RedHanded - Episode 32 - The Brit on Death Row: Linda Carty

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

Starting on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth and ending up in Texas via the Caribbean, Suruthi & Hannah unpick how a British grandmother and DEA informant ended up on death row. Many campaign for Linda Carty’s release, but is she as innocent as they would have you believe?   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, Trafalgar Square.

My name is Linda Carney, and I'm speaking to you from Death Row in Texas in the United States. It is everybody's worst nightmare to be executed for a crime they did not commit. I am living that nightmare. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And this is Red Handed.

Today we're taking you through how a drug-related break-in gone wrong in Texas landed a British DEA informant on death row. And I, in particular, am excited for this one, because I finally get to totally fangirl over lawyer extraordinaire Clive Stafford-Smith. Like, I have very complex emotional feelings for Clive Stafford-Smith. I love him. So he's the founder and director of a non-profit called Reprieve that campaigns against human rights violations and represents individuals

who are victims of extreme human rights abuses all over the world. So Clive Stafford-Smith has got 63 people out of Guantanamo Bay. He's represented over 300 people facing the death penalty and he's won almost every case. And I think, I don't know if this is true, but I think I heard that he has appeared in the highest court in America more than any American lawyer. He also appears in the documentary called 14 Days in May, which if you haven't seen, I think it might have been the first true crime documentary I ever watched and it's so, so good. And if that documentary doesn't turn you off the death penalty absolutely nothing will. So our story doesn't actually start in Texas it starts on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in London and for those of you who don't know the statue on top of the fourth plinth changes reasonably often so the plinth itself is just

sort of like a concrete tower not concrete stone tower and then whatever statue is on top of it changes at regular intervals the other statues on the other plinths are always the same and they have been for hundreds of years and at the moment the fourth plinth is sporting this like massive bronze hand giving the thumbs up but the thumb is like the length of a finger what's that about which have you seen it no i haven't it's just a sculpture oh i quite liked it when there was a massive ship in a bottle i quite like that i feel like i never go anywhere near Trafalgar Square for like work or life and I think the last time I actually saw the fourth plinth was when they had that big blue cock on it like a bird cock that was a good one not male genitalia cock was it in Paris they had that Christmas tree

sculpture that looked like a butt plug and they had to take it oh yeah was that meant to or was it just a happy accident i think it was a happy accident do you want to do you want to hear my best trafalgar square fact please so you know nelson's column at the bottom of nelson's column there are big what lions yes and the lions are made of iron and where do you think they got that iron from the The Roald Dahl Museum. I don't know. That's where you're a font of knowledge from, isn't it? I don't know. I am a font of knowledge about so much more than Roald Dahl.

How dare you? I was just trying to cover my ignorance. I don't know. Where did the iron in the lions come from? The cannons of French warships. Of course they did. Yeah, that's... We are bad winners as a nation.

Yeah, we are. Look at Brexit. That is... We are a nation of bad winners and that's what's led to Brexit, I reckon. We're bad winners and we're also terrible losers. Just bad. So, in 2009, British sculptor Anthony Gormley,

who's the genius behind The Angel of the North, which if you don't know about it, look it up. Anthony Gormley led a project that he called One and Other, and instead of a sculpture or a statue, for a hundred consecutive days, the fourth plinth was occupied 24 hours a day by a member of the public. These people stood on top of the plinth for an hour each and all had applied in advance. Some people stood in silence, some people sat and just looked around, some bought placards, some dressed up and some even braved the London weather totally naked. That was a very very good idea. It's a cool project isn't it? It wasn't even supposed to be about giving people a platform to speak about whatever they wanted to speak about, It was about people being part of the city. Like, it was really, really cool. But it was Brian Kalipoff who caught

the eye of the press more than anyone, because during his hour he stood next to a cardboard cutout of a woman named Linda Carty and played a message from Linda, all the way from her death row prison cell in Texas, accompanied by placard subtitles. And in the speech he played, Linda implores the British public to help her, claiming that they are her only hope for escaping death by lethal injection. And as you heard at the beginning of this episode, she begs the people of Britain to please listen, please tell anyone they know and to not let her die on death row in Texas. If Carty is executed, she will be the first British woman to be executed in 62 years and the first British black woman in well over a century.

