Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Innocent Man Falsely Charged with Murder ( The Real Story )

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Hollywood Wade tells how one tragic night changed his life forever. Wades channel https://www.youtube.com/@crimenentertainment Get 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7 Send me an email here: [e-mail] Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content? Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news   🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt 🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/re Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8 Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438 The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402 Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1 Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel! Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Williamson, he'll face a bond judge this morning at 9 o'clock. I was one of those guys that thought if they arrested somebody, he must be guilty. Our justice system is flawed to hell, and people don't really understand and they can't put theirself in somebody. shoes until it happens

to them. I survived someone trying to kill me, and I knew one of us were not leaving a kitchen. There was a club that was like really hopping at the time. A girl that I went to school with named Heather struck up a conversation with what would become my wife

outside, and I walked over there to Heather after they kind of talked, and I'm like, all right, who was that? She's like, oh, that's my friend. I met her last week, and I'm like, all right, well, you got to introduce me. And so she makes the introduction and we talk a little bit, and And long story short, we kind of just, that started the relationship. And, you know, we moved in together fairly quickly.

We had a great friend group that we all would go out and party with. And, man, for like five years, we had the best time. I mean, everybody went out, hung out, you know, partied hard, but we all had jobs. You know, everybody, I had our job, she had a job, all of our friends. We worked hard, but we played hard. And I would say we got married. 16 years ago, so I'm horrible with the date on that. So 16 years ago from now.

How old were you? I was 22, I think. We got married. We decided to get married. And we, right after the marriage, we found out that she was pregnant. And so I was working at a company at the time called New Corps Steel, and I was driving, commuting back and forth from my home to Columbia. It was like an hour and 20 minutes. I mean, it was, this is a long, long dream.

drive. And so I was trying to get into the one at the hometown where I lived, but I just couldn't. Well, I wound up getting an opportunity to go to Charleston, which is where I live at now. And went good. I mean, we decided to pick it up, move. We moved up there. My son might have been two at the time, two, maybe three. And I had a daughter. She was in middle school. So we moved up there. Everything was going great. Then her dad got sick. Her dad got cirrhosis of the liver and he passed away. and that took a big part of her because she was really close to her dad. And so, I mean, I'm not going to say it, like, affected the marriage, but it definitely, like, the girl that she was, the lively fun girl, that definitely took a piece of her when he left. And I knew it would because they were super, super close. And we were probably, I'd say we're up there about five years, and there was a concert that come up in Myrtle Beach.

And it was the first one that they ever did. it was called the Carolina Country Music Fest. And so it was basically like a redneck version of Woodstock. All these country music bands for four days, go up, you'd have loved it. Go up there, party it up. And like when I say do it up, I mean, I don't think I drink anything non-alcoholic for four days. In fact, there's a picture. I can try to find it.

A guy's giving me an IV, one of my buddies, he's like a medic. He lived with us. Me and him were roommates when my wife moved in. So he stayed there for a little while, and then he eventually moved out. but he came up there and he's the man you look horrible and I was like I feel horrible I ain't slept in days I've been drinking so he gave me an IV like on a Saturday and I mean I was boom I was ready to go you know just carried it on through so we finished out that weekend come back and like I left from work went straight to that thing left there come back home and had

to go to work the next morning so I hadn't even been home I had to do at home I had unpack and everything so I was just the whole weekend man no sleep so I get up that next morning to go to work and, you know, pull up at one of the stoplights, turn left, I'm driving, and go opposite side the road. Now, you hear that br-dr-d, and then that wakes you up, but it's dark. I got to be to work at fives, or, and so it's like 4.30 in the morning. I heard that, and it was on, bough, and I mean, I hit,

and I just knew that the car wasn't on pavement anymore. Right. And when it hit, dude, it was like a roller coaster. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I didn't think it was ever going in. I couldn't see where I was at. I didn't know where I was at, but I just knew I was flipping. And then finally, I see another car and it finally stops.

I'm upside down on another car. And so I thought I'd just killed somebody because if I was still on the road and that was a car on the road, I just landed on top of them. And probably just decapitated somebody. Well, I did have my seatbelt on. Normally don't wear it for that morning. I did wear it for whatever reason. So I'm hanging upside down. So I'm trying to brace the car.

So when I undo the seatbelt, I don't fall on my head. and the car rolls off to the passenger door. So now I'm sitting like this. Right. And I unhooked the seatbelt, climb out. There's like smoke everywhere. I see the other cars like bent to hell. The pickup truck's like bent down.

A car comes riding by and he like stops and he's like, are you all right? I'm like, I think so. And he's like, you need me to do anything? You need me to call anybody? I said, yeah, call an ambulance, I guess. And because I didn't know where my phone was. And he was like, do you need me to stay? And I was like, well, no, I don't guess so.

So he drives on, I finally find a place, like, safe enough to hop down because I didn't want to hop down the car roll on me. I go to knock on the dude's door. He comes to the door, and he's like, you know, still half sleep, you know, 5.30 in the morning or 5ish in the morning. Yeah. And I'm like, man, I just had an accident out there. I said, I flipped and I said, I landed on your pickup truck. And he's like, man, that's my wife's truck. She's had that thing since high school.

And I'm like, I'm sorry, bro. It's out of commission now. And so he's like, all right. He just shuts the door. He don't ask me if I'm okay. You need to drink a water. You got to call it, but it just shuts the door. I'm standing there on the porch, and I'm like, all right.

So I go back, and there was like this little stump-looking thing over there. I'm sitting on that. I'm waiting. The fire truck pulls up, ambulances pulls up. They come up to the car, like, looking all over the place. And I'm kind of like trying to motion to him. Like, I'm over here. They kick the back window out of the car, like, looking at it.

You know, like the little haligan thing, making all the glass go away. they're looking and there's like, you know, where's the driver? I was like, I am the driver. He's like, where's the passenger? I was like, I don't think there was one. It was just me. I was like, I was going to work. And I mean, like, so, and I did find my phone.

I actually still had it in my pocket. So while I was waiting on me to get there, I called my wife and told her, told her where I was at. So she's on her way up there. So by the time they get there, and I'm telling them, you know, that I was a driver, they slapped me on a board, a gurney. They're putting tape around my head. They got me in the, you know, the neck brace. So I'm like that, you know, strapped to the,

board when she comes pulling up, so it looks awful. It looks like I'm paralyzed. And so she's flipping out, and I'm like, I'm good. I really don't even need to take this ride, but they're taking me just for precaution. Go to the yard, and the lady comes out, and she's like, I don't know what your religion is or who you pray to, but whatever

you're doing, just keep at it because it's working. She said, there's nothing really wrong. Now, that was, for the most part, that was true. I did wind up having some long-term back issues from it. But for the most part, like injury-wise, I was good. I walked away from it clean. And I mean, this thing was demolished.

There wasn't a body panel on there that wasn't dented in, windows busted out, snapped the front wheel completely off, tore the front of it off. No airbags deployed. Like it was, I don't know how no airbags deployed because, funny enough, that same model Dodge was getting recalled for people just getting in and shutting the doors and their airbags were going off. Like a lady sued them because her airbags went off and knocked coffee on her. And I literally tore it to hell and no airbags went off at all.

so that and I tell that story to kind of set it because it's an important factor about the back issues later on that we're going to get into and with that I was out of work for a while I didn't lose the job that I had but I lost the position that I had within the company and then the one that I got when I come back it wasn't as fun it really kind of put me in a bad mood the money wasn't the same either it was a little bit less money so it's like I'm working on a job I don't really like or position that I don't really like, you know, making less money. I was just on a real foul-ass mood, you know, just because that affects, you know, a man that gives

a shit. Yeah. It affects you if you're not being able to put the food on the table, so to speak. And it just, it was real, things were just going bad. It went from, like, top of the world to now everything's going to shit. And there was a group of people in the neighborhood that we befriended that would go to the pool and everything. We had a little neighborhood pool where we live.

And they would get together every Friday and hang out at a Mexican, restaurant and then usually go to somebody's house afterwards and kind of hang out. So we went over there to this house. Now, my wife wasn't with me. I went to eat at the restaurant. We go to a friend of mine's house. We're hanging out over there. And I could tell that this couple that lived down the street from us, like six houses,

were not okay. They were having this little argument. You could just tell. He was at one of the bar. She was at the other. They was kind of snide comments and, you know, back and forth. You could just tell there was a rough. And so when we go to live,

leave my wife we go back to the house at the garage or hanging out my wife calls me and asked me to come to another friend of our's house it's like in the middle so you got my house the house where she was at and then the house where the couple was that I left so I leave there tell them by and go to where she's at we're there 20 minutes you know just chilling hanging out in the garage that guy was um uh coast guard and he had just got back from deployment and we knew each other we all knew each other And so we're sitting there And I remember it was just like really eerie We're listening to the radio

And the Johnny Cash song Hurt, come on, the cover they did from Nine-Each Nails, great song. And all of a sudden you hear this screaming. And it's just like, you know it's not a kid screaming. And so we're like looking around

And then we're like, all right, somebody's in trouble. So we go out, we run down to the end of the street. I'm not thinking that it's them because I just left them a few minutes ago at another party. So my buddy, for whatever reason,

he went straight in the house. I stop, and there's a woman rolling in the floor, in the yard, front yard of the house. And I stop her, and I realized that that's my friend. Her name was Carrie. And I'm like, Carrie, what the hell is going on? And she's like, he did it, he did it. He unalived himself. And I'm like, where?

She sat in the house. So I run in a house, again, it's kind of like when you come in, you're open to the living room and the kitchen is kind of like one big open spot together. Kind of like what you got right here. Right. And when you come in, the refrigerator. and everything's to the left. Well, I seen like a pair of legs laying out right there. And when I cut that corner,

my buddy was already up at the head. He had his shirt off. He had wrapped it around the guy's head. The guy had made a decision to unalive himself that night. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen in my life. I mean, dude was coughing off blood. I mean, it was just like somebody just turned a water faucet on. He was not technically, but it was coming there.

It was just, it was the formalities playing out. And it was just awful. I mean, worse things, still to this day, even though the story we're going to get into, worse than that, worse than anything I've ever seen. It was like somebody just, like I said, turned a water faucet on, and it was just pouring out of his nose, and I'm like, Jesus Christ,

and I mean, almost lost it, almost threw up. And I had to go back out, and nobody had our phones, because when we were running, everybody left their phones back at the house. So I went outside and I hollered at my wife, and I was like, I said, he shot itself. I was like, y'all go, run, go get the phone, somebody called 911.

So they come, they got them out, it felt like forever for him to come and you know little by little we start trying to figure it out of what happened because on the surface this dude had everything you wanted he was in you know early 40s he was married had a son had a daughter had a work truck had a Mercedes a harley a golf cart he had everything that you would say all right if i'm in my 40s give me the perfect life you know seemingly on the outside he had it well what apparently it happened was he had a little weight uh extra weight years prior he lost a bunch of that weight and then the somebody convinced him that a way to kind of cure the sagging skin was to start taking steroids

and bulk up. Well, he did that. Then it was messing with him real bad. And so he decided to come off of it. And when he come off of it, he come off cold turkey. And it really kind of messed him up. That combined with the drinking. He was drinking that night.

And that's what led to it. Then come to find out the marriage was kind of struggling a little bit. I wound up, you know, I stayed friends with the wife and kind of found out more as it progressed. and so in my mind that kind of ties into the story now that we're talking about I'm like is that what it comes to you know do you get so down so depressed did things get that bad if that's your answer that if that's the answer I don't want to do it right and by that point you know me and the wife had started arguing a lot I was still an outgoing person she wasn't as much and it was just it was constant arguing and so I made the decision

after that it was like to me that was the light bulb it wasn't the right light bulb but at the time it come on and I'm like all right you just we can't stay here and do this like you're this way I'm this way we're not going to work we're just going to argue and so I own that decision I chose to split up and call it quits did I was one of this did you leave or did she leave so I left originally right there was a friend of mine around the corner that I rented a room in his house and the deal that we made was I said I'll still pay for everything here if you're here. But if you meet somebody, I'm not going to

pay the bills while, you know, Johnny Rocket is coming around sitting on a couch or whatever that. That's not going to fly. We'll have to re-evaluate this situation. And so this happened in August. And I think around September, end of September, 1st of October,

she told me she met somebody. And I'm like, well, you know, how serious is? Is it? You remember my rule? I don't want nobody. Where are you living? My couch. Where are you moving? Yeah. And so she winds up moving this and I give her shit about it now but like I'm thinking she's going to move clear across whatever you know so we don't have to see each other as much she moves like one

neighborhood behind me right and so the way this is like one big community and then you have subdivisions within the community so like like yeah like this similar to this so I'm at the first one yeah there's townhouses yeah there's apartments there's houses yeah so I'm at the first neighborhood she's right behind me at the second which I mean in retrospect with the kids and everything, it worked out okay. We're still able to see each other. But like, I don't want to run into you two at the grocery store. Right.

Like, we weren't, like, at each other's throats, but we weren't friendly at this point either. Like, she was done with me. I was done with her. We talked, we talked for the kids, and that was it. So she tells me that she's moved in or she's, she's met this guy. And I'm like, all right, well, I'm moving back. So October 31st, Halloween night. That was her last night in the house.

We did get together that night. We went trick-or-treating with my son, all of his buddies, which had time had been like a little, you know, reoccurring thing. It was kind of bittersweet, but that was the last night. We did that. She moved out the next day. I rented the U-Haul. I had it packed up and they went. And so I moved back in. So November, December, I'm just, she's doing her thing. I'm doing mine. I'm, you know, partying every night doing my thing. She's doing whatever she's doing. And we start the divorce proceedings. I get a lawyer. That's going, you know, as slow as it goes.

