Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robé. And me, Simone Voce. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more. I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side. You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.

Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.

I'm Johnny B. Good, the host of the podcast, Creating a Con: The Story of Bitcoin. This podcast dives deep into the story of Ray Chepani and his company, Centratech. I'll explore how three 20 somethings built a company out of lies, deceit, and greed.

I've been saying since a very young age that I was going to be a millionaire. If someone's like, Oh, what's your best way of making money?

I'm like, Oh, we should start some scheme. Listen to Creating a Con, the story of Bitcoin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Imagine you're a fly on the wall at a dinner between the Mafia, the CIA, and the KGB. That's where my new podcast begins. This is Neil Strauss, host of To Live and Die in LA. I wanted to quickly tell you about an intense new series about a dangerous spy, taught to seduce men for their secrets and sometimes their lives. From Tenderfoot TV, this is To Die For. To Die For is available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi there. You're listening to The Burden. Before the episode begins, a quick word about subscriptions. Please subscribe. It really helps us as independent producers, and it helps you as listeners. You'll get episodes This week is one week early without ads and with lots of exclusive bonus material. So please search and subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts.

Previously on The Burden.

Derek came to all birth. How many of you guys know what a Burden proof was on a 440 motion? Nobody knows. In the law library, it's when I learned that Scott Sutter is his cop, and I say, damn, man, it's the same motherfucker that frame me. You, me, and Derek, all three of us in the law library, we'd be able to run it like it's a real law firm. Scott Sutter, he gets to run around like his God. I got a problem with that. I would die before I met killing somebody I didn't kill.

That's Derek Hamilton, legal savant and convicted murderer. It's 2009, and he has a parole hearing coming up. At that exact moment, Derek is 44 years old and has been in prison most of his adult life.

I was in some of the toughest prisons in the state and complaining about the water being totally black, totally, totally black for days. I was soing litigating.

Derek would file grievances, sue for better food, claimed to be Jewish at one point so he could get the kosher meals. He fought a disciplinary ticket issued because he had a picture of a topless woman. Derek claimed that that was not explicitly prohibited in the manual of conduct. Eventually, the prison threw him in involuntary protective custody. It's solitary, but without a release date. They said it was for his protection. They claimed members of the Bloods Gang were after him. Derek protested that he didn't need protection. He claimed that it was retaliation by the prison for all of his grievances.

In Derek's mind, there were only two ways out of prison. One was to admit to a murder he claims he didn't do, show remorse in front of the parole board.

You got to say you killed this guy. If you don't, you're never getting out of prison.

Or the other option was that I had to leave prison in a box. Stormcloud are coming, coming straight to you.

You can't run for shelter.

There's nothing you can do.

I'm Dax Devlin Ross.

And I'm Steve Fishman. Welcome to The Burden. In this episode, The Derek Dilemma.

Derek Hamilton and Louis Scarsella, names forever linked. Derek became Louis' nemesis. Louis was the story detective, and Derek, the marginalized convict. But Derek, he also had a couple of things going for him: his relentlessness and his growing credibility.

His credibility. Yes, that was a key. But what happens to that credibility when Derek admits he's a manipulator and a liar? Derek was a violent guy.

He's a guy like God when it comes to criminal law. A man whose mind is like a human legal computer.

He had a reputation. On the street, people wouldn't fuck with Derek.

I don't think that I owe anybody the truth against my interests.

I don't know how many people he killed. You got to hold on tight leg. Don't you dare let go.

I'm going to ride this bomb until we both explode. Around the time Louis Scarcella was starting his rise as a cop in the late '70s, Derrick was a kid in a working class part of Brooklyn.

I actually liked to wear suits as a kid. My favorite was a quarterwear suit. Was it my favorite? Light quarter-word suit with a brown collar. Hey, brothers laughing. Hey, Sudeen. But hey, that was my identity. It made me feel good. Like I was empowered, like I can Run the world.

He got a reputation for being smart.

