Nick Yarris: Wrongful Conviction & The Fight To Free Himself From Deathrow For 22 Yrs. | #1059

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Nick Yarris with us, so welcome to the show, man.

Hey Tyler, thank you for having me on. This is a real blessing.

Of course, man. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. Um, so if you can, just to kick us off, tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Okay, so I published my first book behind me, 7 Days to Live, in 2007 when I moved to England after first getting out of death row. I was sentenced at the age of 20 and 21, sorry, but in 1981 I was arrested and falsely accused of the rape and murder of a woman I never met in my life. A prisoner put in the cell next to me who had been convicted of burglarizing the prosecutor's home, said that I had confessed to him of the rape and murder of a woman in the state of Delaware who was driven into the state of Pennsylvania where her body was found. I would endure 23 years of solitary confinement from that point, save for my escape from death row in 1985 where I briefly escaped and then turned myself back in because I was innocent. In the aftermath of what happened to me, my appeals were ruined, but unfortunately for the authorities, DNA testing came about in the late '80s. I was the first man in the United States of America to seek DNA testing to prove my innocence in February of 1988. I had no idea at that moment it would take me 15 years from that point to get the DNA to speak for me and prove prove my innocence. I had to first endure a long journey before I was granted my freedom.

Damn, man. So I have like a thousand questions in my head, so I'm going to try to start with the first one that comes to mind. So let's start from the, the beginning. So when you— so this happened when you were 21. What was your, uh, like, what was your childhood like? And like, what were, what were your kind of plans At 21, sometimes people have an idea of what they want to do. So like, what was happening before that point? Like, what trajectory were you on?

In the year before that, I was finally treated for aphasia, which is a brain injury or brain defect that some people have. Recently, Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with it. So I'm glad that there's a highlight now for something I suffered. From the age of 7 forward. Unfortunately for me, I was off from school one day in Philadelphia, walking with my dog behind my neighborhood, when a man attacked me, beat me in the head with a fieldstone, and sexually assaulted me. So my childhood was a disruption, and it's eerie that we were talking before the interview that I was even in the juvenile system in the area where you grew up, because my life was chaos. At the age of 21, when all of this happened, I had a brief 3 months of sobriety since the age of 17, where I'd gotten treatment in a mental institution. But then I slipped back into doing drugs and was caught with a stolen car and was incarcerated under false charges. It's as simple as that, but yet so complex and unbelievable, the events that would unfold in the next years that followed.

Yeah. So tell us a little bit more. It's called aphasia because I actually heard about this with Bruce Willis. So what actually is the— like, what happens to the brain? Like, what, what is that?

Aphasia. A-P-H-A-S-I-A. Aphasia is like— the best way I can describe it for people is you're taking a nap in the daytime, you're just waking up, but you're allowing yourself to still hold on to the dream world state while in a conscious form. You know that feeling?

Yeah, I think I do. Yeah.

Well, what if he couldn't shake that off? Wow, that's all right. Yeah, it's really deep. All right, so Tyler, imagine that you can't shake off one realm for the other and you get confused. Now unfortunately for me, I not only have aphasia, but I've been recently diagnosed with CTE, which is the brain injury syndrome that football players have, because I endured so many beatings on death row. So I'm going through a process right now where I have to start a journal, write down that I ate today, that I've taken care of myself. And it's really challenging because this is a new one. I mastered aphasia by coming up with a very determined speech pattern recognition of using my articulation of words in a pronounced cadence that I would overcome the aphasia that affects my speech pattern. But this is also one of those things that is affecting my cognitive day-to-day functions. So it's really challenging for me. And the last 2 years have been really bad. I had a very serious car wreck in January, in which I flipped a car and both my dogs got ejected from the windows of the car. But we all survived. But I kept telling people I didn't remember hanging upside down from the vehicle, and yet the car was found that way. So I've, I've got some cognitive issues that the only thing that's going to help me is writing. And authors would know this— you get text eyes. You get so lost in the realm of creation that you get this thing called text eyes because you've been in that realm of and wordage usage so deeply, you have to come out of it with a shake, get some time away from it. I need to go back and use the structure of writing so that I can keep my brain fluid, because I'm now challenged at the age of 61, this new thing that is really complex to understand. But imagine having the other thing that I described to you of that wake-sleep differential difficulty onsetting with the doldrums of being alone too much, because I live only with my dogs right now. I'm a handyman working in a house that's been reclamated, so I spend an inordinate amount of time not talking and not communicating, which I need to do because I have to keep my brain enlivened. So other than competitive master level chess on my phone, I'm not doing much for myself. I have to now work on this. So that's my plan.

So, so obviously I want to talk about your book, and then I want to talk about your time in prison. Just a question that just came up to me, uh, was how do they— so when you're wrongfully accused Right.

