David Fleming
Appearances
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
You have to submit a list of every piece of equipment down to pen and paper. So, I was kind of freaking the f*** out and wondering why I couldn't go to the Family Feud or smoke celebrity weed. Like, How did I get this assignment?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Where this really got real for me was when, right before we arrived, they reminded us, nobody can wear white. And that's because that's what the death row inmates wear. They're required to wear white. And so you step in, and the first thing that happens in this guard shack, you get a big boy search.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
No, this is a thorough search. I look to my right and I just happen to see the open closet where they keep all the guns, hundreds of guns and shotguns in case something happens at the prison. You make it through that. You're still not in the prison yet. You come out and you are now between the fences.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
And it's perfectly aligned with the gun towers because they need to have a clean shot if someone makes it through that fence.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
It's the people inside screaming at each other, yelling everything under the sun. That's really when you're like, man, is it too late to turn back? And then the strangest thing happened. The room that they took us to to interview Charles is where families go. And so you turn, after this giant steel door closes, and you're like, what am I doing?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
You turn, you go into the room, and the walls are painted with cartoon characters. And I'm staring at Cookie Monster, My Little Pony, SpongeBob SquarePants, and I'm like, wow, we really are down a rabbit hole.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
I'm starting to get into my thoughts, right? And it's starting to spiral. And then Charles comes in.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Okay. And we sort of make eye contact. We kind of say hello through the glass.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Also, wenn du willst, kannst du sie beide runterlassen. Okay. Wollt ihr, dass ich die Telefone runterlasse oder sie hier lasse? Und Charles rettet mich ein bisschen, weil es klar ist, dass er Fußball sprechen möchte. Ich habe den Cowboy-Schedule angeschaut, bevor wir hierhergekommen sind. Und ich habe bemerkt, okay, sie spielen die Texans. Is it like week? I think it's 11. Okay.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Week 11. Yes. Charles grew up big. You can tell that from the clips that we're watching. He was an offensive and defensive lineman in middle school. And the first thing he wants to talk about is the Cowboys-Texans game on Monday night, of course.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Seine Zelle ist kleiner als dieses Studio. 9x12. Es ist wahrscheinlich...
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Einige von den Deathrow-Zellen sind tatsächlich so klein wie 60 Quadratmeter. Und sie sind dort 23 Stunden am Tag, ohne Exzeption.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
He described the two vertical windows, thin windows with the mesh screen on them.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Right, at the front of his cell. And basically they have to go there and sort of put an eye between the grate to see the community television that, by the way, just showed up a couple of years ago.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Aber die Tatsache, dass er seine Legal-Papiere nutzt, um ihm mit seinem Sport-Fandom zu helfen, ist perfekt. Es ist auf eine Art schmerzhaft.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Ich will nicht überstehen oder so, aber meine Frage war, Trash-Talk kann gefährlich sein, kann es nicht? In einem Gefängnis? Ich meine, ich werde niemandem Trash-Talk geben. Und er hatte eine wirklich interessante Erklärung dafür.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Es hat angefangen, mit mir, ein Website, ein Database zu kommen, wo du die letzten, letzten Statements jedes Gefängnisses, das von dem Staat Texas verurteilt wurde, lesen kannst. Me being me, I went down that rabbit hole, started reading them. It is a gut-wrenching, awful, exhausting experience.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Ist das furchtbar? Ich meine, du sprichst mit... Du könntest mit einigen ziemlich schlechten Jungs sprichst, oder?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Right? It was kind of like, it was like he's, it's just classic Cowboys fan. Almost more so, almost more pure.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Es ist wie das, was wir gerade gesprochen haben. Es ist wie jeder andere Fan, richtig? Es gibt ein ganzes Ritual.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und ist das etwas, was ihr sagt, was wir essen werden? Ja, denn das muss geplant werden.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
He's as proud of the food and the tailgate, right, as any Georgia Bulldog fan, as any LSU tailgater.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Right, that's an incredible thing to be on death row and it's like, oh my God, there's no difference.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Oh, we went there. Wie habt ihr die Spieler überhaupt eingestellt? Ist das alles durch die Fenster gegangen?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Ich dachte immer, das Fischen-Ding sei in Filmen.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Es ist wahr. Es ist wahr. Und sie benutzen es nicht für etwas Nefariouses. Sie benutzen es, um ihre Fantasy-Football-Line-Up zu verabschieden.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
You can't stop scrolling. This is William Prince Davis, prisoner number 614. He was executed on September 4th, 1999. His last statement was, quote, I just thank the Lord for all that he has done for me. That is all. That is all I have to say, Warden. Oh, and I would just like to say in closing, what about those cowboys?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Richtig. Und einfach diese Gespräche zu genießen. Einer Fantasy-Football-Spielerin zu einer anderen. Und du verlierst dich in dem. Du vergisst, wo du bist. Und dann gibt es diesen Schmerz. Was ist mit deiner Liga passiert?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Die Konversation hat uns in die Richtung gebracht, dass wir alle gleich sind. Es ist wie, nein, wir sind nicht. Sein hat eine sehr schreckliche, schreckliche Unterschiede.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
