Un-lucky: The quest for redemption.

Can wrongful convictions shatter more than just a person's freedom? This episode of "What We Lose in the Shadows" peels back the layers of a tragic miscarriage of justice that forever altered the life of Anthony Broadwater.

We dive deep into the case of Alice Seaborn, a Syracuse University freshman who bravely reported her rape in May 1981. Despite her attacker being convicted, the truth took a devastating turn. Learn how a producer's relentless quest for justice and a private investigator's crucial role ultimately exonerated Broadwater after 16 long years. We explore the profound impact of such wrongful convictions on individuals' lives, highlighting Broadwater's struggles to reintegrate into society and his heartbreaking decision not to have children. This episode sheds light on the systemic flaws and biases that lead to such injustices, resonating with similar cases like the Central Park Five. Join us for a compelling reminder of why thorough and fair investigations are essential for true justice.

How an innocent Black man served time for the rape of author Alice Sebold | Race | The Guardian
NY to Pay Broadwater $5.5 Million After Wrongful Conviction for Sebold’s Rape - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com



Background music by Michael Shuller Music 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Good morning and welcome to what we Lose in the Shadows a father-daughter true crime podcast. My name is Jamison Keys.

Speaker 2 0:17

I'm Caroline Hello how are you?

Speaker 1 0:24

I'm doing fine. It's kind of an allergy air quality kind of a day.

Speaker 2 0:32

Poor air quality kind of a day.

Speaker 1 0:34

Poor air quality kind of a day, and for someone with asthma like myself, that's tricky.

Speaker 2 0:39

Yeah, it's a little gloomy today, but perfect to record and listen to a true crime podcast.

Speaker 1 0:46

Oh, I couldn't agree with you more.

Speaker 2 0:48

I might actually do a movie too. It's a nice, gloomy day.

Speaker 1 0:53

Watch a movie? Yes, watch, or are you making a movie today? That would be interesting.

Speaker 2 1:01

Definitely not.

Speaker 1 1:03

What did you do this weekend? Definitely not Okay. What did you do this weekend? Well, I went to a concert on Saturday and it was a good concert. It was a country concert. Kenny Chesney was the headliner, but also there was the Zac Brown Band and Megan Maroney was one of the opening acts and I enjoyed them all. I really liked the Zac Brown band. They did a really. It was really great. They did a wide variety of things. He's a country artist and there's a couple of songs that I really like, but he's also versatile enough that he did a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. That was good.

Speaker 2 1:41

That's impressive.

Speaker 1 1:42

Yeah, and he also did something um from, uh, the rolling stones, one of the early albums called painted black, so he was all over the place. I mean, it was just and it was great and he's a very patriotic guy. He, um, you know, he's very, he's very complimentary of, uh, you know, the armed forces, and on a memorial day weekend, that is, um, that was very nice.

Speaker 2 2:04

Yeah, I think it's good to be patriotic, especially on a day that is here to help us memorialize those who have died fighting for our country. I do think that the word patriotic has kind of become a complex one, in that some people who claim to be patriotic are overly so, to the point where they don't, you know, see the wrongdoings of our country, and there are plenty of those as well. So, you know, I think patriotism there's nothing wrong necessarily with that. But I think when people start saying you're not patriotic enough because you're criticizing the country, and it's like well, I think that's one way to actually love the country is to criticize it and to hope it gets better.

Speaker 1 2:52

Well, and most veterans, I think, would probably be the reason that they fought, and in the case of the people that died there, they would, I think, argue that First Amendment, free speech, is something that they were very serious about and fought and in some cases died for. So, yeah, I think they would agree with you.

Speaker 2 3:14

Very true, very true. Well, I'm happy you enjoyed yourself.

Speaker 1 3:18

Well, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 3:20

I'm not a big country fan but I have heard Megan Maroney a couple of her songs and I've heard they're really good.

Speaker 1 3:27

Yeah, she was fun. She was a. She was a fun and she was very grateful to to be there and said that multiple times, that she felt like she was living a dream by being able to perform in front of tens of thousands of people and that's great.

Speaker 2 3:42

Yeah, I think she's newer.

Speaker 1 3:44

Yeah, I think she. I think she was one of the artists the new artists of the year last year. I think she was nominated, so yeah, she's pretty new.

