The Last Surrender | EP 6 | Season 2

Bobby Gumpright thought confessing would set him free, but it led him to his lowest point. Forced to reckon with his addiction, he finally faces the man he sent to prison 22 years earlier. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts https://www.instagram.com/glasspodcasts/. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:33Speaker 01

  Hey folks, it's Matt Altmaix.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  And Joel Larsgaard.

• 0:35Speaker 01

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• 2:32Speaker 04

  After I heard Jermaine was set free, I just breathed a sigh of relief. I thought that the thing that was holding me back all my life had been taken care of.

• 2:43Nancy Glass?

  As we told you in the last episode, Jermaine Hudson agreed to plead guilty to the armed robbery Bobby Gumpright made up. Jermaine always said he was innocent, but after being incarcerated for 22 years, he didn't care anymore.

• 3:00Speaker 06

  I was actually going to plead guilty to that crime.

• 3:05Speaker 06

  Y'all can have that conviction. I just need to get home to my daughter. I need to get my life back home, it's right.

• 3:11Nancy Glass?

  Jermaine was just days away from pleading guilty to a crime he didn't commit, a crime that was made up. But at the last possible moment, it turned out Jermaine didn't need to plead guilty. Bobby confessed to his lie, and the very next day, Jermaine was released. For Bobby, the news that Jermaine was now a free man, that his life and his liberty was returned to him, was almost unbelievable.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  I don't know exactly what the process was. All I know is that the very next day, they said he was out.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  That's unheard of. Nobody gets out of Angola that fast.

• 4:01Nancy Glass?

  Bobby heard about Jermaine's release while staying at A Place of Restoration, a faith-based rehab program. He was supposed to stay there for nine months to learn discipline, to gain self-respect and integrity, all the things he was severely lacking in his life. But once Bobby found out that Jermaine was a free man, he felt a sense of freedom himself and thought his demons would suddenly disappear.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  I ended up leaving that rehab with the belief that I was good, that I didn't need any help in recovery, that I could move on with my life at that point. And I figured that now I was good to go.

• 4:46Nancy Glass?

  Jeremy Smith, the program director at the rehab, knew better.

• 4:51Speaker 07

  He removed the one glaring issue and then said, "I don't really need to look at all the other ones." I think that the confession almost created a deception or an illusion in his mind that I don't really need to examine myself.

• 5:03Nancy Glass?

  Jeremy couldn't force Bobby to stay, so a month after Bobby arrived, Jeremy had to watch him leave. Now in his 40s, Jermaine restarted his life, and in a way, Bobby thought he was doing the same. But Bobby's familiar vices were lurking, following him wherever he went, eagerly waiting to sneak back into his life.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  I went back to New Orleans and I fell into drinking and met up with some people that did cocaine and back to using. And as soon as that happened, I went to thinking that stealing was a way to get by. It's almost like I wanted to go to jail.

• 6:07Nancy Glass?

  I'm Nancy Glass. This is season two of Burden of Guilt, episode six, The Final Surrender.

• 6:18Nancy Glass?

  When Bobby Gumpright first went back to New Orleans, he was euphoric.

• 6:26Nancy Glass?

  He felt that God had changed him and he wanted to share the gospel with other people.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  I actually went to tell people how God saved me. My whole intent was to go and tell people how I was saved and God was wonderful, which was great. Like, the intention was good, but the execution wasn't so hot.

• 6:50Nancy Glass?

  And almost immediately, he ran back into the arms of his old ways and bad habits: smoking, drinking, using drugs, and using other people just to get by.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  I was living on the streets again. No job, just wandering, really not knowing what the next step is.

• 7:09Nancy Glass?

  Bobby slipped fully back into addiction. Everything was focused on one thing: getting money, however he could, whatever it took. Stealing didn't feel like a choice so much as the next step. And then, late one night, opportunity found him.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  I ended up stealing this food trailer by the Superdome.

• 7:35Nancy Glass?

  It was decked out for tailgate parties for the New Orleans Saints games, and it was unlocked.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  I went and got my truck and hooked it up to this food trailer. And I had this brilliant idea. I was gonna take it back out to Eunice, where I knew people that could probably help me fix it up and use it.

• 7:58Nancy Glass?

