Kyle: Bryan. I know you love a good binge on podcast. I love it.
Bryan: Especially if it's a true crime. Kyle: Well, we have a love, hate relationship
because it's so fascinating. Right. But then the fact that it's these real stories
that are being told, I feel, I don't feel like a good person. Sometimes. I think that
I learned something and it is fascinating. Yeah. And it's fascinating. We got the latest
binge for you this weekend and really every day over the next couple of weeks, it’s the Follow
the Truth podcast. And big kudos to Amanda Lamb and the team over at WRAL for making this happen.
And the Follow the Truth podcast is actually the behind the scenes in this 28 year story
around the death of Michael Jordan's dad, James Jordan, back in 1993.
Bryan: I know. And it happened right here in our community and Amanda Lamb and her
team. They have been with the story since the nineties, they have exclusive access to
details that other people don't have access to. So when we say they do a deep dive on this story,
they do a deep dive. You're not going to hear this story presented like this anywhere else.
It's fascinting. Kyle: If you don't know much
about the James Jordan story and what happened in Michael's father. Nearly three decades ago,
here's Amanda setting it up for you. Amanda Lamb: So basically in 1993,
July of 1993, uh, James Jordan was driving from a friend's house. He'd been at a funeral and
a dinner in Wilmington, North Carolina, headed back to Charlotte where he lived.
And he, he never arrived. He was actually supposed to get on a flight the next day to go to an
event in Chicago, a golf tournament with his son, Michael Jordan never arrived. So days later a body
is found in a swamp in South Carolina. Now, James Jordan hasn't been reported missing at this point.
So the body is classified as a John DOE. The person has a gunshot wound.
Ultimately the body, believe it or not is cremated because in this small town, they
didn't have the ability to save this body, but they did save, uh, the hands and the jaw, which
they later used to. Yeah. Identify it now again, no connection to James Jordan at this point,
then in August, early August of 1993, a car, a Lexus is found stripped in the woods.
That’s in Fayetteville and that car ended up being connected to Michael
Jordan. It's registered to Michael Jordan. So basically we're into about August 12th. Um,
Michael Jordan's family filed a missing persons report. August 13th of that year, 1993. They
eventually connect this John Joe in the swamp with this, uh, missing person report with James Jordan.
And that's three weeks after he goes missing. Um, that's the beginning of this. And then you
have these two young men, Larry Demery and Daniel Green. Uh, Larry Demery is native
American. Daniel Green is African-American. Um, brought in for questioning because they had
been seen in the car and it goes from there, you know, it was kind of like the perfect storm.
Kyle: And mind you, this happened in a small community in North Carolina, and I can only
imagine the pressure of that town in the early nineties where you have Michael Jordan coming off.
Straight NBA championships, the most famous person on the planet. Now, his dad was killed
in your small town and the pressure to solve that murder quickly would be suffocating.
Bryan: And on top of that, you have Daniel Green. Who's
sat in jail for the last 30 years while holding on to his story, that he's completely innocent.
Amanda Lamb: From, you know, the quote, wrong side of the tracks who have had some trouble in their
lives and they are in a town known for, um, you know, racism, corruption. I mean, this is 1993
in Robeson County. And the, the officers do what they do. In many cases, you try to pit one person
against the other and see who, who crumbles. And basically the, the line is first to talk first
to walk. Well, neither of them walked. Um, but Larry Demery turned against Daniel and. He ended
up testifying against his best friend in court and saying that he was the one that committed
this crime. And Daniel has maintained from the very beginning. He has never changed his story.
He has admitted to helping Larry dump James Jordan's body, but he has never
changed his story that he did not pull it. Kyle: I've noticed with cases like this to
Brian massive cases, big names, and really just cases in jail. The evidence can be very shoddy
sometimes because prosecutors and police officers kind of rushed to maybe paint a certain picture
and things don't really have a clean look to it. Um, and then you find out about it 10,
15 years later, and you're like, wait a second. Wait, but you presented that in
court or you did not present that in court. Bryan: Amanda took a year and a half to
put together this podcast. That's a lot of paperwork, a lot of digging, a lot of research,
but. What she came up with is fascinating. Can you give us an example
of a couple of things that are questionable. Amanda Lamb: You know, there was no blood found
in the car and James Jordan was supposedly shot at point blank range. And that was the
story that the state put forward in the case. Um, there was also no bullet holes found in the shirt
of James Jordan in the chest area where he was shot at the time of the autopsy. It was not
documented and there's never really been any. Reason for that given in a courtroom. Um,
and there were also, you know, we have the interrogation tapes, the original
interrogation tapes back from that time. And when you listen to what they told both of these
young men, as they were being questioned, I mean, uh, I can't say this on the air.
Basically, they were told, like, if you don't do this, you're going to get a needle somewhere.
That's going to put you to sleep because you're going to get the death penalty. Um, so, you know,
there's just a lot of things that happened here that I think people will be surprised by.
And I think what I really enjoy about the genre of a podcast. It's what a deep dive
we can do. We can go down rabbit holes. We can give you tangents. We can give you
color and characters that, you know, you just can't get in a news story. Um, because it's just,
there's just not enough time. So one of my favorite episodes is interviewing Daniel
Green's family. I mean, if you imagine they are victims in this as well. Um, and I always
believe that in every case that the families. Kind of collateral damage of both the person who
has died and the person who is convicted, they didn't ask for this. And for them, you know,
his mom says I've been waiting to exhale for 28 years. I'm waiting for him to come through
that door. And she's, she's very powerful in the way she describes her grief over losing her son.
So, um, you know, two families here, uh, lost. Kyle: You can find Follow the Truth the podcast
wherever you find your podcasts. And once again, standing ovation. To Amanda Lamb and
the WRAL team for putting together your latest crime binge podcast.