taken his grandmother’s car that night
to visit his girlfriend, something he
wasn’t supposed to do and didn’t want
his mother (who was sitting next to him
in his interview) to know. Ed wasn’t
scared of the deputies or worried what
they would think, since he had nothing
to do with the murder. He was scared of
his mom, a cocaine addict who had shot
her two former husbands—and would
later, during a drug-fueled argument,
shoot Kelvin in both legs. Also, Ed told
Ruff that the “script” Snow testified
about was actually a page of notes Ed
had written to send to his lawyers after
his conversation with Johnson. It later
vanished from the cell, and he eventu-
ally figured out that Snow had taken it.
Ruff relentlessly attacked the state’s
case. He described how Hukill had
homed in on Ed from the start, while
failing to follow up on other suspects.
In addition to Moseley, Griffin had been
dating Johnson and a third man, and
neither was ever interviewed. Hukill
never checked Moseley for scratches
or blood, as he did Ed. Waller and the
other investigators never measured
the large handprint on the towel. No
one ever photographed the position of
the car seat. Though the car radio was
tuned to KZEY, which played hip-hop,
the station also played gospel music.
Ruff became increasingly incensed
about the Smith County criminal justice
system. He recorded several episodes
on Cook’s case and implied that Dobbs
(who had also prosecuted Cook) was a
psychopath. “I will not rest until you
are behind bars for your crimes against
humanity,” Ruff intoned. He suggested
that Hukill and Waller weren’t just in-
competent—they had framed Ed. “The
Smith County justice system has de-
stroyed countless lives,” he thundered.
In May 2016 the Innocence Project
of Texas agreed to take the case, and Ed
got a new lawyer, Allison Clayton, who
began visiting and writing him. Usual-
ly the lawyers at IPTX have to spend
hundreds of hours doing tedious leg-
work—getting transcripts, doing inter-
views, asking experts how a test works,
checking out possible leads—but Ruff
and his army had already done much
of it. IPTX also typically has to scrape
together funding for its investigations,
but the army helped there too. When
Ruff put out a request for help to pay for
possible DNA testing, listeners poniedup $7,000. So many of IPTX’s clients
were lost in the prison system. Though
Ed had once been forgotten himself, he
was now one of the lucky few.While Ruff was investigating Ed’s case,
he also got in touch with Kim, who by
then hadn’t seen or spoken with her
husband in a year. Like Ed, she was ini-
tially skeptical. She had no idea what a
podcast was, but when Ruff told her, “I
believe your husband is innocent,” she
burst into tears. This was the first time
she’d heard anyone outside her family
and Ed’s lawyers say that.
For years Kim had been imprisoned
in her own dark place, raising two kids
while working full-time. She never
thought her husband was guilty; he was
a gentle giant, she’d say. She wished he
would smile more, but he was no killer.
In some ways she loved him now more
than ever—he was the father of her
children, and her whole life was builtaround Kyra and Zach. But she also
thought he was never coming home.
Kim, who smiles easily, rarely told any-
one of her inner struggles. Sometimes
the despair would get so heavy that
she would steal away to the restroom
at work to cry in one of the stalls.
She had tried to move on, and even
though she had filed divorce papers,
because of an error, she hadn’t received
a notice to appear in court. She could
have followed through to nail down a
court date, but she never did.
Now she thought God had been guid-
ing her hand all along. A week after Ruff
called, she went to visit Ed and found a
different man. He was no longer alonein his fight; besides talking with Ruff
every week, he had been getting letters
from the podcast’s listeners, sometimes
as many as ten a day. And he was really
happy to see her. She felt terrible about
not visiting, even though he had urged
her to stay away. Her first question to
her husband was “Can you forgive me?”
Of course, Ed replied. He wanted his
family back.
They began talking more, and they
broached the concept of his actually
coming home one day, which until
then they hadn’t allowed themselves
to even imagine. “What do you want
to do?” Kim asked. “I just want to go
to work, come home, sit on the couch,
and be with my family,” Ed answered.
He started making lists of resolutions,
just in case he ever got out:Stop using cuss words.
Smile.
Get my driver’s license.
Take care of my wife and kids.
Have a conversation with my son and
daughter, make sure they aren’t
upset at me.
Tell my family I love them.At night Ed would pull out his lists
and go over them, memorizing and
planning. After a summer visit from
Kim, Ed told Ruff he hadn’t felt so good
in years. Though deep down he was still
angry—sometimes he would gripe to
Kim when she said, “I know what you’re
going through”—he was tired of being
that way. He wanted to change.
Ed had gone up for parole twice but
was denied both times. To be released,
an inmate must usually show remorse
for his crime and take responsibility for
it, but Ed wouldn’t cop to something
he didn’t do. He became eligible again
in March 2018, and Ruff and Clayton
set out to make sure this time would
be different.
Ruff asked listeners to send letters,
and they flooded him with hundreds.
He winnowed the stack to fifty and sent
them to Clayton, who passed them on
to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Ruff sent his own letter about Ed, as
did Kim. “After twenty years apart, I
still love my husband, and I’ve built a
home for him to come home to,” she
wrote. “The kids and I want him here,
and we will support and encourage him
every step of the way.”102 TEXAS MONTHLY
KIM FELT TERRIBLE
ABOUT NOT
VISITING, EVEN
THOUGH HE HAD
URGED HER TO STAY
AWAY. HER FIRST
QUESTION TO HER
HUSBAND WAS “CAN
YOU FORGIVE ME?”
OF COURSE, ED
REPLIED.