Feb. 4, 2026
Don't Know Diddly
Earwitness, Chapter 2 | Don't Know Diddly
In the raw hours after Deputy Hardy’s murder, Beth Shelburne digs through a story that pulled 15-year-old Yolanda Chambers into its orbit and put Toforest Johnson in the frame. A confrontation with lead detective Tony Richardson exposes a case built on pressure, doubt, and truths that won’t stay still—where justice isn’t blind, just selective.
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00:00:00
Speaker 1: M last time on ear witness.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: My mind, sir, for cross to you.
00:00:19
Speaker 3: I have a pit what appears to be a jumped.
00:00:22
Speaker 2: The county police officer shot in the back of our building. That movie he hasked been shot looks it looks too bad.
00:00:33
Speaker 4: And then I just heard one say that's it. That's all. We can't do anymore. It's so we can't save it. He's gone.
00:00:45
Speaker 5: Tavaris Johnson.
00:00:46
Speaker 6: I remember he was pushing a Drinka's forward in a wheelchair.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: They came together.
00:00:51
Speaker 7: I had saw too far.
00:00:52
Speaker 1: I was pushing a Drinka's in the club.
00:00:55
Speaker 4: I just thwo signs up and I left.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: And and he was still there.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, he'll stay there.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: When I left, a deputy Shaer working another deputy shares murder.
00:01:09
Speaker 4: Do you think that was emotional?
00:01:10
Speaker 3: Yes, it was very and had it been my decision the day we caught the people that did it, let's put them on death throat.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: The murder of Deputy Bill Hardy behind the Crown Sterling Sweets Hotel was the top news story in Birmingham on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety five.
00:01:42
Speaker 5: And plays are looking for a cop killer.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Someone shot forty nine year old William Hardy several times.
00:01:47
Speaker 6: In the slow start, but investigators are throwing everything they have behind the case.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: The TV news footage shows deputies wearing the traditional black band over their badges, a gesture that r us is grief for a fellow officer.
00:02:03
Speaker 3: We're somber, we'll say it, but we know we have a job to do, and we're determined to do that job.
00:02:08
Speaker 8: This is a very difficult night for William Hardy's family.
00:02:12
Speaker 6: The Hardy home is full of sorrow and.
00:02:14
Speaker 5: Pain as they search for asss to a cesseless crime.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: A week after the murder, hundreds of people turn out for Deputy Hardy's funeral.
00:02:25
Speaker 4: Thank you, my brothers, Thank you, my brothers.
00:02:28
Speaker 1: Video footage of the funeral shows women in dresses fanning themselves. It's summer in Alabama, a swampy ninety seven degrees. Someone actually faints in the heat.
00:02:41
Speaker 7: We are still for that.
00:02:43
Speaker 9: We all have to do what Bill has already done.
00:02:49
Speaker 1: The church is packed, but at least one longtime colleague of Hardy's isn't at the service.
00:02:56
Speaker 4: I didn't make the family.
00:02:58
Speaker 3: We weren't this case so hard and we were so determined to get a resolution.
00:03:07
Speaker 4: I was working, I didn't make his feel.
00:03:11
Speaker 1: Tony Richardson is the lead detective on the case. A prosecutor who used to work with Richardson tells me he's a thorough investigator, a man who gets the job done. But this case is different from any other he's worked before. He's investigating the murder of someone he knows, someone he likes, someone he worked with for almost two decades.
00:03:37
Speaker 3: When you got a different shriff killed over here, it's high profile and people are expecting things out here, not only you.
00:03:48
Speaker 4: You know, you emotional. You want to find the people who did this. You want somebody in custom.
00:03:58
Speaker 1: In the immediate hours after Deputy Hardy's murder, Detective Tony Richardson and his investigators interviewed Marshal Kelly Cummings, the Keebler cookie guy who heard the shots and saw someone drive away. They also interview the front desk clerk at the hotel, Barry Rushikov, and other people staying at the Crown Sterling Suites who heard voices in the parking lot followed by gunshots. No one they talked to says they actually saw the murder. Just a few witnesses heard the gunshots and then saw a car pull away. The lead evidence technician, who's actually Tony Richardson's brother, Deputy Charlie Richardson, finds two nine millimeters shell casings at the scene. A ballistics expert will later say that both casings came from the same gun, and that's pretty much all they have to go on. Police sweep the surrounding area and pull over any vehicle's loosely matching descriptions from hotel guest guests, but it doesn't get them very far.
00:05:04
Speaker 3: Not only do you want somebody in custody. The lieutenant is telling me, we need to get this done. The captain is telling the lieutenant, we need to get this done. The sheriff, you're telling the captain, we need to get this done.
00:05:23
Speaker 1: Nine hours after Hardy is killed, the Sheriff's department announces a reward for information. The reward amount would eventually grow to twenty thousand dollars adjusted for inflation, that's about forty grand today. And once a tip line is announced, the phone start ringing. One caller says a guy known as Big Man told him his cousin was involved. Another says a member of the Disciples gang carried out the murder. Officers sift through this information, trying to decipher what's worth pursuing and which callers might be pranks or people just interest did in the reward money. Days go by and they still don't have a suspect. And then Detective Richardson speaks to a woman named Rosa Hardy, and what she tells him eclipses every other lead he has.
00:06:17
Speaker 5: And she told me, she says, my daughter knows who killed Bill?
00:06:48
Speaker 3: Do you he?
00:06:51
Speaker 1: My man?
00:06:56
Speaker 7: Love hads my be.
00:07:04
Speaker 10: Sorrowst rely in this bad.
00:07:15
Speaker 1: Tears.
00:07:19
Speaker 10: I want to see remblation.
00:07:28
Speaker 5: I want to know who you are. I'm reation.
00:07:38
Speaker 10: In this inspiration to the who's holding studs, to the.
00:07:52
Speaker 7: Who's holding the start?
00:08:00
Speaker 1: I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness, Chapter two.
00:08:05
Speaker 3: Don't know Diddley, anybody that was not there when I was there, anybody that was not there when Harry was shot.
00:08:24
Speaker 5: Don't know deadly.
00:08:27
Speaker 4: About this case.
00:08:30
Speaker 1: When I first got the enormous trove of records in the investigative file, I spent hours and hours just staring at my computer, overwhelmed by thousands of pages of documents. Right away, I knew I wanted to talk to Tony Richardson, the lead investigator in Hardy's murder. His name is on most of the police reports, and it's his voice we hear on a lot of the interrogation tapes.
00:08:56
Speaker 11: Short of tolevision, Jeff, we got a shurance service today.
00:09:00
Speaker 1: When I first call him for an interview, he says it would be best not to talk with me, but Richardson keeps talking for twenty five minutes. It seems like he's got a lot on his mind. Two weeks later, he agrees to go on the record.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: Listen, I've decided I'm going to speak with you concerning your podcast.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: Great, I'm really glad to hear that. My producer Mara, and I meet him in a conference room of a local library. Hey, how are you. I'm Beth Tony MAA nice to be a too. He's dressed casually, jeans, a black sweatshirt, a US Marines ball cap, and a toothpick he keeps in his mouth the entire interview.
00:09:52
Speaker 3: Somebody when they hear this, they're gonna be questioning.
00:09:58
Speaker 4: My integrity.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: You know, is this guy telling the truth for his He just telling her story. So I'll talk to the day. Let'sty started.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: When Detective Tony Richardson first gets that tip from Rosa Hardy. He goes over to the Ford dealership where she works as a receptionist.
00:10:23
Speaker 4: I was always pretty thorough.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: I wrote everything down, He writes in a report that Rosa Hardy told an officer that her daughter had information concerning the crime. The police report reads, miss Hardy told us that after she arrived for work at twelve noon of seven nineteen, she heard a police officer had been killed. She bought a newspaper and learned the victim was someone she and her family knew personally. Rosa knew Deputy Hardy and his wife. They have the same last name, but they're not related. They were good friends. The report goes on to say that Rosa's daughter, Yolanda Chambers, called her at work. Rosa told her that the officer that had been killed was Bill Hardy. According to Rosa, her daughter Yolanda responded, Mama, I didn't know it was him, and then Yolanda went on to say she knew who killed him.
00:11:34
Speaker 5: She says, my daughter knows who killed Bill.
00:11:38
Speaker 4: Well, great will. She talked to me.
00:11:42
Speaker 5: I don't know.
00:11:43
Speaker 4: She kind of reluctant.
00:11:44
Speaker 5: She don't want to do it.
00:11:45
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get her to do it, and I was just begging her, you know, let's figure out a way to get her in.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: We need her.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: But Rosa isn't sure where Yolanda is.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: I think at the time Yolanda was a semi runaway or whatever, but she wasn't there, okay, So we worked very hard with Mom to get Yolanda in.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Later that evening, Rosa calls the Sheriff's office and says, Yolanda is at her apartment, and that's where Richardson picks her up. He brings Yolanda to Sheriff's headquarters for questioning.
00:12:24
Speaker 11: Charlotan, Tony rich and Jeffer Kind of Shriff's office. Today's date is July twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five. The time it's eleven twenty pm. I'm at the Sheriff's Office headquarters along with Officer James Branton at the Birmingham Police Department and Yolanda Michelle Chambers. Yolanda is a black female, she's fifteen years of age.
