Ep 21 | Joseph Pryor Transcript

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Some people talk about how they go to jail and they come out and they've still got the monkey on their back. I've got a gorilla. Were you thinking, "Wow, I hope that it wasn't from the drugs that we were doing together"? We weren't just buyer and dealer. It wasn't like that. We were friends. Do you think that something bad would happen eventually anyway, being hooked on he**on? Oh, yeah. I mean, with fentanyl, it's like putting a loaded gun to your head, spinning the chamber, and pulling the trigger.

Fentanyl's killing everybody out there. We're victims of society, victims of circumstance.

You are now listening to the podcast Voices of a Killer. I'm bringing you the stories from the perspective of the people that have taken the life of another human and their current situation thereafter in prison. You will see that although these are the folks that we have been programmed to hate, they all have something in common. They are all humans like us that admit that they made a mistake. Will you forgive them or will you condemn them? They are currently serving time for their murders and they give us an inside glimpse of what took place when they killed and their feelings on the matter now. Here are the voices of those who have killed.

Welcome back to Voices of a Killer. Today we talk to Joseph Pryor, a man serving out a 12 year sentence in Kane County, Illinois. Now Joseph introduces charges that might be unfamiliar to you: drug-induced homicide. In 2018, he was convicted of supplying his friend Katherine Gelhaar with the he**on that ended her life. Joseph's story is defined by a lifelong battle with drugs.

From his complex friendship with Katherine to the events of her final day, we'll explore the grim reality of addiction during the fentanyl crisis. As Joseph wrestles with his personal accountability for Catherine's untimely death, we'll raise questions about the role of the criminal justice system.

Should individuals like Joseph serve time behind bars? Is he, in fact, a victim of the system that failed him? Decide for yourself as you listen to this episode of Voices of a Killer.

Joseph, where are you from originally? I live in Elgin, or Bartlett actually, but nobody's ever heard of Bartlett, which is actually in Cook County between Elgin and Wayne. Is that where you grew up all your life, in Illinois? Yeah, pretty much. I grew up in Prospect Heights when we moved out here to Bartlett.

How would you describe your childhood? Was it pretty normal or a little bit rough? I would say my family life was normal but I had a lot of problems. I went to behavior schools, I got into all kinds of mischief. What age did you get into drugs? I started smoking pot when I was nine. I got into coc***e around 14 and started smoking crack at 15.

So would you consider yourself a drug addict? Absolutely. I feel like I have no control over it. Some people talk about how they go to jail and they come out and they've still got the monkey on their back. I've got a gorilla. What's your drug of choice? I like them all, but my last run out was definitely he**on.

So you have a unique charge that most people aren't used to hearing about, and that charge, you were convicted of drug-induced homicide, is that right? Correct. Yeah, it comes down to a drug-induced homicide. Anybody that handed that material over to a person and they later then died from it. If I'd have told on somebody, the person that I got it from, they could have got in trouble, and it's been so far down the line, as far back as they could go, anybody that touched it. Yeah. Was this a fentanyl overdose? Yes, there was fentanyl in the he**on. Fentanyl's killing everybody out there. A quick word on fentanyl. A disturbing fentanyl crisis has swept over the US in recent years and shows no sign of slowing down. If you don't know, fentanyl is a deadly opioid and has a very high potency.

Even a tiny amount, just two milligrams, can be fatal. Often though, fentanyl isn't taken alone but mixed into other drugs like he**on without buyers knowing it. It's attractive for manufacturers to do this because fentanyl is much cheaper to produce than pure he**on. Plus, it enhances the drug's euphoric effects.

But tragically, it's led to an alarming surge in fentanyl-related deaths. Around 200 Americans die from fentanyl overdoses every day. One person whose life has been rocked by this crisis is Joseph. During our conversation, I was struck by how early his battle with drug use began. Experts say that addiction in teen years makes it harder to break free as an adult and that seems to be true for Joseph, culminating in one fateful day.

Take me back to that day. I guess you're basically a he**on user and who is the other person that died? The other person was Katie Gelhaar or Katherine Gelhaar. Was this a girlfriend? No, but we'd been friends for like eight years.

We both went our separate ways numerous times over our friendship, prison, out, rehab, out. But yeah, we always gravitated towards each other as friends. Yeah. How would you describe Katherine? Katherine was a fun person. She had problems with he**on for a long time, as long as I had known her. She had a son, a mom, an aunt that she lived with, a brother. She was a fun person. We went to a lot of festivals together. We hung out. All around, she was a good person. Just drugs take control. Did you guys do drugs together, obviously? Absolutely. Anytime that we were together, we did drugs together. Yeah. Had you ever witnessed her overdose before, like you had a Narcan or anything?

