Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Texas Cop — Then I Spent 20 Years in Prison | Kent McGowen

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Kent McGowen grew up in Texas in a good family with a father in the oil business and a brother who became a cop — served honorably in the United States Air Force became a Houston police officer and eventually became a sheriff's deputy in Harris County. In August 1992 while executing a felony warrant as part of a larger weapons operation the situation escalated when the woman he was there to arrest pulled a gun on him. He warned her repeatedly to drop the weapon before firing in what he says was an act of self defense. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares how the DA's office pursued him even after internal affairs cleared the shooting, what two separate trials and two separate convictions looked like from the inside, how the judge sentenced him to 20 years in the Texas prison system, what surviving as a former cop inside Texas's most brutal prisons actually required of him, and why he believes the corruption that sent him there runs far deeper than anyone in that system ever wanted to admit. _____________________________________________ #prisonlife #texas #truecrimestories #police _____________________________________________ Thank you to CASH APP for sponsoring this episode: Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/6pao71et #CashAppPod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. _____________________________________________ Connect with Kent McGowen: https://www.givesendgo.com/G31TC _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Introducing Kent McGoen's Story 02:00 Early Life & Family Background 05:30 High School Days & Military Influence 09:00 Entering Law Enforcement 15:00 Houston PD: Training & Early Career 19:30 Police Culture & Relationships 27:00 Transition to Harris County Sheriff's Office 32:00 Challenges with Leadership & Policing in the 90s 38:00 Notorious Colleagues & On-the-Job Stories 47:30 Building Up to the Incident 54:00 The Fatal Warrant & Shooting 01:05:00 Crime Scene, Investigation, and Setup 01:15:00 Legal Proceedings & First Trial 01:28:00 Second Trial & Corrupt Defense 01:42:00 Prison Life Begins: Intake & Adjusting 01:51:00 Experiences, Survival & Prison Culture 02:08:00 Navigating Gangs, Politics & the Parole System 02:24:00 Years in Prison & Struggling for Release 02:37:00 Breaking Point, Allies, and a New Chance 02:54:00 Life After Release & Continuing the Fight 03:06:00 Clearing His Name & Seeking Justice 03:15:00 Final Thoughts and Message to the Audience _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Kent McGowan, who was a cop in Texas before a shooting, landed him in prosecutors' crosshairs, and they ended up charging him with murder and got him convicted and sent to a Texas state prison for 20 years. This is the crazy story of how it all happened and how corrupt the Texas system was against him. Where'd you grow up, Kent? My name in Houston. I was born in Midland out in West Texas. My dad was an oil and gas business, and then I wasn't a house business. I was about five. We moved to Houston. My dad, he had these exploration companies who would build

up and sell. It did fairly well in the oil and gas business. So you guys grew up with money then? Yeah, we're doing all right. Yeah, we're doing all right. What about your mom? Was she in the picture? Stay-at-home mom. Yeah, she's a stay-at-home mom. She's stayed-at-home. So they don't home and my dad did his thing, and I grew up, just like everybody else lived in West Houston at the time. Back in the 70s and 80s, the old boom was going. You know, 80s was pretty wild. anyway, but yeah. Any siblings? Yeah, I have two older brothers and a younger sister. Were you guys close growing up? Yeah, my brothers are four and five years older me. My sister and I were like 18, 19 months. We're a little bit closer. And then, yeah, my brother's been that much

older when I got old enough to kind of tarbony a teenager. They were already out of the house, going to college. And when I was in college and one was in the military, Air Force. How are you as a kid? How would your best friend have described you? Yeah, I kind of hang out back, this is in the late 70s and early 80s. All right. In high school we had the jellyheads, the pot smokers, you know, with the goths back then, the people that were mainly in doing theater and that stuff. And then we had the kickers, which I was, the shit kickers.

We're kind of cowboys, you know, those wranglers and justins and dip in Copenhagen and snap up shirts and whatever. And, of course, you had the jocks and socialites. But I kind of fell into the kicker group, you know. And I went to a good high school. I went to Robert Lee High School in West Houston. Of course, they've changed the name down as like West Houston 2 or something like that. But, yeah, did good in high school, did well.

Graduated a year early and went to Air Force, married my high school, so we heard. We met the first day of 10th grade in 1980, August 28th of 1980. We're still, to this day, best friends. Oh, wow. She would stay with you all throughout prison? Yeah, for the most part. We got divorced after I was like six, seven years in. and then when I got out,

you know, we always, we maintain contact and we got out. And I had a son who passed away. He was a single dad, and we have the granddaughter, raising her, yeah. Why the Navy? The Navy?

Or the Air Force. I was in the Air Force. Yeah, actually my dad was in the Air Force, my brother, my brother next older for me. He was in the Air Force. And we both went to security police. She now's called Security Forces,

but military police and the Air Force. Yeah. And I was just driven, And my parents were, they're really good people. And they're very altruistic. They help people. I grew up with that. They're always helping people, even people that I didn't think deserved it at times.

But I was just raised that way, you know, and take care of people and help, you know, the underdog. And I just, I grew up like that. And then I think it was in me naturally anyway. And I saw my brother. He was on the job as a police officer, too. You know, I saw what he was doing. And after I went in the Air Force,

I went out and got into civilian law enforcement, if you will. I really loved it. I loved every day on the job. How long were you in the Air Force for? I was in Air Force active duty. It was about two years. And then back then the Guard and Reserves were real low in manpower. So I was reading the Air Force Times one day.

I'll station up in Malmstrom Air Force Base with the Strategic Air Command. It was nuclear weapons. And then so Ellington Air Force Base down to Houston had a full-time opening for security forces down there. So I made the call. I went down there and I worked full time for their active duty for the Air National Guard down there. Then when I promoted up to Sergeant, they had no positions for me. And so at this point, I was working for Houston PD. And I had either discharged from the Guard or I transferred in the Air Force Reserve.

So I was in the Air Force Reserves also as an instructor teaching the police guys coming up. What year did you join the Houston PD? Academy started on October 14th of 1984. What was that like back then? The academy? Yeah, in the early 80s. Not like it is now. Back then there were very few females in there.

And it was very academic, but I'd already been a police officer because when I applied at the Harris County, I mean, Houston Police Department. Back then in Texas, you could go to work for a police department without having to go to academy. You had to start a police academy within that year. So you could be a policeman for a year. with no training at all. But at that point, my dad had a ranch out in Water County. And then as soon as he bought the ranch, the sheriff of the county, who was a retired Houston police sergeant.

He came out and talked to me and I told him I was a pawn at Houston. And it took about a year for the paperwork. So he goes, hey, you'll come work for the sheriff's department? So I said, yeah, no idea what I was doing, man. We were at 12-hour shifts, or 7-to-7 night shift. Back then, there was no Google Maps. There were no, I mean, they'd literally get a call. And there'd be like one deputy in the entire county back.

then. You get a call and be, you know, go to, you know, farmer Bob's ranch. He's got two missing cows. Go to the third gate. There'll be some chickens on the left, you know, take a ride at the chickens, past the mule, and it's the next, in the trailer down in the woods there. No idea what I was doing, man. I did that for nine months. And then went to work, started the Houston Police Academy. And yeah, I loved it, man. And I already knew, I already knew the law and whatever back then. And so academically, it wasn't difficult at all. And physically, it was, far more difficult in the military, you know, getting you in shape. And they really fired you up gung-ho. You know, we had, you know, defensive tactics, you know, physical training, all kind of

aspects of what was going on. And the academy was, I think it was five and a half or six months long. And then if you graduate, like the top 10% of your academy, you got to choose your district to go for your field training program. I grew up in West Houston. So, I graduated the academy in March of 85, went out to Westside Command, Westside Patrol, where I grew up, because I picked that division

because I knew all the streets out there. So I figured it'd be easier training, you know, I'd thrown in the, you know, some ghetto, I'd know where I was. But be honest with you, man, like my third day on the street,

I was shocked that what was going on in my own neighborhood that I never saw, you know? And it was just crazy. But they worked you on, they started down the slowest shift, which is day shift,

towards 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. With a field training officer, Randy Sheldon, really good guy. He trained me, and then you bumped from there to night shift. And night shift is a little more active, but not as much as evening shift. And I trained with a field training officer with Mike Hightower. I believe he retired recently like 38 years.

Guy was a great policeman, you know. And when you're going through the field training program, you kind of model yourself after these FTOs. Hey, I like the way this guy does this. I don't like the way this guy does this, whatever. But the most influence on my policing was Mike Hightower. Fantastic officer. And then after that, I went to evening shift 2 to 10, which is most active.

And for some reason, I don't recall the guy's name, Phil Trayn, but he wanted to be an assistant chief. And then after that, you'd go night shift with a field training evaluator. It's like you're a one-man unit. You do everything, and they're rating you. and then you go to the evening shift, a field training evaluator. You're right for them for, I think, six weeks.

Then after that, you're cleared to go on patrol. And then back then, a lot of times there was one-man units, but they try to get mostly two-man. Now I don't think everybody's two-man units because it's so crazy out there. But, yeah, I went through that, and I went to work,

after you get your one-year probationary year, you're eligible for one involuntary transfer. And I got selected to go to special operations, so I did that for a couple years. And that was a great job. What were some of those things that were surprising you When you first got on the job that you didn't know. What I saw my own neighborhood?

Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy, man. I remember I got to call at my high school, you know, and I went in there and I'd been gone from high school. I'd been out of there like three years, I think, some of that. I was only 20 when I graduated the academy. I couldn't even buy bullets. My brother bought a box of bullets for me.

He's very comical dude for my graduation president from the academy. I wouldn't know if buy bullets, you know, or buy beer, but, you know. But they, yeah, something like crazy. stuff I saw out there was, I went to my high school and a school teacher got her car stolen. She's like, hey, I remember you, man. I was going to school here, you know. And then during the day shift, I remember we had a, man, it was a suicide hanging. That had been the first time I'd seen that because you're on the field training program

calls, they try to get your experience on everything you possibly can. So if there's like a crazy, you know, something going on, they try to get you there, get your experience, getting you ready to go out on your own. and one got to the academy with he uh i remember we got to chase one day and uh the guys cracked up ran into a building and he was just he wouldn't go in the building they said that's one man we're going to let you go in one time and then we had some burglars cornered in a in a building a few weeks later and he wouldn't go in so they merely fired him they called your manifest safety hazard you're danger to yourself and others out here but we back then is when the uh all the cocaine started coming in you know, drug cartels.

And so, man, there's some crazy stuff out there, what they're doing. I mean, they were driving my shoot-up parks with kids in it. And what they would do back then, these cartels, many of Colombians and whatnot, they would kill your family first. If you screwed them over, you knew they were going to come after you. But they'd go after your kids and your wife. They don't want to act to your family first. You know, before I got to you, just to make you suffer more.

And we got to call at an apartment complex. It was just from townhouses. And we went in there, and there was a woman and a kid hanging from a raft or, gutted out like deer, you know. And we're like, man, this is another one. And they went two weeks later. We had a fire in the apartment, that townhouse is burning up. Went in there and the guy, the husband, whatever.

He'd been rolled up in a blanket, I mean, in a carpet, gas poured on him and lit him on fire. But those Colombians are something else, man. It was something else back there. Would the cartel target cops at all or would they stay away from law enforcement? We got a lot of issues with him, man, because they had no regard for us at all. They had no fear of us, you know, back then. And yeah, there was a number of shootings going on, and then crack started showing up. I remember when they were right with my partner.

I mean, when crack started, we said, man, when these crackheads, they start having babies, that's what we're seeing now. And the grandkids, you know, that destroyed everything. But it was a real rough out there. It was rough out there. And then I was on the west side, which is the nicest part of town. But it was a constant, man. you'd sign, you'd sign on. And we'd just got the computers, the MDTs and the cars, mobile data terminals, big,

big blocky things. And they would, you'd go and you'd S.O. Say, S.O. one time, or two times, there's a two-man unit. There'd be just calls holding, 100 calls. And they'd be lit, they'd be lighted up in red to priority ones, you know, party one calls. But it was just a call or not. You'd go from call to call. You'd go from 10, 12, 15, 20 calls and 8-hour shift.

How did it work before the computers were in the cars? just all the radio. We had the first one out there we did not have the computers. They came out like right as in their year maybe they showed up and the dispatcher you had

literally you had like a stentopad a dispatcher would bump you like I was 18G 53 18 district and they'd give you a call and you literally had to stop you know and you're like 24 over 3 Westheimer

robbery in progress shoplift or whatever yeah and if you're in two main unit the guy the passenger side he would always get on the radio and you literally write down the calls. What time you got the call, what time you got there,

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Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says good luck. O-Doo brings your business together on a single platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, visit O-Doo.com. to book a demo. It's O-D-O-O-O-com. Charges, you know, whatever. What do you think was the average response time back then? It's got to be way longer than it is now, right? Two, three minutes. Oh, so it's still, even without technology. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we had key maps. They trained you on key maps in the academy. And it was like literally upper left to right. It was like northwest corner and you just flip. They gave the key map page.

And dispatch say that'll be, you know, 560 D-Delta. Like go to page five. 560 and the grid square of D, you narrowed down. But one thing I grew up out there, so I knew most of the streets. And then after your patrol out there, you get to know your beat, you know, you get the same calls, the same apartment complex, the same this or that. But, yeah, it was pretty violent out there. It's all a bunch of crazy stuff. And I remember when AIDS first, right when AIDS started flaring up.

This was right before AIDS came up. We had, there was a, it's called Rosewood Apartments. And it was, it was, you know, for a gay community. as they say, live there. It's you guys getting a fight. We get in there, and one guy's stabbing, they're dead in the floor. Class door smashed in.

They're covered with blood. I was a rookie, you know, and neither guy had their shirts on. I looked down, I thought it was the guy's intestines hanging out. And I looked at my Phil Traneerner, and that's his ear, he picks it up. So the guy was sitting,

I looked at the other guy's ear and was gone. The guy who was dead had bitten off the other guys of the ear. It was before AIDS. He got up stuck up next to his head. hey it's a match dude i guess you were here when this happened you know but uh back in the area all worked all the big nightclubs were going on in the 80s so uh i weren't mainly evening shift two to they had two to 10 they had like 3 to 11 they would split the shelves yeah now were you

considered a young cop um to be in your 20s or was well most of us yeah most of us were and they weren't a lot of this DEI stuff back then and uh while i worked out of west side it was mainly it was main just, it was mainly just white guys out there. All was from their 20s. There were some older guys out there, but I'd say 98% of us from our 20s out there. And it was a, in Texas, we're in Houston, Harris County, called their police car shops. I think L.A. does now. Because they call them a shop because when you, you go to roll call. And when you leave, you grab your shotgun, your, all of your gear, and that's like your own business. That's your source. There's no there's no matter they're watching you. That's how much responsibility you putting you.

you know. And so they call them the shop. And then you're out there doing your thing, you know, if you needed something called a supervisor. But when I worked at Houston PD, I never saw the corruption. I saw at the sheriff's bar and what was coming later years. I never saw any of the stuff that was going on. It wasn't tolerated at the city. And a city was light years ahead of the county, you know. But after I worked special operations, I went back to West Side. And then a financial opportunity came up. but I was going to pursue college. With the time, Houston did not have a leave of absence program. So you didn't have to resign, go do your thing, and come back,

which that was my goal. But there was a lot of controversy about when I left and all was tabloid, trash, books, whatever, was absolutely not true. And I'm sure it's still a culture. I think you may have interviewed some people I saw. But law enforcement is just a culture. You know, you're out there and you're stressful things that builds bonds between officers.

And I always stay away from the female law. officers. You know, they did their thing. We did ours. And mind you, this is the 80s and 90s. Everybody's full of themselves and whatnot. Man, I got tangled up. I was out, this one female officer. I worked my, she worked the same beat as I did. And we're at this club. It's called Fuzzy's X10. Because back, you know, fuzzy, like the fuzz the cops. And back in the day, Houston, when the dispatchers would bump, you'd say X10, I'd make call home. So it was like the cop home. It was a bar that stayed open all night. And I was there, you know, drinking with her. One thing led to another. her. And it was a crazy story, man. She was insane. When I told her after about two weeks,

I was like, man, this is, someone was wrong with her, right? And I noticed someone else would deal with her. And I found out she'd done this to other police officers. But I thought I couldn't see her anymore. And I had a, most police officers, we lived out in the county, but we had an apartment in town. Because any apartment complex, they give you a free furnished apartment, just if you're on call there, especially it was in your beats. Something happened to the, the Mandarid call your, call your beeper we had back then. But I got taking up his girl for a few weeks, man, and I told her it was over and she went nuts, man. She showed up at a party with a gun, drunk trying to kill me, try to shoot herself. Some other officers wrestled the gun from her.

A couple nights there, she shows up my apartment and had a civilian buddy mine living with me. She shows up like three in the morning, highly intoxicated, broke down the door with gun in hand. And we didn't even have a phone. We didn't live there like a week, right? There was a pay phone down the stairs. But she breaks in the rest of the gun from her. She won't leave. I said, this is insane. After like two weeks of dealing with us with her, you know, stalking me. She stole a patrol car one night. She was a nut. This is all documented witness, you know. And then what part of a halt to it? She had my civilian roommate hostage, man. So I said, this is insane. So when now, we knew all the dispatchers, right? So I go down, I call a dispatch. I said, hey, don't put this out on the air.

I said, I need a nice shift sergeant just roll by. I'm having an issue with an off-duty officer, intoxicated officer. So Sarting gets there, so another Sarton, a bunch of officers. They're like, what's going on, man? And they said, they said, who's up there? I told them the girl's name. They're like, you're fucking that crazy bitch, man. I said, what?

Well, half the shift was. I didn't know, you know. And I was like, man. And so they're talking about calling SWAT to SART because she was armed. I had an AR-15, a Binelli shotgun and a number of handguns up there. And we don't need you, we have to call SWAT. Your roommate's up there. And I was like, yeah, let's don't do this.

Let's try to take care of this. So I got a really good night shift sergeant. He went up and knocked her on the door and the door. The stairs went straight up and my door to the apartment was right there, right? Sergeant's over, everybody's got their guns out, you know, kind of watching. And she held his door with nothing won. He's like, hey, what are you doing? Because he knew her, you know, and he goes, what are you doing?

And she goes, I don't know, what's going on? You know, I think you need to get dressed and leave, you know. This is going on, my civilian roommate comes running past her. She's crazy. She's been holding me hostage, you know. And she went there and told him that, hey, when the other officer, Sergeant gets here, tell him that Kent came home and found us in bed again, and he's just pissed off.

He's like, she was crazy. So that led into a big mess. And that happened like eight months for our left. But all I saw this tabloid trash stuff. It said that was it. I mean, I left on the good terms. I'm a letter resignation. And during the process, we'll get to in a little while.

We recovered approximately 100,000 pages of documents we'd never seen. My internal affairs file was in there, and hers was this thing. She wanted to get fired over this. So what do you mean by tabloids? Like they published a paper on it at the time? Yeah, well, no, just after the shooting, which we get into, there's been a number of books and documentaries and stuff. Oh, so they brought that incident up?

Yeah, yeah. They tried to bring all that up. I was dating this woman. And actually, I have to give her credit because an audit trial, the prosecution called her. She lives in another state now. And she said, I'm not getting involved in what happened. Man, that was a whole different life, you know,

then I was, you know, I'm off doing something else now. I have to give her credit for that. Do they ever figure out what was wrong with her? She was crazy. When this happened, one of my buddies out there, he's just a GQ dude, when he found out, he had been messing with her too. When he broke up with her, he had a, back in the 280 ZXs came out, those cars. She put a super glue in his key locks, so it broke his wipers off, booked in 10.

I went to his apartment, spray painted his gate from his apartment. Yeah. And a bunch of other people started coming forward. So they pulled her commission, which means you can't be a, You can't care again. You're not a police officer, but you work for the police department as a civilian. They pulled her commission for a year and she had to go to like bail her for mental psychiatric once a week, whatever. They signed her to, I think, burglary and theft or maybe auto theft division.

She starts pulling this with this lieutenant there. And then finally he's like, man, so they fired us, you are out of here. They finally got rid of her for a year. You know, it's interesting that even back then in the 80s that there was still the, you know, co-workers sleeping or with each other that carries around, you know, 20, 30. 40 years later. Yeah, it's probably still going on. Yeah.

Well, we hear about all the time and the news and from people on the show. Yeah, I've known thousands of policemen. All my friends are now, you know. But there was only two, I know they didn't. And that was my brother and my partner in Special Ops and then his, who his wife was, whatever. But it was just part of the culture, man,

especially in the 80s, early 90s. But most of us, the female officers and deputies, they would date other people. If they're married, they would... Down here, if you're a male and you're married, you had a girlfriend, she was your chip. That's they called it. And actually, in the academy,

we had a class about how to discreetly handle your chips. And I had a guy reached out to a few days ago from... He got a jam my mind. I think in LEPD, actually. And we're talking about that. He said that we had an academy, and we had like a full days talk about that on how to discreetly handle it.

But you're out there, you know, it's wrong. I was wrong doing it. you know, but it was, and that's not the way I was brought up, you know. But like all the big nightclubs in Houston are out there. And you're working night shift, you know, like clothes, close at two or three. Or if you worked evening shift like two to ten or whatever, you'd work, go to these big nightclubs afterwards. Work like 1030 to 2.30, you know, until they close and whatever.

And you're in there with, I mean, you know, the upper bourgeois people of Houston, and man, just be, and the female, the females in there where they look at you as well, who's the most safest one to go home with? the sober cop at the door. And it was just, it was just rampant, man. I mean, it was wrong. I mean, you're in your early 20s too. Yeah, I was married.

I had kids or whatever. Oh, you got married by that point? Oh, yeah, I got married six days after a turned 18, yeah. Oh, so you were cheating? Yeah. And you already had kids at that point, too? That point two. I had three.

Three kids at that? Wow. We had another one many years later, but. Was she a cop? No, nothing. I should stay at home mom. Okay. But it was just a, it was,

wrong, man, but it was just crazy culture. Because people that go through like a stress, like a severe illness or something like that, or you a car wreck or something, just that the adrenaline and all that rolling, you build a bond with people. If you go through a catastrophe with somebody,

you build this weird bond. I've studied up on this. And it's just you're out there all night, man. I mean, you're seeing burn up babies and heads cut off and, you know, fights, I mean, all night long, you know, and you're dealing with these other people. And You know, you're meeting people on scenes or whatever. And then it happened between male and female officers.

Don't you know me wrong. But I said it. But I never, I never, I never had a thing with somebody who's married. That's dangerous. You know, it's dangerous. You guys would not believe the DMs I get. Every single week, someone messages me saying, Ian, I can get you Martha Stewart or I know Jordan Bellford personally.