00:12:48
Speaker 12: Again, what I want to talk to you about.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Is Yolanda is by herself in a room with detectives and a tape recorder.
00:12:57
Speaker 13: So I guess the best way for us to forceed is for you to tell me, first of all, when you learned that w Hardy had been killed?
00:13:05
Speaker 7: All right, if I'm not mistaken, it was a Friday. Me and one of my girlfriends fan named Latanya. Me and her and two guys are supposed to hook cup that night. Yeah, you know they're older than us. One is twenty one.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: They called him Dre. He's in a wheelchair.
00:13:26
Speaker 1: Dre is ar Dregas Ford's nickname, and for some reason in this interview, Yolanda refers to to Forrest as Carlos.
00:13:35
Speaker 7: He has a brother named Carlos, so we you know, we was supposed to hook up, you know, after they left Teeve.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: To Forest and Ardregas are not related, and to Forest's nickname has never been Carlos. It's unclear why Yolanda refers to him this way, but she tells police that ar Dregas called her around two am. He and to Forrest had left Tea's place and we're on their way to pick her up.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: You know i'd be on time.
00:14:02
Speaker 7: They call it around about two or three, you know, be like, come.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: On, Ardregas asks Yolanda to bring along a friend for to Forest, So after they pick up Yolanda, they all drive to pick up her friend, Latanya Henderson, who lives a few minutes away. I want to take a moment to address the age gap between to Forest, Ardregas and the girls they're picking up. To Forest is twenty two, Ardregas is twenty one, Latania is sixteen, and Yolanda is fifteen. To Forest and Ardregas met Yolanda and Latania at a night club two nights prior to picking them up after teas. It's likely that the girls lied about their age to get into the club where they met. But I don't know if to Forest and Ardregas knew how old they were. I don't even know if it came up. The age of consent in Alabama is sixteen. But regardless, guys in their early twenties picking up teenage girls, it's just problematic.
00:15:08
Speaker 7: Him and Carlos came down me and we went all hand to waste in Deer Park.
00:15:12
Speaker 2: People tell you.
00:15:14
Speaker 1: Yolanda says that once they get to Latanya's house, it takes a while for Latanya to get ready.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, going out and try about it.
00:15:22
Speaker 7: Forty minutes to get ready take our bathroostuf because she didn't have on no clothes.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: Latanya finally sneaks out of her bedroom window to meet them. Once the girls are in the car, Yolanda says that something is off and our Dregas seems nervous.
00:15:39
Speaker 7: You know, and all like what's wronging around? Why we either got to get for the wrong we either, you know, it goes on in chill out, so you know we're runing around. You know, we'll tell me hill I mean, and it is molded cough.
00:15:56
Speaker 1: According to Yolanda or Dragas says, the other guy in the car with them, to Forrest had smoked a cop.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: For me, a fan a lot of hut you know bos We got their light playing, y'all, got.
00:16:09
Speaker 1: Us in the cart out y'all and did so did a crime somehow. This revelation that to Forest and Ardregis were supposedly just involved in the murder of a police officer doesn't deter their plans. She says. The four of them drive off to look for a hotel room.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: We rode around in Hollywood rus we went to the fact.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: In hand, but she says, the Fairfield End was booked solid and so they head across the street to the Super eight motel.
00:16:39
Speaker 7: So when we went light across to the Suma eighth, a whole lot of cops came from knowing sheriffs and everything just came and I'll you know, and hated everybody can at the cop.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: It's there and the Super eight parking lot. That officers tell the group they're investigating the murder of a deputy who was shot and killed earlier that night a few miles away at the Crown Sterling Sweets Hotel. Remember, officers were on the lookout for cars in the vicinity of the crime scene, and this is why they pull in behind the Monte Carlo in the Super eight parking lot. One of the officers later testifies that he tried to extract ar Dregis from the car before learning that he's paralyzed. The officer makes to Forest get out of the car, put his hands on the trunk while he pats him down, then looks inside the Monte Carlo with his flashlight. He finds nothing suspicious and decides to let everyone go except to Forest because he has a misdemeanor warrant for driving without a license. So police take to Forest to the Birmingham City Jail and he bonds out later that afternoon. Meanwhile, Ardregas's license is expired, so police won't let him drive home, and he leaves the Monte Carlo in the Super eight parking lot. He and the girls get a cab to go home, and Yolanda crashes at a friend's house. She says she calls her mom later that morning.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: Ho, god, my mom is next morning, she say, guess class not as being as big.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: That click, it's the sound of an officer turning the tape recorder off. We don't know what's being said between Yolanda and investigators when the tape is stopped, but Yolanda's first interview isn't over. The tape starts rolling again.
00:18:40
Speaker 7: Okay, go ahead, Yeah, I'll tell my mom about it and she can see Yolanda, you know how the police house that got killed last night.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: I'm right here.
00:18:49
Speaker 13: Okay, let me stop you again, Okay, because I want to make sure that we get it on the record.
00:18:53
Speaker 4: Now.
00:18:53
Speaker 12: You have already mentioned in your statement that this was a Friday.
00:18:57
Speaker 7: Yep, it was a Tuesday, because that's when they had had the hour it was going on with her Wednesday morning, around bout.
00:19:06
Speaker 1: Two, Yolanda says that Carlos, remember, that's what she's calling to Forrest told her the time that he shot Deputy Hardy.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: But if they had worn bout twelve around now twelve thirty, Carlos.
00:19:23
Speaker 1: And then Yolanda suggests a potential motive. She says, Deputy Hardy had arrested to Forrest before, and that's why he supposedly shot him.
00:19:33
Speaker 2: No, because I mean bare arrested him a found before.
00:19:37
Speaker 12: Carlos, M, h, you go, where are you arresting him at m.
00:19:42
Speaker 2: I think it has him the way he went to parison.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: An officer turns the tape recorder off for a second time. When the tape resumes, Yolanda offers a different motive for Hardy's murder now. She says they killed him after an attempted robbery, and since Hardy had seen their faces, it just made sense to kill him.
00:20:11
Speaker 2: Cut them all things former do with kill him.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: In the last minutes of the interview, detectives ask Yolanda why Ardregis and Carlos had gone to the Crown Sterling Suites, and she says they wanted to get a room because they sell drugs. They ask her if she knows anybody else these guys run with. Yolanda points to the photos of two other men in a stack that police show her. You hear Richardson say she has identified Omar Berry and Quintez Wilson.
00:20:47
Speaker 12: Quintez Wilson, this guy you look at you know him as what? Okay, that's the photograph of Omar Berry.
00:20:55
Speaker 1: These two other young black men are added to their list of suspects. This first recorded interview lasts about thirty five minutes, and right at the end, an officer Asksyolanda if anyone has made promises to her.
00:21:11
Speaker 12: The promises to you by the stags, you're just made no.
00:21:17
Speaker 1: Caving it, She answers no. Then we hear her say the only thing y'all gonna and then there's seven long seconds of silence.
00:21:38
Speaker 13: It's Charlie Richardson and this is going to conclude this interview at this time.
00:21:46
Speaker 4: E PM.
00:21:50
Speaker 1: I listened to this interview over and over again, and what stands out is that each time officers stop and then restart the tape, there's a shift in Yolanda's story. At first, she says it was a Friday that she heard about Hardy's murder. Then, after the tape stops and restarts, Richardson prompts her for the date, and she corrects herself and says it was a Tuesday night going into Wednesday. With every restart of the tape, Richardson gets a story that lines up more and more with the facts surrounding Hardy's murder, that he was shot on Wednesday morning behind the Crown Sterling at twelve fifty am. And then there's the motives. Yolanda provides first that to Forest killed Hardy because Hardy had arrested him previously, but we know Hardy had not arrested to Forrest at the time of his death. Hardy worked in court services. His duties involved serving subpoenas and directing traffic outside the courthouse. I've seen zero evidence that Deputy Hardy ever came into contact with to Forrest Johnson. After the tape stops and restarts, Yolanda gives a second motive that the crime started as an attempted robbery that ends in Hardy's murder. I asked Tony Richardson about his approach with Yolanda.
00:23:24
Speaker 4: Yolanda was reluctant. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want.
00:23:27
Speaker 3: We had to keep at her and we had to pull like polenty you know, Yolanda, we need this. And sometimes we'd have to be stern, you know, infirm, trying to shake her. You know, sometime we'd have to be solved, whatever work to get this information out of her.
00:23:46
Speaker 1: There are a lot of stops and starts, and I wonder what is going on then, like the tape stops and then it restarts. I could doll you when you go off the record with people. I mean, what what is best practices?
00:24:04
Speaker 4: For best practice? If not is not to go off the record, that's the best practice.
00:24:09
Speaker 3: I mean, once you cut the tape on, unless the tape runs out and you changing the tape, you don't cut it off until you're done. There's no way I can tell you why the tape stopped, but I will tell you this. It didn't stop so something sinister could happen.
00:24:30
Speaker 4: I can tell you that.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: What would do you do off the record though?
00:24:37
Speaker 3: I mean somebody could have wanted to go to the bathroom, or could have just motioned for a break, or or.
00:24:48
Speaker 4: Could have even motioned to say, cut that thing off, you know.
00:24:55
Speaker 2: It.
