#441 Jason Flom with Jeremy Puckett

On March fourteenth, nineteen ninety eight, the body of nineteen year old Anthony Golotti was found alongside a desolate stretch of road outside of Sacramento, California. The case remained cold for over a year until a young man named Israel Sept went to prison on a gun charge and offered authorities information about the murder. According to Sept, he was at an apartment when two others, Angela Devorski and Jeremy Pucket, assaulted, robbed,

Thank you, and our.

Guest of honor today, the man who lived and somehow survived this night, mayre Jeremy Pucket. Jeremy welcome, thank you. And this crime took place in a place called Rancho Cordova kind of outside of Sacramento anyway. Is that where you grew up and what was your family life like?

Well, I grew up in Sacramento, California, pretty much all over the place, mainly ranch cordova'sself, and we moved around a lot, you know, and didn't have the most money or anything. But you know, my parents they did the best they could and gave me, my brother and my sister the best life that we could have. So I had a great childhood. It was good. It was really good.

In the late eighties and early nineties, the crack epidemic affected many of Jeremy's friends, but not him. Instead, Jeremy became a father who's clear head served him well. One night, when his young family faced a situation.

The house call on fire while me and my son's mother, Carl were sleeping, and as I woke up, I opened up the door and there was just smoke coming up the stairs. So I went across the hall grabbed my son, and because of all the smoke and everything's coming from downstairs, I knew we had to jump out the window. When we jumped out the window, at that time, I knew that her sister would sleep downstairs, and so I kicked

Oh man, what was his name?

Benny Campbell? And I think the worst part of it was is I heard her scream as he was trying to get out, and like, this is like not just a friend, Like he was like one of my best friends. So just to not be able to save him, you know, And it still affects me, I guess you could say, and it's just and still miss him to this day.

Jeremy displayed true heroism that night, but unbeknownst to him, his friend Israel Scept harbored some resentments over Benny's death.

I believe I met him through Benny. I thought we had a good relationship. I thought we were good friends. You know, he came to my house, I would go to his house. But yeah, I guess we were as good as friends as I thought thought we were.

Israel Scept became integral to Jeremy's wrongful conviction for a murder that in part began at the apartment of a young man named William van Hill.

This was a small, one bedroom apartment in the heart of Rancho Cordova, and William van Hill would let people come to the house and deal drugs and he would get some drugs through that, and he also was letting a guy named Larry Biddlebrooks crash there every once in a while, and so on the particular night in March nineteen ninety eight, Larry middle brook Brooks was there. Van Hill was pretty much in his bedroom. A woman named

Jeremy planned to hang out with Israel step that night after a family gathering.

Had a little get together. It was no part or nothing, and we had a little barbecue. It was me, my sister's friend, Chante, my son's mother, Akara, my mom was there, my dad was there. There was a few people there that could all testify to my whereabouts this night. Prior to my leaving and coming back, I remember talking to Israel.

The victim of the murder, Anthony Glotti, showed up wanting to buy some drugs to celebrate his nineteenth birthday. He was by himself.

The Goliath didn't looked like the usual crack I guess she would say, so he showed up. I was like, this guy looks like he might be the police. And I told Scept this, and Set was still intent on selling this guy drugs. And that's when I decided to pull myself out of that situation and leave because I was not gonna be involved in something that got myself in trouble.

With and Galotti was a young, young god yeah guy that everyone called the preppy because he didn't look like anyone else in the apartment.

It's not to judge anybody, but just look out of place.

But he saw this young attractive woman, Angela Devorski, and he left the apartment, but then told his friends he wanted to go back and meet up with the girl.

I didn't know Andrew Devorski. The only people, I guess you really knew it was Israel and Larry. That's about it.

According to all accounts, Angela Davorski was there with her boyfriend James Reeves, also referred to as Jamo, but the accounts diverge on what happened between the time Jeremy left the apartment that night and when Anthony glotti body was found on March fourteenth, nineteen ninety eight, on White Rock Road.

Just a driver going down the road spotted him and called it in to police. He was at the side of the road in an unincorporated area of Sacramento County. It appeared that he had been shot out there. His hands were tied behind his back. Really an assassination type murder. Originally they thought he had one bullet wound to the head, but after autopsy, they realized he had been shot twice in the head.

