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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 7: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about him Bundee Stahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week
Speaker 7: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 7: journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 5: On February sixth, nineteen seventy three, in Detroit, Michigan, drug
Speaker 5: dealer Reuben Bryant was shot dead. Twenty one year old
Speaker 5: artist Ray Gray was convicted for the murder. The conviction
Speaker 5: based on a fixed line up and no evidence. Raymond
Speaker 5: Gray is an internationally recognized artist. He is also in
Speaker 5: the forty fourth year of a life sentence for the
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy three murder of drug dealer Reuben Bryant. The
Speaker 5: state of Michigan has had in his possession for over
Speaker 5: thirty of those years, an affidavit from one of the
Speaker 5: two hold up men responsible for Bryant's murder that exonerates Gray,
Speaker 5: and yet Michigan recently turned Gray down yet again for
Speaker 5: sentence computation commutation. In two thousand and seven, Fred Rosen
Speaker 5: was looking to do a follow up to one of
Speaker 5: his books and had the idea of interviewing lifers behind
Speaker 5: bars who had made something of their second chance. Also
Speaker 5: a film professor, Rosen recalled the nineteen sixty film Convicts
Speaker 5: Four starring Ben gazeerres John Rescoe, a convicted murder who
Speaker 5: became an artist behind bars. The art led to reprieve
Speaker 5: his autobiography that became that movie. Rosen start looking for
Speaker 5: someone like Resco found Ray Gray in Muskegan Prison in Michigan.
Speaker 5: After investigating, Rosen realized he had found an innocent man.
Speaker 5: Not only had Gray been an artist before prison, he
Speaker 5: was about to go pro as a boxer, using the
Speaker 5: money he made from boxing to attend art school. Rosen
Speaker 5: knew getting an innocent man out of jail takes years
Speaker 5: if you were lucky. If not, Rosen had a chance
Speaker 5: to make had a decision to make was he in
Speaker 5: or out the book they were featuring this evening. The
Speaker 5: story we're featuring this evening is forty four years in
Speaker 5: Counting an Innocent Man in Prison with my special guest
Speaker 5: from Muskegan Prison, Ray Gray, and author and journalist and
Speaker 5: filmmaker Fred Rosen. Welcome Ray Gray and Fred Rosen to
Speaker 5: the program. Thank you, gentlemen for joining the program.
Speaker 4: You paid debit call from Gray.
Speaker 8: Who accepted an inmate at the Michigan Department of Corrections
Speaker 8: Muskegan Correctional Facility. If you feel you're being victimized or
Speaker 8: extorted by this prisoner, please contact GTL Customer Service at
Speaker 8: eight five five four sixty six two eight three to two.
Speaker 4: To accept this call. Press zero to refuse this call,
Speaker 4: hang up or press one to prevent calls from this facility.
Speaker 4: Press six.
Speaker 6: Somebody needs to press zero.
Speaker 4: Your call was not accepted. Please try again later.
Speaker 6: Hello, Hello Damn Ray. No, it's Fred.
Speaker 5: Hello Fred. Sorry for the uh problem here with the
Speaker 5: prison in Michigan, and I apologize to the audience for that.
Speaker 6: No, I apologize to the audience on that one. Let
Speaker 6: me just explain that when he calls in, you have
Speaker 6: to press zero. Did you oh you.
Speaker 9: Did and it didn't come true.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, oh well, we'll try again. He'll call again.
Speaker 5: And it was a problem when he just called in
Speaker 5: just during the introduction. Yeah, yeah, we'll just we'll work
Speaker 5: it out when he calls back. He's called back twice,
Speaker 5: so we'll get him again and we'll connect with the program.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to the program, Fred, Thank you for coming
Speaker 5: on with this incredible story and also thank you for
Speaker 5: surviving her again. Irma to join us here.
Speaker 6: Hey, Dan, it's always a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 6: I truly appreciate it, especially doing a program on this man,
Speaker 6: because this is the first time in my professional life
Speaker 6: I've ever found an innocent man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, certainly. Let's while Rey Gray is connecting. We all
Speaker 5: know and he has an excellent site, Facebook page and
Speaker 5: also website Free Ray Gray, giving people a lot of
Speaker 5: information about what happened at this incredible file. I guess
Speaker 5: that he had or didn't have that convicted him and
Speaker 5: sent him to prison and continues to keep him incarcerated
Speaker 5: now for the forty fourth year. Maybe you could tell
Speaker 5: us how again. We just alluded to it and spoke
Speaker 5: briefly to it in the introduction. How you got involved.
Speaker 5: Tell us what how you got convinced, basically that this
Speaker 5: man was innocent when you were looking at a completely
Speaker 5: failed situation. We talked about looking at life, people doing life,
Speaker 5: who had made something of their second chance. And then
Speaker 5: you found.
Speaker 6: Yeah, mister, Yeah, I found yeah. And it was as
Speaker 6: funny as we're talking if you start remembering things, you know.
Speaker 6: And at the time I didn't, you know. All I
Speaker 6: was thinking was, well, I just wrote a book about
Speaker 6: serial killers, The Ebor to the Grace of God. Let
Speaker 6: me go see if I could find some bad guys
Speaker 6: who did something behind bars to make their lives better.
Speaker 6: So I started, you know, I sent a couple of
Speaker 6: letters down. I sent out a couple of emails, and
Speaker 6: it was weird, Dan, I mean, I got a turned
Speaker 6: down from one of the manson murderers. What's his name,
Speaker 6: I can't remember. He became a minister and uh he
Speaker 6: told that Tex Watson. Yes, thank you, thank you, sir,
Speaker 6: thank you. There you go, uh and yeah, and he
Speaker 6: wouldn't talk to me, he said, I already signed with
Speaker 6: another writer, right, oh, okay. Then I sent the letter
Speaker 6: to the son of Sam David Berkowitz in the New
Speaker 6: York State prison. He wrote me back. He said, I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: I'm too busy. I can't talk to you. Okay, you
Speaker 6: got a life sentence, you're too busy to talk to somebody. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 6: I'm helping. I'm I'm I'm helping other prisoners doing this
Speaker 6: and that. I said, okay, And I got that letter.
Speaker 6: Someplay and then I don't remember, you know. I suddenly
Speaker 6: I remembered John Resco. I remembered this movie Convicts, for
Speaker 6: which had stuck with me since I was a kid.
Speaker 6: And then I essentially did a search in Google where
Speaker 6: I used the search terms homicide killer artist, and eventually
Speaker 6: raised man came up. And here's what happened. I'm reading
Speaker 6: about this. You know, it's a website, you know, and
Speaker 6: anybody can do a website, you know, even the Russians.
Speaker 6: So I got that in. I got that in, and
Speaker 6: then I started reading about the facts of the case.
Speaker 6: And I contacted Ray's wife, Barbe, and I said, look,
Speaker 6: it looks to me like he's innocent, but if I
Speaker 6: find out that you're conning me, I'll burn you guys.
Speaker 6: And she says, we can take it to investigate.
Speaker 9: Well, I read the court.
Speaker 6: Transcript at BARBARAE. Now she's calling me on the other line.
Speaker 6: But I read the court transcript, and I read the transcript,
Speaker 6: I read the police reports, and when I saw the
Speaker 6: affid David that Ray had gotten from one of the
Speaker 6: actual hold up men, in which he actually said he
Speaker 6: was part of this thing with a drug dealer, Reuben
Speaker 6: Brian died and Ray had nothing, Oh my god, I've
Speaker 6: got an innocent man, you know. Plus the trial had
Speaker 6: stuff in it that was science fiction. I mean, a
Speaker 6: trial in the United States is the quot criminal trial?
Speaker 6: Actually criminal or civil? You're supposed to have discovery first?
Speaker 6: Do you think have discovery? That is a clear constitutional violation.
Speaker 6: And he had a first time neophide attorney who is deceased,
Speaker 6: and I don't care. This guy was a moron. So
Speaker 6: when I put it all together and I realized the
Speaker 6: jilted girlfriend was involved with this, and not to mention racism,
Speaker 6: I realized I found an innocent man.
Speaker 5: For those people that don't know, we're talking about his
Speaker 5: ex girlfriend going to this Bryant's house for drugs right
Speaker 5: minutes before there was a home invasion. The gyfriend us
Speaker 5: clears right right.
