#456 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Frank Benitez

Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes, even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it like to be their ally, the one outside committed to fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Bride Pacheco, and this is wrongful conviction. On the evening of April twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine, in Chicago, Illinois, two teenage boys were

How you doing no problem?

So tell me before any of this started. I'd just love to hear about what life was before all of this took place. So Frank, tell me a little bit about when and where you were born.

I was born in Chicago. Where were we at, mom.

When you were born? Yeah, we were living on Lowell.

Yeah. All four of us were born in the same hospital.

Same doctor, same hospital. So you grew up with three.

Siblings, two brothers and a sister.

And where were you and that rundown?

I'm the oldest.

So when this happened, you were just eighteen. What kind of social circle were you running around with? What kind of friends did you have?

I think I had some okay friends. I might might have not had the best of friends, but they were okay for a little while. I was running with some bad people. I mean it was a mistake on my part. But for the most part, our neighborhood was pretty quiet. There wasn't a lot of stuff going on.

What were your goals at the age of eighteen? Where did you see yourself in the future.

I really wanted to be an actor. My father was trying to push me to be an actor, and I was in a couple of plays when I was in school, that's what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be an actor, or I wanted to play sports. I want to play football. And at eighteen, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I know that I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to get out of their neighborhood. I wanted to get my family out of the neighborhood.

So take me to why you wanted to get your family out of the neighborhood. What was the dynamic like in the eighties, How would you describe the neighborhood and what was it that you wanted to get away from.

I mean, when we first moved there, it was really a nice place to live. You can leave your bicycle outside. But then after a while started getting worse and worse, and there was a little more crime. It was still quiet, but you could see the riding on the wall that it was going to be bad.

So things were getting increasingly more dangerous. It was just not improving, all right. So take me to the night all of this went down. At about eight forty five on April twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine, two fourteen year old boys left their home on North Harding Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, to walk to a corner store one block north, but unfortunately they never arrived. Both were shot in the head

Well, I was at this one woman's house that I had known for a little while. I used to stay at her house all the time, and I used to hang out with her daughter. You know, good people to be around. And later on that night one of my friends, his sister, came by and said, hey, be careful, there was just a shooting. We just heard about a shooting. We didn't know there was a murder or anything like that.

How far were you physically, Like, how far was the house you were watching television at from where the shooting took place.

Maybe three or four blocks so close? Yeah, it was close, Betty.

Do you remember when you heard about the shooting.

Yeah, I heard about it the next afternoon because, uh, Frankie was getting ready to go to the flea market when police officers came knocking on the door. No big deal, no big deal, and Frankie was more than willing to go. I mean, you you hear and see how people run hide everything. But no, Frankie was coming out of his room and one of the police officers says, hey, you want to come with us. We're doing a lineup or something. And the police said we'll bring him back when we're done. Okay.

So the police came to your family's home and just said that they needed your assistance.

They were just they were just asking you for assistance, a little help.

That was it. And tell me how that unfolded from your side of the story, frank I.

Mean they came and knocked on the door. I was getting ready, like my mom said, for to go to the flea market, and my little brother came said hey, there's something. You know, there's a policeman at the door looking for you. I'm like, okay, I'll go up there. And he started asking did you hear about this? And you'll know anything about it? I'm like, I don't know

So what was your first lineup.

After the lineup? When they told me they had picked me out of lineup? No, that's impossible. I had nothing to do with it. They questioned me. They asked me where I was at. At first, it was just general questions and then the pressure starts and as we know you did it, you got picked out. I'm like, no, that's impossible. They're lying. Oh they're lying. Yet you're wrong. You're the one line. I'm like, no, i'm not. Where were you at? And I told them where I was

Are you asking to go home? Are you asking for your mother?

Are you asking for Yeah, I'm definitely asking for my mom. Like I want to talk to my mom, Like no, you can't talk to her. You're never going to see her again. I guess that's the kind of psychological games that they.

Play, and what kind of tactics were used against you.

I didn't suffer any physical abuse, thankfully, but I think the mental abuse was even worse because they pick on something and then they just drive it. I guess they figured, Okay, this is a mama's boy, let's go with the mom. Now.

It's not like this went on for half an hour or an hour.

