#536 Jason Flom with the Virginia 3

On July twelfth, nineteen ninety four, in downtown Newport News, Virginia, a car full of young men opened fire at another group outside of a public housing complex. Three young people were injured, and nineteen year old Stephen Smith was fatally shot. Soon after, fifteen year old Darryl Hunter was implicated, which then led to his brother Nathaniel and his best friend Reginald, whose compelling alibis were ignored when they were later identified

My name is Virginal Fletcher.

I was nineteen years old in nineteen ninety four, falsely convicted, accused of a crime I didn't commit.

Daryl hunter Well, I was fifteen years old when I was arrested for the crime.

Then the one and only.

Hello, my name is the thing you Piers. I was locked up when I was twenty four for something I had no knowledge.

Of, and you guys were sentenced to hundreds of years collectively in prison and served between all three of you almost eight years. But tell us about Newport News around the time of this crime, which was nineteen ninety four.

Back in ninety four in Newport News, Yes, to collect them was real heavy, especially the I where the crime took place at.

Violence was crazy in the city.

Anybody was just getting harmed and killed, and it was cops and everything. So the life expectancy of somebody where I confrom was you know what I'm saying.

Long.

They had the highest murder rate, number three in the world. There wasn't closing a lot of these cases because the Commonwealth Arattorney didn't get They wasn't investigating these cases. There wasn't testing evidence in these cases. Nevertheless, we fell victim to this situation.

I had things I wanted to be in life, you know what I mean, And I didn't even get to make it.

A high school.

You were the youngest there. Let's start with you. What were your lives like, you.

Know, early nineties. Everybody it was a product of environment. So everybody wanted to be small time petty hustlers or whatever. And people hustled just to get closed whatever and chase chicks. And I'd like to go to school every day because I'm going to school with these clothes on that I bought.

Every day I got.

Off from school, I watched cartoons, Bugs, Bunny and all that.

Before I ain't got with him.

I got this question asked a lot of times back then.

They were like, why you hanging with little dir He's fifteen years old, little dirt heart.

Some of the older guys I with the heart.

You guys were next door neighbors, right, You.

Still got my Nintendo too at home? Man, when I got arrested, I never got to get it back.

It's an antique.

Yeah, I need that shit. I just I'm glad you said something.

He got money to you, like play games, gamble, Like what they do now with the kids do now they play the games. And that's what I was into, Like skating ring was the thing round our way, and the game room and smoke blunts and then I come home and late at night and I had to have beavers and buttheads when I smoked my bes and but that's what was going on.

And pop punk golf. Used to go to puppunk golf a lot. Man. I used to go to pump punk golf.

Yes, all right, right, who would win at pup punk off? You would win? Yes, uh, well, you had four years on him. What else? What were your other interests? Because you were out of high school by this time.

Being nineteen years old, had a job. I was at some females. It's a jewelry shooting, dice gambling, hang out, pup hunt, but most poorly, like still out of trouble.

Like you can't get him to smoke a blunt on a corner. He not doing it.

And what about you, Nathaniel, You were twenty four, right.

Yes, I was twenty four at the time. I had a job. I was taking care of my kids, living a good life. I did. I was doing good. And we hang out and go to the movies and do things. Might hang out with them for hours some but I have kids. The day that I don't hang out with them, yeah, I mean like this is what happened the day that I don't go because I had a cast on when they I ain't want to go with them.

Unrelated to the cast on his leg, a neighborhood guy named Terence Gibbons allegedly had made an attempt on Nathaniel's life in May nineteen ninety four. So now there we were on the evening of July twelfth, nineteen ninety four, and Reginald and Daryl were shooting dice without Nathaniel in uptown Newport News, a predominantly white area.

Mea Darrel was the together all day, so we was at a little small hotel called green Oaks. There was some Texico gas station connected to green Oaks, so we would leave green Oaks to go to testa code. Were bust some chips, soda some.

