 So, one of the big questions, one of the things that shocked the nation, is how did Boston, the most puritanical city in the nation, known for banning Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and I am curious, yellow, how did it wind up officially sanctioning a red light district downtown? So, there's good reason for it. So first I had, it had Skully Square, which, you know, a lot of, you know, which was, it's more like a burlesque, but it was definitely a red light district, and they tried to get rid of it. So, they got urban renewal funds and they bulldozed over it and they built our beautiful Boston City Hall. But, you know, they realized very quickly when a lot of the adult entertainment just moved down to lower Washington that, you know, they really couldn't fight market forces, not with urban renewal funds anyway. So, also to get back to how poor and crumbling Boston is, Southeast had the highest concentration of urban white poverty in the nation. So, like all the cities are in the tough shape. Remember, this is when New York declares, almost declare, does declare bankruptcy, almost declares bankruptcy, and you had those images of the trash piling up in Manhattan, because they couldn't afford the rates the trash people wanted. Well, Boston was also teetering on bankruptcy. And the reason that cities were so bad, were so bad off, was because in the 1950s, there were policies that changed it. Federal highway funds built, you know, 128 and 495. And federal loaning made it very advantageous for people to leave the city and buy a suburban house in Arlington, probably Dedham, Westwood, where I raised my kids. So, those communities are thriving and it's, oops, I think those are my glasses. So, they're thriving, but the cities are dying. And all that's left in the city, really, are the very rich and the kind of working poor and the non-working poor, the working class. And Boston is actually poorer than other cities, even though they're all hurting. And one of the reasons that that is, is because Boston has one of the highest rates of immigration. So, you have people still in the 60s coming from, you know, first they're coming from Ireland and Italy, and then they change immigration laws. So, they're coming from all over, you know, Asia and, but the reason they're coming to Boston is because Boston has that great reputation for education. It's kind of ironic given what's going to happen. But they move to Boston at higher rates than they're, like, relative to the population than they are. And immigrants are poor. You know, they just got here. They've come to, you know, make their way in the world, and they're going to be poorer than people who have been born here, just in general. So, that's why Boston is in tough shape. So, there's a couple of things going on also in the 60s and 70s. Kevin White wants to make Boston kind of a first-class city, right? And he's got this idea, and he and his architecture, and the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which no longer exists, but was a powerhouse in the 70s and 60s for planning. They had this idea, they called it the high spine. And there was going to be a high spine of skyscrapers from about Mass Ave to the waterfront, you know, like leaving, leaving alone the historical neighborhoods on either side. But this spine that goes down, you know, goes right to the water. But there's a black hole in that spine, and it's the combat zone. Now, the combat zone was called the combat zone, I think, from the late 50s, early 60s, because the sailors used to, because it's always been like there were, there were theaters, and there were bars, and the, the sailors and soldiers used to go there and drink, and then they'd fight in the streets, and the judge said, this is a combat zone. Right? But it also had a lot of family entertainment in the 50s, you know, in the 60s. And so, all of those businesses, so the adult entertainment industry moves down Washington to the combat zone, partly because there's a lot of old theaters there that aren't in use. It's, and it's, it's the period of time when we all should have been buying downtown real estate, because they basically couldn't give it away. And it's, and it's, it's deteriorating. And you'll see, I don't know if you want to come up now, this is what it, this is what it looks like. I'm going to move down. Yeah. All right, I remember. Yeah, this is what it looks like. Everybody's shaking their head. They remember, right? This is what it looks like. All right, so this building is called the Hayden Building. It is one of the finest specimens of architecture in the city. It's, it's, it's actually the same Henry Hop, Henry Hopson Richardson, who designed Trinity Church. And it is like falling down. I mean, that's falling down, but it's, it's in tough shape. I think it houses, well, I don't know if it houses it then. It'll come to house, I don't know, like a steam bath or, you know, book adult bookstores and, and it's, and it's just being, okay. So it's just being, it's falling apart. I should have realized, you know, how poor the city was and the fact that I was a high college sophomore and I could afford my own apartment, right, which was actually cheaper than paying the room and board at, at Boston University. So imagine that now, you know, it's just everything has just changed. So, all right, so Kevin White wants a world-class city. But there's a problem. This, this booming by the early 70s, there's 35 of these sex, sex, adult entertainment industries. There's strip clubs, there's bars, there's adult bookstores. Now to wrap your head around the adult bookstore, it's not like a bookstore that just happens to have some porn. It's this, you know, the Liberty bookstore will be this huge maze of, of, of products that include, you know, porn and, and, you know, life-size sex dolls and, you know, all sorts. It's a kind of an event just to go to the bookstore. And then you go off to the strip clubs or the bars. And that's kind of, they're, they're, and remember, there's no internet. There's no internet. So there's no DVDs. So if you want porn, you come to the combat zone. Especially if you don't want to go to your own, you know, your own drugstore, you know, like in your town. But, so this is the problem. Industry is failing throughout Boston except for one industry. And that's the adult entertainment industry. It is thriving. So on the one hand, they kind of want to shut it down. And on the other hand, it's drawing tourists and it's, you know, they're afraid if they get rid of it, they lose all their convention business. So it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, and also there's another thing happening in the 70s. And this will play into this murder and how it's covered. And in the 70s, you know, before this, if you went to like a dirty movie, you were usually probably a guy, part of a bachelor party and you're going to some dark theater. Well, now the 70s, porn became kind of counterculture cool, you know, deep throat was big. And you would, like it would be dates would go. And it was part of the whole kind of, you know, kind of the counterculture from the Vietnam War. And it became kind of cool. And this was freaking people, the establishment out because it was getting