Wrongfully Convicted: Kevin Billingsley

Yes, hey you Yeah you are you into weird shit? Yeah? You're into cryptics? What about hauntings? Yeah, I've got a ghost for you. Oh you like overwhelmed the beings? Me too. Check out all these aliens. We have plenty. How do you feel about a good legend? I want to hear about spooky happenings. Yeah you do. Let us show you what we've got. Hey, guys, grab a drink and join us Amanda and Sean every week while we dive into the strange and haunting topics that have piqued our interest. See you over at the Haunted and the Strange wherever you get your podcasts, Stay spooky. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to jump into right now and true crime. I do want to let you guys know, I am taking a week off. I know it's a miracle. I never take a week off. I'm trying to give myself permission to take a week off. We are human, We all deserve breaks and rest and all the things. So there may be one new episode next week, but there might not be one. There might not be any there might be no episodes next week. And if that's the case, the world will go on and it's gonna be okay. I'm telling myself this because I have this. I don't know if it's like an OCD thing or what it is, but I feel like I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do it, and I'm trying to give myself permission to take a week off. Every so often. I typically record on the weekends, and I do have I try to have like some episodes that I have like pre recorded, but I don't have any right now except for summer series stuff, and I'm not going to release that in March. So we are taking a week off. There might be an episode, there might not be, but there definitely won't be two episodes. I can guarantee you that. But of course, if anything major happens, like during the week, I'm going to do like a little right now in True Crime cumulative review because I have to stay on top of right now in True crime or it piles up. But that is the little announcement for this week, and we are going to now move into right now. In true crime, Brian Coburger, the suspect in the Idaho for murders the University of Idaho. He appeared in court for a hearing on Wednesday, and this whole hearing there was like a multitude of issues that were brought up, but it was basically to try to figure out when they were going to be able to have this trial. So they were originally going to have the trial last year that got of course postponed and canceled. So Judge John Judge wants to have the trial sooner than later. But Brian Coberger's attorneys said that they do not think that they could be ready by the proposed date of March third of twenty twenty five, which is a long time from now, it really is. So the prosecution said that they wanted that they wanted the trial to be held in twenty twenty five in the summer, so that the high school and the University of Idaho would not be in session at that time and it would make for ease of parking and all of the things. But the attorneys for Brian said that there is so much volume in the discovery, and there is a lot of difficulty that they've had in talking to the witnesses, which means that they will not be ready before June of twenty twenty five. There's also going to be a hearing that's scheduled for May fourteenth, and that's for a defense motion to move the trial out of Leyta County. Of course they want to. His team wants to move it due to the media exposure and all of the people that know about the case, and that could really affect the potential jurors. So that is going to be happening. The prosecution side said, like they understand that there's publicity around the case, but he personally says that he has seen more publicity about it in Boise than he has seen locally. So that's going to be interesting to see if they end up moving the venue or not. I personally don't think they're going to so Judge. Judge said that he would make an informed decision about the future trial date after hearing the arguments from both sides on May fourteenth about the change of venue, and yeah, we're looking like it's going to be a hot, hot minute before this trial actually takes place. So it was originally going to happen in October, but then Coburger waved his right to a speedy trial, meaning we're going to stretch the process out. And he knows exactly what he's doing. His team is really grasping its draws. In my opinion, they basically have to figure out how they're going to defend themselves from all of the DNA evidence that was recovered from the scene, because even though Brian thinks that he's a methodical mastermind, he's not, and he left behind a crap ton of evidence allegedly, at least that's what we've heard so far. So I'm definitely going to keep you guys updated on that. And let's switch gears to the murder of Lake and Riley, who is the University of Georgia's student that was killed during her morning job. So they have arrested Jose Obar Obara, Ibarra whatever. He's a killer. We don't care if his name is said right or not. He's twenty six. He was arrested in connection with Riley's killing, and the court documents have been released and they really that her cause of death was from being beat with an object and it actually whatever he hit her with, he hit her with such force that it disfigured her skull, which is terrible. So ibarra, I guess that's what we're calling him. He entered the country illegally in twenty twenty two. And there's also talk about like his brother who worked at the university at one point in time, but he had like a fake green card, so he was I guess let go. But that could be like the reason that he like maybe knows a little about the college, like he doesn't go to the college, so it's going to be interesting to kind of see like why he was at the college if it was just like he visited his brother at work once and was like, oh, there's a lot of girls around here, like maybe I should creep around here more often, and like crime of opportunity, I guess arose and he took it. He dragged her body to a secluded area off the jogging path in an attempt to conceal her body, but did not do a very good job. And it was also reported that it looked like she had attempted to call nine one one and he stopped her. So