Hey intercepted listeners, it's Jeremy. We are really excited to share with you two episodes of the gripping new podcast series from the intercept and topic studios. It's called Murderville, an investigation by intercept reporters Jordan Smith and Liliana Segura. Here is episode one.

Okay, quick. I want you to think back. Think back to 20 years ago. It was 1998, a different world, phones with antennas, cargo pants.

Meaning your friend at the gate at the airport. You've done a lot in the last 20 years. Think about that. Everything you've accomplished. Maybe you finished school or got married or had a baby. Maybe that baby graduated high school and is now in college. 20 years is a long time. A marriage, a career. But 20 years is a whole other experience if you're spending that time in prison.

My depression is about being incarcerated. They really don't. Can't give me appeals for that. And insisting the whole time that you're innocent.

For the matter of what, every time I wake up and it's still, I feel the same way. I cannot suppose to begin.

In 1998, a brutal murder shocked the small southern town of Adel, Georgia. A guy named Devanya Inman was arrested and tried for that murder.

He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

It's his life. It's worse than an old folks home to me. The reason is you're waking up old. You know, it's like it's the most miserable life you can ever possibly go to.

I'd rather be gay to a bomb on the street than be in prison.

We're going to tell you about the murder that sent Inman to prison. We've looked into it. We've spent a lot of time trying to understand what happened.

And we found quite a few problems with the investigation. They're the kinds of problems that can eventually lead to a new trial. Maybe even an exoneration. But that hasn't happened for Devanya Inman.

And that makes Inman sad. It makes him angry. But mostly, he's just really fucking depressed.

I'm there in my son wanting me to, you know, try usually take him riding on a bicycle.

This is Inman talking about the day the murder happened. That day plays on a loop in his mind. He thinks that maybe, if he'd just stayed with his son, none of this would have happened.

But if you look at where he was crying, he was really crying. He was like holding my shirt and whether they'd go, I'm like, you know, I'd come back and talk to you later on. I couldn't get you later on. You would just cry and say, no, no, no.

Inman's son is an adult now. Inman hasn't seen him in 20 years.

Wrongful convictions are tragic, often infuriatingly so. And wrongful conviction stories, we've written a lot of them and they never get any easier because lives are ruined and justice is rarely served.

And there's something else that happens when someone is sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit, especially when that crime is murder.

It means the real killer is still out there and it means the real killer sometimes kills again. And again, and again.

From the intercept, I'm Liliana Siguro and I'm Jordan Smith. Welcome to Murderville, Georgia.

Starting in 1998, a series of brutal, brutal murders ended up with four people dead, two men in jail and one of the craziest stories we've ever reported on from beginning to end.

And the craziest part, even though the state of Georgia has seen the evidence of Devanya Inman's innocence, even though nearly every witness against him has recanted, many going out of their way to tell the state that they lied, none of that seems to matter.

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