#538 Jason Flom with Kendrick Gillum

On February first, nineteen ninety seven, in West Memphis, Arkansas, a young man named Charles Newsom was fatally shot in his car. According to some witnesses, Charles was with two others in his car, but only one was ever identified.

Welcome, thank you for having me.

So let's start with Ken's life growing up in this small and notorious city of only about twenty five thousand people on the west side of the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tennessee, called West Memphis.

My mom she haed me two that twenty fourth, nineteen seventy one. You know, I had a pretty normal childhood. You know, my mom, she took good care of me and my brothers. We come from a big family and all of us was closer the neighborhood because I said, like from five years old, we would always get together on the weekends, all as the summer the school was out. We was always somewhere on the bikes together, played football, basketball,

This group of family and friends lived in the Foxwood area of West Memphis and then was a rival neighborhood group from about a mile and a half away on Eighteenth Street, and Foxwood continued to stick together as the kids became teens and as problems became more complicated as they were introduced to the drug trade.

I said, part of the started, I said about ninth grade. You know, we started hanging out, chasing girls, drinking girl not doing my mom's see. And then like like sixteen, I was really like I was just full plays one of the streets and I had a partner that I used to run with and he'd be setting drugs all night and I'd just be running around with him. And I was like seventeen when I first got shot. Oh yeah, I was like seventeen when I first got shot, So

Detective Brian Ridge, who's also a big character in the West Memphis three, shot his friend. His friend is kind of on the side of the road. Ken is trying to take him to the hospital and then he shoots Kin so he can't help him.

Laying on the float bleeding and the police got a gun to my head. They shot my mama house up to right around the corner. He wants three cars with its cas shoot up his house and he didn't pursuit him.

It seems like Detective Brian Ridge and potentially others were at the very least turning a blind eye to the Eighteenth Street guys.

I didn't get any evidence to this, but it was something that everyone told me when I was in West Memphis, like the people in the A. Treen Street group were working with the police to sell drugs. One woman sat down at me and she was like, how do you think drugs get into West Memphis? Like we don't have a port. Police will do a drug bust, and you think they're throwing those drugs away, they're not. They're putting them right back in circulation.

The girl I was going with but I had the kids buy they pulled upon her brother over at the gas station one day and he was saying that they pulled up on him and said, Hey, you need to go talk to Kendrick. We got something for you, and y'all ain't got to worry about us twin now, as long as y'all keep you down over there, y'all ain't got to worry about us the rest nobody. But if you don't, we'll be to see you. So what happened was he came told me and I refused to say a dope.

On him, and it appears that perhaps one of the more prominent Eighteenth Street guys, Terrence Robinson, may have taken this deal while Foxwood suffered the consequences.

The girl I was going with her brother, they gave him the datment. They got my brother on the diapers, They got Chuck Kirkwood, they got my whole neighborhood on the diapers. The all the walk probably was left that didn't get in the diaper with me almoose.

So Terrence Robinson, he's the person who, like we said, so drugs with the police. He had a cousin called Daryl Robertson. Darryl gets shot and that's what they try to put on Ken, but that fails.

He gird order. He got to go write their statement on me was lyons in kis who had to drop the jobs. The one was investigated, the same one they shot me, Brian Reid.

And with the context of this unholy alliance between the police and Foxwood rivals on Eighteenth Street, tensions flared further over a dice game in nineteen ninety six involving Ken's friend Chuck and Terrence Robinson, who was with James Newsom, the cousin of the victim in this case.

They had a nice game going on in the neighborhood, Dames Gruesom and Terrence Robinson style Shuton guys Woodhelm. Anyway, chue k b Terrence Alley's money, so Chump took off the Wolkin. They pulled up Scot out the car and hit truck in the face and tried to go on his pockets and take it money. So this when the fighter started. And after that we ended up seeing them

And this kicked off a series of incidents of retaliatory gun violence leading up to the incident in question on February first, nineteen ninety seven, which occurred at nine hundred West McCauley Drive, the Mayfair Apartment complex, which unfortunately was no stranger to gunfights, and with this ongoing feud between eighteenth Street and Foxwood, the likely assumption was that someone

Ellis Caroli said that he was old Charles Newson house in phil Paul. That's waiting on Charle to take a shot down and take a bail, and there was the only way to minches. They walked into the car and they drove pay us by the manager's office and he said that he's seen four people out there and they began shoot this out of the car.

No one is very certain about how many shots were fired or when the shot hit, but it was basically a shootout happening. Someone took their hand out of the windows started shooting back barely.

