Last time on ear witness.

We knew the reward was offered because it was all over the papers, but we didn't know who got it or if I let Ellison got it.

She was a very credible witness.

We believed her.

Obviously, we believed her because we convicted him, and it was on her testimony.

When I showed up at her house, she said I didn't get a reward.

I was like, oh, well, that's funny.

I was like, well, I have some paperwork here that says you got a reward.

We got an email that said we found these documents, they had been misfiled, and here they are.

Does that sound strange to you or do you have any idea how that could have.

Happened AG's office?

If they said he got misfiled, then I guess it got misfiled human error.

I guess I don't know.

Do you think that your impression of her would have been different had you known she was being paid five thousand dollars?

I definitely believe we would have as a jury talked about that, like, how credible is this testimony?

She's being paid for it?

Like I had never been in trouble a day in my life ever before the end, I'm going to jail.

And I've never been to jail to day in my life ever, ever, ever, never had got any trouble anything.

I'm sitting on the couch in a tiny one bedroom apartment in Birmingham.

It's warm outside.

The door is open to let in a breeze.

I'm talking with Marika Wilson, who's telling me and my producer Mara about a defining experience of her life, being charged with attempted murder in nineteen ninety seven when she was twenty years old, a crime she did not commit.

The crime happened late at night when one woman and two men tried to rob a man in Birmingham.

They broke into his house and shot him.

He almost died.

Marika was accused of being the woman who participated in the crime, but she says she wasn't there.

It was someone else.

Albu and tatno plead.

They offered me twenty two years of my life for something that I didn't even do, and I said no.

I fought to the bitter end.

A jury found Marika not guilty, but the ordeal left life long scars.

It has still just bothered me all these years about what I went through you know what I'm saying.

Every time I applied for a job, even though I was a quitty I couldn't get a job, a decent job to take care of my kids.

I lost my place.

I didn't have a shirt to put on my back.

Then I lost custody of my kids.

Behind that.

I was up against our type of odds in that situation, something that I didn't even do.

But she, she did not that woman stick it up there and say she's seen me.

The woman Marika is referring to is the witness who testified against her, a neighbor of the victim, who said she'd seen the crime unfold from her living room window at two am.

She told the jury she saw Marika and two other people break down the victim's door and assault him.

The woman's name Violet Ellison.

So do you remember Violet Ellison.

I remember her getting up there saying she's seen me through the window.

She was wrong, she was wrong, Yes, ma'am, it wasn't me.

They discredited her at my trial.

They made her in the corribor.

I remember her like she just got up there and pointing at me.

Marika's attorneys showed the jury that Violet Ellison's view from her living room window was blocked by a tree.

There was no possible way she could have seen Marika or anyone else on her neighbor's porch.

So she was a big part of the case against.

You, and she.

Lied under oath, literally literally lied under oath.

Violet Ellison testified against Marika less than four months after she served as the star witness against to Forrest Johnson.

Their trials happened in the same year, in the same courthouse, prosecuted by the same DA's office.

In both cases, Violet Ellison knew the victim, spoke to detectives, and became a lead witness.

Mara and I find ourselves in Marika Wilson's living room a few weeks after I made a lucky discovery in Alabama's database of online court records.

One afternoon, I'm sitting in my office poking around in the database.

It's a clunky website with all these different drop down menus.

I'm running searches on Violet Ellison's name, trying her name in a bunch of different ways, getting the same results.

When all of a sudden, I hit enter and boop, a new list pops up criminal cases, all naming Violet Ellison as a state's witness.

So, in addition to t Forest's case, I discover that Violet Ellison has been a witness for the state in four other criminal cases.

Marika Wilson was the first person that we tracked down who Violet Ellison had testified against.

When I first called Marika, I told her about the four other cases Violet was involved in as a witness.

Right, we know of five different criminal cases.

Is these folks convicted because of her?

Several of them?

Yeah?

Oh wow, oh wow, Oh man, y'all need to help them people, because she's not credible.

I said that to my husband about that woman.

I said, baby, he said, this woman don't been involved in several cases, Like is she on a payroll or something?

It just sounds like something crooked going on with me, because how does she keep popping up in all these serious cases and being witnesses?

Like that's so, that don't sound right.

I'm sorry, it doesn't.

Wow, and new boy and there grow because of this lady.

Oh wow, it's something going on with that, y'all.

