Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - I Was Framed For My Wife's Murder | Russ Faria

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

I Was Framed For My Wife's Murder | Russ Faria

I walked in the door and was confronted with the scene that I don't recommend anybody ever seen. I saw my wife brutally stabbed the death on the floor. Well, over 24 hours at that point, they asked me if I wanted to take a lie detector test. Well, having nothing to hide, I agreed to that. In retrospect, and to anybody listening to this, I would recommend never, ever, ever in your life, if somebody asked you to take a lie detector test to take one. To go out there and tell people that what happened to me isn't the one-off thing. It happened to people all over our country all of the time.

So you found guilty. In my mind, I'm going to be the rest of my life, so I might as well, you know, get used to it. You know, when I was locked up in prison and I was writing guys' stories, you would hear one thing from the FBI or the investigators. and then I would order the Freedom of Information Act. And what I realized right away is that one, you know, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing. And so I would get stuff, you'd have the Freedom of Information Act

would give me documents that the FBI said didn't exist. In my particular case, I had a perfect storm of somebody trying to set me up, I had a bad prosecutor, I had a bad judge, I had a whole bunch of crooked cops. Does that happen all the time? No. Do people get wrongfully convicted all the time?

Yes. My whole thing is all of the things that happened afterward is just as bizarre. Like every single aspect of this story is just pure insanity. Hey, this is Matt Cox. I am here with Russ Ferrea and he has a very interesting story. He's just an absolutely bizarre kind of murder mystery, just straight insanity just based on what I've, I've looked at. And, you know, I'd never heard about this story and I've been looking into it. I mean, it's, it's fascinating.

While I was raised in a small suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, called Florescent, grew up in a large Italian family there on my mother's side with frequent trips to Florida throughout my life because it's where my father's side of the family is from. And just basic middle class lifestyle growing up. But then we moved out to rural St. Charles County when I was about 18 years old or so. I made that move there and started a new life out here. And I guess a few years after that, I started working at a local liquor store or whatnot. How old are you? About 21 by that time. and then a few years after that I was frequent in a gas station that was nearby my house where I lived with my parents

and this young lady by the name of Betsy was working in there wouldn't be in there quite often because there weren't really too many stores around the area at that time and that was kind of the place to go get all of your little convenience items so I got to see this gal a little bit talk to her and flirt around a little bit actually eventually she asked me out and amazingly enough and so we went out on a date and she was kind of going through a divorce at the time and unhappy marriage she had to marry a couple years and she also had two kids from a previous relationship prior to that and so we started getting to one another She also had a DJ business.

Our name was Betsy Meyer. And she had been, went to a local broadcasting school. Actually, was an on-air DJ in Florida at one time before moving back to Missouri and starting her DJ business. I had always been into music and whatnot.

So that was another way that we kind of clicked. And once her divorce was final, whatnot, I guess we kind of kicked it in. a little bit more of a high gear started getting a little bit more serious realized that we had feelings for one another and eventually

we got married to year because I was it everything well we had our share of ups and downs and whatnot in discretion things weren't always heavily and smooth like fairytale weddings or whatnot but

by about the year 2008-2009 we were really doing much better than we had over the course of our relationship. Then we realized that she had breast cancer. And that's kind of a kick in the gut, if there ever was what. If I ever had that news presented to them, can really understand that. So we went through the process of being treated for cancer and everything that goes with that. At the time, we were looking for a new home, which we ended up moving in in rural town north of St. Charles County and Lincoln County called Troy, Missouri, and starting to make our life up there at that time.

And what were you doing there for a living at that time? By then, I was working for Enterprise Ritter Car and the IT department. So I had, uh, originally was going into the office and I was one of the first people I guess out there that was a little bit ahead of the curve and I started work. I was one of the first people working from home. So I had a home office in my basement and was able to be home with Betsy quite a bit. Uh, of course, she had to drive quite a ways for her treatments and whatnot, but, uh, we were doing pretty good up there.

And I guess around 2010 or so, the end of 2010, beginning of 2011, she was declared cancer-free. And so we set about celebrating for that. One thing that we always like to do was travel and go on cruises. And so she planned a celebration cruise with a bunch of family in France for November of that year. And I guess right around October of that year, which was again, 2011, she had a doctor's appointment and the doctor ended up calling us when we were out of town on a trip and saying that we need to go see the oncologist again. It sounded really good. And when we got back, we saw the oncologist and found out that the breast cancer had returned. and this time it was in her liver and basically inoperable.

He gave us a prognosis of about three to five years on the outside, you know, if everything went great. That was another really big kick in the gut, and we had to deal with that. But Betsy kept a positive attitude. She was always a positive person, and that said, she kept the plans for the cruise that she wanted because it was more uh she decided to call it a celebration of life and so we went on that cruise in november and she got to swim with the dolphins which was a lifelong dream of hers you know a lot of cool things that this would be on most people's pocket list and we came back and had Thanksgiving prepared for Christmas and whatnot of course

Kind of like, you know, you have somebody that you know isn't going to be around so much longer. You take a little bit more time with holidays. Take a couple more pictures, you know, buy an extra gift or two, you know, because, you know, you're not going to have them that much longer. And we kind of did stuff like that and had Christmas. And we had to have, I think, three or four Christmases with extended family and whatnot. But we got those out of the way. and Betsy was actually staying at her mother's about a half an hour from where we live because she had a chemo appointment on she stayed over there on the 26th of December that she had a chemo

appointment on the 27th I had to go home because obviously I had to work the Christmas holiday was over and the 27th was my day to go back to work so I worked all day and I had a I pre-arranged, that was a Tuesday and I had a pre-arranged game night that I had with some friends of mine. It was really only about five minutes from her brother's house. And I was going to figure up on my way from that game night. That said, we communicated throughout the day, mostly by text, because by job I was on the phone all day long. It was really kind of hard to make a phone call, communicate that way. And so there were a lot of texts back and forth between her and I.

And at one point, she decided or informed me that she wouldn't need a ride home that her friend Pam was going to bring her home, which was really odd to me because Pam lived about 30 to 40 minutes from us. I was going to be five minutes away and got my way home. And so I questioned it. She said, no, yeah, she wants to give me a ride home. I said, okay, that's fine. Proceeded by the rest of my day. Left home, and normally on that night I would have dinner at my mom, which was about five minutes from my friend's house,

but I had errands to run and called my mom. Let her know those things and ran my errands. Went to my friends, and, you know, we smoked a little weed and watched some movies, actually, that night, because not everybody was there. And so we couldn't play the games we wanted to play. and we watched a couple movies and we all left around 9 o'clock

I'd stopped and got a sandwich and headed home I had no idea what I was in store for from that one night but when I got home I walked in the door and was confronted with the scene that I don't recommend anybody ever seen I saw my wife brutally

stabbed the death on the floor and Initially, I jumped to conclusions because you're talking about a person that was permanently ill. Also, I had had mental problems in the past and even attempted suicide in the past. So I thought that she had attempted suicide or actually committed suicide at that point. I know she was no longer with us. And actually, at least most people do. I went into shock and I went to the next room.

I called 9-1-1, which is what you're taught to do. That was probably my biggest mistake, trusting them. The police came, I was escorted outside, and they proceeded to do an investigation. Eventually, after a couple hours, I was asked to go down to the police station. And I really was not thinking straight as far as I thought I was help with the police. And the statement, they asked me the same questions over and over again, which I repeated my answers over and over again. I mean, I've got my entire life to call the truth, you know, and especially to those in authority.