00:24:55
Speaker 3: There's no way I can tell you why it was cut off. I I can tell you there's nothing sinister here. There's I mean, there's no smoking gun here. As far as.
00:25:10
Speaker 4: Doing anything that was not above board. Never o never occurred, never happened, never happened.
00:25:36
Speaker 6: It was early in the morning and I was just lounging around in my apartment, you know, and I had my front door was open, and where I was sitting, I could see out the door, and here I see just cars.
00:25:47
Speaker 5: One mark.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: In July of nineteen ninety five, to Forrest and his cousin Antonio Green were living together. But on the morning of the twenty fifth, Antonio is alone in their apartment when police cars over there.
00:26:01
Speaker 6: So I see him pulling up in the front lot in the back and I'm like, oh, what's going on over here?
00:26:06
Speaker 2: You know.
00:26:07
Speaker 6: Next thing I know, they're in my door and they acts was to far As Johnson there. I said no, I said, no, he's been staying here. But while he asking me this, they've already came in bought both doors, so they're already in my house. They're going down the hallway. So I'm thinking, Nah, this must be something serious, you know, whatever it is.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: So this guy's telling me what officers say they're looking for the Forest because they think he might know something about a.
00:26:31
Speaker 6: Murder something or when they said murder, that really just threw me all the way to the left because of violent. He wasn't never violent, you know, Rambunks his teenager, young kid doing what all of us were doing and far as partying and having a good time and all this, but violence never, he was never violent person.
00:26:52
Speaker 1: As officers walk through Antonio's house, his phone rings. It's his grandfather and he says police are at his house too. Antonio hangs up and the phone rings again.
00:27:05
Speaker 4: The phone ring again. I answered it, and it's him. It's the Forest.
00:27:09
Speaker 6: I said, hey, man, way you head? He said, I'm headed up there now. I said, yeah, it's folks looking for you. Anyways, Yeah, that's what I heard. I don't know what they want, but I'm finna go and see now. I'm going up dead house now and see what they want.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: So he did to Forest tells his cousin he has no idea why police want to talk to him, but he goes to meet with them at his grandfather's house.
00:27:31
Speaker 6: Father's house and I heard him over the radio say we got him in custody, and only then would they lead.
00:27:37
Speaker 1: House police take to Forest to Sheriff's Office headquarters for questioning. On the morning of July twenty fifth, the day after they first talked to Yolanda Chambers, Detective Tony Richardson and his partner Tom Salter asked to Forrest to walk them through the evening of July eighteenth, the hours leading up to Deputy Party's murder.
00:28:02
Speaker 4: Suppose you doing at five o'clock and even proud little by Gaswell, who who you to?
00:28:10
Speaker 1: Forrest says that around five pm, he was getting his haircut at a neighborhood spot called gas World Park, gas Station Park, barbershop and nail salon part convenience store. Afterwards, he met up with his little brother at his mom's apartment complex.
00:28:27
Speaker 12: He was hanging out outside of the Yeah, we'd be outside of them in the little park or around walking.
00:28:35
Speaker 4: Is something to do? Any him to do?
00:28:38
Speaker 1: Just try to fire something to do, trying to find something to do when there's nothing to do. As to Forrest tells this to police, he has no way of knowing that he's describing one of his last few days of freedom.
00:28:56
Speaker 4: So you guys might take you home because you're hungry. Fish blown the sandwich.
00:29:03
Speaker 1: Yes, he fries himself a Bolognian cheese sandwich, plays Sega and listens to the radio.
00:29:12
Speaker 5: See, I think I stayed at home the Draga's game.
00:29:16
Speaker 12: I think I stayed there till he came feed me.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: He stays there and tell his friend ardregas Ford picks him up in his nineteen seventy one black Monte Carlo to go to Teas place. While police asked to forrest about the night party was killed. Others are out looking for ardregas Ford. They knock on the door of his mom's house. Here's Joyce Ford.
00:29:41
Speaker 14: Three o'clock that morning, I'll stayed at Central Park. Somebody knocked on the door and I said, and who is it? And they said Jefferson kund of sheriff Man. So I looked out the window. They were everywhere. I opened the door and I was kind of nervous, and they said, Dregul's fulld home.
00:30:01
Speaker 5: I said no.
00:30:03
Speaker 14: Then they said, well can we come in? I said I don't have anything to have. You welcome to come in, but do you have a search one? And they said no. I said, well you can't come in. They said, well, we have some questions to asks and can you bring him in when he get home? And I told him. When he got home, I told him what happened and he said, yeah, Ma, I'd be glad to go.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: So Joyce drives our Dragas to the Sheriff's office headquarters on the morning of July twenty sixth. Detectives Richardson and Salter asked him what he was up to on the night of the murder. Richardson asks him what time he picked up to Forrest first time.
00:30:44
Speaker 12: You saw him, tubes it was about ten o'clock and night but.
00:30:47
Speaker 1: Tea, how about Tom Once they get to Tease or Dragas says, his beeper is going off all night. It's Yolanda Chambers shouldn't been paid, but I won't call him. But so he had just met her the previous Sunday at another nightclub called the Jaguar. In separate interviews, both to Forrest and Ardregas tell detectives they hung out at Teas until past one am, catching up with old friends like Mama Cat and Queasy.
00:31:18
Speaker 4: Right there we were fucking with that girl Mama kidd whore out telling you about Mamma Cad.
00:31:22
Speaker 1: And Queasy, but after they strike out at the club, Ardregas says he finally calls Yolanda around two thirty am.
00:31:31
Speaker 4: So I called her till I will come and get.
00:31:36
Speaker 1: Ardregas says, he and too Forrest pick up Yolanda and then head to her friend Latanya's house, and just like Yolanda told police, he also says that Latanya doesn't come out to meet them right away. He remembers this clearly because it was kind of annoying to go long wow, to come out up.
00:31:55
Speaker 12: At day time or night. You know, we ain't got time to be waiting on nobody.
00:32:00
Speaker 1: Dectives also bring Latania Henderson in for questioning. She talks to a female officer without a parent or lawyer present, and she says the same thing.
00:32:10
Speaker 2: So Yolanda and them.
00:32:12
Speaker 7: Pick up around per o'clock my time, Aganical run free and very o'clock am and a moment market.
00:32:19
Speaker 1: All four of them say. They leave Latanya's house and try to get a room.
00:32:24
Speaker 12: I see when we pulled up at a fair via Nam. We went to Fairfield first to put them in a fair Field.
00:32:33
Speaker 1: Just like Yolanda says. They tell police that the Fairfield Inn is booked, so they head to the Super eight Motel. This is where officers stopped them as part of their sweep of cars across Homewood. At this point, Ar dregis to Forrest. Latania, and Yolanda have all independently described similar versions of the night to detectives, with one huge, huge exception. No one in the car says they know anything about Deputy Hardy's murder except Yolanda.
00:33:33
Speaker 8: Today day is July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety five. At the time is twelve thirty seven.
00:33:39
Speaker 1: Two days after her first recorded interview with police, Yolanda Chambers is back in for questioning. At first, Yolanda tells a similar story to her first interview that she heard Ar Dregas say that to Forrest killed a cop.
00:33:56
Speaker 12: Did you say anything?
00:33:57
Speaker 5: Is now.
00:34:02
Speaker 1: The tape recorder is turned off. Forty minutes later, they start recording again.
00:34:09
Speaker 5: Ris Shardon Richard, I'm restarting the tape.
00:34:13
Speaker 8: The time is twenty minutes to two. We took a short brake. We're gonna get started again. You Lona doing our break time. We talked something about the incident of.
00:34:31
Speaker 4: The for the case.
00:34:33
Speaker 8: Now I'm want to ask you, now what you have already told me during the times that I have interviewed you.
00:34:39
Speaker 13: Is that the truth?
00:34:43
Speaker 12: No, it's not the truth.
00:34:45
Speaker 8: No, did any that you told me?
00:34:49
Speaker 12: Did any of that occur?
00:34:51
Speaker 2: Can occur?
00:34:52
Speaker 7: But it was not nothing bad at her?
00:34:56
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:34:57
Speaker 8: So are you telling me that you didn't get to his second hand, that when this deputy was shot and killed, that you were there?
00:35:04
Speaker 2: No, I didn't get it taking hand, how of that you were there?
00:35:09
Speaker 1: I'm feeling well, She says she was actually there when Hardy was shot, and she's about to tell detectives a completely different version of what happened that night.
00:35:22
Speaker 12: Okay, tell me about that.
00:35:25
Speaker 7: Well, when I told you that they were supposed to come get me where I'm back, We're getting me by eleven thirty, they did come and give me.
00:35:35
Speaker 2: As the actual crime.
00:35:37
Speaker 1: Yolanda now says that to Forrest and Rodregaz came to pick her up around eleven thirty pm instead of two am.
00:35:46
Speaker 2: You know, after they came and got me, women gat for crying.
00:35:50
Speaker 3: You were you were ready?
00:35:52
Speaker 2: Uh huh?
00:35:53
Speaker 12: Women?
00:35:53
Speaker 2: You mean brought right out right on now?
00:35:56
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:35:57
Speaker 1: Yolanda says that Latanya hops right into the car instead of taking a long time to get ready.
00:36:05
Speaker 12: Did you know it's the time where y'all were going?