I mean, when you came to reading, comprehension is where I Excel. So in those days, I got a pseudo, and I'm going to the Spelling Bee. I'm going to be the smartest guy in that Spelling Bee. I'm feeling like I'm going to take this Spelling Bee.

He says he was so good at them that the school stopped letting him participate. After Derek's family fell in hard times, they moved to a project in Brooklyn called Lafayette Gardens. It was like a small town, seven high rises, almost a thousand apartments. Many of the residents were poor. It was a big change for Derek.

If you got a pair of sneakers or basketball, the housing projects I came from, when you went downstairs with them, some kid or whatever would try to take them from you. As you get older, you realize that there's some older guys that can fight. There's some older guys that's taking stuff. These guys can fight their ass. It seemed like these guys would just live to fight. So you have to get an identity.

One summer day, Derek was in a Brooklyn park. It's around 1979. He's just entered his teens. The early days of hip hop, DJs were popping up everywhere. They were park jams, as they were called at the time. The people were out all night long, dancing, and Derek was among them.

I ran into a young brother, man, guy by the name of Baby Pop, who was one of the fliest guys you would see ride a minibike. Had the Cango hat. Man, this dude was just fly. He got a raggedy 22 pistol to need rubber bands. You got to put rubber bands around it, man, to shoot this thing. So this guy, you got to put rubber bands around it to shoot it. Shooting up in the air and chasing everybody out of the park jam. But for that moment, you see as a young kid like, damn, people are really scared. So a whole level of power come to your mind because you say, oh, these motherfuckers tough, but all them tough motherfuckers, like a fight was running. I'm not going to get beat up no more.

At 15 years old, Derek robbed a man coming out of a check-cashing store. The Spelling Bee chant was going gangster. Suddenly, the toughest people in the neighborhood started looking up to him.

I was a terrible kid at 17 years old. If you gave me your car, Steve, you wouldn't get it back.

In his view, it was all dumb adolescent shit. It was peer pressure, situational, not a verdict on his character.

I make no excuse for it, but these are things that was going on in my community.

One day at a park jam, Derek was talking to some girls.

Next thing I know, I see these guys with guns out, and they're approaching. I got a gun and I shoot.

He hit someone in the leg. On other days, he wondered if he was the next target.

I used to say this prayer when I was a kid, and I used to get I'm away with a lot of stuff. I'll be honest with you. There's times when I figured I should have been dead, that I was alive. I said, damn, this prayer must work. The prayer was for protection. Saint Michael Archangel, defend me in my time, a battle against the wickedness stars of the devil, Father Jesus, pray for me. That's the prayer. It's a simple prayer.

When you think about it, the devil, who's that?

It's the people who attempt to lock you up.

I dealt with notorious drug dealers from Brownsville, East New York, Bedford style. They all knew Derek.

Joe Ponzi was chief investigator for the Brooklyn DA's office. Derek was a violent guy, and Derek had a real tough reputation on the street.

The Hamilton brothers were known as drug dealers in that area at that time.

Joe Ponzi worked closely with his friend, Detective Louis Scarsella. What else do you want me to tell you about Derek Hamilton? Louis once joked Derek killed more people than smallpox. He probably did. I mean, that's just an expression that I use, but he wrote his book. The Book. It was actually Derek's sister's book. She called it Don't Let Your Elevator Get Stuck on stupid. It was supposed to scare kids straight. There's one chapter about Derek's life written under his name. He signed off on it from Attica Prison. Louis often talks about this book, to him, it reveals the true Derek Hamilton.

Here's an excerpt for you. My name became a permanent part of the ghetto gossip. Older guys challenged me, and I always won the battles. He wrote, Committing crimes became my favorite pastime. I was crime, and it was me.

Wow. I was crime, and it was me. His identity in this book is completely wrapped up in being a gangster. And remember, this is about his teenage years.

Later, Derek tried to distance himself from the book, told us another inmate ghost wrote it and exaggerated it for effect.

It was a stripped book designed to keep young kids from going to prison. But it's not going to always give you the true story because he's characterizing things with the perception of scaring a kid.

