Murder With My Husband - 221. Can A Killer Really Change? The Jon Henkel Murder & G. Dep's Confession

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

In this episode Payton and Garrett dive into the case of Jon Henkel’s murder and how his killer was finally caught.  https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources: The New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-murder-a-confession-and-a-fight-for-clemency  New York Post - https://nypost.com/2022/12/10/murder-victims-family-furious-after-bragg-prosecutor-bids-to-free-killer/  https://nypost.com/2012/05/09/taking-murder-rap-like-a-man/  Deseret News - https://www.deseret.com/2016/7/7/20591567/rapper-who-willingly-confessed-to-cold-case-murder-17-years-later-reveals-what-drove-his-decision/   New York Magazine - https://nymag.com/news/features/trevell-coleman-2012-11/index5.html The Telegraph - https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Rapper-who-admitted-1993-New-York-shooting-faces-12671665.php  The Niagara Gazette - https://www.niagara-gazette.com/aspiring-harlem-rapper-who-turned-himself-in-to-face-murder-charge-gets-clemency-from-gov/article_d10e9a80-a11e-11ee-a642-f7e218e840e2.html New York Daily News - https://www.nydailynews.com/2012/04/10/trial-of-rapper-accused-of-1993-murder-during-botched-east-harlem-robbery-begins/  NBC New York - https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/rapper-g-dep-granted-clemency-after-serving-13-years-for-1993-cold-case-killing/4976651/  Black Enterprise - https://www.blackenterprise.com/g-dep-released-from-prison/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The world is yours to create. You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland. And I'm Garret Moreland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband.

Welcome back. Another week, another episode. If it's your first time here joining us, thank you very much. If it's not your first time here, we love you. Thank you for sticking around. Thank you for sticking around. Thank you for sticking around and dealing with us. We really appreciate it. If this is your first time, hi, welcome to Murder With My Husband.

This is a true crime show where I love true crime and my husband hates true crime and he shows up every week with no idea about what we're going to talk about, but we do it anyways and everyone enjoys it. And we are 220-ish episodes in. We're still doing it. And we are 220-ish episodes in, and we're still doing it. And in case anyone's wondering, I still basically hate it to an extent. Hate's a strong word, so I won't use the word hate.

You do, I believe. But I'm here, and I'm engaged, and I'm interested, and I'm trying to figure out what is going on. Thank goodness. If you would like bonus content or ad free content, check out our Patreon and Apple subscriptions. Kind of all announcements we have right now. We are gonna jump into Garrett's 10 seconds,

which is what we start these episodes off. I don't know why we're acting like we've just got an influx of listeners or something. Like it's not just our same OGs here. We have it, we're switching it up a little bit. I doubt anyone's gonna see it. That went in a weird direction. But here we are, my 10 seconds this week.

Well, if you're on YouTube, you can probably see it. If you're not on YouTube and you're listening, I will tell you exactly what's going on. I am currently growing a mustache, trying something new. Honestly, I think it looks decent so far. I think I look okay in it. Don't you? Peyton likes it too, so I'm gonna grow it out a little bit.

I'm probably not gonna do handlebar or anything crazy, just classic mustache. Gonna try it out, test it out. Also, our home gym is done, we've been using it, and we love it. Love it. I've been stretching. Love it. Garrett's been working out.

I also work out, but I just haven't worked out in the home gym yet. I need to take a better video or photo and I'll post it on my Instagram or Murder With My Husband just to show everyone what it looks like. It's just our garage. It's such a vibe. It's a vibe, it feels good, it's easy.

And again, if I have a lisp, I currently have my Invisalign in. I'm probably gonna take him out in a second. Daisy loves the gym and loves Garrett's Invisalign. So. Yeah, that's true. She loves my Invisalign. Anyways, back to my mustache.

