The Death of Nick Milbank

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Philip is a semi retired company finance director who lives in a neat, semi detached house of brown shingles on England's south coast He helped direct a small but vocal group of Bamba supporters who've essentially devoted their lives to Jeremy's cause They hold meetings, issue press releases, and trarawl through the case files looking for leads It's become a fairly large part of my life now. So who knows? I might have been a scratch golfer by now if things had worked out differently told us he was partly drawn to the case because he feels a personal connection to Jeremy They're about the same age And Philip, like Jeremy, was adopted through the Church of England Children's Society as a small boy And strangely around the same time he was when the bambers were actually looking for another child to adopt So in a sense, there's a slight feeling of, you know, there but for the grace of God, go away When Natalie and I went to see Philip this spring, it had been a few months since the New Yorker published my story outlining the fresh evidence about the silencer and the crime scene and the nine hundred ninety nine call The Criminal Cases Review Commission had told Jeremy it was looking into the new evidence. This was a huge moment Because the CCRC is the only body in the UK that can compel the Court of Appeal to rehear a case It was Jeremy's only clear path to proving his innocence and getting out of prison I feel very hopeful indeed because I think the exulpatry evidence we have is unanswerable. I mean the real piece of gold that emerged from the Arctican was Millbank becausecause that nine ninety nine call at six hundred and nine, there is no way if that call happened that he could have been responsible for any of the shootings So that was a major development from our point of view Why that? Oh hi. Well, I just run Heidi and she didn't answer a phone. Well, that's probably because she's sitting right next to me. Hi Aeremy Hi you, Heidi. Well Philip speaks with Jeremy almost every day And on this day, they were both feeling full of optimism sudenly talk our way into we have believing that it's going to be positive. Rightly so, I think. I mean, come on. Yeah. well we can but hope that they're going to within the next couple of weeks do the right thing. Within the next couple of weeks After forty years of fighting to overturn his conviction Jeremy Bamber seemed finally to be on the verge of clearing his name From in the Dark and the New Yorker I'm Heidi Blake. This is the final episode of Blood Relatives From what I can remember, it was a case of s someone saying the nine niney nine me answering it It sort of doesn't quite make sense because that would indicate someone was alive in there basically by the time. obviously. Yeah. yeah Those were at the time of the sc It was Wh else far that woman could do this Yeah a seregation He dies. I don't want to speak you any further But every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover up in this case Part one The last resort Jeremy Bamber and his supporters had settled in to wait for news from the CCRC News that could determine Jeremy's fate They've been told to expect this in March of this year But March came and went with no hint of a decision Jeremy told me the suspense was almost unbearable It's a huge moment, isn't it? It must be I can't imagine how frustrating it must be Not quite knowing when you're gonna find out The CCRC deliberates behind closed doors, so there was no way to glean how their review of the evidence was going By now, there had been a notable shift in public attitudes to this famous case In the month since the article Even some of the tabloids were starting to throw their weight behind Jeremy Bamber My findings had been covered by nearly every national paper in Britain And they were splashed over multi page spreads in the Colchester Gazette The local paper where David Woods once covered the case as chief reporter 've been so sure of Jeremy's guilt copy. Narcissist, psychopath and also cold blooded But now even he was reconsidering It was almost like feel terrible that I thought he was this cold bl killer all these years. and I won't be great to think how wrong I was, but I'm not alone am I I always said to people, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know there's going to be a twist. on they a massive twist I always thought that. I thought there'd be something revealed. and I think maybe what you've done has done it He said what had really clinched it for him was Nick Milbank's story about the nine hundred ninety nine call. That is kind of mind blowown and if you were hearing sounds while Jraamy Bbama was outside, Wow It pretty much proves he's innocent. to me, what else could it be? They can't ignore that. can they? Surely they can't ignore that. Jeremy had now been told that a panel of commissioners from the CCRC would meet in mid April and decide whether to refer his case for a fresh appeal But that dayate camem and went It's still no news In mid May, Jeremy called me to say the CCRC had told him its decision was coming by the end of the month. Jeremy was expecting the CCRC's written decision to be devastating for the prosecution case against him He even thought he might get out of prison right away on the strength of it. for. But then pivotal moment. The leadership of the CCRC, this powerful organization that held his fate in its hands was totally engulfed in a huge public scandal major failings by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body that investigates wrongful convictions. The Criminal Cases Review Commission