So my story didn't change. didn't waver. What I didn't know at the time was they were out investigating everything I said, confirming everything I said. Going so far as to interview the people that I said I was with, who confirmed that I was with. And then they had me, it's sometime of the next day I'd been up well over 24 hours at that point. They asked me if I wanted to take a lie detector test.

Well, having nothing to hide, I agree to that. In retrospect, and to anybody listening to this, I would recommend never, ever, ever in your life, if somebody asks you to take a lie detector test to take one. One is they're not admissible in court. Two, it's not an exact science. Three is you'll never see the results. I don't even know if the machine was on.

They fit my time. I've never seen a result. we were told that the machine malfunction. However, at the time after my test, I was told that I failed. And that's what the cops use against people because they're allowed to lie. You're not supposed to lie to them.

However, they don't have any rules saying that they have to be honest with you at all. Yeah, I was going to say the lie detector test is only used as a tool to help incriminate you. it's if it excludes you then they disregard it if it if it says you know what I'm saying if it says that if they feel that it's you know it's it makes you said that you know if you failed it then they're like oh I knew he was guilty if it says no no he's telling the truth and they say

disregard it it's not you know it's not like you said it's not admissible that they're only using it as a tool to manipulate the situation they are and and it's not fair it's not right but In most cases, the police and people in authority are taught to get a confession or get a conviction not to solve a crime. And that is what a lot of people need to realize they can do it to anybody out. So I was told I failed and then was... The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points.

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for the first time in over 24 hours and after begging countless times to make a phone call I was actually able to make that phone call my family to my mom actually and my cousin Mary now famous Mary Anderson was there and you know I had a mutual friend that was a lawyer I told her to get a hold of him his name was Andy Pini And he came up there, and he got me out. He said, you know, if you're not going to charge this guy with a crime, he needed to Lisa. And so that's what happened. I came out to a lot of press and whatnot. He gave me a ride home, my parents' house, and where I ended up having to plan a funeral and go through a funeral over the next course of several days. And then it was January of the 4th.

of 2012, which is just a few days after that, I would think storm to my mother's house and basically pushed past my father into the house and arrested me and brought me out to the car and charged me with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Now, I was handcuffed, put in the front seat of a cop car in a seatbelt, and then a cop about two times my size by the name of Ryan McCarrick

remember that came in a lot he thought that that wasn't enough and that they weren't safe enough and he decided that it'd be a really good idea to hold his gun in my head through the entire 30-minute bumpy car ride all the way back to Troy yeah he's

a real nice event anyway then I was promptly thrown into jail and book and didn't know what was going to happen next. At the time, my cousin, Mary, who I met him before, remembered a lawyer that she had used to work for. It was, had made quite a name for himself in the ensuing years since she had known him.

And his name is Mr. Joel Schwartz. And so she gave him a call and he had been filing the case. It was already in the air. and she filled him in on what she knew wasn't in the news and he agreed to come and see me even before taking a retainer from which that kind of speaks to their friendship because that's something that normally would require but he came up to see me and that was the first person other than family and friends first person in authority that I got the impression actually believed what I was saying and believed in me. And so I agreed to hire Joel

at that point. That was probably my best decision. And then we went through the process of preparing for a trial. Now initially, Joel thought, this is a big misunderstanding. Well, did you get out of were you bonded out? Oh, no. My bond was well over a million dollars. Oh, okay. But Joel initially said, hey this is a big misunderstanding you know everything that you said is provable right prove where you were every you know i'm going to talk to the prosecutor we'll get this taken care of it's that's obviously a big mistake well the young new prosecutor miss leah asked uh basically did want anything to do with joel or anything that he had to say and uh that we decided you know we came to the conclusion that we would have to go

to trial, which we started preparing for trial and everything that's entailed in that. Well, Joel started doing his own investigation, and there were, you know, a lot of things coming up. The person's name kept coming up by the name of Pam Huff. She was the person that gave Betsy a ride home that night. There were a lot of other details that were coming up that she was kind of forcing her way into Betsy's day that day because Betsy had had other plans

or whatnot. So it was really beginning to look like she was the one who did this crime. And she didn't have figured it up. We couldn't understand why the police could. Had the police even questioned her?

Well, if you want to call it questioning, I mean, they didn't really question her as thoroughly as they did me and they kind of let her control the questioning and then when they wanted to question her husband they let her be in the same room

and she pretty much answered all the questions for him and let him sit there on his hands basically saying nothing other than his name they did a really shoddy investigation to say the least I mean the Keystone cops could have done a better job okay

and it's the truth The problem that I've watched like three different programs on this. Well, if you've watched the thing about Pam and everybody says, oh, it's, it looks like a comedy. Well, the people that they're making you laugh at, it's more foolish in real life. Trust me, they're just, Leah Askey had an affair with one of the lead investigators on the case. And every time he's seen her in the courtroom or anywhere, he act like a little puppy dog. you know like a little teenager lost to love or whatever you had Ryan McCarrick who decided it was a good idea to hold a gun to my head but also called me out of myself not once

but twice without my attorney present you know because he's trying to bully right he couldn't find out couldn't bully me you know I go back to myself and then we were originally scheduled to have a trial was going to happen in November of 2012 and kind of the way it works when you're sitting in the county tale awaiting trial you're kind of in a line just like a line at a fast food restaurant or a store

when your turn comes up that's your turn and you get to have your trial while my turn came up in November and a couple weeks or a week or two before my trial we had a pre-trial hearing right there's a lot of those that lead up there

but this particular one was going to be the last one before our trial and we were getting ready and I got to meet with Joel beforehand he says well what's going to go on in here is he's going to ask for a continuance and I'm going to say no not less we could lower this guy's

bond you know so he can get out and await his trial the judge is going to deny both of us and we're going to go to trial next week. Now, the judge was a great guy by the name of Dan Dildine, who was scheduled to retire at the end of that year and who judge was already elected to come in in January. So we went into the courtroom, sure enough,

it happened exactly almost word for word the way Joel said it would. She's like, great, okay, we're going to go to trial, we're going to admit this thing, it's going to be great. Went back to jail, and the next day one of Joel's associates came up and let me know that what had happened was that

after previous days hearing Leah Askey did something that I don't even understand why they're allowed to do this but she dropped my charges and then refiled them so basically

dropped all the charges against me and then filed them all over again five minutes late What was that to start you over in line? Exactly. You go right back to the back of the line now. So after waiting almost a year for trial, I had to wait another year for the next November at 2013

to go to trial. Well, we had a new judge this time. I had to Chris Minemeyer, Chris Coons of Minemeyer, and that person actually went to school. Leah Askey, amazingly enough. And so she would deny Joel just everything and give Leah everything. She won it throughout all the pretrial leading up to the trial. Then we have our trial in November.

Well, and behold, one of her cousins is actually on the jury. Wow. I mean, is Joel aware of all this, but he's just... Well, we didn't know this still afterwards about... But, you know, he was trying everything he could as a lawyer. I mean, he's very experienced, very good at what he does. And he's, like, citing all kinds of case history and that. And even going into the trial, she kept shooting him down.

However, I was still confident that, you know, we presented a good case and that we were going to win. But a couple hours later, the jury returned from deliberation and convicted me. And so then I was sentenced to life without possibility parole plus an additional 30 years. What about the, I mean, what about like Pam? Was he able to present her as an alternative, you know, suspect to you? Oh, no, no. He wasn't allowed to use her at all. No, no, what they call a Saudi defense, which is some other guy did it.