Speaker 6: For me, go ahead, no, correct, what happens is Ray
Speaker 6: is at his house and the girlfriend comes to the
Speaker 6: house and with these two guys, and she just wants
Speaker 6: to get some heroin, which Ray would have absolutely no
Speaker 6: idea where it is. Because Ray is an athlete. He
Speaker 6: was a bit up to turn a professional as a boxer,
Speaker 6: and he's going to use the money he made from
Speaker 6: boxing to fund his career as an artist and study
Speaker 6: art and so forth. So he had no motive, no means,
Speaker 6: no opportunity. He had alibi witnesses. And she comes over
Speaker 6: and says, hey, these you know, my buddies wanted to
Speaker 6: get heroin, and then she takes them over to Rupin
Speaker 6: Bryant's apartment and then the hold up the purse.
Speaker 5: Hang on, Fred, let's see we've got Ray Gray here,
Speaker 5: connecting again from a skeg in prison.
Speaker 3: If you feel you're being victimized or extorted by this prisoner,
Speaker 3: please contact GTL Customer Service at eight five five four
Speaker 3: sixty six two eight three to two.
Speaker 4: To accept this call. Press zero to refuse this call,
Speaker 4: hang up, or press one to prevent calls from this facility.
Speaker 4: Press six. Your call was not a accepted, Please try
Speaker 4: again later.
Speaker 5: Well, Fred, that's what we get I did the prompts
Speaker 5: properly and they say try again later. So we're having
Speaker 5: problem getting Ray Gray connected here from a skeik in
Speaker 5: prison to be able to spot I.
Speaker 6: Speak to Maybe I can get him connected on to
Speaker 6: my phone here.
Speaker 5: Well, let's just continue with the interview and see if
Speaker 5: we can soldier on here because the interruption will be
Speaker 5: we're talking about the girlfriend and the drugs, and you're
Speaker 5: talking about the alibi he had. Again, he wouldn't have
Speaker 5: had anything to do with heroin. But this is an
Speaker 5: ex girlfriend at this point. This is not his current
Speaker 5: girlfriend as well, to be no, just to get the
Speaker 5: back straight on.
Speaker 6: This, Yeah, this is an ex girlfriend who actually singers
Speaker 6: him to the cops. What happens is, according to the
Speaker 6: records of the case, the girlfriend is to the to
Speaker 6: the to the drug dealer's apartment with her two buddies.
Speaker 6: She goes up alone. There are two women upstairs and
Speaker 6: a couple of kids in that apartment with the drug dealer. Okay,
Speaker 6: so the truth and um and and and so so.
Speaker 6: What happens is there's like a knock at the door,
Speaker 6: and the then the door depending upon which person you're
Speaker 6: talking to, who is in that room, either the girlfriend
Speaker 6: open starts to open the door, or the two guys
Speaker 6: outside break in and they are indeed her two buddies. Okay,
Speaker 6: and they have been identified. Okay. Then one of the
Speaker 6: others deceased is gonna pirron Few and the other guy
Speaker 6: uh is his name is is Charlie and Charlie Later
Speaker 6: what happens is Ray uh is home at the time
Speaker 6: that this all occurs. Eventually there is a fight between
Speaker 6: the drug dealer who's being held at at bay with
Speaker 6: with a gun and one of them, the shorter of
Speaker 6: the two hold up men, who is alleged to his
Speaker 6: Raymond Gray. Well guess what. Gray was practically a professional boxer.
Speaker 6: He would have taken him out with one punch. Instead,
Speaker 6: they pustle and whoever the you know, the gunman is
Speaker 6: probably probably Charlie, he shoots him. Okay. Anyway, long story short,
Speaker 6: the drug dealer dies, you know. Eventually the cops come
Speaker 6: and all that stuff. The girlfriend goes downtown with them.
Speaker 6: There's a statement and then they drop her off at
Speaker 6: her boyfriend's house that evening after giving a statement, and
Speaker 6: the boyfriend not the boyfriend, the ex boyfriend Ray Gray,
Speaker 6: and Gray is like, what's going on? When she explains
Speaker 6: what happened, and she said, he said, well, who were
Speaker 6: the two guys that broke in with ether? Two guys
Speaker 6: you were here with me? And she wouldn't answer. And
Speaker 6: what happens from that point is about a day later,
Speaker 6: the Costs asked the girlfriend who's the boyfriend. She says
Speaker 6: Ray Gray, And just like that, without having any evidence,
Speaker 6: they arrest him and Gray for the murder of Bud
Speaker 6: and Bryant. That's the whole story. No, no, not one
Speaker 6: piece's evidence. They don't even search us house, they don't
Speaker 6: do nothing, and Greg keeps saying, hey, I didn't do it,
Speaker 6: you know, because.
Speaker 5: An interesting twist in this immediately though, Michael Bryant, the
Speaker 5: brother of Reuben Bryant, is a newly minted Detroit police cadet.
Speaker 5: So it's said that he embarked on a mission to
Speaker 5: avenge his brother's murder. And there is a right on
Speaker 5: Raymond Gray's site he talks about the confrontation he has,
Speaker 5: the conversation he has with Michael Bryant over this murder,
Speaker 5: and clearly what Michael Bryant's intent is. So maybe you
Speaker 5: can just give us a briefing on what that conversation was.
Speaker 6: Sure once Gray, now they don't have he says, I
Speaker 6: didn't do it. Well, you got to have corroborating evidence.
Speaker 6: So one of the standard ways to do that is
Speaker 6: a lineup, and Gray is taken to Grays taken to
Speaker 6: a cell. And that's way the section of Dwayne County
Speaker 6: Jail and the Detroit and anyone comes Michael Bryant, who
Speaker 6: as you say, who's who's the despis's brother of Priest
Speaker 6: Cadet and he says that there's going to be a
Speaker 6: lineup and Grace and Graces, well, that's great because I'll
Speaker 6: be cleared. The Gray says, I don't think so, and
Speaker 6: basically laughs at him. And what happens is there the
Speaker 6: first thing the cops do, and this is what corrupt
Speaker 6: cops do, they did a throwdown, which is where you
Speaker 6: take the mup shots and you find down in front
Speaker 6: of the witness and you say so. They said to
Speaker 6: two of the witnesses that were in the two of
Speaker 6: the two of the women that were in the the apartment,
Speaker 6: the other two women, do you see the dead guy
Speaker 6: here who shot RUVN Bryant? And only one of the
Speaker 6: pictures is that the man with a full man shoe,
Speaker 6: mustache and ran and Gray's hair style and of course
Speaker 6: Raymond Gray. In other words, he's the only guy that
Speaker 6: doesn't look like any of the other guys. It's it's
Speaker 6: a standard floyd that cops use, correct cops to get
Speaker 6: somebody identified. Well, the next thing that happens is there
Speaker 6: is an actual line up, just like you're watching, you know,
Speaker 6: Law in Order SVU, and Raymond Gray is the shortest
Speaker 6: guy there. He was a setaway boxer and all these
Speaker 6: other guys are big, and he's the only one. With
Speaker 6: a few minutes. You must that she gets what two
Speaker 6: women say, Oh he look it looks like he's the one.
Speaker 6: They're not even positive, but it looks like he's the one.
Speaker 6: And on the basis of that, he's indieted and within
Speaker 6: a mark for six weeks or so. And he goes
Speaker 6: to trial on this stupid tourne he decides to go
Speaker 6: for a bench trial with the judge instead of twelve citizens,
Speaker 6: and that will become crucial in terms of what happened.
Speaker 5: You also talk about it, we did, you did mention it.
Speaker 5: But I think we've got to reinforce this lack of
Speaker 5: evidence there is you say, no murder weapons found. There
Speaker 5: is no search of his home, there is any search of.
Speaker 6: The tone, there is no murder weptis found. That there
Speaker 6: is another very important point. There is something here in
Speaker 6: the US called Brady issues, which means that when you're
Speaker 6: going to trial, you can't keep anything behind your back. Okay, Well,
Speaker 6: one of Brady issues was that they they like the
Speaker 6: witness has said that one of the bad guys have
Speaker 6: gone into the bedroom and touched the jar with money
Speaker 6: and put money all. Well, that jaw has been invested
Speaker 6: for princely. Guess what regularly prince went on. Well, whether
Speaker 6: or not the two called us plan how that prints
Speaker 6: on it is another story that that it's not clear,
Speaker 6: but we know for a fact his finger prints they're
Speaker 6: not on back jaw. That money trial, they kept it
Speaker 6: behind her back until two thousand and five. If that
Speaker 6: had been presented at the time of the trial, the
Speaker 6: judge might the city he's not guilty by reasonable gay.
