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Where is the Justice America - The Case of Joe Arridy
128 Plays1 year ago
In this episode Faith is telling a story that is upsetting, shameful and will stay with you long after you hear of it. Joe Arridy had multiple factors against him - he was an immigrant, mental disabled, misunderstood and had no one to stand up for him. He lived a life dictated by the state in one way or another, and the end results will leave you questioning why certain people are left in charge.
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Transcript
Introduction and Thanksgiving Reflections
00:00:05
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Twisted Tales with Faith and Lisa. And I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving besides Lisa. Yeah, who's not not the best, but it's OK. I would have brought you food. Her her child was sick, so she's been alone with all her friends. I mean, my boyfriend was here, so that kind of worked.
00:00:25
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that. Well, he came. Yeah, he came back. No, he's come back. You're going for punishment. You don't have to do that. You know, you can just keep running. Random thought just popped into my head. Oh, gosh. All right. So I'm going to have to go ahead and warn
Strange Noises in the Garage
00:00:39
Speaker
you. We are not alone. Something is in this garage.
00:00:43
Speaker
scared the crap out of me and Brian about 15 minutes before you got what are we talking flying creepy slithering no we didn't see anything good but we heard it good and so if you guys all hear us randomly like scream yeah it's because it could it could be I think it's a bird personal I think there's a bird somewhere in the garage
00:01:01
Speaker
Excellent. There it is. I don't know. This morning when I was walking out to my car at five to get all my crap out from yesterday on the same vein, I was walking and I went to step out of the little path, the concrete into the grass. And I saw a snake go across and I literally shat my pants like had a heart attack. I'm sure it wasn't a stick.
00:01:22
Speaker
It was my shadow, come to find out. It was your shadow. But I would have, I'm telling you, lost my mother effing mind and then realized it was a shadow. And I was still scared, like still wouldn't walk in the grass after that, even though I knew it was my shadow. So I understand the fear of being surrounded by things that you don't know what they are. Yeah, I've not heard anything since. So I don't know. Excellent. Well, maybe it got so cold, it died and just fell off of something. Good. It's pretty cold.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, are you ready? No, I like banter. We're good. Oh, we don't have you. I don't have a banter. I hate you. OK. OK.
Controversial Topic: Justice System and Death Penalty
00:02:03
Speaker
Well, so tonight's episode is two part.
00:02:06
Speaker
Pick this episode for two reasons number one because you really love it when there's a cliffhanger and Lisa has to wait No, this is it's all gonna be told tonight. Oh if you listen quickly and you know, let me talk That's funny I know
00:02:23
Speaker
No, it's tonight. It's a two-parter why I picked this episode. Number one, I said that I wanted to do some Christmas episodes since we're in December. And it's not really a Christmas episode, but Christmas appears in it at one point, so bada-bing, bada-boom. Yeah, it's like Harry Potter being a Christmas movie. Yes, our Robin Hood with Kevin Costner. Yep. Who knows? 100% a Christmas movie. Totally. Die hard. Die hard. 100%. Christmas movie. Don't care what Priscilla said that one time. Second reason is last week's episode that you told us sucked.
00:02:53
Speaker
Sorry. And left me upset and distraught. And so you had to find something equally. Oh, no, it's not equal, my friend. I am going to destroy your soul tonight. Great. Yes, that's where we're that's where we're at. So I'm going to have to watch something to get over it tonight and think about something else. No, there is no there is no there's there's there's no getting over it. So.
00:03:15
Speaker
Let's just and you know, it kind of goes in the vein of what we've talked about several times with America's justice system, which I use those phrase extremely loosely at this point tonight. Just us. Yeah. Oh, oh, because the only people we care about is just us.
00:03:37
Speaker
Very very well said But we also talk about the death penalty a lot on this this and I'm in a gray area because I don't trust the justice system 100% So this this backs me up. All right, so it's not the first case though that you've said that that kind of action No, no, I'm building this podcast is basically evidence on why the justice system needs to be Overhauled. Yes, like, you know
00:04:06
Speaker
It's saved you from like cursing or something. All right. All right. So to understand tonight's episode, I want to give you a few details, if you will. We're going to take a quick history lesson because we're going on the way back machine. So I just want to set the time for you. We are in America, 20ish, 20s, 20s, roaring 20s, flappers, jazz, whole nine. Love it. Right. Cool.
1920s Biases and Joe Arridy's Story
00:04:32
Speaker
Right before the 30s, which was the Great Depression. Right.
00:04:36
Speaker
In the 1920s, there was a lot of distrust and bias against immigrants. They were singled out. If they were from non Nordic countries, which were Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, those people were believed to have superior genes and smarter than other immigrants that traveled here. Which, you know, long skipping a jump. 20 years later, 1941 was the Holocaust, so way to go America, setting the pavement for Hitler there.
00:05:05
Speaker
Um, but anyways, so there was a lot of, there was a lot of prejudice, not unlike today. Um, there was also backwards beliefs. You know, you don't have sex before marriage. If you have a kid outside a wedlock, you should be stoned, you know. Um, there's also a lot of prejudice against individuals with mental disabilities during this timeframe in America. Um, people.
00:05:29
Speaker
It was a very firm, widespread belief that anyone that had inferior genetics and or people with mental disabilities needed to be colonized, singled out, or sterilized. Super low-key. Very spark-nesque. Super laid-back leaver. Yeah, your kid's not normal. Chuck him off a cliff. Yeah, right? Yeah. Right? So anyway. I mean, I don't even know.
00:05:56
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know when they when they stopped doing lobotomies, but I don't know but This is all you know throughout the story. All this is in the background. We're getting ready for World War two Leading into the Great Depression all that jazz. So that's where we're at. I have a drink. Here it is. I found it. We're all good now. Great Depression go. All right. So Henry Arity is an immigrant and
00:06:20
Speaker
that came to America on July 5th, 1909 from Syria. He was followed in 1912 by his wife, Mary. They chose to settle in Colorado. They chose Colorado because many people from their community back home in Syria had already immigrated there. There was a company, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Works Company that was known to employ unskilled laborers.
00:06:47
Speaker
So they could work, you know, coal mine type of deal. Not great work, but they could work. Henry was able to find a job with a major still mill in Pueblo, Colorado, and this is where they set their life up. Three years after being reunited on April 29th, 1915, Henry and Mary welcome a bouncing baby boy, Joe, into their family. And if you couldn't tell from our history lesson, Joe was mentally disabled.
00:07:16
Speaker
He didn't even speak the first five years of his life, nothing. In 1921, Joe started elementary school. However, it was a very short-lived endeavor as the very beginning of his second year in elementary school, the principal called a meeting with Joe's parents to inform them, basically, Joe is incapable of learning, so you need to keep him at home.
00:07:38
Speaker
We don't want him here. Basically not our problem. Off you go. So for the next four years, Joe stayed at home with his mom. Unfortunately, at some point in this, Joe's father, Henry, did lose his job, tried to get help for his family, for his son. There's not a lot of history in this period. There's not a lot of details, but around age 10 or 11, Joe was ordered by the court of Colorado to go to the state. This is the name, by the way.
00:08:08
Speaker
the state home and training school for mental defectives. Which doesn't, you know.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Trenchable is in charge of this in my mind. Trenchable? Yeah, yeah, from Matilda. But this school is located in Grand Junction, Colorado, and this is where Joe is now going to live. I can't imagine today's day calling anyone different defective. Oh. Could you imagine the outrage? And that was a state-funded school. Right. Mental defectives. Mental defectives. They had it on plaques. Like, that's the name.
00:08:46
Speaker
Instead of, you know, East Point High, it's the school, the hospital and school for mental defectives. Yeah. It is not PC at all. So upon entering this facility, again, he's between nine, he's between 10 and 11. He was given the Stafford edition of the Benet-Simone test, which resulted in the following findings.
