#188 Jason Flom with Paul Hildwin

roadside scuffle. Four days later, on September, miss Cox's nude body was found stuffed in the trunk of her car, tucked into some woods. Initially, Haverty became the obvious suspect, until the investigation led to one of her checks having been cashed by Paul Hildwind and a search of his

house turned up the stolen items from the car. Paul's trial council was woefully inadequate, and was further handicapped by a team of prosecutors who buried witness statements that claimed miss Cox had been alive up to forty eight hours after Paul had seen her, among many other pieces of misleading testimony, junk science, and outright lies. An FBI sorology expert falsely stated that Lewis bound at the scene matched Paul, which led to a thirty four year fight to free

him from death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Blom. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam that's me, of course, I'm your host, and today I'm really excited because we have a woman who is in our wrongful conviction community, considered a legal legend. Her name is Leanne Gaudy, a renowned defense attorney who has done phenomenal work on this case. So Lean and welcome to wrongful Conviction and

with her is her clients. Paul Hilduin Fall served thirty five years on death row in Florida for a crime everyone should have known from the outset he didn't commit. They may have known he didn't commit it, but one way or another, he survived thirty five years on death row. He survived cancer, he survived, and he's here today to share his story with us. So Paul, welcome to rawfle conviction.

Thank you, Jason. I'm I'm glad to be here. And Paul just informed us that he's sitting on his porch, breathing some fresh air and looking at it some green grass and stuff. So com I'm glad to hear that you're living your best life to whatever extent is possible. So let's go back. Where did you grow up and what was your upbringing like? And if you can bring us right up to the time that this whole tragedy occurred. Now, I was born in a small town called Pokeepsie, New York.

I never really got to know my mother. She passed away when I was two years old. When I turned five, my father just decided he didn't want me, so he would put me wherever he could. And uh, there was some good place is that I was at, and there were some bad places into my teen years, you know, like all teens, most teenagers, you know, you experiment with drinking, and it was all it's all kind of a haze,

you know. I was drunk so much. But when uh I turned uh eighteen, you know, I got in a little trouble, ended up doing a little prison time in New York. And when I got out, it was nineteen eighty four and I was twenty four years old, and I come down here to Florida to live with my father. One of the families that I lived with always taught me it doesn't matter what a parent does, you always have that respect because they are your parents. And I

always respected my father. I didn't really love him, but I respected him because he was my dad. So September twenty one, when I was arrested for the crime that put me on death throw for a crime that I did not commit, and Leanne, can you walk us through this awful crime and how they've managed to go off of the who would have seemed to be the obvious aspect and target. Paul. Sure. So, the victim allegedly went missing on September nine, of which would have been a Monday.

And the reason why they zeroed in on that particular day is because, well, her sister and her would speak practically every day. Well, the sister had gone two or three days without hearing from the victim. So the sister went over to the trailer where her sister had lived with this boyfriend, William Hardy. They live in boyfriend said, Hey, she left on Monday. She was going to go do laundry at the coin laundry. She was going to deposit her s s I check that had come in over

the weekend at the bank. The victim had a little bit of a reputation for being somebody that would frequent bars and might randomly go home with a guy. So at first the sister it to see if maybe something like that had happened. When she still hadn't heard from the victim the next day, she went back to the trailer and insisted that the boyfriend go with her to the police department to report her missing um And so on Thursday September twelve, in the evening, they go to

the Hernando County Sheriff's office. They report the victim, whose name was Roncetti Cox, missing, and then the very next day, which was Friday, September, a group of boys find a deserted car with a really bad smell. Police respond and they find the victim new stuffed in the trunk of

the car with a ligature around her neck. The immediate suspect is to live in boyfriend, William Hardy, who was about twenty years younger than the victim, and he just appeared kind of scurly to the police, and so they

focused in on him. What ended up happening was they wanted to see when she had gone to the bank to deposit the social Security check and so they discovered that the last check that came in on the victim's bank account was cashed by an individual named Paul Hilldwin, and that he had come through the drive through of the bank on September night that approximately twelve thirty in

