Ep 37 | KWAN JOHNSON Transcript

Ep 37 | Kwan Johnson
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.

I was never a violent criminal. I never did violent crime, right? So we went back out and returned to leave again and he pulled a pistol on me. What was your reaction when he caught hammer? And I'm looking, I was like, man, he's tripping. So he was still after you with all those bullets in him? Yes. Yeah, he was still fighting.

The dude was extremely high. Right? According to his blood work, he was like high. High, like threw the roof high. Right? I had made some statements. I was coerced on some police officers. He took me to trial on two murders for one body.

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.

In this week's episode of Voice We journey back to the early 1990s in St. Louis, Missouri, a time and place where the crack epidemic was shaping communities and lives. Amidst this backdrop, we meet Quan Johnson, a young man entangled in a complex relationship with Alvin Foster. A relationship marked by intimidation and a struggle, For respect in a community grappling with the harsh realities of drug culture and street politics.

This episode delves deep into the night that changed everything for Kwan, a night of confrontation and a deadly struggle that would lead to Alvin's untimely death and Kwan's life sentence. Kwan's story, however, goes beyond a personal tragedy. It casts a spotlight on broader systemic issues such as mass incarceration and the prosecutorial tactic of charging in the alternative, where defendants face multiple charges for a single incident, increasing the likelihood of conviction.

Kawan's case also touches on themes of racial discrimination in the justice system, echoing a nationwide pattern where communities of color disproportionately bear the brunt of aggressive policing and sentencing. His experience raises critical questions about fairness and justice in America's legal system.

When we speak to Kawan from behind bars, we will see this incident and the world through his eyes. So sit back and listen closely as we explore what really happened on that fateful night in this episode of Voices of a Killer. So Kawan, where are you from? From St. Louis, Missouri. How would you describe your childhood growing up?

Was it rough? Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of, uh, physical abuse. Some verbal abuse. Yeah. Mental abuse. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, your parents were abusive? Yeah. How would you, how'd you do in school? Not well, not well. I hated school, to be honest. , I hated school. I felt out of place. Um, I felt that, uh, it wasn't a place that, that was for me.

The place didn't understand me, you know what I mean? Did you get in fights at school, get in trouble and stuff like that? Yeah, maybe, probably grade school I did, but as I went up into school and school was showing your eye. And high school, that, that stuff, that tapered off. When's the first time you ever got in trouble with the law?

As a kid. I know it wasn't a kid, uh, stealing, stealing candy from nothing magic market or something like that. And, but all the police officers, they all liked my mother and my mother was really pretty. So what they did, he didn't, they just brought me straight home to her. She beat the hell out of me . You know what I'm saying?

Right. I'm saying did you Yeah. Did you have siblings? Yeah. Yeah. I have. I'm the baby. I'm the youngest. My mother had five children and my father, he ended up, I guess when he left my mother, he, uh, back with a woman that had already had two kids. And she ended up having two more by him. So I got two younger siblings and two step siblings on my father's side.

I was being mostly raised with my mother. I was what they call an oops baby, right? And whenever, whenever my daddy would get mad at me, he'd say, boy, you know, here comes the rubber butt. You know what I mean? He'd say, that's the only reason you're here, we should know. So, like my oldest sister, she's 19, I got a niece that's like a year under me, so it was really just me and my mother.

And my sister that's eight years older than me, the rest of my brothers and sisters, not my mother, they were all grown and blue gouge because my sister, she went back and forth to juvenile a lot, right? My mother was abusive to her too, verbally and physically. So she started getting in trouble with young age as well, right?

And she started running away from home, going to juvenile. So it was really, for a lot of time, it was just me and my mother. From the age of probably maybe seven on up. So then I ended up having to move with my father. Because my father, he, my mother worked the swing shift at General Electric. And so, I had to do two weeks with my father, two weeks with my mother, it was real stressful.

Yeah. Do you think that your mom, your parents being aggressive with you and your siblings, do you think that kind of shaped the way you grew up and who you became? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And why? Do you think it made you more aggressive as a person? As a child, it did. Really taught me that the way you solve problems is with your face or when you solve problems out of anger.

So I would say yeah. I would say yeah. So Kwon, you're in prison for a pretty bad crime, murder. You pled not guilty. And this happened in 1991. What I want to know, Kwon, is before this alleged crime happened, what kind of person were you then? How would you describe yourself? Young, dumb, full of fun. Young, dumb, full of fun.

I wasn't, I was never a violent criminal. I never did violent crime, but I was a thief. In those days as a young man, they didn't have jobs for us. We couldn't get, we might get like a, I think my first job was like at Popeye. And I made, I think it was minimum wage at that time, I think it was 3. 25. How old were you in 1991?

In 91, I was 20. I was 20. But at 16, as a kid, like I said, they didn't have, they didn't have jobs for us. I was bad. I was, at that time, at that age, my mother, she couldn't whoop me. She ain't been, she got arrested for whooping me, beating me, right? And they, people, my neighbors called the child abuse hotline on it.

