I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the brand new Cold Case Podcast, Zone 7.

We're going to be talking to family members, detectives, prosecutors, and nationally recognized

experts that are in my Zone 7. The group of professionals that I've called on

to help me work hundreds of cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

We are going to solve these cases own air together.

Listen to Zone 7 on the I Heart Radio app, the Apple Podcast app, or wherever you listen to your

favorite podcast.

Crime stories with Nancy Grace.

Hate crimes are a very, very, serious thing. One of the first crimes I ever worked on,

a case I argued all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court, were hate crimes on black gay males

across the city of Atlanta. I'm not talking about Wayne Williams. This is the whole

another set of crimes where young black males that were gay were sex assaulted, raped,

and then shot in the back of the head. That was a very, very difficult case to prove.

No witnesses. We had the caliber of the weapon, did not have any DNA.

Long story short, it was hard, hard fought, and hard fought on appeal, and the conviction held.

So when I hear about someone faking a hate crime, and I think about all those young men dead out

in fields behind buildings and alleys with a bullet in their head, I don't like it.

I want you to listen to this, our cut A from the Today Show.

Even after a Cook County judge sentenced Jesse Smollett to 150 days in jail,

the disgraced actor turned convicted felon, sticking to his story.

If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this

country for over 400 years. The former Empire stars unwavering claim of innocence,

...