So how is it that a British citizen wound up on death row in 2009? In the early hours of the 16th of May 2001, Houston Police Department in Texas received a 911 call from Raimundo Rodriguez explaining that his house had been broken into by four African-American men wearing masks. They had ransacked his house and kidnapped his wife, Joanna, and their son, who was only four days old. Police arrived on the scene to find Raimundo and his cousin, who lived with him, distraught and having sustained some injuries. Raimundo had actually been, he'd been pistol whipped, he'd been hit in the face. neighbor of the rodriguez family came forward saying that linda carty who lived in the house opposite raymondo and joanna with her common law

husband jose corona had told her that she was having a baby the very next day and had patted her stomach the anonymous tipster neighbor also confirmed that carty didn't look pregnant at all linda carty and the rodrig Rodriguez family didn't know each other, but they did live opposite each other in this neighbourhood, and it's one of those neighbourhoods where all of the houses are exactly the same. The layout is exactly the same,

and they're all just like, like in Edward Scissorhands, the town in Edward Scissorhands where everything's the same, but like less nice is what this neighbourhood is like. So I do find it quite difficult to believe that although the Rodriguez family

and Linda Carty claim not to know each other, I find it really hard to believe that they wouldn't have been able to pick each other out in a line-up because they literally lived opposite each other. So they would recognise each other even if they had never said hello. And after this anonymous tipster spoke to the police, the police called Linda Carty and asked to speak with her. Linda admitted that her daughter's car may have been used in the crime, and she directed the police to a nearby empty yard. Here, two cars were discovered, and in the boot of one car was the dead body of Joanna Rodriguez, and she had been suffocated with duct tape and a plastic bag. And in the boot of the other car was her baby, Raimundo Jr. Miraculously, though, he was still alive, despite the Texas summer heat. Now, when the police ran the plates of the car, they found that indeed, just like Linda had said, one was owned by and

the other had been rented by Linda Carty's daughter, Jovelle Carty. A lot was made of the fact that there was a baby seat in one of the cars and a bag full of baby clothes. Admittedly, it looked pretty bleak for Linda Carty at this particular moment, and she's picked up by the police and taken in for questioning. And Carty doesn't really help herself here either. She gives the police quite an unconvincing account of how she had lent her daughter's rented car to a man named Oscar and this Oscar character has never been identified. But Linda does mention someone called Chris Robinson and suggested that he may have also been involved. Nindakati claimed that she had driven the car her daughter owned to attempt to find Oscar but had been unsuccessful which

again doesn't really explain why both cars were in the abandoned lot and why she was able to lead the police straight to them. Yeah it's just it's such a weird way of explaining it because what I cannot understand is why both cars were in the same place and no one's driven them away how have they both got there she can't explain it no one can explain why and also how did she know they were in that yard because it's very weird that the police just come speak to her because of what this anonymous tipster said and immediately linda carty is like oh well with that my daughter's cars may have been involved in that all she knows at this point is that she lent her daughter's

rented cars to a guy named Oscar why would she immediately think that that had anything to do with the neighbors going missing like it's all quite weird and you can see the exchange with the police in the four hours of interview footage. I can understand why it must have been incredibly frustrating because they keep asking Linda like how is Joanna Rodriguez's body in the boot of your daughter's car and literally all Linda can say is that she doesn't know she wasn't there. Javel Carty later in an interview she explains is that she had hired the car because her mum needed to move house and she didn't want to give her mum the car that she owned because she just bought this car for herself and it was the first one she'd ever bought she

didn't want her mum to like fuck it up by moving stuff in it fine doesn't explain why the car that she owned was there and Javel I found this so frustrating Javel also in an interview admitted that she's not really sure what actually happened which I find totally extraordinary like your mum is on death row and you're doing multiple interviews about her innocence but you're not actually a hundred percent on what happened the night of the crime like that makes very little sense to me at all and I feel like that's why this this case is so much of it is so muddy and you're just not really sure what actually happened and it's because no nobody says anything like everyone's just like oh I'm not I'm not really sure and you would think that you know

she's implicated as well she was a suspect because the cars are in her name why doesn't she care why doesn't she want to find out why they were there? It's completely bizarre. And we absolutely still don't have a clear answer as to why two of her daughter's cars were in the hands of at least three gang members with a dead body in the boot of one and a baby in the boot of the other. Much to her detriment, Linda doesn't have the answers either. But my boyfriend Clive Stafford-Smith does have a theory. He says that, I'm not sure how far I can go along with this, but Clive says innocent people are actually the most difficult to defend because they don't have a story, they don't know,

they weren't there. You know, his argument is it's much more difficult to convince a jury of innocence than it is of guilt. and I do think that does hold water to a certain extent yeah I think anecdotally speaking that is bound to be true because if you're not guilty then you are much more likely to have sort of holes in your story you wouldn't have an alibi you might not have you might have just been at home on your own you wouldn't have looked to secure some sort of you know cover-up or alibi for you know for when a crime was being committed so I can buy that to some extent but it's not exactly an airtight defence of Linda Carty. You know, as we'll see as we go, it's not as cut and dry as it seems, so hold on. Because

