On June fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven, ninety two year old Jay Emma Crapser was found tied up and suffocated in her Poughkeepsie, New York apartment. Police thought she had walked in on a burglary and rounded up the young guys in nearby Mansion Park, including Lamar and Stanley Smith, and a new guy from Brooklyn who had spent time in Juvie, a budding boxer named Dewey Bosella. After being falsely told that Dewey had implicated them, the Smith brothers returned false
accusations against Dewey and fifteen year old Wayne Moseley. When police tried to turn the miner on his alleged accomplice, Wayne Moseley refused to lie, and the Smith brother's word
was not enough for a grand jury indictment. Six years and two eerily similar crimes later, one of which was properly attributed to brothers Donald and Anthony Wise, the DA continued his relentless pursuit of Dewey Bosella for Emma Crapser's murder, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, in including Donald Wise's fingerprint at the scene. Finally, with Lamar Smith and Wayne Moseley in custody for separate crimes, the DA had the leverage he needed to coerce testimony and send Dewey Bosella
away for over twenty six years. However, the fight in this boxer proved to be just too big, a fight that would one day see the inside of a professional boxing ring. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me. I'm your host, and today I am so excited because we have a guest. We have a lot of first today. Our guest is Dewey Bosella. And Dewey is our only guest who speaks besides English, Arabic and japan Ease. He's
the only one who has won an eSPI Award. He's the only one who won a professional boxing match in his fifties. After he was released from prison after twenty six years of wrongful incarceration. Without further ado, let me introduce to you my friend Dewey Bosella. Dewey, welcome to Ronfuel Conviction.
Thank you appreciate it.
Dewey, I have to say if and I know you have your own book, and we'll talk about this. But if I was going to write a book about your life, I would probably call it unbreakable, because you have been through experiences even beyond your Roffl incarceration, that would have broken almost any mere mortal. From the time you were a kid, you experienced extreme hardship. I mean, can you talk about your upbringing in Brooklyn?
It was me and my forder brothers and one system. As we were growing up, things were pretty good except for my father. My father was just boot at eight years old. My father turned my whole life around, as well as my brothers and my one sister at that particular time. One day, we was in the backyard and we were playing, and I came inside of the house and heard a lot of hollering and screaming, and my father was beating up on my mother and my He was being up on my mother. I did the best
I could do as a kid. I ran over and granted round the laid. He took me and threw me across the room like I was a piece of trash and continued to beat up on my mother. My mother went to the hospital. Me and my brothers we went in the foster homes and group homes, and things were never the same.
Yeah, I'm sure they weren't. And your mother died, and you witnessed that as an eight year old boy. Your father abandoned all six of you and went to live with your half siblings. You didn't even know you had, one of whom Tony became important later on down the line. But first you and your five full siblings were shuffled between I put foster homes and group homes until you were all finally placed together again a few years later with the Coleman family. Then after all that, you moved
to Queens. You all moved to Queen's and spent a good five or six years together with just at least a shred of normalcy. But in high school I understand you started drinking, smoking, hanging out with some not so great people, and pretty soon you ended up dropping out and moving upstate just after another tragedy struck.
Yeah, I was sixteen years old and I got into a fight with a guy by name is Standy Jackson. When I got into a fight with Stanley Jackson, I got the best of him. He didn't like that. Him and a guy by name of Barty driving the bicycle and they see my brother at a party and Andrew Jackson High School, and Stanley wouldn't stabbed my brother to death. He stabed him in the heart and in the back and then murdered my brother. So me, you know the Kota streets, I won to get him. I wanted to
get him for what he did to my brother. And because of that, my older brother Tony, so he said, listen, man, once you come up here to upstate New York, you know, to see where you're going. Man, if you stay down in New York, you don't mind it, you know, in a bad situation. I said, okay, I'll give it a try. Because my true intensor, I wanted to kill him for what he did to my brother. He should have came
after me. He should have came after my brother. So when I moved up to Poughkeepsie, New York, my older brother he said to me, once you go back to school. I said, Tony, don't make your time. I'm not going back to school. He said, well, you know, do something if you don't want to do something. So I said, I went and I got involved into a program to where I became a carpenter, and I got a job
in Poughkeepsie, New York. Massive Square Park in Poughkeepsie was to hang out for everybody that was supposed to be hit at that particular time. So I just turned seventeen. I'm hanging out in Everything that I did in New York was in that park. So one time I got into a fight and I beat the dude. I whipped the dudes, but the we called me whipping the dudes.