But the thing was, because she moved in with this guy, it's technically adultery, but it's not like she was doing it behind my back. I knew it, but we were going to be able to use that to get a quick divorce. Right. Because you can get a divorce in 90 days if you can prove either drug abuse, adultery,

or physical abuse. Right. That could be in physical abuse. So obviously with the adultery, I've got her on that because she's living with the guy. So it's going to allow us to speed run this whole process. And we agree to everything. I was going to give her, you know, X amount of dollars out of my 401k at that time.

It was pretty substantial. And so I was going to give her some of that. We were going to work out something. If I ever did sell the house, she got a piece of that. But we all agreed on what was going to be what, and we're going to do our own thing. So we didn't really talk at all, really, unless we had to for the courts around Christmas time. first Christmas were split up, trying to figure out what we're going to do with the kids.

We actually had a talk that wasn't so much business-oriented. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't just like, all right, we're going to be here. I'll meet you here. We just talked a little bit. I'm like, well, how things are going with you? You know, she asked me how things are going with me. You know, we're kidding around a little bit,

breaking each other's balls. And you could kind of tell in that conversation that was a little something still there. Right. You know, long story short, we get through Christmas and we actually, we go out one night, we have dinner, we kind of talk, and she's saying that things aren't really going good. I guess she met the guy, and I think she was definitely rebounding.

So when you're on the rebound, guys too, you're not really checking everything like you should. You're taking whoever fills that void. Yeah, you're excited that this person's interested in you. Yeah, exactly. And it's new, you know? Yeah, you're blinded to a lot of shit that would normally stick out in other situations. And so she started finding out things he wasn't 100% honest with, you know, like his job and different things like that. Who was he anyway?

So I didn't know him. He wasn't from there. He had moved there. He was a former veteran from the Army who had went into, she didn't know this, but he had spent a little time in a psych evaluation in or psych ward in Alabama. He got out. And at the time, he had moved to Charleston area with his wife and two kids. and then they split up so I guess

somehow him and my wife met once they started talking he sent his wife and two kids back home to Michigan on a bus and she didn't even know that he was married nor that he had kids and actually let me clarify that

he wasn't even married to her he was married to an entirely separate woman and she didn't know none of that she knew he had kids but she didn't know that he had a wife that wasn't even in the picture nor was he living. with the past girlfriend and two kids.

She found all that out after the fact. And so, like I said, she started finding all this out. I didn't know this because we weren't talking, but she's kind of filling me in now, you know, months later. And so we still weren't 100% sure if we were going to jump back into this because it's like, obviously, we've been together for years. We got two kids together. We know there's love there, but, you know,

are we really ready to jump back in full force? So February goes by, we're going to the divorce meeting. now this is this is weird and crazy it kind of sums up our relationship we got to go to the last meeting before the divorce is final somehow or another they screwed up the scheduling we go one day before they're supposed it's supposed to be done we're together that day at my house like together together right we drive to the courthouse to get divorced and the judge is like i'm not really sure how this happened but we can't put this through today because it's within the day window. We have to wait to us either 90

or after in the 90 days tomorrow. We got to reschedule. No big deal, at least at the time we thought. Anyway, so he reschedules it and we're just sitting in the car. I was like, we've been together our morning. We came to get divorced. We couldn't get divorced. Maybe this is some kind of sign.

So we go and it's still kind of bouncing back and forth. You know, at this point they did separate. They were living together in that neighborhood. He left and went back home around the end of January. I don't know specifically what happened. I know he didn't stay long and he come back.

When he moved back, he was living in some VA housing in like a couple towns over. You've got North Charleston, Somerville area. He was in North Charleston living in some assisted VA housing. Now, they were still technically talking, but he wasn't living at the premises. Why did he move? What's his name? His name was Liam. Why did Liam move out?

Well, it was kind of getting along. That's essentially. They just were arguing. Yeah, arguing. Yeah, it wasn't working out. Nothing specific. Yeah, they didn't call it quits, but it was kind of like it definitely wasn't as, you know, honeymoon-esque as it started out. Right.

And so while all this is going on, we're still trying to figure out like if we want to give this another go-round. So Easter, Easter weekend comes up. And we get together and we go to her moms for Easter weekend, Easter Sunday. I've got that next week off for spring break. It was right after that. We go to our mom's free from Sunday. We make the decision there. It was like, hey, guys, we're just going to get back together.

We're going to do this another shot. Technically, we never got divorced. And what we were going to do was still get the divorce, go through with it, and then start dating again. Try to see if there was something there that rekindle. If we couldn't, then she's free to do what she wants to do. And I'm free to do what I want to do. You don't have to start this whole thing all over again. And I'm like, you know, if we're going to make it, we'll get remand.

a little small something and you know that's how we'll do it so that was the plan we told everybody we're going to get back together they were all happy we go to myrtle beach that next day because i had that week off from work we go to the next stay i think three or four days in myrtle beach we come back home and that's supposed to be when she's going to give him the news that you know she's going to get back with me i was going to cut it off with the chick i'm seeing and that was kind of going to be how we broke it down so we come back that night the next morning i'm expecting her to give him the news that night and then my son had a soccer game the next morning so i didn't really talk to her much that night she said she was going to tell

him when he got home from work never heard anything meet at the soccer game next morning i'm like what happened you know you didn't tell me anything she's like he come in said he had a major headache he went straight to bed i didn't even had chance to talk to him said and i guess he would be in moods so she just didn't even like to talk to him and he had his moods this is this guy was diagnosed. I found this out after the fact. He was diagnosed with PTSD. And we'll get into a little sub-story of that later. But he was on a bunch of medications and he

was, he didn't have everything working upstairs. Right. So we meet at the soccer game. She's like, I'm going to do it today. I'll let you know how everything goes or, you know, if everything's smooth. So I'd say that was at 10, 11 o'clock in the morning. He comes home.

They have the conversation. He gets pissed. He leaves. But he had a service dog. with him. Now, he left the service dog there. Well, she comes, she calls me, she comes over. She kind of told me how I went and said he was obviously pissed, you know, mad, and he left, but she's like, I know he's not going to be going for good because he left the dog there. He's not going to leave the dog if he's leaving. And we were kind of thinking, like, your name's on that lease. He's pissed that you're coming over here. He might come back

and, like, do something to that house, and you're going to be on the hook for it, you know, because his name's not on anything. Right. So she goes back home and she's like, I'm going to just make sure he doesn't come back. I told her, I was like, maybe we try to change the locks really quick if you can. I mean, you know, get somebody over there to do it. But I didn't hear from her for a couple hours at that point. And so, but I didn't, I wasn't worried because he wasn't there also. Right.

And another thing, and I told her, I was like anything in, you know, value or whatever, get it, we'll get it back over here. That way you don't take nothing. I didn't, I'd only met this guy one time throughout their process of seeing each other. Right. It was very quick. It was at a gas station. it was a couple exchanges, it wasn't hostile, and that was it.

So I knew nothing about him, his character, his background, or nothing other than to that point what she had told me once we started to reconcile. So I'm over at a friend of mine's house, again, in the neighborhood, we're hanging out, sitting over there at their house, and I'm trying to call her phone, and I can't get nothing. Can't get nothing. Can't get nothing. Finally, my neighbor calls. Now, this is the neighbor that when I told you, we went to their house

before the other guy and alabbed himself. He calls my phone. He's like, are you home? And I was like, well, I'm not home, but I'm in the neighborhood. And he's like,

hey, he's like, if you come by my house and you see Liam's car here, he's like, don't stop. And I'm like, all right. I was like, you're going to tell me

a little bit more. Like, why are you saying that? And he's like, well, something's going on between him and, you know, your wife,

he's like, I don't know what it is, but I'm trying to figure it out. Well, I know what's wrong. but I don't know why he's involved in it. Right. So what had happened, and I found all this out after the fact, what had happened is he did come back, he got pissed, he made her get in the car and drive to my house.

They were looking for me to confront me to find out basically if he was being lied to, had we been seeing each other beforehand. So I wasn't home because I went to that other friend's house. So they stopped by and he couldn't use her phone because he broke it. That's why I couldn't get her on the phone. He had smashed her phone. in the middle of that argument. So he rides by that friend of mine's house,

and I guess they pull up or she does, she does. And he comes out, and he comes up to the window, and he said, I've seen him in a pastor's seat and said, he was like, hey, you know, what's going on, guys? And he said, oh, we're looking for Chip, because when I find him, I'm going to fucking kill him. And they call me Chip. Some people call me Chip.

Right. And so that's what he called me. And he's like, oh, you know, what's going on? He's trying to figure out what's going on, what happened, because he doesn't know anything. He knows that we're reconciling, but he didn't know that he got the news or why. know this is the day. Yeah, he doesn't know that's the day.

So what he did was agree for him to go back to their house for Felicia to get out and then him to come back there so he could try to defuse the situation. So that's why when he told me if you ride by here and you see his car here, don't stop because I don't need you two going at it in my house basically. Right. And so I'm like, all right, look, I know why he's man. Like I got a pretty good idea why he's man, but I'm not going to stop. So I go back to my house

At that point We're talking, it's probably 12 o'clock at night My daughter's got off work She worked at one of the restaurants in the neighborhood When she got home My wife used her phone and called me And she kind of got me up to speed On what it happens

So she's like, he's with Jamie Everything's good, he's going to stay over there And so I'm like, all right Just figured that was it One o'clock, one ish Somewhere along there I get a text message it's him and he's like are you home and i said yes sir and he said me and you need to talk

and i'm like i texted by him well what about right and he's like you know what about he's like i'm not trying to be an asshole he's like i'm not trying to start anything he said i just want some answers he said i feel like i'm being lied to you're telling people you're going to kill me yeah i didn't tell him well i didn't know that at that time right you broke my wife's phone yeah i didn't know all that at the time oh okay so i didn't know that i didn't know about the broke phone and the wife didn't tell me that. I didn't know about him saying that he was going to kill me. I found that out when that guy gave his report to the police

when I got it back later after everything happened. See, I didn't know all that beforehand. And so he tells me, he's like, I've got some questions. He's like, I feel like you'll be honest with me. He's like, and if you're not comfortable at your house, we can meet at your buddy's house. And I didn't even want to tell him. I thought that's where you were.

But I was like, all right, we can do that. So in the middle of what had happened, I guess he said that he was going to go, back to his VA housing. Right. And this was a tax. This was a text communication. So the cops had all that when they arrested me later. He told him that he was going to go back to his

VA housing and go to bed. That was going to be the end of it. He didn't. He goes back to my wife's house. They start arguing. She calls Jamie and is like, hey, I thought you were going to keep him over here. He's over here showing his ass. You know, what's going on? So then he gets in his car

and he goes over there. And the only way that that guy agreed to leave was, was if he could get me to his house so he could talk and me and he could have a conversation. So that's why he texted me to get me over there. So now we all meet at his house. I'm probably like five houses away, but it's April.

It's slightly chilly. So I get in my car and I drive down there and I pull up. They're there. I go in. And essentially what he's wanting to know is, you know, was he being lied to about the time frame when we got back together? Was he being, you know what?

And I'm like, look, start with this. It's really none of your business. like it's none of your fuck of me and that's still my wife at the end of the day I don't owe you an explanation I was like but to answer your question no it wasn't or it wasn't going on and so it really

I think he knew at that point he wasn't going to get out of me what he was fishing for but it was still like after that what are you going to do you know you're not going to get the answers and it got a little I would say tense and hostile he started you know chirping off a little bit

I would chirp off a little bit but that was it It never got to the point where it was physical. I think he realized that, you know, he wasn't going to get a rise out of me, that I wasn't going to entice him to do anything. And it really, at one point, and I know this sounds kind of weird, it turned out being two dudes just, or three dudes just hanging out in a garage. Right.

They started talking about, both of them were prior military. I didn't have anything to offer in that situation. All of us had kids. We started talking about our kids. And it was just, it was really weird. I mean, it was odd situation, but that's what it come to. because he knew that I wasn't going to try to take it where I think he wanted it to go. And so we hang out a little bit.

Now, in there, I think he had one or two beers from that guy's house. At this point, I had had nothing, or at least from way earlier in the morning. Because I didn't know what we were... Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yep, Wagoe. What about it?

On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No. Just ask your doctor about Wagovi. Yeah. Ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to the circus?

Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit wagovi.comi.com for savings. Exclusions may apply. What we were going down here to do, so I wasn't drinking anything. And he didn't seem to me like he was like hammered beyond belief. He was coherent.

Wasn't slurring his words or nothing like that. it's like three o'clock and so the guy who lived there he's like look I'm shutting it down he's like I'm tired he's like are you going to stay here and he's like no I'm just go home so now keep in mind when they come back to his house Jamie brought him he has no car right and so he was why he asked him was he going to stay the night and he's like no I'm just have chip run me home and so when he said that he looked at me and he's like are you okay with that and I'm like yeah I'm cool with that at that point everything you kind of of subsided it wasn't there wasn't any tense feelings or anything like that so i was i was fine with

it we leave we get in the car and he looks at me and he's like you know if i go home he's like we're just going to start arguing again i'm like look bro i've been with it for 10 years i know how it is you ain't got to tell me you know we're almost laughing about this situation what about just dropping them off at the VA well that really wasn't an option okay well it's not one that he presented to me right where i was going to say were you too drunk to even make it that far No, at that time, I still hadn't drink anything. He had, but I hadn't drank anything. Did you say that?

Did you say that? He was drinking. Okay, I thought you had been drinking, too. No, not at that point. I had earlier in the night, but probably not since 10, 30, 11 o'clock. That's now three in the morning. So anything that I had would have been gone. But he didn't say that. He didn't use that as an offer because his car was at my wife's house.

