CONFESSION: I don't know Jake Brydon, 'Selfless Warrior' for aspiring high school football star Greg Kelley. But I'm not the only one who doesn't know Jake Brydon. In fact I've come across several articles entitled asking the question 'Who is Jake Brydon? (The other question commonly asked was to the effect of 'Why did a construction business owner, a father, go to bat for a high school for a teen high school football star and convicted child molester he had never met?) So I confess. I can't tell you who Jake Brydon is. One thing I can say for sure however, is that Jake Brydon is truly a "Selfless Warrior," especially when one considers the nature of the crimes for which Greg Kelley was convicted and sentenced, in 2014, to 25 years in prison.
THE CRIME: The allegations were horrific. Greg Kelley was arrested on August 9, 2013, on allegations that he had sexually assaulted a four-year-old boy, while in an in-home day care, by allegedly putting his penis in the boy's mouth on two occasions As the 'Statesman' put it: "The case against Kelley started when a 4-year-old boy told his mother that he had been sexually abused at an in-home day care facility run by Shama McCarty in Cedar Park. Kelley was living in the house because his parents were sick and because he was friends with Shama McCarty’s son, Johnathan." (Statesman article in reading materials at the link below); As a criminal lawyer I represented quite a few person's accused of sexually assaulting children - and I knew, from this experience that few other crimes carried the same public revulsion, cries for a conviction (no trial needed), and, if there was a conviction, demands for a lengthy term of imprisonment, or worse - think castration. There was certainly no glory in going to bat for a person charged with such a crime - if anything there was public condemnation and ugly personal attacks. Well, the defence lawyers were being paid to conduct the defence - some criminal lawyers (unworthy of the name) even refused to take these cases - especially high profile ones - because of the stigma involved. It was unusual for an ordinary person in the community, like Jake Brydon, to get involved when a young person he didn't even know was charged with serious sexual assaults on a child.
THE DEFENSE:
"The National Registry of Exonerations informs us that Kelley testified and denied sexually abusing the boys. He said that he was at school or working out virtually every day when the children were in the day care and that the children were always gone by the time he came to the home. Several witnesses testified that Kelley was well known as an honest person. All to no avail. On July 16, 2014 the jury convicted the teen of charges carrying minimum sentence of 25 years without parole and a maximum of life in prison. In an interesting twist, the following day just before the jury was to reconvene for sentencing, Kelley agreed to two concurrent 25-year prison terms with no chance of parole. In return, he waived his right to appeal, but retained the right to file a motion for new trial and a state law petition for a writ of habeas.
ENTER JAKE BRYDON: We know this for sure. Jake Brydon, was troubled by whatever he learned about the investigation and trial - after it took this unexpected turn - and funded the hiring of a new counsel who would attempt to get the matter back to court in spite of the waiver of right of appeal, and most importantly, he funded the hiring of an investigator to re-examine the case in light of what had been learned in the very well publicised trial. This was pivotal. If he did nothing else, Jake Brydon would be a 'Selfless Warrior' in my books, as things turned out.
A MASSACRE:
The 'Showtime' series 'Outcry' drew considerable attention to the Kelley case, including an article in the publication 'Screenrant' by author Christine Persaud, published on July 23, 2020, in which she lists the most shocking moments of the series. These include:
The Police Never Went To The House: "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that if someone accuses someone else of harming them in a particular place, police should visit that place to take a look around. Not only that but also to talk to the people who live in and have been in the house. Yet the police never stepped foot in the daycare. They never looked around in the room the child described. Had they done that, they would have seen that it wasn't actually Greg's room at all."
Johnathan McCarty Was Never Questioned. "A teenager boy who was clearly troubled was living in the same house as Greg. He looked like Greg, also played football, and owned the pair of pajamas the child said the assailant was wearing at the time of the incident. The child also described a bedroom that was clearly Jonathan's, not Greg's. How in the world no one questioned Jonathan, or even all of the other football players who were constantly in and out of the house, is ridiculous and shocking. This was not lost on new District Attorney Shaun Dick, who re-opened the case, in part, because of this."