Speaker 2 3:52

Oh, that's nice. Well, well, I hope everyone had a great Memorial day weekend. Pools are opening so exciting. I know I'm excited about the pools.

Speaker 1 4:04

As you always are. Yes, I know I'm excited about the pools, as you always are, yes.

Speaker 2 4:06

I know I love a pool. I just think there's nothing more luxurious than like diving into a pool, having some fruit, a nice drink oh, I love it. Trigger warnings today are physical and sexual assault.

Speaker 1 4:22

Right. So this is a case that I had. Although it happened a while back and I was certainly around and alive for the entire thing, this is something I had no knowledge of, no recollection of. So this was an interesting case to find for me. In the early hours of May 8th 1981, so I would have been a senior in high school, alice Seaborn was a freshman at Syracuse University and was walking home from a friend's house through a park. Suddenly she was attacked by a man who overpowered her and dragged her off the path and into a tunnel near an amphitheater near the campus.

Speaker 2 5:03

That's why everyone chooses the bear.

Speaker 1 5:06

Right and she. She was unfortunately overpowered. She was raped.

Speaker 2 5:11

That's horrible.

Speaker 1 5:12

Exactly, and, and I mean a dirty tunnel where there was trash strewn on the place and, you know, broken bottles and stuff like that. Really awful, just God. Awful, dreadful. She, she, she's brave enough to immediately, immediately report the crime to the campus police officers and they took her statement and they did an investigation but could not identify any suspects Horrible.

Speaker 1 5:38

Five months later she was walking down the street near the Syracuse University campus and she encountered a man who she recognized as the rapist campus. And she encountered a man who she recognized as the rapist, oh my God. She reported it to police and on November 4th 1981, a lineup was created and five black men in matching light blue shirts were filtered into a narrow, well-lit room on the third floor of the police station in Syracuse and they were asked to turn one way, then look at the one-way mirror and then turn sideways. On the other side, a 19-year-old student stepped forward to the glass and tried to be identified for her. She would later identify this man as the rapist and the man's name was Anthony Broadwater. He was later found guilty and served 16 years in prison and the entire time he maintained his innocence. So following.

Speaker 2 6:37

So 16 years is pretty, pretty good for that. That time period, what time period was this? The nineties?

Speaker 1 6:43

Right Ladies early nineties Right.

Speaker 2 6:47

Yeah, that's. That's pretty good. I feel like now, even like sexual assault cases, don't even get that amount of time, so I'm actually very impressed that you know that was the time sentence right, right.

Speaker 1 7:00

Well, the country was a little more, I don't know, maybe more, a little more. You know, criminal justice, you know, and that sort of thing focused.

Speaker 2 7:08

No, but some were just ignored back then. So I feel like with sexual assault, you know what criminal justice you know and that sort of thing focused, no, but some were just ignored back then. So I feel like with sexual assault, you know what I mean Like sometimes people just got away with it. So I think it really depends and I think also one reason that they took it so seriously was because she was white and he was black probably.

Speaker 1 7:24

Maybe that's a possibility, certainly, but the biases Right. And following the assault, sebald struggled for years to cope and eventually she channeled her experiences into writing. She began working on a novel and she couldn't work her way through it. So she realized that she began working on a novel about the rape and murder of a teenage girl titled Monsters. However, like I said, she found it difficult to finish that and abandoned several of the projects that she had to kind of work on her memoir first, and the memoir was called Lucky and in 1999, it recounted the rape with vivid detail. Detail using, you know, pseudonym of Gregory Madison for her attacker, and the title derived its remark by a local police officer after the assault who deemed Sebald as being fortunate or lucky to have survived the assault.

Speaker 2 8:25

There's a lot to unpack there, but you know she definitely was fortunate to survive such a brutal attack. However, I don't think anyone, especially a man, should be saying to a female rape victim that she's lucky, that's.