This was about twelve miles north of the crime scene, which occurred in front of a public housing complex at the forty seven hundred block of Marshall Avenue. Meanwhile, Nathaniel, who went by the nickname Muchie, was hanging out locally with his injured leg. About a quarter of a mile down Marshall Avenue.

I was walking from forty first Street. I was with a friend, Lynn Woodsmith. We had a drunk of forty ounce. I said, man, I'm going back up here because it's getting dark. So as I'm walking down the street, I heard gunshot. I don't think none of it, but I started hearing ammal lambs and polices and everything going. By the time I get to the forty fourth Street, people running everywhere, a car skirted and everything. I keep on walking up the sidewalk. This little boy was up on

According to witnesses, just a few blocks up on Marshall Avenue, three to five men got out of a car firing around one hundred shots, some into the air, others at a group of young people on the front porch. Fourteen year old Maurice Johnson, seventeen year old Alan Stowe's and twenty one year old Quentin Royal were injured, while nineteen year old Stephen Smith was fatally shot through his neck. Meanwhile, Daryl and Reginald were still shooting Dice at the Texicgo station.

It's all was a small time house. So I had a pager. So I went to the store.

I got some quarters and I called my sister back and she told me to a crime app. She said, he's shooting. She put Daddy on the phone. Man brango ass home.

I'm like shy, right, so therey they could have got the phone records as well.

Yes, I look at like ten thirty five, his mother said, us at home before eleven o'clock.

We wave uptown the white people neighborhoods. The crime happened downtown.

At the distance from Texico to where we lived at I say about twenty minutes. So I said, oh, look, I get him home for letting them clock because less I'm in real lights. So when I take him home. Before we pull up on Washing Avenue, we see sirens. The whole street is lit up.

All you've seen was likes and so many police cars. We see everybody outside. So he dropped me off at the house and I stand outside too. She I'm nosy too. What happened? Somebody got shot?

The news?

Come on now, I'm about to go in there. You know, I'm gonna watch beefs and butheads. But I'm gonna watch the news now because it's breaking news. It's messing up beavers and but heads. I see my neighbor on the news talking about how he got shot. I say, damn man, that's boo on the news. What didn't happened?

No night go on.

About four o'clock in the morning, my mom came upstairs. She said, third of the police, won't you come downstairs? Go downstairs. So they were like, we need to speak to you. I'm looking at my mama, So she was like, all, let me go get dressed. They take me outside, put me in the car and drive off with take me over town interrogate. I was willing to talk to him. I don't know what they're talking about.

So it appears that either someone had falsely implicated Daryl, or perhaps his interrogators Riley and Shepherd, were lying to him about being implicated.

I'm to the point where I'm mad, and I was like, well, go get him and tell him me to come in here and say it to my face. I don't know what the hell you talking about. It who you can check me for gunpowder? Man, I ain't shot nobody. So when they hear that, I see all types of people coming in and check my clothes, check my hair, check my face, checked my whole body. I told the techt the Spinner, because he came in the room while Riley and Shepherd was questioning me. I said, we was up

Her name was Robin Raimie, rightyes.

Air white woman.

She told him everything that we was doing outside in stool at the time of the shooting, at the time of the shoot.

And the detective when it got the tape.

When it got the tape, what they do with the tape, I don't know.

We don't know.

Detective spent On, tell him go. He ain't take him back home.

My mom came back up there because she was mad because they drove off with me.

You ain't got none to worry about with your son.

They had to know you had a solid alibi. Gunshot residue test. I mean you're on.

Video all white woman.

A white woman, yes, a white woman. Over the course of the next three weeks, it seems like the police arrested or detained several individuals from the neighborhood, including Tory Davis, Clyde Dargan, and Terence Gibbons, who we mentioned was facing

We had an incident, but the incident was him being the aggressor. We end up shaking hands and pawow, now you know what I mean. We had a full blown sit down with our parents. Our parents got involved, so his mom sent them off the job corp. Next time I know, they've been using him as a motive. They say that I was trying to kill him.

And by August fourth, Tory Davis, Clyde Dargan, and Terrence Gibbons were willing to identify shooters from lineups, so the police picked up Darryl, Reginald and Nathaniel.

