Murder at Ryan's Run: exposing the cult of John Africa
A true crime investigation exposing the Philadelphia cult operating as the MOVE Organization. Told by survivors and insiders, Murder At Ryan’s Run reveals abuse, lies, and lost lives—plus exclusive tapes, FBI files, and real-time reporting of a daring cult escape. This is the story MOVE leaders don’t want you to hear.
Murder at Ryan's Run: exposing the cult of John Africa
"He Said He Said" - The Confession of Mumia Abu Jamal
A prison friendship leads to an unexpected confession that threatens to collapse the entire Free Mumia movement. Twenty-five years after a bombshell Vanity Fair article claimed Mumia Abu-Jamal admitted to killing Officer Daniel Faulkner, the source of that revelation speaks out in his own words.
Philip Bloch wasn't supposed to be part of this story. A former radical turned prison volunteer, he formed an unlikely intellectual bond with America's most famous death row inmate through philosophical conversations about justice, violence, and remorse. What transpired during those visits would eventually make national headlines and challenge everything supporters believed about Mumia's case.
Bloch takes us inside the maximum-security prison where he and Mumia discussed everything from Thoreau to the Los Angeles riots, revealing the complex humanity behind the political symbol. When Bloch asked if Mumia regretted killing Faulkner, the one-word answer—"yes"—remained private for seven years until Bloch, disturbed by attacks on Faulkner's widow, decided to come forward.
The aftermath was explosive: media firestorms, public smears, and Mumia's vehement denial. Yet Bloch's account defies simple categorization. Neither right-wing crusader nor attention-seeker, he maintains that Mumia is "not a monster" while standing by his account. His testimony raises profound questions about what happens when movements become more important than truth—when human beings transform into symbols that can't be allowed to show weakness, change, or express remorse.
Connect with us on social media or email murderatryansrun@gmail.com with information about Mumia's case, John Gilbride's murder, or missing child Shaeida Holloway. Rate, review, and share this podcast to help others find this untold story.
The producers of this podcast wish to stress that all individuals reference in this series are presumed innocent unless or until they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law in the United States of America.
Executive Produced, reported, hosted, and edited by Beth McNamara
Additional research by Robert Helms
Murder At Ryan's Run
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All individuals referenced in this podcast are presumed to be innocent unless or until they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a United States court of law.
Hi there.
Pam :now Mumia's case is a case of clear governmental terrorism from the very beginning, used by the pawns of the capitalist system.
Beth:That's Pam Africa, the head of the International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Her legal name is Jeanette Knighton Patton, but everybody knows her as Pam Africa and everybody can picture her with a megaphone. This is Pam on a megaphone late 90s, possibly the year 2000.
Pam :This fight is not with these punk-ass motherfuckers that I heard and these fools that don't even know or don't even understand that the fight that we're waging against this government, against the capitalists and all the people with the monies, it's the same fight that'll save their worthless fucking asses, you know, because they don't have the balls and the guts to go up against this capitalist system that's poisoning the air, that's poisoning the water, that's building prisons.
Beth:PAM Africa has been leading free Mumia rallies since 1992 as PAM Africa, but before she became the international face of this movement, she was Jeanette Knighton when Mumia was arrested for murder on the night of of this movement. She was Jeanette Knighton when Mumia was arrested for murder on the night of December 9th 1981, and all throughout his trial Jeanette was there. And then, right before May 13th 1985, she vanishes. No record, no presence, until she pops back up in Philadelphia, reborn as Pam Africa, head of International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal. I have a lot of questions about that whole thing and we'll come back to that in a future episode. But this episode is going back to July 1999, just after Mumia delivered that Evergreen State College commencement speech you heard in the last episode delivered that Evergreen State College commencement speech you heard in the last episode.
Beth:The cover of Vanity Fair magazine features actor Edward Norton promoting the movie Fight Club Inside an eight-page story by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger. It's titled the Famous and the Dead. Buried deep in this article is a revelation that knocked loose the foundation of Mumia's public narrative. Like pulling the wrong Bloch in a towering Jenga game, the whole story began to wobble. Mumia Abu-Jamal confessed to killing Officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9th 1981. Not to a lawyer, not to a priest, but to a friend, a man who had grown close to him during dozens of one-on-one visits to prison, a man named Philip Bloch. What followed was a media firestorm, a protest campaign and then silence. Until now, 25 years later, when I call Philip Bloch, 25 years later, when I call Philip Bloch, hello.