the afternoon. At that point in time, now law enforcement shifts their suspicion from the boyfriend, William Harty, over to Paul and basically become extremely myopic and focused in with the tunnel vision only on Paul, right, And there was a lot of circumstantial evidence right, that was really just the result of an unfortunate coincidence, which goes back to the night of September eight, myself and three friends went to a drive in movie and I think it was

a clean Eastwood movie, pale Writer. We left there and I dropped the young man that was I dropped him off at his house and then I started heading home. The two girls that were would mean they lived, you know, just down the street from me, so I was taking them home as well. And I ran out of gas and I got like a dollar something worth of gas,

put it in the car. I put a little bit in the carbet and try to get a start but the way the car was setting it was on an angle, like almost in a ditch, and the gas wasn't getting pulled up into the engine. So I went to my house, my father's house, and I had to get a battery because I wore the battery down in the car trying to start it. So I got the battery and I

got a ride back from a friend. Anyway, got back to the car still wouldn't start, so I wasn't gonna run that battery down, so we got in the car and we ended up just falling asleep. So when he's en route to take the girls home, the car runs out of gas installs in front of a bar called the Loan Star Bar that's right off at US nine. Team Paul wakes up up somewhere between eight thirty and

nine am. Girls are still sleeping. He decides, I'm gonna walk home and see if I can either borrow my dad's truck or get some money to try to put some more gas in this car. So he's walking north on US nineteen and the victim and her boyfriend, William Hardy, are driving north on US nineteen. They pull over. He tells him, hey, I'm trying to get up to my dad's house. He gets in the back seat. They're driving

to the dad's house. She and the boyfriend start arguing about he's sick of her going out with other men. She's basically telling him off. The fight is getting pretty loud and hostile Paul sitting in the back seat. In the back seat is the victims purse within her purses like a separate checkbook holder, and the victim says, I've had enough of you. She stops the car. She says, get out. Boyfriend says I'm not getting out. Victim says she's getting out. The two of them end up getting out.

They slap each other around the little bit. All of this is going on at this Paul's not that far from his house, so he grabs the checkbook thing and leaves, and the last thing he sees is that the boyfriend is on top of the victim and his hands around her neck. He's like, I'm not getting in the middle of this because the boyfriend has threatened him, and he walks home. Once he gets home, his dad's not there, gets some leftover money, hitches a ride back to where

the girls are. He buys another two dollars worth of gas, they level out the car, he puts the gas in the car, drops the girls off at home in his car. He then forges one of the victims checks, goes to the bank cash is the check giving his I D the checks for seventy right. So, ultimately, because Paul, you know, foolishly, let's call it what it is, took a few items from the car, a radio, a ring, and of course

the act that we talked about. When the attention of the authorities shifts to him, they probably had some sort of eureka moment like, oh, look at this, we got sort of, for lack of a better word, of smoking gun. And at that point, like you said, the tunnel vision sets in. He really needs a great lawyer. And that's not at all how this played out, right, So on November twenty one, they get a grand jury to indict him with first agree murder and they announced that they're

seeking death. So this particular attorney, Dan Lewin, had just graduated from Florida State Law School. He had never done a murder case. He had never done even a serious robbery case. So on April twenty six he gets appointed to this death penalty case and they pick a jury four months later on August. In between that time period, he conducted absolutely no investigation. This defense lawyer took depositions, and the significance of that is the lack of thoroughness.

In addition to that, it is also clear when you review those depositions that the prosecution was not giving him all the police reports. In addition to that, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office decide, you know what, We're not going to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which was the state agency that would do the lab work for the police agencies in Florida. We're going to send this

stuff to the FBI. And it's at the FBI where they're doing the so called sourology, hair examination, and school mark examinations on some chrome strips that they believe came off of the alleged victim's car. You've just identified several of the key elements of junk science that we talked about in our podcast row Eviction junk science, But there's

so much more to this. You have circumstantial evidence, you have tunnel vision tons of junk science, and then you have incumbent defense attorney and you also have experts that are willing to lie on behalf of the prosecution, and we know that. The prosecutor at the i'le presented the horology report from an FBIS forensics expert who falsely claimed that bodily fluids found on two pieces of crime scene evidence, the underwear the woman's underwear and a washcloth both matched