In order to believe and to forrest Johnson's conviction, you have to believe that Violet Ellison was truthful when she said that she overheard to Forrest talk about killing Deputy Hardy, that she wasn't after the reward money because she didn't know about it.

You have to believe that Violet Ellison is credible.

So we need to know everything we can about Violet Ellison because without her, without her credibility, there is no case against to Forrest Johnson.

I'm Beth Shelburne.

This is ear witness, Chapter seven MESSI.

In January of twenty twenty two, Mara and I start trying to track down the other people Violet Ellison testified against.

We spend a lot of time in my car full days.

Sometimes I pack mom snacks, healthy stuff like hummus and baby carrots, raw almonds, maybe a diet doctor pepper on a hard day.

Marika was the first person we were able to find.

The second case that listed Violet Ellison as a witness was a second degree assault between two men who got in a fight.

The case ended in a plea deal, so she never actually testified.

We weren't able to figure out exactly why she was listed as a witness.

We tried very hard to talk to the man charged in the case, but never could reach him.

And then there was the third case.

It involved a local pastor named Bishop James Johnson, who was accused of inappropriately touching and kissing three teenaged girls at his church run school in nineteen ninety three.

Violet Ellison was a school employee who testified about the alleged abuse, but Bishop Johnson maintained he was falsely accused and that Violet Ellison was lying.

The charges against him were eventually dropped by the state.

We talked to Bishop Johnson, who's now in his late eighties, at his house in a suburb of Birmingham, and he told us Violet Ellison made up the accusations in an effort to get rid of him because she wanted to run the school.

Yes, she was called my church.

She was.

We talked to one other school employee who corroborated what Bishop Johnson told us that Violet Ellison made up the allegations.

I tried to find some of the alleged victims in this case, but I wasn't able to track them down.

Bishop Johnson said he's forgiven Violet Ellison.

That's over, Thank God for over.

I have nothing Mahall against her.

I forgave her every Ladhams told I'm free.

But he said she is not a trustworthy person.

I don't trust her.

She's not a personal trust.

George Holloway is the next person on our list of people that Violet Ellison testified against.

What we know from court records is this.

Between two thousand and eight and twenty sixteen, George Holloway was charged in several domestic violence incidents involving his girlfriend.

But unlike Marika Wilson and Bishop James Johnson, George Holloway pleaded guilty to his charges, which included violating a protective order twice.

He was sentenced to three years in prison.

The documents don't show why Violet Ellison was a witness against George Holloway.

So Mara and I get in the car and drive around for hours, knocking on doors with a list of possible home addresses with no luck.

I need to turn around.

Finally, we pull up to the last address on our list around Sunset, a small brick house in Bessemer.

We're here.

You know, it's always a gamble, but we'll just give it a whirl.

At the same time, a truck stops at the top of the house's driveway.

Can you are we blocking you?

And out hops a man wearing grass stained work clothes and a neon green shirt.

Are you going to this house we're looking for mister George Holloway.

Is that you?

That's okay, George.

I'm sorry to show up here like this.

We are journalists and we are working on a story about a case.

And I launch into a spiel about what we're up to, and George Holloway listens quietly as we stand next to his mailbox.

And so we're trying to get information on her.

Her name, Violet Ellison.

Do you know her?

Do you have an opinion about her?

Or have any any information that you could give us about her.

I know she's very corendicted.

She's I like to be involved in a lot of stuff that doesn't involve her.

She's very She's a very messy lady, very messy.

George Holloway invites us into his living room to talk more about his relationship with Violet Ellison.

She's not a reliable person that you would trust, that you will put your faith in.

And I would tell anybody whatever you have to say, do not say it in front of her, because is going to get turned totally backwards.

Is not gonna be said the way that you said.

My opinion, stay away from that woman because she's troubled.

He tells us that he met Violet Ellison through his ex girlfriend.

It gets a little complicated, but it's like this.

George Holloway used to date a woman we'll call Sharon.

Before she was with George.

Sharon dated Violet Ellison's son, Reginald Smith, who's known as Red.

George tells us that when Sharon broke up with Red, she remained friends with Violet Ellison, but he tells us Violet Ellison wanted Sharon and her son Red to get back together, and she thought George was in the way.

George admits that he and Sharon had a volatile relationship and because of that, Sharon had a protective order against him.

