Ep 27 | Barry Brown Transcript

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

So in 1994, you were accused of two murders. It's all hearsay. They don't got nothing actually tying me to the murder weapon or nothing, man. That's some pretty heavy stuff to have two men against you so much that they're willing to put you in prison for the rest of your life. It hurts. I've missed a lifetime.

Uh, over 30 years of being away from my kids, my mom. I'm not here to choose a side or anything like that, but there are men in prison that are innocent. I'm like, so all this was over a VCR? Is this crazy or what?

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're 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.

According to the Innocent Project, there are at least 20,000 innocent people in US jails today. Black men are seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted than white men. And while some high profile cases might break through to the news, there are thousands more innocent people who fly under the radar without the money or the platform to bring attention to their case.

Today, we're talking to a man who claims to be one of those innocent convicts. In 1994, Barry Brown was found guilty of a double homicide and was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole. Now 30 years is a long time, and if you type in Barry's name into a search engine, it will pull up very little information about his case.

By now, witnesses have passed, memories have faded, and the only way we can truly learn more about this case is by talking to the people at the heart of it. In my conversation with Barry Brown, I seek to find out what happened in 1994. We'll unpack the details of this case, laying out the evidence, and talking to the witness who put Barry behind bars in the first place.

Did the justice system get it right, or should Barry be walking free? Decide for yourself on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from Barry Brown, an offender at the Southeast Correctional Center. This call is from a correctional facility and may be monitored and recorded. Alright, so Barry, where are you from originally? I'm originally from Kansas City, Missouri. How was your childhood growing up?

Uh, I had a good childhood, man. Yeah. I wasn't bad at all. I was just a bad person who left home at the age of 15. Why would you describe yourself as a bad person as a young child like that? Well, I ain't been saying I was real bad, because it took me three years to come out. I came to prison for the first time at the age of 33.

I just said bad kid, but I wasn't a bad kid. Did you have like a bad upbringing with your parents or what? No. No, I just wanted to be my own man. Yeah, so, did you get into drugs as a, as a child? I started doing marij****a at the age of six, fifteen. And you said you'd been to prison before this murder occurred?

No. No. No. This is my first time in prison. Had you ever been arrested before? Uh, aside of a, uh, traffic ticket. Okay. How old are you right now? I'm sixty three. And at what age did you, this crime occur? At the age of thirty three. 33. And that would have been in 1994 you said? Yes sir.

What were you like in 1994? What kind of person were you? Uh, I worked, worked, worked hard every day, uh, doing roofing, but I was into drugs then. What kind of drugs? Crack coc***e. Barry, Anybody that hears crack coc***e, they know that's a pretty serious drugs. People do serious things. They, they typically steal so they can get high. Uh, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of negative stuff surrounding that drug.

Did you ever, uh, steal and do bad things so you could get high? I, I, I, I have stole stuff, man. Yeah. I ain't gonna lie. Yeah. But I, I, I didn't do nothing real, I didn't do nothing crazy, you know? Cause I was working, man. I worked, worked for a living, worked for my money.

So in 1994, you were accused of two murders. You actually discovered the bodies of Helen Harmon, is that who it is? Yeah, Helen Harmon, Liberty Harmon. And her four year old daughter, that day, you had went to go to their place to take a shower, is that right? Yeah, I lived there off and on. Okay, did you knock on the door or did you just help yourself walking in? I got keys to the, I got my own keys to the door. Whenever you unlock the door and you walked into that apartment, what's the first thing you saw? The first thing I saw is that the door, like, somebody kicked in the door. Okay, so somebody forced entry. I didn't, you're right. You noticed the door kicked in. Did you just go ahead and walk in? Yes. And what'd you see? Yes, I did, sir. The first thing I did, I went in, and, uh, the room was quiet, and then I seen, uh, Liberty. She was laying on the couch where I, where I usually sleep at, and I thought she, maybe she was asleep. I went over there, and I seen her, and, uh, and she had, uh, when you've been dead for a while. Then I went and walked in the back room, and, uh, there was Helen back there, and then I ran downstairs to the back, landlord apartment and told her about it, which she was my mother-in-law. I called the police.

