Surviving a Texas Prison as an Innocent Man

Greg Kelley1:56

The guards Yeah, the guards the guards are are corrupt. Um you know, and the guards are, you know, they're humans, too. You know, like we're human. And I've there's been people I met in there that are absolutely sick people and make my skin crawl hearing them like talk about what they've done and how proud they are. And I'm talking about worse of the worst.

Greg Kelley2:21

The inmates. Yeah. So I get it, you know. I get it. And I get put straight into protective custody for a few months. Um, and my first experience in prison was my first week I was in protective custody and um, dinner came by and the bean shoot opened up and there's a piece of crap on my uh, on my tray for dinner. Uh they took my food off and they took a big old heaping dump on my my tray and I immediately threw it right back out the bean shoot.

You know that what the f is this? You know and now I've I've been paralyzed. You know whenever when things happen to you, trauma happens to you. You get numb and you become paralyzed and you're just learning to survive day after day. But when that happened, that really woke me up to this world I'm really in now where I'm looked at as scum of the earth. I'm looked at as not good enough to breathe, like not good enough to be alive. I'm in there for a few months and then I get I get the option of getting asked if I want to go out into general population.

Then I say, "Yes, of course. Anything to get me out of this box, right? I'm 23 hours in, one hour out." I I I find myself

Greg Kelley3:46

No. Okay. So, when you're in protective custody, you're in a little

6 by9 cell, bunk uh or a bed, desk, sink, shower. Um and they asked me if I want to go to protective custody now that I've gone through diagnostics and I'm waiting to go get chain, which is transfer to an ID unit. And uh I say yes, of course, I don't want to be in here anymore. Um, and they explain the risks of that. They're saying, "Well, we know what your what your charge is. We know what you're convicted for. You are a convicted child molester.

When you go out to this place, you need to be very careful and you need to always watch over your shoulder. The guards will protect you as much as they can. Their job is to make sure everyone's safe. No one gets taken advantage of and no one gets hurt. You're being a guard. You probably like, "Bullshit."

Greg Kelley4:55

100%. Yeah.

Greg Kelley5:06

So, yeah. And you're right, Ken, because people have always asked me, "Well, tell me your experience in prison." I'm like, "You got to go then. You have to be there." If if now there's a difference between being in prison when you know you're supposed to do it, like you're supposed to be there. That's where you belong. It's an absolute different story and a different world when you're not supposed to be there and you're in this like fever dream forever. It's never ending. Like you wake up and you're like, "This is my reality now.

I'm taking advantage of for the rest of my life. I Yeah, I'm waking up into a nightmare. It's like Groundhog Day. And yeah, I go I I say I want to go to general population.

Greg Kelley5:48

Yeah. Well, um Texas is a little different. Um I I don't know, maybe it's a a nation thing, but I think in early 2000s, back in the 90, when were you a prison guard? What years?

Greg Kelley6:02

Yeah. So, it didn't really matter. It wasn't limited to Texas, but this is what the history that I know of course of it. But back in the 80s and 90s, there was a lot of race wars and that's where the violence was really popping off the most. So, a lot of the stabbings, a lot of the gang violent related activity was happening in the 80s and 90s. What happened in early 2000s under President Bush is that he enacted this this policy or whatever that stricter sentences would be done to you if you if you attack inmates like if inmates attack other inmates

Greg Kelley7:48

So I get put in general population and uh it's like a 58 man pod or whatever and uh it's really weird at first because when you're new and I'm young. I'm 19 so I look young. I'm a lot I'm I'm an athlete so I look fit. I look

But you're a big dude. When you walked in I was like damn this guy is big. And in prison I was like like this is me like trying to slim down. But like in prison I was 235 like just like yolked. I was eight% body fat. Like I looked like a bodybuilder. Yeah. Um

And I did it for a reason cuz I knew that okay when I was in the county all I ever did was work out and eat as much as I possibly can.

Greg Kelley8:29

Because I was in the county for a few months before I had moved there. But I go in there and uh Are you familiar with uh heart checks?

Yeah. So yeah, that's that's a real thing. And in prison, it's uh it's more so uh trying to see your skin color and if you're able to ride for your skin color.

Greg Kelley8:58

Exactly. I got one. So there's a red door. It's a fire escape door in this pod and it's the only blind spot in the whole pod. It didn't take more than a few minutes for the whites to start coming up to me and asking me. You know what's crazy though? They didn't ask me what I was in for. And I was I was prepared like and my my default answer of course being naive too was I'm not supposed to be here. I'm innocent. I'm fighting my case.

Greg Kelley9:42

Yeah.

Greg Kelley9:45

Exactly. So, but I was really surprised they didn't ask me. So, but they did ask who you ride with. Yeah. Said nobody. I guess when I when I when I uh when I was in county, I had an older guy who has been in he's like a full-time just like in-n-out

Prison type guy. Been down there already four times. And he told me when you get down there just say that you run solo like you know that's it. That's all you got to say. You run solo and you don't have to say like I don't want I don't want to be a part of anything this and that. Just say I'm solo. Um that's it.

Greg Kelley10:26

I mean, that's that's true, man. I mean, honestly, like uh the devil owns prison. Like, for sure.

Greg Kelley10:44

No,

Greg Kelley10:46

Just athleticism. And I mean, I grew up, you know, reenacting WWE with my brothers, but

Greg Kelley10:55

No, that's not prison fighting. And and and in there, um, the heart checks in in there was the face was off limits because that was kind of like the indicator that like if a guard sees somebody beat up, then they're going to investigate and nobody wants to be investigated. So, um, yeah, red door. All right, let's go. I'm like, "Where am I going?" Like, like, "What are we doing?" And he's like, "Come on, you're going to the red door." And apparently that's the only blind spot.

And everybody in this pod knows what what's about to happen. Yeah.

Greg Kelley11:28

I'm thinking they just want to talk to me over there.

Greg Kelley11:30

Right.

And next thing you know, they're like looking at me up and down and it was one guy like that get up in me and next thing you know, I'm get punched straight in the stomach and then I know what's about to I know what's happening now. Then I start fighting back and you know those are tussle and then I punch back and then they notice that one guy can't handle and what happens two and three. The goal is you're not going to win.

Greg Kelley11:55

You're never going to win. Nobody wins unless you're John Wick. You're not going to win.

And but they're they wanted to see if you could stand up and fight. And I stood up and fought. They really want to see if you're going to catch guard. If you're going to yell for help, if you're going to because then you're not worth being in this pod. You're not worth being in this dorm.

Greg Kelley12:17

Only the whites. Yeah. But like, you know, the blacks and the Hispanics.

Greg Kelley12:32

Yeah. And the reality and I this is like one of the first time I'm talking about this but I'm talking with you because you're a prison guard and we can connect and you know exactly what what I'm talking about. But in prison you're labeled two things right off the rip. Respect or a [ __ ] And if you gain the respect by not backing down and you gain the respect by standing up and fighting in their world violence is manhood. Violence fighting is manhood. Um, that's that's that's a lie.

But it's like if you're a [ __ ] and you catch guard, that is going to carry with you for the rest

Greg Kelley13:10

Of your sentence or your term. And then so, you know, the red door of course is a blind spot. Nothing really happens. Um, I get through it. I don't back down. I'm beat up pretty bad. Thank God. They and this happens in like GP where you're very limited visits and they don't want to hit you in the face because they don't want you going to your family and stuff. And so, um yeah, I'm pretty bruised up, man, on my ribs, my stomach. Uh I had a few scratches on my neck.

Um

And I remember the one of the white dudes was like, "Hey, you better cover that [ __ ] up. Like, you better cover it up. The guards catch wind of this happening. Your your your ass is going to continue to get this." Right. So [sighs] time goes on, man. And after that, nothing really happened for a few days, a few weeks. Then something very scary happened, and I'll remember this for the rest of my life. Um, so we went to ciao, we came back, and there's like a flash flash on the radio.

The flash flash flash, and this is the first time a flash flash is happening. It's like an emergency, an administrator.

Greg Kelley14:26

No, it's a dorm. Dorm. So, let me let me paint the atmosphere for you. So, the building is a rotunda.

Greg Kelley14:31

Right. Rotunda style where there's a picket in the middle in the front in the middle.

Greg Kelley14:36

Then, think of like a pentagon or hexagon.

Every side is a pod

With plexiglass door into the pods. 58 man pod with

Greg Kelley14:48

Open open concept

Greg Kelley14:51

Just bunk beds no two no two tier cells nothing just bunk beds like I don't even know like a summer camp type thing dude

Greg Kelley15:00

No privacy no privacy and it is the trippiest thing Ken because people were like they were okay with like doing their business in front of you like masturbating in front of you

Like I'm like I've never this is a world can I've never ever thought I would ever experience in my life.

Greg Kelley15:54

Let me tell you the root. Let me tell you the root of this. Like I think I was already set up whenever I chose not to run with the gang when I chose to stand up and not be labeled a [ __ ] and to at least earn the respect of the people of my peers because those are my peers, right? These are the people I'm going to have to live with.

And it doesn't matter, man. I mean, if you want to catch guard and you want to, you know, catch flight out the dorm, then you're going back to PC and I'm not going to be in there for months. I'm gonna be in there for years now. Yeah. So, like these are all things that are running through my head. And thank God when I was in the county, I had some like older guys tell me like, "Fight. You got to fight." Yeah. Like you you can't sit down and you can't run away because you're not running away from anything.

You're you're you're you know what's going to happen is you're going to run away and it's a revolving freaking universe. You're going to come right back to them.

So, just face it head on.

Greg Kelley16:52

So, it's a flash flash. And it's it's not happening in my pod. It's happening in the dorm next door.

Greg Kelley16:57

And um for the for the time from the dorm next door I knew that had like some pretty sick child molesters. Like they came in on bus in GP.

Greg Kelley17:07

So there was this older fella and uh you know he they you know they talk I prison's full of gossip man. I mean you would confuse them and you'd think they're a bunch of females man.

I know what you mean. It's this bunch of gossip, man. And and there. So, like it came over to Arpod that like this guy, this sick dude was in there and he was like, you know, trying to like buy pictures of like children and just this and that, right? And they're floating around. It's just sad. But flash flash like [clears throat] medics, captains, lieutenants, majors, they're all running towards that thing.

Greg Kelley17:19

and hollering and little do you know this guy is getting his neck torn inside out like slit open like full neck tie coming out just disgusting.

And from what I'm hearing that's what's what happening. I'm not witnessing this but what I'm hearing after the matter of the fact is that's what happened to him. Well, what I saw though, and because everybody's against the plexiglass on our dorm now and trying to look over, is Gurnie's coming, the guy gets put on the gurnie, and immediately they start rushing him out of the rotunda, passes our plexiglass, our side of the dorm. Yeah. And this guy's necks fully slid open, and they're trying to apply pressure to it, and there's just blood flowing down from the gurnie.

And it happened like that. And they're saying like, you know, they're talking about who got who got got and you know, he's a sick child molester. And like I'm over here painted as one,

Greg Kelley18:47

Nobody knows.

Greg Kelley18:49

So I'm like now it's like I'm fighting my case. I'm fighting my innocence. I'm waiting for good news from my attorney. And it's so early on into my appeal. Nothing happens early on. But like I'm in survival mode here now. I'm just like I'm really hoping praying nobody knows and nobody finds out. Nobody like no news is good news. Nobody comes up to me. It means that like this this this this secret this wrongful secret that's put upon me. It hasn't really

Uh been spread to people I really don't know. I don't want no to know. Yeah. Of course. And I mean there are Aryan brother in there there. I mean brotherhood there

Greg Kelley19:35

I've And what what state were you a prison guard in?

Greg Kelley19:38

Massachusetts. I do actually think that like it varies state by state.

Greg Kelley19:49

And I'm very surprised, Ken, because I was very high publicity. Like I

Greg Kelley19:53

The guards knew. the guards knew, but like I and you know, I tried to uh maybe I'd like to think this had something to do with it. I know it it doesn't, but I've always carried myself with respect. Like I I'm not coming in there like I'm I'm me. I'm trying to be me. Like I'm just I'm I'm not trying to explain myself. I'm just like going through just trying to sit in another day, right? So, um, yeah, I get put in there and and, uh, that happens and time goes time moves on and I get transferred to my ID unit, which is the wind unit, the wind state farm.

That's what they call it. It's the second oldest unit in the state of Texas. And, um, yeah, it this this was a a weird weird situation, man. So, I get put on this unit and I immediately get to like this cell block that has to do with like all sex offenders and I am like it's so freaking creepy, man. Because it it it varies on the spectrum of like people you would never think that were in there for some devast like disgusting crimes to like people that wear it on their sleeve.

So, you don't trust anybody. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm trying to stay by myself.

Yeah. I'm trying to uh do time by myself. Uh then I get bked up, man, with this guy named Crazy. First cellmate I've ever had. He They call him Crazy Man because he's got a portrait. He killed his family, right? He's got a portrait of his kids. Baby kid, like Hispanic guy port like four portrait baby kids right here. And there those are the kids he killed. And he's Satanist, right? Like in it was sacrificed to Satan.

Okay. and killed his wife. He's in there for uh five life sentences without parole. They were trying to go for the death penalty. They didn't give him because it was insanity or whatever. And this dude was insane. I'm getting booked. I'm getting paired up with this guy. Like, bro, I'm 19 years old. And I'm like, I'm supposed to have a college roommate, dude. Like, I'm trying to go to college. I'm supposed to be on a football field.

I'm I'm I'm about to I'm supposed to meet my best man at my wedding, apparently, or something, right, in college. And I'm getting paired up with crazy. And this guy was real big in the K2, uh, which is like the synthetic marijuana. He would always smoke it and they would pop socket, right? Or pop outlet or something, right?

Greg Kelley22:19

And they would just kind of, you know, he would pop it every night. He'd ask me, too. Thank God he asked me, but he was like, "Hey, I'm going to do this real quick. Is that cool?" Like, I don't care. Do what you want. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I just, I would always just lay on my bunk and read. Well, one, like my second night, he does it and he hits a little too many hits. And you're only supposed to apparently hit one hit of this K2.

Greg Kelley22:38

And it's enough to get you high like you smoke two or three joints.

Greg Kelley22:42

But he like hits a couple times and this guy starts like starts having like schizophrenia type stuff and starts thinking that he's water and he's now is like trying to run through the bars like he's water. He's trying to escape. So, imagine this 9- foot cell and he's backing up and running full speed into the bars, hitting himself, bouncing off the bars on the ground, getting back up, gets to the back of the cell, runs to the bars, and he's like, "I'm water. I'm water. I'm water." He's like thinking he's water and he knocks himself out, just gashes himself here, completely open.

Greg Kelley23:18

So, that's that's what happens. So, right. So, he gets on gets he's laying on the ground. Blood's coming down his face. He looks like he just got done, you know, in a five round UFC fight. And um the guards are running in and you know, there's a flash flash flash on the radio and I'm like and it's in my cell and the flash flash is like an uh it's a response to an emergency. So I'm like, "Oh crap, man." I'm just like sitting up on my cell and I'm immediately trying to like get my story of what just happened right now.

And the lieutenant's like, "What happened? What happened?" I'm like he K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K2 water trying to you know run through the bars. I don't know. And um he said, "Oh man, that's crazy." Right. And I was like, "What do you mean that's crazy?" He's like, "Yeah, man. He does this like what every month or so." I'm like, "This is my second date with him, man.

Like, can you please get me in another cell? Can you get me by myself?"

Greg Kelley24:13

Like I don't want to be near this guy. So, man, it just like I feel like I was just in a fever dream over and over and over again. canon. You know, there's something that happened in the county and I I get to I always ask myself like what made me want to like keep going and never really become suicidal because

I can honestly say I was never suicide. Like I never wanted to take my own life.

But one thing I did want to do is I would be okay with not waking up.

Like I would be okay with I I don't know, maybe I'm too scared or maybe I don't have enough courage. I don't know. Uh maybe I love my life. Maybe I have so many people believing in me. Man, it's different when people believe in you.

Greg Kelley24:53

Right. I've had a at that time hope was ignited. Like there was hundreds or maybe thousands of people fighting on my behalf on social media. Like there was these threads and posts and my family's coming to see me every week. Like and like I got a good girl who I'm now married to who told me to shut up when I told her that she can go to LA and continue with her life. go find someone that you can have kids with, get married with, go live with, right?

Like, I'm going through this. You don't have to. We're not married. We got We felt, you know, we fell in love in high school, but you don't have to do this. And I remember writing that letter to her when things were kind of still up in the air, and I had no idea if we were still going on or not. And she wrote me back immediately. She actually didn't want to write me back. She wanted to get she wanted me to get it faster. So, she jpaid me, which is like electronic mail, right?

They print it out same day and they give it to you. Costs a little extra. But, but she literally said, "Shut up. I'm here to stay." You know, when when a good woman tells you to shut up and you're here to stay, you better believe her.

Greg Kelley26:01

And well, I asked her later on, are you going to do all this 25 years with me? Like, she says, "Yeah, like I will." And because I love you and I believe in you and you're not going to do 25 years. She'd always say that. you're not going to do 25 years. We're going to get you out. So, hearing that from from a woman that you love and hearing that from your family and your supporters, people, man, I got I would get 20 or 30 letters a day.

That does something for you, man. Like, when you're when you're in the thick of it and you're So, I never was suicidal. But I wish that sometimes I didn't wake up to this reality cuz football was hard for me, man. Like, it being stripped from you, that's the only identity I've ever known. I now truly believe you should never have your identity in materialism or something that can be taken from you and stolen because when it does then who are you?