Paul Heldwin. The expert also claimed that Paul was among only eleven percent of the world's white male population who could have deposited the fluids, and that the fluence could not have come from the victim's estrange boyfriend. So this is a mountain of ship. I mean paul is the

appropriate word. Thank you. I chose that carefully. In defensive Mr Lewin on this part, they sprung on the sourology evidence that did not come out until opening statements, and he immediately objected, and when they approached the bench, he said, this can't come in. I was told that the sourology evidence was of no value. Everything was too degraded. They

couldn't get anything of it. And now they're telling the jury that it links my client and they can't use that, and the prosecution and goes, you want to bet that's on the record, and the judge says, yeah, no, this is opening. They can do it, and we'll address it during the trial. And then when they come to the point where he objects again during the trial, it's the friday before Labor Day weekend, and the judge says, well,

you've got till Tuesday to be ready. Three days. And remember what we had to work with in There wasn't internet research when we researched case law. We went the old fashioned way into the law library, which took a lot of time. So he basically gives this inexperience, unqualified lawyer three days to familiarize himself with sorology, evidence and secretor and non secretor. You have got to be kidding me.

So September four you were found guilty. In September seventeenth, the jury, by a unanimous vote of twelve to nothing, sentence you to death, even though the defense was what it was. I didn't expect that. When they sentenced me to death, I just I don't know. I think my mind just shut down. After that, what I called the real living hell started. You're basically in that cell twenty four hours a day. You get three showers a week, you get to go to the yard twice a week,

and it's a little tiny yard. And if you don't go to the yard, you're just in that cell twenty four hours a day, and you become desensitized. Really. After like the first four years, I just disconnected myself. I didn't care about time. I didn't care about holidays. I didn't you know, none of that stuff mattered. What was important to me was just surviving. After my dad passed the I didn't have a visit until two thousand and six. My life was in that cell. I did everything I

ate in there. I washed all my clothes, and my whole life was in that little box. Eight nine and very good friend of mine, Kenny Hardwick, he gave up and he was in the cell next to week and I could see him. The windows were not in the cell, they were like eight to ten ft away from the front of the cell to cell. Fronts were all open. No we could talk, we could pass things back and forth. And I watched him hang himself. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't help him, you know. I went to screaming

for the bullies. They coming tell me to shut my f of mouth. This episode is underwritten by the a i G pro Bono Program. A i G is a leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the a i G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar of its mission. This episode is brought to you by

Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners have been on the front lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses. Stand Together tackles the root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those

closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through the First Step a Act, empowering community based programs and help people re enter society, and now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn how you may get involved, visit stand Together dot org slash conviction. I believe it was either nine or nine. Governor Martinez signed Paul's death warrant and Paul has the fortuitous opportunity to have a terrific lawyer named Marty McClain,

and so Marty begins to investigate. And at that point, the state attorney is different. And so when Marty McClain issues the requests for Paul's file and all the police reports or whatever, they actually turn it over, and that's when he discovers all these things that either were not disclosed to Mr Lewin or that Mr Lewin just didn't bother to use, like the victim's nephew that says that he was having drinks with the victim on Monday night,

September nine until eleven fifteen pm. Meanwhile, according to the state's theory of trial, Paul had allegedly killed her somewhere between nine fifteen and ten in the morning. But yet the nephew is having drinks with her as the boyfriend was mad and sulking in a corner. Well that never came out in trial. That nephew was never deposed by Mr Lewin. The boyfriend was allowed to represent this really fabulous relationship withdrawal. So Marty McClain discovered stat when law

enforcement searched the victim and her boyfriend's house. There was a note in the garbage can that said, if you don't like living here, you can sunk off and die. That never came out during trial. I mean, it just went on and on and on. So he discovered all

this stuff. He found what's called the thirty fifty motion, which is a motion to find the defense lawyer ineffective of counsel and that if Paul had had effective assistance of counsel or had received this Brady information and it had been used, it would have changed the outcome of the trial. And the judge denies both and says that

Paul had effective assistance of counsel. It goes up on appeal to the Florida Supreme Court or the Florida Supreme Court hanser Hat on the sourology evidence to say, no, it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the trial in first phase. But we do find that the penalty phase was ineffective, and they grant Paul the opportunity to have a second penalty phase. And so that happens in seven

and the jury comes back eight to four for death. Remember, at the time in Florida and only required a majority of jurors to vote for death, so Paul gets death again and so CCRC, the group that Marty McClain worked for, contacts the Innocence Project they get involved in. During all that investigation, they also discover another witness that said she had had a conversation with the victim at three o'clock in the afternoon on the Wednesday, after she supposedly died.