Yeah, I've grown a mustache. Hope everyone's supportive. Maybe I'll take a picture and put that on socials as well. And yeah, not too long today. So let's hop into today's case. Our sources for this episode are The New Yorker New York Post Deseret News New York magazine the Telegraph the Niagara Gazette New York Daily News NBC New York and Black Enterprise Any guesses what any guesses where our cases? I don't know. Maybe New York. I'm not sure

So anytime you're dealing with a true crime case There is one question that every jury and every judge has to answer. And it's can people really change? If someone commits a gruesome murder, can they reform? Or are they destined to always be a violent criminal? It's a question that has to be weighed to determine what kind of sentence is fair. After all, you don't want to let a murderer out only for them to then take another life,

but you also don't want the punishment to be harsher than what the guilty person deserves. The problem is no one really agrees on what someone does deserve. The killer will almost always argue that they deserve the lightest possible sentence. The victim's families often argue for something harsher. And it's down to the court system to figure out what's actually fair, which is tough because it can be tricky to determine who's actually remorseful or not,

who's likely to re-offend, who has really changed and and who hasn't? And that is the central question for today's case. Speaking on that, I figured now is a good time to throw in my hot take, which is going to go along with this. I don't think people can change, but I do at the same time. Okay, listen. What I mean by that is,

I actually probably think that majority people can't change. Okay, if we're talking about murder here, correct? Like we're talking about, I assume, this is a murder podcast, I assume we're talking about people who are killing people, people who are raping people, not stealing something from the store or more, I guess, petty-ish crimes.

Even like robbing a bank, like I think you can change. Dealing drugs. Dealing drugs, yes. I mean, all that stuff I'm on the side of, you can change and figure it out. But like killing or trigger warning, anything that has to do with really bad rapes, really bad sexual assaults,

I am like 98%, probably 8% that people can't change. I'm sure people are gonna think otherwise. So feel free to let us know in the comment below. Again, this is just my opinion. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. It's just kind of what I think. I could get deeper into, I guess, certain aspects and deeper into the context of those crimes and why

I think people can't change and people can change. But that's just my hot take for this week. Let's do the story and then make sure we revisit before the episode is over. Perfect. Okay, so starting this case, let's go back to the night of October 19th, 1993. It's almost an hour after midnight and the road is practically deserted on New York City's 114th Street. This intersection is in a pretty bad part of East Harlem. An elevated track for the metro train passes overhead and there's a stop nearby but it's far too late for commuters to be coming and going. So there's only one man out and about again October 19th 1993 New York City and this man's name is John Henkel and to this day it's not clear what brought John out to 114th Street at almost one

in the morning. We can make an educated guess though, based on what we know about John and his lifestyle. See, John, who's 32 years old, has a history of drug abuse. And this particular night, he is high on PCP. And it's probably safe to assume that he's out to buy more drugs at 1 a.m. or maybe he just bought and took some and just hasn't made it home yet. Whatever his reason for being here,

John doesn't remain alone for long because just before the top of the hour, a strange young man rides up on a bike and he takes one look at John who's smoking a cigarette under the train tracks. And whatever the young man sees in John, it inspires him to hit the brakes on his bike and climb off. And then he pulls out a gun. He points it at John's midsection and says, where's the money at? So now John Henkel, 32 years old, high on PCP, pretty bad history of drug use, is

getting mugged in the middle of New York City in the middle of the night. And I don't know if John is just too high to realize what's going on or if maybe he thinks the mugger will ignore him if he just doesn't acknowledge him. But whatever the reason, John just freezes. He doesn't say anything. And he also doesn't pull out his wallet or give the mugger any cash. So the young man takes another step closer to John and repeats himself, where is the money at? But John isn't willing to just hand his valuables over without a fight. So assuming he even has any and he hasn't blown everything he already has, John reaches for the gun,

like he might be able to snatch it out of the mugger's hand. Oh no. But instead, the would-be thief pulls the trigger three times, and all of them hit their target. John has been shot. He grimaces like he's in pain, but he doesn't scream or shout So the mugger takes the opportunity to run back to his bike and climb onto it

So John who's been shot actually decides to try and chase him down for a little while Tries to grab him and pull him back toward him, but the shooter is too fast He pedals away and soon the exertion away I mean And the exertion gets to be away. I mean, that's what he's doing. And the exertion gets to be too much for John who's trying to chase him. He falls to his knees and then he doesn't get back up. Okay.

