Episode 4: Victor (Part II)

"And I think that that, I was, that kind of connection between society, and Beverly on the outside. It was like my eyes, like my hands, like my legs." This is part two of our two-part story about running shoes, a kitchen cabinet, and Victor Rosario - and the crime he didn't commit.

TRANSCRIPT

NARRATOR
This podcast contains explicit language and mature content. It might not be appropriate for all listeners.

VICTOR
Now, we married. Now, she go home and I go back to my cell and that’s the way it is. Now she going to wait for me to get out. And that take 22 years.

NARRATOR
From Boston, Massachusetts, you’re listening to Mass Exoneration. These are the stories of people who were convicted of crimes — crimes they never committed — and what happened next, for them and for the people they had to leave behind.

I’m Brian Pilchik. This is Episode 4: Victor — Part 2. If you haven’t listened to Victor Part 1 yet, go do that first. This will all make a lot more sense.

Today, we pick up where we left off. It was 1993. Victor Rosario was wrongfully in prison for arson and murder. He couldn’t go back, to the children he had long ago abandoned, like his daughter, Maria. And he couldn’t go forward, to a new life with the woman he just married.

Victor and Beverly were newlyweds. But there was no honeymoon for the Rosarios. Victor had been in prison for 11 years, and there was no end in sight.

NARRATOR
Beverly visited her new husband in prison — as often as she could. Two times a week. Three times a week. She drove each way.

BEVERLY
When Victor was at Norfolk it was 25 miles one way, when he was at Bridgewater complex for one year, it was 50 miles one way, so.

At the beginning it was all brand new, and it was just so good. I would travel through snow storms, to get there to find out that they closed visits, and then turn around and have to go home. I did — I didn’t let anything stop me from going on the nights that we had already arranged to.

VICTOR
If Beverly is coming, coming Sunday at 1:00, well, wake up early in the morning, you know, trying to look the best, best. You are the best. The feeling is going. And the 100 degree level, like, you gonna go to the visiting — that’s like gold. That’s like — that’s a moment that is not have description, how do you feel when you know that — that, for that period of time, you are going to get out of that environment, where you are.

NARRATOR
But there were obstacles. Like the dress code.

BEVERLY
There were times when I would wait two hours to get inside, only to have them give me trouble about what I’m wearing. Cause the rules never were consistent. One week you could wear this but you couldn’t wear it the next. And you never knew.

NARRATOR
And if your clothes are wrong, they don’t give you other clothes to borrow. They send you back home.

BEVERLY
25 miles one way, 50 miles one way. So I always traveled with a second outfit in my car. Second pair of shoes, shirt, sweater. Everything. Just in case they said, no, I got it in the car, I’ll be right back. And I’d run out, grab it, and go in the ladies’ room and change. Because you just never knew what was gonna happen. So we were all prepared. And I had extra T-shirts for visitors that came that didn’t have one. And they wore something, they couldn’t get in with, and I said here, wait a minute, I got one in the car, here, take it, keep it, god bless ya. You just did that because you, you never knew. And you didn’t want somebody else to travel so far and miss a visit.

VICTOR
Now you have to wait for officer to call you, and you’re in the cell waiting, waiting for that name to be announced. And then, after you already dressed up, walking from one corner to another in a cell, okay, waiting for, — okay, Victor Rosario have a visit.

BEVERLY
And when they finally did let me back in, they were unusually – they weren’t very nice. They weren’t very nice. Where everybody else just walked through the metal detector, they would have me walk through the middle of it and then put my hands over my head like a ballerina and pirouette, and then continue to walk through. Really strange, bizarre things. Anything they could think of. For an entire calendar year, almost to the date, they just whenever I came in they gave me a hard way to go. They’d make me wait, they’d make me sit down, they’d check my locker, everything, just whatever they could do.

VICTOR
And they take at least 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, 6, maybe 10 minutes to open the door. That’s 10 minutes you’re waiting in there, it’s 10 minutes that you no gonna be with your family. Now is the process of waiting. Now after that you can open the door, and then they give you a pass that you can go to the visiting room.

NARRATOR
But, inside the visiting room, you don’t get to see visitors. Not at first.

VICTOR
Now when you go inside to the visiting room, the first thing that they do is they patting you to see you got anything. They take your clothes, they put you naked, completely naked, right? They take your clothes, checking you, that’s called checking, and they checking you. Stripping. They’re stripping you completely. And then check it out, see if you got anything. And then they send you back. And that’s the process, for us.

That’s the most embarrass. I think that the first time that they did that to me, it was the most — you know when you feel like somebody violated you, that they take away everything, it’s like a, strip you down, basically the whole morals of your life, everything go down, you feel so, how I can say, hopelessness, the hopelessness in your life. You feel like you’re a piece of nothing. You know? Because this officer now, they want you to turn around, to look in your most intimate part of your body. For that, it’s disgusting, it’s no other way that I can describe it. And then after that, you put your clothes on, but you’re still with that in your mind.

NARRATOR
Every visit. Stripping naked for the guards. On the way in. And on the way out. After a while, that started to take a toll. But Victor didn’t want to let it show.

VICTOR
When person is inside the prison system, you living two lives, basically. You living the life inside and you living the life outside. When you go to visiting room, it’s like you put a máscara, like I said, to look beautiful, to look good, that nothing is happening, to not to bring to a visit, to bring all what is going on, the truth of the matter what is going on inside, to bring in to the family.

NARRATOR
It’s worth it, even for just a few hours.

VICTOR
When I see Beverly coming into the visiting room, it was like, I can breathe. I can really breathe. I can feel these two hours, or one hour. I can feel, that I can sit down in the sala, I can sit down in the home. Even that it is for a period of time, it’s a great feeling to have someone to care for you, to be there for you. It’s a — it’s wonderful feelings.

NARRATOR
In between visits, there were phone calls. Victor would stand in line to wait for a phone.

BEVERLY
I didn’t realize what it looked like till Victor described it. But it’s like a pole, a square pole, and there’s a phone on every side of the pole, and so there’s four guys talking at once. So I’m talking and listening to him, and he’s listening to me, but we’re also hearing the other three guys that are also talking, and sometimes yelling. And, you know, demanding sneakers, or more money, or bring my kids. And here we are, trying to have our life, too, in the midst of the other people. And it’s like that, too, in the visiting room, because everyone’s loud. It’s just a very unnatural, unnatural way to live.

NARRATOR
Their most intimate conversations, in front of a crowd of other men. And those men weren’t the only ones listening in. The calls could be listened to, by the guards.

BEVERLY
Oh, absolutely, and recorded, too. And the mail’s all read. All the mail going in is read. You develop sort of a code --

VICTOR
You develop skills. Basically, it’s a language, in the prison system that’s what you learn, you learn how to communicate. Even prisoners, they have their ways to communicate. With Beverly, you know, always I said to her, don’t say those words, don’t say this, don’t say that. Because they can misunderstanding that.

NARRATOR
Coded language. The guards were listening. And on top of it all:

BEVERLY
The phone’s only 20 minutes, and then it cuts, and they have to call back. And if there’s a group of people waiting in line to use the phone, then you go to the end of the line and wait. Unless somebody’s gracious and says, yeah, go ahead call again.

NARRATOR
20 minutes. Sometimes less.

BEVERLY
You can be on the phone and talking for three minutes and then the phone goes dead. They cut you because they didn’t like what they heard, or, maybe there’s a lockdown, or who knows what. And you know, Victor would call back an hour or two later, I’d say what happened, he says I don’t know, the phone just went dead. And you just move on because that’s life. That’s how you deal with it. It’s hard to be understood and to have a relationship on 20 minute phone calls when you’re not in person.

NARRATOR
Short phone calls, and strip searches. It’s a hard way to build a marriage. Especially when you’re not supposed to be in prison at all. But Victor and Beverly couldn’t complain. They couldn’t fight back.

BEVERLY
And I always kept my mouth shut, and I always smiled, and I always did whatever they asked because I knew, and to this day I believe it, that if you give the administration a hard time on the way in, they won’t do anything to you, but when you go, they will take it out on the person you visited.

VICTOR
You know it’s many, many occasions that she and myself have to keep our mouth shut, to not create a situation between the administration and us. That’s the payment for her to be attached to me.

NARRATOR
Victor didn’t create a situation. He played by the rules. Except, deep down, he knew he didn’t belong there. And there’s one word he wouldn’t use. One word he wouldn’t accept.

VICTOR
Words are powerful. One word can get you high, and one word can destroy you. Then when I found out that one word can destroy me, that word was prisoner, I no accepting prison in my body, I no accepting prison in my mind. And I was a free man. I walked inside the prison system as a free man, knowing that one day I gonna be free.

Every time that I go into the church, every time that I go to a school, every time that I go anywhere I go, I walk as a free man. I never accepting the word prisoner in me. Never. Never accepting that. That’s not me. That’s somebody else not me. No, you gonna die in prison. Who gonna die in prison? You? No me. I’m not going to die in prison, are you crazy?

