Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Was Falsely Convicted, Awarded Millions, Then Went Back To Prison - The Shaurn Thomas story

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Shaurn Thomas, who spent 24 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction before being exonerated in May 2017 and awarded a ~$4.1 million settlement, pleaded guilty in December 2024 to the January 2023 killing of Akeem Edwards over a $1,200 debt in Philadelphia

An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Mom Talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are dancing with the stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. Like, that is huge. But all the cool opportunities could close apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.

My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So this guy, he's about to become a multi-millionaire. And he's gonna screw it all up.

So his name is Sharn. And Sharn is 16, living in Philadelphia, and his whole life is about to change. Because one morning in 1990, a local businessman is leaving a bank. And he just withdrew $25,000 in cash. And so he gets in his car and he starts to leave, and suddenly, a car full of goons crashes into him, and one of the goons gets out. and he points a pew-pue right at him and blam he shoots him in the chest and then they grab all his money and they speed away. Meanwhile, Shorn is apparently at this youth center on the other side of

town and he's there, he's filling out some paperwork. Now for some reason, some reason that we still don't understand, someone tells the police that it was Sharn who did this robbery outside the bank, even though he was supposedly at the youth center the whole time. And so bam, police go and they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And suddenly, poor 16-year-old Sharn is looking at life in prison. And he's terrified. I mean, because who wouldn't be? And so his lawyer starts looking for some evidence that helps prove his innocence. And he comes across a form from the youth center that Shorn signed the morning of the murder. I guess he had to sign some forms while he was there and the forms were time stamped. Not only that, but Shorn has witnesses. His mother and sister were

at the youth center that day and they saw him sign those papers. And so anyway, several years go by and it's now 1994. And Sean is 20 at this point and he goes to trial. And this trial doesn't go well for him. For some reason, his mother and sister are never called to testify. And so boom, he's sentenced to life in prison at only 20 years old. And so Sean is devastated. I mean, what's he going to do now? his entire life is over. You can't spend the rest of his days locked up in a cell, and he'll do whatever it takes to get his life back. And so what's he going to do now?

Well, he starts writing letters to anyone who will listen to him, anyone who could possibly help him, and he keeps writing letter after letter after letter, and 17 years go by, and it's now 2011. And at some point, he writes a letter to the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which is like an advocacy group that helps people out who have been wrongly convicted. And so they start looking into his case, and they see things like the timestamped form he filled out at the youth center proving he wasn't at the crime scene. And they see that his mother and sister weren't called to testify at the trial.

And so they start fighting hard for Sean, making his story go public. And in their investigation, they discover a bunch of things. Like back at Sean's trial, evidence pointing to other suspects, evidence that had been suppressed. And so, taking all this information, they help Shorn with pro bono legal services, and they file an appeal to overturn his conviction. And surprisingly, one day, kaboom, an appeals court overturns his conviction, and his sentence is vacated.

And so finally, in 2017, after 24 long years in prison, Shorn is now a free man. And he's been in there a long time. I mean, he went in at 20, and he's now full. 43 years old. Wow. But regardless, he's now happier than he's ever been in his life. Tell me how you feel. Overwhelmed. Words can't explain. 24 years behind bars, you're now a free man. What's the first thing you're going to do? Me and Jim are going to go eat some seafood together and talk about it.

Oh, but it gets even better for Shorn. Because now that he's out, boom, he's able to file a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia for a wrongful conviction. And in 2020, 20, the city settles with him out of court and they pay him $4.1 million. Damn. So now his whole life changed again because he's officially a multi-millionaire. He even got himself like a little girlfriend now. This woman, Ketra. And so Ketra and Shorn are happy together.

And it seems like he'll never have any problems ever again. Until. So at this point, he's been out for a while now. and he's still living in Philadelphia, living his normal life with Ketra and all his new money. But for some reason, reasons that no one will ever understand, he decides that $4.1 million, it's just not enough. He wants more.

And he wants this so bad that I guess he's willing to risk it all. And so instead of getting a job, he decides that he wants to get into the drug dealing business, specifically dealing Coca-Cola. It seems like he wants to be some kind of drug pen. Like he wants other drug dealers working underneath him. And so one day, around 2022, he goes to his girlfriend Ketra and he's like, Hey, can you find somebody to work for me and sell drugs?

And I guess Ketra is like, uh? And so Ketra introduces Shorn to a childhood friend of hers, this guy, Akeem. And so Shorn and Akeem, they make a deal. I guess Akeem is going to sell drugs for him. And Shorn hands him a sandwich bag of Coca-Cola. And he's like, sell this for $1,200 and bring me my money. cut. Here's the thing though, Akeem, he takes the drugs, but he either doesn't sell them or he sells them and keeps the money. Either way, he doesn't give Shorn his $1,200 cut. And so when

Akeem doesn't deliver, Shorn is pissed. And a few days later, he's driving around the neighborhood with Ketra, and he casually says, hey, let's drive by Akeem's hood and see if he's around. And Ketra says, sure. And she has no idea they're beefing. And she also has no idea that Shorn has a pew-pue inside his hoodie. And so they drive around Akeem's spot. And sure enough, out the window, they see him. And then he tells Ketra to pull over, and she does. And Shorn jumps out of the car and he runs up on Akeem,

and he pulls out that pew-poo, and blam, blam, blam! He unalives Akeem right there. Then he runs back and he jumps in the car and he yells at her to drive, and she speeds away. And so now they're driving back home. And Ketra, she didn't actually see the shooting, but she heard the shots. And so she's driving thinking,

did my boyfriend just murder my friend Akeem? And Shorn, he must know that she's suspicious because he starts threatening her, saying, I can't go back to jail, I know where your family lives, so you better keep your mouth shut. Then to make it worse, he tells her that Akeem is not the first person he's murdered.

He's actually the third person he's murdered. Suggesting that maybe he was the one who murdered, that businessman outside the bank all those years ago. Maybe those time stamps on the forms were wrong. Maybe his mother and sister who vouched for him were actually lying. Regardless, Ketra is scared. And I guess Shorn is dead serious about not going back to prison because then he apparently tries to put a hit out on Ketra.

Like Bro goes and tries to hire a hitman to take out his own girlfriend so that she won't rat him out to the police. Well, unfortunately, for him by this time it's already too late because Sean had already talked openly about unaliving Akeem with some people he knew and one of those people tips off police. And so, bam, they arrest Sean. And Sean ends up pleading guilty and after spending 24 years in prison, he sentenced to another 33 to 66 years. That is wild.