horrible, tragic, Like this guy, I guess had some other criminal like criminal misdemeanors that had happened since he came here in twenty twenty two. And of course there's no way to follow up with these people because they are here undocumented, and they had, you know, said hey, we're going to follow up with you, and then he just never followed up. So this is what he chose to do next. And it's terrible. It never should have happened, and it's going to be really interesting to see what ends up happening with this case. There was a lot of speculation that this suspect might have the same guy that they were looking for in the Rachel more In case. They have said that it's not the guy because they have DNA from that guy, and they said that this is not the same guy, but it's eerily similar. Both attacked on a jogging trail, both killed on a jogging trail, so there are definitely similarities there. However, they are saying that the two are not connected, but we're still looking for the guy that killed Rachel. His side view is on surveillance. They have come up with a composite sketch like somebody out there knows who this guy is and soon enough he's going to be caught, hopefully before he does it again. So that is it for right now and True Crime. I don't have anything majorly more to talk about, but if there is any breaking crazy news, I am going to be sure to bring it to you next week because I'm not going to be doing my normal two day a week episodes. We might get an episode on Monday. We might We're gonna see if Kylie can get her life together. We might have one. But if she can't, it's okay. And I'm telling that to myself because I yea feel like I always just have to be quitting out episodes, but I know if I don't, then the world will go on. I'm aware of that, but thank you for helping me hold myself accountable for all of the things. But we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. Okay, we are jumping into another wrongful conviction episode. This is one that I've been wanting to do for a long time, but I won't lie. It's a little bit overwhelming to go into these new wrongful conviction cases, try to gather all of the information and put it all together. But today we're going to be talking about the wrongful conviction of a man named Kevin Billingsley. Now in the prison world, his name is Kevin Rogers, and we are going to get to that and kind of I'll explain to you guys how everything happened and how it came to be that Kevin was arrested and charged and imprisoned for a murder that he did not commit under a name that isn't even his. It is complicated, and there's a lot going on here, but we are going to go ahead and dive right in to the story. So the crime we're going to talk about happened August twenty eighth of nineteen ninety nine in Ohio. I'm going to give a little bit of background information because it's important for the context of this case. So there was two men named Anthony Isaacs and Glenn Brayton, and they had been driven to an area of Cincinnati, Ohio by one of their acquaintances. And this driver had parked the car along the street. He was there allegedly to purchase drugs, and the car was unlocked, the window was open, and the two guys, Isaacs and Brayton, were very intoxicated inside of the car. Brayton was sleeping in the seat and Isaac's was in the backseat sprawled out, also sleeping. Somewhere along the line, there are some other men that happen upon this situation where these two guys are in a car. They're obviously intoxicated, they're passed out. This group of guys or it could just be a singular guy, happen upon the scene and decide that they are going to take advantage of the situation and rob these men. So a lot happens. There's a lot of back and forth, there's a lot of fighting, there's a lot of hitting and punching and all of the things. The assailants only ended up getting away with very few dollars and left the two victims lying helpless on the ground. So this is where Kevin comes into things. Kevin comes into things after the fact and realizes that these two individuals are hurt, attempts to assist them, and unfortunately in this ends up becoming prime suspect number one and ends up getting arrested for this crime. Glenn Brayton did survive, but he was really really bad off in the attack, and he was able to identify one of his assailants. He only was able to identify the assailant that was Martes Dixon. But unfortunately, Kevin Billingsley was arrested a week later and they sentenced him to fifteen years to life sentence on the murder count, an eight year sentence on the felonious assault account, and a ten year sentence on each of the aggravated robbery accounts, and it was ordered that the sentences be served consecutively for a total minimum sentence of forty three years. So Kevin Billingsley, who they are saying is called Kevin Rogers, was sent to forty three years in prison because he literally was at the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up being tied in with these other people who did this horrible thing to these guys. Kevin was arrested and he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time. He says that he was handcuffed to a chair for five hours, bullied, threatened, intimidated and lied to by the police who said, and we see this a lot, we know it happens. If we don't think that this stuff happens, we need to open our eyes and wake up. He was promised that if he signed a written statement, Kevin did not read it. Kevin was on drugs, he was drinking, he had a very low IQ. They said that he could go, and this paper that he signed turned out to be a confession. And of course, looking back at it, it sounds like, how could you do that? Why would you sign that? But unless you've ever been in that situation where you are kept food from you, kept beverages from you, locked to a chair, cuffed to a chair, you never know what that kind of stuff does to your mind and how much it breaks you down. And there's so many people who have given false confessions under these pretenses and it ends up in so many cases being a wrongful confession that leads to a wrongful conviction. And it is just astonishing to me that this kind of stuff happens and still happens to this very day. There were witnesses