Being in that type of mind, I survived all these years. Knowing that in the middle of chaos, in the middle of adversities, I was able to have maintain my mind and place. That nothing, no adversity can destroy me. Because I can found, in the middle of that adversity, I can found opportunity to arise. And that’s basically what I did all these years.

NARRATOR
Victor found a place in the chaos where he could go inside his mind. Where he could be free. The running track.

VICTOR
I was almost 25 years old.

LISA
So, shortly after you got there?

VICTOR
Yeah.

NARRATOR
That’s Lisa Kavanaugh, one of Victor’s lawyers. She was interviewing Victor here.

LISA
And was there a team, at that time?

VICTOR
Yeah, they call them, in Norfolk, they call them the Norfolk Running Club. And I still have the log, when you running, the training log --

LISA
The times.

VICTOR
Yeah, the time.

NARRATOR
25 years old. The very beginning of his prison sentence. At first, it was hard.

VICTOR
I no was able even to walk one lap. But when I started, I was determined at least to do one lap, then do one mile. And then from one mile, I said okay, I can do two. Then one week it was one mile, and I feel good about it, because it was like my lungs started open up.

NARRATOR
Running wasn’t just about staying in shape.

VICTOR
I think, in the prison, I think it’s freedom. It’s freedom. There’s no other way that I can describe it. It’s the only moment that a person have with himself, where nobody can stop him. If you’re walking in prison, a correctional officer can stop you, he can pat you, he can, even he can lock you up. It’s a moment that you are by yourself, a moment that you can meditate, a moment that you can go into your deepest thought and be able to even to organize your thoughts and thinking something in the future. For me it was everything, everything. Running for me was like, I wanna be free, you know? I wanna be free.

NARRATOR
While Victor struggled to feel free inside the wall, Beverly faced a different type of struggle on the outside.

BEVERLY
It was very hard for me, and I’m being very honest about that, it was very difficult. Because I was walking within two spheres, I was walking within the prison with all of these people that had become his family and were becoming mine, and then my real family that didn’t even want to understand it --

NARRATOR
Didn’t want to understand it. Her choice to marry Victor. To marry a convicted murderer.

BEVERLY
Absolutely, my sister just stopped talking to me. And I only have one sister, so that was a huge piece of my family. She thought I’d made a huge and terrible mistake, was throwing my life away, and couldn’t seem to bring reason to my mind, and just chose to stop talking to me. And it lasted for, I’d say almost 10 years, 9 or 10 years.

NARRATOR
Other people talked behind her back.

BEVERLY
I overheard somebody say to someone else, you know, the person was saying, “She never complains, and her husband’s doing life and she never whines about it or anything.” And I thought that was gracious of the woman to say that. But the other woman said to her, “Well, she knew what she was getting into.” And I thought, whoa, okay.

NARRATOR
And then there were her coworkers.

BEVERLY
I was working for a small non-profit in Brighton at the time, and I just said oh yeah I got married and they were very nice about it, nobody ever asked me where he was, what he did, or anything. And I said, ‘oh, you know, he’s a janitor,’ because that’s what he was doing at Norfolk. I just didn’t say where. And Victor would say, ‘you’re keeping me in a box,’ and I would say I know, I know, I gotta deal with this. I know.

NARRATOR
But Beverly didn’t think people would understand.

BEVERLY
My concern with the people I cared about, my church family, my closest friends, I was concerned that they would think — and you’re gonna laugh, because it’s just so stupid now — that I was one of those crazy women that went to prison to find a husband, like you see on Jerry Springer. Okay you know how he has those crazy women who come in and talk about marrying this guy from a biker gang in prison because they like bad boys. That was not me, but I was — I was just so convinced that everyone would think that was me. And so it was really hard for me at the beginning to even say anything about being, who Victor was, or anything that was going on.

NARRATOR
This wasn’t going to work from prison forever. Victor needed to get out. His lawyers had an idea, for getting Victor a new trial. They went back and took a look at what happened at the first trial. It was the 1980s. And Victor is on trial.

ANDREA
He’s being charged with having set fire to a wooden apartment building that had, I think at the time three stories, and eight people were killed in that fire, five of whom were children; three of whom were adults.

NARRATOR
This is Andrea Petersen. She became one of Victor’s lawyers, eventually, while he was in prison. She wasn’t Victor’s lawyer at trial. That was someone else entirely.

ANDREA
His name was John Campbell.

NARRATOR
And John, the trial lawyer — he had a problem.

ANDREA
I don’t know much about his whole life, but he was a severe alcoholic. And people that I have spoken to, who knew him, all recognized that he was an alcoholic.

NARRATOR
So Victor’s lawyer was an alcoholic. And you might think you know where this is going. But it gets worse.

ANDREA
After he was assigned this case, he had, he was driving, he was so intoxicated that he ran into two "elderly people" as they say, and had them on the hood of his car before somebody screamed at him to stop.

NARRATOR
That’s right. The lawyer hit two people with his car. Neither of the pedestrians survived.

ANDREA
And he was indicted. But he wasn’t taken to trial until after Victor’s case was over.

NARRATOR
So while the lawyer is supposed to be focused on being Victor’s trial attorney, in the back of his mind, he’s worried about his own criminal charges. And after Victor’s trial, the lawyer goes on trial — and he’s found guilty.

ANDREA
Yes, he goes to prison, he’s convicted. Years later the trial attorney admitted that he was too concerned with his own health and legal problems to pay sufficient attention to Victor’s trial.

NARRATOR
Fast-forward to 1994, a year after Victor married Beverly. Victor’s legal team sent a motion to a judge. They argued that Victor didn’t really have a lawyer back in the 80s — not an effective lawyer, anyway. That he needed a new trial. And that motion?... was denied. Strike one.

So they tried a different tactic. One that Victor and Beverly had been waiting for, patiently. When Beverly married Victor, they hoped his release might be just around the corner. Because if they could hold it together for just four years, Victor would be up for parole.

VICTOR
It was four years more. And the process of four years more — okay, okay, this is okay, we can wait. She wait till now, we can wait. We can wait.

NARRATOR
Victor was finally eligible to be released early. After 15 years, it was time to see the parole board.

ANDREA
They’re looking for Victor to say: I have sat here in prison, I’ve gone through all your programs, and I now understand, I really fully totally understand, that what I did was a terrible, terrible thing, and I don’t know how I could ever live it down, but I do know that I’m terribly sorry.

What he actually says is I didn’t do it.

The parole board couldn’t accept that. They said, “He killed eight people, including five children, he takes no responsibility for the crime, he remains a risk to the community. He has never even been below medium security.”

NARRATOR
Parole denied. Strike two. 

Victor needed more help. So Beverly overcame her concerns about what other people might think. She started talking openly about Victor. And she started getting attention.

VICTOR
But also, also you became to be an advocate. In 1997, when I went to parole, you began to be with big signs, coming out, free Victor, and all that. I think that you still have pictures of that.

BEVERLY
Well, there was a march, and I guess they do it every year, and the one particular year I participated in it. They carried coffins through the street, from all the way like Beacon Street by the state house, and around and back up to the statehouse again, protesting all the guys doing life sentences and dying in prison. I don’t remember what year that was. But yeah, I was out there with a sign, and made flyers. I thought - OK, this is my life, I’m going to do it the way it needs to be done, and not be so afraid of what people think. I had to get past that.

NARRATOR
She reached out to her church. Church members started coming to see Victor. They even offered him a job there, if he ever got out. He came up for parole again in 2002. This time, he had more than just his good prison record. He also had the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in his corner. He had the job offer. Letters of support from all the church’s leaders. He wasn’t your typical prisoner.

ANDREA
Oh, on the contrary, he had no disciplinary reports. He had done every single program there was. He had something like 124 people come to his parole hearing, in support of him. Since then, they have limited the number of people who are allowed to come. He had somebody there from Merrill Lynch, who was there talking on behalf of him. He had become a member of the church, the Tremont Temple Baptist Church. He had, I think he had already been given a job at the church, that would be awaiting him when he came out. He was married. He had a wife, with a very important job, who had a house and a steady income. I mean he had every single thing that you could ask for, for a person to be paroled.

Except, he wouldn’t admit to his crime.

They were only interested in whether or not he took responsibility for the crime, which of course he couldn’t do since he hadn’t committed it. The parole board wrote, “Mr. Rosario takes no responsibility for killing eight people. He is an unrepentant killer with no remorse. It is not compatible with the welfare of society to release him at this time.”

NARRATOR
Parole denied. Again. Strike three. And all the hard work that Beverly and Victor had been doing?

ANDREA
“The board notes his community support and institutional behavior.”

NARRATOR
A footnote.

VICTOR
I no allow the situation, or the adversity, to destroy me. Mentally, physically or spiritually, to destroy me. And, I started looking for something better, even the situation I found myself.