Speaker 1 8:44

I don't know, yeah, it was an offhand remark, but yeah, I think it was probably inappropriate for sure. Yeah, so the novel was published and it received fairly decent acclaim. I think she sold maybe a million copies of the book. And finishing that, that's really that's a lot, holy shit, right, right, and basically finishing that allowed her to kind of free herself, and that's great. A few years later she wrote a novel called the Lovely Bones. Oh my God, yeah, so that is a. I love that book, right, and that was in the movie Absolutely, and that was a. That was a smash. I think it sold 10 million copies. It also was picked up as a movie and Mark Wahlberg was in it and it was a mega blockbuster as well. So that really went well to consider looking at her other works. And so they looked at the novel, which by that time had dropped off the radar of a lot of people, and the guy who was producing the movie said we want to make a movie out of this too, and he was doing his due diligence right.

Speaker 1 10:03

He started to research the novel and look at the court cases and so on. And the weird thing was the more he looked at it, the more he started to question as a person.

Speaker 2 10:17

Wait a minute there are some real anomalies here right, oh God.

Speaker 1 10:21

Yeah, one of the things was the lineup itself which we talked about. She had real trouble identifying the assailant and she had it down to a couple of people and they were so similar looking that it was kind of a coin flip. Like she kind of misidentified the person, wasn't quite sure between the last two people in the lineup, so eventually, so Okay, go ahead, the last two people in the lineup. So eventually, okay, go ahead. Eventually she did identify broadwater and uh, it kind of went from there. But she had initially thought it was the last person in line who was someone who was completely innocent, just there to kind of fill out the the lineup so you were saying something.

Speaker 2 11:05

Yeah, I just, I feel like, if you can't tell and there is nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure there was a lot of pressure on her, you know, and you know the trauma clouded her but as a police officer, I feel like, or detective investigator, someone there, that's you know there to oversee, I feel like and you know, tell me, let me know I'm wrong, but it seems like this is going towards like an incorrect conviction and so you know, it's just, it's frustrating and I feel like a lot of it comes down to racial bias, because it's just how, how, how how similar could they really have looked you know what I mean Like, it's like really how, I don't know that just that has a bad that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That's really sad.

Wrongful Conviction and Redemption

Speaker 1 11:53

Right, and so eyewitness testimony was often thought of as the best evidence in a criminal trial. But today experts are kind of learning that it's not so reliable. It's not Especially when the witness and the suspect are of different races. I bet the concept. I bet the concept is called cross race effective and it was first mentioned in a research published on the Journal of Criminal Law and Police Science in 1914. And it was defined as the tendency for individuals to better recognize members of their own race or ethnicity. Individuals to better recognize members of their own race or ethnicity and you know, at worst, you know it can be people can come to you know what.

Speaker 1 12:58

I don't want anything to do with this project. I think there could be an issue here of the movie company were kind of like well, look, we're, we're trying to make this movie, you know, and that sort of thing. So we really need you to move forward with this. He refused and they moved on to to another producer and basically this guy was so incredibly locked on to this project it really affected him, it really kind of haunted him and so he hired, at his own expense, a private investigator to start looking at the project, to start looking at the evidence and see what he came up with.

Speaker 2 13:37

Wow, this is the producer.

Speaker 1 13:39

This is the guy that they were asking to produce the film. Yeah, so Mm. Hmm. So Mr Broderwater, for his part, had always maintained his innocence.

Speaker 2 13:49

And that's not always like. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 13:51

A lot of criminals do that and they truly did commit the crime, so that's not as much of a red flag you know, to me Right, no for sure, and but, but in the fact that he was actually absolutely, would never say yes, I did this, he was denied parole at least five times because he would not reverse his position.

Speaker 1 14:15

So so yeah, that that was an issue. But basically fire detective found enough anomalies that eventually that was brought to the attention of this Mr Broderwater's legal team oh my God. And eventually what happened was that a judge heard the evidence and released Mr Broderwater oh my gosh. And released Mr Broderwater, oh my gosh. So, but even at that point Mr Broderwater was, you know, I mean, it really affected his life, right?

Speaker 2 14:50

I'm sure I mean he was gone. For what? How many years, 16?

Speaker 1 14:54

16 years. He was in prison right.

Speaker 2 14:56

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 14:57

And even when he got out, you know he was, he was labeled as a rapist. He was yeah, that happens, yeah, he was. He was, you know, on the registered sex offenders list even though he was let out even though, well, yeah, because his sentence ended before they actually overturned the thing Right. So so he, he maintained his innocence and he tried to move on with his life.

