Earwitness, Chapter 8 | Bondage to the Law

In an unusual turn, District Attorney Danny Carr and original prosecutor Jeff Wallace push against Toforest Johnson’s conviction, even as he remains on death row. Beth Shelburne traces a system reluctant to admit its failures, while Toforest’s children reveal the human toll of a life caught between injustice and hope.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 7 | Messy

Years after the conviction, the original prosecutor, Jeff Wallace, begins questioning Violet Ellison’s story, while Beth Shelburne uncovers a troubling pattern. Ellison’s moves through the legal system blur the lines between cunning and deceit, revealing a figure far from the innocence prosecutors once claimed.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 6 | Misfiled

Beth Shelburne uncovers the murky story behind Violet Ellison, the ‘earwitness’ whose $5,000 payoff shaped Toforest Johnson’s fate. Decades of denial give way to uneasy facts, revealing a conviction propped up by money, influence, and half-truths.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 5 | Anybody Will Do

Beth Shelburne digs into how Toforest Johnson was convicted without a shred of physical evidence, as prosecutors leap between ever-shifting theories of Deputy Hardy’s murder. Confronting the prosecutor who once sought a death sentence, she uncovers a case where the law bends into something dangerously personal.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 4 | Witness or Defendant

Digging into the Hardy murder investigation, Beth Shelburne follows a trail narrowed by tunnel vision and vanishing alternatives. As detectives chase certainty over truth, witnesses falter, leads evaporate, and a case emerges driven more by obsession than evidence.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 3 | Police Girl

When Yolanda Chambers admits to perjury, Beth Shelburne sets out to understand Chambers’ motivations. Tracing a life shaped by trauma and hidden alliances, her story slips between villain and victim—leaving behind questions that linger far longer than answers.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 2 | Don't Know Diddly

In the raw hours after Deputy Hardy’s murder, Beth Shelburne digs through a story that pulled 15-year-old Yolanda Chambers into its orbit and put Toforest Johnson in the frame. A confrontation with lead detective Tony Richardson exposes a case built on pressure, doubt, and truths that won’t stay still—where justice isn’t blind, just selective.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earwitness, Chapter 1 | Behind the Crown

Beth Shelburne dives into the shocking conviction of Toforest Johnson for the murder of Deputy William Hardy, following a case that never stopped bleeding questions. With former Attorney General Bill Baxley as her guide, she moves through a justice system wired for punishment over truth, uncovering a story built on fear, assumption, and a man who may not belong at its center.

To learn more and get involved, visit:

www.toforestjohnson.com

Toforest on Instagram

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we're introducing you to Earwitness. Earwitness is one of Lava for Good’s most important investigative series and will be released right here in the Bone Valley feed. You’ll see it shown here as Bone Valley Season 4 but it is a completely different show told by a different host - noted Alabama-based journalist and podcaster Beth Shelburne. We hope you enjoy.

One hot July night in 1995, Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy was shot dead behind a Birmingham, AL hotel. At the same time, four miles away at least ten people saw Toforest Johnson at a packed nightclub called Tee’s Place. It didn’t matter. The cops zeroed in on Toforest as the culprit anyway.

What followed was a familiar American ritual: arrest, trial, conviction, death sentence. No eyewitnesses. No physical evidence. Just unjustifiable confidence. For more than 25 years, Toforest has lived in a five-by-eight cell on Alabama’s death row.

In 2019, journalist Beth Shelburne reopened the case and found something far worse than incompetence. The state once tried to pin the murder on another man. Its case hinged on an “earwitness,” a woman secretly paid by prosecutors to testify about an overheard phone call. The jury never knew. Neither did the defense. They found out 17 years later.

Earwitness, an eight-part docuseries from the team behind Bone Valley, pulls back the curtain on a justice system that refuses to admit it got it wrong. With rare access to detectives, prosecutors, jurors, and witnesses, Shelburne asks the only question that matters: how did an innocent man end up on death row, and why is the state still trying to kill him?

On February 4, we'll be releasing all eight episodes right here in the Bone Valley feed as Bone Valley Season 4 | Earwitness. For those who want to hear Earwitness early and ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good+ on Apple Podcasts.

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, we're bringing you something unexpected: Lava for Good’s investigative series Earwitness will be released right here in the Bone Valley feed. You'll see it here as Bone Valley Season 4: Earwitness. The entire season will be available to Lava For Good+ subscribers on Apple Podcasts on January 28th, and everywhere you listen to podcasts on February 4th.

As an introduction, Gilbert King, Pulitzer prize-winning author and host of Bone Valley, sits down for a Q&A with Earwitness host and producer, journalist Beth Shelburne, as well as Emmy award-winning filmmaker Andrew Jarecki and film producer Charlotte Kaufman to discuss Earwitness, Toforest Johnson - the man at the center of the story -  as well as their recent, critically acclaimed HBO documentary The Alabama Solution.

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.