00:09:10
Speaker
So observations are, you know, things that he passed. He could point to his nose, his eyes, his mouth and his hair when asked.
00:09:18
Speaker
He could identify a key, a penny, a closed knife, a watch and a pencil all correctly when they were all laid out. Point to the pencil, point to da da da da. He could state his name and he could also state that he was Mel. So already doing better than some of us today. He could repeat a sentence up to seven words. Like if you said a sentence, he could get seven words correct.
00:09:48
Speaker
And he could count to four. He could was he, I'm sorry, between 10 and 11, 10 and 11. Okay. He could, they gave him a picture of a square and a diamond and he could correctly draw those two things. So what he failed at.
00:10:01
Speaker
on this test. They asked him, Hey, Joe, what do you do when you're sleepy? So what do you do? My answer would have been continue working because that's what's required of me. But no, sleep's a good one. He said you eat. Don't think he's wrong. I was just gonna say. Midnight smacking's a thing, but that was a fail. I just feel like no matter what eating is always just
00:10:23
Speaker
the right time yeah and i feel like no matter what time i'm sleepy so i'm angry i'm gonna eat right i'm pissed off wait i said that yeah okay never mind those are your two emotions that one feeling they asked real quick it worked today super fast i gotta tell you so they were talking about how cold it got right the freezing and so they were talking about how like the temperature could drop so much blah blah blah
00:10:46
Speaker
Chad looked over at me and they were like, it's Lisa's fault. And so I peered out of my cubicle and I said, yeah, I have to thaw my heart out once a year. It has to be at least once. This is this is a time. Anyway, sorry. Had to share that with you because you get me crap about not having a heart. Oh, you're going to have one. Apparently, it's a common theme in my life. If everybody says it.
00:11:11
Speaker
Um, they asked Joe, Hey, what do you do when you're cold? He said, go inside. Yeah. He was given partial credit for this answer because while it wasn't wrong, they wanted him to say you put on a coat or a jacket sweater. Um, he could repeat four digits when showed the color red. They said, what color is this? And he said black.
00:11:32
Speaker
When showed blue, he said that one's red. When showed green, he identified it as blue. There's a lot of different kinds of color blindness, but they didn't, you know. My cousin's color blind. So it's just like he mixed them up, basically. He learned them wrong.
00:11:50
Speaker
When they asked a friend of ours that was colorblind we used to play of course you know what color this is It was a good day. Well, my cousin only wears like gray blue white and black I saw he liked the color just because he's colorblind. So he knows those match all his pants. Nice. That's awesome When they said when they showed him two pictures a butterfly and a fly and said what are the differences?
00:12:14
Speaker
Joe just looked like not, you know, this one's wings are pretty, this one wings are ugly, big eyes, little eyes, nothing, just stared. So then they showed him a stone and an egg and said, what are the differences on these? And again, nothing, just stared.
00:12:28
Speaker
When I asked him to name the days of the week, he remained silent. So whether he didn't know or didn't want to answer, because today, you know, we know they're nonverbal. I don't know. He just stared blankly. Could have just been sick of the conversation. Could have, could have. I don't want to, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Breath smells bad. You're old. I'm 10. I want to play outside.
00:12:49
Speaker
So these results, all the results together gave them the conclusion that he had an IQ of 46 and the mindset of that of a four-year, 10-month-old child, a five-year-old. Just a reminder, he's 10 to 11 right now. The doctor made note stating that Joe was passive. He would follow directions well but would not initiate anything by himself. And his official classification was
00:13:19
Speaker
an imbecile, Dr. Snopes. At the, you know, honestly, though, back then for defectives. Yes. Yes. At the same time, the examiners, I'm sure he'd be on the spectrum of whatever nowadays. Yeah. So the psychology is like literally what they used to call people about. Right. They were fools. They were imbeciles. They were. But it's harsh. Yeah. Well, I mean, well, I mean, you know, back when my my my parents were growing up to say somebody was retarded.
00:13:48
Speaker
That was that was what they were. Now. Yeah. That's whether insulting insulting. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Times change. They do. The psychologists also tested and they had psychological tests with the rest of the aired family.
00:14:05
Speaker
Which led them to officially conclude that his mother Mary was quote-unquote feeble-minded and his younger brother George was a quote-unquote high moron not high functioning just high moron and I have problems with all of this I don't because I really would just like to look at some of the people that I have You sir are a high moron
00:14:31
Speaker
I'm telling you, I'm going to tell people that wrong. Yeah. What was she feeble minded? I've heard feeble minded. I've never heard time. I mean, people still will say someone's people. Yeah. When you think about it in that context, like being a diagnosis of, Hey man, you're, you're an idiot. Like you're dumb. Yeah. Now.
00:14:52
Speaker
to give a little bit of justification maybe to the family. They did not speak English when they came here. They haven't been here that long. So they're getting tested by people who are English speaking and they don't speak that language. Right. And then you have to also take into consideration what their culture was when they left.
00:15:11
Speaker
They could have just been a working class people who in their culture, you don't go to school and you don't do this Saturday. The other you you learn to trade and that's what you do. Like on the other hand, they were first cousins, the parents. Oh, OK. So we'll throw that in there. How do you own it? Did he have to just like be in breeders? So sorry, guys, Paulie Shore.
00:15:34
Speaker
Shortly after this, Henry, after Joe was admitted, his father Henry requested approval from the courts to take Joe home with him as the family was moving to Detroit, Michigan, and they wanted their son to move states with them. Makes sense. However, the family never moved. So whether he out and out lied because he wanted his son, it is documented that he tried to get friends and acquaintances to help him with his son.
00:16:03
Speaker
They loved their kid. They didn't want him. I don't feel like they wanted him committed. Like it was never, they never came out and spoke against it. But I feel like they just maybe wanted him at home. So that was the easiest way to get Joe back home. But while out of school, out of the school, in 1929, a probation officer states that he caught Joe involved in a sex act. There are different
00:16:31
Speaker
It's never stipulated if Joe was performing the sex act or the sex act was being performed on him, but it's really irrelevant. How old was he? It was 1929. I knew I should have done the math ahead of time. I'm sorry. He was born in 1915. It was 1929. So he's 14. There is one account that neighborhood, a group of neighborhood bullies forced him to perform sex acts on them.
00:16:59
Speaker
and this is Mel's forcing him so that is that time and day I don't know if that's true or not it was just one there's a lot of different accounts but a pro first of all they're just going to accuse the kid of being a sick of that because they're not going to you know they're not going to side on not being non-defectives exactly yes not the norms
00:17:19
Speaker
So the probation officer that caught him returned Joe to the School of Defectives, wrote a letter to the state home stating that Joe needed to be in this institution's care. He should not be out with polite society. He was appalled. The officer was appalled that Joe was with regular people, basically, and that he wasn't even able to write what he saw. It was so bad. He did write a second letter later to the school detailing the act that he saw, like in a second one.
00:17:49
Speaker
which is used against Joe later, but the whole thing is kind of weird. But again, like I said, a lot of varying accounts, not really. It's just pieces of the pie, I guess, if you will. Joe continued to live at the school for defectives until the age of 21, at which point he ran away. He don't want to be there anymore.
00:18:09
Speaker
Um, there are some sources that stated he was often mistreated and beaten by his peers in the school. So he was just done. Um, so he ran away. He loved, he was obsessed with trains, like obsessed. So he hoboed it, hopped on a train and just going to go see the world, I guess.
00:18:29
Speaker
So August 14th, 1936, we're going to skip ahead a little, Dorothy Drain, who is 16 years old, and her sister Barbara Drain, who is 12 years old, are home alone. Their parents are going to go out and their nine-year-old brother is staying with a friend at a friend's house. So the girls are just, you know, doing their thing. It's back in the day this was completely acceptable.