One of the things in our early emails that we exchanged was this memory he had of springing the game-winning touchdown with a great block when he was in eighth grade. And he mentioned that writing about that little detail of his football career still gave him chills 40 years later. The other detail that he added that I loved was he wore 79 in honor of Harvey Martin, the cowboy great.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Es war ein Ritual. Geh zur Kirche, komm nach Hause, sammle um die TV, fahre auf die Cowboys. Ich war sehr nah mit meiner Familie.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Diese tiefe Verbindung zu den Cowboys hat sich immer weiterentwickelt, nachdem Charles auf der Todesstraße war.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Es wird trauriger, weil er so lange da war. Beide seine Eltern... Das Ritual ist weg, weil beide seine Eltern weggeflogen sind. Und als du zu Charles hörst, verstehst du, dass mit seinen Eltern weggegangen ist, hat das Sport allzu wichtig gemacht für Charles und seine Überlebenszeit auf der Todesstraße.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Nein, nein, es gibt eine schockierend große Anzahl von Deathrow-Prisonern, die diese letzte Chance genutzt haben, ihre liebsten Sportteams auszuhören.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
The way I interpreted what he was saying was, he lives in a way where 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Someone's trying to kill him. That's the white noise of his life. He doesn't know when it's going to happen, but that's the stress that he lives under.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
And so the line about how maybe the crazy ones are the ones who continue to live on death row and the sane ones are the ones who check out by committing suicide. I mean, if there's a better way to explain the insanity and the pressure that they live under, I haven't read it.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Es ist einfach unglaublich, dass ein Tag zwei von diesen Gefangenen gesprochen haben und sie sagten, vielleicht sind wir die verrückten, weil wir uns adaptiert haben, so zu leben.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Ja, wir können in dieser Situation überleben. Es ist erstaunlich.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Yeah, that was the whole point of this exercise, right? Is to find out why someone would love sports that much. die sie in ihre letzten Wörter inkludieren würden. Und bevor ich auf diese Übersetzung gehe, habe ich diese Datenbank mit einem Anthropologen in Chicago geteilt. Sein Name ist Dr. Shannon Lee Doughty. Und sie ist ein Experte in Todesritualen. Und ich wollte nur ihre Meinung darauf geben.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und ich habe sie an diesem Punkt in einer fast flippenden Weise gefragt, um diese Todesruhe-Inmaten zu bekommen, die ihre letzten Wörter für Sport-Shoutouts benutzen. Sie hat es sofort zu diesem Konzept, dem sozialen Tod, verbunden.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
I wanted to go get Charles' opinion and his thoughts on his own last words. Yes. But it turns out he and his attorney, they don't want him to be seen as somebody who is contemplating being executed.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
There's a saying, there's always next year.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
But for you, the future is uncertain. Yes. There isn't always next year, I guess. I've thought, I've thought about that.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
And one of these years they're going to get it done. So if you predict it every year, eventually you'll be right.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Eine der ersten Dinge, über die du und ich gesprochen haben, war der Trend von Einwohnern, Aber...
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Ich glaube, deine initiale Reaktion war die gleiche wie meine, die ist einfach, Sport bedeutet zu viel. Das ist verrückt. Warum würdest du nicht über die Verletzte oder deine Familien oder Regretten oder so etwas sprechen? Du wirst die Cowboys anrufen? Es ist wie... What does sports really mean to people?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
I mean, Charles, again, gives just the most incredible... It's the sort of thing you just want to sit with for a while. Unfortunately, we had reached the end of our hour and they were very strict about it. I got a 10-minute warning. And so here we are just sort of... The clock again ticking on this. Yes, exactly.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und jetzt packen wir wieder zusammen und er muss dann warten, bis ein Wirt ihn wieder anruft, das Wireless Mikrofon zurückzieht und ihn zurücknimmt zu seinen 23 Stunden Isolation. Und so können wir nicht mehr sprechen, aber Charles sitzt da, als wir uns packen.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und das war so nah, dass wir alle emotional geworden sind und sogar weinen, weil der Blick auf Charles' Gesicht, und ich weiß, dass er versucht hat, das zu verstecken, war nur ein Blick auf das Gefühl, dass ihr loswerden müsst. Er denkt, dass wir loswerden. Der Blick auf seinen Gesicht ist einfach eines der schrecklichsten Dinge, die ich jahrelang auf diesem Job erlebt habe, in 30 Jahren.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und es kam zu dem Punkt, wo ich ihn nicht mehr sehen konnte. because you just feel so helpless and you just feel so much empathy for this other human being and the situation that he's in. In the strangest place, under the worst conditions, through sports, we've kind of bridged this disconnect. And trying to face that moment again, I went back and listened to the tapes.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
And I realized that as my mic is cut, Charles is still live. And so you can hear him.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Er spricht mit dem Guards, der ihn zurückbeschleunigt. Er fragt, wie das Interview mit den Cowboys ging.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und man hört ihn physisch unseren Mikrofon für das Klinken und Klacken der Handschuhe.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
How do they even have access to sports? Right. How can they be Cowboys fans and Raiders fans? Are they arguing about Dak Prescott? Right. Are they playing fantasy football? Is there trash talk?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und das ist ein weiterer sehr profunder Moment von... It's over. We all have to go back to our normal lives.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Pablo, it was my pleasure. And I'm glad we went. Since we taped this episode...