Right. They would let him use that or bring in the fact that she received a $150,000 insurance policy that was signed over to her four days prior to Betsy's death. It had been in my name for 4,000 days prior to that. The prosecutor was allowed to use the insurance against me, but Joel was not allowed to use that as a motive for somebody else to do it when he questioned Pam, his hands were tied. So, okay, so do you?

think that your wife actually signed it over to her or do you think that Pam manipulated the situation somehow? Well, handwriting experts have said that that's my wife's signature. So, and it looks like her signature. So I can't, I got to say that she did sign it, but I can't say if she was coerced in any way. Okay. I was going to say you had no idea she was, she had cited over. No. If, assuming, if she did, you weren't aware of it. Not at all.

And so we weren't allowed to use any of that evidence. That was good thing. It's not hard to get somebody to sign something. Right. Especially if you're a friend, you know, hey, I'm signing this for, you know, this reason. Who knows what she, you know, she, you're not reading those documents. It could be, it could be pretty easy to trick someone to sign something. I trust me, I own a mortgage company.

people signed all kinds of documents they never looked at well you never know what somebody is going to do and this person pam is very calculating who knows what she did to get that document signed and you know she's the only one that could tell us right now and she's at prison she's not talking uh we'll get to that a little bit later uh however i thought we were still presented enough evidence i mean it's supposed to be a reasonable doubt right right uh There's playing. Alibi, I had four alibi witnesses. Countless, I mean, I had several video cameras, phone calls, cell phone data, that put me where I said I was, that said I was telling the truth.

And for whatever reason, while some of the jurors and subsequent interviews after my conviction said, well, they've known Leah all their life. She couldn't be lying. Oh, my God. This is what happens to small town rural America, and I think it happens in big cities, too. But things get shuffled under the rug. So I was actually shipped off to prison. Wow. Started to get on with getting on, you know.

That's what you got to. You got to take over there. What's that? You went to like a maximum security prison. It's murder. So I'm assuming this is premeditated murder. Yeah, I went into what they call. level five camp, which is for everybody that's serving that probably isn't going to get out at the foreseeable future.

Well, Joel went to work on my appeal at that time. Now, we had a local news team in St. Louis, a Fox affiliate, and a reporter by a name of Chris Hayes, who, if you look up the Fox 2 stuff, that is the most, he has, he was doing a updates like every month when I was in jail, just keeping my story out there in the media. I think that really helped because I got a lot of attention that way. Another thing that happened was Dateline, NBC was brought in. And I did interviews with both of those with Chris Hayes and with Keith Morrison on Dayline from prison.

And those things were aired. And I was starting to get support from people. not just across the state or across the country, but I was getting letters from people across the world sort. Yeah, I did a dateline interview when I was in prison with Keith Morrison also, by the way. Okay. I had a vastly different experience with him. Oh, I'm sure.

Because me being extremely guilty, my, I didn't have the, I didn't get the same type of treatment you got. I can imagine But yeah So that's great That they went in And I saw part of that Part the part that's on YouTube

Part of that also And I saw some of the coverage I never did see the movie I didn't watch the movie I did watch someone who critiqued the movie Who basically they criticized it as being like It was almost like a comedy And this is a very serious

You know it's serious But it was almost You know comedic But like you said, it was, you know, in a very real way, it, you know, with the exception of, you know, the murder, it was comedic, how bad they bumbled the investigation and just, or really, I don't even know. Do you feel like that the prosecutor thought she was doing the right thing? I honestly don't. I think she thought that she was doing something for her career. she was very career minded I don't think she was out for justice or anything

and then unfortunately in our country that happens more than what people realize and there's a reason for that there's a reason that shouldn't exist for that and one of the reasons why I do these interviews is to go out there and tell people that what happened to be isn't the one-off thing it happened to people all over our country all of the time

and the reason for that is a little term that nobody should have ever heard ever is called prosecutorial immunity and they can lie, manipulate, they can do all kinds of things and there's just no repercussions prosecutors can do anything they want and basically makes them above the law

and nobody in this country or on this urge should be above the law. And it makes them above the law and they abuse that privilege to lock people up for years for their life or even have them be put to death. And so I challenge people and I say these prosecutors that are found to be doing wrong and have people put to death, well, maybe they should be locked up for murder themselves because they're using the system to kill people. Right. What's going on YouTube? Ardap Dan here, Federal Prison Time Consulting. are all having a great day.

If you're seeing and hearing this right now, that means you're watching Matt Cox on Inside True Crime. At the end of Matt's video, there will be a link in the description where you can book a free consultation with yours truly, Ardap Dan, where we can discuss things that could potentially mitigate your circumstances

to receive the best possible outcome at sentencing or even after you started your prison sentence. Prior to sentencing, we can focus on things like your personal narrative, your character reference letters, pre-sentence interview, which is going to determine a lot of what type of sentence you receive.

If you've already been sentenced, we can also focus on the residential drug abuse program, how you can knock off one year off of your sentence. Also, we have the First Step Act where you can earn FSA credits while serving your sentence. For every 30 days that you program through the FSA, you can actually knock an additional 15 days off per month.

These are huge benefits, and the only way you're going to find out more is by clicking on the link, booking your free consultation today. All right, guys, see you soon at the end of the video. Peace. I'm out of here. Back to you, Matt. There's a lot of other people out there. I know a few of them myself.

If you've ever heard the name Brian Ferguson, he's a good friend of mine. He also was from Missouri. Look up his story on Netflix, Dream Killers. He served 10 years for a murder he didn't commit. Something he and I have a comment. We were both convicted by a jury from Lincoln County. I interviewed a guy two days ago that

served 16 years for a murder rape that he was 16 years old that he didn't commit they even found a seaman from someone else and all the prosecutor said was well she was promiscuous she had sex with someone else and you you know you raped and killed her no evidence nothing same thing alibi got a life life sentence and just so happened the um the innocence project after writing letter after letter and being denied by the Innocence Project. They were like, we're not taking your case on. He'd gone through the appellate court. He'd gone all the way to Supreme Court.

They'd refused to hear the case. The whole thing. And he eventually, they finally, after 16 years, uploaded the DNA to the new CODIS system because it hadn't been invented when he got initially found guilty. So they uploaded it. And guess what?

That DNA didn't go to another high school student like him. It went to a 29-year-old man who had sent, in the last 16 years, murdered someone else and was currently in prison. So suddenly they were like, we better let this guy out. So they let him out and he got out. Well, by that point, the prosecutor, he's moved on the same judge that sentenced him wouldn't even sit on the bench to let him go. He had somebody else do it.

I don't want to be in the courtroom. I don't want to be involved in that. You cut him loose. I mean, just pathetic. the whole system is just, it was just a pathetic situation. It's the same kind of, yours is on, honestly, they're both just as egregious, but I'm sorry. Anyway, go ahead.

You were saying, so you're found guilty. They're doing newscast. There's an appeal on. Right. I went about, you know, starting a new life in prison. In my mind, I'm going to be here the rest of my life. So I might as well, you know, get used to it. and make yourself comfortable put in for a two-man cube join the softball team learn to play guitar right you know get a job I won right so because after about 30 days watching TV you've seen everything that's on TV and so I got a job working in the kitchen I'm like well you know I'm in a level five camp I only get out an hour a day unless it's a day when we got wreck on the yard so I'm a work a job where I get out seven days a week

And I get to go to work seven days a week. So I would work seven days a week in the kitchen, preparing meals. Of course, when you work in the kitchen, you get to eat whatever you want to. So I was well fed with food. And I was taken care of. But, you know, like I said, started getting on. I joined a club called Toastmasters, which is a worldwide club. It's not just in prison.