If He came to the house to get me the post. They said, well, can we just talk to you for a minute. I said, y'all can talk to me right here. I said, do you got to want He said no, we don't got a wart. He said, well you coming right back? I said, coming right back? I ain't going nowhere with y'all. He said, yes, she is. They handcuffed me, but I wasn't underrest. If they just wanted to question me, why did they handcuff me? So I went down there and I told them everything that I'd done that day

And we're going to come back to that encounter later. But it appears that if Spinner had spoken to that boy and his mother, any record of that is probably

Those were the only three witnesses that come le've had against him?

What was in your favor?

I had it in my favor that I had a cast on my leg. All the perpetrators ran away from the crime scene.

And that running element was a key piece of Darget's testimony, even though the cast made it literally impossible. And in addition, his attorney pointed out the unrelated charge that they did know about, that the attempted murder charges against Gibbons had curiously been dropped by the time of his testimony. Unfortunately, though, the defense could not find that thirteen year old boy whom Nathaniel had saved, and it appears that the detectives

Difference when it came back with the verdict. It was like nine oh four at night. I had been sitting out in a bullpen for hours. I just knew, I believe the shots said go, don't keep you closed on. You'd be going in a few minutes. Everybody in the courtroom knew I won. They had nothing on me. Literally, everything that they said was a lot. They'd come back with a couple of hot sauce, a piece of chicken, a Coca Cola and a life sentence plus seventy eight years and sixty days and sent me.

To prison life plus seventy eight years and sixty days and sixty days and sixty days. Apparently he had missed the court date related to Gibbons' attempted murder proceedings. Now, perhaps they were trying to give the appearance that the drop charges were related only to that, even though Nathaniel could not have been there because he was in custody at the time for a driving charge.

Was ready in jail, so I could I a miscought and if I'm already in your custody, they gave me sixty days for that too. I looked back at my mother. She's like, May I couldn't cry because I know I hadn't killed nobody.

Meanwhile, Darryl, who had been granted bond, had chosen to stay in pretrial's attention.

At first, I was like, don't waste no more money because I ain't do nothing. We gonna beat it because we had three of the best lawyers and known in our city.

So I'm thinking I'm going home.

When they found him guilty, I read it the paper to common well talking in the paper and they were like, we coming to get his little brother, Daryl Hunter.

Next. I'm like, oh my god. When I read that, come and get me out on bond expeditiously. I'm scared. I'm like, man, y'all gotta come get me.

Man.

You know, I turned into a little kid there. You know what I'm saying, Like, y'all, I gotta do that. My mom and dad came and bailed me out.

And then he went to trial next. Yeah, I went to trial next, and you had a bench trial.

My lawyer told me to a jury, I can beat the jury.

But I was like, oh uh, Joel, I want to I don't want no people to come here because there might be some people that know the people. That's what my mind thinking. I want to do it. I'm gonna take him. I think that was a bad mistake for me to.

Do Again, the state presented Clyde Dargan, who only identified Nathaniel as he ran away from the scene, never mind the cast on his leg, but the judge credited his testimony anyway. Then Terence Gibbons identified all three of them, but was discredited with the dropped attempted murder charge. This time, one of the victims in this case, Maurice Johnson, testified to something that no one else had ever said. He

The judge wanted to go to the crime saying he wanted to see what he witnessed the city was standing at would he said, he's seeing me from he went out there and say, well, I can see from grossy streets if I've seen put the deputy over there. Yeah, I think I can identify somebody if I already knew he was fixed for.

So despite the testimony of Robin Raymie, the Texico cashier placing Darryl and Reginalds uptown, the judge credited Davis at Dargan.

It was just tragedy, you know what I'm saying, Like I ain't even get to make it a high school. I ain't get to spurns none of that, Like no prom no nothing. And I had to grow up over the phone listen to my friends. You know what I'm saying, grow up and what happened in school today? That was like interested in me.

What was your sentence?

It gave me one hundred and twelve.

