speaker
And it's straight out of the green mile. Someone took the sponge and replaced it with the wrong kind of sponge. And so bystanders said there were two foot flames shooting out of his head, smoke coming out of his ears, and he burned to death for 13 and a half minutes before he died.
01:05:19
Speaker
It is because of this that Florida actually, he's the last person to be executed by electric chair. They outlawed it in the state of Florida. Now it's just lethal injection. But that's, she found out as a 13, 14 year old, that's how her dad died in a public mall. And on the flip side, Sonny finds out about this in prison and is devastated.
01:05:45
Speaker
So that, that is, that's why I said you'd feel bad about questioning Jesse. Cause no matter what he did, the electric chair mount function three times, they put the wrong sponge on him. No one would admit to who did it. It was a hundred percent human error. And he 13 and a half minutes. Nobody's going to admit to, and I'm telling you Faith straight up. I really feel like from the beginning to the end, from the moment, what Walter was that his name? Yeah.
01:06:11
Speaker
From the moment he signed off saying, I'm going to say A, B, and C, it didn't matter what happened to Sonny, it didn't matter what happened to Jesse. Oh, here's the kick in the pants. So before Jesse was executed, one of the last times he and Sonny spoke at one of their appeals, it had come out that Walter, who was in jail for three consecutive life sentences, was bragging that he's the one that killed the cops, and he passed it off on these people on a bomb. Of course he did.
01:06:40
Speaker
And multiple male prisoners who he had told this story to went to the appeal and testified on behalf, but they were criminals. So not believable witnesses. Can I tell you why? Because they weren't a snitch. No, it has nothing to do with that. The only reason that they were not held to a standard at that moment. Is based solely on the fact that it was an election.
01:07:08
Speaker
No, we're past that. He's the district attorney now. Exactly. We're past that. But that's what I'm saying. They're not going to go back to another case that he had once had saying all of these people were innocent because that makes him a tool. And then he's going to be under investigation. But it's people that aren't even in that. Nobody wants to admit what they did was wrong.
01:07:26
Speaker
So they they lost appeal. Sunny's Sunny's attorney. She's got this attorney and she actually said her her biggest tip to anyone who's incarcerated is get the youngest attorney you can find so they don't die on you halfway through and you don't have to start over.
01:07:39
Speaker
because these take so long to get appeals. So she loses appeal. She loses appeal. After Jesse's execution, one of her childhood friends came to see her and just be there for her, visit her in prison, and just said, I want to help you. I know you're innocent. There's no way you could hurt a fly. And she was actually a documentary filmmaker.
01:08:04
Speaker
And her partner was a lawyer, not a criminal defense, but still a lawyer, so he knows the law, or she knows the law, and they want to help Sunny any way possible because they believe she's innocent. So Sunny's like, yeah, sure, go talk to my lawyers. Also, Sunny talks to her lawyers, her original lawyer for all these appeals has died.
01:08:26
Speaker
So she's working with the two junior who were the junior attorneys when they started. Now they're full right attorneys in their own right. And she wants to hire a PI to go find the lady that testified against her in court because she thinks that will be like the nail in the coffin to get her appeal pushed through.
01:08:46
Speaker
so um let me guess she's dead no they find her they find this lady she's living in wyoming she's completely turned her life around i mean she was a young kid that had like a minor drug offense yeah she's not thought twice about sunny since it's been 13 it's been 12 to 14 years at this point this woman has a wife has a wife this woman has a family she has kids she's taking care of her dying aging father
01:09:09
Speaker
And she's never literally thought twice about it. She was a young dumb kid. So the PI and the lawyers find her and say, do you know what happened because of your testimony? And this woman's like, no. And they tell her about Sunny and her story. And the woman loses it. She's sobbing, crying. And she says, I will do anything to help. I'll do anything to make this right. But I will not go back to Florida and testify.
01:09:32
Speaker
because she's afraid of the prosecutor because he did win district attorney on his stance against his hard stance against crime. So she said, if I go back and tell what actually happened, he's going to try me because I perjured myself under his instruction and I'll go back to jail. I won't go back to Florida. It's the only thing I won't do. I'll do anything to help, but I will not do it. Well, in the meantime, Mr. District Attorney finds out that she wants to help.
01:10:02
Speaker
and he sends his goons to Wyoming to her dying father and says basically, tell your daughter if she knows what's best for her, she's gonna keep her mouth shut and stay put. Again, exactly what I brought back to you, man. But this was shush, it's not a conspiracy, shush. This enrages the woman, she's pissed. So she says, you know what, get me a ticket, I'm going to Florida.
01:10:28
Speaker
And she does. She goes to Florida to Sunny's appeal and testifies. I lied.
Challenges in the judicial system
01:10:34
Speaker
I was told. I was told me and my boyfriend would get out the next day.
01:10:38
Speaker
And I couldn't, I couldn't handle it. I did what he told me to say, and I couldn't. So on cross-examination, when this DA, the prosecutor gets up and walking turns cross-examine her, literally she starts hypoventilating, clutching her hest and collapse, having a freaking heart attack on the stand. She's so terrified. She has a heart attack. They get an ambulance. They take her, they take her to the hospital. They check her out.