But everybody said, yo, they dude, ain't happening. And so that's when I started getting around guys who was supposed to be you know, thugs and all that stuff.
Coincidentally, you're up there in the area where Floyd Patterson, the heavyweight champion of the world, had recently converted a barn, an old barn in Newpaulse, which is nearby, into a center for at risk youth.
Floyd Patterson I first met him. It was because of a there God dared me. He said, you're always fighting it and all this, man, but you ain't gonna go up no dead, no Floyd Partison camp. I said, what? So I went up to Floyd passon camp on the there. When I got up there, The first thing I did is, you know, I lied to Floyda. I told Floyda to have three fights, and I didn't have three fights. You know.
I was talking about fights out in the streets. I thought I knew everything, and Floyd put me out there. He put me up with a guy by the name of Danny. Here it is, I'm weighing like close to one hundred and ninety, you know, he's a Walter Way. And I didn't know who Danny was. I went out there and I hit Danny with a lucky punch and I rocked him, and right behind that, Floyd said, cut loose. He hit me with a body shot. The body shot knocked the mouth piece out my mouth, and then hit
me with another shot in my chest. And he ain't hit me to the face yet. And I caught you, you know, because the wind was knocked out of me and the bell rang. When the bell rang, I got out out of the ring. I said, oh hey, no, I said, I'm out of here. So Floyd said, what was wrong, was wrong?
Was wrong?
Was wrong? I said, no, I'm all right, right right, I'm not take the gloves off. Take the gloves off, Take the gloves off. So he took the gloves. Where you're going, when you're gone, when you're going with I said, I'll be back from whereverybody, I'll be back. I'll be back. When I got up out of there, that changed my whole life. Why because all he did was in with a body punch in the chest shot. He didn't even
go to the head. Yet. I'm one hundred ninety pounds one hundred and forty seven or a little bit more at that particular, I didn't know at that time he was ready number one in the world. Floyd came up. I mean, he said, uh, do you know you just sport? No, he said, he's been number one in the world. Man, listen, who shit? And never after that day forward, after that experience, took boxing as a joke.
No, that would wake anybody up. And what an introduction it was. But now, just when things you know may have been taking a turn for the better, as your first exposure to boxing, which became such a huge part of your life and which you excel at and have been recognized. Now finally, all these years later, June fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven, this is the night when ninety two year old Emma Crapser was brutally murdered in her apartment. She was tied up and suffocated. She had linen stuffed
in her mouth and down her throat. And this was a crime that obviously horrified local residents and for which there was a lot of pressure on the authorities to make arrests. And the police came up with a theory, right They said that missus Scrapser had walked in on
a burglary in progress and paid with her life. So they went around and picked up some kids they knew were tough kids or whatever that hung out in the park Manchester Square Park, and they were well aware of you Dewey, obviously because coming up from the city and everything else. They decided they would focus their investigation on the new kid in town who they knew was a bit of a brawler and a tough kid. And they started by questioning two brothers, Lamar and Stanley Smith, And
originally they denied any knowledge the crime. The interrogators told them though, that you Dewey had identified them as the murders. But that wasn't true, was it.
No, it was far from the truth. I had no knowledge of the crime. And what made them even say something like that was the beginning of them framing me.
Right. So, Lamar Smith told the cops that he saw you and another guy named Wayne Moseley, he was just fifteen years old, on Missus Scrapser's porch trying to break in. So they're just coming up with stories out of thin air. Stanley Smith told police that he saw you, Wayne Moseley, and a third guy together in the park on the day of the murder. And then you and Wayne Moseley were arrested for the burglary and murder. But Moseley was
a miner. He was, like I said, he's only fifteen, so he wasn't gonna be They weren't gonna be able to charge him as an adult, so they they wanted to get him to plead guilty right and testify to your involvement. But to his great credit a fifteen year old kid, he refused to do that. And there was no evidence whatsoever linking either of you to the crime other than the word of the Smith brothers. So and a grand jury, they always say grand jury will indet
a ham sandwich. The grand jury refused to indict you. That says a lot, right, Yeah.