Greg Kelley26:52

You're an empty shell, right? If you only put your identity in running and you lost your legs and you've only obsessed with running, you're nothing now. I

Greg Kelley27:04

Yeah. And so I needed to develop a new identity. And so so I start talking about my faith. Man, I had a lot of questions to God, brother. Like,

Greg Kelley27:14

And there's there's there's uh conversations I've had that I'm probably gonna have to answer to one day. And I'd like to think that I'm I'm forgiven for because I I was very very angry and I'm very very upset. I've got a lot of hatred not only towards the people that have done this to me, but I'm I have a lot of hatred towards apparently there's a good God that allows this to happen. And you know, I get emotional just thinking about it because I do love God and he is a part of my life now.

It's like when you have an appreciation for your dad, you were telling me earlier that the way you talk to your boys, you get you get angry at them. Yes.

And you're like, man, why can't you freaking do this? Right. But I think at one point when you when your parent when your boys end up having boys or your boys end up having children, they're going to remember how much of a hard nose you were and now they're going to appreciate you.

Greg Kelley28:10

And they're going to get emotional thinking about it because now they're like, I'm my freaking dad. Like I'm I'm my dad to my boys now.

Greg Kelley28:17

And so, you know, I get emotional the conversations I've had with God and coming to grips with a good God. And if he's real, then why is this happening to me? And I'm not just dude like what I'm going through is nothing was nothing compared to like people that have to deal with cancer. Nothing like with your wife like like I I can't compare myself with something that that's so scary like that. But it's its own trauma and its own pain. And I'm just like stuck on this like record in my head.

Like, okay, well, I need to I need to maybe get to know you before I completely just check you out of my life because I'm angry and I want nothing to do with you, God. Right. I'll figure this out. I'll get all through I'll get through this by myself. And then something happens while when I was in the county and I was still angry and I and I had been reading, man. I've been reading scripture. I've been wanting to read the New Testament and and read the Old Testament and learn, but I've never truly accepted like just trying to grow a relationship with God and allow him in my life.

But when I was in the county, this is something very, very important. When I was in the county and I was like day three in a suicide cell, they put me on suicide watch, by the way, after my I was convicted. I was in a suicide cell. They put me in a turtle smock, which is like a padded padded suit.

I've never felt more naked in my life like

Greg Kelley29:44

Vulnerable naked numb paralyzed like yeah it was weird I um I'm in this little medical cell and it's after I was sentenced to 25 years and I had no idea like who's out there supporting me still like what my family's doing how my family's doing like what's going on with them I know that they're devastated they're crying and I don't have anything man because they're not giving you like toothpaste, soap. They don't give you a blanket. They don't give you your necessities.

Greg Kelley30:15

Right. So, I'm sitting there in a bunk and like for a couple days they see that like I'm not a threat to myself. So, they start trusting you. Right. In prison, you get privilege as you go on and you prove yourself fit, right? So, they drop these like your bare necessities through the bean shoot because now you you're able to have them. So they drop a blanket, they drop a new set of clothes, like real prison uniforms. Like, dude, to get the freaking prison uniform.

I was so happy.

Greg Kelley30:44

It's pretty crazy how like they create this standard. It's like, you have nothing, but I'm going to give you a little bit and you're going to be grateful for it. So, I'm grateful for now. Toothpaste. I'm grateful for a toothbrush that somebody doesn't have to bring bring to me and watch me brush my teeth and me give it to them.

Greg Kelley30:59

Right. So, I'm grateful for all these things. And then the last thing they drop through the bean shoot of my door is a Bible. And I'm wondering like I'm laughing now. I'm like, how is this a necessity? You know, and so I've actually given a sermon about this uh in prison. I've actually gone back to a few prisons to kind of give my testimony, my story, but they gave me a Bible and it's like one of those institutional ones, right, that just like it's not study Bible or anything, but I have nothing else to do cuz I know I'm going to be in here for a few more weeks.

So, I'm just reading now. I'm just opening it up and reading the Old Testament. Don't understand anything about it. And an inmate came by my door, a trustee, right? A trusted inmate that works for the jail. He's like, "Hey, you need to start in the New Testament. Start in Matthew. learn about Jesus, what he's what he who he is, what he came for, right? What he's done, who his family is, his gen and then just learn about his genealogy, which is the Old Testament. So, I was like, "Okay, cool." So, I start reading the Gospels and man, I just like there's nothing else to do.

So, I just read it. And then, you know, I come across John 16:33 where it says, "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart and have peace. I've overcome the world." That's my favorite verse now because I needed peace more than ever in that moment. There was nothing but chaos happening in here and in here. And there was cancer that was spreading all over me right now.

And the decisions I make now, the decisions I make at this very point

Of what I choose to believe and how I choose to continue to lead my life considering the circumstances will develop me into who I am today. It will develop me into if I'm sitting at this table talking to you right now or if I'm still in prison because I've killed people while I was in there who tried to take my life or out of rage or somebody call me a child molester and I bra I broke and I snapped their neck. I don't know but that that was a pinnacle moment for me.

And so I said my first prayer. I said, "God, if you're real, I need you to show up. I need you right now. I don't even know where to start. I'm paralyzed, but I need you. And you know, I was thinking about that the other day. I pull up to my house and I I see my daughter. I see my wife in the front porch playing with the bubble machine and she's drinking coffee and she's reading her word. And I pull up after going to the gym and I walk up to the front door and I see my my little girl saying, "Da da da da da da." And I think about that all the time, man.

When I was in that prison cell saying that prayer and I think about how a lot of times when we pray for things it doesn't happen immediately because our time is not his time.

Greg Kelley33:37

There's a lot of decisions that we need to make personally as a person before we get to our final destination that finish line which is for me I didn't know if I was ever going to be a dad again. I didn't know or not again, but if I didn't know if I was ever going to be a dad or if I was going to marry this woman who said she's gonna stay by my side. So, there was a lot of like I don't knows, [snorts] but I'd like to believe now that prayer does work.

Greg Kelley34:01

It can happen quick or it can happen. It can take a long time, man.

Greg Kelley34:16

Yeah. So I'll tell I'll tell you the you know quick little thing about my upbringing. So uh I grew up loving family. Dad worked as a car salesman. My mom and dad have a have a beautiful story a love story in itself. Hopefully after I write my book I want to write my mother's book uh and her story. My mom's a double widow.

Greg Kelley34:34

Yeah. Yeah. Dang, dude. Like her first husband was murdered in Guatemala.

Greg Kelley34:39

In a restaurant with with his brother. Um was left she was left a widow with two young boys, one and two years old. my old my older half brothers Marla and Aldo still close to him to this day and she became like a hair stylist. She opened up her own salon. She moved in with my my grandma at the time very supportive. Then my dad was an international baseball recruiter for the University of uh Idaho. And at that time there was a there was a thing back uh where you could, you know, go down and recruit from other countries, right?

Uh college baseball players. And so she he did and he went down to Guatemala, sat in my mom's salon chair, didn't know a lick of Spanish, she didn't know English. They kind of like were flirting off of body language.

Greg Kelley35:23

One thing led to another. A couple months later, they or he was down there for a couple months. They end up falling in love within that first those months. And uh within four months, she moves up. She moves to Guadal. She moves to America with my dad and her boys. My my mom agrees to marry him. So then they land in this area um north of here uh Leander, Texas. And that's when they wanted to have kids of their own.

Now I'm talking about my brother Doug and my brother Jonathan. Um and then eventually me in 1995.

Greg Kelley36:01

So I'm a youngest really of six, but

Two siblings I'm not super close with. Uh, one of them, Lisa, we talk every once in a while, but yeah, with my my brothers, I'm the youngest of four or five boys. I'm the youngest. So, yeah, the boys that are still close to me, I guess you could say.

Greg Kelley36:23

But I'm the youngest, you know, of all of them. So, I'm the baby. And 1995 is when I was born. Grew up in Lander, Texas. Dad ended up becoming a car salesman. My mom had her own cleaning business. Um, I grew up loving sports. I grew up with brothers that picked on me. I was a chubby little kid. Um, and so tough love was all I ever knew.

Greg Kelley37:29

Yeah. You're going to find him to probably be the most resilient when it's when it's all said and done. Like I'm not saying that your boy any like they're going to be more resilient than other, but you're going to see something special when it comes to resilience. Yep.

I've seen that a lot with my brothers how they treated me like when they were studs. Yeah. And it's funny cuz I'm the fittest now. Yeah.

And like cuz I I I chose to continue to keep a fit lifestyle and they're business owners and they're successful and all that, but like

I don't get wrapped up too much with business. It's like I'm like, "Okay, I leave that I leave that where it's at." And then I also got to focus on my health.

And so I always say like I always tell them like, "It's funny how this works, man. I was really fat as a kid and you guys let me know it.

Now I call you guys fat." So

Yeah, I mean I mean I mean I have to chalk it up to my brothers, man, giving me tough love. You know, you you you backtrack in hindsight, right? It's 2020. So when you're older and you become a man, you reflect on like what are like little seeds that were planted in my life to make me who I am today? And I have I have a lot, man. I've got football coaches I've got that were hard knows. Uh there's a football coach that's in my book that I talk about a lot who the the best like literally won the award as the best head coach in in the state of Texas.

Um he was my defensive coordinator. Planted a bunch of seeds. My brothers planted a bunch of seeds. My dad planted a bunch of seeds. A lot of people, man. So I chalk it up to my brothers a lot for being tough with me. I grew up and something happened like between my seventh and eighth grade year where like I hit puberty. Yeah.

And I shot up like six inches. The belly went away. Yeah.

I started growing whiskers. I grew an Adam's apple and I started looking kind of handsome, right? And

And like now like I look like a senior in high school and uh then the girls started coming around and starts like trying to flirt and and I was like, you know, I'm like, man, I'm I'm just I figured I'm good at football now. I'm good at sports. like I don't have and then I I develop I've got Oscar slaughter disease now and my knees because I've shot up so quick and so my knees are hurting and I'm going through all the pains. So I'm a multisport athlete, ran track, played basketball, uh played football.

Then I I I realized I needed to focus on one because I'm not really good at school. I have dyslexia so making barely C's and B's.

So I was like, you know what, like if I'm going to go somewhere and I love playing football, so I'm going to focus on football. did did pretty well. Became uh a varsity football. Met my I got to talk about this, but I met my my girlfriend in seventh grade, but we ended up dating and becoming boyfriend and girlfriend going into our freshman year of high school.

Greg Kelley40:04

So, she's like my high school girlfriend.

Greg Kelley40:06

So, going into that, she comes from a huge dance background, families full of dancers, commercial, professional dancers. So I say all this to say that she's very goal driven to focus on dance in her life.

Doesn't party, doesn't drink, doesn't mess around, doesn't even gossip. Like that's very very great to have in a woman. But

I'm focused on football. She's focused on dance. We compliment each other a lot,

Right? We're both goal driven.

Then uh I make varsity my sophomore year and I'm just going through the ropes, man. kind of trying to learn, do pretty well my sophomore year, and then something happens. So, going into the summer, actually 6 months prior to the summer of 2013, so like right around early spring, winter, January, February, my dad has a massive stroke. My dad's older, so the time he was in his 60s, massive stroke, wasn't very healthy. Um, gets put into the hospital. I'm pretty devastated about it. Uh, but I have to continue to show up to go to school and show up.

You know, my mom now is like having to work and also take care of me. My boys are already not my boys, my brothers are already in college. And so, I'm the only one still in the nest. And then going into the summer, my mom has a uh she gets diagnosed with brain tumors.

Greg Kelley41:36

So, now I'm left parentless. I don't have any parents that are watching me. like watching over me. And that hit me hard because now both of my parents are going through some really tough medical things. I haven't lived enough life yet to to handle it. Like I'm wondering what's going on. I'm like and I'm being very optimistic and my mom's being very optimistic. So that helps. And my brothers start showing up more because they're all doing their own thing in life. But now that the family unit is taking this hit, they're showing up now and taking me to and fro from places, right?

So, I had a friend named Jonathan at the time and he was a mutual friend of the group. We were all all all of us as friends and he had a house that was pretty close to the uh high school and he was also a football player, but he's a year younger than me.

Greg Kelley42:33

Looks a little like me. Actually looks a lot of like me. people confused us all the time as brothers uh just a little shorter than me. So his mother ran an inhome daycare of like a few kids and like us as boys like the friends we would go to his house because his mother was always welcome like play video games, eat some hot pockets after football, after school. So that the house was almost considered like Grand Central Station, man. Like pe kids were coming in and out, right?

Hanging out. It was a hangout spot. [snorts] Um, and there were nice people, man. Shamo was really nice. Ralph was really nice. Um, his dad Jonathan was super cool. We we got off very well. Like it was like best friends. Right now, his since Shamba found out what was happening to me, right, and my family. Shamba had offered and she saw that I was a good football player. Sha

Greg Kelley43:30

Mother. Yeah.

And they're Shir Lancan. So that's why they have these names. She ends up offering for me to stay uh live with them until my family gets better. My mom and my dad get better or until they can come home from their hospitals.

Greg Kelley43:45

So I thought it was a good idea because it's next to the school there. At the time I was just getting my license.

Greg Kelley43:52

So they had an extra family car that I could use. The only obligation was that I would drive Jonathan to where he needed to go if he needed to go anywhere. take him to school, take him to work because he's he was working at the time. I said, "Cool." And I thought it was a good idea. My mom was very hesitant at first because, you know, you're protective as a mother and it's your boy, but she didn't have other option, right? It would take the it alleviate some responsibility off of my brothers.

So, [snorts] she agreed and she said, "Okay." So, I started living with him. I lived with him for like 10 months in total. Jonathan ended up changing a lot while I was living there. And at the time too, I had just become the starter on on the varsity football team. Uh I had some big shoes to fill up and so I did. And so my focus dialed in on football. Like I would wake up at 5:30 in the morning, go to Gold's gym, get my lift, go to school for 7 o'clock practice, do the practice, go to school through during the day, do my afternoon lift, uh, and then I was working.

I had to take on a job to make some extra money. So, right after school, I went to go work at the movie theater almost every day, got off 11:00. Uh, and I would literally do like my homework at the movie theater when it was slow. And got off, went home, got to bed. lucky to get six hours, do it all over again. That was my life for like 10 months. And during that time, I I started like me and Jonathan's relationship as friends started like drifting away because I was so focused, but his focus leaned more towards hanging out with people he wasn't supposed to hang out with, getting with the drug scene.

Like, I mean, he would steal from the mall. Like, he would go with like these people that I don't know, nobody knows, and go hang out with them. And I One time I I was like, "Hey, where you been all all week?" He's like, "Oh, man." He's like real nonchalant, like, "You don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry." I'm like, "Dude, what's going on? Like, what's going on? What's what's happening? Like, you need to talk and stuff." And he said, "No, man. Don't worry about it.

You too busy." So, I remember taking that in like maybe I am being a little too busy for him. Right. Cuz I considered him like my little brother.

Greg Kelley46:04

I remember feeling bad about it. And then uh there was a time I remember that he got caught with like a bunch of marijuana in a bag in his backpack and his mom tried punishing him, taking his phone away, taking his iPad away, whatever. But only lasted for a few days. His family very little punished him, like didn't punish him at all or enough. So he never really learned. And then it came to a time where my mom got better uh right around June May, end of May, early June of 2013.

So I had been living with them now for like 10 months. [snorts] [cough] My [clears throat] mom and dad got better. Mom came home. I remember calling my mom two weeks prior too before I left Jonathan's house. And I remember telling telling her like, "Mom, I just committed to go play for football at the University of Texas San Antonio. Very big deal." So, everybody's super happy, very proud of me. I'm going to college now. But I tell my mom, "Mom, I got to get out of this house.

Like, stuff's happening that I'm not comfortable with. I'm scared here. Like, I don't want something happened that ruins my future, right?" And then my mom was like, "What do you mean?" I tell her about Jonathan's drug activity and him getting caught with a bunch of drugs and stuff. She said, "Okay, fine. I'm coming home in two weeks. Let's come come back home." I said, "Cool." So, I end up

And she's been in the hospital this whole time. She's been in the hospital and living with family.

Greg Kelley47:31

Exactly. So she had brain operation. She's been in Guatemala. So when she she got her brain operation in Guatemala cuz it's significantly cheaper.

Greg Kelley47:39

Uh it would have cost a lot of money here. Um but down there it's like

Greg Kelley47:47

So she was down there for like 10 months staying with family, taking care of her. It was a long recovery process for her. She had also lost her eye in the operation.

Greg Kelley47:57

So the tumors were next to the uh optic nerve in her eye and the doctor said there is a significant chance that you'll lose your eye because I have to go around the optic nerve and if I if I touch it or if I'm very abrasive with it, it could rupture it and you know that's bad and it did and

She lost her eye. So she woke up and we would they wouldn't know until she wakes up and do tests

But she lost it and so she only has one eye operational. She has two of her eyeballs, but only one of them works. So, she ends up coming flying home and she's doing a lot better. She's a little bit more functional now. Um, so I move and I'm glad to be back home. Shamba let me continue to use the family car. Um, so I'm very happy about that. Um, now two months goes by and it's summertime now, 2013.

Greg Kelley48:50

Yes. Okay. going into my senior year that summer, right before the

Greg Kelley48:56

UT San Antonio. I'm already committed and like I'm a team captain. I'm a team captain of the football team now.

Like everybody looks up to me. So I'm I'm first to Champions Course, which is a summer program at the high school to keep the kids off like the streets and keeping them out of video games and stuff so they can stay active and work out.

