The attorney who wants to rep Lee for a mere dollar has a pretty impressive resume.

A glance at her website tells you she has overturned more wrongful convictions than any other private attorney in America.

Not only that, she was becoming something of a household name.

The prior year she had been the star lawyer and a hit Netflix true crime thriller, so she was kind of a big deal.

Lee, too, is feeling like a big deal.

Since signing on with the attorney, he's been getting some real love.

They give what feels like pep talks.

It's terrible what this system is done to you.

They tell them, we're here for you.

They say they know Lee's case top to bottom, and their plan is to bring Detective Zuli down and bring Lee home.

But then Lee starts complaining to Robert that his calls are going unanswered.

At first, it's nothing major, but then days in the weeks past, and suddenly Lee feels a lot of his calls are going unanswered.

It's like they're ghosting it.

He's bewildered and humiliated.

Here's the thing about prison.

No one can call you.

You have to call them, and only during certain times and in Pontiac Prison Lee's home in twenty sixteen.

The phone booths are outside, so come rain or shine, if you wanted to call someone, you could be out in the elements waiting on the end of the phone line.

And get this, even if you didn't get through, you'd have to stay out there until the allotted time was up.

A few months in, after no show had Lee waiting outside on a cold and snowy February night, Robert got pissed, really pissed.

Sure this hot shot attorney had eight rep sure she'd gotten another of Detective Zuli's victims exonerated eighteen months earlier.

None of that excused her treatment of a sixty year old man who had been in prison now for twenty eight years.

He does some digging talks to some of the other Zuli victims who are also being represented by her.

They claim that they're getting the run around too.

Robert hates lawyers.

He thinks they're a creepy, self interested bunch, but realistically they're gonna need one if his friendly ever hopes to walk free.

Now he's got some money saved, maybe it's time to pay another lawyer.

He remembers Lee talking about an attorney called Jennifer Blag said her card had been floating around the prison system for years.

She wasn't cheap, but word was she was good.

Fuck it.

He's tired, tired of waiting, tired of being patient.

Lee and Robert take a major risk.

They fire the hot shot.

Your services are no longer required.

Then they pick up the phone and dial Miss Black.

From iHeart Podcasts.

I'm Dax Steblin Ross and this is Crying Wolf, Episode three, A whole New World.

Here's the first thing you need to know about Jennifer Black.

To meet her is to meet her boys.

Archie, get out there, sorry, Archie.

Come on.

When she invites me to her home, a classic Chicago too flat with bay windows and a porch and Edgewater, a quiet, tree lined family neighborhood, she tells me to wait on the sidewalk a few doors down and then pretend to bump into her.

Come on, buddy, come on, Yeah.

It's weird.

The instructions are strict.

I am not to say hello to the dogs, make a fuss, or even make eye contact, and then we are to walk up the steps together to the porch so we can cross the threshold into the house in Unison.

So what will do now?

We'll just walk back into the house.

It all feels like some absurd sting operation, but in order to keep the peace between the pups, Jennifer says, it's absolutely necessary.

When we finally sit down, over some freshly brewed coffee and a selection of pastries from the Hippos Bakery in town, Jennifer gives me the backstory.

These weren't just any dogs.

They were rescue dogs, totally on brand for Jennifer and with the work she does.

So Dex' said's Archie.

Archie.

Archie is a prison dog.

I got him from a program in Arkansas called Pauls for Prisoners.

So Archie's from Tucker Max, Right, Buddy, you came from Joker Max, and you proved later in life that you would cut a bitch right.

Twenty five years in Chicago have not made a dent on Jennifer's Arkansas twang, and she explains Archie as a habit of brutally attacking her other dog, Jojo.

You cut but.

Yeah, Jojo.

And then I have one other dog named Joey or Jojo.

We call him.

JoJo's on the couch panting, being very anxious.

He's an anxious guy with good reason.

Jojo regularly gets his ass handed to him by Archie, especially when visitors like me show up at the house.

Jennifer had to do something.

To go to behaviorists and get therapy, which was amazing.

The solution our little sham sting operation.

Took a lot out of me and everybody who was around the dogs.

But Archie is maybe my favorite, so I like getting rid of him would have been cutting out my heart.

