Carlton Gary's Final Interview: 11Alive Phone Call from Death Row, March 14, 2018 (Part 2)

Name: Carlton Gary's Final Interview: 11Alive Phone Call from Death Row, March 14, 2018 (Part 2)
Uploaded: 2018-03-15T00:00:00Z
Duration: 22 min 34 s
Description: The day before his execution, Carlton Gary told 11Alive's Jessica Noll by phone that he did not rape or kill the Columbus women, attacked the identification evidence, and spoke of his faith and his wife.

The day before his execution, Carlton Gary told 11Alive's Jessica Noll by phone that he did not rape or kill the Columbus women, attacked the identification evidence, and spoke of his faith and his wife.

Subject: Carlton Gary
Recorded: March 14, 2018
Runtime: 22:34

Content warning: Concerns the rape and murder of elderly women in Columbus, Georgia, in 1977 and 1978, and includes discussion of a rape survivor's statements with some sexual detail; no graphic description of the murders.

The Interview

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, the day before his scheduled execution, Carlton Gary spoke by telephone from death row with Jessica Noll of 11Alive (WXIA-TV) in Atlanta. 11Alive reported that the call came in on a speakerphone at the public library in Griffin, Georgia; Gary's wife, Debra, is also heard briefly at the reporters' end of the call. 11Alive posted the audio the next day as two phone calls. This is the second part, 22 minutes long. In it Noll asks Gary directly whether he raped or killed the women he was convicted of murdering, and he answers that he did not. Gary does most of the talking.

Historical Context

Between 1977 and 1978 a series of elderly women were attacked in their homes in Columbus, Georgia; most were raped and strangled, several with stockings, and the killer became known as the "Stocking Strangler". Gary was arrested in May 1984, after escaping from a South Carolina prison the year before. In August 1986 a Muscogee County jury convicted him of the murders, rapes and burglaries of Florence Scheible, Martha Thurmond and Kathleen Woodruff, and he was sentenced to death. Other Columbus killings were attributed to him but never tried. DNA testing from 2009 onward was disputed: it was reported to link him to one of the other Columbus murders, but not to match in the Thurmond case or in the rape of the surviving witness who identified him at trial. His execution was stayed in 2009; a new date was set for 2018, clemency was denied, and he was executed by lethal injection at Jackson on March 15, 2018.

Circumstances of the Interview

Gary spoke on a prison telephone in the last hours before his execution, while appeals and a clemency application were still pending. The call was interrupted more than once: the line drops briefly, and Gary twice says he has another call waiting. The part ends with Noll inviting him to call back and saying she will stay and talk with his wife.

What the Interview Covers

Gary begins with complaints about prison conditions. Asked whether he raped the women, he says, "Absolutely not"; asked whether he had any knowledge of or involvement in the murders, he says, "Absolutely nothing", and describes the statement attributed to him as "not recorded, not signed, not initialed". Most of this part is his attack on the eyewitness evidence: he says the surviving witness who identified him at trial was led by prosecutors and police, that her account changed after hypnosis interviews and later visits from investigators, and that her identification came years later and across race. He names the prosecutor and investigators he blames and calls the trial judge a racist. Asked about Columbus in the 1970s, he speaks of segregated neighborhoods and of officials belonging to the whites-only Big Eddy Club. He says he never denied being a robber and does not apologise for it, though he calls robbery wrong. He closes by speaking of his faith, of his wife's support, and of his thanks for people's prayers.

What Makes the Recording Significant

This is Gary's own statement of his innocence case, in detail and in his own words, recorded about a day before he was executed. His direct denials to Noll were reported by 11Alive at the time.

Archival Importance

With Part 1, this is the interview 11Alive reported as Gary's last, given hours before his execution. The recording preserves how he presented his case at the end: the confession, the eyewitness identification and the conduct of the trial.

Important Caveats

Everything Gary says about his innocence, about the evidence and witnesses, and about the prosecutors, police and judge is his claim. A jury convicted him of three murders, the convictions were upheld on appeal, and he was executed. This part continues a single telephone interview begun in Part 1 and should be read with it.

Carlton Gary: Like I said, you know, they looted all my property, you know.

Jessica Noll: Yeah, right.

