- We are back, and our next guest is a powerhouse
in the world of true crime.
Her podcast "Crime Junkie" gets more
than 30 million downloads a month.
- [Crowd Member] Whoa. (crowd exclaiming)
- Let that sink in. That's insane.
It's one of many podcasts in her growing media empire,
which will soon include her very own Sirius channel.
Let's welcome Ashley Flowers, everybody.
(crowd clapping) (bright energetic music)
So we, little known fact,
literally were together yesterday,
'cause we are channel buddies.
- Yes. - Yes, we're channel buddies.
So we both have a Sirius channel now.
- [Ashley] Yeah, old friends now.
- Yes, so "Crime Junkies," the podcast.
When did you feel like it, like, blew up?
When did you know that happened?
- Oh, my goodness.
So I intended to make just, like, this small local thing,
and at the one year anniversary, I'm, like,
in love with New Year's Eve.
Like, it is my Christmas.
And so I was like, "Let's do a New Year's Eve party
for 'Crime Junkies' and, you know,
we can have some fans come.
It'll be great, we'll celebrate, you know,
having a year of the podcast under our belt."
- Yeah. - And all of a sudden,
like, people from, like, California and Georgia
were, like, buying tickets to this thing
and flying into Indiana on New Year's Eve.
And I was like- - Which does not happen,
I don't feel like.
- [Ashley] It's not a destination. (laughing)
- It's not Vegas, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.
- So I was just like, "Wow, this thing might be
bigger than I thought it was gonna be."
And at the party that night,
we got told that "Rolling Stone" named us
one of the top five True Crime podcasts.
So it was, like, everything at once.
And that was the moment - What a beautiful thing.
- Where I was like, "Oh, my gosh, this is big."
- Oh, my gosh. Top five.
I'd say you're the top. So how did you get into true crime?
- So my mom was like the OG crime junkie,
her mom before her.
So when growing up, like, it was Nancy Drew
and then Agatha Christie, like,
all those good fiction things- - Love Agatha Christie.
- [Ashley] Same. - Yeah.
- And so at some point though, you know,
I realized that they're, like, real cases,
and I would say it was when the JonBenet case happened,
because me and my best friend- - You were young
to remember that.
Yeah, yeah. - Me and my best friend Brit,
who I do the show with, we have the same birthday,
best friends since we were, like, born.
And we were, like, tabloid height when that happened.
- Yeah, I was gonna say you were young.
- We were young, and really I was almost,
I was maybe just a year or two younger than her,
and that was the first time where it
was literally put in my face.
That not only do these real things happen,
but they happened to someone my age,
someone like me and- - Did that terrify you?
That seems terrifying. - It probably should have.
I mean, it was scary. I definitely remember being scared.
I obviously didn't, like, go research it
and, like, tell people about the case,
but it's what got me interested.
And as I got older and older,
just started looking up more cases
and wanting to talk about them
and wanting to figure out, like,
where's my place in all of this?
Like, what can I do? Because I felt so moved by the cases.
- Yeah, so you, like, you wanna solve cases.
This is a big thing that you are actually a part of,
actually, you and your fans.
- Yeah, I wanted to be a detective.
Nobody's giving me a badge,
so I had to go about it a different way.
(audience laughing)
- Nobody's giving me a badge. (laughing)
I'm gonna get you your own badge.
- [Ashley] Okay, deal.
- (laughing) That's what's gonna happen for Christmas.
No, that's incredible. So explain the non-profit.
It's called Season of Justice.
- Yeah, so, you know, when we started the podcast,
for me it was all about, you know,
if I'm taking and taking, even when I was a consumer,
if I'm gonna be, like, consuming this voraciously,
like, crime junkies do.
Like, I can't stop.
What can I do to actually, like, make a difference?
And so it started, you know, with volunteering.
I volunteered for my local Crime Stoppers.
It started with donating.
Then I got to the point as the podcast was getting bigger
at the same time we were getting
new investigative genealogy, which was something
that nobody knew was possible, nobody had budgeted for.
And what I kept hearing over and over again
from law enforcement agencies and from families is, like,
the only thing standing in the way of this case
getting solved is money.
And I was like, "I'll write you a check."
And they were like, "We don't want a check
from a media company, thank you very much."
- And so, oh, they're not allowed to, like, yeah.
- It gets muddy. And so I was like, "Okay."
So we went through all the work
to set up a separate entity to fund this testing.
So it's been in business or, you know,
the nonprofit's been established since 2020.
We've solved nine cold cases.
11 Jane and John Does have got their name back.
- Like, you're not just talking about it.
You're actually helping people.
(audience clapping) It's really cool.
I wanna talk to you about, it's Odessa, Texas.
That's where those two fans, like, listeners
listening and then they ended up being involved
with this case in Odessa, right?
- Right. - So wait.
Explain to everybody. - Okay.
So there was this case from back
in the '80s in Odessa, Texas where this priest was murdered.
