Speaker 2: Speaker 3: Previously on Score: Behind the Headlines. And as a big NBA fan, I grew up with the vague knowledge that Jordan's dad had been killed. And I always assumed that it was, in some ways, tied to Michael Jordan, whether James Jordan was targeted because of who he was, or it had something to do with his alleged gambling. I think it's important for people to remember that Michael, at the time, was being investigated by the National Basketball Association, that there were cashier's checks Michael had written in amounts, $57,000, $108,000, to guys who, again, he claimed were gambling buddies, and these were gambling debts. And given Michael's gambling history, that's believable. But these were guys, one of them, had been murdered. Welcome to The Score: Behind the Headlines. Episode Six, Holding Pattern. Behind the Headlines is an investigative podcast from 670 The Score. In season one, we're examining the 1993 murder of Michael Jordan's father, James Jordan. With Julie DiCaro, I'm executive producer Tony Gil. We're now on episode six of this season and originally six episodes was all we intended to do. So far we've done a general overview of the murder of James Jordan. Talked about the corrupt history of law enforcement in Robeson county. Where the murder allegedly took place, examined the blood and circumstantial evidence that against Larry Demery and Daniel Green, and talked about the conspiracy theories that Michael Jordan's infamous gambling had something to do with his father's murder; and honestly, we initially intended to use this episode to talk about our feelings about the case itself and then we planned to move on to another topic for season two. But thanks to the popularity of this podcast, word about our examination of this case made it's way to Daniel Green, who is currently in prison at Lumberton Correctional Facility in North Carolina. In the access to send him transcripts of the episodes via his attorney Chris Mumma. We've been in regular contact with Chris and we now believe we'll be able to talk with both her and Daniel Green in the coming weeks. So we're definitely going to do more episodes than we originally intended. By the way, we know a lot of you guys are interested in hearing more about Hubert Larry Deese. The drug dealing son of the sheriff Hubert Stone, remember him? Who worked with Larry Demery near the site where James Jordan's body was dumped; and who was never interviewed by the police, even though he was the very first phone call Demery and Daniel Green made from the cell phone in James Jordan's car. Page 1 of 10
Larry Deese: Dale Godfrey: We've been trying unsuccessfully to contact both Deese, and his attorney, Dale Godfrey. So far, no success; but we'll keep trying. Back in 2017 though Tony, Larry Deese did talk to the Robeson County paper of record the Robesonian ; and here is what he said in a statement via his attorney. I have rehabilitated my name in reputation since being released on drug trafficking charges in 1998. I have built a successful business, and members of my community are treating me like a murderer when that's simply not the case. I have worked hard to build my life back. And here's what his attorney Dale Godfrey had to say in that same interview. The attorneys assert that sheriff Stone knew of his son's involvement in drug trafficking. Therefore, rather than investigating the murder as a drug deal gone bad somehow convinced highly trained federal and state agents that in fact the murder was the result of a random car jacking. Deese was not a convicted drug dealer at the time of the slaying, his attorney points out. He was later arrested and convicted of drug trafficking; but Deese said that happened only after Stone contacted the federal DEA and initiated an investigation into the drug trafficking in Robeson County. Now, I don't know if that's true or not; if he is actually the one who instigated a DEA investigation so we'll have to try to find out. So, I think there's some questions that we still need to answer here, and here's what we're hoping to do in the next few weeks. Number one, did Sheriff Hubert Stone in fact initiate a DEA investigation into drug trafficking in Robeson County? It seems kind of hard to believe given that there was already federal testimony that he was on the take from drug dealers, so we'll have to see if we can track that information down. Hubert Stone... it's hard to believe that he would... Hey, come look at my county. I think we're doing some dirty stuff. It's hard to believe cause nobody wants that on their record as the overseer of a county that there was such rampant corruption in; just terrible things going on in a place where you're supposed to be the highest authority in terms of policing... that you allow this stuff to happen; and you want the national shame of that? I mean, unless he had a change of heart after all those years. Right. And I remember what Attorney General William Webb said back in 1987; there was a guy who testified under oath in a federal corruption trial that Hubert Stone was taking $300 per ounce from drug dealers for protection purposes. So, that seems a little tough to believe. Page 2 of 10