to this attack, and there was one witness who was the key witness in Kevin's defense, who saw everything going on called the police. She was looking at her window at the time and saw everything and was able to say that no, Kevin was not part of this, he was not there. They ended up sending that witness home before she even got a chance to do her official testimony. Kevin is a black man, and of course at his trial it was a white judge and all white jury. And I know the race talk is cliche, but when we're dealing with situations like this, where somebody is being tried on murder charges, it is a really, really big deal to make sure that things are done fairly. And there are still certain parts of our country that are extremely racist, and that is facts. We're not making it up, we're not blowing it out of proportion. That's what it is. And that's exactly what happened in Kevin's trial. So in the midst of all this, they were sure that they had the right guy in Kevin. Kevin Rogers is who they thought was responsible for this. But the Kevin that they had who they had incarcerated and tried, was named Kevin Billingsley. He had a completely different name than this Kevin Rogers guy. I don't know how the state of Ohio messed this up so bad, but they truly messed this up so so badly, And because they messed it up so badly, and they didn't want to rectify what they had done, and admit that they had done something and majorly wrong and mess with this guy's life. They just went with it, and he remains Kevin Rodgers in prison. And they came up with a fake social Security number and gave him this fake identity of Kevin Rogers in prison. And it is insane to me that all of this happened. Kevin has filed many, many appeals. We're going to talk through that now and kind of go through all of the different documents and everything. So Kevin has filed the following assignments of error. His convictions were against the manifest weight of the evidence. The trial court aired by overruling his motion to suppress his statement. The trial court aired by admitting photographs, and his sentence violated his due process rights and constitutional cruel and unusual punishment because it was excessive and disproportionate to the sentences and posts on his co defendants. So we are going to talk about all of the different things that came out after the fact in regard to those rulings. So Kevin challenges the weight of the evidence supporting his convictions. In evaluating a challenge to the weight of the evidence, the court must review the entire record, weigh the testimony and all reasonable inferences, consider the credibility of the witnesses, and determine whether the jury clearly lost its way in resolving conflicts in the evidence and creating a manifest of miscarriage of justice, which would entitle Kevin to a new trial. Kevin's big argument is that there is no physical evidence that link him to this crime. One of the victims did not identify Kevin as being one of the attackers, and Kevin and his girlfriend both were able to say he was not there, I wasn't involved in this, and he therefore should not have been convicted in the robberies or the homicide. And he also said that the reason that he made those incriminating statements is because police officers said that they would let him go if he did so, and I a hundred and fifty percent believe that that is the truth. So the court ended up overruling this because they said that they did have sufficient evidence to sustain Kevin's convictions and that the testimony that was given by his girlfriend and him are less credible, and they just believe that there is enough evidence to stick with their original conviction, and they overrule Kevin's first assignment. The second assignment, Kevin claims that the statement that he gave to the Cincinnati police specialist was involuntary, and he moved to suppress the statement and argued that it was involuntary. He was under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and he also had a extremely low IQ. So they of course have to investigate this, and they kind of go through the process of doing this, and the review of all this focuses on whether the confession was a product of a free and deliberate choice and not the result of police coercion or overreaching, and they do their investigation. They said that they had no indication that he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol and said that he never mentioned ingesting any drugs or alcohol, and his taped statement showed that his responses were lucid, coherent, and appropriate. And there was testimony from one of Kevin's cousins stating that this cousin had believed that Kevin had ingested marijuana and crack cocaine the night that he was arrested, which when you're in a high stress situation can lead to being easily manipulated and coursed. So we're going to talk now about Kevin's IQ. The officers only knew that Kevin had completed the ninth grade, he could read and right, but the officer said that he answered all of the questions appropriately. There was a doctor that came in that test at Kevin and they saw that he did have an IQ of sixty nine, which described as making him milely borderligined IQ. And they also were able to kind of see that Kevin was mild to milely borderligne mentally retarded. And the doctor that did this test said she did not know whether police officers were able to recognize that he had some mental deficiencies, but said that if a person like this with a low IQ was under the influence of drug alcohol, they are more successible to trickery. So that's a really interesting fact statement revelation in this whole thing that he's saying, Hey, I was coerced, I was high and drunk at the time. He also has a low IQ. There is a lot of factors going into this that easily could make this fact and make it so Kevin's admission of guilt was honestly him being coerced into saying he was guilty. So They go on to say that they are not persuaded that Kevin's alleged mental state or his low intelligence alone without evidence or police coercion or overreaching, made his statement involuntary, and they overruled the second assignment. In the third assignment, Kevin argues that the photographs admitted at trial were