three men, including Christopher Robinson, mentioned by Linda during questioning were identified as the men who had broken into the Rodriguez home. The others were Carlos Williams and Gerard Anderson. Christopher Robinson's testimony was the real key here though, as Linda was struggling to string a coherent story together. He tells police again, this is all on tape, that Linda Carty had recruited him, Williams and Anderson, to break into the Rodriguez home. Robinson alleged that Carty told him that there were 900 pounds of weed in the house. Pounds as in weight. Pounds.

And that there was also a lady in the house who was pregnant. By Linda Carty's partner, Jose Corona. According to Robinson, Linda told the gang members that if they brought the pregnant woman to her, that they could keep the weed and any money they found in the house. Apparently, Linda even said that the baby belonged to her. Because it was her husband's and that she was going to cut it out of the pregnant Joanna. Other story? Like there were four of them. How

were they planning to carry out in the middle of the night from someone's... It's ridiculous. So they really should not have been that surprised when they broke into the house and they couldn't find 900 pounds of weed.

That shouldn't have been a surprise to them. And Robinson counters this by saying that when he first met Linda, she was a big time weed dealer, selling pounds of weed at a time. So to him, he said that it didn't seem totally outlandish that she would know where 900 pounds of weed would be.

I feel like 900 pounds of weed is in a warehouse somewhere. It's not in someone's home. But apparently that was what they were in someone's home. But apparently that was what they were going in there for. But when it came to the trial, the prosecution ran completely with Christopher Robbins' version of events. And the trial

is honestly just an absolute shitshow. Linda Carty was put on trial for capital murder. Capital because it was in conjunction with kidnapping. And this is how she would end up on death row. And I really feel like when someone ends up on death row, it can be to do with the severity of the crime. But I feel more times than not,

when someone gets death row instead of life imprisonment, it's because they've got a shitty lawyer. Linda Carty had the shittiest lawyer of all time. He had so many former clients on death row. In Texas, people called him the state undertaker. His real name was Jerry Garano and he's literally one of those like Better Call Saul TV lawyers. He has been named and shamed as the worst capital defence lawyer in the US. 21 of his former clients are currently on death row. That is more people than 26 states have on their entire death row.

He is genuinely a world record holder for having the most clients on death row. It's completely unbelievable stuff. But the undertaker of the state of Texas was all Linda Carty could afford. And she really was in trouble before the trial had even started. Because Linda was born on St Kitts on the 5th of October 1958. And St Kitts did not gain independence from Britain until 1983. Therefore Linda Carty is a British citizen. And being a British citizen entitles her to help from the British government.

She's a citizen being held on trial in a foreign country. And by international law she is entitled to this and her lawyer Gerano never contacted the British consul in Houston, Texas. He didn't even have to go very far. He was literally in Houston. It's not like he had to go to a different city. That's unbelievable. It is totally unbelievable. He didn't even try and like whether like this you'll see that this is just how I feel about this whether Linda Carty is innocent or not this trial was an absolute fucking disaster as a criminal defense lawyer having someone who's a foreign national is kind that's kind of like an

ace in your sleeve because you can the foreign government it's in their interest to send the best lawyers they have to help you so why you wouldn't do that is completely baffling to me. And the terrible lawyering just, it continues throughout the trial. And it's not helped by the fact that Robinson, Williams and Anderson were originally charged with capital murder and themselves at risk of the death penalty, but they were given a plea deal offering them prison sentences rather than the death penalty if they testified against Linda Carty, which obviously they did. All three of them admitted to their part in the break-in, but equally they said they had been set up by Linda,

she had lied to them about £900 of weed being in the house. When they broke in, they couldn't find it, it wasn't there. Linda had lied, but for some reason this didn't stop them bringing Linda, Joanna and her baby son. As we've said, Connie Spence, the lawyer for the prosecution, builds her case around Robinson's testimony in particular. So this is what Spence argues. Jose Corona, who is Linda Carty's common law husband, she lives with him. He really, really, really wants a child. And Linda Carty had recently had a miscarriage. She'd had a miscarriage five months before

Joanna Rodriguez was murdered. So Connie Spence says that Linda Carty was so desperate to stop Jose leaving her because she couldn't have a baby that she schemed to steal Joanna Rodriguez's baby even though it hadn't been born yet. And Spence described Carty as knowing people who were interested in doing things illegally which is such a weird thing to say.