So, she started working with me like around 13, 13, right? But, um, I think she was really nervous after that, right? I guess I was in rebellion. I was a rebellious kid. I probably had a lot of resentments. It's probably really hard to describe it. Probably needed some counseling, something like that. Didn't really have no way to address my issues.

Everything was like bottled up. But like I said, not being able to have a job and things like that, you know, you want at, at, at, at 16 years old, 15, 16, you smelling yourself. I was very good looking. All girls wanted me, so you won't be able to go to the, whoops, with your girlfriend. You want, you want a car. I couldn't afford none of that stuff.

So I had to find ways on, on my own to figure out, find ways on my own to. To get these things, and which led to me as a young man working for my sister's boyfriend, selling drugs. Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, Kwan Johnson's childhood was far from idyllic. He describes it as filled with physical, verbal, and mental abuse, painting a picture of a turbulent home life.

Kwan struggles began early, marked by confrontations with the law for minor offenses like stealing candy, and overshadowed by a sense of alienation and resentment. The abusive environment at home, coupled with his feeling of being out of place at school, set the stage for a challenging upbringing.

Kawan's narrative provides insight into the impact of his family dynamics. Being the youngest among several siblings, he often found himself isolated. Particularly as his older sister frequently faced juvenile detention, this isolation was compounded by a living arrangement that shuffled him between his mother and father.

His recounting of these early years reveals a young man grappling with the consequences of an aggressive household, learning that problems were solved with fists or through anger. This environment, Kawan believes, undoubtedly shaped his aggressive tendencies during his youth. As he transitioned into his teenage years, Kawan faced the harsh realities of limited job opportunities and economic hardship.

This lack of prospects led him down a path of petty theft and eventually, In the world of dealing drugs, working for his sister's boyfriend, it was a survival tactic, born out of necessity, to obtain the things he wanted but couldn't afford. A reflection of a young man trying to find his footing in a world that offered him few opportunities.

I wanted to know if this was what eventually led him to speak with us from behind bars. Back then, in the 80s, this was before the, uh, crack epidemic came. We sold our P*P. We, predominantly P*P, my job was, they was in the back, in the alley in the back of the house, and they was, they would do the dippers, right, they would dip, and I was to control the traffic flow, like I would run out to the car.

Be like, what you want? How many you want? Man, ain't no one. Give me a and I guess it was pretty good because they came from all over back and made a lot of money. And I would run back and they would have my take it out, run it, take it to the car, keep the traffic moving. Would you say you're the, back then, you're pretty much like a career criminal?

Career criminal? Yeah. No, hell no. No, you can't be a criminal. You can't be a career criminal with no force. You know what I mean? But, it's just, it's really about environment and opportunity. You know what I mean? You got to spend time with your children. You got to talk with your children and develop their mental, develop their intellect, teach them how to communicate.

None of that was done for me. I forgave my mother because she was born in what, 36? She had been married, she went to summer, dropped out of school to get married to my older brother's sister's, my older sister's and brother's husband, which was Pontus, so she probably didn't know nothing, you know what I mean?

She was the type, she'd be smoking a joint and be like, boy, you see this? Be like, yeah, she don't smoke this s*** a kid. Then she'd hit it. One of them type of mothers, you know. Boy, you need to go read, you go, you need, you go read some books or something. But I never, other than a TV guy, I never saw her read nothing.

But my father, on the other hand, was very intelligent. Was very bright. And I, I, I didn't know until after he had died and I read his obituary. But this motherf***er, he fought in the Korean War, ran for mayor. Yeah, but never, never done. He took me fishing and introduced me to that, but all the time that we was out on that bass boat, it was just complete silence.

In the 1980s, America faced an impending drug crisis, an era before the crack epidemic took full hold one where substances like P*P were rampant on the streets. Wan's involvement in the drug trade as a young man in St. Louis offers a glimpse into this tumultuous period. The emergence of crack coc***e would soon overshadow drugs like P*P, leading to a full blown epidemic that devastated countless lives and neighborhoods.

Kawan's narrative illustrates the reality of those caught in the tide of these shifting drug trends, often driven by a lack of opportunities and environmental factors rather than a predetermined path to criminality. As he says, he doesn't consider himself a career criminal, and rather he was let down not only by his environment, but a lack of nurturing from his parents.

While this Kawan ending up behind bars, I wanted to hear the story from his point of view.

Come on, let's figure out why you're in prison. Because you're in prison for a pretty serious crime, and you're saying that you're completely innocent. The only thing that I can find on you is, and we already have this happening. Well, I'm not saying that I'm completely innocent. I'm not saying that I'm completely innocent.

I accept responsibility for my part. You know what I mean? But what I am saying is I don't deserve life without parole. I don't deserve to be locked up for 33 years. Did you kill someone? That's what I'm saying. Absolutely. You did? Absolutely. The victim, Alvin Foster, is his name. Is that correct? Yeah, he was my assailant.

He was my, I'm the victim. I feel, I feel he would be an assailant, my attacker. He attacked me. Okay. First of all, let's go piece by piece. How did you know Alvin? He was a guy that, that, that stayed down the street from me. Neighborhood bully, D Bo. If you ever saw Pride, he was like D Bo. He, he, he would bully, bully, bully the younger guys that were selling drugs in the neighborhood, smack them around, take the drugs and stuff like that.

