#482 Maggie Freleng with Eddie Ramirez

Back in the nineties, the crime and murder rate in Philadelphia was at its peak.

There were more than five hundred.

Murders in nineteen ninety and the rate remained above four hundred through nineteen ninety seven. A lot of this crime happened in North Philadelphia, in areas notorious for sex work and were open air drug markets thrived. I've reported on and spoken to people who lived and grew up in the area for years, people who've been punished by a system hell bent on jailing its way out of social

They are not just gangs of kids anymore.

They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators.

No conscience, no empathy.

Without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing.

One of those boys was David Luis Suave Gonzalez. Suave grew up in prison, but he was given a chance to prove he was more than the mistake that landed him behind bars. While doing time, Suave earned degrees and created enrichment programs aimed at things like helping men behind bars with kids become better fathers. Throughout his years of mentorship, Save met a young man named Eddie Ramirez, also from North Philadelphia.

I remember when he came to the prison. He came looking for me because he had heard of me in another prison. I took him under the way, and you know, I became his mentor and he became out of the brother.

Save told me that during the decades he'd spent in prison meeting people from all walks of life, Eddie Ramirez stuck out.

He started talking to me about all I'm innocent, and I was like, okay, everybody in prison is innocent, you know, because that's something we don't discuss in the prison system. But what I noticed was that Eddie really lived like an innocent person in prison, and he had to. He only told me one time. He never ran around saying to me, convincing me or nothing. He'd just said, I'm innocent, but I gotta do what I gotta do to somebody.

Here and to get out.

Before life in prison, Eddie was a hyper little kid, doing the things kids in cities do.

I just wanted to just be happy. I just want to have a comfortable life, celebrating it with family and friends.

What would that look like at the.

Time, It probably would have been like smoking weed, watching rap videos, skateboarding. Yeah, like that. And I'm trying to think how much of that has changed last thirty years.

Eddie was fortunate unlike Suave.

He grew up in a stable home with both parents, siblings, and love. In fact, Eddie's father was a police officer with the Philadelphia Police, and Eddie grew up respecting the law.

I just never thought of the police as being corrupt.

Do you think they were corrupt in your case?

I mean I ended up in prison for something I didn't do.

From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling.

My name is Eddie Ramirez, and I was in prison for twenty seven and a half years for something I didn't do.

Today Eddie Ramirez.

Eddie was born on November tenth, nineteen seventy six, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He's one of three kids.

I have two older sisters who were both my protectors and my bullies, and I love them.

What was it like being the little brother to two older sisters?

Do you have Eddie younger siblings, you should ask them see what they see about that.

So he said you guys were his protectors, but also his bullies.

What does he mean by that.

Well, he'll have to actually clear which one was the actual bully.

I'm not going to say anything.

Other than that.

This is Emily, Eddie's sister.

He's five years younger than me. So imagine I was five years old when this little baby boy comes to the world, and my sister's only like a year and a half older than me. So he was just, you know, the little boy of the house.

I was the pesky little brother. But at the same time they adored me.

Emily says she did and does adore Eddie and remembers him as an active kid, always getting into everything.

Kid.

Eddie was a lot of imagination. He was just always active the way he is now, always active. He's trying to do something at home. We had this just saying only us. The Ramier says know that we say to each other we fike it, because he used to say every time he would go underneath the table and make pretend he's fixing something, and then he'll tell Mom, I fake it. I fike it. So all of us now, whenever we fix something, we just say we fike it.

We did have a driveway behind my house with the kids from Ninth Street and the kids from Hunchinson Street gathered to play sports, freeze.

Tag, football, baseball, king, we did everything. So the majority of the people were our age, my sister and I. I think Eddie might have been the youngest of them all, and there was a couple of older guys. So yeah, Eddie was so hyper that, you know, people didn't want to you know, and they didn't want him to be around, so we would have to come to his defense. I know one time I fought a little boy because this something to Eddie, and Eddie was crying and I went

Although Eddie grew up with older sisters, he still found boy time.

My cousins were the closest thing I had to brothers, and I did everything with them. We played Street Fighter, we played Nintendo. We would go to Hunting Park play football or basketball. We went shopping, We chased girls, everything that you can think about. I did everything with my family in fact I like to tell people I didn't have friends. My friends were family members.