Speaker 6: But that didn't halt. But now you've got you've got
Speaker 6: a lot of stuff going down here. You know you've
Speaker 6: got questionable ID, You've got you know you've got you've
Speaker 6: got a questionable ide you've got you've got you know,
Speaker 6: when the tops originally rested way, they had a much
Speaker 6: shot with him, and actually they arrest it's somebody another
Speaker 6: block man. And when they realized that they're a mistake,
Speaker 6: they said, oh, well you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: you know they basically they said something along the lines
Speaker 6: said well, you know it's the world block guy, using
Speaker 6: a different term, and then they put Rayant the cost.
Speaker 6: You see what follow there's no evidence whatsoever. And then
Speaker 6: another justice is my motives, there's no opportunity. It is
Speaker 6: one of the biggest Uh, it is the biggest mischarage
Speaker 6: to justice.
Speaker 5: I certainly you talk about trial as way as well
Speaker 5: that the Michael Bryant, the some of the people that
Speaker 5: didn't weren't able to identify Ray Gray whatsoever, suddenly at
Speaker 5: trial were able to identify him positively. So what Ray
Speaker 5: Gray and supporters contend is that there was some coaching
Speaker 5: in there by the police or Michael Bryant or both
Speaker 5: in so that.
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Speaker 5: Testimony became much different from the beginning to the time
Speaker 5: at we're ready for trial. Isn't that true?
Speaker 6: Well, very possible, Yeah, very very possible. And uh, it
Speaker 6: can't emphasize enough that this is a bench trial. So
Speaker 6: even though Ray has a half a dozen witnesses and
Speaker 6: said he was home at the time for some reason,
Speaker 6: the judge decides not to believe them, you know it
Speaker 6: doesn't never explain it, no, nothing, and uh and and
Speaker 6: just finds him guilty. And he does say at the
Speaker 6: time when he sentences him, the name was Judge Irving Rabbits.
Speaker 6: He does say that he wishes that he didn't have
Speaker 6: to give him the book, you know, to the limit,
Speaker 6: which was life, because he didn't think he deserved it,
Speaker 6: but he did it anyway, And so you know, you know,
Speaker 6: I think the crime was called felony murder. You know,
Speaker 6: every state holds it differently, but essentially, you know, it's
Speaker 6: a murder one conviction, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 6: it happens that Michigan is a very very conservative state.
Speaker 6: It's very very difficult, I mean, to get the truth
Speaker 6: out when you are victimized by the criminal justice system,
Speaker 6: as Raymond Gray has.
Speaker 5: Been immediately after this decision. I know it's now forty
Speaker 5: four years and things like innocence projects forty four years ago.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm not an authority on this, but I
Speaker 5: would think that the momentum from the innocent projects throughout
Speaker 5: the United States has been more recent than forty four years.
Speaker 5: I would think, yes. But with those trials, with those
Speaker 5: a pardon me, those appeal trials, potentially there is an
Speaker 5: opportunity to review and there are people that could line
Speaker 5: up behind ray Ray to support him and his bid
Speaker 5: to have for a successful appeal and retrial. Immediately after
Speaker 5: this trial, what was that effort? What was that effort
Speaker 5: like or not like?
Speaker 6: It's a great question. I've asked myself that question too,
Speaker 6: immediately after and stuff, you know, and going forward, there
Speaker 6: were immediately after the trial, there was there were a
Speaker 6: couple of uh this I recalled, or a couple of
Speaker 6: local appeals. But he it all costs money, you know,
Speaker 6: and eventually though you know, it all costs money. But
Speaker 6: eventually what happened was, uh, those first couple of attempts failed.
Speaker 6: Of course, that's number one. There was. I can't find anybody,
Speaker 6: frankly that I would term a really terrific lawyer on
Speaker 6: on on this case.
Speaker 9: You know what I mean. I I the lawyer.
Speaker 6: The Loytering wasn't the best in the world, but he
Speaker 6: did get managed to get a couple of people to
Speaker 6: work on appeals. And what happened was, and oh, I
Speaker 6: guess it would be goof sometime in the late seventies earlier, yeah,
Speaker 6: late seventies. What changes is this Ray meets bar Brinhart
Speaker 6: and they fall in love and she's an art teacher
Speaker 6: behind bars and they start to work together. So now
Speaker 6: he's got somebody behind him one hundred and ten percent
Speaker 6: and they and so they get an attorney and they
Speaker 6: start working on us. And while this is going on,
Speaker 6: and this is about those seven years after Ray has gone,
Speaker 6: you know, behind the walls. Charlie Matthews, one of the
Speaker 6: alleged holdup men, comes behind bars in the prison that
Speaker 6: he's at the ray season in the yard, says to him,
Speaker 6: I'm here because they think I'm you, and Charlie agrees
Speaker 6: to give him an affi. David saying that he is
Speaker 6: one of the hold of men, not that he killed
Speaker 6: Ruben Bryant, but he's one of the hold of men
Speaker 6: with tyrone Pugh gives him an affidavit, and then the
Speaker 6: attorney raised attorney at the time and Barb Pray go
Speaker 6: into court. But Judge Rabbits, the same trial judge that
Speaker 6: convicted Ready, and they want to introduce this new evidence,
Speaker 6: and they put Matthews on the stand and Matthews is
Speaker 6: then cautioned by the district attorney that if he said,
Speaker 6: if he cops to a crime like participating in a murder,
Speaker 6: he's going to get prosecuted for the fullest limits of
Speaker 6: the war and will not give him immunity. So Matthews
Speaker 6: keeps his mouth shut, the affidavit doesn't get introduced as evidence,
Speaker 6: and where he goes back to gil That's what happened. Gee,
Speaker 6: sounds sort of convenient, doesn't it? Nice? Nice way to
Speaker 6: cover up the truth?
Speaker 5: Well, it does seem to be the solved problem. In effect,
Speaker 5: it's a suppression of that new evidence. And it's also
Speaker 5: again just the refusal to look at something once the
Speaker 5: courts have made that conviction in their own we'll say
Speaker 5: neighborhood for lack of a better term. They don't want
Speaker 5: somebody overturning something and seeing this glaring example of injustice.
Speaker 6: Exactly now, exactly you talked about.
Speaker 5: You talked about this affidavit though from Charlie Matthews. So
Speaker 5: this is very powerful. Does this Affidavid and this effort
Speaker 5: lead to any other effort than any other supporters coming
Speaker 5: forward for on behalf of Great Ray.
Speaker 6: Now let me answer your qu You know, if this
Speaker 6: was anybody else, I would couch what I say. But
Speaker 6: when I'm on your show, Dan, I just say it
Speaker 6: the way it is, okay, And and honestly, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, because that's way to go. I'm not you know,
Speaker 6: I certainly don't want to send anybody. But what happened
Speaker 6: was okay, I'll just tell you what happened was somebody
Speaker 6: somebody got involved at one point m m who was
Speaker 6: a journalist in Michigan, who got a lawyer involved. Pro
Speaker 6: bonum point. I'm on the case. So in other words,
Speaker 6: we're talking about something that happened in seven years ago,
Speaker 6: eight years ago, and uh so what happens is this.
Speaker 6: But I was under the impression that when when I
Speaker 6: was told that this individual was was raised lawyer. So,
Speaker 6: you know, foolish me. I. I always think that if
Speaker 6: somebody's somebody's lawyer, you signed a contract. Ray never signed
Speaker 6: a contract, Okay. I just assumed that this was a
Speaker 6: pro bona attorney. It turned out this person was just
Speaker 6: based you know, somebody looking you know it was it
Speaker 6: was a high priced attorney with a big public profile.
Speaker 6: It was was looking to to feed off this Well,
Speaker 6: that happened quite frankly. On more than one occasion, attorneys would.
Speaker 9: Get involved pro bono.
Speaker 6: They'd stay on for five minutes and then they were offered. Finally,
Speaker 6: the Michigan the Michigan Innocence Project at the University of
Speaker 6: Michigan took up race case about oh about a year
Speaker 6: and a half ago. Okay. Now, most of these innocence projects,
Speaker 6: as you know, Dan, they would rely on DNA. Race
Speaker 6: cases got nothing to do with DNA. It's old fashioned
Speaker 6: detective work. Well so, but the Michigan Innocence project is
Speaker 6: not DNA per se. It's you know, it's you know,
Speaker 6: it's you know, it's a law school and you know,
Speaker 6: you get the students involved and so forth and so on.