The medical examiner later testified that the time of death was likely between five and seven am on Saturday, March fourteenth. Two days later, an I think Alotti's Pontiac fireberg was found set ablaze in a parking lot, and then, as police continued to question non associates, Angela Devoorski's body washed up in the American River on May first of ninety eight.

As soon as you are taken to prison, your DNA is taken. In California, Israel believed that his DNA was going to implicate him in the murder of Anthony Gollotti, so he contacted the Sheriff's office to tell a story that would take the focus away from him and onto someone else. He then was interviewed by the Sacramento Sheriff's office three or four times, and each story was inconsistent.

Jeremy's jury never heard about Sept's motivation. Nevertheless, it appears that SEPT bounced inconsistent stories off the Sacramento Sheriff's department until they landed on a narrative which Anthony Gollotti came to William Van Hill's apartment to buy some drugs, and Scept alleged that Jeremy Pistol whipped and tied up Anthony with the help of Angela Devorski. Scept said that he followed them out to Anthony's car, where he allegedly told Anthony that he would come along and keep him safe.

They were just asking me questions about a murder that happened, Like I have to know something about this, because you know, I'm from the neighborhood or whatever, and I don't have no idea what they're talking about. I believe they mentioned Israel, and that's when I started trying like peaceful things agein. I was like, oh, this is what's going on, But I still had no idea of what happened after I had left the apartment where he was at this night.

Curiously, only Scept was charged in June of two thousand and taken to trial in March two thousand and.

One, because all they have is this so called confession by Israel, and so they have to try them separately because Israel will have the opportunity to take the Fifth Amendment and then there'd be no case. And they can't just use this statement because Jeremy wouldn't have had a chance to cross exam Israel, so they had to try them separately, and so they started with Israel and then of course he folded after opening statement. But he cut a deal. I mean, he went from life without the

Shortly after steps leaning a plea deal for robbery and accessory to murder, they arrested Jeremy.

All our members being at work and I was called to the office and I had a feeling that something might goals, like something just wasn't right. I walked into the office. That's when I was basically surrounded by officers placed in handcuffs, placed in the car, and I was like, you gotta have the wrong person, because I ain't hurt nobody. I didn't kill nobody, Like I don't know what you guys are talking about, Like you got to have the wrong person, And they're like, no, got you with this

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I pretty much preached together that something was being pinned on me from Israel. I believed during the initial interview with my investigator, he was still sticking to his story that it was all me, and then during the second one that's when he recanted his story.

Prior to trial, Israel set recanted in an interview with Jeremy's private investigator and gave some version of the truth, saying something about Middlebrooks having set up Anthony Allotti for a robbery and quote, Jeremy not involved. Jeremy knew nothing about robbing anyone. That's the God's truth end quote. Wow.

The motel receipt shows that Sepp registered at this motel at four to twenty am and there was a number on the receipt six seven one eight. The receipt was messy, but if you look at the next receipt six seven nine with a totally independent party registering at six ten am, you realize it was on the morning of the thirteenth.

And there was one part as well.

Yeah, and the one prior to it. That's correct. So there's no doubt that this hotel entry was on the thirteenth. But however, the Sacramento DA just said it's on the fourteenth. She talked about it as though he registered the mourning of the fourteenth.

This could mean one of a few things. Perhaps the medical examiner was mistaken about the time of death between five and seven am on the fourteenth, or perhaps the state glossed over the discrepancy in order to align the findings of the autopsy with the morning after Jeremy had actually made an appearance at Van Hill's apartment March twelfth and to the thirteenth. This could have been uncovered by Jeremy's attorney had he just bothered to look at his alibi.

None of the witnesses or anybody testified to the thirteenth. They were told from the prosecution of what day this happened.

Jeremy's right. The prosecution would just say, let me draw your attention to the night of the thirteenth or the morning of the fourteenth, So witnesses just went along with that. No one said, oh, wait a minute, this happened on a Thursday night.

And this wasn't the only dirty trick. In her opening statements, Kohler raised the specter of the fire that killed Benny Campbell as well as the murderer of Angela divorce key.

They tried to implicate Jeremy in that murder.

She already knew she had a week case, so she's trying to throw everything in to make me look bad from the get go.

Anyway, Jeremy's attorney asked the judge to Clara misstrial, and when the judge asked Kohler if she had the evidence to corroborate her implications. She said that there was evidence linking Jeremy, but just not enough to charge him.

But that wasn't true, and she was admonished by the judge that this wasn't proper.