So that was going to be how he would get back over there anyway. Right. So he looks at me, he's like, do you care if we just go back to your house and hang out for a little bit? And like for a split second, I was kind of hesitant to do it. But then I was like, look, we've been hanging out for this point in time. The dudes, you know, seems pretty chill. And I was like, I might just do like a hangout side type of thing or in my garage with the garage up.

So we go and we, it's not very far. I mean, 30 seconds, we're from their house to my house. And we pull up in the driveway and he started, we just kind of start chatting. And he was like, do you know why I wear this bracelet? And he holds up his wrist. And I'm like, bro, I don't know anything about you. I don't know your story or not. nothing. And he proceeds to tell me this very long, detailed story about a buddy that he was in

an army with that got shot in the head, and he was trying to hold his head back together. And the Army said he didn't follow proper protocol or procedure. And so that's why he got kicked out of the Army. His buddy died. And so that's why he had PTSD, why he had spent time in a psych ward, why he was on all these medications. He was kind of laying out to me why he was the way he was and why it was a problem with him and my wife basically. And so I mean in the middle of the story when he starts

talking like he's crying. He started like I see tears coming down his face. He's not kidding. He's at that point to me he looks like a broken man. And so my guard at that point in time was completely down. Now what we found out later was the story was

it wasn't complete bullshit but it wasn't accurate. He wasn't in combat himself. He was intelligence. So he's somewhere, you know, on the radio, okay, go here, turn right, go left, whatever. So he gave him intel. He's in a single wide trailer.

Yeah. 5,000 miles away. Nowhere near combat tells this guy somewhere to go to that resulted in him getting his half his head blown off. Okay. So I'm sure it affected him. I would like to think it did anyway if he was, you know, had normal thoughts.

I'm sure it affected him and bothered him And it looked like it bothered him Like I said he was crying So at that point Like I said my reservations were down My guard was down And I'm just like You know dude I'm sorry

I don't even know what to say at that point So we do go on in the house We go into the main house We go in at that point We do have a drink there My favorite liquor to drink is red stag It's a brand of a Jim Beam It's like a black cherry flavor

And that's what I had So we done a shot or two, a piece of that. And we're in there just hanging out. I mean, we're talking, again, he's talking about his kids and his ex-wife or ex-baby mama. I'm talking about my kids. And at one point, he tells me, he's like, man, under different circumstances, you

and I probably would have been pretty good friends. And I'm, you know what? You're probably right. Because, I mean, honestly, he did seem like a cool guy. Right. And at some point in time, we got to talking about my kid, one of his friends' moms, and he was like, I heard her talking trash about people with tattoos. and he was like,

has she ever said anything to you? And I'm like, you ain't ever said anything to me. I was like, I'm covered in him. So I kind of show my arms and I pulled down my shirt a little bit to see this tattoo

and he sees this scar right here. I don't know if you can see that. So he sees that and he's like, damn, what happened here? And I'm like, oh, I had open heart surgery in 2001. So he grabs my shirt

and lifts it up from the bottom and pulls it up so he can see the entire scar. Now, when he does this, there's no way that he don't see the piece that I have on my hip. Now, I know everybody's in the comments and in other videos that I've done. Why would you be carrying in your kitchen?

That's ridiculous. Yada yada y' y'all. You just had it on you the whole night, right? Look, when you're in like, I don't want to say my neighborhood, I don't live in the hood, but when you're from the South, when you walk out and cell phone,

keys, wallet, gun. I mean, you just have it. So you always have it as a, you know, a force of habit. Now, the reason why it never got taken off once I got back home is I got a two-story house. All my bedrooms are upstairs. I never went upstairs.

We were confined downstairs. So I had it on me when I left. We leave. We come back in the living room. We really never left the living room kitchen area. So I never got to a place to where I take it off, which would have been upstairs by my nightstand. So when he pulls my shirt up,

there's no way he don't see it. But he doesn't even acknowledge it. He doesn't look at it, at least that I've seen. He doesn't say anything about it. And I show him the scar. I tell him the story about it or whatever. and he grabs me like in one of those bear hug grabs. You know, a lot of times drunk, you know, guys I had to have their drinks.

I grab you, pick you up, put you back down type of shit. And I thought it was weird, but he was, you know, it was right after he said that we could have been good friends then. He picks me up and it kind of immediately puts me right back down. And he's like, where's your bathroom at? So I point him to the bathroom. At this point now, it's closing in on 6 o'clock in the morning. I haven't checked in with my wife in fucking hours.

So real quick, he's in the bathroom. I bring out my phone and like, I text my daughter's phone because hers was broke. I text her, I was like, hey, I was like, we're good, we're at my house, everything's fine. Put it back in my pocket. So I'm sitting, the way my kitchen is you have the hallway from the bathroom and then you walk into the kitchen. Immediately to the right is a refrigerator, slight counter space, then it comes back, stove, and then curves back the other way with a sink. So I'm with my back to the stove, just kind of, you know, just sitting there chilling wait for him to come out.

because all of our shot glasses and everything are sitting around the area, all that stuff where we had been, you know, doing shots. And he comes out and he cuts the corner, kind of cuts it to the right. He walks straight up to me. And, I mean, just doesn't say a word. Boom. Hand up under the throat like that. Not so much as in a choking, but like force controlling me.

Right. And so he pushes me up so hard that my damn feet come off the floor. And I go on to the stove. And it's like a flat top stove. and I'm just like it's happening so fast I'm like holy shit I don't know if he was kidding I don't know if it was something he was doing and then I'm like what I told him I'm like I'm what the fuck and he looks me dead my eyes he said I'm gonna fucking kill you

and at that point I'm just like shit and so I'm trying to get his hand off I can't get his hand off now a key thing to this the situation here is I'm out of work because I had a procedure on back on my back from the wreck I told you about I had these injections put into my back that like they basically burn the nerve endings from the spine and it keeps it where you don't you're not an agonizing pain for about six to eight months eventually the nerves reattach and then you have to get it again right so it's a reoccurring thing this is the first time i'd ever had it done and i was sore i was sore shit so i didn't really have a lot of mobility anyway so as i'm trying to fight him to get loose i managed to scoot like off the stove and get back on my feet and i told him at that point in time i was like dude if you don't get to off me, I'm going to shoot you. And so he comes back. He's holding me with this hand. He's coming

with his right. And I can see it coming. So I try to lift up just a little bit. And he like clips the bottom of my chin. He doesn't get it side of the face. It kind of clips the chin. And when he does that, he lets go because all of his momentum took him this way. So he lets go with that other hand. When he let go, he was already coming back and I stepped back into the corner. At that point I'm kind of in the corner. I drew out and I shot. Now, I thought it was two times. but apparently from what I found out later it was three shots all of them were center mass it was all you know quick succession and he immediately dropped and so like at that point I'm just like

what the fuck and don't know what the hell to do don't know what's going on I look at my phone grab my phone call 911 and I was telling him I'm like look I had somebody in my house like he attacked me you know he was hitting me I had no choice I had to shoot him and so they sent the ambulance it felt like forever and she's got me down there and she's He's like, you know, is he breathing? And I'm like, he seems like he's breathing. He's not making any noises, but it's like, it's what's referred to from,

that I've kind of heard from people. It's called the death rattle. It's like a moan. But there was never any verbal communication after the shots. So he's directly on the floor. He's laying there. I'm hearing the moan. I'm trying to follow what the dispatcher's telling me.

She's telling me that the ambulance is on the way. She tells me to go get a towel. So I go grab a towel. I yanked a towel so hard from like the bathroom. floor it's like a little hand towel kind of like you got in your bathroom there i grabbed that i come back i yanked it so hard that the whole bracket come off the wall it was laying in the floor right i go back i pull his shirt up and like i'm looking i can't even find a wound because like it's not like you see in the movies and you know blood goes flying everywhere it wasn't like that

and i'm literally having the search around and i finally see like a little small hole here a little small hole here but i mean like it's very small these were like full metal jacket rounds They weren't hollow points or nothing like that. So they weren't designed to do, like, major damage. I mean, they're still going to hurt. I mean, you know, but it's not like something that's going to leave a big hole out the back. It was more target rounds, really. And so I find the wounds.

I put a towel on them. I'm holding it. I'm doing what they tell me to do, but like I'm kind of limited because I don't really know what else to do. There's nothing else you can do. Right. And I'm waiting there to eventually 911 gets there. And she's like, where's the gun? I was like, it's sitting on the counter.

She's like, have it unload it. put the magazine out, you know, have the door unlocked that way our officer can come on in. And so they finally get there. And I tell them, I'm like, come on in. I'm yelling for him to come in. And he comes in first and he's like, we're not placing you up under arrest, but he's like, we're all going to put you in handcuffs until we can figure out what's going on. So he puts me in handcuffs.

And then another officer comes up about the same time where outside, they put me in the back of her car. And then I don't see them for about, I don't know, 10 minutes. from reviewing body cam footage from after all this, they basically go in and sweep the house and see if they go to every room, they open every closet door, everything. And once they realize that we're only two people in the house, the ambulance gets there probably about 10 minutes after the cops do.

They go in, they bring him out. They, they, what, man, I think I timed it. They sat there with him in the back of that ambulance for almost 15 minutes before they ever poured off. I don't know what they were doing. And it just seemed to me, it seemed like a long time in there. But now I didn't know if he was still alive or whatever. I knew he had functions going on, but I didn't know if he was alive.

I didn't know if he was going to make it or whatever. So I'm literally concerned of what's going on in there. And at this point, nobody knows. But now it's daylight. By the time all this is transpired and the cops have got there and the ambulances got there, it's like 7 o'clock in the morning. People are starting to get up. It's Sunday morning.

People are starting to go to church. people are riding by or seeing me sitting in the back of a cop car in front of my house and they never took my phone from me so I had my phone I was able to get my phone and I was able to text my wife

I was like I shot Liam come A AASAP but I said I shot Liam come now so I see her pull up and she's talking to the cops I can't figure out exactly what they're saying because I'm in the car

but a female officer comes up and she's like we're placing you on under arrest and I mean I kind of halfway expected it until they figured out everything like I kind of expected to be arrested but then once

they started figuring out everything I figured it would be done right so she reads me right she's like are you going to you know you want to answer any questions I'm like no not without a lawyer and she's like okay so they leave me in the car and then I'm there for probably another hour dude it's cops up and down the damn

block and this neighborhood is not used to seeing this I mean all these cops they know something's going on. They don't know what. And everybody, like, people are riding my own golf carts. They're just parked in yards, watching. I mean, it's turned this neighborhood upside down. And I got to use the bathroom. I mean, I got to pee. I'm like, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Finally, I've seen a cop like walking by and I kind of, you know, motion for him to come out. I was like, look, man, I got to use the bathroom. And he's like, now you're going to hold it. And I'm like, no, that's not what's about to happen. Like, I'm going to go. I'm either going to go in this car or you can let me in that house. So eventually he lets me out of the car And we go in the house

And the guy's like Is there somewhere you can use the bathroom? I'm like, I live here Any bathroom you want And so he lets me use the bathroom And they collect all of my clothes Everything take my shirt My pants, my boots

Basically everything but my underwear and socks And they said, is there somewhere you can change? I was like again, this is my house My clothes are upstairs So I go upstairs, I change, I come outside And at that point one of the detectives approaches me And he's like, is there somewhere you can go while we can finish

our investigation. So I'm like, I went from being under arrest to now he's saying, is there somewhere you can go and chill while we're doing our investigation? And you don't have cuffs on anymore. No, I'm uncuffed. And so I'm thinking now, all right, kind of what I thought. They were just going to arrest me off general

principle, figure it out, everything's good. They're already starting to, my wife talked to them. They're starting to piece what happened. I'm free to go now. So I go around the corner. I talked to my wife kind of gave her the breakdown not long after that we get to work

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chaotic everybody's trying to figure out what the hell's going on and i'm over there hours. By this time, it's like probably 11.30 in the evening. I haven't been to bed all night. And the cops come pulling up. I walk out to the cop car. And he's like, you know, we're done with our investigation. Do you want to come with us and answer some questions? And I'm like, well, Brian, I'm not coming and answering anything without a lawyer being there. Like, just sorry. And he's like, who's your lawyer? And so I give him the lawyer's name. It was a guy named Donnie Gamas. But the only reason I say I had a lawyer was he was my divorce lawyer that I was choosing. So I don't keep retainers or, you know, attorneys on retainer. But he happened to be a cop

before he became a lawyer. And so he knew him. And he was like, well, I know Donnie. He used to be one of us. We'll get together tomorrow and, you know, you can come in and answer the question. So I'm like, all right, I'm free to go. And he's like, yeah, you can go back home. And I'm like, where is there any type of mess or anything that you guys got to clean up? He's like, we don't do that. Yeah. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, that's your responsibility. He's like, we do our investigation and we're out. And he said, we're done. You're free to go back but by that time when they left my mom was there at the house so she goes on in and she was like she said i didn't know what i was walking into she was like there was really nothing there she said there was

a little bit of blood on the hardwoods in front of their refrigerator she got it up with one paper towel right one swipe done no blood at all so by the time i get back that's already up you know we're starting to kind of get our bearings back Tension, I mean, just, you know, blood pressure through the roof, adrenaline still going. I'm finally starting to come down the night, and the lawyer calls me, and he's like, so they want you to go up there. He's like, you're not going to go there. He's like, you're going to come to my office tomorrow.

He's like, you're going to give a statement, and then we're going to submit it to them. If there's any discrepancies and what they need from your statement, then we'll get back together after that. And I'm like, all right, so he's like, go ahead and write up a statement tonight of exactly what happened. He said, you can make it as detailed as possible. he's like, and then I'll, if I got to tweak it or whatever to make it not as long, I'll send it over to him.