Speaker 6: And eventually they looked into it and they would not
Speaker 6: take his case. And what I heard through through liiable
Speaker 6: second party was that they felt it was too complicated
Speaker 6: and too old. Right now, now, I don't understand that,
Speaker 6: because last time I looked, you know, yes, there's got
Speaker 6: to you know, there's got to be constitutional limitations, just
Speaker 6: like this crown limitations on when you can file document,
Speaker 6: but you know, legally, but there's got to be something
Speaker 6: not to mention the fact that what kind of criminal
Speaker 6: justice system allows an innocent man to stay in jail
Speaker 6: when there's evidence, extulpatory evidence to prove he didn't do it? Sure,
Speaker 6: you know, So it's it's it's it's you know. And
Speaker 6: and the frustrating part is this that he Ray did
Speaker 6: have a parole hearing in twenty ten. This was the
Speaker 6: first time I met Ray grand person. I met him
Speaker 6: in shackles and handcuffs. We were in a prison in Michigan.
Speaker 6: Had the parole board individual conducting the hearing chose not
Speaker 6: to concentrate on what he was supposed to according to
Speaker 6: the regulations, which was what Ray would do when he
Speaker 6: got out of jail and so forth, you know, where
Speaker 6: he lived, what he'd do, and and all that stuff
Speaker 6: was taken care of. He's the painting, for God's sake,
Speaker 6: because his painting, you know, is people wanted to paint
Speaker 6: for money. Well, this guy's thought didn't like the fact
Speaker 6: that Ray Gray has done something that very few people. Well,
Speaker 6: Ray Gray refuses to say that he thought he did it.
Speaker 6: If Ray Gray had said he did it a long
Speaker 6: time ago, be out. But part of the bubility of
Speaker 6: the of the parole and commutation process is the prisoner
Speaker 6: taking responsibility for their crimes. Well, how do you take
Speaker 6: responsibility for crime for something he didn't do. Ray will
Speaker 6: not admit that he did something wrong when he didn't
Speaker 6: do it. And this particular individual with the parole board
Speaker 6: cast negated him verbally to the point that I should
Speaker 6: have stood up and said something, and I didn't. He
Speaker 6: was abusing him verbally, screaming at the guy. I mean,
Speaker 6: it was unbelievable, you know, I actually actually in retrospect,
Speaker 6: you know, and this was you know, twenty ten. The
Speaker 6: people had, you know, cameras, you know, phone cameras, but
Speaker 6: for some reason, nobody shot. I don't remember what happened.
Speaker 6: I don't remember if we checked our cameras at the
Speaker 6: door or whatever it might have been, you know, but
Speaker 6: it was it was a very difficult situation. And of
Speaker 6: course they didn't give him parole. And that's the that's
Speaker 6: basically the you know, he came up for parole again
Speaker 6: a couple of months ago. They turned him down. They
Speaker 6: didn't even have a hearing this turned him down. You know,
Speaker 6: they passed a note into his cell.
Speaker 5: Wow, what did they turn him down? What were the
Speaker 5: grounds this time?
Speaker 6: They don't have They don't know, they don't they don't
Speaker 6: have to give the grounds. There's no grounds. They just say, what,
Speaker 6: we're not interested. We're not going to even consider you, buddy.
Speaker 6: That's basically what they said. And you know, within the
Speaker 6: you know, the the I think there's a lot of
Speaker 6: people that know Ray is innocent, okay, within the system,
Speaker 6: but you know, but they there's nothing they can do
Speaker 6: about it, you know, unless somebody in the parobo would
Speaker 6: they would do the right thing. You know, But we're
Speaker 6: talking about a state that poisons its own citizens. In Flint,
Speaker 6: Michigan with it with its river water. So you know
Speaker 6: we're talking. You know, there's there's you know, there's a
Speaker 6: lot of stuff going on here politically that influences the
Speaker 6: decision whether to release a fellow like Ray Ray or not.
Speaker 5: Certainly you talk politically. What about the petition to Governor
Speaker 5: Rick Snyder, State of Michigan and that was not that
Speaker 5: long ago. What about that bid to have a petition
Speaker 5: to Governor Rick Snyder?
Speaker 6: Well, uh, we have an online petition to free Ray Gray,
Speaker 6: what will you know? And it went to the governor
Speaker 6: and that they didn't care. They just actually went to
Speaker 6: the It went to the governor and it also went
Speaker 6: to the parole board. They basically just said they acknowledged
Speaker 6: receipt and that was all they did. And then they
Speaker 6: just turned this stamp and there's been never been an
Speaker 6: acknowledgment from the governor of receiving it. So it's it's
Speaker 6: you know, it's still there. I mean, you know the
Speaker 6: best way to get Ray out is to pursue a
Speaker 6: legal case. If we could find an attorney that would
Speaker 6: work pro bono, I think we could we could proceed
Speaker 6: very quickly, quite tranquily, especially with the support of good
Speaker 6: people like you.
Speaker 5: You talk about getting the necessary money, and we did
Speaker 5: talk about how important to this story because it led
Speaker 5: you to Great Gray is the artwork of Rape Ray.
Speaker 5: And there is yes, a little bit of the artwork
Speaker 5: on the show description of this for people to see
Speaker 5: later after they listened to it, before they listen to this,
Speaker 5: they'll see that or now they'll know that that's what
Speaker 5: that is. And he has been raising money and making
Speaker 5: money from art forever. Well, maybe we can talk about
Speaker 5: that a little bit later, but we want to talk
Speaker 5: about his art as well and how important that is
Speaker 5: in somehow surviving the roller coaster ride of emotions but
Speaker 5: also the depths of despair of what forty four years
Speaker 5: due to a man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can tell Yeah, he's told me about that.
Speaker 6: I can. Maybe I should talk about that. Sure, I
Speaker 6: seem to be in the situation of actually speaking for
Speaker 6: him today and it's not unusual for me. Uh, I'm
Speaker 6: not totally surprised there was a difficulty with the call
Speaker 6: and maybe but as far as the Ray's work, uh,
Speaker 6: Rays explained to me that christ Christopherson, you know, like
Speaker 6: his he's got a first, he's got a TV. You know,
Speaker 6: I'm like, excuse me, you got a TV set, but
Speaker 6: you got cable they charge you, you know, and uh,
Speaker 6: he's got a TV and he paints in his cell
Speaker 6: and what And I would say, well, what's going on here?
Speaker 6: Is that his work, you know, his work helps him
Speaker 6: cope with this. And to me, it's unbelievable because if
Speaker 6: it was me, I would have succumbed to depression longer,
Speaker 6: long ago. I So I just can't believe, you know,
Speaker 6: how he's maintained his sanity with everything that's going on,
Speaker 6: you know, but by painting, it helps.
Speaker 9: Him stay connected.
Speaker 6: That to him is the thing more than anything else
Speaker 6: that you know, helps him get through the night. Ah. Actually,
Speaker 6: if I can find it here, I can even read
Speaker 6: your quote. But that's what helps him get through the night,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. And he's always wanted to
Speaker 6: be a painter. And again that's why the whole again,
Speaker 6: there is no there is no there was no motive
Speaker 6: you know for what he did. That that's what I
Speaker 6: was trying to did. There was no motive for what
Speaker 6: he did. You know, here's a guy who wants to
Speaker 6: you know, become an artist and a professional fighter and
Speaker 6: all of that stuff. Here's what he says. He says,
Speaker 6: I wrote this in an article for the lineup. The
Speaker 6: artists helped me in many ways, for it allows me
Speaker 6: to express some of my deepest inner feelings and on
Speaker 6: another level, created a world much different from this one.
Speaker 6: A form of escapism, I suppose, However, I try to
Speaker 6: address world events also, despite where I'm at, to still
Speaker 6: try and be aware of what's going on in the
Speaker 6: world at large. To know that some of my work
Speaker 6: is on people's walls that I don't even know some
Speaker 6: in other countries is a good feeling. And that by
Speaker 6: way of my art, and that by way of my art,
Speaker 6: I was able to meet and marry my parp. I'm
Speaker 6: thankful for that. It's pretty eloquent.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, we'll get to use it. That is just a
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Speaker 5: These are the best sheets ever. Sorry for interrupting you, Fred.
Speaker 5: Let's talk now about more about Ray Gray and his artwork.