In the story of the two gentlemen that went to the Robesonian and took hostages; that they would go that far to try and prove what Hubert Stone was doing and acts like, "Don't send us to Hubert Stone because we are going to expose him!" I mean, that seems like a lot going if Hubert was like, "Yeah, come look at our stuff please." That seems a little tough to believe so I'm gonna dig into that and see if we can try to figure out if that's in fact true. Another big question for me, is whether Larry Demery confessed to Connee Brayboy that he was the sole murderer of James Jordan. Remember? Connee Brayboy is the woman who was the editor of the Indian Voice which is a now defunct paper in Carolina focusing on Native American issues. She says he confessed to her and that she kept it out of the paper because she didn't want to upset his mother, who was a friend of hers. We reached out to her on Facebook, she responded and said she wanted to come on the podcast and we haven't heard from her since. So, still trying to get a hold of her and see what she has to say. That would be very interesting if we can track her down. Hopefully she's at a place where she's strong enough and able to do that. I don't know what's hindering her. I hope it's not a third-party that is trying to bully it's way into getting the truth out. But I think what she has to say is very key. If this is true, that he confessed to her, this changes a lot; and it undoes a lot of the things that has gone on with the conviction of Daniel Green, and just everything about it. It changes a lot. Yeah. And she's one of, I think three or four people who say that Larry Demery confessed to her? But at least two of those guys were guys who were in jail with Larry Demery so maybe have something... maybe have a little bit of a conflict of interest? She is the opposite of the conflict of interest because Larry Demery is a member of the Lumbee Indian community there; so is she, and she's friends with his mother so she gave an affidavit to his defense team that you can read in the filings. She's been under oath already, testifying that this is true so hopefully we'll be able to get in touch with her. The biggest one for me Tony is that, is there physical evidence connecting Daniel Green to the murder of James Jordan? And now that the blood evidence has been called into question, and Jennifer Owell from the SBI says, If there were to be another trial and I testified today I would say, 'I don't know if there's blood in the car or not.' If you throw that blood evidence out, then what do you have other than Larry Demery's testimony? Page 3 of 10
Again, we know the motives of the state. They want a conviction on the murders. But again, my biggest issue is, at what cost? It takes a different [inaudible 00:08:36] for me personally; me being an American black man, if Daniel Green is being wrongfully convicted, again by the state because of insufficient evidence that they have; it's messed up! It's messed up that they rather allow him to stay in prison on iffy evidence versus actually finding the truth or having to actually prove it with something. And that's scary! Yeah, and there's a couple things I mean, number one is... at this point I think there is zero physical evidence. And not only that, there's zero circumstantial evidence outside of the fact that Daniel Green had James Jordan's jewelry. But like we said, that points to robbery, not necessarily to murder. And the other thing Tony, is that I think we need to delve a little bit more into the gun. One of the things the state keeps saying is that we found the gun in Daniel Green's home, well remember that Larry Demery was staying there while Daniel Green was in prison for a crime he was eventually exonerated of. And not only that, you know one of the things we talk about is all the mistakes that his initial defense team made. They never hired a ballistics expert to try to tie the gun to that bullet that was found in James Jordan; and not only that, the bullet that came out of James Jordan was so mangled that it was never tied to any gun. When we talked to Johnson Brit or when we talked to Hugh Rogers and they say all the physical evidence points to Daniel Green like we said last episode; what physical evidence are you talking about? Yeah, what the phone? Was there something on the phone? Or who made the call? Again, the blood is already iffy. The removal of the shirt; was there anything on the shirt that was buried? If you can't prove it, what's the point? If you know you can't prove it...and that's the weird thing about it too is are you sure, as a representative of the state, are you sure that this has been corroborated and the evidence is exactly on point on where it needs to go. We are not. Yeah, it just seems like they were in a rush just to get a conviction. Well, remember Hubert Stone talked with Scott Raab from GQ; and one of the things he said was something along the lines of, "Well, in this county if you see a black and an Indian together there's gonna be trouble." Page 4 of 10