So 80% of the program does it. So, I was told by my coaches and stuff like, "Hey, you really need to show up. Like, you need to show up as a leader, as a captain, because, you know, you've got a team to lead." And at that time, man, we were actually going to be a really good football team. Like, we were stacked with talent.

Greg Kelley49:36

So, I was pumped. Like, I was super pumped to go into this season. And um yeah, one day I get a call and I it's a mis call. It's a bunch of missed calls. I check my phone after the uh the champions course and my brother I see it's a bunch from my brother Marlin. All right. My second to oldest halfb brotherther and we're close. John Marlin's always been that type of brother I would like pick me up randomly and let's go see a movie. Like he was just always there.

I mean I'd have to say he's probably like my closest brother that that that always like wanted to see me, right?

Yeah. Um, and so he called me over and over and over. And he's my brother that knows Shamba and Jonathan's family the most too because he would pick me up all the time too.

And so miss call, miss call, miss call, miss call, bunch of them. I'm I'm I'm worried about something happened to my mom. I call him back. I'm like, "What's up? What's going on?" He says, "Hey, where are you?" So I'm at I'm at the high school right now. I just got out of champions course. Well, I'm go I'm heading to Shamas right now. Don't come here. go straight home. I said, "What happened?" And he told me and

Greg Kelley50:46

Something happened to a kid. Apparently, there's a dad there saying that someone sexually assaulted his son. And I'm like, "That's crazy. What? A shamas?" And he's like, "Yeah, and your name's involved." What do you mean my name's involved? He's saying that you stuck your penis in this kid's mouth. That's what he continues to say over and over and over in the shamba. It trauma is a crazy thing, man. Um, my heart's racing just thinking about it. Just I'm like telling asking my brother, "What are you talking about?" And he's like, "Dude, I don't know." He just keeps saying this is what happened to his son.

Greg Kelley51:41

Rightfully so. I That is something like I think about now not having a kid. It is absolutely the worst nightmare of a parent.

Worst.

He was pissed. I I my brother I remember asking my brother like when we're talking about the specifics of the situation after the fact. He even said this in the dock, too. Like the the dad came in like raging mad,

Greg Kelley52:03

But trying to keep his composure.

Greg Kelley52:05

He says, "Don't come here. Just go straight to I'm going over there right now to see what's going on." So, he does. And like, dude, I start getting sick. Like, I start getting sick and I'm like, "What is going on?" And I call my brother again. I like, "No, I'm coming here, right? I'm going." Like, what are you talking about? My name's involved. How? Why? Like, I haven't been there in two months. Like, I'm thinking in my head like, "What are you talking about?" So I go straight to home and like this is lingering over me and my brother calls me.

He's like, "So this is what's happening. The father is saying that this happened and he's going to the police." And I'm thinking like, is he still saying I am involved with this? He says yes. And he's like, "Okay, cool. Let him go to the police, I guess."

Greg Kelley52:51

I was like I was like, "Cool." I'm like, "Who do I need to talk to?" Right? Like I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, "We're going to get down to the bottom of this."

Yeah. So, I'm telling myself this like we're going to get down to the bottom of this. This is a very terrible misunderstanding and and if this something did happen to this kid, then it needs to be investigated, but I have nothing to do with it. So, let's get down to the bottom of it. So, he says, "Well, you're going to go to the police. We probably need to get an attorney." I said, "Why do I need an attorney for? I didn't do anything." He says, "Well, these are allegations, Greg.

Like, he's legit. He's he's accusing you." And my brother being an adult and me being naive, I'm thinking, well, if I didn't do this, I don't need an attorney, right? Cuz the police is going to figure this out. Now, that's being naive.

Greg Kelley53:57

100%.

Greg Kelley54:05

Exactly. And I've learned a lot about criminal justice and I've learned a lot about law.

Greg Kelley54:11

And uh I know like the back of my hand now. Like I know like I know whenever I get pulled over what what I can do, what I can't do, what I'm lawfully able like required to do, how I can protect myself as well. And I've got pulled over a few times ever since I've been exonerated. And um yeah, I record the altercation. I

Greg Kelley54:30

I I've always given my identity. I don't have to like but I do because I you know, I'm cool. I mean, you tell me what to do. I mean, if you tell me something to do that infringes on my rights, I'm not going to do it.

Greg Kelley54:51

You can't you could fi fight in court. You can't fight in your grave.

That's right. So So unfortunately some people they act a fool and something happens.

But like you could have fought this though. Like you could you could have fought at court and if you're if you're

Greg Kelley57:03

This would make so much more sense and you would probably be more pissed off right now.

Uh because it does raise that question mark like what the hell are you talking about? You didn't talk to police, right? Cuz

Greg Kelley57:16

I was never been interrogated. So what happened was it was a weird kind of situation where I had a a lot of things planned for my summer and I remember getting that initial appointment with the with the lawyer and I'm like dragged by my brother. I don't want to go see an attorney. Like I'm I'm cool. Like let the police do their job, right? So I'm I remember like sitting in that attorney office meeting this woman named Patricia Cummings and she says, "Hey, just continue to live your life.

Like do what's normal, right? Like I'll know more as if they do go to the cops. The dad didn't go to the cops for two weeks.

Greg Kelley57:56

Which was strange because very strange like if if if anything like slight of a hint happens to my daughter and somehow in some way I rationalize and I I I I use logic and actually go to the cops without having to take things in my own hands.

Greg Kelley58:25

So what happened was is he was trying to get something out of the situation.

Greg Kelley58:31

They don't have money. Now he didn't flat out say that, but what he did say was we can we there is a way we probably handle this outside of court. That's what he told my brother. So my brother didn't want to entertain that.

Greg Kelley58:47

He wasn't thinking. He wasn't thinking in real time. But yeah, [snorts] what happened was is like, "No, like my brother more so was like, we do need to get the police involved. Like, there needs to be an investigation because if something did happen to your son, then we're going to get down to the bottom of it. They're going to get down to the bottom of it and this is going to get squashed for Greg, right?" So, I'm already in LA at the time um because my we go to the ESPs with my my uh my girlfriend now my wife my girlfriend's parents, right?

And she's like checking out LA because she's about to move there for her commercial dance. Her sisters are already there.

Greg Kelley59:23

Just go to the ESPs.

Greg Kelley59:24

Yeah, we were we were already planning to go to the ESBs, you know, like

Greg Kelley59:28

Just spectators. Yeah, just spectators and, you know, see their awards and and also I was just up there hanging out with my my uh my girlfriend's parents and her and she was going around LA and like she was about to go up there for four years and dance. So

I did a trip with him, right, as as her boyfriend and so

Just continue to live life, man. and you know, still going, you know, before that, still going to Champions Course every day, putting in the work, and while we're at dinner and I'm like I'm weird, but like I'm I'm like something's off, right? Like I feel like this is not squashed. Like I'm still kind of being accused of this,

Greg Kelley1:00:04

So I'm [ __ ] crazy.

So my like nobody knows. Only me like Marlin and my mom know.

Okay. [snorts]

Greg Kelley1:00:13

Girl doesn't know. And so like and I could I could like we were going strong too. Like we we were going out. So it was killing me that I couldn't I couldn't tell her what I was going through. So I had to put up this like front of everything's okay. I'm happy and I'm not. I'm like there's something still going on that I'm being accused of. And we go to LA. We're at dinner one night and I get a call from I get a text from my brother Marlin.

He says, "Call me." So I step out and my girlfriend at time saying is Greg's being weird. Why is he stepping out taking a call? I I say that my mom's trying to call me. It's important. So I go outside, get on the call with Marlin and he says, "So they're going to the police." Like he he just filed a police report. I feel good. Okay, cool. Let's sweet. So he's like, "Okay, so when you get back, we're going to go to Patricia's office and we're going to see what the next steps are." So, Patricia tells me like they're going to do, you know, I'm interacting with the police right now.

Um, you know, we're going to we're going to cooperate, right? We're going to um cooperate with the police and their investigation and and let them do their thing. So, there's like no news. There's no updates. And then like a month later, I get a call and it's still summertime and like the season's about to start. We're like two weeks away from school. I get a call from Patricia saying, "Come into my office." So, I go into my office. I sit down. It's me and Marlin. And she says, "There is a warrant out for your arrest." What?

What do you mean a warrant out for my arrest? What does that mean? I don't know what that means. She said, "You're you're going to get arrested." How am I going to get arrested? She's like, "Well, no, you're not going to get arrested. We're going to turn you in and before you get arrested." I said, "I'm not I'm not turning myself in. I didn't do it. I'm innocent. That means that that would mean that I'm guilty. I I didn't do this." She said, "No, that's not how it works, Greg.

When there's a warrant out for your arrest, they're going to come get you regardless. So, you could you could be at school, you could be playing football, you could be at work,

And everybody's going to see. She's like putting it in layman's terms for me.

Greg Kelley1:02:16

I said, Patricia, I'm not doing this. Like, I'm not doing this. She said, "You don't have a choice, Greg. It's just it's just a process, right? Like, we're still going to fight this." I said, "I'm am I about to get like my mug shot done? Like, am I about to go to jail?" She's like, "It's going to be a quick process. You're going to go in you're going to get your mug shot. You're going to be in there for a couple hours. And I said, "No, I'm not.

I'm not doing it. Like, I can't." Like, I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, "I'm on the news for being a football player, man. Like, I'm on the news for making interceptions and making tackles and playing ball. This is going to put me on the news, you know? I'm So, I'm like panicking now." I said, "So, this is not fair. Like, this this can't happen. I'm not doing it." She's like, "No, you have to do it, but we're going to get through this." So, she says, "We'll go at 6:00 in the morning tomorrow." I'm staying with my brother that night.

And uh the morning comes around, my mom meets me at my brother's house in the morning, and we all drive to the county jail together. Patricia meets me there, too. And first time I've ever got handcuffs put on me in the lobby of the county jail. I can just still hear the clicks of it, man. Like, it's haunting. It's gives me the heebie-jebies just thinking about it. And off I go walking into this big sliding metal door that goes into a booking from the lobby. And I just look back at my mom and she's just sobbing.

She's crying. Everybody's crying. My brother's crying. And uh was supposed to take a few hours, end up taking 14. I'm sitting in I'm sitting in like the waiting room or the the booking room and like nobody I mean I the people next to me, man, are coming in from a drunken night.

Greg Kelley1:04:07

You know, there's people throwing up on themsel in the drunk tank, in the detox tank, right? There's people over here mouththing off at guards. [snorts] There's people over here, you know what I mean, slinging out on dope. What the what the [ __ ] am I doing? Like why? Why am I here? So sitting there, man, and I go through the whole process. I see the magistrate and yeah, 14 hours later, I get bonded out. It was like my my my bond was like 50 grand.

Greg Kelley1:04:38

My mom, my my us, my my brother, my well, my uncle. So what happened was that we we really didn't get a bill yet from from an attorney. Like we we did we did get Patricia on retainer and it wasn't that much yet, but like we know the bills were coming now. Yeah. So, um, but the bond was 50K and a bail bonds been how it works is 10%. Right? So,

My uncle had put up the money um the 5K and

So I end up getting out and I remember that night man it was like late late at night. It was like 10 o'clock at night now and uh my brother comes picking me up and just embraces me. Just grabs me by the head and puts me in. And I'm like broken, man. I'm like I can't believe this is this day just happened. and uh he just kept saying, "It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay, Greg. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get through this." And I don't know if he believes it for himself.

He's just like, you know, he's just being a big brother. So, time goes on and um now like in my head I'm like, I'm about to be on the news. And uh the next day I need to go to football practice. This happened on a Saturday, by the way.

Greg Kelley1:05:46

Yeah.

You saw a judge on a Saturday night? I'm sorry. No, it didn't happen. The second time it happened on a Saturday. I gotta tell you, I got booked in twice.

Greg Kelley1:05:53

The first time happened on a Friday and uh I remember actually calling out. The second time was on a Saturday and I was there for the weekend. And um I get brought out and I ended up going to, you know, over the weekend just hanging out just I go to the gym, get a workout in and I'm just like broken, dude. Like I'm just trying to stay moving. Monday comes around and I go to Champions Course early in the morning and I get out of Champions Course and I'm checking my phone.

I'm checking Twitter. I'm checking,

Right? Like I Google like where my mug shot would be and it's on like the county website. I see it pop up.

I see it there on that website. In my head I'm thinking like I really hope the media doesn't get a hold of this. and I get picked up from my mom and we go and have food together. We pull up to this China Star buffet restaurant. I'm just refreshing Twitter the whole time cuz I'm paranoid,

Greg Kelley1:06:56

We pull up and my mom puts the car in park. I remember this so well. I refresh Twitter and boom, there it is. Fresh post by K View News. My mug shot. Texas high school football star charged with sexual assault of a child.

Greg Kelley1:07:20

And then next thing you know, I hear ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. I put my phone down cuz now I'm like closing my eyes. Cannot believe that I'm in this reality right now. And I I Ding ding ding ding ding ding. Like people, it takes minutes and people are starting to message me saying, "Man, what the hell is this?" Blah, blah. Right. Like, oh man, dude, I'm like shaking just thinking about it. Yeah. My mom um she embraces me. She like holds me and cradles me because I'm broken.

I'm in a ball, dude. In the passenger seat of her car, I'm in a ball just broken, crying.

Greg Kelley1:08:07

Yeah. The first day of me being accused of this. Like when I got that call from Marlin, my whole family asked me and like they even tried to say like, "Greg, it's okay. Like it's okay. Like if it did happen, we're going to get help." And I'm like, "What the [ __ ] you talking about?" No. Like I wouldn't do this.

Greg Kelley1:08:28

No, there is. There is. isn't like I've learned a lot about like I learned a lot about things I I wouldn't have learned about if I hadn't gone through this. But man, I've been diagnosed and I've been I've seen every psych you can probably think of and it was more so like seeing third party psychiatrists to help me like prove my innocence.

Greg Kelley1:08:51

And like all these tests were done on me and this is like after the the fact, right? So of me going to trial and stuff, but

Greg Kelley1:09:02

Broken. Yeah. Like I just like I I remember just putting my phone down and it falls on the ground and like I put my foot over it to like try to make it stop.

Greg Kelley1:09:12

And um yeah, my mom is just cradling me

And uh she's crying and she's telling me Miho, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. and and uh and she's like, man, she's praying out loud to God. My mom's been a Catholic her whole life, so she's just calling upon the name of the Lord in our in my situation. I remember that, too. And she was just in my my ear. And yeah, needless to say, we didn't eat. And so we end up going back home and a lot of it's just been a blur, Ken, you know, all the way up until like it happened so quick.

Like I I'm I'm getting kicked off the football team. I'm getting kicked out of school. School's just now starting and they're having hearings of what they're going to do with me.

Greg Kelley1:10:02

That is what liberty is in our constitution. That is what the right to due process is in our constitution is there's a process that needs to happen and it's it's not to just like for sure put the guilty in prison, but it's to protect the innocent.

And there's a significant difference of whenever you send an innocent person to prison, there is a ripple effect that happens. There's no longer one victim, there's two.

Greg Kelley1:10:52

And what happens now is that two will most likely turn into three, four, five, six because the person that's supposed to go to prison, that's right,

Is out committing more crimes. So in real time, if you're naive to it, you don't realize that. But my case being one of the cases where it happens, right? We'll get to that part. Time goes on, they figured out what they want to do with me. I get kicked out of the district. I get kicked out of the off the team. I'm not even allowed to go on school campus. I'm not even allowed to go watch my brothers, man, my teammates play ball. Like, I'm not allowed to actually like I'm getting shunned.

My name is being painted a monster. And you know, one thing I've realized, Ken, is my relationship with people have changed since this whole thing. Like I've always heard from coaches like, "Show me your five friends. I'll show you where you're going to be at in five years." Right?

Through this whole situation, I figured out that majority people were never my friend.

Greg Kelley1:12:30

Because you're you're giving you're being vulnerable with your heart.

And men don't talk about this enough, but like uh and you need to realize this too, like if you've got drinking buddies, they're your drinking buddies. But when crap hits the fan, your drinking buddies aren't going to be your friends, right? It's convenient for them, right? And I'm sorry, but if you're drinking together, your priorities are and that's the only thing you guys do, your priorities are wrong.

Greg Kelley1:13:10

Before I turned myself in, the only people that had known what I'm going through, the accusation, is my mom, my brother Marlin, and me. And immediately when I knew that I had to now do this thing where I had to go turn myself in, the first thing that popped in my head was before my girlfriend finds out what I have to do here, I have to let her father know. And I don't know why that popped in my head.

I completely understand. But I have so much respect for David Anderson and I have so much respect for her daughter, his daughter, that I have to have confirmation that he believes who he thinks I am is really me.

Greg Kelley1:13:56

Like I don't know why. It's just like it really it really does matter to me that my in-laws look at me with respect.

Greg Kelley1:14:05

I go I call him and I said, "David, this is Greg Kelley." He's like, "What's up, Greg? What's going on?" Um, I said, "Sir, I can I come over?" And he's like, "What's going on?" I I start crying on the phone. I said, "David, I don't know what's going on in my life right now, but I need to talk to you." He says, "Come over right now. Come over." And he like starts leaning in. He's like, "You want me to come get you? Where you at?" And I said, "No, no, no.

I'm I'm with my I'm with my my brother. Um, but I need to talk to you." And he I go over at his house. He answers the door and he says, "Come come in." Like, "What's sit? Let's sit down. What's going on?" He is He doesn't know what's going on. And I'm balling, crying, and I'm terrified, man. I'm so scared to to tell him what's what I'm about to go through here. [snorts] And I sit down, I look at him, and I can't even look him in the eye.