BEVERLY
I had the same strong faith, and the same strong belief in his innocence, and in god who is not injust. His time is different than ours, his clock doesn’t tick like ours does, obviously. In my mind, it ticks a lot slower.

NARRATOR
So to stay optimistic, Victor kept running. And he started reaching out to other prisoners, to get them to put on their running shoes too.

VICTOR
When I was 50 years old, I started thinking about what I can do, okay, to motivate the other young people inside the prison system. And, always I have my creative mind. And I said see I can do it, and they all see me.

NARRATOR
50 years old. Victor had been in prison for more than 25 years.

VICTOR
At the age of 50, I started making a go, I said, well, I can run one lap, okay, for every year. And say, well, 50 laps, you know, 50 laps is, for my age, it’s a lot of distance. You know?

NARRATOR
Each lap was a third of a mile. 50 laps? That was just under 17 miles.

VICTOR
And a lot of guys, it was, nah, you not gonna do it. But the moment I opened my mouth, the thing is that when you open your mouth, you have to back it up, okay? And that’s what I did. I started telling the guys, oh, I’m gonna run my birthday, and I gonna run, run my age. Says, that’s 50 lap. I says I will do that. 50 lap. They say you cannot do it, now, it’s a challenge. Because that “you cannot do it” for me is like “yes, I can do it.” And I started. And then, they announce it in the church. Now I see myself more obligated and responsible to do it. But I started at 12 o’clock. And right away when the gun go off, I start running, took my clothes, and, let’s run. And I start running to the 50. And when I get to the 50, already was tired, completely tired, but I finished it.

And in the process of doing that I saw that a lot of guys was getting beside me and encourage me and help me, to move forward another lap. And encourage me. And I saw that the young people, even that they was running, but they was dying at the same time and I was keeping going. And that motivated me, because this is a young guy that is supposed to be more, have more strength than I, and now I just seeing dying, seeing they no wanna go running no more. And that became to be like a legend inside the prison system, now, the prisoners is like, okay, my birthday, I have nothing to do, let me run my age. It began to be like something everybody’s doing that in prison.

NARRATOR
Victor was trying to help make life in prison better for his fellow inmates. And it wasn’t just running. He had bigger ideas.

BEVERLY
What would happen was, we got involved, in 2010 Victor started a ministry, and I helped incorporate it outside the walls, through the Commonwealth. And what it was, was to really help families get together, get back together. It was very basic, very, very basic. But most, a lot of what we did was try to bring people together, the inmate with his or her family, and give them a chance to be together, visit, whatever it took.

NARRATOR
Bringing families to prison, for visits. Like the visits with Beverly that kept Victor going all those years. The other prisoners, they didn’t have someone like Beverly to drive 50 miles. But Victor did. So he called her up.

BEVERLY
So it was those kinds of things that we were doing, while he was inside and people were saying, you know, I need this and I need that, and can you help me with this. And he would say, “Oh, let me see what I can do. Let me see what I can do.” And he’d say, “Beverly, we have to do this. We have to do this.” And so, you know, off I’d go.

VICTOR
And to this day I remember the — she remember the name if I ask, "it’s Newman. Remember Romano Newman."

BEVERLY: Newbo

VICTOR
Newbo. Romano Newbo is from Honduras, he has doing life sentence. And he never see the family. He would die in prison and never see the mother, never see the wife, the children. And that’s where my heart is. It’s like — why we can’t create a bridge that can bring this family in to see the son. He doing a life sentence, but just give him the chance to — at least for one moment to be with the family and be happy, in the place where they are. And I think that that, I was, that kind of connection between society, and Beverly on the outside. It was like my eyes, like my hands, like my legs. The things that I no was able to do outside, Beverly was the person that was moving things out.

NARRATOR
They developed a system. Victor on the inside, Beverly on the outside. Victor called with the name of a new person who needed help. Beverly would write it down:

BEVERLY
And stick it on a post-it on the inside of the cabinet cause he would always say, “And don’t lose this number!” So I never thought about writing it in a notebook or a spreadsheet, I just took the phone number while he was talking to me and I stuck it on the cabinet. And so I would just layer and layer and layer them, and when I needed to look, I’d, you know, rifle up through them and find the number that I was looking for.

NARRATOR
Victor didn’t always understand how much he was asking Beverly to do.

BEVERLY
And Victor would call me and he would say, “This person hasn’t seen her loved one, she’s on the street, he’s inside, she hasn’t seen him in 6 or 7 months. Can you go pick her up and bring her to visit this guy in Norfolk.” And I thought, “Oh, well okay, what’s the address?” And he gives me some street…”Fitchburg.” I said, “Do you know where Fitchburg is?” Nah.

NARRATOR
That’s roughly 50 miles from Beverly’s home in Brighton. And the Norfolk prison; let’s just say it’s not exactly on the way.

BEVERLY
So it was a trip from Brighton to Fitchburg to Norfolk to Fitchburg and back to Brighton on a Sunday. So, you know, she got to visit and that’s what was important. And I just slept fast that night.

VICTOR
I don’t know where it was. But for me, it’s well, "You have a car, you have a license, you have gasoline, you can move." 

BEVERLY: "What’s your problem!"

VICTOR
"You got your legs, you got your mind, you got your hands," I say, "Okay!"

NARRATOR
While Beverly and Victor were building their community and ministry, they found another way to challenge Victor’s conviction. Remember that the police had investigated the fire in Lowell and called it an arson. They thought Victor threw Molotov cocktails into the building to set it on fire. But the arson investigators? It turns out, they were more or less guessing.

ANDREA
In 2006 we were able to find a nationally-recognized fire expert who explained that the fire could not have started the way the police investigators testified. Their theory of arson wasn’t based on reliable science.

NARRATOR
And it wasn’t just the one fire expert. They talked to another. And another. They all said the same thing.

ANDREA
When I was working on this, I finally got a third fire expert to testify, who was the creator of the curriculum for fire investigators for the public fire departments. And he gave me his curriculum, which was called something like “Myths About Fire Investigation.” And the myths were every single one of the pieces of evidence that had been relied upon by these people. Literally every single one.

NARRATOR
The field had evolved. It turns out that the assumptions the original investigators made — they’re not backed up by science.

ANDREA
First of all, they came towards the building, and they said the flames were so high and so hot that it had to be arson. Baloney, it’s just simply not true.

NARRATOR
That turns out to be a myth. Big, hot fires can be started on purpose, but they could start as accidents, too. The clues the original investigators found — they didn’t actually prove anything. Like many forensic disciplines, it’s a bit like reading tea leaves. You could see in them whatever you were hoping to see. And the investigators knew what they were hoping to see.

ANDREA
What’s wrong with the fire science is, a) the fire investigators decided it was arson before they even went into the building. So what the fire investigators came in, they came into the hallway, they found a dark, deep burn mark in the hallway, and before they even went into any other room they said, “That’s the point of origin.” Then, they went from there through the living room, which was totally burned out. Even the fireman said that. In that room was a space heater that was burnt out. They never looked at it, they never commented on it, they went through the room.

Now, at that time, space heaters were commonly used and were a common source of fire. So they went from that burnt-out room into the kitchen, and found another deep char spot by the window, and said, “Aha, point of origin number two: arson.” They didn’t even look upstairs, they didn’t look in the bedroom, they didn’t make a circle around the house to check for any kind of incendiary material. They knew what they were looking for, and they found it.

NARRATOR
And their theory, that the fire was started by throwing three Molotov cocktails? The new fire experts debunked that, too.

ANDREA
The fire experts explained that a Molotov cocktail did not contain enough gasoline to start such a large fire. It was known that if you use a Molotov cocktail, it is nearly inevitable that you will find part of the bottle, like the bottom, which is much thicker, or the neck which is much thicker, or the wick. And they claimed that there were three of these, and they didn’t find anything like that.

NARRATOR
Fire myths. Minds already made up. And no evidence of Molotov cocktails. The case against Victor was, for lack of a better phrase, going up in flames.

ANDREA
When I had this fire science I thought, "Oh, boy, whoopee, home free."

NARRATOR
But there was a problem with getting Victor a new trial.

ANDREA
Fire science alone wouldn’t have done it, because he signed a confession.

NARRATOR
The confession. The one that the police had written and placed in front of Victor to sign? It said he started the fire, with Molotov cocktails and everything. How were they going to disprove that?

ANDREA
I wanted some doctor who was gonna tell me that he wasn’t in his right mind. And then I talked to this one woman psychiatrist, Dr. Judith Edersheim. And that’s when she went through these mountains of material, and came up with a theory that nobody had thought of, that he was on the DTs.

NARRATOR
The DTs?

ANDREA
Oh, delirium tremens. Withdrawal.

NARRATOR
Remember how much alcohol Victor used to drink, before he was arrested?

VICTOR
That’s something that I will never deny, that I was a heavy, heavy, heavy drinker.