this like new social respectability. And this was a problem for a lot of people. And cities everywhere were, were kind of wrestling with it. There's another thing, the Supreme Court, US Supreme Court had made it, in a recent case, had made it more difficult to decide what was obscene. And the states, SJC, the Supreme Court, the High Court in Massachusetts had also decided similarly on a Quincy case, a bookstore, which made it harder for Boston to consider shutting them down. So, what to do? So, Boston decides that if they can't, what it will do is they, somebody, I think it's, I'm trying to think of the name, like the congressman who was there at the time, his name will come to me. But they decide, one of the things is they, they can't outlaw it, but they can contain it. So, in other words, if they say you can do it in these four block areas, it will be illegal, you can make it illegal everywhere else. And that's what they do. So, they, they hold a city council meeting or a planning board and they draw a four block area which is right next to Chinatown and it's kind of Boylston and bounded by Boylston, Tremont and Washington and the Grange and they say this is where you can have adult entertainment. And they have these grand plans for it, right? They say we're going to, we're going to work with the businesses so they get better signage. They allow them to have neon, which they're not allowed to, signs which you can't have anywhere else in the city. And this is what it starts to look like, all right? So, they, they say it's going to be well policed. They had just hired a new police superintendent, commissioner and his job, Robert DeGrasia. He might, is he from Arlington? Do you live in Arlington? He lived up here somewhere. He come from California and it was his job to clean up corruption and he was all in on this whole plan and so they, they, they do this adult entertainment which by the way is still on the books. It's still zoned for this. And they, they promised Chinatown things for going along with it that Chinatown never gets. They do all sorts of things. So, it's going to be fine, right? They're going to upgrade it. It's, they're going to take care of it's going to be fine except that they don't. They do work for a little bit trying to get better signage and the, the, a lot, some of the, most of the businesses resist and they sort of wash their hands of it. And at the same time, this is the early 70s, it's the heyday for the mafia, right? It's the heyday for the mafia and pretty soon as, as DeGrasio says, he knew he was here to, to clean up corruption in the police department. He just hadn't realized it was the most corrupt police department in the, in the nation. And there's a couple reasons for that. One of them is if it's the 1919 strike. So the 1919 strike of, of Boston police officers, what happened is they all, I think they all get fired and the new, the new crop comes in, it's new employees, hires get hired all at the same time. So for the rest of Boston's history, you pretty much have police entering the academy together and aging through the system and retiring altogether. So this gives them lots of time to bond the, you know, the thin blue line and they're, you know, watch each other's backs become corrupt. There's also the thing, the unions aren't incredibly strong. And DeGrasio quickly realizes, tries to do a few things and realizes he's, he's got nowhere. And then he and the mayor sort of have a falling out and he realized the mayor doesn't have his back. So what he does, I love this, he does, he does a secret investigation into his own police department. It's, it's like 500 pages. It's over 13 months. He does it clandestinely. And then, and then he gets a job in Maryland and he drops it at the newspapers like four days, a couple of days before he's a week before he's gonna leave when Kevin White is out of town. So, so it blasts, you know, the, the Herald, I think there's the Herald record, you know, and then there's the glow over them. We still have morning and evening papers. It's everywhere. And this report is stunning in how much detail it provides. And this is all in the paper in the, the corruption like small and large, like small in that the cops are letting, are letting, you know, mobsters double park and large in they're tipping off the mob and investigate of their own investigations before they happen. And, you know, like they're extorting money from prostitutes for, you know, they're extorting sex. They're, they're drinking on the job. So also, all right, let's go back to what the conduct zone starts to look like in the early 70s. You have 35 businesses about, and that's, that'll go up and down. On a typical Saturday night, you would have 60 prostitutes just hanging out on the grain street outside of good time. Charlie's just waiting for a business. You would have solicitations going on on the corners at the intersections. Women soliciting men through cars, drugs being sold and bought and sold through cars. There was sex going on in the alleys. There was sex going on in the, in the clubs. One club figured out a way to allow the customers to pay for oral sex on their credit card. And it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's bedlam. And the crime rate had something like quadrupled since the 50s and the 60s. So it's, and the other thing is, think about this. If you go to a strip club or you're there to buy sex or you're there to buy drugs, you're probably gonna do a cash transaction, right? So everybody is carrying cash. Thus, mugging and pick-bogging is at a peak. So that's, that, so, and there is this one scheme that will feature very large in this murder. And it's even talked about in the report that comes out a week before this murder. And so it's called, they call it the robber whore scheme. And what it is, is you're not even, you're actually really not even allowed, supposed to be calling prostitutes prostitutes anymore, right, they're supposed to be called sex workers, but I'm gonna use the terminology that they use in the 70s. So the way this worked was women, young, young women, they called them horlits because they probably weren't even, you know, like the ones that will, they will get on this are 16 and 21. And they would hang out outside the bars and went in the strip clubs. And when the men came out, they would go up and fondle them and steal their wallets. So with this report, so there hadn't been, and this had been the news for quite some time, a couple of years, but the report that comes out week says there's a new wrinkle in it. Now these women have paid protectors. They have men who are there just to make sure if a, I don't know if I could call him a John because he's not a John, if a Mark notices his wallet is gone and tries to get it back, they get rid of him. And DeGrasie, who I was lucky to interview before he passed away, said this, some cops did it too. He said the saddest thing about that period for police. And he said, you know, not all cops were corrupt, but 50% of them were. And the saddest part was how little it cost to buy them. So we're talking, like, what could they make on a $50 wallet, right? Five bucks, you know, for a percentage. But this was happening. And there were a lot of hustler like that