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within 14 days. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank, banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners, prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, cash app visa debit flex cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, and the Bain Corp Bank, N.A. Pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc., see terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton Debit Flex Card, and BandCorp Debit Flex card. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block Incorporated brand. Visit cache.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. So you left Houston and went to college? Yeah, yeah, I left Houston. And when I left Houston, because back everybody carries guns now, but back then, the only people you could carry gun

under certain circumstances, but we're police officers, you know. And so when I started college, and I went to the Harris County Sheriff's Department, which is in Houston. And because they had a reserve program. You worked like one, eight-hour shift or a month or something like that. And that way you maintain your certification as a police officer and carry your weapon. And then so I went applying there. And it takes many, many months to go through the process. Picked up my application on Friday, turn in Monday, Tuesday morning,

get a call by detective. And he's doing my background investigation. He goes, hey, you got a brother who's, you know, so-and-so at another agency. I said, yeah, he goes, hey, he used to be my sergeant. I said, yeah. He said, hey, why do you want a reserve commission? You came from training by Houston, whatever. I said, told my situation.

He was, man, we need instructors down here. You know, people know what they're doing. You know, once you can work full time? So I was like, man, I don't know. So I talked to my wife, she goes, don't do it. You don't get sucked right back into it. Do not do that. So I did it anyway, you know.

So, yeah, so I worked there by 16, 18 months as an instructor. And then I got pulled to you. patrol and I got south to district one which is the northwest part of Harris County which that was a bourgeois area Harris County now it's just straight up trash ghetto but I was shocked I remember 20-something years I went there a few months ago I was like what the hell happened here you know but I went out there and I went out there and I went over to April 3rd or 92 sign a night shift and my first day in there man I go into there with this huge area where

In Houston, there'd been three or four hundred of us out there patrol on that area. There was like a half a dozen of us. It was insane, you know. And then day one out there. I were in a sergeant. I can say people's names, right? So I'll put him out there. David Ruggiero.

And this guy had no business being a police officer, let alone supervisor. He was the night shift sergeant, straight up coward idiot. My first night there, I walked in there, and there's four or five deputies. And he goes, he starts popping off on me. I'd never seen this guy, never heard his name. I said, hey, hang on, man, you know. And, uh, see, we can go in your office. I only shut his door and said, hey, you know,

hey, this is no stripes, no bad. Is what your fucking problem with me, man? He said, well, I heard this, this and this about you. I don't know what you said. I haven't even heard of you. I didn't tell you, I'm just coming out here. We're starting fresh, man. And then that night, my patrol car,

he had some stroke and had somebody give me a brand new patrol car, which really pissed him off. But it wasn't there that night, my first night. So I have to ride with this idiot, right? And right at the bat, we get it was a man in a house with his wife holding a shotgun. And so we get there and we're right outside the city limits of Houston. So we get there. We're getting out.

And there's a big oak tree in front of the house. I had my shotgun and get it behind a tree. And this guy's got a shotgun and his wife and had a burglar bar. So at the door on the burger bar. He's hollering, you know, everybody. And this is, you know, late at night. And we're like an hour. And I'm telling them I say, hey, you need to call Houston PD because they would send their SWAT team out to assist.

SWAT. Obviously a SWAT situation, you know. Wow, I ain't doing that shit, man. I said, hey, you need get in mind. Oh, we're just going to burn off, man. We're going to burn off. He goes, there's no, there's no, there's no against the law about having a gun in your house. You're holding somebody hostage, yeah, that's kind of illegal, you know. He didn't know what to do. So we pack up, and I'm like, what day. And I was talking this deputy last night about this, we went into these deputies who've reached out to me after the same thing's happened all of them. But I get in his car, he's driving, of course, so we're going down,

it's called Apache Springs, totally trash apartment complex. And they drop a shooting in progress. We're literally driving by it. Tell what? I said, hey, they just dropped a shooting in Apache Springs. I said, yeah, I heard it.

I said, do you think maybe we should, you know, we're 27 yards somewhere? You think maybe we should stop and see what's going on, maybe helps somebody? Man, fuck, we ain't doing that. There's other things going to run it. I'm like, this guy's an idiot, right?

And so I go back, like three or four nights later, We are all one-man units, and I get to call it to some trailer park in this area where I work. And it was an assault in progress. So I get there. It's like one in the morning. There's a typical trailer park. They're just like, you know, lined up side by side.

And there's a bunch of people standing around. There's some burning clothes laying out. All the windows are busted out. And it's all people are freaking out, you know. And I said, what's it going on? They said, man, her boyfriend's a record driver. And he beat her with a crowbar and he took off. And I said, what's you driving?

So I put out, what's called GB, a general broad. broadcast. You put the dispatcher, they dispatcher, everybody look out for this guy. And I could hear the woman in there moving. She was a young girl. He heard her moving around and the door was locked. And then that's what's called exigent circumstances. You've absolutely full legal right to fourth century, you know, an emergency. I didn't trust that sergeant at all, man. So I bumped him on the radio. I told him a little back channel, which is, it's not recorded. It's like car to car. I told him the situation. He goes, don't kick the door. Look, man, she's moaning and there's been beating with a crowbar. And all these people are standing around me, live there's.

there, right? He goes, I don't give a fuck, man. And she dies in there, she'll be stinking three or four days in this heat. Somebody will call her, go get her then. Man, all these people are, what? What? I said, man, so I was going to kick on the door. You know, rescue her if you want. God, nambs to pick her up. But this started was married,

and he had a girlfriend on a very successful nightclub, which was like, it was like 10 miles from my beat. Whenever something happened in there, he'd always call me to go to there and take care of it because I knew what I was doing, you know? And there's a several shootings and whatever and he would always call me and we had a capital murder one time like i worked

two to 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and we were like uh i was in my parents ranch i'm like 45 miles or something we had take-home cars so he called me like 830 he said hey i need to make this capital murder i said was there people working if i need you get out here all right man i said hey you know where i am right he said i'll run hot so i'm running a license iron like 45 miles you know so i get there in the evening ship deputy's got a call and it was like a row of townhouses, and the back door was like open about this far. Back in the day, they had the big stereos and speakers,

like, you know, our parents or her grandmother, whatever had. And they were like stacked up and doors open. So there's two deputies go in there. Obviously it was a burglary had been going down. And it was a dead female on a bed. She was, I'm actually wearing her yellow shirt and red pants. And she had a phone cord, was tied around her hands and her feet, and they had a belt around her elbows,

and they put a pillowcase overhead. She'd suffocated, you know. Man, his deputy was like poking the body and stuff. I'm like, what the hell? And there was like, she had her, I remember Mr. Carpet was very nicely vacuumed. You see the pattern whenever. Man's deputies walking around touching stuff. I'm like, this is a capital murder, man.

And that idiot sergeant, back in the day they said a little, uh, four, you know, cell phones. A little notepad. You write like your grandmother's phone number and your brother's phone number. Yeah, a phone book type thing. And that idiot, Regal was digging on. He finds one in a drawer. He goes, hey, go next door to the neighbors and start calling these numbers. and find a family member to tell him what happened.

I said, dude, that's not my job. His body belongs with a medical exam. I'm not going to do that, man. And it was constant problems with the guy, constant problems with this guy. I remember one night I was eating at din, he's like 4.30 in the morning. And there was a shooting.

It was just a throw-down bar. And I was like literally 40 yards from it. Shooting drop, and he's on the way and he's bumping some of their deputies go there, right? So he said it bumps to me. He goes, go to back time. I said, what do you want? And he said, where are you?

I'm at the Denny's. Aren't you like right on the corner? Yeah? You know? Because it was outside of my beat. And he would always get honest about being outside our beat. And I said, you want me to go there? He said, yeah.

So I don't know if y'all have Denny's where you're from. Yeah, of course. But you know, you walk in house like a little vegetable doors. They used to have like a pay phone and gum machines or whatever. Then went through a secondary door and to go in. I opened the first one, this little spanning guy, pouring sweat, panic. He runs up, I'm in the little vegetable. He runs up trying to bang and to get in the doors.

Well, we're like 45 yards from a multiple shooting. multiple shooting scene, right? So I think, pretty smart guys off, you know, put my detective skills together. So the guy may be involved in this, right? So the guy's banging on the door and he starts screaming, right? So I'll pull my weapon on him because clearly he's involved in the shooting. I don't know what's going on.

I said there was several people shot. So I kicked the door, they flew in him and knocked him down, right? So I get on top of him. I'm rolling him. He's going to becky, me, becky, me, Mickey. I didn't know what he's saying. But I don't know how he went dead. He had two bullet holes, one on each side of his spine,

between the spine and the shoulder blade. So I had a radio on a call, and I said, I got a guy shot here, right? And so that idiot sergeant pulls up. Man, he's like grabbing the governor and say, hey, man, you need to bag his hands, you know. Why don't, I don't have a, you know, for Gia's a gunshot residue test. And I said, there's a water birder right there, go on there and get two new bags. And he's bagged his guy's hand, you know.

We're trying to get life flat in that idiot sergeant's trying to get the helicopter laying. I'd do something else, man. But anyway, to the main theme of the story, I was after a few months, and I, which is a very large disturbance. These are good kids. You know, there's a teenager's party or whatever, a nice neighborhood. And at this time, we had several, we had drive-by shootings,

automatic weapons start showing up in the district. And I was up talking to these are good teenagers, man. I was just, you know, shooting breathes them, like, you know one in the morning or whatever? And they say, hey, you know what these shootings going on? And I said, I'm familiar with it. Yeah. He said, hey, it's a guy named Keith Skora.

He drives a, I said, what's he driving? He drives a red burrata. He's the one bringing the guns in here and selling them, right? And to this day, this district attorney's office has held this guy from us. He's buried out. He's out somewhere. But so I made note of, right? And so I had that, Dave Rozier was my idiot sergeant.

And my lieutenant was Jay Coon's, policeman's policeman, Marine, Sharp, this guy knew his business, man. So I just dealt with lieutenant. Which being in the military, what I know, don't jump your chain of command. But when you have a totally incompetent coward, you have to do what you got to do, get the job done. So I cordoned all this for Lieutenant Coon. Jonah and he trusted me. He knew what I was doing. And so a couple weeks later, I guess, I'll pull over this little ratty station wagon, driving through this nice neighborhood, like two in the

morning, rolls to a stop sign in front of me. Clearly it didn't belong to the neighborhood, right? So I had my probable cause. He wrote through a stop sign. So I stopped him, they had a little bit of weed, and this guy, Michael Schaefer, he wanted to be in my informant on this. He was driving. Next to him was this guy who gave me the bogus name. It was actually the Keyscaro guy. And Michael Schaefer's girlfriend was in the back. And I don't like details, but in these books, these tabloid trash books, whatever, that I was jamming them up, hitting them up on school. Then I happened, all lies. They had some weed, and they said, I wrote a bunch of tickets.

There's no ticket. I didn't write tickets. There's a record of that. So I'll let them go. Hey, you know what I mean? I don't smoke weed, whatever. So a couple weeks later, a guy, Biker Shavers by himself, he does the same thing, right, that stops on in front of me. I'll pull them over again.

And then it's kind of a little cul-de-sac or no houses on it. And then this guy starts talking. And he said, hey, man, you know about these guns out here? I said, yeah, you know. He said, I know all about it. So, immediately my police senses were up. Why this guy voluntarily? More than like he's trying to get out of me arresting him or anything.

We're just talking, you know. And he said, yeah, there's a burger ring down here going on up here. He said there's some real gang members, gangbangers out of Houston. They called recruited a bunch of these guys, some of these guys that hang out with to burglarize these big expensive homes. And whatever these guys stole out during the burglary, they kept, except for what the gangbangers wanted were there with a, basically semi-automac rifles, AR-15s, Mini-14s, whatever, F&FLs.

And GameBer was taking them and converted them to full auto and putting, you know, silencers, suppressors, and lasers on them, which is cool back then. And these were what were showing up on shootings, right? So I run this by my lieutenant, Coons. And he said, he said, well, can be posted. But when I talked to Michael Schaefer the second time, we had beepers, no cell phones back then.

And I had a business card, and I wrote my beeper number on the back. I said, hey, man, something happens to give me a holler. all right so I'm still thinking why would this guy tell me this which has been a big controversial issue over this right and so I a couple weeks later he calls me he said hey some of these dudes to hang out with they brutalized the house last night they got a stolen gun so what kind of gun he said it was a bit of a pistol it was a revolver smith and weston 357 it came out to be I heard my coons and coons said yeah just come in plain clothes and do a buy bust on the gun we'll just do the bigger fish thing like in drug deals or you know get the smaller guy and build up so

make a loss of short, arrange for the buy bust. I'm in a record, working plain clothes. I had the jumpout guy. His mother deputies hidden behind a building. I watched my informant pull up. I read Mustang pull up, which had this guy told his name was Daryl Tracy.

He was actually a key squirrel. We found out 20 years later. And a guy named Jason Aguard, his mother went up shooting 48 hours over this. Jason Aguilar gets out with the stolen gun. I watch the transfer the cash, the buy money, transfer the gun. my informant does the bus signal

and I get on a radio and we come down and take everybody down well there was another car with them I had two young female girls like 15, 16, 17, whatever and they're all hysterical I say you need to hang out with these guys going in trouble and get out of here

well they go down the street and they get Jason Aguilar's mother the suspect I went up shooting she was in her drinking she was married and her boyfriend was married but not to each other and two girls go down to this piano bar and get her And so she shows up at the scene

I see his Lincoln Town car pull on I'm sitting there kneeled down next to a patrol car her son's in the backseat patrol car I'm talking to fill out to a record slip which comes into play on this. I see his female pull up and get out clear intoxicated and I looked at Scott Genovese, one of my best friends who wind up commit suicide over this.

Not to Scott and I said, man, there's somebody's pissed off parents. Well, this, I never say her name. I said when Susan White was a suspect. It's all she ever was when it was a felony suspect. But she goes up to a patrol car, says something. Then she goes to this line of deputies. And at this point, I was like 5-11, 185.

I was 27 at the time, you know. I've been ills for 34 years. But she goes up to Tommy Wells. She was like 6'4, 325, in his 60s. I'm not McGowan, that's my gallon, which goes with Chris Gush, tall skinny red-headed green eye, nothing like me. She was a four different deputies.

They find that's my gallon over there. So I'm in plain clothes She goes up My partner Scott Genovese She was standing there next to me And she's hollering This is a fucking set up My little boy wouldn't do any of this

We'll get into his history later But She calls Genevisa McGowan And I said I'm a gown What's your problem? You know We're missing my side So here's the deal man

I said here's the deal You can get your ass out of You're going to go to jail for interfering Back then you could You know And so the mom's her dude she was with He knew not to mess with us This guy's something

Like something about Joe Pesci movie He had an Italian goal Lovehorn, big old fat guy in like 60s, sitting black hair combing. He's like a black silk suit, big red collar on the outside. But he knew not to mess with us. So he grabs the suspect, puts her in his car. A few minutes later, she bells out. And she had one of the first cell phones, the big brick ones with the black rubber antenna.

She has Captain C.J. Harper on the phone. He was not in my chain of command, but he used to be the captain of this district. She goes run up to me. Cap Harper's talked to you. And I said, he's on my page your number. He can call me tomorrow. I'm on a scene. He can call me to my job.

My beeper number. Bang, gang, yeah. So I'm like, well, how does she know this captain? You know? And that first deputy that she went to in a patrol car, I had, that was in 19, August 25th, that was 23rd that in 1992.

Never knew who that deputy was until about three months ago. I'll call him across a statement. That's how that woman knew my name. All these years. How did she know your name? Because, and this guy reached out to me about three days ago, this deputy. 34 years later.

But when he went up, she went up to him hollering. Where's my son? This is a fucking set up, this and that. And he goes, this in my scene, he goes, Deputy McGowan's the command of the scene he talked to him. After all these years, we just recently found, that's how she knew my name, you know.

But anyway, she gets the hell out of there. So we both, you know, we snatch everybody up. We go down a substation. I'm sitting across the table my lieutenant doing the paperwork. And a phone rings. It's like three in the morning. Because that arrest is like at 1.30. And it was in a park lot of nightclubs.

There was a lot of people, record drivers, deputies, everybody, you know, there's a lot of witnesses to what went on. And so, Lieutenant Coons answers the phone. He's like, okay, he hangs up. I don't think anything about it. But Tim and started calling in. He's looking at me going like, you know, like making goofy face. So what the hell is that about?

He goes, that was that woman from the scene. So what was she calling about? Oh, she was calling up here saying that on that scene, I was asking her, she was divorced yet. I knew nothing about this woman. Telling her she had sexy legs and all. this, shapely legs, I'm sorry. And we're laughing because we were there,

you know, and nothing else said. So we're doing paper. By an hour later, she shows up the substation, screaming and hollering, man, I hear on the hallway, Lieutenant Coons, Deputy Gush, Deputy Genovese, they go up there, we should have arrested her that night. This wouldn't have happened, right? So this is into Saturday, Sunday morning. And so, like, 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon,

my beeper's going off. It's my informant, Michael Schaefer. Whenever you had your informants or your chips or whatever, you give them a code, like five. 517. So if you get strange, you don't have like 517, you know, that's your girlfriend or whatever. So I called him. He's on a panic. Man, they know what they know as a snitch, man. Last night when I, you know, cut me loose out back, got pulled up on me, pulled a gun, you know, fucking snitch this, whatever. And this suspect, she's called my family in Austin here in Colleen, just north of here. I was who talking about, man? He said, yeah. And he said, man, she's telling my family that,

don't you know what happened to informants? Don't you watch TV, informants get killed, you know, Snitches in Houston died, blah, blah, blah. I said, where are you now, man? He was at my brother's house. And actually his brother reached out to me a few days ago. But I saw you safe there and he said, yeah. And then I said, all right, I'll go into work early. So I went on early.

Called him, talked to him, we've got to run now. So I called the district attorney's office, speak to the D. He was on call that night, Gene Spradling Hughes. She said, I'm going to take charge. I'll take except charges on felony retaliation for threatening a witness, you know, or conflict informant. And then I said, all right. she said, hey, I get off at midnight, so when you get down, it'll be different day.

I'll brief him. I'm sorry. So my informant, his mother lived here in Austin. I said, what's her, what's your phone? I don't know. What's your address? I don't know. Have you been to her house?

Well, she lives in an apartment. What's the address? I don't know. Can you describe it to me? So I call Austin PD, and they actually find her, you know, just by saying, well, she lives in this apartment on this corner and it's the third building on the left or whatever. But you find her, she calls me. And I said, what was going on?

She lied until she died recently. But I said, do you know this Susan White? And she goes, I've talked to a few times. My son used to live there. And I'm like, see, I forgot to tell me that. That he'd live there. And I said, and I said, what's your opinion? She's, I think she's a fucking nut, you know?

And I said, well, I'm going to get a warrant. I said, do you think she has the ability to do or have done some bodily injure death of your son? She was, yeah. I said, I'm greatly relieved. You know, I'm going to call my son, tell me he needs to get out of Houston. So there's that much. concerned.

So we can also short. I go to the DA's office. The other DA was on there, Jim Mount, who shows up on these documentary, he's crying, and what this, you know, this does, line his ass off. I go to get the warrant by now, get the paperwork done, he runs the DA, he reads it, you know, he reads the statements, whatever. He writes up the warrant and he has to go to a judge. And it's like 4 a.m. at this point.

He never, he wouldn't call a judge. I say, hey, man, they're already threatening my informant. When he's just, you know, suspect, you're not going to start her up. Well, I'm not going to get him. a judge involved, judge so-and-so comes in at six, which is two hours later, six a.m. So I leave it there, never touched the warrant, all right? So I'm going to hang out for two hours. So I bump Tommy Moore, my day shift relief deputy and said, hey, go get this warrant and run it. Well, if I was going to go commit this murder, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have left it for someone else to run the warrant.

That's number one. So I got a call about 10 o'clock that morning. It's Tommy Moore at the DA's office. He said, hey, the judge won't sign the warrant because where I'd signed is the affiant three times. have been whited out, which actually they used to do back then. And I saw, I'll just come in early tonight getting his right. He goes, hey, this prosecutor wants to talk to you. Well, it was a prosecutor who was going to handle that case. She's the phone with me. She goes, what in the fuck you do?

Why do you run this warrant last night? I said, hey, man, you need to talk to your coworker Jim Mound. He wouldn't give it to me, you know? Well, this, you know, someone wanted to be dead over this. I said, I did my job. You didn't talk to your people, you know? So I'll go and get the warrant. This leads at the shooting.

I go get the warrant in the DA's office. And there was another, you know, DA was on duty. Mike Anderson, great guy, great guy. I wanted to be in a district judge, the district attorney of Harris County. Great, great guy. I went in there as young HPD officer. We get the warrants. We go to the judge's house.

And like you see, it's tabloid trash. I wouldn't bang, and I got to get the warrant and arrest this bitch. It was just, it was a third-degree felony, you know. So I'm shooting it with Mike Anderson. You know, we weren't friends if I knew him from like the academy, in a couple of cases, whatever. So we go to his judge's house. He's sitting there talking about, you know, his wife passed away, old guy,

I work as gun collection. So we're dragging ass. You know, we don't hurry to go kill somebody, right? So, hey, HPD officer goes his way. I go my way. So I bumped that idiot sergeant on a radio or zero. I said, I got the warrant. Bring it to the office.

It's all right. And so I get to the office. I walk in and yanked out of my hand. And Deputy Marong, Ted Marong and Mike Molloy, the guys who've courageously ran this warrant with me, stood behind me. Our stories have never wavered.

Like, these guys weren't like friends of mine. We just, I never saw him socially nothing. We were in calls here. That was it. That asshole, Regero, yanks out of my hand. He looks at it and he goes, go run the fucking warrant. And I said, hey, man. I said, it goes, take him wrong with one and go run the warrant.

I said, hey, man, you need to go out there, dude. You're the supervisor. You're the sergeant. I said, there's drugs, burglaries, gangs, automatic weapons. You may want to get your ass out of the safety and comfort of air conditioning office. Get out here, man. And he looks at me and, and this is a drug quote. He said, he goes, he goes, what are you some kind of fucking pussy?

Take him wrong and run the fucking warrant. That's the first sentence in the book. I think it's in bold, actually. See what he's some kind of fucking pussy first the first words in the book has written about this recently But I'll tell him again. I say hey man you need to get more deputies out here, you know To Houston we used to have like a sergeant and six-rate officers were gonna fill any warrant you know And so why would I try to get this asshole sergeant to go with me run a warrant? Everybody despised him everybody hated him

But why would I get him to go with me to commit a murder, right? And then why would I want to get more deputies that I didn't even know I kept saying you get six more guys who out here man, you know. How are you a fucking pussy? Tell him I'm a fucking warrant. So, you know, now I'm trying to get more deputies that I don't know to go commit this murder. I bring two guys I didn't really know, you know.

So while we walk out of the station, I stopped and I'd never done this on a warrant before. I've worked organized crime. I've served many warrants. I was going to call this female. I didn't know she's crazy, drug addict and all this. Because back then, I don't know about now, if you could have a no arrest bond where you go to your bondsman, you know, post-bond.

and not in keeping him going to jail for one of the days and you show up at court a day or two later. So I figured being in this, you know, it's a bourgeois neighborhood, whatever. Like I said, I don't need his background on her. And so, and we have the copy of that where there was two calls on the answer machine, phone mate they used to have where I called.