00:36:08
Speaker 7: Yeah?
00:36:09
Speaker 2: Where were you going?
00:36:11
Speaker 12: Okay? So did y'all go to the crowdstairs?
00:36:14
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:36:14
Speaker 7: We went, we went.
00:36:17
Speaker 1: She now says they left Latanya's house and went straight to the Crown Sterling Suitets Hotel.
00:36:23
Speaker 7: And what time do you think you got there, Little Asia, because Draco's drive pad.
00:36:30
Speaker 1: So, Yolanda names an arrival time that fits neatly with Hardy's murder, which was around twelve to fifty am. And then she says that our dregas and to Forrest. We're meeting up with some guys at the hotel to do a drug deal.
00:36:47
Speaker 8: Okay. And where did y'all park.
00:36:50
Speaker 7: On the sad not on the sack for the south right cross from where the bank is.
00:36:57
Speaker 1: She says they pull up on the side of the hotel, across from another car that flashes its lights at them. Inside that car, Yolanda says she sees three people and two of them are the guy she previously identified in photos that police showed her, Omar Barry and Quintez Wilson. Yolanda says that Omar and Quintez walk over to Ardregas's car and to Forrest gets out to join them. Yolanda, Latanya, and Ardregis stay in the car, and Yolanda says this is when she sees Deputy Bill Hardy walk around the side of the building. In the final six minutes of this recording, Yolanda tells a disjointed version of events. She says, Deputy Hardy meets up with this group of men in the parking lot and they huddle up, then all walk toward the front entrance of the hotel. She says they're gone for thirty to forty minutes, when to Forrest, who she calls Carlos, jogs back to the cars.
00:38:00
Speaker 2: Carlo jumping for the man who wants this gold is cold. It's old.
00:38:04
Speaker 8: Let me stop you there now.
00:38:07
Speaker 1: Up until this point, Yolanda has not mentioned Hardy's murder.
00:38:12
Speaker 12: Okay, now, you mentioned to me that you heard what you thought was three shots.
00:38:16
Speaker 2: But when we heard it, we were like, we know what it was.
00:38:19
Speaker 7: We didn't know what was going on.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: This is the first time there's any mention on tape that Yolanda heard gunshots. She confirms it after Tony Richardson brings it up.
00:38:31
Speaker 8: So you heard those shots before he ever ran back to the school when they will call in the long period of time.
00:38:37
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:38:38
Speaker 1: This version of events does not line up with what Richardson knows about the crime. Hardy was murdered at the back entrance of the hotel, not the side near the bank where Yolanda says they were parked, and definitely not the front of the hotel where she claims this group of men disappeared with Hardy.
00:38:59
Speaker 12: This is what you're telling me.
00:39:00
Speaker 2: This is the honest for guy truth.
00:39:03
Speaker 12: Okay. Why didn't you tell me from the start that you were late because I was scared.
00:39:09
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was gonna have.
00:39:12
Speaker 7: I just think so it is, okay. I just want to since I had since I knew of about it, you know, I just wanted to let you know that I have some information about it, but I don't want you out to know how they're the actual paths.
00:39:31
Speaker 1: The recorder is turned off yet again for almost an hour. When the tape starts up again, Sergeant Salter asks the questions.
00:39:42
Speaker 12: Ms.
00:39:42
Speaker 9: Chambers, we need to clarify something about where y'all were parked at at the Crown Stirling Suite, and it's my understanding that y'all drove in to the parking lot to the back door.
00:39:54
Speaker 4: Is that correct?
00:39:55
Speaker 7: Correct?
00:39:57
Speaker 1: Yolanda now agrees that they were parked at the back of the hotel where Hardy was shot. There's no discussion on tape about why this detail changed, and then her story changes again. She says she didn't just hear the shots. She says she sees Deputy Hardy falling to the ground right after he shot.
00:40:21
Speaker 2: I heard the first shot, and then I looked over.
00:40:24
Speaker 7: He had already fail.
00:40:26
Speaker 2: You were falling.
00:40:27
Speaker 9: He was falling when you saw him.
00:40:28
Speaker 5: Who was standing in front of him?
00:40:29
Speaker 4: When you saw him falling?
00:40:32
Speaker 2: A little?
00:40:33
Speaker 7: Carlo?
00:40:34
Speaker 4: Did you see a gun.
00:40:36
Speaker 5: The bad time?
00:40:37
Speaker 10: You did?
00:40:38
Speaker 2: Did you hear another shot? I heard? I heard three shots? You heard three shots? Okay?
00:40:50
Speaker 8: Then what happened?
00:40:52
Speaker 3: And then.
00:40:54
Speaker 7: A thigh running?
00:40:56
Speaker 2: Who started running all over him?
00:40:58
Speaker 8: Okay?
00:40:59
Speaker 1: Sergeants Alter then prompts her to talk about what she sees when to Forest gets back into Ardregas's money.
00:41:05
Speaker 5: Carlo, did he have anything on his hand?
00:41:09
Speaker 3: You told me?
00:41:11
Speaker 9: Did you think he was hurt?
00:41:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's some Did you see how he got.
00:41:16
Speaker 9: The blood on his hands?
00:41:17
Speaker 7: No?
00:41:17
Speaker 2: I just seen the blow. I don't put it on me.
00:41:21
Speaker 1: Yolanda Chambers statement to police has gone from hearing Ardregas say his buddy smoked a cop to actually being at the Crown Sterling suits wind shots were fired and seeing blood dripping off to Forest's hands.
00:41:41
Speaker 4: Did I believe everything Lena told me?
00:41:44
Speaker 12: No, Helma.
00:41:46
Speaker 4: Hella.
00:41:48
Speaker 3: But Yolanda told a lot of truth. Why she was trying to hide it by telling lies?
00:41:55
Speaker 1: Why do you think she told a lot of truth? Like what convinced you that some of what she was telling you was truth and some wasn't?
00:42:03
Speaker 2: You know?
00:42:03
Speaker 3: Police officers through their knowledge, investigative skills, history, you know, they know how to.
00:42:15
Speaker 4: Put things together.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: So I started talking to you, but I already know in my mind before you ever started talking, what happened, how it happened.
00:42:56
Speaker 1: After two days of on the record interviews with police, Yolanda now says that she to Forrest and Ardregis, her friend Latanya, along with Omar Berry and Quintess Wilson were all there at the Crown Sterling Suites when Deputy Hardy was killed, but all five people she places at the hotel deny being there. The officer who interviews Latanya, Henderson, confronts her with Yolanda's latest story.
00:43:26
Speaker 2: So what she's saying, she was.
00:43:27
Speaker 5: There and I was there.
00:43:29
Speaker 2: That's a life. Okay, that's a that's a shame. Okay, So Yolanda's line, she surely is okay. So y'all never went to Crown Sterling, y'all when I went to Super eight, that's it.
00:43:43
Speaker 10: I know Crown lives, Okay, if crownsturren myself eight, no, well then I didn't go, and I'm telling truth.
00:43:53
Speaker 1: Police also confront to Forrest with Yolanda's story.
00:43:58
Speaker 12: Everything that I.
00:43:59
Speaker 4: Do, I explained it to you exactly what I am.
00:44:05
Speaker 5: Everything you said, the trip to the Crown, we take a trip down.
00:44:11
Speaker 4: Yes, you took a trip to the Crown, so he did, Yes, you did.
00:44:15
Speaker 12: I hope so. And then you look to the ground.
00:44:19
Speaker 4: I hope you into the.
00:44:20
Speaker 11: Crown O Crownstriven sweet, No, sir, I ain't been to the groundstairs and I've been over.
00:44:30
Speaker 12: That none as he does, or.
00:44:34
Speaker 1: They interrogate him for over two and a half hours, No matter what to Forrest says or how many times he states plainly that he was not there and does not know anything about the murder. Investigators don't believe him.
00:44:50
Speaker 12: Have I given me some of the information that you just have a hard time giving me. I'll say, I give you everything that I know about to I don't know anything.
00:45:02
Speaker 4: Ye I can't make myself cheating it.
00:45:04
Speaker 12: And I don't know. I told you all that I can tague.
00:45:08
Speaker 5: That's all I know.
00:45:10
Speaker 9: I see that.
00:45:11
Speaker 12: All I'm gonna do is I'm just getting fucked. Is I'm getting I'm gonna get fucked. I don't know who get that, nad I ain't get that, man. I give you all that I know, Zoon, I can't give you nothing. I don't think you give us all that you know.
00:45:24
Speaker 4: I'm trying to give you all the information that I know.
00:45:29
Speaker 6: All us I'm giving you.
00:45:32
Speaker 12: I don't do anything. I'm just a way.
00:45:34
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, But you do You're gonna make me said I did.
00:45:41
Speaker 12: I did not do it. I I was not deaf.
00:45:46
Speaker 1: From this point on, detectives rely on Yolanda to build their narrative about the murder. They'll go on to interview her over and over again, at least twenty five times, and every time they talk to her, her story will change. So why did police continue to lean on this fifteen year old girl, even though they caught her in so many lives and who is Yolanda Chambers? That's next time. Ear Witness is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis, and me Beth Shelburne. The investigative reporting for this series was done by Me and MARAA. McNamara. Producers are Mara McNamara, Hannah Bial and Jackie Polly Karakornhaber is our senior producer. Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan, and special thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from our investigation, visit Lava Forgood dot com slash ear Witness
Speaker 1: M last time on ear witness.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: My mind, sir, for cross to you.