00:18:51
Speaker
The parents went out dancing then went out to eat with some friends and didn't come home until three o'clock in the morning. Um, which on the one hand I was like three o'clock in the morning, like really, but on the other hand, you did that back then. Like you went out dancing to the dance halls and you know, like a club, but for adults, 16 and 12. It wouldn't be abnormal for me to just stay at the house by myself.
00:19:15
Speaker
I wouldn't have at that age, but I was scared of everything. I don't even like doing it today, so no. Anyway, the parents come home and their father Riley is immediately concerned. The front light in the house was not on and the girls were supposed to leave it on and they'd always done this before.
00:19:38
Speaker
But the lights off. So the father already thinks something's arrived when the parents come into the house like almost immediately. The dad Riley's already concerned. But he hears groans coming from the back bedroom. And so he rushes back there.
00:19:55
Speaker
And he finds his 16-year-old daughter Dorothy laid down, face down in a pool of blood. The bed that she's laying on is soaked with blood. There's a gash to the back of her head. One eye is already starting to bruise and blacken, as is her mouth.
00:20:13
Speaker
And then laying just, you know, a scopes next to her is her 12 year old sister, Barbara, who is the one groaning on the other side of the bed, curled up in a ball and has also been struck on the back of the head. Both girls are still wearing their nightgowns, but they had been attacked.
00:20:32
Speaker
The gash that I mentioned at the back of Dorothy's head is a three inch long gash that cut her so deeply it had cut into her brain. She had also been raped. The bruising to Dorothy's face showed that she had been severely beaten and sadly she does end up passing away that morning. The 16 year old, the one that had been raped with the gash at the back of her head.
00:20:56
Speaker
Barbara had also been attacked and what had caused this damage to both girls is they were attacked with an axe, like that you chop wood with. Barbara had been attacked with the axe, but it's believed that the handle, not the blade, caught her. The reason why that injury to the back of her sister's head went so deep is because the blade of the axe caught her in the skull.
00:21:21
Speaker
She received the 12 year old Barbara received two blows to the back of the head, but there was no penetration to her skull. There were no signs of rape on the girl, but she was unconscious when they found her just barely groaning and no one expected her to make it either.
00:21:39
Speaker
She did. She did make it so and testified against her assailant later on. So his to her police were summoned and by 9 a.m. Same day three o'clock. The parents get home witness this horrific scene. 9 a.m. The whole town knows about it.
00:21:59
Speaker
And there's no cell phones or Facebook or anything. This is just a word of mouth, but everybody knows everything. I mean that small town. You really want to get and get the word out. Somebody's getting the word out. It is what it is. So the whole town
The Murder Case and Media Pressure
00:22:11
Speaker
by 9 a.m. knew that there's an axe murder and fear is high. The police chief himself came to the crime scene and reported the following. Only the bed was bloody and disarray. Nothing else in the home is disturbed. Nothing appears to have been stolen. This is not a robbery gone wrong.
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, there was a neighbor who lived either next door across the street that he returned home from work that night at 11 20 and stated that when he got home, the kitchen light was on, not the front house, not the front, the light at the front of the house that was supposed to be on, but the kitchen light near the bedrooms. And he said that when he went to bed at midnight, that kitchen light was still on. Well, when the parents came home a few hours later, that kitchen light was off.
00:22:55
Speaker
So from this information, the theory is that the perpetrator entered the front of the house, turned off that front light, kept going through the house until they hit the kitchen, turned on the kitchen light so they could see, plus the kitchen was closer to the bedrooms, went into the bedrooms, whole assault happened, then left the house through the back door by the kitchen, which led into an alley.
00:23:18
Speaker
The evidence that was collected is a hill print on the bed, like maybe a muddy shoe. It just said a hill print. That's the only reason I could think of like a hill print being there's debris or mud on a shoe. There were some smudged fingerprints, a complete palm print on the floor. There were several footprints around the rear gate, which is why they think he left that way. And then that's all. So they call in bloodhounds to try to track.
00:23:48
Speaker
this person, but by the time the bloodhounds had gotten there, there was such a crowd of spectators. Dogs just confused. Dogs couldn't pick up a sense. They couldn't, they couldn't, I mean, people were trampling everywhere. So police officers, firefighters, highway department, employees search everywhere, any vacant land, any vacant building, everywhere around trying to find the murder weapon, but it's fruitless. They can find, they can't find this axe anywhere. So the attack on the drain sisters has the town panicking
00:24:18
Speaker
but more so than normal because this is the second attack that occurred in this neighborhood in the same month with an axe.
00:24:29
Speaker
There was a lady down the street, an elderly lady from Kansas who was there visiting her friend, and she was attacked at night at a friend's house by a man with an axe. She survived, but that's two attacks that close together, and it's hysteria. There's an axe murderer. Correct. You can imagine the newspaper headlines, right?
00:24:51
Speaker
So speaking of the newspaper headlines, newspapers are screaming headlines. Like it's yellow dog journalism where the flashy, not that much difference from today's news. Facts don't matter. Flash matters to get the readers clickbait.
00:25:08
Speaker
So the entire community is an uproar. People are terrified. People are just going bananas. There is a lot of pressure on the police department to solve this and solve this quick. This is a little girl. Still to this day, same deal. Oh yeah. In addition to all this, the case goes from this small community
00:25:30
Speaker
It goes widespread because the Associated Press picked up on this story. So all of Colorado knows what happened and neighboring states like everyone knows about this axe murderer, this little girl that's raped and butchered who I can just imagine the headlines. I'm sure it was, you know, told factual and calmly. So with all this pressure, the police go out in force and they are looking. I mean, they're not messing around. Pasco collector, $200 find it. Yeah.
00:25:59
Speaker
Um, they interview a lot of people, a lot of suspects. One man was arrested named Frank Aguilar. He was a Mexican immigrant. So automatically, in addition to that, he had worked for Riley drain, who was a prominent white man.
00:26:16
Speaker
he was his employee and had been recently fired. And so. So they're just connecting some kind of motive. Yeah. Who would want to hurt you? Right. Well, in not helping his case is when the when the police search Frank Aguilar's home, they they find an axe and the axe has irregularities that match up to the wounds on Dorothy's butchered skull.
00:26:42
Speaker
So, you know, he was arrest. His arrest was actually made August 20th, a few days later, and that happened at Dorothy's funeral because he showed up to see what had happened. So the Pueblo police are very confident. They've got it. They've solved it. This is their man. He ticked all the boxes, disgruntled employee, immigrant. He had the murder weapon.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yes, so All this is going on while Joe is Riding his trains. He loves trains. He's still hopping around At one point he I mean he's literally just hopping off and on at cities He's a hobo having the time of his life because he's still four years ten months in his head even though he's in a he's 21
00:27:29
Speaker
And he goes to Pueblo because that's where he lived. That's where his family lived. He went to the house where his family lived and he lived. The only place he knew them and unfortunately the family had moved. He didn't know how to find his mom and dad.
00:27:48
Speaker
So, he just hopped back on his trains. Like, what else do you do, you know? Um, and so he continues this, this little lifestyle and he ends up in, and I'm gonna butcher this. I apologize. Chaney, Wyoming. C-H-E-Y-E-N-N-E, Chaney, Wyoming. Um, and yeah. And when he is there, the railroad little deputy people, two railroad deputies actually pick him up.
00:28:16
Speaker
and call the police because they think he's an army deserter. He's in a khaki colored shirt, like army looking clothes. And so they bring him to the station. There is the chief of police, George W. Carroll, and he is highly interested in Joe. As soon as he finds out that Joe is from the town of Pueblo, Colorado,
00:28:45
Speaker
And he had been there recently because everyone surrounding knows of the drain sisters. And he is in his mind thinking. What do you know? There's this guy. He's on the run. No documents. He's not a deserter. He's a murderer. And you know, I just caught it. So Frank. At the same time, Frank Aguilar is arrested. They have the murder weapon. They have all this stuff. He's arrested.
