#267 Jason Flom with Evin King

by her daughter's screams. Upon discovering the body, the autopsy showed signs of a struggle, rape and strangulation, and a rape kit collected a great deal of decomposing sperm. The police held Evan on a previous minor infraction while questioning him about Cristel's murder. His body and clothing were free from any of her blood and any sign that he may have been in a struggle. DNA testing also cleared

him as the source of the sperm. However, in the summer heat, the decomposition gave the prosecution an opportunity to create uncertainty about whether the sperm had been deposited at the time of death. The prosecution presented false testimony to circumvent the DNA evidence, claiming that the sperm could have been deposited hours or even days before her death, paying no mind to the sheer number of sperm which indicated

a more recent deposit. Nearly two decades later, DNA testing on Crystal's fingernail scrapings confirmed that her killer was also her rapist. But somehow even that wasn't enough for authorities to immediately release Evan King. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we're going to be interviewing a man named Evan King who served almost a quarter century in prison for a crime that I don't want to say a third grader could have solved it, because

that's not the case. But a third grader would have known that this was not the man that committed this crime. All the evidence was in plain sight, and his conviction was based on a freaking premonition. That's somebody, and I'm sorry I have to laugh to keep from crying. So with us today is the man himself. But before I introduced him, I'm gonna introduce someone who's voice he'll probably recognize Jennifer bergeron of the Ohio Innocence Project. Jennifer, welcome

back to Wrongful Conviction. Thank you Jason for having me back. I feel like we could do just multiple seasons and just interview you because there's so many terrible cases in Ohio, but this case um is really something and the man himself survivor not only of almost a quarter century and some of the worst prisons in the country, but also cancer survivor. Just a guy that's tough to kill and easy to love, a guy named Evan King. Evan, welcome

to the show. Thank you for having me. But before we get into the insanity that Cuyahoga County dished out and we hear that name again and again on this show, let's talk about Evan King as a young man before your life was before you were kidnapped by the state. Let's call it what it was, right, So what was your life like growing up? Where did you grow up? I grew up on the East side of Cleveland, starting and the projects on fifty five. Did you have a

happy childhood? Your brothers and sisters nine of us, five boys and four girls. Wow, So you had a big family, had a whole whole baseball team. And by the time all this swept you off your feet, what was your life like? Well, at the time of this, I was valet at the Omni Hotel and I had ventured into drugs. You know, I was messing with drugs and selling a little drugs, you know, just quick money, doing the wrong time,

you know, listening. I believe is that all drugs should be legal, and no one should ever go to jail for what they put in their own bodies unless they're putting somebody else in harm's way. Um, were you ever involved in any violent crime? I mean, so there was no reason to suspect that all of a sudden one day you just snapped and committed this. What was really a brutal murder which happened in June of involved the

victim and Crystal Hudson. And Crystal was someone who was known to you, right, Yes, she was known to me. I had Ben France, would have for about two weeks, which brings us to the evening, the faithful even of June. She was already gone at this point, but no one knew that yet except for the actual rapist and murderer. But that very night you went to visit Crystal at her high rise apartment building, and her daughter met you

at the apartment door. She invited you in to wait for her mom, so, as far as you knew, she was expected home at some point. Soon you were joined by Crystal's mother and her best friend, Jean, and none of you, none of you, none of you had any idea that Chris, whose body had already begun decomposing in the bedroom closet down the hall. I mean, this is nuts. Can you walk us through how this evening unfolded. I got to the department and her youngest daughter was there,

and I asked her, was a mama here? She said no. I said, well, I wait on her. You know. So the youngest daughter when the bag and played, I watched TV on the couch. Okay, so the body is in the apartment. There must have been an awful stench. I didn't notice a smell. Okay, so you're in the apartment. And then what happens. Christal's mother lived a couple of floors up, and so did her best friend. They came

down later on that evening. Best friend had a couple of forty ounces and we're sitting that the kitchen table. That's where the mother meant and she had a premonition that I killed her daughter. That's exactly what she said. I had a permanent And I was like what. And after a while, the mother decides to go upstairs and she takes the youngest daughter and left me and Jeanne in the department. Now, why would she say she had

a premonition? Yet in still you will leave me and jean in the department, you know, I mean, if you think I killed your daughter, why wouldn't you put us out when you left? And even when they was there, you know, the mother says something about was I cooking or something, because she was talking about she smells something, and I say, well, I don't smell nothing, and just left it at that, and the mother went upstairs with the youngest daughter. Me and jean sat there drinking the

forty ounces. So when Jeanne left, I set them back on the couch and I nodded off from the couch and next thing I know, it's the next morning. Both of the young daughters come in and that's when I will up and they say they wanted to get some clothes with school. They go to the closet and the oldest daughter starts screaming and I jumped off the couch and run back down. Say what is it? She pointed to the close and said, my mother's in the closet. Look,