They also started attacking the horology and they see for it to get into and that ly tested. When they do, at this point, DNA is in existence. They discovered that the DNA on the panties and on the wash rag, which is what was sold to the jury in and what the Supreme Court relied upon in sustaining his guilty verdict both the first time and during the thirty fifty hearing, do not match Paul. It was February of two thousand and three we went to the Circuit Court with the

test results. So that ends up happening that they discover, Okay, it's not Paul's biological material on this, we want you to run it through the CODA system. And they start getting pushed back from the State and the Attorney General's office, and this continues and continues to get litigated until two thousand eleven, where finally the Supreme Court says, put it

in the CODAS system. When they run the DNA into the CODA system, it matches William Harty, the victims live in boyfriend, and at the time he was incarcerated for sixteen counts of sexual battery for sexually molesting his stepdaughter.

And here we go again. I'm so sick of these stories where the wrong person gets locked up, the actual perpetrator remains free and goes on to commit these unspeakable acts against people who never should have been victimized in the first place if the system had worked the way

it should so. Then at that point, Nina Morrison and Morty McClain are pushing the Supreme Court to give Paul, based on this newly discovered evidence, a new trial, with the state giving pushback under the grounds, hey, this was the sex crimes case. And finally, in June of two thousand and fourteen, the Florida Supreme Court grants Paul a new trial. Okay, but now, how did this case, of

all the cases end up on your desk? Nina Morrison called me and asked, could I fly down to Tampa and meet with you and talk to you about this case. Anybody that knows Nina Morrison, she's like, Sam, I am, don't let her in your house because she's going to convince you to do whatever she wants you to do.

And so she came into the office and persuaded me to agree to do this case pro bono beginning in August of two thousand and fourteen until it concluded on March nine of two thousand and twenty, two thousand three, the DNA proves DNA we're talking about, right, was produced that proved that Paul didn't do it, or at a minimum, that the state's case was completely wrong, and that the main piece of evidence that they based and I was proven false. And yet it took seventeen more years to

bring Paul home. And then even that comes with an asterisk, right, you know, I get appointed to the case in two thousand fourteen, and so the state they still stood on the position that they felt that Paul was guilty. And so to them, the quote fair end quote option was to let him plead to second degree murder, get credit for time served, and put him on lifetime probation. So Paul's big mandate to me from the beginning was I would like to feel grass underneath my feet before I die.

And so I would talk to him about these offers the state was making and you know, explain to him why it was basically a no brainer for us to say no to that and continue forward. But we did talk about would you take anything to guarantee that you

would get out? And we had kind of talked about why I would plead reluctantly, but I would plead no contest to a second degree murder and time served, and I'll even take some probation afterwards because I know I'm not going to commit any crimes and so I'll do that. So fast forward to Friday morning before trial, March six, and the prosecution says to me, would he still plead to a second and time served, but we're gonna want probation. And Paul was like yes, he goes, you know, I

want the bird in the hand. I want to know I'm going to get out. I don't want to take any risks. So he pled. You know, it was totally Paul's decision. We were a percent ready to proceed forward with the trial. Paul, March nine, I've watched the video of you walking out more times than I want to admit because it's so incredible. Um what was that like? And when I walked out the door of the jail and was met by Leanne Gouty and Kate O'shay, I

actually couldn't believe that it was really happening. And that day when we left the jail and there was the first thing I wanted to do was feel grass under my feet, my bare feet, just to walk on grass. He goes inside to jail, then the prisons. I mean, it's all concrete and steel. That's it. You don't get the walk on the grass. It's just the simplest thing. That was a big thing for me. I wanted to walk on the grass, and as the video shows, and