00:00:19
Speaker 3: I have a pit what appears to be a jumped.
00:00:22
Speaker 2: The county police officer shot in the back of our building. That movie he hasked been shot looks it looks too bad.
00:00:33
Speaker 4: And then I just heard one say that's it. That's all. We can't do anymore. It's so we can't save it. He's gone.
00:00:45
Speaker 5: Tavaris Johnson.
00:00:46
Speaker 6: I remember he was pushing a Drinka's forward in a wheelchair.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: They came together.
00:00:51
Speaker 7: I had saw too far.
00:00:52
Speaker 1: I was pushing a Drinka's in the club.
00:00:55
Speaker 4: I just thwo signs up and I left.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: And and he was still there.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, he'll stay there.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: When I left, a deputy Shaer working another deputy shares murder.
00:01:09
Speaker 4: Do you think that was emotional?
00:01:10
Speaker 3: Yes, it was very and had it been my decision the day we caught the people that did it, let's put them on death throat.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: The murder of Deputy Bill Hardy behind the Crown Sterling Sweets Hotel was the top news story in Birmingham on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety five.
00:01:42
Speaker 5: And plays are looking for a cop killer.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Someone shot forty nine year old William Hardy several times.
00:01:47
Speaker 6: In the slow start, but investigators are throwing everything they have behind the case.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: The TV news footage shows deputies wearing the traditional black band over their badges, a gesture that r us is grief for a fellow officer.
00:02:03
Speaker 3: We're somber, we'll say it, but we know we have a job to do, and we're determined to do that job.
00:02:08
Speaker 8: This is a very difficult night for William Hardy's family.
00:02:12
Speaker 6: The Hardy home is full of sorrow and.
00:02:14
Speaker 5: Pain as they search for asss to a cesseless crime.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: A week after the murder, hundreds of people turn out for Deputy Hardy's funeral.
00:02:25
Speaker 4: Thank you, my brothers, Thank you, my brothers.
00:02:28
Speaker 1: Video footage of the funeral shows women in dresses fanning themselves. It's summer in Alabama, a swampy ninety seven degrees. Someone actually faints in the heat.
00:02:41
Speaker 7: We are still for that.
00:02:43
Speaker 9: We all have to do what Bill has already done.
00:02:49
Speaker 1: The church is packed, but at least one longtime colleague of Hardy's isn't at the service.
00:02:56
Speaker 4: I didn't make the family.
00:02:58
Speaker 3: We weren't this case so hard and we were so determined to get a resolution.
00:03:07
Speaker 4: I was working, I didn't make his feel.
00:03:11
Speaker 1: Tony Richardson is the lead detective on the case. A prosecutor who used to work with Richardson tells me he's a thorough investigator, a man who gets the job done. But this case is different from any other he's worked before. He's investigating the murder of someone he knows, someone he likes, someone he worked with for almost two decades.
00:03:37
Speaker 3: When you got a different shriff killed over here, it's high profile and people are expecting things out here, not only you.
00:03:48
Speaker 4: You know, you emotional. You want to find the people who did this. You want somebody in custom.
00:03:58
Speaker 1: In the immediate hours after Deputy Hardy's murder, Detective Tony Richardson and his investigators interviewed Marshal Kelly Cummings, the Keebler cookie guy who heard the shots and saw someone drive away. They also interview the front desk clerk at the hotel, Barry Rushikov, and other people staying at the Crown Sterling Suites who heard voices in the parking lot followed by gunshots. No one they talked to says they actually saw the murder. Just a few witnesses heard the gunshots and then saw a car pull away. The lead evidence technician, who's actually Tony Richardson's brother, Deputy Charlie Richardson, finds two nine millimeters shell casings at the scene. A ballistics expert will later say that both casings came from the same gun, and that's pretty much all they have to go on. Police sweep the surrounding area and pull over any vehicle's loosely matching descriptions from hotel guest guests, but it doesn't get them very far.
00:05:04
Speaker 3: Not only do you want somebody in custody. The lieutenant is telling me, we need to get this done. The captain is telling the lieutenant, we need to get this done. The sheriff, you're telling the captain, we need to get this done.
00:05:23
Speaker 1: Nine hours after Hardy is killed, the Sheriff's department announces a reward for information. The reward amount would eventually grow to twenty thousand dollars adjusted for inflation, that's about forty grand today. And once a tip line is announced, the phone start ringing. One caller says a guy known as Big Man told him his cousin was involved. Another says a member of the Disciples gang carried out the murder. Officers sift through this information, trying to decipher what's worth pursuing and which callers might be pranks or people just interest did in the reward money. Days go by and they still don't have a suspect. And then Detective Richardson speaks to a woman named Rosa Hardy, and what she tells him eclipses every other lead he has.
00:06:17
Speaker 5: And she told me, she says, my daughter knows who killed Bill?
00:06:48
Speaker 3: Do you he?
00:06:51
Speaker 1: My man?
00:06:56
Speaker 7: Love hads my be.
00:07:04
Speaker 10: Sorrowst rely in this bad.
00:07:15
Speaker 1: Tears.
00:07:19
Speaker 10: I want to see remblation.
00:07:28
Speaker 5: I want to know who you are. I'm reation.
00:07:38
Speaker 10: In this inspiration to the who's holding studs, to the.
00:07:52
Speaker 7: Who's holding the start?
00:08:00
Speaker 1: I'm Beth Shelburne. This is ear witness, Chapter two.
00:08:05
Speaker 3: Don't know Diddley, anybody that was not there when I was there, anybody that was not there when Harry was shot.
00:08:24
Speaker 5: Don't know deadly.
00:08:27
Speaker 4: About this case.
00:08:30
Speaker 1: When I first got the enormous trove of records in the investigative file, I spent hours and hours just staring at my computer, overwhelmed by thousands of pages of documents. Right away, I knew I wanted to talk to Tony Richardson, the lead investigator in Hardy's murder. His name is on most of the police reports, and it's his voice we hear on a lot of the interrogation tapes.
00:08:56
Speaker 11: Short of tolevision, Jeff, we got a shurance service today.
00:09:00
Speaker 1: When I first call him for an interview, he says it would be best not to talk with me, but Richardson keeps talking for twenty five minutes. It seems like he's got a lot on his mind. Two weeks later, he agrees to go on the record.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: Listen, I've decided I'm going to speak with you concerning your podcast.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: Great, I'm really glad to hear that. My producer Mara, and I meet him in a conference room of a local library. Hey, how are you. I'm Beth Tony MAA nice to be a too. He's dressed casually, jeans, a black sweatshirt, a US Marines ball cap, and a toothpick he keeps in his mouth the entire interview.
00:09:52
Speaker 3: Somebody when they hear this, they're gonna be questioning.
00:09:58
Speaker 4: My integrity.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: You know, is this guy telling the truth for his He just telling her story. So I'll talk to the day. Let'sty started.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: When Detective Tony Richardson first gets that tip from Rosa Hardy. He goes over to the Ford dealership where she works as a receptionist.
00:10:23
Speaker 4: I was always pretty thorough.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: I wrote everything down, He writes in a report that Rosa Hardy told an officer that her daughter had information concerning the crime. The police report reads, miss Hardy told us that after she arrived for work at twelve noon of seven nineteen, she heard a police officer had been killed. She bought a newspaper and learned the victim was someone she and her family knew personally. Rosa knew Deputy Hardy and his wife. They have the same last name, but they're not related. They were good friends. The report goes on to say that Rosa's daughter, Yolanda Chambers, called her at work. Rosa told her that the officer that had been killed was Bill Hardy. According to Rosa, her daughter Yolanda responded, Mama, I didn't know it was him, and then Yolanda went on to say she knew who killed him.
00:11:34
Speaker 5: She says, my daughter knows who killed Bill.
00:11:38
Speaker 4: Well, great will. She talked to me.
00:11:42
Speaker 5: I don't know.
00:11:43
Speaker 4: She kind of reluctant.
00:11:44
Speaker 5: She don't want to do it.
00:11:45
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get her to do it, and I was just begging her, you know, let's figure out a way to get her in.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: We need her.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: But Rosa isn't sure where Yolanda is.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: I think at the time Yolanda was a semi runaway or whatever, but she wasn't there, okay, So we worked very hard with Mom to get Yolanda in.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Later that evening, Rosa calls the Sheriff's office and says, Yolanda is at her apartment, and that's where Richardson picks her up. He brings Yolanda to Sheriff's headquarters for questioning.
00:12:24
Speaker 11: Charlotan, Tony rich and Jeffer Kind of Shriff's office. Today's date is July twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five. The time it's eleven twenty pm. I'm at the Sheriff's Office headquarters along with Officer James Branton at the Birmingham Police Department and Yolanda Michelle Chambers. Yolanda is a black female, she's fifteen years of age.
00:12:48
Speaker 12: Again, what I want to talk to you about.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Is Yolanda is by herself in a room with detectives and a tape recorder.
00:12:57
Speaker 13: So I guess the best way for us to forceed is for you to tell me, first of all, when you learned that w Hardy had been killed?
