Bill Baxley

What was so unbelievable about it?

There's only one other case where Baxley thought the defendants were innocent.

And that case is almost 100 years old.

So what is it about this case, Taforis' case, that convinced Baxley that Alabama is trying to execute an innocent man?

My name is Beth Shelburne.

Like Bill Baxley, I was born and raised in Alabama.

I grew up about a mile away from where the crime at the center of this story took place.

I'm a journalist and writer, and for the last three years, I've been investigating the case that rocked Bill Baxley's world.

The story begins on a hot July night in 1995.

It unfolds in two places at once, the Crown Sterling Suites Hotel

and a nightclub that's almost four miles away, called T's Place.

By the end of the night, one man will be shot dead, and two others will encounter someone who will put them at the center of the murder investigation.

T'Forest Johnson is still on death row, and he's running out of time.

I'm Beth Shelburne.

This is Ear Witness.

Chapter 1, Behind the Crown.

It's 1255 a.m.

on July 19, 1995.

The Crown-Sterling Suites Hotel was a nine-story building in Birmingham.

Today, the hotel is in Embassy Suites.