That's the type of guy he was. He pimped, he was pimping some of the girls to help get high so he could get high for free. All paybacks. He was that type of guy. So he's kind of struck the fear in people and got his respect that way? Yeah. So I would take it that you guys weren't friends? Yeah, we were, we were alright.

We never No, I was 20. He never tried that with me until back then. Yeah. But a lot of the younger guys that were like, you know, 17, 18, he would do that to them. A lot of the smaller guys, right, he never tracked any of them with me. We never had a problem. So take me back to that day. Let's just do it piece by piece.

What time of day did this occur? It was at night, I think it's, let me see, I've been talking over 30 years, and I think it was like around 11, 30, 12 o'clock maybe. And tell me about the beginning of what happened, just the beginning, what happened to initiate you guys having friction? He called me over to his house, his mother's house, because he was, he was drug addict, he was like, I was 20, he was like 35, 36, lived in his mother's basement.

He called me over. And that told me that he had some people over there that wanted to buy some stuff. And I was like, man, it's late, I'm in the, I'm in the bed, right? And he was like, man, it ain't gonna take nothing but a minute. And since we was like right down the street, I was like, damn, alright. I hopped up, threw on my pants, ran down there, right?

When I got down there, I stepped in and pushed the door closed. We go downstairs in the basement, which is, is what we usually always conducted. Jesus. And when I got down there, There wasn't nobody there but him. And I was like, man, where everybody at? They took too long, man, they left. I said, man, I'm right down the street.

I ain't took too long. Yes you did. Man. They didn't, man, they was waiting. I said, man, it took me like 10 minutes to get her right. So we went back. I said, well, all right then, man, I'm gone. So I went to leave and he was like, damn man, I got you. I tried to help you get some money, man. Throw me a little something free.

I was like, I ain't got nothing for free to give you, man. So we went back and I went, turned to leave again. He pulled a pistol on me. Where were you at when he pulled the pistol out? Were you standing at the door trying to leave? No, I was on my way back up the steps. Me in the basement. When he pulled the pistol, I was like on the first or second step to go back up the steps.

And when he pulled it, did he just show it to you? Did he like actually point it and hold it, point it at you? No, he pulled it out. He was sitting on, he was sitting on the couch and he pulled the pistol from up on the, reached between his legs. And he pulled the pistol from under the pillow cushion that he was sitting on.

Okay, once he pulled the gun out, what was your reaction? What did you say to him? I was shocked, I was like, this thing ain't gonna rob me for real. I'm like, man, black character go, and he's going up the steps, that's when he cocked the hammer on it. He's like, well, nigga, bring your black ass off them steps.

Yeah, what was your reaction when he cocked the hammer? I was like, oh my damn, this motherf***er. He trippin You know what I'm sayin That was my reaction, man. He trippin Did you think he was serious? And I was Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And, uh, so I'm like So he's like, give me all that s***. Give me them rings, give me them chains, take them shoes off, give me all that.

And I'm like, right here, man, you can have this s***. So I wore my pocket and reached out to him, and he held out his hand. I reached past the gun. And as I dropped the dope in his hand, I grabbed the barrel of the pistol and pushed it down away from me towards the ground. Immediately, we started struggling over control of the weapon at that time.

Kwan's reference to Foster as Debo, likening him to the iconic neighborhood bully from the movie Friday, starring Ice Cube, paints a vivid picture of the man he faced that fateful night. The character Debo in the 1995 movie Known for his imposing physical presence and his intimidating demeanor became a lens through which Kwan perceived Alvin.

Although there's not much out there on the internet about Alvin, what we do know is he was a veteran, evidenced by the inscription on his gravestone, Private First Class U. S. Marine Corps, Vietnam. A solemn reminder of his service in the Vietnam War and that his tragic untimely passing was honored with a burial in a military cemetery.

With his military background and no doubt imposing figure, it's certain that Alvin Foster would have been able to intimidate Kwan easily. Kwan recounts being invited to Alvin's home under the pretense of a drug deal only to find himself In a dangerous and unexpected situation, as Kwan was threatened, his decision to reach for the gun, a desperate attempt to redirect it away from himself led to a struggle for control.

This struggle a life or death wrestle over the weapon is where Wan's narrative takes a dark turn. We'll find out exactly how it played out after the break. So he was still after you with all those bullets in him? Yes. Yeah. He was still fighting. Damn. Still fighting.

So whenever you grabbed a hold of the gun, did you grab it good to where you had a hold of it and he had a hold of it? Yeah, he had, his hand was on the, the handle. Right. And the trigger. Yeah. I grabbed the barrel. On my, as I dropped the drugs in his, toward his hand, I hurried up and grabbed the barrel of the pistol and pushed it down.

Did he try to pull back and get it back from you? Yeah. The drugs end up falling wherever they fell, on the table, whatever, and with my right hand I grabbed the barrel and pushed it down. With my left hand, I'll palm his hand, which his hand was on the butt of the gun, and I start trying to pull the gun away from him, and we, we struggling over the gun.