So the first person you saw was the four year old girl. What did she look like? She was like, uh, blue in the face. Was there injuries? You can tell she been been dead for a while, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And whenever you went to look at Helen, what, what was her condition? Oh man, she was, it was blood everywhere. She was laying on the bed. Yes, she was. Was she face up? Other than so long, I really don't remember, but all I know I seen blood and after that I shot out of there and went back there, ran downstairs to the, my mother-in-Law's house who, which was the manager of the apartment building. And we, I called, we called the police. From there, whenever you called the police, did you go back into the apartment or did you just wait outside till the police came? No. Waiting for the police, sir. And they secured the scene and everything, did they start questioning you? Yes, sir. What did you tell them? I told them what happened, what I seen, when I got there and after that they, they asked me to go down to the police station with them and uh, I went down there and I gave, gave my statement down there.

On July 5th, 1994, the dead bodies of Helen Harmon and her four year old daughter Liberty were found at their apartment in Kansas City. A later autopsy would reveal that Helen had been stabbed 42 times and Liberty strangled.

Coroners pinned down the time of death to the early hours of July 4th. It was Berry who discovered the bodies the next day. Barry occasionally stayed at the Harmon's home, and even had his own key to their apartment in Armour Boulevard. It's not hard to imagine the grisly, bloody scene that greeted Barry that day, and he promptly alerted the police.

Yet decades later, here I am talking to Barry from prison. It took just a few weeks before suspicion fell on Barry, and over the weeks that followed, investigators gathered together enough evidence to put Barry away for life. For 30 years, Barry's sentence has gone unchanged, in spite of an unsuccessful appeal Barry filed in 1998.

So what pointed police to Barry Brown in July, 1994? Take a look at his appeals report and you'll soon see that Barry's conviction hinges on the testimony of two witnesses, George Cooper and Patrick Penn.

So two weeks after the discovery of these bodies, a man named George Cooper, which is a friend of yours told the police that you told him that you killed these people. Why would he say that? Cos we had gotten into a fight. He owed me some money. And he told me he was going to make my life a living hell. And if you see he got that much of it, if you look in there. He gave my alibi to where I was at the time of the so called murder. Whatever the time it was. And then he, he, he recants his story later on. So he first collaborated with your uh, alibi that you weren't uh Yes sir. and then later went back to the police and said a different story? Yeah. So now the police have a story that you had confessed, and then what other evidence do they have?

They said I confessed. Oh, they don't, man, they don't, it's all hearsay. They don't got nothing, no, actually tying me to the, uh, murder weapon or nothing, man. Did you owe George Cooper any money? No, George Cooper owed me money. He didn't give me all my money. That's what we got in the argument, fight back, fight about at work, on the roof.

So do you think that he was mad enough, George Cooper was mad enough to, to go all the way through with putting you in prison for the rest of your life? Oh yeah. Did he take the stand? Yes. And he went through the whole thing saying that you did this, and in fact, this was all a lie from George Cooper? Yep. Him and uh, Patrick Penn. Is George Cooper still alive? No. George, George died about 10 years ago, man. Wow. I would have really liked to talk to him and ask him. You know, why he would put somebody in prison for the rest of their life just for being angry at them, you know, usually, like, anger, you fight somebody or you just don't want to talk to them anymore, but doing that kind of

I can tell you that because on drugs, he was doing drugs too. We used to get high together. But people sober up and then things change and they're like, you know what, that's a pretty big deal. He come to find out he got money by putting me in prison. You know how they put a reward out for that. Yeah. Yeah.

So here's the deal. Uh, it also says that a week later a gentleman named Patrick Penn, another friend of yours, told the police that you had, uh, told him that you killed Mrs. Harmon and her daughter. Yes, they did. So that's two men that are mad enough to lie?

Yes sir. It was basically for the same reason sir. I was shocked to even see him when I went in the courtroom. It says right here in your, uh, this is actual, uh, the appeals writings. It says the defendant, which is you, explained to Penn, which is Patrick Penn, your friend. That Mrs. Harmon had given you some money so that you could retrieve her video cassette recorder. Yes. Yeah, I did. I got a high one night and then I took the TV and I pawned it off.