Phil:Hi Phil.
Beth:It's Beth. Oh, how you doing.
Phil:Is this time still good for you? Yeah, it's still good. I'm free for the rest of the afternoon. Okay, great you don't need that much time, do you?
Beth:Oh, no, no, no. I had to leave in that part because anybody who has had a phone conversation with me is probably laughing so hard right now I am incapable of having a short phone conversation. Before I get to that phone call, I need to give you some context why this story mattered, who told it and how high the stakes were, because this didn't appear in some fringe zine or college flyer. It came just six months after the wildly successful Rage Against the Machine benefit concert from Mumia that you heard about in the last episode, and it landed in the pages of Vanity Fair, one of the most elite platforms in American media, written by one of journalism's most decorated voices, buzz Bissinger, who is also from Philadelphia. If you Google Buzz Bissinger, here is what you will find Pulitzer Prize winner, bestselling author and the journalist who gave us Friday Night Lights. But in 1999, he wasn't writing about football, he was writing for Vanity Fair, the gold standard of narrative journalism, a place where every story is fact-checked, legally vetted and edited within an inch of its life. Getting featured in Vanity Fair is a big deal. Landing a cover story, that's cultural currency. Like I mentioned the July 1999 issue, on the cover was actor Edward Norton. But what readers found inside was far more explosive than a Hollywood profile.
Beth:The Famous and the Dead told the story of how Mumia Abu-Jamal had become America's most famous prisoner, lionized on college campuses, backed by celebrities and defended by activists around the world. And then came the bombshell from Mumia's own friend, philip Bloch. Bloch says that he asked Abu Jamal if he had any regrets over killing Faulkner and Abu Jamal replied with a one-word answer of yes. There was a long pause, Bloch remembers. I think we probably realized what he had just done.
Beth:If you're a Mumia or MOVE supporter and listening right now, you might be jumping to a reasonable assumption that Philip Bloch must be a right-winger, pro-death penalty, maybe even a government agent. That's what PAM Africa and MOVE are always hoping for. Counting on that, a progressive, liberal-minded person will immediately dismiss someone like Phil Bloch, especially because Phil is a white man. That's the frame they're betting on. But I don't take Buzz Bissinger's article at face value. Buzz is way above my pay grade and my accolades, but you know me, I like everything firsthand. I called Phil myself because I wanted to hear who he was directly from him, not filtered, not framed, just questions and answers. That's how I vet people. And now you get to hear him too. Tell me your name and a little bit about yourself.
Phil:Well, a little bit about myself. Philip Lee Bloch born in. York, Pennsylvania, grew up in the 1950s and 60s, went away to college on a full academic scholarship, got involved in campus protests, took over administration building, got disoriented in my sophomore year and dropped out. Ended up working in a furniture factory at the insistence of my father and worked there for a few years. I was a shop steward in the union.
Phil:Eventually I realized I was wasting my talent. So I went back to school, studied electronics and got hired by IBM. I moved upstate New York. Actually, the purpose was to try to rehabilitate myself, because I found that I still had this impulse to want to change the world and it was always getting me in trouble. So I wanted to see whether I could settle down and live a normal life like most of my friends did. So I worked for IBM for six years. I enjoyed the amenities of corporate lifestyle and eventually got fed up with it and realized that this wasn't me. I'm just not going to be that way. So I moved out to California, went to school for a while out there. I had gone out there to study to become a lawyer, but I realized that the first time to study to become a lawyer, but I realized that the first time I end up in a courtroom I'm probably going to get contempt of court and get thrown in jail.
Beth:As you can hear, Phil Bloch is not a right-winger.