Are y'all saying, are y'all saying anything to each other when you're struggling? No, it's quiet, it's, it's deadly quiet in there, it's just, we just going at it, and um At this point, your, your senses are probably really high trying to make sure you don't die, right? What do you, what'd you feel at that point?

Would you Gee, you can't get, you can't get this, girl. Right. You know what I mean? He didn't get me. You know what I mean? I didn't really, my thoughts was really blank, everything. The adrenaline was up, everything was just flowing, you know what I mean? Did you have a gun on you? I did not have a gun. I did not have a weapon.

So pick up where you left off with the struggle. Okay. So, we struggling. And he's using, he's trying to use his body to, cause he's a big guy, right? Uh, he's using his body to try to knock me, we hit, our heads hitting each other, our shoulders hitting each other, our legs crossing and everything, and he's under us, and we, really, he's trying to hold on, I'm trying to get it.

And the gun go off, pow, right? He didn't say nothing, I didn't say nothing. We steady fighting, we steady wrestling for this gun. Hold on, where'd the shot go off to? Did it hit right by you? I don't know where it went. I didn't stop wrestling trying to get that damn gun. And he didn't stop trying to keep me from getting it.

Okay. We just kept going. I ended up getting a good grip on the handle. And I just, man, I was like, everything I had in me, I just snatched it as hard as I could. Snatched it. And when I snatched it, it went off again. Now, this time, somehow, in us fighting, he's over by the steps, and my back is no longer to the steps.

I'm facing by the steps. And he over by the steps, and that all right. Cornered you in? Yeah, I didn't say anything, and I don't know why I did, but it was like, I pointed the gun at him, it's like if to say freeze or stop. And he looked at me, and rushed me, and just rushed me, and when he rushed me, I was able to, I shot twice.

And he hit me with like a football type block, right? Yeah. And it was so hard, the way he hit me, that he knocked the gun out of my hand. The gun went one way, and I went another way, but I grabbed him, and he went with me. I went, he knocked me up over the coffee table and onto the couch where he was at.

Where he was originally at, right? And, uh, he landed on top of me, and he started punching me in the face, right? Was anybody at this point struck by a bullet? Yeah, later I would find out. He was struck at this time three times. Okay. Once in the leg. Once in the stomach. And once in the shoulder. And he's still fighting you at this point, even though he's struck?

Yeah, but only all the bullets pretty much went through. Only one that didn't go, uh, through was the one that had went in the bed and hit it. Hit. That thing, it had hit his finger, so I don't know if that happened while he was wrestling he got shot or when I snatched it, or while he was rushing me, I don't know how, I don't know at what point he got shot, in the, in the leg, or in the stomach, or in the shoulder.

Yeah. But I do know from autopsy reports, that's where he was, and he, man, he knocked me over, I'm on the couch, he's punching me in the face, to keep him from knocking me unconscious, I grabbed him and pulled him close to me, right? When I pulled him close to me, he bit a plug out of my face. He what? He bit a plug out of my face.

He bit you? He bit me in the face, yeah! Damn. He bit a plug in my face, right? And he was kneeing at me. So he was kneeing, trying to knee me in the groin and in the stomach. I rolled him over, pushed my face from his face and towards the, the pistol, but he knocked me down, I didn't know where it was at, I just knew in the general direction that it went, so I went to go get it.

By me not knowing where it was at, I didn't, I couldn't go just straight to it, right? But when he saw me going in that direction, he hopped up off the couch, ran up the steps, out and out the back door of the house, right? I grabbed the gun, grabbed my, the little drug I had dropped, I grabbed that, and, and came out.

I didn't know where he had went, didn't know where he was. So, my concern was, Was to get from point A to point B, which was from his house back to my house. And that's the way I ran. I wasn't letting that pistol go. Yeah. And I was scared. s***. I always, I was never really a, a violent from fist fight or whatever I was, I never shot nobody.

I didn't, I didn't even own a, I never owned a gun. I didn't even own a gun. I ran home, and in the course of me running home, it was this big ass bush, I'm sorry, this bush is huge, man, it was probably 8 feet wide and 9 feet tall, right? I'm running, I didn't run to the stop, I ran and hit the grass, I'm running through the grass.

And I'm trying to get to my house and as I'm running back, he come out these damn bushes. And man, s***, I panicked and said, I just turned and shot one time, man. And the man died instantly. And they found him when the paramedics found him. They found him coming out of the bushes. His feet was in the bushes and his body was laying outside of the bushes.

That's right. The struggle described by Kwan with vivid detail paints a picture of desperation and survival. As Kwan grappled with Alvin for control of the gun, the tension escalated with each passing. Second, the encounter, a blur of motion and fear sees Alvin using his strength to overpower Kwan, their colliding with force and a moment of sheer instinct.

Juan managed to gain control of the gun. With the roles reversed, he found himself pointing the weapon at Alvin, who, despite being wounded, launched a ferocious counterattack. The struggle intensified, crashing over a coffee table and culminating in a brutal face to face confrontation on the couch. Alvin, resilient even in his wounded state, bit Kwan's face in a desperate move, leading to a gruesome injury.

