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Nick Yarris - Exonerated Death Row Inmate - 22 Years Solitary Confinement - Author - Speaker — Transcript

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0:04[Music]
0:29the 20 F hour radio
0:33show so Nick I guess the most obvious
0:36place to start is with the murder you
0:38were charged with can you give us a
0:40little detail on the actual crime and
0:42how you initially were connected to the
0:44case yes
0:46sir and the murder in question began on
0:50December 15 1981 when Linda May Craig
0:54was leaving her workplace in the
0:55Tri-State Mall she left work at 4:00 and
0:59her watch was found broken on her wrist
1:01at 4:05 p.m. she was abducted in the car
1:05parking lot because her shoes were
1:07recovered there and she was driven into
1:10Pennsylvania from the state of Delaware
1:11two miles near her home where she was
1:13raped and stabbed to death and dumped in
1:15a car parking lot of a church her car
1:18was then driven two miles further left
1:21with the interior lights on and all the
1:23doors locked the Killer's gloves left as
1:25a signature for the police on the front
1:27seat I had nothing to do with this crime
1:30but it was in the front page of a
1:32newspaper that had accompanied me when I
1:35landed in the Delaware County Prison I
1:38landed there because on December 20th
1:411981 I was driving through the city of
1:43Chester Pennsylvania when I was stopped
1:45by patrolman Benjamin Wright I was high
1:48on drugs and I had just run a stop sign
1:51he walked up to my car and started
1:53banging on the window the radio was
1:54still playing and I couldn't understand
1:56them because I suffered from a brain
1:57disorder called the clasia and happened
2:00because of a childhood injury where I
2:02was attacked by a young man when I was
2:03seven years old who beat my head and
2:05went a Rob and because of my drug use I
2:09used the worst drug possible
2:12methamphetamine and it blew my mind out
2:14so when something like this happened and
2:15officer right walked up I just couldn't
2:17respond to him he yanked me from the car
2:20put me against it put his forearm to my
2:22throat and pushed backwards and I
2:24resisted when I did he got angry and he
2:26reached for his gun when he did I
2:28grabbed his wrist and gun went off into
2:30the ground I started yelling okay and he
2:33put me in the back seat of the car and
2:34and it was over but then he got in the
2:36front seat composed himself for a moment
2:39and then he got on the phone and started
2:41yelling shots fired officer assist help
2:43help I'm under attack as if he was still
2:45being under attacked by me and I
2:47couldn't understand why he did so in
2:49short order I was thrown into that cell
2:51with that newspaper in the Delaware
2:53County Prison and charged with attempted
2:55murder of a police officer and I lost it
2:58it was 4 days before Christmas Christmas
3:00I was 2 years old and I'd had no hope of
3:03beating the charges of attemped murder
3:05against a police officer when I was a
3:06drug addict loser I sat there for days
3:10steing about my situation and I stupidly
3:13did the most horrific thing of my life I
3:16made up a story that I would make to
3:17tell the police about that murder that
3:19seemed like a great mystery that no one
3:21would understand and so I went forward
3:23and told the police a story they soon
3:26found out I was a liar but then they put
3:28me back in prison and they put a
3:30prisoner in the cell next to me who had
3:31burglarized the prosecutor home and it
3:33was he who said I confessed to him of
3:35this murder they charged me with this
3:38crime did I not to do it so being
3:41innocent of this crime I mean was that
3:43the only evidence they had against you I
3:44mean they they somehow manufactur this
3:46evidence right yeah that's the scary
3:49part once they determined that I was a
3:51liar they then said you must be either
3:54one and then they made up a motive they
3:56said that I went out and stalked Mrs
3:58Craig because she bore a like to my
4:0020-year-old girlfriend i' broken up with
4:02and that I must have been mentally
4:04desponded by it and went out and stalked
4:06her out of some mental fit and they made
4:09me out to be some kind of mental deric
4:11and they tortured me they told the local
4:14prison gang the pagans that I was a
4:17informant hoping that I would have so
4:19much pressure put upon me by doing so
4:21that I would come forward with the truth
4:23to the police only to have me assaulted
4:25nearly killed and hang myself when that
4:27went badly it didn't move me out of the
4:30county gent and put me in Chester County
4:31Prison while I went through the first
4:33trial I was acquitted by a jury of all
4:36the charges by offer Benjamin right my
4:39original charges were taken off me after
4:41only 20 minutes of deliberation but that
4:44only made things worse for me Randy they
4:46then decided to seek the death penalty