That's the thing about Jennifer.

Once she cares, she will not give up, no matter the cost.

Dogged determination you might call it.

I couldn't help myself, But as bad as my pun was, it's truly a quality that defines her as a lawyer too, something she's brought to all of her criminal defense work over the years, whether a trial or appeal, or, as in Lee's case, after all direct appeals have been exhausted, or what's technically called post conviction.

That determination also lives in a crowded, shotgun narrow home office.

So we are here.

Tell me about tell me about this all.

It's a mess.

It's a mess.

It's a big mess.

It's just a mess.

There's papers everywhere.

She has a point, and personally I feel a little claustrophobic just standing in the doorway.

But it also has the cozy charm of a woman who is both very good and very dedicated to her job.

Each client has a shelf of lever arch files.

Most of them are wrongful convictions, people who have been in prison for years awaiting justice.

But there's also a police officer up there too, another story, another time.

Like me, she's a fan of the colorful post.

It notes that bear chicken scratch details only she can decipher.

Amongst it all a sprawl of houseplants that echo their caretaker's quiet rebelliousness.

Weave about the room's crap everywhere.

Stuff I should be mailing, stuff I should be reading, people I should be writing.

There's even a little statue.

My friend got me.

Ah, the ultimate Greek myth, a poor guy condemned by the gods to push a massive boulder up a hill for eternity.

Yeah, because that's my.

Life, Jennifer, I can relate.

Why don't you just take all of this to an office down the block?

Wait, are you channeling my girlfriend?

Did she put you up to this?

Because that's what she says, as much lighthearted fun as this all is, don't be fooled behind Jennifer's folks, see temperament.

There's method and system.

You don't last a quarter century and try hundreds of cases in the city as ruthless as Chicago without both.

The fact is Jennifer has never thrown away a piece of paper from a case she's worked on, and the calling card she's most proud of.

If you write her a letter.

You know, I write everybody back.

It is my practice.

So you can imagine if you've ever been a prisoner in need of a lawyer who won't leave your ass literally freezing in February, finding out about Jennifer Blagg would feel like a godsend.

That's how Lee ended up with my card is when I would write people back, I would add two or three business cards to every letter that I sent.

Hopefully you know it would get passed around.

That's right.

That was my business acumen on full display.

So that's how we end up here.

In twenty sixteen, Lee and Robert, fresh off firing the soul called kick Ass Lawyer, an old business card fish from a back pocket, and the two men about to risk a second chance on Miss Black.

But after fifteen years of letdowns, Robert isn't leaving anything to chance.

This time.

He's taking the driver's seat on negotiations.

He asks Jennifer to call him, and sure enough, that same day, it's.

Around five o'clock or so, I get a phone call.

Jennifer's outside walker as usual.

She's taking the boys out for their constitutional on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Two birds with one stone total.

Jennifer.

I remember our first conversation, and I basically just explain, Hey, I was in prison with this guy.

He didn't do it.

There's a cop.

And when he name drops the well known lawyer wanting to rep leave for a dollar.

I could just hear.

I could just hear in her voice, or in a gasp or breath or something.

A hint of competition, perhaps, Miss Black.

I could tell you that there was something there.

So I'm like, Okay.

Now Robert knows he's got our attention.

It's time to play the big one, the animal card.

He knows Jennifer as a dog lover, and wouldn't you know he's someone who loves and rescues animals too.

Those two things.

The challenge of winning a case, and this guy that rescues animals and that's trying to help an inimate out or over immediately.

Well, it's enough to at least secure a meeting in person.

So he gathers all the paperwork he has, locks up his farm off the dirt road in Del Rio, and flies to Chicago to meet Jennifer.

Her office overlooks charming little coffee shops and purveyors of fine antiques, but the overall feel is pretty corporate.

She doesn't waste time or money on warm and fuzzy furnishings.

And I sat in a chair across from Jennifer and watched her read.

And I just just sat there and watched her read, and I was like, my inner dialogue was going, I'm so happy she's reading.

God, I hope this doesn't take forever.

And every now and then Jennifer would go oh and called somebody's name and oh, I didn't realize I didn't know this, and it became kind of exciting.

