One Minute Remaining - Stories from the inmates

On New Year's Eve 2011, a landscaper named Ronald Hauser was found shot dead in the basement of his home in Livingston County, Michigan. A month later, police came knocking on the door of one of Ron's friends, a man named Anthony Duke. Tony was arrested, charged, and in 2015 convicted of murder. He has maintained his innocence ever since. Tony Duke is now serving life without the possibility of parole. Under Michigan law, that sentence means exactly what it says -- there is no parole date, no automatic review, no mechanism for release. The only path out runs through the Governor's office, and it is a path that very few people ever reach the end of. In this episode we catch up with Tony, who recently appeared before the Michigan Parole Board for what is known as a commutation initial -- a formal hearing that is, for people in Tony's situation, one of the rarest and most significant steps in a process that offers very little. We talk through what that meeting means, what came back from the Board, and what the road ahead looks like from inside a Michigan prison cell. We also examine the broader landscape of clemency in Michigan -- who gets it, who doesn't, and why the final stretch of a governor's time in office has historically been the window that matters most for people who have run out of any other options. Tony Duke's case has never stopped raising questions. How to contact Governor Whitmer about Tony Duke's case There are three ways to reach the Governor's office directly. Online contact form (easiest option) The Governor's office has a contact form at michigan.gov/whitmer/contact -- you can use this to write directly to the office and share their thoughts on Tony's case. By phone Constituent Services: (517) 335-7858 Main office: (517) 373-3400 By post Governor Gretchen Whitmer P.O. Box 30013 Lansing, Michigan 48909 Tips for anyone writing in: A letter or message to the Governor's office in support of a clemency case is most effective when it is brief, respectful, and specific. You don't need legal expertise, you just need to be genuine. A few things worth including: Keep it to one page if writing by post. If using the online form, a few clear, considered paragraphs is plenty. The Governor's office does read correspondence on clemency cases -- volume of letters on a specific case does register. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A child takes the stand. They describe what they saw in vivid detail. They are consistent, they are convincing, and the jury believes them. But how much of what they are saying actually happened -- and how much of it was shaped by the questions they were asked, the adults they trusted, and a memory that was never as fixed as anyone assumed? In this episode, we sit down with Dr Ben Francis Cotterill, lecturer in psychology at Clemson University and one of the leading researchers in the field of child eyewitness testimony. His work examines the gap between what children genuinely remember and what the justice system asks them to do with those memories -- and that gap, the research tells us, can be significant. We take you through the science of how children's memories form and how they can be altered -- sometimes dramatically -- through suggestion, leading questions, and repeated interviewing. We look at why the authority of an adult in a room with a child can reshape what that child believes they witnessed. And we examine the uncomfortable truth that some of the most well-intentioned interview techniques used in abuse investigations have been shown to increase the risk of false reporting rather than reduce it. This is not a conversation about doubting children. It is a conversation about understanding them and about asking hard questions of a justice system that has not always asked those questions of itself. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We just wrapped up the story of Kara Garvin, sentenced to life without parole for a crime she says she didn't commit, we have heard her version of events and explored the case against her but now it's time to get the opinion of the man they call 'The Voice of Reason' a man with over 30 years experience as a criminal defence attorney from Chicago Illinois, it is Michael Leonard. Kara Garvin grew up in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, a small, tight-knit community nestled along the Ohio River, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the OxyContin crisis of the early 2000s didn't just make the news, it moved in next door. Like so many in her community, Kara's life became entangled with addiction. And like so many, that entanglement would come to define how the world saw her. On the evening of the 22nd of December 2008, three days before Christmas, Edward Mollett, his wife Juanita, and their daughter Christina were shot and killed inside their mobile home in Franklin Furnace. A six year old boy, covered in blood, ran down the hill to a neighbour's house for help. Within hours, Kara Garvin had voluntarily walked into the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. By morning, she was facing three counts of aggravated murder. She has never stopped saying she didn't do it. In this series, I sit down with Kara inside the prison where she has spent the last sixteen years of her life. We go back to the beginning — her childhood, her struggles, the community that shaped her — and we walk, step by step, through the night of the 22nd of December, the investigation that followed, and the trial that put her away. We examine the state's case, the evidence, the witnesses, and the questions that Kara says have never been adequately answered. Three people lost their lives that night. A family was destroyed. A six year old boy saw things no child should ever see. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is who pulled the trigger. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kara Garvin grew up in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, a small, tight-knit community nestled along the Ohio River, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the OxyContin crisis of the early 2000s didn't just make the news, it moved in next door. Like so many in her community, Kara's life became entangled with addiction. And like so many, that entanglement would come to define how the world saw her. On the evening of the 22nd of December 2008, three days before Christmas, Edward Mollett, his wife Juanita, and their daughter Christina were shot and killed inside their mobile home in Franklin Furnace. A six year old boy, covered in blood, ran down the hill to a neighbour's house for help. Within hours, Kara Garvin had voluntarily walked into the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. By morning, she was facing three counts of aggravated murder. She has never stopped saying she didn't do it. In this series, I sit down with Kara inside the prison where she has spent the last sixteen years of her life. We go back to the beginning — her childhood, her struggles, the community that shaped her — and we walk, step by step, through the night of the 22nd of December, the investigation that followed, and the trial that put her away. We examine the state's case, the evidence, the witnesses, and the questions that Kara says have never been adequately answered. Three people lost their lives that night. A family was destroyed. A six year old boy saw things no child should ever see. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is who pulled the trigger. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kara Garvin grew up in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, a small, tight-knit community nestled along the Ohio River, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the OxyContin crisis of the early 2000s didn't just make the news, it moved in next door. Like so many in her community, Kara's life became entangled with addiction. And like so many, that entanglement would come to define how the world saw her. On the evening of the 22nd of December 2008, three days before Christmas, Edward Mollett, his wife Juanita, and their daughter Christina were shot and killed inside their mobile home in Franklin Furnace. A six year old boy, covered in blood, ran down the hill to a neighbour's house for help. Within hours, Kara Garvin had voluntarily walked into the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. By morning, she was facing three counts of aggravated murder. She has never stopped saying she didn't do it. In this series, I sit down with Kara inside the prison where she has spent the last sixteen years of her life. We go back to the beginning — her childhood, her struggles, the community that shaped her — and we walk, step by step, through the night of the 22nd of December, the investigation that followed, and the trial that put her away. We examine the state's case, the evidence, the witnesses, and the questions that Kara says have never been adequately answered. Three people lost their lives that night. A family was destroyed. A six year old boy saw things no child should ever see. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is who pulled the trigger. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kara Garvin grew up in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, a small, tight-knit community nestled along the Ohio River, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the OxyContin crisis of the early 2000s didn't just make the news, it moved in next door. Like so many in her community, Kara's life became entangled with addiction. And like so many, that entanglement would come to define how the world saw her. On the evening of the 22nd of December 2008, three days before Christmas, Edward Mollett, his wife Juanita, and their daughter Christina were shot and killed inside their mobile home in Franklin Furnace. A six year old boy, covered in blood, ran down the hill to a neighbour's house for help. Within hours, Kara Garvin had voluntarily walked into the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. By morning, she was facing three counts of aggravated murder. She has never stopped saying she didn't do it. In this series, I sit down with Kara inside the prison where she has spent the last sixteen years of her life. We go back to the beginning — her childhood, her struggles, the community that shaped her — and we walk, step by step, through the night of the 22nd of December, the investigation that followed, and the trial that put her away. We examine the state's case, the evidence, the witnesses, and the questions that Kara says have never been adequately answered. Three people lost their lives that night. A family was destroyed. A six year old boy saw things no child should ever see. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is who pulled the trigger. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kara Garvin grew up in Franklin Furnace, Ohio — a small, tight-knit community nestled along the Ohio River, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the OxyContin crisis of the early 2000s didn't just make the news, it moved in next door. Like so many in her community, Kara's life became entangled with addiction. And like so many, that entanglement would come to define how the world saw her. On the evening of the 22nd of December 2008, three days before Christmas, Edward Mollett, his wife Juanita, and their daughter Christina were shot and killed inside their mobile home in Franklin Furnace. A six year old boy, covered in blood, ran down the hill to a neighbour's house for help. Within hours, Kara Garvin had voluntarily walked into the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. By morning, she was facing three counts of aggravated murder. She has never stopped saying she didn't do it. In this series, I sit down with Kara inside the prison where she has spent the last sixteen years of her life. We go back to the beginning — her childhood, her struggles, the community that shaped her — and we walk, step by step, through the night of the 22nd of December, the investigation that followed, and the trial that put her away. We examine the state's case, the evidence, the witnesses, and the questions that Kara says have never been adequately answered. Three people lost their lives that night. A family was destroyed. A six year old boy saw things no child should ever see. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is who pulled the trigger. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kara Garvin grew up in Franklin Furnace, Ohio — a small, tight-knit community nestled along the Ohio River, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the OxyContin crisis of the early 2000s didn't just make the news, it moved in next door. Like so many in her community, Kara's life became entangled with addiction. And like so many, that entanglement would come to define how the world saw her. On the evening of the 22nd of December 2008, three days before Christmas, Edward Mollett, his wife Juanita, and their daughter Christina were shot and killed inside their mobile home in Franklin Furnace. A six year old boy, covered in blood, ran down the hill to a neighbour's house for help. Within hours, Kara Garvin had voluntarily walked into the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. By morning, she was facing three counts of aggravated murder. She has never stopped saying she didn't do it. In this series, I sit down with Kara inside the prison where she has spent the last sixteen years of her life. We go back to the beginning — her childhood, her struggles, the community that shaped her — and we walk, step by step, through the night of the 22nd of December, the investigation that followed, and the trial that put her away. We examine the state's case, the evidence, the witnesses, and the questions that Kara says have never been adequately answered. Three people lost their lives that night. A family was destroyed. A six year old boy saw things no child should ever see. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is who pulled the trigger. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I first met Dustin in August 2025. He talked me through his life — his intense training to become a coveted Navy SEAL, through to the night his life would change forever, and his subsequent 30-year battle to clear his name. When we first spoke, Dustin's options for returning home were pretty limited. After exhausting most avenues for release, all he had left was placing his freedom in the hands of a parole board. As I have mentioned on many occasions, parole boards are tough to crack. It can take a lot of convincing to get them to agree to send you home — even more so when you maintain your innocence of the very crime you're in prison for. As we know, for the majority of parole boards, your innocence — or claims of it — are usually of little interest. That's not what they're there for. What they want to know is whether you have changed. Are you remorseful? Have you been a model prisoner? Their job is not to review the case against you, merely to decide whether you still pose a threat to the public. So when Dustin came up for parole, the stress and tension were high. But something happened in his case that rarely, if ever, happens — a couple of the board members, including a former prosecutor, took it upon themselves to actually look at the case against him. And it's not every day that a co-defendant comes out and tells a courtroom that you didn't commit the crime you were convicted of. Following this, that same board member — the former prosecutor — took the further unprecedented step of publicly acknowledging his belief in Dustin's wrongful incarceration for murder, and stating on record that he believed Dustin had already served far more time for his involvement than he ever should have. With that, Dustin was granted parole in a 2-3 majority verdict. It wasn't, of course, as straightforward as that, and Dustin's road back home wasn't without its complications — but he is now free. Albeit with strict parole conditions. And for the first time, we got the chance to sit down face to face and talk about how he's found life on the outside. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The words "Don't you die on me" came back to haunt me recently, as I got a message to say John Spirko may have had a suspected heart attack just minutes after we hung up the phone and I uttered those words. It would turn out it wasn't a heart attack and after some time in hospital John was returned to prison in time to get some better news. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After twenty-three years, a last-minute act of clemency from a departing New Jersey governor changed everything for Tariq MaQbool. 150 years became 45, Maximum security became lower. However inside the order that finally gave him hope was language that raises serious questions and when his paperwork arrived, something was on it that had never been there before. As always with these situations with the D.O.C when one door opens another one shuts and all you're left with is just more questions, more confusion and very little in the way of answers. We sit back down with Tariq to hear what happened. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We just wrapped up the story of John Spirko, a man who's spent over 40 years in prison for a murder that put him on death row, a murder he's always maintained he's innocent of, even though he was the one who put himself in the firing line of detectives. So as always when we finish these cases, it's time to find out what the man they call 'The Voice of Reason' thinks, does he believe John has a case for innocence, or is he not convinced? Let's find out from Michael Leonard of Leonard Trial Lawyers in Chicago, Illinois. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered. Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up. John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him. This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What I Survived explores the extraordinary true stories of people who survived the unthinkable. Each story takes you back to who these people were before everything changed, then inside the moment their lives were pushed to the edge, shipwrecked at sea for weeks, held captive by terrorists, falling 15,000 feet from a plane after a parachute failure, and other extreme, life-or-death situations. Through first-hand accounts, we follow the ordeal as it happened, the decisions made under unimaginable pressure, and the will it took to survive. Then what came after, the physical and psychological recovery, and the process of rebuilding a life forever altered. Apple: Spotify: EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I catch up with Tariq Maqbool, a man serving 150 years in prison for a double homicide he has always maintained he did not commit, a sentence that would see him die behind bars. That was until now. Tariq recently petitioned the Governor of New Jersey for clemency, his only real last hope of making it home to his family and he's just received some very welcome news. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anthony Duke, or Tony, is, it's fair to say, a favourite amongst those of us who have gone through this crazy journey over the last almost four years. A man of strong values, strong faith, and the strong silent type. Tony isn't a man to ask for help. He's not one to say if he needs something, he is the one who provides, for himself and others. He is not someone who shares news too often, I believe because he doesn't want to get his or anyone else's hopes up, hopes that he will be coming home sooner than his life sentence will allow. However, he did recently get some news, news he was planning on keeping close to his chest. He had no choice but to tell his mum as he needed her help with getting some information, and once she knew, she in turn told him he should tell me. I'm very grateful she did, because now I know, and so will you—because Tony needs us, even if he doesn't like to ask for it. EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week! Apple + HERE Patreon and find us on Facebook here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.