were protecting the women. So that this is all in the news, right? That this is all in the news in November, first week of November, 1976. So let me just look at my photos here. All right, so I'm gonna, these are more of the comments I'm gonna look like then. But it is just, it's famous across the nation that Wall Street Journal comes in and calls it the sexual Disneyland. I mean, people are kind of there, they kind of are amused that, you know, Boston of all cities should have this, right? How did they compare it to Times Square? It's a smaller version. But I think, I don't know, because I never did a comparison of Times Square, so I shouldn't say, but I don't know if, I don't know if New York had the same level of police corruption or not. So these are the Angulos, right? That's the Angulo family. They are the, they're the reason, they're in their prime. And this is their peak earning years. They own, they say, they say that the report says they own 40, conservatively 40% of all the businesses in the zone. And those of those that they don't own, they're getting protection money. So it's really a corrupt scene. So, so I don't know if you can see, this is the Harvard Club. In November 15th, 1976, the Harvard Football Club will have its breakout dinner. And that is at the end of the season, they gather at the Harvard Club for a lovely dinner banquet. Ethel Kennedy is there to give it an award in honor of her husband. It's very, very classy. And when they're done at about 11, 1130, they go, all 40 football players go to the combat zone together. This is a Harvard ritual. Now, if that sounds crazy, I thought it was crazy at first. I found out my friend of mine played for BC. He said, oh no, we did it too. We called it force night because the idea is you go out and force so you're safer. Because it is, I mean, the thing about the zone was the crime and the danger were a part of the excitement for a 20-year-old. You never knew what was gonna happen. It was wild. Like I said, dates went there. But this is a week after that report comes out saying how dangerous it is. And they go to the naked eye, renowned for its all-girl college review. So they go here. They have themselves a good time. Two of them even get up on the stage and dance with a stripper. They then get kicked out. But they're in a back room. Somebody's cousin or something is a manager and they get in the private room and back. And that's where a couple of them get up and dance with a stripper. And, but it's, they get kicked out. It's closing. And they spill onto the street. And they break up. Because they all got there different ways, right? So they break up into groups. And, let me see what you have. Okay. Andy Popolo, oops. Andy Popolo, who is the victim? Everybody wants to see him, all right? 20 years old, handsome. He will be later be portrayed as Harvard Privilege, but he actually isn't. He grew up, his father was a Italian immigrant. He, they lived in the North End and in a two bedroom apartment, the family, until about, I don't know, he was about 14. They moved to Jamaica Plain. He gets to Harvard really on hard work. And, you know, when he wants to play football there and the interviewer laughs at him because he's so small at this point. But he's a fabulous athlete. So he spends all of his hard work bulking himself up so that he starts football in his senior year. He's had a great season, but the team has not. They were picked as the favorites to win the Ivy League championship. And they are not only, not only are they second, I think like two teams are tied for first and they're tied for second with Dartmouth, I think. So they all go to the club. So one of the saddest things about this story for the Pablo family is that people will say, and I've heard this on and on, oh, he's that kid who got stabbed because he was chasing a prostitute because he was there trying to buy sex. That's what people say. That's not true. When this happens, he's actually with a group of four people. He's in the back of a car already ready to go home. He had tests that week because he was a pre-med. He had already gotten accepted to one medical school, but it was in Canada and he really wanted to go here. So he is in the car, go home. Another group of Harvard football players, I think there's seven, I think there's six, plus the Harvard Equipment Manager. And they're going home in the Harvard van. And they pass the Carnival Lounge where three Horlitz, whatever you want to call them, three women of the night, but not really. They're pretend women of the night because they go up inside, you know, and so they're drunk, these guys are drunk. Some of the boys are, the students are like, no, no, we don't talk to them, you know this. There's actually three black guys and three white guys and the black guys are in the front and they're like, no, no, don't talk to them. And the women are black. They say, no, let's just go home. But there's one guy really drunk and he starts talking about how much money is in. He's got 50 bucks in his wallet and the girls end up in the Harvard van. But depending on the testimony, at least one gets inside. But she's only there for about five minutes. They're trying, or a couple of them are trying to talk her into coming back to the campus that night and she doesn't want to. She jumps out with the wallet, not, and Andrew Pogliel is nowhere near any of this. So they jump out, they try to chase her. The two prostitutes separate, they chase one of them. They wind up, eventually, they almost go home. This whole thing almost didn't happen because outside the carnival lounge, Richie Allen, who will later become convicted, tells them, go home. Go home, get in your car and go home, just go home. You're out, basically, you're out of your league, which they really were. So they do get back in the van and they're gonna go home. And then one of them, as they're crossing, Boylston, one of them says, there she is. And they pull the van across to another alley. They run out, not the black students. Black students are like, I'm getting involved in this. This is during busing where people are getting lynched. Like, I'm not getting out of the van. So they chase her. The car that Andy's in, the guy who was in the front, they were just about to get in. They said, well, Kel, go, you're closer. So they wind up in the chase, but not Andy. So there's a little, so three black men come out of the carnival lounge. Well, Richie Allen, the bouncer. Edward Sarez and Leon Easterling. This is, you can't, this is not great, but this is Richard Allen, Edward Sarez, Leon Easterling. And by some accounts, these two are half brothers. Although I've seen all their police records and they have no parents in common on the records, but police records are notoriously specious. Okay, remember this guy with the glasses on the end. He's the important one. They come out, but this one, Edward Sarez comes out. He runs, he sees, from his viewpoint, he sees a bunch of big, huge white football players chasing a black woman down the street, right? So he comes out, he's the first one to comes out, and he, I don't know, so what happens is the Harvard football players, they reach the prostitute, she falls down on the street. And one of them picks him up, she says, he