And they initially thought that
the last guy who was with him,
they thought that he was responsible,
couldn't really prove it.
He ended up confessing.
We know so much more about false confessions now.
And so he was imprisoned.
And the wild part is he was imprisoned
even though he had receipts, he had a speeding ticket,
an actual government document proving that he was 250 miles
away when the crime happened.
He spent 20 years in prison,
another 20 on parole as a convicted murderer.
And we, you know- - Geez.
- We tell this story being like, you know,
it's so clear to anyone who looks at it now
that it couldn't have been him.
But it was thought for a long time
that nothing could be done,
because a lot of the physical evidence
that could potentially, you know, with new technology,
prove that it was someone else, had been lost.
Everyone thought it was gone, destroyed. Who knows?
So we tell this story,
and we get this email from these two listeners.
- Yeah. - Out of nowhere.
And they're like, "Hey, we heard it,
and we just happened to be going to visit our dad,
who by the way, is the chief of police in Odessa, Texas.
And we tell him about this,
because, you know, we'd never even heard of it.
How can we not know about this?"
- What a small world. - Yeah, yeah.
Does he know about this? Of course he doesn't.
He wasn't there when it happened.
He's, you know, got his workload.
So they tell him, he goes and has his team
just take a look around, see what you can find.
They find the missing evidence.
- [Crowd Member] Wow. - And so all-
- That many years later? That's incredible.
- That many years later, they found an old fingerprint card
from the crime scene, which basically proved
that it wasn't James Reyos's prints that were there.
The prints got matched to other people.
And this chief of police, I mean, like, my hat off to him
doing the right thing, like, no matter if it's hard,
no matter what it means,
he got the Innocence Project of Texas involved
to help James, like, get this through the system.
And on October 4th, 2023,
he was fully exonerated.
(audience clapping)
- It's just, like, I don't even know.
It's such an amazing thing but, like, what does that mean
for such loss in someone's life?
You know what I'm saying?
Like- - It was a long time, right?
And people think about, "Oh, he was on parole."
You can't get certain jobs.
You can't vote, you can't- - People look at you
differently even sometimes, you know?
- But now that he's exonerated, I mean,
not only does he get his name back, his dignity back,
but now he's eligible to be compensated
by the state of Texas who wrongfully imprisoned him.
- [Kelly] Wow. - Yeah.
- Okay, Ashley has never talked to or met this couple,
so we invited them to join us today-
- Oh! (laughing) - And they're here.
So everybody, let's say hi to Harley and Michael.
(crowd cheering)
- Oh, my God!
Stop it. (crowd cheering)
They did not tell me you guys were coming.
- Hello, nice to see you. I love this green.
You're beautiful. - Thank you.
- Hi. Nice to see you. - Hi.
- Have a seat. Y'all come have a seat.
(crowd cheering)
Oh, my gosh. So this is the craziest story to me.
So Harley, so Michael, how does it feel to be a part
of something like that, that you exonerated someone
that was so, just the injustice of that, you know, like,
and you're a part of, like,
that freeing of that information?
- It feels amazing.
I mean, whenever we brought this case to Michael's dad,
we really didn't think that anything would come of it.
We were so excited when we heard the news
that he was going to be exonerated.
We sent an email and a DM to "Crime Junkie."
We were like, "Y'all did this.
Like, I mean, your podcast did this."
Like, it was- - No. We told the story.
Like, I had no way of contacting the chief of police
or getting him to listen to me at all.
- Okay. Has anybody ever met James?
- No, we have never met him.
- No, we haven't gotten to meet him.
- We tried to make it down
to one of his preliminary hearings.
But we weren't able to make it.
So we're just- - If he comes out next,
I'm gonna pass out.
(audience laughing)
- Well, we did reach out to him,
and he has a message for all of you.
So watch this.
- I'd just like to say thank you
for supporting me in my fight for justice.
It's been a long journey indeed.
But it's finally come to that conclusion
where justice is finally going to prevail.
And supporters like you,
who believe in my innocence
and have advocated justice
on my behalf, I thank you very, very much.
(audience clapping)
- I cannot watch him or listen to him
and not think, "Oh, my God, so much life was stolen."
You know what I'm saying?
And you are complete strangers to this human.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like, complete strangers and you ended up helping,
and it's such a beautiful thing.
But also, like, what does that make you feel like
hearing that? - I'm just, like,
overcome with emotion.
I mean, and I think the truth of the matter is, like,
I think the whole world would be a better place
if we stopped acting like we're strangers.
Like, we're not.
- [Kelly] Actually very good point.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
It's an incredible thing what y'all have done.
So thank you so much for listening.
(crowd cheering)
And thank you so much for acting.
- We love you.
- But thank you for acting on it.
Not everybody does that. And it's amazing.
You can listen to new episodes,
join the other 30 million people,
and listen to new episodes of "Crime Junkie" every Monday
wherever you get your podcast.