#560 Jason Flom with Vanessa Gathers
Wrongful Conviction
Lava for Good Podcasts
4.4 • 5.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1998, Vanessa Gathers was wrongfully convicted of robbing and beating 71-year-old Michael Shaw to death. There was no physical evidence linking Vanessa to the crime, and her conviction was based on a false confession extracted from her by notorious New York police detective Louis Scarcella, whose tactics led to the wrongful convictions of more than a dozen people. She is joined by her attorney Lisa Cahill in this episode.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective. |
| 0:06.0 | I was naive enough to believe that I would be able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence |
| 0:13.0 | that they would investigate adequately and so that I wouldn't be going to prison because I was a good person, I hadn't done anything wrong. |
| 0:19.0 | In the back of your mind you say, well, when we go to a hearing or we go to court, the truth |
| 0:24.0 | will come out. |
| 0:24.9 | The prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected |
| 0:30.5 | from the lower courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. |
| 0:35.7 | You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really in that moment unchecked authority. |
| 0:44.2 | Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them on TV, because it may just be a dirty DA |
| 0:50.3 | that is trying to rise upward. |
| 0:58.0 | This that is trying to rise upward. This is wrongful conviction. This is wrongful conviction. |
| 1:01.0 | Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. |
| 1:13.5 | Today I have two very special guests, and you'll learn more about that shortly. |
| 1:18.0 | But first I'm going to introduce them. |
| 1:19.8 | Vanessa Gathers is our star today. |
| 1:22.8 | Just months after the Crown Heights riots back in 1991, Gathers was called in for questioning, |
| 1:29.3 | for robbery, and the beating of an elderly man inside of his Crown Heights apartment. |
| 1:34.3 | The victim fell into a coma, then died. |
| 1:37.3 | The case was classified a homicide. |
| 1:40.3 | That's when controversial former NYPD detective, Louis Scarcella, took over the case. |
| 1:46.6 | Five years later, Scarsela re-interviewed Gathers and said she made a full confession. |
| 1:53.2 | Gathers was convicted on that confession alone. |
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