Why wouldn't you just say she had criminal friends or she had a criminal network or something like that? And also Connie Spence does spend a lot of time talking about how manipulative Linda Carty is and how she manipulated these three men into breaking into this house for her which whether she did or she didn't they're career criminals these men she's not corrupting them and I feel like Connie Spence does try and put that spin on it and I do find that a weird part of this case that they were career criminals

but they the prosecution was so gung-ho on going after Linda Carty why offer why offer plea bargains for these gangbangers who had were career criminals as we said to put this woman away what what made her so important that they needed to put her on death row that's a part of this case that I find really bizarre anyway in this version of events that Robinson had been touting and that had been used in court against Carty, Carty enlisted the help of Robinson and his gang, lied to them about almost a ton of marijuana in their Rodriguez house, and made them promise to bring her a pregnant Joanna.

What Linda Carty didn't know, though, was that Joanna had already had her baby four days previously. And in a later interview, Connie Spence gives an incredibly emotive account of how Joanna was naked and asleep next to her husband and her baby when the masked men broke in and how the family didn't even understand English, so just how scared they must have been. And yes, absolutely, what happened to the Rodriguez family is absolutely horrifying, we are not taking away or in any way diminishing the tragedy of this murder. But they definitely did speak English. Raimundo, the father, gave news interviews the next day to TV crews in English. And it did seem like a really odd thing to say, but I guess it just

ramps up the vulnerability. It increases the public hate towards this woman. The fact of this new mother lying naked next to her family people breaking into a house they can't speak english even though they can it's just adding to the vulnerability of these people you don't need to make this situation even more tragic or make these victims even more vulnerable what happened to them was already awful but what's weird here is that why does she need to do this Why does she need to get so emotive about this? That's what I don't get about Connie Spence is that if she is so sure of the facts,

if she is so sure about Linda Carty's evidence, if her case is enough, just the fact, why is she bothering to give this emotive story? It doesn't quite sit right with me. It is quite unsettling to hear a lawyer like that reverting to kind of emotive storytelling. It doesn't come across, as you said, as someone who's confident in their own case

if you're relying on pulling on emotional heartstrings to be able to make your case. And throughout the case, the prosecution maintained that Linda had suffocated Joanna Rodriguez with duct tape and a plastic bag and left her in the boot of a car. Spence also gave a detailed description of how afraid Joanna must have been and hammers home again and again the no English thing. And the prosecution's case was built on the idea that Linda Carty was so desperate to keep her partner

from leaving her that she was willing to cut out a baby from Joanna Rodriguez. But the fact is, she didn't need to. The baby was already out. Linda had no reason to kill Joanna at all. Yeah, I just think that's a bit of a flaw in the prosecution that, like, if Linda wants a baby, why wouldn't she wait until the baby's born anyway? That just seems bizarre. But so if she thinks that Joanna is still pregnant,

she gets to the house, or Chris Robinson and his crew get to the house, and she's not pregnant anymore, the baby can literally just be picked up and taken away, jackpot, surely. I don't understand why... But then saying that, the idea of women who... Because women who steal babies...

Women who steal children, they steal babies, or they steal infants. They don't steal sort of older children. And we have seen lots of cases, we haven't covered any yet, of women who have cut unborn babies out of other women. I think maybe there is something to women needing to have that baby from the very first breath and not having it be in the possession of another woman. There is something to that. And it's as horrific as it is, it's not totally unheard of. So I can buy that that could be a thing

that she was planning. And maybe these men, you know, playing devil's advocate, they go into this house, they've been told by this woman, you can keep the drugs, you can keep the money, but bring me that woman. That they just think that that's also what they need to do. They'll take the baby and they need to bring a woman

because she's telling them that baby was fathered by my partner. Maybe they think that Linda also wants to kill Joanna because of the affair. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point, actually. Because that, and Connie Spence kind of comes at it from a similar angle of,

she argues that Linda's there for the whole thing. So Linda would have had to have killed Joanna because she could have identified her, their neighbours. She knew what she looked like. So maybe there's a bit more weight to that argument. But what I don't understand, again, is say that Linda Carty has suffocated Joanna and she's left her in the boot of a car.

Why does she leave the baby in the boot of the other car? That's what she wants. That doesn't make sense. Yeah, unless she thought the baby was dead, but I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. If she's so desperate for a baby that she's willing to kill another woman,

she's going to check if it's breathing. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first

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A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.

Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Connie Spence also argued that in Linda's handbag she had a pair of surgical scissors with which she intended to cut this baby out of Joanna. And if Linda's lawyer had bothered to even look at the scissors, he would have seen that they were bandaged scissors, they were small, they've got rounded ends, and there's absolutely no way

they could cut a person out of another person. But he didn't look at them, he didn't examine the evidence, so that argument was never brought to court. More weirdness in this case, though, was that phone records showed that Linda's phone had been used to call Gerald Anderson 11 times in the early hours of the 16th of May 2001. So now we've got this extra added link that these phone calls have

come from Linda's phone to this person that was involved in the break-in. But Linda claimed that she had just simply left her phone in the car, so in her daughter's car that had been taken, and therefore it could have been used by Chris Robinson and his associates during their kidnapping of Joanna Rodriguez and her son. It was 2001. I mean, her phone wouldn't have a password or a passcode on it. Anyone could have used them. Well, I don't know what kind of phone.

I don't think I had a phone in 2001. No, I didn't. I didn't have a phone in 2000. I was 10. I didn't have a phone in 2001. No. But then again, it's just so much of this case is circumstantial because okay you've lent this car out to this oscar guy it's

been involved in this kidnap it's been involved in this break-in and this kidnapping and this murder you've also left your phone in there at no point before that did you say my phone was missing it's only when it comes up that it's been used it should make calls to these people that are also accusing you of arranging this hit this abduction whatever we want to call it again it just seems very she is either just the most unlucky woman in the world or she has something to do with this yeah that's how i feel it's like amanda knox right exactly what she says in the opening of that documentary either i am the most unlucky person ever is she no she says i'm either i'm a murderer or i'm you that's what yeah that's it yeah exactly and this could happen to anybody so christopher robinson testified in court that he

had taken joanna rodriguez and her son to the abandoned car lot with linda carty and that he and his associates left to go and change the money they had stolen from the house so they could split evenly between them and that when they came back, Joanna Rodriguez was dead. I mean, it's a weak story, but then so is Linda's explanation of how the cars got there. This is the problem. Neither one of their stories is particularly compelling. Neither one of their stories is free of flaws and both of their stories depend really heavily on circumstantial evidence. Absolutely and the problem with Christopher Robinson is that in the Werner Herzog documentary he gives like a proper interview. He's in prison. I think he got

like 45 years and he the way he talks about Linda Carty he's like she's the wickedest lady I have ever met. I could have saved Joanna Rodriguez. I could say that woman Linda should have been dead instead of her so if that's true why did you leave this woman you think is the devil with this lady you've just kidnapped and you were nothing to do with it and you just wanted to save her that's bullshit whether Linda had anything to do with this or not obviously the case is so clear for why uh Robinson and the others all admit to this and just say, you know, plea bargain. We did do this. The police have got enough on us.

But plea bargain. We'll point the finger at Linda and we'll just get life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Robinson also stated that after they discovered Joanna was dead, so when they come back from exchanging this money, that he had then driven Carty to a hotel and that when he dropped her off, he saw that her room was full of baby clothes. That's pretty weird. It is weird, but I think it's really, the prosecution go on and on and on about this and I really don't think it deserves as much time in the trial as it got. I don't know because she explains it that she had these baby things in her possession because she'd had the miscarriage five months before which would make sense but she was also

in the middle of moving house so she was moving the last of her things into a new house. Why is she taking all these baby clothes? I don't know maybe that's not the biggest issue but I don't think we can discount the fact that it is absolutely, in my mind, an adequate accusation to say that this woman was planning on stealing this baby. I think sometimes when women go through that kind of grief of a loss of a baby or a miscarriage, and there is sort of underlying other problems, as we always talk about, this isn't that rare, kidnapping children, even cutting a baby out of a woman. So I don't know it I don't find it so crazy that I find it unbelievable I just find so much of this other case doesn't fit together

with that I don't think that women who have who have suffered miscarriages and you know other things that have happened to Linda that we'll get onto later yeah it can affect you mentally and if you are unstable mentally these things can happen people do kidnap babies the thing is with and I know a lot of the defense is circumstantial but I can completely understand if Linda had had a miscarriage but she's so excited she's bought all of these baby things it would be so hard to throw those away so I can understand if you're moving house you just think I'll just take them and I'll deal with it later. That's true I think that's fair. I think maybe what's not clear here is that if Robinson was so convinced that Linda Carty is this evil woman and the devil and all the things that he describes her as in these interviews and he says that he wishes he'd killed her and all of this stuff why did he offer to drive her back to