that's exactly what they did. They took me to a nearby park and uh that was the most special part about it, really walking on grass. People don't understand what we take for granted every single day of our life. Closing the door by yourself, stepping on grass, smelling fresh cut grass. It made me realize just what myself included everybody takes for granted. Then uh Ms Goudy and her

partner Kim Khan kat O'sha and Anthony Scott. They took me to Cracker Barrel on the way down to Tampa, and I had never been to Cracker Barrel and that was my very first that was my very first freedom. You. I just want to interrupt so nobody thinks I'm at cheap skate. It was the best restaurant in Hernando County. Thank you for clarifying that. Now, Paul, this was touched on a bit, but I mean, it wasn't bad enough that the state was trying to kill you. But cancer.

At first, it was just recognized that I had a lump in front of my left ear and the gland in my throat on the left side was swallowing up. And I went and I saw an ear, nose and throat doctor and so he did a biopsy on both the lump in the swallen gland and it came back to be uh non Hodgkins lymphoma. So I went through surgery through radiation. Then I started chimo, you know, and thankfully you made it, but cancer wasn't done. You still had to go through it two more times in eleven

or twelve when it showed up again. The next time I believe it was in by that time. Yeah, I was used to the weight loss, the sickness, and no hair. I lost every single piece of hair on my body. I yeah, I looked like Uncle Fester on there. Jesus Paul, You're just really fucking hard to kill. I don't know how else I think. I mean, the state can't, cancer can't. He survived cancer on death row, So clearly you know God didn't want to kill him. If he was supposed

to be dead, he would be dead. Speaking of the magic of the universe, I must take this opportunity to congratulate lean on her election to the thirteen Circuit Court. Judge Leanne Gaudi, thank you, Thank you. Typically when you're a new judge, you do rotations through family law or one of the other areas prior to going over to criminal. But I'm being placed right in criminal, so i will be taking over a circuit criminal division. So I'm very excited.

That's amazing and it makes me so happy, both for you and also knowing that someone from the defense side of the bar will be sitting on the bench. So all the best. And on that note, we're now going to go to the segment of our show called Closing Arguments. It's the part where I first of all thank both of you from the bottom of my heart for being here and sharing your story and of course your spirit with us. And then now I'm going to shut off my microphone, kick back in my chair, close my eyes,

and just listen to whatever you want to say. Um, We'll start with you, Leanne, and then finish with Paul. You know, it was my privilege to represent Paul, and I'm so grateful that Nina Morrison entrusted his case to me, and I'm grateful that Paul trusted me to represent him. I think that it's always an honor when somebody that's accused of a crime puts their trust in you as a lawyer to do the best you can for them.

And I'm just very, very grateful to God, frankly, that I was able to deliver on Paul's request to be able to let him feel grass underneath his feet before he died. And hopefully he'll have many, many more years to live and continue smelling grass and cut grass and feeling it and living peacefully and happily out in society like he should be. Paul, over to you, Leanne, and I have talked several times, you know, about my belief in God, and I believe that that's what got me

through thirty five years. I also believe it be the reason why Nina Morrison was put on my case, why Leanne Gaudy was put on my case. It was by the grace of God. I've been blessed so much since I've been out because of the Innocent Project in New York and the Innocent Project in Florida. They are a nonprofit organization and because of the donations is one reason, a big reason why I'm sitting here where I live now. There's an organization that helped me find this place, and

it's called the Sunny Center. They are a nonprofit organization and they are the ones that have helped me since I've been out. They have been there every day, every step of the way. They also need donations in order to help people in my position and ex honorees, and you know, they've gotten me health insurance. You know, they've helped me get my driver's license. They're there, I mean, but they won't be there if people don't make donations. And I believe they they were put there by God

as well. You know, in my life and I'm want to say thank you, Lea. LeAnn. The freedom is so sweet. You know you gave me back my life and I thank you with all my heart. Always, Paul always, thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your local innocence projects and go to the link in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Warnas. The music on the show, as always,

is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one h