#266 Maggie Freleng with Faye Jacobs

I mean, you have this intense pressure. You know that they have the ability to say, hey, we're gonna leave you sitting in jail at prison for a year or two years or more while you await your retrial. Many, many strong willed and brave and brilliant people have taken the pola because it's there's really no way out and they just want to go home. They have to go home. I didn't comprehend that I was going to prison for

the rest of my life. I'm thinking to myself, are you saying that I can never be with my parents again. I can never go back to my bid, you know, my home. So I'm losing all my friends. I mean, all this is going to be taken. Are you kidding me from lava for good? This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Lakwanda Faye Jacobs. On the evening of February nine, Kevin Gaddy and Tony Davis were walking down the street when a car pulled up. A man and

a woman got out and held them at gunpoint. They demanded the jacket Kevin Gaddy was wearing. It was a Chicago Bulls starter jacket. In the nineties, these satin jackets were a status symbol. As Kevin was handing his jacket over, a struggle ensued and he was shot in the chest. Around the same time, Lakwanda Fade Jacobs and her mother were on their way to church when they saw police commotion near Fay's house. They stopped to see what was going on. As Faye got out of the car, an

officer approached her and asked her who she was. Faye was instantly arrested and taken down to the police station for questioning, but she had an alibi and the woman they should have been looking for was at least fifteen years older than Faye, but it didn't matter. Faye was eventually charged and convicted of the murder of Kevin Gaddy. They knew all alone that I was innocent, but just wanting to use me as an example to other young juveniles. Therefore,

I was railroaded into the system. I am Lakwanda Faye Jacobs. I was arrested for capital felony murder of a friend of mine. Lakwanda Fe Jacobs was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on February nineteen. She was the baby of a big family, six boys and six girls. I was always picked on by my older siblings, but um, I considered myself stronger than my other siblis, even though I was the baby. I come from a great family. Uh. I was raising the church. My dad was started off as a deacon

in the church and ended up becoming assistant pastor. And I was deeply involved at the age of four years oh facing in the church choir and was an outgoing child and teenager. But I'm just a people person, and that's just the type of personality I've always had. I was a friends with everybody from church people. I even had friends that were gang members, you know. UM, just a typical teenager. I had fights. Uh, I had boyfriends,

I did a lot. You know, That's who Fae was, and like many kids, she had lots of different visions for her future. I wanted to be a nurse. At one time, I wanted to be a beautician because I loved doing my dolls hair, you know, so of course I was like, I'm going to be a beautician. My grandfather was a barbara and my grandmother was a beautician. I even dreamed of being in the army one day. But then later on, as I got older in my teenage, I was like, nah, I don't want to go do that.

You know. In high school, she played on the junior varsity volleyball team, and she says she was incredibly popular and other students looked up to her. I dreamed of graduating, going to the prom, going to dance, and you know, I could have possibly been the queen because I was so popular. But you know that those are things that will rob from me that opportunity. On the morning of February nine, sixteen year old Faye got up and went to church to attend service. It was Sunday and she

had planned to sing at two services that day. Afterward, her mother picked her up from the house. Faye rented with her brother. They got back to face Mom's apartment at two pm. Face friend picked her up shortly after that and they ran some errands, including to the laundromat and back to her friend's house. He dropped Faye back at her mom's place, and around five thirty her Sunday was pretty packed. I had another service to attend that night. My mom and I were going to a singing at

another church. Phase Mom arrived home shortly after and found Faye relaxing on the couch. Faye was still in her white church clothes, but at the same time, over a mile away, a situation was unfolding that would change Phase life forever. Seventeen year old Kevin Gaddy and his friend Tony Davis, who was fourteen, were walking down the street when a gray car pulled up. A man and a woman got out. The woman had a gun and they demanded the jacket. Kevin Gaddy was wearing a Chicago Bulls

starter jacket. As Kevin was handing it over, he put his hand in his coat pocket to get his brush. That's when things got messy, and the woman shot Kevin in the chest. On their way to their second church event of the day, Faye and her mom passed the crime scene right outside Phay's house, so they stopped to see what was going on. As Faye got out of the car, a police officer grabbed her and I was instantly threw on the car put in handcuffs. At this time,

I didn't know that a shooting had occurred. I was already handcuff once I said who I was and that I lived there too as well, at the house that they were at, I was put in the backseat of the car and taken to the Little Rock police department.