I am touch nothing not. Took both girls out in the hallway, backed on the neighbor's door. See it. Called the police and for our audience, this is a brutal crime. So just be aware of what you're gonna hear. Is gonna be, you know, upsetting. And this is where I want to bring Jennifer, and Jennifer, can you tell us about the crime itself? So the crime was quite brutal. Poor Crystal was found strangled to death in her own closet,

basically naked. And this was Cleveland in June, and it was hot and it wasn't air conditioned, and she'd been deceased for they decided over twenty four hours before she was even discovered. And she had been in this high apartment in Cleveland this whole time. You know, there's lots of degradation that happens. There was evidence from the very beginning that she had also been raped at the time

of her death. Evan happened to be in the apartment unfortunately when she was found, and so I think that's why he sort of became suspect number one, because he was there and not waited in all way with the two daughters while the police game if you were the actual killer, would you stand there and wait for the police to arrive. I mean, you're neither dumb nor crazy,

and you'd have to be both to do that. And not only that, when the detectives did come, they brought me and set me at the table and say it without mind asked, of course, now let's say it. No, I don't mind. The police, so far as I could tell, never did any actual investigation. They just decided it was him, in part because Crystal's mother told them she had a

premonition that Evan was going to harm her daughter. Now, somehow that premonition even came into court, which still boggles my mind as to how that was introduced evidence, but it was. I wish this was the only time I had ever heard of something like a premonition being admitted into court, but it's not. Maybe instead of courts, we should all just go to psychics, you know what I mean, and see if they can figure these things out for us.

I mean it was a combination of laziness. Right, here's a guy who was in the apartment, okay, must be him, and then oh, there's a premonition bingo, right, and then they ran a check on me. I had a couple of tickets on me, a bench warrant, and after they did a little investigation up there, they took me from downtown. So okay, so you get arrested on these bench warrants and then did they hold you from that time right up until the trial? When did you find out you

were being charged with the murder? I think it was seventy two hours later. Yeah, clearly they did a lot of investigation if they arrested and for murder and that short amount of time. Once I went to del I never got out, and the detectives interviewed me a couple of times over them seventy two hours, and I never forget the detective asked me, but I take a lot of de tech tests. I see, it's sure, I take a lot of detect tests. He never brought it up again.

One of the things that really tripped me out was when the guy came and took photographs of my body. I'm standing in that naked. He had me get undressed, right, my man, Luke, he was like, turn around, he had his camera in his hand. He was put your hands up and you know, looking around. He said, you the first guy. I never took a picture, or if he didn't take one picture, I didn't have a scratch on me, no bruises. Now, I'm a light scanned guy. Believe me,

I bruise easy. He didn't take one picture. And I'm glad you brought that up, because it's important to recognize that miss Hudson didn't leave this world willingly, right. She fought there were fingering out scrapings. Right, we find out later if they knew that, and of course that you know, she had scratched her attacker. But somehow or other, you didn't have any scratches en after I got even take one freaking picture. So okay, this is this is how

ridiculous this really is. And it's made even more so by virtue of the fact that the biological evidence, and there was a lot of it, right, and none of it matched Evan. So how did they square that circle? Yeah, not only was there no evidence that that Evan actually committed the crime unless you count the fact that he was in the apartment in the premonition. But there was actually evidence at the time of trial that he didn't

commit the crime. They had completed a rape kit on crystal and did some DNA testing on it even back then, and there was male DNA present, but it wasn't evan, so you know, they kind of had to come up with a way to explain that away because there was also, as I said before, there was physical evidence that she had been raped, meaning physical evidence of trauma to her, you know, intimate areas that suggested and confirmed that she was raped at the time, but they just kind of

ignored the physical trauma the areas. They basically got around this evidence by some testimony from some folks from the coroner's office from Cuyahoga County that we now know well they would have known it at the time, but no one paid that close of attention to it. But we know for sure now was just completely bogus. The big question was when this semen was deposited. Was it deposited at the time of death or was it deposited up

