Dovey Johnson Roundtree
Appearances
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
The winning card here was that she was going to put Crump on the stand. And while she was nervous about the cross-examination, she was sure that he would appear to everyone else, to the jury, to the witnesses present that day, to reporters, the way that he had appeared to her, to put it in the most basic terms, simple.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
That he lacked the resources, the motivation, and sort of the wherewithal to murder this random woman. Her colleagues disagreed.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
And instead, she gets up and she tells the judge, I rest my case. Ray didn't testify. And she just leaves it at that. So that the prosecution, who had planned on cross-examining Crump, is left totally scrambling. They have no idea what to do in that moment.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
They had this privilege. They sort of thought they had it in the bag, and she never felt that comfortable. There was no hubris here. She came prepared for sort of every situation. The fact that they didn't was, I think, a big surprise to her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
I don't think she knew how powerful it was to make that decision that day, at that exact moment. And so she took... A huge risk for her case, for Crump, for the future of Black men who are going to be tried in this court, and decided to rest her case.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
And so when you look at someone like Ray Crump who finds himself in the middle of a case which clearly the authorities-to-be want someone to pay and they want to close it really quickly, someone who has not had an easy time up until that moment, and then you see them absolutely ruined by it as a historian, right? It's a pattern you're familiar with, but every time it's shocking.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
And it's devastating because these are real people. Their lives were ruined.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
He's not fleshed out for you. And you remember, right, this guy had a mom. He had five children. He had a wife. All of these people suffered. There were... You know, two victims that day. There was Mary Meyer and there was Ray Crump Jr. You know, Crump was acquitted, but he never stopped paying for it.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Exhibit A
He was described as this really large man who, you know, weighed nearly 200 pounds. That's historian Alexis Coe. Crump was small. He was, you know, about 5'5". I think he was about Roundtree's size, maybe 130 pounds. Dovey pressed on.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
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Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talena Zarr. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You can now get access to episodes of What Happened to Talena Zar 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription. I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talena Zarr. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You can now get access to episodes of What Happened to Talena Zar 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription. I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talena Zarr. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You can now get access to episodes of What Happened to Talena Zarr 100% ad-free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription. I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talena Zarr. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The CIA Wife
Well, he knew he had a job coming up in civil service, and he thought he'd rather try that. He'd rather try that, and I could go on to law school, and, you know, we'd have a marriage. But there's a strenuous thing with law school. You ain't married to nobody but the law.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Introducing Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
when segregation was the law of the land. Some people saw that as a triumph, that this was the best-case scenario because there wasn't a lynching or there wasn't some act of racial violence in terms of retaliation.