says, do you have the wallet? And she says, I don't have the wallet. So he just lets her go. He lets her go, he's like, well, what are we gonna do? But by that time, Edward Sarez has caught up, he kicks them, and then all the footballers around, and then they wind up circling him around the MTA station, and that's when Richard Allen, who by all accounts was just huge, and Leon Easterling come. And they're kind of surrounding him, and then all of a sudden Leon Easterling jumps through and he stabs Tom Lincoln, a football player, in the stomach. And they realize, oh my God, they've got knives, right? And they, these are pretty much suburban boys, except for, you know, Andy, they're, I mean, these, they're not even there, but these just, they run like hell back to the Harvard van, and then they chase them. The question is, are these three guys, they were just like patrons of the club? Well, so he's the bouncer, he's the patron, he's a patron, but they have long records. These two, which are the half brothers, actually have long records for hustling in the combat zone. He actually has like drug sales, pimping. He had a couple charges as a high school kid, but he's been clean for a long time, and he sells jewelry off a cart in front of like fine leans in that area. So, and that will kind of muddy the waters for the prosecutor, because the prosecutor, all right, so they go down the van, they chase them, all of them get back into the van, except for Charlie, who is the guy who actually caused all the problems, and somebody, there's another guy who joins them. He's called the man in the cranberry jacket, and nobody can decide what race he is with testimony. Some people testify he's black, some people testify he's Hispanic, some people testify he's white, they can't decide, but everybody agrees on the cranberry jacket. He was also very large. Danny Poplow, the brothers thinks he was probably Italian, because Huckum, he's the only one who never gets caught, ever, right? So, but I don't know if that's true, that's just speculation, but so they go back, they chase them back, and he gets out of his car now. He sees his teammates being chased back to the alley, and he kind of follows them, and by the time he gets to the alley, all he sees is one of his teammates who has been pulled out by the man in the cranberry jacket is being beaten against the van. So, he jumps in to help him. By the time he gets in, actually, another Tommy Lincoln, the guy who had the stab wound, had gotten out of the car and gotten Charlie back in, but Edward Soares gets him in a fight, they fist fight around the van, and Leon Easterling, the same one who stabbed Tom Lincoln, jumps over and stabs Andy again. So, he stabs him in the abdomen, one of his teammates picks him up and says, we gotta get the hell out of here, and Andy says yes. So, they're in retreat towards Boylston, they're on to Boylston, and Leon Easterling comes a second time and stabs Andy in and up to the heart. So, the good news, or one of the strokes of luck at the time, supposedly, is that because of all this press the week before, there's a lot of cops in the combat zone. So, the cops are with there within seconds, and they get Andy two tusks, which is just a block, in four or five minutes. He arrives dead on arrival, but they're able to restart his heart, and initially, it looks like all signals look good. I guess his pupils dilated, they think they got him just in the nick of time, and it's a miracle. So, the next morning, his family comes, and they're all waiting, and everyone has this great prognosis. The next morning, there's a press conference. So, let me back up and say, this event is covered by more than 300 newspapers across the nation, from Biddleford, Maine, to Butte, Montana, and as far away as the Stars and Stripes in Japan. Speak, why? Because the pornography, well, there's a couple things. It's like, well, it's a white Harvard football player getting stabbed, two white Harvard football getting stabbed by three black men charged. So, there's that. And then also, the rest of the nation looked at Boston legislating this combat zone, and were like, what are you doing? This is a big mistake, and a lot of people in the city thought it was a big mistake, and ultimately, I think it was a big mistake, so this gets coverage. Everybody's really fascinated by this. This is Boston getting its comeuppance. What did you think would happen? That kind of thing. So, and then when they have the press conference, which adds to it, the police, now this is district one police, right? Who just, last week, were the most corrupt unit within the most, district within the most corrupt. Well, they aren't saying that they needed some good press, this is kind of an understatement. All of a sudden, they're heroes. The doctors say it's only by the swift acting of the cops who did not wait for an ambulance, but drove him there, that this miracle has occurred. So, this is coverage. TV, radio, ABC will come and do a special. I mean, it is a big, big story. So, let me see. And there's another thing going on. This will really factor into the trial. And many things, Andy's gonna live. But by that next afternoon, when the family comes, they were up there all night and the nurses say, just go home and like, you know, he won't be out of recovery for a couple hours. When they do come back, only a couple hours later, he's already having seizures. And that's a sign that, you know, he's gonna go. That's a sign that there's been brain damage. So he will never recover from his coma. And his coma will become a huge news event. They're people like, healing priests from all over would come in. You know, Ted Kennedy sends a letter. The Pope sends a blessed medal. And Tipp, remember Tipp, remember Tipper? Tipp O'Neill comes. All the policy, I mean, it's an event, right? So this is going on all that fall when he finally dies in December. And the three men first, it was attempted murder. Now it's, you know, murder in the first degree. So they're up the charges. Okay, at this time, so that's December. By March of 1977, this will go to trial. I think that's like three months. Think about trials now. Like, the defense usually gets a year, right? At least. So, and this is obviously, they're going to be, at this point, they're just pro bono, right? So they get three months to prepare the defense. Right? They came out of the bar. Right. Like, there's no, how can it be premeditated? Well, I'll tell you in a second. So, but another thing that happens is, all right, so I'll go into that right now. So the prosecutor is Tom Mundy. He is the top prosecutor for the city. And he will, after this case, he will continue to be the top prosecutor for the city. Even the people who hate him say he's brilliant. And even the people who hate him say he doesn't give the defense it's due, but he is really motivated by the victim, by justice for the victim. So, but think about this. His boss, Brendan Garrett Byrne, had hated the combat zone for a long time. As a matter of fact, he's got, he's got his district attorneys prosecuting it. They're the ones who found out about the use of credit cards for oral sex. They have been, they have been investigating and wanting to shut down the combat zone because it's