her hotel? Why doesn't he just drop her off outside? Why does he go up to her room? Because he had to go up there to see in her room that there were all these baby clothes. And another piece of evidence that the prosecution used, which makes no sense, is that Linda's fingerprints were found in both cars. Now, of course they were in the cars. They were her daughter's cars. I don't think that doesn't prove anything. But connie spence doesn't tell you is that linda carty's fingerprints were not on the duct tape or the plastic bag used to suffocate joanna rodriguez they were just in the car which there's a perfect explanation for why they would be in that so gerano linda's lawyer the worst lawyer in the history of the world also failed

to take the opportunity to visit st kitts where linda was born even though the state of Texas had offered to pay for his trip like even if you're the worst lawyer in the world like someone's just been like hey do you want to go to the Caribbean I'll pay for it that's such a why would you not do that and had he bothered to go to St Kitts he may have been able to create a more convincing defense in court because he would have had more of a connection with Linda and Clive Stafford-Smith says that you know how how are you supposed to look a juror in the eye and convince them not to sentence someone to death if you have no connection with that person and I think it's really clear that her lawyer made no effort to make a connection with her. So Linda Carty was

born in 1958 on St Kitts where she grew up. She worked as a primary school teacher until she got pregnant when she was 20 years old. She got pregnant to a policeman and this actually caused Linda to lose her job because that's how it was. Like a baby out of wedlock was the ultimate embarrassment in the Caribbean at the time. So her life was over. Her life on St Kitts was done. The father of the baby completely distanced himself and Linda Carty's family shunned her. Javel Carty, her daughter, was born on St Kitts in 1979. But to escape all of this, Linda

took Javel and moved to Texas in pursuit of the American dream and a fresh start in 1982. And Carty was keen to build on her academic background and started a pharmacy course at Houston University. One night after class, she was walking through the car park trying to find her car when two men attacked her. First they demanded money from her and then they raped her. And after this, Linda became too scared to go back to university, so dropped out of her course. Her daughter Javel recalls that her mother became depressed at this time and this was when she rapidly began to gain weight. And the worst bit is, as a result of this rape, Linda fell pregnant. As she was Catholic, termination was totally out

of the question. Linda Carty carried the baby to full term and gave it up for adoption. After this, Linda entered into a series of bad relationships. One of her boyfriends beat her and one of them was a big-time drug dealer. Linda claimed that she didn't know about his illegal activities, which I kind of... I think it's quite difficult to not know your boyfriend as a drug dealer. Yeah, and this is the thing. This isn't a totally one-sided case. There are things about Linda Carty's past that just don't show her as an angel that people will want to try and portray her as. Because, for example, on the 3rd of March 2001, so just two months before Joanna Rodriguez's murder,

Linda Carty was charged with car theft. She had hired a car and refused to pay for it because she claimed that she was an FBI agent. It's important to note, though, that this crime was actually committed in October 1992, but it just took all that time to get to trial. And as far as I could tell, Carty was not charged with the impersonation of the federal officer. She was sentenced to 10 years probation on the condition that she became an informant for the DEA. Now, although Linda claimed that she had been recruited by a friend of hers

in the Houston Police Department and that they were trying to get her drug-dealing boyfriend, the probation option seems much more likely to be the answer. Now, Linda Carty, who was soon operating undercover infiltrating drug-dealing gangs in Houston, she assisted on two arrests. I've read and heard people saying that two arrests isn't that many and that Linda Carty had vastly exaggerated her time as an informant, that the DEA found her difficult to work with.

But she'd only been doing it for two months. I reckon two arrests in two months seems pretty good. So many people just being like, oh, well, like she was so difficult to work with and she says that she helped arrest hundreds of people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She only even did two, but she was only doing it for two months before she was arrested she did get them quite a bit of information to get to arrest in two months but i can imagine people being difficult when they become informants like this i mean after your recommendation i listened to the aryan princess when i was on my trip and in that she's an informant and how difficult she is how much the power kind of goes

to their head a little bit and how much she was i don't know i think listen to it and i think it gives a really good insight into what can sometimes happen to people who are informants and so after listening to that i can kind of believe that maybe she'd become quite difficult to work with if she was a great dea agent you know informant sorry why did they throw under the bus so easily why wouldn't you protect your informant if that's what i can't answer and that's what i find quite weird but her boss at the dea charlie mattis said that he would have happily appeared as a character witness on her behalf testifying that he government agent who knew linda carty thought that there was no way she was capable of this crime

and that she was not a violent person. And that Charlie Mattis said that he was shocked to have not been called upon by Linda Carty's lawyer, Gerano. This is the thing. Okay, so maybe he was willing to not throw Hunter the bus and go and testify, but Gerano just didn't call him. But what is with Gerano? Yes, he's a shit lawyer and he has so many people on death row

and he's just totally unsuccessful at this. But not going to the British embassy, not going to St Kitts, now not calling Charlie Mattis, her boss at the DEA. What was going on with him? This can't surely just be chalked up to the fact that he was a bad lawyer.