And yet in the chapter's final passage, Derek says, I pray that God guides any of you young ones reading this to take my words for what they are. Truths. There's another crime Derek mentions in this book. This one stands out. He was 17 at the time, and according to the book, he robbed a bread truck at gunpoint. Derek was fighting with the driver for the money. In the book, he says he ordered two accomplices to shoot the man. But when we asked him about the bread truck driver, Derek told us something very different.

I was not dead at all.

That's in a minute.

Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robé. And me, Simone Voice. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more. Thank you for taking the light, and you're going to shine it all over the world, and it makes me really happy. I never imagined that I would get the chance to carry this honor and help be a part of this legacy.

Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.

My name is Johnny B. Good, and I'm the host of the new podcast, Creating a Con: The Story of Bitcoin. Over this nine Heart series, I'll explore the life and crimes of my best friend, Ray Trapani. I always wanted to be a criminal.

If someone's like, Oh, what's your best way of making money?

I'm like, Oh, we should start some scheme. You see, Ray has this unique ability to find loopholes and exploit them.

They collected $30 million. There were headlines about it.

His company, Centratech, was one of the hottest crypto startups in 2017. It was going to change the world until it didn't.

I came into my office, opened my email, and the subject heading was FBI Request.

It was only a matter of time before the truth came out.

You can only fake it till you make it for so long before they find out that your Harvard degree is not so crimson. How could you sit there and do something that you know will objectively cause more harm in the world?

Listen to Creating a Con, the story of Bitcoin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This is Neil Strauss, host of the Tenderfoot TV True Crime podcast, To Live and Die in LA. I'm here to tell you about the new podcast I've been undercover investigating for the last year and a half. It's called to Die For. Here's a clip.

All these girls were sent out into the world and they were told, Try to meet important men. Try to attach yourself to important men.

The voice you're hearing is a Russian model agent telling me about spies sent out to seduce men with political power.

The war in Ukraine is also being fought by all these girls that are all over important cities.

For the first time, a military-trained seduction spy reveals how the Russian government turned sex and love into a deadly weapon.

If you want to kill your target, it's easy. You just seduce him, take him somewhere, start having sex, and then he's very vulnerable, so you can kill him easily.

To Die For is available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's the story, and it comes from a March 1983 edition of the New York Daily News. A bread delivery man, mortially wounded in an apparent robbery attempt in Brooklyn yesterday, managed to drive his truck two blocks and gasp out in account of the attack to the police before he died. The robbery took place near Lafayette Gardens, and Derek was 17 at the time. So he pleads not guilty, and at that point, he's assigned an attorney. Her name, Candice Kurtz.

Don't forget our system is you're innocent until proven guilty.

At his murder trial, a key witness against Derek is a childhood friend, Patricia. The trial is on a break when Candice goes to the bathroom. Someone comes in behind her. It's Patricia talking about Bush, Derek Hamilton's nickname.

I was in a lady bathroom.

She was crying. She was upset. She was scared.

I was telling the lady that the cops tried to make me say that Bush did it.

She told Candice the story.

It was we in the morning. I don't know what time, but it was trying to turn light on me.

The cops stopped me.

A whole lot of cops, three of them was asking me different questions, and I'm looking like I don't know which one to answer. Telling me I know that I've seen him and da da da da da da. I'm like, I didn't see Bush. That was the whole problem. That's what they wanted me to say, that I've seen Bush. I didn't see Bush.

The cops took her to the precinct.

They They just kept me there just nine whole hours. That I would never, never forget. I wanted to go home, so I told them what exactly they said. I wrote down every word they said. I've seen Bush outside. It's by the bread truck.

I walked back in the courtroom, and I asked the judge if I could talk to him and the DA in private. So we went to the judge's chambers, and I told him that we had a problem, that it looked like there was police intimidation, and the witness didn't want to testify. Judge Lombardo gets up from behind his desk and comes around and he puts his arms around me. I mean, in a tight hug. And he speaks into my ear and he called me Candy. So I said, Candy, just take it easy. Just calm down. We both know who this guy is. We both know he's guilty. So can't you just calm down and let this go? I was like... I was so anxious, and so my heart was pounding. And finally, I just said, No, I can't. I just can't. I can't. I can't sell my client down the river.