And it's in businesses and stuff. It's teaching you how to network with people and do speeches, things like that. I figure you can join a gang, and you can join the club like this, and I get to know a better class of people. So I got to know a guy by the name of Rodney Lincoln in there. He's got a fascinating story. He served over 30 years on a crime. I encourage people to look him up and look up his story.

It's very interesting. But I got to know quite a few people in there. We get visits every week for my family and friends, which anybody that's ever been locked up knows that's the one thing that can keep you going when you're down and out and the darkest place you've ever been. And prison is that place. Visits from family and friends, letters, and phone calls, they're the most important thing out there.

And I was fortunate enough to have a good support network in that respect. people encouraging me and of course Joel you know working diligently with his team of lawyers to get this appeal going and eventually he filed his appeal in early 2015 with the Eastern District Court of Appeals and they took a look at it

and I believe it was early March I'd come back from work and I was told that I needed to call my attorney. So I made a phone call, Joel. And Joel was, he's always the kind of guy that plays things close to the vest.

He visibly and audibly is never really excited about anything. You don't want to give you false hope. He don't want to give you hope, false hope, right? Exactly. I respect that about the guy. Yeah. But on this particular phone call, I could hear you had a little anticipation

excitement in his foyer's. and he asked me had I seen the news the night before well if you're locked up most people watch the news every night because that's the only way you can know what's going on in the outside world I said yeah I watched the news every night

what's the big deal dude and he says well did you see anything on there I said nothing out of the ordinary you know what are you talking about car wrecks what and then it dawned on me he's in St. Louis and I'm in Jefferson City

he gets a different news that I do. Right. I informed him that I said, Joel, you're a couple hundred miles away from me. I'm not getting the same broadcast issue. That's when he informed me that my story was on the news the previous night, and I was ordered to Mooney Motion, which basically says that new evidence has arisen that if it was presented in the original case, may have changed the outcome of the original case.

right the really interesting part about that is I was only the third person in the history of our state to get that over you know 200 years so that was kind of a big deal and so what was the new information well what was going on was that Betsy's daughters were suing Pam Hup for the insurance proceeds that Pam Hup said under oaths then multiple times Betsy had signed over to her to give to the daughters and she didn't give it to them they never saw a dime uh betsy was an insurance so again that's why i questioned that signature if she wanted that money to go to her daughters she could have put one stroke of a pen and said find it over to pamphup and put four and then her daughter's names and that would have made a legal document and that money would have been entitled to them However, that didn't happen, and she had been in insurance for over 20 years, so again, that's why I questioned that signature. Well, they were suing her for that money, and some of the information that came up in that case, the lawyer called my attorney, Joel Schwartz, and shared that with them about the insurance proceeds and different things that went on there.

he presented that to the court of appeals they liked it I again my my case had gotten a lot of publicity and I think uh it was a blemish and they were looking for a good reason to send it back and Joel was the guy that gave him that reason being a good attorney that he is and so they wrote a very scathing document back to lincoln county which basically said hey you guys need to have a hearing to see if this guy gets a new trial He doesn't get a new trial. We're not going to be real happy about it. So immediately, the judge in my case recused herself. And because she knew she, by that time, she'd been seeing her out now with her buddy Leah Askey and didn't want that to have to come up. Right.

So they went about getting a new judge. And eventually, we were assigned a judge out of St. Louis by the name of Stephen Omer. And he's kind of got a reputation. of being a straight arrow and a fair guy and even a whistleblower among his peers if he sees people doing things that are wrong. So that's the guy we wanted. We're like, all we ever wanted was a fair trial. We knew if we got a fair trial, we went.

Right. So we agreed on Stephen Omer, and we had our hearing in June of 2015. And it was decided at that time. that I would get a new trial and the only thing that was really concerning Leah Aski at the time because this was part of what was in the appeal was that he wasn't making that decision

based on the fact that she had fair with the detective that was her main concern. Right. He didn't want that to come up. He said that has nothing to do with it. He says that ain't even going to come up in the case. He said, everything else here is very troubling

and this is why this guy is getting a new trial yeah there's plenty to go around and we're going to schedule it today so they scheduled my trial for again in November and then I had to go back to prison and so I wasn't real happy about that

because now I knew I've been locked up for about three and a half years and I'm not some guy off the street that's never been to prison now I've been in prison I'm now what we'd call a seasoned prisoner and I've learned a lot put me in a position to do that.

Well, in my eyes, I was going to go into a hole as soon as I got to prison because I'm no longer convicted. They can't house me with convicted criminals. That's against the law. And there's people from the county that have to take you back to prison. It's about a two-hour drive.

And I decided that I needed a cigarette, that they needed to give me one, and that I wasn't going to shut up for two hours and I gave them hell for two hours all the way back to prison and never got a cigarette. I also didn't go to the hole because the paperwork takes a little time to get there. I mean, you're not convicted.

Why can't they let you out on bond now? I mean, at this point, you've got to... They can. They can. It did set a new bond. But... Now. Now. What about now?

Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O. Henry bar to satisfy your hunger. With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh hungry, oh Henry. I mean, this was just the same day.

Literally, you know, so there were... You went all the way back to prison. You didn't go back to, like, the county jail. They just housed you in the county jail? Well, you have to go back to prison first because that's where you live. And you properly get the DOC. Right. Once the DOC finds out that you lost or that you won that hearing and that you're no longer convicted, they don't want you anymore.

Because, again, it's illegal for them to hold you with convicted criminals. So it was about three days later. when I was called down and they said, hey, after child, you're going to property because you're leaving tomorrow morning. I said, okay. And so I had to go turn in all of my property, do all the process of getting ready to leave.

The next morning, I went back to Lincoln County. And this was on, I guess, probably a Thursday or Friday. My family came and saw me on Sunday. and my cousin Mary, my sister, my mom were there. And they're like, oh, hey, you know, we're going to get you out soon. You know, sit tight. You'll be all right. We're going to get you out soon because now my bond was actually something that was affordable

and they were working on it. I'm like, I don't know what your definition of soon is. But when you're on that side of the window, your definition of sin is a lot different than my definition of soon from this side of the window because my definition as soon as yesterday. Your definition as soon will be next week, next month. To me, that's not soon.

That's a long time away. You know, so they're like, we're going to do this soon. Okay. I'm not going to hold my breath. You know, I'm, I can survive in here.

I'm okay. It's only a few months, whatever. So I went back to population and then on Tuesday that was one of the days that I had designated to call my father. And I got up, you know, did my breakfast and shower and all that routine. I just tried to call my mom and couldn't get through.

And so I saw, well, you know, she might be in the bathroom, taking the shower or whatever. I'll call her in a little bit. Waited a little while and called her again. And as I was on the phone standing there looking toward the door to our pod where we live, the CEO opens the door and says a couple of words that anybody that's ever been locked up knows and everybody knows what it means he said my last name foria followed by the words bunk and jump and I knew what that may but my ears and my brain didn't think that it was the truth I says what did you say and he said it again and okay and then it's dawned on me that I was leaving. I hung up the phone, obviously, and went through the process of getting everything ready to leave jail.

I was a few minutes later, they came back and got me and brought me up front, and there was a bonds person up there who explained to me that my family had bonded me out. There were a lot of TV cameras and whatnot that were going to be outside. I just had to sign some paperwork, changed my clothes, and I could walk out the door. And that was quite shocking. I had been three and a half years. I signed paperwork for the first time in three and a half years. I put on some street clothes and I walked out the door and I got to hug my mom and my sister and my cousin, my whole family.