Phil:Moved back to central Pennsylvania where my mother happened to be living at the time. Actually, this was during my modern-day Thoreau period. I was a war tax resistor. I didn't want to earn enough money to have to pay federal taxes, so I was living in scarcity and working as a janitor. I met somebody while working as a janitor who, because of an injury I sustained on the job, told me that he would get me money through a state agency he worked for. He would get me money. I would qualify for money to go back to college. So I was faced with the opportunity at my age of like 38 to go back and complete my college. Work, went back to a small liberal arts college in Huntington Pennsylvania called Juniata College, and I ended up graduating summa cum laude number one in my class, class of 93 at Juniata College.
Beth:What was your major?
Phil:Well, I constructed a major called political sociology, which involved me taking a lot of a couple of sociology courses, political science courses, history courses, philosophy courses Just basically taking courses from professors who had a reputation for being intellectually challenging.
Beth:While a student at Juniata College, phil, begins volunteering for the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
Phil:There are two prisons in Huntington, a maximum and a medium. I spent almost all my time at the maximum so in between classes. About that time I was an ombudsman over there and it was brought to my attention by some inmates that the guards were inflicting beatings on inmates they didn't like for various reasons and I went to the society and told them about this and told them I wanted to conduct an investigation. They contacted the Justice Department. The Justice Department said, if I collect enough information to indicate a pattern of behavior by the prison, that they would send the FBI in to investigate, and I think they thought that we were just bluffing.
Phil:I certainly wasn't, and after I was able to acquire a certain amount of information supporting my contention that the guards were inflicting beatings on inmates, I went to the society and told me that all the prisoners are liars and you can't believe anything they say. What they didn't know was that the landlord in the apartment I was running from was a retired prison guard from Huntington Prison.
Phil:And he, without him knowing at all that I was conducting an investigation into beatings over there. He knew that I went over there to visit inmates. That was the extent of his knowledge. He was regaling me in tales of the beatings that he had witnessed while he was a prison guard there.
Phil:So I knew that the stories that I was hearing from these inmates was plausibly true because, as I said, it's been going on for a long time and I talked to other people who told me that Huntington had that kind of reputation as opposed to some other maximum security prisons in Pennsylvania. But it was during this period when I was doing this investigation that Mumia.
Phil:Abu-Jamal and I became pretty good friends because I sort of had a reputation around the prison after a little while and most inmates trusted me and Mumia found out about it and he passed word on that he wanted to meet me because actually Mumia and I I never actually went in to address any particular concern Mumia had with his circumstances at the prison, we just had conversations.
Beth:Phil Bloch is clearly not a government agent.
Phil:In fact, he is a dream recruit for a group like MOVE, but he didn't know MOVE with I found that Mumia and I had a lot in common our backgrounds, even though they were certainly different. We both came out of a certain radicalization period and went through a lot of different experiences that we could relate to each other, and so anytime I would go over to visit an inmate who had an actual complaint, if I had time between classes, I would tell the prison that I wanted to pull out Mumia. Now Mumia was in because he was on death row. He was held in what was called B Bloch. Those inmates were in their cells 23 hours a day. They were allowed out into the exercise yard one hour a day.
Phil:So I'm sure Mumia welcomed the chance to get out of his cell at all, and we hit it off and we talked a lot about philosophy, our own experiences, politics struck up a friendship and I would try to visit him as often as I could.
Beth:Phil and Mumia are friends and they're working together to expose corruption and abuse inside the prison.
Phil:If I asked him a question about whether he knew something about a particular inmate or anything like that, he would try to help me out. If he found out about a potential beating victim, he could get word to me, drop me a line or something, and then I could be over at the prison the next day or two to pull that prisoner out of the cell and interview him. In a sense he was helping me with my investigation.
Beth:Do you recall any conversations where he was sharing any part of his personal story with you?
Phil:No, actually we never really discussed his case that much.
Beth:So you didn't discuss his case? What about his personal life?
Phil:You mean his personal life inside prison or before that.
Beth:Both.
Phil:Well, I know he had a wife. His wife had called me up once, asked me questions about possible motel arrangements. She was coming up to visit Mumia.
Beth:Mumia's common law wife at the time was a woman named Wadia and she was involved with MOVE. But remember, phil didn't know MOVE. So clearly Mumia was letting Wadia know who Phil was and giving her Phil's phone number. And then the way MOVE works is that Wadia would have looped Pam Africa in on Phil Bloch and the rest of Move, but Phil would have been totally out of the loop on this.