Tell me about growing up in Philly back then, you said North Philly.

It depends on what you define as North Philly. It is technically North Philly, but people from North Philly might not think of my neighborhood as being North Philly. I'm logan north of the Boulevard. There were trees on my block. Like, maybe our experience isn't typical of the North Philly experience. But all of my cousins graduated from college or went to the military, have stable lives. None of them ever been arrested for anything while they were drugs in my neighborhood.

This sounds very different from a lot of stories I've heard from North Philly at the time. So were you ever involved in any kind of crime, drugs, anything like that.

No, I mean I was a graffiti writer as a kid, so you know that.

No robberies, no guns.

No, no, No, I've in fact, being the son of a police officer, I've never even seen a gun.

As I mentioned, Eddie's father was a Philadelphia police officer.

I sort of like idolized the police because I actually saw them as heroes. Because not only was my father a police officer, I have several uncles who were sheriffs and prison guards. I grew up in a law enforcement family.

Upbringing was nothing but police officers. I mean, we used to go camping, and it used to be all my father's buddies.

Oh my god. Like we used to go camping in Coatsville in the summertime every weekend, And so I grew up with all those freams and they were all like cousins to me.

February nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, was like any day for eighteen year old Eddie Ramirez.

He was looking to have fun and hang out with friends.

Eddie's dad gave him permission to spend the night at his friend Mary Emmanuel's house. His friend eighteen year olds William Billy why he was there, and Pete Goesy.

Well Pete I didn't know that well at all. Pete was Billy's friends. Billy was someone where I'd met in years prior to that, not many years, I didn't where I would have said I loved Billy like a brother. The truth of the matter is that I didn't know Billy that well. Apparently I didn't know him that well, and I think that it was it was obvious to everybody that him and I did not compliment each other.

What does that mean?

We were into different things, Like I'm a big dreamer. I don't know what he's into. But it wasn't that I like to it's, you know, now thinking about it, I'm like, man, I didn't know that guy at all.

But Billy wanted to playing a key role in Eddie's case, and you'll be hearing more about him later. Back to that winter day in nineteen ninety five, So they're all hanging out at Mary Emmanuel's house and at around eleven PM, Eddie heads out to the laundromat across the street to get a soda for Mary's dad, Jay Darnell Senior. He asked for the soda earlier in the night, but the

She would close up the laundromat late at night, and she hadn't come home and hadn't called, so he went to the laundromat and when he went inside, he saw blood and he flagged out a cop who arrived at the scene, and they investigated and discovered a victim's body and she was beaten to death.

Basically, this is Michael Wiseman.

I'm a lawyer in Pennsylvania. I work in a small firm called Wiseman and Schwartz.

Michael says Joyce had been hit in the head at least no. Nine times with a metal bar. The police had found at the scene when they arrived. There was blood everywhere and the door handles inside, dead bolts all on the floor. They found a fleece with blood on it, and the place also appeared to have been robbed. While investigating, the police talked to Jay Darnell a few days after the killing.

The dad of this girl who wanted the soda, reported to the police that, oh, Eddie went to the launderrath against soda and that's it. They were off to the races. Eddie's the suspect.

Police start asking about Eddie.

The cops got all these you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds you know in the station whereas they used to call it the round house, and basically six or so people who gave statements against Eddie.

What follows is a month's long investigation in which a story starts to develop about Eddie and a party and a confession a story that unfolds like a game of telephone. A key part of the story comes from a known drug dealer named Corey Watkins. Police interview Watkins and he tells them a seventeen year old kid named Joseph Mayo told him that Billy Why he had killed a woman at the laundromat. Remember, Billy was Eddie's friend, the one he was with that night. Watkins does not mention anything

And I thought, Okay, they clearly they've made a mistake and cool a headge will prevail. Let me do what I care so I can get back to work.

But that's not what happened.

I's been in jail for twenty months with waiting trial.

Both were charged with murder, robbery, and criminal conspiracy. Billy took a deal, pleading to a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying as the star witness against Eddie at trial. What followed for Eddie's family was mostly confusion.