So I kind of write it up the next day, which is Monday, I go to my lawyer's office. We sit down. I tell him this story, explain it like I'm explaining to you. He's like, okay. And he's like, I mean, he's a former cop again. And he's like, from what you're telling me, he said it sounds like a clean shoot. I explained to him the proximity, how close we were together. I mean, you know, we're this.

He's got me here. he swings he breaks loose everything with center mask right close together and he's like he said it sounds like a clean shooties i don't think you got anything to worry about so i leave i'm gone maybe an hour two hours and he calls me he's like everything they wanted to know answered in your statement he's like we should be good if i need anything else i'll call you i'm like all right so by this time now it's starting to circulate that i was involved in a shooting at my own my job gets wind of it i'm supposed to go back to work that i think that wednesday It was the middle of that coming week.

And so I talked to my boss, he's heard. He's like, yeah, I heard what's going on? I was like, you know, everything's good. So I just left the lawyer's office. I said I still should be on track to, you know, come back in there Wednesday. Well, Wednesday rolls around and I get a phone call from my lawyer. And it's about 3.34 o'clock in afternoon and he's, hey, I got some bad news. That is not what you want your lawyer to tell you in any stretch of, you know, imagination.

especially in this situation. Yeah, especially in this. He's like, that's a bad news. I'm like, oh, fuck. And he's like, they're charging you a murder. And I'm like, why? And he was like, I don't know. He's like, I don't know if they're trying to paint this as a love triangle thing going wrong.

And you tried to kill him to get your wife back or what it is. He's like, but they're charging you. You got to turn yourself in tomorrow at 12 o'clock. And I'm just like, bro, why would I need to do that? Like, we're already getting back together. Right. You got the right idea. You just got the wrong person.

I said, if anything, he was trying to kill me for that reason. right and so he's like i'm just telling you what he told me he's like they're not going to come and arrest you because you're they had to do all communication through him since i was lawyered up right had i not had a lawyer that had come and jack got my ass yeah now they had already been to the house that tuesday to get a statement from my wife and everything so they had been to the house a couple times you know so i was kind of familiar with the cops being in and out of the house the whole neighborhood you know was talking about it on facebook and the facebook groups and everything there was news vans camped outside the house

somebody like right across the street and the interest way to the neighborhood. I mean, they were having a field day with it. The rumors were crazy. It was like he walked down and called his wife with another man. I'm like, oh, she hadn't lived here in four or five months. Like,

what are you people talking about? It was people that didn't know that was just running about. And my wife is the most private person in the world. She doesn't have Facebook. She doesn't have Instagram. She doesn't have social media. You would be hard pressed to even find a picture of her, if not for me and my social media.

Right. Nobody knew who she was. So she actually kind of was flying under the radar somewhat, but still, you know, the job and everything, everybody started figuring out what was going on. Well, at that point, I'm like panicking because I didn't know if I wanted to let this guy handle this type of case. He was a marriage lawyer, you know, divorce lawyer or something like that.

Yeah, I didn't, I'm not saying he never handled those cases, but he wasn't the guy I was comfortable with. Right. And so I start calling everybody I know in the Charleston area, and I'm like, hey, I was like, you know, some people knew, some people didn't know, because this is only two days after the shooting. I was like, they're charging me, bro.

Who do I need? Every name, every person said the same name. Andy Savage, Andy Savage, Andy Savage. So after like the fourth call or fourth person saying that, I'm like, all right, that's my guy. So I pick up the phone, call him. By then it's probably like 5 o'clock because after hours, I get a receptionist.

I kind of tell her what's going on. She said, I'll have one of our, you know, paralegals or whatever, call you back here in a minute. Phone rang. I kind of gave her the overview of what's going on. She said, can you be there tomorrow? o'clock. I said, no, ma'am. And she said, why not? I said, I'm supposed to be in jail at 12. Like, I ain't going to be able to be there at 1. And she's like, oh, she's like, well,

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Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide. Like whatever you need me to do. I'm just trying to get something going here and get something lined up before I get inside. And so she's like, be here at 7 o'clock. So that next morning, me, my wife and my mom, go to the lawyer's office. We go in.

Now, granted, I've never been, I've never had to have a lawyer for very much in anything in my life, let alone this. And we go in and he's like, okay, tell me what happened. So I kind of break down the story, kind of like I have with you up into that point. And he's sitting in his chair. and he's like, so why are we here? I'm like, well, you told me to be here at 7 o'clock. And he's like, no, no, no, why are we here?

He said, if everything you're telling me is true, and he said, and believe me, my people will find out if you're lying. He said, if everything you're telling me is true, I don't understand why we're having this conversation. I don't understand why you're arrested. So the only thing I can tell you is that makes two of us because I don't understand either. I was like, to me, this follows everything of self-defense you've ever heard about.

Right. I'm in my home. I'm in my house. the guy grabs me, threatens me, says he's going to kill me, strikes me, and then I have to do what I have to do. So I'm really not sure why we're here either. So the stroke that this guy has, I'm supposed to be in jail literally a few hours from now.

He goes out to room, he makes a phone call, he comes back in. He said, I got your surrender pushed back until Friday. He's like, I'm probably going to get pushed back until Sunday. I asked for Friday just so we could get some things in line. I was like, all right, thank you. You know, a couple of days on the outside, you know, because I wasn't looking forward to going to jail. And so we start giving him all the information on the guy.

I mean, as we're telling him this, it was like something out of a movie. As we're telling him these stories, he's got people in there typing. They're printing off records. They're printing off marriage records. They're printing off, you know, stuff from me, stuff. They're just pulling shit out of everywhere. It looked like a scene in a movie where, you know, everybody's working to scramble. Right.

It was just... Yeah, Situation room. And it looked just like that. And I'm like, I can see why these guys making a big dollars. And so they're starting to get all this stuff going. We get towards the end. And I guess he has a conversation with the HR lady. He's like, well, have they paid?

And she's like, well, no, but I haven't told them how much it's going to be. And so they come back in there and she's like, yeah, we already started this. You need to do this first. Yeah, we already started all. I don't know if he just assumed I was going to be able to pay it. But he's like, she comes in. He's out of the room at this point in time. And she's like, so how do you guys want to handle the payment?

And I'm like, so how much is it? And she's like, well, to take this case is 50,000. And then she's like, he's going to need another 15,000 for retainers to get everything started with this and that and all this. And I'm just like. So we're at 65,000? We're at 65,000 right off the rip. Now, that's what it's going to take. That's not saying they need that right then.

Right. But between my wife and my mom, they clear 50,000 on credit cards, boom, right off the rip. So she was like, if you're going to put this much down, you can pay the money. the rest whenever you can, you can make payments, installments, whatever you, whatever you want to do since you're putting this much down. Because usually people, if they don't have the money to pay it up front, they'll just make payments over time. Probably a substantial payment, not no $200 a week, but, you know, something good. So we do that. It sets the 50 up, and they kind of give me some pointers about when I go in as like, look, we know when you get arrested, don't

talk on the phone to anybody. I mean, you know, not that I've had anything to hide, but just all the conversations are recorded, the least little thing they could try to use against She's like, be prepared. The food's going to be awful. Try to go in with a full stomach. Don't talk to anybody in there. Keep to yourself. They're very much trying to coach me up.

Well, we leave there. We go back home. They do get it pushed till Sunday. I had to turn myself in at 1 o'clock on Sunday. So Saturday night, like all the family comes down, my people, her people, everybody. And I don't, I say the term party. We had a party. It wasn't a party.

But it was definitely like a gathering. Yeah. Because I don't know if I'm getting out. This is, this is, I'm being. charge of murder and you don't always get bond for murder and i can't even be seen by the magistrate because a magistrate can't give you bond for murder you have to be seen by the circuit court now the circuit court in our area rotates county to county to county each week luckily they were in berkeley county the week i was going in and so and the lawyer even told me he says sometimes

i let people sit in jail for a few months let the heat die off the case then i swing in and try to get I'm buying and I'm like we got to do that now like I'm not really I don't have a free couple of weeks you know to do that or a couple of months to do that and he's like no in your case he's like we're it's coming up he's like I think we've got a strong enough case we can get you out and you're in a step you're you're not some scumbbag who's been in and out of jail his whole life you're I'm an established guy I've got a house I own vehicles I've been working the same company I have a career yeah 15 years kids in school you have two kids Yeah, two kids, daughter, son, all the normal stuff that I think help.

And so we start, he's like, I need you to gather character letters as many as you can between now and Sunday. I'm thinking those few days from Wednesday to Sunday, we got like 60 character letters. And that's with me turning down probably like 20 felons. I was like, I don't know if it looks good if you write the letters because I had everybody get built. You know, Matt, I appreciate you writing the letter. Yeah. I understand you're a strong, a strong writer, but.

I had a lot of people. I had people wanting to come to the court. He's like, I'll come and I'll support you. I'm just like, I mean, you know, you come to the house and just, you know, stick around there. I didn't know what I needed to do.

I mean, I thought, you know, maybe it will see that I appeal to everyone if I have some felons on there. But I didn't know how deep they look into these things. You know, but all together, we wound up getting 60 usable character letters. And so we had the party that Sunday. It was like that scene from Goodfellas.

And to then I always thought that that's not it worked. I thought if you went to jail, they just come and arrested your ass. But if you do have an attorney, you can basically facilitate your surrender. And so we get in the car and my mom was driving, my mom and my stepdad, and I was with my wife. And I was like, all right, like, take me to jail. And so they take me to jail. They dropped me off. And like, I go up then. I was, I didn't know what to expect. I got these shoes. I lift up the sole of the shoes. And I stick a Xanax and an ambient in the stole his shoe and lay it back flat bad idea well they didn't find it okay they did not find it

they didn't take the shoe apart still don't do that yeah don't do that if i was gonna say these are my brother shoes they find they find it now you got a whole other charge yeah yeah i'm thinking like where where do you like where do you pick where i wouldn't think to do that take them before you walk you're like where do you get like i guess you know some felons from work or whatever because the first question i have is like me as a normal like i say me as a normal person not that you aren't normal. But I'm like, me, it's like, if the cops would have asked me to answer questions, I'd have been like, okay, I want to think, I'm not talking without a lawyer. And I'm just curious, like, I mean, really, it's just in like every movie you ever watched. Right. And even

though in my mind, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything, you know, other than protect myself in my own home, clear-cut self-defense, I've watched movies where it's said, you know, look, don't talk to the cops. It was one specific movie I, forgot who was in it. When you're a forward thinker, you don't just bring your A game. You bring your AI game. Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people, money, and agents, so you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward. But the guy was like, he said, cops don't ask questions. He said, they plant landmines for you to blow yourself up, and then they hammer you. So, like, those kind of things just played in my head. Listen, even just

knowing the justice system the way I know it the fact that he texted his wife saying I shot Liam come quickly I would a a prosecutor would have a field day with that well a lot of things you could have said Liam attacked me and I shot him comes why didn't she say that why did you what did your wife know like they'll take that and twist it into a conspiracy where not only did they get you they'll also be able to indict your wife somehow they'll twist it and you'll be like that I was it's all I could text yeah trying to get back trying to let her know yeah like are you serious like and they'll twist it they'll twist it yeah you don't remind me I saw I saw it

sorry I know it was just a post and it was a guy it was a text message where the guy texts his wife she's like what did she say oh that's that one you said to me yesterday is it where he Abby and he's supposed to say baby and I said Abby yeah he says he says is did I text it because it's fucking listen I if you see it you if you're been married you just know oh yeah you immediately know okay you can see the little things typing up there he's supposed to say something like baby but the autocorrect says Abby yeah so it's it's it's it's um when autocorrect hates you and your relationship that uh can i go to or can we go to the gym tomorrow he goes sure Abby and then he you know think baby and he but oh boy

here it goes she's here she's sorry you see the bubble she's already typing like he's like oh boy and that is exactly and if the prosecutor is a woman so before you get back into it what is the gathering like like what are the conversations what are the emotions

a lot of you're going to be okay well there wasn't there might have been some of that and I for hated that throughout the whole process But, like, it was real, like, uncomfortable, I guess. Like, we cooked states and everybody's like, so, what are you doing? I mean, it was like, nobody really knew what to say. So I can see everybody being like, hey, bro, don't you worry, it's going to be okay. And me being there and you glancing at me being like, well, see, that was the thing.

Expect for it to go as bad as possible. My friends were, it was all my family. If my friends would have been there, probably it would have been lightened up a little bit. Right. But it was all my family. Like, my family's like, you know, my dad's pretty laid back. But everybody else was like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is going. They're like very, like, strict rule following people.

So to them, this was just like, oh, big thing. And they're all just kind of, they're acting scared, which is making me scared. So the whole thing was this, it was really tense. I was trying my best to kind of stay, you know, positive spirits or whatever. And I know where I'm going. I know the prison or whatever, the jail. And I Google it that night. And I'm like, He'll Finkeley detention.

and the first thing that pops up, inmate murder and the hillfinger of the penchant, I'm like, Jesus Christ. And so it just, I would not go in in a good place. I'll put it like that mentally. So when they drop me off, there's like this gazebo type thing up there right outside the prison, which is nice, you know, the scenery that nobody can touch. And so we go up to that and now, you know, I'm hugging everybody and, you know, kissing everybody by and all that. And then there's a cop right outside the door.