4:48against me the very next week by the
4:51very same prosecutor and the very same
4:53judge that just lost the first trial and
4:55from that point on I was given a
4:57three-day capital murder trial
5:00at the age of 20 years old it was a joke
5:03they made so much Folly of me and
5:05depressed that they questioned why I
5:06should be even given a fair trial when
5:08some nut just like me shot the president
5:11so it was a very terrible time in the
5:13early 80s to go to trial for a crime
5:15like
5:16this so for us that have no idea except
5:19for the you know the terminology what is
5:22death row I mean what's it like I mean
5:24how did you stay sane through all this
5:26this period in in your life yeah I
5:28landed it in the old system I was
5:30sentenced to the electric chair it was
5:32so long ago and I was 20 years old they
5:34put me in hell in Huntington prison and
5:37at the time it was the only prison in
5:39America ever condemned by the United
5:41Nations for its active practices of
5:43torture they had just removed a unit
5:46that they were using in there where they
5:48kept the lights on 24 hours and made you
5:50stay awake for days until they broke you
5:52mentally to stop you from talking that's
5:55it just talking in yourself when I got
5:58off the bus they beat me for 30 seconds
6:00threw me in the cell and then the worst
6:02experience of my life took place from a
6:04female a nurse walked up to my cell and
6:07then correctly read out by wrote how I
6:11should use the system to file a a
6:14request slip to see a doctor if I should
6:16need one and when I failed to respond to
6:19the things she was saying to me an
6:20officer stood next to her just
6:22repeatedly saying inmate refuses to
6:25speak knowing that I wasn't going to say
6:28a word to what they had just done to me
6:29I stood there my face bleeding they
6:31didn't care now you actually begged for
6:34death at one point right yeah I went to
6:37arduous task well before that I mean my
6:41Folly began when I escaped from Death
6:43Row in 1985 and was on the FBI's most
6:46wanted this for 25 days until I had my
6:48father call the FBI and turn myself in
6:51and I I did that knowing that I would
6:54suffer a great bit deal more and they
6:57put me in Florida's death row next to
6:59Ted Bundy and cooked me down there for a
7:00summer until they added 30 some years to
7:03my sentence and sent me back to
7:04Pennsylvania so yes I became the first
7:07guy on death row in 1988 the asked for
7:10DNA testing to prove my Innocent but it
7:12took me 15 long agonizing years and part
7:15of it was they destroyed all the autopsy
7:19material and the effort to try and seal
7:21my fate and they pushed me to the
7:23extreme of being so sick from hepatitis
7:25C that I asked to be executed I didn't
7:28want to lose the person that I had
7:30developed into and worked so hard for
7:32because I don't know how to tell you
7:35guys this but like I didn't try to
7:37educate myself and grow so I could be
7:40some badass when I got out of jail I
7:42just wanted on my last day to be able to
7:45quote something so beautiful that they
7:48would recognize that I had a erased the
7:50scumbag teasing liar that I was and
7:52became someone decent and loving towards
7:55others while incarcerated that I could
7:58show that I had beaten them erase to
8:00erase me from this Earth in a way that
8:02they could never touch and to do so to
8:05make my parents proud because my mom and
8:07dad were with me at dinner the things
8:09that they did to my family were so
8:11terrible because I had Witnesses with me
8:14at the time of the
8:16murder so so tell me about these these
8:18Gladiator games you were forced to
8:20participate in yeah it's a shame but it
8:23it in a weird way it was used by the
8:26guards to keep them from killing each
8:27other in the early 80s so many prisoners
8:30got Camp uh crammed into our prison
8:33systems that we ended up having a lot of
8:35black officers from the major cities
8:37move up into the mountain area to deal
8:39with all these extra shifts of guards
8:41that were needed and they were
8:43witnessing brutality being aimed at
8:45black prisoners and it was really
8:47disturbing that officers would fight
8:49amongst themselves so this clever ass
8:52Captain came up with an idea pick out a
8:55black prisoner pick out a white one Let
8:57them fight and the guards who use that
9:00as a vicarious uh way of um taking out
9:04their anger and frustration on
9:06themselves without officers being
9:09involved so it was a weird scenario
9:12where I watched as men had to fight each
9:14other merely for the amusement of the
9:16officers who then felt relieved from
9:19this anguish amongst
9:21themselves so Nick Nick H how did your
9:23case get brought up for review in the
9:25first place I mean that that's really
9:26not normal right for inmates on death
9:28row well see I I went through the
9:31extreme of fighting and fighting and
9:33fighting because I was the first death
9:34row prisoner I kept having to go between
