#415 Maggie Freleng with Faye Jacobs

We originally met and interviewed Faye Jacobs at the twenty twenty two Innocence Network Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and her episode was released on June sixth, twenty twenty two. Fortunately enough, we caught up with her again at the conference in twenty twenty three.

I am here at the Innocence Network Conference twenty twenty three in Phoenix with Faye Jacobs.

Hey, how are you doing?

Finding you It's so awesome to be bad.

I know we met a person here last year. It was great. So what have you been up to?

Oh my god, I have been running like a chicken with his head cut off. I don't know if I mentioned the last time we was here, I had started my own business, Innocence to Transportation Service, and now I contract to schools transporting students and then nursing homes as well. I mean, wow, it is growing so big, bigger than what I expected. I am now in the process of getting a limousine, a party bus, and a tour bus for my services.

Wow.

That's amazing. So you're an incredible entrepreneur now. But one of the things about your case was you were freed but not exonerated.

Are you exonerated.

Yet I am not exonerated. We now have a new governor in Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee, who waiting on her to be in office at least about a year, and then will present my clemency application. We will do an application that will go before the Parole Board, and the parole Board would do their recommendations, and from there they will send their recommendations to Sarah. I truly believe somebody's gonna exonerate me.

You know what does that like? To be free but not free?

It's complicated. It's bittersweet because you know, I still have obstacles against me. I still have issues before I even started my own business of trying to apply for other jobs, because when they do a background check of courts, a felony comes back. And even with housing, this conviction still hangs over my head. I think the last time I was here, I wasn't. But I am on the board of directors of a Journey to New Life. It's an organization helping men and women's coming out of prison to

I'm sure things pop up all the time. You don't even think about that it impacts you.

Oh yeah, I want to adopt once again. This conviction is just not letting me do the things that I desire to do.

When I talked to you last time, you were with your partner.

Tiffany's still going strong. Tiffany has now moved in, so she now reside in Kansas City with me.

I'm glad you guys are going strong.

You're gonna adopt a kid when you get exonerated, Yeah, hopefully.

Yeah.

Perfect.

And if not a kid, a bunch of grandkids.

Oh perfect, exactly, she has kids.

Yes, we'll have her transportation service linked in the bio for folks in the Kansas City area. And please stay tuned for new episodes of Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling starting in January of twenty twenty four. Now Faye Jacob's story as it originally aired, we hope Governor Huckabee is moved to grant her a well deserved clemency.

Like I've been thinking a lot about, you know, the difficult decision of having to decide if you want to take an Outford plea, if you want to take any kind of plea.

I mean, if I was put in that situation.

Would I stay in prison to fight for my innocence knowing I might never get out, or take a deal get out, and then you can't fight for your innocence after that.

It's a literal Sophie's choice. Maggie, right, I mean, you have this intense pressure. You know that they have the ability to say, Hey, we're going to leave you sitting in jail, in 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 plea because there's really no way out and they just want to go home out. Yeah, they have to go home.

Yeah.

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 bed, 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 Fay Jacobs on the evening of February ninth, nineteen ninety two, 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 jack Kevin Gaddy was wearing. It was a Chicago Bulls starter jacket. In the nineteen nineties, these

They knew all along 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. Nineteen ninety two. I was arrested for capitol felloni murder of a friend of mine.

But Kwanda Faye Jacobs was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on February twenty second, nineteen seventy five. She was the baby of a big family, six boys and six girls.

I was always picked on by my older siblings, but I consider myself stronger than my other siblings, even though I was the baby. I come from a great family. 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.

Old, facing in the church choir, and was an outgoing child and teenager.

I'm just a people person. 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, just a typical teenager. I had fights, I had boyfriends, I did a lot, you know. That's who Fey 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 doll's 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, man, 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, those are things that will rob from me that opportunity.

On the morning of February ninth, nineteen ninety two, 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 Fae rented with her brother. They got back to Faye's mom's apartment at two pm. Fay's friend picked her up shortly after that and they ran some errands, including the laundromat, and back to her friend's house. He dropped Faye back at her mom's place

I had another service to attend that night. My mom and I were going to us singing at another church.

Fay's mom wrapped home shortly after and found Fay relaxing on the couch. Fay was still in her white church clothes, but at the same time, over a mile away, a situation was unfolding that would change Fay's 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.

And I was instantly through on the car put in handcuffs. At this time, I didn't know that a shooting had occurred. I was already a handcuffed. 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 conna.

At the precinct, the police asked Faye if they could do a gun shot residue test on.

Her, and so after my gun residue was negative, they was like, well, we're gonna let her go home, you know. And they's like, if you hear anything about a shooting, let us know. And I was like, who shot? What is conna?

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 I were both the same age, but he was a few months older than me, and 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. But like I said, from kindergarten to 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.

I was going to school and this day I wasn't feeling well 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 fee for murder. And I was like, murder. I haven't killed anybody. And so 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

This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG 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 AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and

So I'm going to court and I'm like, are you serious? I can't believe this. Why are they doing this to me? And the judge keeps my bond at a million and he states we're charging her as an adult. I couldn't believe that this was happening.