01:11:06
Speaker
And they say, you know what, you can go back to Wyoming, we will finish all your testimony via video and cross-examine that way, they do. And even though this woman's cleaned up her life, she's got a family, she's got a job, they say, you know what? It's an ex-druggy against a DA, no one can believe her words. So now that she's an upstanding citizen, contributing member of society, she's not trustworthy, but she was when she was a drug addict.
01:11:33
Speaker
Pretty much. So Sonny's pill is denied. Well, it just, you know, eh. Yep. Keep telling me no conspiracy, but it sounds to me like somebody's trying to highlight their career. No, it's not that. It's nobody wants to admit what a just monumental f-up this was. Yeah, it's complete and utter defeat, but I feel like it all signals around one man.
01:12:01
Speaker
No. Maximum Dan did a judicial override and sentenced her to death. Had nothing to do with the DA. He didn't care if that guy wanted to be the DA. Yeah, it was like the perfect lineup. It was everybody sucked besides that one juror. So Sunny's friends are working with her attorneys again.
01:12:21
Speaker
trying to get her free and they prepare a habeas corpus. A habeas corpus is a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge to secure the release of an, basically saying that they are being, they are in prison for, they need to be released for unlawful grounds because they shouldn't have ever been there. It's a weird thing, but in simple terms, it's like an appeal, but it's her last hope.
01:12:52
Speaker
and she's gonna go before a judge and they're gonna say if she should be in prison or not. So nobody in this court wanted to admit that they were wrong. Sunny was actually, her conviction was overturned. There was no evidence. It was the first, it was the first habeas corpus where they had to get special permissions because her friends had graphs and all this stuff to show all the evidence that
01:13:22
Speaker
She was not involved, all this is bunk, and they overturned her conviction. But, here's the thing. Yeah, her husband's already friggin' dead. So they said, you know, we'll let you plea and say that you're innocent, we'll agree that you're innocent, but somebody has to pray for this crime. And it's not you, and we've already made a deal with Walter, so you need to say Jesse was guilty.
01:13:51
Speaker
No. Basically. And in the face again, in the face of her freedom, OK, with her husband already dead. She said that she she says literally she was facing the devil because all that she had left was her integrity and her character. It's literally all they had not taken from her.
01:14:10
Speaker
And she was not about to claim that her husband, the father of her living children were guilty and give up those things and give up her integrity and her character just to walk free. She wouldn't be able to live with herself. They said, if you just say that you and Walter are innocent and you know, you don't even have to say Jesse was guilty. Just basically allude to it. You can walk out and have a steak dinner tonight. And she said, finally, she looked at him and said, I don't eat meat. I'm a vegetarian, vegetarian. No, thanks. And went back to prison.
01:14:42
Speaker
Wow. I don't eat steak. Go ahead and let me go back to Jen Poppet. She was teaching English. She was teaching math. She was teaching yoga. She had a nice little life set up for herself there. She wasn't going to she was not going to sacrifice her integrity and her character and the reputation of her husband and her husband who's already dead. Yeah. So she goes back. She goes back into to jail. That's amazing how the court system could manipulate somebody so much.
01:15:09
Speaker
Like that's so, oh yeah. So then they, they call her on Friday. They call her back to court and she said, everybody knows that like, if you get, if, if they take you from the jail to court on a Friday, you're getting, you're getting off because they don't want to hold you in county lockup over the weekend.
01:15:28
Speaker
Right. So everybody is lying in the hallway saying, good luck with your life. You deserve this. Give your kids hugs. Live a good life. We love you. We'll miss you. You deserve this. Everybody is sitting there, you know, high fiving her stuff. So she goes to court and they basically say, here's what we're going to do. Um, they're going to let her have an Alfred plea.
01:15:49
Speaker
She's the only person besides Alfred, whoever had this Alfred plea. So an Alfred plea is where an individual basically says, I'm guilty of co-conspiratory. I'm guilty of this lesser thing, but I maintain my innocence. And the prosecutor has enough to convict me of what I'm pleading guilty for.
01:16:13
Speaker
And basically it's a wash. It's a wordplay. OK. OK. So she was guilty to being a good mom. So the one podcast said it like this. He said it's basically like a kid going up, crossing their fingers behind their back and saying, I did it. Yeah. Like, yeah. And that's what it is. Like, it's this weird thing.
01:16:32
Speaker
But the deal is. Where the law gets what they want. And this is what they tell her. She said that she said that they here's the deal. We're going to you're going to do this word this word play for the Southford plea. And then the prosecutor gets to stay on record. All their evidence against you. Is it is it the DA now? The DA. OK. And they say you have to keep your mouth shut. You cannot say a word. Let him say everything he wants to say. Of course. And then you get to walk out free. Free and clear. You're done.
01:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, don't backtalk the guy that just got his awesome position. So she said, no, she's been in jail 17 years, bro. She's 40, like 45 to 47. She was 27 when she went in. You're right. It's been over 20 years. She's lived a long life. This guy's had his career.
01:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, but the DA, I feel like is handing her something and saying, hey, as long as you don't rat me out for sucking, it's basically saying, you know, we, you know, we'll admit that she was innocent, but here's all this stuff. So she said she's sitting there and she's trying to keep her mouth shut and the DA is just listing out all this stuff. And she said, she can't do it. Yeah. And she said, good woman. She said, I'm thinking in my mind, what can I say that won't get me in trouble? So she just says, excuse me, judge, may I have some water? I've got a bad taste in my mouth.
01:17:50
Speaker
Oh, and that's all she said, because you can't prove that she didn't, you know, just have a and have a dry mouth. So after like Johnny Depp. Yeah. All right. Sorry. After 16 years, she is a free woman. OK. She walks out of that jail and never admitted to anything. Right. Never said her husband did it. Never said she never sacrificed her morals and her integrity. Good woman. So she reconnects with her children. And, you know, she's a grandmother now.
01:18:18
Speaker
She's meeting her grandkids. And now she's in this new world again, another culture shock. She has no idea what to do with her life. The whole world's different, but true to her hippie heart, she starts teaching yoga and meditation because it's literally all she knows.
01:18:35
Speaker
Um, she eventually starts working with the innocence projects and exonerees, and she goes on this speaking tour and she's speaking at an amnesty international event in Ireland in 1998. And while she's talking and telling her story, there's this man in the audience named Peter Pringle.
Sunny and Peter's advocacy for exonerees
01:18:52
Speaker
It just sounds so cute, like Kris Kringle, but with Pete. Mr. Pringle. So Peter Pringle is in the audience listening to her talk, and he's just enthralled. He has to get to know her. He has to talk to her. So he goes and he asks her, can I take you to dinner? I've got to talk to you. I want to hear more about your story. So he talks to her. Mr. Pringle himself was falsely imprisoned in Ireland and on death row, also for 16 years, also wrongly convicted of killing two cops.
01:19:22
Speaker
Are you kidding me? This is literally a lifetime. This is a lifetime movie. So he brings her dinner. They tell each other their stories of all these things that happened. It's so random and so crazy how they're so connected. But she ends up moving into Ireland with him. They get married. They're married now. And she opens the Sunny Center.
01:19:44
Speaker
Now, you can go online right now. You can donate to the Sunny Center. You can research the Sunny Center. You can help the Sunny Center. But her and Peter run the Sunny Center together, where basically this is a retreat for exonerees to come to after they get out of prison and recover before entering the world. And it teaches them yoga, meditation, and methods to cope with the turmoil in their minds.
01:20:03
Speaker
She goes all over the world. She has lived 110% her best life. Their nonprofit organization, their mission is to help those who have suffered the injustice of wrongful convictions, giving them the support they need to reenter the world. They also give seminars throughout the world and they talk about the benefits of the spiritual aspects of healing and learning to forgive and go beyond the blank.
01:20:27
Speaker
They also work with traumatized ex-combatants, former prisoners to help heal wounds of the troubled. They've got a center in Florida. That's a mission statement. That's a mission statement. Yeah. So since 2012, they've welcome exonerees from the United States.
01:20:45
Speaker
the UK, Taiwan, Belgium, Ireland, and Pakistan, just to say a few. And they work with people who were in the military who were going through like PTSD and trying to reenter. And Sunny says, we always make sure to have at least one unit available for people who are in desperate need.
01:21:01
Speaker
And this is her life. This is what they're doing. Her and her husband, who both on death row for 16 years, wrongly convicted. They mentor people in other countries to help them create Sunny's healing centers, help them know what works, what doesn't. They talk about from their experience, how to help them, how to obtain resources.
01:21:18
Speaker
people offer their homes, their farms, their ranches, anything for a temporary respite center for these exonerees. They're currently working towards legislation to provide a more stable temporary housing for exonerees. They've got a YouTube channel. They have a media center, a blog. She's written books. I mean, it's 100 percent their best life. And she says one of the things that she hates the most is people on death row. There's no help for their for their family members.
01:21:44
Speaker
Her daughter, part of her story, she was telling us when she went to go see her dad before he died in prison, she remembers going, she is a child. She's 13, 14, takes seven, eight hour bus trip by herself. She is strip searched.
Impact of wrongful convictions on families
01:22:00
Speaker
before she's allowed to see her dad as a child. And she remembers saying it was really weird. She comes home, she gets in trouble, she finds out in the mall, she gets in trouble and she gets sent to a boarding center, basically put into a boarding school for mentally and emotionally misbehaved youth. And she is incarcerated as well.
01:22:17
Speaker
because no one was there to help her so they her father's completely emotion emotionally damaged but sunny even guys you know at first I was really mad but on the other hand her foster parents don't know how to talk to her about this they don't know what to do that and she said you know the the court systems need to provide an advocate for these kids like they should have let son they should have let this little girl go be with her mother
01:22:40
Speaker
or be with her paternal grandmother or somebody the day that her dad is being killed, especially when it went so bad. Somebody should have been there. Nobody was there. So this is all the stuff Sunny talks about.