Years at fifteen years old.

I was sixteen, just turned sixteen.

One hundred and twelve years. What even is that? And no other country in the world does it this way. I mean maybe North Korea, I don't know, but so regularly. You were the last of the three to go to trial. Yes, sir, obviously you were very well aware of what had happened.

Absolutely, I was devastated and then I felt like I don't have a chance.

I had a jelly trial. My trial last three days.

So the deputy during the time was in listening and he said, you might got a great shot. I won't say they got found guilty. The evidence that they was presenting. It doesn't make any sense.

But again, Dargan only I d Nathaniel with his running story. Gibbons id'd all of them, but was again impeached, And this time Davis said that the Commonwealth told him what to say and that his eyesight was twenty fifty. But even with that and the alibi testimony, of Robin Raimi. Somehow regimen was still found guilty.

So after the guilty verdict, I sat there for a second. I wasn't in disbelief about it because my other two brothers had already been found guilty. But not only did they drag us down and found us guilty, but my father caught a case behind this as well.

Oh my god.

All he said was that's not fair, my son is innocent.

But he took his words in and said that my father had threatened the witnesses after the jury had found me guilty.

See which was it? Lie?

Was your father convicted? No, sir, they meant to that.

He just got community service. But he shouldn't have had nothing.

What was your sentence?

I had seventy eight years?

Seventy eight years.

Yes, I had a daughter at the time. She was only four months so for me to leave her in the world alone and deal with the prison system, it didn't sept with with me. For like twenty four and a half years. I cried almost every night.

We lost everything for nothing.

I went to prison with life in seventy eight years and sixty days. I got there around three something in the morning. It was so cold outside. They told me to take off all my clothes. They put some shampoo in my head and sprayed me down with a holes like they have on the fire truck. They gave me a blanket and took me to a seal. I knew my life and changed in it really messed with me because I hadn't done nothing. I'm around all these dangerous peoples, so I had to adapt.

Prison was hard. I got pressed a lot in it, but it ain't no chump.

It was like I might got to punch you in your face with staring at me too long or something, just to make a statement because I'm one hundred.

Pounds, you innocent and you're around. Somebody liked that.

I actually pretend like I was guilty. Could it asks you what you're here for? What did you do? So I used that a little bit to get through the time, and also present letters, write letters every day for help. I took programs a lot of different type of trays to put myself in a position to be able to get early parole. Well, at least I thought I was a gett early parole because I know I believe that I could be in prison for twenty four and a half.

Years, especially since right after Reginald's conviction, Nathaniel was granted a new trial and direct appeal. It was discovered that Clyde Dargan's history as an informant was hidden from the defense. However, Nathaniel was once again found guilty in nineteen ninety six

Soon as I moved in the neighborhood, a lot of hate and envies. Thought it come in my way, you know what I mean, juvenile stuff. I was always wondering why what did I do? Because my dad was in the shipyard in the military my whole life. I asked one of the dudes that I grew up with. I say, man, why dude, low me? He say, Man, I'm gonna tell.

You the truth.

Because you had a daddy I say what, So dudes said, man, your daddy brought your shoes or Friday bro.

So they were jealous, jealous. The first of the recantations came in two thousand and seven from Terrence Gibbons, saying that he was coerced by others to lie, and it was discovered that in addition to his attempted murder, chargers being dropped, nine ounces of cocaine possession went away as well. And maybe it was this recantation, but something prompted Detective Spinner to visit Nathaniel Pierce in two thousand and eight.

Two thousand and eight, he came to South having correction on Centay to see me. I ain't know who's visiting, so I go over there and he's standing there. They had me handcuffed. The lieutenant took the handcuffs home. He said, they don't want you handcoff because they never let you go in there with the police without handcuffs on. He said, I'm sorry, Spinner. He told me he was sorry. He said, I'll be about to get you with the Fridays. We're gonna get all this straight.

Did he have like a religious awakening or why the hell did he come in and come clean to you.

Why he went home and died that weekend. Did he look sick, Yeah, he was a little skinnier.