00:29:15
Speaker
In Pueblo, at the same time, Chief Carroll is talking to Joe. But we are in the way back machine, and they don't know, like the police departments aren't talking to each other. So Chief Carroll does not know that there's been an arrest made. He doesn't know they've caught it. So bingo bango, Chief Carroll is going to be a hero because he found the murderer.
00:29:40
Speaker
um chief carol reported that he spent several hours talking to slash interrogating joe right a mentally disabled guy who can't figure out the difference between a butterfly and a fly yeah you're doing great guy and in this time joe gave a full confession to chief carol about the murder now the confession wasn't recorded wasn't written down so there's not
00:30:03
Speaker
Signatures it wasn't witnessed by anyone mind you Oddly enough the details do some of this confession seem to kind of be fluid if you will But he's got his confession So one theory there's a book By a man named Penske is it was it's not like a huge long book, but it's really good book on this case and it's called deadly innocent and
00:30:29
Speaker
Question mark is the title. He theorizes on this situation with Chief Carroll and he thinks that the chief set Joe up for the crime because the chief had been somewhat of a local celebrity slash hero. He was involved with breaking up a big mob, the big mob Barker gang.
00:30:51
Speaker
He was involved in that operation, so he was splashed all over the papers there. When that started to die down, he rescued a very rich man from Denver, Colorado who'd been kidnapped, so again splashed all around local hero. And the chief at this point missed being in that spotlight, so this was a way for him to get back in it.
00:31:13
Speaker
And the papers were going to all the papers are talking about this murder. He caught the murder. No, no. Basically handing them what happened. Yeah. To get a confession. Oh, yeah. No. What is that called? They've got a word.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, but yes, there's none. So right after Joe's confession to Chief Carroll, he calls immediately a press conference leading credence to this author's theory. And he states in this press conference that he found the killer and had a full confession. Joe bludgeoned the girl to death with a club.
00:31:52
Speaker
There's number one. Right. It was an axe. Yep. Um. A deformed axe apparently. Right. And at this point the Pueblo police are confused because they've got Joe. I mean sorry they've got Frank Aguilar in custody. They've got the actual murder weapon with like blood traces
Confessions and Trial Inconsistencies
00:32:09
Speaker
in lock up like. But do they even know there's blood traces at that point? No but there's it was a bloody axe.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah. So they've already got one plus one and they have a two so they don't know where you're going to add this yet. However, after the fact that Pueblo police had Frank in custody, Chief Carroll immediately, no, Pueblo has Frank, Chief Carroll in Wyoming has Joe. Sorry.
00:32:42
Speaker
You're fine. Sorry. Yes. She's alive, guys. Everything's OK. So when Chief Carroll finds this out that there's someone else in custody at Pueblo and they're confused, he states you misunderstood. Joe confessed that he was with Frank Aguilar the night of the murder. So Chief Carroll personally delivers Joe to the Pueblo Police Department where his
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, so Chief Carroll holds another press conference and he makes sure that this is factual, low-key, nothing but just pure evidence. He details how Joe has escaped from a home of the mental defectives. He's a known pervert. The defectives know it,
00:33:32
Speaker
Doctors note, please know it. Everyone knows he's a pervert. And after this press conference, Joe is guilty in the eye of the public opinion. They are on his side. And the public, when Chief Carroll is giving this press conference, the public don't even know about, does not even know about Frank Aguilar.
00:33:54
Speaker
So the papers proclaim Chief Carroll is the hero da da da da da da da. All I can think of is Jeannie, Chief Carroll, Chief Carroll. He's our man if he can't do it. Great. Yeah. So that wasn't. I know what you mean. Yeah. So the district attorney, French Taylor, who was there for they've got Pueblo police now have Frank Aguilar in custody and Joe Airdy in custody.
00:34:21
Speaker
The district attorney's name was French Taylor. He's there and he states that. Prior to Frank signing his confession. Joe is he district attorney talks to Joe and Joe gave him a detailed confession about being there with Frank. Murdering Dorothy drank. So this is a district attorney, however.
00:34:47
Speaker
Frank, when he's just, when he's talked to people and interrogated, he, he never mentions a joke, which quite frankly, did Frank ever confess? We're getting it. Quite frankly, if I committed a murder and there is a quote unquote mental defective imbecile, I'm going to point to him and be like, right. I tried to stop him. That's why I've got the ax. I tore it from his hands and ran. Um, so.
00:35:13
Speaker
Shortly after Joe gave this confession to the district attorney, they sit down with Frank Aguilar. On September 2, 1936, Frank Aguilar broke down and confessed to the murder of Dorothy Drane, signing a typed confession. This type confession matched every single detail of the most
00:35:35
Speaker
Well, at least the most recent details given by Chief Carroll. The statement was signed by Frank using an X with six people witnessing. Frank signed his X and then six witnesses signed that they, he, he stated this, they typed it up. They watched it like a notary. Yeah. And you might wonder why would Frank sign as an X? F-A. Well, he did that because he was illiterate.
00:35:59
Speaker
So he couldn't read what they typed. Wow. The supposed confession. Wow. Not. Yes. So they're just getting better and better. Oh, yeah. So Joe is not present for this. Joe is not present for the confession and the signing and the interrogation by Frank. The confession that was typed up that Frank asked does not mention Joe at any point or an accomplice at any point.
00:36:29
Speaker
But there's the big X, where Frank signed. There's six witnesses. And then at the very teeny tiny bottom of the page is Joe Airedy's signature. His name is misspelled. There's no witness signatures underneath him like should be. It's almost like, oops, we forgot to put Joe's signature. Let's just, right here, there's space. Even though there's all these irregularities, all these glaring issues, right? Glaring.
00:36:55
Speaker
This statement was referred to as the confession of both men, excuse me, both men, and this is used against both men. So Frank goes to trial first, December, 1963, 1936, sorry, 1936, they're moving. This happened in October, August, very quickly after, just mere months later, excuse me.
00:37:19
Speaker
Let's see. Oh, sorry. August 14th, 1936 is when the attack happened on the girls and we're December, so we're quick, right? Yeah. So December 1936, Frank goes to trial at which Riley Drane, the father, testified against Frank in the court of law. He testified that he visited Frank at the prison and Frank gave him a detailed
00:37:48
Speaker
confession, admitting that Joe was there the night of the murder, which we all know from Johnny Depp's trial is hearsay, but there was no one there to say that. It was allowed in. Well, yeah, I was going to say, it's definitely. It's allowed in. Courts have come a long way. Yep, yep. The other thing to mention here is Riley's testimony is the main source of like, quote unquote, gospel or information. The signed document, quote unquote, confession, never brought to trial.
00:38:18
Speaker
Never read at trial. This man's testimony was the confession. The dad. So there's that. So I thought you said at one point the daughter. She's next. Barbara, the 12 year old who lived, she comes to testify next. She points out Frank as being the man who attacked herself and her sister. What she does not do during the entire time she's on stand is mention anything about Joe at all.
00:38:48
Speaker
That's the man not, that's one of the men, that's the man who attacked myself and my sister. Frank was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
00:38:59
Speaker
on August 19th, August 1937, literally almost a year to the day of when the girls died, he is put to death and executed. So there's Frank, he's gone. We're gonna go to Joe now. Joe has his first trial, which is a sanity hearing. The judge told the jury that they needed to decide if Joe Aardy had the capacity to tell good from evil and right from wrong.
00:39:28
Speaker
If he is determined insane, he would be institutionalized. However, if the jury found him to be sane, he would then stand trial for Dorothy's murder. And this- Even though Dorothy said he basically- Barbara. Barbara. But even though the other sister that was- She never said Joe wasn't there, but they never asked her. And she never said Joe wasn't there. She just never mentioned another man, but she wasn't asked. Yes.
00:39:56
Speaker
So in the sanity trial, there are three doctors from the Colorado Hospital in Pueblo that are witnesses for the defense, for Joe. The first one is the superintendent of the hospital. His name is Dr. Zimmerman. He's a psychiatrist. He testified that Joe could not tell the difference between right and wrong. He wasn't mentally capable.