  High out of his mind, Bobby began driving. He started in the direction of Eunice, the same town where he met Pastor Tezano. Remember, he's the pastor who helped Bobby with food and shelter when he stumbled into True Light Baptist Church. It's a three-hour drive from New Orleans.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  I'm going down the highway and the trailer pops off the hitch and I'm dragging it. And I'm in, like, rush hour traffic in New Orleans. So I have to jump out and I've got a jack in the back of the truck and I'm jacking the trailer up to get it back on the ball. And a state trooper pulls up. And the state trooper's like, "What's going on?" And I was like, "Oh, it popped off the hitch."

• 8:43Nancy Glass?

  But just picture this: while he's talking to the state trooper, he's high on cocaine and meth, driving a stolen trailer that he's haphazardly loaded onto the back of his truck.

• 8:55Speaker 04

  The state trooper's like, "We'll get it back on there and get back on the road." And I was like, "Yes, sir."

• 9:01Nancy Glass?

  He was spared from consequences yet again. Bobby continued his drive to Eunice, but he ran out of gas in Baton Rouge. With no money to his name, he pulled into the parking lot of a construction company and passed out.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  The next morning, I woke up and ended up going onto their yard. It was Memorial Day weekend, so nobody was there. I found an open gate, ended up finding the keys to their tool room, and loaded up all their copper wire that they had for their welding machines.

• 9:38Nancy Glass?

  Bobby abandoned his pickup truck and climbed into the cab. He was gonna steal that, too.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  I had never driven an 18-wheeler before, so I had watched a YouTube video on how to shift it, and that's how I got it out of the yard.

• 9:55Nancy Glass?

  Okay, think about that for a second. Bobby had never driven an 18-wheeler. He got a quick tutorial from a video online. Then, he went right out onto the highway, again, while he's under the influence of drugs, driving next to thousands of people.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  It's a miracle I didn't kill somebody or myself when I drove that thing.

• 10:19Nancy Glass?

  The drive didn't last much longer.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  Got out to Eunice, then I just heard that the cops were looking for me.

• 10:32Nancy Glass?

  Then Bobby had a moment of clarity in Eunice. After all, it was the same place where God had spoken to him and led him into True Light Baptist Church.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  Finally, I had another spiritual moment. Another come-to-myself moment where it was like, I can't run anymore. I'm done. I'm tired. I can't do it anymore. And I just surrendered. I just was like, I'm done running.

• 11:01Speaker 04

  And at that moment, I just put my hands in the air and I told God that no matter what, I was gonna follow Him for the rest of my life.

• 11:14Nancy Glass?

  Just then, Bobby saw the lights of a police car headed straight for him.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  And then they arrested me.

• 11:22Nancy Glass?

  He immediately surrendered.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  I guess at that point,

• 11:28Speaker 04

  I...

• 11:32Speaker 04

  It's almost like I wanted to go to jail.

• 11:43Nancy Glass?

  Maybe you're thinking, shouldn't he have been arrested for committing perjury? But here's the thing. The district attorney's office didn't want to discourage other people from coming forward to recant false testimony. So Bobby never served a day in jail for that. Do you think you wanted to go to jail to be punished for what you did to Jermaine?

• 12:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I always thought that I needed to be punished in some way.

• 12:15Nancy Glass?

  Were you scared when they arrested you?

• 12:18Speaker 04

  No, I wasn't scared. I admitted to what had happened. They had me dead to rights, you know, within a confession. When they asked why, I said drugs. That's the only excuse.

• 12:31Nancy Glass?

  On June 1st, 2021, officers took Bobby Gumpright to the Evangel in Paris jail in Villeplatte, Louisiana, where his booking process began. Cut off from any supply, Bobby braced himself for drug withdrawal.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  And it was a very, very strange thing. The moment that I put my hands in the air and surrendered to God was the moment that every desire and withdrawal symptom and everything just went away.

• 13:04Nancy Glass?

  He had spent years of his life running from addiction and from what he had done to Germaine.

• 13:12Nancy Glass?

  Jail was the first place where it all stopped.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  I never had another desire for a cigarette, another desire for a drink, or another desire for a drug since that day.

• 13:30Speaker 08

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• 14:01Speaker 01

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• 15:09Speaker 09

  Hello, hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Anna Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.

• 15:19Speaker 10

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• 15:36Speaker 09

  Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:41Nancy Glass?

  After a drug fueled crime spree that included stealing an 18 wheeler and valuable copper wire, Bobby Gumpright was arrested and charged with illegal possession of stolen goods. In a reversal of fates, Bobby is now the one in jail awaiting the consequences of his actions. And at the very same time, Jermaine Hudson, now a free man, was back in court. This time Jermaine was the plaintiff, not the defendant. He was suing the state of Louisiana. Jermaine was being represented by an advocacy and legal nonprofit called the Promise of Justice Initiative. They're also known as PJI.