I'm like, she's absorbing this.

She already knows about the case.

There's no doubt she's gonna jump right into.

Jennifer, meanwhile, is also sizing up this unusual person sitting in her office.

Robert is intense, right, So one of the things that I thought is, like, this is an intense guy, and it's such an insane story, right that this Jewish guy from the northern Suburbs went to jail, befriended this guy in prison, made a promise to him that he would help him, kept promise, continued to keep the promise, had managed to get a high profile lawyer on the case.

And just how dedicated Robert was.

It was an amazing story of friendship.

Jennifer is warming to Robert.

And to top it off, Robert hands heard the article about Detective Richard Zulei potentially linking him not only to other wrongful convictions in Chicago, but to alleged coerce confessions by the military in Guantanamo Bay.

This is fucking crazy.

That's crazy.

That was it like, it made it fasten and there were quite a few people who it had happened to.

So there was a lot of intrigue.

Intrigue indeed, but more importantly, did you think she could get Lee out of jail?

You know, a big problem with the case is Lee had made statements implicating himself and it was pretty clear that he was interested in receiving the award, which was a downside.

So there was a lot to strategically think about how to handle the case.

While Jennifer's legal mind ran the risk assessment who gutted its own calculation.

Some cases I have hope.

Other cases, I'm like, there's no way in hell we're ever winning this.

This was a case where I had hope, so I knew it was just a matter of finding the right thing, convincing the right person.

Finding enough evidence against Detective Zuli.

Getting the right judge, whatever it is.

It was a case that we had enough evidence after over a period of time, to know that we had hope of winning.

The four letter word.

Rob was dying to hear.

Surely it's time for a celibratory drink.

All right, let's get out of here.

I mean, what are we going to do here?

There's a vibrant Irish pub, conveniently located right below Jennifer's office.

We went downstairs to the Lady Gregory.

We had a great conversation.

The Lady Gregory, named for the legendary Irish playwright, the perfect place to hatch a plan.

As they are chatting, maybe the drinks are going to his head, but Robert takes the chance for final charm offensive to seal the deal.

I learned about her.

I didn't know she was in a relationship.

I didn't know her preferences.

I'm drinking with her, flirting with her, talking her.

Okay, So he doesn't totally read the room, but Jennifer takes the compliment nonetheless, and Robert well, he ends up being pretty taken with Jennifer.

And I had a great time.

I mean I really did.

I'm like, this is probably where the coolest people I've ever met.

That night, when Robert reports back to.

Lee, thank you, producing Kira, you may start the conversation.

Now, what's going on?

Lee?

How are you?

I?

I'll get it look cold.

The tone is a bit more cool and collected.

I think I've got her figured out pretty much.

She's like, why animal Rescuer pro everyone's rights?

Then, you know, stick it to the man.

Stick it to the man.

That's the kind of person we that's that's what we need.

All my feeing the kind of person.

Indeed, the duel are sold on black and so Robert gets back on a call with Jennifer and after some negotiations, retains her for five thousand dollars to be paid in installments.

Team Freely had just acquired its closer.

If Jenner was going to get her head around Lee's case, she was going to need to go right back to nineteen eighty nine, to when Dana Feitler was murdered, and to Lee's original trial in nineteen ninety two.

So I'm going through it electronically, file by file by file by file, looking at everything.

Robert had arranged for all of the original case files the discovery to be sent to Jennifer, and there was a bunch of it, over five thousand pages.

Jennifer marshalled her arsenal of organizing powers and locked in.

And I would put extensions on everything I had looked at to describe what it was, you know, GPR, General Progress Reports, supplementary, you know, something age show.

I had read it because there were so many files.

But even as she was untangling the knots of information, one thing was becoming clear.

Lee's original trial lawyers from back in nineteen ninety two had done a damn.

Good job, and I was like, oh my god, he had these like two amazing attorneys.

And then you read through the record and the job they did, you know, like it was just the best lawgering I have read in any post conviction.

They really went to bat and did it incredible work.

But if they did that and they still lost, what did that mean for Jennifer?

She was going to need another gear to beat incredible and hope to win.

That meant finding a new angle, and it was going to take a lot of research and a lot of time.