Is—

does the system, like, pay you back for that or something? I mean, they could never really pay you back, right? I just mean, like, do they give you anything for that wrongful time?

Sadly, the state of Pennsylvania has no compensation laws. I am not entitled to anything from the state of Pennsylvania. Um, and I realize there's a duality to that too. That's kind of a trap too, because then you're waiting on pity money to fix your life. I worked very, very diligently for my education. I promise you, as I sit here before you, since my release in January of 2004, I have not had one single psychiatric counseling session to help me manage life. That's because I spent year after year working so hard to build my education I could handle the concept of being free after being openly tortured and physically abused for many years.

So, so essentially, just to conclude that part, is when you found out, or when they found out you were wrongfully accused, they basically just said, hey Nick, you're, you're free to go, and they just let you out and not— did they say like sorry or anything? Like, it just seems so crazy to me.

Like, right? Yeah, I was the first man in Pennsylvania's history to be exonerated by DNA from death row. It was a huge turn of events, and yet I was given $5.07 of my own money from the prison account and sent on my way. I was given no health services. I used to begin life by trying to go to the local sex clinic and telling them I might have an STD, which hepatitis C is, which nearly killed me in prison because they beat my face in and the dental work wasn't up to par. So they infected me with hepatitis C and nearly killed me. In fact, that's why I asked to be executed in the end, because of the viral drugs they used to fight the infection blinded me. So it was really traumatic for me to get out of prison at the age of 42 and be a complete blank sheet of paper. You have this amazing gift of an education within you so that after a couple weeks of sitting in my mom's basement where my brother had died of a drug overdose, sadly, while I was on death row, I came up with an idea. I was going to show the world that I had a wonderful education and that my retort for all of my suffering wasn't going to be violent, some manifesto written in a dark basement of tearful anger. I was going to step forward with an economic platform that within only 7 months of my release had me addressing the governments of the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and Italy, and Holland. What a great opportunity to go forth and speak to governments about the death penalty and put forward economic embargo ideas. So much so, I was in England standing before GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals protesting the very drugs that were going to be used to kill me in 2004. Before, well before it became chic to do so later. I mean, I wanted to show that I wasn't damaged. And not only that, that I actually saw going to death row as the greatest experience of my life. And what a gift. People couldn't get their heads around this. So I wrote the first book behind me, 7 Days to Live. And all the while that I did, I told you I had to sit on an enormous story of equal enormity that had to be put back because I wanted the world to know of my development and who I became. I didn't want it to be overshadowed by a monstrous event in which I was put into a psychological experiment for 3 years in the city of Pittsburgh, in Pittsburgh Penitentiaries, unit called the restrictive housing unit, 5 stories up in a hermetically sealed building. I, along with the original Buffalo Bill and many other distorted people, were subjected to 3 years of some of the most inhumane torture that I had to sit on that whole story.

Okay, wow! So let's talk about— I want to talk about like the whole experience, and I'm sure in some cases— and you let me know if you don't want to go into detail about anything, just, you know, it's fine— but of the like 20 or so years of prison, you said some of it was in solitary confinement, which just to be clear, that means every single day?

No, every single day.

So, and that means you're by yourself in a pitch-black room, right?

No, you're in a cell with security level exceptions. This means you're allowed a television, books to read, towel, sheets, pillowcase, and about a handful of toiletries, and that's it.

Okay. And how, like, so at first, I just can't imagine like what was going through your head. So when you're first arrested and you know, obviously it's wrong, like they're incorrect. Were you like almost like, like, were you just telling them like, hey, this isn't right, and they were saying no? Like, it just seems—

no, it was so complex. You got to understand, the President of the United States had just been shot by John W. Hinckley, and you wouldn't think it had anything to do with my life, but it did. Yeah, see, the prosecutor couldn't figure out why I would go out and commit this crime, so they made up an alibi for me I mean, made up a, uh, contrived reasoning for why I would go out and do this crime by saying I had a breakup with my girlfriend who was 19 or 20 years old, and because of my breakup with this girl I was only dating a couple weeks, that I somehow fixated on a woman that was 36 years old working at a mall well away from my neighborhood, and that I killed this woman in some kind of a twisted psychological act for my girlfriend. This is why I got a 3-day trial. Yeah, that's so crazy.

So then, um, okay, so then when you're in there, like weeks, months, first year goes by, like, what are you thinking? Like, I'm gonna get out of here soon? Or are you starting to realize like, whoa, this might not go my way.

Like, oh no, no. When you feel the weight of something this big, you're not thinking in those terms. No one could look me in the eye when they were sentenced me to die. The judge couldn't bring his head up for eye level.

Wow.