We're all out there. cameras were out there a really emotional experience and they had I had made mention I guess when I was in prison during a visit and you know when I got out I was going to have a big party with a limbo

well they had a limo bus waiting out there with my favorite pizza soda on there we all got on the bus and had a big old party at a local bar and a bunch of family

All our family and friends showed up at the bar. It was just a really good home company. Nice. You know, I knew there was still some work to do. You know, we had trial that was going to come up. But it was the first real positive thing that happened a long time. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say that the trial is still scary.

Look, I mean, let's face it, you've been through a trial. You know you're innocent. You've been through a trial. And even though you've got a lot going for you this time, and it seems like they're playing the, field is, is, you know, it is level. It's still, it's still frightening. That's still got to be terrifying. Oh, it is. It's, uh, you know, it creates a lot of anxiety to say the least. But this time, I'm actually out. I was able to actively take part and helping

Joel. Right. Which is huge. You don't realize how huge that is. It's very huge. And it's very valuable, not just to me, but to the lawyer, you know, to be able to have those conversations that aren't in the jail. You know? He can pick up this morning and call you right then and say, hey, who's so-and-so? And you can say, oh, that's so-and-so.

He goes, okay. And instead of waiting two days. Right. And so it was really refreshing to be able to do that. I was able to, I went in at my parents' house and have a place to stay. and again actively take part at this trial that was coming up

and then just came up it was coming up pretty quick in October there were things going on and Pam Hup she's the kind of person that well you've heard the joke about warriors that you can tell their lying when their lips are moving right that's Pam Hup and that's also Leah Askey I think they learned how to lie from each other because you could ask Pam up the same question five times and you would get five different answers very different answers and that's what they did but that was their star witness that they never wanted to investigate him further while I was locked up her bomb died under

suspicious circumstances that really is suspicious to this day I'll go as far as saying that everybody knows that she killed her but the police in that case also dropped the ball and didn't collect enough evidence and so she'll never be convicted of that one that was a very didn't she inherit everything um she didn't inherit as much as she said she was going to inherit she had to split that with some of her siblings so she only got about a hundred thousand dollars or so out of that she said she was getting like a million or a half a that was not true but remains her mom died mysteriously and then here i am running around she's changing her story now she's saying that her and my wife were lesbian lovers and then uh she came up with uh

she saw me outside the house with in a strange car with somebody else when she dropped betsy off. What else did she had? Oh, she had been saying all along that there was some letter on Betsy's computer that Betsy had broke to her, but she never got. Numerous other things. Well, the letter actually finally found this mysterious letter. And Joel shows it to me one day is office in October.

And I'm an IT professional. I went to school for it. I know a lot about computers. I tell people all the time. I know more about computers. Most people want to know. But when something goes wrong with your computer, you want to know somebody like me.

I said, I took a look at a couple things on that document. And I said, that document wasn't written on that computer. You all looked at me in and he said, well, how do you know that? I pointed out the fact that, One thing said the author of the document was unknown. Now, just to give you a layman's quick, blow-down dirty lesson on computers. If I set up a computer, I don't care how many accounts on it, I have to sign in to set a computer.

You and you sign in under our own account. If you author a document, make a document, word, or anything like that, it will have your name attached to it. or whatever account signed in attached to it. The only way that it can have unknown author is if it originated somewhere other than that computer. Because the computer doesn't know who wrote it. Right. And I pointed that out.

Well, Joel, obviously, he had experts, the IT experts, he turned that over to that guy immediately. And the guy corroborated exactly what I said. And it was written in a form of work that was not on my computer, on that computer at the time. That was red flags all over that document. So that was a really big thing. Did they get to present that?

Did he get to cross-examine? We did. We got to use that. We got to use that and trial the second time. Then the other thing that Joel came up with just a few weeks before trial. My cousin Barry and I went in to meet with him, and she and I had already been discussing the fact that we didn't really trust Lincoln County jury. They convicted me, and they got it wrong the first time around.

By that time, I had already heard of this guy, Ryan Ferguson, who literally got out of prison the week that I went in prison, the same prison. And I knew a lot of the same people that he did. I knew a lot about his case by that point, and I knew that he was convicted by a jury from Lincoln County. So I really was not having a lot of say in Lincoln County. So when Joel mentioned to my cousin and I that he had this great idea about having what they call a bench trial,

and then explaining that a bench trial is without a jury and that the judge hears everything. And even the stuff that normally they sent the jury away for, But he said, you know, the downfall of this is if you lose, the chances for appeal are slim and none. But if you win, it's hands down. And Barry and I didn't even have to think about it. We looked at one another and we kind of have that unspoken communication between us. And say, yeah, let's do that.

That was a really good decision on our part. Because, again, Judge Omer is a fair guy listening everything very intently. and all of the information. So we asked he wasn't happy about that because she likes to play to an audience. And in fact, during the trial, she kept trying to play to an audience that wasn't there. She was admonished.

Yeah, she was admonished multiple times like a high schooler from a judge for acting out and basically trying to do the judge's job like she did in the first trial, you know. And the judge even told her at one point, he said, you're already, I'm a judge, and I'm the one that's doing this job, you'll do yours, basically. And we went through that trial. It took several days. The other thing that happened was early on, even before the first trial, there was mentioned of 130-some pictures of the crime scene, my house, that showed my guilt. showed a trail of blood with limit.

However, camera malfunctioned. And those pictures didn't turn out. We never got any not turned out film. We never got any corrupt computer files, was a digital camera, anything. Up until about two weeks before the trial, Joel receives a package from Leah Askey's office. And it had a DVD in there with a 130-some picture.

on there that showed not what the police said they showed right so this way no bloody footprints no blood trail at all nut no evidence of cleanup nothing it didn't show

anything that they said and this was really big so we were like oh we're going to keep this under our hat till the time comes Joel printed out all the pictures and Mike Merkel, Mike Markle was a guy who, he was the guy who took those pictures, a little swirly guy. He testified in court the first time how they did to turn out what he saw in those pictures,

you know, with his naked eye and whatnot. And, you know, he, they don't realize. So the prosecution doesn't realize that their office just released this to you guys. And there's all photos on there, right? Well, we know Lee to ask he didn't send us. somebody from the office did so we don't know who that person was to this day the movie makes it out as like it was an assistant or something like that because they just had to sign a face with a name right but obviously there was somebody that believed in doing the right thing right well also

i'd like to point this out too i don't know if you you know so i was you know when i was locked up in prison and i was writing guys stories i would also often you would hear one thing from the FBI or the investigators, and then I would order the Freedom of Information Act. And what I realized right away, or eventually, I guess, is that one, you know, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing. And so I would get stuff, you'd have the Freedom of Information Act would give me documents that the FBI said didn't exist. Or they would say that that was completely lost. We don't have it with the last person to have seen that computer was this person and we believe that it was sold and it's gone. And then

you'd find out that the Secret Service actually had it. Or you'd find out that they had it in storage and that, you know, these are massive organizations. So, you know, you guys put in a discovery motion. Somebody is assigned at that office to fulfill that. And And, you know, Leah Thomas may just be like, you know, she's, she's not thinking anything of it and doesn't realize her assistant just went and grabbed the stuff that she said doesn't exist and lend it to you. Like, you know, you just don't know. There's so many things going on in these departments or in these, you know, these offices that it may have been a mistake. It may have been the truth. Maybe somebody said, no, this isn't right.