Robert is not the kind for sitting still and waiting, especially for lawyers.

So while Jennifer gets going, he's thinking up new ways to get Lee's story out there.

His first bright idea, what else the Internet?

This is twenty sixteen Internet.

We're talking pre COVID, pre order anything and have it in an hour, pre TikTok.

And back then, if you wanted to get people fired up about a cause, there was this tool still clinging to relevance, not yet left out of the building.

On line petition.

Robert gets to work on a freelyhairs page on change dot org.

He wants to pressure the state to re examine the case.

And guess what happens.

The signatures start rolling in in their thousands, and they're tens of thousands, finally something meaty to inspire those disinterested journalists.

You may start the conversation.

Now, Hey, what's up with you?

How are you?

I'm world with your gl I'm doing good.

I'm doing good.

On Wednesday, I shipped out the petition with fifty eight thousand or fifty seven thousand signatures or whatever.

I printed them all out.

I made five copies of it.

I mean it was over a thousand pages of signatures.

I shipped one to WLS, fact, I shipped one to CDs, I shipped one to MDC, WGN in NBC.

Wow.

So see, song's gonna ACP and Thung's gotta.

Give and the interest keeps coming.

And the other thing is your petition.

It probably has sixty thousand signatures right now.

Started going viral again yesterday It's got about They got about two thousand signatures in the last forty eight hours.

Wow, that's good.

The viral response opens Robert's eyes.

He quickly expands the emerging freely digital movement with what else a Facebook page.

He cannot wait to tell his friend about it.

The Facebook thing is going great, by the way, I've tapped into the greatest community for you.

People are supporting you now like you wouldn't believe.

I just didn't find the right advocates, but now I have.

Every day I get on there, man, you've got fifty fifty likes, forty shares.

I mean, people are just throwing your story out all over the place.

I'm trying to hit every avenue I can.

You know, Robert's learning something new and he's making making sure that his friend feels like he's part of it.

What if the difference and likes and that all the work?

Okay, okay, So basically when somebody actually likes it, you can tell when somebody stopped and actually glanced, they're acknowledging they it's basically an acknowledgment.

Forty people have looked at it and said they like that.

I really appreciate everything they're doing.

Oh, kick up the good fight.

It feel pretty contact you want to do?

Get exactly, well, thank you for using.

The caller has hung up.

You have to wonder exactly what's going through Lee's head hearing all this.

A man that had gone to prison in nineteen eighty nine, pre Internet, whose life evolved around letters, phone calls, and stolen snippets of TV.

Now the star of Not One but two digital worlds spanning multiple continents.

You may start the conversation.

Now, I'm telling you the world's become amazingly.

I've never seen none of that.

Yeah, able to do that too.

Yeah, yeah, that's the spirit.

But this is still twenty sixteen Internet, y'all.

And even twenty sixteen Internet had land mines make noise like Robert was and one finds you.

Can I tell you about the weirdo who fit me up kitchen?

Yeah you told me about him?

Yeah, you told me.

Yeah, he feto.

And it's not just Lee getting a crash course in every flavor the Internet has to offer.

Tell me about the weirdo.

Oh shoot, I'm glad, he asked.

So this guy, this guy will sends some crazy messages to me, he said, I heard that you called me a schizophrenic.

It's sixty year old Lee, suddenly reeling his younger friend in making him remember that the internet's no safer than a street corner.

Hey, did I call him a schizophrenic when we were talking on the phone last time?

Did I know?

Not that I know of?

Are you sure?

Because I almost feel like I did, maybe exactly.

But the messages that he shot me our disgrusting messages.

It's hard to imagine Robert would waste his time engaging with internet weirdos today, but it's twenty sixteen.

So yeah, you know, I said, I'm a message right back, and and you know I even wrote something on of his page, you know, and he liked it or whatever.

You know.

So it's like, I want to mean, retain a relationship.

We need as many friends as we can get.

But that that was, that was just goofy man.

That that dam there, adam me to be honest again.

As the Internet's promise of salvation is losing its shine, Robert refocuses back to Jennifer's progress.

You know, our message her on Friday, she said, I'm not working the day comes parade.

Wow about that?

That's that's just uh, that was that was just a.