Phil:I knew that he had. I knew some of his work in journalism and I knew that he had lost a job and he was very upset about that. I knew he'd been driving a taxi cab and that was what he was doing at the time of the Faulkner killing, and I knew he had an affinity for the MOVE organization. I knew he had an affinity for the MOVE organization. We would sometimes discuss my ideas about Thoreau and he would tell me something about the MOVE organization.
Beth:A little footnote here. The original writings of MOVE, of which Donald Glassie was the architect, definitely look like they are inspired by Thoreau. In fact, until Donald Glassie's death, thoreau was on his bookshelf at all times. How long were your visits typically?
Phil:I think they lie up to an hour Now in the main visiting room. You know, inmates could actually sit down next to their wife or whoever. But since he was in B Bloch, restricted, we meant sort of a little closet area and he'd come in from one side, I'd come in from the other side. There were two chairs, a desk and plexiglass between us with a hole with a grate in there, so our voices would carry better. But as long as the room wasn't needed for somebody else a lawyer coming in to visit another inmate, I think we were allowed to spend an hour, up to an hour in there before they would come.
Beth:Do you recall what the restrictions were on visiting? I sort of have a sense that you have to be on a list and you know some people who are Mumia supporters you know could wait as long as five years to go in and meet him.
Phil:Buddy, who is a member of the Prison Society, can go in. I can go into any prison in Pennsylvania and demand to pull a prisoner out of a cell and talk to them.
Beth:Wow, amazing, that's amazing access.
Phil:Well, they could not refuse my quick request. That's why, you know, after I started pulling out these inmates who accused the guards of beating them, that's why, you know, the guards started to view me with a certain amount of antipathy and I wasn't a very welcome sight when I arrived, because they would know when I arrived there that they knew why I was there. But no, what was good about the Prince Society was that they had to honor my request. So if I want to talk to Mumia, I can go in there every day, I guess, and talk to him as far as that goes. Want to talk to Mumia? I can go in there every day, I guess, and talk to him, as far as that goes.
Beth:So in meeting with Mumia you said he didn't talk about his case.
Phil:No, he wasn't. He wasn't talking to me. I mean he had lawyers and everything to go work on the case. He was very serene the whole time. I never heard him raise his voice as much as anybody could be at peace with himself in that kind of environment that he had to exist in he maintained an incredible amount of serenity the whole time.
Phil:and who tends to get a little worked up when I'm talking and start to my voice raises a little and I get more a lot very passionate about certain things. And I'm talking. Mumia wasn't quite that way. He was very, he was always very serene.
Beth:It was like talking, going to talk to a guru or something. Isn't that so interesting that Phil is describing Mumia as a guru-like person?
Phil:Huntington Maxim Security Prison was built back in the 19th century. It had more of the ambiance of a dungeon than a modern prison facility. That was one of the things that impressed me most about Mumia was his serenity and his ability to just sort of handle what he was being put through.
Beth:Did the MOVE organization intersect with you at all during the time you were visiting Mumia?
Phil:No, I made one visit to Philadelphia. Mumia gave me the letter of introduction, so to speak, to meet these people.
Beth:This is the mid-1990s. The leader of MOVE is Alberta Africa, and also John Gilbride is in MOVE at this time.
Phil:Why did he want?
Beth:you to meet them.
Phil:I had an intellectual curiosity. He said well, why don't you go down and talk to them? Either he communicated to them that I would be coming down and I told him when I was coming down, or he gave me something to show them. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I did make a visit to the Moot House in West Philadelphia.
Beth:Who did you meet when you got there and what was the share with me, what the experience was?
Phil:Well, I don't remember any names. I don't even know if they gave me their names anymore. I know they didn't. I know all the talking that we did was outside on the porch. I know they didn't let me inside and I talked to one person who hadn't got somebody else and we had a. We had a conversation and I asked them some questions, but the paranoia was so palpable even though I had assured them that you know I was friends with Mumia that I could see that they weren't forthcoming in answering the questions that I wanted answered.
