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The Case of Vanessa Gathers
📻 Episode #45
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Dec 11, 2017
About This Episode
In 1998, Vanessa Gathers was wrongfully convicted of robbing and beating 71-year-old Michael Shaw to death. There was no physical evidence linking Vanessa to the crime, and her conviction was based on a false confession extracted from her by notorious New York police detective Louis Scarcella, whose tactics led to the wrongful convictions of more…
The Case
In 1998, Vanessa Gathers was wrongfully convicted of robbing and beating 71-year-old Michael Shaw to death. There was no physical evidence linking Vanessa to the crime, and her conviction was based on a false confession extracted from her by notorious New York police detective Louis Scarcella, whose tactics led to the wrongful convictions of more than a dozen people. She is joined by her attorney Lisa Cahill 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.
00:05:54“Speaker 4: country in terms of the damage that he did to Speaker 4: an entire burrow. Really, how he wrecked havoc on so Speaker 4: many people in so many cases, and a whole system. Speaker 4: So how did it come about that you first encountered detectives, Garcella.”
00:23:14“Speaker 4: Because he was old. So that might have made sense, right, Speaker 6: Not true, and so there was a gotcha for us Speaker 6: as the defense team. That was a great mistake in Speaker 6: the confession which we could use to prove it was coerced.”
00:41:01“Speaker 4: It's nothing there because you never had anything there, because Speaker 4: you were always there, always were a law abiding citizen. Speaker 5: Yes, but as far as the law and the criminal Speaker 5: justice system said, yes you have a record, it's on there. Speaker 7: Not anymore, it's been taken away.”
Listen to the Episode
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← #44 Ronald Simpson-Bey #46 David McCallum →
Also on the podcast: #560 Vanessa Gathers