00:40:22
Speaker
However, Dr. Zimmerman also had a really hard time stating that Joe was not sane. Right. Because he's not crazy or he's not insane. He's got a mental disability.
00:40:37
Speaker
The second doctor, Dr. Rosenbaum, also, all three of these are from the same school for the defectives, Dr. Rosenbaum states that Joe's view of right and wrong is vague at best. It's not what a normal adult would see as right and wrong. However, when he's cross-examined, he also states that he doesn't think Joe's insane.
00:41:02
Speaker
which is what this trial is about. Is he insane or is he not? Not is he mentally handicapped or have the understanding? Is he insane or not? The third testimony is that of Dr. Paul Wolf and he's the final witness. He reiterates exactly what the past two witnesses had said. Joe doesn't understand right and wrong. He doesn't understand. He doesn't have that, that mental capability. I was just going to say he's not, he's not insane. He just,
00:41:33
Speaker
He's got the mental maturity of a five-year-old. And a five-year-old knows the difference between right and wrong, but do it anyway. You know what I mean? Yeah. And Dr. Wolf even went so far as to say he's not insane, but he states Joe doesn't even understand what this court proceeding is about. He doesn't understand what he's doing here or what we're talking about. He doesn't have the mental capability to understand that. So while he's sane, he can't mentally comprehend.
00:42:04
Speaker
After these testimonies, Joe's lawyer called Joe to the stand. They start with, you know, just some normal questions to try to get a feel on his, you know, kind of mental bearings. Do you know who George Washington is? Never met him. Don't know him. Do you know who Eleanor Roosevelt is? Don't know him. I've never met him. Do you know why you're here? No. For people to talk?
00:42:29
Speaker
He's just there. Do you know Dorothy Drain? I've never met her. I don't know who that is. Do you know Frank Aguilar? Frank Aguilar. I don't know him. I've never met him. Do you know Dr. Rosenblum, Dr. Wolf, Dr. Zimmerman? Yeah, I know them. They were at the school with me. I know them. What did they just talk about? What did you just listen to them talk about?
00:42:54
Speaker
And Joe doesn't know. He doesn't remember. He doesn't know. But he knows them. He knows them. More like familiarity. Yeah. Like he knows their face. He wasn't paying attention to anything going on. Or comprehending anything. Correct. He just knows, hey, I've seen you before. Yeah. Because that's what he's asked. Do you know these list of people? They ask, do you know what a hatchet is? And he doesn't. He's not sure.
00:43:20
Speaker
They say, hey, what color shirt are you wearing? And he's wearing a green shirt. And he says, blue, wearing blue. So it's just basically showing. He doesn't know. He's not 100 percent there. And at this point, the defense rests. They're done. They they've clearly as they should be. Yeah.
00:43:42
Speaker
So the prosecution comes, again, this is just for sanity. And so they start by calling several police officers to the stand. And they've got one police officer on the stand, and they ask him, do you think the doctors are wrong? Does Joe not really not understand what's happening here? And the police officer said, yeah, the doctors are wrong. Joe's not just sitting there with a blank mind, with absolutely no thought, no idea.
00:44:12
Speaker
And so the defense responds. You just heard Dr. Wolf, who has got all these accreditations, all this education, all these certificates, all the alphabet behind his name. All this wonderful knowledge. And you're saying that he's wrong? And the police officer says, well,
00:44:30
Speaker
I wouldn't discredit the doctor's testimony because he is a smart guy. He knows what he's talking about. But I would say yes, 100%. He's wrong on that particular statement that Joe doesn't understand what's going on here. There's no way anybody can sit in this courtroom and hear this and not understand what's going on. Because a beat cop who gives parking tickets
00:44:55
Speaker
can speak to the mental faculties better than three board certified psychologists who've raised this child from nine to 10 to 21. He knows the mind better. Excellent witness for the defense. The last person to testify for the defense is Sheriff Carroll.
00:45:15
Speaker
Of course. He states that Joe told him how sorry he was when he was confessing. Joe was crying, telling him about the murder. He's so sorry. Didn't mean to do it. And that right there shows categorically. Joe knows right from wrong. He knows he's playing a little game here with a vase. This is a guy whose borderline mute. Yeah. And this guy is saying that, oh, he cried. And this is the guy whose story has changed on the record more than once. Yeah.
00:45:46
Speaker
Changes his story like I changed my socks. Right? More frequently than that. Jeez, dude. Okay. So at 2.30, the jury start deliberating on this. At 9.30 p.m. same night, they're deadlocked six to six. They can't decide if he's sane or not. No, but it's six to six. It's not one to 11. It is split down the middle. I would say those are people with a conscience and people without.
00:46:14
Speaker
Wouldn't you hope so? Honestly, I would honestly, because truth be told though, honestly, like I don't want to sound like a dick, but I'm gonna back then, even today, people don't have this innate responsibility for people that are mentally handicapped or disabled. Yeah. Well, they don't, they're just, they're an inconvenience. And to them in their mind, a lot of them were probably just sitting here thinking, just one last thing we have to worry about.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah. And whatever conscious those six people had between 930 and 1030 gone because just an hour later, they're 100 percent on the same page. They've got a verdict. It's funny how that works. And they give the verdict that Joe does know the difference between right and wrong. He is saying and he needs to be tried for murder. Wow. So the case of the people of the state of Colorado versus Joe Aardy officially starts April 12th, 1937.
00:47:12
Speaker
It began with Joe's defense attorney presenting no counter evidence at all to anything the defense said. And they didn't put a single witness on trial to refute anything prosecuting attorney said. Barbara never called. So Chief Carroll is again star witness for the prosecuting attorney and he testifies with great detail about Joe's confession.
00:47:42
Speaker
Every word Joe said he tells the jury, but he's so smart. Like he doesn't even need notes. He has that thing memorized. He made it up. So of course he does. Right. Joe's entire defense strategy, which let's, let's just say it or an appointed rest solely on him being mentally disabled, even though they've already ruled him as safe.
00:48:08
Speaker
Solely on mental disability. The three doctors from the school of defectives come back and testify again. One of them going so far as to say that the confession, the detailed confession that Chief Carroll stated Joe gave him would not be possible because Joe is not mentally able to give that detailed of the confession.
00:48:31
Speaker
Even if Joe murdered Dorothy or was there, he can only remember seven words in a sentence. He can't give you that much detail. He's not mentally capable to do that. That slept under the rug. Barbara Drane, eyewitness, never brought in to testify as she had with Frank. The court case closes three and a half hours of deliberation and the following decision is made.
00:48:58
Speaker
We, the jury, find defendant Joe Airedy guilty of murdering the first degree and fix his penalty at death. On June 23, 1937, Joe was remanded to the Colorado State Prison with the death penalty of lethal gas.
00:49:17
Speaker
So really kosher way to go, too. Right. Yeah. So the Pueblo Chieftain, which was the main newspaper article, if you're not mad already, because at this point I was furious. Yeah. But just to make sure I hit all the anger in your reserve, the Pueblo Chieftain, the main newspaper article, write a report
00:49:42
Speaker
and give the information that there are three men who were to receive a thousand dollar check as the reward money for finding the culprits. There are two Pacific Union Railroad deputies who got part of it and Chief Carroll received $500. Of course he did. And that doesn't sound like a lot even with inflation, but this is the Great Depression. So I don't understand how an officer of the law can get the reward money.
00:50:12
Speaker
I can. I don't think I don't disagree with that, but we're just simple people faith. I'm not smart as chief Carol. That's for dang sure.
00:50:22
Speaker
So back to Joe. It's like the biggest issue that I have with giving somebody so much power. Mm hmm. Like that's what our corrupts. Absolutely. Oh, I remember who said that's a stat. Oh, you are close. Yeah, I agree. One hundred and ten percent. I mean, yeah. And if you think this shit isn't going on today. No, you're smoking crack. They're just better at it. Yep. No, they're not.
