2:00

father and treasured husband had

2:02

dark secrets. He had sworn

2:04

to do no harm, but would

2:06

resort to any means necessary to

2:08

save himself. I'm excited

2:11

to share this betrayal story with you

2:13

and even more excited to tell you

2:15

that you can get access to all

2:17

episodes, a hundred percent ad free with

2:19

an I Heart True Crime Plus subscription

2:21

available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus

2:24

you'll get access to the next episode

2:26

one week ahead of everyone else. Available

2:29

only to I Heart True Crime Plus subscribers.

2:32

You'll also get access to all episodes from

2:34

Betrayal Season 1 and Season 2 ad free

2:36

as well. So don't wait,

2:38

head to Apple Podcasts, search for

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I Heart True Crime Plus and subscribe

2:42

today. Hi,

2:46

I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz.

2:48

And we're the hosts of Unpacking the

2:51

Toolbox, the Scandal rewatch podcast where we're

2:53

talking about all the best moments of

2:55

the show. Mesmerizing. But also we get

2:57

to hang out with all of our

3:00

old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott

3:02

Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington.

3:04

Well, suit up gladiators, grab your big

3:06

old glass of wine and prepare yourselves

3:09

for an even more behind the scenes

3:11

stories with Unpacking the Toolbox. Listen to

3:13

Unpacking the Toolbox on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts.

3:15

Or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh. Tons

3:21

of thousands of people incarcerated

3:23

in the U.S. have

3:27

been wrongfully convicted and

3:30

are being held in captivity for crimes even as

3:32

they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's

3:35

it like to be one of those imprisoned people? And

3:37

what's it like to be their ally, the

3:40

one outside committed to fighting for their freedom? I'm

3:43

Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is

3:46

Wrongful Conviction. Previously on Wrongful

3:48

Conviction. Denny's

30:01

He ordered a steak and

30:03

was shocked when they gave him a real

30:05

knife And

30:10

and cell phones Had

30:12

come into being at that and our

30:14

cell phones were ringing off the wall

30:16

and they were flip phones Of course

30:18

just passing phones around the car for

30:21

him to talk on to different people and

30:24

then we stopped at a wayside and

30:28

There was a swing set at the

30:30

wayside and he had to

30:32

go swing on the swings at mmm, so

30:38

Every time I see the picture of that I tear

30:40

up Alan

30:43

you just take me to that moment

30:46

your feet hitting the ground

30:49

outside You know, I think

30:51

at that point I there was no like Catharsis

30:54

or it was just wow,

30:56

this is awesome And I'm loving every

30:58

minute of this and I don't

31:00

know what happened that day I was on my phone

31:03

the whole time It was a phone call after a

31:05

phone call after a phone call of all the people

31:07

that were calling Oh my gosh, I heard and didn't

31:09

really process until we got home and there were press

31:11

at my house And I did a

31:13

brief interview there and then everybody went

31:15

to bed and it was just me and I

31:17

stayed up all night just Experiencing

31:23

the first time I could just oh, I can

31:26

go outside. Oh, I can go over

31:28

to the fridge and make sandwich. I Can

31:31

I can play with the dog? Oh, I

31:33

can go back outside again. All the things

31:35

that that seemed so Obvious

31:38

and simple before yeah, it's the little

31:40

things It's we take so much for

31:42

granted from just ordinary life. And so

31:45

I just Experienced those all night

31:47

and I watched the sunrise And

31:49

then promptly began complaining about the price of gas

31:52

and the speed of my internet But

31:57

even on top of that in many

32:00

ways you're out, but the nightmare is

32:02

not over. No, not at all. Because

32:04

you still, yeah, you still remain charged

32:06

with Jennifer's murder.

32:08

Yes. And the office

32:11

of McLean County state's

32:13

attorney announced that it

32:15

intended to retry you. Yeah. That

32:17

must have been such an emotional

32:19

roller coaster for you all. I

32:21

knew that was the deal from

32:23

the moment I was heading

32:26

back to the county jail. I knew that I was

32:29

bonding out. I wasn't exonerated.

32:33

I was bonding out to be

32:35

retried, but there was

32:38

a lot of hope in this

32:40

because now we've got this momentum

32:42

of investigative power, all the

32:44

stuff I've been trying for the last 13 years

32:46

to get them to test the damn

32:48

DNA, trying to get them to follow

32:50

up on leads that never got followed.

32:52

I've been trying to just

32:55

get a real honest

32:57

evidentiary review and some real honest

32:59

detective work out of these people.

33:02

And now I have investigative power

33:05

and they have to let me do

33:07

it. And I,

33:10

to this day, I believe that's why

33:12

they dropped the charges. They did it

33:14

right after the judge

33:16

that was handling the case appeared

33:19

to agree that we were going to be

33:21

allowed to test all that DNA. Bam. Charges

33:23

dropped. Yep. On January 29th, 2009, all charges

33:25

against you were dropped. And

33:31

then you filed for a

33:33

petition for a certificate of

33:35

innocence. Yes. What

33:38

became your family's new driving

33:40

motivation at that point and

33:42

why? I've been out

33:44

long enough that the

33:46

immediate elation and feeling of

33:49

being cloud on cloud nine

33:51

has began to fade

33:54

and I'm dealing with post-traumatic

33:57

stress disorder, I'm dealing

33:59

with. I've now

34:01

turned the valve on to

34:04

all those emotions that I had

34:06

turned off. I'm

34:09

trying to process them and what happens if

34:11

I feel just one small

34:13

grain of grief. All

34:17

of the grief that I've been storing up for the last

34:19

13 years comes out all at once. I

34:22

realized I need to get help.