You know, there's, there's so many things I could tell you, but there are moments that have been in my life that were superhuman to endure. I was 21 years old, and at the moment, at the conclusion of the testimony of a little boy who found the victim in the snow— you see, there was a black and white photograph of her body being found in the snow in which the retreating footsteps of children made it look like an angel. When they got done showing that to the jury, a bolt of lightning hit the jury— hit the courthouse and knocked all the power out. They had to take a break. This was amazing. They took me upstairs and I watched from the courthouse windows as all of the people from my neighborhood and everyone around me and I knew was out there, along with the people who looked up and sneered at me and jeered. I was 21 years old, man. I was I was so aware I was going to be found guilty. I was so aware at that moment that they were going to take my life that I had to find some kind of dignified way to stand up for myself. Yeah. The thing that bothered me, I was inarticulate. The words spoken in pseudo-Latin in the courtroom, well above my ear, went right past my head. So humiliated at times to sit there and not understand what was being said. I sat in my cell and I decided that was it. I was going to live by words. I took the dictionary apart. Oh my God, thank God this officer took pity on me and gave me books. And I began to educate myself because I spent my first 2 years in silence, you know. I wasn't allowed to speak to speak in prison. It's hard. And I got a gift. I was beaten on my birthday for singing happy birthday to myself. So I got angry and I went in my cell and I took all the photographs down. I put a picture of myself up and I decided I was going to talk to this person as beautifully as I could because they're going to put me to death And at first, I'm going to be strapped to an electric chair like this, so I would practice in myself. What am I going to say when they kill me? At first, that thought was so overwhelming, I decided I wasn't going to let myself down. I can't overcome what they're doing to me. I know I didn't do it, but they're going to execute me. So I wanted to have a death speech. I wanted to be beautiful in my mannerisms and not let myself down when it counted. So I knew it would take some time before they got around to kill me. I decided I was going to educate myself and learn as much as I could so that on the day that they executed me, I could forgive them for murdering me tell them in a beautiful manner who I was, and then let the process show that it didn't break my spirit.

That's amazing, man. Um, so a quick question, uh, did they actually end up finding the person that actually did it later?

No. And I'm really, I'm really praying that this genealogy tree sharing of people who go around now and contribute to our genealogy banks allows us to get a familiar hit. They did like in California with the Golden State Killer and all that, right? So I try to check in with the prosecutor's office as much as I can, but it's a mental thing. I I pray people don't notice, but on the Showtime network right now there's a movie out called After Innocence with Phil Donahue and Barry Sheck and others of high ilk, and I'm in it with the bullhorn in front of the Delaware County Courthouse telling people how they ain't trying to catch this woman because they're not putting the DNA in the databank. Then I got better at it, and I thought the only thing I can do to honor this woman is just keep trying to be gentle, kind, and nice, as my mom said. 'People who have been wronged don't get angry. They show who they are by their deeds,' she'd say to me. And she asked me to be a polite person for the rest of my days, to show respect for what was done to us as a family. That's all I have, Ty.

Yeah, um, so did you, um, did you— you went through the whole dictionary in, in, in, uh, prison many times?

You see, I, I wanted to— that's cool. I, I, I lived my days by accomplished words. Yeah, I, I got this wonderful gift from the GED booklet that said if you write down the spelling of a word 10 times, you write down its definition of that word 10 times, and then you use it in 10 different sentences, you will commit that memory that word to your memory for life. I was like, oh, what? So when I was getting up to octal levels of syllables, I was so happy that I was able to not only master them, but my level of use in the forms that they needed at times was life-saving. Imagine you're in a realm where it's so brutal, the right word could make the difference between a beating or not.

Yeah, that's— that is so— I mean, obviously none of this is like—

I wowed them.

Yeah, for real, that's like really cool. Um, What was— because I know there was a lot of bad moments in there. What— and again, if you don't want to share this because it's probably, it's probably bad memory, but like—

no, listen, I don't have any problems or stigma. You want to know the really cool thing? I go around the world teaching people about neuroplasticity healing. I'm so good at this, I don't really remember much about death row. Okay.

Yeah.

How cool is that, that I have to work at memory recall for it?

That's actually awesome! I was gonna ask—

Free!

What was like, what was one of the worst things that happened to you in there? And then on the flip side though, what was like— the dictionary thing seems like one of those moments. Was there any moment in there that you think back to that was like a good memory? Like when you were in there, you were like, oh, yes.

I, I try to say this and I'll say it again, the greatest experience of my life to date. Yeah, I mean, imagine you're living a cinematic event, man. You go to prison at the age of 20 knowing you're innocent, but with very few tools you try to figure out in very short order Muscular strength is a phenomenon only served well in an athletic field. Mental strength is the only one that could endure this. Now, people thought that because I spent 8,057 days in solitary confinement, I was somehow locked up. But I had circumnavigated the globe by sending my hair to pen pals around the planet and asking them to put them into the 7 seas. I went on a mental journey of discovery, development, and one of my greatest joys was after a 3-year period of reading all of the world's religions, a man in the cell next to me was throwing away a newspaper, and on the front page of this paper was the newly discovered DNA evidence It was like my synchronized reward as I just finished Shintoism, of all of them. And it was wonderful how I got this notion that I was— all right, I escaped from prison, I go back because I voluntarily put myself back there because I didn't do it, but they didn't play fair and they beat me for 4 minutes for that event. 4 minutes with clubs, and they held me up with a riot stick and paraded me around and all that good stuff. I, I was so questioning what was going to be real from that moment on. I began a journey of reading all the world's religions, and then 3 years later, after the accomplishment of that effort, I learned about DNA testing and became the first man in America to seek DNA testing. All verified. Yeah, I've read over 9,400 books before I quit reading books.