Patricia Cummings Never Moved Beyond Her One Strategy: "Cummings, Greg's initial lawyer, had one strategy and she stuck with it. She has defended her decision by saying if she introduced Jonathan as a potential alternate suspect, it would mean admitting that something happened at all. And her defense strategy was that the incident didn't happen, period." Even after seeing all of the evidence that could prove Greg's innocence, however, she still stuck to her guns and didn't want to entertain going another route, even when that route likely had a better chance of proving her client's innocence." (Reporter Christine Persaud notes in a story filed after Greg Kelley was exonerated that "And while she was not found to have done anything wrong in the way she represented Kelley in his initial trial, many others have different opinions. As noted in the docuseries, she now ironically heads up the Conviction Integrity Unity in Philadelphia. She did make a name for herself for freeing upwards of 25 wrongfully convicted individuals throughout her career. But somehow, things just didn't work out in Kelley's case.)"
Greg Kelley Was Convicted:"How? Why? The only testimony against Greg was the words of a four-year-old boy who knew someone named Greg molested him. But did anyone show him a photo of Greg and ask him to identify the person? Did anyone question others who were in the house at the time to see if it might have been someone else who looked like Greg, or just called themselves Greg? What's more, Greg wasn't even living there at the supposed time of the incident. And it was no secret that he and Johnathan, who had already been in trouble with the law, looked the same. So the fact he was convicted based solely off of a child's testimony and his name makes no sense at all."
Gaebri's Unwavering Devotion To Greg:"Anyone would kill to have someone like Gaebri in their life. Willing to wait 25 years for Greg to get out of jail to be with him, she never wavered in her love for the young man. Sweethearts since they were in grade school, they were destined to be together. It's not uncommon to see a spouse or partner stand by someone who was innocent after they were sent to jail. But how absolutely certain Gaebri was about not being with anyone else or giving up on him, no matter the circumstance, was amazing to see."
Johnathan raped a girl: "It was clear from the get-go that Jonathan was going to be going down a very different path than Greg. He was also a football player, but not as skilled. And presumably, he wasn't as good academically either. But the fact that it was later discovered that he raped a 15-year-old girl, and may have harmed many others as well, makes it all the more shocking that Jonathan was never even questioned in the initial case."
"The Believe The Children Campaigners: Of course, any sane adult would believe a child when they said they were molested, assaulted, or hurt in any way, shape, or form. However, the believe the children campaign seemed to focus so much on believing that the accusing child was telling the truth and not considering the fact that perhaps the child was telling the truth but mistaking one person for another. (Perhaps this was a side effect of Cummings' trial strategy, which was to suggest the incident never happened instead of proving that her client wasn't the one who did it.) The possibility that people could still believe Greg was innocent while also believing the child was never considered. The campaigners simply painted those supporting Kelley as people who thought the child was lying."
Sergeant Dailey's Interview With The Second Child: "Most shocking about this wasn't even the interview itself, which seemed to include plenty of suggestive wording and leading questions, frightening the poor young boy. It was the fact that the boy's parents purportedly never actually came forward with any kind of reporting of presumed sexual abuse. Rather, Sergeant Dailey cold-called them and noted that sexual abuse was reported at their daycare and that he wanted to talk to the son. Of course, the parents were quick to oblige. Sneaky, sneaky!"
Greg Kelley's Mom's Strength: (I find it hard to imagine a more difficult situation for a mother (or for that matter a father) then having a teenager, like Greg Kelley, charged with a terrible crime. On television, perhaps, where you have to get to the commercial, there may be very little else going on in that parent's life. Read on to discover what Greg Kelley's mother was also facing at the time Greg was so publicly charged with sexual assault )..."Through dealing with her own illness, the illness of her husband followed by his death, visiting her son in jail every weekend, and still being mom to several other kids, the strength Greg Kelley's mother showed through the entire six-year ordeal was incredible. When she got up to speak on behalf of her son, however, pleading for the officers involved in the initial investigation to be fired, it brought tears to viewers' eyes."