Now before the shooter can round the corner and escape, a pair of headlights actually illuminate the pretty dead street. So a car is now passing and it's unclear how much they saw and if they'll be able to describe the shooter's face to the police later. I'm not even sure if this driver is the person who called 911 or if someone else heard what had happened, heard the shots and reported them. There actually isn't much documentation of what happens next, but I do know that John

ends up dying on the street because of the gunshots and before long the police are investigating his murder. Got it. And all they can tell at this point is that John died in a mugging gone wrong and they don't have many leads to go by. Most likely the killer didn't have any connections to John. The detectives don't think he tailed him in the street or targeted him specifically. They just think that John was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And New York

City is a massive city. The suspect list has to be in the thousands if not the millions. The investigators ask around the neighborhood where the shooting took place to see if any of the residents saw something suspicious that night, but nobody has anything to share. So with no suspects, no witnesses, and almost no evidence, the case goes cold almost immediately. And it's possible that that has something to do with who John was too, because it's unfortunate, but the police do not prioritize every open investigation the same way.

And it sounds like John, as a person with a history of substance abuse, just may not rank very high on their list of priorities of someone who was murdered on the street at 1 a.m. while high. It's not fair, but it is sadly common for certain kinds of victims to get less attention than others. And that's why, as I'm going through this case,

I'm telling through this case, I'm telling you, I don't really know who called 911. I don't really know because it just wasn't reported on. And in John's case, not only does his case go unsolved for years, the police actually basically forget about him. And that's where things stand for the next 17 years. Holy crap. So 17 years. Holy crap. So 17 years go by.

And it's safe to say that by 2010, nobody is even looking into John's case. He's definitely just a file sitting in a box, sitting deep somewhere in a room. Well, as sad as it is, I also can imagine how many people that are either on drugs or don't have a home in New York City and living on the streets, how many get murdered or killed and it's just a daily, weekly, monthly occurrence I'm sure, which is horrible. But yeah.

John's case is just sitting there. It's 2010 now. And then one day, December 15th, a man named Travell Coleman walks into the police station. He walks up and he says, I have information about an old crime. Specifically, he knows something about a nearly two decade old mugging that turned into a shooting. Now, he doesn't mention John Henkel by name. And from the sound of it, he actually doesn't even know who the victim was. He also doesn't know how the shooting ended up,

if that victim lived or died. Basically, he wants to share information, but he seems to know almost nothing about the case that he wants to discuss. Interesting. And that's not the only detail that's strange about Trevelle's sudden appearance, case that he wants to discuss. Interesting. And that's not the only detail that's strange about Travell's sudden appearance because Travell was sort of famous in the rap community

in 2010. He would perform under the name G-Dep and he's had a couple of successful tracks and one really viral one. Early in his career, he released a song called Let's Get It. And the music video featured people doing a dance called the Harlem Shake. Okay, yep. So it became a bit of a dance craze for a while. And even though Travell didn't invent the Harlem Shake, he actually does get credit for making it so popular.

I'm sure you can remember it going around. Oh, it was all over the place. He also has another hit song called Special Delivery. So to summarize a somewhat famous rapper showed up at the police station and said he wanted to talk about a crime that he didn't seem to know much about. Sus. And he wasn't just there as a witness. He tells police, he did it. I'm actually here to confess. Saw that one coming, yep. He was the man who mugged another man

on the street 17 years ago. He knows that he shot his victim and then he got it on his bike and he sped away and he doesn't know if this man lived or died. So after living with a guilty conscience for years, Trevelle now wants to turn himself in and make things right with the man he shot, whatever that means. And he also needs to answer a question that's been weighing heavily on his conscience for more than a decade and a half.

Did he actually kill somebody? So Travell sits down with the police and he describes the crime he committed in as much detail as he can, But there are certain details he doesn't fully remember 17 years later. And it's kind of ironic actually. Seventeen years? He had to have been... so young. So he says the guilt has been weighing on him the entire time and he's never been able to stop thinking about what he did. But now that he's at the station describing everything in detail,

his memory is a lot foggier than you'd expect if he was someone who like had really shot someone and felt really bad about it and it had been weighing on them all this time. He doesn't remember the date or even the month of the shooting. He kind of just gives a rough range, but he does know the exact address of where it took place.