Said that Chaul made a right old McCarley and he hit another car and he said chall that he couldn't breathe, and so ca Ronald said that he scowed it over. It stuck his leg onder the hands field up and he drove from the passenger side all the way back round to the front of the building where he went and can't help it.

So the cops arrived and according to some witness says, Terrence Robinson should have been with Ellis to give an account, but no account has ever been found. Now. Initially Ellis had said that three or four black males who he couldn't identify, were shooting from the passenger's side, and that when Charles was hit, he reached his foot over to

We've gotten various accounts of how the body was found, but never this one that Charles Newsom was basically turned back and he was lunged over the driver's seat.

One week with she Seed, somebody had opened the door and looked at his car, so it was cussin and he jumped back in the car and.

Drove around the bend, which makes you think that whoever drove the car out of there made room for himself by pushing Charles over the seat, or perhaps Charles had even lunged back there, since the shot may well have come from inside the car, But unfortunately the state of the physical evidence hasn't made anything clearer. It appears, in fact, that Charles Dusom's car had been involved in previous shootouts and plenty of damage to the out side of the car.

They said on a two bullet hole put an interior to the car, the one that hate him in the foot hall. People said to have come through the wandle, the very top, the back windle. You supposed in they head one. They went to the trunk. They said that a blizzard went to the trunk, went to the back seat, to the back of the drama seat, kicked him in the right upper side of his back.

But a picture of the open trunk showed no damage at all to the car stereo speakers that covered the seatbacks. So the prosecutor actually motioned to have that photo barred from evidence. I'm just gonna pause there for a second. Ah, Yeah, which you know, my spidy senses are telling me that an independent investigation of the vehicle would have been prudent and necessary.

So the car gets sold immediately that.

We used to call it through the marble, And I guess she got rid of it because Hassan got killed in it. The dude that bought the car, he said there was no bullet hole in the back of the drive of seat this compa.

But I spoke to someone who spoke to the guy who bought the car, and he says there were no back seats.

So no driver's seat, bullet hole, no back seats to even confirm or deny the alleged trunk bullet path. Somebody had gotten rid of them, right. But the state's theory becomes even more unbelievable when you consider the bullet's trajectory through Charles Newsom's body.

They said it a bullet What do the prong? What do the back seat went through the back of the drivers, hit him in the right upper side, open back, and terminated in the lower left front.

It's a downward trajectory, Pully.

Wouldn't they hate him? They put no down will pay him? Would would have would break to a person.

In my eyes, the fatal shot has to have come from inside the car based on the ballistics. There is no other way it could have happened.

The ongoing inter neighborhood gun violence had both the police and alleged witnesses speculating about Foxwood, specifically about Ken Gillum and Antonio Williams, which wasn't that wild of an idea, can considering Ken's alibi because Ken was at his girlfriend, Tarshalla Flores, his home with his two kids, one of whom was nicknamed Pooh, and sometime before the shooting took place, some Foxwood guys that stop by.

So Ken's girlfriend her two brothers are the big drug dealers in West Memphis. They were Flores, so that house was kind of where they all hang out. That's where they sold drugs from. It was kind of like the meeting point. So that's why these people came over.

They were come, roll Waters over, We're going to get Charles. Tasha dude like no, you better come get your dad. And stupid dad trying to go a wag to jail. So he running there, grabbed my lead, hold on my lead, was like, Mane, look, man I'm street. I ain't gonna I'm sorry cute my partners called me. He was like, hey, Mane, they can't shot Nane and know your name the firm name. Come home. He said, you might want to get your keys and stuff I have to have. I'm here and it's going to be for shooting.

So you might be thinking, wait a minute, does Ken actually know who did it?

See the parties? They didn't do it.

Now, Remember, the bullet trajectory supports that the fatal shot had to have come from inside the car, and soon after the shooting, the police had more support for a close range gunshot. According to a report summarizing the Arkansas Crime Labs gunshot residue analysis that was entered into evidence of trial, Charles Newsom's jacket had quote one perforating hole in the upper right back with residues relating to a firearm discharge end quote.

The only way that Newsom would have residue on the jacket was that if the shot had come from close range.

But despite that, the state continued to build this sort of wild narrative about shooters outside the car, which centered and relied on l his statements.

Carol Ali said that I don't know who did it. That's the first statement. The second statement was gave a couple of hours a capt there, and he said that Gilby and Williams did it. Five days later, he gave a third statement saying four people did gil them Willison, Willis, and Jackson. But Ronald Jackson was found out to be in Kentucky, so they know that was another lie.

So the mention of Ronald Jackson was just ignored while the focus remained on the other three. And it seems to Marco Wilson, who happens to be Ken's cousin, by the way, was seen at Mayfair that night by a man named Mark Welch.