Carlton Gary: They're so slick.

Jessica Noll: They are slick.

Carlton Gary: Oh, they're slick. You know, I was just going to [unclear: "have an idea"]. You know, I know a lot of public doesn't care about people in prison, but that's why they keep having a lot of these problems out there, 'cause nobody's trying to correct that. So people get out of here, they're angry. They're very mad.

Jessica Noll: Mhm.

Carlton Gary: And you should see it down here. It just, I mean, you understand you're in prison. It's not a hotel or a resort, but the stuff they do, you don't have to do this. You know what I mean?

Jessica Noll: Yeah, you're still human.

Carlton Gary: Well, I mean, we went without heat for years over here. I mean, [unclear: "cool prison, you know, eating out there and much got done"]. Eating just a bunch of crap. Stuff that you should do, they don't do. Soon as they took their hands off, the federal [unclear: "jailers"] took their hands off of it, they went back to [unclear: "prison in the days"]. You know, you can do your job, keep people here and all of that's cool, but the above and beyond stuff is just ridiculous. And public don't care, you know, that's not true until it hit home. Then they're like, "Oh, Lord."

Debra: Yeah, the [unclear: "civilians and ladies"] are terrible.

Carlton Gary: But, um...

Speaker Not Identified: One sec for your question.

Carlton Gary: Huh?

Jessica Noll: Okay, we're good.

Carlton Gary: Okay. All right. You got a question for [unclear: "somebody"]?

Jessica Noll: Yep, I'm going to ask you some more questions. Um, and I'm going to ask you a couple that are just kind of point-blank, and it's because, you know, [unclear: "weirdly" / probably "we already"] know your answer, um, based on everything you've already said, but I want to ask the questions.

Carlton Gary: Sure.

Jessica Noll: Um, you know, you're, uh, on death row right now for the rape and murder of three women.

Carlton Gary: Right.

Jessica Noll: And you're known as the Columbus Stocking Strangler.

Carlton Gary: That's what I'm told.

Jessica Noll: Did you rape those women?

Carlton Gary: Absolutely not.

Jessica Noll: Did you kill those women?

Carlton Gary: Absolutely [inaudible].

Jessica Noll: Did you have any knowledge or anything to do with their murders?

Carlton Gary: Absolutely nothing. This is a story that they told.

Jessica Noll: Okay, and...

Carlton Gary: Not recorded, not signed, not initialed by anybody, which is why it's [unclear: "allowable"; possibly "not allowable"]. There's been many cases reversed on that, where they have that.

Jessica Noll: What are your thoughts on the witness who didn't, was not able to identify you until seven years later?

Carlton Gary: Uh, do you mean this woman? There was two. Which one? There was two. You mean... You talking about (name withheld) and (name withheld)? (name withheld) and (name withheld).

Jessica Noll: The one who told police initially that she couldn't identify you because it was dark in the room, and then seven years later was the one...

Carlton Gary: Ms. (name withheld)?

Jessica Noll: Yeah, who testified.

Carlton Gary: What I feel about that is sorrow. My wife and I have talked about this long before you guys come on the scene, and I've offered to lawyers and everybody: that is, you want to talk about an injustice, [unclear: "to"], this is the way, uh, Bill Smith and those people down there, those demons, did that woman. They made that woman lie, because if you look at, I just finished, hypnosis, uh, interviews she had, too. She give, as you know, many, many different reports, including many different, uh, composites, that none match me and all of that stuff. And you won't see anything about her being choked, or anything about anything, hand around her throat or any stocking. But you read this report where Bill Smith, Ricky Boren and Doug Pullen went to that woman's house later years, that's when she changed her story.

Carlton Gary: Again, don't listen to Carlton Gary, just get the proof of it. I have a record. They have a record of [unclear: "hypnotism" / "his material"]. [unclear: "Jack Ford" / "Jack Martin"] and all of them have a record. They clearly asked her repeatedly, "Did anything else happen?" "No." "Was there any other kind of sex?" "No." Then in court, she tried to change it to anal sex, but [unclear: "Pullen and the doctor stated" / "we put the doctor's name and said"] there was none of that. And then they said, "This is when she changed her story." When they got there, she said, "Yeah, he tried to put a stocking around my throat." But look at the reports and see, and that's exactly what they said.