It's not much, but it's enough for the police to go through their records and they go through all their files on unsolved shootings from that approximate time and place and there's only one open case that fits what Trevelle described and I'm sure you can guess whose it was. It was the mugging turned murder of John Henkel. Alright, most Americans think that they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions, but get this, the real number is closer to $300 because we forget to cancel our subscriptions and we don't remember which ones we have, which is insane.

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But I do want to note their case file on John doesn't match Travell's testimony exactly because he says he shot a blonde, clean shaven man in a plaid coat. John had a beard, dark hair, and he was wearing a tan coat that night. Now of course, those discrepancies could just be attributed to the long, long years that went by between the murder and the confession. Like I said, Travell's memory does seem fairly fuzzy. The police are pretty sure that he is confessing to John's murder. But at this moment, the police decide not to tell Travell that John is dead.

They don't let on that the shooting was fatal at all. They know it's the main thing Travell wants to find out, but they want more from him, more details on his motive, how he pulled it off, everything. So they tell him that if he gives a full confession, they'll tell him everything he wants to know. And so this is when Travell lays out his side of the story. I mean, it's hard because you want to look at him and be like,

no, don't do it. But also, if he killed someone, he killed someone, man. And now you know why we started off this case with the question we did. Like, as a society, we can't kill people. No, we can't. We can't make exceptions. And it's just, we can't.

We can't do it. So Travell tells the police that when he was growing up, his life was really tough. His mother was a single teen when he was born. And even though she eventually got married, Travell's childhood was anything but glamorous. He moved out of his mom's house so he could be raised by his grandmother

in a low income, crime-ridden part of Harlem. He did this in spite of his mother's objections. She knew the neighborhood had a lot of violence and drug use. She didn't want her son growing up around such bad influences. But for Trevelle's part, he knew even then that he loved rap music and he wanted to become a rapper. And he liked to book time in local recording studios to record amateur tracks with his friends and that cost money. That cost money that he didn't have. So when Travell was a teenager he started selling crack on the street corners to help him make ends meet. His whole life became about drug dealing and rapping neither of which brought him a predictable reliable

outcome. And here's the thing like I'd we rather have someone I guess sell drugs and Kill then but you're gonna kill something I get it but like murder somebody right? Like I feel like those are two different things. Maybe that's contradicting everything I guess that's just what makes sense in my mind. It well, he's also a teenager. Yeah, I mean, yeah So eventually Travell realized that there were other ways to get his hands on a lot of cash more quickly. He could go out late at night and just mug people. Now Travell was now 18 years old when he came up with this idea and his 19th birthday was

just one month away. He'd never stolen from anyone before, but he was ready to give it a try anyway. So on the night of October 19th, 1993, he wasn't actually setting out to hurt anyone. His plan was just to ride his bike around until he saw someone who was alone, he'd pull a gun, he'd get the cash, and then he'd ride off.

But he wasn't prepared for John to fight back when he tried to rob him, to go for the gun. So Travell shot him on impulse and then ran away before he could even check and see if John had survived. This is getting tricky. But as he was biking away, he saw that car pull up and he knew the police would arrive soon and he could only hope that they'd get to the victim.

In time. This is what he tells police by the next morning, Travell still had no idea whether or not he was a murderer. Some police swept through the neighborhood asking if anyone knew anything about a shooting, but it didn't seem like they had any idea that Travell was involved. They were just asking everyone who lived near the crime scene. And of course, Travell didn't give himself up. In fact, he felt a little better after the police stopped by because none of them had

said the word homicide. None of their questions gave any indication that the man he'd shot was dead. So Travell told himself, okay, my conscience is clean, the guy survived. He's like maybe I didn't actually take someone's life, I just hurt someone who'd probably recover. But no matter what he told himself, this feeling of guilt stayed with him. And afterward, Travell couldn't stop thinking about that night. And even though he was pretty confident that his target survived, he couldn't be sure. He worried that he

had blood on his hands and he had no way of finding out if it was true. After all, he didn't even know his victim's name. And since this was 1993, it's not like he could just hop on social media, try to find true crime, try to find what was going on locally. He had no way of looking up what really happened and that ate away at him. He thought he'd feel better if he destroyed any evidence connecting him to the crime. So about a week after the shooting, he took the murder weapon and put it in a plastic shopping bag. Then he walked to the East River, which ran just four blocks from his house.