We keep hearing... the one thing Johnson Brit pointed out was saying well that the SBI was involved in this case from the beginning so it's not like Hubert stone could direct them one way or another. But my understanding is the SBI is there just to assist. So, it still looks like, at least from all the records that I have seen, that most of the interviews in the investigation is being done by Robeson County Sheriff's office, and the SBI is sort of jumping in where they need to help like with the forensic evidence and stuff. So if, for example, they decide we're not gonna talk to Larry Deese, even though he's the first phone call they made from the car phone, and he's a known drug dealer, and he works a mile from where James Jordan's body was found, then the SBI is not necessarily gonna have that information to say, "Hey, why don't you call this guy?" Even if Larry Deese didn't commit the murder, having his angle of what happened... I mean it's gotta be some truth in there, even if he makes up something. There's gonna be some truth in there to kinda make it a more clear picture than just the testimony of Larry Demery being the end-all be-all. Larry Demery testified against Daniel Green in exchange for a life sentence instead of facing the death penalty. So, it's not like he didn't have a reason to not tell the truth. So when we started off this podcast, we said "we're not on one side or the other but it seems like as we get closer to the end we're sort of both in the place where I don't know who did it but, it seems like there needed to be a lot more evidence in this case for us to be comfortable with the conviction. Now you being the legal expert, uh, out of this group, um, if it's him, I don't know. Does that equal... No, it not guilty. Right? I mean, its guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Doesn't mean beyond all doubt, but it means that you have to do some pretty serious mental gymnastics to get to not guilty. And in this case, I don't think you have to do any mental gymnastics to get to not guilty. Like, because especially if, if it's done, how it's opposed to where you're not guilty until proven so if you start from that space, I still don't know how you get up to guilty with all the stuff that's going on in between. Page 5 of 10
Well just remember all this stuff the jury didn't hear, right? They didn't hear any of the Larry D stuff. The, um, his initial prosecutors, excuse me, Daniel Greens, initial defense team didn't call his alibi witnesses who said he was at this party all night. They didn't task... they didn't challenge the gun, they didn't challenge the hole in the shirt, you know, not being there and then being there, they didn't do a very good job with the blood evidence. So, you know, the jury isn't hearing the same stuff that we have seen. No. We've had the benefit of going back and looking at all these records and seeing, you know, all the things that have happened since, but at the time the jury doesn't know that the blood's going to get thrown out, you know, basically not thrown out, but blood is going to be a non-issue.they don't know that, you know, Larry [crosstalk 00:14:21] Right, right. When it's not. yeah. And a lot of jury see prosecutors and police officers as white knights and they believe them just by virtue of the fact that they're a police officer and they are a prosecutor. Um, I think that the fascination with our listeners with Larry Deese continues to really be something that I'm amuses me. I'm really, really hoping we can talk to Dale Godfrey so that we can hear from Larry Deese because I, he's been pretty vocal about the fact that he had nothing to do with this, but think it's, um, I think people would like to hear from him. We will continue to search. Um, the number we currently have doesn't lead directly to him. Um, so we're still searching, you know, to talk to him. Uh, Julie, you ever heard that? He loves to talk about this case? Yeah right Um, and I mean, to his credit is his client didn't having been do with this legally according to this case. Um, so he basically won this. so I assume he wants to talk about it and how he got his client kind of off of this case, even though I think he's in prison now. He's out, He's out, okay but yeah we definitely would like talk to him and, uh, we're going to talk to Chris. Yes. Page 6 of 10
In, in the coming weeks. And hopefully Daniel too. Right. And so if any of the stuff that we're talking about, doesn't make sense? I really encourage you to go back to listen to those middle episodes of the podcast episode. Episode one got like a huge response. The conspiracy theory episode went off the chart, but some of the episodes that really have the meat of the case in there like, you know, episode three, episode two about Robeson County, episode three about Larry Deese, episode four with all the blood evidence, those are the ones you really need to listen to. We really tried to and we know it gets kind of, you know, I don't want to say boring going through all of the things. We really try to kind of sum it up and give you guys what is most important in this case and make it entertaining as well and how we produced it and stuff like that. So I think it's great, on how we decided what was important and what you needed to know about this case to get as informed as you can be if you're interested in this case. Um, so yeah, go back and listen to those episodes. Um, and, and for me, one more question is, um, you know, obviously we need to establish what Larry Deese's role, if any is in this investigation. And maybe it goes down to why Larry Deese's was the first call Daniel Green. And actually I think he was a second call. The first call was like to a sex line or something. I mean, these are 17 year old boys. Um, and that's the thing that I think really gets lost on this, that you look at a picture of Daniel Greene and Larry Demery now, and they look like a hardened, you know, guys who've been in prison for 20 years. But if [crosstalk 00:17:01] right, but if you look at the pictures of them at the time, these were kids. Yeah. Kids, I mean they look like babies. Um, so I want to know why Larry Deese was the guy they decided they needed to call. Yeah, I mean, something very bad happened to James Jordan and it's all just why? You know, why with these kids? If you believe how the prosecution went about it, we really don't know that either. Right? Is Not, they just did it. No, well that's a giant leap for a kid something year old kids to commit murder. Page 7 of 10