Candice isn't going to back down, and so now the judge has to go back to the courtroom and find out if Derek forced Patricia to recant. The prosecution cannot provide any evidence of this, so the judge wavers.

He's thinking about throwing the case out.

But then...

We come back to the very next day, and the judge says that he thought about this all night, that it troubled him, that it deeply bothered him, and that he changing his ruling.

And the judge basically just said, I don't care.

The judge basically decides that the only possible explanation for Patricia's recantation is that Derek threatened her. There's no evidence of this, but the judge concludes the cops would never do that. And so the jury never hears anything about Patricia's recantation.

Candice turns to Derek. He's sitting next to her at the defense table. He's 17 at the time. She gives him a piece of advice.

Says to me, 'Kid, get your head out your ass. I want you to understand what's going on here. I want you to know what they're doing in your life. ' And I said, 'Damn, they are railroading me. ' And at that moment, I was awoken.

The jury convicted Derek. At his sentencing, this judge likened Derek to, quote, a piece of garbage, and sent him away for 25 years to life.

Candice has some more advice for Derek. Take matters into your own hands.

She empowered with me to be able to know that by studying the law and understanding what's going on, it puts you in a position to be able to fight back.

A few years into his sentence, Derek wrote his own appeal. He'd immersed himself in the law by this point, and it worked. Four years after his conviction, an appeals court ruled that the judge acted on speculation and conjecture and violated Derek Hamilton's constitutional rights.

His conviction was overturned on appeal, and he came out of prison.

Derek took a plea, got parole, and suddenly was out in the world, but not for long. Louis Scarsella was about to enter Derek Hamilton's life. I went up, I got very close to him. I said, You're going back to L. G.

That's in a moment.

Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robé. And me, Simone Voice. Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more. Thank you for taking the light, and you're going to shine it all over the world, and it makes me really happy. I never imagined that I would get the chance to carry this honor and help be a part of this legacy.

Listen to The Bright Side on America's number podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.

My name is Johnny B. Good, and I'm the host of the new podcast, Creating a Con: The Story of Bitcoin. Over this nine-part series, I'll explore the life and crimes of my best friend, Ray Trapani. I always wanted to be a criminal.

If someone was like, Oh, what's your best way of making money?

I'm like, Oh, we should start some scheme. You see, Ray has this unique ability to find loopholes and exploit them.

They collected $30 million. There were headlines about it.

His company, Centratech, was one of the hottest crypto startups in 2017. It was going to change the world until it didn't.

I came into my office, opened my email, and the subject heading was FBI Request.

It was only a matter of time before the truth came out.

You can only fake it till you make it for so long before they find out that your Harvard degree is not so crimson. How could you sit there and do something that you know will objectively cause more harm in the world?

Listen to Creating a Con, the story of Bitcoin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Neil Strauss, host of the Tenderfoot TV True Crime podcast, To Live and Die in LA. I'm here to tell you about the new podcast I've been undercover investigating for the last year and a half. It's called To Die For. Here's a clip.

All these girls were sent out into the world, and they were told, Try to meet important men. Try to attach yourself to important men.

The voice you're hearing is a Russian model agent telling me about spies sent out to seduce men with political power.

The war in Ukraine is also being fought by all these girls that are all over important cities.

For the first time, a military-trained seduction Russian spy reveals how the Russian government turns sex and love into a deadly weapon.

If you want to kill your target, it's easy. You just seduce him, take him somewhere, start having sex, and then he's very vulnerable, so you can kill him easily.

To Die For is available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I was in the process of opening a unisexion line in New Haven, and police officers stormed the entrance of the door.

Derek is out of prison, but he hasn't quite left behind his old ways. About a month into his parole, he shot a drug dealer in Connecticut. But on the day Scarsella burst through the door, he's there about another shooting.