9:37the state and federal court and it's a
9:39shame that I went on in such a prolonged
9:43fashion because the state court was
9:46adamant about denying the DNA efforts
9:48and they kept it in the state court as
9:50long as they possibly could and did all
9:52they could to hope that I would die by
9:54my own hand or someone else in the
9:56meanwhile and we look back now could
9:59have been executed I came within as
10:01close to 60 days and yet here it is DNA
10:04has proven three different results that
10:06I'm not the killer I didn't leave my
10:08scene in there it wasn't my skin sill
10:11under her fingernails and it wasn't my
10:14DNA inside the Killer's gloves left in
10:16that car like I
10:17described well how did you react to the
10:19news that you had been cleared of murder
10:21and you know you were set to be released
10:23it was awkward because I was told of the
10:25results in July of 2003 and it was my
10:30lawyer from Philadelphia from the
10:31federal defender office who had
10:33represented me for seven years and he
10:34told me uh the results of the testing by
10:38Dr Edward Blake in California and then
10:41he started to tell me when I pointed out
10:44to him how it point it provve me
10:45innocent he then described to me how
10:48everyone in the office seems a little
10:50shamefaced this morning because they all
10:51thought I was crazy and they didn't
10:53actually believe I was innocent and it
10:56was like one of those awkward moments
10:58like he's trying to reveal in a
11:00self-depreciating manner how he has been
11:02wrong about me but I didn't have time
11:04for that so I hung up the phone from him
11:06and I called my mother and told her and
11:08she started to cry because my brother
11:09was having a seizure at her feet at the
11:11time so it was so not what I expected I
11:16thought there would be a celebration in
11:17fact it went the other way it took them
11:19eight months to let me go they took me
11:21off death throw and they put me in a
11:22mental cell and they told me if we open
11:25the door you're going to kill one of us
11:26for what we did to you I said no I'm not
11:28I'm not going to wait my time on you so
11:31how how how was it you just like the day
11:33you were set free they just open the
11:35door and they say you know see you later
11:37you would think that you would think
11:38that but they watched my release at 8 AM
11:41they told me goodbye they packed all my
11:43stuff they put me in a van in January
11:4516th at 7:30 a.m. they drove me up to
11:48the first gate I said goodbye to the
11:50officers we were talking about the first
11:52things I was going to eat and they
11:53stopped me at the second gate and they
11:55said take him back his skate paperwork
11:58from Florida is not done yet and my
12:00lawyers had to fly from Fort ladale to T
12:03half at Florida to get me released that
12:05day for five hours I sat in a Cell
12:07waiting in anguish if they did it right
12:09that day and so it was so weird that I
12:14ended up walking outside and instead of
12:16saying a word about what they had just
12:18done I asked that they please come back
12:21and revisit my friend Walter ogrod and
12:24Ernie Simmons who were on death row
12:26behind me and how they two were innocent
12:28like me and I W off well how did you
12:31point at that wow how how did you adapt
12:33to life you know outside of prison man
12:35after all those years of solitary
12:37confinement right what was it that must
12:39have been like a a prison in itself
12:41especially in the beginning it was a
12:43freedom into itself because I had my own
12:45schedule I've read thousands and
12:47thousands of book I communicated with
12:48people all over the world I
12:50circumnavigated the the planet with
12:52sending my hair to pen pals all over the
12:55world I grew and I had this wonderful
12:58experience in inside that cell because I
13:00was in solitary compartment 23 hours a
13:03day it was my world and I grew from age
13:0620 to age 42 in there and I became this
13:09really different person and I became
13:13proud of who I was so when they let me
13:15out I just wanted to share that I wasn't
13:17seeing it the way you did I was only
13:20separated from society by the barriers
13:23that were created in my mind and I
13:26realized that and let them go and I
13:28moved to Eng I lived there for the last
13:309 years I've now come back to the United
13:32States to develop my film I just got
13:34married on January 16th
13:372014 uh I'm so happy that I've turned
13:40towards the positive and actually went
13:41and lived my life before telling this
13:43story now so people actually can see
13:46that I'm not selling them the hope of
13:49what I might have but with the life I've
13:51done in the last 10 years of my living
13:54you know was there ever any contact
13:56between you and and the family of the
13:58victim after your after name had been
13:59cleared yeah there was back and forth
14:02but shamefully because the prosecutor