No, I have never witnessed her overdose, but she would tell me of times where she had gone out, and yeah, had too much. One time she told me about... we had gotten some s*** from the city, around Christmas time, and we split up and went our separate ways again like normal. And she went home. I guess she was doing the dishes, and the effects of the he**on took ahold of her and she like nodded off, falling asleep into the sink where she was washing the dishes and was almost maybe possibly drowning from the he**on and being knotted out into the sink.

Her 80-year-old aunt grabbed her and pulled her back and she fell on top of her. There were some crazy stories, yeah. What city would y'all go in to get your he**on? At the time, we went to Elgin. Mostly, it was like Schaumburg, where the guy was actually at, and then, before that, Chicago. What's it like dealing with a he**on dealer, because it's such an underground world, and they're very cautious. I guess they have to make sure that you're an addict and make sure you're a he**on user. And what's that like?

Usually coming across a dealer, especially one from Chicago, which it's not real hard, you can throw a rock and hit one, Katie and I, we always shared dealers. If Katie found someone that she was getting it from, she'd call me up. "Hey, I got this new guy. Check him out. Here's his number. I'll tell him you're calling." Or we would go together and go pick up some stuff and she'd be like, "Hey, this is my buddy. He's good. Can he get your number?" Yeah. It was really actually pretty easy to find new dealers or people looking to sell it. Yes?

Have you ever overdosed? No, I have not. How come? I don't know. I've just been lucky in the draw. Are you very cautious on how much you do or do you overdo it sometimes?

I've never overdone it because I've never overdosed but I've always lived by the ideology of "I can always do more; I can never do less".

Much of Joseph's life has been consumed by chasing the next high, including his friendship with Katherine Gelhaar. As Joseph tells it, Katie knew how to have a good time. When together, they partied recklessly and even shared he**on dealers. As you might expect, both Joseph and Katherine had brushes with the law.

Before his current conviction, Joseph even had a few stints in jail. He was charged with robbery in Arizona, aggravated battery in Indiana, and in 2010, he was charged with unlawful delivery and possession of a controlled substance in Cain County. Joseph's long criminal record had me thinking, why is it so rare for individuals like Joseph to reform? What kind of interventions in the justice system could help people to break the cycle of their addiction?

Shortly before her death, Katherine actually had her own opportunity to turn over a new leaf. Newly released from prison, she was about to enter a rehab facility the next day, but her life was cut short before she could check in.

The day that she passed away because of these drugs, take me back to that day. Were y'all hanging out the entire day? No, we didn't hang out the entire day. She called me the night before and asked if I wanted to hang out the next day because she had just gotten out of county jail in King County. It's where she had done, I think like 30 or 35 days, something like that. And they were making her go to a inpatient rehab and she called me up and said that she wanted to party before she had to turn herself in.

So I told her no problem. Yeah. So you picked her up? Yeah, I picked her up after work. We had to take her to go get a new state ID. So we went to the driver's license facility and got her a new copy of her ID. I drove her around to some TJ Maxxes so that she could steal stuff from the stores. Loosing is what they call it.

What was her demeanor like that day? Was she happy? What was her day like? Oh yeah, she was happy. She just wanted to get high. Nothing seemed out of the normal. There was no conflict, "Oh, my mom did this, or my son did that, or my brother's pissing me off". Everything was normal.

Had you been high yet that day? Absolutely. I guess she was trying to earn some money, but did you share any with her? I had some, yes. As soon as I picked her up, I shared some with her, because I kept some, because if I didn't have it, I wouldn't go to work. So yeah, I shared some with her, and then yeah, I drove her around to some TJ Maxxes where she sold things, and then returned them to another TJ Maxx, and got a gift card which is instrumental to this story.

From there, we got high a couple times while I drove around place to place. We were supposed to take the gift card to a pawn shop, but the pawn shop was closed at that time, so we went to another place, and they wouldn't accept the card. I told her not to worry about it, that I would call somebody that I knew, and they would give me the money towards the card, and that I could pay them back the money for the card the next day.

So we went over there, we got some money, and we called up our guy. We called from my phone, because her phone was only on WiFi because she didn't have money to pay for service. We met up with him, and she handed him the money, he handed her the stuff, and we drove back to my house, where we got high, we split things up.