Prosecutors Howard Coopman and John Miller presented no forensic evidence linking Fade to the crime. They werelied heavily on the eyewitness statements of Tony Davis, who was with Kevin that evening, and Sean Riggins. When fe goes to court, news media is everywhere, She says. 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 balance 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 bang It 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 the victims, and began to notice that the violence just was increasing, and drive by shootings and random shootings and retaliation killings, and it just went on and on. Until nineteen ninety two, we had a record rate of homicides in Little Rock, and it looks we've broken the record in nineteen ninety three, and it's.

Just gone on and on and on.

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 eyewitnesses told police there was a female perpetrator, a male accomplice, and guess what a gray car. It's unclear what happened with that case and something else related to this crime. To help you understand, starting in the

In my little mind, I'm thinking that, you know, soon as I go to court, I can just tell the judge that I didn't do this and uc 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 twenty first, nineteen ninety three, Fay 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 going to 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, are you 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 going to be taken. Are you kidding me?

Fay's world had turned completely upside down.

I had many days of crying. So when I was first put in, I was put in a cell all by myself because I was sixteen. But days later I was sent to an adult place because I was charged at 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 I was labeled. And so I would go to my room, I would cry.

Eventually, Fay 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 and nine, Tiffany Woods came to prison.

I was incarcerated for DWIS. So they had moved me in the barracks with a and in order to watch TV, you have to have a radio. Well, I didn't have any family outside, do you know, to actually send me any money to buy me a radio. So I've seen fayees 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 started our friendship.

Fay and Tiffany hit it off, and when Tiffany got out, she promised Fay she would write her.

You know, being in prison, you meet people and people tell you I'm going to write you, I'm going to support you, you know, all the way, and so you hear that all the time, and I had been let down so many times. Well, but Tiffany, Tiffany left and she wrote me, and I was like, oh my god, this girl really wrote me. And then she sent me

It's a smile loyalty.

If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going.

To do it.

Tiffany and Fey maintained their friendship over the years, all the while Fay fought for her She filed appeal after appeal after appeal for reasons including ineffective assistance of counsel face as her second attorney, Bill MacArthur, failed to meet with her before trial and failed to file any discovery motions or conduct an investigation. He failed to show why Fay could not have committed this crime, starting with the

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 dew under a cap just hours earlier.

Right, this is Trisia Bushnell. She's the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project known as the MIP.

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 Phase case and you look at the evidence, you can really just think there's really no good evidence here, right. You can look at it and say, there's no good evidence. So

The bias appears to have started with the cops who arrested Fay on the spot, and Fay feels strongly that there was racial profiling involved. Frisha is currently Phase attorney. The MIP took Phase case in twenty fourteen when they reviewed it and realized it's stunk of a wrongful conviction.

So there's actually were a lot of witnesses to this crime. And when we went and talked to people, five other people who actually also knew Fay so it was not her, including Sean Riggan's brother who was standing with him at the car and said we couldn't see any from where we were.

At the car. Sean Riggins, remember had told police that Fay was the shooter, but he ultimately did recant his identification.

And that was the basis of new evidence that we used when we filed a federal habeas petition asking them to overturn Fhay's conviction. Filed that in twenty eighteen.

The MIP also brought up in the appeal the four additional eyewitnesses who said the shooter was not Fay and who were never called to testify at trial. However, before a judge could respond to the petition, there was a new development. In twenty twelve, the United States Supreme Court ruled in millervers Alabama, that juveniles cannot be sentenced to mandatory life without parole like Fay was. Those who had received this sentence are entitled to a re sentencing hearing.

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 gad an offer of time served. And that is when Fay 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 sixteenth, twenty eighteen, they accepted the time served offer and walked out of prison.

To walk out of those gates. It was such a release that I was like, oh my god, I am out. 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 that 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 ten years she was out, she constantly rode 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. I was like, they don't make people like they make Tiffany anymore.

Tiffany and Fay's relationship developed into a romantic one. These days, they travel back and forth to see each other. Fay lives in Kansas City, Missouri, and Tiffany out in rural Huntsville, Arkansas.

I am country. I would rather to 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 I have to go get our tent.

Wow, how's how's being in the woods?

How's 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 could see your face right.

Now, but uh yeah, hopefully in the future Tiffany and I could. We would live together and have our fur babies and the babies that you know that I desire to have it we 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 I'm hoping to maybe possibly 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 Snauzers 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 MIP.

When I do 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 so it helps in some aspects, but I've been denied Howsen in spite of the letter. So sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.

Fay 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. Fay's only shot at exoneration is now clemency, and her first clemency petition from Arkansas Governor Asa 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 Fay Jacobs to ask Governor Asa Hutchinson to pardon Faye next time. On Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Hank Skinner, I'm.

Sitting there looking at think Gurnie that they're fixing to put me on. I could see it through the door, the head the door open, I could see the microphone, I could see the straps, arm boards, and I was absolutely convinced that I was fixing it die.

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 Flamm and Kevin Words, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonia Paul, with additional production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.