Is there more at play here? Well, possibly. But if there is more at play here there has to be a part of the puzzle missing because why would they give so much of a fuck about Linda Carty? This is what's so weird because on one hand you could say it's total negligence, total incompetence on Gerano's part and that he just made absolutely no attempt to save Linda Carty's life because he's an incompetent lawyer but it just seems to be so many things because he also advised Linda against taking the stand which I'm just not sure how I

feel about. She isn't great at explaining herself yes but perhaps if she had taken the stand it would have helped the jury to see her as a human being rather than as a monster. Because one juror, called Tommy Cubena, called Linda Carty, and this is a direct quote, he said that Linda Carty is the most evil person, pure evil, right behind Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Which literally made my eyes roll out of my head and onto the floor. All the prosecution had to do was just present some emotive testimony and be like, she's a baby killer. She needs to go to death row. And because there was absolutely no resistance

from the defence, that's what happened. How has she not been able to appeal this? Because surely, like, yes, one of the easiest ways to appeal is saying that you have you were given insufficient inadequate defense in a capital trial her appeals have been denied this is what i don't understand because the easiest way to get an appeal to be upheld is to say that you were given inadequate defense in a capital trial like this seems crazy that's

why this is so bonkers, because all of those things have been presented, and now she's got reprieve on her side, she's got all of these world-class lawyers working for her, and still it's not being reopened. In one of the documentaries, the Werner Herzog documentary, at the end of the interview with Connie Spence, the prosecution lawyer, she accuses Herzog of making the documentary in an attempt to humanize Linda Carty and Herzog is just like I'm not attempting to humanize her she is a human being and that's why I think it's quite dangerous to call people monsters when they do awful things because it makes it dehumanizes them and I think that's such an important thing to see everyone as a human I

think it's dangerous we'll get into dangerous territory when we stop seeing people no matter what they've done as and i think that the reason for that isn't just because oh before anyone accuses of being bleeding heart liberals my reasoning for why we shouldn't refrain from using terminology like monsters when people have done horrific things isn't just to see them as a human being and act kindly towards them regardless of what they've done. It's because when you start to call people monsters or demonic or anything like that, you take away from the fact that we as human beings are perfectly capable of doing evil, depraved things. And it's a very easy way to excuse us and move our behaviour,

when people commit extreme behaviour, to say that has nothing to do with humanity. Because it absolutely does. It's a fundamental part of humanity. And I think that's why we shouldn't call people monsters, so that we understand that this type of behaviour is human. We can't separate ourselves from that. There are people who go around killing people for no reason. But they're mentally ill.

Like, I'm talking psychotic. Well, exactly. that's a mitigating circumstance that is a mitigating circumstance we are against the death penalty but like i spoke about before even though i believe in rehabilitation sometimes the time has to meet the crime mitigating circumstances or not like if you murder somebody i'm i'm not against life in prison like i think that is that is absolutely valid no it's the right to a fair trial, and the fair trial is finding the mitigating circumstances. Yes, that's the key thing.

The right to a fair trial, and if the fair trial finds that you deserve life in prison, then you deserve life in prison. So anyway, we've taken a bit of a digression into the world of criminal justice. So just to recap, Linda Carty's lawyer failed to contact the British consul, which cost Linda Carty access to better lawyers. He didn't bother going to St

Kitts, even though he was offered the money. He didn't call the government agent to testify on Linda Carty's behalf. He didn't contest the fact that the scissors in Linda Carty's bags were surgical. He didn't let Linda take the stand and he spent less than an hour with her before the trial. I just don't know on what basis he thought he was going to be able to win this case or whether he even cared if he won this case. But okay, take away the plea deal testimony of the three career criminals. What did the prosecution have? The cars were in Javel Carty's name. Linda Carty led the police to the cars. Linda had some baby clothes and a baby car seat in her possession. Linda allegedly told baby clothes and a baby car seat in her

possession. Linda allegedly told people that she was pregnant when she wasn't. Is that all enough to kill someone or is there enough reasonable doubt? What bigger motive did these three men have for incriminating Linda Carty than to save themselves from the death penalty? This is it isn't it? I think like the prosecution's case is not enough like i have reasonable doubt i have a reasonable doubt about this and that is not but that's because you know of all of the things that gerano didn't do yeah of course looking at it from this point but what i mean is if you were sat in that jury room and you watched the prosecution connie spence come out give all of this information like we said it's not totally unheard of that these things, that a woman could do these things because we've seen it in