Like, I can't. It's so scary to me to do this. And I'm a kid, man. I'm like, I'm 18 years old and I'm about to I'm I'm about to do some big boy stuff. And I I tell him, I said, "Man, I'm being accused of this, David, and I don't know why this is happening to me." He's like, "What are you being accused of?" Says, "Sexually assaulting a kid." And and he's like blown away. I mean, he's speechless. I can see the color just come right out of his body.

And he's wo. And my brother Marlin is just standing up in the corner of the room. And he, you know, he's just arms crossed just looking down like that, just looking down at me. And David looks at Marlon was like, "What's going on?" Like, and I I said, "I don't know this has happened." And I explain everything to him about the accusation and the dad coming to Shamba's house. And [sighs and gasps] he said, "Well," he listens to me, then he looks at me in the eye.

He says, "Look at me, son." And he says, "Did you do this?" I said, "No, David. I didn't do this." And uh he says, "Okay, okay, let's what's the next steps?" That's all he said. And then he gave me a hug. And I'm like, I'm I'm expecting this guy to tell me to get the hell out of his house. I'm painting this in my head. Get the hell out of my house. Who is my daughter dating? Right. But instead, I'm I'm welcomed with embrace. I've never felt so much love in my life at a as a kid, man.

We end up ending there. And he says, "You have an attorney. Where's Who's your attorney?" Yes, it's Patricia Cummings. And man, he starts getting involved. It's all backwards to me. I'm thinking like this guy's going to leave me and then I have to tell his daughter. So that night I said he says he asked me how are you going to tell Gabriel what you're going through right now. I said I don't know sir. Well you need to tell her Greg. Like she doesn't need to be knowing off the news.

You just need to tell her. You know I that night I call her. And I I still to this day don't fully understand maybe what she accepted. Like she was she was loss of words. like she thought it was a joke when I called her and she was in LA at the time and uh cuz she was going to and fro from LA and she was lost for words. She was like, "You're joking. What? This is a sick joke. Like don't joke like that." I'm like, "Gabriel, I'm not joking.

Like I'm going through this right now. I don't know why I'm going through it, but we're going to get down to the bottom of it. I have to go do this." And I'm trying to be like positive and like I'm being spoken with so much optimism and positivity from my family. man, when you know you're innocent, you know the truth is going to come out. Like I have no reason to be scared. And I'm telling myself this all the time.

And that is like a sense of relief I have through this process. So when I go into that jail, everyone already knows that I'm that I love that I'm about to go through this. And uh I had my father-in-law on my podcast a while ago and uh we talked about that pretty like we had a long talk about that and uh just talked about the emotions through it all. Fast forward, time [snorts] goes on and I'm in this like Leo alternative center, right? Leo is like learning like an alternative school for people that are charged for things or you get a fight at school, you get expelled into this alternative program in the district.

So, I had they put me there and I'm by myself. I'm in my own little cubicle. Two weeks into Leo, I get pulled out of class and I've never talked to police yet. Police have never tried to reach out and talk to me.

Greg Kelley1:18:52

I've only been booked. Apparently, they're investigating.

Greg Kelley1:18:56

Don't even know who the detect detective is. [sighs and snorts]

Greg Kelley1:19:08

So the documentary explains kind of like my interaction with them and all that. But

Greg Kelley1:19:15

It's on Paramount Plus. Hulu.

It was on Showtime and then Paramount bought Showtime.

Greg Kelley1:19:20

But

Greg Kelley1:19:48

Yeah. I I Yeah. Tell her I said, "Thank you. Uh I hope I meet her one day. I hope I can speak some some encouragement into her about the fight she's going through right now."

Greg Kelley1:20:04

Tell her thank you.

Greg Kelley1:20:06

So I get pulled out of class and I'm wondering why. And uh I get told to go down to the principal's office of this Leo Alternative SK Center.

Greg Kelley1:20:19

School for bad kids.

Greg Kelley1:20:24

Think of imagine a bunch of grown babies that don't have education.

Greg Kelley1:20:47

Yeah,

Greg Kelley1:20:53

Mhm.

You're 18.

Greg Kelley1:21:01

Did you ever do like solitary confinement and all that?

Greg Kelley1:21:37

That's the first time I ever experienced somebody stab in their life taken was on the basketball court in the courtyard.

Greg Kelley1:21:45

It was you would hear the stabbing like you would hear the skin popping. They used a a dull blade

And you'd hear an altercation. All you hear is like like just two loud pops and it was the the shank going into their stomach.

So yeah. No, it's the courtyard was terrible. Um but I get pulled out. I go down to the principal's office and there's two police officers waiting for me. They said, "Mr. Kelly, um I have to read you your rights." So my rights? Why? Like I'm What do you mean? He says, 'Well, you're uh I have to you're being arrested. I said, 'I was already arrested. What do you mean I'm not I'm not getting arrested again? Says, these are for another other charges. And I'm wondering what the heck is going on?

Other charges? What are you talking about? I can't He's not They're not giving me any information. So, they're just like, I put your hands behind your back. Um I have to take I have to take you, right? And so, I'm asking him in the squad car like what's going on? Why am I getting arrested? And like I'm crying and I have no answers. I go to uh the jail and they book me in and my attorney ends up meeting with me in the visitation room. She uh she says, "Greg, there's a apparently another kid that came forward saying that you sexually assaulted him

Greg Kelley1:23:10

Same allegations.

Okay. like Patricia, this is what's going on like this is a and I remember in my head I'm like this is this is not real. Like I' I've really questioned if I'm still alive or if I'm just like in hell now.

Greg Kelley1:23:23

And I'm It's like a pinch me moment. Like you're really trying to figure out if this is actually assimilation. Yeah.

Or if I'm really living life right now.

Greg Kelley1:23:30

She says the detective um got another kid to come forward and uh Yeah. You're uh you're going to get charged again. there's going to be two counts. Now, you know, it's it's weird, man, how the body it paralyzes your mind to protect you from this trauma that's about to happen to you. There's a lot of part there's a lot of that chapter, that season of my life where it's like a very hazy for me. And I've had a really hard time expressing the emotions and the series of events that had transpired.

[snorts] But I spend that weekend in jail cuz I I get I get booked in and uh on a on a Friday and and uh there was no judge and I spend the whole weekend in there. I'm like, "God, dude, man, I'm they put me in a freaking cell by myself. Then I get bonded out and then this time the bond is 20 grand." So it's two grand. That's $2,000.

Greg Kelley1:24:26

It usually goes up, right?

So I don't know why. Apparently the the second charge is indecency with the child. Apparently the second child said that and by the way I say this in quotations here or in parenthesis as if like it's BS.

Greg Kelley1:24:44

But the second child told the detective in a children's advoc uh center interview. Kind of like we're in a room like this.

Greg Kelley1:24:52

Where you sit down with the child and they give an outcry. Hence that's what my documentary is called. um and they give an outcry of what had happened to them. But you're not supposed to ask leading questions. It's just a safe place for a child to willingly give you this information. Not pressured, right? Not cooperated, not coached from this detective. He's saying that this kid, the second kid, said that I indeently exposed myself to this child and made him do sexual acts to me. So, I get that's the charge.

I get bonded out now. I I sink into a very dark place. I don't want to go to school anymore. I don't want to get out of bed. Don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't I like break my phone and like I can't I can't handle it anymore.

Greg Kelley1:25:53

Yeah. So, a little of both. I mean, clearly this is a misunderstanding and I immediately think like I'm getting framed for this or something. Like my name is getting put into this kid's mouth. Something's happening behind the scenes that we need to figure out the truth for.

And then a part of me too is like there's a big question mark like I don't know the answers to this. I part of this too like my attorney who my appeal attorney Keith Hampton the only answer I could ever give Kent was like I don't know like I don't know why this is happening to me. You never know. And then when I get convicted at trial right by the way like I don't want to jump too much but I've always it didn't sit well with me why I couldn't explain like I it's like in in this world we have to give explanations for everything,

Right? And it's like I've had a hard time trying to explain like, well, maybe this happened or or this happened, but it's not my place.

Greg Kelley1:26:51

To say maybe this happened, this happened. I'm just thinking in my head, I have nothing to do with it. And I need these people to find the truth.

Greg Kelley1:26:57

That's it. Like,

And the truth will speak for itself. And if somebody else did it, they did it. If somebody else didn't do it and these kids were coached or these kids, you know, whatever, like it's going to happen.

Greg Kelley1:27:15

Yeah, it's a good question. Uh Shamba did come out in my defense saying like she's taking this she's taking the stance that nothing happened at all. That these kids are making it up. Uh these kids are weird. Um this is what she's saying to to detectives and stuff like that cuz the the detective did interview No, I'm sorry. Detective didn't interview anybody. Uh the detect the detect the my attorney interviewed Shamba, right? Patricia Cummings and she said, "The kids are making it up. The kids are making it up.

The kids are making it up." So that's this that's the okay the angle she's coming and I'm coming like investigate, find the truth, clear my name. I need to go play football.

That's my whole thing, right? So time goes on and now I'm having a meetings with my attorney. We're talking and she's like, "Okay, well they're going to investigate and I'm going to investigate. We're going to hire PI." And you know, this happens for like eight, nine months. Nothing, no news. I'm constantly calling Patricia, what's going on? This or that. Like small little updates here and there. I was showing up to court just for it to be rescheduled, right? Just going through the whole process. And then out of nowhere, man, it seemed like it just happened within a few days, but it really was months.

Uh, I know that the end of my senior year is coming up and I had already finished school early and alternative learning center. I technically graduated already. So, I know that like UTSA is still holding on, right? Like all my other scholarships, I had four alltogether. All of them stripped away from me. UTSA was still holding on, right? Cuz Neil Nether, I had called him up, explained, uh, he was defensive coordinator, also the recruiting coach that offered me at UTSA. I had called him up, explained, "What's going on?

I'm innocent. Didn't do this. Um, the truth is going to prevail. It's going to come out that I didn't do this. My name is going to be cleared and I'm going to go play football for you." He trusted me. Like, he he trusts me. I'm very fortunate he did. He stayed all the way up until my trial. A couple months before my trial, I get indicted by a grand jury. And when you get indicted, you have to go to trial.

Greg Kelley1:29:25

You do. Yes, you do. So technically when you get indicted, they're gearing you up to go to trial. Right. Now before you go to trial, that's when the plea bargain happens.

Greg Kelley1:29:36

To eliminate going to trial because going to trial cost a lot of money.

Greg Kelley1:29:54

Okay. So it's it's enough to go to trial. So there's like a you know vetting process in a grand jury. Whenever you get a an arrest warrant to get arrested

Greg Kelley1:30:03

You only have to get a judge to sign off on it.

Greg Kelley1:30:07

And you have to give some probable cause or something something very small.

And in the state of Texas, any accusation from a child is enough probable cause. You don't have to have any evidence.

If a child accuses you of something, that is enough to arrest you. In some sense, that's kind of freaking scary.

Greg Kelley1:30:25

And Ken, that has completely shaped the trajectory of my future. When I go into bathrooms at the airport, this happened at the airport a few months ago. I went to a bathroom and I when I walked in there to go take a leak, I saw that there was a child in there. There was like a kid looked 10 or 11 years old and apparently maybe his parents were in the stall or whatever, maybe outside, but he was using the urinal. And I walk in, I about phazed, walked out, waited for him to get done, went in there, you did my business, and left.

Greg Kelley1:30:54

Because I will never be alone with a ch child ever again.

Greg Kelley1:30:58

Unless it's my own daughter.

Greg Kelley1:31:00

Through what I've went through, it created a guard rail for how I live life now. I uh

Greg Kelley1:31:10

I go to trial.

Legal bills are piling up, I assume. So my mom, when I figure out I'm going to trial, my mom sells our childhood home. So we ran out of money. We don't have any more money. We we lived in a mobile we I grew up in a double wide mobile home in the country. Beautiful piece of land, beautiful little home. Um my parents took pride in it. And my mom sold her for $50,000 cash. It was worth way more than that. um the land and everything, but my mom was going to do what was necessary to protect her boy.

And that money was all the money, like the upfront money to go to trial for my attorney, for Patricia Cummings. So, that was taken care of. And my mom ended up living with my brother for a while. My dad approved of it, too. My dad is like, "Protect Greg." And my dad's still going through it, man. He's not around. He's he's in a he's in like a a nursing not a nursing home, but like a rehabilitation center

Cuz he's still living. Yeah, because his his his stroke really did a number on him. Like he's not functional. He's lost half of his body. So, it's sad. You know, I before we got on this pod, I had expressed to you like every man has a man moment in his life. He needs to have a man moment in his life where he chooses to stand for a set of morals and principles that most other men or most other people would sit down for because it's just too hard to do.

But, you know, it's right. And that's the difference between a nice man and a good man, right? A good man stands up when he needs to stand up, no matter the cost. Even if it's losing or maybe losing your life. When a man goes and puts his life on the line for another man, that's a good man. it. Now, now in this case, a couple years prior when I was a sophomore in high school, I had been hanging out with two friends and we were in Nicole's department store and I had never like done anything crazy in my life, but um didn't have any money and and you know, they were swapping out their shoes in the department store, right?

Their old shoes for new ones and like I decided to do it, too. And you know, I stole from that Kohl's department store and I swapped out my old shoes for some new ones and the loss prevention ended up catching us. Took us in the freaking back room, showed us the monitors and just like shame and like guilt. Like just I'm crying, dude. Like I'm a football player. I got a future. I'm not I don't have any offers yet, but I'm just like crying and like I'm scared for my dad to find out.

I'm scared for my mom to find out. I'm uh I'm like begging like, "Man, don't call the cop. I'm so sorry. Like, I I I will work this off. Like, I'm so sorry." The guy ends up calling the cops anyways. The cops come and uh I remember I'm like, "Okay, I'm I'm in it. Okay, I guess got I got to own it. I got to own it. I got I got to step up and own it." So, my dad shows up and the cop is like we're on the curb of the department store right there in the front and the the cop shows up.

It was staring at us, goes talk to my dad and I can see in the distance they're talking. And my dad's just looking at me while talking to the police officer. And I don't know what my dad said, but I believe it's something on along the lines of like this kid has a future. He's going to play football. Like he he he doesn't mess up. Like I don't know what happened today, but I will make sure that he will never do this again. And the cop comes over to me.

He's like, "You got a good dad here." And he's saying that you're a ball player and you've got a future and you do know that if I take you to jail, this is going to put a huge stain and might change trajectory of your future. And I'm just nodding my head like, you know, still crying and my uh my dad tells me to get in the car and I'm ready for my dad to lay into me while I'm driving while we're driving home, but he doesn't.

He like stops the car, pulls over, looks at me directly in the eyes, and he says, "Look at me." He says, "You got to find out real freaking quick, son, what type of man you want to be in this world." Because you can be a loser like that what you just did right there, or you can own up to what you've done right now, apologize, go pay every dollar back to that Kohl's department store, and choose to do good. And I'm like, I don't really like I just don't want my dad to be mad at me anymore.

So like, but something set in that to me that day. I heard him and I saw that he was angry and I saw that he was upset with me and I didn't make him proud. And so that that weighed on me and I I remember that and I didn't think I would ever remember what he told me that way that day. I just thought he, you know, let me off like he didn't yell at me. And lo and behold, I I realized what he was telling me that day because two years later, I'm going to have to do this very thing where I What type of man am I going to be in this world?

I get offered 5 years probation in a room sitting at a table with my family. The DA comes in or not the DA, my attorney comes in, says she talked to the DA. This is the day before I'm supposed to go to trial. My my my trial scheduled. I'm like initially I'm gung-ho like to go to trial. Like I'm scared. Like you're scared, right? Cuz

The possibility is bad. Uh one side there's two doors really like the bad door and a good door, right? Like you're looking at the good door and you know that that's the truth, right? Like this is it. But I'm scared because it could go bad and there's enough Netflix documentaries of them going bad and it's a possibility. And so I'm terrified. And my attorney comes in and sits down with my family and says, "Look, they want to give you a plea deal to not go to trial." [snorts] I said, "Well, what what do they want to do for for me not to go to trial?" And it's 5 years probation, lifetime sex registration, right, dude?

[snorts] Lifetime sex registration, certain amount of fines, no county jail. I said 5 years probation.

The the sex offender

Greg Kelley1:37:19

Yeah. I'm supposed to go to prison if if I get found guilty I'm going to prison 25 to 99 years.

Greg Kelley1:37:29

Exactly. So in my head at the time I'm thinking in my head that one that and then two I am so scared and I see my mom crying, breaking down and she looks at me and I said I I I can't hold let me backtrack. She the original offer wasn't five years it was 10 years and I immediately said no. Right. But I'm thinking like I don't know how naive I am. I'm thinking that like 10 years probation, uh, lifetime sex registration, and I'm not found guilty.

No, that's not how it works.

Greg Kelley1:38:06

What you have to do is you have to actually go in front and stand in front of the judge and everyone in that courtroom

Greg Kelley1:38:13

Y

And that's where I had the problem is I couldn't do that.

So,

Greg Kelley1:38:20

No, no, no, no, no, no. And so, no, cuz I'm thinking like in my future, like I'm thinking like, wait a second, lifetime sex registration. Wait a sec. What? I'm going to be a sex offender? No, no, no, no. So, I said, "No, no, no." So, you know what? Tell them no. And she comes back and she says, "Now they're offering five year." This is what she says. She says they they believe you're a good kid and they believe that you made a mistake and that you don't deserve to go to prison.