You got to remember when they arrested me, I was both bost been hold for three days, but they kept me for twenty eight days to win. A judge told the prog attorney let him go, and so I was released on what they call the not bound bell, which means there was no evidence, nothing pointed to me at all. And for the next five and a half close to six years, nothing happened on the case, and then the
case was reopened. In nineteen eighty three, Wayne Mosley and Lamar Smith were in Downstate correctional facility for crimes that they have committed, and the prosecut attorney he said, listen, I'll make a deal with both of y'all to testify against Dewey base Out and Wayne. This is what I'll do for you. I'll get all your charges drop and get you out of jail. Lamar, I'll get you early parole.
And both of them agreed. However, because to them being by law what they considered accompasses and saying that they were there at the scene of the crime and another collaborate witness, which was Stanley. But Stanley had no involvement of the crime at all, so that's what made his testimony so pure than the other su and because Stanley Smith collaborating with his brother, the mass Smith, that was the beginning of I got sent in twenty years to life.
But something happened at your trial that should have certainly placed enough reasonable doubt in the state's case, if not actually completely obliterated and knocked down this ridiculous house of cards. Now for contexts, between nineteen seventy seven and your trial in nineteen eighty three, there had been two incidents that were eerily similar to Emma Crapster's murder. And I say incidents because a victim in one of them survived to
identify Donald and Anthony Wise as the perpetrators. Anthony Wise's girlfriend, Madeline Dixon South, testified at your trial that she witnessed Donald and Anthony Wise heading into Emma Crapser's house and testified to how they said that they had gained entry through a window.
She said that they told me that jam a christ from murder. And because of what she said, the Federal Brewer investigation went back inside the house and found the Stringer print the inside window.
See. And what's so completely fucking nuts doing and just sad is that despite all of this, the prosecutor was still able to cloud the jurors minds enough with Wayne Moseley Lamar and Stanley Smith and a bunch of other non evidence bullshit that the jury was somehow able to just gloss over ignore whatever you want to call it, Madeline Dixon South's testimony and Donald Wise's fingerprint.
Before I got sentenced, the prosecuted attorney did everything that he wasn't supposed to do. He took evidence and put it inside the jury room. When the judge told him not to do it, he did it anyway. All the things that showed it I was innocent, you know, he made sure never made it inside the jury room. That's how bad he wanted me.
So six years they spent putting together this false narrative just in order to get a conviction of the guy who they just sort of decided one day was picked out of a hat. I was going to take the fall for this murder rap and that was you. How long did the trial take? First of all, no more than two weeks, So you're a two week trial, the jury goes out. Did you think doing that they were going to come back and that the justice would be served? And they would see the truth.
At first, yes, in my mind, I didn't see anything that pointed to me. So when they came back with the verdict of guilty, I fell to the floor slot of crime. How could you convict me? There was nothing, nothing pointage of me, you know. So it took another turn on my life to where I had to like, you know, I had to become like another person because now I'm setting twenty years of life and I'm wondering how what I'm going to deal with twenty years of
life or crime I didn't commit. You know. I looked at the jury, and the jury, even men, five women, they all started crying. I said, it's too late. It's too late. You convicted. You know, it's too late. It's too late.
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I wasn't need the need a week and I watched a guy get stabbed in the eye and his eyeball came out in front of my face, and I was like, holy shit, after a riot and b blocker. Not only that a guy but I knew by the name of Slim. I wasn't even there, like I said, the week he got murdered, and I was like, what the fuck did I get myself into? How the the fuck am I gonna deal with this? And so my whole attitude changed. The little attitude was don't touch me, don't put your
hands on me, don't be around me. I'm not trying to get cut, I'm not trying to get stabbed. I'm not gonna let nobody hurt me. And from this day forward, I don't give a damn who you are if you try to hurt me, I'm a dude. I gotta do the spot. And that was my attitude and I lived like that for over twenty six and a half years.
Whoa I mean, it's I mean, that's a hell of a first week in a place that could just as easily be called hell. And you were at New York's infamous Sing Sing Correctional facility, where you needed to be hard to survive, but you also underwent a really incredible transformation while inside.