Beth:What kind of questions were you asking?
Phil:I don't even remember anymore, do you?
Beth:if I gave you some descriptions, would it maybe help. Did you speak to members that were black, or members that were white or both?
Phil:The only two people I remember were black that I talked to.
Beth:Male or female?
Phil:One male and one female.
Beth:Now, at that time there weren't these big free Mumia campaigns. He was pretty much just another prisoner on death row. Would that be correct in your perception and recollection?
Phil:News of Mumia. News about Mumia or anything like that wasn't the kind of thing that drew anybody's attention at that point. People in New York, pennsylvania, didn't know about.
Beth:Mumia.
Phil:I would venture to guess almost all of them knew nothing about Mumia until the whole brouhaha about my interviews exploded. It got into the local papers and I wrote an op-ed article. I was an op-ed article for the Sunday newspaper. At that time I had to wrote an op-ed article. I was an op-ed article for the Sunday newspaper at that time I had to write an op-ed article defending myself. And then people in York knew about it Before then. I don't think the people in York knew what was going on.
Beth:I don't want to quote the article, I'd rather you tell me, like, what is the essence of the so-called brouhaha?
Phil:During a conversation I had at Huntington Maximum Security Prison with Mumia Abujamal, in which we were discussing, among other things, philosophical concerns about remorse. I was expressing my remorse about certain things I had done, and I just happened to ask Mumia whether he had any remorse about shooting Officer Faulkner and his reply was yes, I do. That was pretty much it. The conversation moved on and that was it.
Beth:Hearing Phil talk about this confession. Of course, to me and to you it's like holy shit. To me and to you it's like holy shit. But as you can hear from Phil, he's just like and that was it Very calm.
Phil:At that point, I mean, I never really had any doubt that Mumia had actually shot the guy. I never thought that he had premeditated in any sense. I thought it was one of those situations which I had found myself in also, in which you come close to committing an act of violence. Fortunately, I was able to always pull back before.
Phil:I had actually done something I regretted. Later Mumia said that he had remorse or he regretted it or whatever. I don't remember the exact wording or whatever it was. It confirmed what I already knew, but it was no big deal at the time because, like I say, I already knew that he had done it. Now I know that he actually he confirms that he's not. He's the kind of person who you know has a conscience. He regrets having done what he did.
Beth:Do you tell anybody about this conversation after it happens?
Phil:Oh no, I don't think so.
Beth:Because for you it's no big deal.
Phil:No, I don't think I ever discussed conversations with inmates any of my conversations with inmates with anybody.
Beth:So this all goes down in early 1993. Phil actually is no longer able to see Mumia because as part of the prison society and his investigation, the prison society has been told that if Phil continues to investigate they will lose their access. So Phil gets kicked to the curb. So you don't see Mumia after early 93. Do you have any letter exchanges with him?
Phil:Yeah, there were. I'm sure that there were exchanges after I was banned. I don't remember how many there were. I did find something in that pile of stuff that I have in this folder that indicated that I did have an exchange with him. There were some incidents that occurred. We were still trying to, I think, discuss certain things and there was some kind of I think it was the Los Angeles riots. We had a serious disagreement about the Los Angeles riots. If I remember correctly, I came down very hard on certain activities of certain rioters and Mumia, I think, if I remember correctly, was trying to defend them. It was really the first time that we had a serious, what I would call a serious difference of views about something important.
Beth:That was May 92, which I remember because I was actually graduating from college in Los Angeles that month.
Phil:At that point I could sense that Mamie and I weren't seeing eye to eye about maybe racial issues completely. I'm one of those people who you know race was never an issue for me. Going over to Huntington. I would say the majority of the inmates I visited were probably black, but then the superintendent was black. He hated my guts. So you know, most of the inmates that were black liked me and appreciated what I was doing. Unfortunately, because of my investigation, some of the inmates who had come forward about the beatings suffered repercussions after I was banned. At that point I could sense that Mumia and I weren't seeing eye to eye about certain things. By the end of the 90s I was becoming even more disenchanted with his followers. I would have expected Mumia to keep his followers more in line instead of allowing them to make these kind of accusations against Maureen Faulkner.
