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Inspiring Voices - Herbert Murray

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98 pages

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It all started on June 27, 1979, when approximately seven detectives banged on my door, guns drawn. When my common-law wife, Jackie, answered the door, they burst in, yelling, Where is Herbert Murray? When I came into the room, they grabbed me, threw me against the wall, put a gun to my head, and told me I was under arrest for murder. In the background, I could hear my thirteen-month-old daughter, Tane, crying like crazy. Those detectives didnt have any regard for our livesnot my daughters, Jackies, or mine. It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life. When I asked them what they were talking about, they told me to Shut up. I was taken to the eighty-eighth precinct, located on DeKalb and Classon Avenues. They took me to the interrogation room, where they questioned me about a murder that took place two weeks before, on June 13, 1979. Can you imagine how confused I was? I was being charged for a murder I had no clue about. It seemed absolutely crazy. They were putting so much pressure on me that I couldnt even think. I had to think about two Wednesdays ago. When the detectives asked me where was I on June 13, I told them I was with a housing police officer and four others: Vincent Brown, Ronnie Cook, Junior Washington, and Andrew Lambus. When I told him I was with a police officer, the detective left the room and came back about ten minutes later. See the author in the video: The Innocent Prisoners Dilemma on NYTimes.com (2010).

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Lettres et linguistique

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Publié par	Inspiring Voices
Date de parution	26 janvier 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781462410941
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0240€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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STANDING TALL IN TIMES SQUARE
HERBERT MURRAY

Copyright © 2015 Herbert Murray.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Inspiring Voices
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.inspiringvoices.com
1 (866) 697-5313

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4624-1093-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-1094-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922421

Inspiring Voices rev. date: 01/26/2015
CONTENTS
The Nightmare
My Upbringing
The Connection
The Courts
The Indictment
The Wade And Bail Reduction Hearing
The Trial
The Second Trial
Sing Sing
The Auburn Correctional Facility
The Eastern Correction Facility
Attica Correctional Facility
Second Time In Auburn
Oneida Correctional Facility
First Parole Board Appearance
Fishkill Correctional Facility
Second Parole Board Appearance (1996)
Third And Fourth Parole Board Appearances
Fifth And Sixth Parole Board Appearances
Otisville Correctional Facility
Freedom At Last
Welcome Home
The Job Search
The Physical Transition
The Mental Transition

“It is the character of growth that we should learn from pleasant and unpleasant experiences.”
—Nelson Mandela
November 1997

THE NIGHTMARE
It all started on June 27, 1979, when approximately seven detectives banged on my door, guns drawn. When my common-law wife, Jackie, answered the door, they burst in, yelling, “Where is Herbert Murray?” When I came into the room, they grabbed me, threw me against the wall, put a gun to my head, and told me I was under arrest for murder. In the background, I could hear my thirteen-month-old daughter, Taneé, crying like crazy. Those detectives didn’t have any regard for our lives—not my daughter’s, Jackie’s, or mine. It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life. When I asked them what they were talking about, they told me to “Shut up.”
I was taken to the Eighty-eighth Precinct, located on DeKalb and Classon Avenues. They took me to the interrogation room, where they questioned me about a murder that took place two weeks before on June 13, 1979. Can you imagine how confused I was? I was being charged for a murder I had no clue about. It seemed absolutely crazy. They were putting so much pressure on me that I couldn’t even think.
I had to think about two Wednesdays ago. When the detectives asked me where I was on June 13, I told them I was with a housing police officer and four others: Vincent Brown, Ronnie Cook, Junior Washington, and Andrew Lambus. When I told him I was with a police officer, the detective left the room and came back about ten minutes later. He came over to me, smacked me in the face, and told me never to lie about a fellow police officer. That made me more confused. If I wasn’t with the housing officer and the other four guys, then it had to be the other Wednesday when I went to the bank and withdrew $40 so that I could purchase a bike a friend was selling. The detectives didn’t want to believe anything I had to say. The only thing they were concerned with was finding evidence to use against me when I went to court.
After they questioned me, they called in the assistant district attorney (ADA) to question me about the murder. I believe his name was Gallo. He gave me a little more information about what was going on. Gallo first asked me the same questions the detectives asked me. Then he asked me if I knew Joseph Hartman.
Wow, Joseph Hartman!
I knew him as Jo Jo. We grew up together. He knew my whole family, and I knew his. We went to public school together. Jo Jo was a little older than me; he was in the same age group as my brother. When I was sixteen, Jo Jo and I and four others were arrested for a small-time robbery on school grounds. The court gave each of us five years’ probation. That crime took place in 1974 but played a big role in why I was being charged with murder. At that time, none of this made any sense. I was twenty-one years old, but mentally I may have been on a third-grade level. I couldn’t read or write. I was so scared and confused I didn’t know what to do.
ADA Gallo said Jo Jo supposedly claimed I was with him on the day of the murder. I told the ADA that if Jo Jo told him that, he was a liar. ADA Gallo was confusing me even more. I was sure he was trying to intimidate me so I would cooperate with him. He was trying to get me to incriminate myself, so he could use everything I said against me in court. He was a smooth guy. The only thing he was concerned with was getting a conviction when he took me in front of the judge.
As I mentioned before, I had to remember what I was doing two Wednesdays before. When I told ADA Gallo about the two stories, he tried to use it against me. He kept telling me I was lying, but I stuck to my story. Finally, he charged me with murder in the second degree. The detectives took me to central booking where I was fingerprinted. They took my picture and did the paperwork so I could appear in court the next day. The detectives then took me to the Brooklyn House of Detention where I was locked up for a murder I did not commit.
As soon as I got the opportunity, I called my friend, the housing police officer. He told me no detective called him and verified I was with him and the others on June 13, 1979. I was furious!
Let me back up little. ADA Gallo told me this was a drug-related murder. Jo Jo and I were allegedly looking for drugs and ran into a guy named Marty, who was selling us drugs. I guess Marty said Jo Jo didn’t have enough money, and Jo Jo told Marty he would be back. A half hour later, Jo Jo and I allegedly came back to buy the drugs. I later learned Jo Jo was hanging out with my brother that day. After the murder, someone identified Jo Jo at the scene of the crime. This witness said he knew Jo Jo and gave a description of the other person he saw with him that day.
But I had stopped hanging out with Jo Jo back in 1974 after we were arrested as teenagers.