Speaker 1 15:20

But but sometimes if you're convicted of a crime, and especially that sort of a crime hard to find- Right oh definitely Hard to hard to restart your life, Right he eventually met a nice lady who, who loved him and trusted him and believed him, and so they got married. But he did not want to have children because he knew that, you know. He thought it was unfair to bring a child into the equation where you know he would be labeled, you know, or she would be labeled, you know, the child of a rapist. Oh, that's so horrible, yeah. So so, yeah, it really was a terrible, you know situation.

Speaker 2 15:57

Oh, yes, it reminds me of the the case of the Central Park Five. I don't know.

Speaker 1 16:04

they all went to prison and they were all wrongly convicted.

Speaker 2 16:28

There's a really good mockumentary about it. It's called when they See Us and it's by Ava DuVernay. She's such a great director. But, yeah, same situation where, like wrongly convicted and highly it's, I feel like a lot of it is because of that. What you were talking about, that, um, the cross race bias, like you can't like identify um as well, like people that are different races, cause you're not used to. You know different people and you know different people and you know. That's just super unfortunate and I think what really needs to happen if you don't know, you like you know what I mean. Come on, well, yeah.

Speaker 1 17:11

I mean so. So there's a burden of proof and in cases like this it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. Right and I think some the police or the prosecutors are both kind of overlooked some of these reasonable rights, right In the rush to convict someone and convict Right.

Speaker 1 17:29

And so the producer's name was Timothy Musicante and the red flags is really really, you know, kind of. He had a real issue with it. So thank God he did, because eventually that led to the wronging of that Right. Although there's a man that led to the wronging of that right, although there's a man that's out of 16 years of his life right Now. For her part, you know, alice Siebel has often, you know, said I feel incredibly bad, you know, obviously she didn't. I mean, yeah, but listen, you cannot blame the victim here.

Speaker 2 18:02

She thought that's what it was right and the prosecutor— but he should have—honestly, I never blame—you know me, I never blame a victim, especially if they're a woman. However, I do think that you know she decided that she needed someone to be put away from it and I think she let her trauma take control. And if she was struggling to figure out who it was, that's where it should have ended. Honestly, because you never. You know. It's just, it's very upsetting and it's an unfortunate situation, but you know, the police really should have stepped in and said you know, if you don't know who it is like, that's okay. You know you don't have to and it's just. You can't put someone away just because you want someone to go away for the crime.

Speaker 1 18:47

No, right, and the fact that they like this was, you know, this was long before DNA evidence, right, and they use kind of this weird kind of a pseudoscience about hair fibers. Um yeah, and it turned out it was kind of junk science and that was one of the big issues. Um, there was enough there. If you looked, and you looked with the, with the thought of being fair and you thought of being, you know, then there's enough there, I think, to say we're not going to press uh, uh, you know a conviction that we're not absolutely sure of there's, and that's where the racism comes in.

Speaker 1 19:22

Absolutely, absolutely. But and I think it's so as a prosecuting attorney and I'm not one, so I'm just speculating here. You were pushed to convict, convict this was wrong. Let's close this case. Police officers too. Sometimes they're overworked, sometimes they're pushed. We got to convict this. We're positive, this is the guy. But when in doubt, don't press the case. When in doubt, wait until there's better and more evidence. So you're absolutely sure, especially when it's going to come to, you know, to ruining someone's life.

Speaker 2 20:01

Oh, that's, so sad.

Speaker 1 20:02

Now, eventually, you know, the conviction was overturned and. Mr Broderutter was able to sue the state of New York for $5.5 million for the entire debacle.

Speaker 2 20:18

Yeah, I mean, that's good.

Speaker 1 20:21

The movie for Lucky About 16 years, and yeah, exactly, exactly, um, so he was compensated in some way. I don't think. I mean, how do you, what price do you put on a year of your life, let alone 16 years of your life?

Speaker 2 20:36

oh my god, especially the young years of your life.

Speaker 1 20:39

Right, right so, absolutely so. And for her part, I mean Alice Seabolt was also, you know, I mean God, think about that. I am in some way complicit, although, like I said, not blaming her at all. But she must feel that you know, my God, you know I was some way complicit of stealing time from this man's life. Absolutely, she was. So, she was a victim in this system as well.