Not knowing what is going on at the precinct, the police asked Faye if they could do a gunshot residue test on her, and so after my gun residue was negative, I was like, well, we're gonna let her go home, you know, And he's like, if you hear anything about a shooting, let us know, and I was like, who shot? What is going on? It wasn't until days later that Fay learned it was her friend Kevin, who was shot

and killed outside of her house. Kevin and I were both the same age, but he was a few months older than me and uh he was real known for his scooter and his skills with basketball. I always, even as a kid, I used to say, you're gonna go big, Kevin, you know, because he was so good at basketball, you know. Uh. But like I said, from kindergarten to a seventh grade,

him and I went to school together. Kevin was pronounced dead less than an hour after he was shot, and it was so unbelievable because I knew he was such a good kid. He was a good friend, and it was just very devastating to learn that he had been shot. During their investigation into Kevin's murder, police found at least

eight eyewitnesses who saw the shooting. The descriptions of the woman who fired the gun varied, but most agreed she was in her thirties with scars under her eyes, and that she was wearing dark clothing, including a black hat. Tony Davis was the eyewitness closest to the shooting, and on that very day described the woman as quote black, mid thirties, approximately five ft eight, heavy build, medium complex, and wearing a dark ski cap and bluish gray jacket

and pants with frizzy hair. Yet Faye, a young teenager wearing entirely different clothing, had already been to the police station and been questioned. So investigators had her photo and showed it to witnesses. Five of them said Faye was not the shooter. Tony Davis was shown a picture of Faye and two times, once on the day of the crime and again him four days later. He was unable

to make an identification. But then nine days after the shooting, the police brought him back in and again they showed him a photo lineup, and this time he identified Faye as the shooter. They had absolutely no idea what was going on. I was going to school and this day I wasn't filling will and I was at my sister's house and my mom called my sister and said, the police has come to my job looking for fae Um

for murder. And I was like, murder, I haven't killed anybody, And so um, my mom came to my sister house. We called my dad, we called my pastor, and we went to the police station just to clear my name, you know, to tell them I haven't did anything. You know. I mean when I tell you, I had no clue that I was even a suspect um and you know, and that could be what you I was so young. But I didn't commit the crime, so why would I

even think that I'm a suspect. I had no knowledge of it until we went to the jail to clear my name, and at that time they arrested me. They did not allow me to clear my name. They arrested me and charged me with capital felony murder and set my bun at one million dollars. Okay, I'm sixteen, and I'm like, I had never been to jail before in my life, and so I am scared. I'm very scared. M M. This episode is underwritten by A I G,

a leading global insurance company. A I G is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference in the lives of its employees and in the communities where we work and live. In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of A I g's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the A i G pro Bono Program provides free legal

services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. M Before trial, Faye was appointed public defender James Cluette to represent her. At the time of his appointment, clue Ever is representing a client by the name of Sean Riggins. As it happens, Riggins and his brother had been among the witnesses on the street when Kevin was murdered. Two

weeks later, Riggins was arrested for an unrelated crime. At that time, he ended up telling police that he'd seen the shooter and that she was actually younger than thirty, closer to fifteen or sixteen. He was the only person to say that, and when investigator showed him a photo spread of suspects, he identified Faye as the shooter. Now

this part gets a little confusing, so follow carefully. Not only as phase attorney James Cluette representing two clients involved in the same case a clear conflict of interest, but he also asked Faye to lie for Sean Riggins. Faye was in jail with a woman named Bertie Walker, one of Riggins's co defendants in another case. Clwett approached Faye with an offer. He asked her to say that Birdie

had told her she committed the crime alone. In exchange, he said Riggins would not testify against Faye about Kevin's murder, but Fay rejected the offer. She refused to lie and asked for a new lawyer. She was appointed attorney Bill McArthur. James Cluette was eventually just barred for separate issues. Phase trial started a year later in April n A man named Clifton Thomas was originally charged with Faye as her alleged accomplice, but the charges against him were eventually dropped.

So I'm going to court and I'm like, are you serious? I can't believe this is Why are they doing this to me? And the judge keeps my bun at a million in the states, we're charging her as an adult. I couldn't believe that this was happening. Prosecutors Howard Kopman and John Miller presented no forensic evidence linking Faye to the crime. They relied heavily on the eyewitness statements of Tony Davis, who was with Kevin that evening, and Shawn Riggins.

When fagoes to court. News media is everywhere. She said the case was high profile because of a slew of killings of young people in Arkansas at the time. Arkansas was on the rise of gang valance back in the late eighties early nineties, and so of course law enforcements was forced to do something about those crimes. So they had a thing called Banging in Arkansas. It was like the Arkansas was like a small Los Angeles with the crips and the bloods, and they had videos and they

still had these videos. You can pull them up on

YouTube called Banging in Arkansas. So I did this is the County coroner for Little Rock, Arkansas, on one of the films several years ago, when I saw the death rate was increasing, but the victims were becoming much younger and younger, and began to see tattoos and brands on on the victims, and began to notice that the violence just was increasing and drive by shooting and random shootings and retaliation killings, and it just went on and on until we had a record rate of homicides in Little Rock,