He tossed the gun in the water, perhaps hoping the waves could just swallow his guilt the same way that they'd swallow the firearm. Now needless to say, this didn't work and he didn't feel any better afterward. Yeah. So over time, Trevelle began smoking something called dust blunts, which contained PCP mixed with cannabis.

It was the only way for him to stop feeling anxious and guilty. And of course, self-medicating came with its own set of problems. As Travell started to become a bigger name in the rap community, he also grew to be more and more dependent on drugs. One night in 1998, a strange Bentley pulled over by a street corner where Travell was standing and the driver addressed him by his name, well his rapper name, G-Dep. And the driver knew who Travell was standing and the driver addressed him by his name, well his rapper name G-Dep, and the driver knew who Travell was and he ordered him to get into the car. Travell did and that's

how he learned who had sent the Bentley to pick him up. He was on his way to meet with Diddy or Puff Daddy as he was known at the time. As we know now, not a good person to be meeting with. I ain't the guy you want to be meeting with. So Diddy's label wanted to sign Travell and produce his first album. Travell released his debut record three years later, but even this success couldn't help Travell feel better about himself. Neither could getting married and having children or moving out of the neighborhood, getting a taste of the good life. In fact, it didn't matter what he did.

He can never move past that shooting. If he was watching a movie or a TV show and there was a scene where someone fired a gun, he would immediately say he just got disturbed and unsettled. And every time he passed by the stretch of 114th street, he'd have just flashbacks of that night. And even though he'd moved out of the neighborhood, something kept pulling him back to it. So he kept smoking PCP. By this point, he didn't even bother mixing it with weed anymore. And a lot of the time when Travell got high, he'd do it in an abandoned building on 114th Street, one that had windows overlooking the exact spot where he had shot John. It was just kind of like this way that he would go and punish himself.

So all of his self-medicating was starting to catch up with him and over the years, Trevelle was arrested more than 30 times. Most of the charges were drug related and he was often busted in that abandoned building near. Do you know if any of the charges were more muggings by chance? Well, some of them did include other crimes

like jumping the turnstile at a subway station and loitering. OK, so not really hurting anybody else? No, nothing violent. Going by his criminal record, he never committed another violent crime. He never mugged someone. He never killed another person. But he was still in a spiral that he

couldn't pull himself out of. So Trevelle lost his recording contract. He separated from his wife, he had no income, and since he was blowing all of his money on PCP, Trevelle couldn't afford to live in his new neighborhood anymore, so he moves back to Harlem. In fact, Trevelle's new apartment

was just one block away from the corner where he had shot that man many years ago. And every single day, he would walk past it on his way to run errands, or see the people he met up with. It literally, like, he's living in this crime. Yes. So by 2010, Travell's like, I've had enough.

Like, I've had enough. I can't keep living this way. Again, this is all according to him. So he went to a one-month rehab program, and he realized that his addiction and his guilty feelings were linked. He wouldn't be able to get clean until he came clean about what he had done.

So after Trevelle finishes his program, he relapses right away because he's like, I can't go tell someone what I did. Like I can't go tell someone what I did, but I also can't stop the drugs without it. Like the drugs are what's keeping me okay. So not even the doctors or counselors at the clinic or the other people who were in recovery with him,

he didn't tell anyone. And then one night after using again, he said, okay, I'm done, I can't live with this. He marches down to the police station and he tries to give a confession. He goes in, he's high, and he's like, I have to confess to something. But the police don't believe him. They're like, dude, you're not okay, you're a druggy, you're acting erratically, we just think that you're having a bad trip. They figured he was just saying nonsense and

he insisted on leaving a phone number so he could give his statement once he sobered up, but the police never followed up. They didn't even give him a call. So even after he failed to come clean, Travell became obsessed with the idea that he had to make things right. He had to tell someone what he'd done and face some kind of punishment. So he starts by telling his wife, remember they're separated, and although it took a couple of conversations for him to feel comfortable enough to admit to everything