NARRATOR
Right after the fire, he saw a priest, vowed to stop drinking. And over the 48 hours that followed, he started going through withdrawal.

VICTOR
I remember that I was looking serpents inside the room, hearing voices inside the room, looking like a devil, faces for me.

ANDREA
One thing that this doctor, or psychiatrist was able to do was to map the decline of his sanity, basically, through the interviews that we had, and compare it to an accepted timetable for alcohol withdrawal. And was able to say it matched perfectly, so that he was at the height of his insanity during the interrogation.

NARRATOR
And that wasn’t all.

ANDREA
They had deprived him of sleep. The interrogation was going on overnight for six hours. It was in English, and he didn’t speak English at the time.

NARRATOR
One of the hardest things for people to understand is why someone would admit to a crime they didn’t commit. But factors like these — sleep deprivation, language confusion, drugs, or alcohol — they can lead people to admit to something that they never did.

Andrea and two other lawyers filed a motion. They argued, among other things, that the fire science had changed, and that Victor didn’t understand what he was signing. They wanted a new trial.

Meanwhile, Victor kept running. In October 2013, Victor became one of three men at Norfolk to complete the full length marathon. His time? 4 hours and 17 minutes.

VICTOR
You have to do 3 laps to do a complete mile. For running the whole marathon, you have to do, for one side, you have to do 30 laps, then turn around again to the other side, and do 30 more, then turn around again and do 16.

NARRATOR
The next month, he got the news. The judge wanted to hold a hearing. Victor was going back to court. It was the first time Victor had set foot in a courthouse since the jury found him guilty and the judge sentenced him to life in prison. In some ways, he had been running a marathon for 32 years.

Victor’s hearing lasted 6 days. The experts talked about how much fire science had changed, the effects of alcohol withdrawal, and how false confessions happen. The lawyers argued that Victor’s case was a perfect storm of injustice.

On July 8, 2014, the judge agreed. Victor’s conviction was overturned. He was entitled to a new trial. Three days later, he was released on bail. Victor walked out of Middlesex Superior Court and into Beverly’s arms.

VICTOR
And I said now, you know, we can go and run! We can run, I want to run the Boston Marathon, that’s my goal, was, even inside the prison system. I want to run the Boston Marathon, I want to run the Boston Marathon, that was always my way of thinking, you know?

NARRATOR
That night, Victor went home. Home to the house that Beverly had bought for them to live in. A house that he had only ever seen in pictures.

A wife. A house. A car.

But it wasn’t happily ever after. The prosecutors appealed the judge’s order. They argued that Victor’s conviction shouldn’t have been overturned. Victor and Beverly would have to live under the uncertainty about who would keep Victor in the end. Free, but not free. Victor could feel it, from the very first day.

VICTOR
From there, when I get home, I think almost 10 o’clock in the nighttime, I started have fear. Because that was the time of lock-in inside the prison system.
​
NARRATOR
Lock-in. In Victor’s mind, he was still in prison.

VICTOR
Lock in mean go close the door and day is over for you, you cannot get out after 10 o’clock, you cannot go anywhere, you have to be in the cell. When as, now I on the outside, it was like a panic, right, I panic.

BEVERLY: Well, you were out in the yard.

VICTOR
Yeah, it began to be a panic in me, say, what am doing here? I started looking for the officers, I started looking for the environment where I was. And now, I started walking around the house, and then I began to be more fear.

NARRATOR
And when he realized he wasn’t in prison, Victor was afraid he would be sent back.

VICTOR
Oh, these people gonna call the police because she never have men in the house, walking — now I walking around the house. Maybe they think I'm gonna steal something or do something wrong. And I walk in, into the house, and I explain to her what was going on, what was happen to me. For many occasions this happened that to me. For many occasion.

NARRATOR
Victor knew he could still go back to prison. And while he waited, he had to report to probation, in person, once a week. He had to wear a GPS tracker on his ankle.

VICTOR
And they wanna put me a monitor, monitor right, in my leg.

BEVERLY: They did, the GPS.

VICTOR
The GPS, they wanna put a monitor in my leg. And it was like, I’m free, but not free.

NARRATOR
The GPS monitor was bulky and awkward. But Victor learned to run with it.

VICTOR
When I start running for the first time, running in the street, I just start running and running and running and running. Because before, I running in the prison system, around and around and around and around. And for, for hours, running and running around. Now, I’m running free. I’m running free. Look at this tree, look at the tree, look at the bottom of the tree, the root of the tree, the leg, the buildings, the people, other runners. You know, it was too much emotions. Too much emotions in one.

NARRATOR
He kept running. All around this new city, Brighton — a place he had never been before.

VICTOR
And I continued to run, and to run, and then I had the cell phone that I don’t know how to use. Just a couple of instructions that Beverly give me about it. I don’t know. I lost, I completely lost. And I continued running. And I finally stopped. And I found myself that I was, I don’t know where I was. I really I don’t know where I was. I try not to panic, I try to stay safe, and I call Beverly. Beverly was working at that time. She was working, and I said, “Honey I just lost, I don’t know where I am. I start running, and running, and running." 

BEVERLY: But there was panic in his voice, there was.

VICTOR
You know? I don’t know where, really, I am.

BEVERLY
And the worst of it was, he was on Longwood Ave, and he was like two blocks from away from Comm Ave, which would have been a marker he understood. So it was like, “Tell me which street signs you see, listen to me, where are you, tell me the street, tell me the building.” And he described the Riverway, I knew exactly where he was. But I couldn’t say, “Go up to St. Paul and take a right,” cause he couldn’t hear me. And it was his frustration and his anxiety all at once. And I’m in my office in Malden. And then he says, “OK,” and hangs up. And doesn’t pick up when I call him back, and now I’m freaking out, because I think, “Oh my poor husband’s lost somewhere in Brookline, doesn’t know where he is. And he’s not picking up his phone.” And he made it home.

NARRATOR
Victor was home. Victor and Beverly started their ministry. And Victor finally got to see what Beverly had been doing, during all those years without him. During all those errands he had her run.

VICTOR
I never realized, you know, the difficulty that was even to say to Beverly, “Beverly do this.” Not even ask, because that was not my way to deal with her. It was, “You need to do this.” Even not realize how much authority there was in that, or realize how demanding it was. Until the time that I arrive home. When I arrive home and I open all this, I even not know what it was.

NARRATOR
He opened the cabinet, inside their kitchen. The one full of the Post-It notes that Beverly had carefully written and saved — for all those years.

VICTOR
And she started explain to me, “This is the phone of so-and-so.” “So-and-so? But so-and-so already dead! What are you doing with the phone of so-and-so?” “Well, you told me to save it!” Then I realized what I was doing, what really I was doing, through the phone. A phone call. Not knowing, not seeing. She never told me what she was going through. She never say anything, just follow instructions. With that I just broke down and recognized what I was doing, and even I asked for forgiveness. Because I really no know what I was doing.

NARRATOR
Beverly wasn’t the only one who Victor went to for forgiveness. Now that he was out, Victor knew that it was time to face his past. He was a father who had long ago abandoned his children. It was time to find his daughter. It was time to find Maria.

VICTOR
One day, after all these years when I get out, one Saturday morning, I wake up in the morning with Maria in my heart, burning so deeply in my heart. It was like, “You need to get it, you need to look for her, you need to look for Maria, Maria.” The only thing I knew about Maria was that the last time that I saw her, she was 5 years old. One time in my life, the only thing I saw Maria, my daughter. And I don’t know where she was, I don’t know nothing about the mother, where the mother was and anything like that. But that burning inside of me, “You have to look for your daughter, look for your daughter.”

NARRATOR
He used the internet. Contacted an online search company. Found a phone number.

VICTOR
And in that moment, I forget about everything, just call the telephone, go and make the phone call. And when I make the phone call, she no respond. I left a voice, a voice, a one of the recording voice, a message in the voice. And the first thing that I say, “I think that I’m related with you, can you please call me on this telephone,” and I just give her my phone. And nothing. Nothing responding. And now I’m getting frustrated because these people gave me my money, I got the phone, nobody’s respond. And I call it again. And this time I said, “If you are Maria Otero, please respond to this — I’m your father.”

MARIA
I always knew that my father would call me, I just didn’t know when.

NARRATOR
This is Maria, Victor’s daughter.

MARIA
In August 12, 2017, at approximately 10:29 with 12 seconds, I received a phone call and it said Boston, MA. It was a voicemail that came through, the voicemail has say “my name is Victor Rosario, I’m looking for Iris Otero.” I couldn’t listen to no more, I dropped the phone on the floor.

VICTOR
Five minutes later, she called me. Oh my god, I started dancing around in the living room, even I went to my knees and floor. Because she told me, “I knew it, I knew that you are my father.”

MARIA
So I called, and when I called said my name is Maria Otero. And he said, “Oh it’s Victor Rosario.” And I said, “I know, father, I know.”