Like you don't deserve, you deserve to have a life and have a future. You just made a mistake. Five years probation, life. Oh, no, I'm sorry. 10 years sex registration. Not life. 10 years sex registration, certain amount of fines, no county jail. And I see my mom now like staring at me with just tears falling down her eyes. And I'm already set in my heart that I can't I can't do it. I'm not going to do it. I see my mom breaking and it's making me break a little bit because I love my mom.

My mom's everything to me. And I said, I got to make a call. And then I I called Gabri. She's in LA at the time. I said, "Hey, they're offering me a plea bargain. This is what it is. I don't know what to do. Do I take it?" And this is over. And you know what she tells me? She says, "Greg, it'll never be over. it'll never be over. I said, "What do you mean by that?" She says, "You're going to have to say you did something you didn't do and this is going to follow you for the rest of your life." And then like now I'm torn because now my wife, my my girlfriend at the time is saying, "What do we do?" She says, "We fight the balls on that chick, dude." I'm like I'm sitting there like, "Oh my gosh." Well, now I go I tell my attorney I need to go use the restroom, right?

And I'm like my my thoughts are going 100 miles an hour and she says, "We need to tell them in the next like 15 minutes, right? It's coming to the end of the day." I go use the restroom and remember I told you about that time of my dad, what kind of man you're going to be in this world? My dad's in a rehab facility somewhere and I go and wash my I take a piss and I wash my hands. As I look at myself in the mirror and I see my father and he asks me, "What type of man you want to be in this world?" At that very moment, I knew what I needed to do.

I needed to stand up. When everybody, 98% of people in Wim County sits down, they sit your ass down because they scare you.

Greg Kelley1:40:56

They scare you. They show you a way out. They tempt you with an apple in front of your face. I just batted that away and I I went back and I I told Patricia, I'm not doing it. Like, we're gonna go fight. We're gonna fight because I know what man I'm going to be. Sometimes part of being that man, Ken, is even when you lose, you still have to not have the regret of what you chose to do. And I went to trial and it lasted seven days.

There was no evidence that proved that I did this. just an accusation of one kid still saying my first name and the second kid completely recanting saying that I never said like said no. Like they asked you could tell that the district attorney was having a hard time saying like well you know in the video what happened was the videos were shown and there were so many red flags with the children's advocacy center interview. the the woman was interviewing the second kid and the detective was outside the door and because the kid was not saying anything, so what happened was behind the scenes, now I'm going to explain behind the scenes what what was happening during that investigation, the detective was hanging off of the first kid's accusation and trying to get all these other kids to come in and say something happened to them to strengthen the first kid.

Greg Kelley1:42:23

He didn't go to the daycare at all once. Never took any pictures. Didn't interview anybody. Didn't interview anybody anybody living there. Didn't interview me. Didn't interview Shamba. Didn't interrogate anything. All he did throughout this whole investigation was make three phone calls. And that's what he based his whole [snorts] investigation off of to try and lead the conviction of me. Now, I'll tell I'll tell you why he chose to do that. Because how this man was taught to be a detective is the most crooked, the most disgusting and diabolical way to carry out justice.

And you'll see that in episode three of the documentary when he gets put back on stand when I have my innocence hearing three and a half years later.

Greg Kelley1:43:09

And he gets asked by the new DA of Williamson County when my case gets reopened and reinvestigated by the Texas Rangers. it. Everything is so crystal clear now of why he did the investigation the way he did cuz he got asked on stand three and a half years later at my evidentiary writing that I had in the same freaking courtroom that I was convicted in. And he got grilled and he asked, "What's your def well before we start? What's your definition of justice?" And I'm I'm not like a super violent person, but I wanted to hop off over that table and I wanted to strangle this man.

His definition of justice was a successful prosecution. That's what he said. He stopped for a second and he said successful prosecution. And

Greg Kelley1:43:54

Not anymore.

Greg Kelley1:43:56

And and it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't forcibly either. He resigned. And I I'll tell you, I'll get into that

Greg Kelley1:44:39

I can't even fathom to think that how he could lay his head down at night knowing what he had done to me.

It's so crazy. The Texas Rangers got on the stand right after that him after the whole courtroom gasped disgusted at his answer and the answers that followed too. There's a bunch of I don't knows, I don't recalls, I don't knows, you know, the neutral on the fence answers. You know, this man got promoted to sergeant after my case by the chief who went on the record on the documentary and also made a public statement after I was convicted, calling everyone who still continues to support me as a cult and called me the cult leader.

Greg Kelley1:45:38

When a kid makes an accusation, it's very important to take it serious. And that's why we have the children's advocary center, okay? Where there is a policy, there's a protocol that has been built over the years of child forensic psychologists on how you ought to carry out these procedures. And if you don't, then investigations can be compromised and it could be detrimental to investigations. one because you could have a guilty person walk or you can send an innocent person to prison because when you handle a kid's accusation it's very important very very important to not lead in any way.

So the second kid, right, the first kid was solid on like Greg did this to me, Greg did this to me, Greg did this to me. Now, one thing that the detective, which I don't need, I don't need to go and become a detective to understand this. I've watched enough Law and Order to understand that when a kid is mixing up my name with somebody else's characteristics, then what you do is ID the person, right? You ID the person. What you do is you you you get the kid and you say, "Hey, I'm going to show you some pictures."

Greg Kelley1:46:49

And I need you to show me who did this because the kid is saying my name, but Jonathan's room, Jonathan's trophies, Jonathan's clothes, Jonathan, like he's kids confused, but the the the detective never wants to ID me because I think probably in his head I'm the football star.

Greg Kelley1:47:20

100%

Greg Kelley1:47:22

So 100% he figured out that Jonathan was living in that house. He figured out uh that Jonathan early on in the investigation. His family had a history of sexual violence. His family had a history of sexual violence. My own attorney, Patricia Cummings, which I didn't know about this, Ken. She should have told me that she previously represented Jonathan's brother in a sexual assault case.

Greg Kelley1:47:52

So, she should have Now, here's the funny part.

It's funny that you're saying all this because when you watch it, hey, when you watch this dick, when you watch this doc, you're going to end up texting me. Everything you're saying right now is is the actual um problems with this case.

Greg Kelley1:48:12

No, she's not related to them, but she has a friendship with Shamba.

Greg Kelley1:48:15

look at." So, she previously represented uh Jonathan's brother in a sexual assault case.

Greg Kelley1:48:35

I don't know this.

Greg Kelley1:48:41

Exactly. And then Shamba, they have a relationship. Shamba's recommended Patricia to me when I don't know how to get an attorney. Right.

Greg Kelley1:48:51

Yes, he's in he was in prison.

Greg Kelley1:49:02

It was their family lawyer. And so what do you think happens now? So it all kind of boils down to Shamba ending up or not Shama, uh, Patricia ending up because defense attorneys, they have their own investigations, too. They hire PIs.

Greg Kelley1:49:17

Because they have to be confident in the client they're representing. But what happened was is that Patricia's intention was never trying to find the truth. That wasn't her intention. Her intention because of her conflict was to have me walk because this whole defense was revolving around Jonathan was keeping Jonathan off the radar.

Greg Kelley1:49:44

Do you know why I know that? Do you know why I feel this? There's there's there's real reason why we feel this now as as a family

Is because before my trial, there is talk. There's rumors and we have to make sure that this is fact that Jonathan was at a party and one of Jonathan's friends ended up talking to Gabriel, calling Gabriel and saying, "I just saw naked pictures of children on Jonathan's phone." And this was like months before my trial. And so Gabri hears this, she tells me, and then I'm like, "We need to go to Patricia's.

We need to tell Patricia this because she's my attorney and she needs to know this." And so we do and I come with and I come with my mother-in-law, me, Gabriel. And when Tracy tells her this and I'm there too, she says, "Hey, we need to look into Jonathan. There is naked pictures in ch of children on his phone that somebody said that was there at a party cuz they were looking at his phone or whatever, right? He was trying to show him a picture and when you're showing people pictures, you see other pictures on your phone." And the guy was like, "Dude, what was that?" And then and then the kid was like, "Oh, just naked pictures of my nephews."

What?

What? And then he said, "Dude, what?" He's like, "Yeah, dude. You know, you have like like cute little pictures of of your nephews on your phone." I was like, "No, I don't." Like, "What are you talking about?" And

Greg Kelley1:51:20

No, dude. Like I the other day I was I was in uh I was we were out giving my daughter a bath and I saw a cute little thing she did with the soap and like the sponge. She looked so adorable and every time she looks adorable, I love to take a picture of her and so I took a picture of her and like her private parts weren't showing or anything but then I was like she's in the bath. This is inappropriate. So like I deleted it.

Yeah. And like that's immediately that's what you think, but like these these were pictures of his nephew in the bath, his genitalia out and everything. It's just not going to go into that, but um yeah, I uh

So you tell we're sitting at a table. We're sitting at a table like this and Patricia

Ends up putting her face in front of his her hand in front of Tracy's face and saying, "We're not going to go there. I'm here to defend Greg." And Tracy's like, "What do you think you're doing then with this information?" Like, of course you're going to defend Greg. Like, this is Greg's best friend. They look alike. Like, what do you mean? There's naked children on his

Greg Kelley1:52:23

I want to. I really want to, but I'm thinking Patricia is going to handle this cuz we we insisted that she continues to look into this.

Greg Kelley1:52:39

Yes, kind of. But it wasn't like a

I'm not close to Jonathan anymore. Like I'm not obviously Yeah. Well, no, I'm talking about back then. I wasn't close to him.

Greg Kelley1:52:49

There's already like altercation between us because

I've always known that Jonathan was in love with Gabri.

Okay. It was a triangle situation where Yeah. And and when you watch the doc, you'll understand that. Okay. When I got convicted, Ken, he tried to take my life.

He tried to take my football number. He tried to hook up pinkies at the end of football games to sing the school song with my girlfriend. Like, I'm gone. I'm out of the picture. And he's trying to step into my life. He's trying to take my spot. Um like in in the football team, right? He's like asking the coaches that he can he can do it. He can play strong safety on the varsity. He's just trying to take my life. And Gabriel was very like oblivious to this for a while.

And I already knew like I live with the dude, right? Like I could always feel that he was always secretly infatuated with Gabriel.

Greg Kelley1:53:39

And I tried to explain this to Gabriel like just be careful with Jonathan because they were friends.

Yeah. But like Gabriel, if you ever interview her, you'll you'll you you'll hear a lot more sick things than me because she's actually had to Gabriel went like undercover uh to help exonerate me, to help prove my innocence with the PI. And Gabriel said the the sickest thing she's ever felt was whenever I was in prison. Gabriel went over to where like she was wearing a wire or whatever and she sat down and Jonathan like tried to do stuff with her on the couch like grabbed the blanket and like laid on her lap and like tried put his hand on her leg going up her leg towards her between her legs her groin.

And Gabriel felt like she felt the most violated she's ever felt and and the truth was never was it's never been more clear and than in that very moment that she knows what happened here. After that, nothing's really done with the whole Jonathan thing and I go to trial and it boils down to this. Patricia's goal was to have me walk at trial and not prove my innocence. Not

Greg Kelley1:54:42

Not beyond a shadow of a doubt. She was just hoping that I would win. But when you don't come and your intention is not to have the truth prevail, right? What do you think happens? So everything was conflicted in the beginning. And now the irony of all this is after I'm convicted, right? My head hits the table. I'm broken. Like that's what happens. And I I everything goes black. That recently, a couple weeks ago, I had to go back to the courtroom. I had to do something I didn't want to do because I could never write I'm writing my book.

I've been dreading to write the chapter that I was the day I was convicted. It's a whole chapter. And I've been dreading to write that because the amount of trauma in that day is is too much for me to handle. Like I can't function. It'll ruin my whole day if I think about it.

Yeah. So, it'll put me into like an emotional slum and but I knew that I had to do this and I I tell people all the time like and I'll tell all your audience like if you're writing a book about trauma, if you really want the emotions and the words that you can't quite grasp, then you have to go back to the place where it happened because and you have to sit in it. You have to feel the anxiety. You have to feel the heeie-jeebies. You have to feel the trauma.

You have to cry. You have to go and sit next to the person that went through it. And so I called up the judge who exonerated me. I have her contact. Her name is Donna King. I call her up. I say, "Hey, Judge Donna, Judge King. Um, it's Greg Kelley." She says, "Greg, oh my gosh, so nice to hear from you." I said, "Hey, I got to ask you for a favor." I said, "What's that?" She's like, "What's that?" I said, "Can I have access to the court to your courtroom?" And she said, 'What do you need that for?' I said, 'I just need to stay in there for a day.' She said, 'What do you mean?

Like, I need to sit at the table I was convicted in because I'm having a hard time writing this chapter and I need to feel I need to sit next to my 19-year-old me and I need to feel it all. And I did. I went to that courtroom early in the morning. I sat there and I sat next to the 19-year-old me who went through that. And I I I relived all of it with him. And part of me will ever will forever be in that courtroom on that devastating day.

But I finally wrote the chapter I needed to. And I'm gonna have to go do that in a couple other chapters. I'm g have to go to prison and sit there for a second just because it's hard, man, to like write about trauma um when you don't want to think about it anymore. You just want to sweep it under a rug and just go on with your life. And so I get convicted and I I uh now you talk about another deal, right? [snorts] And it'll be more clear when you watch the doc.

But um so I rejected five years probation. The worst happens, right? I get convicted with no evidence against me solely on the accusation of one child of my name and a whole lot of other question marks because an investigation was never done.

But that's enough to convict somebody in the state of Texas. And by the way, they upgraded my uh they upgraded my charge, by the way. Whenever whenever I chose not to take the plea agreement, they upgraded it to super aggravated sexual child of assault of a child. Just kind of a you know, just there you go. And that's like a new law that just happened. And they they uh it's because the age of the child, four years old when it happened. So that carries a sentence of 25 to 99 years in prison, day for day, no possibility of parole.

So it's like getting sentenced to life. Yeah, of course.

Essentially brand new law. I was like one of the first person people to get it to get to get sentenced with it. And so

Greg Kelley1:58:25

Falling asleep?

Greg Kelley1:58:26

Falling asleep, dude. The whole time like you the first time it happened, he was just like like he's just dozing off like he's an older man. He's been the judge forever.

And he just kept falling asleep and I'm like what's going on, man? Like and he barely did anything. like barely was like, you know, in order order. It didn't do anything other than to let people talk. And so now I want to get to a few important parts of what's wrong with our justice system, okay? Because this is why I developed a foundation called the Vindication Foundation. And this is why I run ultras for this foundation to grow awareness. I don't want to be the type of person, man, that puts a suit in a tie.

And you know, even though attorneys, you know, the Innocence Project, right, is is a huge foundation that does a lot of great things for people, right? But it's it's it's the Innocence Project essentially is just a bunch of contracted attorneys that get funded by the Innocence Project, right? All the donations and everything to pick up the bills, right? Pick up the the bills to advance cases that have gone still because there's no funding.

Greg Kelley1:59:32

They wouldn't.

Greg Kelley1:59:34

Because of the charge.

Greg Kelley1:59:46

Yes. Everything. Everything. So,

Greg Kelley1:59:52

So, three years in I get a call from my attorney. Before that, you ever heard like you ever heard of the thing where people like before it gets better, it has to get absolute worst. Like it has to get the worst that you've ever felt. Like it's got to get to a point where you're almost done. Like you're almost giving up.

Greg Kelley2:00:11

But it's just this one that you just persevere through this one more thing, one more day

And then boom, everything happens like that. That's what happened in my case. It's freaking wild. The first,

Greg Kelley2:00:28

While I'm in prison, during the new investigation with my appeal attorney. And the irony before we get there is my Keith Hampton, my appeal attorney, the irony of it is she was he was recommended by Patricia Cummings. And the irony behind that is Keith Hampton, dude, he's when it comes down to like the dude who doesn't put up with BS and he's out there to seek the truth at all costs. Doesn't matter if we're friends. If you did something that you weren't supposed to do, you need to fall on your sword or I'm gonna stab you with it.

Greg Kelley2:01:12

When they when we start private investigating during my appeal?

Greg Kelley2:01:18

No, he doesn't tell me because Keith is so freaking smart. So, a lot of appeal attorneys, they strive in their career to get a one exoneration. He's got 12.

Greg Kelley2:01:28

The reason why is because he knows how the prison system works. And the thing about evidence that can be used against for your innocence is valuable to prisoners. It's valuable to your cellmate who's trying to get a sentence reduction.

Greg Kelley2:01:45

And so Keith was like, I would get pissed, man, cuz Keith, give me an update. Keith, give me an update. Give me an update. He's telling my family.

Greg Kelley2:01:54

Exactly. So, he's telling my family and my family is kind of it's going through the filter to tell me, but they're not telling me everything though. But then he's kind of like not telling my family the most important things, the things he's trying to keep in his sleeve because he's waiting for the big dance.

Greg Kelley2:02:13

I find a lot out. I've already found that out like months prior, but I find out like he's got all these other claims that he's going to put against Patricia. If Patricia does this and defaults this claim or she tries to combat this claim, well, there's then here's a conflicted interest or here's an ineffective assistance. Like this dude is a wizard.

Greg Kelley2:02:40

To a point where she's like having like going to the back of the courtroom banging against head against the wall because she's like she's she's she she's she she's in the hot seat and she can't take it.