Yeah. And so you basically, instead you took the money and, and for crack coc***e and, and then you went back to Mrs. Harmon's apartment at 3:30 AM on July 4th to get some more money while the defendant was crawling around the floor beside her bed, she actually awoke and then a fight ensued, that was all the details that you told to Mr. Patrick Penn. Yeah. That's what he told, but it ain't true sir. Here's the deal that Patrick went as far as to show the police the same murder weapon, and the tip of that murder weapon which was a knife was, had a broken spot and that broken spot was inside of one of your victims, how would he know where the murder weapon is?

Evidently, he, maybe he's the actual, uh, actual killer. You know, if you look a little more, you'll see the autopsy report where they didn't find the metal fragment inside the victim's body. Hmm. That was after the autopsy report. So, since Patrick Penn was able to actually show them where the murder weapon was. That either makes the story true or it makes it to where he really, he is the killer because he knew where the murder weapon is.

It's now, my question is, is that the actual murder weapon? You know that Innocence Project is investigating my court, my case right now on some of that. On what? On that, the actual murder weapon, because when I seen this murder weapon out for, man it look like it been in the sewer system for some years. It was rusty.

Rust can happen actually pretty quickly, but, and I'm not trying to In a week? In a week? Yes, actually, rust can happen really quick. Now, the amount of rust, if it's like really rusty, but if it's just a little bit, Yeah, you'd be surprised. I've welded a lot and things like that as jobs. Just a piece of metal left out and one raindrop, you'll actually have a little bit of rust form around it in one raindrop.

But now, if it's a significant amount of rust, then that shows that it's been there for a really long time. But, Let's back up a little bit. So it says in your appeals, some of the writings, it says the knife had a broken tip, an x ray of Mrs. Harmon's body discovered a foreign object consistent with the broken tip of the knife.

You're telling me that a further autopsy revealed that was not the tip or it was? Right. My actual autopsy, you get my transcript, the police report. You'll see it. It said they didn't find no metal fragments in the victim's body. Why is it saying this in the appeal? Cause they had a guy who was Dr. Berkley, I forgot his name, Berkley.

He came and testified for me in court. Everybody had to get up. And walk up to the x ray screen to see where he talked. He gave his expert opinion on the situation, right? They still really didn't see that because he's an expert forensic scientist. They believed it. Yeah, that's some pretty heavy stuff to have two men against you so much that they're willing to put you in prison for the rest of your life.

Yeah, it's not been in there. You said that George Cooper took the stand, did Patrick Penn also take the stand against you? Yeah. Okay. And I told you about George Cooper taking it. It's been so long. I think. He did, he did a video statement, I don't think he was, if I don't remember, he didn't actually come to court to take the jury, they had a video of him. But then they wouldn't even let him play it, because he was, uh, as seen, he was, he told two or three different stories, now Patrick Penn actually took the stand on it.

The case against Barry Brown rested on three main arguments. First, he had the motive. Barry had admitted to stealing and pawning Helen's VCR for drug money, something that could have easily sparked a heated argument.

Secondly, two of Barry's friends testified that he had confessed to them about murdering Helen and Liberty. Third, and most compelling of all, was the unearthing of the murder weapon, a six inch knife with a wooden handle and a missing tip. It was Patrick Penn, the second witness to come forward, who led police to the knife in which was laying in a storm drain, where he claimed that Barry had showed it to him.

The knife presents an interesting predicament. If Barry is indeed innocent and the knife was the real murder weapon, how would Patrick know where to find it? Could Patrick Penn be the real killer, framing his friend for the crime he committed? Barry certainly seems to push this theory. In fact, he sees the entire case as a conspiracy against him. He casts doubt on the credibility of George Cooper's witness testimony, suggesting that Cooper wanted to pocket the reward money by pinning the blame on Barry, and Barry takes issue with the hard evidence of this case too, disputing whether the knife was even the murder weapon at all, after inconsistencies in the autopsy report.

Could this have been a botched investigation? Did two angry drug addicts lead investigators astray and let their innocent friends spend the rest of their life in jail.