Carlton Gary: As everything else I'm offered, I don't ask anybody to believe me at all. I'm just amazed that people hadn't gotten these documents. I know you guys said y'all tried to get some of these documents, but we have a lot of them, and they say exactly what I'm telling you. She gave them many different statements. The room was dark. The person went from the top of the lamp, which they measured that. They measured the person was [unclear: "5 by 5, 4, 5, 6" / "about 5, 4, 5, 6"]. She went from complexion to she could not identify the person, and then she could. And if you read these, the hypnotist stuff, she was talking about, I charted how many times she said this: he was a nice-looking guy. Here you are being beat and raped, and you're thinking about how nice-looking the rapist on you.

Carlton Gary: Now, what does that sound like? But I was so upset because they did that poor woman wrong. That woman did not know what was going on. She did not have a clue as to what happened. And when you saw me on TV surrounded by, again, all of these Caucasian police, but they got rid of all of the African Americans, so I'm surrounded by them, and they identified me, as you just said, as the so-called [unclear: "Southside Strangler" / "Sandra Strangler"]. She still waited 27 more days before she reported this. The end of the story was that she said immediately, but it was 27 days later. So in the report it's asked the question, "Well, why did you not go?" She said, "Well, I thought that somebody from their department would contact me."

Carlton Gary: Now, who is it that see that person on TV? That's the first thing you're going to do. You're going to scream bloody murder, somebody, you're going to call the police: "That's him." And so, and when you ask [unclear: "Theo Smith" / "him"] about that identification, when you ask him about (name withheld) identification later, when you ask him about (name withheld) so-called identification years later: you first saw me, you was frightened. You was so afraid, me and another guy, who allegedly. You told the person you was with you was so afraid, you did not call the police. You went home. You allegedly saw this person a little while later in the vicinity. You still afraid. You did not call the police. (name withheld), you changed your story. Everything about that. In a few seconds your story changed. You glimpsed this person.

Carlton Gary: And it's no secret about it. I mean, it's a cliche a lot of people use: all Black people look alike. But court cases clearly say, U.S. Supreme Court on down clearly say, that's one of the most wrongful identification. Not only eyewitness identification, in the Georgia Supreme Court in several cases up there, but also U.S. Supreme Court, within a little bit of time. Eight years, you talking about almost eight years later, and a cross-race identification.

Jessica Noll: Do you feel like Ms. (name withheld) was kind of the police's Hail Mary, since the DNA and everything was kind of falling apart for them?

Carlton Gary: Absolutely, no doubt. The story changed, against, [unclear: "against the father"]. You see, their story changed. When they saw this thing was going the other way, their story changed. They said, "Well, if he didn't do it, he was present." Why did you change your story? It also changed from "If he's guilty of one, he's guilty of all." Well, if he's not guilty of one, does that mean he's not guilty of all? Well, why doesn't it work both ways? Of course they did that to that lady. That's the worst thing that could have happened. They just abused that woman, and then she would be locked up for that, honestly. And I'm not just saying, you, that I, you might say that's my wife, but she's not just going to agree with no anything, I promise you that. And I told [unclear: "Rodney" / "Lordy's"] that as well, and other people.

Carlton Gary: That's what bothered me the most, 'cause they used that poor woman. Probably didn't know what she was talking about. But you get the reports, which I have, you know, this should have been earlier, and you could have had the report yourself. You would have saw that, "Okay, it is," these officers talked to her. She didn't say anything about nobody trying to choke her. Nothing. Oh, but here, when the DA go, when the assistant DA go, when the, one of the detectives that arrested him go, the story changes.

Carlton Gary: Wow. And let us not forget these Black women that was raped and beat before, when [unclear: name] and these people, when [unclear: name] and the other police went, I got a paper here. This guy, this lady, (name withheld), is the name of one of the Black females that got raped a few days before Ms. (name withheld). You talking maybe eight, nine days before Ms. (name withheld). And before that, (name withheld), another Black female, got raped. And two more. In court, we asked for those records. Of course, Followill, being the racist [unclear: "heel" / "he is"], and belonging to the same club as Bill Smith and all of them, when they objected, of course he going with them.