Oh my God, that's incredible.

Um, no, I, I lived— I want you to know this— I lived literature because where I was, men were throwing themselves off the tiers and killing themselves in misery because they couldn't take it. I lived on a unit where the average rate of survival was 5 years. After 12 years of that, they put me in that unit I told you about, and that's why I had to write the book Monsters and Madmen, because no one would believe what they did to me there for 3 years. I was so tested. I had a guard try his best to break me mentally, spit in my food every day for years. Using other murderers to try and kill me. Oh my God. Yeah, I didn't want to tell that story. Oh no, he wasn't going to dominate me post-prison by making that part of even anything to do with 7 Days to Live because it wasn't relevant. No. And I wrote the whole book— this is true too because someone sat beside me or laid beside me or was beside me I wrote the whole book Monsters and Madmen in 3 days. I am not brilliantly gifted because I was a typist in a law library for years, writing up my own petitions, helping men with their own work, doing my legal studies. That's all I knew was a keyboard.

Yeah, how, um, curious of when you escaped, how did you escape? Like, uh, because that's pretty difficult to do, isn't it?

It's by happenstance, and it can only happen in the series of events that are so peculiar they have to be true. We stopped after 3 years— 3 hours of driving from Huntington, Pennsylvania, in the central mountains down to Chester, Pennsylvania, where I was being transported to Delaware County because this Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed my convictions because of all of the things that were done wrong at my trial. I was the happiest person in the car. I was getting a new trial because they convicted me of the kidnapping and other felonies that happened in the state of Delaware, even though she was found in the state of Pennsylvania. I was convicted of them, and then they were used to aggravate my sentence and put me to death. I knew I was having a new trial. I was like so eager. I was going to court talking to the sheriffs about the Philadelphia Eagles and how much pride I had in the team this year and all this. We stopped to use the bathroom. I go with one officer off to the cubicles. The other officer stands at the car while I'm using the toilet. The officer standing there holding the bathroom in the freezing cold has to now go to the toilet so bad, he makes a decision to let me go back to the car by myself. My problem is I'm wearing eyeglasses. I got out of the warm car, sub-zero temperatures on February 15th, 1985, to go across the parking lot, got into the warm cubicle to use the toilet, and then my eyeglasses fogged up from the steam. I didn't know the officer wasn't still with me. When I went back, I saw the silhouette of the officer ahead of me trudgingly to him in the snow, and then he pulls his gun out, fires 2 rounds just like that. Whoa. Yeah. So for the next 5 and a half hours, I outrun a helicopter and 200 police officers all over Chester County. And I eventually— it's crazy— I was being chased by a helicopter across a big open plain, and there was a fence, a 10-foot fence and 2 feet of snow. There's no possible way in prison shoes I was going to scale the fence. And then just like out of nowhere, I dropped through the bottom. The snow had pushed back previously against the fence, and it was a hillside. And I slid all the way down like 70 feet to a railroad track, got up and walked 5 miles to Fraser, Pennsylvania. And I stole a car in the train station parking lot and drove to New York City. Like, it was— you couldn't even— I couldn't even line it up. Yeah, that's crazy. A 1965 green Mustang, and the ignition was broken, so all I had to do is turn it with my hand. Didn't even have to break the— it wasn't lock ignition, it was a dash ignition.

And then, and then how long, um, how long until you turned yourself in?

25 days later.

Now, and that's because you knew that you were wrongfully convicted, but like in those 25 days, did you like—

no, I knew I wasn't smart. I knew I wasn't clever. Okay, I thought I was, but I wasn't. I knew I couldn't outrun all of the law enforcement in the country. I knew I was going to get killed. While they were chasing me with that helicopter, they were going through the alley and they were talking about killing me. I knew this was unlike anything you could imagine because I was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. I'm 24 years old. I'm convicted of a rape and murder of a woman I've never even met in my life. And who cares? They don't care. So I gave— I got my father to call the FBI in Volusia County, Florida, and turn myself in. And they put me on death row in Florida and then transported me back to Pennsylvania. I ruined all my appeals. And then they waited a year and a day to the escape February 16th, 1986. They beat me and broke my face, detached my left retina, broke a bone in my back, beat me on my leg so bad I didn't come out of my cell for 7 months. This is why I was questioning God.