He came in and threw me in a wall. And while I was on the wall, Scarsella came up and kissed me on the cheek and said, LG, motherfucker.

I didn't kiss him. I went up, I got very close to him. I said, You're going back to LG.

Told me I was being arrested for go to death of Nathanian Cash.

Not far from LG, that's the Lafayette Gardens Housing Project, a man has been shot to death. Louis Scarsella had investigated, and he was now armed with an arrest warrant.

When we get to the precinct, he got five witnesses. He got a big story. I'm listening to this guy, and I'm just saying it's impossible. I was in a way, you couldn't have one witness that long. Five.

Just as in the previous case, Derek maintains he wasn't even there.

For Detective Scarcella, this was an easy case, and Louis was thankful for that. The year of the Nathaniel Cash murder, the New York Post dug Parts of Brooklyn, a Killing Ground. A murder was reported every 63 hours. Detective Scarcella was thrilled that this investigation wrapped up so quickly. It wasn't a whodunit. There was a witness who done it. There was a witness who identified as the shooter.

Louis, he has someone who's willing to testify that Derek did it. The witness's name is Jules Smith.

So this wasn't even a big case for you? No. Well, it was a murder.

You know what I'm saying?

But it was done like Yeah, there was no... Jules comes in. That's it. Her eyewitness testimony are done.

Louis arrived at the scene of the crime. There's a dead guy, Nate Cash in his pajamas, a robe and slippers. He's face down in a pool of his own blood on the sidewalk near the curb, which is 15 or so feet from the apartment building where he's staying. The location of the body will later prove a crucial detail. Scarcella testified that he found a shell-casing on the body.

Jules Smith, the eyewitness, had spent the night at Nate Cash's apartment. She's his girlfriend of two weeks. Derek knew Nate Cash, too. He was dating the mother of Nate Cash's child. Small World. A few hours later, Jules is in front of an assistant district attorney, giving her account of the murder. We got hold of her recorded statement.

My name is Thomas.

I'm dating Nate.

I'm going to speak to Ms.

Jules Smith.

Today's date, January 4, 1991. Ms.

Smith, you mentioned to the detective earlier that you were with Matt the night before. Just pick up from there and tell me what you remember about last night and today.

Last night? When you were with Matt last night, right?

Yeah. That's the original audio from 1991. As you can tell, it's scratchy and hard to understand Jules' testimony. So we hired an actor to read Jules Smith's words. She's talking about the victim, her boyfriend, Nate Cash. So while he was calling me a cab, I was putting on my sneakers, and then the cab came because they said five minutes. So then they came. So by that time, he put on his robe to walk me downstairs to the cab drive like he always did. When we went downstairs, I was walking in front, and he was on the side of me. That's when I observed Bush, also known as Derek Hamilton, stepped around the banister, and he comes up and asked me where Nate at. Nate was like, I'm right here. I mean, he just Start firing and shooting, shooting, shooting. From Derek's point of view, Jules is another Patricia, another witness who, after talking to the cops, somehow says he committed a murder he swears he didn't do.

Why would this person come in today and lie?

Derek had known Jules for years. They lived a few floors apart in LG, and they'd been in contact since his arrest for the Nate Cash murder. From jail, Derek even writes her love letters. She responds. She assures him of her devotion, her loyalty. Once, she wrote, I've never had anyone make love to my mind. Sure reads like romance.

It's manipulation. It's manipulation. I want to know what's going on.

Then the day of the trial, in July 1991, Dirk is seated at the defendants table when Jules walks to the witness stand.

So when I see her coming in looking disheveled, not looking like herself, looking totally disheveled, I knew something was wrong. I said, This thing's right.

And she repeats the statement that she made to the DA, the one where she saw Derek shoot and shoot and shoot and kill Nate Cash. What's more, she testifies that she was afraid of Derek Hamilton. Those love letters, the only reason she reciprocated was to not anger him.