has issued an unreserved apology. The government has announced that there's going to be a bigger, wider public inquiry into exactly what went wrong in this case The controversy that came to a head as Jeremy Bamber was still waiting for news had nothing to do with his own case It had its roots in another wrongful conviction story of a former security guard named Andrew Malkinson, who'd served seventeen years for a rape he didn't commit. Andrew Malkinson suffered one of the worst miscarriages of justice of modern times Malkinson had finally been exonerated in twenty twenty three after his lawyers commissioned DNA tests, and it turned out that police and prosecutors had known for at least fourteen years that another man's DNA was found on the victim's clothing The CCRC had twice rejected his applications for an appeal Despite glaring evidence that he was innocent Outside the court, Malkinson said that he had been kidnapped by the state I apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission They didn't investigate And they didn't believe me I have been innocent all along In the months that followed, more cases were reported, where it turned out that the CCRC had overlooked evidence that could have exonerated innocent people As public outrage grew and scrutiny of the organization intensified, it became clear that the CCLC's effectiveness had been seriously hampered by brutal funding cuts. It had lost more than a third of its budget in recent years, and yet commissioners, whose hours had typically been reduced to working just one day a week from home had seen their caseloads double. As Jeremy Bamber was waiting on news of his case The organization's chair was forced to resign Then this spring, its chief executive was summoned before Parliament.elcome and grilled by MPs on the organization's failings Everything from its low rate of referrals to the Court of Aeal Around two percent of all cases. Fewer than two percent is not a huge number, is it? I know those numbers are quite small to how rarely its leadership actually showed up at work. I'm probably in the office maybe one or two days every couple of months or so I'm not sure they every cou. Yeah So we are not an office based organization anymore Well, when I heard that, my jaw hit the floor That's Edward Garner, a prominent member of the House of Lords and former Solicitor General. It was like watching a slow car crash. It was terrible Lord Ghnia co chaired a previous parliamentary review of the CCRC, which raised a number of red flags The report said the CCRC failed to investigate cases properly and that it was excessively deferential to the police and the courts the very institutions it was meant to be scrutinizing Natalie and I went to talk to Lord Garnia soon after the Parliamentary hearing He said that watching this spectacle of the organization's leadership appearing before MPs, apparently oblivious to the depth of its failures made him actually angry And it It wasn't funny, it was awful completely failing to read the room Like they didn't fully understand How badly the Malcinson scandal hurt. scarred the public's orr should we say the the political and legal world's view of the CCLC and its senior management. And I guess public faith in the justice system by extension To me, the CCRC is an essential component of the British justice system It is the last resort for many people. Of course there are lot of people in prison who think, I'm innocent, I didn't do it when they Jollywill did there will be a hard of wrongly convicted people in prison who need a CCRC to be able to assist them and to enable us as a civilized They should't to be able to maintain proper humane criminal justice system And how confident do you think people in prison who are innocent, who've been wrongfully convicted and who are seeking relief Those who have a case currently before the CCRC, how confident do you think they can really feel that they'll get a just outcome Well, I don't imagine they're encouraged by the current state of airs The hearing ignited public fury at the CCRC And soon afterwards, the chief executive would be forced to resign The organization seemed to be in free fall And Jeremy Bamber kept waiting. The CCLC had now indicated that their decision would be made by the end of May But that day too, flew by without news We do not wish to accept this call could they have The deadline, I think is absolutely shocking. I think it's true. and I think They just unprofessional and useless. why not just say you know we're referring it or we're notring But anyw A few days after that call, the Jeremy Bamber campaign held a protest outside the CCRC's offices They hoped to spur the organisation into action. Natalie and I went along. Oh there they are. You can see the banners already. That's actually quite a good crowd. That's not bad, isn't it It was a windy late spring day, and scores of people had gathered in front of the organization's glass office building Jeremy's campaign director, Philip Walker was there, handing out flyers and directing people to their places. So you seen anyone going in? Is there anyone actually in there today?? No apparently we'd soaked the building sort of manager and she said, Oh no there's not really anybody here. so we are talking to an empty building but which Yes, there is the symbolism of it, but that's about it Outside the building, protesters spilled off the pavement onto the tracks of the tram, scattering every time the train went by There are a lot of guys here wearing bright yellow t shirts that say Jeremy Bambert is innocent. and then they have these big kind of kite banners that say innocent and failed by the