01:22:51
Speaker
A final quote, I'm gonna leave you and then we can discuss it for a few months if you'd like to, but a final quote from Sunny that I just thought was awesome. This is on her organization if you go to the Sunny Center, it's like on every page. And it said, we are so glad to have this opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph, to use the past as further grounds for planting seeds of hope and watching those seeds blossom into happy, healthy lives.
01:23:13
Speaker
And she literally, the podcast, if you go listen to Wrongful Convicted, she's episode number three. She's laughing and talking and just, I mean, she's cute as a button.
01:23:24
Speaker
But I just imagine these little hippie, like those big flowing skirts, beaded necklaces, and she's just, there's not an ounce of bitterness or resentment.
Corruption and social pressures in the justice system
01:23:33
Speaker
She missed her kids' whole lives. Her daughter was put in prison. But what choice you have? None. None. Like what happened to you was what happened to you. Yeah, but I still get in a snip in like two weeks when my boss makes me mad. Yeah. Well, not all of us are so angry. That's a lie.
01:23:52
Speaker
I think most people have a better way of controlling it, maybe. I don't know. But all right. So for starters, where where's Walter? Oh, Walter's. Walter is out of prison. I hope. I think he's back in prison under three consecutive licenses and he got to walk free before Sonny did. I hope that Walter. I didn't do a lot of research on him because I don't like him. I hope that Walter comes down with the most horrendous bout.
01:24:21
Speaker
anal itch that never goes away like there there is no doctor on the planet like his his butt just itches constantly and when he takes a dump it's worse like I just want him to be tortured in some fashion reform because he is this he was the key oh yeah that unlocked
01:24:45
Speaker
this perfect scenario for this day. But I don't even blame him. They knew he was lying. That's the thing. But, no, no, no. Here, in one of the appeals, in one of her appeals that they did, I forgot to mention this little gem. So they go through all the old court, her original court case. And her friends, that's the documentary person and the lawyer, want to see his polygraph, Walter's polygraph.
01:25:09
Speaker
And they had a polygraph reader person, whatever they're called, look at it and said he he failed this. Yep. But they they stamp pass. All right. So they lied about it. You can sit here and tell me all day long, not conspiracy, but everything for me points to. This was a perfect storm. This was the perfect storm. This was such a great case for a DA or potential for a potential DA.
01:25:35
Speaker
to come up and say, dude, if all of the cards lay flat, all right, if all the dominoes lay in place. It's not like the other lawyer was like, oh yeah, let me help you get a DA. That's his opposition. No, he was just stupid. You can't tell me that every single person that ever went to Harvard is like the best lawyer ever. No, it wasn't that he was stupid. It was that he didn't care. No, I think because no matter what they did, no matter how hard he tried, he knew the case was over.
01:26:02
Speaker
That's what I think. I think he felt like there is no way possible that I'm gonna win this. It's not gonna happen. This is the court, okay. He knew what he was up against. Yeah, she was toast. You got the highway patrol judge with old Sparky sitting there on his desk. But again, what falls on somebody's desk isn't at random.
01:26:29
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? I'm sorry, but you cannot convince me at this point. And I will still, at the very beginning, you were asking me my stance on the death penalty. And like I said.
01:26:39
Speaker
If it is 110%, that is not 110% to me. That is absolute fabrication BS. And I will honk the friggin' horn 100 times over. But that's what people say. Because the death penalty is allowed, you get cases like this. Of course you do. But as a human being, you also have a right
01:27:00
Speaker
and a responsibility. But it's just like that to go against a gut. Like, y'all, if your gut is screaming at you, telling you, bro, this is no. But these are these are people pressure. They've got that. They've got that. They did that. This is not high school asking somebody if you want a cigarette. This is somebody's life. But they're still there. There was like a legit study done at Harvard or wherever. Of course, it was where they got. I don't I said wherever. But they get 10 people in a room.
01:27:27
Speaker
And everybody but one person knows that this is a test. And they hold up six lines and they say, does line A and line B match? And they clearly do not. One's going left, one's going up and down. And everybody says, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, because you have one person that triggered them to. No, everybody knew. Everybody but one person there knew what to say. They all were in on it. And the one person with authority always said, no.
01:27:57
Speaker
Yes, even though they knew and they did it against socio-economic against different races like they're they did all these samples that almost like it was nine times out of 10 the person went with the group because nobody Everybody wants to go against the the whatever Nobody wants to go against the veil. Okay, so Yeah, but you're like an adult still
01:28:22
Speaker
No, not still. Like, I disagree. Thank God that one jury had integrity. And that's why Sonny said this shows that one person can make a difference. You think you can't. But one person and you mentioned the Bible earlier and some of the things that I don't know if anybody understands the reference when I say lamps to the slaughter. OK. Moths to a flame. Like faith. He's not even.