What happened with me when I was inside Sing Sing State Penitentiary. One day I come from the yard and I was finished working out, and guy by name of Sharie walked up to me and he said that I was fronting and fronting inside the state penitentiary. Almost it's like a call out, you know, like you know, you're punk, all these other things that go along with it. But he didn't mean it like that. You know. I took it the wrong way. And I said, yo, yo, yo, what's going on? You know? He said, no, man, I
just need to talk. I need to build. I said, okay. So the correction officer said, lock in, lock in, lock in another man, Bucky, you know. He said, you keep lock keep lock me and I'm inside myself for twenty three hours, well one hour wreck so I'm I'm in there twenty four hours a day. And it was just this one keep like that turned my whole life around, because I asked the guy who's supposed to have been
my friend for a cigarette. He said he didn't have it, and I said, man, name, it is right there in your pocket. Man, why are you acting like that with me? Man? You know how I am man. You know what kind of person I am. Man. So he reached the side of his pocket. And the way he gave it to me, the way he gave it to me, I didn't. I didn't like it at all, but I took it because I needed it. And when I took the cigarette, my whole life changed. That was my minimum office. That was
the beginning. I wasn't even in sing sing no more than the year and a half at the most. And I looked at the cigarette, and I looked at my life, and then I said, look at you, man, let's fucking look at you. You became fuck with savage that they were talking about. You became exactly the person they were fucking talking about. You got mind underneath your bed, that reaf on top of your fucking goddamn bunk. What's wrong with you? Man? At least out in the streets you
were trying to go to school. You ain't doing shit in here. You're doing absolutely nothing with your life. Man, let's look at you. And then I asked myself one question, and I said, if they were to let you go right now, what would your life be like? And I ain't like the answer. The answer was I would be a bum. And so I just turned my life around. I just u said, damn, man, you know you lost your mother, your father don't and this family don't give a shit about you. You don't know where none of
your brothers and your sisters. Is that what are you gonna do? Man? I took the reef I had and I gave it away. The people thought I fucking flipped. They thought I bunked out. I took the wine underneath my bed, I started giving it away. I mean, you are right, you are right. I mean you want it if you don't want it. I was dumping in the fucking toilet bow that day forward. I just never looked back. That was back in nineteen eighty five September twenty seven.
That's why I hang out with Shereef. From that day forward, I got involved in every different program you could think about. I got fifty two certificates, I got my back, had done my master degree. After twenty six and a half years run the prison walls.
It's pretty incredible transformation. And do we I'm gonna talk about you in the third person.
Do we.
Also became the boxing champion at Singh Sing and he became such a legendary fighter in there that they brought in a guy who went on to become the WBA Champion of the world to fight him.
If he didn't come out, I was gonna win. Man. I had cracked his ribs in the second round. He's the tough son of a gun. Lula Valley was a guy man that I had the utmost respect for. I'm glad that he went on had and won. They had him win the championship fight. What it was like was an experience to make me really truly understand that the potential was there, the understanding of what I could have done with my life if I chose to take a deal laid on down the line, I could have done that.
Finally, in nineteen ninety you were granted a new trial on the grounds that the prosecutor had used his remptory challenges, which is, for those people who may be new to the show, that prosecutor is allowed to exclude certain jurors off for no reason, just because he wants to exclude them from serving on the jury. And he had used these challenges to systematically remove all black jurors, ending up for the all white jury, hardly a jury of your peers.
So if you were granted a new trial and they came to you and offered you a deal to plead guilty the manslaughter for seven or fourteen, you've already done six and a half. But that was not even a consideration for you, was it.
Hell? No, First and foremost, during my first child, Stanley Smith got under testified against me. I think that was what really got me convicted. You gotta remember he was helping his brother and he told the judge, I want you to know I committed perjury. I testified against this man because I wanted to get my brother out of jail. Now that I got my brother out of jail, I want you to know that I committed perjury. And he said the same thing. In my second trial in nineteen ninety,
you know I still got prosecuted. This trial is so bad that nothing, absolutely, not one single shred of evidence pointed to me. The where the judge told the prosecute the attorney. He said, listen, the jury should be back on one album with a not guilty verdict. That's when a project in. The attorney said, listen, mister Mozalla will give you seventy to fourteen for manslaughter. All you got to do is mint of the nature of the crime. You see the boy in the six months with the
possible to go on home. I said no, okay, mister Bozalla, And they came back on the second day. We give it what we called time served. All you got to do is mint to the nature of the crime. You go back to sing singing, you be released to go home. I said no. So then at the jury was about to come back with the verdict. The projecting the attorney he said, listen, well give what we call scenario Apha. Please. All you gotta do is to sign the piece of paper.