CCRC. Hright, Good afternoon everybody Thank you all for joining us today. Philip had lined up a whole roster of speakers to address the crowd.. There's no doubt in my mind, Jeremy is innocent. I would not be here today if I didn't think she was innocent Shame on name in. Shame on the CCRC. One by one, the protesters took to the microphone. Jeremy Bamber has been incarcerated as an innocent man for almost forty years And nobody reading the evidence could possibly doubt his innocence. They spoke for more than an hour. ins Tking to an empty building. And is there anyone from the CCRC here listening? Now Itpeaks volumes, doesn't it Amid the crowd, I spotted a familiar face. It's nice to proper meet you. I feel like we have mass. You don't recognise people It was Dennis Edy, the wrongful conviction scholar whose tip about the Jeremy Bamber case had got me started on this whole reporting journey Natalie and I had arranged to meet him after the protest And when we sat down together, he said that in his mind The new evidence showed that Jeremy Bamber was the victim of the longest running miscarriage of justice in British history If the original case that the jury looked at doesn't exist anymore and it doesn't in this case Even people who think Tim is guilty would admit that then surely you've got to have at least a retrial because There is no case anymore. You can't rely on a jury that made a decision on a bunch of evidence which was completely fallacious Still, he was not feeling optimistic I have my doubts, let's put that way. I'm the resident pessimist I suppose I've seen so many failures and so many cover upps and things that I don't trust the system anymore Edi said that in his view, the CCRC was utterly failing in its original mission Instead of providing the wrongly convicted with a path to exoneration It had become just another obstacle. shielding the system from scrutiny You can't help thinking they're looking for a way not to refer it And you can't help thinking even if they did, the courourt of Aeal would probably look for a way not to quush the conviction The Court of appppeal is notorious. If it doesn't want to overturn a case, it will find a way In this most high profile of cases, He said there's just too much at stake for the system to admit It might have got it wrong It would be extremely embarrassing for Essex Police because they've resisted it to this day. And they failed to disclose stuff all along the line It would be extreme embarrassing for the CCRC. It would bereely embarrassing if the Court of Aeal would have turned the case down on at least two previous occasions. And that's why it's so difficult now I believe that they are actually going to finally overturn the case Iot I'm wrong, the system does not want to admit its mistakes unless it's absolutely forced to Hey listeners This is Liz Mayain Zamanzati, the New Yorker' puzzles and Games editor If you're someone who likes making lists and organizing your bookshelf, We think you'll love Catalogs, our new daily game that challenges you to put things in order based on a hidden rule be asked to sort peppers by spiciness, world capitals by population or Martin Scorsese movies by release date You can play catalogs every day at New Yorker d. com slash games and in the New Yorker app for iOS or Android Here's a helpful hint The app gives you free access to our entire archive of catalogs along with our word scramble game shuffalo and the mini crossword. So download the New Yorker app for new games to play every day to Decision. C with example in England. If you do not wish to accept this call, please hang up now. Jeremy, thank you so much for calling back while trying ally really my best. Well, I've not had a chance to read the thing yet So I don't know quite what they're saying, you've had a copy, so you've probably had a chance to click through it I I have seen it. yeah The decision had finally arrived in June And the news for Jeremy was crushing. The CCLC had declined to refer the case to the Court of Appeal tellell me sort of How you're feeling just at this news this this morning I mean, I'm devastated, obviously, But I don't know why they've made the decision I don't get it, Heidy, I really don't. Yeah I don't know I mean I'm just frustrated I just I'm just losts for words if I want to tidy, but I've got no units, so I'm going to have to go All right, move on onwards and upwards It's not surprising. No I didn't expect it. There we go. way All right, John.on. take care, we'll speak soon All right. Thanks for calling. Bye I had so far only had time to skim the document in which the CCLC had set out its reasons for refusing to refer Jeremy's case It ran to more than two hundred pages of detailed argument And when I did start to page through it more closely It made for astonishing reading While I was still making sense of it I called our producer, Natalie I wanted to fill you in on what's been happening. Oh my gosh. Yes, please fill me in Um So the CCLC have made a decision not to refer the case to the Court of Appeal Oh my God. Yeah. So they've considered this new stuff the kind of disturbance of the crime scene, the silencer issue and the nine hundred ninety nine Ct. and they're saying none of that on its own is enough to refer the case. Wow, Okaykay, so But they've done this in quite an extraordinary way that I wanted to walk through with you because it's This document Pretty shocking document Um What's What did they say exactly The first thing I should say is they're complaining that, you know, the New Yorker declined to hand over all of our source material to them, which is what they had requested So so they specifically call out