to a week earlier. And of course the state came in and said, well, that could have been there for up to a week, and so she wasn't raped and murdered. The problem was that the folks from the Corner's office, especially one, you know, they were focusing on the wrong information um that was scientifically invalid at the time to even look at. They were looking at different fluid levels, but they should have been looking at sort of the number of sperm and the amount of semen that there was,

and that's not what they were doing. So they weren't even following the appropriate practices at that time, and so that allowed them to go forward with the theory that she wasn't actually raped and murdered, that she was just murdered, even though the evidence clearly showed that she was raped

and murdered. So the notorious Kuyahoga County Carner's office was either unconsciously or consciously presenting false testimony, as they've done before, they created some wiggle room for the jury to still

believe in you as the assailant. If that sperm had been deposited earlier than the time of death, perhaps she had had contentsual sex or even been raped, you know, hours or even days before she was killed, making it plausible for the jury to believe that the DNA evidence from the sperm didn't determine who actually killed her, which would have left you as still some sort of potential suspect.

Then you can see how the jury got fooled. Yeah, I mean, you know, Unfortunately for Evan, his defense counsel didn't effectively cross examine them on this and didn't bring any expert to sort of debunk it. It wasn't that, you know, it should have been a battle of the experts where one was saying one thing and the other was saying the opposite. They were just flat out wrong, and nobody called them on it. Evan, who was your attorney and were they court appointed? Yeah? I never forget

that name, Rockell Russo Wow, what a name. He didn't present no defense from me, because even my family when they came to court, they was like, your lawyer ain't objecting to nothing. He wouldn't object and he was falling asleep up time. You know, if you feel that lawyer is selling you out, you gotta let it be known instead of a lawyer telling you. Because Rockel Russa just kept telling me I got it. Just sit there, I got this and I believed him. I sat there and

that was the mistake on my behalf. But you don't know at the time. Yeah, even if it seemed like you could see it, then you just didn't know it, unfortunately until it was too late. But back then, in that moment, did you still hold out any hope that the jury was going to see through this false testimony and believe their own eyes and ears when it came to the actual evidence in this case, Yeah, of course, you know. I was thinking, well, I didn't do it,

so they they ain't gonna refine me guilty. I mean, that's where my mind was. But you know, when you stand up and then and they come back with a verdict of guilty, you know you gotta take it and keep your head held up and walk out that God said what I wanted to say to the judge. I definitely told him I'll be back in this courtroom. I'd never forget what I told. Judge Corgan. What did you say at the said Mr King, I'm sending you to fifteen years of life, And he said, do you have

anything to say? I say, you're sentence and an innocent man to prison while a guilty man walked the streets of Cleveland. Free pointed to him, and I said, one day I'll be back in this corproom for you to set me free. I have to see it that. I turned and I walked out of my head. He held him. Any prison is bad because basically you're on guard twenty four hours a day. I mean, you don't know when somebody flip out, they flip off for the minus thanks. Somebody might not be able to get on the phone

and bush you in your head to cut you. Heah. I mean it's it's crazy on guard twenty four hours a day, basically, you know. But even you can stay in prison and keep back in a fool in prison and be that the rest of your life. For you got to learn some things or get some help. I couldn't adapt good to the books as far as the Gates law, and so I had to start writing letters, seeing who can give me some help. I was lucky enough to get in touch with Miss Burst right now, wow,

innocent project gods. So you ended up finally in the hands of people who cared a lot and were talented lawyers, and they weren't gonna let go. But one after another, these courts denied you and it was not that long ago that justice was finally delayed but not denied. So

Jennifer take us through these denials. So Evan was represented by a different attorney for a while, and back in two thousand four I think actually he filed the first motion for DNA testing, and it took a long time, but in two thousand eight he asked for DNA testing on the fingernail scrapings because, as you mentioned, we know that Crystal Hudson fought back at the time of her death, and so his theory was, well, if we test these fingernail scrapings and you find male DNA and it's the

same as the DNA from the semen, then that's going to confirm what Evans been saying since day one, which is that he was not the murderer, and that the person who loved the Semen was actually raped her and was the murderer. So Evan had filed for DNA testing and the trial judge had ordered it, saying, I think I can quote him here, DNA belonging to an unknown party found under the fingernails of the victim, and then went on to say would prove the identity of the