We walk out the court room right now, I said, no, jury walks in. I get reset this twenty years to life.
I mean wrongfully convicted twice, yes, with no evidence. And we didn't mention this before. But the fact is in a crime like this, a violent crime that involves up close contact, whether it's not a shooting from across the street or across the room. Even this is a woman who was brutally suffocated. There were so many pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene. I heard even close to one hundred pieces of evidence, and none of them
matched you. There was no nobody even ever claimed had your fingerprints or your blood, or your hair, or your saliva or anything was at the crime scene. And they managed to convict you twice based on the evidence of incentivized witnesses. This shit goes on in courtrooms across the country all the damn time, and it happened to Dewey Bozella. And that's what we're here talking about now. So back to prison you go.
When I got back to seeing statement a centry the bottom of day, I went down to what to go to the chapl area. I was trying to find some peace when I walked in. Guess who I see? I see the guy with murdered my brother, Stanley Jackson. I said, oh, hell no, you got to be kidding me. Man. I went inside myself for three days and I thought everything Now, I said, you took a turn of the violence, you took behavior wearingess, you took all these classes dealing with violence.
Now in the time of adversity. Can you really live this out? Can you really, you know, deal with this? Because Cody the Street said, kill him. You gotta kill him. You gotta bust him in the head, you gotta stab him, you gotta whip his ass. You gotta do something otherwise you're a coward, You're a pump, your a sissy, and everything that's that go along with him. So I had
to deal with all these things in my mind. So after three days, I come up out of my cell and they're Stanley on the flats and a block and people looking So you got three tears. People are looking down, and the people are looking down like, oh shit, all hell about the breakthroughs now. You canna remember I was in the New York Day News centerfold for boxing and people know I'm the champ and sing saying they know I'm not plump. And then a lot of them know
that there's the guy who murdered my brother. So I walked to him and I said, You'm I gonna talk to you for a minute. He said yeah, So we go around the corner. Man, why you murder him my brother? He said, Man, I was young with something just happened it looked him down the face, and I looked them up and down. The first thing that came to my mind was then let this shit go. Man, move on with your life. And I reached him and I shook his hand. I said, young man, young man, I forgive you.
My man went off, Yo man, but he murdered your brother. You ain't gonna do shit. He wanted to chap him to Yo man, back up, Yo man, But I said, Yo man, you ain't got nothing to do with this man, between me and him and God. But he murdered. I said, yeah, like I said, you ain't got nothing to do with this. Let it go. So when I did that, the world got out in the penitentiary. You know, I don't know if I could have did what you did. I said, doesn't matter what the fuck you think. Well matter, this
is what was between me and and God. Man. That's what I wanted to do. How the fuck am I gonna ask them able to forgive me? If I can't learn how to forgive him, I'm gonna ask anybody to let my life move forward. If I can't let his life move forward, it begins with me. So I make the final decision. This is my decision, not your decision. And I don't give a damn about the coldest streets, and I damn you don't give a damn about the fucking cold dealing with the penitentiary because this is shit
that got me in there anyway, this cold shit. I'm done with it. And that was my attitude.
Yeah, it was a code of a penitentiary that you didn't belonging in the first place, and somehow or other you transcended the environment and really lifted yourself up out of those walls, even while you were still behind those walls.
And that's incredible. And then it's almost as if you were rewarded, right because well in so many ways, because now we come to the point where you're in the visiting room one day and there's a beautiful young woman named Trina Boone who's there, and how did this interaction take place? Because I've been there, I don't know how the hell you could even you know, I.
Was like a rollbottom of the city. I was involved with they call the jcs and me being involved in the jay ceds. I was there for about a couple of years to where they allowed me to go down their visiting room and take pictures and her brother came up and he introduced me. Say, this is so and so and so and so. He's a boxer, you know, da da da da da da, and he's a good guy. So after that we started talking and she liked boxing. One thing led to another. I was strayed up with her.
I didn't pull more punchers. I said, I'm looking for a wife. You know, I'm not looking for somebody who just want to be a friend if they had the chance, you know, if you want to talk to me, you know, that'd be cool. If you don't, it's okay, you know. And I asked a brother, can I get her phone number? And he gave it to me, and I made the phone calls. He was a little mad at him, but I made the phone call. And then you know, that's how it all got started.