One other item on the list: Author Persaud head's it: "Jake Brydon coming out of the woodwork; Who is Jake Brydon? (I told you I'm not the only one to ask that question! HL): He showed up out of nowhere like a knight in shining armor. He did not know Greg and didn’t know much about the case. He just knew that what he saw and read in the news about a seemingly innocent 19-year-old who was going to jail for a heinous crime he purportedly did not commit was wrong. Dubbing himself an activist, he called Greg's mom and set out to raise heck and have Greg's case looked at again. And he got the attention of people who could do something about it."
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GOOD NEWS: EFFORTS TO FIND NEW EVIDENCE PAY OFF:
As Josh Moniz reported in The Hill Country News on NOVEMBER 5, 2019M," The court ruled that no "reasonable juror" would have convicted him. The court said in its opinion that the criminal justice system failed Kelley because it "convicted an innocent man, citing the "evidence was weak to begin with consisting of seemingly coached, largely uncorroborated testimony of a very young child." The ruling further stated new evidence gathered since Kelley's conviction that looks into whether someone else committed the crime “produced significant evidence eroding the persuasiveness of the state’s case.”
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JAKE BRYDON GETS CAUGHT IN A BITTER BATTLE WITH ABGRY PEOPLE WHO TRULY BELIEVED THAT GREG KELLEY WAS PROPERLY CONVICTED AND BELONGS IN PRISON.
I was fascinated to read about this bitter battle that must have terribly impacted on Jake Brydon and his family in an article by Reporters Andrea Bell and Tony Plohetski, published by The Statesman on September 1, 2017, under the heading, "Hundreds of true believers drawn to Greg Kelley sex case. In this article Brydon opens up to the reporters that, "I still didn't know if he did it, but I felt called to it..."I can't explain it. I've never been called to anything. It's like somebody sitting on my chest. It's like a constant pressure." The reporters describe a feud that became so heated that Kelley critics created a Twitter slideshow of mug shots of Kelley supporters who had been arrested for unrelated offenses - and Brydon was featured because of his arrest for driving with a broken tail light - and at one point the local police chief said he was angered by what he considered an assault on his department’s work, branding Kelley’s team a “cult-like group.” Jake Brydon also gave the reporters a clue as to what motivated him to continue his battle to exonerate Greg Kelley in spite of the rage he faced within his community, saying he was driven to take action because of the 'outrage' he experienced over what he saw as injustice. "I think the biggest log we have on the fire is when you look into this case, you see how screwed up it was on every level," Brydon told The Statesman.
COMMENTARY:
Greg Kelley was extremely grateful to his 'Selfless Warrior Jake Brydon. He was reported by KVUE as ending his exoneration address by thanking his fiancée, future in-laws, his brothers in Christ, District Attorney Shawn Deck, Judge Donna King, Attorney Keith Hampton, Jake Brydon and God. How's that for gratitude. Thanks to Brydon's efforts, a mother with towering strength, a girl friend who never lost faith in him, and other supporters who, like Jake Brydon, were willing to risk a community's wrath by pursuing justice for a young man they believed to have been wrongfully convicted of a terrible crime, Greg Kelley has not only landed on his feet, he is using them once more on the football field. Just look at the September 19th Detroit story bearing the heading, "Greg Kelley spent 1,153 days in prison before he was exonerated, Now he'll play football at EMU." And that's on a scholarship! I know this about Jake Brydon. Only a very special human being could do what he did for Greg Kelley: A 'Selfless Warrior.'
Reading materials:
National Registry of Exonerations entry by Maurice Possley: (A consummate analyst of America's criminal justice system):
http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/search.aspx
'Statesman' true believers story:
'Screenrant' story:
https://screenrant.com/most-shocking-things-about-showtime-outcry-greg-kelley-case/
CHRONOLOGY:
See National Registry entry for relevant dates at the link above.
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