So I'll tell you, Barry, I I would not be surprised at all if, if you're an innocent man in prison, these kind of things happen all the time. Obviously, the police have some pretty big things to go off of, which is two people saying that yes, you admitted to it, and then this whole thing with the weapon and all that. So my question to you is, if you're an innocent man in prison, what does that feel like to be somebody that's accused of killing someone and being sentenced to prison and you're actually innocent? Man, it hurts. I've been, I've missed a lifetime. Uh, over 30 years of being away from my kids, my mom, and my mother. When my mother was down there and all these people died on me while I was in prison, it hurts. Like I said, I finally got the Innocence Project to start investigating my case and I, I, I witness, so you interviewing, you can ask you, which I can send you something on, on the pathologist where I found out about the pathologist falsified my homicide report.

Is Patrick Penn still alive? Yes, he is still alive somewhere. I can't exactly tell you where, How can I get ahold of him? I do not know. Do you have anybody on the outside that would be able to help me find Patrick? I'm gonna get on the phone tonight, and I will try to see if somebody ever heard from him or whatever, but no, I haven't heard.

I would like to, I may end up hiring a private investigator to find Mr. Patrick Penn, because If you're in, go ahead. He should be. You look up his prison record. Do you think he's still in prison right now? No, I would, I don't know, but he had a prison record. Yeah. And then, like I said, once you get up into the details of my case, you'll find out also about him.

I, it still puzzles me that two people decided to both tell a story about you killing someone and you think it's purely from them just not liking you? No, George Cooper, like I tell you, George Cooper, me and him fell out, but Patrick Penn was a real surprise to me. I think it was more about him walking, not going to prison, the, uh, he was on parole at the time, and yeah, he had an ankle bracelet on, so he took it off, took a screwdriver or something, popped it off, so that made him what? Absconded. My lawyer at the time couldn't even bring up this stuff when they was in court. So who you think they'd rather have me for that for the murder or he never went to, went to jail, back to prison or whatever? Man, I was, Hey. I was really shocked to even see him when I walked in that courtroom, man.

What was that like looking at somebody that's lying about something that puts you in prison for the rest of your life? Oh, I was just shocked, man. That was my first time being in a trial or something of that magnitude where they telling me, uh, I could possibly go to the prison, and the lawyer was talking about the death penalty, you know what I mean?

Yeah. You know, uh, they never, they really never came to me, which I wasn't taking nothing anyway, because I knew I wasn't, you know. Yeah. Do you have support on the outside? Yes, I do. Does anybody, your family or friends, think you're guilty? No, you can talk to my, my, my wife, my ex, she's my ex now, Debra Walker, and my daughters, you can talk to all of them, I still talk to them.

So Barry, I talk to a lot of people that are in prison, and, and you spend a lot of time around people in prison, so, you understand that there's a lot of prisoners that claim innocence. Obviously, there's going to be some that really are innocent, but there's so many that claim innocence. How do you feel when somebody, you know, you're in prison with says, Oh, I'm innocent, I didn't do it, and then do you believe them? Some of them, some of them. It's like this. When I was out on in the free world and I heard that guy talking about he's not good for the crime, I said the same thing, man. Uh, he he just he he doesn't he just wants to doesn't want to go to prison but, uh, but for me man uh, and like I said you can check my record out man. It's my like I said my first time in prison. It's my time in The thing is Barry, I talk to people that 16 year old kids that never even been, yeah suspended from school. Understand that people just do things. But here's what we're gonna do, Barry, I'm gonna put this aside for a little while and let the private investigator try to track down Patrick Penn and hopefully that comes to fruition.

And if it does, I'll definitely let you know when that happens. And then we're gonna see if I can't get to talk to him. And you can talk to some of my alibi witnesses if you can. Okay, alright, see ya. Thank you. Yep, buh bye. The caller has hung up.

Now 63, Barry has spent half his life behind prison walls. He's missed watching his kids grow up. He's missed laying family members to rest. Time that is truly irreplaceable. Life has passed him by as only a spectator, and the weight of that lost time It must be even more painful if Barry is indeed innocent. Remarkably, Barry has stood firm in proclaiming innocence after all these years and even uphilling the rule in 1998.