Carlton Gary: It got so bad in the courtroom, if you look at the record, I had the whole courtroom laughing, because when the lawyer [unclear: "buttoned him up and asked him something else, a question"], I would suddenly say, "Denied," and the courtroom burst out laughing, because that's how ridiculous it was. That he was denying all of this stuff when the court cases clearly say I had a right to funds. I had a right to these experts, and this fool was going to say, "Well, here, you got a right to it, but we not going to pay for it." Well, you know I'm poor.

Jessica Noll: I want to, um, ask you, um, because you've said more than once you're not pulling the race card in this, but, but I do want you to take me back to what Columbus was like in the 1970s and '80s, uh, around the times, you know, that, that these women were getting killed, and then when you were getting, um, arrested for it.

Carlton Gary: Well, I mean, you know, I can get back to Columbus in the late '70s, um, but further than that, you know, when I was a child, my wife and I, we were isolated from that. We had our own neighborhoods. We had our own cleaners, we had our own grocery stores, we had our own schools. So we didn't have any of that. That stuff didn't affect me at all. Although people had spread stories about that, but we weren't affected by that. We had our own everything, and we were content. It's just when the white people came to the neighborhood a few years later, they were sicking dogs on people. This is a known fact. You know, so it is not a race card, it's just a fact. How would it be a race card? But every one of these people belong to the Big Eddy Club.

Jessica Noll: Right.

Carlton Gary: Several of them belong to the country club. They just started putting Black people in there when they got exposed. They want to call [unclear: "Calvin Smalley" / "Kevin Smirey"] or somebody to have them rejoin. These people down there, after all, the Black people didn't even know them people existed. So when I got in the '70s, it was not a problem with me, because, you know, I carried my own and I wasn't mingling with these people. I was on television. You know, I was modeling. I was selling clothes. I was doing these things. So it wasn't a problem with me. I never had a problem with white folks. I had male and female white friends.

Carlton Gary: The police went behind my back and talked to every female, almost, that I was associated with, to see if I was gay, to see what kind of kinky sexual habits I had. Lo and behold, nobody, they couldn't come up with anything. So that story changed. Then they looked at the age range of the females that I was with. That didn't fit that. I fit none of the profile, and according to the so-called experts, serial killers kill within their race. I'm a long way from Caucasian, I think.

Speaker Not Identified: What?

Carlton Gary: But so I would not have fit in the '80s. You know, I was there for a minute, but even back in the day it didn't bother us, because it didn't matter what color you were. If you got out of line, disrespected our people or whatever, then we took care of that. Simple as that.

Jessica Noll: Right. Yeah.

Carlton Gary: So it did not affect me.

Jessica Noll: What is the maybe one thing that you want people to know about you, to take away from this conversation, if nothing else? What do you want people to know about Carlton Gary?

Carlton Gary: Well, you know, the only thing I want anybody to know about Carlton Gary is the truth. And, uh, Jack Martin once said it in the paper. You know, he said it to many people before. You know, anybody can be skeptical. Well, you talk to this guy. Talk to him. Look at him. See what you come away [unclear: "is that"]. Is he [unclear: "fighting" / "smiling"]? Is he faking? What you're going to find is that, I don't know that, even with my wife, she'll tell you this, she may not like some of the things. My daughter, all of them, may not like that. But I'm going to tell it to you straight. Like it or not. And that's the one thing that nobody can [unclear: "even, people here, same way"].

Carlton Gary: And a lot of conversation I start with is, even if you may not like this, because I'm telling you the truth. But I'm just going to tell it to you, just like a few minutes ago when I paused on this phone, [unclear: "I had to score on this" / "ain't the square off on this"]. These fools out here. So, you know, I'm talking about this stuff with my life, man. You think I got time to be out here dealing with y'all lunatics? So I just deal straight with that. So the only thing I want them to know is: you got me wrong. The lies and stuff that they were talking about, I don't do that. I don't, I don't do...