What is going on here? I mean, could this really be a case of the system finding two witnesses on two different occasions who are willing to provide testimony against an innocent Derek Hamilton? This time, of course, involving Detective Luis Carcella.

Amazingly, he just took over my case. He was the Detective from the Book of North Homicide. He makes her into a witness. He makes Jules Smith into a witness. Wow.

I'd love to hear Jules' point of view on all this.

That's for another episode. For right now, Derek's at the defense table, and he still thinks he has a chance.

I was still confident that I would walk out of the court one because we established that she's alive, that she made several inconsistent statements.

Then, Detective Louise Scarcella takes the stand.

A first-grade detective coming in, a guy with charisma, a guy that looks like, at that time, he looked at like a real Italian stallant at that time, sharp mustache. He looked at good, and he was appealable to jurors. And he took the stand and said that... A Jew Smith called him one day and said she was afraid to testify in the grand jury that her grandmother knew me and that I was a killer that killed people my entire life. Once the jury heard that, my fate was semen. There was no way that I was walking out of that courtroom. Was he good? He was very good, very good, very, very good. Very good. Very, very good. Really good. Compelling. And you got to look at What they didn't believe in Jules Smith, they believe her now because you have a first-grade detective corroborating it.

First-grade Detective, Louis Scarsella. He is confident in his version. I believe he's guilty of killing Nathaniel Cash. I believe the district attorney believes he's guilty. I believe the city believes he's guilty.

And on that point, Louis is right. There was also the judge and the jury. They all agreed that Derek was guilty. Derek Hamilton was sentenced to prison for murder, again, and again given 25 years to life.

Scarsella, right? And the prosecutor, they're so flaring. They're so theatrical that people get lost in the hype. You ever hear the song of a public getting me, Don't believe the hype? Well, the hype is what gets us convicted. It's not the evidence. It's the hype that these people are bad. They need to be removed from society. This is what sent us to jail, not the facts of the case.

Which brings us back to 2009. Derek's been in prison 18 years for the murder of Nate Cash, and he's up for parole. To get parole, he's being told he needs to admit to a murder he says he didn't commit, and that he vows he will not do. He's still in solitary until the warden says he can leave, which won't be anytime soon. In solitary, it's beginning to wear him down.

When you're stuck in a cell, all you hear is noise. It makes banging and screaming, and yelling, and throwing feces, and urine, and flood in the gallery. It's chaos every single an hour because you got a bunch of mentally ill people locked in cells and just can't cope. Every day, every day, every day, it takes its toll on you. So I'm starting to go to the parole board to stress and being told that there is no hope for you ever, and that the only advice is to accept responsibility for your crime. I was just tired. You fight so hard and So you get to the point, you know I'm tired of this shit. You know what I mean? I'm tired of it. I gave up for a moment.

After two decades behind bars, Derek hand writes a memo to this prison superintendent. To Superintendent Smith from Derek Hamilton. Subject: Suicide Note. It reads, Death will be a welcome companion compared to the torture you have subjected me to. I hope you are one day tortured like you have tortured me. That same day, Derek is in his cell when a corrections counselor passes by. He, too, will write a memo.

At approximately 8:01 AM, it begins. Inmate was extremely emotional and upset, stating, I went out of here. He turned his lights off and went under his mattress and pulled out a white plastic bag. I then observed him placing his hand to his mouth, followed by bottled water. Subject sat down. He appeared disoriented. I observed his legs shaking as I called his name, but got no response.

Derek has rushed to a local hospital. He wakes up shackled to a girney. Three guards are standing by him.

And I was told, they got to kill me today. Like, today is the day that I die because I refuse to go back to that cell and be treated like that.

It's because of the suicide attempt that Derek is eventually transferred to Auburn Correctional. It's there he will connect with Nelson and Shabaka to help found the actual innocence team. And it's there that he'll finally go before the parole board.