As Alvin fled, Kwan, driven by fear and adrenaline, Ran in the direction of his home, the gun in hand. The chase led to a final, fatal confrontation where Alvin emerged from a bush only to be met with a panicked, fatal shot from Kawan. This tragic end, marked by confusion and terror, leaves us pondering the fine lines between self defense and excessive force.

So you say he had a total of three gunshot wounds? A total of three. All three at that time, and then the final shot. So he was still after you with all those bullets in him? Yes, he was still fighting. Damn. Still fighting. So? You know, but coc***e do that to you when you high on crack. When you have a crack, what they call a s***, they call it, when you have people, cause my lawyer at the time, she tried to get a, uh, an expert witness and he was a former college professor that specialized in coc***e intoxication, because, coc***e intoxication, because dude was extremely high, right, according to his blood work, he was like, And they wanted to, she wanted to bring this pathologist in to testify that his ability to do what he did was because of the drugs, that coc***e gives you that superhuman, bizarre and aggressive behavior.

But the courts, their reason for denial was that they didn't have the money to pay for it. Go on. After that very last shot and him dying in the bushes. What did you do after that? I ran home. And whenever you went home, did you I ran home. Did you call the police or hide the gun? What was your strategy? No.

When I ran home, I dropped a gun in the bush because my mama, she, she can't allow no guns in her house, right? So I dropped a gun in the bushes in front of my house. It was like an evergreen bush. Dropped a gun in the bush and I came in and I went to go take a shower and I noticed that my mouth was busted, my nose was busted.

My face was bleeding where he embedded me. I took my clothes off. I noticed that my clothes had blood on them. I didn't know it at the time, but the fight was so up close and personal, so intense that His blood had soaked through my winter clothes all the way down to my underwear. It soaked three layers across a pair of jeans, a pair of long drives, and a pair of draws and all the way down to my skin.

I took that, show you how dumb I was. I took my clothes and put 'em in the clothes hamper, and I took my jacket because, and I, I just wasn't thinking. Right, right. I took my jacket and was like, I'm gonna have to wear it tomorrow. So I put it in the washing machine. And when I took a shower, and just laid there, after I got out of the shower, I just laid there, I had a ceiling fan in my room, and after I took a shower, I just laid in the bed, looking at the ceiling fan, replaying events in my head.

And tears just rolled down my eyes, man. I was like, damn, yeah, I started coming, when it actually happened, it actually started coming to me. You know what I mean? I started coming down off that adrenaline and the realization of what happened. It came to me and that's when it hit me. So Kwan, how far was the body from your house?

I would say maybe 300 feet. That's a rough guess. Kwan suggests that Alvin's astonishing ability to fight despite multiple gunshot wounds might have been fueled by drug intoxication. Although we lack access to court documents and cannot confirm the presence of a toxicology report. Kwan recounts how his lawyer attempted to introduce an expert witness, a pathologist specializing in coc***e intoxication, to testify about the drug's potential to induce superhuman strength in aggressive behavior.

This line of defense was unfortunately not pursued due to the court's financial constraints. There's also a question of what exactly happened in the aftermath of both parties fleeing Alvin's home. To quote a news article reporting the day after the incident, Alvin Foster's body was discovered after a neighbor, who lives two doors from the Foster's call police, saying a beaten man was at their front door.

The victim's body was found at the front of the neighbor's house, and police believe Foster had run to the neighbor's door seeking help after being shot. This put Kwan's recollection of the events into question. Did he really run away from Alvin? Or did he in fact pursue him to finish off the job?

Although we can't provide an alternative viewpoint from any witnesses, one thing is true. The close proximity of the crime scene to Kwan's home, a mere 300 feet, shows just how personal this confrontation was. Seeing this altercation through Quan's eyes shows us just how raw and emotional that situation must have been.

And fortunately for Quan, the consequences of his actions in that moment of panic and fear eventually All up to him. So the scenario that you just told us, is the scenario that you used in court? Yeah. And the prosecutors are basically saying that, what are they saying, that you brought the gun and you just killed him?

Or did they acknowledge that, that you were in a struggle? No. No. They acknowledged all that. And uh, he gave me the first three shots. He said where the first degree murder was, that I supposedly had chased him down. And I've been chasing down. Where was there evidence to show, you know, where was the evidence to show that you chased them down?

Well, I had, I had, um, I had made some statements, right, and I was coerced. I had some, I had made some statements that was coerced by some black police officers. Made it seem like that they were trying to help me and all that. And when I told them the story they just didn't believe because at first I wasn't talking to them.

I think they questioned me for eight hours. Eight hours. They picked me up that morning like around 10, man, when they brought me out. And took me to the reenactment. It was dark outside. It was like around 8 or 9 o'clock. I did make some statements, though. Yeah. Do you think that, looking back, that the victim, Alvin, there was actually nobody there to buy drugs, that was all just a way to rob you?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. When all this got settled down to where the police investigated and they questioned you and they got the information they needed, did they come in and say that we're charging with first degree murder? The detectives who actually interviewed me, they tried to give me a manslaughter, but the head guy that was over the major case squad at that time, he was like, no.