He says that one night he and Sharon had an argument in person, violating the protective order.

George says he left after the argument and Sharon called police, but Violet Ellison later testified that she heard and saw the whole thing firsthand.

She has said that you know she was there, she witnessed it, but she was not there.

She showed up after everything had happened, and the pulviase was there on the scene.

George tells us he decided to plead guilty to breaking Sharon's protective order to wash his hands of the whole situation.

He says he hasn't seen Sharon, Violet Ellison, or her son Read in years.

George admits to physical fights with Sharon, but it seems like his descriptions of these fights minimize the vibe violence.

We know there is another side to the story, but Sharon doesn't respond to our interview requests.

I tell George about Violet Ellison's involvement into Forrest Johnson's conviction and the five thousand dollars reward she was paid in secret.

She would do anything possible that she can if money is involved, even go to this extent to lie.

But he says Violet Ellison has an even stronger motivation than money.

Her son read.

She would do anything possible, anything and go to any extent to keep us so out of trouble.

Multiple sources tell me that Red is a longtime drug user, and court records show that he's been in and out of jail.

George says that Violet Ellison enabled her son.

She would cover up for him, whether he was right of whether he was wrong.

You know, she knew he was doing things out there in the street.

But you know, if the police come, she would lie and say he's not there.

You know, she would give police's informations leading to drug buses, people that did robberies, and favor for them to drop charges against Reginal, get the charges downgraded, you know, to keep him from going to jail.

I leave the interview with George Holloway wondering could Red's legal issues have motivated Violet Ellison to get involved with police?

Was she after leniency for her son.

A search of public court records shows that Red has a lengthy list of misdemeanor and felony convictions on his record going back to nineteen eighty But I checked with the Alabama Department of Corrections and they have no record of him ever serving time in prison.

This tracks with what one of Violet Ellison's neighbors told me that Red is often in trouble, but he's like teflon, nothing sticks.

For example, in nineteen ninety seven, Red was charged with robbery and theft when he stole five watches from a department store.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but then the judge amended read sentence and granted him probation instead of prison time.

But there's no information about why his sentence was downgraded.

And this happened less than a month before the start of to Forrest's second trial.

That timing gets my attention.

I wonder if it's possible that Violet Ellison testified into Forrest's case in exchange for preferential treatment for her son, But on further examination, that seems like a long shot.

The charges against Red in nineteen ninety seven were in Bessemer, not Jefferson County, where to Forest was tried, with different prosecutors and judges.

But I do know that Violet Ellison was involved in her son's criminal defense.

In a two thousand and seven burglary case.

Records show that Red's attorney met with the defendant and his mother for three hours in two separate meetings.

Red pleaded guilty in that case and got probation.

Is read getting preferential treatment because his mother has been a witness for the state in multiple cases.

I find no documentation to support this.

But then again, are deals like that ever spelled out in court records?

While looking through Red's files, I notice an especially violent assault and battery from nineteen ninety four.

He was sentenced to supervised probation.

I was able to dig up a report of the incident in which police sate Read spits on a woman, grabs her by the neck and hair, and pulls her around a room.

A child is listed as a witness.

The victim's name is Anita Davis, and her most likely addresses are all in central Georgia.

So Mara and I get back in the car and make the four hour drive to try to find her.

Hi, we're looking for Anita Davis.

She passed away.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Are you her daughter?

My name is Beth.

This is Maa.

We are writers and we're working on a story about the wrongful conviction, and we're reaching out to people that may know the great witness.

Her name is Violet Ellison.

Oh, I know who's my grandma?

Oh?

Okay, so Violet Ellison is your grandmother?

Okay do you?

Unexpectedly we find ourselves talking to Violet Ellison's granddaughter.

Tyse Davis is in her fifties but doesn't look a day over forty.

When I mentioned her grandmother, Violet Ellison, Tyise comes out from behind the screen door.

She keeps her earbuds in while we stand on the porch and talk.

What kind of grandmother was she?

Was she involved in your life?

No?

No, she told my day, Yo, kids ain't an never mountain there.

But then we're the kids that's been successful.

And now she's trying to come back around.

Yeah, so there's not like warm feelings.

Yeah.

So far, most of the people I've contacted about Violet Ellison had good reason to say negative things about her.

Those were people who she testified against.

But this feels different.