Oh my god. The Marco is like, that's the whole other thing, Like he's not even in this friend group. He was in his girlfriend's apartment because they had a newborn child, and he just walked down because he heard shots. So Mark Welsh how he plays into the story. He just goes like, I was there, I was in the apartments and I saw the Marco was standing outside. He looked at you take it. So that's how de Marco comes into the whole thing.

So DeMarco's name was added to Ellis's third statement, and they picked up Ken a few days later, but he was in charged yet.

They took me the Jones brou to take a lot to take the cares. But the man said exploit. You said no, you paid to answer. Did you have anything to do with it? You said no, you paid answer me. Do you know anything about it? And you said no, and until you were sure, you lying. So I said, you said, I passed on not being there, and I passed not having anything new with it, right? He said, yes, said well I did. I'm innocent, so may leave me along because I need shit. But it's you one that

You don't want to mess with these people. So he was not going to start pointing fingers and get potentially retaliation from someone.

He ended up let me go.

Since Ken was not going to give them any information, especially since he hadn't actually seen anything, they continue to build the narrative. In his third statement, Ellis mentioned two alleged witnesses who he said were just happened to be driving by, Darnell Troop and Kevin Johnson. Troop gave a statement about having heard the shots, while Johnson said that he saw Antonio DeMarco and Ken by the manager's office and that one of them had had a rifle.

It's funny to read their interrogation transcript because the police goes, you saw these people standing on Wes McCauley, right. Kevin Johnson goes, right, it sounded like a rifle, right, yes, right. So the police is literally the way they're framing their questions is with the information they need.

And this Johnson and three of the witnesses and say, hey, all three of them, Hey, they job just dismissed. Ten years after apposition.

These three witnesses got their charges dropped on February two thousand and eight, all of them, and all of them but one has now come forward and basically said I was lying and I was offered something to lie. Kevin Johnson said that he got drugs in exchange for that testimony. So they all have their charges dropped the same month,

This endless get out in an abandoned house Will fifty seven thousand, three ninety seven dollars two ketos and what if I am a second or two or three gone? He got five years of total c which he had to do ten months, and he could get out on it.

So Ellis, for example, he testified in like five or six criminal cases, like a bunch of them, always saying whatever the police needed him to say.

And those weren't the only deals to be had. Ken was offered ten years with just two years to the parole board. Now, call me crazy, but it sounds to me like they may not have really thought he did it if they're offering him two years for a crime this serious but okay. But Ken refused the deal. What guilty guy refuses that deal, that's the best deal they're ever going to get. But Ken refused, So they bolstered

Jeff Kate says that the prosecutor, fran Thorne want to him to say it. He's hurt me and tay you saying that I killed somebody and he's saying the people. And they said they wouldn't send him to the penitentiary. They sent him to boot camp on ninety They put under the head like a little army thing and they get help. So they sent him to boot camp two weeks prior to trial. We went to trial November fourth through November nineteen ninety seven, and on the sand he

Fair saying, you know it's wild that with all of the shellcasings from this incident and others at Mayfair, they still couldn't find one shotgun shell that would have made Caton's testimony make sense. And by the way. He later recanted his statement as well, in case this wasn't screwed up enough. Next up, Darnell Troop said he had heard the shots while he drove by with Kevin Johnson, who took the stand as well.

He said that him had done their troop in the car together passing by, and he said, we shooting a noosel white car with nucl Carl Purple and he seeing me Williams Willison and Jarry Johnson and the man duke officer.

So Kevin Johnson, who later recanted, offered an entirely new person into the narrative, just out of thin air. A guy named Jerry Johnson appears in this narrative who also ended up having a solid alibi like Ronald Jackson had had from Elis's third statement.

Now and it's his first two statements. They were with hal from us until the first day of trial. I mean, they caught that man in so many lines. They tell me your first statement, why didn't you just kill them? Who did it? Oh Man? I just want to saying that to me. You know what I'm saying. It wasn't not your second statement you said kill them Williams eating oh Man? I just gave him a little some some Come on, man, do you remember sitting you've seen him

For the record, it was eight pm in February, the area wasn't well lit, so it probably was too dark for anyone to have seen what they claimed to have seen. But at this point, despite the inconsistencies and discrepancies, the jury heard three witnesses named the three co defendants without any context of the deals they'd made with the prosecutor's office, and in addition, they were able to keep Ken's alibi witness Tarshalla Flores, off the stand.