• 16:24Nancy Glass?

  They were fighting for people who had been incarcerated under the non-unanimous jury system. In Jermaine's case, an attorney from that organization was helping him fight for reparations from the state. Jermaine was wrongfully convicted and entitled to compensation. His attorney was Colin Rheingold.

• 16:47Speaker 11

  When I got Jermaine's case, he'd already had his conviction vacated. But in order to get paid by Louisiana for the wrong that was done to him, you have to convince a judge that not only was there something wrong with your conviction in the first place, but also that you're innocent. And so I got his case at this stage, where we had to present the evidence that he was innocent in order to get the compensation from the state.

• 17:12Nancy Glass?

  Part of that evidence was Bobby's recanted testimony.

• 17:17Speaker 11

  I can't remember a time where a person has recanted in such a dramatic way. To have someone 20 years later come in and say, "Actually, I made it up, and this has been weighing me down for 20 years and ruined my life as well." I can't, yeah. I'd never heard of anything like that happening.

• 17:40Nancy Glass?

  And that's why to the Attorney General's office, it was pretty unbelievable. They were skeptical. So they needed to talk with Bobby. But he was in a prison camp in Ala, waiting to find out what his sentence would be for illegal possession of stolen goods. He had pled guilty.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  And while I was at Ala, I got a Zoom call from the Attorney General's office. And it was, I don't know, five or six people on the call, all from the Attorney General's office of Louisiana. They told me that Jermaine was in the process of a wrongful conviction suit against the state, and they wanted to hear my deposition.

• 18:23Nancy Glass?

  So he retold his story from the beginning, bearing his guilt and remorse for sending an innocent man to prison for half his life. It was the truth, but still, there was doubt.

• 18:38Nancy Glass?

  The Attorney General's office was suspicious. What if Bobby's recantation was all a scam? What if Jermaine and Bobby were now working together so that Jermaine could be released, and they could split the wrongful conviction payout?

• 18:56Speaker 04

  They kept trying to say, so you never knew him before this happened? Like, he never sold drugs to you? He hasn't contacted you while you've been in prison? Or, none of his people have contacted you? And I was like, no.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  They're acting like there has to be a connection other than what I've said.

• 19:14Nancy Glass?

  But there wasn't.

• 19:16Speaker 04

  There wasn't. There was never a connection between me and Jermaine prior to or after. There was never anything.

• 19:25Nancy Glass?

  Among the people on the Zoom call was Emily Maugh from the District Attorney's Office. She was previously the Director of the Innocence Project New Orleans, serving as an attorney who primarily focused on wrongful convictions. But in 2021, she joined the efforts of the new DA, Jason Williams, in the Civil Rights Division. In this case, Emily was representing the state, and part of her job was to sniff out any falsehoods or discrepancies.

• 19:58Speaker 12

  As a lawyer, you always hope that you're going to approach anything with some skepticism and some questioning. The fact that it had checked out, that he'd tried to come to the office before, he had a card from somebody that he'd tried to talk to, I think, who had been pretty dismissive. The fact that it was the manager of a rehab center who contacted me about the person there, all indicated to me that this was not somebody coming forward to try to clear their friends, kind of the statement. There were indications of credibility.

• 20:31Nancy Glass?

  The District Attorney's Office was convinced it was all on the up and up. But Louisiana's Attorney General's Office wasn't so sure.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  So, they said, well, if you lied then, why should we believe you now? And I said, well, because back then I was trying to hide something. Now I have nothing to hide.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  I'm not trying to hide anything. So, you can ask me anything and I'll tell you.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  It wasn't pleasant for them because they didn't get what they wanted out of it. Because they wanted to figure out a way where they wouldn't have to, number one, admit that the state had made an error, and number two, pay out any kind of money to somebody for this kind of wrongful conviction.

• 21:18Nancy Glass?

  Bobby pled guilty to illegal possession of stolen goods and was sentenced to four years in jail. He took it without a fuss.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  I thought that was actually pretty lenient, considering what I had done. I expected a lot worse. I had already expected to go to prison the rest of my life. I didn't know what was going to happen when I came forward.

• 21:39Nancy Glass?

  For Bobby, going to jail wasn't the scary part.

• 21:43Speaker 04

  I was scared that people would find out what I had done to Jermaine. If guys in jail would have known what I had done, it would have gotten very dangerous for me.

• 21:54Nancy Glass?