So we step outside, Marlono, what hell's going on? So I was going to run the warrant. You know, I'll brief them. So we parked out door two down. And Deputy Morong, Todd Morong and I go to the front door, loyal to the back. And this is exactly.

exactly why all this stuff. I think that Breonna Taylor started, no knock warrants. This is why you don't knock on a door. I've always done dynamic entry. Sneak up there, crash to the door. It keeps the suspect from, you know, fleeing, hiding, running, grabbing a gun, like happened here. If we just kicked the door, none of this will happen. But a moron knocks on the door and then Tepin Malloy went to the back to maintain security. And then the house was dark. And then the suspect comes of the door, clearly intoxicated her. She was on four different drugs after the autopsy. She was blasted out of her mind.

She was slurring, yang, gang, gang, yeah. Who is it? And Morong says, hey, it's the sheriff's part when you talk to you. I don't know, what do you want? What do you want? He goes, what? And we found out she'd call it 911, 34 nights in a row. She'd always call somebody break in my house. Somebody's going to burglarize me. And these deputies go to her house, she'd open door with nothing on or a thong or whatever.

Yeah, she was quite the character. And I had just gone to work in that district, so I didn't know all this. And the two guys were with me, Marong and Blois, they worked a whole southern end of the district, so they didn't know this is going on in this woman. This is how the captain winds up banging her, and a lot of other guys we find out years later. But she's all slurred,

and so Marong says, hey, we got some stolen property we recovered from you, we need to give it to you. And she starts trying to open the door. I mean, she said, I don't see your IDs. It was like these real nice double doors, like to cut glass. You could see through it, but you couldn't, you know. So, Marong tells her,

Morong tells her, Deputy Morong, he said, hey, open the door, and we'll show your IDs. We ain't hand under the door. So now she calls the Sheriff's Department. And she said, I'm going to talk to Lieutenant Coons. I'll talk to Lieutenant Coons. They don't know what's going on. This is some crazy drunk lady calling him.

Sheriff's Department, they're saying, well, dispatchers, well, Coons, he's not on, you know, he doesn't work to shift, you know, or he's not on today or whatever. You have to call him into the station. And she starts calling 911. And she starts calling her, there are deputies out here, there are detectives. They say they're out here with a warrant, and they're telling her, you need to open the door.

You know, these are out there with a warrant for your arrest, you know, basically. And I know also being recorded, right? So I'm not going to go commit murder on. It's being recorded by the police. And so this is only like 15 minutes, you know. And then Morong said, this is Deputy McGowan, Deputy Marlon and Deputy Maraulay, and Sheriff make you open the door, which here's my name. So she starts hollering, get that fucking deputy, get that McGowan off.

She never says my name, Kent, which is my middle name. I'm always going by. Get Deputy McGowan off my property and he thinks he owns the world and he's been sexual harassment and I was, damn, I'm wrong. How does she even know my name, right? I'm wrong, and I'm going to. What the hell? So, and we had a warrant.

We didn't have to get permission, but I didn't trust that sergeant. It's wronging. I talked. So I said, I'm going to bump this idiot sergeant. Because he was too scared to go in the south there. So I go to the driveway and I bump Sergeant, on the radio. I said, hey, man.

I said, we're out of her. She's refusing to open the door. What do you want us to do? I just wanted his permission because we don't have to have to have. I didn't trust that guy. And he said it's a fucking, he was on a back channel. He was a fucking felony warning and run the fucking door.

It kicked the fucking door. I said, man, you need get your ass out here. He said there in his air-conditioned, you know, office. You can get your ass out here, Rogero. He wouldn't come out. So that's another time.

What if he just said, no, don't get the, well, then my murder, I'm a murder plodian. Or if he'd come out there like a supervisor who had balls should have done. And so I'll go out to a tell.

wrong, said, hey, Roger said kick the door. And he's two doors, for a wonder of reason, the doors opened out. So I was a pretty good size dude. Todd was way bigger. Tom, bam, his door twice. It's not budgeted. I said, there's no sense to turn up these expensive-ass doors.

Just maintain security here. I'll go around a fourth century of Malloy in the back. So around the back of Malloy, we'd knock on door. And then during this time, Mallory, Marong, the front sees the suspect coming toward us through the class, the shadow. Excuse me, so he's hauled ass around to tell us. Well, I don't know wrongs behind us.

Coming up behind us. Malloy kicks the door one time. Nothing. It kicks the second time. It cracked. And the alarm went off, man. Still like to hear it, like, watching TV, a house alarm goes off.

It's a, it's a trigger, man. I just, I just like, oh, man, never forget that. But it cracked the door. And Malloy thinks it's not coming down. And I said, hey, hit it again, man. It's like, bam. He was a big dude, too. The whole doorframe crashes through.

We went into this little utility room there was trash. The suspect had destroyed the house. She was, I was 27 at this point. She was 46. Her husband was 53. He had left her for their 17-year-old maid who he had a kid with at this point. So she was all pissed off. She trashed the house, spent all his money and all this stuff, right?

So anyway, so Malloy goes in because it was trash. He trips and falls over the garbage. So, of course, I go over him. That's just officer safety, you know, a cover one guy. So this is me number one in the stick I don't know wrong is behind me So I'll clear the little breakfast area in the kitchen Look to the right in the very large living room

There's a door which led into the bedroom suite I see the suspect moving Right on the light and a flashlight hit her I see it go across she has something in her hand I thought it was a portable phone she was running around hollering on And that's what she went to get the gun Apparently so we'd beeline over there

And there's a lot of controversy You know why didn't you search the rest of the house You ran right to her and gunned her down the bedroom Yeah I'm running a felony one on a suspect there's a suspect. Why are we going to go search? What are we're going to look for the suspect? There they are, you know.

Why search the rest of the house at that point? So I see her shoot across there. And we had our weapons out, of course, flashlights. And so I go and lean on the door. And at this point I said, no, I'm going to be physically right on top of me. I don't know my lungs behind him. I lean on the door like this.

And I look in and she's holding, she had a pistol on her right hand. Her head her right elbow on her hip. She never says a word to me. At this point, I hollered at her. I said, drop the gun, drop the gun. At this point, and you do tunnel vision. So in a way, someone's going to kill you with her hands, right?

So I'm watching the gun in her hand, you know. And she comes up like this. And I've been in situations, you know, doing stuff like that. And then it just wasn't clicking, man. I'm in this nice house. Here's this blonde-headed woman. I mean, it just wasn't, you know, let's say fight like a train, train like you fight.

I mean, we're like in a crack house or, you know, trap house, whatever, you know. And then I literally, she comes up like this, or the weapons index, her fingers are on the trigger, right? I had a flash like this. So I said, drop the gun, drop the gun. She comes up. I said, drop the gun, I'm going to shoot you. I'll see her, put her finger on the trigger, right?

So I do my thing to protect myself and my brother deputy is behind me. And first shot, clip the cuff, so she was at least pointing her right hand up. There's a lot of issue about that. Clip the cuff and instructor center my eyes. It was pretty much an immediate lethal round. And it spun her to the left,

and another round hit the right arm. arm went through the arm into the chest cavity is non-lethal and then when I was backing up the door open swung open like this but went open all that I'm leaning around the door like this and there was a like a little chest of doors nightstand or something with a TV and the cable converter box on top the third round went through the cable converter box and deformed the deformed the round and rich shade a bit and she already fell into the path of that round but that's first one I saw them wrong you know and there's an issue about what I'm I said, that that how, shot's fired.

And I looked at Maroy, I mean, he's literally physically next to me. I looked at Maroy, and I said, because my immediate emotion was anger. I mean, I was, I was put in that position, you know. It was badda-da-da-down shots. I looked at Todd. It takes me one or two seconds. I said, man, I said, man, you know.

He said, gotcha, gotcha. And I was saying that. And then Marang went and jumped on top of the, she landed on a waterbed, jumped on the suspect. And it came out on both trials. that by the down shot the fire. I looked up in Malloy, and we were by no means buddies at all.

We were friendly. We just worked together. That was it. Ran calls together at night. But it was like, hey, you'll wink, wink, wink, no, you got me,

right, you got me, you got me. You heard me tell her, right? We got this, right? Absolutely not what happened. I was, man, I was in a rage.

You fuck, I told her, man, you're not told her, you know? So then Moran gets on topover. And I don't know what to do with my flash up. Joyce handcuffed the suspect. So I'm a weapon out.

Todd's on top over. and then both of us the only conflict at all between Morong and I was who said there's a gun first I specifically remember him saying

he reminds me saying but it doesn't matter that's the heat of the moment you know at this point there's you know there's smoke in the room the alarm's going off your night vision's gone

and I remember when I shot I saw this like a pull road back in my head my glock and my slide back and two spent casings in there and the muzzle blast and a blur of the suspect in front but they

by the way it's on top of her not reaching the guns under her right hand which is the big issue under her right knee not pitching the floor and then wrong rolls roer and he said

to the effect he said she's deceased you know so fuck man so I got on the radio and I was unit 4176 you know but I said

I got on radio I said 4176 that shots fired I said suspects down all deputies okay roll EMS supervisor supervisor

or general I said roll supervisor and the package. The package is like eternal affairs, homicide, DA's office, whatever. And so I back up, and Ron Malloy, I maintain security at the bedroom door. Ron Maloy goes to try to clear the house, and her idiot son was up there. And he was supposed to be no bonded, which this day, he got out, because he had a complete history. They had this, that woman and her son, they had terrorized that neighbor for 10 years. Her son tried to burn down an extra neighbor's

million-dollar house because they told him, don't smoke, dope at my house. The neighbors all had to build fences. The weekend after the shooting, the neighbor had literally had a bloters. The party. That's the morning. And this is like engineers, doctors, lawyers. It was a nice name, brother. They were so glad to get that family out of there, you know, or her son. But anyway, did they bring down that little bastard, her son? He, because I'm not, dude, look at me and always, and I think he's been on a documentary, but they said how wrong with the Lord I were laughing and I was smirking in him. I'm a little bastard looking at me. He kind of smirked, you know, and so they put him in the troll car. Everybody shows up.

Sergeant Ruggiero showed up, I guess. You know, he kind of had to get out of his office at this point. But I go sit in his shop. He goes, he goes, oh, some of my car. So he gets a pen and legal pads. He started writing what happened. You fight. No, man.

So, your union lawyers are in a route, right? Homicide bumps me. Where's a gun? Don't touch him. All right. So, really, that was the basically shooting, man. And then at that scene, the DAs got there, as it sent me up, Steve Clapper,

de-investigator. third day on the job, mind you, and Ed Porter. But you do a walkthrough. You know, anytime you get involved in shooting, you know, I was here, I'm a lawyer, you know, whatever. And I remember Clint Greenwood was my lawyer, fantastic union war. And he got assassinated on April 3rd of 2017. By some nut.

But we're standing at a doorway, and there was a big stereo speaker, had a legal patent on it. And Clint goes, he elbows and he goes, hey, don't be honest but read that letter. I'm looking or look at it. It was written by the suspect. This is obviously the 48 hours when I arrest her kid and I'll shoot her. And it said,

Johnny Cleveland hang was the sheriff. It said, Sheriff Cleaveragan, I'm coming to you again about your bully deputies. Man, this, this, and blah, blah. And we have this letter now.

And it said, one deputy in particular, and she literally wrote a line. Deputy wrote a line. She even know my name and put it in there. And mind you on the bed, also when the shooting occurred,

I told you about the record slip, when I was spelled her record somewhere to her kid's car was full of bullet holes and stolen credit cards or whatever she had in her handwriting which we have now it's written on the back of that deputy j k mcgowan unit 41 76 if she knew me why would she even have to write that on back the record slip you know to see who towed the car but uh anyway we do the walk through crime scene here they call the CSU crime scene units this guy ryan hard gets there never been trained it is a crime scene investigator He doesn't take pictures, measurements, he leaves a bullet there, much other evidence.

He doesn't take the cable converter box. He does nothing. He doesn't test for gunshot residue on the suspect that shot in clothing, the door frame of the gun. Nothing. He did nothing. And now there's people just milling around in there. And later on, we get some pictures that we're taking. We're like, who's this person wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes?

It was the neighbors. They're walking into the bed where the shooting occurred. They're allowed because they're just like, oh, we don't know these people, you know. Because Reinhard did such a shitty job, you know. The day shifts, crime scene sergeant and another investigator knew what they're doing went back. And the house is open. And at this point, you know, eight hours after the shooting, the suspect's husband and his girlfriend, her baby already moved back in the house, you know.

But I'm trying to get all these details, which is crazy, you know, the setup. But there was an issue. You just want one instant, I'll tell about this. When they went back that next day, there was a waterbed that suspect fell on. The round strucker hit the cable converter box, struck her in the face, one way, punched through the headboard,

the bedboard, punched to the wall and fell between the brick and the sheetrock. The crime's seeing people get out there because they're like saying, they asked Reinhardt, why it's only two bullets, Denny fire three? Well, yeah.

Did you just fucking leave one there? Yeah. So anyway. They drain the waterbed and move it. This is very important. They moved that water bed, right? And the husband's girlfriend are there anyway. So five days later, Ed Porter,

to the assistant to the prosecutor of the Civil Rights Division, who's instigating this, he comes back to with Steve Clapper, his investigator. He was retired, HBD homicide object, a clown his entire career, and John Denton, home, which he'll get to. Lieutenant sent me up. They go back there five days after the shooting.

The waterbeds moved at least once. Mind you, the day after shooting, when the crime scene started with there, they moved the, the drain of water, removed it and they cut out a two foot by two foot section of sheetrock to get the bullet out of there. And so five days later, these guys Porter, Denholm and Clybers, set me up. They go in there and they got these strings. They're saying where I was supposedly standing and all this stuff.

But they had lasers back then, just, you know, rudimentary, but shoot lasers for stuff like that. So that all happens, and that plays into a part about, really testified about the bullet hole. But anyway, the grand jury comes up. You always see a grand jury if you're a policeman, if you injure, hurt somebody or kill somebody. And she just takes three, four, five, six hours. So, man, we're shouldn't get calls by people. I mean, girlfriends, and relatives,

people had nothing to do with the shooting because I did nothing wrong. Ballistics, forensics, all that. That's a whole crazy story. But there's no argument she had the gun. And she illegally, the suspect shot illegally bought the gun. She pulled them in me from Champion's pawn shop. It had the receipt in there and had the ATF form 4473 when you buy a firearm. She felonously bought the firearm because she was like,

convicted felon, a drug addict, alcoholic, in-abinal institutions, voluntarily and involuntary her whole life. And her son even testified she bought a gun to murder her husband with, that's why she bought it. But anyway, crazy shit was going on, and a grand jury comes up. And the grand jury convened for, I think, six weeks on this, the set of six hours. So I get subpoenaed. So I go in her uniform, right? And I think they change it now.

But in Texas, each district judge picked their own grand jury. So they got their neighbors, their brother-in-law. So you have a bunch of old white guys on every grand jury, you know, because they're all retired. They're like friends of the judge. Literally is how it used to me. So all old white guys, a couple of women on there. And then I have some pictures I can give you.

But they give me this little Raven 25 automatic with pink grips on it, the DA. Well, this is the gun. That's not the gun. I'm in uniform, you know. It's not the gun she pulled on me. You know what a raven is. A little nickel plate of 25. A little pink grips.

We're sending the gun. We're just simulating us. You know, you get a similar gun. They wouldn't. But it was just a joke. But to ask at the end, the end of the grand jurors have a question for Deppian McGowan. That's old white guy sitting in the nearest one to me on the end.

He goes, I got some questions. I was like, here we go. And he said, why don't you shoot the gun out of her hand? I said, why don't you quit watching stupid movies? Hey, technically, that's illegal. If somebody's pointed guns you straight on, and if I shoot the, if I miss the gun, it's going to hit him in the chest anyway.

Even if I hit the gun, it probably's going to do. If they weren't going to shoot, that can make the weapon go off, you know. I think he goes, well, why do you fall back and call SWAT? I said, this is NHPD, this is the count. We don't have SWAT. We were basically the SWAT team out there. There was no SWAT to call, you know. But after Grand Jury, about two weeks later, I get called by Mob Bureau Major.

It's a good guy, Charlie Weidemeyer. Been there forever. I think he's still alive, actually. But it was my day off. Charlie Weidemey called me, and he said, he's kind of talking quietly. He said, can you hear me? I said, yes, sir?

He said, hey, get your attorney and meet me, you need to come down in Internal Affairs. It's all right, and he's quiet and he said, bring your lawyer. All right. So I called Bob Thomas, one of my union lawyers, retired Houston PD sergeant, good guy. I called Bob.

He said, hey, come get me. He said, they're going to suspend you for a day or two. We'll get your money back. Don't worry. It's all right. This is right at election times. So you had the district attorney, Johnny Holmes, the sheriff, Johnny Cleveland,

hated each other. And they were trying, man, trying to get each other out of the office. They're trying to set it. It was a big, I fell into that mess because this happened right for election time. So anyway, when I got indicted, man, I go down there, I walk in the internal affairs captain, Major Weidamar sitting in the ID captain desk, ID captain here, homicide captain here, an old detective I've never seen before since. Bob Thomas, my Lord, stand behind me.

We don't know, say, hey, have a seat, man. So I'm like, yeah. He goes, man, I don't know how to tell you this. I said, what? He goes, they handed down sealed indictment on you. And my lawyer goes And I literally, man I felt it coming

You know And my lawyer puts his hands on my shoulders It's pushing me now And Bob was for what He said for murder You know Man I was a highly decorated I never

I didn't even suspended When I was a kid In elementary school Nothing man All right is straight up by the book guy You know So this whole time since the shooting You were back on the job

Because you said it was your day off That's a good point Yeah We're out here in a second Yeah That's a very valid point. Let me address this. Nowadays, the police officers, back then, even the Houston PD,

they had all psychological services. County didn't, light years behind. If you get, you see like you police officers in the shooting, you have two weeks to do, take a week off, light duty for a month or whatever. Those two deputies were with me. They went back on the street for two hours. They gave their statements,

and it was like four in the morning. I never got a day off. None of us did. And a week after the shooting, I call this dickhead, Rosero. And I were 10 to 6. I'll come at like 9 o'clock. I say, hey, man, I'll burn my own sick time.

I take a day off. What are you a fucking pussy? Man, I said, look, I'm not coming in, dude. Then he said, I need a day off, you know? And he said, you need to come in, or everybody doesn't think you're a fucking pussy. Let's hang up on that dude, man. And I went in to be an asshole.

I didn't do anything that night. But they gave us nothing, you know? And like two or three weeks into this, my bureau major and some other guys We had some stuff to discuss. And we're eating a restaurant or whatever. And Major Weedmar asked me, I had to go to the psych.

It's like two or three weeks afterwards. That's what do you mean? You didn't go to, because they didn't even have their only contracted with a psychiatrist. Actually, we found him recently. And I said, nobody told anything about it. Man, he asked an address on his business card

and he'd be here at 9 o'clock tomorrow and more and I'm making calls. He was pissed, you know. So I go in there and I talk to the psychiatrist for like 30 minutes or whatever. I did the MNPI. It's like two tests, like 600 and 800 questions

that rates your mental state, if you will. And in a Minnesota multifaceted personality inventory test. Anyway, I go do that for a few hours. Then he calls him back in her and he goes, hey, I rated you, man, you're flatline. I'm going to go ahead and third. You about to work.

I said, oh, I appreciate man. I said, I've been back to, I've been in work. He goes, what? I was something with this whole time. You know worse than shooting? I haven't had a day off. Man, he was, what? He was pissed, man.

But, you know, I was back at work and almost got a shooting. Three days after that, I'm sitting there talking to my wife. I was at a gas station using pay phone at major intersection. And Yahoo rednecks, I pick up, drop by, and I don't think they're shooting me. They're just shooting guns. I hung up the phone. I got my patrol car. And I'll get them pulled over and I'm at gunpoint.

It's idiot Rojero pulls up behind me. He must have been going to get donuts or something because he never left his desk. He pulls up behind me. Man, I always popped that dude, man. He reached out for that gun. I was, man, if I'd shot this guy three days later, it would not look good. So do you think it was the police department that was pushing for your prosecution or the prosecutors or a mix of both? Okay, here's the crux of this whole thing.

This guy named John Denholm. He was a big, slovenly guy from Ohio. He was an administrative sergeant when I was an instructor, never was my supervisor. One of the other instructors named Ron Ackerman. Scott Genovese, I spoke about it. He was a suicide over this thing. He was an instructor with us. This sergeant, he was just a big, loudmouthed, slavily bully from Ohio.

Everybody hated this guy. And not to get honest, but I'm Ackerman and this other death, I bumped heads with him constantly. Because both Akerman and I'd come from other agencies, right? This guy was always bullying the rookies and this. He despised us. And so I called him tamper with our payroll one time. If I had a, I should have arrested him, it's never happened.

But he was involved in this very corrupt clique that was going on back down. was a major and some lieutenants or whatever. I get into a shooting, and the next day, this major promotes this John Dental, this corrupt major, to a lieutenant, puts him in charge of homicide in charge of my shooting, right?

And so, needless to say, it didn't go well for me. But they, so he's in charge, he's a lead investigator in my shooting. Ackerman gets into a situation, and it was a totally bullshit deal.

Akeman winds up going to prison for 17 years, you know? But I remember I got indicted, When I got indicted, I'm walking out my lawyer. My lawyer said you're not handcuffed him. He said, you're not handcuffed him. I said, man, we're doing that. And I remember that old detective in the corner I told you about.

When they told me I'd been died for murder, he looks at me and goes, let me tell you something, deputy him going on. He said, I was over 46 years. He said, 42 years, internal affairs of homicide, hundreds of shootings, hundreds of shooting, police shootings. He says, this is the cleanest shoot I've ever seen, man. He said, you had a warrant signed by a judge. You had two deputies didn't even know running the felony warrant. The suspect, the gun she bought, we had the paperwork, she bought it in a pawn shop to kill her. in her own son said she bought to kill her husband with.

He goes, this scares his shit out. He goes, this would be, he said, this could be me and the other 8,500 officers in this county, sitting in that chair right there. They said, this is bullshit. So, you know, they never put me in jail. That's a little great sword had that. So you get indicted what happens next?

Yeah. Well, they take me down to a, we took cool cars. You know, we just went down to the, my lawyers with me, to the main sheriff's apartment about six miles away. I go sit in a captain's office I've never seen, and they bring the fingerprints and stuff in. I was doing this old captain, and I was like, man, fuck. He was, let me tell you.

He was, you and I made history in Texas. I said, you know, what's that? He said, I was the first, law enforcement in the state to get indicted and a line duty shooting. So how to work out for you? He said, I've been here 36 years, man, it'll work out. It didn't. I was the first police officer in this country to go to prison. Be convicted, get indicted, convicted, and sent to prison on line duty shooting. Now it's like a weekly thing. They jam up everybody. but yeah I get indicted and then you know my lawyers meet with them do they give you bail yeah it was 10,000 that's it yeah for a for a murder alleged murder yeah I wouldn't go anywhere I was one well-known family and you know it's not like I was just Joe shit the ragman crack

dealer shooting and got the stop and go or something and what this is in 1990 92 I guess well 10 thousand dollars is what like 100,000 now well now in Texas they don't even anybody bond just let you go give them a hundred bucks you leave it out. Oh, there's no catch. I mean, in Texas, Harris County, you can go out and you have 15 felonies you're out on bonds for, and you got to murder somebody, $100 bond, $10 to get out. Yeah, look, that's a crazy story.