Let's shoot for first degree murder, and we're gonna also charge him with second degree felony murder, and that's what they did. At that time, Robert McCulloch was in office. He was a vicious prosecutor, man. He controlled St. Louis County's prosecutors, and if he was black and you came out there with a murder, whatever, they always shot for the highest.

And we'll try to plea bargain you all and get as much time out of you as they could. And that's what happened to me. What were your charges? I was charged with count one first degree murder, count two armed criminal action, count three alternative to count one second degree felony murder, and count four armed criminal action.

And they took me to trial. All four accounts, which they didn't elect, which means the way they charged me was they didn't elect on which one they was going to proceed. So that I couldn't form a defense. They just took me to trial on all of it. And it's basically throwing some stuff at the wall to see what's stuck.

It's my understanding that they don't have to define the okay. They don't even charge people like that anymore. So it's a way, they don't even charge. Go on, did you wind up getting found guilty of all those charges you just named out? Yeah, first of all, yeah, no, I only had one murder, but they took me to trial on two murders and two armed criminal acts, which is basically, it's a real, it's a very rare, And as a matter of fact, they don't, the state of Missouri no longer prosecute people like that in the alternative.

So what they did was, they pretty much, when I had my jury selections, they excluded almost all the blacks, and I only had two blacks and ten whites. I was convicted of first degree murder and armed criminal action, and what they did was they knowledge processed the second degree felony murder and the unarmed criminal act, which to this day I still don't know how they did that stuff, but That's what they did.

They not only prosecuted, you can only find me guilty of one, of one murder. You know, you took me to trial on two murders for one body. Speaking of the jury, what's that like sitting in trial and looking over at all those people, your peers, so to speak, that are going to be the ones that say, control your life, basically?

What's that like looking over at the jury? They were not my peers. They were All the white people, one lady was so old, she slept during most of my trial. And see this, it was like December 16th when they took me to trial. So they were really trying to just get it over with, so they can go fish the Christmas shop.

That's what it felt like. At this time, the media was real deaf on the young black males who sold drugs. And so, some of them The jewelry foreman me. He was scowled at me. You know what I mean? And when I would point to my man, what's up, dude? She would act like she didn't see it, but she knew exactly what was going on.

She didn't care because she was friends with the prosecutor, work with the prosecutor's wife, the prosecutor, and the pro. His wife would come over, her and her husband's house. We're gonna have dinner or they will go out and they would double date to get they knew each other. How'd you know this? She said it.

She told me. That's the only way I would know. Yeah. What was your reaction in the courtroom whenever the, they came out and they said guilty on first degree murder? I knew it. I knew what they was going to do because when the state rested. My lawyer called one witness, and he was supposed to come and say that Mr.

Foster, who was my favorite, had tried to pawn that very same gun to him the day before for some drugs. And he didn't take it because he didn't know if it was a murder on it. He knew it was stolen because he also did a lot of burglaries in the neighborhood. And so she was like, I'mma call you, but I don't want you to volunteer no information.

Just answer the questions that I ask you. Yes ma'am. And she put them on the stand and she asked them like 60, 65 questions. None of the questions had anything to do with the crime itself. And then when, then she rested. So I didn't have no defense. She didn't even try to help me. She didn't even try to help me, man.

The list of multiple charges where charges are listed as in the alternative of is known as charging in the alternative, and it is a common prosecutor tactic throughout the United States. It's where prosecutors can still get a criminal conviction if they end up being able to prove some of the most serious parts of the crime, but not all of it.

While prosecutors are authorized to charge in the alternative, charging in the alternative in a single count creates the risk that a defendant may plead guilty to the lesser of the offenses. It's definitely a tactic that prosecutors Under the leadership of Robert McCulloch would have used, Bob McCulloch was the St.

Louis County prosecutor and his career spanned nearly three decades from 1991 to 2019. Few figures have been as polarized as Bob McCulloch, a name synonymous with controversy in the prosecutor's office. His approach to prosecution, frequently seen as aggressive and unyielding, has been both lauded and lambasted, making him a figure of enduring debate and discussions around justice.

And prosecutorial conduct his handling of the 2014 Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson by a police officer in particular. Drew significant scrutiny and criticism, casting a long shadow over his career, especially with regards towards racial discrimination. It's also true about the media being deaf about this case in a discriminatory manner.

This is evidenced by the severe lack of articles that were available at the time. In fact, we were only able to find three news clippings about the murder. All of which are pretty short. At the end of the day, Kwon was sentenced to life without parole, and his journey in prison was about to begin. After the break, we discover exactly what prison has been like for Kwon.

How's your time in prison been? Was it very difficult at first to get used to? No, this was my, this was actually my second bit, my second time in prison. The first time I went to prison was, man, right? I was still in the car, so I got caught joyriding. And so, Carl, first time ever getting in any trouble, and we need a PSI on here.

My father and stepmother. They ain't the people to send me to prison. They ain't the man to do it. The guy who was doing the PSI, the precinctive investigation, my father's stepmother pushed him to send me to prison. I was trying that out years later. I didn't know at the time. So, he wanted me and Chris. I was in the, I ended up going to prison on that first stealing of a motor, stealing of a motor vehicle.