Carlton Gary: You're not going to find anybody that say that. If I ran up to, even to the female, there's not a female I run into that I'm going to say, I didn't tell them. I said, "Listen, we're not exclusive. If you were, then I wouldn't have these other females. Just so, are you able to deal with this?" or whatever. My wife already know about all this stuff. So I said, "But are you...?" "Okay, I can handle it." So later, if we decide to have sex or anything, and you find out about another woman, why are you going to get angry? I told you this from the beginning.

Carlton Gary: [unclear: "When I"] met women and people in the street, male and female, if we were going to have any kind of relationship, I would let them know, "Look, I got a record. I've been arrested before." But in all of the robberies that they [unclear: "were committing to me" / "didn't feel tribute to me"; possibly "attributed to me"], with all of this time when I had [unclear: "was blood drawn out" / "which blood brought out"], why didn't I hurt somebody? Did I kidnap a woman? Did I rape a woman? Just look at these cases that happen today, which actually is, and my wife, we were talking about this many times. And it may sound so odd to you, but it is an insult to me when I see these cases today. They're going to shoot these people, kill them, and [unclear: "get you sent to nothing" / "kill them in dissent, nothing"]. Shoot them 'cause they looked at them wrong.

Carlton Gary: You know, [unclear: "like heard the attitude on the wrong things" / "you heard the adage of all them long days"], but I just knew like that. Never did. So, that's the only thing I want to know, like, what's the truth of this guy? What is it? It's just straight. That's all. Because people are going to talk. It doesn't matter how good you are to [people]. They're going to talk about you in here or out there.

Jessica Noll: Right.

Carlton Gary: [It doesn't] matter how... a lot of people might be good to you. Some people don't appreciate it. Some people are not going to appreciate it, in here and outside. So it's the person. But the one thing that I tell people, that I had to tell them, that they said, "You got me wrong." Like medication or whatever. Let me see you out there. I'm not playing no games. You got to ask somebody about me. I don't do that. I don't play no games at all. I'm just straight up.

Jessica Noll: I mean, you never denied being a criminal. You just...

Carlton Gary: No, I still don't. I don't apologize to nobody for any of that. They wrote me one time as a modern-day Robin Hood. And I said, "Well, call it what you want. But you're not giving these people what they should have. Why is the so-called United States of America, why you got all these poor people suffering like this?" Why we got people going through stuff, and babies and stuff, they say, "Why we going through this, while you guys, y'all going to get a $100,000 raise for you, but you want to phase in 10 cent for poor people over [unclear: "25 hours a year" / "25,000"]?" You want to give them 10 cent, but you want to get a $100,000 raise right now for you, and you already got it. So what you worried about health care for? What kind of health care does your mama have? Your wife have? What kind of health care you got? What about these poor people? So why should you care? They put you in office, you don't care. What you care about?

Carlton Gary: So, no, I never apologize for any of the robberies. Any of that stuff I did. Never ever did it, because I didn't do anything. It's wrong to rob, don't misunderstand that. And I tell my wife all the time, I never took no [unclear: "glory out of it" / "blue rub"]. Didn't strut. You know, it wasn't a big deal, anything like that. It was wrong, absolutely. But people never talk about... Well, look, how many jobs did this guy have? You haven't asked it, nobody else asked that. So, wait a minute: did he ever have any legitimate jobs? All we know about is crime. That's all we want to talk about, is crime. But what about the jobs? Yeah, oh, he worked in the bank. He worked in the hospital. He worked here, he worked there. He went to school, he did... Oh, no. Those kind of stories don't sell. They don't sell well. You got to have that sensationalism. And that's just a known fact. So, no, I did my robberies, I did those things, they were done, but I had stopped those activities before this.

Jessica Noll: I wanted to ask you a few questions, um, pertaining to tomorrow. If things don't turn out the way that you're hoping, and, um, the execution is, does happen, um, how, what are your feelings about that?

Carlton Gary: I have no feelings about that, 'cause I don't know...

Jessica Noll: Uh, hold on one second. Hang on. Hang on. You [unclear: "get hit maybe end on another call" / "got hit, maybe end on that other call"] or something?

Carlton Gary: Uh, [unclear: "might end that call" / "my end, that call"].

Jessica Noll: Yeah, might end that one. Yeah, you don't want to do that. Are you on speaker now?

Speaker Not Identified: Hold on. All right, here we go.