NARRATOR
Victor and Beverly got in a car and headed for the Bronx. That’s where Maria lived.

VICTOR
And she gave me the address. Next day, I went to New York City and in New York City we found each other in the street. She was waiting in the street. Waiting for me. And we give hug to each other and from that day to this day, she’s my baby.

MARIA
So he finally get there, it’s 7 o’clock, and I see him, and I say, “Oh my god.” This man walks like me, well, I walk like him, I walk like him, it’s like looking at myself in the mirror. Everything. I said, “Shit, not only did I meet my father, I also met my twin!”

BEVERLY
And she looks just like him, and she sounds like him, and she’s smart like him.

NARRATOR
And Maria had a son, Prince. Victor got to meet his grandson.

VICTOR
Matter of fact, we play a basketball game together. In New York. I went to New York just to play a basketball game with my grandson.

MARIA
We had to put on a scene and my son, my son said to me, “Ma, you know I’m not gonna let him win.” And I say, “Why not Prince, he’s 60 years old. I mean c’mon now, we already know an athletic. You already know how to play the game.” He says “Nah, this is a battle, I’m not letting him win.”

VICTOR
He beat me up. Bad. Oh, he beat me up bad. I tried to do my best, but he beat me up bad, bad, bad — and he was taking joy in doing it, too, you know?

MARIA
So my son put on a show. But not only did my son put on a show, the grandfather put on a show. Which is my father. Yes my son beat him, really bad, made him run on the court. That was great! My son was able to play with his grandfather.

NARRATOR
Victor ran a lot. He ran a half marathon in Boston. And then a full marathon in New York City.

Then, on September 13, 2017, Victor was once again in court. The prosecutors had lost their appeal, so now they had to choose: put Victor back on trial, or drop the charges once and for all. The hearing lasted two minutes: the prosecutors were dropping the charges.

It was over. And Beverly wasn’t the only one in the courtroom.

VICTOR
But she, basically, was in the court when they announced me that the case was completely dismissed. And basically she was there, waiting for me. That’s the most beautiful moment for me. That’s the most, I think the most beautiful moment for me is to be, with my daughter.

My name is Victor Rosario and for 32 years my name was W39653. I can never forget that number. Today my name is Reverend Victor Rosario and I work in 88 Tremont Street in downtown Boston.

NARRATOR
You can learn more about Victor — and see pictures of him, running races with his lawyer and even some of the other exonerees — at massexoneration.com.

We’ve got more episodes for you. Subscribe; follow us on social media.

Mass Exoneration is produced in collaboration with the New England Innocence Project, fighting to free people in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maine. To help them provide lawyers to people like Victor, visit newenglandinnocence.org.

Mass Exoneration is recorded at the PRX Podcast Garage in Allston, Massachusetts. Their community recording studio provides equipment and training to storytellers, producers, and editors. Thanks to Alex and Ian for all of their support. You can learn more about what they do at podcastgarage.org.

Lisa Kavanaugh is our Executive Director. Jeff Harris composed our theme. Ken Richardson takes our photographs. Betsy DelCiampo created our logo.

Special thanks to Meaghan Sheridan, Tim Clarke, Andrea Peterson, and Ira Gant for their help with this episode.

Our podcast is edited and produced by Nicole Baker and me, Brian Pilchik.

VICTOR
My name is Victor Rosario, and this is Mass Exoneration.

Episode 3: Victor (Part I)

"And it was only my trust in God and myself, that’s the only thing it was." From the streets of Puerto Rico, to the heat of a raging fire, to the sight of the devil himself, this is the story of Victor Rosario - and the crime he didn't commit.​

TRANSCRIPT

NARRATOR
This podcast contains explicit language and mature content. It might not be appropriate for all listeners.

BEVERLY
There were people inside, there were men inside who would come up and say, “You know, he’s really innocent. He’s really innocent. Nobody believes him, but he’s innocent. And we just want you to know that cause you’re his teacher.”

VICTOR
And knowingly in your heart, knowing in your mind that you are an innocent man, and everybody, the whole world, for me, it was like the whole world was against me. No trust me, no believe in me. And it was only my trust in God and myself, that’s the only thing it was.

NARRATOR
From Boston, Massachusetts, you’re listening to Mass Exoneration. These are the stories of people who were convicted of crimes — crimes they never committed — and what happened next, for them, and for the people they had to leave behind.
I’m Brian Pilchik. This is Episode 3: Victor — Part 1.

VICTOR
My name is Victor Rosario, and for 32 years my name was W39653. I was in 1982, I was convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and for a tragedy that I never committed.

NARRATOR
Victor was born and raised in Puerto Rico. When he was five years old, his father abandoned him and moved to New York City. Ten years later, Victor came to New York to begin searching for his father.

VICTOR
At age of 15, I just was blessed one day, I found my father on the street in Bronx, New York. And, one of the things that come to my attention about my father was that I saw that he was, he was drinking, and he was like the big man in the street in Brook Avenue in the Bronx, New York.

NARRATOR
Victor stayed with his father in the Bronx for a while. And then, something unexpected happened. Victor was going...

VICTOR
To be a father at the age of 15.

NARRATOR
Victor had a girlfriend. Suddenly, they had a baby.

VICTOR
From there my life was like a, looking for a job, looking for work, looking to be a man of responsibility, to be responsible and not to do what my father did. My father abandoned me. And that’s something that I don’t want to do. But in that time, the life was so tough, that I began to do the same thing my father did. I abandoned my kids.

NARRATOR
Victor didn’t want to leave his newborn. But his girlfriend’s parents had something else in mind. They took their daughter back, to Puerto Rico. Victor wasn’t allowed to see her, or the baby.

VICTOR
From then my life became to be going down. I started going to the street, I started drinking a lot. The drinking was one of the things that most affected my life. I was a heavy drinker, but also I was just working at the same time.

NARRATOR
Drinking, a lot. Meeting other women, as a teenager. At age 18, he had another child: a daughter named Maria. No one took Maria away. But Victor didn’t stick around. He left Maria. Just like his father.

And then, Victor met someone who changed him. Carmen Garcia.

VICTOR
When I met Carmen Garcia, I met Carmen Garcia in New York City, in the Bronx, and we met. She was a worker in a company in New Jersey. And I travel every day, we travel from the Bronx to the job that was in New Jersey. And I met her in the factory, and from there she, we began to be friends, and that friendship started to develop a relationship. And we decided to come to Lowell, Massachusetts, where she had some family. At that time, I no having anybody.

NARRATOR
Carmen had four children of her own. Victor hadn’t been there for Maria, but he could there for these children. He settled down.

VICTOR
I was trying to raise this family even then I abandoned my own family. But it was that strong desire to raise this family.

NARRATOR
Meeting Carmen, moving to Lowell, Massachusetts in 1980 — it was a chance to live a different life. A better life.

VICTOR
I think that those two years that I live with Carmen Garcia, in that time, I think that that was the two years, the most happiest years of my life. Because I think that I began to be knowing what family structure is about. And from there is that everything, everything I think that in my life started changing.

NARRATOR
Family and structure. Victor felt like he was starting to turn his life around. But things were about to get a lot worse.

Two years later, Carmen learned that her mother was sick. Her mother lived back in Puerto Rico.

VICTOR
And I said to her, well, she’s sick, you need to go to Puerto Rico and be with her. On that occasion, I remember that I was unemployed, and I was not working. And I remember that I said to Carmen, I have a car in that time, and I said to Carmen I will sell the car, I will get you your tickets, prepare yourself and go to Puerto Rico and stay with your mother.

NARRATOR
Victor sold his car. Carmen bought her plane tickets. But something was wrong.

VICTOR
She’s supposed to be in Puerto Rico Monday. And at that time I started feeling that something is going to happen in my life, in that time. And I even said to Carmen, Carmen, even that I get you the ticket to go to see your mother, that your mother is sick -- don’t go.

NARRATOR
Don’t go. Victor was scared.

VICTOR
Because I think something going to happen to me. I think that something gonna happen, something big going to happen to me, to my life, I started feeling that. In that time, I started drinking more than ever, in that period of time it was more heavily, heavily drinking. No eating, it was just drinking. Something is was, knowing that something is going to happen to me, I had that fear that something is gonna to happen to me.

Don’t go.

NARRATOR
But Carmen went.

Carmen had been gone for a little over a week. Victor was drinking with two friends, Felix and Edgardo. Late into the night, they wanted to buy some drugs. They went to this house:

VICTOR
We went to 44, 44 Decatur Street, where the drugs was supposed to be buy. And I remember we went to the back door, and Felix entered into the house, and I was outside with Edgardo, when I smell, I smell that it was smoke in the house beside of where the house we was.

NARRATOR
Smoke. Something was on fire.