Yeah. So Quan, it's year 2023 right now, you've been locked up since 1991 and you got life without parole. How do you deal with that knowing that you're going to die in prison? At first, I just lived like everybody else. I put one foot in front of the other and moved forward, right? I've always, since I've been in prison, I've always read.

And something that started really, because I was, when I first caught the time, I was really depressed. You know what I mean? By the time I was 21, I was going to be dead and in prison for the rest of my life. Every, I'm telling you, everything they ever said, I was a mistake. You know, I was only here because the rubber busted, they didn't want me, piss on me, you know what I mean?

Because my father doesn't want to say, well, piss on me. He's telling me what they were saying when he was mad. So I was like, okay, f*** it, I'm just going to end it. You know what I mean? That's just how I felt. I'm not going to do it all this time. I'm going to go up. And a woman, she was, uh, she was gone. She saw me.

They had isolated me after I was convicted. And if they had isolated me, they had me under observation and stuff like that. But that's normal protocol, right? I guess she saw me, and she was like, I don't know what it was, I guess she read me, right? And she brought me a book, right? She brought me a book, and just gave me a book, right?

What the f is the deal with this book? I don't want this book. You know what I mean? I couldn't even read that way. I could read because I learned how to read on my first day. But I'm like, I'm gonna read this book, but it was something about the title of this book that kind of drew me in, right? And the name of the book was, Trans and Images of Psychological Slavery, right?

And by Dr. Naeem Magnum. And I read the book, right, and I realized something, it was like, something went off in me, it was like Damn, you actually f***ed up for real. You f***ed up in ways that's beyond your comprehension. And it ain't all your fault. See what I'm saying? Knowing that my brokenness was not all my fault and that it could be fixed was what kept me from killing myself.

You know? And from that moment, I've been on a journey, if you will. You know. Do you leave, uh, hold out hope that something's going to happen? You are going to get out? Absolutely. For a while, I didn't, but all my friends that had life without, they all got out. You were a juvenile? No, I was not. I was a minor, but I was not a juvenile.

How old were you I was 20 years old. 20? 20. I was 20, yeah. So I was a minor. I had a minor on my driver's license and all that. All of them got out, and every last one of them is doing very well. They're all, they own their own companies. They're doing very well. They're, they're, a lot of them are their own roofing companies.

They own trucking companies. They're doing very well. Good. Not one of them, not one, has came back. These little guys who I jumped in front of knives for, we jumped on people together, we ate out the same bowl, we went to bed hungry together. They all are out there doing excellent. As they, as a matter of fact, they're doing so well.

But they don't even have to really report for parole, they just call in. Like many prisoners who were given life without parole, Juan experienced the depths of depression when he first entered prison. With thoughts of ending it all while being in isolation, he was given hope in the form of a book from a prison officer.

This book, Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery, by Dr. Naeem Akbar, became a poignant moment for him. The book is about freeing your mind from the chains of mental slavery, and Quan found a turning point from reading it. To quote Kwon, knowing that his brokenness was not his own fault and that it could be fixed was what kept him motivated.

This is reflected in one of the quotes from the book, that is, the mind's possibilities are limited by its concepts of its potential. It seems as if Kwon has managed to find a form of freedom by freeing his mind And although his chances of leaving prison are next to none, he still holds on hope that he could get out.

This strong mentality has also driven Kwan to believe that from behind bars, he can still fight for what he believes in. Speaking of parole If you could, because you have life without parole, so you don't go in front of the parole board, right? No. If the legislators could hear this podcast, which is very possible, and they're the ones that make the laws and have the power to give you freedom, what would you say to them?

I would say that they need to go back and rethink, uh, their wish for mass incarceration. I think they need to go back and rethink and use the studies, because all of the studies support this. And not only do the studies support this, but the people that have gotten out, also the behavior patterns that they are exhibiting support this, right?

They need to raise the juvenile age. Today's first day to 25 or 26 and let us out and let us out, man. And they need to abolish life without parole because a lot of us got it. Because we were poor, we were black, uneducated, and had parents that did not understand how the system actually worked. So they was in no way able to help us, right?

And there is a such thing that's called disparity of incentives where if a white guy named Fonville who has a case exactly like this. Like, man, the only difference is that he was the robber who killed the drug dealer. I was the drug dealer who killed my robber, but exactly like my, Fonzie called this guy to his mama's house, lured him down into the basement and shot him in the face with a shotgun, single shot shotgun, right?

He got his daughter, that guy was laying down on the basement floor, bleeding, blinded by the bloodshot, in extreme pain, finally, calmly, loaded, reloaded the single shotgun, put it point blank to his face, and pulled the trigger again. He ended up trying to cover up the murder by him and the girls that were with him, trying to cover up the murder by killing The woman that the other guy had brought, because when he came in to sell his drugs, he left his girlfriend in the car.

So after they killed Morales, and went out and got the girl, brought her down in the basement, killed her. They ended up cleaning up the crime scene, put the dude in the car, and took him to dispose of the body. On the way to dispose of the body They hit a kid, killed a kid, right? Or even seriously injured, the kids don't really say whether they killed a kid or seriously injured a kid.