  In many ways, Bobby's incarceration looked very different from Jermaine's. He was held in a parish jail, not Angola Prison.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  I was not put into a work camp-style prison. Jermaine was at hard labor. Angola is hard labor. Angola is where they send you out into the field to do hard labor. I never did that. I wasn't, I wasn't put in that position.

• 22:20Nancy Glass?

  In fact, Bobby was able to work outside of the correctional facility. With his new sobriety, he helped start an AA program inside the jail. And Bobby became a trustee, an inmate trusted with essential work inside the jail, and granted special privileges. For many incarcerated people, it takes years to reach that status. For Bobby, it didn't.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  What Jermaine was going through for all those years in his cell, I only got a small taste of it.

• 22:55Nancy Glass?

  He would have to testify virtually from jail at Jermaine's compensation hearing. And the idea of seeing the man whose young life he had stolen overwhelmed him with shame. Bobby thought he knew how it would go, but he was wrong.

• 23:14Nancy Glass?

  While Bobby was serving his time for the stolen property conviction, he received a strange phone call.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  I was told one day that I had a phone call with my lawyer, and I didn't have a lawyer. I'd already finished my case. I didn't understand what that was all about. But they took me up front and they put me on the phone.

• 23:34Nancy Glass?

  On the other end of the line was Colin Rheingold, Jermaine's lawyer from the Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans. He was representing Jermaine in the wrongful conviction suit against the state. It was now March of 2022.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  He said that tomorrow I would be called as a witness in that case, and I would be asked to recant my testimony from the 20 years prior on the record in a courtroom. He had told me that Jermaine was going to be there, and that I would be able to see him, and he would be able to see me.

• 24:10Nancy Glass?

  This hearing would be the first time the two men would come face to face since Jermaine's trial back in 2000. Bobby would be appearing on Zoom.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  The next day, I got up and went up to the front, and they put me in a room by myself next to the warden's office and put a computer in front of me. And got in the court proceeding.

• 24:36Nancy Glass?

  It was a compensation hearing to determine how much the state of Louisiana owed Jermaine Hudson. But for Bobby Gumpright, it was personal. He was there to recant his testimony. Colin Rheingold called Bobby to the stand.

• 24:53Speaker 11

  When I called Bobby, Bobby explained everything that had happened. He explained the truth. He explained that he lied about it. And he explained how he'd made up the robbery because he was scared of his dad, because he'd been spending his money on drugs. He explained how he came to confess the truth and how remorseful he'd been.

• 25:18Nancy Glass?

  Bobby remembers that tense day vividly. And he remembers that the toughest question he was asked was, why? Why had he lied?

• 25:29Speaker 04

  I don't think I could give him an answer. I still have a hard time giving an answer for why. The only thing I've been able to put together is just my need to be a part of and be important and to have people like me and just to have some sort of purpose. And it was just a twisted, twisted way of finding that. But that's still not a great answer. I just, I can't. I've never been able to really pinpoint, like, at that moment, why would I point at? Why wouldn't I just say, nope, none of them look familiar? Like, how different would everything have been if I would have just said, no, that's none of them dudes, you haven't found him. He's still out there.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  I can only imagine how different his life would have been had I not interjected.

• 26:20Nancy Glass?

  Colin asked Bobby more questions, like, have you ever seen Jermaine before, other than the trial when you accused him of robbing you? To which Bobby said, no. The compensation hearing was pretty standard.

• 26:35Speaker 11

  And then I said, if you could say something to Jermaine, what would you say?

• 26:42Speaker 04

  And I didn't, I couldn't. I think I tried to say I'm sorry, and I just broke down.

• 26:49Nancy Glass?

  Jermaine stood up next to his lawyer, so that Bobby and the other virtual attendants could see him on their screens.

• 26:57Speaker 06

  I was like, ask the judge, can I speak to Bobby? Because he was so emotional, he was crying his heart out. And she said, yeah. I got up, I went to the podium.

• 27:09Nancy Glass?

  Everyone in the room went silent.

• 27:12Speaker 11

  I didn't talk to Jermaine about what he might say to Bobby. I don't know what I was expecting Jermaine to say.

• 27:21Nancy Glass?

  No one in the courtroom ever expected what came next.