And I go up and she cussed me. We immediately go in. We do the normal stuff. the fingerprint and the mugshot and worst fucking mug shot in history colby thanks for putting that in a few of your thumbnails too by the way like you which i don't i don't want to go in there looking sharp you know i don't want to go in there with a edge up or nothing i don't want to go in there looking attractive by any means so i went in there looking like shit i see the opening scene from uh the blacklist where redington walks in tells him my name reddington and then steps

back puts his stuff down and gets on his knees because the swat team comes out of all the doors and to arrest you walk i can see you walking in she was waiting right outside the front i've never even been in this police station at all so i didn't know she's waiting right outside the door so we go in there we do all the normal stuff and then they like i said they fingerprint me and mow shot me they take the shoes and they take the laces out and they they take they turn the shoes over and they bam like beat the shit out of it on the concrete they never take the soul up right they just beat it down and i'm just like At that point, I'm thinking, oh, shit, they find that.

What am I going to say? But they never found it. So they've given them back on. So now I'm trying to figure out a walk with no shoelaces in the damn thing. And there's this guy that it was arrested. He was in there for a DUI because he's like hammered. And he's sitting on the bench. I'm sitting on the bench.

And like, the only thing I remember is like, don't talk nobody. He's sitting there. He looks at me. He goes, bench of shame, huh? I was like, yeah, I guess you could say that. What did he say? Bench of shame. Bench of shame.

Okay. So we're sitting on, like, this little bench right before they take us into the holding area. So they grab us both. They take us into holding. There's probably like maybe seven or eight people in there total. You know, most people are sleeping, not paying, you know, any attention. I mean, they give you this like half-mat sleeping bag looking thing. It looks dirty as shit.

Go in there. It's cold. It's bright as hell. Like there's, you know, just one little jug of water up front. I'm going up there. I'm not talking to anybody. Just I go sit. you know, in the corner, the biker comes up beside me.

And just talking, I'm just like, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. We're in there about, I don't know, an hour. They called me, him, and this other kid to go in front of the magistrate. Well, I already know that I can't get bond from the magistrate. It's just a formality that you got to go. Yeah. Well, my last name is Williamson, so I'm W automatically at the end unless somebody else is a W.

They do the kid first. He's like, oh, you got simple possession, you know, whatever. you get a PR bond. They do the guy, oh, it's the second DUI, you know, this is your bond, yada, yada, yada. They do mine.

Now, we're all handcuffed, wrist to wrist, ankle, you know, doing the little, the shimmy. And they go, Mr. Williamson, you're arrested for a murderer and possession of a weapon

during a violent crime. You can't be seen by a magistrate. You'll be seen by the circuit court. And that dude sitting beside me on that bench, he's like, flips his head around. So when we go back into the holding, he immediately goes right to where we were

it and grabs the shit and goes to the other side. Which, it's like maybe a blessing. I got to have to worry about him and rest of the time. But what was... He also probably went and told all the other people that were there. Oh, yeah. That dude over there's fucking here for him. Like, you're gonna have no problem.

That's a respectable charge. Yeah. In a way, it is. In a way it is. It really is. You know, they don't fuck with you. And I felt bad for that dude because he had asthma. And like, he's in there found like he's about to die. Like he's trying to breathe air through a flatten straw keeps ringing the buzzer i need my inhaler i mean

i was like we're working on it we'll try to get it never brought me inhaler the whole two damn days never he's lucky to die they don't care i didn't care i felt bad for him so this was sunday night monday morning i've got buying court wake up i took the ambian that night still only slept like three hours usually an amy it puts me out for good took the amy in that night wake up the next morning they come and they call a bunch of us you know i say bunch there was like two or three of us from that room then they walk us i guess there's like an underground like thing from the jail to the courthouse so i'm walking this is like the most intimidating walk you can imagine it's like i'm going into something out of game of thrones it's like old school stone walls it's cold there's

inmates in front of me there's inmates behind me they're walking me they get me to this room and they put me in this room and there's probably like 10 other guys in there. Now, these guys are in jumpsuits. I'm still in my street clothes. And so I go in, I sit down, I guess it's just a thing where everybody's kind of got to wait their turn to be seen by a judge. And these people are talking. This is one guy's talking about he's got to go do, go a trial, be testifying a trial in Atlanta. And he's not going to really testify to help out the police. He's just going because they got better food in Atlanta and to see if he can escape on the way. Sure, bro. Yeah, yeah, sure. To see if he can escape somewhere at this

One guy just set his sister on fire. He's got to go see the judge to see what he's going to get. He's hoping he don't get the max. I mean, these people are just all having these conversations there. I'm just sitting over there in a corner like, holy God. I've been around.

My people are wild, but they're not criminals. They're drinking. They're raised hell, maybe a barfight or two, but they're not doing this kind of shit. And I'm just, I'm not saying nothing.

And one guy's like, he's like, you're the guy from Kane Bay, ain't you? And I kind of like quickly turn my head. And he's like, we get the news in here on me. He's like, I've seen you yesterday.

He's like, you got a lawyer? I said, yeah. He's like, good. That's what's up. Doesn't say nothing else. So we find, they get me, they call me, the lady comes, gets me out, and they walk me into this courtroom, but his courtroom is massive. I mean, huge judge, like way up there on the top.

I go in, I see, you know, some of my people scattered out in the crowd, and they take me, they stand me next to my lawyer, and so that's like the bond hearing. And, you know, the state's trying to say why I'm this minister. the society. I'm this whole person. I don't need to be let out. My lawyer said the same thing you did earlier. Look, he's got kids. He's worked at the same place for umpteen amount of time. Respectable member of the community. Never been in trouble. He needs to be out. And so they're going back and forth. I feel pretty good about it. And the judge, anything I've ever seen on TV, they've always been like either bond granted or bond denied. Right. So she looks and she's like,

okay, I'll make my decision and let you know. Bam. And I'll look at my lawyer. I'm like, what the hell does that mean? And he's like, I guess that means she'll let us know. And so I'm already getting carted off, you know, for the next guy to come in there. And we get to the back where they got to change like from, you know, the side to the front and all that. And I asked the guy who's like, I said,

so what does that mean that she'll let us know? And he's like, ah, you'll probably have an answer about a week or so. I'm like, a week or so. You got to be shitting me. So like, I'm panicking at that point. I don't even know that I'm going to get it. I'm thinking it wasn't clear enough that she did it then.

Right. You know, maybe she's, you know, something that I don't know. So I get back to the holding, finally, all the way back to the holding area. I think about an hour goes by. I get my wife on the phone. And she already knows. She's like, hey, you got bond. I'm like, and she's like, but you might not get out to tomorrow.

She's like, they got to do all the paperwork. They got to process everything. So you might have to stay another night in jail. And I'm like, I can do one more night if I can get a hugging. Had you even done a night? No, never. Okay. No, so I'm saying.

Like she said one night. Well, at that point, yeah, I went in Sunday. I got seen in Boncourt on Monday. This was Monday evening. So I done one. Okay. Yeah. So I had spent that first night in jail.

This was now I was going to have to do the second night. Did you say that? I missed it, did I miss it? Maybe you might have said the next morning or something. Okay. Yeah, the next morning.

So I go in Sunday afternoon. I get processed and all that, spend the night. The next morning they take me to the bond area. Then I find out that evening, I got it, but it's probably not going to be to the next day. So I'm going to have to do the second night in jail.

But it's in the whole. So it's not really terrible. The only bad part about it is they constantly bring people in just getting arrested. And there was probably like nine guys that come in all together, some Mexican gentlemen. I guess they arrested them all in the same car. And I mean, just, yep, I don't know what the hell they were saying, but they would not shut up, couldn't get any sleep. And then like 1030, there's two guys getting out periodically. Like they're getting bonds.

So like 10.30, somebody comes in and they call Williams. I sprung off the top bunk like 10 feet landing in front of the guard I'm like that's me am I getting out and he's like now we're transferring here

to C pod and I'm just like oh I was like you know I'm supposed to be getting out of here tomorrow bro you sure you want to be doing all that like it's a lot of paperwork

and you know you don't have to do it he's like he looks at me and he's like you're Lee's dad right that's my daughter and I'm like

yeah and he's like my wife's her gymnastics teacher and I'm like oh nice to meet you do I really got to be going to this thing I'm like I'm getting out of the

morning the bond's already done i'm good he's like it just goes in order when you come in he's like it's nothing against you personally he was like it's just a order when you come in you get cycled in he's like you'll be you'll be fine charlie pod's great and i'm just like i don't really know if that's accurate i don't think you can put that together nothing in here's fucking great it's not at all so we go and i get the orange jumpsuit i get the toilet paper roll the three and one shower gel a bar of soap a cup and a toothbrushes looking thing that I really didn't even want to put in my mouth and he's like all right we're going to go so we go he drops me off and it's basically like one big

ass room with a TV on it with these huge plastic chairs with no corners on them it's like everything just like really wide out I guess so you can't pick them up and hit them anybody with it and there's a doorway at the bottom and a doorway at the top and then those are other just long rooms with bunk beds on each side I'd never been in before. I didn't know what none of this was. And he's like, you know, just go upstairs or go on the bottom. He's like, just find you a bunk. You know, you just chill

out. Don't, you know, don't cause any shit. You'll be out in the morning. So I go to the top one. I walk in. Everybody's got all the bottom ones, obviously. I walk all the way to the back, all the way to the front. And I see the guy that said, it's a strong fire. The only friendly face I see in the whole joint, or the guy I knew, I wouldn't say friendly face. But I see him and I was like, I said, you care if I get

up there? He said, no, man, go ahead. And I was like, I said, I know he wasn't supposed to talk. I was like, I said, well, how did it go, by the way? He said, man, I got 15 years. He's like, that was good. He's like, I was facing 30. He's like, I'm good. I'm blessed.

It's like, well, I mean, you know, I guess that's the way to look at it. Yeah, that's the best way to look at it. How's your sister? Not so much. So we're in there. I mean, like, I'm just laying up there, just staring at the roof in this jail. And I'm just like, how the fuck did I get here? Like, this isn't supposed to happen.

This is like, you know, this is why you have a good. fun. This is why you take CWP courses, which I had taken, which I had a license to carry. Like, this is in their class. This is what this is used for. And yet here my ass is staring at the top of the ceiling, freezing to death, by the way. But while I was in there, I'll say like, I think everybody needs to do a night or two in county. I don't wish prison on them, but in county, go do a night or two. Not, don't go in for what I went in for. But, you know, just, I think it would just open your eyes because I was expecting the worst. And it really wasn't.

You had guys in there that were trying to uplift other people like, hey, you know, you get out, you can do a landscaping business. You can start this. You know, it's not too late. You've not totally, you know, screwed it up. You can turn this around. They're like, three guys talking to one guy. And so I'm like, you know, that's actually pretty cool, you know, that they were doing that. And so I'm starting to get a little bit more at ease.

I hadn't took a shower. I felt filthy. And I was like, do I take a shower? or not. And I'm kind of just trying to, I was like, I've seen, this is what I've seen in odds and movies. You know, things don't go too well in the shower. So I decided I'm going to do it.

It's like 2.30 in the morning. And I'm heading in there. And one guy stopped and he's like, go on the shower. And I'm just like, I can't say no. That's the only place you go. And I'm like, yeah, he's like, oh, you know how the shower works, right? With a little thing. You know, you put the thing in there.

And I'm like, oh, yeah. Well, that's, I didn't know how it works, but I told him, yeah. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, same as last time, right? I go in there, didn't know what the hell I was good. There was like a little piece of plastic, I guess, that you wedge in there somehow or another

because when you hit it, it only stays running for like four seconds. Yeah. And then it cuts off. Usually they'll have, a lot of the times they'll have a pen that you could put the pen in. So I guess that slid in there somehow.

I couldn't figure it out. So I had to take a shower like this. So I take the shower, come out, everything was all good, wake up the next morning, you know, fairly after right after breakfast, they come, And, like, when they called my name to get out, everybody's like, yo, you're getting out?

I'm like, yeah, that morning he came to me and offered me a job. One of the guys offered me a job. He's like, you need a job, man. I can put you doing something. I'm like, actually, I got bombed, bro. I'm getting out of here, hopefully willing a couple hours. He's like, all right, don't worry about it. What do you mean one of the guys?

Like one of the, I guess, like, I would call him the head guy. I don't know if he was a trustee or orderly. He was a prisoner, but I guess it would be the, yeah, okay. Yeah, they clean, they whatever. So he's going to give you a job, like you'll do all the floors or whatever. Yeah, so he offered me a job, but then I was like, I was like, now I'm getting out. So he's like, I'd seen him the night before. He was like, he had water bags in a suitcase or not suitcase, but a pillowcase.

And that's what he was using as like a weight to lift. These are some ingenious people in there, like to block the air condition from flowing. They wet the paper towels and throw them up there and block the AC from there. I mean, like, they come up with some crazy stuff in there. So, but as they call me to get out, like I get flocked. They were like, oh, bro, you getting out? Can I have this? Can I have your toilet paper?

I'm going to have the whole damn bag. I don't need none of it. So I get out and like that's kind of the first, I've been holding that in for, you know, four days since all that's happened. I get out. I'm thinking, well, at least I still got a job, you know. So I called up my job. I told him, it was like, hey, I didn't even know if they knew I got arrested because

I hadn't talked to them since then. So I get out. I was like, hey, I said, you know, I'm coming in Monday. It's like, all right, we'll see you when you get here Monday. I go Monday. He's like, hey, can you head on over to the, you know, president's office? It's a president of company, or not president of company,

GM of the facility. No, no. Go over there. I was like, oh, boy, this probably isn't good. So he goes in, sits down, say, wait, you know, what happened? I kind of give him a little, you know, brief overview. And he's like, man, unfortunately, man, we got to let you go.

And I'm just like, why? And he was like, you know, he's like, it's just, it's a security thing. He's like, if you all get to clear all this, you know, we'll hire you back. And I'm just, he's like, but I can't imagine what you're going through right now. And I'm like, imagine getting fired on top of it.