As our call came to an end, Barry brought up a critical part of his appeal, his alibi. Barry attested that he had three witnesses who could vouch for his wherabouts on July 4th. But the court never heard their testimony. One of those witnesses was Timmy Brown, Barry's brother, who told police that Barry had spent the day at his house.

In '98, the court dismissed this plea on the grounds that, while Barry might have had an alibi for the day of the murder, this did not account for the critical early hours of the morning when the crime took place. At this point, it becomes clear that this story goes nowhere unless we talk to Patrick Penn.

I enlisted a private investigator to track down Patrick, hoping that he could finally set the record straight. After the break, you'll hear the results of this investigation.

Hey, Barry. Hey, hello, sir. After I got off the phone with you yesterday, I got on the internet and I hired a private investigator out of Kansas City. To try to track down Patrick Penn, so, we're gonna have to let that transpire, see what happens, and then hopefully if I can track him down, and get a phone number, I'll definitely call him, and uh, and go from there.

What do you think about that? I don't, I, I don't, I don't have no problem with that, sir. Well, Barry, I appreciate you calling me back. I'm gonna, uh, keep you close to me so I can, uh, inform you on what happens and, uh, we'll go from there, okay? Uh, yes, sir. Okay. But, uh, yeah, you, I'm, yeah, you need to talk to the Innocent Project right now, they got my case. Okay. I certainly hope that if you're an innocent man that maybe I can do something to help you, but, uh, we all know that's a far stretch, but, uh, doing nothing gets you nothing, so at least try. Yeah, I know, I know, I've been, been in prison now 30 years. That's a long time. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay, Barry. All right, sir. All right. See you. All right.

Hello. Hello. All right. Now, who's this again? It's Melinda Mathis. This is Patrick Penn's caretaker. So, I'm looking for a Patrick Penn. Do you know him? Or, you said you were his caretaker? Yes, I am his caretaker. I'd like to be able to speak to him. To my understanding, he's a witness to a murder that happened in Kansas City and I've been speaking to the guy that he was a witness to his murder, so if I could speak to Patrick, that would be great. Yes, you can speak with him. Thank you. Okay. All right, Pat. Okay. He said hello.

Hey, Patrick. Are you not going to? Are you? Okay. So, hey, do you recall what happened? You going to trial and being on the stand? Yeah. You remember that? Yes, I do. So whenever I talked to Barry, he had two witnesses against him. Okay. And You were one of them and he said that, uh, in the court documents, it said that Barry told you what he did, the murders. Is this true? Yes, it's true. So have you ever had any kind of anger or animosity towards Barry? No, I haven't. Do you think it's possible that he didn't tell you that or he's for sure told you that? For sure he told me. What exactly did he tell you whenever he told you about this, the specifics? He told me about the murders and how he killed that little girl and he told me everything. He told you that he killed the little girl and the mother? Yes, he also showed me where he hid the knife. He also showed him where he hid the knife, he said. Yeah, so they found that knife. Yeah, there was a chip missing off of the end of the knife. Yeah, he broke it, he broke it off in there. And killed her. Yeah.

How long did you know Barry for? For 17 years. Did you do drugs with Barry? Yes. Did Barry have a mean spirit before this, or do you think he just snapped? I think he just snapped. Yeah. Patrick, he's basically saying that you're lying. How do you feel about that? I'm not lying. Okay. I would never do that. You would never put a man in prison for the rest of his life? No, I wouldn't.

Patrick, I'm really thrilled that I was able to get a hold of you. I actually hired a private investigator to find you, and the first number they gave me was the right one. Uh, I appreciate your time, and I'm gonna reach out to Barry again and let him know that I spoke to you, and do you want me to tell him anything if I see him?

No, no, Barry. I'm not lying, no. Okay. No, hey, listen, I like to get all the sides and stuff. I'm not here to choose a side or anything like that, but there are men in prison that are innocent and it doesn't mean Yeah, I know. It doesn't mean that Barry is, but we got He's not. He's not innocent. He's not. All right.