I poured over the transcripts of parole hearings. Each time Derek he'd only proceed if the parole board hears evidence of his actual innocence. Each time, the board refuses, and the hearing is adhered. Until finally, Derek decides to play ball. He submits letters of recommendation, evidence that he won't be a menace to society. He finally goes to a full hearing. What happened there was so surprising that I remember exactly where I was when I read about it. I'm with my family in the living room. They're watching Rick and Morty. I'm not paying attention. I'm reading the transcript. The board goes through his crimes one by one. It takes a while. The board gets to the bread truck murder, the one he was found guilty of when he was 18. Another murder, Dirk insists he did not commit. And reading about that, I came across something I couldn't believe. I thought it was a typo. Dirk Eric was talking about the bread truck driver, the murder victim. Here's what I read. He was a hardworking man, and it was a shame that he was robbed, and I took a life, and I apologize for that. I I never take that back.

That was a stupid thing I did as a kid, and I'm ashamed of it. Dax, when I read this, I figured I had to talk to you.

Yeah, and I remember not necessarily knowing what to do with it right away. I was invested at that point in a completely different narrative, the one he had been telling us for so long, which was that he wasn't even there. And so all I remember being left with was the question of, had he lied to us?

Yeah, I mean, he lied to somebody. I don't know. I was confused. I found myself thinking about Candice Kurtz. You know, his lawyer in the first murder, She had stood by his side. She had put her credibility on the line. Frankly, I felt betrayed. I wondered if she would, too.

Okay. Mess game starting.

I found Candice Kurtz retired on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She'd been a legal aid attorney for three decades, lived in the same rent-stabilized apartment all that time. She's considerate. She locks up her cap. Miaouing is not good for recording. I have the transcript of that parole hearing.

Well, yeah.

He admits to the first murder, to the Brett Truck murder. Mm-hmm. What do you think of that?

It doesn't surprise me that he did it. I don't know why he'd admit to it, but I guess he's supposed to admit to take responsibility for things so that he can get out.

So it doesn't surprise you if he did it? No.

And it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't do it. We know now that he was not guilty, but that's not innocent, right? Not guilty means a lack of proof. I can't prove to you that he's innocent, but I can show you that he's not guilty. Well, Well, so he did it. How does that make you feel?

It makes me feel shitty. I want to believe that he was franked.

Why do you want to believe that? I mean, what the police did in his case was atrocious. And supposedly, we have a society that you can't do that, and you can't get away from that. I think the defendant's guilt is irrelevant in the whole picture of what our system is supposed to be like. You know, some guilty people will go free if our system is working properly.

So who is Derek? Is he a murderer? Is he a murderer even when he protests that he's not? He told the parole board he was. He told us he wasn't. We had to ask Derek about this, so we brought him back to the studio.

We're switching gears. All right, let's do it. Switching gears, switching gears, switching gears. What you hold to be true in which you can You claimed to this day as you sit here across from us that you were not there. You were not involved.

We're in the bread, brother? Yeah. What I claimed to be true was that I had nothing to do with James Wolf death. Okay.

But as a condition for you getting out, One of the conditions was that you had to admit to-Not true. Not true. Okay. What? So talk to us. I guess we want to just... Can we do a little bit of the read? Is it okay if I do some reading? Yeah, a little read. All right. So I start reading the transcript from a parole hearing. I'm reading Derek his own words back to him. I was young, ignorant individual at that time. I was living in an antisocial community, and I just did a lot of wrong things. As you know. Question. Who was the victim in that case? Answer, Mr. James Wolf. I'll never forget that name. He was a hardworking man, and it was a shame that he was robbed and I took a life, and I apologize for that. I can never take that back. That was a stupid thing I did as a kid, and I'm ashamed of it. So help us make sense of that for me.

What is that you're reading from, first of all?

This is from the parole hearing from 2011. So this is the October 18th, 2011 parole hearing.

Okay, so let me tell you this. One of the things you got to remember that when you go to parole, they want you to be remorseful. I was told that. That in order to get out, You got to go in there. And parole officers tell you this all the time. So I was remorseful. I was remorseful, but I know I didn't commit that crime. And I probably did say that to get out of prison. I don't recall saying it, but I'm willing to bet that if the parole officer told me I had to share remorse to get out, I'm going to say whatever I got to get it out because I was a young kid. I was a young kid.