I thought Texas is strict on crime. I know, unless you're a policeman. So do they fire you or they put you on leave when you're... Yeah, they technically had to fire me. Oh, there's no admin leave or anything. No, if I didn't know, if I'd have to the city, because the civil service was different at the county. Yeah. And so at this point, all hell breaks loose.

And then family's torn apart, you know. And then... What does your wife say? Hey, man, they were just... They didn't know. I mean, they knew, but they didn't know what to do. Nobody about family, they got a ticket. You know, I didn't from a good family, man, law enforcement, military veterans,

entrepreneurs, you know, good people. And how old are you at this point? 27. And are you still in college or you're done? Well, everything came to halt after that. I got indicted. But you were accurate. going to college.

So why didn't you just go back to Houston policing before? Well, actually I was. I was in process of doing that. Because when I saw when I saw what the sheriff's part, when I saw what was going on, especially on the street, I was like, whoa,

hell no, man. I mean, I could take some crazy stories about stuff also these redneck deputies doing out there, you know, and I was like, man,

these guys are going to go to jail. I'm the one. I was only one. Moran lawyer, good guys. There were some good guys out there. Don't even wrong. My lieutenant was fantastic.

Jay Coons, he didn't put up with any of shit. And he hated it. Roberto Giro. But yeah, when I getting dited, man, didn't, over the course of things, windows got shot of the house, had brake lines cut, almost ripped my truck, whole, flat tires. The suspect's shot was from Louisiana, and there was fish, and we'd find fished the mailbox, crawded's in the mailbox, and there was also people trying to help us. We get videotapes and files or whatever, people just middle of the night come by and, you know, help us out.

But skip ahead. Shooting is October 25th, 92, getting died. at October 28th, 92, go to trial in February 94. And I had my union lawyers, you know. And they're good guys, ma'am, but they're just outgunned. They're former prosecutors. There's outgunned, lied to. They trust the guys that worked at the DA's office. And then I go to the first trial.

A judge I had was great. Adiazio's old guy. He was a POW in World War II. And he said from the beginning, he said, there's no way I'm going to send you to prison. If the law allowed me to keep you out. And he did exactly that, you know. So trial was a joke.

It was ridiculous, man. And then they, my own sister short, it was like a two-y trial. I get found guilty, you know. And then back then, if you got 15 years or less, even on a murder charge,

you'd stay on bond. My bondman was there, he lived across the street from, and I fished with the guy, right? So we knew if I got 15 years and I was going home. And Texas has a two-tiered trial, if you will. They're the guilt and innocence phase. and then if you found guilty, they have the punishment phase.

In Texas, you can go to trial by judge and then guilty instance by jury, whichever. I went to jury for punishment, I mean, for the guilty verdict and punishment. Wait, why didn't you go to the by judge if you said the judge was on your side? We should have. It was just an improper decision made by people at the time. So anyway, we'd go back the next day. you know, they give me 15 years. So we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know no one going anywhere, you know, going to jail at least. Well, give me 15 years. The judge it or the jury? The jury. So the jury picked the sentence. Yeah, they give me 15 years. Okay. When they said guilty, I'll say to him where Brian Beacon and Clint Greenwood.

Actually, I have a picture of the front page of Houston Chronicle. Brian, I mean, Clint Green, I'm right. He literally broke down. He just absolutely couldn't believe it. You know, I mean, my heart breaks those guys at this very day. Brian turned and threw up in the garbage game. He was so upset. It was just so corrupt in what was going on.

Can't the judge overrule the jury on the sentence or no? No, not in Texas, no. But let me just give you one point that went on in the trial. Remember I talked about the two-foot, two-foot section cut out of the wall? Steve Clapper, the de-investigator sent me up. He gets on the stand on the first trial and never again because he got caught egregious aggravated perjury. He said that five days later when he went there and did the videotape, which we now have. And all the bullshit they pulled.

he said yeah he said when I got in there the headboard because the prosecution was asked what was the angle way so McGowan if he was standing where he's McGowan said he'd have to be at least seven foot tall what you know and when they finally finally found him back got the gunshot residue there was no residue on the suspect or in the bed so I mean I had to be at least 11 feet from her and the state's theory at the first trial was that with these deputies I didn't know that went in I shot the suspect in the face and then they were then stood over and shot straight through her chest to kill her. While these two deputies, I didn't know,

and it was being recorded. But there's no gunshot residue and hurt nothing. But because there was like no physical evidence, ballistics, for anything that said I did anything wrong, what they did, it was strictly character assassination. Like during my grand jury, they were calling people, and at my trial,

and at my trial, and at my trial. My lord's, who's that? I kind of an idea, you know? Some jerk off arrested seven years ago for burglary or something, you know? I saw a lot of people in prison. jail. I've sent a lot of people up. But they, I'm here bringing people out arrested, but, but, you know, I got to 15 and the judge called me up there, Judge Azios, and he said,

you need to get some good appellate to get this whole return, get you a good appellate lawyer. I don't know why. I remember this exactly. I let the judge, I said, who can you recommend? He said, he said, he goes, hey, what's what I'm looking for? Ethically. He's ethically, I can't tell you about your attorneys know what it costs. We walked right to pay phone call Mac Secreus. This is on a Friday afternoon. He said, be in my office Monday. And during that time period, for those nine and a half years, I was on appeal, a loaning anybody.

And Mac won every time. Every time we'd win an appeal, the state would appeal it. And you were on bail during this? $10,000 bail. For nine years? For a murder conviction out of $10,000 a bond. You're just free for nine years. No conditions, I won't bond, nothing.

What are you doing for work? Trying to get killed. the DA's office. I got six, I had, I got six jobs. So I could talk myself in a job. That's pretty jobs. Every time I get a job, the prosecutor, Ed Porter, would call these companies. And in Texas, I wouldn't, as long as you're on appeal, you're not convicted, I wouldn't convict, I don't convict, I don't convict, at this point. He was calling these businesses and telling them that, oh, he's a crazy convicted murderer, you know, so I'd go in there, you know, they'd fire me. And then the last company I did that with the company, I told what was going on, I said,

I'm going to sue your ass. And the company gave me 40, thousand dollars told me to go away so i'll be in all true you lived off of that yeah but uh man we started getting death threats that prosecutor ed porter would start stalking he had the thing for my wife she was running a uh a restaurant he would come in there and change smoke stared her and he was like just big younger than i am now he's like 56 big tall guy that patchy beard big bulgy eyes and big eyebrows and wearing a creepy old man but he starts stalking my wife we'd be like at a restaurant or kids and they'd be in the parking lot waving in it so set up from my high house. So for years, years has happened. They went out to my parents' ranch when we were all gone

somewhere and trespassed. And he took a video of my parents' ranch. This is right after the Branch Davidian compound here in Waco. And they called my lawyers. I thought it was funny. They said, hey, we went out there. We can't wait for the shootout at the McGowan compound. You know, referring to the, you know, the Branch Dividian thing down here in Waco. But it got so bad that the good judge I had, he went up dying in the middle of this. Judge Azio was called my lawyer and said, get my gallon in here. And I went to start to the judge and judge said, look, I know what's going on. I'm getting wind of this.

He said, I have grave. He said, I have concerns for your inner wife's safety. And my kids are little at this time. And he said, I have grave concern for your children's safety because these assholes are going. My kids are in private school. They're going to their school, trying to talk to the kids. Hey, there's somebody trying to talk to your kids, you know. And then the judge said, do you have relatives out of state?

And I said, yeah. And he goes, you need to move out of state. He was afraid something's going to happen to us over this. And then I said, because when I was in Air Force, I stationed in Montana. And I say, you must go to Montana? He goes, you've never been. Just be here when I call you. I know you was.

All right. So my kids get, my kids go to my parents' ranch. And my wife, I take off to Montana. We get up there, finding a place to live, whatever. We're leaving the next day. We stopped in, I think, Duke, Montana outside of Beach Little is just throw-down motel. And I leave to go get hamburgs or whatever, because we're going to, like, eat and sleep. and get up like four in morning and leave.

I get back to the hotel, and there's two patrol, I think it's Medicine, Boe County Sheriff's Department. Four patrol cars are pulling out. Oh, that's weird. So I parked down to our door, and the door to my room's kicked open, and my wife's soaking wet,

nothing over the towel wrecked around or hysterical. I thought somebody broke in a raped her, because I see these, excuse me, I see these deputies leaving, you know. It takes me five, six, seven minutes to calm her down. What the hell happened? Well, she called her sister in Houston, say, you know, everything's going cool, whatever.

And those prosecutors had an illegal trapping trace, a bug on the phone. Not that we're hiding. I mean, the judge told us to go, my bossman, yeah, and they're doing where we were. This asshole Ed Porter prosecutor, he calls Madison Bowdo County, calls the sheriff, and said, I was a convicted murderer. I'd kidnapped my wife from Texas, and I drove 2,000 miles, whatever, to murder her and bury her in the mountains. So they send the posse over there, right? So they're, they kick in the door, have her down at a gunpoint, whatever, and she finally gets to him, so they bug out. You know, said, oh, hell no.

So I call my lawyer, not Cogdil at this point. And the lawyer said, me you could dress back here. She's hysterical. She put her on a plane. She flies down to Houston gets off the airport. We still know how this worked out. Denholm, Clappert, Denholm, Clapert, and Denham's a homicide lieutenant. Clappert and Denham and the investigator and the airport prosecutor,

waiting for her to get off the plane. Well, my mom and sister are sitting there. You have to go with me. So they don't know. They're all upset. Why see if she has to go? She didn't. They get her DA's honest.

They're showing her autopsy pictures. This is what he's going to do. Your husband's a murder. This is what he does, you know? And, you know, he dated this woman and this. And my wife, she knew what was going on. That was this culture thing. She didn't approve of it.

But, I mean, just kept trying to turn her against me, you know. And then I had another job, and I was in Birmingham, Alabama. I think it was like right before Christmas time. And my wife left the house to go take her, our kids to their cousin's house for birthday, the same neighborhood. She comes back and shuts the door. She said he had to been hiding in the bushes, poor to the prosecutor. She said, weren't even five minutes.

All this is documented. and she shuts the door and there's a bang on the door and I always told her, lock the door and look up the people. But anyway, she hasn't, she doesn't, she opens the door and his porter.

He shoves her and comes to sit there for two hours telling her all this crazy shit we screwed up. He told her that his wife, his living woman for her wife for her choice for 17 years, I'd recently left her. And he had a 17-year-old daughter

who recently died. We'd have never known that. So I call my lawyers. We go down, the judge tells him to stay away which he didn't. He just kept on. But to get on the story, this went on, we won four out of four appeals.

And the DA's office at there, and we're not going to retry them. We knew they were. And so four times up, we won. They're going to have to retry me or dismiss the charge, right? So we're going to retry them. All right. So I had an uncle who was helping out financially. He said, hey, go talk to the top five lawyers, narrow it down to three,

and then I'll go meet with them. We'll decide what to do because I'm going to cut the check on this. This is a ruining the entire family, which it has. And so we'll meet with Max Secre's, my appellate lawyer. Brilliant lawyer. I mean, comparing his briefings to the states, it was a Ph.D. versus a kindergartner. We won every time.

And state and photo law changed over something involved in my case. But every time we win the appeal, they would appeal to a higher court and back and forth, harmless error analysis, hearings in bonk, where all the judges heard it. We kept winning, you know. And so anyway, I narrowed it down. We went and met with Max Secrest, my appellate attorney.

I wanted him to have my case, because he'd have me for nine and a half years. And the Brady violations and whatever, they said, you know, I can't tell you we're not going to go to trial. He said, but we do have, there's a good chance we won't, but it's going to be a million dollars, you know. And he says, he's going to run more than that. You're going to have to pay it. I mean, he won every time. So anytime he needed money, we figured out how to get it to him. Of course, my uncle kind of balked at that.

And we went with some other big wiggily lawyers, and I wanted to go and talking to Dan Cogdale. Absolutely, hands down the biggest mistake in my entire life. this lawyer. I'd seen Dan around the courthouse. I'd never spoken to him, I'd never met him. But he's like this big, brash, arrogant, loud,

and fancy dressing, you know, kind of guy. And my other, my previous attorneys are good guys. They're like kind of me, quiet guys, you know? This is what I need. I need somebody's not afraid

of these assholes, man, go after him. But they, I go talk to Dan Cognito. I go on himself. I go on there, it's just Alan Goodling, his partner,

who we've talked to since. Alan Goodling and he had, like, some paralegals and Jeff the investigator or whatever. And he is this big spiel. He was lying about everything. We didn't find out later that he hadn't even practiced in a year because he'd knocked up some dancer and had a kid.

He was trying to give her a million bucks for the kid. And so, like, how's this first big case to get back on going, right? And so he gets this big story. And so I said, all right, so I wouldn't talk to my uncle. Monko goes to talk to him. He was, all right. And then a bunch of line, controversy stuff he told us absolutely was not true. Anyway, I wanted to Pyron Cogdo.

And so it was 300 grand up front, right? We give him $300,000. And then he said every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, between 3 and 5 is McGowan Day. He goes, be in my office. I had it for 11 months. We never talked about the case. Never. He needed nothing.

And every time I just head down there, he was friends with Johnny Crobbing and Lall Lovett, Johnny Crabba's restaurants and then his uncle, Damia Mandola. And Lall Lovett, that country singer actor guy. So we just like go to Krabba's And they smoke cigars And drink scotch or whatever You know And like our third time doing that

The third time I'd be headed down there His secretary would page me I'd sign me to pay phone Hey meet Don He'd just meet him with Carobas We never in 11 months Discussed my case It's like the second or third time

I'm with him It's me and Jeff Becker The investigator, Dan's driving And Alan Gildon's partners In the front And we got this little We call him Jack Shacks He's an oriental massage partner

And we pull in his ragged ass in his parking lot. I said, what are you doing, man? And what are you going here? I think he's bullshit, right? I said, what? He goes, yeah, we're going. And his jackshack?

He goes, yeah, we go in every day after lunch, get a hand job. I said, you're fucking serious? He goes, yeah, we do it every day. Come on, man, I'll pay. I think, yeah, we just give you 300 grand. You can afford more than a hand job, you know? And I got pissed, you know?

And so, yeah, he felt, I'm pissed off. So we go back and I burn off. He does nothing, nothing. Where the first trial set up for, it was like the Wednesday. It was going to start on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He had this big scam. We're going to go in there.

Because the guy was prosecuting me and made my shooting scenes. So technically, he's a witness. You can't be a witness and a prosecution. So we're about into three or four months having Cogdell. We're sitting there at Johnny Crompice. He goes, hey, here's what we're going to do, man. He goes, I didn't look like this 30 years ago. He goes, look, man, you're photogenic.

I'm photogenic. I'm photogenic. He goes, I do this all the time. When we go to Vordiere, we pick the jury. someplace called War Diamond is actually pronounced Wadir. We go out of Wadir, and he said, don't stare at them or smile, but just make eye contact. He goes, I'll just make as many good-looking women on the jury as possible.

I'm like, what? And he said, yeah, and he said, then during a trial, he goes, every time I get a trial like this, I get called by one of the women on the jury. Hey, if you go out with me or sleep me or whatever, I'll give you a not guilty vote. And I'm like, I said, are you serious? She goes, yeah, I do it all the time.

I said, this is your fucking, this is your legal strategy to do this, to get me out of this? I worked all the time. So I said, man, it's going downhill, dude. So my family flies in whatever to start trial. He postpones it like two days ahead of time. He's postponed it until March, yeah, March of 2002. Imagine the shooting happened in 92. So we get to the trial.

And then 11 days prior to trial, Jeff Becker, Dan's private investigator calls. me. And I'm set up to my wife, the kids are at school, we're talking about how Dan's doing nothing. 11 days prior to trial. Excuse me, Jeff Becker calls, answer the phone, and he said, hey, man, I tell a tone in his voice. He goes, hey, man, I need you to meet me. I need to talk to you. All right, where are you? So what's up? He said, I'll tell him you get here. I said, where are you? He goes, I'm a Cadillac bar. I just yuppie restaurant near downtown. I hang up, I look at Michelle, and I said, I'm fucked. I'm going to prison. Exact words. So I would get dressed, tall ass down, meet him.

You know, we have a couple of cheeseburgers, some lone stars, maybe smoke a Marlboro. He looks to me and he's exactly where she goes, you are fucked, you're going to prison. I just told my wife that very sentence. What is Dan doing? At this point, Dan had me and three of the very high profile, very high profile cases.

And those other three people in me, we had talked, just the four of us had paid Dan $11 million in 11 months time in legal fees. Right? So I'm sitting with Becker. and Jeff tells me he goes he's not talked to any witness the only witness Dan Cockdale

talked to him 11 months was the Sunday night at a restaurant, a public restaurant with Michael Schaefer from my confidence informant for less than an hour the Sunday night before my trial started Monday he talked to not one witness he let it not one document he did nothing you know

and so I'll do something else so when we find out he's not doing anything Jeff tells me at the restaurant. So I'll haul, you know, man, I'll burn off. I'm gonna dance off, just slamming his door. They're trying to grab me. I'm going to reach over the desk and dancing.

Man, if I'm going to prison, dude, you're gonna go to you. I'm coming after you, I'm telling you, you know. And then when I asked Jeff at the restaurant, I said, what the fuck? What did you do with the $11 million? He said, blew little hookers and snorted up his nose, man. That's a lot of doping hookers, man. But, so anyway, make a lot so short. We go to Toronto.

Can you switch it to a, uh, a judge trial at this point or no? I don't think so at that point. You know, my wife's like, you've got to tell your family, man, you got to fire him. I said, we're getting a million dollars for another lawyer.

But why didn't you learn after the first time in the same judge after all those years? Oh, it switches judges? Correct. Okay. This next judge I had was Mary Lou Kiel. And a little sobri on this one. I get called last night by a deputy

who saw me on another podcast. He did 15 years and six months in prison. The same guys, the same judge. So this is a worst judge now. Oh, yeah. She went to Cogdell, she went to law school,

Cogdell and my lawyer at the time. And what about the prosecutor? They just hated each other. Same prosecutor. After 10 years, he kept getting elected? He would not back off, man. But he kept getting elected each year? No, you elect the district attorney.

In Texas, you have a district attorney is the elected official. And prosecutors are there. And then you have the assistant district attorney, the DAs, like California, they call them deputy DAs or something. They're assistant district attorneys. They're the actual prosecutors.

And so anyway, we go to trial. I'm a joke, dude. First day of trial, first day of trial, one of the jurors walks in, and he's holding, one of his tabloid trash books that was written about him many years ago, he comes in, the juror has that book, walks in.

I see it. I told Dan, do you sure the guy has in his hand? He tells the bailiff, we want to mistrial. No. Dan with the law school this judge They hated each other

Man they were arguing from the jury And then we had I had I think there was There's one female on the jury And she lied her in voir dire She forgot to tell us that Hey not only was she a lawyer

But she used to work at the DA's office Before I had poorly they got prosecuted me We find this out years later And she lied about that But we go to trial Dan is so high on cocaine man he literally hands me two legal pads and there's

multiple people witnessed this I think there's some footage of it actually the news he hands me a stack of note pads I mean two notepads or legal pads in a stack of those posted notes he goes right down to everything so Alan Goodling my co-counsel's over here feel sorry for that guy

this idiot Cogdell in the prosecutors I'm literally writing this legal pad who the witnesses were on the stand and what questions for Cogdale to ask him he didn't even know you know trial's going to shit aggravated perjury the two prosecutors involved

and getting the war point fingers each other it was just a joke but they we go we go to have lunch like toward the end of the trial

I'm walking back to my family my brother's a policeman I'm walking back with him I walk him by my truck in the parking lot I knew I was going dude you know I stopped

I looked at my truck or he goes don't even think about it I was gonna haul ass man I said y'all could be in Mexico on four hours I'm telling you, if you're an innocent person and you're getting charged for something, run. Absolutely flee.

It's easier to fight your thing from bleas or somewhere. Do not, man, I tell people, run. If you're innocent, you're in prison, nobody's going to help you. They monitor. We'll get that a minute. But anyway, here's what I have a trial. You got fucked. And I'm writing a question.

And Dan, when it breaks, he hollers and he gets me, hey, man, quit doing it and make me look bad. You know, fuck how you look, man. I'm looking at a life sentence here, dude. I know. And then we, so that went on. There was a lying. They put one of the prosecutors on the stand. You lied.

But anyway, it happens every time in Texas. But get my informant up there. He lied as an assault. But we left one day toward the end. They have, they put them the case in chief. The prosecution does, then the state does. they fight and argue. They have closing arguments.

It's a summation. You cannot bring any more evidence, or witnesses, whatever, during closing arguments, right? So we leave to go on break before closing arguments. So Cogdell lawyer, it gets Becker's investigator,

so you guys come with me. So we had in his truck and he had a townhouse near town. So we go to Dan's townhouse. I started to get out and there's no wait here. I shut the door and Dan goes in. I never forget this man. Jeff Becker.

I had pissed. Yeah, Jeff Becker, he tasked me and goes, you know what he's doing, don't you? He's fucking blowing Coke, man. He goes, yeah, exactly. So Dan comes back, literally had cocaine on his nose. And I said, hey, you get that shit off your nose, Dan, you know? And so we go back to courthouse.

We go out of the courthouse, and Dan does the defense goes first. Dan, he's screaming and hollering, pouring sweat, crazy shit, tearing stuff off. And everybody's like, what is wrong with this guy? I mean, everybody knew, you know, Because this day, lawyers I deal with other government people. They said Dan still brags about it.

He thinks it's funny being a cokehead and drunk. But the prosecution gets up there to do their closing arguments. We don't need to, we don't be around a haul, or we all know what happened here, you know. And then they're putting up, PowerPoints had just come out. They're putting these power points, a picture all the toss you put,

all shit that wasn't even brought in the trial, you know. So, no, it's like I found guilty. They come in, blah, blah, blah. You know, a little Friday. Friday to come in. and to do the verdict. I said I should have run. But I came in with a guilty verdict, you know.

And her mother just wail. You know, her my dad. I was like, man. And then the judge, Mary Lou Keel, she's now in the court of criminal appeals. She points a cog down, and she goes, your client's bond is revoked, right?

So he throws a pencil in there. And I respect no less you. They did all the time, you know. So I put me in jail. over the weekend, which was my birthday, Easter, and my anniversary, all in the same weekend, you know. So, bring me out Monday, go to trial, you know, I mean, for punishment. They're bringing people, we don't even know, man. I mean, if you had nothing to do with the shooting, you know, they threatened to put my wife in jail at the grand jury.

Because she's like, I was not there. I do not know anything you're asking me about. You know, we're going to take you across from and put you in jail for a contempt of grand jury. They started to put my mother in jail. Same thing as deputy talked to called me last night about this, reached out to me. Same guys. But, so you went there and I get 20 years, you know.

I was like, fuck, man. I was, you know, because I knew all the deputies and bailiffs or whatever. So I mean, he held my parents, but I had his Glock.