No, I got to the station. Well, they picked me up around twelve thirty, and then I was there all night. From what I remember, I signed the core statement at four three thirty, four to thirty in the morning. So you're talking about, you know, sixteen plus hours.

The two detectives who questioned you apparently already had a history of doing this in terms of coercing false confessions. But did they have you write out something? Did they write it out?

How?

What did you sign?

They wrote everything out. They wrote everything out. They said, we're going to prepare a statement for you that is self defense. You'll sign it and you'll go home that right after you sign it, we're going to get the stage attorney over there so she can witness it, and you're good to go.

It didn't happen, so they made it sound like it was just kind of a formality and that they were going to make it look like it wasn't your fault anyway. You just sign it, you get to go home, right? Did you get to go home?

Obviously not. I spent thirty four years and four months in prison, Betty.

What's going on on your end while your son's being held overnight? What are you thinking?

Well, when he didn't come home by eleven o'clock at night that night, that Saturday night, me and my mother in law, we just started calling the police station. Every police station we called, they said, who, We don't have nobody here by that name. We couldn't even locate him.

And you have to remember this is before cell phone though, it's hard to get in contact with people.

I called so many police stations that it was unreal.

So you must have been panicked. You're like desperately trying to find your son.

Yeah, my mother, my mother in law, she was crying because we couldn't find Frankie. It was just like, where could he have been? Because he wouldn't stay out that late. Frankie would come home at a decent time so that we wouldn't worry about him.

So when did you next connect with your mom?

When I got to the Kokanie jail, I was able to make a phone call. I called the house and I can't remember what do you remember what time it was? Mom?

Oh, it was late because we were still trying to find you.

Right, And I know when I talked to my grandmother, she was like, what happened? What's going on? I'm like, why, what are you talking about? She says, you were just all over the news and I'm like, well, so I said, let me talk to mom and I explain it to you. And I asked my mom what was going on? She said, yeah, you're all over the news. And like, no, it can't be right.

I mean, no, wait, So Betty, you found out that your son was arrested on the news on the news. What was that like for you?

It was like what? Because at the same time we were listening to it on the news, Frankie was calling us and Frankie told me, he goes, Mom, I've been arrested for murder. And I'm going what. My mother in law is screaming, my father in law is trying to console her. It was just a mess. And I had told Frankie, I said, we've been trying to find you all night. What happened?

How do you even explain that when you're eighteen, frank how do you even explain to your mother that you've signed a confession?

I mean I automatically told her I was scared, and they told me I was going to go home, and you know, she called me stupid, of course, but I didn't know anybotter. I was eighteen and.

You'd asked for your mother. Yes, you didn't have a lawyer? No, no, So what goes through your head at that point? Betty as like a mom of four kids.

They've made a mistake.

You want your son back.

Yeah, And it was like, now, this is what I found out afterwards when I was calling the police stations to find out where Frankie was at, they said they never had him until they booked him. They didn't even know anything. So it was it was it was difficult. And then when I found out that he had been booked for murder, I'm asking, Okay, what's what's the next step. We didn't know anything about any of these processes. We I mean, we're hillbilly's. I'm a hillbilly. I'm from the South.

Yeah, but I mean, I can't even imagine. Look if this happened to me tomorrow, even knowing everything that I know, You're not just up against one person, it's not a mistake. You're up against an entire system, an entire system and the media.

Yeah. I still have the paper clipping from the trial that they did on my son.

I've kept it for thirty four years. How did you get through that? Finding out your son was in prison, that he's confessed to a crime that he didn't commit, that nobody is going to help you get him out.

It was real hard because we didn't know nobody. If you don't know lawyers, or if you don't know the ins and outs of things, it's like, what do I do now? What do I do now?

It's hard, It's very hard. So take me to the first time you physically saw each other after this happened, because that's what really hit me. As a mother of a son who's now about to turn twenty, he's still a kid on some levels, and I just can't imagine not being able to hug him.

Right right when we went to the bail hearing for him. I saw him for about two minutes. He walked out from the back, stood in front of the judge. The state was there, the public defender was there, and the judge said no bail. And that's when they said he's being charged with two counts of murder in the first degree. The only thing I could do was cry. I couldn't do anything. Oh and from there I saw him and

Had you ever felt that kind of helplessness before?