That shit don't help. And so now I thought I was, at least I had a job I could fight it. Now I don't have a job. So I called wife when I left. I'm like, all right, well, I hate to say it got worse, but it did get worse. Now I don't have a job.

So now I'm applying for food stamps, Medicaid, everything, because now I've got a pending murder charge. on my record. I don't know how easy it's going to be to get a job. So that was kind of the first in between that

and still kind of prepping to fight this case, I'm looking for employment. So I start looking at waste management. It was like a container shop welder. So the trash cans, they get beat all the hell. You go and, you know,

if they get dented up, you cut out the old parts, welding new parts, because that's what I am by trades of welder. And so I go in and I'm like, I don't know whether to tell

these people what's going on or to hide it. And so when it got to the point about, you know, have you ever been arrested for anything? I told this guy, like, listen, as a matter of fact, I was arrested like a week ago. And I tell him the whole story, and he's like, man, I took some criminal law. You know, when I was in college, you said, you don't sound like you have anything to worry about.

So he seemed like good guy. He's like, I'll still hire you. I'm like, dude, thank you. I appreciate it. You know, wasn't what I was making at the other place, but it was still a job. And so I come home and tell the wife, I'm like, hey, you know, I told him, I was honest, and he still wanted to hire me. Well, it runs through corporate in Arizona.

They send a letter back. Unfortunately, you have a pending felony on your record. We are hereby resending our offer for employment of waste management. So now I know I can't go anywhere established that's going to run my background because I got a pending murder charge. So the places that I would go to have now shrunk from this big availability to this. I find a sign company that's looking for a fabricator. I put an application with them.

He calls me. this time I don't say it. I don't put that I've been convicted because at that point that I haven't. Right. I check the box, you know, ever been convicted? No. I just basically kind of break it down. I was like, hey, I worked with New Corps.

You know, I was looking to get out of the swing shift thing. My son's fixing to get in sports. I want to be able to work day shift, be a little bit more involved. I kind of swing that angle with him. He's like, well, man, I can't pay you what you're making there. I was like, I'm not asking you to. I was like, you know, whatever's reasonable. I'm fair.

I said, I just want something straight days where I don't have to work nights anymore. And so he's like, all right, we can bring you on it at this. I agree to it. You know, it wasn't great, but it was still a job and it was money. And that was the biggest thing right now. So start there. It's great. Going good.

Meeting everybody, you know, everybody's nice. I'm like three months in to this job. And he comes to me and he's like, hey, we got a job at your old place. And I'm like, old place. And he's like, yeah, new course. And we got to go there and put out a sign. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, it's the LED sign outside.

I'm praying to God that they're just talking with people outside and they don't have to go in the plant because then they're going to be talking. Sure enough, they go in. I guess they talk with somebody. They tell them, yeah, we got a guy working with us. He used to work out here. What's his name?

Wade. Oh, I know Wade. How's that charge is going? What charge? The murder charge. You know, he got arrested for shooting that guy. Huh? They didn't know.

Well, now they know. So I find out that job knows. So I'm like just, nervous as shit, anxiety, ulcer-ridden, that they're going to call me and fire me. They never, the owners never mentioned it. The guy that was kind of like my supervisor mentioned it, just kind of asked me what happened, and I gave him the breakdown, but he, I don't know. I know they had to know because there was periods of time where you would have to go on

Air Force bases to do what we had to do. They would never send me on those jobs because you had to have a clean background, but they would send me on everything else. So I know they knew, but they never mentioned it, which is great. But in a way, it was worse because every day I was like, is this a day he's going to call me? Right. I was going to say that during that three-month period before you got to that point, I was thinking, is every day you're showing up thinking, is this a day?

Is this a day? Yeah. After that, I was like, are they going to call me? They're going to be like, wait, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you say this? Right. But I think what it was, I had established my side now. I was never late.

I was always there, done whatever they needed, worked overtime, would show up early. I think they kind of knew I was. was a good guy, even though they didn't know the whole story, because at this point, I hadn't been doing podcasts or anything. They didn't know the whole story. And I never talked to them or told it to them either. So I guess they just, you know, rolled with it. But it was still a hell, not being able to know if, like, if I was going to get fired any

day in there because they found out. So I worked there from, I'd say, 2018, right after it happened. This was less than a month after I got out of jail, I was there. And I worked there all the way to 2020. Now, in regards to the case, what's going on? is we're going ahead and trying to put everything together for a immunity hearing or what he calls a Duncan hearing based on self-defense and castle law. So the first thing that we have is discovery hearing.

So we have that. And that's not where you can bring out evidence or whatever. It's basically the cops are just saying, hey, this is why we charged him. So it's the detective that's on the case and my lawyer. He ate her alive during that discovery hearing. to the point to where the judge almost tossed it. Like she even said at the end, she's like, wow, there's not a lot here to support this charge,

given the circumstances, I am going to bind it to trial. This was in, I think, June. So the shooting happened in April, preliminary hearing in June. So the next step now is to go to trial, but my lawyer's always already said, we're going to say, all right, we want an immunity hearing based on self-defense in the castle law. If we have that and we win it, there is no trial,

you're done, you're protected from everything. That's our next step. So he has his forensics investigator from New York. They fly to the house. They go in the house. They set up the little lasers that you see on like the CSI things or whatever, you know, that shows the bullet past trajectory. Right.

So when we were locked up and I shot him the three times, one bullet stayed in him. Two came out. One hit the refrigerator. and hit off the handle, the refrigerator, and then ricocheted and hit a wall in the kitchen, like right above my dog pen. The other one went through a 24 pack of water

that was to the left of the refrigerator, like right up against them, but just on the counter. They didn't even find the one that was in the water. I found that one after I got out of jail, and we had to call them to come out there and retrieve it. So that ought to give you a little bit of a heads up of what kind of police work was actually. done they didn't even find one of the damn bullets right they knew two of them were there they

only recovered one so when he comes there he hooks up a laser from the wall that shoots back to the refrigerator that then shoots in the corner of the kitchen where i said we were standing and so we're trying to line it up where he my lawyer can get a visual of where everybody was standing and one of the investigators that was on our team was kind of about the same height as this guy They had a shirt made to where the exit wounds were on the shirt to represent where they come out at. And so he's like, all right, I want you to put Steve where you were. You know, put him how you guys were. So he's standing there and I'm in front, but it wasn't quite like lining up.

It was off a little bit. He's like, with something, I'm not adding up. I'm like, well, he wasn't just standing there. He's like, what do you mean? I said, well, when he swung, he kind of took a step like that. And I said, then he was already coming back, like charging me, like kind of crouched down and football tackle. But I was like, so take a step back. He took a step back.

And I was like, all right, now, crows down like you're fixing to run at me. And when he did that, that dot went right on that mark on that shirt. And so then my lawyer was like, he said, that's all I need. Right. He said, you're in a corner. He said, he's coming at you. He's charging at you. You know he's coming.

You fired. It goes there. It hits the refrigerator. He hits the wall. He said, that's all I need. I'm good. And so we got that ready. And we're like, all right.

We're just waiting. Well, that was probably 2019. We're trying to get a date. COVID happens. COVID shuts down. 2020, yeah.

So it's, I mean, you know, this process is, you know, six, eight months, nine months.

That was just to, we got all that done because everybody's preparing everything. It was probably a year in before that happened. And then right after that, when he's like, all right, we're going to try to get a date.

That was like six months out. Then COVID happens. So that shuts, the court systems down and everything, at least in person. And so they asked him, is like, do you want to do anything via Zoom or anything like that? He's like,

absolutely not. He's like, I work in a courtroom. He was like, I don't do. He holding this off as long as possible. Yeah. And so like me,

I'm wanting to get it over with because I'm thinking, if quicker I get this over with, I can move on with my life. And he's like, look, he's like, I'm not saying that you need this. He's like,

but the longer you drag things out, he's like, people move, people die. Stuff gets lost. He's like, people quit caring. people quit paying attention.

He was like, if you're good, if you're working and you're good, then let it be. And so I'm like, all right, look, you're the lawyer. So I'm still making payments to him all this time to get that 15 grand caught up. When I got fired from New Corps, I drew out my entire 401K, cashed it out, got all the money. I paid my wife back. I paid my mom back. I paid him as 15 that he needed for the retainer. I paid off my car.

That way I had no bills. Right. And so that way, the less money I was making on the job, I was able to kind of at least keep my head above order. So when COVID happens, the sign company actually cuts back, and then they release me. So now I'm back without a job. So I'm looking again.

I see this fabricator job come open. My wife actually found it. She sent it to me. So I call the guy, speak with him, go out and do the interview. He calls me back, like, two days later. He's like, man, it's like, I want to hire you. He's like, you know, want to offer you the job or whatever. I met him.

He was from Texas, like, you know, good old boy. And I was just, I don't know what possessed me to do. I was like, bro, I got something to tell you. I was like, I said, my last job, I worked for damn near a year and a half. And it just gave me anxiety every day. I just want to lay something on the table with you. I was like, I was involved in a shooting. I still got stuff going on with the lawyer.

I may have to be out here and there to go to, you know, court cases or hearings or whatever. And I broke down the story and told it to him. And he's like, bro, I'm from Texas. He's like, you didn't do shit. wouldn't have done. He said, I ain't got no problem with it. And I'm like, dude, I'll be there whenever he want me to start. And so that going into that, his name's Michael Meyer, not Meyer is like the serial killer, but Meyer. I mean, going into that was just like the biggest weight, almost the biggest weight off of me possible, because I didn't have to worry if they

knew. He already knew, so I didn't feel judged coming in there. He was great. His wife was great. Not too long after that, I made lead man months later. I made Super Bowl. supervisor, so I was pretty much running the shop, you know, by the time all this started coming to a head. Well, all this is still going on with the courts. They're still backed up. They're finally starting to get people to come in and do things. Well, the solicitor changed. So they had one solicitor that was like this young, younger. I think he relished the fact that he was going up against a hot shot lawyer like I had. He was younger, kind of a hot shot himself. And I think he liked that challenge. And I'm sitting here kind of

stuck in the middle of this. Because in between there, we would go back to try to get bond reductions to where I could go out and do stuff. Right. This whole time, I can't leave the house. I can't go anywhere. I never had a monitor on. But you're still under curfew. Yeah. It wasn't even curfew. I wasn't even curfew. I wouldn't supposed to be out. Like, if I wasn't at work, a doctor's visit, a lawyer's visit, or church, I'm not, I'm supposed to be home. Right. Now, you're a pretty sociable person. You like to go to concert. Yes, which was, it was not as bad as prison, but it was damn close. It was driving me nuts.

So I tried to drive for Uber just so I could get out of the house, denied. Tried to drive for Lyft, denied. Uber Eats, denied. However, there was an app called Postmates. I don't know if you know what postmate, or have you ever heard of it. It was kind of that same thing. If you wanted a hammer and a screwdriver from Lowe's, it puts it on a credit card that I have that's prepaid for the exact amount. I go, I pay for it, I drop it off at your doorstep.

We never meet. It's like a contactless, you know, kind of system. Right. They approved me. Okay. So I worked for them for about three years. I never made one delivery, but I did work for them technically for about three years. So that was what I would use.

If I needed to go out or go somewhere or do something, I would go on the app, I would put on the that I was working, I had the bag in the back seat of the car, I had the little credit card. And if I ever got pulled over and somebody questioned, And I'd be like, look, dude, I'm working. I'm waiting for a job. You know, I can't sit at the house. Yeah. You know, I'm so far off the beaten path.

It's not even registering that they need jobs out there. So it was kind of the perfect cover. Right. Because my lawyer told me, he's like, if you get caught away from your house, he's like, we can work with almost anything except a DUI. He's like, that is not going to be something that I'm going to be happy to have a conversation with you about. And so that's kind of how I went with it.

I had that app. It was working. If I needed to go here, go there, run at a grocery store, go to Walmart, whatever. whatever. So I felt a little bit comfortable. Knock on what, I never got pulled over. Nobody ever asked me about it. Even times when I did get pulled over, nobody ever brought it up. Nobody ever questioned about it.

I got pulled over in the work truck for speeding one time. We now worked with a sign company. Nobody ever brought it up. So I don't know. I don't know if they were watching. Like the first six months, I didn't do anything. I was just like, they're probably watching me across the street. But then as that kind of progressed, I look, you know,

I started getting a little bit braver, going a little bit more, more. And I didn't abuse it, but I definitely didn't stay like I was supposed to. But, I mean, I had the app to back it up, justify me being gone. So that kind of progresses. The solicitor gets changed. They do allow me to go to my son's sporting events. I can do that. So anything he has football related or whatever, I can do that. Well, I go from that to I become a coach. Then they start doing out-of-town tournaments. So I'm able to travel with that. So I mean, I like doing that, but I'm grabbing anything that can get me out and associating.

So when you say solicitors, just to be sure, you mean like the district attorney? That's what we call them in South Carolina. It's the same thing, but they just call them solicitors. All right. Yeah, I don't know why that they call them, refer to them as solicitors down there, but that's what they call them. Now, that is kind of where the podcast comes in, because around COVID, around that job, I'm getting so bored. I'm about to lose my mind, and I got the idea to start a podcast. I talked to a buddy of mine that, you know, I've known since high school.

He had already had a podcast. His was geared more towards photography. So I started, like, kind of picking his brain about what to do. And he's like, well, what do you want to cover? And I'm like, I don't know, man, true crime, you know, talk about movies, you know, serial killers, whatever the case. And I was like, you know, he's like, so you want to do crime and entertainment. And I'm like, that's a pretty damn catchy name. I like that.

So I started crime and entertainment. Originally, we were just audio. That kind of blossomed into doing interviews. Lilo Bruncato, who was in The Bronx Tale. If you've seen that movie, he was my first ever interview. And then just little by little, man, it started snowballing. I started gaining better interviews, making connections. Anthony Ruggiano, who's a former mobster.