prejudicial because they were gruesome and cumulative. There were photos shown of one of the victims, Isaac's brain, at the trial, and the coroner was taking these photos to use them to explain that what kind of goes into the autopsy process, and they showed some of the different hemorrhages and the trauma that occurred to his scalp, and Isaac essentially ended up passing away from a subdural hematoma, and that was a photograph that was also shown. So they ruled that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in emitting the photographs, and they overruled Kevin's third assignment. And in the fourth assignment, Kevin is arguing that he got a much much heavier sentence than some of the people that were involved in the crime. His not really co conspirators, but what they are saying are co conspirators. They got a significantly less sentence than Kevin got. And Kevin wasn't even there. He was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time, happened upon it at the end of things that had just gone down, and literally ended up being charged and convicted with this heinous crime while these other guys weren't. But they went ahead and overruled that assignment as well. And all of that I got from Casetech dot Com State versus Rogers, Court of Ohio Appeals, First District, Hamilton County, December twenty ninth of two thousand. So there is a lot of information here. Again, I say this all the time. It isn't about innocence or guilt. It's about fair And when you have different eyewitnesses and different people who have come forward and say Kevin wasn't there, he was not part of this attack, and those people aren't even able to make their official statements in front of a jury, that is not fair. So Kevin deserves a new trial. He's also being housed under this different name, Kevin Rogers, which isn't even his identity. His name is Kevin Billingsley. I don't understand how something like this can happen. How this can be allowed to happen, and how Ohio has been able to carry on with this conviction in good faith thinking that they did write by Kevin. There is so many things that I presented today in this is a pretty short episode, but there are so many things I presented today that if nothing else, there is reasonable doubt. And in that reasonable doubt, Kevin deserves a new trial. And it's really unfortunate that the State of Ohio chooses to die on the hill that Kevin Billingsley is Kevin Rogers and Kevin Rodgers committed this crime. But I wholeheartedly believe in Kevin's innocence and that's unfortunate that they have done this misjustice and this man has been in prison for a long long time because the State of Ohio can't face that they did something wrong. So again, Kevin deserves this new trial. There is a petition online that has been started by Kevin's supporters. Kevin and his case have been working with the Innocence Project, but of course the Innocence Project is large, it is vast. There is a lot going on, and it takes a long time to get these things rolling and kind of go through the justice system. And the legal system. But at the end of the day, we all need to support Kevin. I had done a episode on Rashaan Grant that his story honestly is a little bit similar to Kevin's in the fact that he was convicted and charged and imprisoned and incarcerated for a murder he did not commit and something that he didn't have anything to do with whatsoever and rashon. Around Christmas, his Facebook page was doing a giveaway and they were going to be giving fifty dollars to another inmate, and I tagged all of the wrongfully convicted pages I follow. Kevin was one of the ones I tagged, and Kevin won the giveaway, and that just made my heart so so happy, because times are tough, and it's even tougher when you truly are an innocent person sitting in prison for something you didn't do, and nobody around you believes you and supports you. And again, I feel so pulled to tell these stories and share these experiences because I think something like this should terrify every single one of us, because it could happen to anyone at any time, and I would want someone speaking on my behalf if I was wrongfully incarcerated and the evidence was laid out in front. I would want somebody to rally for me and speak up on my behalf, and I would want people in my corner. So we all need to be in Kevin's corner support him. I'm going to post the link to the petition and check also check out his Instagram page Free Kevin Billingsley. I'll also post that there's a lot, a lot, a lot of scam accounts that try to mimic Kevin and other wrongfully convicted Instagram pages that I follow, so make sure you're looking at the right one. But it is unfortunate and sad that this happened to Kevin. Kevin seems like a really nice guy and it's really sad that this happened to him and his life has been stolen because Ohio can't get their shit together. So as always, share this episode, share Kevin's story. I'm going to post some photos of Kevin as well as the petition so you guys can all sign it and we can all really rally and get behind Kevin. I appreciate each and every one of you as always, and thank you for coming along with me on this wrongful conviction journey. It's something I feel very passionate about. And if I don't use my platform to help speak out about these different wrongful conviction cases, at least wrongful convictions in my opinion, then I don't feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. So I appreciate you guys for listening and supporting, and I will see you guys later for a new episode. Bye, Hello Twisted Humans. Do you find yourself wanting to know more about the latest murder, conspiracy, cult, or haunting than this is the podcast for you. In nineteen fifty two, there was a record high of UFOs reported fifteen hundred sightings. There has been evidence of human sacrifice, double worship, and it is haunted by more spirits than can be counted. A family of two adults and two kids reportedly saw a giant flying thing with glowing red eyes. And meanwhile, the family's nanny that helped Veronica to care for her and Lucien's children, was found bludgeoned to death in the basement of their family home. I'm Militia and I'm Sierra, and this is twisted and uncorked