And sure enough you ended up well finding exactly what you're looking for was a wife. And she became a huge part of your life and a big supporter of yours, so much, a part of the beautiful documentary that I watched ESPN Films twenty six years, the Dewey Bosella story. She is obviously almost like the I mean, she has a big role in it. Let's just say that, yes, sir, So now things are going to take another few twists and turns. How did you first learn about the Innocent Project?
I know you started writing, and it took I used to write the same letter every day from what I read, is that true?
Yes? While I was up library still fight my case, I wrote to them. I said I got blood samples and the hand samples, and I didn't hear no answer. And then I wrote them every freaking week until I received the answer, A guy by name A Lee. Listen, don't write us no more. We're gonna put you on the list right behind that. In the year two thousand and three, I went to my first parole board and I got hit with two years.
And from what I understand, the prole board came back at you over and over again with two year extensions despite your impressive transformation. Meanwhile, the Innocist Project took your case in two thousand and five, but when they found out that the Poughkeepsie Police Department had destroyed all the biological evidence, they passed your case onto Wilmer Cutler Hale, who took the case pro bono, and upon your request, they looked into the arresting officer of Lieutenant named Arthur Regula.
Something decide told me to tell them go see the lieutenant author regular And when I invested me in nineteen seventy seven, no one wants to believe me. He told me when I was a kid, man, he was going to get me go by and see him. Man, he might have a change of heart. That's only that came in my head. So they asked him a question, do you have any regulation about mister Deui Bazilo case? Yes? I do. Would you mind telling us? He said, I want you to know that I kept mister Bozilla's personal
files at my house for the last nineteen years. Are you supposed to keep any case at your house? He said no. When I retired, I took his files home with me and I had him for the nice nineteen years because I always knew that one day someone will come talk to me about this man case. I believe that he was innocent. Here are his files. Inside the files of what they call his ario material breaking material, newly discovered evidence, four pieces of evidence that said that
I did not commit the murder. One of the witnesses that said that they heard the garage from our house, the back of the house where they heard the garbage cans being moved by the window seal where the wise brothers had post that went in where Spring Princeville Final and the two ladies who said to listen, we were sitting outside, and we know Wayne Mosley and the other guys who said they were in front of the house, they were not there because we were sitting out there
from seven o'clock to eleven o'clock that night. There was a tase statement that was made that said I did not commit the murder. So a lot of things started pointing to a different direction, and so all us was brought before the judge. Judge said, this is overwhelming evidence, and if we'd had this in nineteen eighty three or in nineteen ninety, I believe that miss Mozilla would not
have been convicted. And this a attorney had domestic case right there on the spot in October twenty ninety, two thousand and nine.
So do we tell us what you were doing when you first got out of it, how you got the Arthur Ashe Courage award at the SP's in twenty eleven and eventually got your shot. I'm getting the chills as I say this. As a professional boxer.
I came out. I was fifty years old, and I was going doing volunteer work at River Rivers Gym. I was working with the kids. I was also working at two ninety Broadway on Main Street in Newburgh, New York. I was transforming people who came from the penitentiary all the way in peace skilled to see their role offices and stuff like that. So I was still communicating with the people who was in the inside. And then one day I ain't know anything about the All Dance Courage Award.
I don't know how it happened. People said that they had recommended me and that I was going to receive bill Ward. I wasn't excitedly excited because I didn't know anything really about the All Dance Courage Award. I get all the way out to LA and I started to see it as holy shit, this is way bigger than one I thought it was out here. You know, I was gonna be in front of like five to seven million people. I thought it would be seven thousand or
something like that. So I gave a speech. After I gave a speech, listening, I know Oscar be.
A hooy heard about it, right, So then Bernard Hopkins and Oscar de la Hoya took an interest in you and supported you in training. But in order to fight professionally, you had to take a number of grueling physical tests to be clear for fighting. And those wouldn't be easy for anyone at any age, but at fifty or fifty one, that's a big challenge. But as I saw, as everyone saw the movie knows, you worked your asshof to get it to fighting shape.
Bernard Hopkins, he said, bring them over to mind camp, bring them up to Philly. Then I'm gonna work with Danny and also get him a conditioning coach. Rick was the guy who actually would get up and train with me and work with me and run with me, you know. And Danny he did pad work and everything to get me in good shape and.
Now comes to fight. Right. This was yeah, funny, man, what the hell's funny about it?