No? No, And here I am. I have to go to work in order to feed my family, help pay the bills. When all this was going on, and I had talked to my employers and I told them I'm going to have to be going to court for my son, and we made an agreement because at that time, I was like payroll, that was my job and I was the only one who did it. There was no backup.

Max one Division one.

Division one at eighteen and that's the prison that was crumbling that they're tearing down or replaced. Now.

Yeah, it was the original jail.

I mean, it wasn't call you on the phone anytime you wanted. You had thirty minutes. They gave you a list of what you could bring in, which was basically close. That was about it.

What was that transition like for you for that to become your day to day reality.

I mean it was kind of rough. I'm being thrown in a place where I know I don't belong, so I mean I had to act like I was kind of tough, and I'm not really tough. It's just every day surrounded by people that probably did what they're locked up for, and mostly murderers. I mean, back then there was no internet, so you didn't know if these guys were charged with sex offenses or anything like that. But most of the guys there were locked up for murder.

I mean eighteen and talk about wanting to be an actor. Suddenly you have to act to stay alive. Basically I was.

I was in the role for my life. I had to act as a certain part and it was kind of hard because that's not me at all, you know, Yeah, I'm bad, you know, leave me alone.

So you're held for almost a year and a half before trial.

I got locked up in April of eighty nine and then the trial was in August of ninety one, so a little over two years.

So your mama described the place you were being held awaiting trial is kind of crumbling. But what was that like physically and what kind of a cell were you in? Did you have a cell mate?

Yeah? I had a cell mate. Yeah, it's close quarters and division one. They didn't have bunk beds, so you're laying basically side by side with somebody else. So being in the cell with somebody, they're using a washroom and you know, doing what they do. It's just it's hard. You're living in your own bedroom.

I can imagine Betty that every single time you went to visit him, he was growing older and more mature and kind of a heartbreaking way.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Heading into the trial, did you still have the hope that this was all a nightmare mistake?

Yes? Yes, it was a three day court trial with a jury of twelve. One of the alternate jurors she came out and says, there is nothing there. There is absolutely nothing there at all. That kind of gave me hope.

So, Frank, just in terms of your defense, you have proof that it was a coerced confession because it doesn't align with the way in which the eyewitnesses testified to the crime unfolding of an alibi. You have all of the things you did during that day. You must have felt like, how can they find me guilty? I'm innocent and I can prove it.

Yeah, it's kind of hard. I mean, remember this is back in the eighties, and everything that the police said, the state's attorney said, people are gonna go with it. They didn't have the cell phone cameras, they didn't have people coming forward like they do now. And the whole trial was frustrating. I mean, knowing that you're innocent, you want to scream at the top of your lung, I'm innocent, do not find me guilty.

What was it like though, to realize that the system wasn't playing by the rules. For you both to sit in that trial and know that officers of the law were misrepresenting the truth.

It was frustrating because you're sitting there listening to people lie, lie on top of lie, and there's nothing you can do it because the lawyers are saying, hey, we can't point out their lives because it's just going to make you look like a liar. So it's frustrating, and.

You had an airtight alibi. If we can just go back quickly and describe your whereabouts that day, you picked up a paycheck, You went to the mall, Then you went to the barber shop to get a haircut, and that's important, I want to bring that back up. Then you went to your friend's house where you watched television.

Yeah, I still remember that. I still remember the movie and the channel was on. There's Beetlejuice on HBO. I'll never forget it.

And then you guys walked to the corner store to buy limes, a TV guide, dish soap, and you were back by seven forty five. I just thought it was so interesting because one of the eyewitness statements that the police turned around was that this woman saw the gunman running and thought, he looks like he just had a haircut. Yeah, I know, right, which just seems like such a frame job to me. Who looks at somebody running by and goes, wow, they look like they just had a haircut. It was

Yeah? Yeah, I mean from what I heard in the courtroom, all the evidence that they put forth, everything that they said, nothing matches. How can you find a person guilty if everything doesn't match. The state is saying this, your lawyers are saying this, and the two don't match at all. It's like, how can this be?

There has to at least be reasonable doubt, right, right, right?