We remember that day when we were told he was arrested. I immediately went over to my sister's house and we were just like in shock and what we were going to do, and we didn't even know what to do. We did not know what to do. It was embarrassing in the beginning. Family didn't want to talk about it. And you know, everybody thinks that you go to jail, you have something to do with it. Nobody was going to believe or the innocent. My brother's innocent. He had

Emily says her dad was desperate and being a former cop, he started to look into the case too, to see if anything implicated Eddie.

My dad checked the house I think a thousand times. He tried to investigate the case. He tried to be detective and found nothing. And it was just mind boggling.

What person says, Hey, let me prepare for a rainy day in the case I get arrested for something I didn't do. So you don't know, that's not something you prepare for. It's just something you're in in the moment, and when the moment comes for some people, it catches you off guard.

And nothing could have prepared him for what came next. Eddie's trial began in December nineteen ninety seven. Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson called Star witness Billy Wyhee to the stand along with Joseph Mayo Melanie Foreman, who repeated what they had told police.

Yeah, he made admissions to me. I saw him with blood on him. I saw him with a pocket full of quarters quarters.

It was all over the press when Eddie was first arrested. Police were saying the teenagers had killed Joyce Dennis over a bucket of change from the machines. Then, according to the prosecution, they went to a party, got high and bragged about what they had done. Eddie's defense attorney was a former DA named Jack McMahon. There was no evidence linking Eddie to the crime for McMahon to refute with experts, the case was all based on alleged witness testimony, so

None.

His strategy was to rely on his obeities to impeach the witnesses based on their own inconsistent testimony.

He was trying to point out that all these kids.

You know, were forced to implicate.

Eddie, and these were all teenagers.

Yeah, the teenagers without their families involved in the interrogation, which is itself problematic, and you know, it's just threats and threats and threats and the you know, if you don't give up Eddie, then you must have done it. You know something on that you're not telling us, And it's just, you know, it takes an extraordinary person, especially as a teenager, to resist that kind of pressure, or.

It would take someone who is not in a lot of trouble. Witness Melanie Foreman, for example, was facing two state drug charges and three federal drug charges at the time. McMahon also called Sarah Hurd, the girl who allegedly threw the party or Eddie had confessed, and she testified the party had been the night before the murder and she never heard Eddie say anything about Joyce.

Dennis.

Eddie's dad, also testified that Eddie came home the next day wearing the same clothes he'd been in the day before.

The defense was trying to make a point that Eddie was not seen with blood on him.

Remember, the laundromat was a bloody mess.

It was really inconceivable that a person who had committed this crime would have gotten away from there. With literally no blood, but they hid the fact that the place was a wash of blood.

The prosecution was able to suppress evidence at trial, so the defense could not bring up the blood. So the whole case hinged on the word of these witnesses against Eddie, and on January second, nineteen ninety eight, Eddie was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

When I was convicted, I thought to myself, well, I'm a arrest did I'm health for trial? And I think to myself, Okay, cool. At some point, they're gonna realize this is a mistake, and they're gonna drop the charges and they're gonna release me.

Like I was in denial, what were the first years, Like.

I was still super young and had no real identity, but he's.

Had a lot of time to think about what put him in prison and who he could trust.

I stayed to myself like now, I wasn't so much isolated as I wanted to learn from my mistakes. And my biggest mistake was associating with people who I had who I didn't have much in common with right and to this day I don't do it. And so for those first few years, like I'd played cards with you, but we weren't boys.

Years past and the reality of prison set in.

I remember the date, November tenth, two thousand and why that date, That's my birthday. And the clock struck midnight and I realized I had just turned thirty and I had spent all of my twenties in prison. And I was like, oh, this is real.

Time passed for Eddie's family as well.

It was just mind boggling. All the years the hope was being lost.

But then Eddie was transferred.

I ended up at Greaterford and that changed my life.

Greaterford was a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania's largest able to house about thirty five hundred men, and Eddie says it was really those men at Greiderford who changed him.

Oh where my family taught me love and tolerance. My brother's at Greaterford taught me how to be a man. I met guys like Soabre Tyrone Works, Albert Bandy, Sam Magic Brown. They taught me how to be an adult. And when I say and I don't mean no, no kind of toxic masculinity.

Eddie says, these men taught him how to have integrity, honor, and a sense of purpose. How does that.

Happen in a prison?