We both were doing the same stuff. It wasn't where I hid it from her or gave it to her later or any of that. It was always in her sight. It was always in my sight. But this is the stuff that you bought? It was your purchase, your guy? Yeah, that we purchased together. Okay. So y'all are doing it together. Go ahead. Yeah, so purchased together. We were doing it together. It was all the same stuff. I got really high at that point, and she wanted to go home, and I told her, I can't drive at the minute, but if you want, I'll get in the car, you drive home, I'll sit in the passenger seat, and when we get back to your house, I'll switch seats, and I'll drive back home.

And so that's what we did. When we got to her house, I got out of the car, and we gave each other a hug. Told her I'd see her or text her. She told me to give her a text when I got back home so that she would know I made it home safely. How much he**on did she take with you when she split ways with you? We got 12 bags in total.

She left with six, five and a half, six. So when you say five and a half, six, that means like maybe five or six times to actually get high? Oh, no, for her, that probably would've been... At that point, because she was just getting back into it, it probably would have been 10, 15 times. Okay, but she knows what she's doing though? Yes, she definitely knew what she was doing. She was doing heroin long before I met her. Yeah. So she gives you a hug, y'all split ways. Was she home alone at her place, was she alone? No. She lived with her mom and her aunt and her brother. Did they know she was a heroin user? Yes, they definitely knew she was a user. There were times where her mom would give her money or let her use a vehicle so that she could keep from getting sick from not having it.

Katie had just been freed from prison and was facing another spell in rehab. On what would be her last day of freedom, she went on the last drug spree. Together with Joseph, she got high, shoplifted a TJ Maxx, and met their dealer. It was a routine they knew well. To Joseph, things felt normal. This was familiar. They did it all the time. Katie was a seasoned drug user, and though Joseph footed the bill for the he**on, he insists that it was by pure chance. If the pawn shop had redeemed Katie's gift card, she would have been the one to pay.

Joseph said that there was no ill intent whatsoever, no kind of malice. It was just two friends in the throes of their addiction hanging out together. That evening, Joseph gave Katie a casual hug goodbye, totally unaware of what was about to unfold.

More on that after the break.

So after we had split ways that night, she had asked me to give her a text and let her know when I got home. So as I was driving into my housing development that I live in, I sent her a voice text that said, "I got in. I'll be in in two minutes." And I didn't hear back from her at that point, but I also didn't know that my voice text said, "I got it. I'll be home in two minutes" instead of "I got in."

That was part of the problem with my case, but anyways. So just that one little word in the voice text? One little letter changes the whole sentence. Yeah. And they used that against you in court? Yeah, they wanted to use that against me in court, yes. Yeah. I didn't hear back from her that night. I didn't really think anything of it.

I got up the next day, went to work, and like 10 o'clock, I sent her a text that said, "Good luck today". Letting her know that... she was supposed to check into rehab, you know, good luck and I didn't hear anything back. So again, I didn't think anything of it because I thought to myself, she's probably at rehab now and they probably took her phone.

So I didn't think anything of it. And after work, I got off and to go get some more dope for myself, I used the card that I need to return the money for. I took the card and pawned it so that I could get more money and I didn't know that Katie had died. What time did she die, do you know? I believe they said it was somewhere after midnight.

Okay. Because what had happened is, she got high in her bathroom, in a downstairs bathroom at her house, and I guess she was dead in there for probably a while before somebody noticed. They were looking for her, I don't know, like they saw the bathroom light on, I don't know. Who found her? I think from the reports that I saw, I think it was her aunt, and they had to break down the bathroom door to get in because she was slumped up against it.

Yeah. That's sad. So what happened once you got to work? So after work? Yeah, I pawned the card and then I bought some more dope and I got high, and like a couple more days had gone by and another mutual friend of ours had called me and told me, she's like, "Hey, did Katie die?" And I'm like, "No, she's in rehab."

She's like, "No, I think I've just seen on Facebook that she died." I'm like, "Well, let me check Facebook and I looked and I didn't see it." And I'm like, "No, I don't think so." She's like, "No, it was up there, it was up there" and I'm like, "I don't think so". And she then told me, "Try and find out. It's important." I'm like, "Yeah, it's important."

And I called another friend and I found out that it was true. Did you try to call Catherine's phone whenever you heard that? I don't think I did, to be honest. I don't think I tried to call her phone. At this point, were you thinking, "Well, I hope that it wasn't from the drugs that we were doing together?"