And when the jury went to deliberate an hour and twenty five minutes and that's including lunch.

Rank. Now take me to the moment of the verdict.

I just had a feeling that it was going to be bad, just the feeling. And then when they read the guilty verdict, all I can hear was my sister in the courtroom, just I've never heard of cry.

Like that, Betty. What was that like for you?

Heartbreaking? So hard?

Yeah, it was hard.

I cannot imagine the definition of powerless better defined. There's nothing you can do, no, nope.

And then it's like, now what do I do because you're still you're still naive but na to not understand what the next steps will be because there's no rhyme or reason to anything, because you've never had these problems before.

Take me to the sentencing.

Well, it's another court appearance and you go before the judge, and the judge basically reads what the sentence is going to be.

And Judge Barbara Disco denied the prosecution's request to impose the death penalty correct and sentenced Frank to life in prison without parole twice. Two life sentences.

Correct correct, two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast Gusts.

Then that's when they placed you in different prisons, and his first stop was Minard. It's an eight hour drive from Chicago to Monards and you have to have a car, you have to have gas money, food money, and travel time.

Yeah, Frank, how does your day to day change immediately?

I mean, now you know you're surrounded by people that are bad, I mean gangs ran the prisons back.

Then, you're in prison for life. How did you process that mentally physically both of you?

Me personally, I always went into it where I'm coming home one day.

Yep.

I lived every day I'm coming home. I'm coming home. And my mom was my biggest cheerleader. All my family was, but especially my mom. She used to tell me all the time, you're coming home, You're coming home, Just give us some time. Yep.

I didn't know it was going to take this much time though.

Yeah, So how does life change immediately for both of you? After that sentencing? Betty, You've already said. Now it's pretty much a day's journey there and back to go see your son.

Yeah, we would leave on a Friday night and we would come home on a Sunday because of the long drive. It would take one paycheck just to do that, and I had to start sending him money so he could buy snacks, necessities that he needed and stuff. And back then it was collect calls. It's not like it is now.

So you're now fairly isolated in terms of access to your family, and you're now trying to adjust a feeling like in even smaller fish in a bigger, more dangerous sea, because Menard is not known for being warm and fuzzy.

Nope, No, there was a lot of racism down there. I had it easier because I look like I'm white, and yeah I'm half white and half Mexican. But they seen the white side and that's the way it was. I mean, there was a lot of racism in minarn.

So what do you think was the biggest learning curve for you once you got there? What was the most difficult thing for you to navigate how.

To try to fit in? Because for me to be kind of like them as a whin lady for me, because I'm not that guy. It's you have to act a certain way, and if not, you're going to get eating the they'll they'll take your stuff or try to do things, beat you up, or whatever it is. And I'm glad I made it. It was tough. It was not a day that went by that is this the day that I'm going to die in prison?

Betty.

You having to hold down a job and and and raise three other kids while you're trying to be present and supportive of your son who's wrongfully convicted facing life at this point, how do you, guys then have the bandwidth? How do you even begin to go about fighting to get him out?

On top of that, well, I started asking around about are there organizations that can help. At that time there there wasn't much help there because back then it was you're guilty in jail. There ain't nothing we can do. We had to start looking for other lawyers that would right brief so that you could start going through the other court processes to try to get the case back into court, but none of them worked either. So then I started looking to see if there was other people

And you have to remember one thing, this is before all these exoneration projects and innocent projects came about.

Right, The one that really really stood out, which gave me hope was the Rolando.

Cruz because Cruise was exonerated in nineteen ninety five after having been wrongfully convicted in nineteen eighty five of murder, rape, kidnapping, and burglary, also in Illinois.

It was the first time I had heard and he spent so much time on death row itself, and it was like, if he can prove that he didn't do it, then there has to be a way that we can prove that Frankie didn't do it.

So in September nineteen ninety five, the first District Illinois Appellate Court upheld Frank's convictions and sentence. Right, how difficult was that?

That hurt? That hurt because the lawyer had showed that there was still inconsistencies in the original trial which should have raised eyebrow. It did not, So then we just like we just keep trudging and trudging and trudging.

How and when did you guys first hear about the Exoneration project at the University of Chicago Law School and the process heading up to that for you, like, where are you getting the information of who to write, when to write them, how to write them?