He does and this is the first time that he's said he shot someone but he tells her that the guy lived he's like Listen, I shot someone but the guy lived and I think he was doing this to kind of gauge her reaction And when his wife seemed okay with that version of the story, he told it again. This time he admitted, okay, but I don't actually know what happened to the victim. And on it went like that until finally later he tells her the real story. And shockingly she's like, dude, just let it go. She's like, this happened so long ago. You don't even know if the person was hurt or killed. And at this point, if the police weren't looking for him, she's like, maybe just consider yourself lucky. Take the second chance that fate had given him and make what he could

of his life. His wife even told Travell that if he was feeling that guilty maybe he should go to a Catholic confession. Maybe talking to a priest would make him feel better but in Travell's mind that felt like cheating. He didn't want to just get off easy or let it go. He'd been trying for 17 years and look where it had gotten him. So on the night of December 15th, 2010, he made himself a promise. He was going to go to the police one last time. And if they brushed him off again, that would be a sign that it was time for him to finally move on.

But instead, Travell sits down, he spills his guts, and by the time he's done talking, the police are taking everything Trevelle said very seriously. It's only after Trevelle finishes giving his testimony that they reveal the sad truth to him that John Henkel did not survive that shooting, and Trevelle, at 18 years old, you became a murderer. Yep. Okay. So from there, Trevelle is charged with the homicide,

he goes to trial, which is actually exactly what he wanted this entire time to face consequences. But that doesn't mean he's willing to report directly to prison without trying to defend himself. He still wants his day in court. But Travell wants to do things right away. It sounds like he's really hoping that a jury will tell him he's suffered enough and he's going to be okay to go live his life. So even though he's already given the police a full confession, Trevelle pleads not guilty during his arraignment. And I read conflicting reports about whether he was offered a plea deal and also about whether he even considered accepting one. And now, even though he's fighting the charges, Trevelle is so cooperative through the whole process that he's only charged with second degree murder. And in fairness, the shooting wasn't premeditated. It was like a spur of the moment thing. So it probably normally would have with second degree murder. Oh, wow. And in fairness, the shooting wasn't premeditated.

It was like a spur of the moment thing. So it probably normally would have been second degree murder. Even then, he wasn't trying to kill someone. He was just acting on impulse. And Trevelle's whole defense is built around the idea that maybe it wasn't murder at all. You remember that when he gave his confession, there were some details that didn't

match the police records. Trevelle seemed to remember a different man. So his lawyers are like, hey, Trevelle did shoot someone that night. Or maybe it wasn't this person. And it maybe wasn't that night. They are like, maybe this person survived and it wasn't John.

Yeah. It is, I mean, it's a hard defense strategy cause you're saying, yeah, my client did go out and mug someone and shoot someone. But I mean, also considering the area you're in, I feel like it's a decent defense strategy. Well, he's found guilty. He's sentenced to 15 years in prison,

which is the minimum sentence for second degree murder. Which is kind of interesting because if he would have been sentenced when he was 18, he'd be out by now. Right. Interestingly, once he's behind bars, Travell's friends and family members say he makes a turnaround. Like he turns into this happy, peaceful person in prison.

Honestly, getting arrested and convicted, like people, his friends and family are like, it's the best thing that ever happened to him. In fact, he tells his lawyer that going to prison probably saved his life. And while he's incarcerated, he gets back into music again. And just one year into his sentence, he arranges to have a follow-up album released in 2011

Wow, and he sets up this album so all the prophets go to John Henkel's family the guy that he murdered That's good. That's all this from behind bars It's really good and Travell really does seem to be doing what he can to make things right or as close to right as he can Because there's no way for him to obviously bring John back like at at the end of the day, he murdered. He murdered somebody. Yeah, yeah. But those warm, fuzzy feelings didn't last for very long. It doesn't take Travell much time at all to decide that actually prison is kind of a terrible place. He doesn't want to stay there for 15 years. And in 2023, he appeals to Manhattan's district attorney for clemency. And surprisingly,

the DA is on his side Oh, it all comes down to the specific way that travel ended up behind bars in the first place He never needed to confess. He was in no danger of getting caught It was the fact that he went in and turned himself in There was a big point in his favor and the district attorney thinks it's a good sign that travel Kind of had already reformed and has definitely now reformed in prison. Got it. So basically what I said that he's already served his time to an extent? Yes.