the New Yorker and their decision Yeah, there are like sixteen mentions of us and they say we declined to hand over our source material It itays on fifth august twenty firsth The CCRC had written to the New Yorker asking for the tapes of my interviews, and the magazine had told them no becausecause it never turns over source material to any official body. This is a common principle among U. S. news organizations to preserve editorial independence Besides, the CCLC is an investigative agency. My article named all the key witnesses they needed to talk to. All they had to do was call them And so they're kind of saying that they couldn't really assess the merits of what you know the new evidence that we uncovered because we didn't disclose our source material You might think How about CCRC going to talk to the police officers who we spoke to, for example They have not done that, Nestleie The CCRC hadn't spoken to any of the witnesses, I quoted in my article Instead Just dismissed the new evidence Peace by peace First, they'd addressed my findings involving that lynchpin of the case. The silencer The CCRC said there was nothing about the way the silencer had been handled by Jeremy Bamber's relatives or the police that could undermine the conviction It considered the strange circumstances in which the silencer shaped scratches had appeared on the mantle at the manor and the records indicating that blood found in the device matched both David Bauflower and his father, Robert. When the jury had been told, it matched only Sheila. Amazingly. The CCRC said none of that relevant to the factual matrix in this case Even though David had admitted to me that he could have contaminated the silencer when you uncrewing it The CCRC had just dismissed this out of hand They concluded that he just hadn't really meant what he'd said to me. Comments appear flippant and suggest that David Bauflower was frustrated by the journalists' questions and did not take them seriously. They do not raise any credible reason for considering that David Bauflower was making a genuine admission The CCLC had also rejected the suggestion by Jeremy's lawyers that police had more than one silencer in their possession during the case and were running tests on all of them and potentially conflating the results. They said there was no evidence for that Even though David had told me that the police had taken away his own silencer, identical to the one he'd found at the farm as well as his fathererss Prosecutors have previously denied that the cops examined more than one silencer. Now, the CCLC said something slightly different That police had taken the Beauflowower' silencers, but only much later Once the trial was already underway By which time there could have been no question of contamination of evidence because the investigation was complete was very definitely not what David had told me So when did they come and take your silences away and do all of that? Oh within a few days of having got the results from the blood and the the sanas there. Yeah. I see. And how did you remember how long did they keep them for? Oh months. Months. Oh months and months. Yeah When did yout know they to get them back,. Really? Yeah. The CCRC had found ways to discount everything David had told me without asking him about any of it Not one single question They said they quote not identified any legitimate justification to seek to interview David Bauflower So they hadn't even tried Then they turned to my finding about Detective inspector Ron Cookke and his disturbance of the crime scene When I'd spoken to Neil Davidson, the former crime scene investigator He told me how on the morning after the murders, his boss, Ron Kke picked up the bloodied Bible that was found next to Sheila's body. and fumbled with it before the official photos were taken Remember bumbling wrong? Yeah. As I recall it You lifted the Bible, up had a look at it other than He said, Ohh, we better put it back how it was This undermined the integrity of a crucial piece of evidence and the prosecution's case that it was Jeremy who propped the Bible in its odd position against Sheila's arm as part of his staging of the scene But the CCLC dismissed what Neil Davidson had told me They said he couldn't say for shore. Cook had put the Bible back in the wrong place Despite those notes I'd found from members of the firearms squad who said the crime scene photos seem to show the Bible in a different place. than where it had been when they first found Sheila dead Again, the CCRC hadn't managed to speak to Neil Davidson to ask him about it Natalie and I were flabbergasted by this And how hard is it really to speak to this guy? he's a very easy guy to find, Go and knock on his door. Um And then it says the apparent statement by former DS. Davidson that DI Cook picked up and then incorrectly repositioned the Bible, if accurate. Do does not, in the CCLC's conclusion change the previous understanding of the crime scene, to such a degree that it is possible to conclude that the jury might have reached a different verdict if they had known of it What Yeah So the CCRC was saying, evenven if Ron Kirke had put the Bible back in the wrong place, it just wasn't important This was an extraordinary position to take Even the Court of Appeal had acknowledged when it last heard Jeremy's case in two thousand two, Any disturbance of the scene by police officers, had it really occurred? Bean A moral sin But backack then, judges said there was no evidence that this had happened Now, I had an eyewitness account that detective Inspector Ron Kirk had egregiously rearranged the scene around Sheila's body But the CCRC, whose job