Just talking to different people that are locked up with me, Like I just got in contact with these people and they want to help, and I'm like, well, let me get that information. So I mean, I've written to Northwestern and University of Illinois or place in New York. I've written a berry shehck to a lot of people. I've written to Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas. I've written everywhere, and everybody

So what were the darkest moments for both of you during that time? Because it had to be like there were these little glimmers of light in the distance that maybe this may be that right.

It was just never giving up. You really have to keep in your head there has to be something you are missing, that there's something that you haven't found yet that will work.

But that said, was there a point where either one of you thought I can't do this, that this is just too.

Much for me. There was, I mean, and for me it was.

When did you know that frank was going through the dark period?

When I would talk to him, you could always hear it in his voice. You could always tell in the way he was saying things. And I kept telling him, don't ever give up. There has to be something, Betty.

I see how upset you are, even when you're telling him, no matter what, don't give up. Were you afraid that he would?

Yes? Yes, because it was like he wasn't seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There was nights that I would sleep, no sleep because I had talked to Frankie and he would be saying, Mom, I can't do this no more. And I would just kind of yell at him and tell him you can't give up. And I told him he had to believe because if you give up, that's it. And I wouldn't let him do that period.

And then you get a voice at the end of that phone call telling you that you've got one minute left.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. We had a lot of those.

Did did your mom screaming at you help? In other words, have you ever told her what kept you going?

So I tell her all the times. She's the one that coming on.

Yeah, my sisters, my kids, and they tell me the same thing.

Mom.

You tell him, don't give up, don't give up, don't give up. We're gonna kick his ass. And I don't, Frankie, don't you give up. I'm gonna kick your ass when you come home. Didn't I tell you that, Frankie all the time, All the time.

I like that.

I kept telling him. God has a reason for everything he does. He may not be the fastest, but he gets there in his time.

Take me to the turning point, Frankie. In twenty twenty two, represented by attorneys Joshua Tepfer from the Honooration Project at the University of Chicago Law School and a non Swamenoffen of the firm Lov and Lov, they filed a post conviction petition seeking to overturn the convictions, and the petition cited statements from two new witnesses who said they saw

Bunch of us have it tattooed on us?

Really?

Yeah?

My daughter, Frankie, my son, my daughter in law, even my daughter in law's parents got it tattooed on their arms. Oh gosh, I love that. Yeah, me and the grandma's we went together. We call it our senior citizen outing because the other grandmas are in the sixties and I'm in the seventies. Raye were yours?

Wow, Frankie, do you have the largest one of the family.

No, my other son I think has the largest one on the back of his leg. Wow.

So you know, we just discussed, Betty, how the whole family was sentenced. It must be that August twenty ninth you were all freed in a different way, and frank just take me to that day and how that played out. So Judge Atcherson vacated your convictions and frank you were released on bond pending a retrial. You had spent thirty two years and fourteen days in print, thirty four more than thirty four years in custody from the date of your arrest.

Yes, he was picked up on April twenty ninth, nineteen eighty nine. He was released on August twenty ninth of twenty twenty three.

And when did you realize you were walking out?

When the judge started talking, I was kind of like, yeah, I might be coming out, and then she's like, no cash bond. I'm like, oh, I'm going home.

What was it like walking out?

Everybody was crying.

Different kinds of tears this time. Oh yes, yep, so Frank, tell me walking out.

I mean, who it was a relief. And then to see the sea of people out there when I came out, it was I finally get to tell my story.

And Betty, what was the first thing you said once he was outside to him?

Thank God? I said, Remember I told you never give up hope. As long as there's family and love, you have it all.

And then in September of twenty twenty three, Cook County prosecutors formally drop the charges against you, Frank. And then in December of twenty twenty three, you were awarded a certificate of innocence and now get to set about living your life finally again.

What are your.

Goals and your hopes and your dreams for the.

Future right now? I just take it by day by day and I just live life. That's all I'm gonna do is just enjoy everything, everything that I can and try to do everything.

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wardis, as well as our producers Annie Chelsea, Kathleen Fink, and Jackie Pauley. This series is produced, edited, and hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco. Our senior producer