Patrick, I appreciate you today. And I hope everything is okay for you, okay? Yeah, okay. All right, you have a good day, all right? All right, thank you. Thank you. And thank you to the caretaker as well. Okay, thank you. And we'll look you up, Toby Voices of a Killer. That's correct. Look it up and you'll hear him and you. Okay. All right, see you. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye.

So, Patrick stands by his account. In our short call, he confirmed the details we already know, that Barry confided to him about the double murders and he had taken him to see the knife. Patrick says he had no intention of convicting an innocent man, least of all a friend he had known for 17 years.

Barry, Patrick swears, is undeniably guilty. Without access to more information, our investigation stalls. We're left with two opposing accounts, a he said she said situation. That's not surprising given the age of this case. There are a few official records available online, and George Cooper, a key witness in this case, is dead.

Even if the police were to revisit the case, their investigation would hit many barriers, such as unreliable memories and lost evidence. But one thing stuck out to me. If, as Barry theorized, Patrick was framing him why would Patrick voluntarily talk to me? He's an old man now with deteriorating health, yet Patrick seemed eager to get the truth out on our call.

It's hard to imagine that somebody who got away with a crime long ago would take the risk of speaking out and inviting new interests in the case if he didn't need to do so. Not only did Barry's willingness to speak intrigue me, but it's also stirred the interest of his caretaker, who called me back shortly after our conversation.

Alright, now who's this again? This is Patrick Penn's caretaker. Okay, what's going on now? Now, so I was just asking him about everything, and I don't know if he liked all the details. I'm sure, I don't know if it came up in the court and stuff, but he was just telling me all the details, which is absolutely crazy.

What, what exactly was he saying? Like that so, when he went and told, the detectives came to his house, and what is his name, Barry came over while the detectives were there, and with a, what a .38, what would you say Pat, what kind of gun did he have, .38, he came over with a .38, and was wanting to kill Pat for telling and so Pat told the detectives to get in the closet and he all were hear everything. And I don't know if it's in the court documents about all this or anything. So the only thing that's out there that I can find, I'm sure you know some, maybe there's people with better skills at locating, but there's two documents. They're both appeals, and it doesn't talk about that. It just talks about him appealing that the witnesses, that's all they had was his. The one's dead. Pat said the other one's dead, like he passed. Yep, I asked. Barry said he was dead, but So he said the detectives actually hide it, hid in the closet, and when, um, Barry came in, he was gonna kill Pat because Pat was the only one that he, like, had told, and, or, I don't, and so the tech, detectives came out of the closet and actually arrested him then. So they did arrest him there, I'm sure. Yeah, they arrested him then, and so Pat just texted his ex wife, or Barry's wife at the time. Mm hmm. And said that you had, that a private investigator contacted him, she's, are you freaking kidding me? How does he think he's gonna get out of, it was like a, whatever she said, it was like a two murder and two something else. And she's, and she said her daughter is the only one that talks to him. I guess it's his daughter, too, and um, yeah, and yeah, he said that something, Pat told me the whole story that his wife had left him and that he went down, so they lived on some apartment complex or something.

Barry's wife left him? Uh huh. And Pat's still in contact with her, because he just talked to her tonight, he was like, this person just contacted me, and she's like, what? Wow. I wonder about this now, I wonder if, was Barry's wife involved with Patrick at the time of this happening? Like friends? Or like lovers or something?

Oh, lovers. No. Pat, you and her, you and his wife didn't have a relationship, like sexual relationship, did you? Hell no. Okay. No. And, um, I, I guess she had kicked him out and so he went down there, he told me, and stayed for the night. He was on crack and all this. And so he had stole their VCR, like the kid's VCR or something.

Yeah. And then came back, I'm like, so all this was over a VCR? Is this crazy or what? And so the girl came back, so Pat, you said the VCR was missing and the girl came back and was asking for the VCR and then he just killed him? And then he just killed him?

He came back that night and then just killed him? And he had only been there one night, right? He had been there one night. He had, because he had got kicked out from his wife's house. Why did he get kicked out from his wife's house? Why did his wife kick him out? Because of crack. Oh, I'm getting all the details here.