00:13:05
Speaker 7: All right, if I'm not mistaken, it was a Friday. Me and one of my girlfriends fan named Latanya. Me and her and two guys are supposed to hook cup that night. Yeah, you know they're older than us. One is twenty one.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: They called him Dre. He's in a wheelchair.
00:13:26
Speaker 1: Dre is ar Dregas Ford's nickname, and for some reason in this interview, Yolanda refers to to Forrest as Carlos.
00:13:35
Speaker 7: He has a brother named Carlos, so we you know, we was supposed to hook up, you know, after they left Teeve.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: To Forest and Ardregas are not related, and to Forest's nickname has never been Carlos. It's unclear why Yolanda refers to him this way, but she tells police that ar Dregas called her around two am. He and to Forrest had left Tea's place and we're on their way to pick her up.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: You know i'd be on time.
00:14:02
Speaker 7: They call it around about two or three, you know, be like, come.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: On, Ardregas asks Yolanda to bring along a friend for to Forest, So after they pick up Yolanda, they all drive to pick up her friend, Latanya Henderson, who lives a few minutes away. I want to take a moment to address the age gap between to Forest, Ardregas and the girls they're picking up. To Forest is twenty two, Ardregas is twenty one, Latania is sixteen, and Yolanda is fifteen. To Forest and Ardregas met Yolanda and Latania at a night club two nights prior to picking them up after teas. It's likely that the girls lied about their age to get into the club where they met. But I don't know if to Forest and Ardregas knew how old they were. I don't even know if it came up. The age of consent in Alabama is sixteen. But regardless, guys in their early twenties picking up teenage girls, it's just problematic.
00:15:08
Speaker 7: Him and Carlos came down me and we went all hand to waste in Deer Park.
00:15:12
Speaker 2: People tell you.
00:15:14
Speaker 1: Yolanda says that once they get to Latanya's house, it takes a while for Latanya to get ready.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, going out and try about it.
00:15:22
Speaker 7: Forty minutes to get ready take our bathroostuf because she didn't have on no clothes.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: Latanya finally sneaks out of her bedroom window to meet them. Once the girls are in the car, Yolanda says that something is off and our Dregas seems nervous.
00:15:39
Speaker 7: You know, and all like what's wronging around? Why we either got to get for the wrong we either, you know, it goes on in chill out, so you know we're runing around. You know, we'll tell me hill I mean, and it is molded cough.
00:15:56
Speaker 1: According to Yolanda or Dragas says, the other guy in the car with them, to Forrest had smoked a cop.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: For me, a fan a lot of hut you know bos We got their light playing, y'all, got.
00:16:09
Speaker 1: Us in the cart out y'all and did so did a crime somehow. This revelation that to Forest and Ardregis were supposedly just involved in the murder of a police officer doesn't deter their plans. She says. The four of them drive off to look for a hotel room.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: We rode around in Hollywood rus we went to the fact.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: In hand, but she says, the Fairfield End was booked solid and so they head across the street to the Super eight motel.
00:16:39
Speaker 7: So when we went light across to the Suma eighth, a whole lot of cops came from knowing sheriffs and everything just came and I'll you know, and hated everybody can at the cop.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: It's there and the Super eight parking lot. That officers tell the group they're investigating the murder of a deputy who was shot and killed earlier that night a few miles away at the Crown Sterling Sweets Hotel. Remember, officers were on the lookout for cars in the vicinity of the crime scene, and this is why they pull in behind the Monte Carlo in the Super eight parking lot. One of the officers later testifies that he tried to extract ar Dregis from the car before learning that he's paralyzed. The officer makes to Forest get out of the car, put his hands on the trunk while he pats him down, then looks inside the Monte Carlo with his flashlight. He finds nothing suspicious and decides to let everyone go except to Forest because he has a misdemeanor warrant for driving without a license. So police take to Forest to the Birmingham City Jail and he bonds out later that afternoon. Meanwhile, Ardregas's license is expired, so police won't let him drive home, and he leaves the Monte Carlo in the Super eight parking lot. He and the girls get a cab to go home, and Yolanda crashes at a friend's house. She says she calls her mom later that morning.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: Ho, god, my mom is next morning, she say, guess class not as being as big.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: That click, it's the sound of an officer turning the tape recorder off. We don't know what's being said between Yolanda and investigators when the tape is stopped, but Yolanda's first interview isn't over. The tape starts rolling again.
00:18:40
Speaker 7: Okay, go ahead, Yeah, I'll tell my mom about it and she can see Yolanda, you know how the police house that got killed last night.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: I'm right here.
00:18:49
Speaker 13: Okay, let me stop you again, Okay, because I want to make sure that we get it on the record.
00:18:53
Speaker 4: Now.
00:18:53
Speaker 12: You have already mentioned in your statement that this was a Friday.
00:18:57
Speaker 7: Yep, it was a Tuesday, because that's when they had had the hour it was going on with her Wednesday morning, around bout.
00:19:06
Speaker 1: Two, Yolanda says that Carlos, remember, that's what she's calling to Forrest told her the time that he shot Deputy Hardy.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: But if they had worn bout twelve around now twelve thirty, Carlos.
00:19:23
Speaker 1: And then Yolanda suggests a potential motive. She says, Deputy Hardy had arrested to Forrest before, and that's why he supposedly shot him.
00:19:33
Speaker 2: No, because I mean bare arrested him a found before.
00:19:37
Speaker 12: Carlos, M, h, you go, where are you arresting him at m.
00:19:42
Speaker 2: I think it has him the way he went to parison.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: An officer turns the tape recorder off for a second time. When the tape resumes, Yolanda offers a different motive for Hardy's murder now. She says they killed him after an attempted robbery, and since Hardy had seen their faces, it just made sense to kill him.
00:20:11
Speaker 2: Cut them all things former do with kill him.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: In the last minutes of the interview, detectives ask Yolanda why Ardregis and Carlos had gone to the Crown Sterling Suites, and she says they wanted to get a room because they sell drugs. They ask her if she knows anybody else these guys run with. Yolanda points to the photos of two other men in a stack that police show her. You hear Richardson say she has identified Omar Berry and Quintez Wilson.
00:20:47
Speaker 12: Quintez Wilson, this guy you look at you know him as what? Okay, that's the photograph of Omar Berry.
00:20:55
Speaker 1: These two other young black men are added to their list of suspects. This first recorded interview lasts about thirty five minutes, and right at the end, an officer Asksyolanda if anyone has made promises to her.
00:21:11
Speaker 12: The promises to you by the stags, you're just made no.
00:21:17
Speaker 1: Caving it, She answers no. Then we hear her say the only thing y'all gonna and then there's seven long seconds of silence.
00:21:38
Speaker 13: It's Charlie Richardson and this is going to conclude this interview at this time.
00:21:46
Speaker 4: E PM.
00:21:50
Speaker 1: I listened to this interview over and over again, and what stands out is that each time officers stop and then restart the tape, there's a shift in Yolanda's story. At first, she says it was a Friday that she heard about Hardy's murder. Then, after the tape stops and restarts, Richardson prompts her for the date, and she corrects herself and says it was a Tuesday night going into Wednesday. With every restart of the tape, Richardson gets a story that lines up more and more with the facts surrounding Hardy's murder, that he was shot on Wednesday morning behind the Crown Sterling at twelve fifty am. And then there's the motives. Yolanda provides first that to Forest killed Hardy because Hardy had arrested him previously, but we know Hardy had not arrested to Forrest at the time of his death. Hardy worked in court services. His duties involved serving subpoenas and directing traffic outside the courthouse. I've seen zero evidence that Deputy Hardy ever came into contact with to Forrest Johnson. After the tape stops and restarts, Yolanda gives a second motive that the crime started as an attempted robbery that ends in Hardy's murder. I asked Tony Richardson about his approach with Yolanda.
00:23:24
Speaker 4: Yolanda was reluctant. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want.
00:23:27
Speaker 3: We had to keep at her and we had to pull like polenty you know, Yolanda, we need this. And sometimes we'd have to be stern, you know, infirm, trying to shake her. You know, sometime we'd have to be solved, whatever work to get this information out of her.
00:23:46
Speaker 1: There are a lot of stops and starts, and I wonder what is going on then, like the tape stops and then it restarts. I could doll you when you go off the record with people. I mean, what what is best practices?
00:24:04
Speaker 4: For best practice? If not is not to go off the record, that's the best practice.
00:24:09
Speaker 3: I mean, once you cut the tape on, unless the tape runs out and you changing the tape, you don't cut it off until you're done. There's no way I can tell you why the tape stopped, but I will tell you this. It didn't stop so something sinister could happen.
00:24:30
Speaker 4: I can tell you that.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: What would do you do off the record though?
00:24:37
Speaker 3: I mean somebody could have wanted to go to the bathroom, or could have just motioned for a break, or or.
00:24:48
Speaker 4: Could have even motioned to say, cut that thing off, you know.
00:24:55
Speaker 2: It.
00:24:55
Speaker 3: There's no way I can tell you why it was cut off. I I can tell you there's nothing sinister here. There's I mean, there's no smoking gun here. As far as.
00:25:10
Speaker 4: Doing anything that was not above board. Never o never occurred, never happened, never happened.