MY UPBRINGING
I grew up in one the roughest neighborhoods in New York City—Fort Greene, Brooklyn. My mother had seven boys and five girls. Hamilton was my mother’s married name, and Murray was my mother’s maiden name. Carolyn, Barbara, Debra, Michael, Anthony, and Jerome were Hamiltons. Calvin, Darlene, Steve, Cathy, Joseph, and I were Murrays. Everyone in the neighborhood knew my family, especially my brothers, because they were all fighters.
My mother was a very strong woman. To raise seven boys and five girls, she had to be. I remember my mother in the kitchen all day long. Everything was going, all the eyes on the stove burning and gospel music playing. She would be singing one minute and yelling at us the next. Everyone had to be home by the time the streetlights came on. If you weren’t home by then, you wouldn’t eat for the night. Yes, we all tried sneaking in the kitchen when we thought Mama was sleeping. Her room was right below the kitchen, and the floors were squeaky, so she heard everything that went on in there. She got out of her bed to enforce the no-kitchen rule, it was that important.
My mother didn’t take mess from any of us. Everybody was scared of her, because she was a no-nonsense person. She didn’t play games. She would pick up the closest thing to her and bust you in the head with it. I remember one day when I spoke back to Mama. I guess I was trying her because I thought I was grown. She picked up a broom and knocked me upside my head. That was the last time I spoke back to Mama in that tone. Mama was really hard on me, because she thought I was the slick one who got away with a lot.
My brother Steve and I looked so much alike growing up that Mama used to mistake him for me. Steve used to take my beatings, because I switched beds with him when I knew Mama was going to come after me when I did something wrong. Sure enough, Mama would try to sneak up those stairs. I always knew when she was coming, because I heard those squeaky stairs. I immediately hid in the bathroom. The next thing I heard was Steve crying, because Mama had beaten him instead of me. Steve and I laugh about that all the time now.
My mother was a beautiful woman and my role model. Even if she hadn’t been my mother, I would have picked her as one by a long shot. She was both mother and father to me, and I learned a lot from her.
She taught all of us how to cook, iron, wash clothes, and clean. Cleaning wasn’t just my sisters’ chore. The boys cleaned whatever Mama told us to clean. We washed dishes, went to the Laundromat, and ironed our clothes for school. But the worst chore was picking up the welfare food. No one wanted to pick up that food because it was embarrassing. The whole neighborhood would know you were on welfare. But when it was time to pick up the food, we hooked the cart like we were going to the Laundromat. We really thought people didn’t know we were going to pick up the welfare food.
Yes, Mama taught me well. I didn’t und