Meaning you were not in 2011. You weren't a young kid in 2011.

That wasn't 2011.

This is 2011.

That's not 2011.

It's 2011.

Well, you know what? You may be right. It's 2011. You may be right. And I may have said that in 2011 to not fight them about something that I already had.

They're only asking for his name.

James Wolf.

And you go on to say, I'll never forget the name. He was a hardworking man. It was a shame that he was robbed.

And I cried. Out. Be clear about that. And I cried. I didn't just say that. I cried. I gave them tears with it. I'm being real with you. It was theatrical. I wanted to get home. If I can't convince these Rinky Dink Parole, but people let me go out to stay in prison. Parole is a show to get out. Understand what I'm telling you? It is a show to get out.

We're not trying to ambush. You know that's not what we're doing here. I am going to register that I'm feeling a different energy that you have related to this right here. I'm gathering some different energy. What's that about for you?

Well, like I just told you, whatever energy you gather, that's your perception. But look, man, be in my position, right? Serving 21 years in prison and trying to get out, right? I would tell a parole board, anything to get out. Would I lie to them? Absolutely. I would lie to them. In a heartbeat. This is not a sworn proceeding. See, I could admit to doing some things to make it look good, right? Look, I'm calculated when it comes to certain things, Steve.

I get it. Listen, I get it. It's worth doing just about anything to get out of prison. Of course it is. And to be clear, Derek is admitting to the bread truck murder. He does not admit to the parole board that he killed Nate Cash. But still, we've put a lot of stock in Derek's credibility, in his word, in his statement that he innocent of the Nate Cash murder. And now he's saying lying is a tool, a legit tool that he'll use whenever necessary, which is pretty much Scarcella's view of him. Somebody's going to say, well, Derek Hamilton will lie when it's in his interest.

Absolutely. Listen to me. I think a person that wouldn't lie in the interest is a fool. That's my personal opinion.

The lie worked, if it was a lie. After 21 years in prison, the parole board voted to let Derek Hamilton back into society. He called his wife.

And I said, Yo, I'm coming home.

But Dax, we still had some questions. Like Derek had made us wonder, at least me wonder, if he lied about one murder, could he lie about another?

Yeah. I mean, so did he really do it? Kill Nate Cash? Should he have been found guilty?

We'll get to that. We're going to get to the bottom of whether Derek is guilty of killing Nate Cash. But first, Derek has some unfinished business.

Next time on The Burden, Derek is leaving prison He's also leaving behind Chebaka, his partner in the Jailhouse law firm.

One thing, guys going home and they forget. They forget the guys they leave behind. And I said, Do not forget me. And he was like, I got you.

Stormcloud are coming, coming straight to you. You can't run for shelter.

There's nothing you can do.

The Burden is created by Steve Fishman. It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and myself, Dax Devlin Ross. Our Story Editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our Senior Producer is Simon Rintner. Our producer is Sanam Skelle. Our Associate Producer is Austin Smith. Our fact checker is Sona Avakian. Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise. Mixing and sound design is provided by Mumbble Media. Our executive producers are Fisher Stevens, Steve Fishman, and Evan Williams. Additional production help has been provided by Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Brawner, Lucy Szeczek, Drew Nellis, Micah Hazel, Priscilla Alabe, Saxon Baird, Katie Simon, and Katie Springer. We want to give a special thanks to Ellen Horne, Zack Stuart-Pontier, Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe, Tobiah Black, Rachel Morrissey, Mark Smerling, and Laila Robinson. Special thanks to Marcy Wiseman. We want to thank our agents Ben Davis and Marissa Horowitz. Legal support has been provided by Mona Hook at MKSRLLP. A very special thanks to Evan Williams, one of our executive producers and the person who made this podcast possible. We are honored to feature this song, Black Lightning from the Bel Rays, as our theme music. The Burden is a production of Orbit Media, in association with Signal Company number one.

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