00:25:36
Speaker 6: It was early in the morning and I was just lounging around in my apartment, you know, and I had my front door was open, and where I was sitting, I could see out the door, and here I see just cars.
00:25:47
Speaker 5: One mark.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: In July of nineteen ninety five, to Forrest and his cousin Antonio Green were living together. But on the morning of the twenty fifth, Antonio is alone in their apartment when police cars over there.
00:26:01
Speaker 6: So I see him pulling up in the front lot in the back and I'm like, oh, what's going on over here?
00:26:06
Speaker 2: You know.
00:26:07
Speaker 6: Next thing I know, they're in my door and they acts was to far As Johnson there. I said no, I said, no, he's been staying here. But while he asking me this, they've already came in bought both doors, so they're already in my house. They're going down the hallway. So I'm thinking, Nah, this must be something serious, you know, whatever it is.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: So this guy's telling me what officers say they're looking for the Forest because they think he might know something about a.
00:26:31
Speaker 6: Murder something or when they said murder, that really just threw me all the way to the left because of violent. He wasn't never violent, you know, Rambunks his teenager, young kid doing what all of us were doing and far as partying and having a good time and all this, but violence never, he was never violent person.
00:26:52
Speaker 1: As officers walk through Antonio's house, his phone rings. It's his grandfather and he says police are at his house too. Antonio hangs up and the phone rings again.
00:27:05
Speaker 4: The phone ring again. I answered it, and it's him. It's the Forest.
00:27:09
Speaker 6: I said, hey, man, way you head? He said, I'm headed up there now. I said, yeah, it's folks looking for you. Anyways, Yeah, that's what I heard. I don't know what they want, but I'm finna go and see now. I'm going up dead house now and see what they want.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: So he did to Forest tells his cousin he has no idea why police want to talk to him, but he goes to meet with them at his grandfather's house.
00:27:31
Speaker 6: Father's house and I heard him over the radio say we got him in custody, and only then would they lead.
00:27:37
Speaker 1: House police take to Forest to Sheriff's Office headquarters for questioning. On the morning of July twenty fifth, the day after they first talked to Yolanda Chambers, Detective Tony Richardson and his partner Tom Salter asked to Forrest to walk them through the evening of July eighteenth, the hours leading up to Deputy Party's murder.
00:28:02
Speaker 4: Suppose you doing at five o'clock and even proud little by Gaswell, who who you to?
00:28:10
Speaker 1: Forrest says that around five pm, he was getting his haircut at a neighborhood spot called gas World Park, gas Station Park, barbershop and nail salon part convenience store. Afterwards, he met up with his little brother at his mom's apartment complex.
00:28:27
Speaker 12: He was hanging out outside of the Yeah, we'd be outside of them in the little park or around walking.
00:28:35
Speaker 4: Is something to do? Any him to do?
00:28:38
Speaker 1: Just try to fire something to do, trying to find something to do when there's nothing to do. As to Forrest tells this to police, he has no way of knowing that he's describing one of his last few days of freedom.
00:28:56
Speaker 4: So you guys might take you home because you're hungry. Fish blown the sandwich.
00:29:03
Speaker 1: Yes, he fries himself a Bolognian cheese sandwich, plays Sega and listens to the radio.
00:29:12
Speaker 5: See, I think I stayed at home the Draga's game.
00:29:16
Speaker 12: I think I stayed there till he came feed me.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: He stays there and tell his friend ardregas Ford picks him up in his nineteen seventy one black Monte Carlo to go to Teas place. While police asked to forrest about the night party was killed. Others are out looking for ardregas Ford. They knock on the door of his mom's house. Here's Joyce Ford.
00:29:41
Speaker 14: Three o'clock that morning, I'll stayed at Central Park. Somebody knocked on the door and I said, and who is it? And they said Jefferson kund of sheriff Man. So I looked out the window. They were everywhere. I opened the door and I was kind of nervous, and they said, Dregul's fulld home.
00:30:01
Speaker 5: I said no.
00:30:03
Speaker 14: Then they said, well can we come in? I said I don't have anything to have. You welcome to come in, but do you have a search one? And they said no. I said, well you can't come in. They said, well, we have some questions to asks and can you bring him in when he get home? And I told him. When he got home, I told him what happened and he said, yeah, Ma, I'd be glad to go.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: So Joyce drives our Dragas to the Sheriff's office headquarters on the morning of July twenty sixth. Detectives Richardson and Salter asked him what he was up to on the night of the murder. Richardson asks him what time he picked up to Forrest first time.
00:30:44
Speaker 12: You saw him, tubes it was about ten o'clock and night but.
00:30:47
Speaker 1: Tea, how about Tom Once they get to Tease or Dragas says, his beeper is going off all night. It's Yolanda Chambers shouldn't been paid, but I won't call him. But so he had just met her the previous Sunday at another nightclub called the Jaguar. In separate interviews, both to Forrest and Ardregas tell detectives they hung out at Teas until past one am, catching up with old friends like Mama Cat and Queasy.
00:31:18
Speaker 4: Right there we were fucking with that girl Mama kidd whore out telling you about Mamma Cad.
00:31:22
Speaker 1: And Queasy, but after they strike out at the club, Ardregas says he finally calls Yolanda around two thirty am.
00:31:31
Speaker 4: So I called her till I will come and get.
00:31:36
Speaker 1: Ardregas says, he and too Forrest pick up Yolanda and then head to her friend Latanya's house, and just like Yolanda told police, he also says that Latanya doesn't come out to meet them right away. He remembers this clearly because it was kind of annoying to go long wow, to come out up.
00:31:55
Speaker 12: At day time or night. You know, we ain't got time to be waiting on nobody.
00:32:00
Speaker 1: Dectives also bring Latania Henderson in for questioning. She talks to a female officer without a parent or lawyer present, and she says the same thing.
00:32:10
Speaker 2: So Yolanda and them.
00:32:12
Speaker 7: Pick up around per o'clock my time, Aganical run free and very o'clock am and a moment market.
00:32:19
Speaker 1: All four of them say. They leave Latanya's house and try to get a room.
00:32:24
Speaker 12: I see when we pulled up at a fair via Nam. We went to Fairfield first to put them in a fair Field.
00:32:33
Speaker 1: Just like Yolanda says. They tell police that the Fairfield Inn is booked, so they head to the Super eight Motel. This is where officers stopped them as part of their sweep of cars across Homewood. At this point, Ar dregis to Forrest. Latania, and Yolanda have all independently described similar versions of the night to detectives, with one huge, huge exception. No one in the car says they know anything about Deputy Hardy's murder except Yolanda.
00:33:33
Speaker 8: Today day is July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety five. At the time is twelve thirty seven.
00:33:39
Speaker 1: Two days after her first recorded interview with police, Yolanda Chambers is back in for questioning. At first, Yolanda tells a similar story to her first interview that she heard Ar Dregas say that to Forrest killed a cop.
00:33:56
Speaker 12: Did you say anything?
00:33:57
Speaker 5: Is now.
00:34:02
Speaker 1: The tape recorder is turned off. Forty minutes later, they start recording again.
00:34:09
Speaker 5: Ris Shardon Richard, I'm restarting the tape.
00:34:13
Speaker 8: The time is twenty minutes to two. We took a short brake. We're gonna get started again. You Lona doing our break time. We talked something about the incident of.
00:34:31
Speaker 4: The for the case.
00:34:33
Speaker 8: Now I'm want to ask you, now what you have already told me during the times that I have interviewed you.
00:34:39
Speaker 13: Is that the truth?
00:34:43
Speaker 12: No, it's not the truth.
00:34:45
Speaker 8: No, did any that you told me?
00:34:49
Speaker 12: Did any of that occur?
00:34:51
Speaker 2: Can occur?
00:34:52
Speaker 7: But it was not nothing bad at her?
00:34:56
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:34:57
Speaker 8: So are you telling me that you didn't get to his second hand, that when this deputy was shot and killed, that you were there?
00:35:04
Speaker 2: No, I didn't get it taking hand, how of that you were there?
00:35:09
Speaker 1: I'm feeling well, She says she was actually there when Hardy was shot, and she's about to tell detectives a completely different version of what happened that night.
00:35:22
Speaker 12: Okay, tell me about that.
00:35:25
Speaker 7: Well, when I told you that they were supposed to come get me where I'm back, We're getting me by eleven thirty, they did come and give me.
00:35:35
Speaker 2: As the actual crime.
00:35:37
Speaker 1: Yolanda now says that to Forrest and Rodregaz came to pick her up around eleven thirty pm instead of two am.
00:35:46
Speaker 2: You know, after they came and got me, women gat for crying.
00:35:50
Speaker 3: You were you were ready?
00:35:52
Speaker 2: Uh huh?
00:35:53
Speaker 12: Women?
00:35:53
Speaker 2: You mean brought right out right on now?
00:35:56
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:35:57
Speaker 1: Yolanda says that Latanya hops right into the car instead of taking a long time to get ready.
00:36:05
Speaker 12: Did you know it's the time where y'all were going?
00:36:08
Speaker 7: Yeah?
00:36:09
Speaker 2: Where were you going?
00:36:11
Speaker 12: Okay? So did y'all go to the crowdstairs?
00:36:14
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:36:14
Speaker 7: We went, we went.