I guess. But the issue is the question of clemency is not the DA's call. So the DA writes a letter in support of Trevelle which is then reviewed by a clemency board. Then New York's governor has to make the ultimate decision. It's a very long, slow process. But after another year, Travell gets his wish. The governor approves his early release. Oh, okay. And of course the word early here is a little misleading because Travell served 13 of his 15 years. It's not like- Oh, he still served 13 years? Yes. It's not like he got, he skipped this

huge chunk, but again, he murdered somebody. Again, he killed someone and he's able to live outside of prison. And I mean, 15 years for taking someone's life. Yeah, I mean, like willingly taking someone's life. It's not like he, you know, accidentally hit someone with his car. Either way, just this past April on the 4th, Travell was released from prison a free man. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In season three, Carmy and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade. A Michelin star with Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White,

Iowa Debris, and Mattie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27th, only on Disney Plus. The first thing he did once he got out was have breakfast with his family at IHOP. And he was finally free, not from from prison but obviously from the guilt of carrying around the secret. Now of course Trevelle isn't the only person who's important in this story and I think it's important for me to point this out. As it turns out John Henkel had a family this included his siblings his step siblings and they were by and large unhappy with almost every

development in this narrative, starting with Trevel's confession. One of John's stepbrothers told a reporter, it was years and years and years ago. And finally, we're not always thinking about it. And now it finally has to be dug up all over again. His family literally says, after all this time, we feel like Trevel should have just shut up. Like they're like why dig this up and and give us this pain. And that's why it's so hard with these because there is two sides right? Right. When we talk about change and everything I mean there's this there's two sides to everything and I'm sure in their minds they're thinking as

weird as it is it was selfish of you to go try to find peace. To go try to find peace after we're left with this for the rest of our lives. And now re-hurting. And now re-hurting. It's exactly the thing. The idea being that it's well and good for Travell

to find peace and personal growth, but it shouldn't come at the expense of other people who are hurting. Yeah. He confessed, and he unburdened his conscience. But when he did that, he ripped a bandaid off for people who loved John and had tried to move on. Which is why we just, as a society,

we don't murder people. We don't kill people. There's so much more to killing someone than just killing someone. There's family involved, friends, so much around. Right. And needless to say, they were also unhappy to see that Trevelle got clemency. In fact, John's family gave statements to the police saying it wasn't fair for Trevelle's sentence to even be so short

in the first place. They objected to his clemency application. John's brother actually gave an interview where he said, it is one thing to seek clemency for drugs, it's another to seek clemency for murder. Yeah. It must have been tough to the whole family to see this man confess, reopen old wounds, claim he wanted to turn himself in and do his time, and then not even finish his sentence. They went through the wringer so many times while they tried to process their loss and grief. Interestingly, there's one other person who has been very outspoken and opposed to how everything went down and that was Trevelle's wife.

You'll remember that when he first confessed the crime to her, she told him to just let it go, not go to police. And she's very, she's been very consistent on this stance. While Trevelle was in prison, she had to raise her children on her own. The dad was now gone, there was no help from him. And she'd complained to him repeatedly that by going and trying to take this guilt off himself, he left his family down, he let her down.

She's like, you now left your kids without a father for me to raise on my own, just so that you could find some peace for something that no one was even asking you about. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm understanding all these. I get it. Every side. It's hard, yeah, every side.

So I'm gonna end this episode by going back to the question that opened it. How can you tell if someone has really changed? But rather than try and answer it, I'm going to throw another question out here. Does it matter if the person has changed? If their path to growth and self-improvement means harming their victims again and again, that's also worth thinking about too. The question of what's fair and what's just is very complicated.