34:26

We're pursuing these continuing legal

34:28

remedies, but I'm also going

34:31

to therapy. I'm seeing a psychiatrist.

34:33

I'm on Zoloft. I'm just trying to

34:35

figure out who I am again because

34:38

I've stored up 13 years

34:40

of this cookie cutter imagination of what life

34:42

is supposed to be like after I get

34:44

out. And oh my

34:46

gosh, that's not what life is like after I

34:48

get out. I think

34:51

it's so incredible that you were able

34:53

to do the work that you needed

34:55

to do at that point and

34:58

that you had the wherewithal to understand that

35:00

you needed to do it. Look,

35:02

it had been what, 4,836 days you

35:04

went in when you were 20, 22. You

35:11

got out when you were 36. It's

35:15

got to be beyond

35:17

surreal. I think some

35:20

of it was surreal and some of it

35:22

was too real. It's like the reverse of

35:24

prison. The first year is the hardest. The

35:27

first year in prison just

35:29

completely tears you down and

35:31

undoes your humanity. And

35:34

then after that, you're just numb and you're just

35:36

doing time. And after

35:39

release, that first probably

35:41

four months was just

35:43

absolutely wonderful. And

35:46

everybody's so happy to see me. Oh

35:48

my gosh, isn't it great? I'm not in

35:51

prison. And every day that's what's at the

35:53

forefront of my thoughts. I'm

35:55

not in prison, right? And slowly you

35:57

get into real life and you start to take

35:59

some things for granted. granted. And every now and

36:01

then I just be driving and I'm in traffic

36:03

and I'm a little annoyed. And then I suddenly

36:05

realize I'm not in prison and I have a

36:07

nice day. But as the

36:10

hyper alertness started

36:12

to develop for me and I'm

36:15

aware of every cop that's anywhere near me and I'm

36:17

aware of, of anybody that

36:19

looked at me cross-eyed and people

36:21

have criticized me openly in different

36:23

forms of media. And I have

36:25

lost a job because someone thinks

36:28

I'm a murderer and it starts

36:30

to set in that

36:32

I'm not free. I'm still being

36:34

victimized by this same system

36:38

and I still have to continue

36:40

to fight to clear my name.

36:42

And that's the COI. A certificate

36:44

of innocence, right? I think at

36:46

a certain point, my trauma and

36:49

my poor functioning

36:51

because of it made it

36:57

really difficult to, exonerees,

37:01

it's really hard to love us.

37:04

Not because you don't see something

37:06

awesome in us, but

37:08

because we're sometimes stuck in

37:10

this trauma and you

37:13

take this long-term suffering

37:17

that is

37:19

pushed way down deep

37:21

inside of you and I'm

37:23

not taking anything away from veterans

37:25

or anything like that. They were

37:27

in someplace even more dangerous for

37:29

less time. And I was

37:31

in someplace that was also dangerous for

37:34

more time. And so

37:37

I really equate it to being

37:39

similar, but a completely different version

37:42

of that same PTSD

37:44

where I think it takes

37:47

longer to unravel it and it's

37:49

not as easily noticed. And

37:51

it's certainly not as, publicly

37:54

supported to have trauma from prison as

37:56

it is to have fought for your

37:58

country. I started getting help and

38:02

the charges got dropped and we began

38:04

pursuing the certificate of innocence and

38:06

it was just a couple of months after the

38:08

charges were dropped that I

38:10

met Gretchen at church. You're

38:17

listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright

38:20

Pacheco. You can listen to this and

38:22

all the Lava for Good podcasts one

38:24

week early and ad free by subscribing

38:27

to Lava for Good Plus on Apple

38:29

Podcasts. We

38:35

all know what that music means.

38:38

Is somebody getting coronated? No, it's

38:40

time for the Olympics in Paris.

38:42

The opening ceremony for the 2024

38:45

Paris games is

38:47

coming on July 26th. Who

38:50

are these athletes? When are the

38:52

games they're playing? You may be

38:54

looking for the sports experts to

38:56

answer those questions, but we're not

38:58

that. Well, what are we? We're

39:01

two guys. I'm Matt Rogers. And

39:03

I'm Bowen Yang. And we're doing

39:05

an Olympics podcast? Yeah, we're

39:07

hosting the two guys, five rings

39:10

podcast. You get the two guys,

39:12

us to start every podcast, then

39:14

the five rings come after. Watch

39:16

every moment of the 2024 Paris

39:18

Olympics beginning July

39:20

26th on NBC and Peacock. And for the

39:22

first time, you can stream the 2024 Paris

39:25

games on the iHeartRadio

39:27

app. And listen to two guys, five

39:29

rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

39:31

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey

39:38

fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm

39:40

Danielle Robé. And we're the

39:42

hosts of The Bright Side, the daily

39:44

podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed

39:46

to light up your day. Every

39:49

weekday, we bring you conversations with

39:51

the culture makers who inspire us.

39:53

Like a recent episode with journalist,

39:55

TV host, and bestselling author, Brooke

39:57

Baldwin, about what she calls her...