You know, how do these guys, some of them did do crimes, how do they suddenly just become these like Dali Lama guru guys.

Because most of the crimes that were committed were committed when they were young men, and they you know, you sit in you go to prison, and you start to see the effect of the crimes you've committed, and then they start to like, you're mature. And so for those guys, I mean, it happens for everyone, but it happens differently, right, And so those guys who are fall intensive purposes never

And that's kind of what you were thinking, because you were never going to go home.

Oh no, I knew I was going to go home, did I mean? Listen, there were times where I questioned it, but I would like snap myself back to reality, like yo, prepare. And so from the minute like these guys, I met them and they were like, are you going home? And I'd be like, yeah, I'm going home. All right, well, stop preparing right now.

So Eddie got to work.

Not only did he complete a paralegal certificate course, but he earned a bachelor's degree. He pushed so that incarcerated students became eligible for the Dean's List, and he collaborated as an artist with a mural arts program in Philadelphia. And by his side the entire time was his family.

I can tell you that that Eddie's family was as steadfast as any I've ever seen. I mean, just the tenacity and the gumption of the family.

Was amazing, especially his sisters.

I became his voice out here to let people know, Hey, this happened, This is happening. This is happening. People are innocent, and so by me doing it out here, it was motivating him inside prison to do to better himself, to prepare himself to come out here.

But Eddie wasn't just preparing to get out. He was fighting to get out. In the early two thousands, Eddie filed a series of appeals, one of the main ones being that the prosecution had found DNA under fingernail clippings from Joyce Dennis and that was never disclosed to the defense. In two thousand and three, testing was done on the samples that excluded Eddie as a contributor, but his conviction was upheld in twenty eleven. Then Michael comes in, Michael, do you think that his trial was fair?

Well, it can't be a fair trial when evidence is suppressed. That's fundamental to any system of justice. Answers and obvious and resecting.

Now, in twenty fifteen, Eddie filed a petition for relief with the help of Michael Weisman.

So that was when I first met Eddie. And over time, you know, I've come to truly admire him as an individual, as man, and as a resilient human being.

So and he's learned to sort of bear with my sort of like overbearing personality.

If there's anything I've learned from you guys at Greaterford and Philadelphia, you are all big personalities. Yes, there's anything I've learned from meeting all you. Michael also had the help of the Philadelphia Innocence Project.

When the Innocence Project got involved, the case kind of exploded, and you know, went in all kinds of different directions that I don't know that any of us anticipated.

At the time.

Not only did they follow up on the DNA motions and suppressed blood evidence. But Eddie's claim for innocence was now bolstered by recantation from key witnesses. Drug dealer Corey Watkins and his girlfriend Melanie Foreman, said they'd been pressured to falsely implicate Eddie. Watkins said the police held him for hours until he signed a statement. Foreman said the police threatened to charge her as an accomplice. She was cooperating with the federal government on other cases when she

The harassment and the threats against these teenagers to finger any is something that now has the name. It's called the homicide Hotel, So it's it's pretty much an established practice back at that time that what the Philadelphia Hama Side Unit would do is they would bring in witnesses

In twenty sixteen, additional DNA testing was done on items at the scene, including a broom and the bloody fleece I'd mentioned earlier. Testing found the same male DNA on the fleece as on the presumed murder weapon, the pipe. Eddie was again excluded as a contributor. But the wheels of justice move slow, and the years go by with new motions and delays and setbacks, I.

Mean every court appearance. I mean I used to like dread having to go to court because it'd be like, I have nothing I can tell Eddie's mom, who just sits there with tears in her eyes and you know, waiting for good news.

Then finally, in August of twenty twenty three, the state responded to Eddie's petition for relief, agreeing that they had failed to disclose significant exculpatory evidence to Eddie's attorney that would have helped his defense at his original trial. A November two, Judge Scott de Claudio vacated Eddie's conviction and ordered a new trial.

At that point, I was kind of like, Okay, I could breathe a little easier now. Yeah, I'm not out the woods yet because I'm still in prison.

But the prosecution had thirty days to decide if they wanted to retry him, and they took their time deciding.

I was just like, my brother is going out of his mind in prison.

They're going to get every minute out of me that they can. I was pissed.