Jessica Noll: You're back. Sorry, we lost you on speaker for a second. So I was asking, what are your thoughts on that?

Carlton Gary: I have no thoughts on that because, you know, I trust in God Almighty. You know, I have no thoughts of that. I understand how these courts work and all that stuff, but we don't, we've gone through this before, and we don't think along those lines. You know, I understand the realism that's going on, but I also understand that, according to the good book, that tell me that there was Hebrew boys [unclear: "thrown" / "falling"] into the fire, but they come out. I've heard about seas that's been parted. I've heard about wine, water being turned into wine. I've heard about thousands of people being fed with just a few drops of stuff out of the sky. I've heard about these things, and I've heard of God that's brought me all over here.

Carlton Gary: I got a call from Michael. [unclear: "You don't want to" / "Oh,"] let me get this call, and I'll call y'all back.

Jessica Noll: Oh, y'all got to go, or what? Um, I think I just have maybe one more question. Do you have time for that? How are you going to spend tomorrow?

Carlton Gary: I spend every day, you know, thanking God first thing in the morning, you know, and then thinking about my wife, and just waiting for them to say, "Well, okay, you can go back."

Jessica Noll: Wow. How are you holding it together?

Carlton Gary: [unclear: "I believe in God." / "What do you mean, how?"]

Jessica Noll: Not that, but just, like, we're talking. I don't want to state the obvious, but this is hours from a scheduled execution. How are you holding it together?

Carlton Gary: Well, I mean, I've gone, we've gone through this before, and, you know, we've gone through [unclear: "court things" / "cooler things"] when we didn't know who's going to represent me, what we was going to do, and on the ride down God said, "Don't worry about that. You know, peace, be still. I got you. Take no heed of what you're going to wear, what you're going to say, because I got you there." And just like this, I'm not, I just prepare for it. I read. I know [unclear: "who I'm facing" / "what's facing"] on it, but I do not let it bother me, you know, because I trust in God. I take it to him in prayer.

Carlton Gary: So I stay prayed up. My wife stay prayed up, and that's a great woman, I'm telling you this. Although we've gone through, I've done some things that's not been cool, and, you know, but she's still great, I promise you that. Quite unique, and [unclear: "almost 40 years" / "almost pointy is"], you know, she's still right here with her husband, because you know why? The same thing I just told you. She trusts in the same God. That that God delivered that for her, regardless of anything else, but knowing my words or whatever, and I actually draw from her faith. Even when she's down and feeling bad, she still got that same faith.

Jessica Noll: That's so sweet.

Carlton Gary: That's just the truth.

Jessica Noll: Do you wish she could be there with you?

Carlton Gary: Absolutely.

Debra: I do, too.

Carlton Gary: Hello?

Jessica Noll: Yes. We're here.

Carlton Gary: Okay, listen. Um...

Jessica Noll: Yeah, you have to go.

Carlton Gary: Yeah, I got to take this call from [unclear: "Michael" / "my phone"]. Like I said, I could call y'all back, but if [unclear: "you straight on that"], I just pray that y'all will get this out there in time and let these people know what's going on, and that you will [unclear: "specially" / "consistently"] do this thing, [unclear: "within we don't"], like I said, we got a few hours. So, you know, the public need to do this, 'cause it's [unclear: "stressed" / "strength"] out there like that.

Debra: Right. And you going to call me back later, correct?

Carlton Gary: Yes, dear.

Debra: Okay, then.

Jessica Noll: Is there... Is there anything else that you want to say?

Carlton Gary: Not really. You know, I just appreciate all the people that's standing and people that [unclear: "can see you all this stuff"]. I really appreciate the [unclear: "answers"; possibly "prayers"], you know. Thank God for all the prayers, you know.

Jessica Noll: All right. Well, if you get off your phone call within the next 10 or 15 minutes, feel free to give us a call back. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to talk to Debra for a little bit. So we'll still be here. So feel free to call back.

Carlton Gary: Oh, I can do that.

Jessica Noll: All right.

Debra: All right. Love you.

Carlton Gary: You, too.

Debra: All right. Talk to you in a few. Bye. [22:33 to 22:34: no speech in either machine source; recording ends.] ---