We're hearing from a blood relative, a person connected to Violet Ellison through family.

Tyist tells us she's retired from the Air Force.

She moved to Georgia with her mom, Anita Davis, and her two brothers when they were kids.

Tyis says it was to get away from the chaos surrounding her father's side of the family.

We asked her about Red, what's the deal with Red?

Her son?

Uh So that's my dad.

Okay, I really know how to do him because he's been on drugs since I was.

Nine, eight or nine, Okay.

He stayed with her, So you know you had a parents where you know, you know your child doing stuff, but you uphold it first.

Is letting them know you wrong.

Yeah, she upholds everything you did.

That's exactly.

Tys corroborates the picture already painted by George Holloway and a neighbor of Violet Ellison, telling us that she readily involves herself and other people's criminal issues, but does whatever she can to protect her sl read when he gets into trouble.

You don't need neighborhood to watch with her.

But she only if she only noticed what she wanted notice, because if her son was breaking into somebody house but steriously she didn't see that, but anything else she would see.

So yeah, that type of stuff.

We explained why we're interested in Violet Ellison and her son, and Tys tells us she had recently heard about her grandmother's involvement into Forrest Johnson's case.

So I wasn't surprised when I heard it because if it involved money, I wouldn't be surprised.

Well, and it did.

I mean she was paid five thousand dollars.

Yeah, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Like when I heard the story, I was like, Yeah, I'm not surprised at all.

She's money homer.

So that's the issue that would like I said, will say anything to get money.

Why is she like that any idea?

No, even like I said, growing up, I had nothing to do with them.

For instance, I'm gonna give you an example.

Ty East tells us that Violet Ellison was distant when she was a child, but then right after Tyst joined the Air Force, she got a call from her grandmother.

Haven't done nothing for me, her gray child, haven't done nothing for me.

When I joined the military, she said, hey, I need your Social Security number so I can get insurance by this on you just in case you know, something happened to.

You and we can bury you.

I'm fine with the military, got me covered and.

That stuff and go to my mom.

So why you need my social But you ain't never decide to do that before.

So stuff like that.

But I'm not surprised with the money thing, and I hate that this man could be innocent and for five thousand dollars he's on did he for five thousand dollars?

But she testified under oath that she did not know about the reward.

She didn't know that any money was involved.

So exactly, my brother said, she ain't testified against nentheless is money involved.

All of a sudden, we realize that Tyss has earbuds in because she's on the phone with someone.

It's her brother Tony.

Oh, okay, is he here?

Yeah?

Do you think he would talk to us?

Would it be possible for us to come see him too?

You're fine with that tone?

Okay, you would just have.

To keep.

Violet.

Ellison's grandson, Tony lives about ten minutes away from his sister Tye.

We get to his house and the front yard is filled with cars in various states of repair.

He's waiting for us on the porch.

Hello, Hi, how are you are you?

Tony?

After he finishes extracting an old bird's nest from the rafters, Tony talks to us us for forty minutes.

I can tell you one thing about my grandma.

She is a that's a true scam artist.

That's the truth.

I hate to see it.

I know that's my grandmother, but that's a true scam audi deal any way she can get a dollar telling you She ain't that type that's just gonna help him out, just to help them.

It gotta have money, it got it.

Gotta have money involved.

Wow, it just had it.

It gotta have You ain't got money involved.

Tony says his grandmother tried to scam him out of five hundred dollars by claiming that he owed her for a loan.

Mara tells Tony about how the state presented Violet Ellison to forrest Johnson's trial, and that she says she didn't know about the reward when she testified.

He doesn't believe that getting you.

Being like she's concerned about stuff, But really she ain't concern She's just trying to get your business, trying to see a way she can get some money.

Oh reward for this I'll find, hopefully, but I'll she lied too much like my dad lied too much like she She alive by anything to get away with anything.

So he goes on to describe the relationship Violet Ellison has with her son Red, who is also Tony's father.

They like Bonnie and Clyde, I should arrive on him the whole time.

She could see with her own eyes with this man.

Indeed, and she and she'd be like, no, ain't see ain't see ye.

She always doing like this.

She'd be like this and it was new like.

Tony then tells us the story about the assault and battery case that led us here, filling in details that are missing from the court files.

He says, when he was little, Red was on drugs and would hit Tony's mom.

One night, Tony, wanting to protect her, stabbed Red.