and it looks we've broken the record in nineteen and it's just gone on and on and off. In fact, a half hour earlier and a few blocks away from Kevin Gaddy's murder, there was another potentially related crime. Around five pm, Little Rock Police Department responded to an aggravated assault where eye witnesses told police there was a female perpetrator, a male accomplice and guess what a great car. It's unclear what happened with that case and something else related

to this crime. To help you understand, Starting in the late eighties, sports starter jackets were a hot commodity. An article in the New York Times from February of nineteen discusses the phenomenon, calling it quote an increasingly pervasive kind of urban crime, robbery by young people willing to kill

for clothes end quote. They site that at the time these jackets went for ninety to two hundred dollars, which today would be about two hundred to four hundred dollars, So Kevin Gaddy becoming a target for his jacket that night was not necessarily unusual at the time. However, phase attorney failed and making a case that Faye was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and that

she did not commit the crime. Faye was able to testify on her own behalf, however, and she tried to make the case for herself that she did not kill her friend. In my little mind, I'm thinking that, you know, as soon as I go to court, I can just tell the judge that I didn't do this, and you see, and I'll go home. But the reality, that's not how it works, you know. But I didn't know that I really believe that I was going to get out of there.

On April, Faye was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole. She was just sixteen years old. I didn't I didn't comprehend that I was going to prison for the rest of my life. You know. It was until I got back to the jail that the jailer told me, you know, you're not gonna ever get out. You know you're going to jail, you know. And so I was broken inside, you know, had been ripped apart,

you know, or he telling me. I'm thinking to myself, are you saying that I can never be with my parents again. I can never go back to my bed, you know, my home. So I'm losing all my friends. I mean, all this is gonna be taken, Are you kidding me? Phase world had turned completely upside down. I had many days of crying. So when I was first put in, I was put in a sale all by

myself because I was sixteen. But days later I was sent to an adult place because I was charged as an adult, and so of course I had adults tunt me and bothered me. I had even got jumped on it in the county jail, you know, because of this high profile. And that's the juvenile that killed the guy for his jacket, you know, that's how it was labeled. And so I would go to my room, I would cry.

I wouldn't let people see me cry because if they saw that, that a show a sign a weakness, and they would really take advantage of you and do things. But yeah, I was very scared. Eventually, Face settled into the prison environment, and just like in high school, her outgoing personality and love of people got her through. By the time she had been there for several years, she had started making a name for herself as a generous

person to those coming into the system. And so a lot of ladies come in there and they don't have the headphones and things like that. So I always had extra so I can share with the other ladies, you know. In two thousand nine, Tiffany Woods came to prison. I was incarcerated for d W eyes. So they had moved me in the barracks with ay and in order to watch TV, you have to have a radio. Well I didn't have any family outside, you know, to actually send

me any money to buy me a radio. So I've seen Faye just all bubbly playing games and stuff, and I was like, excuse me, ma'am, can I borrow your radio? And so she was like, yeah, it's over there on my bed. So that that started our our friendship. Faye and Tiffany hit it off, and when Tiffany got out, she promised Faye she would write her. You know, being in prison, you you meet people and people tell to you,

I'm gonna write you. I'm gonna support you, you know, all the way, and so you hear that all the time. And I have been lit down so many times. Well with Tiffany. Tiffany um left and she wrote me and I was like, oh my god, this girl really wrote me. And then she sent me a phone number and said I could call her. And I could not believe it because that was something that had never happened throughout my hold in conceration. To be able to have contact with

another resident had once been there. It's so small loyalty. I'll tell you I'm gonna do something. I'm gonna do it. Tiffany and Faye maintained their friendship over the years, all the while Faye fought for her innocence. She filed appeal after appeal after appeal for reasons including ineffective assistance of counsel face as her second attorney, Bill McArthur, failed to meet with her before trial and failed to file any

discover her emotions, or conduct an investigation. He failed to show why Fay could not have committed this crime, starting with the description of the shooter. The shooter, according to Tony Davis's testimony at the trial, was a black woman with scars under her eyes and light brownish red curly hair peeking out of a black hat, and she was wearing a big winter coat and pants. This description does

not fit Faye at all. She had no scars under her eyes, was wearing white church clothes, and her hair was in a top knot for folks who were very familiar with black hair African American hair. She couldn't have gotten her hair up into this very smooth, beautiful top knot if it had been a red curly du under a cap just hours earlier. Right. This is Trisha Bushnell.