like a mob haven, right? So they have been on this. His boss wants it shut down, the whole city. So the day after this murder happens, Ray Flynn, who will be the next mayor, he, he goes, and he, you know, he was a basketball star. And he had, he had actually coached Andy. That's some youth coaching actually. So he feels a personal stake in this. He goes to the combat zone with petitions to shut it down. Carl Medeiros wants to shut it down. The, the district attorney of Suffolk County, he wants to shut it down. And the new police chief, the new commissioner who replaced Robert DeGrasia, Jim Jordan, he wants to shut it down, right? So everybody wants it. And the next day, also a state trooper also died that later that week. He got into a fight in the combat zone and he had a heart attack on the way back and died. So there's a lot of pressure to shut down the combat zone. So first degree murder, let's explain that. So there are two things. So the prosecutor is arguing, is going to argue first degree murder for all, all three. And he's saying, and you know, think about it, only one of them really stabbed him, but he's using joint venture, which is a lot like the felony murder rule. And what he's saying, and this is really complicated, and a complicated case for the jury because he's arguing joint venture two ways. He's saying, one, I've got evidence and he did have a lot of people telling him, these guys were working together to, to protect the prostitute, thus it's a conspiracy. But even if that weren't true, and I don't really think he, I've read the transcripts like three times, I don't really think he probably advised a lot of proof of that. Even though he, you know, even if that weren't true, the fact that the three of these guys were up at the T-stop, remember they stabbed Tom Lincoln first, where they see that, they see that Leon Easternling stabs him, once they, they congregate and they follow them back, they know that he had a knife and he would use it. So that makes them complicit. I mean, premeditation is a, I think it's a lot to ask of a jury, but getting back to busing. Okay, so this is, this is the city is so violent at this time. The protests are so intense. I mean, Southie the next year will be shut down for like three weeks after a kid gets stabbed there. A black kid stabs a white kid in the library, outside the library. Within minutes, the high school is surrounded with by 3000 protesters. The cops come, they cannot figure out how to get the black kids out of the building. So what they do, they finally do, Louise Day Hicks, remember her? She's like leading this whole charge. She's the, she comes down and tells them to go home, the protesters to go home. And they say, shut up Louise. And she's their like, she's their savior, right? So they finally do a faint where they pretend to take them out the front and then they secret them out the back door. All right, so when you come out, all the cop count like cop cars are overturned. There's helicopters around. They have to shut down the school and there's rumors that the bridges and the tunnels of Boston are gonna be blown up. And people take this seriously because that's how violent the city is. So when they first, by the time they start counting the data, black on white violence, white on black violence. The first year is 78. And this is probably when it's coming down a little bit. It's 604 incidences. That's just what reported. That's like two a day. And then we're not talking about any other hate crime here. We're just talking about racial violence. Black on white white. So it's a very, very violent. The level of the violence and the protests is just kind of mind boggling. So, all right, so, and where do those juries come from? So now you're, all right, the jury is gonna have to decide this on the first case. Where does the jury come from? Where does the jury pool come from? It comes from Southie and Charlestown and everywhere in the city when whites are really furious about busing. And frankly, justifiably so. And I mean, I understand why the judge did it because the school committee, Boston School Committee, spent 15 years rejecting any other legitimate thing, like magnet schools, like any other possible resource, they just rejected it at a hand. So Judge Gary by this point was like, forget it, you know? And the plan was punitive. I mean, I think they started by busing people from Roxbury to Southie. I mean, you know, it was punitive. And people, these are basically poor working class or struggling working class. You're taking their children and you're busing them to a neighborhood that to them is very scary. And you're busing kids from one underperforming school to another wildly underperforming school. There's like no benefit and they're all pissed off because communities like Newton, Wellesley, Brookline, they're not in it. Like they don't have to send their, they don't have to send their kids anywhere, right? They can just voluntarily do Metco, but they don't have to send their kids anywhere. And they're very busy judging them all as racist. So everybody is very furious. All right, this is the jury poll, right? And so they're not really in the mood to consider the rights of three black defendants, right? And the poll itself, there are very few blacks because of the way jury polls were drawn. It was on voter registration and blacks tended not to vote. So, and also you had this crazy system where when you were called for jury, you had to serve a month and it was such a financial burden that they pretty much let anybody off who had a good job. So you could, so basically you were left with the very young, the retirees and the people who worked for the union whose union contract compensated them for jury doing. So I had one, one former prosecutor said it's like that. The jury makeup was like that scene in Star Wars when they go to the bar, you know, and there's all these crazy people. He said, that's what the jury poll is like. So the jury, so they're trying to choose a jury in this incredibly racial time of racial hatred and in the jury, the transcript of the jury selection, they're like, they say, well, you know, the first thing the judge says is, well, can you be, can you have much publicity? Have you seen? It's like a lot of them were like, well, oh, so I've been watching on TV for the last three months because that's all it's there, right? And also, well, you know, can you be fair? How do you feel, like racially, can you be fair? And a lot of people just say, you know, frankly, I can't because I hate so and so. I mean, it's that, they're very candid about it. I know maybe they were trying to get out of jury duty but I kind of think that that's the way people felt that because they were also furious. So this is the jury poll. So the jury poll has 13 blacks in it. There's 187 people who will be called. There are 13 potential jurors that are, and there are 13 that the judge says, okay, you know, you can be seated, you can be fair. And so then both the defense and the prosecution have an ability to use their peremptory challenges. And peremptory challenges when they can say, no, and they don't have to say why, right? It's their turn to weigh in on the jurors' fairness, but they don't have to give a reason. So this