VICTOR
When I went to the alley and I saw out of the window, I saw basically smoke coming out and people screaming inside the house. That’s when I cannot resist and I with my right hand I break the window, I tried to go inside the house. And I believe to this day that if Edgardo no pulled me out, of that window out, I would not be here today. Because it was so desperate, the sounds of the children, and the people that was inside screaming in the house. And the fire was so, so big and so hot.

NARRATOR
The fire department eventually showed up. So did the newspapers. They talked to Victor.

VICTOR
Newspaper guy asked me for my name, and what happened, and to my hands.

NARRATOR
Victor cut his hand, trying to get inside. He explained that to the reporter.

VICTOR
He asked me what happened in the hands, I tell him that I broke a window trying to save the people.

NARRATOR
But Victor had been too late. The entire three-story wooden apartment erupted in flames. 8 people inside the house were killed, 5 of them were children. It was the worst fire in Lowell’s history.

VICTOR
Even I thought that that was hell. Because that’s what I saw. Even that I remember that I was preaching that Jesus Christ is coming. For me I call it today, it was a calling. It was God calling me. And that’s the reason why I connect and this is look like hell. I think there was a spiritual connection that was happening to my life in that time.

NARRATOR
For Victor, the fire was a vision of hell. And it led him to a spiritual conversion.

VICTOR
The teaching of when you begin to be a Christian, you begin to know Christ, what happens is that, most of the evangelists, especially in Puerto Rico that practice Christianity, when you come to Christ, you have to stop every habits that you had. And that’s a doctrine. Basically it’s the most foundation for the spiritual growing into a person to call themself Christians. If you’re a drinker, you have to stop. If you’re a smoker, you have to stop. And that’s the way it is in the Spanish culture.

NARRATOR
So after the fire, Victor went to see a priest. The priest gave him a bible and Victor started down the path to becoming a devout Christian. To start, Victor immediately gave up smoking and drinking. That was a big change, and a sudden one. Victor had been drinking since he was 10 years old.

VICTOR
That’s something that I will never deny, that I was a heavy, heavy, heavy drinker.

NARRATOR
He had become dependent on alcohol. Now, giving up alcohol so quickly brought on a life-threatening medical breakdown. It’s called delirium tremens. Severe alcohol withdrawal. Within a day or so after the fire, he would lose his ability to think rationally.

Which was pretty bad timing. Because the morning after the fire, the police started looking for Victor. The fire had been serious. And the police were convinced it was an arson — that someone set the fire on purpose. The police needed suspects. A witness had seen three men outside the building that night. And the police had seen Victor’s name in the paper.

VICTOR
Basically they found out basically by the newspaper. Remember that I said that I spoke with a reporter in that moment in the newspaper. In the Lowell Sun came out with an article about Victor Rosario trying to save some people. And  then from there I believe that the foundation came to be: Oh what is this guy doing here?

NARRATOR
“What is this guy doing here?” The police zoomed in on Victor as their prime suspect.

The fire happened at 1am, on Friday morning. By 10pm on Saturday, the Lowell police had Victor in an interrogation room.

VICTOR
The language that they was speaking was English. I really no understand anything at all. I just was follow, follow basically the instructions that they was giving: Come here, now that I speak English, I can even — but basically it was more about follow me, and that’s what I did. I no did anything, I no did anything, I go anywhere. And that’s my attitude in that. Because I’m innocent man, I no expect that this is what happened. Now it’s a tragedy that happened. I observed people, people basically screaming. I observed fire. All these things are still in my mind. It no, it was life that was lost in that time. It was lost. It was like a trauma for me. You know, I just, I wanted, whatever needs to be done, I would do that. Trying to help, in whatever way I can. But I never expected that I became to be a suspect, I never expected to be a man that was accused to set a fire. I never expected that.

NARRATOR
Victor didn’t speak English at the time, only Spanish. He spoke through a translator. Over and over, he told the police that he had nothing to do with the fire. But they kept questioning him, all night. Hour, after hour. The delirium tremens kicked in — the alcohol withdrawal. With it came the symptoms. Confusion. Hallucinations. Terror.

VICTOR
I remember that I was looking serpents inside the room, hearing voices inside the room, looking like a devil, faces for me. It was like a spiritual experience that I was going through. Even I remember that I was, went down into the ground crying and screaming.

NARRATOR
Serpents. Devils. That’s what Victor was seeing while the police kept pressing him, and pressing him. In went on past three o’clock in the morning. The police wrote up a confession. In English. They put it in front of Victor.

VICTOR
In the end of all that, it was when they put a piece of paper in my front, and for me I was thinking that just: Let’s go home.

NARRATOR
The translator didn’t bother to translate the confession. Victor didn’t know what it said. It said that Victor and two friends set the fire, on purpose. With Molotov cocktails — bottles filled with rags, set on fire, thrown through windows.

He signed it.

VICTOR
And with that mindset, that, “let’s go home,” I found myself they put handcuffs into my hands and throw me into a cell.

NARRATOR
Once he signed the false confession, Victor’s fate was sealed. Victor was about to lose the life he had built with Carmen. Lose his partner, her kids. Lose his chance at love. And he wouldn’t get it back. Not for many, many years.

The police knew Victor was not in his right mind. They sent him to Bridgewater State mental hospital. He stayed there for six weeks. They gave him medication; he recovered.

The day the hospital released him, he was transported back to court. Dates were set for trial. He was charged with one count of arson and eight counts of first degree murder — one murder for each of the people who had died in the fire.

Victor went to county jail to await trial. And in the eyes of the other prisoners, he was already guilty.

VICTOR
I can say waiting for the trial was the more hardest thing, waiting for, to go to the trial.

The newspaper in the front page, you know, saying all these things about me. And people was looking me with those kind of eyes, that, how can, “this guy, we need to take this guy out.” Because, look at what he did. Because people believe whatever they read. They believe it. And when you believe it, you don’t know how much damage you can cause to another person. And that’s what I was going through. I was going through so many, even, I even could not sleep. Because one guy from another cell is screaming, “you’re a baby killer.”

NARRATOR
It wasn’t just the other prisoners. The correctional officers — they believed it, too.

VICTOR
The correctional officers was even, basically assaulting me. That no was a pleasant moment in my life. Threats, a lot of threats: They’re going to kill you. It’s a fear. It’s a process of fear, trying to terrorize you.

And knowing in your heart, knowing in your mind that you are an innocent man, and everybody, the whole world, for me, it was like the whole world was against me. No trust me, no believe in me. And it was only my trust in God and myself, that’s the only thing it was.

NARRATOR
Victor went to trial. He had never been accused of a crime before. He had never even seen a trial. And everything was in English.

VICTOR
I can remember that I would sit down, even though I have an interpreter beside me. I don’t know what’s going on. I only listen to what my interpreter said. I only watching every single movement in the courtroom. I don’t know what’s going on.

NARRATOR
The prosecution showed the jury Victor’s so-called confession.

VICTOR
Where are all this? I don’t know. And everything was like everybody was against me. There no was a way; no was a way; everyone was against me. Pero, even that, even everybody was against me, it was my hope that the truth in that day, it would come out. But when everything returned, that I was a guilty.

NARRATOR
It’s impossible to imagine what that sounds like. The word “guilty” in the ears of an innocent man.

VICTOR
My mother was there. And I said to my mother, go to Puerto Rico, because this is not gonna look good. They already found me guilty, and I don’t want you to hear the sentence.

And I remember that the lawyer started crying, and I look him straight in his face and said to him: “Why you crying? You not the one that gonna go back to prison; you no gonna go to prison — it’s me.”

NARRATOR
After the jury found him guilty, the judge sentenced Victor: life in prison. The guards put him in a police van and drove him, in shackles, to MCI Walpole. It’s the maximum security prison where every new inmate starts off.

VICTOR
But I decided in that time when I went into the van, I decided even to, to face whatever had happened, the reality of all. And I remember even the music that was in that van. And I remember the officer say to me, “they are waiting for you.” I even no respond. Take me to Walpole.

Walpole is the, that’s the big thing, that’s the maximum, that’s the scariest thing that any human being can go. Because that’s the way they describe Walpole. They gonna kill you. They gonna rape you. They’re waiting for you. And that’s the way it is.

Now when you enter into Walpole, or any type of prison, now it’s a way of living. It’s a different world. You cannot look the officer, the officer can say whatever, you cannot agree with it, and that’s the training you receive from by other prisoners.

NARRATOR
You can’t so much as look at an officer the wrong way. Victor needed to rely on his faith, once again, to survive.

VICTOR
I think that, for me, God was protecting me, in every way. I thank God that, at least the person that was, right away he was waiting for me, it was a Christian guy. His name is Kevin Dodge, and today he’s a pastor in the Cape. He was doing life sentence also. In second degree, and he get out. He was my mentor inside the prison system. He right away take me to the church, and right away I began to be a leader in the church, for the Spanish population.