• 27:33Speaker 00

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• 28:03Speaker 01

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• 28:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, card members can also enjoy 15 visits to the Delta Sky Club each medallion year when flying Delta. And you can unlock unlimited Delta Sky Club access after spending $75,000 in purchases on your card during a calendar year. Those are benefits you can get behind. You also get for one time guest passes each medallion year, so you can bring a friend or a colleague along. 15 Sky Club visits plus four guest passes? That's up to $950 in annual value. Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. It's that kind of premium access that helps you feel right at home and at ease, no matter where you're heading. Apply today at delta.com/podcast.

• 29:07Speaker 02

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• 29:11Speaker 09

  Hello, hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.

• 29:22Speaker 10

  AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing, and where.

• 29:38Speaker 09

  Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:45Nancy Glass?

  Jermaine's compensation hearing to determine whether he was entitled to receive restitution from the state was in progress. Bobby testified via a Zoom link from jail about the lie he told at Jermaine's trial. After he tearfully apologized to Jermaine, Jermaine asked to address Bobby directly. The room became deadly silent.

• 30:10Speaker 06

  I was close to the video screen that he was on with his representatives. My first question to him was, "Are you okay?" And he started crying even more.

• 30:23Nancy Glass?

  Everyone held their breath. And then Jermaine said something no one was expecting.

• 30:30Speaker 06

  I said, "I forgive you. I understand what you are going through, but I forgive you. I don't hold no hate against you. I don't hold no bitterness against you. I say I honestly, genuinely forgive you."

• 30:48Speaker 11

  I mean, he could have said nothing. He could have just said, "Thank you for your apology." But he said, "I forgive you." I don't think most people would have done it. I think I'm getting choked up just remembering it.

• 31:07Nancy Glass?

  It's hard to imagine forgiving someone who took so much. Jermaine, what made you decide to say that in open court?

• 31:19Speaker 06

  The damage has been done. I said, "It's time for you to get your life back on track now. Like, leave those drugs alone. Those drugs are gonna kill you, man. Get your life back on track." I say, "I respect you even more because you came forward." A lot of people don't do this. They'll take it to their grave with them, or they'll be like, "It is what it is. Let him deal with it." But you had the heart to come forward, even though it took 22 years, even though those 22 years I can't get back, even though those 22 years you took out of my life, my kids' life, and every other human being that love me. I said, "But you got to move forward now because it's over." I said, "I'm gonna be all right. I'm home now.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  I got me, but you need to focus on you. You need to quit all that crying, and you need to get your life together."

• 32:12Nancy Glass?

  At that point, Bobby was sobbing.

• 32:15Speaker 13

  He said, "I forgive you."

• 32:18Speaker 13

  He said, "All I want is for you to live a good life."

• 32:24Speaker 13

  For 22 years,

• 32:27Speaker 13

  his voice was silenced.

• 32:31Speaker 13

  And then he used it to forgive me.

• 32:37Speaker 13

  He didn't have to do that.

• 32:42Speaker 13

  He could have used his voice to yell at me, to curse me.

• 32:49Speaker 13

  But he used his voice to forgive me.

• 32:53Speaker 13

  And I couldn't say anything. There wasn't anything I could say. I just sat there and bawled.

• 33:01Speaker 13

  I could never imagine that level of forgiveness. And I knew he meant it.

• 33:07Speaker 13

  Which I've heard plenty of people say, "Oh, he's just saying it."

• 33:12Speaker 13

  I could tell at that moment, he wasn't just saying it.

• 33:16Speaker 13

  Why would he? He doesn't have to just say it. He's got the right to say whatever he wants.

• 33:25Speaker 13

  He showed me a level of love and of grace

• 33:30Speaker 13

  that I would have never expected.

• 33:33Speaker 13

  And it gave me an opportunity to at least start to try and forgive myself for what I had done.

• 33:49Nancy Glass?

  The entire courtroom was emotional. Judge Nandi Campbell asked for recess. This incredible example of humanity moved Jermaine's lawyer beyond belief.

• 34:04Speaker 11

  I think that moment in that hearing just showed me what's possible.

• 34:15Speaker 11

  Bobby committed a grievous harm against Jermaine and still forgave him, I think in large part because he saw how much Bobby was suffering, despite how much Jermaine had suffered. For those two men to recognize each other's humanity in the way they did, and particularly for Jermaine to do what he did, it's a little bit hopeful. We can all learn a lot from Jermaine.

• 34:43Nancy Glass?

  When the court came back after the recess, the decision of whether or not to compensate Jermaine was clear.

• 34:50Speaker 11

  Everyone knew that what Bobby was saying now was the truth and that he lied at trial and that Jermaine deserved everything the state could possibly give him. So the judge apologized to Jermaine on behalf of the state of Louisiana, and she ordered that Jermaine get compensation from the state.