Speaker 5: We didn't really describe. I wanted to ask you what
Speaker 5: you felt, and you thought, given the circumstances and the
Speaker 5: predicament that Ray Ray has been in for all these years,
Speaker 5: what were you surprised at the artwork of Ray Ray?
Speaker 6: Yes, I was because I didn't know what to expect.
Speaker 6: I thought it was just gonna be one of those
Speaker 6: sensationalistic kind of things where some dude behind.
Speaker 9: Bars, you know, drawers a little bit.
Speaker 6: You know. I wasn't expecting the level of artistic presentation,
Speaker 6: not to mention professionalism, I just wasn't expecting it. Plus,
Speaker 6: I you know, what gets me about his stuff is, uh,
Speaker 6: particularly some of his later stuff. He's really funny and
Speaker 6: and you know, he's got a couple of you know,
Speaker 6: he's got a couple of paintings where you know, what
Speaker 6: do you call it a spaceman going up in space?
Speaker 6: You know, and and you know when if they land
Speaker 6: on some planet and the and the aliens, you know,
Speaker 6: character sign we don't want aliens here, you know. I
Speaker 6: mean again, there's a good example of Ray's you know,
Speaker 6: keeping up with me. I mean you know that you know,
Speaker 6: and that that is is due to television, But the
Speaker 6: level of professionalism, the level of feeling, you know, I'm
Speaker 6: not I'm not a book. I'm not a you know,
Speaker 6: an art person. I mean I I don't know art
Speaker 6: that well, but I tend to go more with impressionistic stuff.
Speaker 6: But he, uh, he gets a lot of emotion into
Speaker 6: what he does, thank god, you know. And I gotta wonder,
Speaker 6: just like John Rescoe, what would happen if Raymond Gray
Speaker 6: got the opportunity to paint in a regular studio. Help
Speaker 6: it doesn't have to be a studio. I mean, he's
Speaker 6: got an apartment with his wife. You know, there's a
Speaker 6: separate room he can paint in. You know, he's he's
Speaker 6: gotten offers to do uh, he's done book covers, he
Speaker 6: covers from me. He's he's uh, you know, obviously a portraitist. Uh,
Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera. What how how can you know that?
Speaker 6: That's of course, the the conundrum, which is, it's not
Speaker 6: just the fact that the guy's talented, but it's the
Speaker 6: fact that he's talented and he's innocent, and you put
Speaker 6: those two things together. How powerful would that be in
Speaker 6: a civilian population? If he if he was out, he'd
Speaker 6: be able to work with not only would he be
Speaker 6: able to do his art, he'd be able to work
Speaker 6: with disadvantaged youth, you know, things like that. You see
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, and and and so the work itself. Uh.
Speaker 6: And by the way, he's also one of his friends
Speaker 6: is Bill Messner loves And I'm mentioning this because also
Speaker 6: Bill is also a friend of mine. And Bill just
Speaker 6: won the Finger Award from Comic Con.
Speaker 9: It's a big award.
Speaker 6: And the reason is now just to let fewer listeners in.
Speaker 6: Dan and I are both Marvel fans. Well, Bill Messner
Speaker 6: Loebe wrote Wonder Woman during the nineteen eighties, and so
Speaker 6: he is going to try and get Ray also into
Speaker 6: doing comic books. So there's a lot of stuff that
Speaker 6: Ray could be doing if he was out and he's
Speaker 6: able to adapt into these various areas.
Speaker 5: Why I mentioned this as well is because we talked
Speaker 5: about the again the importance of who Rey Gray was
Speaker 5: and who Ray Gray is, and that is that he
Speaker 5: is an artist. And we talked about raising money, the
Speaker 5: incredible amount of money that you always need for better
Speaker 5: and better. Lowyal is to try to appeal this, which
Speaker 5: costs even more money than probably originally obviously it would
Speaker 5: have cost had he had the right representation. So one
Speaker 5: way of supporting this man is. There is no book
Speaker 5: as of yet about chronicling his story, but there is
Speaker 5: fantastic art for people to look at. And this is
Speaker 5: the best way to support him as a as a
Speaker 5: human being period we can take and consider.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and you know, and and and if someone
Speaker 6: we're interested in buying something of raise either you know,
Speaker 6: you know, just go online and you can contact me
Speaker 6: through Facebook or any of the you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: contact me through your show, whatever it might be. You know,
Speaker 6: the Facebook page, great Gray, you know. And and yeah,
Speaker 6: that's a great idea. I honestly, I hadn't even thought
Speaker 6: of it because you know, it's it's not like the guys,
Speaker 6: you know, they can a huge amount of money and stuff.
Speaker 6: There's also there's also issues of involved in what do
Speaker 6: you call it? You know, when you're a prisoner, you
Speaker 6: can't you know, you've got to put it all through
Speaker 6: somebody else. You're not supposed to make money, you know,
Speaker 6: so you have to you know, you have to set
Speaker 6: things up differently, I legally, at least in Mischig, at
Speaker 6: least in Michigan, you do. But it would be wonderful
Speaker 6: if people could help support in that way. Also if
Speaker 6: anybody has a recommendation for a Michigan attorney, you know,
Speaker 6: because we've got a situation here where we're ready to go,
Speaker 6: but we just we just don't have the bread.
Speaker 5: It's incredible too to realize that at twenty one or
Speaker 5: twenty two years old, Ray Ray was imprisoned, so his
Speaker 5: entire life in forty four years. And why I say
Speaker 5: this too, is is that if you look at just
Speaker 5: a few examples of his artwork, it's so optimistic. It's bright,
Speaker 5: it's positive, it's there's the unique style. But it also
Speaker 5: is quite interesting to see what exudes from this man
Speaker 5: despite that forty four years of barbarity. Basically, no matter
Speaker 5: how good prison can be or has been for him,
Speaker 5: it's no walk in the park. Forty four years, your
Speaker 5: entire life in prison.
Speaker 6: You've said that so eloquently, Dan, I couldn't say any better.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm so close to this. I mean, I
Speaker 6: guess it isn't clear. You know, Ray has become a
Speaker 6: very close friend of mine, as his wife Park has.
Speaker 6: It's you know, it's just what's happened. And you know,
Speaker 6: so for me, it's it's I'm trying to get my
Speaker 6: friend out of jail. You know, now, if we get
Speaker 6: lucky and you know, of course we'll you know, i'd
Speaker 6: write about it, but you know, uh, but you know
Speaker 6: it's uh and it's been you know, look, there's been
Speaker 6: you know, there's been ups and downs. We had it.
Speaker 6: We actually had a TV show that was interested in
Speaker 6: doing something with him recently, and he was going to
Speaker 6: be the pilot episode for the TV show and it
Speaker 6: was going to be on a major network. It was
Speaker 6: going to be a true crime thing. Was an id
Speaker 6: with somebody else. And the reason that they wouldn't do
Speaker 6: it is because the state of Michigan does not allow
Speaker 6: uh on camera interviews and they needed the on camera
Speaker 6: interview for the for the footage for the show, so
Speaker 6: they couldn't do it. You know. So so you know,
Speaker 6: and this is not the only state, but you see that,
Speaker 6: you know the difficulties here, you know, not to mention
Speaker 6: the fact that, you know, people listening to me instead
Speaker 6: of Ray because of the difficulty and getting connected from prison.
Speaker 5: Yeah, seems pretty simple when it's a press zero and
Speaker 5: the press zero doesn't work.
Speaker 6: So yeah, but then again, we don't know, we don't know,
Speaker 6: you know, what they might they might have known as
Speaker 6: far as the fact that we're doing this interview today.
Speaker 6: You know, they they were aware through emails because I
Speaker 6: had to let Ray know what the phone number was
Speaker 6: to call in. So it's you know, it's very easy
Speaker 6: for somebody to mess up a phone line or something
Speaker 6: like that. I'm not saying they did it. I don't
Speaker 6: have any evidence of that, you know, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 6: not one of those people that you know, uh, you know.
Speaker 6: I I promise I didn't bug Trump Tower. I didn't
Speaker 6: do it, you know. But but but you know, the
Speaker 6: thing is, seriously, the thing is, you know, just like
Speaker 6: I I when you're on the phone talking to him,
Speaker 6: I have to be careful because I'm the same. I'm
Speaker 6: the same as I am with you in any place else.
Speaker 6: You know, I'll joe around. And one day I said
Speaker 6: to him, because he's also a Marvel fan, I said, hey, Ray,
Speaker 6: I'm going to get Spidey to pull out the bars.