So I got to pay him. I pat and he goes, don't think about it, man. I would not do it. I'm a non-black guy. I was going to shoot in that prosecutor in that stupid condo.

I was, man. Seam went on, and at this point, it'd been like 10 years of dealing this bullshit, right? So,

they hooked. me and booked me and go to jail. Now, there's still all those witnesses from 10 years ago, still around, alive, everything? We've reached out to a bunch. We've contacted us on. No, at that point, after 10 years, they were still in that.

Dang, Cogdwell called nobody. We, after I had Cogdale, 300 grand, maybe 30 days later, he coming back, he'll say, he'd come in office. What is it now? He goes, hey, we're going to hire these expert witnesses. How much? I need 100 grand.

And I said, he got some uncle. He needs, uncles like, we got to do what got to do, man. So at trial, damn, we're these expert. witnesses, oh, we said we don't need them. So he pocketed that 100 grand. You know, we'll see his documents in a few minutes. But his documents got recently. There's all these receipts that I have from Dan's secretary's, whatever. And he actually

bought a plane ticket for Dr. Ed He'ske. He was a ballistics friend's guy. We have his report tore up what they did, the Sheriff's Department to me. But in there, and there's a note in there, Dan sent this note to him and said, hey, we don't need you down here. He's up here in Dallas area. He didn't hire Dr. Hirshorn. He charged his $20,000. a day. He's a jury consultant. We paid him 40 grand for that because he charges 20 grand a day. And it's 40,000.

We were picking the jury. That's the word, Dr. Herschhorn. We just said we don't need him. Well, I guess you need that 40 grand more than I needed Dr. Herschorn to help me, you know. Now, why not stay with the original lawyers that got you off? Because they're just outgunned, man. They were absolutely outgunned.

But they won the first case, so why not? No, no, no. I got found guilty of my first trial in 94. Yeah, but they beat the... No, that was an appellate lawyer. Max Sechrist came in. He handled my appeals in between trials. And he wouldn't go back to handle the trial? Yeah, I should have hired Max Sechrist, but he wanted a million bucks, you know.

And in the long run, we should have done it. Now, how could they prove a murder? Why not, like, manslaughter? That's a good question, because this is the legal aspect of it. They're both such attorneys and both trials, they said, because in Texas, you can have a lesser included offense. You can go rob a convenience store, shoot the car. capital murder, death penalty, right?

So they can charge you with capital murder, or they can charge you with murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, all these lesser and included offenses. And so you throw that out to the jury, and so the jury can go, well, you know, it didn't want capital murder, we'll give them this, right? So both trials' lawyers, there's a time I agreed with them, they said we're going to go for the whole enchilada.

There's no way any jurors are convicted of murder. There's absolutely no way. So we don't go, well, we don't know what really happened, about 10-year manslaughter or something. something like that, you know, because they can't even consider lesser and included offense if it's not in the jury charge, which the judge, my second trial, she let the jury, the juries aren't there to make the legal decisions, facts of law, they're the facts, they're deciding what's being told if it's true or not, and then the judge decides if it's

legal or not, and she does her jury charge, the judge let the jury on my self-defense claim. They have the jury to decide that. In the state of Texas, probably every state, federal law, it is against the law to resist arrest, even if that arrest is unlawful. If you live in 1, 2, 3 Smith Street, and you're a bad guy, and I'll get a warrant,

and my informant says, it's 1,25 Smith Street. I can't go to your next to your neighbor with a warrant, and them not, well, that's not me, and then try to shoot me because I'm at the wrong house, you know, and this is that case of presidents.

There's people get away from shooting police officers because of this. but they that was the loophole they said they said that a lie to get the warrant which now we've proved with a witness there wasn't a lie that I lied to get the warrant

therefore the warrant was not lawful therefore I didn't have right to force entry therefore didn't have right to self-defense and defense of a third party which is my backup guys none of my lawyers even to argue about the defense of these guys that was a defense prosecution

nor did they argue suicide by cop because that was barely coming up back then. Now it's very common. The suspect, the weapon, it had rounds of the magazine, but not in the chamber. And in between the shoes,

she had one friend because she's so freaking crazy. She had one friend who was so nutty, they never brought the friend to the grand jury. Nothing. It didn't detest by anything.

But she told her friend in 48 hours between the rest of her kid and the shooting, the shoes were going to kill herself. She wrote a will, leaving anything to her son. And in back about her second,

At the morning of the shooting when my lieutenant and captain called Jason Aguilar and her son in and told his mother been killed, he's like, okay, he goes home. First thing he does, before he finds out who the informant is, his best friend. He calls Michael Schaefer and informant. Hey, you have a key to the house. I need you get to my mom's jewelry to go sell it, you know. But during the course of the federal trial, which we won, it was somewhat comical. We find out that Michael Schaefer had a former was 19. The suspect of shot was 43. and this is the best friend's mother, he was banging her, as was half the sheriff's department. He admits this at a federal trial.

Well, yeah, I was kind of having sex with his mom because he's a little white trash tired. Wait a minute, man, you didn't tell her you're living there that you're banging this chick. So my argument, none of my lawyers have approached is you still argue suicide by cop. This chick was homicidal and suicidal her entire life. I tried to murder her husband who's a police chief in Louisiana. Crazy history. They never went towards that. And they never went towards defense

with a third party the guy's with me, you know. But I'm telling you, man, it was a suicide by cop. Why would she tell her best friend, you know, hours for the shooting that, you know, she's going to pull a gun

with three highly trained big redneck, heavily armed deputies. You know, was she going to win the gun fight? No way ever argue that point. But even for murder, don't they have to prove that you had the intent to go there?

No, not our Texas law. Uh-huh. See, the suspect, she escalated this every step. She could not made a threat. She could answer the, phone, what I call it, she could open the door when we got there. She could have not run. She could not have the gun. She could not point in the gun. She tried three times dropped the

gun and then she put her finger on the trigger. She escalated it every step. But under law, if you commit a felony, see you've got your third DWI in Texas is a felony. And say you're, you're drunk and you're in a felony driving drunk. And you run through a stop sign, you hit a woman and kill her. That's murder in Texas. Because in the commissional of felony, somebody died. It has to be no intent. It has to be no intent. It all. You know, none. Now, you said you had a federal trial, too. Is that going on at the same time?

No, in the middle we had a federal civil trial. Everybody who had anything to do with that suspect, her entire life showed up. Oh, and they sued you. Yeah. And they sued me, the sheriff, the police chief, the county, city. Okay. But, you know, that suspect is shot. I give her no credit anywhere.

But this system absolutely failed her. Her entire life, in that of middle institutions, voluntarily, voluntary, involuntarily escaping. Her go-to, and her she'd escape it. It was always somebody tried to rate me to try to harass her. That's just she tried to throw out there at me at her final moment, you know, two years for the shooting. And all those accusations made against me were made by the deputy who got fired over,

harassing her, and I got to stand out there just replace him. All that shit and pad boys, that was all this guy. We've talked to him, you know. But anyway. But, yeah, and they said that because I lied on the warrant, therefore, you know, in there. But I'm in prison like two years, and I can show it to you, I don't know my phone. I'm in prison like two years.

The same prosecutor set me up. There was a paid-a-ward had gone, very controversial shooting in Houston. His HPD officers go into a house with no war and gunned down this Mexican guy for whatever reason. And they didn't charge of it. The prosecutor just sent me to prison two years before. In New York Times, I have it where they quote him, he said, police officers have a right to defend themselves, even though they're unlawfully in a house. And I read that like a few months I saw that

I'm like didn't this didn't you spend a prison for 20 years over that you know but um but after all that craziness happens but that's loophole they said I lie to get the warrant which now we have evidence we did so now tell us about that first day at prison uh they take you in to custody you got a 20 year sentence what happens yeah uh culture shock say to very least Like when I got found guilty It was on a Monday

They didn't want me in Harris County jail Because I knew most of people that worked there I trained a bunch of them And my cousin was a deputy in there So I didn't think they didn't want anything to happen Like me actually You know, find my way out the back door type thing And so they immediately bring me to prison man

And they take me to the bird unit In Huntsville And it was right near where we all went That's where I do the intake Old Red building built like 1871 or something like that I get there at night and the captain meets me and he's actually

that was many years ago I don't remember his name but he goes hey man we got a call we had heads up what's going on and he said hey we're going to put you in safekeeping I'm like I had no idea that was man I'd never been in a prison

you know and I was like holy shit man screaming and hollering they put him in the safekeeping wing right they go up these old raggedy steel steps it's just I mean it's like the movie's old western metal bars rattling back forth old style

And they're on the third floor. I'm walking on the third floor, and I was clearly the only Caucasian on the wing. I was clearly the only heterosexual, clearly the only sane guy, or any guy with an IQ or 70, you know. And back then, the boxers, the prison boxers had a fly in the front.

All these dudes had the, you know, the box on backwards to fly on the back. And I'm about these two idiot guards. I've nothing polite to say with prison guards. But, you know, with a butt cheek, spread, hey, you know, and all this. I'm like, what in the fuck? I think that's what I'm going for 20 years, right?

So I'm escaping out of here, you know. And so, spend on the first night, everybody's screaming. You know, I'm a white guy in there. And the inmates to that point didn't know who it was. I don't think. But I didn't even go to sleep that night. Next morning, they pull us out the shower, and I showered into the run. And I'm there with like five dudes and a shower about the size of his table, man.

You know, and they're all staring at me doing their thing, whatever. And I'm like, fuck this, man. And people, well, I mean, You were locked up. Man, people ask me, you know, what's, I say, what's prison like? I said, man,

be honest with you? Shawshank Redemption. I said, if you see that movie, except it's 115 degrees in there, that's, prison is much worse than that. But that's the closest

to I've never ever seen in movies. But, man, I'm there for like, I was there for like five days. I'd have a clue what was going on. They don't tell you jack's shit, right? Feeding a slop,

all these shitheads, screaming, hollering. Yeah, I was there about five days and they have, I mean, you went through it, they have like medical, then the psychology, they do your IQ and so they call me in sociology one and two. Socialogy one was about your family, right?

I don't tell them jack shit. I want to tell me anything about where my family live. I guess gets you run away or something. So I'm going to tell you shit, you know. And so they come at the next, this is my fifth day. They called me out. Socialogy 2 and you discuss your case. I'll never forget this. There was this one there or maybe 40, whatever. And she had four big three ring binders laid down on her desk and a couple smaller ones. I'll get in there and she goes, you can go on. She goes, have a seat. I don't understand. I'm pissed at this point.

I've been five days straight. And then she goes, let me tell you something, man. She was, I've been doing this 14 years. I'll never forget this woman. She goes, this is the biggest crock of shit I've ever seen. She goes, what now are you doing here, man? She goes, you had a warrant signed by a job, judge. The suspect had a gun.

Registered her, she had illegally. You had two deputies there you didn't even know it was witnesses. Her son, there's a statement from her son that she bought this. She was to murder her husband with. And she goes, how in hell do you wind up in here? What are you doing here? I said, shitty lawyer, man, and I'm fighting a corrupt system, you know? And then she said, she said, this is just ridiculous, you know.

And I said, yeah. I said, what are you, starts reading? I said, what is that you? She was it your case file? I said, from where? She said, from the district attorney's office. And it was pretty much what happened. I said, well, that sure is hell is not what they threw me in prison over, you know?

And so, excuse me, a couple days later, two guards come in. get me. They say, you're on bench warrant. You know, go back to your court again. I said, now they're going to jam me up on something else, right? I'm not going to tell what else going on. Well, there's two Harris County deputies, because it's like an hour and a half from Huntsville, where I was to Houston. These are two guys I trained. Now, I ran into one of them about a year ago. They can't get me. They look and they say, don't say anything. It's all right. So I do the shackle thing and whatever, and they got the sheriff's van. It's just those two guys, two deputies. We're in the van. They're going a couple blocks down. They get out of me,

unshackle me, whatever. What do you want to eat? I said, Waterburger, man. So they took me to Waterburger. And they said, you better enjoy this one. And the first place I got out, straight to Waterburger, 20 years later. Nonetheless, I have a picture of me in the back of a Houston PD suburban. The guys who picked me, hold up a Waterburger in their cup.

So Waterburgers out there? Thanks, man. You're great. But anyway, they take me down in Harris County, and it was a sign just a document. So I've never a few days. Take me back to Verve. And then, brother, I don't even know from there, man. They would move me in the middle of it.

Because every time you go to a prison in Texas, you go to UCC, unit classification committee. And it's like the warden and a major and a captain or something like that. And they like to sit down on chief classification. You know, where are you going to work?

You know, where are you going to house? And I'd go and they'd move in at night. I mean, Texas is big, dude. I've been on the, Godforsaken. I never been a bus on my life. Man, if you got guys on the bus to you, who've been in prison for 15 years or whatever.

Remember that bus moving around. So they're puking, they're bomb, peeing, shan, drugs, whatever. They're in the middle of night. You know, world's going. I've been about like 12 hours sometimes. Get there at night. Go to UCC. We don't want you on this prison, man.

We don't want you on my union. Get your ass out of here. So he put me in a sawdry confinement. Maybe a week, two weeks, three weeks, whatever. Same thing kept happening. And it moved me around. And finally I wind up at the Price Daniel Union, way the hell out.

85 miles on the other side of Abilene, 800 miles from a house. I'll make this story quick. I've been in jailed. I've been in prison 90 days at this point. And they put me, when I get there, they put him to sell this guy

from Lubbock. He was in there for stabbing the Lubbock police officer 17 times. This guy was a nut. Big Hispanic guy. He's crying. He's been in prison like three years.

He's showing these newspaper clippings about him. I'm like going, okay, this guy's here for stabbing a policeman. There was a fantastic captain, this female. I'll just say,

hey, man, bitch and whatever. She gave me, she said, what? I said, all right. So she pushed himself to this little, look like a Peruvian guy, but this tall, had the, like, bang haircut,

like all, you know, span of game everywhere now. He was a nut. And finally, went to the cat, and I said, do you have, like, a burglar,

an auto, a bank robber, just a normal guy, relatively speaking. They put myself that guy in one for us. I never forget this guy, man.

He was like mid-50s. Man, this guy, you've been in prison, right? This guy would not even take, he wouldn't even take a pee if I'm in the cell with him. I say, well, man,

we're in here for like 12 hours a night. No, I mean, I just don't feel right. That's what he was, you know? And his mom, I remember telling me his mother was 96 years old and he was there from DWI.

And all he worried about was getting out to see his mom. He had supposed to spend out like 30 days already. There's some Texas, man, they'll fuck you in Texas, man. They'll screw with you. All he told me, I want to see my mom first she dies,

you know. And he worked in, I think that, he worked in laundry from like midnight to five. So he comes in like five in the morning, and I was in selling for like two months, you know. Never to a foul word,

because this guy's mouth. He had two sisters that were attorneys. He owned some restaurants at San Antonio. But he's sitting on the bottom bunk, and I'm making a ramen noodle. I'll never, I can't walk down the grocery store. I was ramen noodle soups, man, after all that. Too many on those in prison.

But they, yeah, he's sitting on his bottom bunk, and I was making ramen noodle. It's like five. You know, it's like an hour between, like, people come out from breakfast, then they start turning out from work. So it's kind of like a quiet time. We're upstairs. Remember, we're in a four building, L-13, upstairs.

And he says something odd. You know, I have my back to all turning around. So what? I literally saw his ears change colors, man. He just goes like this. God, DRT. Kills over right there. He falls in between the bunk and there was a table welded to the wall.

He fell in, and was hands by his back, on his knees, head in that little area, right? shit man so I grabbed me I know CPR right so I grabbed my late him back and he's he's out of there me I mean he's not breathing no pulse nothing and he had his emergency buttons and I've been in prison like 90 days this set the tone for my next 20 years but uh I hadn't that emergency button no response right and I didn't talk to any other inmates you know the whole time I was there and then uh man CPR CPR CPR giving him and I never noticed he I didn't know he were dentures till he literally vomited and his dentures came out hit me in the

mouth because he only takes dentures out from you that's what a good guy in this guy was man and so man i get on bam bam we had solid steel doors that swung out and they had like a window like this a small one with that uh you know screen metal screen thing and all the you may start looking at me because i'm hollering right because i never talked to anybody so bam bam bam bam i'm kicking the door and i'm hitting the emergency button getting down on them doing CPR i hollered out and i said flores is dead get some help you know and you know you know inmates are, they go ape shit. They're screaming. Everybody like that old guy. And finally, I'll be getting CPR for many minutes this point. Man, it's like 115 degrees in there.

I'm on my knees and it's concrete. I still on my knees. I got like golf balls under my knees from this. But I'm getting a CPR and her door opens, you know. And there's this little white female guard about 60, a little petite. And she's just like, I'd never seen him before. She's staring at me. I had vomit on me. He's peed everywhere. her. And she's just staring at me. And I said, hey, I said, you know CPR? She said, yeah. I said, I already had vomit shit on me. I said, just do, do chest and press as hard as you can. You know, I'm telling her how to do it. And she was physically wasn't big enough because he was about my size. She's like in two and a quarter or something. I shivered. I said, go get some help, man. So she runs down. And man, they'd kill a radio. And not did it matter, but the

weren't, they thought it was me. Not that it mattered, but, you know, because everybody's real leery about me on the unit, something happening. And this story, she said, shift change. You had night shift and day shift coming on. They're all running in that cell, man. And by now it's like 30 minutes. I mean, it's got CPR and his heat. This cell was, it was the big sales. So it was, I think, seven by 11 or something. That was their big cell. There was me a dead guy and two nurses. There's 14 of us in that room. That cell. Nobody's helping. You know, I'm telling you're going to have to help me, man. CPR is physically difficult, especially on your knees, on concrete and so freaking hot.

And then two nurses come in, and one of them had a blood pressure cuff. That's all she had, you know. And she comes in her, she's cussing. Because we had a, the ward was a black female named Wilhelmina Howard. I never forget this woman's name. And she was a medical doctor. She wound up a prison warrant, I'm no idea. Worthless.

Absolutely worthless. But this one nurse is trying to get a blood cuff, and she's saying, I told that fucking war. We need this to the third motherfucker in a week that we died of this heat and, you know, and heart issues, you know. We need a defibrillator. I never forget the Southern Nurse, man. I got choked up with the Southern Nurse, man.

She was holding that man's hand. She was right next to you. She was holding Juan's hand next to me. And she was, you know, she was praying. She's saying, please, God, does you ever reason? Let this man live. Let him live. And I'm raging, man.

Some said, somebody help me, you know. I was starting to get lightheaded, you know. And then the nurses wouldn't even help. And they said, we don't beat your, you know, we don't stop your, you know, the rhythm, you know. And so find this cap. The cool captain or Dacia, that would help me for her. She shows up in there and she's like, where's the ambulance?

Nobody called 911. That was 55 minutes. I was going to say, I got a CPR on myself. Everybody started watching him, you know. Lonsor short, they get the ambulance there. They bring up a striker and a big gurney. Now one guard opens the door, helps them get through the day room, get it up the stairs, nothing.

It was a doctor and two paramedics. So they throw one on there. They hit him with adrenaline or whatever in chest, man. He's urinated, defecated. And there was blood going over from the, They're hitting them up with IVs, vomiting everywhere. Now, one guard helps them in. That doctor just slamming him on the chest.

They get him down, off his ambulance. Everybody starts to leave, right? And I'm in that room. Man, my hair's standing in, fucking vomit and pouring sweat. I'm in an absolute rage. That cat, listen me, she was, are you okay? Fuck, I'm okay. You let this man die, Marf?

What the fuck is wrong? I mean, I went off on her, man, you know? And she goes, hey, all right? She goes, hey, just, you know, she goes, you need to come down the line building with the admin office. That's all right. So I got,

I'm going to take a shower and brush my teeth, man. So I grabbed my gear, went downstairs, shower, forgot my shoes come up. This old guard's packing my shit and the dead guy's shit up. I say, and I'm in there on a murder charge, right?

And I said, hey, man, this is a technically of crime scene. What the fuck you doing, man? Why can you get your ass out of a motherfucker and all this? I grabbed my boots. I went down a line building, board.

Everybody's there. Command style. I mean, a statement. I'm going to tell you a fucking thing, man. Because after I've been in prison like five days,

Jack Zimmerman, my Pellate lawyer, after my second trial showed up. Fullward Colonel Marine Corps, daughters of Marine Corps colonel, these are good people. Can't say anything. I cannot possibly say as much good as it can be said about those two people, those lawyers. But I said, hey, my lawyer said, I don't talk to prison people, the media, or any law enforcement.

So they put me in Salt Lake and fly me for like 11 hours. TDC has their OIG, their office of inspector generals. It's a buffoonish clown show. These are all prison guards. They like go to these, because all these prisons most are in these little redneck areas, you know. So they have this OIG, and they go to like these little community colleges or whatever these prison guards.

They come back as technically certified commission police officers to investigate their beer drinking beer fishing, I mean, fishing buddies, these prison guards. And if you get it like I did many times, you're going to jamming these prisons, you can't go to that county sheriff, you know, because his daughter-in-law's lieutenant, you know, his wife's a nurse, they all work for these prison systems,

constables, police, all these little towns really are. But they fly this dude in. And this, this OIG investigator, he went to some gang school my brother. He tried to tell me, you know, I know your brother. I was like, what? Anyway, he told me, he goes, we didn't get a statement.

I said, I'm going to get a statement. I'm saying shit to you, man. You let this guy die, and I'm talking about this with the right people. And then he said, who's your lawyer? And I saw, Jack Zimmerman. Oh, I know, no, you know his number? And I said, yeah. So he'll step outside by a car your lawyer.

I said, why you call my lawyer? I'm being here. That's the way you do it. So, of course, I step out, leave the door open. I'm standing right there. He never calls him a lawyer. Calls me and they told me he talked to him, he didn't, so I told him to fuck off. So then they shipped me to a French Robertson unit, maximum security,

level five unit. I was in there for 11 days, didn't know what was going on, my parents showed up at a max unit, because they went to see me the other place wasn't there. So some phone calls are made, and I get moved to a unit closer to my house. But I was in, I was under, I fell under a quarter law. So I only had to do a quarter, I got a 20 sentence, right?

And at the end of my second trial, Cogdell and his partner, Alan Goodling, who has a lot of the things I say about Cogdell or not, they're true. But Dan Cogdell hauls ass. He goes to the judges chambers, because Dan had this big media pressure thing going on because he thought he found I was going found out of guilty and I was getting his career going. Alan goes in there and talks the jurors. And he said, how did you find him guilty? And they said, we don't know what happened. And he said, what do you mean?

He said, because it was a little over two weeks. He said, because the state did their case in chief first. And the jurors said that we thought McGowan and his two other guys were with him, went and broke in this house and shot this housewife, a home invasion or something. For a week, this is what they think. They said, then you all started telling him. They said, well, McGowan didn't testify. And they said, well, he doesn't have to testify.

He can't hold that against him. We didn't even know what happened. And he goes, and you gave him 20 years? You found him guilty of murdering and don't know what happened. Do you sense him 20 years? They said, well, we didn't sense him to 20 years. And Allen's like, no, I just sat there a while ago and gave him 20 years. No, but he only has to do five years that.