has been used at this point, at that point, routinely by any prosecutor with a white victim and a black, to get rid of all blacks on the jury. This is, it was just standard operating procedure, not just in Boston, everywhere. Also, the defense got rid of every single every potential juror who had an Italian last name because the victim was Italian. It's the way they did things, and it was totally legal. Why didn't the defense consider a bench trial? I don't know. I mean, they had just legal aid, right, pro bono attorneys? Yeah, I don't, oh, I know why. I didn't think about it that way. So the judge they pick, Judge Roy, is known as the hanging judge. So Henry Owens, who is the most prominent black attorney at the time, he will go on and have a fabulous career. He's gonna represent Richie Allen, and he sees once they choose that judge, my client doesn't have a chance in hell. This is the judge they choose when the commonwealth wants a conviction. That's his beliefs. And then, so he's gone against Monday in the past, and he knows that he does this with the jury selection. So as soon as jury selection starts, he starts taking notes, he starts registering his complaints, charging that this is racial, and they just kind of poo poo him. They do have one. At the final jury, we'll have one black on it, and they kind of think that covers them. And to tell you the truth, by the law at the time, it did cover them. So they go to trial. So like I said, it's a complex trial, three, three defendants, multiple charges. Complicated things like joint venture being argued two ways. So the jury selection takes about two weeks. The trial only takes about six days. And at the end of it, the judge gives his instructions. And from noon, and they're all sequestered all this time, so it's all gone on the weekend. So because the publicity, they're sequestered. So they break it noon, they deliberate till five. The next morning, they meet again. By 10, 20, they have a decision. That's pretty fast in a very complicated case. And they are all guilty. A first degree murder, no questions asked. So to be fair to Mundy, he has the prosecutor, he has really, really damning medical evidence, right? And he has something like 15 eyewitnesses, not all of them from Harvard. We have like linemen for the utility. You have a lot of, he has a lot of testimony. So they all get convicted. Okay, so this is where that really changes. So up until that point, all the sympathy has been with the Popolo family, right? Although people will say to them, I'm so sorry about your song, but what was he doing in the combat zone anyway? Because everybody wants to think there's a reason your kid got killed and my kid won't. So, and then it goes, and how public and how horrible this is for a family of who was by all accounts just a fabulous, fabulous kid who worked hard, done all the right things and is struck down. So there, and then all the publicity and then, but after this trial, after it comes, they go from being very sympathetic to, well that racist Popolo trial. And their name gets associated with racism even though they have nothing to do with it. And by all accounts, Andy Popolo was the least racist kid on the team. He had a ton of black friends who all, a lot of them talked to me about how he was like the sole guy that they could count on. So anyway, so the family's grieving enough this happens. So then the second trial will be in, so Henry Owens appeals based on, first he says there's not enough, there's two things he's arguing, there's not enough evidence to convict them of first degree murder, joint venture, and this jury selection was by it, it was racist. So it'll take, it'll take about a year and a half and the high court will say no, there is enough evidence. That they all deserve first degree murder. But the choosing of the jury was racist and they order a new trial. Now, things will change. This will get retried in the fall of 1979. And things have changed. For one thing, a lot of the problems in the school have settled down not so much because of Kumbaya but because most of the white people have either left the city with kids or they send their kids to Catholic school or Procure school. There are problems, there's a race, race stuff going on in the neighborhoods but it's calmed down a little and people frankly in Boston are sick of it. They vote out Pixie Palladino and Louise Day Hicks and they vote in a first, I think first black school committee and they want it changed. There's the Globe does a study that shows that blacks for the same crime get higher, longer sentences at worse facilities. So there's data to show. And this is when Carson Beach, there's a lot of violence, there's studies that show the white violence against blacks, 60% of the violence. It goes both ways but 60% is white on black. And then a week before, or two weeks before. And there's also Brian Nelson who is from Medford, which is near here, right? So he's a 19 year old, 18 year old black kid with his friends. They get chased by a white van full of whites during the snow, they get into it and Brian Nelson gets murdered with a tire iron and I think a Coke bottle. Okay, so not only does none of his friends get called for joint venture, right? Because it's just like you said, it's a spontaneous fight. And usually you don't use premeditated murder. He only gets charged with manslaughter and an all white jury will acquit him. So there are a couple of cases like this that happen. I don't know if you remember when the Charlestown, a school full of black children from Pennsylvania comes to see the Bunker Hill Monument with the chaperones. On the way back, they get beaten by three white kids with tire irons and you know, I think it's actually, I don't think it's tire irons. It's hockey sticks and baseball bats. And an all white jury will find no one to convict. Although in that instance, in that instance, the black witnesses or the people there said, you know, I can't convict him. So I think what happened was the cops grabbed the wrong three white guys. But still it's the kind of thing that keeps happening in Boston. So, and then I'll end on this note. Two weeks before, does it remember Daryl Williams? He is a 15 year old black kid playing football for Jamaica Plain. Because remember there's busing. He's from Blackberry. And he's on the field in Charlestown playing football and three white kids on a rooftop of that housing shoot. And they get him in the back of the neck and he's paralyzed for the rest of his life. And actually the point this trial is going on, he's not awake yet and looks like he's gonna. So, and his mother is much like during the Popolo trial, Andrew Popolo Sr. is just this really warm and gracious man who is just saying, you want revenge, she's saying no. Right, and she does the same thing. She's a gracious, I want the city to calm down. I don't want my sons, don't kill each other over my son. She's a very gracious, so the sympathy, sympathy, it's like the moment when white violence in Boston has finally gone too far. And everyone sort of takes a reckoning. And that will dramatically affect the second trial. And I'll leave it at that so that you all read the book. And I will just show you some more pictures. This is the North End, we'll