Greg Kelley2:02:56

Yeah. So um it's just a claim that helps my innocence. I mean it's a claim to to a violation of my due process. And so there's claims and I I I brought total six or seven to the court of criminal appeals, the highest state criminal court in the state of Texas.

And one of them was the ineffective assistance claim. Um um the biggest one was the actual innocence claim. And

So before we get to that point, it's really important for me to say this part. The second deal that the prosecutors tried to come to me as after I was convicted, right, that devastating day and now the next day is the sentencing hearing. I'm sitting in a courtroom or I'm sitting behi behind the courtroom in a in a room with my family. I had already spent the night in a suicide cell and I get I put my suit back on and I go back to my sentencing here and I sit in a room like this in a table, same freaking table that I was offered that plea bargain.

Um, not the plea bargain. Yeah, the plea bargain. And then my attorney walks in again and she's distraught. She's devastated that I got convicted. She walks in and says, "Hey, the DA's want to make a deal with you." Now, my hands are already tied behind my back. I'm going to prison no matter what. Yeah, I'm convicted and I'm devastated. My family's devastated. I'm broken. I don't care what happens to me anymore. I know I'm dead. Like, I'm ready to die. I know what's waiting for me on the other side of these doors.

She comes up and says, "The DA wants to make a deal with you." And she got the judge to agree that if you wave your right to appeal this trial, wave my right to appeal this trial, everything in this trial, then you could potentially just you could sentence yourself to 25 years, right? That would mean that I would get out at 44 years old.

Greg Kelley2:04:40

That's what I was thinking, Ken. You're taking the words right out of my mouth because then she follows up. That's what I tell her. I'm like, no. Well, 25 years is the minimum, right? This is what she says word for word. I'm not kidding. I remember this for the rest of my life. She says, "Or you can give it back to the jury that just convicted you." And when she says that, I'm like, "What kind of attorney are you?" Because now I'm thinking in my head, they're going to they they're going to give me any number between 25 to 99.

But I'm not trying to think about that anymore because I can't make good decisions, right? Like I'm thinking my I can't make good decisions. Look where it got me.

Yeah. So I tell my family, you decide. You decide. I give the power to my family. I give the power to my brothers. I give the power to my mom. And of course, what are they going to do? They want the hope that I'm going to get out at 44. They're they want the hope to see my son to see the son considering that I could die in there, right? They chose for me and it was take the 25 years

And wave the right for an appeal. wave my right to appeal because if I don't wave my right to appeal then now this isn't a reflection of how much I don't trust the the the pro uh the justice system right now I wave my right to let's just think about scenarios here I wave my right to appeal this trial I get sentenced to 25 years I have the hope to come home at 44 I don't wave my right to appeal this trial and I get sentenced to 90 years and I lose my appeal I'm in prison till I'm 90 or I'm I'm in prison for the rest of my life So thinking of that, my family is thinking, "We don't trust the jury system.

We don't trust to give this back to them." When they just convicted Greg with no evidence that it just goes to show you, and by the way, like the process of that jury, by the way, it was a pressured conviction. Whenever you read about exonerated people, you're always going to read that jurors have come forward saying that they were pressured to convict.

Greg Kelley2:06:38

Always. And in my case, yes, they were pressured to convict. It happened. They were out all day in the jury deliberation. The It was 11:00 at night. They needed to call it a day. The judge brings them back into the box and says, "Hey, you have 10 more minutes. If you can't receive, if we can't get a verdict within 10 minutes, we're going to have to house you in a hotel near the courthouse. There's going to be accommodations for your work, for your medication, this, that, for your family.

You're a selfish little jury member. You don't want to go in a hotel. You don't want to miss work tomorrow. You don't And they're looking at me with the least amount of importance that my life's on the line. And the judge sends them back into the room and the the jurors that were holding off on convicting me. They turn their verdict within five minutes.

Greg Kelley2:07:32

And they come back. And the moment I knew that I was going to get convicted was even before the verdict happens. You know what happened, Ken? When they came back into the jury box to rain down the verdict, the door opened up. And before they came out, three baifts came out and stood next to me. And I knew what was about to go down.

Greg Kelley2:07:54

Immediately. Like I had intuition. They're there just in case something pops off. And I I retaliate. And and my and as I'm having this thought, my attorneys are having that thought, too. They're looking at me. And uh the irony of it, too, is one of the baiffs I saw the other day at uh at a he's like he's about to retire, but I'm going to interview him because he he not only saw me get convicted and he was standing next to me when I got convicted, but he was also the baiff of the judge who exonerated me.

So, he was he has a special viewpoint. He saw me get my life ruined and taken away from me. and then he also saw me get it back. So, I'm going to interview him for my book one day.

Greg Kelley2:09:33

Yeah. Um,

Greg Kelley2:09:38

So, during the appeal process, Keith comes on.

Greg Kelley2:09:46

When you sign your right to appeal the trial, that means everything that's on the trial is off the table. You can't use it.

Greg Kelley2:09:54

You can't use

Greg Kelley2:09:57

You can still appeal your conviction, but only if you bring forth new evidence.

Greg Kelley2:10:01

That's the only thing, right? That's the only caveat. Caveat caveat.

Greg Kelley2:10:06

You got to bring new evidence. Well, there was a lot of evidence that was never looked into. There wasn't even investigation. There were stones that were still turned that needed to be turned over. Thing with Jonathan, right? My cell phone never got dissected. My electronics never got repossessed and looked into and investigated. And you would think, man, because whenever sexual accusations happen and you're the asalent and you're being accused of this, you want to find the truth, Ken? Go look at their phone.

Greg Kelley2:10:40

Go look at their history. go dissect and get a forensic analysis or a forensic um extractor or whatever and dissect that asalent's phone and it'll open up a whole can of worms if you did it. My phone was never taken up. My laptop was never taken up. My iPad was never taken up. It never got looked at. So,

Greg Kelley2:11:03

Yes. Until it was. And I'm not going to say what happened, but I'm going to let you watch the dock.

Greg Kelley2:11:21

So, what happened?

Greg Kelley2:11:23

Before I get there, I want to touch on this one thing because this is really important. When I expressed to you earlier that I really didn't know why I couldn't give explanations why this was happening to me. I'm glad I didn't know because Keith told me after the fact after I expressed to him after I'm exonerated and everything. We're having lunch one day. I said, "Hey, I never asked you this before, but I know what type of attorney you are. If you believe your client is guilty, you're not going to represent them." That's is how he rolls.

Greg Kelley2:11:53

Right. So the people he's exonerated he truly believed were innocent. And I asked him, I said, "Man, what made you believe I was truly innocent?" Like respectfully. And he says, "Well, you remember that time where I first met you in prison or in jail and we sat there face to face and we talked through a plexiglass window and I was asking you questions?" Said, "Yeah." I was interviewing you. I was vetting you. And there's one question I always ask at the very end. Then I don't ask any other questions after that.

And I always ask, why do you think this is happening to you? And I'm looking for one answer. And that answer is simply, I don't know. If you can give me that answer, I will take you on as a client. Because innocent people never know what's happening to them. And they don't have explanations for it. They don't have explanations for it because you simply do not know why this is happening to you. The ones that are guilty, he found out, are the ones always that have the explanations.

The ones that always try to point somewhere else and this and that and this and that. He's like that's just bas basic psychology and I was like wow okay like it's crazy. So he became my attorney and time went on and he wouldn't tell me anything right when I was telling you right he he would keep it shielded from me.

Greg Kelley2:13:11

And he tell my family and I would always get kind of mad and I would always ask my family during visitation what's up with Keith? like what's going on? Why does he need to tell me anything? And you know what it was, Ken? It was more so like to soothe me to think that like to give me hope because like I'm getting deep into my faith and like I'm I'm trying to stay strong. I'm trying to do the best I can to move forward. I'm I'm going to college.

I'm going to work in the factory. I'm trying to better myself considering my circumstances. I'm trying to move forward, but I'm going to get nothing from my attorney. So, I'm getting kind of pissed.

Yeah. My family's kind of getting pissed too because he's not they're not getting anything. But Keith just said, "Trust me. Just trust me. Trust me. I choose to endure. Like I choose to trust." And then it just everything started happening, man.

Greg Kelley2:14:02

Right? Three years in January of 2017, I figured that I figured out I get my first day of college in prison, right? And and it's through a college program.

Greg Kelley2:14:14

I get kicked out of college. They tell me I can't go to college anymore. College education was my way out.

Greg Kelley2:14:21

And I don't have it anymore. I'm pissed. And then

Greg Kelley2:14:27

Because there's a new policy, a new law in prison that sex offenders have to wait five years of their term before they go into p. They go into start doing college classes. And it started that year. And I'm I'm like, what are you talking about? I've been doing class for three years now. Yeah. I got I'm about to get my associates, you know,

And I'm sorry, you got to wait two more years before you continue.

Greg Kelley2:14:50

So, I'm like that put me in bed, dude. Like, that put me in bed for days.

Greg Kelley2:14:55

Depressed. Um, then I I get a I get an attorney visit and my I get a call. No, I get an attorney visit later, but I get a call from Keith Hampton. Says, "Hey, what are you doing right now?" I'm like, "Prison, prison, Keith, what's going on?" And uh then he's like, "Man, uh I uh got some good news." I said, "What's that?" Uh so I had a meeting with Shawn Dick, which is the new district attorney who just took the seat January of 2017 of Williamson County.

I didn't tell you this, but he never believed that you should have got convicted in the first place. And he granted me that time of day, that meeting that Janet Duty never granted me. And by the way, Ken, Janet Dudy by that time has already been she six months prior she was disbarred. She was kicked out of office because she withheld a bunch of evidence in a murder trial that had her get charged and convicted. So she's a crook. Okay, she's got kicked out. New attorney, district attorneys in my Williamson County.

He has a meeting with Keith Hampton. He within seven slides of this PowerPoint, he's already got the Texas Rangers back on the phone saying, "Hey, we got to open up the Greg Kelley case." Boom. Massive movement in my case now. And it happened within and it happened like a week after I got kicked out of picked out of college. So that just reignited the fire of hope for me. Like forget college, like wait, my case is reopened. He like kind of said nonchalantly like you know like an attorney does

Greg Kelley2:16:34

So a so he says this is what's going to happen Greg. This reinvest this investigation is going to reopen. The Texas Rangers are going to lead it right. Uh you're going to get seen by a Texas Ranger. He's going to interview you. Right. Literally what the police department should have done. So I get kind of interrogated by a Texas Ranger. So does Jonathan because he's now a suspect. That is the difference. Terrible.

His reaction is

Point towards Greg. Point towards Greg. Point towards Greg. Now, I'm gonna tell you this one thing, Ken, that I was really scared to talk about because I I had a feeling that it was going to do more harm for me than good. And it sucks that I I wore them one time. But Jonathan owned these pajamas and they're Spongebob pajama pants. And the asalent said or the the child said the asalent, the person that did this to him was wearing Spongebob pajama pants. I was questioned by the Texas Rangers during that reinvestigation if I had ever wore Spongebob pajama pants.

And I do have recollection that I've worn them once cuz we shared clothes all the time and they were the only thing that were left in my drawer because Shamba would put my clothes in his drawer, his clothes in my drawer. And I said, "Yes, I've worn them once before." And I had already known by the PI and the reinvestigation that the child said the asalent wore that. But I didn't want to lie to this guy because the last thing that's bad that's bad is for you to lie during an investigation.

So I told the Texas Ranger, I said, "Man, as much as I don't want to say this cuz it's probably going to hurt me."

Yeah, I've worn him once,

But I didn't sexually assault the kid. Okay, write it down.

Greg Kelley2:18:20

I told Patricia and she never

Greg Kelley2:18:28

So, this is what I didn't know. He already knew. Ken, I'm going rephrase this. This is what I didn't know. He already knew. But my attorney knew that he already knew this.

Greg Kelley2:18:39

But look,

Greg Kelley2:18:41

Exactly. I'm gonna get to you why I thank God I told the truth. is because when Jonathan got asked about his own Spongebob pajamas, he said that they were mine. That I don't own them. I don't I know nothing about them. They're Greg's. Well, there's pictures of him wearing them. There's testimony of his own friends of him wearing them. A girl that he sexually assaulted after the fact said that he wore them while he sexually assaulted her. So, yeah. Um,

Greg Kelley2:19:11

Reinvestigation. Yeah. Texas Rangers opening up now. That kind of

Greg Kelley2:19:19

All right. I know. I'm You're pushing me. I I know. I I got it. All right. I get the hint. So, April, I get a bench warrant. Okay. April, I get a bench warrant to go into the county uh to go back to the county jail because I get a Rit Hades Corpus hearing um which is an evidentiary hearing to bring forth, like I told you, new evidence to prove my innocence. That's the only way this can happen. So, let me tell you what evidence I have.

Thank God that my I'm telling you guys this if you guys are watching this, okay? And I'm not saying this cuz I'm a narc or anything like that. I said this on a podcast one day, man. Uh on another podcast. I said, "Thank God all you guys make sure you have your location on when you take like on your phone and all that, like when you take text messages and pictures." I'm going to tell you why it's important to have your location on at all time because your cell phone can prove your innocence.

Okay, you're doing some shady stuff. It'll prove your guilt, but it'll also prove your innocence because my cell phone proved my innocence. It proved that I was 90 miles away from this house when this assault took place. And that never looked was never looked into. I was helping my brother move.

Greg Kelley2:20:31

They gave me an alibi of innocence that I could not.

Greg Kelley2:20:39

Yeah. He accounts for every day that I lived in that house. He Thank God I had my I had my every I took pictures every day. I took selfies. I sent them to my girlfriend. Thank God I took selfies. I took pictures of my freaking feet. I took pictures like, "Oh my god, I got a blister." You know, like I took pictures of crazy stuff, my food, right? But it all location stamped with coordinates.

Greg Kelley2:21:05

Yes.

Greg Kelley2:21:13

It was wild, Ken, because this was the first time I've ever seen a DA and my own attorney work together to grill police officers and to grill DA like DAs that were previously there. And just like dude, I felt like it was like redemption day for me. Like exoneration was redemption and vindication day for me. But this day, like I believe in the Holy Spirit, can and I I believe that that day God showed up, man, and a very very supernatural way. Like that day, that courtroom is a graveyard to me.

But that courtroom felt like my salvation that day, dude.

Greg Kelley2:21:54

Like, it's I got to So, the the jud the judge that day, it was a three-day hearing. Okay. A lot of people confuse it as a trial. It's not a trial. I wasn't retrieded, right?

It was just a hearing to bring forth to this district judge, Judge Donna King. And the outcome of this if she saw the evidence to be suitable would be giving me something called an appeal bond, which never happens by the way.

You get bonded out for charges and arrests and stuff, but you never get bonded out after you get sent to prison. Right. Right. It's actually unheard of. But if she saw it to be fit enough to send to the court of criminal, it was going to go to the court of criminal appeals anyways. But this was a Rit habius corpus hearing to see if it was enough for me to get an appeal bond to get out and go home.

Greg Kelley2:22:49

John's in jail. He's in jail for um multiple drug charges and um a sexual assault charge.

Greg Kelley2:23:01

Whenever whenever you know during this reinvestigation he was getting investigated and like the media had already declared him as a alternate suspect and this and that. We're in the same kind of jail together. Actually, just different parts of the jail.

Yeah. Crazy.

Greg Kelley2:23:16

I I asked my attorney when we talked. I was like, "Hey, can I can you set up a meeting with Jonathan?" Like, meet him. Like, I want to talk to him. I want to sit at a table with him and talk to him. Look at him in the eyes and ask him if he did this. I've already have this conclusion in my heart that he did do it. But I want to ask him and I want him to tell me that he didn't do this. I got asked that question one time and I had to tell the truth and I need him to stare at me, the person that he allowed to go to prison, right?

Sick bastard. He's my freaking best friend. I need him to tell me that he didn't do this. And if he could tell me he did it, then I'd have all the freaking respect for him in the world. But he refused to see me. He refused to meet with me. So

Greg Kelley2:24:03

Yeah. And everything just went the way that I prayed it would. The truth prevailed and everyone got proven to be unfit. Man, the amount of joy that I felt in my heart as the truth was literally being shed to light in real time. My house is so happy. It's the first sense of joy I felt in years. And uh new judge, Judge Donna King, she had just became she just took that seat. It's the same courtroom that my the previous judge doing my trial had, right?

She had this is like one of her first cases, dude. And she has now she's sitting on an evidentiary hearing on somebody who's fighting to prove his innocence. And she now has to make this decision at that very moment to let me go home to my family or send me back to prison

To wait for a new trial. to wait for not just a new trial, but wait for the highest court of criminal appeals, the highest criminal court in the state of Texas to ultimately decide my fate. But what she she's burdened to two things. One, decide if I go back home to my family on an appeal bond, and two, to either give or do not give recommendations towards the claims that I'm bringing forth of my innocence. So, she asks, in that last day of the thing, I'm I'm waiting for me to go home.

Like, I'm waiting I'm waiting for her to say, I grant bond to Mr. Kelly to go home while he waits for the higher courts to rain down his fate. I'm waiting for that. Everybody else is too, dude. They pack the whole courtroom. There's people outside the courthouse.

Greg Kelley2:25:36

Right. And I'm all over the news statewide. But she doesn't decide that day. She can't. She said she's so burdened and so heavy burdened that she needs a couple weeks to think about this. So now like now it it it concludes and I get sent back to my private cell in the county jail and I'm in like an eightman pod and like

You know I'm treated a lot differently this time around. Let's just say that. I was my my family was allowed to see me whenever they want. They can come into my cell and hang out with me.