Because I'm like, what is really going on? Like, what? Yeah. What made Patrick testify? Yeah. He told me just now, he said he had came and just right after it happened and told Pat, and so Pat, what did you say, for two weeks? Two weeks you like held it in and he called it, Pat called his mom and his mom was like, you need to tell.

Yeah. Yeah. And then supposedly Pat was like under a different name and all this and, and he went in there and was like, I don't care. Y'all can arrest me because y'all been looking for me too. He goes, y'all can arrest me or whatever, but I'm just going to tell you what happened. And. And then he told them all and I guess they didn't arrest him.

What else did you say? You went in for a different name and then you went in and you said, y'all can arrest me but this is just, he was at somebody's house he said. And he goes, he would just have his head down and he was like, he knew these people. The lady and the child. And Pat knew them and Pat, and they were all on drugs.

And Pat just felt well, his mom is the one that said, you need to, you need to go tell. Yeah. I had a good mom, though. So, yeah. Appreciate you reaching out to me. Yeah, so we're watching your podcast right now. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, it was just, this is crazy because it happened in 19, what, 96? And so 90, he said '94.

The trial was probably '96. The trial, he said, was probably '96. Yeah, and all this, and I'm like, and he doesn't talk to anybody on the phone, or how he was talking to you in the very beginning. So, we're just sitting here, just talking, and I'm like, what happened? How's this? He's told me about it before, but I didn't really pay attention to all the details until this.

And then he texted the wife. And then the wife texted him back, are you freaking kidding me? So it's not like you're going for the people, like trying to get them out or anything, it's like you're just wanting to hear the side of the killer, right? Well we're getting all the facts and we're definitely, you know, if there's somebody out there that, you know, we think that I'm sure there are innocents.

Sure, sure. So yeah. Yeah. We're playing a neutral stance. They've already been convicted, but there are innocent people convicted, so. We're just poking around. Yeah. Interesting. That sounds very interesting. All right. Oh, definitely. I was like, he needs to know more of the story. And Pat was like, I'm sure that was in there that the detectives were in the closet and stuff I'm sure he saw that. I'm like, maybe he didn't. I don't know. I don't pull discoveries anyway. I appreciate it. Okay. All right. Have a great night. Bye.

New details emerge from my conversation with Melinda. Patrick's caretaker. It turns out that Barry had been kicked out of his ex wife's for using crack at the time of the murder, and that's why he was living at the Harmon's apartment.

Another key insight from the caretaker was that Patrick approached the police under a fake name after he consulted his mother about the right thing to do. And when Barry learned that Patrick had done so, he threatened to kill Patrick with a 38 caliber gun, an incident that prompted the detectives to arrest him.

This fresh information fleshes out what we know about Barry's possible motive. Yet, in my exchange with Melinda, I sense the hint of skepticism, heightened by the sound of the podcast playing in the background to the call. Why are we here, poking our noses into a case that was settled 30 years ago? Truth is, not all convictions are accurate. We live with a flawed justice system that sometimes imprisons the wrong people and leaves them with no lifelines. Providing a platform for alleged killers can humanize them and give them a fair shot at being heard when the legal system fails them.

I caught Barry up to speed with the latest developments. As we talked to him one last time, it's up to you to draw your own conclusions about who killed Helen and Liberty Harman in 1994.

Hey, Barry? Yes, sir? Well, I got some news for you. Yes, sir? I got ahold of Patrick Penn. Huh? I hired a Taylor Payton Investigations. And a gentleman named Derek there, uh, who does the investigations and research, was able to locate Patrick Penn for me in a short period of time, and I called up and, uh, he has a caretaker, he's pretty old, I spoke to the caretaker, I spoke to Patrick, and I said, listen, I hired a private investigator to track you down, I just want to ask you a few questions, and he said, okay and I asked him if he knew you. And he said, yeah. And then I said, I said, this guy's in prison. I said, he says that two people say that he did this crime. And he's saying he didn't is an innocent man in prison. And he said, that's what you told him that you had told them about the murder and where the weapon was, and that's how they found the knife. He's still sticking to his story. I asked him if he had any, any ill fate for you and he said no, he said he went a week without telling and his mother, he told his mom and his mom said he should tell. And then also, uh, one other thing that he said, actually the, the caretaker called me back and said that he had said some more stuff off after we hung up and, and that he was actually at his house and the detectives were over there and you came over there trying to attack him? That is not true sir.