He goes, when did she say that? She said, well, the prosecutors, this is illegal, mind you. She said, well, his prosecutor came here and told us because of who his family is and he was a police officer that he would have it easy in prison. And he only had to do a 25% of his time. So whatever went on there, we don't know five years would take care of it, you know. But that's the law of doing that, you know. And mind you, being eligible for parole, getting parole, two different rules, man.

But they wouldn't like to him. They wouldn't be to five years. So I did my first five years in prison and get bounced around to unit. And that's just so crazy on stories. How are the inmates treating you as a cop? Is it a problem? Well, the guards would tell them, you know. it was bizarre

because I'll be honest with you man I had very few problems with inmates man it was guards it was our majors and captains wardens because the inmates when I got sent

after that guy died in the cell they moved me to Nabasota right by college station you know and my family lived my wife where my house was like 20 minutes

from theirs was my parents so some college and maids and people we knew and I get moved over there after that guy died and

the Donnie Bill Noss was the assistant ward this guy's names need to be out there. This guy saved my ass, man, multiple times. Donnie Belnowski and Sergeant Melissa Wilson went to PAC unit. They went to back for me every time. Serious stuff went down.

And another warden, Jimmy Smith, he literally saved me from multiple felony charges. They tried to set me up in prison. And then he literally saved my life at the Hughes Unit. But those people, that's only three prison people have it. I hate those people, man. Did you interview Chris Lee?

Was that you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I watched that last night. I'm starting the one, I started with my sister going, that's exactly how it is, man. I saw my sister, when Chris He was talking, that's exactly how he was in prison, you know, and he's in federal prison.

Do you get involved with politics at all? Do you have to run with a gang, or how does that work in Texas? That's a cool question, man. Because all the guards would, they knew everybody was. And I did, I run into people I put in prison. One guy, I was in there, I remember me two weeks. Tom Mexican guy, a real friendly guy.

I'd be going to child or, hey, me, what's up, dude? What's up, S. What's up, S. You know, whatever. And I'm in a child Like two weeks later I'm in the chow, right? And I never even anybody touched me.

You know, the guy touched me on the shoulder. And there's the same next guy. He's like two guys back. I said, hey man, I said, you don't touch me, dude. You know? He goes, you remember me?

And I said, no. And I never forget a face. He goes, he goes, you bought three kilos of cocaine for me. And I said, I chased your ass out of Benigans across the Gulf Freeway, which is I 45 between Houston and Galston.

I said nothing, man. That got gone the next day. They got him out of there. But there was several police officers in that unit. It was kind of, It wasn't a PC, but that's kind of where they want to put prison guards, once those shitheads are locked up.

But the inmates looked at it. The inmates looked at it like I went to the dark side to be one of them. And it was pretty cool. Actually, I earned some good dudes, man. And then the only time I have any problems with any white guys was at that pack unit a few years later. And it's one guy, big huge white, I mean, redneck hillbilly country ass, dude. From Tennessee, so you know what I call him Tennessee.

Him. And there's another guy. from Channel View in East Harris County, which is like the white trash, myth capital, the world, you know. And he wasn't shadow.

He was the shadow. A little short guy, he looked like a, like a dwarf. What do you call it? Like an elf. Like an elf, man. And these dogs were straight up

hardcore Aryan dudes. And the other guy called Shamrock. He was a retarded. But they were in a wing together, a pod to get a dorm together. I got on eating, they start making comments to me, right?

Hey, man, he's fucking that bitch, yeah. Because everybody's reading that. book, which was not supposed to be in there. So I stopped myself. Let me tell you some motherfuckers. I did back.

I had a back trying to check on y'all, man. You're a fucking child molester. You're in here for dealing drugs as a kids into school. What the fuck are you talking about me, man? Well, then, so it kind of laid off. There been comments here now and then. So there's big Tennessee hill. This sounds like six, five, man.

Huge guy. I'm in the showers one day. He goes, hey, man. He goes, I'm pulling out of here tomorrow. I said, yeah, good to get to fuck out of here. He said, I'm pulling to Houston. Oh, so that's a great, great place for you to go. man.

Because we watched the Houston news there, we're close enough. He goes, when I get our first thing I'm going to do, he goes, I'm going to fuck up the first three HPD officers. I said, I'm going to be, you motherfucker.

And I said, that's a great idea. Dude, like four days later we're watching the news. He pops up, shot and killed by Houston PD. That's where I laughed. And I said, yeah,

I guess he actually was going to do it. Good. So I got rid of that dude. But in the other, the shamrock dude got transferred somewhere. Well, then they moved that little shamrock, dude. He was an older cat, you know,

like a career alarm, but I called him shadowed. I was saying, money's a shadow. It's the shadow. I'm sorry, the shadow. How are you doing the shadow? But he is putting my dorm. And he goes, those the gurons,

bump, walks up and he said, hey, man, where's fucking with you, man? He goes, I don't know if she's with you. You're a cool dude. All right. And I heard that several times. People get moved in there,

and you have the assholes. Hey, he's a fucking cop. He's a snitch. And I was working, I didn't work at HPD that's shooting, but HPD followed me for all those years. Hey, HPD, HPD. And I have guys that were like 25 years old.

Hey, man. They tell another guy. Hey, that H.P. He arrested me, man, back in the day. Dude, what were you, negative seven? How did I arrest you? And when I was like, you know, we had a really good lieutenant. Man, Adrian, what was the last thing? Big, muscled up guy.

Adrian Thomas. He looked real scruff, but he was a good guy, man. Actually, called me to help head and handle some stuff. The guards literally call me to write reports for him. I haven't thought about that in years. These guards, something would happen. They would come pull me out. Hey, can write this report?

Yeah, you know. I'd write reports for them. They're a bunch of retards. but this lieutenant Adrian calls me in Adrian Thomas Mean starting like you He was a real African-American He was starting like this straight up tough guy

He'll shut the door and he goes Hey man he goes You're McGowan rice yeah He said he's worked for HPD You know Houston yeah He goes do you remember me? My stomach sunk man I was going holy shit

Some dude I thumped when he was a kid or something right I said yeah and he was used to work Guns Point Which Greenest Point Mall It was taken over it's what we called it's taken over my games And he goes, you arrested me. I was 14 years old. And I said, well, I guess you deserved it at the time. You know, he goes, you know what?

That changed my life, man. You changed my life. He goes, I'm a lieutenant. He's been there like 18 years. He said, I'm a sergeant, college station PD. And I've been born in 20 years, man. You need something let me know. I was like, yeah, hell yeah.

So that dude went to bat from me. He risked his career and some serious shit later on when I got set up on a situation in there. He came, plane closed and he was going to put me in his car I had a solitary confinement with this major said I hired somebody to kill them it was crazy

so are you kept away from like the Tango Blast and the vicious kings you're in there with them threw me right in the mix but they don't give you any problems no the only time I had problems I started okay I came up for parole

after five years sat on my bunk and read thousands of books five years comes up I'll lose my appeal and get a set off and my brother he's a policeman and my dad come and tell me so I'm pissed

I said man fuck this because I kept a journal, composition book, everything I saw, witnesses, I know how to do that. Every event that happened. In prison.

Yeah. So five years of watching this shit, not talking to anybody, very few people. And then I refuse to work. That's what I'm working. I have the words called me, we're not going to put you in,

they call them Texas a hoe squad. You literally go out in the field. They call it Aggies, it's just pipe with like a hoe thing welded to it. They never were going to see me out there because I'm going to send you get your head cut off out there by some idiot. I don't sleep for you bitches, man

I didn't know a lickwork 20 years They gave me jobs I wouldn't go If there was a problem I always threw the card on them I had to ace in the hole brother Hey I said hey man That dude over there

He called me a fucking cop You know he knows me something So I'll try and find me I sit there for like three days Bring me my commissary Bring me my food It's a vacation I do that all time

It's getting out of there I just go I need a break Isn't solitary the worse Than the units Because it could be even hotter And just a single cellar Yeah I'll tell you cool story about

happened to me on that. Tell us about the issue with Tongos first that you were saying. They threw me in the mix, man. Okay. You know? And I was what they call an independent wood.

You're familiar to the term, I'm sure. If you're a white guy and you don't run with anybody, but, you know, you've got to stay at your own people pretty much. But I already have any, like, problems very few with the inmates,

you know, but I was just considering independent wood. And I was in there like maybe four years, this rumor started. This is funny. That I was an undercover FBI

Because I've had the same haircut since I was two, man. I don't think I got in prison, you know? Hey, you're rocking that comb over, you know? But they, this rumor started for somewhere that I was an undercover FBI agent watching the guards, not the inmates, right? So the inmates thought all that was true. I don't find that for like three years after it was floating.

It followed me the entire time. And I was like in another unit. So hey, man, I remember you forward with PAC. You're still doing that deal, man? Yeah, yeah. What deal? You know, watching these guys? guards. So always watch the guards.

Well, you know, I only have you been worth the FBI? What are you talking about, man? So I let it float, you know, because it kept the guards, a lot of the guards off of me, you know. But they, after my five years, I got my five years, my first appeal loss, five years set off. I went up hiring a writ lawyer. That was a joke. But my brother, my dad came and told me. So I said, hey, well, man, we'll send you books. We'll give you commissary mind. You got two years out, two years. You got two years. All right. Lade over two years.

I got another set off. I said, fuck, man, we're going to blows now, man. I started filing charges on these guards,

following, you know, federal lawsuits. I tell him, hey, you're not, I'm in here an innocent man,

you people know it, you know? The shit you're pulling in here, you're going to fuck me over, try to write me a case or something. Well, you can, O.

I don't file grievance. I don't call, I go to the fucking Rangers, Texas Rangers, man. And people are like, how do you survive? I was an asshole.

I was an asshole to everybody in there, man. And whenever I'd go to a unit, I can always, because I'm a veteran, too. You always tell a veteran law enforcement officer, just the way they speak, the way they carry themselves, and printers don't take shit. And I was, I got to suck down the Quiro unit in Stevenson, and there was a guy I met down there, another police officer who I'm picking up Friday in a couple of days. He's got 30 years done on his 30. They set him up. 30 years he's done every day. I run into him down there. And he wasn't, we wouldn't cut

her hair, you know, and there's this little smart-ass sergeant. We're coming out from Chauhall. And he goes, hey, you two assholes come here. So we just keep walking. I'd always do that, ignore them, especially than Nigerians showed up. I'd say, I don't know what you're saying, you know, Nigerian guards. But he catches up to his little squatty ass, and he says, you heard me. I said, what do you want me? You, dude, you, go get a haircut. And I was with me. Warren, Warren Horton says, his name. Warren leans over and goes, we'll get right on that. We just walk off, man. And every place where I ran into, There's got any Marcus Fleck.

Worked in the Sheriff's Department. Talked to his sister last night. I trained his sister. Man, he's got three, 40-year sentences and a 10-year sentence from these same assholes. You know, Marcus Fleck. Look him up. Set him up, man.

And then, but anyway, that's your story about the Tongue blast, whatever. I kind of got along with them. You know, it was got, because everybody thought, everybody knew as a policeman, you know? But then, hey, man, you come on the dark side. Hey, would you, did you're like set up people? I fucked over people all the time.

I tell them crazy stories. And back then, that showed cops and what was the American's Most Wanted on Saturday nights. There was always like what go, there'd be like a veteran one or two policemen here and there. I run to a bunch of policemen. Guys are the same guy set up.

Houston Pedy and Harris County guys are running into. All of the same stories. But we'd root for the bad guy, I mean, for the good guys, you know, watching cops, you know. After the first show of cops. And, oh, that's a fucking setup or an entrapment. All that's a bad guy. Oh, that's an entrapment.

That's a trap. So we explained the law doing, you know. It was kind of a real. rowdy crowd. How do you deal with the heat in there? What can you do? You can't go anywhere. It gets so hot in these buildings. Like, you don't go into the wind unit, right? That's a red brick. In Texas, it's hot like basically nine months out of year. The internal buildings, because everything's made out of a brick, concrete, or steel. The physical buildings get so hot, you can't even touch your bunk or sit on metal bunk. And like at night you're sleeping on this bunk and literally

a one inch thick plastic mat. When you roll it's like your Velcroat. It's just, and what I'd do is I would roll up, we had no pillows. You basically slept in the clothes you wore that day, watered up dirty clothes. I'd get,

if I was in a dorm of the shower, I'd jump in the shower, get wet, soak my boxers, just lay on top of the sheet when you're a boxer. And that'd keep you cool, not cool, but it's not as hot. Hopefully you could doze off 45,

you know, 4 or 45 minutes or so to dry it out. I'd wired up like dirty clothes, get them wet. I'd lay on my side because less body contact on the mat and a bunk of the wall next to you the better.

And I'd like water clothes put them between my knees to keep my leg spread apart a few inches to try to get some air circulation. Can you shower as many times as you want during the day?

Well, if you're in a dorms, you had to have either 10 years done to your sentence or half of your sentence done to get moved to a dorm where they had showers but they had like you shower during the day

or whatever. That was like, you know, you want to fuck up. And does the water get really cold? what depends. And the winter of the water is freezing-ass cold.

In the summer, they couldn't get steaming hot. When I got stuck at medium custody, that major, you know, tried somebody to kill them, which is insane.

But they put me in medium custody and you're 22 hours day in the cell with somebody. And they were letting it. There was 86 of us this wing. And there was, you got two hours,

there's your TV time, go eat, socialize if you wanted, and take a shower for 86 people. And you had like, there was three showers, one side and four on the other, three showers the white guys had, and two guys for the blacks and two for the pungle blast dudes or whatever.

But when I got on that unit, when I had that G4 stuck on me, that medium custody, Ronald Gillens was the major. This was a good guy, man. And I go in and he said, hey, what the fuck's going on that pack unit, man? You're like the eighth guy's got here with injuries, because I wound up with a busted jaw and dislocated shoulder from this major and a warden over there.

But anyway, they, so you're going to say, I got to put you in medium custody. I know what's going on. I'm going to say about two weeks to get this off your ass, you know, get you back in general population. He said, why are you in prison?

I think you're familiar. I'm asking you, why are you in prison? I said, well, not for something I did, but I had an murder conviction. He goes, no, that's not where you're in here. And I'm like, what? He goes, you're in here. He goes, you've got a total fucking nerd.

And I have a little prison glasses. And he goes, anybody ask you, you're in here in a computer crime situation. He said, what? He goes, because when I put you in medium custody because there are hardcore game members in there. He said, those Ariens are going to shoot right to you, man.

You stroll in there the way you look and where you talk, the errands are going to snatch you up. All right, you know. So I go in there and I walk in, and these guys are like medium custody. This is next to maximum security, right? They're other than disciplinary and crazy shit. And so his little white guy was, his name was Sin.

His name was actually Sin. I think it's S-I-N, like the river in Germany. He goes, hey, what's up, Wood? I'm sin. I said, what's up, man? He goes, hey, white's over here, man. So this big old guy walks up to me. His name was Gator.

This is funny, man. This big, huge, he was a, tell us, tattoo. He was Aryan Brotherhood. He was a captain over disciplinary for Aryan Brotherhood, right? And what's up, boy, man? Hey, we're still over here. And his name of the, what's your name is? Gator.

He's this great big one redneck, Texas dude. And he was back, he had his big, big muscle up, like human body. And blew his whole back. And his big gator head was back, you know. And so, got on great with these dudes, man. You know, they say, what goes back here, medium custody. It really surprised me.

The whites would fight the whites. Blacks would fight the blacks. The Mexicans would fight the Mexicans. So I was like, and I've been in prison like eight years at this point. You know, I'm like, I don't get that. But there was somebody else crazy shit was going on. And then one time they tried to make us work.

And we're locked up. What are they going to do? Lock us up, you know. Say, let us go out to wreck now and then. And you had to wear your uniform. We'd go after nothing on but tennis shoes and boxer shorts. Fucking 115 degrees, man.

And we went out there and it was all the Aryan guys. Not that I was an Aryan guys, but I was a white guy. And we were playing, I think of the Crips and the Bloods and volleyball. It was pretty heated tournaments up there. And Gators, like, they knew it wasn't for murder charge. And it's the course of talking out. They found out I lived in Kingwood.

It's a very nice part of Houston. So they thought that was funny. You live in Kingwood. I said, yeah. What did you kill your butler? What? Yeah, yeah. And so we got there on the volleyball.

And so Gator starts to get everybody names. And there's a Marine in there and Chris. God, great guy, man. You got jammed up on a bullshit deal. But he goes, we got the area, we got Chris, the Aryan anarchist. And he goes, we got the, and he points to me. He goes, we got the Kingwood killer over here, you know. So I was a Kingwood killer for a few years while I was in there.

But dead Chris guy, man, this is a good story. Well, let me tell you about Gator real quick. Gator would never tell us his name. So one time we come in from right where he jumps and shiny, and he's an ID laying on the table, right? We're sitting. I see his first name was Gregory. And so I slid his shirt, whatever on it.

He comes back, and this after I had a really good report of this guy. And I said, hey, man, what you, is this to us? Hey, what's your name, man? He goes, Gator. I'm going from Gators and I was born. I said, that's cool, man. I said, you know what? Excuse me, this is just how, this is prison stuff.

I said, if there's one faggot-ass fucking name, I can't stand is Gregory. As long as that's not your fucking name. That's the gayest-ass name. And he's like, he's looking at me and, and this day, he thought or saw it. But you know, I ran out. I got several years later, he was dying of cancer, man. I was a medical unit, brought him in. But this guy, Chris, he was a,

a white knight. Yeah, and the white knights, they were like the elite of the areas, if you were, white guys. You could have a sex crime, no drug crime, no disciplinary in there. You had at least have a high school diploma to be a white knight. And he was somewhat ranking in that. Plus he was a marine, you know, my son was, so I got a real poor of this guy. He always told him about, man, you need to come over, man, you need a prospect with us and all that. A few months into this, man, he stopped in mid-sense. He goes, you think it's pretty fucking stupid, don't you? I said, your white knight thing? I said, man, let me see your ID. There's a little plastic

things you carry out, you had a beautiful girlfriend named Crystal's Italian girl. His mom died, we're in there. I said, hey, this is your family, man, it's your sister and her kids. This is your girlfriend. I said, you get out of here. These I don't get a fuck about you, man. They don't care. You're getting what they can out of you.

He's a Marine. He's not somebody get run over. And I said, this is your girlfriend, Crystal. I said, who do you want to wake up and bed next to you? Because Crystal sent him letters, say, let me, you know, tell me that if you don't get out, quit doing stupid shit and I'm going to wait on you. I said, you can get out of here. You don't wake up one of these assholes.

You can wake up next to crystal, man. You know? Yeah. And right to that, I got taken out, put back in GP. And I see him like a month later working at Chau. Man, he went to talk to the ward and told the warning he talked to me. And then he said, I'm done with this stuff. The warrant goes, right.

Put him in general population. So he's a good dude. But during the time period, bounce around, I got another set off from parole, another set off from parole. And then, this is a crazy prison story. I'll make this short. I had a very wealthy and uncle who were helping us out

during the time period because my dad was wealthy but it was about broken and they had to have this church revival in the gym and I was at the Boyd unit between Huntsville and Dallas I had this big revival

like I was starting night I'm sitting in bunker eating two guards coming here and say hey McGowan come around I needed you in the gym I said for what they said I don't know so I go down in there

and everybody's hooting and holler and you know how it is and there was these really large big old black guys clearly ex-convict dudes up on the stage. One of my smartphone was, hey, is Kent McGowan in here? Where's McGowan in here? And I'm like, what the, what?

And the guard is, that's you in it? And I said, yeah, he goes, go over there, man. So I go over there, come on, brother, and they take me behind it. They had like a little stage thing built, and had like a partition behind it. There was this little old black lady, a tiny, tiny in a wheelchair. And she goes, oh, give me your hand. I'm like, yeah, you know.

No idea what the hell's going on. And she goes, I've been waiting to meet you, your family, your aunt's and so-and-so, and Uncle so-and-so, they're the best Christian people. They've, you know, they've kept my church from going under, and they've kept my ministry going. I'm like, yeah, you know. And she's so much crazy stuff about how he bought her a fleet of cars and all this stuff.

And so I'm like, yeah, you know, and then they bring her around in her wheelchair, and she's talking, these big old dudes, like, four-in-cars. Hey, when we get the final check, we got the people and get you out of here. It was a shake-down in my family. I don't think she had anything to do with it. It was these dudes working with her. So that was a crazy story. She came up in the Texas Rangers, but, anyway, I moved along.

A set off after set off, man, loss of appeals, loss of appeals. Do you think you would have gotten parole, had you been working a job following the rules? No, no. It wouldn't matter. When I came up, I think my third time up, second time up, I've been seven years. I was down on the coast at a gesture three, you know, I think. And her name was Lenoxica. She was a parole commissioner.

Her reputation throughout the state was the only one that was, she was good, you know. And in Texas, you don't, it's not like other states, I guess. You don't go before like three, five or seven, your voters. You know, I'm sorry, I didn't do this. You know, I'm sorry. You know, I beg for mercy or I didn't do this. You don't get to see your voters very rarely. And only if you like a very high profile case,

or if you have political sway one or the other, which had all of it. And so she calls me out. And she was a very nice lady. And she said, look, Kent, she said, I don't, what she said, Mr. McGowan. She said, I don't submit to political pressure or peer pressure, but my boss's boss does. And I said, well, they're the ones who gave me the set off the first year, the first time.

And she goes, look, I let a Texas range right here. And I faded a lot of heat on that. She said, but your family's going to have to figure out something. They'll never parole out of here. You know, I had seven years on a 20, you know. We hired this big expensive parole lawyer from Austin here. Rip-off. They're all rip-offs.

Don't ever get a parole. But, you know, she's telling you, you're never getting out of here by parole. You need your family to figure out something else to get you out of here, you know? She was true. and so the shakedown came down like my third or four time I'm for parole right well part of the shakedown was this

parole commissioner and so this came right to 2013 I got sent back to the PAC unit I went to many many units because lawsuits they bounce you around they destroy your legal it's a big mess

so I'm back on the PAC unit with Ward and Milnoski and it was March 13 of 2013, my parents were dying, appeals, risks, it was done. I still had nine years left. And so I was like, man, fuck this. So I still had my little prison typewriter,

which I literally burn up five of them. It's pretty noted in the book Jerry Lanchin wrote. He said, and McGowan got his typewriter. Next sentence, any type, any type, any types of more. I type thousands of letters. Man, every law enforcement, feds, texted everybody, you know. Well, March 13th, man, I was done, I was done, you know, I had no options.

And so I write this Hail Mary, I type of a, excuse me, I typed this Hail Mary letter. And I sent to Ray Hunt, the executive director of Houston Police Union at this point. I went to the Academy of Ray's brother 40 years ago, just retired for 40 years. And then his dad had been out to our ranch hunting. His dad had passed and sent him to. I sent a letter, man, that's type of letter. And I said, hey, man, I went to the Academy with your brother. I remember when you hired on him telling me about it.