• 35:10Nancy Glass?

  Louisiana has one of the lowest compensation rates for wrongful convictions in the country. It's capped at $40,000 for every year spent in prison, but the state only covers up to 10 years. Jermaine was falsely imprisoned for 22 years, but he was only entitled to $400,000.

• 35:33Speaker 11

  I don't know how you value it, but there's no right amount of money. If you're wrongfully imprisoned for a day, what's the right amount of money?

• 35:44Nancy Glass?

  It's almost impossible to quantify how much someone's life is worth when they've spent half of it in prison for a crime that never occurred. But it was something, an apology from all sides, movement in the right direction.

• 36:00Nancy Glass?

  From that moment on, Bobby was determined to get his life back on track with Jermaine's blessing.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  I had a day to reflect. I went back and just cried, just laid on my bunk and cried. I felt like it was just, it was another nod from God saying, "I forgive you."

• 36:21Nancy Glass?

  Bobby was released from jail in October of 2022, about seven months after the compensation hearing.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  I didn't really know what I was gonna do.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  I just knew that I wanted to live a better life like Jermaine asked me to.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  That's the only thing I can do.

• 36:41Nancy Glass?

  Even though Bobby didn't have any idea of what the future would hold for him after being released, he did know one thing: he wanted Jermaine to be a part of it.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  Our story is compelling. It's full of forgiveness. It's full of not such good things. And I kept getting this feeling like I should write something down and put it into a book. But I don't want to proceed if Jermaine doesn't agree to it. If he doesn't want me to write it, I won't write it. I didn't feel like it was appropriate to reach out to Jermaine directly, so I reached out to his lawyer, Colin Rangel, and I wrote him a letter.

• 37:19Nancy Glass?

  In his letter, Bobby said he wanted to make amends to Jermaine by writing about their story together. That maybe sharing their truth could encourage others to do the same. Bobby pressed send and waited.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  And I didn't know if I was gonna get an answer.

• 37:39Nancy Glass?

  A few months later, his phone rang.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  It was a 504 area code, which is New Orleans. And I said, "Well, I wonder who this is?" So I pick up the phone and I said, "Hello?"

• 37:52Speaker 06

  I said, "How you doing, man?" He said, "Who is this?" I said, "You have the slightest idea who this is, huh?"

• 37:59Speaker 04

  And I hear a voice say, "I bet you'd never think you would hear from me."

• 38:04Speaker 06

  I said, "Man, this is Jermaine." And I could hear him just crying on the phone. I said, "Even though I told you in the courtroom that I forgive you, now you're really hearing it from me, from my voice, one-on-one. I said, "I forgive you, man. I said, "I really, honestly, my heart forgive you. I said, "So let's do something positive. Let's put our story out there to influence others that may have done this. Let's change the narrative. Let's take the negative and turn it to something positive."

• 38:48Nancy Glass?

  Next time on Burden of Guilt.

• 38:51Speaker 14

  When we're talking about non-unanimous juries, it's pretty easy to put someone in prison if you don't have to prove your case.

• 38:59Speaker 06

  Back then, I was naive to the law. I didn't know what I knew until I got to Angola. Louisiana is set up for failure, especially for African Americans. It's really set up to destroy their lives.

• 39:20Nancy Glass?

  Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate, and review the series with five stars. Yay! It helps other people find our show. So are you curious about what the people involved in this look like? Do you want to hear bonus content? Just check out our Instagram account, @glasspodcast, where we recap each episode with show notes that include people, places, and even court records. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected]. That's [email protected].

• 40:02Nancy Glass?

  Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series is executive produced and hosted by me, Nancy Glass. Produced by Carrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and associate produced by Jade Abdul Malik. Our story editor is Monique Leboard. Our production manager is Kristin Melkury. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing by Zach Prouto. Scoring and sound design by Matt Del Vecchio. Mixed and mastered by Anna McLean.

• 40:46Nancy Glass?

  The Burden of Guilt theme is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyB Music.

• 40:54Nancy Glass?

  And we want to give our special thanks to Jermaine Hudson and Bobby Gumpright. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app or Apple Podcasts. To follow the work of the Promise of Justice Initiative, go to promiseofjustice.org, on Instagram and Twitter at Justice's Promise, and on Facebook and Blue Sky at Promise of Justice.

• 41:29Speaker 15

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• 42:31Speaker 17

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 42:44Speaker 18

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• 43:27Speaker 18

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• 43:31Speaker 12

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