00:36:17
Speaker 1: She now says they left Latanya's house and went straight to the Crown Sterling Suitets Hotel.
00:36:23
Speaker 7: And what time do you think you got there, Little Asia, because Draco's drive pad.
00:36:30
Speaker 1: So, Yolanda names an arrival time that fits neatly with Hardy's murder, which was around twelve to fifty am. And then she says that our dregas and to Forrest. We're meeting up with some guys at the hotel to do a drug deal.
00:36:47
Speaker 8: Okay. And where did y'all park.
00:36:50
Speaker 7: On the sad not on the sack for the south right cross from where the bank is.
00:36:57
Speaker 1: She says they pull up on the side of the hotel, across from another car that flashes its lights at them. Inside that car, Yolanda says she sees three people and two of them are the guy she previously identified in photos that police showed her, Omar Barry and Quintez Wilson. Yolanda says that Omar and Quintez walk over to Ardregas's car and to Forrest gets out to join them. Yolanda, Latanya, and Ardregis stay in the car, and Yolanda says this is when she sees Deputy Bill Hardy walk around the side of the building. In the final six minutes of this recording, Yolanda tells a disjointed version of events. She says, Deputy Hardy meets up with this group of men in the parking lot and they huddle up, then all walk toward the front entrance of the hotel. She says they're gone for thirty to forty minutes, when to Forrest, who she calls Carlos, jogs back to the cars.
00:38:00
Speaker 2: Carlo jumping for the man who wants this gold is cold. It's old.
00:38:04
Speaker 8: Let me stop you there now.
00:38:07
Speaker 1: Up until this point, Yolanda has not mentioned Hardy's murder.
00:38:12
Speaker 12: Okay, now, you mentioned to me that you heard what you thought was three shots.
00:38:16
Speaker 2: But when we heard it, we were like, we know what it was.
00:38:19
Speaker 7: We didn't know what was going on.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: This is the first time there's any mention on tape that Yolanda heard gunshots. She confirms it after Tony Richardson brings it up.
00:38:31
Speaker 8: So you heard those shots before he ever ran back to the school when they will call in the long period of time.
00:38:37
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:38:38
Speaker 1: This version of events does not line up with what Richardson knows about the crime. Hardy was murdered at the back entrance of the hotel, not the side near the bank where Yolanda says they were parked, and definitely not the front of the hotel where she claims this group of men disappeared with Hardy.
00:38:59
Speaker 12: This is what you're telling me.
00:39:00
Speaker 2: This is the honest for guy truth.
00:39:03
Speaker 12: Okay. Why didn't you tell me from the start that you were late because I was scared.
00:39:09
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was gonna have.
00:39:12
Speaker 7: I just think so it is, okay. I just want to since I had since I knew of about it, you know, I just wanted to let you know that I have some information about it, but I don't want you out to know how they're the actual paths.
00:39:31
Speaker 1: The recorder is turned off yet again for almost an hour. When the tape starts up again, Sergeant Salter asks the questions.
00:39:42
Speaker 12: Ms.
00:39:42
Speaker 9: Chambers, we need to clarify something about where y'all were parked at at the Crown Stirling Suite, and it's my understanding that y'all drove in to the parking lot to the back door.
00:39:54
Speaker 4: Is that correct?
00:39:55
Speaker 7: Correct?
00:39:57
Speaker 1: Yolanda now agrees that they were parked at the back of the hotel where Hardy was shot. There's no discussion on tape about why this detail changed, and then her story changes again. She says she didn't just hear the shots. She says she sees Deputy Hardy falling to the ground right after he shot.
00:40:21
Speaker 2: I heard the first shot, and then I looked over.
00:40:24
Speaker 7: He had already fail.
00:40:26
Speaker 2: You were falling.
00:40:27
Speaker 9: He was falling when you saw him.
00:40:28
Speaker 5: Who was standing in front of him?
00:40:29
Speaker 4: When you saw him falling?
00:40:32
Speaker 2: A little?
00:40:33
Speaker 7: Carlo?
00:40:34
Speaker 4: Did you see a gun.
00:40:36
Speaker 5: The bad time?
00:40:37
Speaker 10: You did?
00:40:38
Speaker 2: Did you hear another shot? I heard? I heard three shots? You heard three shots? Okay?
00:40:50
Speaker 8: Then what happened?
00:40:52
Speaker 3: And then.
00:40:54
Speaker 7: A thigh running?
00:40:56
Speaker 2: Who started running all over him?
00:40:58
Speaker 8: Okay?
00:40:59
Speaker 1: Sergeants Alter then prompts her to talk about what she sees when to Forest gets back into Ardregas's money.
00:41:05
Speaker 5: Carlo, did he have anything on his hand?
00:41:09
Speaker 3: You told me?
00:41:11
Speaker 9: Did you think he was hurt?
00:41:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's some Did you see how he got.
00:41:16
Speaker 9: The blood on his hands?
00:41:17
Speaker 7: No?
00:41:17
Speaker 2: I just seen the blow. I don't put it on me.
00:41:21
Speaker 1: Yolanda Chambers statement to police has gone from hearing Ardregas say his buddy smoked a cop to actually being at the Crown Sterling suits wind shots were fired and seeing blood dripping off to Forest's hands.
00:41:41
Speaker 4: Did I believe everything Lena told me?
00:41:44
Speaker 12: No, Helma.
00:41:46
Speaker 4: Hella.
00:41:48
Speaker 3: But Yolanda told a lot of truth. Why she was trying to hide it by telling lies?
00:41:55
Speaker 1: Why do you think she told a lot of truth? Like what convinced you that some of what she was telling you was truth and some wasn't?
00:42:03
Speaker 2: You know?
00:42:03
Speaker 3: Police officers through their knowledge, investigative skills, history, you know, they know how to.
00:42:15
Speaker 4: Put things together.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: So I started talking to you, but I already know in my mind before you ever started talking, what happened, how it happened.
00:42:56
Speaker 1: After two days of on the record interviews with police, Yolanda now says that she to Forrest and Ardregis, her friend Latanya, along with Omar Berry and Quintess Wilson were all there at the Crown Sterling Suites when Deputy Hardy was killed, but all five people she places at the hotel deny being there. The officer who interviews Latanya, Henderson, confronts her with Yolanda's latest story.
00:43:26
Speaker 2: So what she's saying, she was.
00:43:27
Speaker 5: There and I was there.
00:43:29
Speaker 2: That's a life. Okay, that's a that's a shame. Okay, So Yolanda's line, she surely is okay. So y'all never went to Crown Sterling, y'all when I went to Super eight, that's it.
00:43:43
Speaker 10: I know Crown lives, Okay, if crownsturren myself eight, no, well then I didn't go, and I'm telling truth.
00:43:53
Speaker 1: Police also confront to Forrest with Yolanda's story.
00:43:58
Speaker 12: Everything that I.
00:43:59
Speaker 4: Do, I explained it to you exactly what I am.
00:44:05
Speaker 5: Everything you said, the trip to the Crown, we take a trip down.
00:44:11
Speaker 4: Yes, you took a trip to the Crown, so he did, Yes, you did.
00:44:15
Speaker 12: I hope so. And then you look to the ground.
00:44:19
Speaker 4: I hope you into the.
00:44:20
Speaker 11: Crown O Crownstriven sweet, No, sir, I ain't been to the groundstairs and I've been over.
00:44:30
Speaker 12: That none as he does, or.
00:44:34
Speaker 1: They interrogate him for over two and a half hours, No matter what to Forrest says or how many times he states plainly that he was not there and does not know anything about the murder. Investigators don't believe him.
00:44:50
Speaker 12: Have I given me some of the information that you just have a hard time giving me. I'll say, I give you everything that I know about to I don't know anything.
00:45:02
Speaker 4: Ye I can't make myself cheating it.
00:45:04
Speaker 12: And I don't know. I told you all that I can tague.
00:45:08
Speaker 5: That's all I know.
00:45:10
Speaker 9: I see that.
00:45:11
Speaker 12: All I'm gonna do is I'm just getting fucked. Is I'm getting I'm gonna get fucked. I don't know who get that, nad I ain't get that, man. I give you all that I know, Zoon, I can't give you nothing. I don't think you give us all that you know.
00:45:24
Speaker 4: I'm trying to give you all the information that I know.
00:45:29
Speaker 6: All us I'm giving you.
00:45:32
Speaker 12: I don't do anything. I'm just a way.
00:45:34
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, But you do You're gonna make me said I did.
00:45:41
Speaker 12: I did not do it. I I was not deaf.
00:45:46
Speaker 1: From this point on, detectives rely on Yolanda to build their narrative about the murder. They'll go on to interview her over and over again, at least twenty five times, and every time they talk to her, her story will change. So why did police continue to lean on this fifteen year old girl, even though they caught her in so many lives and who is Yolanda Chambers? That's next time. Ear Witness is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis, and me Beth Shelburne. The investigative reporting for this series was done by Me and MARAA. McNamara. Producers are Mara McNamara, Hannah Bial and Jackie Polly Karakornhaber is our senior producer. Britt Spangler is our sound designer. Additional story editing from Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan, and special thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team. You can follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good. To see behind the scenes content from our investigation, visit Lava Forgood dot com slash ear Witness