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
There are websites, there are databases where they will connect you to be a penpal to people in prison, especially to people on death row who are exceptionally isolated usually. You get to look at their bio, sort of what their crime was when they were put in prison, what are their interests. And, you know, I came across a guy who had potential. He was a lifelong Cowboys fan, grew up in Fort Worth.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
His dad was in the Air Force. They had a family ritual of going to church every Sunday and then coming home and sitting down in front of the TV to watch the Cowboys. You know, you just kind of knew right away, it was like, okay, this guy is a legit sports fan.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Und so the prison warden...
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
His name is Charles Flores. In 1999, at the age of 29, he was sentenced to death for his role in a burglary in the town of Farmers Branch, Texas, which is near Irving, which is actually where the Cowboys, their whole facility is. It's their headquarters. Yes. During this burglary, a 64-year-old woman named Betty Black was killed.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
And Charles was then convicted for being an accomplice to that murder, which was part of the burglary. He was then sentenced to death row, where he has been for the last 25 years. And the default in Texas is solitary confinement for death row prisoners for up to 23 hours a day.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Er war nicht der Mörder und wurde nie verurteilt, dass er der Mörder war. Es gibt kein DNA-Evidenz, das ihn zu dem Verbrechen bezieht. Charles hat immer seine Unwissenheit behauptet und er hat tatsächlich einen Alibi gegeben. for the night of the burglary and the murder. But that's not even the craziest part of this whole story. The craziest part is that the actual gunman, Richard Childs,
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
He pled guilty immediately. He served 17 years of a 35-year sentence. And as we speak right now, he is free and out of prison. He's a free man. He was actually released in 2016, right about the same time that Charles got his execution date from the state of Texas.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Richtig. Wenn du Teil eines Verbrechens bist, ist es so, als ob jeder den Trigger gedrängt hat.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
So this woman comes out of hypnosis. They draw a composite sketch. It looks like the guy who actually pulled the trigger and admitted pulling the trigger. Skinny, white, long hair. Charles is heavy set, Hispanic, and he had a buzz cut at the time.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
So it wasn't until 13 months later in a court when the woman said, oh yeah, there he is. That's who she pointed out as being at the scene of the crime.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
He was into some bad stuff and he admits that. What we're saying is, it's very clear that at the very least, he doesn't deserve to be on death row or in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for a quarter century.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row (PTFO Peabody Award Finalist)
Yeah, I had to go to the Polonsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, which is a notorious prison, always ranked as one of the most dangerous, worst prisons in the world. There are all kinds of hoops that you have to go through, right? You have to submit to a background check. You have to agree to all these restrictions. You are allowed exactly one hour of rolling cameras.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan
He always was very avid about air and space and cars and fast cars. We probably had... In his lifetime of cars, he had 30-some cars and my friends couldn't attest to that. And they were all very unusual cars and fun, fun to drive. Did he have a favorite car?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan
Yeah. He had an E-Type Jaguar XKE. That was a nice car. That was probably his favorite that he ever had.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan
In Januar dieses Jahres habe ich Ron's Ashes auf Skydiving genommen. Und ich war wirklich, wirklich nervös, aber die Mission wurde erreicht. Ich war einfach mit seinen Aschen über mir geschlossen, weil der Wind die falsche Richtung geblieben ist. Es war wie, oh mein Gott. Aber es war, ja, es war, es war großartig, wirklich großartig.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan
Und dann, weißt du, ich hatte noch halb seine Aschen übrig, also denke ich, weißt du, was kann ich noch tun? Und meine Freunde haben mir mit der Idee geholfen, den Sebring Race Jack, weißt du, seine Aschen da drüber zu nehmen.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan
And I'll talk to you next time.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan
In January this year, I took Ron's ashes up skydiving.