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The Case of Nick Yarris Pt. 1
📻 Episode #106
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Dec 11, 2019
About This Episode
On December 16th, 1981, Linda Mae Craig was found beaten, raped, and stabbed to death in a church parking lot about a mile and a half away from where her car was discovered. A few days later, Nick Yarris, a troubled young man linked with petty crimes and substance abuse, was pulled over for a…
The Case
On December 16th, 1981, Linda Mae Craig was found beaten, raped, and stabbed to death in a church parking lot about a mile and a half away from where her car was discovered. A few days later, Nick Yarris, a troubled young man linked with petty crimes and substance abuse, was pulled over for a traffic violation in a stolen car and got into an altercation with the arresting officer that included an accidental discharge of the officer’s service pistol. This incident spiraled into a laundry list of charges. Yarris had seen the news about Linda Mae Craig, and in a desperate attempt to save himself, he tried to trade false information about her attacker to garner leniency. When authorities got wind of his trickery, they turned the charges on Nick. The prosecution manipulated several eyewitness testimonies, hid or destroyed the case history, and employed misleading serology in order to obtain his wrongful conviction. However, between his first day in prison to exoneration by the biological evidence that put him there, Nick Yarris lived (and continues to live) out one of the greatest and most unbelievable stories ever told. In part 1 of Nick Yarris’ story, he tells us about surviving sexual assault, repeated run-ins with the law, getting waylaid by his own lie, his trial and conviction, “Gladiator Sundays,” and accidentally (yet successfully) escaping from death row, only to turn himself in when he reached Florida - a state where he is still not welcome as a free man. Comparing Nick Yarris’ story to a rollercoaster ride would only serve as a compliment to roller coasters. For example, in 2008, Nick Yarris sued Delaware County and won $4 million. Then, it was stolen from him, and we didn’t even cover that in this episode.
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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.
00:06:04“Speaker 3: you see when someone's close to a window and everything's Speaker 3: all fogged up. And I stumbled home and my mother Speaker 3: was there, and she was horrified, and she said Nikki Speaker 3: would happen, and It was then that I had to Speaker 3: recall for her the lie that he kept telling me”
00:24:24“Speaker 3: And this is all within weeks of landing in jail. Speaker 3: I went and played my stupid game against a liar, Speaker 3: thinking I could make up a lie, and I made Speaker 3: it so much worse in retrospect. Speaker 1: Obviously a crazy idea, but no one can walk a”
00:40:34“Speaker 3: And I'm standing there panicking. I'm like, man, I gotta Speaker 3: do something. And I look and there's a flag and Speaker 3: it's a municipal building and it's a police station. I'm like, yeah, Speaker 3: I'm gonna go hide behind the police station. Fuck this,”
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← #105 Jason Flom, John Grisham and Chip Harding with Jens Soering #107 Nick Yarris Pt. 2 →
Also on the podcast: #107 Nick Yarris Pt. 2 · #128 Nick Yarris in Times of COVID