Finally, on November thirtieth, twenty days after his forty seventh birthday, Eddie was on his way to court to find out what the state had decided.

It's very last minute, the very last minute. We were just like holding our breath because we have been there, done that so many times.

Eddie was on the prison transport van, filled with nerves when there was an announcement.

One of the chefs was watching on his phone and so he yells to the back of the van, Hey, Ramirez, they just announced it. Man, You're going home, right, And so people in the van are like really happy, like, oh man, congratulations, congratulations. There was this one kid. He was like, Yo, how long you been down? I said, man, I've probably been down your whole life. And he's twenty four years old, so he was like, I'm twenty four. I'm like, yeah, man, you weren't even born when I went to prison.

He tells Eddie about the street and gang violence that surrounds him at home, and he says.

Yeah, I just want to be somewhere where I could take my son out and not be afraid it was going to hap happened. And so I said to him, how important is that? He said, it's everything, And so I said, well, then everything you do should be about that. And then it dawned on me, Yo, God put me on this van to give that one last lesson to

Eddie's entire family, including his parents, were there the day he was released.

And my father, who I had not seen run in thirty years ran to me that was gonna be with me for a while.

What's your relationship with him?

Like now, oh, man, that's my best friend. That's my best friend. And I'm just so happy. Like I wonder sometimes if he thought he was going to live to see the day that I would come home. And I'm so happy that he did.

Eddie wasted no time picking up where he left off at nineteen years old.

I still skateboard. Wow. Yeah, well, I mean not exaggerate the greatness of my skateboard.

I was gonna say, did you skateboard in prison? Because you've only been out a few months and.

I have skateboarding since I've been home. And I can tell you that as a forty eight year old, it affects the joints differently.

Scary.

I am worried about falling. I'm going to break a hip.

Billy why he is the only witness against Eddie who didn't change his story, and that was Eddie's friend though when he thought he knew. He took a deal to testify against Eddie and only served five years in prison, while Eddie could have spent his life in there. At first, Eddie couldn't help but be resentful towards Billy.

Why he but today he looks at things differently.

Wouldn't want his victim, yea. And I you know, like I hate to put it like that because it's a part of me that.

That's the guy that put you in prison.

Yeah, and so there's a part of me that doesn't want to defend him. But how could I not How could I talk about integrity and character and just throw that guy to the wolves, even though he did that to me. And so I do got to stand up for what's right and say that it took advantage of a kid.

These days, Eddie tries to share the wisdom and perspective he gained from his friends in prison with the new men in his life, his nephews.

You know, he gives them the manly talk, get up off your butt and do this, And he's always talking criminal reform to them, which in my case, I have a son who you know, has a little criminal history, so you know, he tries to teach him what he can do. And all of Eddie's friends are also in that criminal reform stuff. So I feel like that's a really good vole model for guys like my sons and his nephews and his niece.

Look at good and he just lives life.

Why don't you tell the world what you're about to.

Do, goes to the driving range with his dad and sisters.

Great job, you look good, Man, smile for me.

Man look at me a smile, and spends time with his family as much as he can.

You know, everybody's been trying to get a piece of him. He is booked solid. We have to literally plan around his schedule.

But there was one day that Eddie couldn't miss.

She got arrested in the middle of the night on the fourth of July. So this Fourth of July was the first time that we got to celebrate with him in twenty seven years, and it was very special for me and my sister that we did something.

Emily wasn't going to let Eddie miss another Fourth of July with his family.

I talk a lot about my dad, but my mom, she's super, super faithful. She's a faithful woman, and she had no doubt that he was going to come home one day. And I can tell you that she has bought him things all throughout his prison life. She had racked up items for him for when he came out household stuff, socks.

All kinds of stuff.

Not when he came out. Of course, those are like old stuff. He wants new things, so you know, we have to try to do something with those things. But she is like so happy that she got her son back, and like that is the woman. That woman is so the fourth of July, she got to see her three children swimming and playing in the pool like we were when we were kids, when we used to go camping. That my dad didn't experience because he came and left, but my mom actually stood around and she saw us

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help. This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our producer is Kathleen fink. Our researcher is Shelby Sorels, additional mixing.

By Josh Allen. Our executive producers are Jason Flam.

Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis, with additional production help by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number one