They come in with two bullet pips did they said they found and Tasha mulg House is doing a drug grade six months after the murder, and they said that these bullets had the same lot number on them as the one found that the scene. So she didn't testify for me because they were trying to act like I had something to do that I had and I had something to do with anything. I was in jail for six months, So y'all raided their house. Lot number on the back of the bullets don't mean nothing. This just

Again, this is important context that the jury never heard. Now. The prosecutors also called Detective Brian Ridge to discuss his magic curving bullet theory, and he came.

In with a homemade picture that he drew up. He took a box car, a juvenile picture that a five year old could have drew and it had the diresion that he think says that the bullet went, bullet hole hit the car on the tube. The hole was supposedly gonna traded the inuitor. The picct them was hit in the right four hall. Now, bullet people said to have come.

Through the window, which is plausible. The bullet could have struck his forearm as he held the steering wheel, or perhaps he raised his arm defensively at some point and it was struck. But then the only other possible entry point that they claimed was through the trunk, which they said traveled through the back seat and driver's seat to hit Charles. And remember we mentioned that the prosecutor already objected to admitting the picture of the open trunk into evidence.

They come into court with the photos showing a bulletholes of the car. Right, So now they come to the bullet hole in the back of the driver's seat. Guess what it can't be found. And two it was like, well, they said, well you had this morning, didn't He said, yeah, hey, but you've seen the lost from the police station.

The cool This is now like the dog ate my homework. And then, to make matters worse, the state's next witness, Kevin Mainhardt, testified about the gun that was alleged to have been used, in this case an sk rifle, which was helpful with demonstrating that the bullet could have made it through all of those different objects, but not with the downward trajectory.

Easy, it will go straight through them, hold over them. So I wanted to hit some redit and take them down.

Will pay up?

This can't make confense.

So through their own witnesses, the state had just contradicted their own narrative and they were about to do it again. While presenting the medical evidence, they entered a number of documents into evidence, including a report summarizing the Arkansas Crime Labs gunshot residue analysis. Now, importantly, the gunshot residue of the victim's hands was not submitted, and we'll get to

Probably the most insane part of this trial is that they never get a ballistics expert to come testify. They get a medical examiner, and this was a doctor that infamously also testified in the West Memphis three trial. So he's testifying in Ken's case, and he says, basically, I don't have qualifications to do this. The just says it's okay, go on, go on. And what he says in trial is that there was no close range firing because he didn't see residue on the.

Victim, and he specifically mentions the victim's skin, and this is something he can speak to as an expert. There are ways to optically examine for residue or that can be stippling, which is the burn pattern one can expect with close range gunshots. But the victim was wearing three layers that night, remember it was February, a shirt, an undershirt, and a jacket. And the report from the Arkansas Crime Lab says that is residue relating to firearm discharge around the hole in the right upper back.

But the medical examiner is literally saying the shot was coming from fifteen twenty minutes away, like the bullet came from outside the car. While there's information that there's primer residue on the victim, and this is pointed out by either Antonio or DeMarco's lawyer and they were like, look, this is impossible. There's an inconsistency. The state is saying that there's primary residue on the victim, and yet the medical examiner is saying that there's no evidence of close

And it seems that this case required at least a ballistics expert to further explain this to the jury, but that didn't happen before they went to deliberate.

Grandma sheen howl in the bathroom. Oh wait, it needs out security chamber. So he was gonna help to the prosecutors, and they said he told the prosecutors. He said, hey, man, y'all cases, y'all need to do something. Now.

We've gotten a hold of one of those jurors. And he said it's a long time ago, man, I don't remember, but he's he was very clear. He was like, when the jurors were deliberating, one of the prosecutors walks into the jury room and they say something to the jurors that's tempering with their decision, and then.

Those jurors returned with their verdict. All three men were convicted of first degree murder and given life sentences without the possibility of parole.

There's a lot of mind and a lot of disbelieve. It was like it was like took my life? Did't know? Do I just you know? It's that you just game his plain because you need to make you feel so mad. You'll be like talking him to make rail. You know what I'm saying in the politration. You have to sit here and wait and wait and hold some chime. And now I gotta try to find a lawyer that'll take you. I need help. It's hard, man, it is hard. You don't know the feeling. Man. I lost my brother, my all,

One of the investigators on this case, Detective On, became a preacher and as luck would have it, or fate or whatever irony whatever you want to call this, when Ken was allowed to attend her funeral. Who the fuck do you think he saw there?