I wasn't really worried that... If it was, I was more worried about my friend. So I didn't even think about the drugs or any of that.

A few days after seeing Katie, Joseph learned of her overdose through a mutual friend. Although concerned about what had happened to her, he didn't feel he was accountable for her death.

From his perspective, Katie knew what she was doing, and their relationship was that of friends, not of drug dealer and addict. Little did Joseph know, however, the Sheriff's Department was building an investigation into Katie's death, with Joseph as the prime suspect.

Let's pause for a moment to consider the role law enforcement plays in the fight against the drug trade. In the face of this crisis, some agencies have taken on more proactive strategies. Take the Kane County He**on Initiative, which took on Katie's case. This task force tries to target the dealers who supply the addicts with he**on rather than the users themselves. By fighting the people and the networks that prey on the addicts for profit, they can dismantle the drug trade from its roots up. All very well in theory, but how effective is this in practice? The task force inquiry eventually led the police to Joseph. I was curious to hear about his experience of the investigation.

Joseph, after you found out that Katherine had passed away, you got questioned by the police, right? No, it wasn't right away. There were some other people that I got high with. I didn't notice, but behold to me, like a couple of days or a week or so before what happened with Katie, they had gotten arrested with a couple of bags on them and they put my name up as the dealer. Did I ever help out my friends?

You know what I mean? A bag here, or a bag there. I wasn't making hundreds of dollars a day doing this. It was just here and there to support my own habit. A couple people. They got arrested, or not arrested or whatever, but they left my name and so, there was already an investigation started into me for he**on.

And I didn't know it, and then, when they went to investigate Katie's stuff, my number was on her phone, as one of the last calls, and, like I said, it had said that I got it, not I got in. And then they had that. They compared that number to what the number that they had investigating, buying, and put the two and two together, and had those kids call me again, "Hey, dude, we got like a hundred bucks, can you help us out?"

And I'm like, "Yeah, I can do something, but it'll be after work, and I'm gonna sell you my last six bags, and then take your money so I can go get me another." So the cops were setting you up? Yeah, they were setting me up the whole time. How long after Katherine's death were they setting you up like this? Oh, within four days, five days.

No, I never even made the transaction. It was, I'm trying to think, she died on the 6th, I believe. July 6th. And I was arrested, I believe, July 11th. When they arrested you, did they tell you that you were being charged with her murder? No, actually, I guess I put myself in this position. Instead of shutting up on my charges, I was letting these officers know that I have a drug problem, that, yeah, I sell a couple bags to my buddies here and there, trying to get the drug court instead of going back to prison again, which that way I get help for drugs not just prison, what's happening now. I was telling them about that and I was like trying to get some sympathy so I was telling them about all my friends that had died and I brought up Katie's name and I was like, this just happened a few days ago and... Cause I didn't feel like I did anything wrong cause I didn't sell her the s***. We got high together and bought the s*** together, split it up, you know what I mean?

I didn't think I did anything too wrong, you know what I mean? I didn't make any money, I didn't even make any bags. So whenever... It was just us hanging out. Whenever they got that information, that's whenever they pinned you with the drug-induced homicide? Yeah, they put it all into one nice case. So that basically when it came down to it, they're telling me all they want to do is find out what did happen that night so that Katie's family could get some peace. They're not trying to press charges. They just want to know what happened. You know what I mean? So of course, I'm like, "Of course". I'm high on he**on. I'm super sympathetic too. So, "Sure, I'll tell you what happened".

I did and sure enough, I put myself here. So they tricked you into telling them? Yeah, they tricked me, but I shouldn't have fallen for it either. So did they want you to try to give up the person you got it from? Oh, of course they wanted that, but there's no way I could do that and live with myself. That person didn't make that choice.

That person is just doing what they're doing. Who knows why they're doing it? It could be to support their family. It could be to hustle. It could be to support a habit. I don't know. Joseph, do you think that people should be held responsible for providing drugs for someone when they overdose and die? I think that if they're going to incorporate the punishment to somebody, it should be somebody way up the food chain, not somebody down here who's just doing the s*** to get by.

They should be looking at the guys, if they get caught with 200 kilos of coc***e or he**on or whatever, that they should get automatically a drug-induced homicide because somebody further down the line hid that. Now, should the guy, like I said, that's selling a bag to his friends or even selling it to stay afloat... Like I'm not a big dealer. No. No, I don't. We're victims of society, victims of circumstances. So no, I don't think people like me should be charged for a drug-induced homicide.