14:04wanted to make out that even though DNA
14:06evidence came back and it's not mine I'm
14:09still somehow connected to the crime so
14:11that family has hated me for so long
14:13that they can't let go of that and it's
14:16one of those weird things that even
14:18members of my family couldn't let go of
14:20the anger towards me because they
14:21weren't there at dinner or they didn't
14:23know the the events of the night and
14:25they didn't care because I used to be a
14:27junkie and a thief mhm see this is where
14:29we go back to I'm not a victim of an
14:32overall scheme I put myself in the
14:34center of the storm by my own stupid
14:36acts it was only down to me to pay for
14:40it in efforts I've made since then and
14:42part of it was when I was released I
14:44even fought for the victim by going out
14:46every Monday to the courthouse and
14:48protesting until they put the DNA into
14:50the FBI's Data Bank to try and catch the
14:52man who killed her I felt that that was
14:54important that I finalized that
14:57continued effort to try and change who I
14:59was for what I did none the one has to
15:02live with that what was done to me the
15:04cruelty and the times that I had been
15:05hurt others have to live with that so
15:09what has your life been like since
15:10you've been released uh what have you
15:12done to try to make up for all those
15:13years yeah it's it's been a rocket ride
15:16through every human emotion I'm no
15:19different than you and Bob I mean you
15:22guys you guys go through the same things
15:24as I do the frustrations the immediacy
15:26of emotion all these things are back in
15:29my life now and I have to deal with them
15:31paying bills and struggling and worrying
15:33if my wife and I will make it in the
15:34United States and going through the
15:36processes that we are we're struggling
15:38for having a child we're facing
15:40difficulties we get frustrated just like
15:43everyone else but we have to
15:44understanding that things have been
15:46truly worse for us so we can hang on
15:48knowing that this isn't the worst of it
15:50we're all right I think that's what I
15:53want to share more than anything that
15:55through the perseverance of actually
15:57caring about other human beings you can
15:59overcome the things that have done to
16:00you it's just that you can't give up on
16:02love now I know you got a book out right
16:05and I think even a documentary is being
16:07released in January yes sir I have a
16:09book out called seven days to live
16:11people can find me on my website Nick
16:13j.net or find it on Amazon Kindle and
16:17I'm very grateful to the actor Mike
16:18Farrell who's written a great blurb
16:20about it I just got a four out of four
16:22star review about the book I'm very
16:24happy for the opportunity to promote it
16:26with the documentary that's coming out
16:28in January as well
16:29so it looks like not being an arrogant
16:32[ __ ] for what they did to me has paid
16:35off and I'm glad I'm glad that I didn't
16:37become bitter and I'm glad that I didn't
16:39use what they did to me as a crutch
16:41because it's just too easy and I'm just
16:44so happy that it's rewarded me now with
16:46someone like you taking the time to let
16:47me speak today you know is there
16:49anything else we haven't covered you'd
16:51like to mention before we start to wrap
16:52things up here oh yeah every Don every
16:56copy of my book sold I will make a
16:58donation to the Innocence Project to
17:00help them because 86 people were proven
17:04innocent last year and another 63 this
17:06year so those far even people on death
17:08row proven innocent by DNA this year
17:11alone and I think as long as I can
17:14contribute that's my goal to help others
17:16never have to ask to be executed in the
17:18manner that I did now you mentioned your
17:21website but do you do do you do social
17:23media or anything like that people can
17:25go and keep up with you find me yeah my
17:27Nick my name is Nick y R RIS and you can
17:30find me on Facebook I have a
17:32professional page and a personal one and
17:34I like the opportunity I get to share a
17:36lot of my life in that manner I really
17:39am grateful for the opportunity I have
17:40with CNN and other major uh national
17:43television networks I'm going to do in
17:44the future too so I if I ever come back
17:48and get a chance to do this again I
17:50definitely will you guys have been so
17:51grateful uh gracious towards me and I
17:54can't help but be grateful well Nick
17:56it's been a pleasure talking to you here
17:58in your story it is is an amazing story
18:00uh I'm glad things worked out for you
18:02your name has been cleared to that
18:03terrible crime and and uh thanks for
18:05joining us this afternoon on the show
18:08thank you guys I really appreciate it
18:10I'm so happy for you guys go and enjoy
18:11the rest of your day
18:18[Music]
18:37the 25th hour radio show

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