I made a connection with him. And he invited me to New York to do some stuff. Now, I'm not telling nobody as I'm doing these podcasts, and I'm currently on house arrest fighting a murder charge. Right. They don't know this. And so he's inviting me to come. come to New York, and he's like, man, come on down to New York.

He's like, we got a studio when, you know, you can meet this person, this person. I'm like, okay, let me check with the wife. Meanwhile, the wife is actually the lawyer who's going to see if I can go. Right. And so I call him up and I'm like, look, this is technically a job. You know, I'm YouTube and I'm making money. It's not very much, a couple dollars. But, you know, can I go to New York?

And so he runs it by the solicitor. The solicitor says, yeah, let's me go all the way to New York. I go from Thursday to Sunday, he. evening, I don't have to check in or not. I had to tell my, um, the people that had my bond, that done my bond, uh, Sincler bail bondsman, I did have to tell them when I left and when I got back. And I didn't even talk to nobody. I had to leave a message to my answer machine.

Right. I think they knew that like, if you got Andy Savage as a lawyer, you're not going to skip town. Right. You know, so it was, I never even talked to anybody on the phone the whole entire time. Right. We went one time when I was going on this trip in New York and told him, and that's when he was like, well, just call and let us know when you go when you get back. Those were messages.

I never talked to anybody the whole time I was out on bond. So we go, the podcast goes good. You know, goes good. We do a lot of shows, some for my channel, some for his channel. One of them winds up at the time, being his biggest show, had almost 100,000 views. So it was starting to snowball a little bit. Then he asked me to come back.

It's probably like six months later. And I called him, I'm like, hey, you know, I got a chance to go back to New York for something else. And he's like, well, he's like, if you want me to ask, I'll ask, but he's like, I don't know if they're going to keep letting it go. And I'm like, well, this thing could be like a reoccurring thing. I may have to keep going. And so he's like, let me see if we can just get something going on this,

a resolution for your case. At this time, it's almost five years that this thing had been going on. Five years. Five years. 2018, it happened. We got 2019, 2020, 2020, 2021, it was like, 2020. It was like, 2023 is starting to wrap up. It's closing in on five years.

And I'm like, yeah, I'd love to get the shit behind me. Like, I'm really ready because if this podcast keeps going, and I'm going to need to go a lot of different places, and I don't want it to stop me. So they let me go the second time. I go to New York and come back. And so he's like, look, he said, I've got an idea. He's like, but I don't know if you're going to be comfortable with us or not. He said, we're going to call and just the new solicitor that he got hired was a younger guy from the district attorney's office.

He said, we're going to call him. And he's like, we're going to show them everything we've got. He said, we're going to lay it all on the table. And he said, we think it's going to be so. damn strong that they're not even going to want to go for an immunity or they're just going to drop it he's like but the downside to that is if we don't get it you sure then we showed him everything we have yeah you showed him your hand and so like I'm just sitting back I'm this I'm nervous you know I don't know what to do I'm you know burning one down I'm listening to some jelly roll

trying to get my head right out I don't know what did and finally I just told the wife I'm like I think we're going to do it like I'm going to just let him do it like if he I don't think he would have brought it to me if he wasn't confident in it. And so like, and meanwhile, these whole five years, man, it's tough. It's like going to the doctor and them telling you if you got terminal cancer, I'm like, all right, we'll call you with the results and you never get called. Right. Because in the middle of all this, my daughter graduated.

They did allow me to go to the graduation, but I couldn't go to dinner or anything with them. I had to come straight back home. So like, I can't even enjoy the graduation without thinking, am I going to see my son graduate, right. Am I going to be around for that? I can't enjoy a Christmas because I don't know if that's going to be the last Christmas, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries. You never know if one of them is going to be the last one you have because this is some serious shit. We're talking life in prison. Right. Or, you know, 30 to life, basically, I think it's over 25 to life,

30 to life. One of them. A life was on the end of it. So I made the decision to tell Andy, I was like, all right, we're going to do it. So he brings a solicitor back down here. They come back to the house they kind of get some notes and they put together like a video montage he brings the solicitor back down where what do you mean here the the no i'm sorry i said solicitor i'm an investigator the forensics investigator okay he brings him from new york to our house in south carolina okay because that guy's based out of new york he just brings him down when he has worked for him to do with cases okay so he owns his own forensics business in new york his name's john pelucci i think is his name so he comes back down he comes back to the house he's

He's making some notes. And basically what they're doing is they're prepping like a little slide presentation. Presentation, yeah. And so we set up a date. We all go to the police station, me, my lawyer, my investigator, Steve, and the forensics guy. And we put it in there and we play it. And it's like clip by clip of that morning, you know, he's like, you know, my client said that there was a struggle. And you guys said there was no evidence of a struggle, you know, because that's what during the prelimin,

hearing the detective she was like you know we found no evidence that there was a struggle we don't think there were in close proximity she basically tried to say i was lying about everything that i said that happened right so in this he's like you know y'all said there wasn't no evidence of a struggle so he took a screenshot from that first arriving officer's body cam and zoomed into the corner and you could see a knocked over shot glass on the ground that had like obviously rolled up under the you know the edge of the counter and he's like here you have a knocked over shot glass here and it zoomed in with the air to it over here you have another knocked over glass on the corner where he got knocked into zoomed into it he's like obviously this is signs of a struggle

right then it went to like more of the directional of the bullets he's like you know you guys are trying to say that he was farther away from you know than he said he was my kitchen's only width wise six feet if that if he's farther away from me then he's he's falling against the refrigerator and, you know, hitting against it. Right. He can't fall flat. Right. And his head's probably like that far from the refrigerator.

And what they did was they really kind of screwed themselves on that because they were trying to say that they, he was farther back. Had he been farther back, these bullets would have hit kind of almost side by side. Right. And the, and each mark would have been close together. Because he was so close, they had a chance to V out, which is why one hit the water. and then one hit the door and ricocheted and hit the wall. Right, because of the trajectory of the weapon.

If he was closer, you were twisting. So it was a huge spread, but if he was laying against the thing, you would have fired twice into it, boom, boom. Yeah. And if he was further back, like I said, he'd probably feel up against the refrigerator or like half up against it or something. Right.

He was stretched out across the floor. Because if you, and one of his, his right leg was bent behind his left leg. And he went through and showed like a bunch of things of people getting shot and the way their bodies would just, collapse and it was in line with that he's like there's like a collapse that's why this leg is behind another because the force hit him and he just fell straight back right and so all of that stuff was like scientific reasons why everything lined up to where it said they collected a shell casing from my kitchen sink i didn't even know about this this is the first time i

never heard about it a shell casing was in the sink because when you fire the gun the bullets come out you know bounce them to the right yeah one went into the sink he's like there's no other reason that bullet casing would have been in the sink had he not been backed up in that corner right next to the sink like he said he was he's like he's not just going to pick a shell case and I'm put it in the sink and I was the first time I'd ever seen that and I was like well that's pretty damn obvious too I didn't even know that they then start focusing in on the clothes and he was like you guys are saying that there was no blood on his clothes but there's not going to be I had on a white long sleeve t-shirt right but he had on three layers of clothes he had on like a t-shirt then a long-sleeve sleeve shirt, like an underarmor, and then another, like, thin hoodie shirt over the top of that. So when all these bullets hit, there was no back spatter on me. Had there been, it would have been contained within the clothing. Right, exactly.

And that was one of their biggest things. He said he was so close, but yet he didn't have any blood on him. And, you know, he tried to do life-saving measures or so he claimed, but there was still no blood on them. I'm like, who do you think put the fucking towel there? like nobody else is in the house he didn't go get it like who do you think we ain't got that and so he broke all that down and it was just every reason that they had that i was guilty or that i was lying he basically scientifically broke it apart then the next part was there like all right

we're going to show you the evidence that we have on him now i wasn't allowed to do that part and he was like he said just go to your house he's like we're coming there next we're bringing the solicitor we're bringing his number two we're bringing a detective investigator yeah or solicitor, investigator, like his basically, the solicitor, his number two, and the investigator of that crime scene for the police department was all coming to my house with my lawyer, my investigator, and my friend this guy. That was the third stop. We went there, he showed him what we had, they showed him what they had, which was nothing.

Because when I got to the house, my investigator got there first, and I was like, I said, so what do they have on me? He's like, nothing. I'm like, what do you mean nothing? He's like, they have your clothes. He's like, that was it. He said, they have your clothes and your gun. And the ballistics of the gun obviously matched the, you know, the bullets.

He's like, but, you know, obviously you weren't trying to hide that. You said you shot him. And he was like, other than that, he's like, there's nothing. I'm going to say, he showed you the evidence they have me. He's like, yeah, pretty much. He said they had a computer, but there was nothing on a computer. I'm like, no, I just bought the damn thing two weeks ago. And they took that out.

They took the computer. I don't even know why they did that. And so they, everybody comes. They wanted to search the, uh, the, um, history to see if you've looked up how to get away with killing someone. Yeah. You know, like that's what they're... Well, I know that was big in the Scott Peterson case or something like that.

Oh, no, but they always do because these idiots get on the computer and they start typing away and... How to dissolve the body. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, how to use chloroform, you know. Well, they took it. And by the time I got it back, it was very outdated. I don't think I turned it back on after I got it back. But we do that, they come.

And so now I got the solicitor, his number two, and the police and investigator of that crime scene in the house. And I walked them through everything in the kitchen. I think that really helped because it put them in the kitchen. It put them in the actual space where all this happened. The glass that was knocked over on the counter, it wasn't like a solo cup. It was like a Manhattan rocks glass that you just pour like liquor into. And I let that guy, oh, I still had it.

I'll let him hold it. I'm like, here, hold that. And put it in his hand. He could feel the weight of it. So you really got to hit that damn thing with some force. to knock it over. You're not just going to barely tap it and it fall over.

He's seen the refrigerator. I never changed the refrigerator. I never fixed the dents. They were all still there. We covered them up with pictures, but once they come, we took all that down. Right.

And so everything, in a sense, was still there just like it was. And I was able to walk him through it, show him like, I'm here, he's here. Here's where the bullet's hit. That's where the sticker was on the wall. All that shit.

We never took none of it off. The stickers were there, everything. I just had a feeling all this stuff was going to come into play at some point. So he sees it and he takes it in. This was like July or August, somewhere along in there. So they leave and we sit and we just kind of have a conversation,

me and the lawyer, and he's like, I feel good about it. He's like, but, you know, we'll see what happens. July goes by, August goes by, September goes by, it's going by. It's about mid-September. And he's like, you know, I figured I would have heard something by now. He was like, I might give him a call and kind of press their button. And he c-s me on email, and he's like, Hey, I know you guys have our, you know, discovery and everything.

He's like, if you want to go ahead and go to trial, let me know. I'm anxious to get this behind us. You know, we can be ready as quick as you guys are. And they're like, Andy, we're still resolving stuff. We'll get back with you soon. September goes by. October's going by almost end of October, right before Halloween. I'm at work, and my lawyer calls me one day.

Now, I'm not thinking that this is any big thing. He calls me, he doesn't call me a bunch, but it's not uncommon. So he calls me this particular week I was sick as shit I had to flu And he's like wait How you doing? I'm like I'm feeling a little sick

He's like well I got some news Gonna make you better He's like the case has been dismissed And I'm just like I got to walk outside I'm like what now And he's like yes dismissed He's like they dismissed it

No more trial No more nothing He's like it's over You are free and clear my friend And dude I fucking drop to my knees I was crying I was like just It was the biggest weight ever

I had had to lift it off me. And, you know, I called my wife, called my mom, called my dad, called all the usual suspects, and, you know, told them that it was finally done. And it was just such a relief, man, to get that off my chest. And to be able to not be worried about going here. And that's like, I think I have PTSD because, like, still when I go places and I see cops, I'm like, like, I'm doing something wrong, even though I'm not. Right.

It's just like, for so long, I lived, like, trying to be wary of where I was at and where police were and, you know, trying not to get involved in anything. Because, dude, there was situations where, like, I remember one night we went out to a club, and there was a fight, and the police did come. And, like, when they come in, I kind of turned around. I'm, like, looking at the ground. I didn't want to have no eye contact with them because I didn't know if they knew who I was or recognized me or whatever.

And by that time, I had started the podcast. I'd never talked about this, but I'd started the podcast. So I didn't know if they were watching it. So it was a real nerve-wracking time, but now all that was over. and I wound up getting another job after that a big company is kind of back to making what I was making before with New Corps the podcast has still kind of been growing

and you know it's starting to I just passed 10,000 so I think I'm at 12 now but I passed like 10,000 subs and you know it was such a relief man because now I'm kind of almost back to where I was before all this shit started but like you said earlier and you said knowing what I know about the justice system like I was one of those guys that thought if they arrested somebody he must be guilty yeah he's got to be guilty right yeah got to be they weren't just arrested yeah they wouldn't

arrest you for no reason bullshit like I remember vividly the day after I got out I'm watching TV and they're they're looking for this kid that shot his father and it's like on and everybody's comment and on the Facebook post about it and you know oh I hope they get him and what a scumbag and all that. And I'm like immediately thinking, all right, why did he shoot his father? Right. Was his father beating him? Was he beating his mom? Was he molesting his sister? You know, I'm, I'm now stepping back and thinking, why is this going on? Yeah. Why is somebody doing what they're doing? And admittedly, I wasn't like that before. I was always thinking, well, the arrested him. He must be guilty. And so many people think like that.