01:28:52
Speaker
speaking coherently. It's not a grown. I am because all it takes is for you. He was right. No, to think about something. For more than a half a second. OK, more than, oh, well, this happened because of. Crime on this sort of person or whatever.
01:29:19
Speaker
look at the facts like you sit here and you're listening to this story and it was like every like the stars aligned in this point in time where it was a crappy scenario it was a crappy injustice of the things that happened to these people but then it fell in this most opportune time
01:29:42
Speaker
during an election, okay? And I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna hammer that because to me, a normal court system with a normal prosecutor with a normal defense attorney is just gonna turn around. No, because they still want the win.
01:29:57
Speaker
And there's absolutely and they'll cheat to get it. That's what I'm trying to say. It doesn't matter. But that's that's what I'm saying. It's not a conspiracy. It didn't matter if he was going up for it is a conspiracy. It doesn't matter if he was going up or not. He would have still done whatever he has to do. He still conspired against. He conspired against an individual to make himself look better. The whole state did. Everybody did.
01:30:23
Speaker
And it was clear that's what they did. But at this point, it had been like that hole was dug so deep. They were doing they were filling it with as much sand and anything that they could.
01:30:37
Speaker
That's just how people are. I mean, nobody wants to admit they're wrong. But you brought it up earlier. So a couple of years ago, Amber Heard accused Johnny Depp of domestic violence. Yeah. Everyone turned against him. He lost all his movie contracts. He was a jerk. Everybody hated him. Spit on Johnny. That was that was older than that. Like Me Too movement.
01:30:57
Speaker
where, like, I can't. But still, but now everything's coming out and everybody's spitting on Amber Heard. Nobody's actually researching. They're literally just looking at headlines. That's exactly right. And jumping whatever size they want to jump on. Last week, when we talked about Jean-Paul, what was the biggest thing that you said to me? All it took was 10 seconds of research for the cops, for the judge, for anybody. It's common sense.
01:31:26
Speaker
agree it's common sense all you have to do is think for yourself for five seconds but nobody wanted you that's the point that I'm trying to drive across it's that nobody has enough intestinal fortitude to stand up for something that they know is wrong and people have been dealing with this stuff since
01:31:46
Speaker
Yeah, high school, middle school, elementary school. And I'm not justified. You see somebody get bullied. And now here a decade later, right? Yeah. You've got, you know, a courtroom full of popular kids and nobody wants to go against the popular kid. Well, it's not even that it's you've got you are an average Joe. Yes. Summoned a jury duty. You don't want to be there in the first case. You honestly, you've argued for two weeks. You've asked for lesser sentences. You've said this doesn't pass the smell test.
01:32:16
Speaker
then you have a judge look you in your face and say, you better convict guilty. What are you going to do? Because that judge is in your hometown, your sentence, you're, you're in jury in your county. All these cops whose brothers were slain, they're all, they all know your name. They know where you live. They know it's scary. Again, again to me, that is a failure on the judicial system.
01:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, 100 percent. They failed. They failed her like they and it's in Florida again. Florida is a little different now. That's where that's where the the the case of Jean-Pierre was was in Florida. This was important. That was that was back in like 80s, 90s, though. So I'm just we're in 2022. And if you guys think that this stuff isn't still going on, like you're delusional. Let's be nice to our listeners.
01:33:14
Speaker
Well, somebody needs a wake up call at some point. Like if you're sitting on a jury stand and you're hearing a case for the first time, you need to be focused, vigilant, okay? And seek your conscience for crying out loud. Because that's the thing they can't.
01:33:37
Speaker
When you're on a jury, especially when you're sequestered and on a capital murder case, you can't Google, you can't talk to people outside, you can't look at news. All you have is what the defense and the prosecutor are telling you. And they don't tell you the whole case. They tell you, it's like Sunny said, she said the defense attorney gets all this evidence and all this information. And say he has 52 pieces, like a deck of cards.
01:34:03
Speaker
He's going to pick which pieces he allows to be presented. And let's say these 10 defense or prosecution is that prosecution. Thank you. The prosecution is going to say, well, these 10 things here, we're not going to even, we're not going to bring them up. So there's no need to share them with the defense. So you're playing instead of 52 cards, 42. So if I walk up to you and say, Hey, let's play cards. Here's the cards you get to play with.
01:34:28
Speaker
Are you gonna wanna sit down and play poker with me? Hell no. No, I cheat anyway. Yeah. But now I'm taking all the aces. I've given you just crap. I don't know how to play poker, so whatever bad cards there are. But it's a rigged game, and I don't think it should be that way. It should truly be about law and order. It should be about justice. But it... It should be all the facts. I don't think I could ever, ever state that none of this ever happened, like, before our time, before our forefathers, before...
01:34:57
Speaker
it's been happening since the dawn of age absolutely because people are inherently and that's what sunny said she said people inherently have this i want to win they have that drive they've got that human air that piece of and i will win that is the devil in the show matter what the stakes and she said you know if if you think no one's going to find out about this and i can get a little ahead
01:35:20
Speaker
Most people are gonna get a little ahead and they're not gonna say, most people are not gonna look after years in prison and say, I don't eat steak, send me back. How many people, Jesse's already dead, what's the harm?