Speaker 2 21:07

Yeah, she's a victim of the patriarchy for sure. I mean, you know the sexual assault. I mean the sexual assaults are just so rampant and always have been, have been, and you know it's sad to see and it's sad to see, like this, um this, you know patriarchy go and you know, also impact men as well. So that's like, you know another another thing we see with these um imbalanced, unfair, um systems of oppression in our country, in our world, you know things that you know people assume only impact one subgroup, like women or like people of color. No, they impact everyone negatively. We have to remember that and that's why we always should, you know, try to try to make life as fair as possible and try to, you know, get rid of these systems of oppression that just they work against us. It's so complicated and it's so sad to see so many victims.

Speaker 1 22:12

For sure, yeah, absolutely, absolutely right. The producer that kind of started this ball rolling has since approached Mr Broadwater oh wow With the thought of creating a documentary about his experience, you know. And it was titled or is going to be titled I'm not sure if it's been made yet or not, but it was titled unlucky appropriately enough, wow, so, um, but and then the book lucky has been pulled from the shelves, the movie was scrapped and that sort of thing. Oh really, yeah, so, and rightly so. Who wants to be involved with that project?

Speaker 2 22:54

so they don't make that book anymore I.

Speaker 1 22:56

I don't think it's available anywhere at this point in time.

Speaker 2 22:59

Wow.

Speaker 1 23:00

So um but, in the end, you know, I mean, um, in the end, justice was finally done, but but justice was only done because of the hyper vigilance of one man who saw something and said that's not right.

Speaker 2 23:17

That's weird Right.

Speaker 1 23:19

So thank God for the good people in the world. Right, yeah, that's weird.

Speaker 2 23:21

So thank God for the good people in the world. Right, yeah, that's a crazy story.

Speaker 1 23:26

It's a crazy story Absolutely, and yeah, I mean unfortunately. It's manifested itself multiple times right, many, many times.

Speaker 2 23:37

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:38

So you know, whenever you're looking at something, whenever you're trying to, if you ever find yourself in a case where you have to actually, you know, testify against someone, it's important that you're sure, it's important that the police and the prosecuting attorneys and the defense attorneys and everyone does their due diligence and recognizes the fact that what you see isn't necessarily absolute. So that's why I think that the advent of, you know, the DNA technology, which has solved so many cases, has to be the new, you know, gold standard in terms of cases. Because, remember, I mean, you know, eyewitness testimony used to be viewed as the penultimate, the number one, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, we have an eyewitness right, and at certain points of time, you know, fingerprints were viewed that way, Hair fibers were viewed that way. I'm just happy that now there's a technology that you know can be a little more precise, a little more sure.

Speaker 2 24:39

Absolutely, absolutely, a little more sure, absolutely, absolutely. The DNA and the genealogy has really, you know, probably cut down on the wrongful convictions. Because, I mean, it's just, it's so sad to think, and the fact, the craziest part, assuming that he wasn't caught for something else that Reapus still just walked free. Yeah, I'm not sure I wasn't caught for something else that that rapist still just walked free.

Speaker 1 25:03

Yeah, I'm not sure I wasn't able to find anything that because I don't know if I don't know if a rape kit was done, I don't know that they collected DNA.

Speaker 2 25:10

Well, they didn't have DNA.

Speaker 1 25:12

Well, I know, but other cases that happened even before. That time they still had had clothing or you clothing, or you know some sort of an actual hair sample or blood sample or something that they can go back and look for. So I'm not sure if that was available in this case or not. So for Anthony Broadwater, I'm glad they finally got it right and for Alice Sebold, I do feel sorry for her as well, because oh yeah, I mean she was a victim of a horrible sexual assault, right.

Speaker 2 25:40

Oh yeah, I mean she was a victim of a horrible sexual assault Right.

Speaker 1 25:43

So I hope as a nation and as a country, we strive now to get it right the first time.

Speaker 2 25:48

Follow the show on whatever streaming site you're listening on.

Speaker 1 25:51

And remember. All of the source material will be available in the show notes.

Speaker 2 25:55

And follow us on Instagram at what we Lose in the Shadows and let us know if you want to hear a specific case or if you just want to give us some feedback. Okay, join us in the shadows next Tuesday. Bye.