NARRATOR
Victor became a church leader for the Spanish-speaking inmates at Walpole. He worked with the prison chaplain. About a year later, Victor was moved down to MCI Norfolk, a medium security facility. Things were looking up.

VICTOR
From the beginning. From the beginning I knew. Because my faith. My faith. Okay, I know am I an innocent man. I know that justice will be done. I know.

NARRATOR
Victor believed that he would be released. And his plans for a future, beyond the wall, sustained him.

VICTOR
And I remember one day I asked the lord to give me three things. And these three things was knowing that he knew, God know my life, he know my mind, he know my soul, he know everything. And because he know everything I trusted him to do justice in my life. And based on that, I asked God to give me three things: Give me a wife -- even though I was in prison doing life sentence -- give me a house, and give me a car. Maybe sound crazy but that was my thought in those days.

NARRATOR
A wife, a house, and a car. Not exactly a short order. And then, Victor looked up from his prayer. And he saw her.

VICTOR
I remember that day when I was praying, Beverly passed through that hallway, and she was a teacher in the school in the prison system, and that moment I was just surprised because my feelings was so strong.

NARRATOR
Beverly Startz.

VICTOR
When I saw her, I was almost 27 years old. Oh my god, she was walking fast. [unintelligible], you know? Because she was walking fast. In the prison system, it’s not easy for a person to walk, especially a woman to walk into, in the prison environment. She caught my attention, you know?

And right away, it was the most beautiful thing. Always I said, everything that coming from outside is a bless to me. Anything, even a bird if it’s coming from outside, inside, it was just a bless to me. And that’s the way I look at it.

She was a beautiful woman, gentle woman, you know, understanding. She knew the situation that not only me was, but everyone was there. Not only the students that she had, but everyone can say the same thing. She worked with kindness, you know, a beautiful person.

NARRATOR
Beverly was working in the prisons. Her faith had brought here there.

BEVERLY
People are fighting to get out of prison, I was fighting to get in.

I always felt called to correctional education. And when I got the job at Norfolk, I thought that, you know, I had really struggled hard to get it, it took me a lot to get in there.

It was really a very unique experience to go inside. I knew, I knew I belonged in that place. I knew that’s where I was supposed to work. Like Victor, I have a real strong faith. I check things out with what God would want me to do before I do anything.

NARRATOR
Victor was arrested in 1982. That same year, Beverly was finishing school.

BEVERLY
I was finishing up my masters at Harvard that year, in ‘82. And it’s like, thinking back about it now, it’s like, wow, I don’t even remember reading the papers about that tragedy happening. Don’t remember a word about it.

NARRATOR
She almost didn’t end up working in the prisons. Almost.

BEVERLY
When I had been in grad school, I had a run in with a teaching assistant, and he and I disagreed on the content of the paper, so he failed me because of the content. And so when I spoke to  the dean, the dean spoke to the teaching assistant, and of course we became great enemies.

And so I was looking for a new job, and I was looking in the Globe. I saw in the Globe that there was a teaching position at MCI Concord. And so I said, well, it’s just a GED teacher, I could do that on one foot. So I applied for it, and I went there for the interview, and the Director of Education -- evidently -- had gotten an earful from the teaching assistant who was also part of the interview panel. And she immediately had no use for me, and I knew I was never going to get this job. And so I said, that’s no problem. But I was unaware that she was statewide director, I thought she was director at that facility.

NARRATOR
And so this happened again, and again, and again. Beverly would put in an application, show up for the interview, and find herself before the same director and teaching assistant. Denied.

And then one day, she checked the paper:

BEVERLY
And there was a position for a developmental literacy specialist, and I had just spent my graduate studies at Harvard becoming a reading specialist. “Oh, but it’s in a prison I’m never gonna get this job.” And so I decided I would put my interview suit on once again, and I would go to MCI Norfolk, and if it didn’t work, I would take myself out to lunch and that would be the end of my prison involvement, I wouldn’t look anymore.

So I got there, and I waited, and they made me wait an exceptionally long time. And then when I finally got inside - I waited a while and I waited a while, and then the principal came out, and she said: I’m so sorry to keep you waiting all this time, but we’ve been looking for people to put on the interview panel. The Director of Education and person she normally brings both have the flu.

I got the job.

I later realized it was because that’s where Victor was. And we were supposed to connect. And I never would have met him at Concord or at Walpole or at Concord Farm. I needed to be at Norfolk, and I needed to be patient for God to work out the pieces. That’s how I look at it, anyway.

NARRATOR
Beverly was hired to teach English at MCI Norfolk. Victor had been inside for 4 years, and he didn’t want to learn. English was the language of the people who put him in prison.

VICTOR
But the English language for me, from the beginning, it was one of the biggest factors, even in my own case, you know? That was, the struggle that I had. Real struggle. I don’t want to even learn it. I just no want nothing to do with the English-speaking people. It was just that kind of attitude that I get, mad, I was angry.

NARRATOR
But the Department of Corrections made it clear that if Victor wanted to get parole — get out of prison early, for good behavior — he would need to learn English. So he started taking Beverly’s classes.

VICTOR
And now I saw myself obligated, basically, that’s what the DOC did, they would obligate me to go to school and learn. When they told me you have to go, you have to go to learn the English language. And it was tough for me, it was hard for me. Even I don’t want to look at her, I don’t want to look the eyes, I don’t want to be in a room, in a classroom with her I can’t believe I’m here, I don’t want to look at it. And from that, that’s the way that we began to meet each other.

BEVERLY
When I would walk through in in the morning, I would be talking in my head to God and myself and thinking about what I had to do for the day and I would just say: Let me look at them the way God looks at them. Because if I look at them like rapists and murderers, and wife beaters and robbers, and all of that, I’m going to be too afraid to teach them to read and that’s what I’m here for.

NARRATOR
From the beginning, Beverly saw that Victor wasn’t like her other students.

BEVERLY
He stood out in a crowd. He really did. Most of the students came to class in sweatpants, it was acceptable. Most of them wore sweatpants, jeans, or the DOC uniform -- they look like hospital pants and shirts. Victor always came with dress pants, and a dress shirt, and a sweater, pull-over vest, some sweater over it. Always carried a portfolio. He was like the mayor of Norfolk. He always looked very professional. He carried himself very professional, and as I watched him interact with other people, they deferred to him. He had a respect that was, I would assume, earned, that it wasn’t just given for nothing. But he had respect among his peers, among the guys, the other inmates, as well as with the staff. And it was just remarkable. It was like nobody else I saw there.

VICTOR
I refused to use a uniform as a prisoner. I think I never, I never used a uniform. I always was dressed up. I always walk in the prison system like — you the administration, you can do it? I can do it too! With that kind of attitude. You walking with a cup in your hands? I walk with cup in my hands.

NARRATOR
Walking with a cup. Like, a coffee cup.

VICTOR
You no gonna be different than I. You a human being; I’m a human being too. And I’m no gonna let nothing to destroy me, to put myself down. And that’s the way I walk. I remember that when I went to the class, I think that she can verify that. That when I walk, it was different.

BEVERLY
I was interested in who he was. There were people inside, there were men inside who would come up and say, “You know, he’s really innocent. He’s really innocent. Nobody believes him, but he’s innocent. And we just want you to know that cause you’re his teacher.” And so, oh, okay. And then I read his six-part folder.

NARRATOR
His six-part folder — Victor’s complete record of every infraction, every complaint. Victor hardly had any.

BEVERLY
And he had, what three? Two or three disciplinary reports. Which, if you think about it, living with 1200, 1500 other men, and you only have been yelled at — basically, that’s what it’s like, being sent to the principal’s office — two or three times for non-violent offenses, like not standing for the count. You know, things that make you roll your eyes, but that’s what they live by inside. So I saw that he truly was who he said he was. He was, he didn’t embellish his life or who he was.

NARRATOR
And Victor? He began to see who Beverly was, too.

VICTOR
Everything change when one of her pastor show up to the prison system for a retreat. And she told me, the pastor called me and told me the teacher is giving some class to you, she is a deacon in my church. And from there everything changed.

I said, no, can’t believe this —this is a Christian! She never told me that she is a Christian. Now, she tell me she is a Christian. I started running from the church to the class. And I found her in the hallway. And that was the point that I really realized that this is God sending to me. To my life. From there, everything started.

NARRATOR
Five years went by. Beverly kept teaching Victor, and his confidence and skill in the English language grew. He started using it as a leader in the prison church

VICTOR
I came to be the first bilinguate in one of the graduation, master of ceremonies. I became to do translation in both language. For me that was amazing, because now, I don’t know English at all, and now I have to translate. I think I can be better translator from English to Spanish than Spanish to English, but I can do the work. And I became to be the first one, even in MCI Norfolk. I became to be the first master of ceremonies, I can no imagine, master of ceremonies, I say, what is that?!. But basically, I became. Everything started, when I start put attention to classes, everything was telling me to learn. I was trying to do the work.