01:35:35
Speaker
I mean, quite frankly, literally, literally at that point, she had nothing, nothing to lose in her shoes. He's already dead. He's already died. Her kids are grown. Yeah. Say it and get out. But you know what she did? She stuck to her moral. She said, I don't eat steak. Send me back. Yeah. Like.
01:35:54
Speaker
What if they don't work? I mean, in my mind, I'm thinking, I'll do it for bladed grass. Tell me what you want. Like the little junkie, tell me what you want me to say, buddy. I'll say it, just get me out. And she had integrity and character and it's all she had left and she wasn't gonna give it up for nothing and nobody. And she literally is like the sweetest, most joyful, I mean, Sunny is the perfect name for her. She is like just the prime example
01:36:24
Speaker
of what humans should look like. Like, it's not about what I might suffer. It's what you could possibly prevent. It's about what's right. Right. But again, like, I mean, I couldn't sit on my little bench right here right now talking to you and say, I would do the same thing. I don't know. You know what I mean? I have to assume I would do whatever I had to do to get out. I'm being honest. Yeah. I don't want I would want to go back to jail. But it's people like that, that mentality.
01:36:55
Speaker
That tells me that people like Sonny are always going to continue to suffer because nobody has enough nut.
01:37:03
Speaker
in their life, I would end up and tell the truth. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, that's what her daughter said in that. And like friggin Walter. Yeah. Her daughter said, my mom's a hero. Yeah. Like she because and because that's what the the the host of the podcast, the wrongfully convicted calls Tina. He was like, you're a miracle baby. You live through two shootouts at 10 months old. And she said, I know my mom's my hero. Yeah. Like, OK.
01:37:31
Speaker
For me, Walter right now, if I were his judge and jury, whatever you want to call it. Bring back old Sparky? No. I would be like, all right, here's your opportunity. I'm going to let you pick. Would you rather spend your life in jail or stick toothpicks in between each one of your toenails and kick a soccer ball?
01:37:55
Speaker
or spend the rest of your life in jail. And then after he kicked the soccer ball, right? Cause it's just a minute of pain being like, Oh, I was just joking. Cause that's your whole life story. You lied. I lied. Sorry. Like I got loud again. I'm sorry, but that was okay.
01:38:12
Speaker
So that is the story of Sunny Jacob. She's still alive, she's still kicking, lives in Ireland with little Miss Peter Pringle, and they go around the world and just try to help people. She still lives her life. At the beginning, she said that she is a hippie that wants to spread love and hope, and that's what she freaking does. Wow. That's... But it's infuriating. No, it really, it does, it pisses me off. I have not changed my stance on the death penalty.
01:38:42
Speaker
with a couple of exceptions. The problem is the definition of dirty. Like that's that's the crappy part. Like we literally live it. No, but we're living in a society, whether it was in the eighties, seventies, sixties, whatever people are dirty. Is that that's that's the inherent problem is our people are inherently
01:39:04
Speaker
They're not inherently good. I don't wanna say people are inherently evil. The people are not inherently good. People are inherently, they lie, they cheat, they look out for themselves. It's me and my four no more. And they don't look at, we're not, it's just when we were talking about Mengele and I said everybody needs to go do something nice for someone else just because we don't do that. That's the hill that I stand on right there. Somebody like Mengele, somebody like our first episode,
01:39:34
Speaker
with Shannon Christensen and Chris Newsom. Yeah.
01:39:39
Speaker
I do believe they deserve the death penalty. But you know what? How much of it, again, and this is me. This is my personality, these are my thoughts. How much of that is emotionally driven? All of it. Every single bit. Because when you hear things like this, and if this story was told on the flip side, for the prosecutor's version, how would we feel? He'd probably spin a nice web. Exactly.
01:40:05
Speaker
Now, I think about the side of the story and that was the best part of last week's episode when we were doing the neighbor thing. Yeah, it's because you can see both sides of the story, bro. Yeah, I just don't. I mean, I I don't I don't wish it will to Jesse. What happened to him was horrible, but I see where they could convict him. Right. He was friends with Walter. He was in the front seat. He had multiple opportunities to try to get his family and run. He did not.
01:40:32
Speaker
He kind of just went along with it for whatever reason. And I can understand probably his reasoning for it. But him, I understand. Sunny, how could what what tale could you possibly give to say that she was guilty? Like, how could you spend that? And then again, you're talking about 70s, right? Yeah. We had 70s running around. You had people like Bundy running around. Right. How long did he sit on death row before they actually killed him?
01:41:01
Speaker
Yeah. And then here's Jesse, right? Who just, I feel like if everything was rushed through is based on total circumstance. Well, I mean, the story was told, and it was, he sat on death row for, for 12 years. Okay. All right. It wasn't rushed through, but on the other hand, you know, we complain all the time that they, they keep people on death row forever. And I agree that the Bundy's and the child predators and stuff should be just, you know, quick out.