real killer. If it matches the DNA from the scene. Okay, So basically, the trial judge was agreed that if the fingernail scrapings came back and matched the rape kit, that that would prove Evans claim. Well, it did exactly that. I first read what did Joe said about if the fingernails scripting, Matt, that's it, don't out to you. And then when it comes back for him to deny me,

that just took me away. I'm like, isn't writing you say if if this come back the mess that it eliminates me as the killer, and then it comes back to do just that, then you say not, even though he explicitly said before that that's what he was looking for, but he denied it based on the expert testimony from the trial. That same expert testimony that we've been talking

about that we know was just complete fogus nonsense. And so the trial judge said, well, the jury already knew that the DNA on the rape kit came from someone else, and you know, the expert said that could have come out to a week beforehand, so it really doesn't mean anything. So then he appealed. This was in two thousand twelve, and the appeal was split three ways. One judge, who has now in Ohio Supreme Court justice said he'd already

showed he was actually innocent and should be released. And then there was two other opinions basically saying, well, we see the DNA results, but there was no expert testimony contradicting the trial expert testimony. So at this point is when the Ohio Innocence Project got involved, and with the help of actually one of our former lawyers, carry Wood, who worked at the Public Defender's Office, she got an expert involved and then she got in touch with me.

Long story short, we refiled several things in state court and we also filed in federal court. The Corner's Office and the Prosecutor's office refused to give us all of the information we were asking for, like the additional data on the DNA testing, and they just flat out refused

to give it to us. So our expert was working with what he had available, and he produced an affidavit that's said several things, one that the Corner's office experts who testified at the trial essentially presented false testimony, and also the additional information about the fact that they found male DNA under her fingernails indicated it had to have been a struggle because most people don't walk around with

DNA under their fingernails belonging to someone else. Um and the fact that they were able to get a full profile off the rape kit all those years later also indicated that semen must have been put there at the time of death, because it wouldn't be that strong that much later. So we had three different motions pending and the trial court level, but eventually, like a year and a half later, the trial judge finally just denied all

of those, so we had to peel it again. I mean, it's just insane that you were denied by the trial court at this point, considering that you were remedying what they claimed was the reasoning behind the earlier denial involving the DNA match from the scrapings and the rape kit. Now you had done it. You had refuted the trial experts, but the trial court went ahead and moved the gold hosts again, calling your refuting of the state's false expert

testimony a quote battle of the experts. Of course, you appealed this denial, and in January two seventeen, the appellate court agreed with you, reversing the trial court's denial, granting you access to the DNA test results, which they had previously been blocking. They granted an upload to codas to see if you could get a match to another known purpose,

and so far there's no dice with that. But significantly, you've got an evidential hearing out of this, so you all start prepping for what you thought was gonna be an epic battle. Your expert now had access to those DNA results, so he could go beyond what he'd already done in the APPI dated, and in two thousand seventeen, something truly unexpected happened, just completely out of the blue.

One day in April, I was in a meeting and got got done, and I had like multiple voicemails and emails and things from one of the people from the prosecutor's office. I called her back and she told me that they had reviewed the case and talked to the corner's office again and had concluded essentially that we were right and that our expert was right, and that they

were agreeing that they would release Evan. And I think I fell out of my chair about when that phone, when I had that conversation because it was so unexpected, given how they had been fighting everything up until that point. But of course the first thing I needed to do was to get ahold of Evan to tell him the news. So that means that means I think it's not going to get filed till Monday. But I think that means you should hopefully be able to be going home soon.

He MEMA moment to process this, I wanted. I wanted you to know right away, all right, I do. I knew this did a day, a couple one, babe, But I do. I cry too because my brother told me, don't know what, but you know, one thing to show. I know you're looking down at me, you know, I'm sure she is, like Ohlwa told you I had complete play in you. You know, thank you. After told me I had, I just laid the phone down. In my

mind just tears came out. That's where I'm telling up now, tears just because at that the only thing that I really think about it was mom my mom and mind. Because my mama always told me the Lord's gonna let you out one day. He just wants you to get your life together. He held on right, yeah, And when she told me that it was. There was a lot of tears that day, but it's the day that I would never forget. Yeah, we had the call on Friday, and then it was getting ready to be Easter weekend.

