The Case of Clay Chabot

📻 Episode #532
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Jul 03, 2025

⬥ STILL IMPRISONED

About This Episode

In recognition of July 4th we want to highlight Clay Chabot, a Navy veteran who served almost 2 years on the USS Saratoga CVA-60 before he was honorably discharged. Veterans, even those who served their country honorably, are not immune to the shortcomings of our criminal justice system.

Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.

The Case

On April 19, 1986, the body of a 28 year old woman was found in her bedroom in Garland, Texas. She had been tied, gagged, raped and shot three times. Clay Chabot, a friend of the victim's husband, became the main suspect after voluntarily providing information to the police about his brother-in-law, Gerald Pabst, who had visited the victim's home on the morning of the murder. Initially telling police that he had no involvement in the crime, Pabst later changed his story by claiming that Clay had forced him to tie up the victim before she was shot. Despite no physical evidence linking Clay to the crime, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison solely on the testimony of Gerald Pabst.

https://guiltypleaproblem.org/?id=clay_chabot

https://innocenceproject.org/clay-chabot-veterans-day-2018/

https://innocenceproject.org/

https://lavaforgood.com/with-jason-flom/

In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:04:31
“Speaker 1: But you were a tough guy back then, right, And Speaker 1: no judgment here. You were involved in some let's just say, Speaker 1: extra legal activities. Speaker 3: Right absolutely where I was raised in Ohio, you know, impoverished. Speaker 3: There's actually the Hell's Angels club to house, so a”

00:15:44
“Speaker 2: to the crime physically, with physical evidence. Who is your Speaker 2: star witness. That's a huge problem for the state. And Speaker 2: we can never know exactly what was in the prosecutor's Speaker 2: mind when she wrote that note, but the context clues Speaker 2: are fairly clear she understood that the person that they”

00:27:40
“Speaker 4: the dad guilty, and she never defended Jerry. So it Speaker 4: makes me feel like she knew more, but she was Speaker 4: just in a hard place. And it always kind of Speaker 4: barked me because Jerry was around her family. I almost Speaker 4: feel like a bad human for saying it sometimes, and”

Listen to the Episode

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Resources & links from the episode:

🔊 How You Can Help

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← #531 Ben Bowlin with Trevor Mattis #533 Selma Butler →

Also on the podcast: #87 Fred Clay · #261 Clay Chabot · #563 Fred Clay