00:50:46
Speaker
Well, I mean, this is I mean, he blatantly kept changing details. Every time he gave a press conference, the details were different. Ben, it still goes on. A club, an axe. I mean, have you seen the president? Let's not go on him again. I'm not. I'm just saying it still happens. Right.
00:51:02
Speaker
So back to Joe arity. Yeah, not not the other. Not the other. He goes into the Colorado State Prison. He goes to the penitentiary and he is under the care of Warden Roy Best. Warden Roy Best was appointed the warden in 1933 at the age of 31 years old.
00:51:25
Speaker
OK, so this is just four years later. He's 35. He's very young. I was just going to say, man, like that's kind of young to be a warden. And you got something to prove, my friend. Of course you do. So Joe's life ain't getting any better. What you're telling me right now? Yeah, thanks. Warden best developed rules for his prison that everyone there, whether you're an inmate, a cook or a guard, are expected to live by while you're in his prison.
Warden Best's Humane Prison Management
00:51:54
Speaker
And one of his one of his roles were discipline without tyranny. And another of his were prisoners are human beings. OK. Because of these ideas that that were the best implemented, just to give you a few examples of the man, he had made he made or he got the inmates of the prison to rebuild portions of the prison themselves at one point free labor. But the state loves the guy, right?
00:52:24
Speaker
But during the rebuild, Word Invest made it possible for every single inmate there over a thousand men to all be housed in a clean, new, fireproof, comfortable and sanitary cell by themselves. Wow. No one had to share self. I kind of want to take back what I just said. Right. Sorry.
00:52:48
Speaker
He was also known to hate solitary confinement, adamantly against it. There will not be solitary confinement in his prison. He had other ways to handle situations. Like if two inmates had a problem, like let's say two rival gangs, we're not sticking you both in solitary confinement. What we're gonna do is we're gonna make a spectacle. We're gonna set up a boxing match. You two are gonna box each other. The guards are gonna be the referee. Everybody can come watch.
00:53:17
Speaker
That's how you're gonna resolve your disputes. Duke it out. Playground style, buddy. Right. He, Warden Best, was adamantly opposed to the death penalty. He did not believe in it. He was vocal about it. But he was the Warden, so he did carry them out to the letter of the law. He executed Frank Aguilar. And so they actually had a name for it. And I had to save the name because I was like, what? But they called it Roy's Penthouse, is what they called the death chamber.
00:53:46
Speaker
so um yeah he did it he didn't he didn't really like he didn't like it but he did it he didn't you know it was part of his job everybody has a part of their job they don't like right so all this i mean warden best seems like a pretty fair pretty good guy i was gonna say he seems like a decent individual and most people honestly like him he seems like the real dill um however
00:54:10
Speaker
He does have a side that we'll call darker. Of course. For example, um, Warden Best whipped five inmates who had plotted to kidnap him and use him as a hostage.
00:54:27
Speaker
And he referred to this punishment as writing the old gray mayor. These are not the only five inmates that rode the old grade mayor. And he called it this because he didn't do this like in, in, in hiding. He didn't, he had a wooden horse that was set up in the middle of the prison yard.
00:54:50
Speaker
that the inmate tattooed sit on as he whipped them. So all the prisoners knew the consequences if they stepped out of line. You rode the old gray mare. Okay. Not the greatest, right? This is Guy in Charge of Joe. Oh, jeez, Faith. You know, just what I think. Things might be okay. You're really just...
00:55:11
Speaker
So July 2, 1937, Joe was processed into the prison system and is put on death row. During his time on death row, Warden Best tried to do what he could to help Joe during his time in prison. Warden Best understood Joe had mental disabilities. He wasn't scared of him. He didn't call him a defective. For example,
00:55:39
Speaker
One night at dinner, Warden Best saw Joe take his metal dinner plate and sit there and polish it and polish it and polish it until it was reflective and then started making faces in the dinner plate using it almost like a mirror to like just make silly faces at himself. So Warden Best gifted Joe with a picture book to be able to have something to look at.
00:56:03
Speaker
Um, he also gifted Joe with a bright red toy car. It was a windup car. The headlights even shine and Joe loved that car. Okay. You're going to get me emotional.
00:56:17
Speaker
Joe loved the car. They stated that he would sit there in his cell on death row and play with it all the time. He'd wind that car up and he'd let it go. And as soon as the car would bump into the wall of his cell, you would hear him shouting, a wreck! Like there's been a wreck! None of this compared to Christmas 1983. None of these gifts. Christmas 1983, Warden Best gifted Joe with a toy train.
00:56:46
Speaker
Joe loves trains. Joe would wind this train up and send it down the hall of death row to his other death row inmates who would then wind the toy car, toy train up and send it back to Joe.
00:57:05
Speaker
They were literally playing. I was just going to say they're playing. They're playing with. They're playing trains with this kid with a kid with a kid. A young man. Yeah, but a kid. And it wasn't just the inmates. The guards would sit down in the middle of the hall to wind this trip and send it to inmates and back to Joe. Joe loved this train. I don't I think we need to cut this off. Ward it. No, we're not done. No, but I feel like you're going to hit a spot. You know it damn well.
00:57:34
Speaker
sensitive to let's just keep going warden best in one of his interviews described joe as the happiest man who ever lived on death row and a lot of things you look up when you look up joe arity it is the hat that's his title the happiest man on death row
00:57:51
Speaker
Joe was happy. He had clean clothes. He had a nice clean place to live. He's not bullied. He has friends that play train with him all day long. He's living his best life on death row. December 1st, 1938, Joe was actually interviewed because his execution date is coming up. And they want to sit down and interview with him. And Joe's telling them all about how he wants to stay in prison forever. He just wants to live with Warden Best. He loves them. He loves it.
00:58:17
Speaker
And when the reporters tried to push him on a conversation about the execution, Joe just didn't understand what they were talking about. Warden Best worked with Attorney Gail L. Ireland, who was Joe's appeal attorney and was able to get nine different stays of execution, nine stays of execution for Joe. The final state of execution was January 2nd, 1938.
00:58:46
Speaker
And attorney Ireland announced that he was going to file for another sanity hearing in Pueblo. Before he could file this, like it was known, he stated he was going to file it. He pushed this, this attorney and, and Warden Best went like hog to try to get Joe to get an appeal.
00:59:04
Speaker
Um, the original judge on Joe's case, Judge Letty went to the prison himself on New Year's Eve to determine if Joe was saying the judge spent a whopping 15 minutes with Joe. Was he playing trains? Probably went home. And on January 2nd, when Ireland filed for a sanity hearing, it was denied by Judge Letty. He's already talked to him. He knew who he was saying. God almighty. Talk about a freaking agenda.
00:59:31
Speaker
Yeah, and not only that, here's the other thing. When he would go for these appeals, and when he would, when they would try to get this, Warden Best would take Joe out of death row and move him into his own personal home with him and his wife. No way. Are you serious?
00:59:49
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Deadly deadly horror blacks murder. Yeah. Yeah. So on at this point, Joe's execution date is set for January 6 and Ireland does not stop. He continues to try to make last minute appeals and he appeals directly to the governor of California of Colorado who spends January 5th, the day before execution trying to decide if Joe should live or die. As he's saying on January 5th, while the governor is trying to make this decision,
01:00:18
Speaker
um warden best gave joe a couple more gifts gives him a box of cigars and a a bag of candy that his wife had made for joe joe is so excited he opens the bag of candy like a kid would and just starts hoovering the candy yep
01:00:35
Speaker
And immediately, like, no, nothing just starts eating the candy. And then, you know, he wants to smoke a cigar. Fortunately, the scar made Joe sick, which makes his stomach hurt. So he gives away the rest of his candy to his friends. I just imagine he's putting it on his train and sending it like to the other. That's what I imagine this, this, I keep saying kid, but this man do on January 6th, the date of his execution, Joe starts his day with a breakfast of homemade ice cream.