She was actually told to tell the jerry that I had nothing to do with that, and she said no, yeah, so the judge himself had to do it.

The judge instructed the jury that the prosecutor could not corroborate her implications, and then the trial proceeded.

The state presents middle Brooks. Middlebrooks said he was in the bathroom doing cocaine with Patty Scott Bostick and that he didn't think that Jeremy was there, and Patty Scott Bostick always said that she never looked out the door. And then she got on the stand and then she said she heard Jeremy yelling. She had never testified to that before, but we found out later that she wanted to testify favorably because she was on probation at the

In his earlier statements, van Hill said that the two black men were about the same height. Then at trial, he said that his memory had improved since his first interview just after the crime. In addition, he described Israel Scept as being five to four, much shorter than his actual height five to ten, which notably is not much shorter than Jeremy at six foot one.

His stores all over the place.

We learned during our investigation, unfortunately, that mister van Hill had many psychological problems, but of course the jury never heard that.

But of course none of the supporting testimony mattered as much as Israel Scept. And we don't know what happened between his recantation and trial, but perhaps the prosecutor reminded him about the deal they had made.

Either testify against me and say it was all me, or there's going to take his deal back. And he was face to life without the possibility to role. He just went back to the script he was given when he took the deal. What was crazy about that is that prior to being into the courtroom, we were in separate sales, like basically across from each other. And now I ask them personally, like what are you doing? Like

Jeremy's attorney was able to cross Examinecept with not only inconsistencies with his prior statements, but also his recantation.

A course Scept denied it. And that's why I was shot that my trial attorney didn't call their investigator to rebut his role.

Wait wait wait, wait, so he didn't even bother to call the investigator to present the recantation.

It's unbelievable. It's absolutely I tell people this story that the attorney had a recantation he didn't put on it, and they can't believe it, let alone the data the murder is even wrong. It's just unbelievable.

The jury had not heard the motivations of those testifying, as well as the full recantation by this state star witness, so they predictably returned a guilty verdict for first degree murder robbery, but curiously not guilty for unlawful use of a firearmy.

All I remember is hearing is I was guilty of murder and everything else I didn't hear. I blacked out. It wasn't until my mother came and visited me that she's the one who told me that I was found not guilty of the gun, and that kind of shot me because I thought once I heard guilty murder, I felt I was guilty of everything. Everything just blacked out. I heard nothing else, and I just especially see my

After his initial appeal, Jeremy fought his case pro sae, meaning on his own, without an attorney, from inside of his prison cell.

And of course it was so hard for Jeremy because he doesn't have anyone to find that the evidence has been suppressed. He's banging up against a brick wall because he can't get into the DA file, into his own file, into the file of Angela divorce. KI out on the street to interview people.

I was almost ready to give up because I was tired of getting all the denials on my own and to thank god, I had my sister and my mom, my cousins and everybody, a strong core in my family that still believed in me no matter what. And I look back on it and I think it was my daughter, and my daughter saved my life. I'll never forget that day she came to saw me and I think, my sister's gonna get something to eat for us, and my

After about fourteen long years of denials, and appellate Cord Karen and the Northern California Indoston's Project took on Jeremy's case and were able to un what Jeremy never could have from the inside.

Sepp told the detectives that a man with the nickname Jamo brought Angela Devorski to the apartment, and that was a very important sentence that he said that. I don't think Jeremy's trial attorney appreciated the importance of it at the time. Because the Sheriff's detectives had suppressed the evidence related to Angela Devorski.

Much of the discovery that should have come to Jeremy's defense attorney remained hidden in the Angela Davorski murder file. I'm talking about seven hundred pages worth.

Pages and pages of evidence, witness after witness saying Jamo had control over Angela Devorski, and Angela's diary talked about the control that Jamo had over her, and that Jamo and Angela Devorski did set up robberies. They would use her as a lure for young men who wanted to spend some time with her, to put it nicely, and instead they would rob the young man. In the suppressed evidence, we learned that there were two witnesses that actually saw

So they hid not only the motives of all of the trial witnesses who testified falsely, but now it was also discovered that they'd hidden a way more compelling suspect, James Reeves or Jamo, Who's estranged wife, Connie Goins, gave a statement sworn statement in twenty fifteen in which she said that Jamo had always said that Jeremy had nothing to do with Anthony Glotti's robbery and murder, and he knew that because he was there at the time of

There's no evidence that they knew one another, and during the investigation of the Divorski murder, many witnesses were shown Jeremy's picture friends of hers. No one could identify Jeremy. They ran in completely separate and disc circles.