I'm sending this to them. But it may have also just been. That could have been. Yeah. Either way. And I don't know if we ever will. However, when we got the trial, and

this time around, things went quite a bit differently. And, you know, when Lee I asked you called Mr. Mike Markle up to the stand, and he was talking about these photos left and right, you know, and swearing to all this

stuff. And Joel gets up there and cross-examine them. You know, he says, you know, hey, this and that. He's still talking about these photos that didn't turn out. Joel gives them every opportunity to get out of it. But he kept digging a whole deeper for himself. And then Joel produced this vanilla folder. It was about two inches, three inches thick.

And starts flipping through the pictures. Leah at that point, looking back, where the fuck did he get those? and the look on Mike Merkel's face was like a deer in the headlights as Joel had a thumb through at least a half a dozen pictures says, does that show absolutely nothing? Does that show absolutely nothing?

Does that show absolutely nothing? Until the judge stopped. And then Joel says, what you're saying is the pictures didn't show what you wanted them to show. So you said they showed absolutely nothing. He had no answer for that.

So he basically perjured himself multiple times all over court that was the first real home run that I saw in the case you know it was like a big shining light and but then there was more to go on and we just this judge was fair and let things happen with they should have happened

the first time and we got down at the end of the trial and he took a recess and the judge had said that he wasn't wasn't going to render his decision that day. But I think he had changed his mind at some point, but we were all outside. Joel, my cousin Mary, a couple friends and I were by somebody's car. Joel's associate, Nate, Nate Swanson, is a great guy.

He was up in the courtroom. Your attorneys are obligated if the prosecution makes any kind of an offer. lesson you're sending to me they're obligated to tell you that and obviously Leah Aski got a little nervous I don't know

but she they didn't offer to Nate they called down and told Joel and Joel said that you know if I would plead to manslaughter that I would

she'd give me soft life and I said she could take that and shove it straight up her ass and I wasn't going to plead to anything other than anything more than a parking ticket, not even a parking ticket, that wasn't going to accept anything less than an apology for her.

And it was taking a long time. Joel was getting a little nervous. We since found out that there was a malfunction with the printer. And that's what took the judge so long. But the judge, the writing is brief, and he called us all back to the courtroom. He decided to release his decision. He had a very long statement. about the investigation, being more troubling and bringing up more questions than it did answers.

And he went on for, I don't know, it could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours because I only wanted to hear what he said at the end. And I waited for that. Then there was my two attorneys at my side. And when he came to the end and said, you know, the account to the count of murder at first degree, find you not guilty at the armed criminal action I find you not guilty

at that point I was glad that my two attorneys were there because Nate Swanson well he kind of works out that he's a big strong guy and I didn't have any feeling left in my leg so he was hold of you up that was one of the best things best days my whole life

so then I was truly free you know I had gotten free a few months prior in June, but in November, it was confirmed. I wasn't going to go back to prison ever. That was a big deal. And I got to walk out of there, you know, with my head held high and family and friends, support me. And it was just a wonderful day. And I thought, you know, this is the beginning of the rest of my life. You know, now I can go about trying to put the pieces of my life back together. That's why

intended to do it. I mean, it's still, you know, not that you shouldn't be thankful, you know, and grateful, but what a horrific thing to have happened, bro. Like, you're just living your life, and this is thrust upon you. I mean, it's really a shitty situation.

And it could have, you know, so easily gone the other way, you know, like you. You know, and I'm, thankful every day for for the people that were involved in me being here right now because you know now we're talking something that happened in 2011 I was convicted in 2013 where now in 2023 yeah I stayed in Missouri for an appeal is 10 years I could still be in prison right now which pretty amazing I've been out for eight years now I'm very

very thankful for that. And I think, you know, I didn't get jailhouse religion. I was a religious guy before I went in prison. In my church, everybody's heard of jailhouse religion. But I actually was able to be involved in saving a couple guys while I was locked up. That was really a good feeling for me. But I did a lot of praying while I wasn't there and relied on the good Lord. and I think that things do happen for a reason.

You hear that all the time, and sometimes bad things happen to good people. I think, well, he put me through some stuff that you never know what you can accomplish. And I think that he gives you the tools to accomplish it when he needs you to do it. And I think the reason for that is so that I can come out here and talk about these things and people like yourself and others and reach as many people as I can. but it doesn't happen to other folks right yeah definitely i i definitely am a big believer in that so so how's pam doing because i know this isn't the end of the story no you know it's not you know it's name that who i am also knows that uh so i thought about uh going to try and get

my wife back together again i'm living at my parents house because i lost everything Right. Wow. So there was another insurance policy, actually more insurance policies that Pam never was able to get to, that I was able to collect art. And I went about suing State Farm because I didn't think that deserved that money and I thought it should have been mine. Well, I won that case. I got that money too. And the gold turned over all of the information in my case to, you know, the U.S. attorneys and they were looking at the case. Well, we think that Leah Askey somehow probably informed Pam on that and Pam

got nervous. And what they up did, she went out for a black better term, she went out hunting for a human for another victim. And what was it?

August of leaving 2017-18 She approached a young lady That lived across the street from Friday And Tried to coax her into her car Actually, the girl got into her car And had better thoughts of it

And got back out of the car And then when Pam realized That this gal had Security cameras at her house She hightailed it out of there About a week after that Pam up approached a guy in St. Charles, which is nearby, where she lived about 15, 20 minutes away.

And he was a handicapped individual that had been in an accident years before, and basically had the mentality of an 11 or 12-year-old, really couldn't walk or move around that fast. Again, lower mentality because of his accident. She took advantage of that, offered him money like she did the previous person, to come back and reenect a Dayline phone call. She was putting herself out there as the producer of Dayline.

Even to the gal that she tried to approach a week prior. She took this band back to her house and however, she got a bit there and she unloaded a 38th of all and five shots. They got a cold blood. And

when that happened, obviously, police were called and uh just so happened my father knew somebody that lived on the same street called him at work and he called me let me know that am killed some pot what that's okay and i immediately called joel and then i called chris hayes from the news and sure enough she had shot this joel um joel obviously like a hey did Pike you got nothing to worry about you know

you should you actually did have something to worry about I did like I knew at the time as soon as I found out I knew I said he's going to implicate me in this I don't know why or what I've met this

woman before my ordeal like not even a half a dozen talk but for whatever reason she hates me so sure enough She put a note in this guy's pocket, put some money in his pocket, and tried to implicate me. Initially, she said she didn't know anybody named Russ because she had my name on this note. The police in O'Fallin weren't stupid.

They knew of the case and they watched the news, and they knew what she was in. They're like, okay. And what the note say? It said something about getting Russ's money. and how to leave the body outside my mom's house had very instructions like I had wrote the note but it was written real messy like it was written by like two-year-old and that'll come up here in a minute actually that following weekend I had plans with a front of mine go to nearby Lake of the Ozark which is a couple a couple of hundred

miles west of here for a weekend trip so I went out of town for a weekend trip I don't care. Whatever's going to happen, it's going to happen. And I noticed that you got there. This is a new friend that I had since my ordeal and met at a motorcycle rally. And so I explained to this person who I was. I'm like, if you're going to hang out with me and be my friend,

you might want to know this about. This is who I am. This is what I've been going through the past several years of my life. And oh, by the way, the person that I was just telling you about that killed my wife. He just killed somebody else the other day. And I'm probably going to get a call from my lawyer sometime this weekend.