Yeah.

So I ordered all the 7 major religious books from the library, and I decided I was going to sit down, and it took me 3 years with my note-taking and everything to go through all of the major religions and all of the subcategories of religion. And a guy named Sheffield was throwing away a newspaper and there it is. I got, I got handed this beautiful gift called DNA testing because Sir Alec Jeffreys in Leicester, England developed the science of identifying people by their blood, saliva, and other biological material.

So crazy, man. Um, so then, and how many books do you have now? You have 2 books or you have more than that?

I have— I've, I've written— I'm all right. I'm just finishing now a book, a children's book actually, called Animal Kind, because I was working on the equestrian property that had handicapped children on it, but I'm personally afraid of horses, so I had to overcome my fear especially in front of handicapped children, to interact the children with horses and clean up their waste and everything. So I wrote this amazing book about, uh, kindness for animals because, uh, I just lost everything from the pandemic. I lost my marriage, uh, my children are back in England, my wife is back in England, I still have to stay here and work, I have nothing. I've lost everything. You know, I was a public speaker. I was booked to be in Copenhagen when the pandemic broke out in March. So done.

So that, that was your main form of like income was public speaking and why? And your books?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, yeah, I was, I was one of the world's finest speakers in my genre, especially since I performed so well all of Europe. I got the honor of addressing United Nations in Geneva in 2016. What a blessing. And to go there before the Human Rights Council in the invitation of the European Union was a great honor as a speaker. One of my best things that I've really appreciated was that my writing has kept me sane. Because like I said, right now as I sit with you, Tyler Wagner, this is all true, and I don't complain about it. I have zero. I could unhook this phone, take you outside, and show you my RV that's parked beside this house. I could show you that I earn laughable amounts of money. I was paid $17 today for this week's work. Um, I have no resources. I live off of SNAP benefits, which is food stamps, and yet I've never been more at peace with myself. I've gone through so much that I'm just grateful that I have a house to live out of while I'm working, so my dogs and I are not living in the woods like I was all last year. It was very hard to live in the woods out of RV, you know. Yeah.

So what actually, um, what happened with the family and the pandemic? Like, what, what do you think was the reason for the, you know—

oh, well, unfortunately My wife and children and I were living in an RV in the Siskiyou National Forest when my wife unexpectedly got hooked on drugs. And it just devastated us all. And it led to her having to go back to England and get treatment and everything. And thank God she's now sober and she has a job and the children are enrolled in school. But Yeah, it was a person with good intentions who told her that the problems she was having with PTSD after we experienced a SIDS death of a child would be taken away by the small use of this drug, and she stupidly didn't understand the power of it. And yeah, yeah, I look Tyler, I haven't had a drink in 40 years. I don't use any kind of hard drugs of any kind. I can't, I can't afford that mentally. So to have my wife who was abusing alcohol, then get seriously addicted to a hard substance, it devastated us. I mean, the discord was obvious. And then she ended up moving in with this guy in town in Oregon here. And I moved on and I was living in the RV with the dogs by myself for the last year and a half. Hmm.

Yeah, it's— what's interesting, I've always kind of thought about this, is like, the harder the times we go through, it's like you almost have like a sense of— and I can't even like relate obviously to what you've been through, but I just mean that like like you said, like right now you have this sense of peace still. That's a beautiful thing. And the fact that you were able to like do the dictionary and you write a whole book in 3 days, like throughout all this trauma, if you will, you actually created yourself like a beautiful mind. That's what comes to my mind when I think about you right now. Like you have a very—

I did—

Yeah, go ahead.

I had to think about this a lot. I'm so sorry for cutting you off, but I was so anxious to tell you this. I truly believe it's down to you. Like, I've been through so many things. I've been shot, stabbed, strangled, beaten ungodly. I, I've had some terrible traumas done to me. They used to make me fight other prisoners in a cage, so I had to learn all these skills to harm others. The thing about it is you have to come to a point where you ask yourself, what do you want? See, I thought at some point, and I'm glad I had this notion and sense of it all, I wanted to show that beyond anything else, my education allows me a perspective to say it's not me. Like, the things that were done to me were done to me. Therefore, it's not something I need to hold on to or be driven mad by because they were done to me. I can see driving myself crazy about the things I've done. Believe me, I feel badly for my mistakes, but I haven't that woefulness that I should because— and I figured it out also. I am probably more artistically alive now than I've ever been, and I don't even have a functioning laptop. Like, the kids broke my laptop, so I haven't been able to write in a while, but I'm so artistically alive. I even started doing a project of reading my favorites of artists like T.S. Eliot that's going to be put to music by my friend in Atlanta, and we're going to create this whole album as a tribute to literature by reading like Shaw and Eliot and Keats and have it musically layered in beauty as an offering of tribute to what I love most about writing. It makes you feel Mm-hmm.