And even seemingly heartwarming stories like Travell's, where it's like, dude, this guy turned his life around. He went in, he confessed for something he did when he was stupid and 18 years old and just trying to make money. But then there's the other side of it. Like you took someone's life and that family is now re-wounded by you coming in and doing this and was wounded the first time around when they didn't have answers.

And like, this is why Garrett's answering the question by saying, just stop murdering people. Yeah. What are your thoughts? First of all, horrible that someone is killed. Anytime someone is killed, our thoughts and prayers and hearts and everything goes out to the family because no one deserves to die like that's that is the bottom line of every single case we do

no matter what surrounding it nobody deserves to die if we're talking about reformation I think people like Travell are the perfect example of someone who can be reformed. Got it. Okay. I think someone whose life situations were against them. Yeah. They ran with the wrong crowd. They literally would have had to work a hundred times harder than the rest of us to dig themselves out of their life situation. Yep.

And then they do something stupid at that young age, but as they get older, they try to change and they do dig themselves out. I do think those people can be reformed, but it also doesn't take away the fact that you murdered somebody. I don't think just because someone can be reformed doesn't take away the pain that they've caused. And this is what's so hard, right?

Because- What's fair. What's fair. What's fair. And you hear about this all the time, people who suffer- Just because someone can be changed in reform, should they be let out of prison?

Should they be allowed to enjoy their life because they took somebody else's life? Right. Like, what's fair? It's hard. I think John's family had a good point about, it's one thing to ask for clemency for a drug charge. Oh, I was back then.

Yes. You know, I've changed. I robbed a bank, I robbed some stores, but I never killed anybody. Yes, like I think, okay, well, that I can understand being like- There's a difference. Listen. I have reformed.

I have been changed. I'm a different person and I would like a chance at life But it's really hard to look your victims family in the face and say I would like a chance at life when your family Member is dead because of me and I think you're right. I think that is a perfect example of someone who can be reformed But I would dare say that's earlier when I was talking about it. I said 98% or whatever I would say it's less than 5 I was talking about it, I said 98% or whatever. I would say it's less than 5% of people that are actually like that.

You don't hear that very often. And maybe because we just don't hear enough of it. Maybe there are more cases. But I think the amount of people that can actually be reformed is very, very low. Maybe there's more statistics and stats out there about it that I'm not aware of. I think I just gosh I'm I don't know I just don't know if we're talking from like a serial

killer standpoint or someone who kills their family or like all a lot of the cases we've done I am zero percent chance they can be reformed like zero when we're talking about cases like this gang violence and situational, an inner city is situational, I do think there is a higher percentage of people that can be reformed. Right because they started unfair. Yeah, they started in a completely different life than I have ever lived, that anyone has ever lived doesn't make it okay. No, it never will, but if we're just talking from a straight reformed stance, I do think a certain percentage of them can.

I don't know what that percentage is, but I think it's possible. Yeah, I think any minority or someone who grew up in a very tough situation, a very tough life. You don't know any difference, right? It's not that they, I mean, they obviously know between right and wrong. True, yeah.

So you do know that between right and wrong. But if part of their Way, you're surviving day to day is by joining in with people or hanging out with people who are doing bad things Oh, it's such a hard. It's just hard. It's it's so hard I I also don't have the knowledge to speak on it a hundred percent, but those are my thoughts. That's my opinion That's kind of where I stand. Yeah, and I don't think like I said I feel like don't kill people yeah I don't kill people we would not be in this situation and we wouldn't have this problem if people just wouldn't kill people right don't kill people

everyone knows right from wrong about killing yeah if you kill someone you deserve to be punished and that's that don't kill people, right? And we have to trust that this all came from Travell's mouth So we have to trust that he's telling the truth about this ate me up for years I haven't been like also we don't know if he actually went to go grab the gun We don't know any of this right it came from his mouth. We have no idea, right? Yeah All right, you guys that was our episode this week and I know it was a little bit of a different case. I know that we kind of talked more about the psychological side and I hope you guys enjoyed that

deep dive. But yeah we will see you next time with another episode. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.