And I said, your dad came out to a ranch and hunted a couple of times. That was the first paragraph. I said, man, I'm still one of you. I'm one of the good guys. I'm your brother in blue. I'm in trouble. I need help. I sent that to Ray.

And I sent the same, well, I need help statement. I sent it to Texas Rangers. Hale married it to their headquarters, you know. It gets bumped from like Waco, Austin, Dallas. What winds up at Company A and Texas Rangers in a huge. Houston. And then Ray gets that letter. And he said, read it. And he said, I almost threw it away. But he calls my dad, as in this vow, this Ranger. They said, what happened? What's going on with it, man? So what dad tells him. And both the Ranger and Ray Hunt said, don't tell Kent we're coming

to see him. Of course he did. Well, I called home that night. Because, you know, Texas, for nine years, we didn't have, my first nine years, no phones. We're the last penal system to not get phones in the country. So I called my dad, check him and my mom. He said, hey, I didn't tell you that, but Ray Hunt's coming and his texture rangers coming. So they get involved, you know. And Ray came first, and this is a cool thing. Ray came and he sat down and he told me, he said, hey, I got your letter, man. I thought you're full of shit.

And Ray doesn't cussed. He said, you're full of shit. So he calls brother, they started calling people to Houston P. I worked with and worked for. They started calling the sheriff's office people he knew. They called the DA's office. He's in the same story. You know, why are you here?

You know, and Ray told me many years later after he got out, he said when he left, when you walked out of that meeting, went on at the prison parking lot, he called, he called Brian Binkin, one of my cleat lawyers, because I told you, Clint my other lawyer,

his partner had been assassinated at this point. And he, he called Brian, because at that point, Brian was a lawyer for the Houston Police Union. So Ray Hunt calls Brian Beacon, my former union lawyer. And he said,

Brian, I'm going to give you one name. One answer, guilt your innocence. He said, Joseph Kent McGowan. He said, did that Brian kind of got choked up and he said innocent absolutely 100% innocent

he told Ray he goes I've lost he goes I've lost sleep over this for 25 years what's happened to him you know and so that started that that guy with my dad on my dad's deathbed a few years later Ray drove right up the road from where we are now he drove from Houston all out here on his own dime in his own time I'm a day from dead died he never met my dad he talked to him several times Yeah, what kind of person does that, you know? But Ray and then another friend of his very hungry elected official in Texas.

They literally saved my ass, man, get me moved from these units. Whenever death threats would come up, pick up the phone, man, I'm gone in two hours. But, yeah, he went saw my dad and told my dad his last thing to do will get me out here, and he did, you know, eventually. But then the Rangers showed up. And that was good because the Rangers, all the prison shitheads that I have probably,

problems with these wardens and regional directors. They all thought the Rangers were there about them, you know. So I told me going to, like, go in the wardens office, whatever, piss off the ward and maybe sit behind the ward's desk doing this. But then the Rangers the same thing, man. They said, we thought you're full of shit. We started talking to people, looking at evidence and whatever. People's Sheriff's Department were helping out.

But during this time period, on 2013, 14, this was, my dad put a, on the internet, made a web, he didn't know what he's doing. He'd try to do a Facebook page, but he put a million-dollar reward on the internet for anybody could legally get me out. My depots said out three days later, Warden Bolanski comes and gets me. And we walk out, and I said,

he goes, you got somebody here to see you. It's in a weekday. So he goes, he was an attorney, you know? And I had not heard from this asshole Cogdell, my lawyer, 13 years at this point. He never answered any emails, phone with my family, you let him nothing, right? But I'm walking down there,

and Blonowski, he goes, well, he's in a chauffeur, driven limousine. I said, is it Dick DeGaron? He goes, no, it's a cuddle, cog, some, that's Dan Cogdell. He says, yeah, I said, what the hell is he want? He said, he had a real good report. This guy was a great ward, man. He goes, I don't know, let's go see him. So I go in there, here's Dan. He had these, he had these cufflings he wears. One is as a gold woman's butt, he's famous one. Another one's just a blue and says, I'm a lawyer. You know, he has in here with his, you know, his diamond, presidential, Armani suit, orlex watch, whatever. I'll look in there. I said,

what the hell are you doing here, Dan? He said, man, I've been working on your case for months. I'm getting your innocence out of here. This is completely out of control. And I have investigators unclean in Austin talking these key witnesses that the DA's office held, you know, hit from us all these years. Oh, yeah. So we talk now.

I know you're here for the money. He opens up his leather portfolio, and there's that front page off the copy of the website. I have my picture of my uniform getting award and big red million dollar, you know, thing on it. And he opens up his portfolio. I said, well, you're hurting with the money, right? what money.

The million dollar reward from the internet, Dan. He goes, oh, man, I'm not, I'm not taking a penny of that. I just, because you're innocent, you know, I'm getting out of, you know, blah, blah, blah. So that was on a Thursday. And so the next Saturday, two days later, my mom and dad get their medical help, you know, they were very ill at this point,

and drove them down. So I was somewhere somewhere someone mom, she'd out a few weeks after that. They were so excited about Dan, they thought findings was going to help, you know. And so they, you know, much to their, you know, difficulties they were having ill-wise, you know. They drove all you from Austin to where I was. And then nothing but lies that cocktail.

Lies and lies. And my mom dies, you know. And then he just kept lying. He kept lying about everything. I wasn't doing shit, you know. And in a 22-month period when Dan was involved, if you will, my aunt, who was helping us hurt my uncle, my aunt passed away, his crazy brain disease. And my mom died.

and then my uncle was married to the aunt died then my dad dies then my son and the oldest son died my wife and had him were teenagers he passed away

and then they and my brother's wife passed away and he's older than me so I've had a daughter since I was like nine years old it's bam bam bam back to back you know

Dan's in the middle of this shit me lying lying to everybody and then it's only for four and a half years and then my son son passed away, Ray Hunt and some people involved. They had me moved to a unit near Houston, the closest unit to where I live, my family was.

And so I'm getting there in a bunch of issues. But on January 10th of 2018, a film crew was coming over from Europe to film me on some documentary shit. And I called Dan. You know, he would just lie and lie about everything. I called Dan. And I said, hey, look, man. I said, just film crew is going to be here at two.

And it's like 11, within an hour. drive from you. If you don't beat him there, I'm dropping you. I won't say their name now, but some very high profile people you're representing political people, I'm telling everything, man, because he'd be on drugs. He'd brag on the phone, but what they're doing, I mean, some serious people go to federal prison type shit, man. So I'm going to tell everything. You better have that part. You tell me he to pardon. You said, you better show up that fucking pardon in your hand. So he beats him there. They call him after a little legal visit, you know, a little legal visit thing. Dance porn sway. All fucked up a little bit.

or whatever. We start screaming to hollering at each other, man. And he said, he said, I know you think I had, because a lot of people wind up dead missing in Baltimore my case.

Well, I know you think I had this person, you know, whatever I said, let me tell you some, man. I'm in here, Dan. Everything I do is monitored. You're out there representing drug cartels,

the mobsters, corrupt politicians and whatnot. You have the financial wherewithal that something happened to me and here and somebody else out there. And, and it's these four years

when Dan was doing this, the text of Rangers are also involved, right? And this leads to what this conversation has told you about. But after about four and a half years, a Rangers just disappear. Well, during that time period, when they're with me, they came and met me and they said, hey, you know Cogdell's fucking you, right?

And I said, yeah, he said, you know he's lying to you. We know what he's doing. Well, they're the ones going after, I mean, I can't say this person. They're one who was investigating this very high-ranking political person. And so they said,

hey, man, would you help us go against Cogdell? And yeah, because I was telling him what he's telling me, you know. Then somebody from the Attorney General's office came and asked me about this stuff. And then I said, yeah. You know, so I was helping the Rangers going after Cogden on what they were doing. In the middle of us, I called Dan one time and he goes, hey, man, he sends a message to ward for me to call him. I called Dan's office. He goes, hey, man, my paranoid way of thinking, he was, man, I think these Rangers are after me.

What? He goes, yeah, they're investigating me. I'm getting wind from it. I said, no way. Gee, I wonder why. You know, it was me, you know. but there you go there.

But anyway, he comes up there at that conversation in 2000, before that film crew got there and I told him a minute I said, let me tell you something, I know you had the text of Rangers call off.

If I, I'm a non-volent person, I could have got him, I ought to beat him to death right there. He's so high on whatever he's on, the warden came there and told him, sir, you're going to have to calm down

and be quiet, but we're going to have to ask you leave, you know? And so, I said, I'm going to tell you this, man. I know you had the Texas Rangers call off. I'm really smart. He goes, yeah, you know, you're right. It's good to have this political person.

It's good to have that person in my back pocket. We found out from the Rangers. He had that politician that he was defending, whatever. They call it the executive director of the Texas. Here it's DPS, the Highway Patrol, the State Police, Department of Public Safety. That politician called the director of DPS. He called the major over the Texas Range.

who called the Texas Ranger Captain in Houston who was helping me and told him immediately says, you know, cease all investigations going on pertaining to me. And that's what happened to him. They told us later. But anyway, but during that time period, I ran into a, so that's what happened. They came from that crew and I got another set off,

and another set off, then I go back to the PAC unit. And I run into this whole Vietnam veteran in there. And he was sitting with a guy I knew for the first time. And he's a, I spent a lot of time with this guy, but halfway live with him. They care of him and whatnot. But rumors start spreading that he was the grand dragon of the clan, and I was the grand wizard of the clan, right? Because he's a big old Hulk and a Vietnam vet guy, and I was me, you know.

This rumor starts spreading. It spread for years. And when we're in this big dorm, there was a black guy here from Austin named Noki. He was a good dude. He was like hardcore, like Crip or whatever, but he was, you know, he was a good, He was like grown out of it. But if there was an issue like a black guy, the white guys is coming to meet. And say, hey, you know, squares.

So I'd go, because we kind of took care of ourselves out there to keep the guards from coming in, you know, handle stuff on our own out there in dorm. If there was a problem with the white guy, Nokia'd come to me and say, that dude's popping off saying this or that, you know. We had a couple of Vietnamese guys. They talked to themselves. But same thing with the Hispanics. There was an Hispanic guy and it was like some dude in the Tongoblast, you know. So we kind of ran it. But that rumor floated around all the time and Doki told us about like a year later.

I am Richard, that old guy I'm a friend of my way. I wonder if I know that says away from us. He goes, man, everybody thinks that. It was funny because Richard, they said Richard was running the clan in Dallas and I was running in Houston.

Rich looks at me and goes, I'm 72 years old. I mean, fucking been to Dallas in my entire life, you know? But, yeah, that floated around for quite a while. But what leads to how I got out finally and what brings us to a closing

is my 10th time for parole's coming up. You know? And I got, some calls were made. And I got, from my last two years, I got sent to a private prison, which I'll tell you what, just controversy about that.

I don't know if you've been to a private prison. Culture shock, man. Cheeseburgers or cheese, hot and cold running water. And I was like, you know, like you asked me about the heat. This private prison was air condition. But in Texas, man,

on that, that you asked about the heat, there's nowhere you can go. It's not like you can go, I'm going to sit in the car and cool off, man. You're at the park or something. There's nowhere you go. and they would turn the showers hot

in the summer, cold and winter. There was a sergeant when I was in the pack unit. And I'll tell you about how I got out. But asshole. This guy was a dick, man. He hardly ever talked to anybody, but he would just do vicious, brutal things in the image, right? As is the ward and the major,

bust my jaw and whatever. But we're in the showers. It's in the middle winter and had these big doors like they brought commissary and stuff in, you know. The shower was like right by it. He'd open these doors up, put in the big, you know, like shop fams,

blowing his ice cold, facing the north, blowing riding on us, you know, laughing his ass off. And when he's shower one day and I started walking out, he falls over the heart attack, right? And everybody knows a policeman. You going to help him? Fuck him, man, no. That dude later, because the guards didn't know what to do with him. I wasn't going to help that guy.

Because, hey, if you do that, you get any shipped off the union. I had it made their own warden Belnowski and Sergeant Melissa Wilson. But I said, you know, that dude has no value in life. So, they died, you know. It wasn't by omission to me, but I'm going to help that. The way he treated us, you know. He's monocally laughing about the ice cold showers and having the ice cold wind and the fan of it

and ain't going to blowing us in the showers. Yeah, so, you know, whenever, prison guards, I hate every one of them. But, and then another aspect of that on the heat is when I got jammed up at Darrington, Bill in 1901, and they called it the Chocolate City, the deadly D.

That place, man, I got jammed up. I was another unit and this female lieutenant, a guy attacked her with a chair or something. I wanted to jump it in and helping her.

And I was getting into it the war and had lawsuits against them whatever. So they shipped me to transfer through Darrington going to South Texas. I get in there, I mean,

there's like, I'm telling you, dude, about the size of three of these tables, they had like 80 of us stacked in there. You know, it was wintertime.

And there, there are all these Nigerian guards started showing up. They're vicious. Vile animals, man. They hated the American. They said, I hate you, American blacks. I never seen such vicious creatures in my life

as those Nigerian guards when they came over here. And they'd come in with their tribes. And you see like a regular guard. I never called them officers. I'd fight long. You're not fucking archer. Go look in the dictionary with guard and officer. You're a guard.

But I asked this one, she'd already had tribal marks and stuff in her face. And I'd say, hey, why you so vicious to everybody in here, man? And she was well in our culture. she said in our culture we respect men until I disrespect us and which all the inmates did respect the female guards disrespect him

but there's one guy he was an older dude but he's this regular CEO and the captain would stand up for him and stuff so I asked her I said what's up with this dude man and he was like your tribal leader over in Nigeria and she said like their whole tribes would come over here and TDC Texas prison says to hire anybody they don't care there's a website

called TDCJ troll pitch into them and found us a retired lieutenant from TDC Hanzet every day guards getting arrested, you know, and it's K2, K2's killing people every day in TDC, man, every day. But when I was at Darrington, they snatched me out. He's Nigerians come and get me, all right? I was what the fuck, man?

Because I was going to fight. You stand around for like two hours and they put you on a bus going elsewhere. It was like a dungeon, man. This place was built in 1901. And I sat back there. I hadn't showered in three weeks. I went a week. The only thing I had to eat was a jalapeno pepper that I sneaked in there.

Where nothing but boxers on this bread brick. bad, if you will, no sheets, nothing. Freezing my ass off in there, man. Because they're very vindictive and retaliatory he's prison, but you stand up to them, just like these guys who set me up. You stand up to these corrupt people. You ever know your shit, man.

You know, not tell people, it's a miracle. That was not murdered in prison or worse, and they tried it many times. But I was back there, and all of a sudden this old guy comes by, this whole prison guard in line. I see a way he had his hat creased it. He was military, probably Air Force,

because there's a certain little crease thing they do. he walks saying he looks at me he goes hey uh he goes you was an arrogant little punk out there on the streets wasn't he's an old cat right so jad knew me from somewhere right and i said yeah you know how long you've been back here i said man i have three weeks man he goes how long it's meant you shower and that's not three weeks i've been back here starving to death they're not feeding me man he goes come on and so let me get in the shower which was not hot but you know a little rusted pipe sticking out and sprinkling out so only like 45 minutes he leaves and gets this other guard to come in and watch me.

I'm not even one in there. And Ed, he comes back about 45 hours later. I got out of shower and they give him some clothes, whatever. And he has this, like, old grocery bags, the paper one's like he's down. He walks in there and it's a door, then a vestibule and another door up, right? And so he, he holds that sack out to me.

I feel like, he's freezing in there, man. No heat. It's like January, February, raining out. No window is nothing. And I can feel the heat coming off. I don't know about anywhere else but Texas we have a good barbecue. And the best barbecues is the old dude standing on the side of the road with a trailer pit, man. This old dude goes and gets me some barbecue.

This big chopped beef sandwich. It's like steak fries, hand cut fries, and I bought a grape Gatorade. I cried when handed it to me, man. And I look and I would look in and I'd smell it right. I didn't eat in days, you know. And then he said, what's wrong? You ain't hungry? And I said, fuck, it's starving to death, man.

I was paranoid at this point, man. These fucking tried to set me up, poisoned me. I gobbled like a savage, man. And he went trashed it. And then that night, you had to go through four doors to get to me where I was. That night, they sent four inmates in there after me. Yeah.

Thugs. Beat the shit out of me, man. And then, and that was that old guard. There's two old guards. That old guard and another older white guy were watching out for me. The next night, these four Nigerian guards come and beat the shit out of me, right? So I could scrap

I mean that's four and four I'd eat in days I got my ass kicked I'm gonna lie and then the next night that old guy came he saw what was happening he said I'm getting you out of here man

He said all right He said I'm not gonna be here tomorrow But the next night I'm gonna make some calls I know what's going on back here I mean he's gonna kill you And I said I don't shit The next night

This black female guard shows up And she was all You know what makeup and whatever I'm going to back there There's like six straight cells in his dungeon. She keeps looking at me. She comes over and she goes,

hey, I know who you are. And she said, I reckon, she goes, I've seen you on TV last night. I reckon you got them sexy fucking eyes, man.

So I'm like, what the hell? And then she had that other that tabloat trash book that's written by many years ago. She wants me to sign the book. And we're only back to her back there,

you know, I said, do you think I'd write that? That's not my book. You think I'd write that about myself? Hell no, you know. This tablet trash bullshit lies.

And then she kept saying, man, that bitch you shot warning, she kept on and on. See, I'm no idiot. You know, she's not just some guard, you know. The next day, because I was all pretty beat up, the next day they tried to take me down in the infirmary. I go by and I see that female wearing plain clothes.

And that's just idiot guard. All guard your idiots. I said, who's that chick over there, man? Oh, that's our OIG investigator. There says, oh, because I went around with OIG, man. I started going after those idiots. But she isn't trying to get me to confess to something, you know. But anyway, next night, end of this part of it.

Next night, the old black guy, the old guy, come in. And they said, hey, there's a bus. Don't say anything. Grab, I said, I don't have any gear, man. I just up with these clothes. Get on that fucking bus and just don't say anything to anybody, you know. So they were making some calls, so I'm going to going elsewhere. But anyway, more and more set off.

So I finally got out of prison. The college was made. I got to sit to a private unit. And I went to a prison entrepreneurship program. The COVID hit. Right the end of my class. We went up teaching it for 17 months because nobody came in. But I got a, my parole was coming up.

My last shot, I had 11 months or something like that left. So this is 19 years in, basically? I did 19 years, four months and four days on the 20, which is absolutely unheard of. And they finally give you parole with it? Yeah. That's crazy. Well, this one happens. The major, it's a private unit.

These people are great, man. I'm pro-private prisons. I don't know a big issue with that. But a major comes against me. It goes, hey, parole wants to talk to you. Like I said, you don't get to talk to your people unless it's some crazy case. The first one was at Lenore Zika. The second one was that shakedown for $3,000.

and the commissioner is involved in that. He gets from a file. He's from a completely different region. This is like in 2011 or whatever. I remember he comes in and sees me. Texas Rangers are going to come that day. So they come to tell me you got legal visit. So they take me to law library

instead of the Major's office from the Rangers, right? So here's this guy, pro-commissioner. I'd never seen him before. I knew his name was I was suing him. And I had criminal investigation going against over the shakedown. He goes, hey, I'm so-and-so. And I'm like, oh, shit. And he's not even from that region.

He went and got my file. He's from a different part of Texas to come in and fuck with me, right? He goes against my file. He goes down there. He goes, I'm here to decide whether you go home or not. I said, yeah, now I know he is, you know. And he goes, he goes, it's up to me. And you know what?

Good fucking luck. And turns out walks out. So an hour later, they come get me again. It's a Ranger. And the Rangers is investigating this guy. So I told this Ranger this, man. He goes, wait a man, the major busted your shoulder in your jaw. He's now the parole officer because he retired from TDC.

He's now your parole officer. unit parole loss from the genus yeah he said the parole commissioner's time again he just came and told you that while ago i said i look by now ago man he goes he goes he goes well what do you think your chance of parole are i said fuck it's slim and none and slimness rode out of town dude you know and then let me tell us then we'll get back to getting that i'll promise about these rangers man these guys they went to bat for me man and uh i was talking to the rangers about John Denholm, the homicide lieutenant sent me up in Ron Ackerman, a partner for 17 years or something he didn't do. So I'm telling his Rangers this. He was waiting in man. He goes,

you and Deputy Ackerman had problems with this homicide lieutenant. He said, yeah. And he said, he winds up the chief investigator on both y'all's cases. I said, yeah. And both you guys go go to prison over this, over him, yeah. He said, nobody has said, this is not raising red flags anywhere. I don't say, as last six name is foul. I said, Val, I said, you, I've been a hundred for 25 years and always listening. He goes, well, what in hell to Denholm testify? What did he say at your trial? He said, he never testified in my trial.

He was, why not? I said, we would have come out as an honest. And he said, well, who from internal affairs testified against you? Nobody else cleared by internal affairs. He goes, who the hell from homicide testified against you? Nobody. It was clear about homicide. Same thing.

Well, how in the hell do you wind up in here? Shitty lawyer and fighting a corrupt system, man. But anyway, but Hal got out. He just jumped that. It's my last time up. I have like maybe 11 months. Major comes against me. I go to the major's office because of COVID they couldn't come in but was a computer. This major goes, hey, sit in my seat, man.

He was all right. His name was Kenneth. I was sure I remember his last night because he was a really good guy. But he goes, hey, just sit here and she's going up on the computer. And he goes, like shuts the door. So I'm just at the major's office, you know. And the screen pops up. And it's this lady, you know, look like your mom or whatever.

And she called me Kent. Like I said, that's my middle name. I was going by. And she goes, hey, how you doing, Kent? And I was like, all right. I know it looked funny. And she goes, can you hear me? I said, yes, ma'am, can you hear me?

She was, I can hear you fine. I said, well, I don't sound like a techno emosal. I never talked to a computer before. You know, she looked at all, I guess you have? I said, no. I never forget this woman, man, never. And she looks to me and she said, she said, look, she said, I know what's happening in prison.

I know how you wound up in prison. She was, I cannot in good conscience let you sit here for 20 years. I'm getting you an FI1, which means you get out, and immediate release to get you out of here. And I was like, so I was ready to give him my spiel, you know, and I said, well, you know, you give me a one year set off last year, and it takes two votes. And she goes, don't worry, man, it's taken care of her. And get you out of here immediately. So, all right.

And then she looks to me, she goes, do you know why you've been denied parole for 15 years, 10 times it took you to get out? So I have my legitimate suspicion. She goes, the name is John Denholm and Steve Clapper. Do you know, I saw I'm very familiar with those guys who set me up. The de-investigator and his butt buddy Denholm, the homicide. And she goes, they've been calling her for 15 years telling us that if we let, that you had contracts out to have them killed. And that if we let you out, that you're going to murder them. And I said, well, it'd be understandable.

But I'm going to do it, you know? And she goes, we know what's going on. We're getting you out of here. It still took 86 days to get me out with an immediate release, right? And she told me no restrictions. No ankle monitor. She said, man, just don't, just, you're going to have like eight months. Don't screw up, all right?