And this person was flabbergasted. She was like, what? And within five minutes of me facing that conversation, I got a call from Joel Schwartz. He said, well, the police want to question you. I said, yeah, I can't figure they, but I figured I figured Pam would implicate any of this. But again, I'm three hours. way and I'm not coming back. I'll be back on Monday.

If they want to talk to me, they could talk to me after that. I, but I'm going to enjoy my weekend because if I'm getting arrested, I'm going to have fun for a couple days first. Right. Because at that point, I'm like, you know, she might have done enough to get me arrested again. Who knows? So I enjoyed my weekend and came back and Joel was actually out of town and sent one of his partners to the police station

with me to go up there for questioning. In a place that said, you're all, hey, we're just just want to question. We have to talk to you. We don't buy this. We don't suspect you. And they kept reiterating this. I was

pretty easy as soon as I went in the building. And basically, they had me write this note. They produced the note. I had to write it, I think. And ties with my right hand. 10 times with the left hand so that they could, you know, make sure it wasn't me that wrote it. They're just doing their job.

I even volunteered, gave him my phone for three days. I'm like, here, go through it. You can see all the texts on it. You can see where the phone's been. I have nothing to hide. And so that's what they did. They did a thorough investigation. And a few days later, they arrested him and charged her with the murder of Louis Gumpabberg.

and yeah so they went they went about preparing for trial here and said you don't it show that like she said she didn't know the guy had just shot him when he came in the house but actually her phone had been at his apartment complex when she picked them up like the pings had her at multiple locations where he was and then even they even placed her at a dollar tree and she had a receipt for the knife that he had missing hand for the pen that was written that the note was written on and the notebook everything and not to mention that

she put like a carpet remnant down in her hallway or right where she figured he would fall if you look at the crime sheet photos there was a carpet remnant place there carefully you didn't want to ruin her carpet yeah yeah wow I wouldn't have heard that is absolutely credible so you know she gets arrested for this and to start with this is going to be this gal that she approached a week prior a girl by the name of Carol McAfee and because she actually called when she said She's all the story. She's like, shit,

called the police after that happened. And the police in Ovalon, he called St. Charles County. The police in O'Fallant, we're working on this case.

The St. Charles County police called up and said, hey, you might want to talk to this girl we talked to last week because she might have some information for you. So they came and got her

and brought her down there and questioned her and found out it was the same person. So they could put, you know, things together for her calculating trying to kill people. And again, like I said,

the woman lived across the street from my best friend. And so I got the opportunity to beat her. And we made friends in that. And we're preparing for this trial. Harold is actually going through a divorce with her husband at the time. I'm trying to help her. I'm like, you know, this is going to make you quite famous.

this trial is this person has a lot of stuff around it got to do with me and everything's been on daylight a whole bunch of times by this time this day right now I've been on dayline six times that's record I don't recommend it for anybody you know don't normally get on there for good things but my case I did I got to become friends with this gal named Paro trying to start to get feelings for one another and that but we kept those to ourselves at the time

and eventually I took an Alford plea a couple years ago here and when that basis is that an Alper play is a cop out it's just I think it's not but it basically

basically says, I'm not admitting any guilt, but if we went to trial, the prosecution has enough evidence to convict. Right. But I'm not guilty. I'm not saying I'm guilty, but you do have to say, you do have to say it in court, and when she had to say that, she struggled with those words that she had to say guilty, you know, for that Alford plea, but the judge forced out of her and she went to prison. tried to appeal the offered plea

saying that her boyers coerster into it, but that wasn't going to happen. But more importantly, shortly after he was convicted of that crime, there is a new prosecutor in Lincoln County by the name of Mike Wood. At Mike Wood at a press conference in which he announced

that he was bringing charges against Pam Pup my wife's murder and he also went on to say that his investigation was raising a lot of questions and was showing evidence of corruption

and so that he would be his team would not be coming from Lincoln County he was using resources outside of Lincoln County so that his information remain and all the information in the case is being stored neighboring St. Charles County. He's just retired detectives who are less corruptible than most.

You know, I won't say uncorruptible because nobody is above that. But I'd say these are some really good guys. And he's investigating police and prosecution in this case. And most recently this last year or so, Mr. Mike Merkel. Remember that guy who told you with the pictures that perjured himself? Right. Well, he got charges brought against him, not for perjury.

But, you know, there's an internal affairs investigation going in on this. He was trying to strong arm one of those guys. He was trying to strong arm. I don't, I'm not understanding. What do you mean? But trying to strongarm one of the Eternal Affairs investigators. Him and his wife. Becky Merkel, who Becky

Markle was a crime scene investigator during my first case and during my first trial her name wasn't Becky Merkel, it was Becky something else. During my second trial, he was Becky Merkel. So she got married to Mr. Mike Merkel during that time. So him and his wife

were outside of a Longhorned Steakhouse, St. Charles, sending messages to this officer inside Steakhouse and sending him pictures of him and his patrol car and saying that they're going to say that he's drinking and they're going to

ruin his crew and all kinds of stuff and the phone they're using was a burner phone assigned to the DEA and the DEA agent who was assigned to is Mike Merkel's brother and now all three of them are facing charges

so what were they trying to get him to do by strong by by by by doing that do not to drop the investigation oh okay okay because there's more people involved it's not just Mike Markle I think it goes he's just a little guy like I tell people all the time if you're going to go after alcohol on you go after the guy on the street yeah you work your way up wow so there's somebody above him somebody above him somebody above him and Mike Merkel I think is the weakest link so why I'm wondering why they didn't bring him It seems pretty clear that he perjured himself.

Like, you know what I'm saying? That seems like a slam dunk charge. They've got him in the first trial. You know, the transcripts of the first trial, they got the second trial. That seems like a pretty easy charge also. But I guess that's a bigger charge. I'm sorry? Statute of limitations.

And perjury is like, I think. Like three years? Is it two years? Three years, if I'm not mistaken. And it's been, I've been out for eight. So, but he did this to himself now, and I'm looking forward to them bringing charges against people that there is no statute of limitations for what they did. Like Brian McCarrick, the guy who called me out of myself twice without my attorney, that's a violation of your civil rights, your constitutional rights, and that there, that's a federal defense. and I just don't understand what these guys get

out of doing these types of things like you've got job security you just have to go through the motions to keep your job you don't have to go around bullying people and and you know coercing them and and you know creating evidence and you know

discarding evidence you don't have to be a lying manipulative prick to keep your job Like, why go out of your way to do things like, why not you go through the process? I understand that there's pressure to make arrests, but you know, sometimes you don't make an arrest. Or at the very least, if you did an investigation and you zero in on the guy and you know it's him, but you cannot get enough evidence to convict them. Well, then that happens. That's going to happen in your job.

You can't, you can't bat a thousand all the time. I mean, you're going to have to be able to get in. That's only 40%. You know, but the way I look at it is, you know, there's good, bad people all over this world. If you take a group of folks, it doesn't matter who they are, a group of cops. There's going to be a percentage of them are bad guys, percentage of them that are good guys, and every percentage of me. In my particular case, I had a perfect storm of somebody trying to set me up. I had a bad prosecutor.

I had a bad judge. I had a whole bunch of crooked cops. Does that happen all the time? No. Do people get wrongfully convicted all the time? Yes. You've even got somebody on the jury that's painted. Exactly.

You know, and that person, I was going to say, even if that person isn't going out of their way to throw the jury, the fact is, is that you know you shouldn't be on the jury. Right. That's my cousin. I mean, that's kind of a no-brainer. Look at it. But again, like I said, I had a perfect storm of events.