Speaker 6: And then he reminded me, Fred, be careful what you say. Yes,
Speaker 6: I might, I might. I might even add this that.
Speaker 6: At one point, because it was you know, we're nuts
Speaker 6: about this stuff, I sent him a uh an attachment
Speaker 6: to an email and it was a picture of of
Speaker 6: of Steve Rogers, of Captain America, of you know from
Speaker 6: it was you know it was from the movie. You
Speaker 6: know it was Chris Evans. Sure they wouldn't give it
Speaker 6: to him. Excuse me, there's a condemnation for a Michigan prison.
Speaker 6: You won't give a prisoner a picture of Captain America.
Speaker 2: Gee?
Speaker 6: Do I have to get the mighty thor after you?
Speaker 5: So in when we talk about raised life, you talked
Speaker 5: about Barb coming in his life and making his life
Speaker 5: completely different, changing his life forever. Tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit more about this relationship and what and what is
Speaker 5: evolved from and into today?
Speaker 6: What? What? Well?
Speaker 5: What the what the relationship has evolved into today?
Speaker 6: Oh? Sure? Well what happened was she you know, got
Speaker 6: involved at a point where it was it was actually
Speaker 6: at that point she was essentially assisting the attorney they
Speaker 6: had at the time, so she was actually acting as paralegal.
Speaker 6: And I'll tell you what's What's well, these two people
Speaker 6: really love each other, okay, and.
Speaker 9: And they're devoted to each other.
Speaker 6: And but what happened over the years, you know, the
Speaker 6: time they got married behind bars in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 6: eighty one to the present is whatever money that Barb
Speaker 6: had went down to, you know, out the window with
Speaker 6: these attorneys, you know. And then the hardest part about
Speaker 6: all this is the emotional and physical cost on her.
Speaker 6: Sure she has had now, look, I don't have to
Speaker 6: tell you, and certainly you're the listeners. Genetics and the
Speaker 6: most important thing when it comes to our health. But
Speaker 6: she she's had a couple of strokes and she's recovering.
Speaker 6: But she was in an auto accident about a year
Speaker 6: ago where she got slammed by a tractor trailer.
Speaker 9: Now what I'm.
Speaker 6: Getting at is that anybody, these things to happen to anybody, Okay,
Speaker 6: I but when you have a certain momentum going in
Speaker 6: terms of a husband in prison, and every time something
Speaker 6: goods is about to happen, something bad happens. You know,
Speaker 6: it's almost like one thing leads to another, you know.
Speaker 6: And so she's been under a tremendous amount of stress.
Speaker 6: She doesn't know she'll ever spend a day with her
Speaker 6: husband outside of prison. You know, she hopes, you know,
Speaker 6: but she doesn't know. And it's you know, it's hard
Speaker 6: to keep your hope going for so many years when
Speaker 6: it keeps getting destroyed bye bye bye by the system
Speaker 6: and maybe apathy. I don't know any other way of
Speaker 6: putting it. You know, there's a lot of empathy here, Dan.
Speaker 6: You know, when I tell people of the disguise in
Speaker 6: jail for forty four years, usually their mouth is just open.
Speaker 6: They can't relate to the amount of time.
Speaker 5: Is there a criticism you've talked about it, then maybe
Speaker 5: I could sense it that wrongful conviction or innocence projects
Speaker 5: passed on this officially, even though it seems at a
Speaker 5: glance to be the kind of case that they long for. Again,
Speaker 5: there's no DNA xoneration. But again today it is pretty
Speaker 5: accepted that there can be false identification, There can be
Speaker 5: tunnel visions, the kinds of things, you know. There can
Speaker 5: be police corruption where people might not have believed that
Speaker 5: before were certainly able to consider that now. Identification procedures
Speaker 5: suppressed evidence, and there's certainly suppressed evidence with the fingerprints,
Speaker 5: failure to investigate other sex suspects. But this is like
Speaker 5: a one oh one on what a wrongful conviction is
Speaker 5: based on other than the DNA. But everything else can
Speaker 5: be seen today as the ammunition for another trial, for
Speaker 5: an exoneration. Exactly why.
Speaker 6: It seems to me that that should be that should
Speaker 6: be a possibility. But yeah, absolutely positively, you know. And
Speaker 6: and but if it would take you know, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm what you know, I looked at a couple
Speaker 6: of these you know, lawyers that it would take somebody
Speaker 6: that's committed, Okay, somebody that's committed and that's doing it
Speaker 6: for the right reasons, not because it's going to make
Speaker 6: their reputation that much bigger. They're going to get on
Speaker 6: the uh the local evening news, you know, in their
Speaker 6: in their in their town, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Uh So, but it would it would take something like that.
Speaker 6: At one point, I even looked into the possibility of
Speaker 6: there being something federal, you know. But but there's nothing
Speaker 6: federal here, you know, so it's got to be the
Speaker 6: only remedies can be legal and with the state, you know.
Speaker 6: And there's something else too, you know, which is uh
Speaker 6: and I'm sure it's got to be in the minds
Speaker 6: of these bureaucrafts to sign off on these parole things,
Speaker 6: which is, look, if if somebody is you know, if
Speaker 6: he didn't do it, which he didn't do it, and
Speaker 6: he gets out, Okay, what about the possibility that he
Speaker 6: files a multi zillion lawsuit. State knows that apparent. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, State knows that. Ray doesn't care about that.
Speaker 6: You know, he didn't care about that. I mean, if
Speaker 6: the state case came to him right now and said, hey, look,
Speaker 6: i'll tell you what, we'll let you out, but you
Speaker 6: got to sign off on a suit, he'd sign off
Speaker 6: on it. He'd be crazy, not too how much? How
Speaker 6: much is it? How much is the day of your
Speaker 6: life free work? For God's sakes?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So yeah, so we'll hold What about maybe, yeah, Governor
Speaker 5: Rick Snyder at face value? Or what you know about
Speaker 5: Rick Snyder and his politics? You say that he didn't
Speaker 5: want to look at this. Is there a chance of
Speaker 5: another governor likelihood soon?
Speaker 6: Is there?
Speaker 5: Did Rick Snyder look like the kind of guy that
Speaker 5: could be approachable with this or he was just the
Speaker 5: guy that was a governor? Tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 6: Boy. I feel like you're Anderson Cooper and I'm on
Speaker 6: I'm on Keth on that one. You know we're going
Speaker 6: to talk politics, okay, sure, Well Rick Snyder is if
Speaker 6: there is a Republican conservative and everybody knows who he is,
Speaker 6: and right now he's under the gun because of the
Speaker 6: situation with the lead in the in the river water
Speaker 6: and flint that's sort of keep. Some arguments are being
Speaker 6: made legally that the state was responsible for this, et cetera,
Speaker 6: et cetera. Okay, I looked it up. Okay, last governor
Speaker 6: before this dude was Jennifer grand Holme, who is a Democrat.
Speaker 6: So if if Grandholme were in office, yes, we'd have it.
Speaker 6: We'd have a shot, I think with this guy, though,
Speaker 6: I don't think we have a bunch of a shot,
Speaker 6: except for the fact that he gets a tremendous amount
Speaker 6: of good public relations if if he lets this guy,
Speaker 6: you know, if he signs off in this commutation, and
Speaker 6: whoever the governor is, they all sign off on a
Speaker 6: commutation at the same you know, that's how it works.
Speaker 6: So so, but do I think that this guy would
Speaker 6: do that readily. No, I don't think he would do
Speaker 6: it readily. I think that somebody would have to sit
Speaker 6: down and talk with him, because right you know, he's
Speaker 6: been more of a you know, much more conservative in
Speaker 6: his approach. And it's a shame because Ray's not the
Speaker 6: only lifeer in this kind of situation. There's a whole
Speaker 6: bunch of others you know, but you know, Rai's the
Speaker 6: only one that I know, and no, we have so
Speaker 6: we haven't been able to get any trash on that
Speaker 6: level yet. Why with the.
Speaker 5: The particulars the way they are. He's in art school,
Speaker 5: he's going to be a pro boxer. Okay, has he
Speaker 5: the ex girlfriend? He's still associating with people that are
Speaker 5: doing heroin. Somebody might say, but well, the again, with
Speaker 5: time and and with people understanding, why can't a guy
Speaker 5: that looks as innocent as Ray have a movie maker,
Speaker 5: have an innocence project, have somebody supporting this guy. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's one of those cases that looks at face value,
Speaker 5: is much more promising, or he's much more innocent than
Speaker 5: some of the people that that they've had somebody backing
Speaker 5: them in their attempt to have their convictions overturned.