Yeah, dude. It was it was super freaking cool because the sheriff at the time, Sheriff Robert Chody, there's a whole backstory behind that too that I have to I have to tell you about really quick. He proved I was guilt he he he believed I was guilty the whole time. He believed that I did this. I deserve to go to prison. All that his daughter didn't believe I was guilty. His daughter believed I was innocent. He was on the fight for GK support group and he like reamed her like he he pretty much said like you need to stop posting all this about Mr.

Kelly this and this and that and he was a constable at the time for the county. He wasn't a sheriff but he sat in on that meeting that Keith had with Shawn Dick when they reopened my case right on that beginning of the year and it completely changed his mind. So he went to his college his daughter's college dorm room sat with her next to her next to her on her bed and apologized to her. So, he had this like personal like guilt and shame that he's like if Greg comes back to the county to fight for his innocence.

I'm gonna I'm gonna at least let this guy taste a little bit of freedom while he can. So, he made a personal decision and he got a lot of backlash for it, too. But, I don't care. I'm grateful for it. But, uh he he got a lot of backlash. He let my family come and see me in my pod and he let me kiss my my girlfriend.

Greg Kelley2:27:29

Yes. I was I was able to like hug her more than two seconds without getting in trouble by a guard.

Greg Kelley2:27:39

Because you in prison like you you can at the you only hug him in the beginning of the visit and at the end of the visit and it's like micromanage like they're looking at you. So I got to kiss on her. I got to I mean it was heaven, dude. So um

Greg Kelley2:27:55

Go back in my cell for two weeks. And so the day came after two weeks and like I'm chilling, dude. Like I'm just like I'm praying every day, man.

Greg Kelley2:28:06

80%.

Greg Kelley2:28:08

But I'm not hanging my hat on it, though. Like you can't live that way.

Greg Kelley2:28:14

Expect the worst. And like I'm numb still, dude. Like I'm there's something that comes over you can when you're living in hell. And you know, I remember texting you one day when you you made the post about your wife with the cancer and you know, I told you that you guys are going to kiss this fire and walk away whistling. Right. That's a Matthew McConna quote, by the way.

When you're kissing the fire, you learn to adore endure until the day you walk away whistling. Y

Until you the day you walk away whistling. Like we considered it all joy when we face trial and tribulations.

Greg Kelley2:29:40

So you're you're 80% sure.

Greg Kelley2:29:40

the day. No, they don't call me into the court. The sheriff walks up to my cell one normal day, man. I wake up, do my normal routine, make myself a cup of instant coffee and my little plastic mug, open up my scriptures, read my verse of the day, uh go do my wreck for an hour, come back, it's already 10:00, the Price is Right, is on. I watch the Price is Right.

And then it's let's make a deal at 11. I I know this dude for the rest. It's a routine, you know, and [clears throat]

Life's about routine. And the people that are successful have routine. I'm trying to thrive in the circumstances that I have. So I develop a routine and price is right's going on. And then as the price right is kind of ending I the del the cell my cell door. So there's a metal big metal door. There's like a sally port and then there's like two bar doors. That's like one eightman pod another eightman pod. And so this door opens up and I hear it and I look beyond the bars and the sheriff of the county, Robert Chody, is walking up and opens up the door.

I'm like, "What are you doing here?" He says, "You got an attorney visit." I said, "Why are you telling me this?" And he's like, "I kind of want to be here for this." I said, "For what?" And he says, "You got an attorney visit. Let's go."

Greg Kelley2:31:01

we had a conversation days before when he came and checked on me randomly

Cuz like after the hearing he saw he heard that I had to go back and wait for the judge, right? And he wanted to make sure I was good mentally. So he came and visited me like a week prior asking me how I'm doing. Sat down with me for like an hour. Okay. talk to me, right? Good guy. So, yeah, I've already built a rapport. I've had a full-blown conversation with the guy. And so, I'm like, "What are you doing here?" And uh he says, "Hey, man.

Uh you got an attorney visit." So, okay, cool. I'm excited, right, to know what's going on. Maybe some news. I get up and this is how institutionalized I am. I'm I'm not institutionalized like I've been in there 20 years or 30 years, but

It's kind of crazy when you do the same thing over and over again. It's just like second nature to you. So, I turn around like I'm about to get handcuffed through the bean shoot and he's like, "No, you don't need that. You don't need that today." I was like, "Why don't I?" Okay, cool. I'm like, "It's pretty cool. I'm not going to, you know, complain about it." So, we start walking and normally when you don't have handcuffs, they grab your arm as you're walking, right? Nobody's grabbing my arm.

I feel like I'm walking free next to this sheriff down the hall into the elevator. Go down the elevator. go down another set of hall into like the booking area where the attorney visit boxes are. I sit in there and it's like a little box, man. Plexiglass and you would be where my attorney sitting. He's not in there yet. So, I'm by myself just, you know, kind of anxious. What's going on? He like barges in with a grin on his face and he has a piece of paper and he walks up to the glass, slaps it on the glass and he says, "Read that." and it says the immediate release of Gregory Rimman Kelly [gasps] and I see the sheriff in the background like recording it and uh and I he's telling me like man like today's the day.

Today's the day. Are you ready? I said yeah I'm ready. Let's go. And like just like I don't know this I don't know how to explain the feeling but he's like well let's go to let's go to your cell. Grab your stuff. I don't want my stuff. I'm ready right now.

And I told I told I told him I said, I don't got anything worth having up there, dude. Like, and he's like, don't you want like your books and your and your Bible? And I'm like, you're right. Let me go get my Bible and let me go get my my ID and my coffee mug. That's all I want. So, I've had like I have free world stuff, dude. I've got like free world protein shakes. I've got like my family was able to bring to me. And so, like got a table, this table full of food.

Yeah. I put all that in a trash bag and I put it by the door and I tell Sheriff Chroy, I said, "Can you make sure this gets to the guys next door?" The guys next door were in a eight-man pod. Those were the guys that were like encouraging me while I was going through all the hearing stuff and I would come back to the cell like at night and he's like, "Dude, mother fuck." He's like, "That effing detective, bro." Like, man.

Greg Kelley2:34:34

Good dudes made bad decisions.

Greg Kelley2:34:36

Like that's how I think of like that's my new view like on people is like I think we have the ability to be good. We just make bad decisions and it lands us in trouble. And so like these guys were were good, man. Like they they they were as real as they get. And four of them out of that eightman pod have messaged me on Instagram like thinking that I'm not going to read these messages and they they they messaged me saying hey bro you're probably not going to see this but I was next to you in the eight man p was like Lenny what's up man like and and and he's like dude I didn't know you would reply like of course man I

Greg Kelley2:35:18

You're a normal dude man

Greg Kelley2:35:20

Is have people watching you. And so I end up going down there and like then it's just like slow-mo, like slow-mo, like I'm just taking it in and I I I'll show you pictures of that day. So, thank God, man. Robert Chody took pictures of me in the cell like next to my attorney like we're doing this like chopping it and then we're putting stuff in the bags and I'm giving and then I get like I changed my clothes out of my prison whites into my into the clothes I'm about to go walk into the free world with and it's a t-shirt.

It's a concert t-shirt of a Big Daddy weave concert which is a Christian artist that my mother-in-law went to months prior and bought the shirt for me for this specific day. asked if I would wear if I would want to wear this and the shirt said my story his glory.

Greg Kelley2:36:04

And on the back of it said the author of my the creator of the universe is author of my story. And she says if you believe this I want you to please wear it. I said of course I believe it. Of course I'd wear it. So, I wore it and I wore jeans and I wore some shoes and I turn put on those clothes and I went down to like this release area where on the other side of the side of the jail was a door where like everyone's waiting for me.

Like everybody from my family, my friends to news crew to my wife had every apparently everybody knew I was going to get released. The last person that knew was was me. like they the judge had made the decision the night before, told Keith. Keith of course didn't tell me. So he then calls up Gabri, she's in LA and at the time she's killing it, man. She's a LA Chargers cheerleader. Like she's killing it and she's been so strong through this all because there's like this website made about her bashing her as a child molester lover and and this and that.

She's lost multiple gigs that would set her up financially. like it's just just because she's choosing to stick with me and that's something special. [snorts] And uh she gets a call like take the next flight from LA like red eye Greg's getting out in the morning and like we both and I have always her and I both have like we're not going to believe until it's true. So she's didn't get her hopes up because it has happened before that Greg was going to get out at the end of the hearing and then next two weeks, right?

Two weeks later he's not right. So she's she's not getting her hopes up. She's like, "I'll I'll believe it when I see it when he actually physically walks out those doors." But she was there with my mom right outside that door. She had flew in.

And as I was sitting in this like release room the size of this room and on the other side of the door was the outside of the jail sunlight freedom. I stopped and I'm sh I was shaking. I was like, "This is real. This is real. I've been I've been I've had visions. I've had dreams of this moment." And I I closed my eyes and Keith was like, "All right, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to open up the door and you just walk through." Okay.

I said, "Okay, just give me a second." And I I close my eyes and I say a prayer and I promise God and I promise myself that from this day on forward, I would never spend another day treading water. And what that means to me is just being complacent.

Yep. staying in one spot wondering what I'm going to do this day or sit on the couch and and be a potato and watch Netflix or doubt if I'm able to do anything, dude. Like, if I put my mind to it, I'm going to freaking do it.

Greg Kelley2:38:45

Right. I never It It was d It was absolutely outrageous to think at that one point in my life that I would run a 100 miles and finish.

It's foolish. People still to this day like, "You're crazy. Why would you do that?" And I'm like, "You don't understand. like you really don't get it. And I'm going to run a 200 mileer next August. I got into the Bigfoot 200 and I've got the 100 mileer coming up in February. But I say all this to say that I don't spend another day wasting time, dude. And you know a lot about this too. We talked about this. What I what you hate the most is your time being wasted.

Greg Kelley2:39:19

And maybe when you get older and you notice that like, hey, you're coming down to the to to wits ends here. like you've got a certain amount of time left on this earth to to get what you can get and create that legacy, right?

Yeah.

Greg Kelley2:39:33

I open up and it's like it's like it's like white, right? It's like and it just starts everything just starts coming to me and I just see like the first thing I see is Gabri just bolting running towards me like her face is coming to mind and we embrace and we hug and I just fall into her and I'm I'm like trying to make sure she's real and I'm touching her and then I hear just a bunch of clapping and people cheering and people crying and then I just hear cameras and then I kind of let go of Gabriel.

We kiss and I see my dad in his wheelchair and my mom and my dad's no longer here. He's dead, passed, but he was able to see that day.

Greg Kelley2:40:24

He wasn't he wasn't able to see me get exonerated, but he was able to see his boy come home. And uh yeah, he fought, man. He fought and he he passed and I was there. Man, I'm so so grateful, bro. I thank God every day that I was able to be um the he took his last breath in my arms. Yeah. He he died and like at home and I was able to help him walk into heaven. He accepted the Lord about a year before he died.

And it was because I was released and he had prayed, prayed, prayed. And I came home and he he believed. So off him again. And uh my mom, man, she's so strong. Double widow, brain tumors, son going to prison. That lady's endured. You know, we run these races and are proud of oursel, but we don't think about how much mothers endure. Then I I spent two years, man, waiting for the court of criminal appeals to make the ultimate decision. And during that two years, I immediately, like I tell you, I'm not treading water.

I immediately start going to the gym. I immediately start [snorts] enjoying, man, every dinner that I have with my family. I remember when I got out and I would sit at a family table with my family and I would just soak it in and look at everybody. I can't believe this is my reality. You know, like my first Thanksgiving out. We're eating Thanksgiving dinner. And at one point, [snorts] I was sitting at a table with a bunch of inmates, guys that were my friends that my Christian brothers.

And now I'm looking around and I'm like my girlfriend, my in-laws, my mom, my dad [snorts] and uh a whole another perspective, man, on freedom in life and loving your life, loving your freedom. I don't waste it, man, scrolling. I don't waste it binging things unless it's has to do with spending quality time with my family or my girl or my my my wife. It's just different, man. So, two years goes by, I trained hard, man. I trained I trained I actually got into jiu-jitsu for like Oh, really?

Yeah. Got into jiu-jitsu for like a year with 10 Planet on it. My best friend ended up becoming MMA fighter. So, he uh he invited me to come get my ass kicked and

Uh and uh and I got my ass kicked. I was bigger. I thought I could manhandle everybody. Those little guys, man, they just they're sneaky, man. So, uh yeah. I end up going and doing a little jiu-jitsu and it's fun, man. Jiu-jitsu is so fun. Uh then about six months into it, I get introduced to Jay Hills, Jeremy Hills, and we both know him.

Greg Kelley2:43:24

Yeah. Through family connections, and I end up training, he ends up getting me right. I end up training with like a bunch of guys he's connected with with training uh NFL guys, and he gets me right, and I try out for I don't say a lot. So I I I end up training training training for like a year and a half and then my wife gets an opportunity to go up to New York. This is all while I'm out on appeal bond by the way.

Courts have not made a decision.

And [snorts] this is all in real time being uh my documentary is being filmed in real time. So

Every Wednesday the director and the doc crew would come to my house during this two years cuz that's when the new list of the court of criminal appeals would come down

On the ultimate decision right of appeals of claims and our goal was to see me at the top because that's where the relief granted claims were.

Greg Kelley2:44:16

And no news for weeks weeks weeks weeks. Well, that weeks turned into two years. And [snorts] three years prior to the big day, my wife, three months, three months prior to the big day, my wife ends up getting uh accepted in the Broadway Dance Center. Yeah.

In New York. So, we made a decision to go up there. And so, I'm living in New York with her in a tiny, you know, studio.

Greg Kelley2:44:47

The size of this room. Yeah.

Yeah. The size of this room, little studio apartment, bro. And it was kind of weird. I felt bad cuz I told the director who we had them weekly [snorts] meetings, right, to see the list. I said, "Hey man, I'm going to New York. I'm sorry, but like how are we going to handle this?" Right? We see each other every week for this money shot of what the decision is.

Greg Kelley2:45:08

He says, "Oh, we'll go up there every week. It's fine." I'm like, "Cool." Like, cool. So he comes up, he flies up there every week with the doc crew and um

Greg Kelley2:45:20

So we had a fire TV and so I would always put it on the fire TV.

Greg Kelley2:45:24

And uh before that I always check on my phone but it's actually wild because every week before that that week that it happened,

I just so happened to check on the Fire TV. I wasn't doing that before.

Greg Kelley2:45:36

But um I always check on my phone and he would like have the camera on the phone.

Greg Kelley2:45:41

Yeah. It was like, you know, try to put yourself in my shoes. What do you think my worst fear would be if you put myself put yourself in my shoes going through that two years? The worst fear for me was being torn away from my family again and reliving that, right? So, it was kind of like no news is good news cuz I was trying to like prolong

Greg Kelley2:46:07

Doubt.

Greg Kelley2:46:08

Right. But then again, I was still living like with a dark cloud over you, right? Imagine if you're something's dark over you and like you can't be yourself.

Greg Kelley2:46:20

I had no stipulations. No stipulations. That's crazy. I had no I went to Italy. I had gone to Italy at that time. I had there was a It was funny, Ken. I I ended up um so that December, the day I got out, I got out August 22nd, 2017. That December I had I went to Cabo with my my my my girlfriend and her in-law, her family.

Greg Kelley2:46:42

They invited me and we spent Christmas in Cabo.

Greg Kelley2:46:45

That that Cabo trip, I'm still on the news and everything, but the news is so crazy,

Right? That they legit put a story out there saying I was fleeing to Mexico.

I'm on bond and I I told I told the judge because the judge asked me after I got released, I had a meeting with her and she had asked me you're going to let me know if you flee, right? I said, if I flee, I'm not going to let you know, but but I'm not going to flee, though. Like, I I I'm here to fight. I'm here to prove my innocence. And uh so she's like, okay, like I'm trusting you show up to court and stuff like that.

And I was like, absolutely. Yeah, I will. And so, yeah, I go to Cabo and they make that whole crap up. But yeah, I'm in New York and the funny story behind this, and this is like all just going to be in my book because I'm talking about experience behind the scenes that nobody else knows about. But the week that it happened, the director, Pat Candellis, who I love by the way, good, solid dude, exceptional journalist, [snorts] always seeking the truth, doesn't care about like anything but the truth.

He put this vacation on his calendar to go to Hawaii with his family. And the day that it h that the week that it happened, he was on vacation in Hawaii

And he instead he contracted his cousin to go up to New York and get the get the camera right. But he didn't know he's

He he was hoping that it was just another you know dud week like it's not going to happen. But it didn't.

That week my wife we started the day off with the normal routine, right? wake up, make my wife breakfast, she goes off to dance school, the Broadway dance center, and like the funny story behind that was like she was dreading this day because that very day she had to do the the vocal audition, I guess part of it. She can't sing worth a lick. She's tonedeaf, but she was always hating to like do this like song that she has to do with her dance and

And so she was like, "I really hope it happens today so I don't so I can run home and not do this." And so I was like, I really hope it happens today, too. And uh another backstory behind that too is the week prior, have you heard of the Rodney Reed case?

Greg Kelley2:48:52

The Innocence Project has tooken on this case called the Rodney Reed case. Uh Kim Kardashian got involved with it. Uh guy out of Bassrop here outside of Austin. U black guy. He's wrongfully convicted. I believe he's innocent, but he he's on death row for killing a white woman that he was having an affair with. She was having an affair with him. her husband was a police officer who ended up killing like being getting convicted of murder. And so the whole story is like his her husband actually killed her and Rodney's being pinned for it because they had an affair, a sexual relationship and there were semen inside of her.