And not that I don't like law enforcement or police at all, that's a damn. Like the opposite, you know, but I don't like corrupt police. And in fact, in fact, this day, I've had one, one of those detectives actually apologized to me. that's never happened to anybody that's been wrong to be convicted that i don't know me but yeah i'm a unique individual in that respect was a sincere apology and and the guy was really sorry that that meant a lot to me you know because it's enough to do something wrong we all make mistakes but none of us are perfect right and i don't expect anybody to be but I make a mistake at my job.

I went up to it. You make a thing in your job. You want up to it. You know, break something. You know, you're walking through a store and you knock a vase over. Pick it up go offer to, at least offer to pay for it. You know, hey, I broke it. I made a mistake.

I'm sorry. But I think. The trash went under the rug like these cops do is strong. No, I think owning up to, look, I think owning up to making a mistake as quickly as possible. I think people are very forgiving. of mistakes. You know, they're not forgiving of liars. Exactly.

And if you go into Leah Askey's case, the prosecutor, who's now named Leah Cheney, she's had more or last names in a phone book, but she made her high school gym teacher, which begs to me what was going on in high school, but that's another story altogether. She's doubled down, even in the last dateline. he said and I quote that she's never been shown any evidence to prove that I was innocent now my level to that

and to her is that I've never been shown any evidence to prove that she's not a moron but you know that remains to be seen well I wonder so so they they've charged or they're looking into did they actually so they did charge Pam yes she's been charged

she hasn't gone to trial Oh, no, no, she hasn't got. She's been charged. She hasn't been trial. She's gone to trial for the Lewis Gumpberger. She's serving life without plus 30 years, the very same sense I had. I love all that's all I'm willing to want to for. But she's going to be serving.

She's going to be pride in my wife's murder. And we're hoping that we see that trial, hopefully maybe, by 2025. I know it sounds like a long time, but there's a lot of information. She's had a lawyer, one of her prosecutor, or one of her public defenders passed away

and had to get a new lawyer and now they're going through all kinds of other stuff. She's dragging her feet trying to make it last as long as possible. Yeah. Because I think she just likes the attention. Be honest. We're hoping for that

trial to happen in 2025 again, but I'm more hopeful about at this point like, oh, she's locked up forever is getting these dirty cops off the street because what they did to me, they're out there doing other folks, you know? Right. It's not right.

There are another municipalities now. None of them are in Lincoln County. So, uh, Ryan McHerrick is actually allowed to teach at the Police Academy, which is really amazing. Because, you know, I think to be a teachery, to teach somebody how to be a good cop.

You should probably be a good guy. Right. If I want to teach you, I work at a motorcycle shop. If I want to teach you about motorcycles, I got to know a little bit about it. Yeah. A character doesn't know anything about being a good cop. It was everything about being a bad cop. And that that scares me is that he's producing more bad cops by teaching those people that is ideals.

Yeah. well listen is there anything we haven't talked about yeah yeah there is remember that gal I told you about Carol well

I are actually engaged Mary oh okay nice is she in the next room she's taking a nap right next to me right now nice she and I are engaged

to be married And we'll be married October this year. Well, that's good. Things are working out. That's, that's, that's, that's my happy ending. You know, I'm not going to say that all everything, all bad stories, all bad things have a happy ending and all fat clouds have a silver lining. But in my particular case, and at first, too, I guess, because she went through some bad things in marriage. She was in an abusive relationship with somebody.

And we both found one another. And I think that's another, going back to what I was saying earlier, about God and the good Lord, and puts us in places that he needs us to be when we need to be there, when he wants us to be there. And they keep an eye into one another's lives to help one another. There's some hard stuff. And to show each other that we were still,

worthy of being loved you know by somebody else and I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life with it. That's, that is a happy ending. I don't get much happier than that. I just know. Well,

boy, listen, you know, it's funny. I mean, I'm not sure all of the loose ends are tied up. Well, boy, it sounds like all the loose ends on yours. I'm sure they're probably not. But they're either tied up or they're in the process of getting tied up. Yeah, there's a lot of boxes that are getting checked right now. Again, I'm looking forward to this current investigation. I've been cooperated with these guys as much as I can

every time they have a question for me, you know, about something that happened 12 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I racked my brain and do my best to try and give the best information available to perform their job. And I'm hopeful that they're going to turn out real good. Well, I mean, I obviously, I hope it does.

It sure sounds like it's heading that way. So, well, listen, I really appreciate you coming on and, you know, taking the time to talk with me. I know, you know, I know I was, yesterday I was looking at your stuff. Last few days, you know, I've been looking at your stuff. And I've been like, this is a. I was texting you at the gym the other morning. Was that yesterday morning?

Yesterday morning I was at the gym and I was telling my wife, I'm like, listen to this, listen to this. Because as I was, as we were at the gym, I was listening to different stories on YouTube. I was like, oh, my God. Then she, she, listen, she tried to frame them for having an attempted murder on her life. You know, it's just, I was like, this is insanity. But if you really want the unabridged story. There's a book out there called Bone Deep, Untangling to Betsy Friah Murder Case. Okay.

It's written by Charles Bosworth, who's best-selling author at Junction with my attorney Joel Schwartz, who is a contributing factor in that book. And so that's everything in there is what happened. It's not like the movie, and it goes into detail. Somebody, what did you all details? What did you, I mean, I'll put the link in the description, but what did you think of the movie? Anyway, I mean, just in general. I mean, I know, you know, take into account that obviously they can't do, you know, 500 hours, you know, for what they pulled out.

Do you think it was okay or? I think that they did the best they could with the time they had available, you know, they only had so many hours in any series and they take away commercials and all that that's even less hours to try and squeeze 10 years in. I think they did a fine job with that. You know, they did a little overacting, like I said earlier, you know, and that's what. That's what Thespians do. You know, that somebody acts foolish, then they're going to dress up like a clown, just get the message across. And so that's why I say about the concept aspect, like I said earlier. I think the actor that portrayed me, Mr. Glenn Fleshler, did a very fine job.

The producers and writers were in constant contact with me throughout the production of this thing. And I think they did a good job with what they had to work with. Again, I think, Renee Zelliger was, she was great. I thought she was good. And I was interviewed by a local news channel, but they first announced making that. And I made the comment to this young reporter. I said, well, Renee, you know, she's an attractive woman. She's really going to have to do something to ugly herself up.

And they did really good job. I got to say, wait for it for that role. Did she gain weight? She actually wore a fat sheet. Oh, because she looked heavier. Yeah, she wore a fat sheet for that. And they used a lot of prosthetics and makeup on her. Okay.

Fantastic with it. I really was impressed. And I think they turned in something really good. Again, it's not the whole story. If you want the whole story, there's the book. And hopefully within the next year or so, I'm writing my own book from my perspective. You got to come back on then.

Yeah, I hope too. We've got to push that one. Yeah. Listen, my subscribers were growing. In a couple years, I might be at half a million. We'll see. That's awesome. Maybe you'd be a couple million.

Maybe a guy can dream. All right. Well, listen, I really do appreciate you coming on. and I appreciate talking to you and I yeah yeah definitely got to come back on when you finish your book anytime man thanks for having me on thanks for giving the opportunity to share my story hey that was my interview with Russ Ferrea and I really appreciate you guys watching if you like the video do me a favor hit the subscribe button hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this share the video leave a comment for me and I'm going to leave the link

in the description box for for the full story on the book that Russ's attorney was a co-author in, I think co-author, I'm not sure exactly. Anyway, we'll leave the description and I really appreciate you guys watching the video. So

see ya.