Speaker 6: Well, one of the things that I learned a long
Speaker 6: time ago about true crime, ed in from an editor,
Speaker 6: is that people want it to be People want to
Speaker 6: know the system work. They don't want to know it
Speaker 6: doesn't work that an innocent man can go to jail.
Speaker 6: So that's and they want an ending, and there is
Speaker 6: right now, there is no ending. So Therefore, you know,
Speaker 6: nobody's going to hire me to write a book, you know,
Speaker 6: and exposal this stuff. Okay, I mean that would be
Speaker 6: very helpful, but you know, I'm not here to shield
Speaker 6: for a book. But the point is that, you know,
Speaker 6: you you know, you've got a situation where you've got
Speaker 6: to You've got a state that's very conservative, You've got
Speaker 6: a governor that's very conservative. Okay. As far as getting
Speaker 6: the word out to the media, I've tried. I mean,
Speaker 6: that's thank god, that's why you know we're talking today.
Speaker 6: I've certainly got a lot of contacts in the movie business.
Speaker 6: But again, you know, one of the reasons that people
Speaker 6: will shy away from something like this is because it's
Speaker 6: not adjudicated. And when it's not adjudicated, and the fact
Speaker 6: is there is still one one of the guys involved,
Speaker 6: as I it's still alive. Well, people are afraid of lawsuits,
Speaker 6: you know, they're afraid of lawsuits, especially in the movie
Speaker 6: business and the publishing business. So you know it. So
Speaker 6: that's the reason I think that some people, you know,
Speaker 6: the people have stayed away. Plus they don't know anything
Speaker 6: about it. I haven't you know, getting traction. I've talked
Speaker 6: for a lot of you know, for some reason, Like
Speaker 6: I said, I think people want to know more that
Speaker 6: the system works than it doesn't work. Plus there's something
Speaker 6: else I guess now that we talk about it, which
Speaker 6: is if you're going to if you're going, if you go,
Speaker 6: if if you find an innocent person, an innocent man,
Speaker 6: you got to make a decision are you in or
Speaker 6: you out? And that's what I have to do. And
Speaker 6: I knew that I was going to be in for
Speaker 6: a long time. But that's a very that's most people
Speaker 6: don't want to do that, you know, because you're in
Speaker 6: for a long you're in for a long time, you know.
Speaker 6: But you know, there was just more that I could
Speaker 6: walk and you know, I hope, you know, most people
Speaker 6: will feel that way.
Speaker 5: You talk about the the threat of compensation by Ray
Speaker 5: Ray being possibly a factor in as well as the
Speaker 5: state not being too interested in open up this huge
Speaker 5: can of worms. And that was evidence too. When I
Speaker 5: had Chad Keller on and talked about making a murderer
Speaker 5: in that particular case, again you could just look at
Speaker 5: and say, well, jeez, what a incredible convenient coincidence, What
Speaker 5: a lucky stroke for the state that he just happened
Speaker 5: to be on the verge of that thirty six million
Speaker 5: dollar compensation out of contention for the compensation. So again,
Speaker 5: I think all of these factors at least look and
Speaker 5: I guess there's a public now that is at least
Speaker 5: open to that possibility that, sure enough, the people that
Speaker 5: we entrust, there are some people that we may not
Speaker 5: trust as much based on these blatant wrongful convictions. Wrongful
Speaker 5: conviction is such a nice sort of inoculus. We're wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5: It's not appropriate. This is a travesty of justice. And
Speaker 5: a man sitting in jail for four minutes, let alone
Speaker 5: forty four years. And then, like you say, the apathy
Speaker 5: has to be addressed, and like I say, the only
Speaker 5: thing that we can do at this point is if
Speaker 5: John Wayne Gacy can sell his paintings and guys with
Speaker 5: questionable talent can become artists behind bars. How about an
Speaker 5: artist that was an artist beforehand, and it has this
Speaker 5: beautiful art. Again, it's very, very not expressive of the
Speaker 5: horror that he's lived through. This kind of art just
Speaker 5: seems to embody the spirit that this man must have had,
Speaker 5: this innocent spirit, yep, that he had no I see
Speaker 5: no maliciousness on his part than a desire to be free. Yeah,
Speaker 5: innocent person would.
Speaker 6: Yes, Yes, I'm very eloquent. You're very right, you know.
Speaker 6: And it's uh, it's I'll tell you something. I I'm
Speaker 6: so involved. I went to raise in twenty ten. I
Speaker 6: went to raise parole hearing a day after my daughter's
Speaker 6: by Metz by Metzvah. That's how committed I was to him. Okay,
Speaker 6: and uh, and I you know, you know, no regrets,
Speaker 6: of course. I mean, I'm glad I went, you know,
Speaker 6: because I got to see the way that things worked.
Speaker 6: And I really was shocked. I maybe, you know, maybe
Speaker 6: I sound like the most value guy.
Speaker 9: In the world, but I was just shocked.
Speaker 6: And you know, the way that he was treated and
Speaker 6: the fact that they're wasting the public's money. And not
Speaker 6: only that, you know, the most important thing is an
Speaker 6: innocent management behind jails for forty four years. And look
Speaker 6: what he could do if he was free. It's like
Speaker 6: you said, I wonder what would happen with his art.
Speaker 6: I wonder who he'd affect with it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it seems like in this particular case, without the
Speaker 5: movie start coming forward, like on the half of the West,
Speaker 5: Memphis three, and other people coming forth, like even Baldwin
Speaker 5: calling the White House apparently or trying to message the
Speaker 5: White House and Obama to say, listen, this is after
Speaker 5: watching Making a Murderer. That I think that if we
Speaker 5: can do anything at all, is to start of just
Speaker 5: a mini movement of support. Number one, just for to
Speaker 5: consider him as an artist and in that you will
Speaker 5: also consider him as a innocent person and read his story.
Speaker 5: But the only thing that he has, the only thing
Speaker 5: that he can give you is his artwork. And it
Speaker 5: would just be really nice that for once there'd be
Speaker 5: such a great story that this man in prison at
Speaker 5: least knows that there's that support, there's that support, because
Speaker 5: as you know, is despite your cachet as a as
Speaker 5: a journalist and an author, that you can't have listened
Speaker 5: to any change in this particular case, just by you know,
Speaker 5: Fred Rosen making a call.
Speaker 6: So no, no, and it's no, there's no way, and
Speaker 6: it's also there's just no way. Plus it's also you know,
Speaker 6: every state is different, you know, and you know this.
Speaker 6: If this was Florida, it'd be a completely different story.
Speaker 6: It'd be much easier because everything is public in Florida.
Speaker 6: But this is completely different. You know, you're talking at
Speaker 6: a very corrupt police force. You're talking about a judge
Speaker 6: that you know, you know, I can go right down
Speaker 6: the line. You know. It's just frustrating for me, and
Speaker 6: you know it's you know, even you know, and talking
Speaker 6: to you today about it. I you know, I really
Speaker 6: like the ideas that you've come up with to try
Speaker 6: and support. And we can use his facebook page. People
Speaker 6: can go to raise facebook page, and you know, and
Speaker 6: so forth, and if you have any suggestions for attorneys
Speaker 6: or anything like that. You know, I like to say,
Speaker 6: good people stick together in difficult times. You know, well,
Speaker 6: these are difficult times and we're good people.
Speaker 5: You talked about before this that if your knowledge, this
Speaker 5: was the first interview that any journalist had with Ray
Speaker 5: Ray about this, And maybe initially there were some, yes,
Speaker 5: but for almost that entire forty four years, no one
Speaker 5: was even interested enough in this other than yourself off
Speaker 5: to interview him.
Speaker 6: Well there was go ahead, just I should explain there
Speaker 6: was a journalist? Uh actually did he interview? No? Yeah,
Speaker 6: you're correct, I'm sure, Yeah, I mean only one as
Speaker 6: as I know. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: With this opportunity to interview him today, which I thought
Speaker 5: it was very important for people to hear right from
Speaker 5: Ray Ray's mouth the experience. And I mean, I don't
Speaker 5: even know how prepared I was to ask him questions,
Speaker 5: because some questions are just ridiculous. How does it feel,
Speaker 5: you know, his heart? Avoid questions that just they're not
Speaker 5: great questions.
Speaker 6: What was his.