Beth:Can you share what accusations you're talking about?
Phil:Well, Mumia's hardcore followers were trying to paint Maureen Faulkner as somebody who was bloodthirsty, wanted Mumia's blood. She was a murderous soul, so to speak, wanting to have the blood of an innocent person on her hands. And I wasn't aware of how much she was exposed to these accusations, but I came across it. I came across it I'm sure it must have been on the internet that I did and that led to my contact with her through somebody else, I think originally.
Beth:At the time Phil comes forward, mumia's on death row and Maureen Faulkner Officer Faulkner's widow was not opposed to that sentence, she was public about it. Meanwhile, mumia's followers, coordinated by MOVE and PAM Africa specifically, were traveling the country and the world drumming up support For a new trial. Yes, but mostly for donations. Mumia on death row was a powerful symbol, a cash magnet. And Maureen, she wasn't just an opponent not to MOVE, she was the foil. She wasn't just an opponent not to Move, she was the foil and going after her. That was the point With Move. It always is.
Beth:They didn't just attack her in court or on the streets, they spread personal smears. Move and Mumia supporters told anyone who would listen that Danny Faulkner was a crooked cop, that he was cheating on Maureen with prostitutes, that the FOP Fraternal Order of Police had him killed to cover up their own corruption. The goal wasn't just to defend Mumia, it was to destroy Maureen and Danny Faulkner's character. But still, you're probably wondering, as I was. Did Phil Bloch really just say he initiated contact with Maureen Faulkner? Yes, he initiated contact. Phil had somebody send an anonymous email into the website Justice for Daniel Faulkner.
Phil:I think what I said was something to the effect that Mumia does have some remorse, regrets, about killing your husband, about killing your husband, and I just think you should know that, because you're subjected to all of this vitriol from his supporters. This isn't coming from Mumia, this is coming from his supporters.
Phil:You could say they were misguided, but I don't think it really matters to a lot of his hardcore supporters whether he did it or not. It's necessary for their belief system and for their emotional well-being to believe that Mumia is innocent. He's a political prisoner. I thought it would make her feel better, as stupid as that might seem today.
Beth:And then what happened?
Phil:The person I contacted got me in contact with Maureen Faulkner. What happened? The person I contacted got me in contact with Maureen Faulkner and she called me up and I told her about my feeling toward Mumia and I didn't think I think you think he's this terrible person, but it's not the person I know.
Beth:Phil's intention was to have Maureen understand what he believed to be true about Mumia that Mumia was remorseful for the crime he committed killing Officer Daniel Faulkner, and that the attacks on Maureen would never have come or be approved by Mumia the Mumia that he knew.
Phil:Don't judge Mumia by these people that are subjecting you to all this abuse. I guess somehow I thought this might possibly lead to some kind of reconciliation. I don't know why, because there's no real procedure in effect. I mean I don't think I can't imagine Maureen Faulkner going to Huntington Prison and asking to meet Mumia. I mean it's possible she could do that, but looking in hindsight I guess that wasn't a very good idea. But at least I thought it would make her, might make her feel better. She wanted me, she asked me a favor. She said I got a favor to ask for you. This guy's writing this article for Vanity Fair.
Beth:I know it took me 28 minutes to get here, but this is how Phil Bloch ends up being quoted extensively in the Vanity Fair article written by Buzz Bissinger.
Phil:I agreed to do it.
Beth:So I actually am going to read directly from the Vanity Fair. I'm going to read the entire portion, vanity Fair. I'm going to read the entire portion and then we can discuss it. This is from page 76, august 1999, vanity Fair.
Beth:Philip Bloch says that it was a reaction of disgust to Abu Jamal's supporters that made him come forward several months ago with what he says was an admission by Abu Jamal to killing Faulkner. Bloch says he learned of Abu Jamal as part of his volunteer work for the Pennsylvania Prison Society through another death row inmate he was working with at the time. He and Abu Jamal developed an intellectual friendship grounded in similar backgrounds in the left-wing movement, says Bloch, and talked on a variety of subjects philosophy, history, prison life. Discussion of Abu Jamal's case never came up, perhaps because Bloch, based on his own examination of the case through newspaper clippings, had concluded that Abu Jamal was almost certainly guilty. It was in the course of one such conversation that Bloch talked to Abu Jamal about the use of violence and whether it might be an acceptable alternative in the advancement of a cause. It was in that context.