So maybe he knew he was dying and want to get ready with good and fest is up to you. But there's no recording of that meeting. Obviously right now they recorded.

But I can prove that he can't even see me. And I got a couple letters from him and Howard Gwinn. Howard Gwinn had sent me a letter like three weeks ahead and say, yeah, he now works for me. This is what they do. They reopened the case up. They put a detective, her name is Misty Mercer on the case. I'd never seen her. I never heard from her. I never talked to her. Neither one of them never talked to her. Nevertheless, the common with attorney, I kept writing

According to Tory, Davis, who had already admitted at Reginald's trial that his vision was very poor. This is part of his twenty sixteen recantation, said that after he was arrested on unrelated drug charges in nineteen ninety four. Spinner brought him to Gwynn's office, where he was fed the narrative and in exchange for his testimony, that his charges would be dropped. Damien Claude also recanted, saying that the whole motive about his prior beef with Daryl was actually nonsense.

After twenty three years one of my friends got out. I said, man, could you go around there and get the address. I'm gonna try to write to his mother and tell her I say this his life. He wouldn't there and got the address, but it wasn't the right address, so I put a picture in there with the letter.

Local News three, specifically WTKRS. Breonna Berry interviewed the boy, who is now a man, who asked that his identity be hidden as the shooters were still at large, and he described being chased by one of them before Nathaniel had heroically brought him to safety.

Before the story aired, I had an opportunity on February twenty seventh, twenty eighteen, to speak with Adrian Bennett. She came to see me.

The head of the parole board. Adrian Bennett had already received the parole package from Nathaniel and she was now aware of the News three coverage and she paid Nathaniel to visit.

And she told me. She said, I've seen Reginald a couple of days ago.

He's doing good.

I say yeah, I say, miss Bennett, I say, you know from the package that I sent you. I said, you had an opportunity to view it, to read did and everything. She said, Well, what I'm gonna do for you, I'm going to to murder victim's mother. That lady told her everything She wanted to hear that we didn't do the crime, and she didn't know what to do after we were sent to prison.

The murder victim's mother she told Adrian Bennett, who is the head of the parole board, she knew we.

Didn't kill her son, and Adrian she knowed the story is going to air on the news the next day. Before the story ed, Reginald got paroleed.

All three men received support for their parole from the Radical Hope Project, and Reginald was the first to be released on February twenty eighth of twenty eighteen.

So the first thing I done is kissed the ground, looked up in the sky. Thank you.

It was a blessing, a dream come true. It took twenty four a half years, but that was a feeling that I can't never ever forget. I ended up getting car sick because I haven't rolled in the car for so long. I wasn't used to the air. The air and society is diffrom the air. This in prison, I've been going so long. I had to get readapted all over again to society.

And while Reginald began that journey, there were still two more men to go as far as I can recall, I was in Virginia to walk Lenny Singleton out of prison, and then I met that reporter there, Brionna Barry, and she told me about you guys, and that's the first time I had heard about it, and I had cultivated a relationship with the powers that be in Virginia.

Oh so that's how you and up sending the email back.

God sent me to you, Jason Flom. I told you my story. You listen to me. I wrote you here I am on today. I thank you for doing everything you're done for me. The Virginia three he went to the parole board. He spoke to them for me. I had opportunity to speak with them. We're all grateful for him.

Nathaniel was finally granted parol in December of twenty eighteen.

I lost so much in prison. I lost out on my kids life because everybody had told them Eliza about me, and they had looked at me as I was a murderer. And it's hard to date for me to stand there with my kids and they don't look at me that way. I don't know now, man that goes to prison, that comes out here that can tell you that he's mentally stable. They sending us right back out here to society without giving us the problem.

Help.

You're not coming back out there the same way you went in. And then they seen you right back out here for resitivist. I had an officer tell me that. He said, I see you back. I seen him not too long ago. He bowed down to me. He bowed down to me. He said, I never believed you. He said, you're right here. He said, I'm sorry.

Darryl's release soon followed. In July of twenty nineteen.