And so the day comes to me to get out, bizarre, you know? And the people I wanted there, when I was walking out the warden who ran that unit, he literally hugged me. He said, man, congratulations, because they really liked us. We ran that PPE on our own. And there's good people. But I didn't always pick me up, you know. The main people wanted it was my mom and dad and my son.

They were the top three. I knew, you know, they passed. But man, Ray Hunt from the union is there, as a brother, another Houston PD officer. They come pick me up in HPD, suburban. They get permission from the parole board and the chief and all this. But man, I got some tennis shoes. I'm not a tennis shoe guy with lace up tennis shoes

and I'm a belt and blue jeans. I was like, I'm like, man, is this really a buttoned up shirt? But the morning the guard who came and got me, she's kind of a mouthy, black female. And she comes in and I'm in a day room

because I knew I was leaving that morning. She goes, hey, motherfucker, you know. See, what's your bitch ass hair? You going home? I said, man, get the fuck up. Hell yeah. So she's all sassy. So she goes in and her

gets my clothes, you know. So I'm changing out. They let you out, you go through like a visitation. Like you stripped down I don't forget a visitation, really gave me my clothes. I left everything I had. I had like one little bag with some, my pictures and whatever.

I gave everything away. And so I walk out, parole's there, and they said, we'll put this ankle monitor on. That's why, no restriction. She said, well, some things have happened since you know that. I said, let me tell you some woman. I don't give a shit. You chain me to a tree out in the woods, no clothes.

Just don't water murder me. What's a day? I'm good to go. Give me the hell out of here, you know? So I walk out, and there's a video of this, you know. I walk out, man, there's Ray and his brother, another HPD officer, you know. I was kind of looking around. I hadn't seen the son for 17 months because of COVID.

I walked out and I lived for my mom and dad, my son, you know. You know, I knew what had happened, but I was thinking, you know, no, you've been locked up, man. You can't do that stuff, man. You got to just, do you worry about surviving to get up to people that were there, you know? So, of course, they weren't there. And so I felt it well enough. I get overwhelmed at times over this, as you can see.

but they're oh hey man you know hey you know police are you so i go over there man i just dropped a little garage grabbed gray hunt man just lost it and then they get in the car and he gives me a cell phone you yeah car car your car your cousin man i was like okay where's the button i'd never seen a cell phone i seen them like on tv we didn't have cable i don't see cable tv for all those years but they except when i went to that private gene for last two years i go into the dorm and naked and Afraid was on, you know, and I didn't even, I never heard of that thing, you know. And this is in 2019. So I walk in, I look, you know, there's a bunch of cool, cool dudes in there. All going through that program, you know. So I look, man, they all shake my hand. Like, what else

going on here? It's just, you got porn in here, man? No, no, that's naked and afraid. Yeah, I can see. I mean, what are they afraid of, you know? I never knew stuff, you know? But yes, when I get out, uh, we'll get me a phone. They said, do not call anybody. I mean, look at anybody don't look up yourself, your lawyers, Cogdale, because they didn't want to see it was out there. You know? And so about six months into that, I went to my parole officers, sir.

They were really cool, man. And I said, hey, I don't care, but why am I under this SISP, which is super intensive supervision program, ankle monitor? I literally kind of step out the door, you know. I did do everything in advance 20-day schedule. My Houston poll officer, she said,

they had signed two parole officers to me, that a supervisor and an irregular appeal. They said, look, we don't think you can do something stupid or dangerous or any hazard where she said we have people watching us watching you god forbid something happens to you you're flag we need to know where you are at all times to you're no longer response our responsibility that's fair enough so she was cool but only lasted in houston like a month i said man screw this i'm going to Montgomery county next county north i grew up so there prolobs are there she was funny man straight-up ghetto

but she was really cool but she uh told me the same thing and then I research and study everything. So I'm studying the parole law. And I know in Texas, when you're out on parole at 100 days, they have to give you eight hours a week. You can take it all at once or two hours. They try to acclimate you to go to restaurants and be around, you know, human beings instead of criminals.

And so I went there and I said, hey, he tastes my 100th day and she's like, Ms. Mathis, I said, I know, I know, you won't tell me, you know, you need to take a break. And I said, oh, yeah. And so she almost gets to me sent to prison. I go with my ex-wife and her granddaughter, we go to a place. It's for kids.

They have, like, bowling and pizza and games and whatever. I'm in there, and my phone went off. I looked at it, and all my friends are police officers. And said on there, they have, like, unlisted numbers. What do you call it? Like, private numbers, whatever. And so, you know, I'm with them hanging out, whatever. So I said, yeah, I better inch that.

And it hung up right before I got to it. Stuck it back in my pocket. It's very noise in there with kids' games, right? Now, plus, I put that on vibrate, drop in my pocket, it goes off again. And I pick it up, and it said private number or something like that. And she goes, hey, is this Joseph Kent McGillowellie? I said, yeah, who's this?

She goes, well, I'm so on and so. I'm going to text the board of pardoning parole's warrants division. Where are you? And I said, hey, I'm at this address. And she goes, are you supposed to be there? Yes. Because, Ms. Math, my parole officer put on your computer. In Austin, their headcores, they monitor you at night and weekends, you know.

She said, I called you while ago. She said, three strikes you're out. She goes, if you want to pick up this phone right now, she goes, we're going to have a sheriff and right to get you. That'll look like an idiot from a granddad. He's no idea what's going on, you know. But next Tuesday, I went in to see her. I walk in. She goes, I know, I said a woman, you're damn many how many people put in

prison. I sit in jail for six months trying to get out of that one, you know, but she was super cool with me, man. Anyway, where we are today, I have a monitor cut off. And then I went to live with that old Vietnam veteran guy. He got out, helping him out at the farm. And then at a lawyer, no lawyers, I contact him more than 100 lawyers. Every lawyer is, you know, with a name. We know what happened, but hell no. We're not involved with a car. They're all scared of them. I'm not. And then, uh, fighting some lawyer calls me. He goes, hey, man, I know a guy.

I know a lawyer who knows about your case. I want to help you. Why had him for 15 months? And he gets disbarred. I was, I had nothing to do with my case. Some crazy financial thing. And so right after that, man, I'm on my phone. I don't anything about social media and nothing. I'm just looking at people, man. FBI agents and shit. I contact an FBI agent, a very well-known guy in Hollywood in Hollywood guy, retired FBI. He was, man, if you talk to Michael Tabman? I said, no, he's retired.

You need to call him. So I'll look him up. Michael was a police officer for three years. Then he was FBI, supervisory, special agent in charge, retired, 26-year-bed in very high-profile cases he's handled. So I researched him. And he's got people out of prison, innocent people. He just says that's what he is, you know. He's living in Florida now.

He's from New York, though. So I reach out to him, man. He says, what's going on? So we set up with Zoom. I never talked on Zoom before. That was weird. And then he, you know, he looked into this. And he told me the same thing.

Months later, he said, man, I thought you're full. He goes, I totally thought you're full of shit. You know, I started talking to people. And so he did a three investigation. And then two years ago this past June, I got a call from somebody and said, hey, we have some legal files. You need to come pick up pertaining to you. I said, all right.

I go there and there's 18 boxes. And one of them was three foot long. You can put another piece of paper. We have some of the last 100,000 pages of documents in there. Man, not only, those documents I did it, who set me up, how they did it, and their devious little motives. And we have a letter in there, which Cogdell, I probably know this by now, we call the Cogdell Confession Letter. Well, Cogdell, when I have, Zembram is my direct appeal lawyers. Cogdell wrote two statements or two separate elements of my appeals.

He put in there that what I did was inadvertent and non-strategic. which is legally. It's where I fucked up, man. He wrote two of those statements, which was an issue about why he even did that. The mother lawyer said, because I know that rents you're going to get out and go after him. But anyway, then,

I hired this, after he lost that, Randy, Randy Sherp's my writ lawyer. We had this letter we found in those documents. A personal lawyer that Cogdell wrote to my writ lawyer. We called the Cogdell confession letter. He's going to shit when he sees we have this. Hey, I fucked up.

I didn't talk to any witnesses. This is a two-page type letter, you know, which they did like in the word process or things back then. Man, I didn't object to this. I didn't know everything we've said that he's done. There's a letter. How I got in there, I have no idea.

But then Tabbin did, Tabbin finished his investigation. I got called from a mutual firm with Jerry Linton, the guy wrote the book that just came out in May. And he's a number of bestseller books, but he writes like about drug cartels, mafia,

gings, and this mutual firm, I'm very well known. He's my mentor, Alan Warren, up in Vancouver, Canada. He's really like three dozen New York Times best sellers. And he said, you call me and he said, I got the perfect guy to write your book. I just interviewed him.

So that's how I wound up with Jerry, Lankton. And then for nine months, we taught for nine months, I did a Zoom every day with him for one to three hours a day, money through Friday, thousands of texts, thousands of documents. And about six months into this, we're talking. He goes, man, he goes, Ken, I've interviewed. thousands of people. He's done this for years. In investigative journalists and all the stuff. He goes, you know what to difference? I've interviewed thousands of people

these kind of things. He goes, you know the difference between you and all them? And I said, I'm a twinkly eye. I'm a winning person. I'm a quick wait. He goes, no, you asshole. He said, you got the receipts. I didn't know what that man. I stabbed me on 20 years. I don't know what the hell that means. He goes, everything that I've asked you, you have documents you've sent to me. I said, yeah, you know. And of course, he's taught to witnesses, you know, a bunch of people involved, my lieutenant, whatnot. Cogdale wouldn't talk to him. None of the bad guys would talk to him.

I said, well, hell no, they're not going to further incriminate themselves. But that Cogdale, man, that lawyer, what did he did in my family? The worst part of it about it, something happened to get me put in prison, was what I did to my family,

my mom and dad, when they're dying, gave them hope, you know. And then my mom died just a few weeks after that. And then my dad died 11 months after my mom, but, you know, gave them the hope, you know. and then Dan says some secretaries. I know three of them he's fired because of me. He's sneaking information out to me.

I called Dan one time, 2018, you know, and his secretary, she said, Dan, no, Dan told me that he had hired two private investigators to help me, a retired FBI agent and Vanessa Walthor. She is a retired FBI agent, so I don't know how long she lasted with. And he told me, was other guys, he's a former district judges are the main, felony court judges in Texas.

He goes, I hired him to get Kevin Hines. And he was, you may want to interview this guy. He said Kevin Hines with an age. He said, yeah, man, he was, you know, prosecutor, attorney prosecutor. He's a district criminal court judge. They're investigating your case. Whatever, man. He lied every time I spoke with him.

So anyway, Ray Hunt from the union comes to see him about three weeks later. I'm telling Ray, and Ray's wife was with him at this point, I think. And Ray looks to me and goes, hey, can't. That guy's name is not Kevin Hunt. It's Kevin fines. I said, I'm not familiar. This dude, you gotta Google this guy.

This guy was a prosecutor. Then he was an elected district court judge in Houston. He gets spun off of meth. Let me think. I'm trying to remember when I read that my wife flipped it up and she's like, oh my God, he's all over the internet. You don't see this. He gets caught with meth in the courthouse and they knew nothing to him.

Then he comes out here to New Bromples right around here. He gets caught I think in a trap house with some meth and hookers and then they took him off the bench I think then he goes to Houston being an attorney and he gets popped again

for swapping out Poon Teng and drugs for legal work so it gets disbarred right so Ray Hunt tells me this is who this is Dan's he is as fines not Heinz can I said so I call Dan's secretary who he fired over probably this and she would answer the phone

if Dan was there we had a code you know And she would, all the secretary snitched him off all the time. He's not doing anything. He's lying, do you, man? Tell me to destroy evidence. Well, so I'm only as one secretary. And I said, hey, or Ray Hunt was just up here. I said, is Vanessa Walther on the FBI agent?

She goes, yeah, yeah. And I said, is Kevin Hines now found his fines? He used to be a judge. And she goes, mm-hmm. And I said, let me guess. Was Dan Cognito, who's lawyer throughout all this? Mm-hmm. So, man, my wife, she's Googling.

Oh, my, yes, these pictures got from a judge. He's all tatted up meth head guy and a biker dude. There's something else. But anyway, what leads me to you is all that happened, all was documented, witnessed. And then tabbed into three-year investigation, the guy decides to write the book, you know. It took 15 months to write it. And then it came out. I'd never seen a podcast, be honest with him.

I knew nothing about them. Like I told Matthew Cox here today, man, I did. I struggle but I'm just now getting a hold of Facebook I need some help of this stuff man. TikTok also I got thousands of people

look at me I don't even know how to answer them but anyway they the book came out and Jerry said man you can talk you need to tell your story

we've been set quiet for 34 years because I'm a lawyer's you know been wait on your appeal you know wait on this and wait for your parole just hang tight

hang tight all that's done you know and then I have a guy I don't know if you know Steve Stanieless he's an NYPD

was and a chip inells down very famous guy he was Cardiff Kim Kardashian and Kanye West bodyguard that got sued by Kanye for like 20 million for banging Kim or whatever

he's a character you have to put him on your show but anyway and all these people start getting involved and then I'm someone across you some other guys and my phone goes off all day and all night

and Ed let me tell you this one of those when I came out with Matthews, it came out seven days ago maybe. I've had 11 deputies from the Harris County Sheriff's Department of contact meeting. And before this, I've had throughout the years, people call them and say, hey, man, you know, this happened to me. You need to talk to these guys they jammed up. I've had 11 deputies, I guess seven days, six or seven days. Same fucking story, man.

Clapper, Denham, that coward, Sergeant Rochero, setting these guys up. One guy did, he did 15 years and six months on a 16 that he did not do. I told you, Marcus Flex, got 340s in a 10-year sentence because these guys, man, I had a other guy I reached out the other day. He got a, he said, man, you all, fuck, did nothing I do. I'll take five years probation. Same judge as me. So he goes in there for five years,

and he had lived in another state in Tennessee at this point. And the same judge I had told him said, you know what, you come there for, you think I'm going to give you five years probation? Because the DA's office agreed five years probation because this is a bullshit deal. And then she was, I think I'm going to send you to prison for 10 years right now. He's like, my plane leaves in two hours. What do you mean?

It's 10 years he did in here. But in Texas, if you're charged, if there's a death or it's a sex allegation, I'm telling people this, you need to testify, man. If you don't tell your story, somebody's going to tell it, it's going to be in your favor. You're going to get fucked. You know, you've got to testify.

I fall, I testify on first trial, but Cogdell said, no, hell, you're too arrogant. I say, I don't care, man. You know, I got to tell him a story. And it's like what happened. And it's like what happened. And I tell people this in closing, man, if this could happen to my family and me, it can happen to anybody out there, man. Know where my family are parking tickets, veterans, entrepreneurs, police officers, you know.

If it can happen to my family, it can happen to anybody. And I know by other states, I don't know it, Texas. They want you. They're going to get you, man. They're going to get you. People are, man, you have these big lawyers. I don't give a shit. They're corrupt, too, you know.

And in Texas, which had nothing to do in my case, but bunch of these deputies, they go from almost, she's almost sex crimes. Because if you date a girl and she's got a 13-old daughter, you know, and you're hanging out, hey, I need a hundred bucks to go to the mall. No, I'm going to call the cops and tell me right. I don't care what you tell the cops. You're gone for 40 years, man. I ran into an elderly Vietnam veteran, not the guy I live with. It's called him a Colonel Green Beret I ran into.

And he had a 40-year sentence. He was like 75 when he got locked up. His wife passed away. In Colmore County, just north of here. A lot of people drop out of Coleman County. But this little girl's like 15 or 16. He would come to his house and cook for him. you know, some neighborhood girl.

He said it for like three months. She came here and told me he, she goes, I need $10,000. She said, why don't you, I'm helping you out? I'm going to pay you $10,000. I thought you're just being nice. She goes, you give me $10,000. I'm telling police you molest to me.

I don't care. That dude died in prison. He died of cancer in prison. You know, that's an old man. A Bullberg, Greenberry, Colonel being on bet. That girl did that too. This is Texas, man.

If you and I are out there and I say, hey, this Ian guy, he just pointed a gun me and robbed me. Oh, there's no investigation. You know, it's, Snatch his grab, this cuff of them and stuff in time, man. You're going to jail. Good luck fighting it, you know. You know, I'm sure it's like that probably everywhere.

But in Texas, guilt and innocence plays no part of going to jail or prison. Right, wrong, law, honor, duty. I don't get a fuck, man. And it's, and I've been to defend police officers, of course. Man, for the most part, it's not these deputies, these police officers. You know, these are blue-collar guys, man, make it a limit. It's these fucking prosecutors. It is these prosecutors in cahoots of these lawyers, you know.

These prosecutors do this to you, you know. This deputy, I think I talked about last night. I never heard this guy. He texted me last night. We talked from 8.30 to 1.15 in the morning. And telling his story, the same thing with the warrant. He's work with organized crime. Waste to work.

Just a quick story. And he goes to a house with an informant. They bought some dope in this apartment. Boy, leave. So he writes his report, and he had somebody else to the organized crime unit. they went and got to warrant and warrant said that he'd worked multiple deals of this informant and this is the third time

they've gone to his apartment and bought dope off this this dude or whatever it was so he's got to call me last night never never sports a guy never expected Harris County deputy same guy sent him up and he said he saw the he said hey I'm not going to show this warrant I didn't run three deals of this guy

first I'm in the CI so he took it his he was the side of narcotics so he took it to his captain they said don't win this fucking warrant man six months later they indict this guy with a warrant They stand in prison for 10 years over that. He didn't even write the warrant. He refused to run the warrant.

But guess who's involved? Dan Homan Rosero. Those dudes, man, I get text all the time. Since this stuff started coming out, hey, man, I'll work there in 93, man, this is what happened to me, you know? Denholm and Clapper? Yep. Denholm-Rerimo?

Fuck yeah, I was my sergeant. He was my lieutenant. These dudes are bad, but you know what? It's coming, man. I tell them every time. We're coming. everything we can possibly lawfully do is going to happen. There's people who are prison over this.

In Tama of the FBI, we discussed that we get to where we're going to go, we're going to go to the FBI with this. You know, you're talking about civil rights violations. And then my final statement is this. I couldn't find a lawyer. Nobody, right? The book's coming out. Suss it, man.

I'm just going to hail Mary. I call this very well-known attorney. I can't say their name now, but we have a press conference. It's going to drop a nuke right in the middle of this. man, by Hill Mary this lawyer. And actually, Harris County District Attorney's Office, they've stepped up to help me. They saw me on Matthew Cox. I talked before, but they saw that Matthew Cox thing that day.

Hey, man, hey, just what's going on. But I heal her, Mary when it's a lawyer. No way, she's going to call me back. And let the voicemailant. Hey, this is Kent McGowan. I know you know I am. Just an absolute unexpected phone call. I need your help.

Binary she calls me. And she goes, hey, you're the Houston officer. She went to the county and got sent to prison. one shooting around and she goes, you know what? I said, I watch what I say here. She was in my time in this business, I should say. She said, I've handled hundreds of thousands of felony cases. I remember one, it's you, you know. She said, I know everything happened. Everything happened to you. And then she goes, and she said, you met about, so I was out five years last week, the 14th of July. And I said, she goes, why have you know, she goes, you called everybody I know. Why did you, why did you

not call me and I said I was scared of you you know I had some you know some I had experience with her and I said I was scared of you you know she was she was let me tell you something she was when can be at my office and this is like five four 30 on a Friday I said when you'll be there nine o'clock Monday I'll be there so I drive all over to Houston and man she's just like what you know and I told her about the Cogdell confession letter and whatnot so she was where your documents I said I haven't secured in an air-condition thing so bring these So I'll bring him down there, man. She looks down and she said, this is crazy, man.

She said, let me tell you something. She said, I'm the only lawyer in the state of Texas. I'll take her case. I'm the only lawyer can get you out of this case. And her absolute mortal enemies in life, Dan Cogdell, Steve Clapper, and John Denholm, you know. So, but, yeah, so that's about to drop. And that's what leads me to you doing this crazy podcast, man.

I was Hail Mary and finding people, I don't know. I like some people have nine listeners. There's Ian Bick. What? How many you know? What an episode, Kent. Wow. I'm telling you.

Everybody listens to know there's a lot more to this, man. Read the book. The book's about 5%. And we'll have the link in the description in this episode for it too. Yeah, but we have pending now for a two-hour documentary and in a six-part, 12-hour biopic, I think they call it. But we're just filming things. But it's going to come out.

Our biggest mistake in this was not fighting the tabloid trash. That's what got me. The clapper and them, they're feeding illegally, phonyously, information on the grand jury, the media, whatever. Those dudes, man, go out to our family's house, then calling my Lord saying, we're going to go to the McGowan compound like at Waco, what they did in my wife, my children. My children grew up with this.

And let me just say this. It's all I say in closing. Two things. People say, you want you just drop this, man, just move on, man, no fucking way. And when Ray Hunt, the executive director of police union, when Jerry Lane to North of the book, they talked many times. It's in the book. Jerry asked Ray.

He said, you think Kennell ever just, you know, drop this? And Ray said, no. He said, innocent people who have been sent to prison, they've been wrong so deeply, they never get over it, you know. I've got to say, I'll get through this. I'll never get over it. But my four reasons for doing this is, number one, my family, not just, this destroys entire families, you know, not just the person.

This much due justice needs to come to my family or what's happened. This destruction they've done, they've annihilated. I actually 100% blame the stress when killing my mom and dad and my son. The second reason I'm doing this is my mom and dad on her deathbed. That made me promise them you will fight this until your name is clear and a family name is clear. And then the third reason is my kids, they're all adults now. My kids, and then my grandkids grew up with this, man. It was taboy trash shit and all this, you know, people watching them in comments, you know,

it's bullying or whatever. And then my grandkids deal with it. And number four, man, these fucking guys, Clapper, Dental Reporter, they've done this, obviously a lot more sheriff's deputies and HPD guys. They've done this to civilians. I know two cases we're getting into. They tried to file a capital market. murder on two boys, two separate situations.

They knew they didn't do it. Just trying to make a name. This is Texas. They will execute you in Texas. They try to fall bogus capital warrant. I mean, capital murdering these guys. I tell everybody, there's a lawyer in Houston named Murray Newman, N-E-W-M-A-N. He has a blog.

He's former prosecutor. I'm not plugging with this guy because he wouldn't help me. You have Murray Newman's blog and click on it. Go to his website, click on blog, and type in Steve Clappert and John Denham and see what comes up there, man. I have one of the things posted on my Facebook page, Bob. Mark Stevens, he retired HBD Homicide. He was another case.

And on that blog is one thing Mark said. He said, what I know about Denholm and Clappert, setting up people, whatever, said it makes one wonder how many people are still sitting in prison because of Denholm and Clappard. But if you type in Denholm and Clapper,

man, these are 20, 30, 40-year veterans. Houston PD, FBI, DA's office, Harris County, these guys are corrupt. I mean, if you didn't go, you bucked up to them. You're going to prison. and these they set up people or idiots, all negative about them, man.

So that's much of you, man. Well, Ken, I appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Thank you for letting me listen. Of course, and I wish you the best going forward. If there's innocent people out there, there's a bunch. Never fight, man. Never give up the fight. Keep fighting. It'll happen.

So thank you very much. Thank you, man. Of course.