And there's not a doubt in my mind. I wasn't rich, but I did have the availability to get to that 401 K, it had about $100,000 in it. It paid for this lawyer and kind of kept me afloat. Had I been poor? I'd have been fucked. I'd have been doing life in prison. There's no doubt in my mind because I've interviewed people since

then. You've interviewed some of the same people like Jeffrey Descovic and all that. Our justice system is flawed to hell. And there's a lot of people in jail right now that are not supposed to be there. There's some that are directly where they need to be. You'd have gotten a public defender that would have said, take a plea, take a plea.

You can't fight this. You don't understand what they got on you. They got everything they got is rock solid, not thinking that, no, wait a minute. They'll prepare documents that aren't supported by any real evidence or facts or anything. So, yeah. And that's what they do. Because that's how they make money. You think that's how those solicitors, DAs or whatever, that's how they move up the ladder

and they make more money by putting people in prison. You hear these people say, oh, I got a 98% conviction rate. No, you don't. You've got plea deals. Because if you take a guy who's looking at 15 years or 20 years and he don't have the money to fight it and they say, look, if you take this plea deal, it'll cut your time in half. That's appealing. And my lawyer even told me, he said, I'm very surprised they didn't offer you a plea deal because he asked me one time earlier in the process, he was like, are you willing to do any kind of a plea?

And I'm like, no, absolutely not. And so when it got down to it after the end, they didn't even come and say, all right, we'll take a plea of this or a plea of that. it was just straight up dismissed. Yeah. And it just, it really, I mean, I enjoy doing all the shows that I do with all the people, but like I really like getting out those stories about wrongful convictions because it's just something that's, it's very, very important, and it's not really talked about enough because once you get in there,

you're kind of erased. People forget about you. Obviously, other than your family members, like you get erased. And then a lot of times there's some states that don't even have compensation if you're in there. And I was fortunate that I was not locked up that entire time. Yeah. You know, I was out. I was able to work.

It was hell. It was stressful. But I was lucky in that regard. But there's some people that aren't lucky. I mean, Jeffrey done, what, 16 years? I talked to another guy named Andre Brown that did 22 years wrong for the convicted. What about that black guy? They just erased, just released who'd been locked up.

I want to say 45 years for murdering his wife. and they just found out that he didn't do it and the judge apologizes to him then I am so sorry that I mean he's this old black man and he's just you know he's just he's 60 something years old you're 60 or 70 something years old you ever see it's it's it's so sad it's like even if you give this guy you give this guy 20 million dollars that don't mean shit he lost 45 years of his life

and and here's the thing is that and there's lots of good cops out there But they'll be, somewhere in there is a dirty cop that didn't, or a corrupt cop or an ineffective cop that didn't really know. But he just decided to push the issue. I think so. What do you mean you think so? Yeah. Where's the evidence that says that this person did it? Did you push it?

Because this old guy probably went to trial, got a life sentence. And maybe there's some cop that got on the stand and bullshit it or maybe, maybe, you know, who, knows what the or somebody got on the stand and said oh i saw him running out of the thing and you don't really you don't really you obviously didn't see him so somebody lied or something somehow another that guy ended up with life sentence and now he'll never get him that back and that's how that's kind of what happened here because the detective that was over my case you know i'm not disparaging women women are very capable of being detectives or being in law enforcement i'm sure there's some very good ones out there this one however was not a good one she sucked

And she was new She was newly promoted From what I understand From friends that I did have in the department It was time for a woman You know To check the box That you've been promoting women

So she was The just promoted to the detective I was her first murder case And we think that she just kind of Rush to judgment on this And it was like oh he Yeah obviously this is a love triangle thing He killed him to get his wife

This is you know Anybody can see this without knowing anything. Right. Well, maybe if you looked at the evidence first, you'd realize that it's not your first. This isn't your first murder case, by the way. This is your first justified, you know, shooting.

Exactly. That's what this is. And that's exactly how it is. Now, let me tell you about her career path as we wrap up. So she just gets promoted to the detective. I'm her first case. She misses that bullet. That gets brought up and that gets, you know,

passed around the inside of the police station. She gets demoted from that to property crime. she gets something happens with that. I don't know specifically what happened with that in the property crimes, but she goes from that to resource officer at an elementary school. That is the last stop in a law enforcement career. High school was bad enough. An elementary school.

Yeah. And that's probably still too much responsibility for Sproul. You see you're slamming these little kids up against the fucking lockers. Well, as a matter of fact, there was an article, and it did not name her specifically. So I'm not even going to name her specifically. But she's the resource officer at this elementary school, was charged for physically

abusing a patient with a handicap. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And one more story to boot. Somebody sends me a text message one day, but I didn't have their numbers saved. And it was like, was this you? So I didn't open it up.

And I'm thinking that's those scams you're saying on Facebook where it's like, is this you in the picture or something? I just never clicked on it. So about two days later, somebody sends another message like, damn, was this really, was this really you? And I'm like, who is this? And he responded. He told me his name. And I was like, oh, I was like, I didn't catch the number.

He's like, did you look at that link? I said, no, I thought it was a scam. He was like, click on it. So I go to click. And what had happened was while she was doing like school crossing traffic in the morning, somebody had ran through and hit her while she was directing traffic. And I got he was asking, it wasn't me. And I was like, it was not me. I was nowhere around there.

And I've seen that woman since then. I was in Buffalo Wild Wings with my son watching the National Championship game. And when this lady walked in, she had gained a little weight since I ain't going to me. So I recognized her a little bit, but wasn't sure. And the husband kept kind of looking at me a little bit. And I'm like, why don't I know these people from?

Well, they sit down. Did you do one of these? No, I did not. I did not do that. They sit down and all these kids come in with like this South Carolina law thing on. And I text my wife, I'm like, what does this mean? And she's like, I saw a law enforcement class. And I'm like, that's that bitch.

They locked me up. And I looked down there and I kept staring down at her the whole time. And I want every part of me wanted to get up and go down. I'm like, look, if you people want to be in law enforcement, for God's sakes, we need good people because this incompetent MF her is not who you need to be learning from. I can promise you to that. Go learn from anybody else. But I didn't. I kept my mouth shut.

But, I mean, I think it's Carmen, man. So she's teaching the class? I don't know if she was just taking them out. for, I don't know what her role in that was. You know the big, you know, the term, you know, those who can't do teach? Oh, yeah. Well, she can't do.

I don't think she can teach anyway. Yeah. And I mean, she's roughen up damn, you know, handicapped kids and everything else. That's really some karma. Really fucking her, huh? Yes. Or not fucking her, but doing justice. Yeah, 100%.

And she had a conversation with my mom one time and she's like, you know, just so you know, there's no hard feelings. I'm just doing my job. I'm just like, no, you're not. If you've been doing your job, I wouldn't be here. Yeah. I was going to say, I'm just doing my job. You mean arresting innocent people that were in the safety of my own home,

attacked in my own home with a licensed, registered firearm that I'm allowed to carry when I was attacked in my own home that I defended myself. And you're saying, and you believe I should go to prison for life. Yeah. And that was it. That gun, they pulled the records on that gun. I had been pulled over by the cops before with that gun.

And when I tell them, hey, I got a gun on me. They'll run it. And it was a report where they ran the gun, which proved that that was the gun that I would carry on me. That was my carry gun. Because they'll say that. You care if we run it? I'm like, no, go ahead.

This was obviously before everything. But now, like, it just puts such a bad taste in my mouth with law enforcement. Like, my granddaddy was a cop. And everybody loved him. From what I understand, he was, you know, old school. If you were drinking, he would follow you home to you in your driveway. And then said, if you come back out, then he would arrest you. You know, he was a good cop.

My brother-in-law is a cop. You know, he's a great guy. But by and large, I do not. not trust law enforcement any at all in any aspect and i try to tell my son like if you get into any kind of situation where cops asking you something don't say fuck all don't say nothing you tell them you're calling your dad and you don't say shit till i get there because that's just it's just the corruption element is just unbelievable and then once you get in there once you find out just how corrupt and messed up that whole system is by then it's too late and you're already involved and

people don't really understand and they can't put theirself in somebody's shoes until it happens to them what yeah i was going to say the last thing they want to do even when it's so obvious and clear that they made a mistake is admit they made a mistake which was what was so shocking about that judge saying because they're usually they're judges of usually very pro um a law enforcement so the the fact that the judge apologized and was like i am so sorry this happened to I mean, the fact that she would even acknowledge anything like that. You know, and what's so funny is like the district attorneys never come forward and say, look, this is a major.

Even if it's not them, even this was, hey, this was 40 years ago. This was a guy that's retired and dead. I can go ahead and say they fucked up. They still don't do it. Yeah. And the only bad thing now is like all those articles are still out there. So they can't do anything about them. One newspaper that ran an article on me when I got arrested, reached out after the fact.

And I started not to even do. it. But the lady, she was like, we're going to cover the story regardless, whether you interview with us or not. And so I told my wife, I'm like, if they're going to do it regardless, they can spend it however the hell they want. At least if I actually talk to them, maybe they'll get somewhat of

my point of view from the story. And so we did it, and they ran it. But that's the thing is like, nobody's going to come up and do her attraction for all this shit. Everything out there was, they were calling me the Cane Bay Killer. The what? The Cane Bay Killer or the Cane Bay Murder. I mean, I had a nickname.

in there for what? I didn't get trick-or-treaters for five years. Nobody comes to my house for trick. It was like everybody, house, we can go on to 137. You can go to the next house over there. And you said that, and the Facebook post are still up?

Oh, yeah. Some of the Facebook posts are still up. I can go back and search them anytime, like there's fireworks or God forbid gunshots or anything like that. The cops come straight to your house. They always say gunshots, probably in old rice. That's where I live. Probably back in old ride.

They got all kind of gunshots going on over there. So I'm still brought up to this day. And I think it was like a year. ago I was on Facebook and one of the ladies said something about oh don't forget about the murder that happened you know a couple of years ago and I commented this was after everything was dropped so I commented

I said lady could you try to be a little bit more informed I said there was no damn murder I said there was a self-defense shooting quit spreading that bullshit and she comes and she's like so what makes you an expert on the subject matter I said I'm the damn one you're talking about and then all of a sudden got deleted

and so I sent her a nice little private message saying hey you know mind you on fucking business but like I had like a hit list of people that said shit and I couldn't say nothing to then that like when I let me read list and verbal let me put that way that I wanted to just set some people straight because it was a lot of people that I didn't even know that all was saying oh I heard this and I heard that you didn't hear anything nobody talked to you yeah you don't know anything I didn't even talk to you you're saying it yeah you're making that up because that's more interesting than what happened a guy defending himself because

He got attacked in his own home, isn't going to get as many clicks or views. And I understand that now, being in the podcast game, I understand this kind of stuff sells. I would, you know, that's going to get clicks. But in actuality, what really happened is it was self-defense. You wanted a juicy story of a love triangle or, you know, something like that going wrong. And, you know, but that wasn't, that wasn't the case. Did you ever hear from anyone related to, what was his name? Liam?

Liam. no um i do know um all his people were from the pennsylvania and michigan area so when we went for the preliminary hearing his parents were there and they were in the crowd or in the you know i don't know audience might be the wrong word whatever you call it just in the in the background there um i never spoke to them i never heard from them as far as i know they never reached out to my wife, at least not that she knew. When I got out of jail, they had to notify them that I was getting out. I think that's like, that's a protocol.

Like if, you know, there's a crime committed against someone, anybody related to them, they have to know that they are getting out of prison. And obviously there was, you know, things in there of like, you know, you can't contact them. I had no reason to contact them. I've got nothing against them. I didn't know, you know, none of them. And I don't have anything against them. Like, you know, make no mistake, I didn't murder someone.

I don't even look at it as I killed someone. I survived someone trying to kill me. Right. That's what I did. I survived a situation because when we locked up and he looked me dead in my eyes and said he was going to kill me, there was no doubt in my mind. This dude was not fucking around. I could see it in his eyes.

And I knew one of us were not leaving that kitchen. And I was just doing everything in my power to make sure that I was, the one that left. But I never heard anything from his family. I never spoke to him. I'm sure I'm not their favorite person. I understand that. And, you know, I'm sorry for their loss. But I mean, like, at the end of the day, if he hadn't had done what he did, he'd still be alive. Do you think, like, do you have any sort of PTSD from that actual night? Or, like, does it ever crossed your mind? No, it crosses my mind a lot. But it was like the weird. thing was when everything happened, it was like such a succession, it was like the shooting,

you know, then the meeting with the lawyer, then I was arrested, then I went to jail, then I got out, then I got fire, then I had to look for another job. I never really had the time to sit down and dwell on just the shooting, you know, because everything was kind of such a rush from then on to try to get employment and all that. I never really had time to sit and think. Now, as times went on, I reflect back to that night. um like the first time that i was ever in that house by myself was a little creepy my wife and kids went to visit her mom and so like i said i got a two-story house and it's like every creak and me you just looking around i mean it was a little unsettling but i mean as times went on

i've made peace with it i do have you know PTSD i would say from the whole ordeal as far as like how quick life can change and so that's why now, like, before this happened, man, I'd went a few places, you know, Tennessee, Virginia. I never went to California. I'd never went to Vegas. I'd been minimal plane rides, period. But that's one reason now.

Like, I just, I'm not a firm believer of, like, if there's something you want to do, a concert you want to go see, whatever, a trip you want to take, go take it. Because in, you know, at a matter of minutes, your life can be flipped upside down. And you know, luckily, everything come out on my side the right way, but it

could have very easily went the other way, too. And, you know, you and I aren't having this conversation. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching the video. Do me a favor if you feel like it, hit the subscribe button. Please share the video. Also, please go to Wade, or as we like to call him, Hollywood Wade's channel, which is crime and entertainment. We're going to leave the link to his YouTube channel in the description box. So go in the description box.

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