Right? I mean, there's a reason behind it, even if it was an 'accident' but there's reason why James Norton is dead. And I think that we don't know that. Well, I think that sort of plays into the general racism we have when it comes to young men of color. Right? It's kind of that central park five. Oh, group of, you know, teenagers out there, black teenagers who knows what they, why they do what they do kind of thing. Um, but you know, to me it seems like you've got two guys telling very different stories. Larry Don Murray says we were there robbing people and Daniel Green just shot him. And Daniel Greene says, I wasn't even there. He called me and said, you need to help getting rid of a dead body. So somewhere in between there is the truth. Yeah. Um, so another thing that we've had a bunch of people ask us the status of the case. So here's where it is, Chris Mumma and hopefully we'll talk with Chris next week and she'll be able to let us know, I'm sure the We'll continue the storytelling part of this podcast That's why this one is called holding back because it was like, ah, we have to put out in an episode, but we don't really have any new information. They're waiting for the judge basically in this case who heard Daniel's motion for a new hearing on evidence said 'I'm going to deny it'. But I don't think he has officially denied it and I don't think he is handed down written opinion yet. I've been watching for it online and waiting for it and I haven't seen it come down yet. So until the judge's written opinion comes down, they don't even know what they need to appeal. So Chris said they're planning to appeal, but they don't even know what the issues are yet because they need to find out what the judge says about the case. So everybody right now is just sort of waiting. I can't wait to, we can actually have like the after episode. Yeah. Page 8 of 10
To discuss because the, I think we, we do need to delve into the justice system a little bit. Um, just overall and how, I mean, I got so many thoughts on that, so we'll definitely discuss that in a later episode once we're done telling this story. But yeah, it's just so much stuff around this case. It's like, why is it taking him so long that he made that his decision what, two weeks ago at least. And this is not like you know, just a Passover case, like this is an infamous case. It's taken this long for them to make an appeal. Like, I don't know what he's waiting for they're gonna appeal, regardless of how long you wait, the way he was kind of this whole thing is just crazy. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a good look for, you know, sadly, this is the way the justice system works for a lot of, not just people of color. But people who are, I hate to say, don't have means, considered 'lower class'. This is the way the justice system works for them. So I think it's, it's a good, hopefully eyeopening thing to look at for, for a lot of our listeners. within the next couple of weeks we're going to talk to Chris Mumma and Daniel Green. So if you have specific questions, you want to ask them, like; you know, why didn't Blah Blah Blah, or why did you do this? Why did you do that? I want to ask Daniel, why did you guys call Larry Deese? Who was Larry Deese to you guys? You know, was he someone Larry knew he thought, Oh, here's a guy who will know what to do. Was it more than that? Did, was he at that hotel because of Larry Deese and now he doesn't know what to do. I mean, I want to, those are the questions I want to ask him. So I would say to our listeners out there, if you have specific questions that only Daniel Green can answer for you, let us know and we'll try to get them in. You're talking about the Gmail. The longest email ever. Yeah, I don't remember what it is. I think it's 670behindtheheadlines@gmail.com. Is that it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We'll shorten it up for next season. All right. Anything else? Any big questions that you have going forward that you feel like we need to answer within the next few? Page 9 of 10
Uh, no, I think, I think we've gone over all of them. Again, my biggest concern was, does the way the state went about it in terms of getting the evidence, did that supersede actually finding the truth? The score behind the headlines is written and researched by me, Julie Dicario and our executive producer is Tony Gill. New episodes are posted Monday of each week on radio.com and wherever you get your podcasts, you can follow us on Twitter @JulieDecario at @TonyGill670 and @670thescore. Page 10 of 10