01:01:04
Speaker
that Warden Best's wife made. She made three gallons of ice cream so Joe could literally ice cream all day long and his death row friends could have ice cream with him. So Joe gave all his friends ice cream. Warden Best also had another surprise for Joe. He had found Joe's mother, Mary, and had her come to visit Joe.
01:01:27
Speaker
He hasn't seen her since she was a kid. He's not seen her in so long, he's uncomfortable, Joe is. She's hugging him, crying all over him, and Joe doesn't really make an effort to talk to her at all. And when it's time for her to leave after her allotted time when Warden Best exports her out, it's stated that her screams could be heard through the entire prison up until the point she's in her car on the door shut. She's hysterical.
01:01:57
Speaker
Joe doesn't know this woman. He's got more of a connection with Warden Best and his wife. They're the ones there. He loves them. So for the rest of that day, Joe plays with his toy train, his favorite thing in the world.
01:02:09
Speaker
Uh, the chaplain, I'm sorry, this part is so horrible. The chaplain shows up to help him, um, learn the rosary and try to get the, our father prayer in order because it's execution day. Warden best spends the hour of 4pm to 5pm sitting in his office, staring at his phone, waiting for the call from the governor because the governor's deciding finally, right after five, the phone rings and
01:02:37
Speaker
It is not the governor, but it is the Colorado Supreme Court alert alerting Warden best that they have a special session in order to determine if Joe is sane or not due to Ireland's last minute petition. So at six, you know, I'm already over here like emotional. Oh, yeah. At 6 p.m. Warden's phone rings again. And it's the governor calling to say he can't make a decision.
01:03:00
Speaker
until the Supreme Court makes their decision. At 6.15 p.m., the Supreme Court calls again and tells Worden that they ruled three to four against Ireland's petition, just barely. Ten minutes later at 6.25, the governor calls to tell Worden best he will not be granting clemency and orders best to carry out the execution of Joe Arity.
01:03:27
Speaker
The priest there gives him his last rites trying to tell Joe that you're gonna go to heaven and tries to tell him what heaven's gonna be like and Joe asks if he can take his train to heaven with him and The priest tells them no, but you're gonna get a heart a golden harp instead Everybody that knows this man knows this is wrong, right?
01:03:46
Speaker
And I have typed out, but I found a I found another one I want to read to you. So there are 50 authorized. Oh, it's not getting better. There are 50 authorized witnesses for this execution. Funny enough, Riley drain, the father who cooperated really hope they stand before God one day. Oh, yeah.
01:04:06
Speaker
or have already. Mm hmm. So the father that stated in court that Frank said that Joe was there and all that wasn't there. Bullshit. Yeah. Joe is led to the gas chamber, smiling at the guards, his friends that play trains with him.
01:04:26
Speaker
And as the guards are strapping Joe into his chair, he continues to smile. The smile never leaves his face until they put a black bandage or blindfold over him and he gets scared. But his smile returns quickly when Warden Best takes Joe's hand and reassures him that I'm here with you and softly soothes him that I'm here, it's going to be OK.
01:04:54
Speaker
All the officials then leave the gas chamber except the priest who with tears in his eyes tells Joe goodbye. And then, um, according to crime scribe who wrote a big article about this, the warden best reads the death warrant and asks Joe, if you know what's happening and Joe's response, they say is both childlike and chilling. Yes, they're killing me. Not you there. So, um, once, once,
01:05:23
Speaker
Warden Best gets Joe calm and he's not scared anymore. He, the airtight steel doors are shut and sealed.
01:05:31
Speaker
And I'm going to read this directly from Crime Scribe. They said, standing near the chamber with tears in his eyes, Warden Best gave the signal, and the levers pulled, diluted sulfuric acid mixed with sodium cyanide, forming an almost invisible vapor rose from underneath the chair around Eridie. Best, tearful as the execution began, now sobs openly as the gas took effect, and Eridie died.
01:05:59
Speaker
Ian was mercifully brief, Joe being unconscious within two minutes and certified dead within 10. Attorney Gail Ireland had been blunt before Joe Airdy's unjust execution stating, direct quote, believe me when I say that if he is a guest, it'll take a long time for Colorado to live down this disgrace. Joe's last wish was that his beloved toy train would be given to Warden Beth's nephew.
01:06:29
Speaker
Joe was laid to rest in the prisoner's plot in Colorado State Penitentiary with just the normal inmate headstone until it was replaced in 2007. He was given a unique tombstone, the only one there, and on it is a picture of him playing with his train from an article right before he's executed while they're taking a picture of him. It's him.
01:06:57
Speaker
On the, let's see, on his tombstone is this, well, I'll get to what his tombstone says in a minute. In 2011, Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado granted a posthumous pardon of Joe Airdy, given the following statement, direct statement, pardoning Joe Airdy cannot undo this tragic event in Colorado history.
01:07:21
Speaker
It is in the interest of justice and simple decency to restore his good. And on his tombstone reads pardon on January 7th, 2011. Here lies an innocent man. I do want to say I'm going to tell you two. I'm going to tell you one story and then I want to tell you one other thing. So Warden Best, who literally is the best. He did not let this jade him.
01:07:51
Speaker
which very could have easily done. At one point in his career, a couple years after Joe, a boy named James, he went by Jimmy Melton, was 12 years old and he was convicted of shooting and murdering his sister and given a 12 year to life sentence. After being processed into the prison system, Warden Best immediately opened his cell door
01:08:19
Speaker
and took Jimmy home with him stating he is not going to allow the boy to spend a night in prison. So he and his wife treated Jimmy as a son and raised him. He went so far as to try to enroll the boy in school when the parents of the other students found out that the murderer was being enrolled, they threw a fit and got it kicked out.
01:08:40
Speaker
Warden Best didn't care. He hired him a private tutor, so he would not miss his studies. And Jimmy served his entire sentence living at home with Warden Best and his wife. It was published in a Life Magazine article in April 1948. No one has a bad thing. The guy ended up running for governor. But because you did it to me last week,
01:09:06
Speaker
Don't do this. You already ruined my life. That was really messed up. It was. But Marguerite Young from the clinic, a moderate fable, New York, Reynolds and Hitchcock in 1944, wrote a poem.
01:09:22
Speaker
And it started a movement, which you can go to www.friendsofjoerty.com. And this is her poem. The warden wept before the lethal beans were dropped that night in an airless room. 50 faces appearing against glass screens, a clinic crowd outside the tomb. In the corridor, a toy train pursued. Its tracks passed countryside and painted stations of tiny folk.
01:09:51
Speaker
The doomed man's eyes were glued. On this, he was the tearless one. Of these, he was the tearless one, who waited unknowingly while the warden wept and watched the toy train with the prisoner.
01:10:06
Speaker
who watched the train or ate or simply slept. The warden wrote a sorry letter. The man you killed tonight is six years old. He has no idea why he dies. Yet he must die in a room the state called Wald, transparent to its glassy eyes. And yet suppose no human is more than he, the highest good to which mankind attains, this dry-eyed child who watches joyously the shining speed of toy trains.
01:10:32
Speaker
What warden weeps in the stony corridor? What mournful eyes are peering through the glass? Who will ever shut the final door and watch the fumes upon a face? And it was written because everyone knew. Warden Best sobbed. Everyone at that prison knew.
Posthumous Pardon and Legacy
01:10:51
Speaker
Joe Aardy was not guilty. And that was their friend. Warden Best tried to take him home with him several times.
01:10:59
Speaker
And the state of Colorado failed. It's pure and simple. I mean, they, they finally got it. I'm serious. All of that to save one man's reputation because a feeble minded person. But he mattered. If they had just given him life, he'd have been, he'd have been happy. He wouldn't have quote unquote hurt anybody. He never did. It was all to prove a point. It was all to just prove. That's the end of my story.