Beth:Bloch says that he asked Abu-Jamal if he had any regrets over killing Faulkner and Abu-Jamal replied with a one-word answer. Yes, there was a long pause, Bloch remembers. I think we probably realized what he had just done. Bloch did not ask Abu-Jamal to elaborate and the conversation turned to other subjects. It wasn't something I planned in advance, he says, of the question. It was just in the flow of conversation the opportunity to ask such a question came up and I asked it, even without elaboration.
Beth:Bloch says he was positive that Abu-Jamal understood precisely what had been asked. It was directly implied in my statement that he was the one who did it. I don't think there's any possibility of miscommunications. Bloch, a 47-year-old substitute teacher, kept the contents of the conversation to himself for roughly seven years, but in recent months, he says, the tactics of Abu Jamal's supporters increasingly began to gnaw at him. Maureen Faulkner is being subject to such calumny Never seen that word before calumny. They're trying to vilify the memory of her husband and make it seem like he was some rogue cop that was out beating Mumia's brother. So I see that that's disgusting enough. I see the level of hatred that's being aroused in people towards the police and I think it's just crossed a line. Is that accurate?
Phil:Oh, I'm sure it is. Yeah, it sounds like me. 200%. That sounds like me talking. Like I said, I didn't want to go back and read the Vanity Fair article because I'd rather rely on my current memory, which my age is not the same as it was 25 years ago. But yeah, that sounds exactly like me.
Beth:Mumia and Move never saw this coming. What happens after this interview?
Phil:happens after this interview? Well then, I of course become the subject of attacks from all the Mumia's hardcore supporters. They're trying to paint me as a liar, I think.
Beth:Phil Bloch became a target of MOVE and Mumia supporters. His name was smeared. His intentions were distorted. Old letters that he had written to Mumia were pulled up and twisted into evidence against him. The Associated Press ran a story without ever calling him for comment. His photo landed on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News.
Phil:He wasn't a rat, he was a witness. He was a friend of Mumia's, trying to paint a more compassionate picture of Mumia to Maureen Faulkner. But like so many witnesses that come across and don't serve either move or Mumia, he's discredited and or erased question. They wanted to because before that was going on, people were calling me up. I mean, I remember the ap reporter called me up and I said and I wasn't home at the time and I called. I called them back an hour later and it well too late. We already went with our story without ever getting my side, my side of the events, and it was just that kind of thing that usually happens when all the media are out there trying to get a scoop on somebody. You know they they don't care whether the truth, eventually you know they're not looking for the truth, necessarily. They're looking for a scoop and they're looking to beat somebody else to the story you know and I you know, I was looking through those papers yesterday.
Phil:I see philadelphia daily news has my picture all over the front page of the paper and I think it's just, it's hard. I think everybody should probably go through one of these things once in their life to understand.
Beth:You can't really understand what it's like until you experience it yourself, but the reason I wanted to reach out to you is there's so few people that actually have met Mumia especially his supporters right.
Phil:Yeah, they don't know the guy at all.
Beth:They don't know the guy at all and you're not saying that Mumia confessed to killing Faulkner and he's a terrible person.
Phil:No, I kept going, I kept telling people. You know, on the other side there were people on the other side In Philadelphia. When I went down there I ran into those people, the people that want to paint Mumia as a monster, and I told them at the press conference Mumia is not some kind of monster. I know the guy.
Beth:Then what's?
Phil:I had those people angry at me too.
Beth:Then did you ever reach out to Mumia after that and say hey, like you have all these people who are coming after me, you know what transpired in our conversation. We know each other.
Phil:No, I never ventured to do that because I had read that a statement by Mumia at the time in which he denied the conversation took place. He said I never said that. So you know, I could see no point in trying to contact him and say you know, why don't you own up, why don't you come clean? I mean, that would be fruitless. He staked out his position. He's going to maintain his innocence. He decided he would rather be, you know, a cause celebre. He would rather go down in history as a political prisoner. I imagine there's a certain glamour to that.