After the investigation wrapped up, Joseph was charged with drug-induced homicide. Because he gave the he**on to Katie, and lawmakers have written the laws to address these illegal activities, he found himself responsible for her death.

But Joseph believes he was unfairly treated by the investigation. Some of his friends set him up with the police by orchestrating a transaction that would implicate him. Once arrested, Joseph asserts that the police capitalized on his vulnerability and made it seem like he wouldn't face any charges, and because he didn't feel like he was to blame at all, he spoke with no reservation. He was completely transparent about what happened with Katie. As a result, he was slapped with a 12 year prison sentence. The police see Joseph as an organized dealer but Joseph rejects that label. In his story, he's a victim of addiction, and any drug dealings he was involved in were only casual.

Ultimately, he feels that the justice system failed to punish the right people, or address the deep-seated systemic factors that fuel the drug crisis. As our discussion wound down, I wondered if life behind bars has made Joseph re-evaluate his drug use. Has this incident changed the way he wants to live his life when he's released?

Did the authorities retaliate because you wouldn't give up your guy? I believe they did some. I don't know. There were a couple other people there that had the same type of case, similar. They got less time than I did. I took 12 years at 75%. So 12 years for drug-induced homicide? Yes. But if nobody had died and I had just sold this s*** to somebody, like basically, and nobody had died afterwards, and they caught me, it would have been like nine years at 50%. How does that make you feel, being put in prison for 12 years, on a 12 year sentence? It's a waste of what I was doing, you know. I had an apprenticeship at an electrician and I was working and I really thought I was doing okay. Just, I had a drug problem.

Do you think that something bad would have happened eventually anyway, being hooked on he**on? Oh yeah. With fentanyl, it's like putting a loaded gun to your head and spinning the chamber and pulling the trigger. It's going to happen, something sooner or later. Whenever y'all buy this he**on, like with the instance with you and Catherine, do y'all know that it's fentanyl or y'all think it's he**on?

We both know that there's a good probability that there's both in there. How does that make you feel gambling like that, because it could be too much fentanyl? At the time when you're doing it, you don't even think about it. It's not even like a thought. You cook it up, you pull it into a syringe, and you shoot it into your arm, and you don't even think anything of it.

It's not like, "Damn, if I do this, am I going to die?" You just do it. You're just wanting or craving that high so much. Whenever you get out, do you think you'll do it again? No, I don't think I'll ever do he**on or, or crystal m*** or crack coc***e again. Will I still smoke pot? Probably. Will I have a beer now and again?

Probably. Will those things lead back to it? I hope not. I think that we both know that you could get drunk and say, "You know what? I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of he**on." It's possible.

So do you ever get any kind of hate mail? No, actually, after I took my time, I sent a letter to Katherine's house, hoping that her mom would open it.

I let her know what Katie was talking about, thinking about that day and that it wasn't anything that they did that made her do more that day or anything like that, just that it happened and it was an accident. I would have never thought that had I did that, would that have happened that night. Did you get a response?

No, I never got a response, but I didn't expect one either. Katie was a good person. She had her flaws like everybody. But we weren't just buyer and dealer. It wasn't like that for us. We were friends. We talked about things that were going on in our lives, with her mom, with her dad, with her brother, with my family.

And we were friends. She took me to doctors' appointments when my leg was broken. There was a lot. We were friends, and it sucks to lose my friend to that. Well, Joseph, I hope that when you get out, you don't get back on it, because it sounds like it's something that's really brought a lot of negativity to your life.

I appreciate you reaching out and being open with us. Okay. Anyway, take it easy, man. Bye. Thanks a lot, man. Take it easy.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer...

An innocent bystander hit and killed while doing his job as a Domino's delivery driver in Sedalia. Authorities say the driver who hit the delivery car is 26 year old Westley Reid of Clinton. I was doing about 120 when I came up to the first intersection of the city area. I had two fifths of liquor. If those cops would have backed off, turned their lights off, and not pursued you, what would you have done?

I would have drifted off into the back roads, found a spot to crash out for some hours. If you could change something about that day, what would it be? I wish they would have stopped so I could have stopped.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. I want to thank Joseph for speaking with me. His ability to be honest is what makes this podcast so special. If you would like to listen to the raw recordings of these interviews, you can visit www.patreon.com/voicesofakiller. By becoming a patron, you can access not only this but hours of bonus recordings, correspondence, and you can contribute to the way the show is produced. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handle the production, audio editing, music, licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at www.voicesofakiller.com.

There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future.

Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.