That he had to hide in a closet, he had to hide in a closet or something like that because the detectives made him hide in a closet cause you were coming over or something like that. Oh, man, that's, that's, that's, you know, that's, you know, that's, I'm five, I'm five feet five, sir, and Charles Patrick is, um, six feet, he's about six, two, six, three.

None of that really matters whenever there's a murder involved in weapons and stuff like that. Anybody could, size don't matter, but he didn't hide in there because he wanted to. The detectives Supposedly, I'm just telling you what he said that he was over there. The detectives were there and they said, he's on his way.

So he just hide or whatever. We don't want y'all to be interacting or whatever, but it's crazy because I was able to get in touch with Patrick Penn and he's after all these years, uh, you know, and he ain't got many left. It sounds like that, uh, he's sticking to a story that you're the one that told them this, these things. He told his mom said they should confess and that he doesn't have any ill fate towards you, there's no reason for him to say these things. So what is your reaction to that? Well, because I believe he's the actual murderer, sir. You think he's the actual murderer? Yeah. Patrick you can come and visit me over there, now, and what you just told me is trying to convince me even more. But, one thing you, you can check, remember I told you he, he took that, he took that ankle bracelet off, cut that ankle bracelet off his leg, and what it, why come he wasn't re arrested when they talked to him, you know what I'm saying? I think I may call him back and ask him that, but as of now, Barry, I think, I think I got enough of the story to get a feel for, people can start picking a side, it's really difficult, because here's the thing, it wasn't just Patrick, it was another guy, he's deceased now.

So that's not just Patrick against you, but you against two other people, and, uh, it's a shame that it has to go like this, but, uh, that's what we're left with to try to figure this out. And it seems like the court figured it out with the two witnesses, but. They went on, but look at, obviously, I'm in here, but since I've been down, I don't have a whole lot of stuff to do, so I can't really get into it here, but I was basically set up, man. I'm telling you. Man. Barry, I appreciate your time. I'm gonna, uh, keep pushing forward and I hope the truth comes out in whatever way it needs to come out. Yes, sir. Hey, do me a favor when you call, you ask him about that stuff. Why come you wasn't re arrested? You wasn't arrested. Okay. I believe he either got, uh, he got money or something for that, or whatever. Or he and me are just doing good. But see, also, I already told the police I had been smoking, uh, crack. But guess who was smoking crack? Two. Both of those guys, man. But they, my wife and my girlfriend at the time, she don't even allow them over there after that happened. She, she, she, you just remember, you just reminded me to tell you something else? Yes, sir. Evidently, he's got at the minimum a friendly relationship with your ex-wife because she actually texted in while I was talking to him. Oh really? Yeah. Nah, they're at the, they're at the very minimum, friends. Nah, I doubt that. I'm gonna find out. I call, I'm gonna call my daughters daughter when I get out. I can't, I'm gonna call, find out. Do you still have a relationship with her? She got remarried. I had a relationship. I don't talk to every blue moon, but uh, I talk to my daughter. Okay. By, who are by her, by them.

All right. By her. Hey man, I appreciate it. Like I said, uh, whatever the truth is, I hope that's what comes out. Okay? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. You're doing all right. Alright, buddy. Alright, see ya. Later, later. Bye. The caller has hung up.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer.

Yeah, I never hit her. The whole time we were married until that night, I never hit her. Why didn't you leave? Because I loved her. She was very jealous. Very jealous. I had to quit my band, I had to sell my Harley, I had to sell the drums. It was just like, something took over my body. It wasn't me. I was just my heart was racing real fast here, my hands are shaking, my whole body is shaking. The thing was that, uh, I didn't know what to do with it. And, uh, I really didn't know.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. I want to thank Barry for sharing his story. his story with us today, his ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special.

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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.