NARRATOR
Then one day, Victor had the opportunity to complete a program that was only offered at a neighboring prison. He would have to get transferred to do it. He would have to leave Norfolk.

BEVERLY
When he left, and I realized how much I missed having him in class and talking with him. I missed the conversations. And I missed who he was as a spiritual guy and just a good friend, as somebody to talk to. You don’t usually get an opportunity to meet people like that inside. Or to have the opportunity to have somebody in your class where you can understand them better. So it was like yeah, this is worth the trip. Let me go to Bay State and see how he’s doing.

NARRATOR
Beverly wanted to visit Victor.

BEVERLY
You know they have all these crazy rules about you can’t be friends with anybody in your class, you can’t talk to them, you can’t see them. You know, if you run into an inmate on the street you have to come back to work the next day and report it. All kinds of things like that. To keep the distance between the staff and the inmates. Which I, I bought into; they were paying me, I did what they said.

NARRATOR
So she quit her job. Stopped working for the Department of Corrections. Tried to visit Victor. It took nearly a year to get clearance.

BEVERLY
The first thing that happened was, they didn’t know that I had resigned my position. So they thought I was still an employee that just had lost her mind and decided to visit an inmate. And I tried to explain it to them, and I ended up getting barred for six months until they figured they could believe that I had really quit.

It was the strangest thing. But that was the mess. Because they sent me a letter and said that I’m not allowed in, and take it up with the superintendent, and blah blah blah. And so I had to, I had to jump through all these hoops to prove that I had actually resigned my position and then decided to visit him. And so all of that craziness was going on when we, when I first wanted to visit and then there was a 6-month hiatus.

NARRATOR
When Beverly finally got cleared, that first visit was...

VICTOR
Oh my god.

BEVERLY
That was a mess, it really was a mess.

VICTOR
Oh my god, from the beginning it was. She came to the visiting room, and to be honest I was afraid. Because one, the administration when someone – especially from the prisoner’s perspective, and from the staff perspective. It’s a line, you don’t cross the line. Okay. I said, oh no, I’m in trouble now. That was the first thing. Oh, I’m in trouble now. What she doing in here?

NARRATOR
It wasn’t just Beverly’s past job that caused problems. There was a culture clash.

BEVERLY
There are a lot of cultural differences. And I describe differences between us as, if you can picture, a Latino Flamenco dancer or somebody doing samba, one of those very fluid dances. And then on the other hand, picture an Irish woman doing step dance. Okay? And so that sort of pictures the difference of our cultures and of who we really are and what blending we had to do to bring it together.

VICTOR
For me to understand her, I have to go to the television Channel 2. Even to see a soap opera, just to see American people, you know, how they walk, how they talk. Just to learn to how I can communicate with her. Because it no was easy for me, to be Latino, and Latino is this kinda macho man, and you know, it no was easy to have that understanding of each other.

NARRATOR
And they literally spoke different languages.

VICTOR
To the point that I said let’s connect in the English language. Because in Spanish, I think we no gonna be connected.

BEVERLY
I take responsibility for the good and the bad of his English. He’s done trem—he’s done remarkable. I really, he knew very little when I first met him and I was so pleased and so as we developed our relationship we made a conscious agreement to speak English.

NARRATOR
Visit, after visit, they grew closer. Victor’s language changed. So did their relationship.

BRIAN
What’s, what’s something that you would say to Beverly in Spanish before?

VICTOR
Before? Te amo.

BRIAN
And now?

VICTOR
I love you.

NARRATOR
In 1993, in prison — Victor proposed.

BEVERLY
I tease Victor about proposing to my father, not to me.

VICTOR
That’s the other thing. I never proposed to her. I say, you have to bring your father. Your father have to bring — you have to bring your father here, into the prison system, and your father have to give me the OK to marry you. If not, there’s not going to be any wedding. No marry at all. You have to bring your father. And the father came.

The [unintelligible] that the father show up, and the father show up. And I said to the father, I cannot offer nothing to her. I cannot offer money, I cannot offer a future, I can offer nothing. The only thing I can offer is just to love her, that’s the only thing I can offer; that’s the only thing I got. And from that time, the father said, “Well, If this is what she want, let’s do it.”

NARRATOR
They had to plan the wedding from two sides:

BEVERLY
He did it on the inside. He did all the paperwork on the inside. And I did all the stuff on the outside.

VICTOR
In the prison system, to be a person to be married, an inmate to be married, they have to ask permission to the superintendent. That’s the big father, you know? That’s the big papa. You have to ask permission to him. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is. You know? Then I do all the process, the plot, and all the things that need to be done, were provided. And then she did all the part outside that she need to do. And that’s where our wedding come.

NARRATOR
It paid off.

BEVERLY
We had the absolute last beautiful wedding inside. They changed the rules after us. We were able to have someone play an organ for a processional and recessional. An inmate baker made us a three-tiered heart-shaped cake with pineapple and fresh cream inside. We had photos. He had 20, you had 15 people? 15 people from inside, I had 25 people from outside. My pastor from the street came inside to perform the wedding. We got to wear special clothing — I had a veil, he had all white. It was just — it was an incredible, incredible thing. My father, some of my family were able to come, his friends came, people from our church came. And the kitchen officer brought out ice cream, and we had sodas with it.

VICTOR
Then the time came, this kind of moment where they say you are, now you are husband and wife. She look at me and I look at her, and this was the first time I think that I give a kiss to her. That’s the way it was. I say, finally I can give a kiss to her. And that’s what I said. To her, I said finally I can give you a kiss. And everybody was surprised that even I say that.

NARRATOR
“Finally” he can kiss her. They hadn’t kissed until that moment.

VICTOR
The guys were so happy, you know, all the prisoners were so happy. Even they dress me. They, they did so many things to me in that day. Especially, I’m taking a shower, and I remember one guy show up and puts shaving cream — after I take a shower — puts shaving cream on my head, and I have to take a shower again. You know, it was a mess, it was a mess! They were doing a number with me. And I remember even the chaplain in that time said, you know, “You’re going from one institution into another institution.” You know?

But the beautiful thing is, the most beautiful thing is that now, we married.

BEVERLY
It was special from 6:01 was it, or 6:02? When we had the processional, cause we had a little, da-da-da-da processional, until it was all over and the officer came and very calmly and nicely just said to Victor it’s time to go. But the whole idea of walking out and knowing he was still there. Um.

VICTOR
After that she, I saw her coming in and I saw her going out. And I have to return back into my cell. And that’s the way it was.

NARRATOR
Still there. Still inside. Because even though Victor Rosario was innocent, he was serving a life sentence. He had experienced one miracle. After losing his family, he met Beverly. He was a married man, even in prison. But for him to actually get out? That would take a different kind of miracle entirely.

VICTOR
Now she is going to wait for me to get out. And that take 22 years.

NARRATOR
You can learn more about Victor — and see pictures of him, with his wife Beverly — at massexoneration.com.

Victor’s story isn’t over. Stay tuned for Part 2.

We’ve got more episodes for you. Subscribe; follow us on social media.

Mass Exoneration is produced in collaboration with the New England Innocence Project, fighting to free people in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. To help them provide lawyers to people like Victor, visit newenglandinnocence.org.

Mass Exoneration is recorded at the PRX Podcast Garage in Allston, Massachusetts. Their community recording studio provides equipment and training to storytellers, producers, and editors. Thanks to Alex and Ian for all of their support. You can learn more about what they do at podcastgarage.org.

Lisa Kavanaugh is our Executive Director. Jeff Harris composed our theme. Ken Richardson takes our photographs. Betsy DelCiampo created our logo.

Special thanks to Meaghan Sheridan, Tim Clarke, Andrea Peterson, and Ira Gant for their help with this episode.

Our podcast is edited and produced by Nicole Baker and me, Brian Pilchik.

BEVERLY
My name is Beverly Rosario, and this is Mass Exoneration.

Photo Gallery

To tell their stories, Victor Rosario came into the studio with his wife, Beverly. Our photographer also had the opportunity to photograph Victor at his workplace in the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston, MA.

Resources

CASE SUMMARY

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Victor Rosario, National Registry of Exonerations

NEWS COVERAGE & COMMENTARY

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Murder Convictions Overturned in 1983 Lowell Blaze, Boston Globe (2014) 

Lowell Man Who Spent 3 Decades in Prison for Fatal Fire is Exonerated. WBUR (2017)

Confluence of Factors Leads to Freedom in Wrongful Conviction Case. WNYC (2017

The Weakest Link Standard: A Massachusetts Case Suggests a Different Way of Judging Evidence. Andrew Cohen, Case in Point, The Marshall Project (2017)

​The Confluence of Factors Doctrine: A Holistic Approach to Wrongful Convictions, Stephanie Hartung, Suffolk University Law Review (2018)

CONTACT US

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If you have questions or words of encouragement for Victor or Beverly, we can pass them along.

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