Main Robert and Lee are beginning to question if Jennifer really is their closer.

I got the show frustration.

No, it's okay.

You can not be real if you're frustrated, you're frustrated.

It is what it is.

It's a lot of things that's going on that I don't understand and I haven't heard.

That's another being the popper because I haven't heard what word from.

I mean, if I know you want to come home, man, and I want you to do the same thing.

And that's what we're doing.

This this ship is these wheels are so slow.

Yeah, well and and and and I'm right there with you.

I'm the frustration.

I mean, I'm beyond frustrated.

October will be twenty the twenty eighth years.

I know, I know, I I looked it up.

Twenty eight years in counting.

Robert decides it's time to wrap it up.

He starts calling a lot.

This is when the Jennifer who is not to be trifled with, introduces herself.

So I know she's working hard and learning everything she can.

And every time I think I'm smart and you can add my two stuffs to the shoes, she has a bitch slapping me and make me realize that.

I thank god, I'm not over.

You.

Don't do you like that?

In her own way, you know, in her own way she goes.

The magic of their friendship comes alive in these moments, Lee listening, really listening, then offering a perspective that widens his younger friend's frame.

You know what, No, that's the fan of a good lawyer.

Don't promise you nothing, don't let you speak one way.

Steak even killed.

Yeah, you know that's.

What the good lawyers do.

The walker the lorri Will starts, Man, I can do look, and I can do that, and I can do look, don't little one, you have to look out for.

Okay, take careful, all right, we'll do take care of find o.

Thank you.

Producing.

The caller has hung up.

Back with Jennifer in her office, She's batting off constant calls from concerned family and friends, something she's gotten used to in her line of work.

Usually, I try to say, I understand, you know, I'm only one person.

I can only work generally, speaking on one case at a time.

And I've developed this new thing I say, which I believe to be the truth, is you can win slowly or lose quickly.

And so if you want to uh did I say that right, win slowly lose quickly?

Yep?

I did.

If you want to lose quickly, I can throw some shit together and file it.

But Robert Chatler was just that bit extra.

Over time, he started feeling impatient, you know, and be like, oh, le, he's going to die in there, and what do you know, what are we going to do?

And I'm worried.

I'm like, like, I'm not worried about it, you know.

So sometimes I'm understanding and some times I'm like, hi're somebody.

Else, And that should have put a stop to it.

But there was one thing that Jennifer didn't anticipate.

All that paperwork from Lee's trial that she was meticulously going through, Robert had a copy.

I didn't know that they were going to give him a copy of the discovery, so technically that wasn't okay, right.

I would have never okay giving him a copy of this discovery.

It was supposed to be just given to me.

But he paid for it, so they gave him a copy and me a copy, which I did not realize at first.

Someone else might have let the files sit on the hard drive, not Robert.

Remember he's the proactive type.

Robert had been doing his reading, thousands of pages worth every single night before he went to bed.

Thank you for using a Kia.

You may stop the conversation.

Now, Hey, how are you hey?

I've had news to give you for almost a week, my friend, Oh really, yeah, are you sitting down?

I'll put down.

I've read all five thousand pages.

I've gone through every single bit of it.

And in amongst the haystack, Robert had found one hell of a needle.

When I came across this thing, nothing else seemed to matter.

Robert had found an interview with the man that Lee was supposed to have confessed to, the man whose testimony had sealed Lee's fate as guilty of murdering Dana Fightler.

I mean he says it, He says that, he admits it, He admits everything, and I think that is the key to your freedom.

Crime Wolf is an iHeart and Clockwork Films podcast in associate with Chalk and Blade.

I'm your host Dax Devlin Ross.

The series producer is Sarah Stolart's.

The senior producer is Laura Hyde.

The serious script is written by me and by Sarah Stolart's.

Bonus episodes are written and produced by me Dax Devlin Ross.

Our executive producers are Christina Everett for iHeart Podcasts, Naomi Harvey and Jamie Cohen for Clockwork Films, and Ruth Barnes and Jason Phipps for Chalk and Blade.

Sound design is by Kenny Koziak and George dre being Hicks.

Our theme music is by Kenny Koziak.

Additional production support from Stephen Pate