They try to plan a knife on me. A couple of days before that. Wow, they kicked in the sell. I'm in the park where everybody got a least dating the pod. They come in and they go in the ventilation system. They pull out something about this long and I said, well, I ain't man. I'm gonna go home. You know that, right, I'm gonna go home. Like a couple of days, I'm on the damn TV. What the hell I need a knife? They was like, you don't do another news and interview. I think you had some

I'm gonna hear him out. I'm gonna hear him out.

And they came, this is yours right, like, nah, so you're gonna do an interview. I was like, what you mean? Yeah, I'm gonna do an interview every chance I get. Well, it's gonna be your knife. So you want to go home.

What was the first thing you did when you got out barrow?

Everything?

Life has been beautiful, you know, it's except just losing my father and my brother.

Because when I got out, I don't even know.

My dad had to mention I ain't no because he was talking like he knew what was going on. So to have somebody to take care of you like that all your life. I'm talking about all the way util we walked out of the door, my dad held us down like it was mind bogging for me. Like I think about it all the time, like, damn, man got a good ass dad.

Man.

We you know what I'm saying. The man send his money every week, you know, while we was in there. So that breaks me down sometime when I think about it, like cause I ain't got them no.

More right Apparently, their father Nathaniel, uncle Clarence, and their brother Raymond, among so many other family members who are still with us, like their sister Belinda, their mothers well, they all had really stepped up for them throughout the entire ordeal, helping with attorney's fees, with Nathaniel's kids, whatever they needed. So the passing of these three family members is all the more painful as a result. We're gonna dedicate this episode to them. May they rest in peace

All the evidence that the Innocent Project got right now, they hit all this stuff, this show that we completely innocent and all the stuff that were all deceived the court with lies and they knew that we didn't have nothing to do with it because they told them what to say against us, Like you had the truth, you had all the shell cases. It's four different guns, you only locked up three.

There are shellcasings and weapons that could and should be tested for DNA, as well as more witnesses who have come forward who could shed light on what was known about the actual shooters, and maybe even more importantly, what was hidden.

And it's been happening and continually happened. This is a pattern of Keith Haywood, David Boyse. All of these people have the same crime, the same detectives, everything, the same commonwealth and it's going to continue to be in the same cycle if somebody don't break the chain.

Fortunately, Howard Gwynn was recently defeated in the Democratic primary by Shannon Jones, and we here at Wrongful Conviction are all hoping that this is a positive development as we move forward in this case, justice cannot be delayed any longer. These guys are innocent and they deserve to have their

Reginald, I want to give a special thanks to Jason Flumm his whole team having no Gian three out to aari story, and also to all the running conviction that goes on all over the world. It's said that it happens well thanks to social media. It is dead time to shed a light on that type of justice, not just in Virginia but all over.

It needs to stop.

Thank y'all once again for believing in the Virginia Three in other cases as well.

Nathan Yel, I just want to thank Jason Flom, Kevin Connor, you guys for everything that y'all have done for us. And I'm grateful and I'm humbled that the guys have done what they've done. The witnesses that came forward to do what they're supposed to do, then get these convictions up off of us. You know, you always heard that trouble is easy to get it, but hard to get out. It's true. It's been thirty years we've been dealing with this situation, and I just pray that it's over real soon.

Now, I just want to thank everybody that would you know, helped to lease the speed as an advocate down there in Virginia.

That helps a lot of people.

Brianna Barry, the National Action Network, brotheren Tooms, Mister Archie, Jason Flume, Benjamin Crump, everybody that came along and spoke up on it and spoke for us. You know what I'm saying, Like it takes a whole lot of people, you know, to come together to make something like this happen. You know, me being locked up at fifteen years old like that was a I hope this can register to some people out there so we can stop this type of stuff, you know what I mean.

That's that's that's basically it. And I just want to thank.

Everybody that was involved, Joe, Ron John, my lawyer, John love It, everybody that's coming together for the one cause.

Thank you for listening to Conviction. 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 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 Kleiber. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR

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