What is your, um, because actually a lot of our listeners, because of the main— as you know, my main business is called Authors United. We, uh, help people write, publish, market books. So a lot of our listeners come from their following of me in that business. So my question is like, what's your process for writing? Like, how did you do that in 3 days? What did that look like?

I was carrying around the biggest story ever that I had to squash. My wife Laura said she knew everything about Encinitas. She said, oh yeah, no, like, Nick, I know you. I said, okay, watch this. And I sat down in her bedroom and started. I knew all I need to do was channel the perspective. There are two fundamental truths about being an author. You have to encapsulate your voice. I knew when I was reading Richard Bachman's The Running Man or, um, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption that later on when it was published under the name Stephen King, I knew his wordage. I knew Howard Robbins. I, I knew Sidney Sheldon. I knew Frederick Forsyth. And, and I knew Dick Tracy— um, I'm sorry, Dick Francis— and all of his wonderful vernacular. I even— I loved it when Sue Crafton came out with her alphabetical series of a detective series, and I loved knowing their voice. I could start reading a couple chapters and I could hear them like they're instruments in my head, like music that I knew. So you as an author, if you can hear and articulate your voice in your writing, that's the easiest part. Then comes the confidence to let go. The worst part about being caught up in worriment is what you're feeling is going to be edited away from your story when that's not your duty. If you're an author and a writer, you're an author and a writer. If you're an author, writer, and editor, you're a confused project. I need help. Uh, Joe Perón, beautiful man in Florida, helped me edit Monsters and Madmen because I don't do editing. I didn't study editing. I studied wordage. I just wrote a TV series that's got a possibility to be picked up, and it's a really brilliant series in which each episode is morality-laced, and yet at the same time, it's beautifully character-driven, just like Elmore Leonard would do in his scribing. So I'm so proud of myself that I read so many beautiful authors. I know how to craft like them without being them in my own voice.

Yeah, that's— so Shawshank is one of my favorite movies. My dad too. And I just, as you said that, I realized like that, that story is somewhat similar, a little bit, right? I mean, doesn't it? It's a—

parallels, right?

Yeah, that's very interesting. I just thought about that.

And we both end up on the Pacific Ocean.

Yeah, yeah, that's— well, that's a good ending. That's good. Um, so for you, like For you now, like, where, where are you— like, I guess not to be like, hey, what's the next 5 years look like, but what are your— what's the rest of your life look like for you? Like, what's your, uh, because, because you're— because you've already been through something so, you know, I don't even have words for it, that now, you know, everything to you is probably such a gift at this point. Like you were saying, like, you're at peace and even though it's like a tough time for you, you know, in quotes now, you're at peace with it. So what are you, um, what are you striving for right now?

What are you—

are you going to do a lot more books, more speaking, or what's the next step for you?

I— what— it's crazy. I, I would love to speak again. There's a powerful energy every weekend in London. On the Globe Theatre stage, Cleopatra herself begged the audience to stay after 3-hour performances of Titus Andronicus because she had a gift for them. She'd come backstage and get me and bring me on stage, and I would address all these people in London looking up at the London Eye. Oh man, I do. I had some— I was at the Colosseum. I came out in Rome in a beautiful black suit. I was the embodiment of a free man celebrating Rome and Italy being the first country post-World War II to abolish the death penalty, you know, it's like, yeah. So I don't know. All right, so I've written and I'm writing right now a television series that's based on the Integrity Units, and it's a great series that I'd like to see to come to life. I'm working with, uh, Lorton Entertainment, an offshoot of that, a very good friend of mine, and We just did a brand new documentary series called Life After Death, and I'm hoping that gets picked up. Meanwhile, I have a chance to go forward and work on the project that I really am passionate about. It's getting back to writing this children's book because I'm so fascinated by how I've come up with an interactive way to get children on pins and needles so that they're ready to shout. Their part during the book. I got the idea from my own children as I was losing them. I thought, man, if life is so cruel, I'm getting all this taken from me, I'm gonna try and make all the children of the world shout happiness.

Yeah, what I think is one of the most amazing things I've gotten from this interview is that even though what happened to you was terrible, instead of you like having like aggression against it, you've decided to go the other path. I think it's because, like you said, what your mom told you, right? Um, and so it's actually like you, you've decided— and actually, and I— not to compare it to this fully, but there's a lot of similarities, I feel like, from the book A Man's Search for Meaning. Uh, Viktor Frankl.

Oh, oh my God, I love Viktor Frankl's work, and everyone keeps saying I've done well.

Yeah, it really, it really shows, like, your exp— like, and look, it's so hard to— because again, I— so many people have never been through anything like this, but it's like you were able to really— like you said, it comes down to you. So even through the craziest circumstances, you were able to use your brain and like actually turn it into something that was like almost like an adventure. Like, to me, it seems like, you know, you're in the cell and, you know, your hair is going to all these different places. Like, you actually traveled the world and you learned the world in your mind, right? Through books and the dictionary.