The choice to pursue Jeremy over Jamo made me wonder if perhaps investigators were protecting Jamo. Maybe he was cooperating in other cases, but that doesn't seem to fit here.

The sheriff never interviewed Jamo. This is investigation one oh one. You interview everyone who was there that night. They never interviewed him. My theory is that the police were negligent. I think Sepp was protecting Jamo. That's my theory of the case. What do you think, Jeremy.

I think they were so solely focused on me that they didn't care about anybody else.

That was an easy prosecution. We don't have to do any more work. If you accuse Jeremy, how can he defend himself other than just say I had nothing to do with it. By the time he's interviewed, he can hardly remember that night. You know, it's a year and a half later.

The Northern California, and this projects, along with attorneys from Simpson, Thatcher and Bartlett, filed a state which they had to fight all the way up to the state Supreme Court to finally get a hearing, where they presented there's absolute mountain of Brady material, the recantation evidence, the statement from Connie Goins as well as an expert to point out the discrepancy between dates in the state's narrative and the time of death.

Doctor Melanik was incredible. There was no question by the time she was done testifying that they had the date of the murder wrong, and they actually conceded that finally, finally correct. At the very end of the hearing, they conceded that the gun evidence came in that they had suppressed. Jamo had made this statement by the time of the hearing to one of our investigators, and so he said, no, Jeremy had nothing to do with the murder. I was there.

I mean I felt good, but of course, you just never know where it's going to go. And then the day that I found out was one of the most happiest and craziest days. Ever, I finally got my case overturned.

It was pretty emotional, and of course it was the day that California is shut down, like.

A few days.

So the good news is you're gonna get out. The good news is it's a shutdown.

Yeah, Friday thirteenth. At that well, it was crazy. Everybody else is losing their minds, and I'm like, oh, y'all think you this is nothing.

When we're all home crying in our soup that we can't go out. Jeremy gets a driver's license, a passport, a job, a car, housing, He lived life and it was just amazing. And you know, we needed to get his record cleared and all that and everything now was slowed down because of COVID the hearing for factual innocence that didn't come till the following January.

It's kind of shocking when we had the factual innocence because she told me it's going to be like two or three days and he's only there for like fifteen twenty minutes. And when he finally said what he said, I had to turn through us. I didn't know what happened. I was like, what just happened? She's like, you won you're actually insigt now and it was just a shock for everybody.

Jeremy was awarded statutory compensation from California just under a million dollars, and as of February twenty twenty two, he's been pursuing civil litigation.

I'm playing a small role again, Simpson Thatcher. The law firm is working on it and Jeremy has just inspired everyone in that firm to get behind him, and we're very hopeful that will be successful. But again Sacramento, they continued to fight us, even though Jeremy was wrongfully convicted, served nineteen years for a crime he didn't commit, and has been found factionally innocent.

In the meantime, life goes on, and Jeremy has been doing his best to adjust to life on the outside.

I have a job. I've officially bought me a house seven months ago. I had my grandkids. Building my relationship with my kids who were just My kids were two and one when I initially got locked up and I came out, they were grown. So trying to rebuild that relationship has been ongoing. It's a little bumpy sometimes, but you know where the loved you can see the love is there. Or really see in a relationship now. So

Jeremy's freedom would not have been possible without the dedication of Karen's new new tower and the other great folks at the Northern California Innocence Project, which we will link in the episode of description. Please support them and follow their work, as there are countless people like Jeremy who

Well, I feel very honored to have been on the journey to justice with Jeremy Puckett. I've gained a friend and learned a lot through his ordeal, and he's let me enter his life, He's shared his most intimate details, and I believe we've built a friendship out of this crazy situation. How the two of us came together is the stuff stories are made of. But it's been my honor to work with Jeremy, and I look forward to wrapping up the civil suit and still maintaining that friendship.

And I just want to thank you for having me here and being able to tell my story. And I also want to just think people like like Karen, the whole NCIP organization and the whole project organization in itself, as well as Buzz and everybody from a team, from the Cents and Thatsher, from Don, everybody who helped me with my case. And then I think most importantly I think I would like to say is that if there is somebody listening to this who is innocent, locked up

Thank you for listening to Ron for conviction you can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production was three time OSCAR nominated composer