Beth:Mumia did respond to the Vanity Fair article. He wrote a letter to the editor. It was printed in the October 1999 issue. Once again we hear about a so-called confession, but instead of two months later, this comes over a decade later the Famous and the Dead by Buzz Bissinger. We don't hear it from a priest, from a lawyer or from a personal friend, but from an official visitor of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, over 10 years later.
Beth:A lie is a lie, whether made today or 10 years later. But I suppose Phil Bloch, the prison volunteer who claimed that Abu Jamal confessed to him, wanted his 15 minutes of fame, in which case I hope he has received it. I find it remarkable that this rumor turned lie was never brought to my attention by the author, by Mr Bloch himself or by Vanity Fair magazine, which never contacted me. Welcome to snuff journalism. I look forward to the state's producing this witness, mr Bloch, after I am granted a new trial exclamation mark.
Beth:The only thing worse than a quote, unquote, forgotten confession is one allegedly born on the quote, unquote, false wings of harassment. If everyone needed proof of the state's desperation, here it is. I thank Vanity Fair not for its work but for stoking this controversy, because controversy leads to questioning and one can only question this belated confession Signed Mumia Abu-Jamal State Correctional Institution. Green Waynesburg, pennsylvania. Writer Buzz Bissinger responded to Mumia and he basically explains that he wrote two letters to Mumia asking for interviews. He also sent a letter to Mumia's lawyer at the time, leonard Weinglass lawyer at the time, leonard Weinglass and several weeks later, when he interviewed Weinglass, he was told that Abu Jamal knows who his friends are in the media and further told Buzz Bissinger that he was not among them.
Phil:He's still in prison today.
Beth:Yes. I haven't even thought about this stuff for over 20 years and if Mumia was to be listening to this discussion, which is possible, would you ever want to communicate anything to him?
Phil:I don't know how much distance is between us now intellectually and emotionally. I mean, I don't know what much distance is between us now intellectually and emotionally. I mean I don't know what I would say to him. I know what I would have said to him 20 years ago, or should have maybe said to him 20, 25 years ago. You know, it's time to humble yourself, but I don't know what I would say to him now because he's too invested. He's too invested in his reputation At this age. You know, I'm thinking about my mortality. I'm sure Mumia is thinking about his mortality.
Beth:Phil and Wesley Cook, aka Mumia Abu-Jamal, two former friends who haven't spoken in more than 30 years. They're now both in their 70s. Mumia has exhausted every legal path, real or imagined, for a new trial. I wonder about this all the time If Mumia will ever speak honestly about what happened the night of December 9th 1981, when officer Daniel Faulkner was shot four times, once between the eyes, and killed. He was only 25. Mumia was only 28 and a father of three, but he was already so deep into the orbit, the vortex of a man named Vincent Leapheart, aka John Africa, a dangerous guru. Since then, mumia has become something else a voice, a symbol, a brand, maybe even a guru himself.
Beth:Mumia is the move playbook. He's just one of many followers who either lost their lives or their freedom because of Vincent Lee Park. That's the legacy not liberation, not truth, just destruction, just people lost and ruined. Move says their belief is life. But what kind of life is that? A life in prison, whether it's behind bars or inside a locked belief system. That's where I'm going to leave it for now, because there's more to examine, more to ask. This won't be the last time I look at Mumia or the story of how MOVE has worked so hard to control Mumia's story.
Beth:If you have any information about Mumia, the murder of John Gilbride, the whereabouts of missing child Shada Holloway, please reach out. I will speak to you on or off the record. You can reach me on socials or email me directly. Murder at ryan's run at gmailcom. I also love to hear from you whether you have questions or comments or tips, so definitely reach out. Please follow us on social media, check out the website and if you could rate and review the podcast and share it five stars would be awesome. That would be great. That way people can find us. This podcast is researched, written, edited, hosted and produced by me, beth McNamara. Additional archival research from the great Robert Helms, aka my West Philadelphia anarchist cat daddy and ride or die. Again, thanks for listening and I'll talk to you soon.