Like, It's Good Will Hunting meets The Shawshank Redemption meets Bullet, you know what I mean? Like Steve McQueen cool about it all. That's what I was trying for. I was like, this is going to be a challenge, Ty. You know Philly, you know how hard it is where I grew up, you know what I mean? Crazy thing is I had to go through the gang wars and the street fights and all that to be tough enough to last because it was hard, man. Yeah, one question I didn't answer for you, sir, was the good that came out of death row that I didn't get a chance to articulate. And it's this one that I was really proud of. I used to frustrate the hell out of them. I was constantly doing good for other men by like writing letters for the men whose minds were too befuddled for them to communicate with their mother, or I was helping men with their legal work. I got two prisoners off of death row. In fact, I was instrumental in getting Walter O'Grad off of death row in 2007. When he drove across the country to be there on the day he was released. Yeah, so, and that was right there in Bucks County. So I was really glad that one of the greatest compliments I ever got was I was told by the administration that I was one of the most dangerous men they had ever dealt with. I said, are you kidding me? You've seen some of these guys there. They said no, Mr. Yaharis. When the DNA results came back proving your innocence, since then we've had a number of men holding hunger strikes, refusing to come out of their cells or communicate with staff because they're not convinced that we're not going to kill you before you get out. They love you that much.

Damn. Yeah, it's amazing, man.

Yeah, because I've realized something. No matter where you are in life, you can hold your own value. I decided I was going to be of value to anybody that was decent enough that I could try and help them. Look, there were so many broken ones in there who chaotically enjoyed it, but after a while, I achieved enough stature where I could help them. And it gave me a sense of dignity and purpose to be the guy. Oh man, if you had a legal question, I was that guy. If you had a problem with your lawyer filing the right claims to try and get you off death row, I was that guy. Yeah, if you came to our block and you were trying to get certificates of education so you could get your parole shortened, I was that guy. I had a cottage industry in their time. I grew up on death row. By the time I was 30 years old, I was running things. I'm— I was like Red in Shawshank Redemption. If you needed something on bebop, I was the guy, man.

I was thinking that, and I was also thinking it's, it's just like the main guy in Shawshank where he does like taxes for everybody, just so you were doing it. Yeah, legal.

Andy Dufresne. Yeah, so Andy Dufresne is actually Tim Robbins, who's a really nice friend of mine who I had the pleasure pleasure of meeting and having a really cool experience with right after I did the Joe Rogan Experience where we were in Venice. And I'm sitting there with Anthony Sammandani, who's like the head of the Muhammad Ali Foundation, and my good friend Chiyo. And there's Tim Robbins. And I'm sitting there at lunch with these people, and this guy comes out of nowhere and he's like, dude, did you And everybody at the table freezes up because, you know, we're all sitting there with Tim Robbins, you know?

Yeah.

And the guy just— no, man, he blanked him and he gets me to stand up and give me a hug. And he starts telling me he just saw me on Rogan and, man, he can't believe he's meeting me. And, oh my God, thank you so much, I love you so much. And he gave me this enormous hug, man. We all sat back— like, I sat back down. Tim said, that's the first, man. I'm really proud of you for doing that, man. I was like, wow, wow, wow.

In some way it is like— it's like a beautiful story in some way, just because of the way— I just think it is. Yeah, like, I have something for you.

Ready?

Yeah.

I'm sorry again.

No, go ahead.

You just came— this is brilliant though. I hope she's a published author at this point, but she's a wonderful reporter Her name was Jennifer Gonnerman, and she was a reporter for the Village Voice. We sat down with her in 2004 or something like that, maybe 2005, when— after Innocence came out. We did a 2-hour interview in Manhattan towards the end, after hearing all of it. And I mean, this, this is a really quality reporter. Yeah, she looked across at me and she said, Nick, do you know, like, you're living one of the greatest stories ever? I said, oh my God, you have no idea, it's— it hasn't stopped. And since I said those words to her, I've had it harder in the 17 years of freedom than all my death row, really. Yeah, it is what it is, little brother. I'm being honest. Like, imagine you get these highs and lows that are so ricocheting and rocketing that there's so much instantaneous— that's— it's, uh, I'll give you a snapshot of my life in one small 6 to 8 month period. Ready? I fall in love, I'm happy, We have a little baby named Jamie Lee together come into our lives. 6 months of bliss, a Christmas of all Christmases in the West Country of England. 3 little girls all around me, the picture portrait moment happiness. I had just gone through a bad relationship, felt so healed, so alive. Just got my book, 7 Days to Live, uh, with Random House picking up the contract. They've since dropped me. I can't keep a publisher to save my life. All I have to do is ask for expanded, right, distribution. That'll get you kicked off anyway. Um, yeah, I had that moment, and then I put the baby down for a nap. I come back 20 minutes later, she's dead. Yeah, what, what happened? She had SIDS. SIDS death, man. So My baby dies, Laura's baby, and I have this enormous destructive moment that just destroyed us. At the same time, I'm being handed money for my life rights from Alejandro Monteverde and the investment company that's behind him to make a movie about my life. I'm like, what do I do, Ty? I just lost this baby and we gotta live in this little flat. In the West Country of England called Ilchester. And I'm like, no. So I grabbed Laura by the hands and I took her to America, and I had all these opportunities because The Fear of 13 was on Netflix, and I was booked to go to Canada, all expenses paid, a week of speaking for 25 grand. And I get to the border, they won't let me in because you escaped from death row. I was like, what? Yeah. 2 days at the border with lawyers and everything, and they won't let me in. I'm stuck. I spent 20 grand to get there.