01:41:24
Speaker
But on the other hand, if they rush these things through, you've got people like Sunny who wouldn't be setting up these centers, who wouldn't be trying to help other people because she would have just been put to death based off nothing. Okay, so then my argument is morality. You as a human, you as a prosecutor, you as a defense attorney, where is your morality? Where does your compass point? They don't. Most of them don't. They point to the money.
01:41:51
Speaker
No. And the wins. Okay. And that's not the way that's why I said it should be justice. If it's a clear cut, which nothing about her case or Jesse's case was clear cut. None of it. It was a cons word of what he said happened.
01:42:07
Speaker
and they moved everything along. He was driving the car. But that's the point that I'm hearing. And he called the prosecutor and they cut him a deal. Like it wasn't a, why didn't the prosecutor turn around and say, hey, he's saying this, would you like to give your story? There was no clear cut. Yeah, that's what I'm saying though. It wasn't clear cut. But it was obvious she didn't do anything. Exactly.
01:42:30
Speaker
death penalty never should have been on the table. And it was because of the judges, it was because of the government, that death penalty was on the table. But I know, but that's my whole point is because the death penalty can be put on the table at any given point in time based off these arbitrary rules that each state is different.
Flaws in the death penalty
01:42:50
Speaker
Okay, so even still, right?
01:42:53
Speaker
So that's my whole point is like, like I said, I agree that certain people should have the death penalty. I, you know, I'm on the fence, but then you get things like this and because it's on the fence, because the death penalty is there, things like this happen. One out of 10 people on death row are exonerated.
01:43:10
Speaker
So that is, and that's the people who are exonerating, let go before they are put to death. How many people have been set free afterwards? Yeah. Because science is always changing, always evolving that when they, they open people to death, when they didn't have fingerprint analysis, they didn't have gunshot residue. They didn't have anything. It's just people's it's jailhouse niches and testimonies and my word against your word.
01:43:35
Speaker
So while I agree that it is kind of a drain on the side for people to live their life out in prison, and prison should not be the cushy little places they are, I am, I don't know, I kind of, I'm still in the sense of the death penalty, but this case is a very hard look at why the death penalty should not be. I do agree. In a certain
01:44:00
Speaker
And if we're going to have it, we need to be responsible. Like Sunny said, there should have been some kind of psychologist, advocate, something there with that little girl who is in middle school, high school, while one parent is in jail and the other one is about to be put to death. And she was by herself on a school bus listening to it. But again, to me, that is nothing more than the failure
01:44:28
Speaker
of the judicial system. Nobody looked into anything. Nobody actually did any actual, like, you know, pavement pounding to get any real evidence on anything. But there was no evidence. That's the problem. My point, my point is there couldn't be. OK, then again, there's no cameras, there's no body cams, no cell phones, beyond reasonable doubt. That is what OK. The judge is my word against your word. Hold on. The judge advocating.
01:44:59
Speaker
and manipulating the jurors, that's the point that I'm trying to say. There was not a responsible party involved in this case whatsoever, except for like one man, he was like, I'm sorry, I don't agree. Yeah. And you know, that's the guy, that's the guy that should have been sitting.
01:45:21
Speaker
on the bench at that point in time. He changed her sentence from life to death without even writing down a reason. Again. And it was allowed for five years. That right there is why I'm not going to change my mind about the death penalty. Because in my mind, when you do have a sick, twisted human, okay, he doesn't deserve to live anymore. This is so circumstantial. Everything about this was circumstantial.
01:45:47
Speaker
They had no real proof, they had no real anything to involve Sonny or Jesse. The only person that got off almost scot-free, I know life in prison isn't exactly scot-free. He got out of prison! Walter got out of prison! Before Sonny! He's a free man! Okay, so you name me one human being on the face of the planet that says, if you say A, B, and C, I'm gonna let you out of jail even though we know you did it.
01:46:12
Speaker
Right? He's going to be like, let me sign the dotted line. I'll initial here. He called you a blood stamp. He called him. He called them and said, I want to make a deal. That prosecutor knew he was dirty. No. And that's what I'm saying right now. Like, I don't change my mind on the death.
01:46:32
Speaker
What I changed my mind on is the fact that I honestly and truly believe there are a couple of things that I believe. And we're gonna get real heavy real quick, okay? No, I'm serious. This is a legitimate thing, okay? How many people go, no, I'm gonna be real. How many people go and try to join the military and fail the psych exam? How many of them end up cops or security guards? Exactly. How many judges
01:47:02
Speaker
get sat on their little platform and have never had a psychopath. How many judges have taken deals or they find out that they're in bed with the places they send adolescents to these camps? I mean, I told you, this case is like a frickin' like, it'd be like something you'd see on law and order. Like it's not real life, yet it was her horrid reality.
01:47:26
Speaker
but that's what I'm saying. To me, this is not a case on whether or not the death penalty should have been an option. To me, it was whether or not the people that were prosecuting or defending or whatever had the intellectual means to
01:47:46
Speaker
do their job and to me, they did not. But she went to appeal after appeal after appeal and none of them, they all covered it up. They all knew. But again, Faith, how many stitches can you unravel before there's a hole in your butt?