And so that was the only DNA that connected them. And it's like, dude, it's it's a whole debacle. But it's the at that point at that moment he was in the court of criminal appeals. The week prior to my name being in that on the website, his name was on the website and his name's big publicity news. They denied his stay of execution, which means this court, the same court that I'm in, gave him the green light to go die.

Yeah. So, I'm thinking in my head, man, with my case and all the claims that I have in this court, that they're not going to lose a lick of sleep sending me back to prison. So, all this doubt starts coming in my head. So, that whole week leading up to that week, November 6th of 2019, I was the most anxious. I was the most on the edge. And I was filled with the most doubt that I had ever felt another. It's going to get really worse before it gets better,

Right? The whole thing with the college and then the case getting reopened up. But it's like I always chalk it up to like, man, the enemy, Satan, just kind of gives you that one little, "You sure I don't got you? Hold on, let me let me let me check real quick." And next thing you know, I I refuse. You know, you know what the response was? Whenever I checked that real list, me and my my my girlfriend, we got on our knees on the side of our bed and we prayed.

After that, a week later, the day comes again where I check the list. Pack of Dulles's cousin comes up, flies up to New York, spends that moment with me, got the camera on. I take out the remote, click on the website, I'm looking up the TV, heart's racing. My girl is in dance class about to do the singing audition. We have this thing where I tell her, "If you see your phone start dinging up with a bunch of bird emojis, that means freedom."

Greg Kelley2:51:27

Cuz in the Bible, in Noah's arc, the dove meant salv. It means land. It means freedom. It means, you know,

Greg Kelley2:51:33

Salvation. And I click on it, the list comes up,

And I see my name at the very top, and it says relief granted. And it has my case. And I'm like, [sighs] I just take a big sigh of relief and I click on it because I don't want to get my hopes up because I'm trying to see what relief has been granted. I have seven seven claims in that court and the one that truly matters the most is the actual innocence claim, which is I tell you this and if you're going to get anything from this document or this this podcast, I want you to get this.

Proving your innocence and having all nine judges declare you innocent in the state of Texas, you have a you have a better chance of winning the law than getting exonerated in the state of Texas by all nine judges of the court of criminal appeals. So I click on it and I see all the claims and all of them say relief granted, relief granted, relief granted, relief granted, relief granted. And then on the actual innocence one, relief granted and by all nine judges. That has been the my case was the first case in Texas's history to have relief granted on all claims by all judges without physical DNA evidence, which is

Absolutely nuts. And they gave like a lot of explanations on why they they they took so long. And and uh when I was in that appeals court, do you know how many people were fighting against me sending letters? Patricia Cummings,

Greg Kelley2:53:04

My attorney,

Greg Kelley2:53:06

Was trying to send me back to prison.

Greg Kelley2:53:09

Because if I was relieved for the ineffective assistance, she would be held accountable. It would put a strike on her name as an attorney.

Greg Kelley2:53:19

No. Heck no. Nobody. Again, nobody was held accountable in my case. Let me tell you, it's the absolute It's the absolute opposite. Dude, our world is crazy. Patricia Cummings then goes on and becomes the head of the conviction integrity unit of Philadelphia of the DA's office. That's the irony of it. It's funny, right? Conviction integrity. She becomes the head of that. After my trial, when I got found guilty, Sean Man or Chief Chris Dailyaly, the the detective of my case, gets promoted to sergeant and is now over like 11 detectives.

Chief Manx goes on like his crap don't stink on my documentary and just starts like talking a bunch of crap about me. You you'll hear him. You'll hear the interviews about him, right? Talking about me. You know, you got to have the chief of police that believes this guy surely did did do it and he deserves to go to prison, right? Every doc has true crime doc has that guy, right? Well, he's the freaking bozo that's on there making a fool himself. And the irony behind that is after the doc airs, I'm exonerated and like he's disgraced.

He has the audacity cuz he gets he gets released by or he gets released by the uh city of Cedar Park. By the way, the city of Cedar Park never wanted to hold anybody accountable until this doc came out until, you know, we pulled their pants down.

Greg Kelley2:54:44

And and uh that's now like they started actually taking action and Chris Dailyaly, not Chris Dailyaly, Chief Manx, Sean Manx ends up resigning, aka retiring with pay and pension, by the way.

Greg Kelley2:55:01

They gave him his pension and his pay. He retired cuz he was already up. He just chose to continue to work. Blames it on cancer. 6 months later, this is how I know it's BS, dude. It's BS. Blames it on cancer. But in reality, he gets a RV and starts traveling the world or traveling the US. That lasts like six months. And I'm already exonerated, right? I'm continue on with my life. And I get a text saying this guy is trying to become the chief of police in Bernett County or Bernett, the city of Bernett, which is literally the city that's right next to where I live and now the city where I live, but at that time it's just 45 minutes west of us here.

Greg Kelley2:55:42

And I'm like, no way. I was like, after the dock and everything, the city manager and the city council want to hire this guy as a chief. What? So I personally called the city manager of Bernett. I said, "Hey man, what are you doing?" Like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "What do you mean, what am I doing?" I said, "What are you doing, man? Do you do you know who? My name is Greg Kelley. Let me tell you what this man did to me. Let me tell you what this man said to me.

Did you watch the documentary about my case about exposing this man for what he is?" He's like, "What documentary? What are you talking about?" Okay, hold on. Let me let me educate you real quick. I have a phone call for a whole hour. They spend a whole weekend watching this doc. They come back still wanting to hire this guy.

Greg Kelley2:56:25

Yeah. You think it's crazy, dude? Wait till you watch it. Can And and I talked to I talked to the city manager. I said, "Okay, I get it. I get it. You're part of the problem. Okay, we have a resolution for this. So, let me tell you something." So, there was thousands of people that stood up and fought for good in my case. You must love being on the news. So, what we're going to do is we're going to come and do the same thing in your city.

We're going to show up outside your city council building. We're going to hold a rally. We're going to get the whole community involved and we're going to let them know who you're hiring as the police chief and what he did to me. And the next day, Chief Manx didn't show up to work. And uh

Greg Kelley2:57:07

I don't know, man. It's crazy, man. Like, this just greed, sin.

Greg Kelley2:57:17

No, like they're kind of like stupid. I mean, I don't know what it, you know, when it came to Chris Dailyaly, there's a lot of times where I've tried to find explanations of why he did what he did and why he decided to lead the investigation the way he did. And I really do think this guy was just dumb, dude. Like, he was absolutely unfit to be a detective. Like, this guy doesn't have much going on between the ears. Like,

Greg Kelley2:57:50

So I got to play one one year um of college football. So remember that defensive coordinator, that recruiter at UTSA who decided to stay with me till the very end. Well, I had made it to on at UT as as a walk-on.

But the funny thing about my I don't say it's funny because it pisses me off still. I get exonerated right before COVID.

Greg Kelley2:58:13

Like November 2019. I get married January of 2020. Thank God we got to have our marriage. What happens in March or April of 2020? The world shuts down, right? It alters everything.

So Texas cancelled spring ball.

Greg Kelley2:58:27

Of that spring.

Greg Kelley2:58:29

Well, that Yeah. UT. And I had tried out because I got accepted at UT. I had while I was out waiting for the decision, I had taken classes at ACC, which is a community college here in Austin, and I got my GPA up to pretty close to like a 3.8.

Greg Kelley2:58:45

And I applied for UT. I had been exonerated, so I got a kick-ass freaking exception paper that I can write about cuz one of the one of the uh one of the questions on the application to get into the university was explain about how you got through a hardship in your life. and and I was like

Jackpot I just and I wrote a whole paper about it and like I got a call from like the dean personally saying would be honored for you to come and be a part of our university. Amazing. Thank you. And I go and my first semester I try out for the football team. I end up making it but I end up not making it because they canceled spring ball and they weren't taking any walk-ons.

And dude, I wasn't good enough to be getting a scholarship. So I've been away from the sport for seven years. But I'll tell you what, I was going to full-blown out be a Rudy. I got 100%. I just wanted to play football again, man. I wanted to do it at my dream dream university, but that wasn't the case. That wasn't in the cards. So, I was still at college and then I get a call from Neil Ney. He's up at Eastern Michigan University up in Ipsellani, Michigan.

He just calls me checking in on me, seeing what he's doing. He doesn't know I want to play football again. Calls me up. He says, "Hey, Greg. Uh, I just realized you've been exonerated apparently. Like, congratulations. I want to retouch, connect, see how you're doing in life. I said, "Man, I'm doing great, coach. You know, I'm I'm over here at Texas and, you know, COVID happened. I can't play any football." He's like, "Oh, you want to play football again?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "Where you at?

You still got your eligibility?" I said, "I got all of it." "Have you been training?" I said, "Yeah." He's like, "You got any videos?" I said, "Yeah, I got a lot of videos. I've been training with so and so and so." He's like, "Wait, you've been training with who?" And and like all named, you know, I name dropped all the NFL guys and stuff, but Yeah. And and he's like,

Greg Kelley3:00:29

No. I was like, "No way." And it he he was like, "Send me all the videos and let me see how you move and everything." Well, he calls me back after the weekend and he calls me. He says, "Hey, you still want to play football?" I said, "Yeah, you want to play football up here in Michigan?" I said, "Ah, coach, I can't, you know, I can't afford out of state tuition and you know, it's a lot asking for me to go up there, you know, and I have to pay for college." He's like, "Oh, no, no, no, no.

This is going to be a full ride scholarship, buddy."

And I was like, "No way." and call, you know, I tell my wife and, you know, it's a big decision, man. And I decided to go up there, just give it a shot. And the goal was my wife was going to go up there with me and we're going to live up there while I go to college and play ball and she was going to figure out what she wanted to do. And

And we didn't have like we didn't have the exoneration money yet. So like I was still like doing online coaching and like

I was very thankful people wanted to support me. Mhm.

Like I'm talking about straight up moms that want to get in shape trying to like hire me as an online trader,

Right? So I'm like very thankful that I'm able to still pay the bills with the with the work,

But I hadn't had the exoneration money yet cuz I decided to sue the city of Cedar Park.

Greg Kelley3:01:36

Um and you know, we the settlement was like 500K. It was trash. The reason why we settled and I didn't go I didn't continue to go is because I was ready to considering all of it, man. Like in the state of Texas, there's a lot of moving parts and I had a really good attorney and he told me straight up like the possibilities of what can happen here. The state of Texas is one of a few states that actually give compensation packages and that compensation package is literally supposed to produce like a void towards any lawsuits.

Yeah.

So, if you're presented that compens compensation package and you decide not to pursue it and you pursue a lawsuit, then what can happen in court is it could actually be used in evidence to say, well, this compensation package is given, which is trash, dude. It's like 80 grand a year for every time you and then you get like annuity for the rest of your life and the equivalence of the lump sum of you getting paid out. So, like

It's trash. It's like I get like 200 and something thousand for the time I did and then a small like couple like a thousand or two annuity for the rest of my lump a life for every month. And but like I know we talked on the phone earlier about like when it comes to money like my relationship with money is not like like everybody else's like I not everybody else's but all these people that get caught up in the materialism of only chasing money in their life.

I've used the money that I did get out of the settlement because one thing that was going to happen is if you pursue a lawsuit and it does go to court and litigation starts to happen, it could reopen a lot of the wounds and I wasn't ready to put my family through all that again.

Greg Kelley3:03:23

Like it would legit reopen the wounds of like going through everything we went through. And so I looked at possibly what I could win, which was a couple million, compared to what the settlement would be and kind of sidestep all that. And then I had already started a business that was wake making its way up to being a million-dollar business.

So I was like, you know what? I had to make a tough decision. Do I move on, accept the settlement, and accept the compensation of the wrongful conviction package and move on and move on with life? or do I continue to hammer at this to get a couple extra million dollars? I believe in myself enough that I can go make it myself.

Greg Kelley3:04:05

So, it wasn't worth kind of going through all of it again. So, I use it as a tool to invest and I've I'm invested in a few things that are doing well. And so, now I'm a very fortunate to be more of like a stay-at-home dad and and not stay at home dad, but help out a lot and then allow my wife to do what she truly loves. We we had opened up a huge dance studio, like a really great one with her family that has like 1,200 kids, man.

It's killing it. And my wife gets to truly do what she's passionate about, which is direct be a director of a hip-hop company that is like one is nationally renowned. Like they're really good.

Um,

Greg Kelley3:04:44

I go up there for a year and I I I play I get to play with the team. Being able to put those pads back on was was a thing that like man

I truly know what it feels like to play your last play. You know, coaches always say that like, yeah, you never know when your last play is. Take advantage of everything you got. You know, like, but when you get to put your pads back on seven years later

And your last play was a terrible Hail Mary that kicked you out of the Texas State playoffs and you put the pads back on, you're ready to go light somebody up. And so I got this rage to go up there and I did, man. I I'm a lot bigger. I was like, it's like a grown man against boys, man. It was wild. I still have weight room records for my position. Uh I'm like 220 pound safety. Uh bench press like 225 35 times. Like it's just Anyways, I I go up there for a year.

I do I do pretty well. But then I realized that I've been away from the game for seven years. I'm pretty bad at football. Like I'm not as good as I was when I was in high school. Like I need a lot of learning to do up here. Yeah.

Even though I can physically do it, but a lot of it's like the intuition and the intelligence, know how to watch film, know how to translate it to the field, stuff like that. So I was struggling in that sense. Um and I knew that it was going to require me to have developmental years. So I told my wife this. When are you going to come up here? She had already started falling in love with the business.

Greg Kelley3:06:08

With the kids.

Greg Kelley3:06:10

So my wife was like, Greg, I want to do this. like I I I don't want to go up to Michigan. So now I'm presented with this choice. My wife showed up for me.

She sacrificed for me.

Greg Kelley3:06:24

Now I have to sacrifice for her.

Greg Kelley3:06:27

And quite frankly, I fell out of love with football.

Like it's wild to think about like football was everything I ever was before I went to prison.

But I developed myself into so much more than just a football player when I was in there. I learned how to use power tools. I learned trade skills while I was in there. I worked in factories. I took vocational classes. I went to college. And these skills that I obtained in prison, I then turned around and developed business with. So, anybody that's watching out there, the circumstances you're going through in life, even though it looks like crap, there's still so much to learn if you choose to continue to learn and continue to put a your best foot forward considering the circumstances.

Greg Kelley3:07:27

Yeah,

Greg Kelley3:08:21

You know, Ken, I I appreciate it, man. I respect you because of what you've been through and you know you choosing to have a big why of why you do what you do and what you've accomplished and why you've accomplished it. And we've talked before this during the break about a lot of times we end up running away from trauma and a lot of times like being a runner and me running ultras. I got a big ultra coming up in February where I'm uh it's my my uh 100 mileer that I'm running literally two miles away from the prison unit I was on in Huntsville, Texas.

And it's in the efforts, it's very personal to me because it's in the efforts to rewrite history for me. I'm identified right now as an exonerated person of the state of Texas that was wrongfully convicted, that is exonerated. And I'm glad that I I didn't let the statistics of wrongful conviction, that 98% conviction rate, be my history. I'm glad I fought. I'm glad I I I chose to persevere and I I I'm glad I chose to fight for my innocence because I'm exonerated. But I'm labeled only as an exonerated person now.

And it's great. I get my hand shook all the time. I I I get the out of boys. I get the respect. I get all that. That's cool. But at the same time, I'm still eager, man, to allow this to not be the only thing she wrote.

Greg Kelley3:09:50

That's why I've developed a vindication foundation. And we talk about we I've expressed this to you earlier is like a lot of times we end up trying to run away from things that traumatize us in efforts to move forward. But like in this foundation that I have in running ultras ultramarathons make me feel like me, man.

Greg Kelley3:10:09

Like it makes me feel like me. Like when I'm out there and I'm suffering and I'm in pain and I'm and we do it for the lows. I mean we do it for the lows. The highs are great. like the beginning where you're comfortable and you're fresh and you did the taper week and you're cool and you're ready for the start, it's great. But man, when you're a mile 60 of a 100 mile ultramarathon and you're at the lowest of the low, you're doing it for that moment and then next thing you know, you're going and you're running as fast as you possibly can with a 530 split going towards the finish line and you're celebrating.

But I've realized that when it comes to trauma, we're not we're not supposed to run away from it. We're supposed to run towards something. And that's why I developed the Vindication Foundation. I want to run towards helping others, man.

Greg Kelley3:10:56

Yeah, my Instagram is uh GR Kelly 2. Uh if you type in Greg Kelley, I think I'm one of the first ones to pop up, but I'm lucky enough to get the check, but uh but no, I uh Yeah. No, and then I got a YouTube channel that I'm making a lot of documentaries for all the races, and it kind of intertwines with the Ultra Journey and the the road to these races, as well as my own personal story and kind of experiences. got a book coming out and I'm very fortunate and blessed to now talk about that.

I got a featured movie and film coming out with uh it's a project I'm doing with Mario Lopez, a guy who's been super supportive in my life. You know, you find a lot of these celebrities, man.

And you know, when like a friend shows up, like somebody that's like not trying to like get do it to get something out of you,

Mario's is a friend, dude. He's he's as real as they get. Like it's the way same way I feel about you. It's like it's a friendship, right? So that's uh yeah, I'm very fortunate to be able to start a project, a featured film about me and my wife's love story with him. So

Greg Kelley3:12:09

All right. I might have you pace me for one of these ultras if that's cool.

Greg Kelley3:12:12

All right, man.