But they hit a kid, right? Hit a child, ran him over, didn't stop, kept him going. Got to where they was going, poured gasoline all over the body, in the car, and set the car on fire with the body in there. Do you know he got 15 years for killing Morales? And this case is exactly like mine, but it was a white man that killed a man of color.

Morales was a, uh, was a Mexican, a Latino. So believe it or not, I've only been doing this podcast since May, and I have two separate podcasts that are identical. One's white, one's black. And the white guy got 12 years, the black guy got life without. So I already, just on my podcast alone, I've already seen that, but the only difference was the white guy actually tied up victim and then the victim got untied, they had a shootout, he died, the other guy just ran into him, there was a struggle and the gun went off, so it's a big difference, but the same.

No, I get it. It's interesting that Quan brings up the case of Todd Fonville. On April 11th, 2011, Todd Fonville and his girlfriend were hanging out with his friend at their house in Kansas City smoking m***. At some point, Fonville and his friend talked about robbing Jose Morales, one of their associates who occasionally sold them drugs.

They decided they would ask Morels to come over and sell the two ounces of m***. The plan was while Morels was there, Fonville would rob him, and appear to rob his friend too before fleeing. When Morels arrived, his girlfriend was in the car with him. She stayed in the car while he went into the house, and downstairs into the basement where Fonville surprised Morels.

and shot him in the face with a sawed off shotgun, blinding him. As Morels fell to his knees, Fonville walked over to him, reloaded the shotgun, shot him in the side of the head, killing him. They then lured Morels girlfriend over to the basement and Fonville shot her. Her two, all three of them wrapped up the bodies of Morales and his girlfriend in blankets and loaded them in Morales car.

Fonville was at the wheel and they hit a small child that walked out from behind a parked car. Luckily, the child suffered only minor abrasions. They eventually pulled off the road and Fonville poured gasoline over the victim's bodies and lit the car on fire. The state charged Fonville with first degree murder or, in the alternative, second degree felony murder for Morales death.

First degree murder or, in the alternative, second degree murder for Morales girlfriend's death. Two counts of armed criminal action, leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident and knowingly burning. Although Kwan was correct about all the other details of Fonville's case. He was actually sentenced to life without parole for the charge of first degree murder.

The 15 years that Kwan refers to in Fonville's case actually refers to the sentence he received called the alternative charge of second degree murder. Kwan points out the discrimination in this case, but it actually exists in a larger injustice at hand, that of mass incarceration, which Kwan is very passionate in opposing.

Mass incarceration refers to the reality that the United States criminalizes and incarcerates more of its own people than any other country in the history of the world, and inflicts that enormous harm primarily on its most vulnerable among us, poor people of color. In 2018, more than 10. 7 million people entered into U.

S. jails and prisons, the equivalent of locking up every single person in Portugal, Greece, or Sweden. On any given day, nearly 2 million people are behind bars in this country, and 4. 5 million people are on probation or parole under the quote unquote supervision of the state. The majority of the people we criminalize and incarcerate are black and Latino, even though these two groups constitute less than one third of the national population.

Normally, at this point in our conversation, I ask my guests. If they have a final message for the audience, this time Kwan had something he wanted to ask me about. Kwan, I appreciate you talking with me. It's, I do, Life Without Parole is a harsh one, especially given the fact that I think that the details of yours is, it's not like you, some innocent person died.

It was somebody that was high on crack and trying to attack you. I think Life Without is definitely a little harsh for that, but man, I. Hopefully somebody out there hears it. Maybe you get some kind of push and things change for you. But the system is one of the things, one of the things that I'm trying to do is I would like, and maybe you can help me with this or your listeners.

I would like to start a support group. I would like to start a support group where I can communicate with people and. I'm trying to have them help me learn more about mass incarceration, and so I can become a better advocate about mass incarceration, and help me work to change laws, you know, because uh, there'll be I'll give you a minute to tell folks that are listening how they can get a hold of you, your DOC number, whether it's through JP or Securitas, go ahead.

Yeah, my name is uh Kwon Johnson, K W A N Johnson. My prison inmate number is 168 186 and I'm at the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri. You can contact me by going to Securus. net and look it up, put my information in, get on my tablet. They don't allow personal letters to come, no fault of mine, but they don't, you gotta go through, you gotta get on the tablet.

So basically all they have to do is go to Securus. net, put in your DOC number, and then they can email you directly. Juan, I hope the best for you, maybe somebody will reach out to you and you can at least start something that helps others in the future, okay? Yeah, I appreciate that. And hopefully, you can keep in contact too, man.

Yeah, call me if you need something, okay, buddy? All right, man. Take care. All right. Take it easy, man. See ya.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer. No violence. No drug or alcohol abuse in your appearance. You went to church. Everything was perfect. Oh, that turned me into a monster. He was like beating his head off the steering wheel. When I got there, she looked at me with this look of love, frustration, fear, compassion.

I've never seen a look like it. She believed that he would have killed her if I hadn't have stepped in. I spent my whole time in here really wanting to be mad about not getting off free. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. I want to thank Juan for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special.

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