get together. And people always want to know, so the book is a lot about Danny Popolo. That's the younger brother. And it's about, you know, they're from the North End, everyone's telling him, and they're saying that these guys are not gonna make it to trial because they're gonna kill by the mob. And he begins to feel like this was his older brother who always protected him. So he will struggle throughout the book. First he wants justice, then he wants revenge. And it's all about what it's like to be a victim and all the PTSD, he's definitely got PTSD. And it's very common, and it's basically if you're a teenager and someone close to you is murdered, you have almost no chance of not having PTSD. And it explains a lot about the cycle of violence in the cities. So if you're in a gang, you're 15, 16 year olds, your best friend gets shot in the street, you're gonna want revenge, right? That's just, it's the natural result. It's what happens. So this book goes into a lot about that revenge cycle. And anyway, so everybody who's read the book usually wants to know what Danny looks like. And that's he and his father at the dedication of Popolo Park, which is on the north end on commercial street, like on the waterfront, that's where he grew up playing baseball and the town will get to, the north end will get together and petition the city to change the name. And that's Danny and his father. Let's see what else we got here. This is the, I'll just read this to you. This is the plaque in his name. Andrew Popolo Jr., 1955 to 1976, athlete, scholar, and friend, happy of those who dream dreams and are willing to sacrifice to make them come through, dedicated by the people of the north end. And then the last thing I have is this is the combat zone today. There are only two strip clubs left. And so he dies in 1976, right? The combat zone doesn't really go away until the, but that's the moment, with this murder, that's the moment when the BRA in the city says, all right, we're shutting them down. And the way they do it is they, they're hard on the first, first, at first there's all these kind of, the prosecution comes in and all these bars that we're serving minors and having prostitution, a lot of those are closed and lose their license at least temporarily. Like they come down on them. Like it goes from anything goes to we're gonna get you on everything. So they make it hard to do business in the zone. And then they start getting, doing development. They put state buildings there, they get the Chinese, Chinatown has a, I think it's a China Development Corp. That takes up a big building. I don't know what it's called. That's a, yeah, yeah, I think it's gone now, right? And the college goes in there. Yeah, the college goes in. So basically ready to start, rental prices start to go high. This is when strip clubs move to Peabody and Saugus, I think. And so that'll happen. So it'll slowly shrink. It begins to shrink after this. Basically it's a concerted campaign to make it, but it takes a long time and there's nowhere else they can start up in the city. So they put one guy out of business and somebody else starts in the combat zone. But basically by the 90s, once the DVR comes, you know, forget it's over and then the internet. So it's not like this stuff doesn't go on. It's not like prostitution doesn't go on anymore. It just doesn't go on on the street, right? It's, it's on the internet. So, yep, yep. So, all right, so I'm gonna open up to questions. What part did you, to rate this, almost 50 years later? So, I had written four murder mysteries and I was sick of making up terrible things for people to do. And I kept saying, I kept saying, I wanna find a story that needs to be told. I wanna, you know, I know I can make up, I know I can write it off, I know, but I wanna find a story that I feel really needs to be told. And I said that enough. I lived in Westwood at the time, I live in Dedum now. And I was at the Costco and this guy, a friend of mine, he said, Chan, do you write screenplays? And I said, well, I have, because he had heard me say this at a Christmas party, that I look, I said, well, I have written screenplays, but nothing like successful. And by successful, I mean, that only hasn't ever gotten made. I never even thought the screenplay was that good. So, he said, because Danny Poppola was looking for a screenwriter. And I knew, you know, he was in Westwood. I said, what the hell is Danny Poppola looking for a screenwriter? And he said, remember that murder in 1976, the Harvard football player? I was like, oh, yeah, I do, I do remember that. So, I went back and I Googled it and I saw that, and I'm not a lawyer, but my husband's a lawyer, my father was a lawyer, my brother's a judge. I grew up working in my father's law office, so I love all things legal. So, I started working at, and I said to Dan, they had a director from Harvard who was the director from Spin City and Home Improvement, Andrew K. Diff, and he wanted to work, but they didn't have a screenwriter and they didn't have any money. So, they wanted me to write it on spec, which means you don't get paid until it gets made, which means you never get paid. So, I said, I will do that if I have the right to write a book and the way I see it. I'll write the screenplay the way you want, but I'm a journalist. So, I have to write the book the way I see it. So, we had an agreement was signed. And so, that's how it came about. And so, and Danny and I have very different views of what happened legally, which I don't expect him to. He is a great guy. He's, I mean, what happened to that family, no one should have to deal with that, because it's not just, I mean, the murder is bad enough. Two trials, all that publicity, it's a living hell. And it does a lot of damage. So, but, so I gave him, he has a statement at the end of the book. I let him have, some people have told me that's their favorite part of the book, which, you know, so we saw things very differently, but he upheld his agreement. Like I had to get, because I switched publishers, because my first publisher went out of business, I had to get waivers from everybody to sign. And Danny tells me his, I mean, the stuff he tells about his stuff is very, you know, about some very revealing things. And he could have at that point said, I'm not signing that waiver, I don't like the book, but he knew we had this deal, he signed the waiver. And the book would not have been published to be signed that waiver. Did you get a chance to interview Tom Lincoln and this Charles, and I just wondered, what is their life like knowing that they were players in this, but they're alive? So, I've talked to a lot of football players that were there. Charles, we emailed, but he didn't want to go on the record. He's living in South America doing charity work. So I think he feels a lot of guilt. Tom Lincoln has very strong feelings about it that he shared with me that he blames Charlie for the whole thing. A lot of them blame Charlie for the whole thing. A lot of them, you know, this is a defining moment in their lives. You know, this is trauma that they will never forget. And some people won't return my call when one guy Malcolm who was in the car said, are you kidding? I have to talk about this. I