Speaker 5: Attitude or anticipation for this interview? What was what was
Speaker 5: a conversation Like in anticipation, I know in prisoner's probably
Speaker 5: looking forward to a phone call or a letter is
Speaker 5: something that's the highlight of the day.
Speaker 6: What was his and he was like I would say
Speaker 6: that Ray's anticipation was as it usually is. He's very
Speaker 6: even tempered. He was looking forward to it, But it
Speaker 6: wasn't like he was, you know, like he's had He's
Speaker 6: been through this so many times where something would look
Speaker 6: like it would happen, and right now as we're talking,
Speaker 6: he thinks nothing has happened. So I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 6: after we speak, I'll talk to his wife, who actually
Speaker 6: called me a couple of times while we've been on air,
Speaker 6: and I'll let her know what's going on, you know,
Speaker 6: and so forth, so that they know that you know,
Speaker 6: that's why I was writing Shotguns in case something happened,
Speaker 6: you know, that's you know, that's why he writes shotgun
Speaker 6: for the Texas Rangers. So in any case, yeah, he
Speaker 6: was looking forward to it.
Speaker 5: But but he.
Speaker 9: He he hasn't a.
Speaker 6: I don't know. It's like he's accepted the situation, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, and he doesn't let himself get
Speaker 6: too excited. No, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 5: The thing is, after forty four years, you can't count
Speaker 5: on something happening for yourself. Otherwise he would have been
Speaker 5: devastated every time there was some devastating news, like you say,
Speaker 5: the humiliating parole hearing. He still can stay optimistic. He
Speaker 5: didn't have an outburst at that hearing. By as a
Speaker 5: defense mechanism, as a survival mechanism, he has to remain
Speaker 5: in his own little way how he handles that time.
Speaker 5: He can't hope for to get out of prison too much,
Speaker 5: otherwise he'll be completely devastated. He knows where he is
Speaker 5: and he knows likely his fate. He has to they
Speaker 5: optimistic to a certain degree. But it must be hard
Speaker 5: being optimistic at all after all this time and off,
Speaker 5: after all these failures.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, exactly, I would agree with that. I think
Speaker 6: you've hit the nail on the head. Uh he yeah,
Speaker 6: he's got to stay level headed because of you know,
Speaker 6: these things you know, come up. You know, I mean
Speaker 6: he when I say that, you know, he was getting
Speaker 6: he got a call from a producer. Uh the producer
Speaker 6: actually called him in jail, or he called the producer
Speaker 6: rather not yeah, he called the producer. But you know,
Speaker 6: this was a major network show. But like I said,
Speaker 6: you know, without having the ability to photograph him, they
Speaker 6: couldn't do it. And there you know that that was
Speaker 6: a major source of of of you know, that was
Speaker 6: there was a lot of optimism and then we crashed.
Speaker 6: You know, we really did on that one because I
Speaker 6: really thought, you know, and I know, you know, I
Speaker 6: know how these things go, but you know, everything looked
Speaker 6: pretty good, but the last minute it just crashed.
Speaker 5: What I thought, too, is the incredible opportunity that arose
Speaker 5: by having Charlie Matthews come into the same prison and
Speaker 5: for Ray Ray to realize and then question him and
Speaker 5: get this affidavit from him, and then again at the
Speaker 5: last minute, that opportunity snuffed out, This incredible opportunity, this
Speaker 5: exonerating evidence. Yet I think, and just to picture the
Speaker 5: odds of the killer to come in and or the
Speaker 5: people responsible to come into the prison incredible. I mean, well,
Speaker 5: it's amazing that it hasn't been a screenplay just for
Speaker 5: even that scene alone. What are the odds of you
Speaker 5: being able to do something so monument on your own,
Speaker 5: behalf from prison and yet.
Speaker 6: Well yeah, I mean, I you know, again, you write
Speaker 6: a screenplay, you got to get it produced. But yes,
Speaker 6: everything you're saying things sense. I mean, actually, you know,
Speaker 6: it's it's if there's any case that you know besides
Speaker 6: Resco promps me The Birdman of Alcatraz, you know, which
Speaker 6: was a book originally before he became a movie with
Speaker 6: Burt Lancaster directed by John Frankenheimer in sixty two, I think,
Speaker 6: and a reporter got onto the case and said, this
Speaker 6: guy should be out. Well and in that case, the
Speaker 6: guy was guilty. He really wasn't murdered. But and it
Speaker 6: didn't happen, you know, The Birdman, you know, Robert Stroud,
Speaker 6: Birdman of Alcatraz died in prestody, you know, and it
Speaker 6: was so difficult, is you know, I've had people close
Speaker 6: to me he said, oh, he's going to die in jail,
Speaker 6: and I go, don't say that, you know, I mean,
Speaker 6: I've had people that to me, that's pretty you know,
Speaker 6: it's pretty un thinking. But you know, I know where
Speaker 6: they're coming from. But thats not not going to happen.
Speaker 5: We're gonna get talked about Barbs, Barb's health issues. What
Speaker 5: about the overall health of Ray Gray's not an old man, he's.
Speaker 6: What's fire well, his health is okay, but from what
Speaker 6: I understand he has I think he may have hepatitis
Speaker 6: c uh and uh. He also I think he's got
Speaker 6: high blood pressure, you know, some of the standard stuff
Speaker 6: you get as you get older. Other than that, he
Speaker 6: seems to be okay. But but you know, we got
Speaker 6: to remember that, you know, forty four years behind bars
Speaker 6: for anybody is not the same as forty four years.
Speaker 6: And you know, with freedom, it gauges you. So you know,
Speaker 6: how he is, you know, insights physically, I don't know.
Speaker 6: But the good news is that because you know, he's
Speaker 6: always been, you know, an athlete, so he keeps you know,
Speaker 6: he certainly keeps in shape. It looks, you know, so
Speaker 6: I don't think he does any boxing anymore. But but
Speaker 6: you know, overall he's okay, that's good.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's his story. It just seems an incredible indomitable
Speaker 5: spirit that this man has. I hope that people will
Speaker 5: go to the site itself and it's not very long.
Speaker 5: It just tells his story and then shows you some
Speaker 5: artwork and the ability to be able to purchase some
Speaker 5: of this artwork and really really support this man if
Speaker 5: there is any chance at all. This seems to be
Speaker 5: the best way. I mean, certainly, have people know about
Speaker 5: this case, and that is one of the most important things.
Speaker 5: And like I say, not everybody knows about this person whatsoever.
Speaker 5: I hope this program and maybe even subsequent programs will
Speaker 5: take up this fight for this innocent man, Ray Ray.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you very much Fred Rosen for
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about Ray Ray in this incredible case. Fred,
Speaker 5: we're going to be back on talking in October about
Speaker 5: the Bayou Strangler again. You're just a very prolific guy.
Speaker 5: Tell us how people might get a hold of Fred
Speaker 5: Rosen to communicate or find out more about all of
Speaker 5: the great work that you've done.
Speaker 6: So oh well, thank you, Thank you. Dan. Just have
Speaker 6: any if you'd like to get you know, get in
Speaker 6: touch with me. You can just go to my Facebook page.
Speaker 6: It's that easy, you know, just just send me an
Speaker 6: email from Facebook and I'm there. That's it. You know,
Speaker 6: I'm pretty I'm pretty public that way. And or you know,
Speaker 6: you can always send you can always go to Open Road,
Speaker 6: which is my publisher, and send an email there, you know,
Speaker 6: if that's how you prefer doing it. If I was
Speaker 6: a DC Comics guy, I would say you could send
Speaker 6: up that signal, but I'm not going to say that.
Speaker 6: I'll say you can send up the Spider signal, Dan, Yeah, right.
Speaker 5: I also want to mention too. We also want to
Speaker 5: mention for people to go to Free Ray Gray. It's
Speaker 5: as simple as that and check it out. I know
Speaker 5: Ray will appreciate it. It's regrettable that we couldn't get
Speaker 5: Ray to speak on his own behalf here today, but Fred,
Speaker 5: you spoke for Ray and I want to thank you
Speaker 5: very much for this interview and I know we'll be
Speaker 5: speaking to you again real soon. Thank you very much,
Speaker 5: Fred Rose Dan.
Speaker 6: I want to thank you especially today for what you've
Speaker 6: done in Judaism. We call what you did today a
Speaker 6: big mitzvah, a good deed. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 5: Thank you have a great night.
Speaker 6: Fred, good night you too, Dan. Good night by
Speaker 5: Se