01:48:00
Speaker
Okay. Nobody, nobody wants to, nobody wants to keep undoing the stage. They want to make sure that your butthole secure. Okay. And they're not nobody, nobody in the government or not in the federal law or the juris system. It doesn't matter if it's city, state, whatever. Those are the people who decide your fate, your fate, which is why I kind of have a problem with it now.
01:48:26
Speaker
because you have people who are not honest, who have their own emotional reasons and entanglements. That guy, that judge, while he did everything wrong, he was a highway patrolman. That blue line is thick. This is not a recent development for anything. I mean, the Salem witch hunt, they're killing people left and right. It literally is just who people are willing to put into power.
01:48:53
Speaker
Do you do your research? Do you look at these people? What is their history? I don't give a crap how many kids they have or if they're married. Or if they make mean tweets. Exactly. Okay, we're looking at somebody who you want to know they're honest to God.
01:49:10
Speaker
Contribution to society. You want to know what their morals and what their stands are, not what their advertisement says they are. Exactly. And we don't look at that. We look at who has the better advertisement or who has the... No, no. Who has the best record? And that's why that stupid DA got on. That's why he's the DA now. Because he had a good record. And that guy had no moral compass. He had no standing on any... Like, what hill is that guy going to die on?
01:49:39
Speaker
No, not because he doesn't only one. No kidding. I don't know how he sleeps at night. I don't either. But here's the thing with power, though, like once you get a taste of it, absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. Oh, man, that got real.
01:49:55
Speaker
And that's honestly that it's a judge that had absolute power to say you were wrong. Yeah death penalty. Yeah, it was a D. It was a it was a prosecutor who wanted to be a district attorney. They said I've got the power to make this make this this concession and give him this plea bargain this deal and he took it because it made him look good. Maximum Dan it made him look good.
01:50:18
Speaker
The jurors, they had the power to say yes or no. But they also had the power to say it quickly so they could go home and get on with their lives. Because Sunny, being put in isolation for five years, didn't affect them. That little girl in jail, she had the power to get herself and her boyfriend out. They all took the power and used it for themselves. Sunny refused to take any power she was given. She stayed true to herself. She said no to the stake. She went back to prison and now she uses her voice for other people.
Sunny's message of hope and integrity
01:50:48
Speaker
And that right there. It should be more like Sunny. I agree. It's a good story. That's an amazing story. I'm telling you, you should listen to The Wrongfully Convicted. I probably will. It's episode three. I don't remember the guy's first name. It's either Joseph or Justin, but his last name's Flom. And it's her talking. It's her telling her story. And she is giggling through it. She is laughing through it, little Mr. Pringles on the air. No, you know why? You know why?
01:51:15
Speaker
because at no point in time did she ever allow anybody to take her joy no it's because she said after she about drove herself crazy and she found that bible verse she said the only thing she had left was her mind and she was going to lock it down and keep control of it and keep control of her thoughts yep and she was going to find inner peace and inner joy and she was going to spread that inner peace and inner joy that's what she taught
01:51:40
Speaker
All right, so we all know that Lisa's crazy, right? And she says random, weird things, right? But I do know there's a Bible verse that says, guard your heart with all of your... Come on, Faith. I don't know, you've got me confused. Guard your heart with all your mind, your body. Guard your heart with all your mind. Because through it flows the spring of life. The wellspring of life. So in other words,
01:52:08
Speaker
Nobody can condemn you to anything. Nobody can take anything from you. They can take my freedom. They can take my life. They can't take my they can't take my myself who I am at my core. She stayed true to herself and she's amazing. I can't believe that
01:52:31
Speaker
I don't think I have the mental capacity to do what you did. Honestly, I don't think I did. I would feel bad for myself. I would whine. I would complain. Yeah. And not even that I would be literally a caged animal. I don't. I don't know. Can you imagine having to buy yourself for five years?
01:52:51
Speaker
With no one to talk to but yourself. Well sometimes I kind of think as a parent it'd be nice to have those few moments. Yeah just a minute of peace and quiet. I'd just like to go to the bathroom by myself. Right? Not somebody beating on the door when you're taking a shower. All right well we are way super over time. I'm sorry but there was no part of Sunny I wanted to cut out. Yep and Walter I hope you have a hell of a time trying to scratch your butt because that's what I've wished upon you. So anyway
01:53:20
Speaker
Don't mock me. I don't even know what that sounded like. I'm just trying to move it along. We're almost at two hours. We're gonna have something. He's gotta have a consequence. I think he's dead.
01:53:29
Speaker
Good! Honestly, I didn't put a lot of research in Walter because I wanted it to be about Sunny. Well, we don't care. Because she's an amazing person. Yeah, Walter's a tool. So I hope you got something out of Sunny's story. I hope that you lived your life a little bit more like Sunny than you did yesterday. Yeah. Hope you have a great week. And we look forward to talking at you people next week when we start our summer series. Summer! So have a great week. Peace out, guys. Bye.