it was to root out miscarriages of justice was saying this just didn't matter So again, we haven't even got to the most bizarre part of all of this, which is the Nick Milbank stuff Okay I got to the part of the document where the CCLC addressed the most revelatory new finding of all. The nine niney nine c The one Nick Milbank had told me came from inside the manor just after six AM. when Jeremy was standing outside with police. what I can remember it was a case of sort someone saying the nine ninetine nine and me answering it and then It was just hearing background noises If what Nick Milbank told me about this nine hundred and ninety nine call was true That not only meant that Jeremy had to be innocent But also that police had allowed vital evidence to lie buried for years Because he said no one had ever asked him about what he heard on the phone that night And that a statement police had produced in his name in two thousand two had not been given by him I certainly didn't give anyone a statement No one spoken to me about it since the nineteen eighties other than you I'd expected the CCLC to go to every possible length to speak to Nick Milbank directly But instead The CCLC hadn't contacted him at all They said that they didn't need to becausecause Essex pololice The force responsible for the shockingly improper investigation of this crime. had got there first. It turns out that Essex pololice of their own initiative, located Mr. Bilbank and spoke to him about it. And so they've allowed Essex police to interview Nick Milbank rather than speaking to him themselves, right? When the allegation here is against Essex police. so they're allowing the person being accused of something to do the investigating and the interviewing of the witness That is That is Shocking. Yeah. I mean, my mind is kind of blown by it Milbank still worked for the Force. bosses told the CCRC that after they read his interview with me, they'd gone ahead and taken a new statement from him On their own. to ask him about what he'd said This new statement, produced by Essex Police is handwritten and dated september tenth, twenty twenty four. say This new statement from Nick Milbank says, I am making this statement in relation to a recent article in the New Yorker. I was not aware of the existence of this article until today I have never, to my knowledge, spoken to the New Yorker and certainly have not endorsed the article. I mean, that is just not true. That is just, I mean, needless to say, that is completely false. What is this guy's deal? You've heard the tape. I mean, that's just not true. and we actually can prove that Milbank's statement continued that he did remember getting a few texts from some women asking about statements But he said this woman did not identify herself as a journalist and that he'd never met her. It was true that we'd never met in person But we had spoken on the phone And I had clearly identified myself Hello, my name's Heidi Blake. I'm a writer for a magazine in New York, the New Yorker, and I'm doing a long ish piece about. Melbank and I went on to exchange dozens of texts about the nine hundred nine nine call and the statement he said he never gave. Anny also responded to a memo containing detailed questions from the New Yorkers's factact checkers The weirdest thing was that he knew I'd recorded our phone call I even told him by text, that we plan to use the tape in this podcast And he'd replied with two thumbs up emojis So now There was this new statement in Nick Melbank's name containing the demonstrably false assertion that he'd never spoken to me But that wasn't all. Alongside it Essex Police had now produced a different version of the earlier statement from two thousand two The one he told me, he never gave Unlike the version I'd seen in the files, which was typed and unsigned This latest iteration was handwritten with a signature that read N R Milbank The way he told me he always signs his name. Then they produced a final statement from Millbank, confirming that the signature on this handwritten document was his. And therefore, the two thousand two statement must have been written by him all along. As if this strange game of statements, about statements, about statements wasn't baffling enough already see that there were discrepancies between the two handwritten documents The statement from two thousand two and the recent one in which he'd apparently denied ever speaking to me as one hundred and four, this is the handwritten statement that he's just produced in response to the article Wh is not written by the same person. I mean The handwriting is different. The handwriting is different. Also if you look at the top, his name has been spellt wrong Whoa, Wait a second Yeah, his name's been spelt with two L's and it's milbed with one and they've crossrossed one out. But most astonishing of all, to me, was that amid all this fuss over his statements It seemed that no one had asked Melbank the most important question of all Had he really received a nine hundred ninety nine call from inside the manor, as he told me And what had he heard inside Without speaking to Millbank, the CCRC had concluded that the reference in the files to a nine hundred ninetine nine call from White House Farm was just administrative error The CCRC declined to answer detailed questions about its reasons for reaching this decision My first thought was to go back to Milbag To ask what had happened to make him disavow our conversation Then While I was still pondering how to go about this, blindsided. by something totally unexpected. Hey Hi This is me blowing up Natalie's phone again. U So Yeah, something, um crazy it happened. I'm still kind of making centered, but okay. so Nick Nick Milbank died What Yeah, he's died. He died on the sixth of June. in God. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my Godd. Yeah, his funeral is actually today. I'm just looking at a death notice Essex police have just sent out. Oh my goodness Nick Milbank had died a few weeks earlier on june sixth. He was sixty seven years old An Essex police had published a notice thanking him for fifty years of service He'd started out as a police cadet When he was about seventeen Um, but Yeah. so 's it. Oh my gosh Yeah We'd had no idea that Nick Milbank might be ill And the news was still sinking in because his death was not only tragic for his family. It had huge implications for Jeremy Bamber's case Now no one can ever speak to him about this, like the CCRC of spoken to him and he's produced this bizarre statement and now Wha Yeah It's kind of Mild that he's his employer of fifty years has come to him and like he's given them a statement which kind of kicks all of this down the road by kind of saying he never really spoke to me when he did And now he's gone and now the CCRC can't ever interview him about that phone call It's crazy And now we'll never know why he made the one statement to us and then told Essex Police that he never spoke to us Yeah We can only guess Yeah So like we're just les with this kind of, we've got this tape This tape is the only document now of what Nick Milbank heard that night That's the only like glimpse through the White House window, like it's just what he heard Yeah, it's quite kind of haunting to think about Later that day, I got a call from Wakefield Prison So Milbank You need to keep those recordings extremely safe Sure. No, they're safe. When did you hear about Nick Milbank having died and what Two minutes ago? You just heard? Two minutes ago . I'm sad for his wife and for his family. Of course I am, but you couldn't make this shit up. I mean, excuse my language, but you couldn't. I mean, you just couldn't make up the twists and turns in this case But The reason I'm ringing is saying, look, you've got the audio tape He told you the truth We know that there was a nine hundred ninety nine call received from the House. Pace. confonirmed that And you have that goal which can no longer be disputed Yeah. It's just another extraordinary day, Heidi It's not the end of it, honestly I'm not giving up Jeremy does still have a right to challenge the CCRC's decision on the fresh evidence And there are still a few subsidiary points from his original application that the CCRC has yet to rule on Already, his lawyers are pushing back on the refusal to refer his case on multiple grounds Among them is an argument that the CCRC failed in its duty of care to Nick Millbank The lawyers say he was a whistleblower And the CCLC had an obligation to protect him after he disclosed a potential cover up by his employer Essex pololice But instead It had put him at risk and compromised his evidence by allowing the force to deal with him directly They wrote The result of this dereliction of the CCRC's duty of care is that Mr. Milbank, who was by all accounts, quite ill at the time possibly pressured by Essex police into producing a statement that was not factual I sent detailed questions to Essex Police about all of this But the force declined to answer any of them. Jeremy Bumber's lawyers maintain that the CCRC's failure to interview Millbank along with multiple other grounds set out in their latest submissions should be enough overturn the decision. And to get Jeremy his fresh appeal There is, however, One big hitch The authority that gets to decide whether the CCRC got it right Well It's none other than the CCRC They're the house of last resort So they get to mark their own homework. Each time the CCRC says no All that remains is to go back to square one and start all over again because there's no limit. on the number of times a person can make new applications to the CCRC Anytim fresh evidence turns up And so already, Jeremy and his team of supporters are back at work scouring through the case files Looking for something new I still keep in touch with Jeremy. But we no longer talk every day He told me our calls had taken more of an emotional toll than he'd expected I mean, I've probably been more emotional with you than I have with many others because we've had to touch on things that have made me cry, know and have been emotional and have been private and personal and kind of you the love of my family and personal stuff that I haven't wanted to share, but's made me tearful I mean, I took the best I could and did the best I could and I ask anyone to put themselves in my position and how we cope I hope I get out and maybe I can have a little life outside, but sometometimes you know Heidi I don't think that I will ever get out And I mean that genuinely, I genuinely mean that will they will find ways to just obstruct and You know And I just feel You know, It is what it is. It doesn't because you kept me in jail forty years That doesn't change my innocence It's not hard to see the last years of Jeremy's life stretching ahead J like this looked away in his cell Hombing through all those piles of documents burning through his phone minutes counting down his birthdays, endlessly waiting Cooling out into the void of that empty building. Blood Relatives is written and produced by me, Heidi Blake, and lead producer Natalie Tablonsky It's edited by Allison McCaddam Samara Freemach is the managing producer for the series Additional Editing by Madeline Barr Willing Davidson and Julia Rothchild Additional productrodion by Raymond Tungerar