She's the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project known as the m i P. But none of those things ever come out, and none of those things are ever investigated or brought to the jury's attention. You know, when you look at Face case and you look at the evidence, you can really they just think there's really no good evidence here, right, You can look at it and said,

there's no good evidence. So how does she get convicted? Well, part of it is it's just racism, pure and simple, right, But you have a system that has a young black girl up there in the state of saying she did it, and what does that read like to jurors. The bias appears to have started with the cops who arrested Faye on the spot, and Faye feels strongly that there was racial profiling involved. Tricia is currently Phase attorney. The m IP took Phase case in when they reviewed it and

realized it's stunk of a wrongful conviction. So there's actually where a lot of witnesses to this crime. And when we went and talk to people, five other people who actually also knew Face it was not her, including Sean Riggins's brother who was standing with him at the car and said we couldn't see anything from where we were

at the car. Sean Riggins, remember, had told police that Faye was the shooter, but he ultimately did recant his identification, and that was the basis of evidence that we used when we file the federal habeas petition asking them to overturn phase conviction. Filed that in the m IP. Also brought up in the appeal the four additional eyewitnesses who said the shooter was not Faye and who were never

called to testify at trial. However, before a judge could respond to the petition, there was a new development in the United States Supreme Court ruled in Miller versus Alabama that juveniles cannot be sentenced to mandatory life without parole like they was. Those who had received this sentence are entitled to every sentencing hearing. But Faye had a difficult decision to make. If she was resentenced and released based on the time she had already served, she could not

fight her innocence claim. And remember, there were two people involved in the crime, a man and a woman, and a man was originally charged with Faye, and we know in the co defendant's case, when his attorney asked for discovery, they dropped the charges. So we wanted to know what was it specifically from the crime lab, and rather than giving us that, they gained an offer of time served.

And that is when Faye then had to make a really difficult and horrific choice of you know, do I want to keep pursuing my innocence claim in this federal court. If she did, she could lose the deal to be released based on time served. So she had to choose accept this chance to be free, knowing she would remain a felon or stay in prison and continue the potentially never ending fight for her own exoneration. On July, they accepted the time served offer and walked out of prison

to walk out of those gates. Oh, it was such a release that I was like, oh my god, I am out of Yet I had some emotions because I thought about the ones that I was leaving behind, and that was the life that I knew because I'd been there for over twenty summer, So you know, I had these mixed emotions. Yet I was so happy to be home with those had been fighting to get me out and be around people other people. One of those people

was Tiffany. She was gone ten years before I ever got out, But that whole teen year she was out. She constantly wrote me send me money, just was there for me faithfully, and that was something that I had never in my life experience. I had no one to be so genuine, authentic. It was just unbelievable what I was like. They don't make people like they make Tiffany anymore. Tiffany and Phase relationship developed into a romantic one. These days,

they traveled back and forth to see each other. Faye lives in Kansas City, Missouri, and Tiffany out in rural hunts Ville, Arkansas. I am country. I would rather be in the woods than the city. Do you bring her to the woods? Yes, as much as possible, But and then she takes me to the city, like, we have a fishing trip planned here pretty soon, so I want to have to go get our tent. Wow, how's how's being in the woods house camping? I don't picture you as a camper. I am not. I am not. That's her.

And so where she lives Huntsville, population seventy five. She's been there all her life. I don't think I would ever live in a country town. Like I wish you could see your face right now, but uh yeah, hopefully in the future techny and I could. We would live together and have our fur babies and the babies that you know that I desire to have. It woul could be a big family. They and Tiffany hope to have

a family someday. But since they was resentenced and released, her conviction still stands, so she's technically still a convicted felon. Because of this felony, I cannot adopt, which is heartbreaking. Yet um I'm hoping to maybe possibly um have a surrogate, so that's the goal, and if not my niece, hopefully they can have babies for me something like that. And I also have three amazing babies. They are two snails ers and one tiny teacup Chihuahua that are my babies.

But as of adopting, life has been hard with the label convicted felon attached to her, even with the support of the m I P. When I do uh go for interviews or go to apply, I'm given a letter that you know, she's actually innocent of this crime. Yet we're still fighting to clear her name, and it helps in some aspects, but I've been denied housing in spite of the letter, So sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't Fate currently works as a receptionist for Chevrolet in

Kansas City. She also advocates for other wrongfully incarcerated people and is on the board of an organization which helps formally incarcerated women returning to society. Phase only shot at exoneration is now clemency, and her first clemency petition from Arkansas Governor Atha Hutchinson was denied. She cannot apply again for another eight years. You know, I'm just so happy to be free. Yet I'm physically free, but I'm not free.

If you want to help Faye, go to change dot org and type in Faye Jacobs to ask Governor Asa Hutchinson to part in Faye next time. Un Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Hank Skinner, I'm sitting there looking to think, learning and fixing to put me on. I could see it through the door, the handed door open. I could see the microphone, and I could see the straps, the harm boards, and I was absolutely convinced that I was fixing it. Now. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction

with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul, with additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated

composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one