other cases. You see the defense lawyer put up absolutely no fight. No one is being, nothing is being picked up on. You have no idea that he didn't go to St. Kitts. He didn't go to the British Consul. He didn't do any of these things. I can see why the jury said that she was guilty. Oh no, I completely, I completely see that. This makes no sense from the outside and what people's bigger motivations were. Why did Gerano did not build a proper case for Linda Carty and was there a bigger motive for these three men to incriminate Linda than just to save themselves? Do they need a bigger reason? No I don't think so I think that's I mean it's perfect for them but what I cannot understand is why the state are

going after Linda Carty. Why would they offer a plea deal for three to three career criminals in order to put a grandmother who was employed by the DEA on death row? That I just cannot get my head about it. I feel like there has to be something missing. Why were they so keen to execute her? It is quite an astonishing failure of the system and so much so that Paul Lynch, who's the British Consul General to Houston, Texas, said that the system has actually changed as a direct result of Linda Carty's case. So surely that's an admission of guilt. But she's not being pardoned. Her appeals aren't going through.

Is it because they want justice for the family? Is it pig-headedness? It just seems bizarre that she hasn't got a retrial. Like, if you're so sure that she's guilty and she deserves to be on death row, retrial and prove it. That is the weirdest part but also do i think that linda carty is as manipulative as connie spence says and i think possibly she does this thing in both of the documentaries that we watched

where she sings amazing grace directly to the camera with her eyes closed. And not only is it pretty haunting, it just made me think of that bit in About a Boy where they sing Killing Me Softly and Hugh Grant can't even look because it's so weird and cringe. I just struggle with people doing closed eyes singing. And especially because it was Amazing Grace. It just didn't quite sit right with me.

I think she could be a manipulative person. because it was amazing grace like it just it just didn't quite sit right with me like i think she could be a manipulative person is that enough of a reason for her to not get a retrial absolutely not you know whether she did it or not like her level of involvement is i feel like it's almost impossible to know but her trial was undeniably an absolute fiasco and you can find the details of Linda's case on reprieve.org.uk appeals in 2004 and 2010 were denied so clemency from the governor of the state of Texas is her last shot which for someone on death row to get clemency from a governor is like incredibly rare but I think it's 95% of people on death row do like once you're on death row it is incredibly difficult to get off the governor doesn't have to like linda carty he doesn't even have to think

that she's innocent just that the state failed to give her a fair trial and that's what people are campaigning for i mean with that let's say thank you to our Patreon supporters this week We've got Terry Rea, Holly King, Bridget Walters Google-a-mitty Complicated surname Who went from a $5 to a $20 And we've got Christy Dirk Fuller Who did a $2 to a $5 And Chris Callalady

So thank you very much you guys And also some five star reviews this week First one from Oh Gosh gosh flowers says take notice this podcast has absolutely everything a true crime fan is looking for it's well produced intelligent well researched and empathetic the hosts seem to be sincere and lovely people thank you for your time and the work you put into each episode cheers oh thank you you seem like a sincere and lovely person too we are only sometimes and then next we've got lucky gene who says we're a fabulous feminist true crime podcast and that they love the perspectives and they feel empowered after

listening and that's great keep being empowered absolutely go out change the world and then there might be cupcakes who says sisters from another mister as these fine ladies already know thanks to my clumsy Twitter flirting, I adore them and their podcast. They don't shy away from the grim details, but they balance, but they balance this with remembering that these people are real people. True crime with heart, wit and charm. And that is from Carla, who does the There Might Be Cupcakes podcast. And yes, Carla, we have seen, we've seen you on Twitter thank you social media moment of the week it's quite an important one actually

if you listen to our Suzanne Capper revamp episode we talked briefly about suicide being the number one cause of death for young men in the UK and I said it was for men under 30 I was actually wrong it's actually men under 45 and a lovely listener posted in our Facebook group about CALM who are a charity it

stands for the campaign against living miserably and they support young men in mental health and they do incredible work exploring how we can do more to prevent male suicide have a look at calm definitely and as usual uh you guys know we're on instagram twitter facebook at red handed the pod come join us on there please do go leave us some more five star reviews on itunes it makes it gives us such a boost and it makes such a big difference for our visibility so please do that if you get a sec and also head on over to the patreon if you've even got a dollar to to send over to us a month that would be great so thanks guys see you next time don't forget great. So thanks, guys. See you next time. Don't forget, tell your mates. Always tell your mates.

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He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy,

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