I mean, it was just that I know my qualifications and he had full pro fight and then he had twelve martial art fights as a pro, so that's fifteen prof fights to my none. And I said, man, I'm not I'm taking this fight. I don't give a damn what he got. He wanted to win so bad he didn't care old I was. He wanted to with my butt, and so the first round he won. After he won the first round, the first thing I said to myself was doing what the hell are you doing? You're a
sticking move fighter. Do what you do best, man. So I won by Nanima's decision. That's when I said, okay, do it. This is it. Called it quits. I was off for two other fights and I said, nah, I'm done. I said, I'm not trying to get hurt. You know, I proved to myself, you know, the quality was there. Everything I needed to know was right there. I'm satisfied. I'm good. I never went by.
So your life hit you with some of the hardest punches that anyone has ever been hit with. Losing your mother, abandoned by your father, losing three brothers, spending twenty six years in one of the toughest prisons in the country or maybe even the world, and still you remain unbroken and undefeated. And for our audience, if you want to learn more, you can with Dewey's book as well as the ESPN film. Both of them will be linked in
the bio. But Dewey, your story isn't over yet. I heard you're living down in Atlanta, Georgia.
Now what I'm doing right now, I'm down in Atlanta at Georgia. I juvenile to chant the centers. I'm going around and I'm doing volunteer work. Get around and let people know. You know that, you know you can't turn your life for brown if you just make the right decision. Don't let nobody tell you what you can't do. You hold the key to your own life. You know, you make the final decision. You know. People may say what
they want to say. You know, but at the end of the day long you can go to your bed and you can wake or wake up in the morning and say, man, this is what I'm going to do and mean it from the heart. You good.
So you've been listening to the story and the voice of the man himself, Douey Bosella and Dewey, this is the part of the show where I turned my microphone off, kick back in my chair and close my eyes and just listen as you share your final thoughts for closing arguments.
The night before the fight for President, Barack Obama gave me a call and he said, hello, how you doing, miss Bozil. I said, yeah, good. President. I said wow, and he said how you doing. I said, I'm doing pretty good, man, I'm feeling pretty good. He said, I heard a lot about you or heard that you know, you're doing a lot of things, you know, getting back to the community and everything. He said, I just want to wish you well on your fight. I said, yeah, man,
I appreciate that a whole lot. Then he said, you sure this is going to be your first in the last fight. I said yes. Then after that hung up. I had tears in my eyes and I said, Wow, this is bigger than me, because here, this is the man that wanted to be a basketball player. He woind up being the president of the United States. And I said, everybody who gave up, you know who actually just like life don't mean nothing to him no more, just lost hope or just like I don't care. You know, this
fight is for them. It's not only for me. This this fight, this fighter is to let them know, don't give up, don't let nobody tell you what you can't do, don't give up on yourself, don't make yourself feel like you know you're not worthy this is the fight that I'm fighting. I'm not fighting just a normal fight no more. I'm fighting for the people man who actually just like said, I don't care ef it, you know, I don't want
them to feel that way. I hope that I can be that sponsor to let them see that you can make it. If I can do it, you can do it two years old. This guy's thirty years old. You know, if I can do it at this age, what excuse to you have? You know, especially if you're young. Don't let nobody tell you what you can't do. And that was my mission after that, so I didn't. That's the reason why I was laughing here. I didn't care, you know about the fight. I don't. You can't do nothing
with me. You can't break me, you can't hurt me. I already went through all the difficulties. I already been hurt. I already been let down. I already noticed like that everything taken from me. I really know what it's like that people turn it back on you. I already know it's like that people just like to give up and there's nobody there, and you feel all alone and you
by yourself. I know what it's like man to just like, you know, just go through all the difficulties, you know, and then not once, not twice, but three times, you know, and then have all the hurt and the pinion and the deaths you know, put right in front your face, you know, and then to go out there and do what I did. You can't break me, man, And that's what I wanted. That's the message that morning to get. Don't give up on yourself. Don't feel like man, there's
nothing leaping life because moments you're alive. He said that you're alive. God has something special for you. And if you don't believe in God, whatever it is that you believe in, you know, there's something special for you because you're not done yet. It's just your choice, your decision. You have a decision. I made all the right choices after I made all the bad choices. And that's what this was about.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer. 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 Clyburn, and Kevin wardis 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 Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one