He couldn't even look at me. I was sitting on the part road. Every time he looked over there, and he put his head down. He put his head down. I wanted to get up, but I had respect for my grandmama. I wanted to get up, and may y'all get this bitch about the art, because the bitch lined on me and got me here this pen attention, and they put my grandmoma need the car and I walked up to him. I said, you lying, talk ass bitch. My mama put him away from him. They do this

The three co defendants had an alleged confession back in nineteen ninety nine, but that fell apart before it even went to an evidentiary hearing oh.

Hey hanging down here and told him that he said there and took the job, that they were going to send him to the road, but that what dude changed took.

The moment following that, Kevin Johnson came forward in two thousand and one claiming that he was offered drugs by one of the victim's friends in exchange for this testimony, and the team went back to court in two thousand and three.

All two to them the issues was raised. It was the same thing they got the Wistmavis three free was the same appeal that they used due to the.

Scientific casting, so they filed a seventeen eighty six years.

Later in Discovery, they received a hidden gun shot residue. Exam of Charles Newsom's hands.

Turns out there's primar residue in Newsom's hands. The only way that Newsom would have primar residue in his hands was that if the shot had come from close range.

But that Charles was in close proximity to gunfire.

But that didn't go with their story that the shooters were from outside the car, so there could have been no power anywhere. The evidence would have proven otherwise.

They denied it because they said that there was no new scientific case thing it would have helped us look that some of the cases I read. They saying that it is not just for real reversal to be game when the scene is convicted normally or not normally of false evidence, and they know that they conveted me on false.

Evidence, and so did Jason Baldwin of the West Memphis Three, who knew DeMarco Wilson while he was in prison. We'll have their stories linked in the episode description, so check them out. But upon his release in twenty eleven, he eventually began a nonprofit to reinvestigate innocent's claims, and this

They was trying to find out what the evidence was.

It and the deck on all of it is missing and all of the reports are missing too. So not only don't we have the shirt, the jacket and the car any of that, which is already huge misconduct because you're meant to keep evidence from murder case forever, we don't even have pictures of it. And when we bring Mike Allen to court, they're like, hey, what happened to this evidence? He's like it says, I checked it out, but it wasn't me. Someone else done it. Someone else mus have written my name.

I don't know where it is so someone just checked the evidence out in nineteen ninety seven and it's just gone.

So I mean very convenient that because if we had got evidence, if we could prove that can didn't do it, you could do all types of testing. You could test the pother again, you could test for DNA, you could test all types of things.

Jason's team made contact with another potential confessor around twenty twenty who had contacted law enforcement as early as twenty seventeen, who was finally saying something that aligned with the evidence. But that person took their own life before swearing under oath.

First we got the primer residue analysis, and then we finally sent it over to a ballistic expert and he was like, this is primary residue, like that shot came from inside the car. And then we also have what five hundred pages worth of documents. I'm trying to reach out to Ken's original attorney, but I sent them to Ken and we talked and he was like, I don't have any of this, like I never got any of this.

And they also looked up Jeff Cayton.

He's been trying to come forward for a while because he's dying now with cirrhosis, and now he called us and he goes, I need to clear my consciousness, like I need to right this wrong. And he had years in prison and he basically said, the officers told me a story, and they said, you tell that on the stand and you'll go to boot camp. You get off with this up on the wrist, like you're good. So

So potentially there's a connection between Ken's story, this witness and the three men from the other confessions. In the meantime, Claudia and the team which includes TOMMYA. Hayes and Brandon T. Ham while they're not giving up.

We're in touch with the crime scene reconstruction expert and also a handwriting expert because we believe some of the signatures about medical reports and ballistics reports and all of that has been forged from the beginning. The one thing can always said to me is look at the ballistics. It doesn't make sense. It does not make sense. It could not have happened like that. So they were looking for the shirt, the jacket, and the car, any of that.

No, perhaps a lawyer or a crime scene reconstruction expert. Anyone listening would like to offer their help, anyone out there who would like to speak, it's never too late, And if so, we're going to leave ways that you can contact Claudia in the episode description, where you can also find the documentary that they made for Ken's case. And with that we're going to go to closing arguments.

Ken was guilty way before he ever stepped foot in that court. The police wanted a conviction, and they went to any lengths until they got it. And there's just no way that physically, the ballistics makes sense. There is no way that shot came from outside of the car.

Well, like I said, it's just how he did about it, because they can't for getting away with it. I'm wondering why Alcatol doesn't have a CiU unit. He may he of me that you can. Don't think that Alkassol has also convicted people. Come on, man, I only know maybe two people. They had been cleared of it, of crime they didn't committed. That's the one thing I've ever heard of. I know John Brown, and if I'm not mistaken, it

Thank you for listening to Ron for Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ed 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 Watis, and Jeff Cleiber. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Rowse. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for