So yeah, as your listeners probably know by now, when someone is released from prison after they've been wrongkly convicted, it's obviously amazing, but it's not like their sent home with you know, any anything to help them readjust to life. So you know, we had to go into sort of high gear in our office trying to make sure Evan had somewhere to go, and he did with his cousin,

who was fantastic. But I was on the phone most of the weekend trying to make sure all of that was said, and then wait for them to transfer back to the county jail, and then I was able to visit him there the night before we went back to court,

which was amazing, um. And then finally we went back to court, but then it took hours and hours for them to process him back out, and then in the meantime, even after we knew he was coming home, it still wasn't a relaxing experience because even just simple things like he needed access to medication that he took daily, and they weren't letting him come home with any And I spent the day trying to track down the doctor who ran the jail to make sure they would at least

release him with a prescription so that we could make sure he didn't miss any of the doses of the medication that he needed. They wouldn't even give me the medication I had then they didn't let you take it out. And it was crazy, which makes absolutely zero sense on any level. Right, It's just some bureaucratic insanity on top of all the other insanity. But luckily you had this great team behind you and and good family, and so you walk out into the fresh air. What was that

moment like? And where did you go? Did you did you go straight to a restaurant or a bar, or did you hug a tree or what did you go? When once we got outside, you know, just the air is different on this side of the defense. It's like you can breathe again, you know. To Media's God's gift. I hear you. I mean we hear it in different ways from every different person who's been through what you've been through, different variations of it. It's Um, it's it's beautiful.

I mean sad, but it's beautiful. So UM, we're just happy your your home and you're free, and we wish you, you know, every blessing that life has to offer going forward. You certainly deserve it, UM, And I want to before we go to the closing of the show, first of all, I want to encourage people to support the Ohio Innocence Project and we will put a link in the bio for people who want to donate or get involved in any way they can. Um, you were the twenty five

person exonerated by the Ohio Innocence Project. It's a remarkable number, but still it's a tiny number in terms of the overall innocent people that are remained behind bars. But we're happy you're here. And now we're going to turn to the closing of our show, which we call Closing Arguments. It works like this. I think you both again, Jennifer. You know, you inspire me and so many other people by your remarkable advocacy, and it's always great to have

you on the show. And obviously I'm working closely with the Highly Instance Project on other cases Jhon Jones and others, and UM I know we're gonna win those two. It just takes longer than we wanted to, like it always does, but a closing arguments works like this. I'm gonna finally stop talking. I'm going to turn my microphone off. Thank you again, Evan King, Jennifer berge Round for being here

with us closing arguments. I'm gonna just turn my microphone off and let you say anything else that's left unsaid that you want to share with our audience. Evan, We're gonna save you. I mean, you're the man of the hour, so you're gonna be the last one to speak, if that's okay, and we're gonna let Jennifer share her thoughts and then hand the mic off to you and then take us out into the sunset a rather well. First of all, I wanted to say thank you for having

me back on. I'm kind of sad that I'm here because it means that there's more clients whose cases we can discuss. But I'm so grateful for the light that you're bringing to cases all over the country, their stories that deserve to be told. Also, if I may, would like to put in a plug for two of my current clients, Carl Willis and Wayne Brady, or there's a website set up free Wayne and Carl dot com where that you can go read more information and find all

kinds of information. And then of course I wanted to say thank you to Evan for being here with me and you've always inspired me to keep going. And anytime I'm down and need to pick me up, I like to watch the video ofs you woo hoo hooing after you're coming out of the court when you were released, because it's just a feeling of pure joy that gives

me a smile every time. Thank you, Thank you uh, first of all to how Innocent Project was the gods and to me their family, to me for those of you out there listening, look up to O How Innocent Project. Some of you have people in love, ones that you know are innocent, need to be free. You don't know where to start, Just give him a call and as always, stay in your lane, try to stay troubled for you, but the Lord has your back. Just keep your faith

and continue to do the right thing. But one thing I would like to say came out good out of this. I haven't messed with the drug cocaine and almost thirty years now. I've been clean for almost thirty years now. People who are always talking about you can't stop drugs overnight. Oh yes you can. When the right thing happened to you, you can stop in it, Dame. But that all happens in God's blessings. So with that, thank you for having me here on your podcasts. As I bade you verywell,

Thank you, Thank you for listening to ronfl Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Ward Us with research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied 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 wrong Conviction, as well as at

Lava for Good. On all three platforms. You can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam ralevul Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one