feel, but you know, I'm looking for a way to talk about this. That's the only way I get through this is talking about this. They're all like wildly successful. They're all like doctors and stuff, you know. But this was a powerful, powerful event in their lives that they'll never forget. Anybody else? Just in terms of this sort of racial issue and not going away the Charles Stewart case then happened 10, 12 years later. And do you know who prosecuted the brother? You know who prosecuted? Tom Mundy. He's actually prosecuted the white guys. So, yeah, it, it. You mean Charles Stewart? Matthew, the brother. Yeah, I think it was Matthew because Matthew. Because Charles committed. Yeah, Charles, yeah. So, but he was, he was involved in the case from the very beginning. So what happened, the good things about this was after this case, Massachusetts and California had similar they, you can't do this anymore. You cannot just strike people from the jury. You can't strike not just blacks or whites. You can't strike women on a rape case. You can't strike, you know, and they, because of the Italian thing they put ethnicity, you know, you can't like you do three Armenians and Armenian victim, you know, victim and what happens is the other side takes note and objects and those objections can lead to the whole thing being overturned. So it's called the Sora's decision after the Edward Soros was the first name on the thing and he and it is, it's also followed up by changes in how they do the jury, jury pool, which improves the quality and the mix of the jury pool. And it's also some follow-up legislation which makes it very, which makes it pretty effective in Massachusetts. Eventually the rest is it'll take eight years for the US Supreme Court to use this as a foundation for the Batson decision. And the Batson decision is federally you can't do it either. But there's a lot of ways the Batson decision is not as well drafted as the Soros decision. So they sometimes they make fun of it. There's still ways to get around it. But in Massachusetts the Soros decision has been very effective and it made a positive impact and criminal justice. I mean, it didn't, you know, it's not kumbaya. There's still a lot of problems, but it was a first step. Am I remembering correctly that Easterling toward the end of his sentence escaped and then had to go back and do some more time? Yeah, well, he had to finish his sentence. Yeah, he escaped and they never even told the Popolo family. Yeah, it's yeah, they never even told the Popolo family and the family was just furious because they never even got notification of it. He gets out after 15 years. Yep. Hey, the funny thing was I tried to reach him. I was this is this is sort of, I was desperate to get people I wanted to get a background on these these people and it was really hard 40 years later. And so I put out something on the internet and I get this email and says, I understand you're looking to talk to Lee on Easterling. I said, yeah, I am Lee on Easterling, let's talk. And then I was like, ooh, do I go meet him? Do I go meet him? But he wanted me to pay. He wanted me and you don't do that as a journalist. So I never met him and then he died. And also there was a there was a time when I like I had the problem with publishers I put down the book and then he died and then I picked it up again and he was right there. What role of any did the mafia play? Well, you know, Danny has blamed you could you could blame the mafia for for the crime-ridden nature of the of the combat zone. There's also a thing was because the cops what they would do was they would arrest people like Lee on Easterling and you know the low-level hustlers to show some numbers where they let everybody connected with the mob go. And also there's a really funny there's a trade group of the called bad Boston adult district, I think it's called. And they're like they represent all the people who own the bars and the clubs and the strip clubs and everything. And the woman is a very colorful woman who is there. And even before Andy dies she says the city of Boston is responsible for his murder because they had this the the businesses have been complaining about this robber whore thing. They had been complaining prostitutes would complain because it was like hurting their business, you know and reflecting poorly on on and they were doing a legit illegal but a legit business. So no, so, you know, she does say the city has some culpability in it. The mob has some culpability in it. I would say, you know, Harvard, you know the wisdom of sanctioning a a a an outing there in the Harvard van goes, you know. So there's, you know, it's like like Danny says it's a perfect, perfect storm. Now these terrible things happen when bad things align. And did this green play ever see the light of day? No, no, no. But I knew that from the beginning. So I never, you know, I mean, still have it. So it's actually turned out pretty well, but but in it, this is the thing. The other thing was Danny was told we at the time when I started this that Leon Easterling was dead. So I wrote this screenplay with like this action scene between Leon Easterling and Danny, you know, because in the book is completely 100% true. But and when you're doing things for some of you you're allowed some leeway. So I was like, oh my God, I never got made because it turned out like two years later. He's alive. You know, I made this character based on him with this scene that never happened. So yeah, so that I found out first, I think it was when Leon contacted me. I said, Danny, guess what? Leon's alive. He's like, what? So. Well, this is getting actually terrific. Thank you. Thank you. And there are books. Yes, I'd be happy to sign them if you want a book. And what's next on your menu? Well, I finished it. I wrote a novel that I've been working on for many years on the women who went, because I love history. Basically, I really like the thing that I like most of all is history. So this is a historical novel on the women who went sailing when wailing with their husbands in the 1800s. And I said it during the Civil War, which was kind of the death knell for the final death knell and where people don't know that the Confederacy actually went out and they had raiding ships that actually hunted well ships and found them and burned them. So a lot of people don't know that it was kind of like, you know, it was like terrorism, you know, the terrorism of its day because wailing was like the exon of its era. I was producing a lot of revenue for the North. So that, so I'm finishing that. And then I'm actually looking for a project. So if you know anything that involves, you know, the law, I'm very interested in criminal justice, so. Anyway, also I'll mention this if anybody knows anybody. I'm teaching a class. I just, I went to, I don't know if anyone wants to, I've hooked up with a woman who owns a beautiful inn in Provence in Louberant. And she's a French change, French chef. And we're doing cooking classes in the morning and memoir writing in the afternoon. So if you know anybody, and it's a gorgeous, I mean the place that overlooks the vineyard in Louberant. So if you know anybody, take one of these. If not, you know, or tell somebody to check out my website.