That was when I was young, a child.

I stabbed him.

Wow, I really did I stab him.

I stabed him in his cab.

Most of them stuff, ohala, And you know who the first person that pulled up Vie.

She the third first pull it up, and he didn't.

They didn't.

They told the police a lie.

They tried to put it like somebody he got in a fight with somebody and all his stuff for the wait.

So Violet lied to the police.

She always lied for the police to try to give him out of trouble.

But she tried to put it like I was gonna get in trouble to stab him.

I didn't care.

I was little.

I didn't care what y'all would do to a child.

I'm just proteking my mama, y know.

According to Tony.

Even when he was little, he saw Violet Ellison lie to police to protect her son, Red, but Red was arrested for this incident and sentenced to sixty days probation.

And it was after this Tyis and Tony's mother, Anita, decided to move the family to Georgia.

Like his sister Tyse, Tony was also troubled to recently hear about his grandmother's involvement into Forrest Johnson's conviction and death sence I.

Go through that, I really hate that being and ice to the point it's a chance he can lose his life or fire outluncam on.

I'm not typically comfortable reporting negative opinions about a private citizen, but Violet Ellison's word is the case against Forrest Johnson.

In order to figure out how an innocent person ended up on death row, there was no way around investigating the star witness and whether or not she's credible.

I had that conversation with Violet Ellison on her front porch a year before I talked with Tys and Tony, But after hearing from her grandchildren, I went back and knocked on Violet Ellison's door again multiple times.

Hi we're looking for miss Violet Ellison.

I wanted to learn more about her relationship with her son Read and her involvement in other cases.

Each time I knocked, the woman inside claimed Violet Ellison wasn't at home.

I even left a note in her mailbox along with my business card, but Violet Ellison never responded.

Miss Ellison, is that you.

I wasn't able to find documented proof of all of the allegations that sources made against Violet Ellison.

For example, there's no paper trail that shows she lied to protect her son Read.

But there's also no ironclad proof that Violet Ellison heard to Forrest Johnson talk about killing Deputy Hardy in nineteen ninety five.

The state presented her testimony with no verification of what she claimed, no recording of the calls she evesdropped on, nothing outside her word and the notes she turned over to police that connected to Forrest Johnson to a murder he maintains to this day that he did not commit.

Prosecutors presented Violet Ellison as a concerned mother troubled by her conscience, and she was adamant that she didn't know about the reward when she testified but through my reporting, consistent negative descriptions kept coming up about her, even from her own grandchildren.

One former co worker called her sneaky, a relative referred to her as a peace breaker.

Almost every person we talked to said Violet Ellison should not be trusted.

We spoke to over a dozen different people about Violet Ellison.

The consistent portrait that emerged from these conversations is diametrically opposed to the characterization presented by prosecutors at trial and what judges still believe as to Forrest tries to undo his conviction.

I also learned that Violet Ellison was in a precarious financial position, burdened by medical debt.

She lives in a community plagued by violence and poverty.

Her son suffers from addiction.

She's estranged from some of her immediate family.

She seems to seize a p opportunities where she can.

One of those was created by the state when they offered money for information about a police officer's murder.

Fifteen years before I began looking into Violet Ellison, there was someone else who had questions about her credibility.

Jeff Wallace, the prosecutor who stood in front of a jury and threw Deputy Hardy's hat onto the courtroom floor.

Jeff Waugh spent four years of his life prosecuting this case, trying to put Rodregis Ford into Forest Johnson on death row.

He successfully put to force Johnson on death row.

I mean four years of his professional life he devoted to this.

Jeff Wallace reached out to ty Alper and the rest of the Forest's legal team to share what was on his mind.

And today he says that to Forrest Johnson deserves a new trial.

Twenty years later he's saying, I think it should be undone.

I mean that to me takes courage that most lawyers don't have.

That's next time.

Ear Witness is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.

Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis, and me Beth Shelburn.

The investigative reporting for this series was done by Me and MARAA McNamara.

Producers are MARAA McNamara, Hannah Bial and Jackie Polly.

Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer.

Britt Spangler is our sound designer.

Additional story editing from Marie Sutton, fact check help from Catherine Newhan, and special thanks to to Forrest Johnson's legal defense team.

You can follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.

To see behind the scenes content from our investigation, visit lava for goood dot com slash ear Witness