Oh my God.

So me and Laura moved. Me and Laura looked at rentals in Oregon. We moved in, and at first it was brilliant. I was getting all these bookings. I was going to Germany to speak to the company's directors of like Fiat and all this. I was doing very well as a speaker. My book, The Kindness Approach, was allowing me to go around the world teaching people about neuroplasticity healing, which many people don't understand. And this is why I'm a gifted, eloquent human being. Like, what I've done for myself is evident and self-evident to others. So I go through this enormous challenge where things start to fall apart. The day I was meeting Joe Rogan for his podcast, 2018, I had a blow-up with Stedman Graham because I was lied to about him knowing who I was when I introduced myself at a business meeting in Orange County. And he's like, who are you? And I was— I looked at the person that brought me there from New Zealand and I'm like, are you kidding me? You lied to me and humiliate me? So I actually blew off Stedman and left right in front of everybody, man. Told them all, I said, sorry, I can't do this. That was the night before the podcast. Yeah, I know. I, I wasn't lying to Jennifer Gonerman when I told her it hasn't ended. Yeah, you— the last 2 years alone, the last 2 years alone, look what I've gone through. I'd lose everything from the pandemic. I know everybody else did. But then I have to move into the woods because my 81-year-old landlord doesn't understand the pandemic. He gonna get his rent money He keeps showing up at the house with a gun. Now, because it's an open carry state, he's allowed to show up on my property even though he's drunk without notice. And the police say it's a civil disturbance. And I'm saying, no, this guy's going to either shoot me in front of these children, or I'm going to have to take the gun off him and kill him. So we left and we moved into a riverbank, and we stayed there for a whole summer waiting for this money to come through to make this new documentary. I get enough money to buy an RV, a 31-foot, uh, Bounder motorhome, and I move my family into it for safety purposes. But we still have to live in the woods and take the children to school online and everything. Pandemic shut everything down. And then Laura has to work to keep us alive, and she goes into town, and there comes methamphetamine, and it ruins our lives. I lost everything. I was left there by myself in the woods. So I keep having resilience.

I do. Yeah, nothing— well, yeah, you've proven that nothing is ever going to, uh, you're very strong, like, mentally. Like, what I want to do, um, I do apologize, just I have to, um, do my, uh, next, um my next interview. What I want to do though here is I want to like leave the floor to you. If there's anything we didn't cover that you want to, please share it. And then also please let everyone know like website, books, where they can follow you, because I only have Instagram.

Yes sir, I will. Look, this is me, I'm very sincere. I tried to give up social media because it was a terrible pressure upon me. While I was going through the degradations of suffering. I didn't like putting on the display. I didn't— I figured that's enough. I had blood poisoning in February. That almost killed me. That's enough. So if you go on Amazon, I have a couple of books for sale. The latest one is Monsters and Madmen that we talked about. If you could purchase the book, that would be brilliant. If you want to reach out to me on Instagram, that's the only social media that I use. Otherwise, I'm really just grateful I got a chance to talk to you, Ty. I'm so proud of you for what you're doing for people who really live through their literature and their writing. Like, I had stopped talking about this as much as I possibly could, but I wanted to talk about the art of being alive because I've tapped into my artistic side. Even in the bleakest moments, Like you see, when I'm losing my children, I wrote a children's book, man. I'm not going out soft. I'm not doing that. I'm going to do this with joie de vivre. And that, that saying in French really means the liveliness of life. And that's— I think I have to adhere to that.

It's, uh, for some reason the word beautiful comes to mind, so that's what I'm gonna go with. Um, so I appreciate you coming on, man, and I think, uh, definitely a part 2. And anytime you have another book coming out, just reach out. I'd love to have you on again. Like, I enjoyed the conversation immensely. So thank you again for coming on, Nick.

What a blessing and a treat you are for me today. Thank you for letting me speak because I'm dealing with a lot of challenges and I'm hoping that being articulate like this keeps me going.