01:11:28
Speaker
You made me like I have sobbed over this story, like because you can look they've got literally fucking trust no one. Yeah, there's a lot of pitch. There's a lot of stories, even from like the 70s, even from, I'm forgetting what's his name, Navarro's mom. It's hard to find pictures of her. Yeah. There are so many pictures of Joe and Officer Best online that you can find.
01:11:58
Speaker
You know, show me some of those before you go to. Oh, and he's the cutest. Like you just look at him and know like he's the cutest little man. And I mean, and he was a man. He was. I mean, early 20s, but. He was just this happy kid, basically on death row.
01:12:15
Speaker
that even has like stone hard death row guards sitting on the floor waiting for a toy. Not even not even that. But men who actually committed murder. Yeah. And they're winding that back. Yeah. Winding his train back up and sending it back because. I feel like they all love Joe like Joe is their family. I think they all treated Joe.
01:12:40
Speaker
Like you said, yeah, he was a man, but they were they were treating Joe like the child he was inside. Yeah, because he was because even stone hard criminals. OK, two year old hands you a fake phone and you answer it and turn it and talk to whoever's there.
01:12:56
Speaker
And so, yeah, the train was on Christmas. There's a poem like you did. I love trains and I work with trains and you've almost ruined trains for me. My job is trains, Faith. I didn't think about that. But now every time the trains go by, I'm going to be like, oh, Joe. Yeah. Man.
01:13:21
Speaker
Yeah. So stories like this is why I can't be 100% for the death penalty because the system is so corrupt. Like there wasn't a single piece of evidence against this kid. It's stories like this that it's not the death penalty. That's the problem.
01:13:40
Speaker
the people in power whose reputation are we saving? Yeah. Some of it obviously is genuine because there there's no I don't have any like sweat in the game. You know, they got nothing, right? Yeah. But then you have things like Epstein and that's going to go on forever and ever and ever. Oh, we'll never get that. We'll never. It'll be never. Nobody's going to bear consequences. It'll be a quote unquote conspiracy theory till the end of time. But again, like you're looking at
01:14:10
Speaker
You're one stupid, high muckety muck, sheriff, whatever you want to call him. Mr. Carroll. It was on record changing his story on record. But they should. He was the popular. But that's the thing. These are the people that we put in one imbecile, one mentally feeble human. Defective, mentally defective. Mentally defective. Didn't matter.
01:14:37
Speaker
Not even a little bit. I feel like everyone in charge and that'd be like working best. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because he was a good man. And not even that. I wanted to set it up like he wasn't a good man, but he was a good. Not even was he just a good man.
01:14:52
Speaker
OK. The green mile. Yeah. Perfect freaking example. A man who did nothing and a guy who still had to carry out his task because it was a stupid freaking job. Mm hmm. But you know what? I'm as much as I hate it because I have to think I didn't do like a ton of research on on Warden Best afterwards. I know that he was in some movies. I know that he ran for governor. Yeah. I know that he like literally everybody loved this guy. I know that he
01:15:21
Speaker
adopted that one kid until the kid was like, got out of jail. Yeah. I know all that, but I have to think that to his dying breath, he thought of Joe Airdy. Absolutely. Like he always thought of Joe Airdy. You know, and then it's like one of those stupid Catch-22s, right? It's like, I'm not, I won't do this. I'm not going to put this man to death.
01:15:46
Speaker
Well, I know on the opposite as much as as much as he what can I do moving forward to make sure this doesn't happen? Like literally if he'd made governor, he would have. But I think as much as it traumatized him mentally, I have to think it did. I'm so glad he was the warden.
01:16:04
Speaker
because a lot of people, at least in Joe's last moment, he felt sympathy and love. He felt love. That was his that was his family. His own mother, he had no response to. But when talking to reporters, he wanted to live at the prison forever. He wanted to live with Warden Best forever. He loves them. I'm telling you, I just. I'm not exactly a fan of what you just did to me tonight, but that was a really good story. It was yeah, it was a very good story. I've sat on it for a while because I couldn't even like
01:16:34
Speaker
get through without crying, which is, you know, still my voice. I had the wobble. Yeah. The fact that you even made me tear up is like, you've done something. I want to, I want, I want some kind of a word because I got, I got you past anger and, and, and whatever other violent emotions you have into like,
01:16:53
Speaker
feel emotions. Yeah. And he I'm telling you, I'll post pictures of him. I've got pictures of his tombstone. I've got pictures of newspaper articles. I've got pictures of Warden best. I've got pictures, lots of pictures of Joe, like there's so many pictures of Joe. Yeah. And best. But he's like the cutest little I honestly how I picture him in my mind. And this is
01:17:14
Speaker
I guarantee it's only because of the love of trains, but a very mentally disabled Sheldon Cooper. Yep. Train hat whistle. Yeah. Whole nine. But that's how I imagine him. Just not like the smart science geek, but just like
01:17:29
Speaker
a little just a little because that's how I always saw Sheldon is like a little boy. Like he needs to be taken care of. Yeah. I mean, he's a dick, but he was also like cute little Sheldon. Like, you know, he doesn't want Hilton and Penny and Sheldon or Penny and Leonard to fight because that's what his parents did. He'd run away. And like, that's how I picture Joe is just this sweet, naive adult child who's a child.
01:17:56
Speaker
and he was so I love that his last few years were with friendship and love and choo choos that's literally the little you know because it's great depression times and this warden is buying him picture books and cars that have working headlights and a train set you know what I mean like this guy's not getting paid bank he's he's a prison warden yeah and you know for all the people in the world that could be like
01:18:25
Speaker
Scarred by life. I'm sure a prison warden Yeah, they get hard quick. Yeah. No, they're not the most sympathetic people and you know riding the old gray mare Not the best right. Well, but no what I mean like is these people are hardened for a reason Yeah, like they are dealing with the lowest of the low on a regular basis. He never did he treated them all Every prisoner is a human with respect
01:18:48
Speaker
discipline without tyranny and you know we're gonna settle this like adults we're not gonna you're not gonna be thrown in a in a dark cell you're gonna sit there and box it out like men with a referee it's gonna be above board it's gonna be clean yeah everybody else is gonna have some fun get to go to a sporting event yep and when he gets this this child in a man's body we're gonna get him his wife even making him homemade candies making him ice cream like
01:19:16
Speaker
You know he had to go home and talk about it for his wife to be invested like that. Like they don't make a lot of money and yet they're spending anything they can to make this kid's life better before Warden Best has to kill him because that's what happened.
01:19:36
Speaker
So anyway, wow. Thank you for reading my life this week. Merry Christmas, Mom. Had nothing to do with Christmas. You didn't even mention it. Uh-huh. Christmas 1938 is when he got his toy train. That was his Christmas present from Warden Vest and
Personal Reflections and Farewells
01:19:52
Speaker
Mrs. Vest. Yep. Definitely Harry Potter-like.
01:19:55
Speaker
Oh, so yeah. Well, guys, I hope your evening is as sucky as mine. I'm going to go ahead and hop off here and punch Faith in the throat. Remember, I told you before. Remember, you love me. I don't have to, though, like, you know, blood. I don't have to accept you. That's right. All it takes is a divorce. Well, I challenge everyone to live their life like Officer Best. Try to find people that other people shit on. Yeah.
01:20:22
Speaker
that don't deserve it and make their life better. Because you know what? There's enough people that deserve to be shit on. Dude. They get away scot-free, the people that don't. Yeah. You don't have to go buy him gifts, but you can make him smile. Absolutely. Oh, 100 percent. So anyways, well, sorry, guys. No, you're not. I'm not. But I'll post pictures and I'll post, you know, all the things. So. All right. Well, you guys, you all have a great night. I won't. Bye. Bye.