The words "Don't you die on me" came back to haunt me recently, as I got a message to say John Spirko may have had a suspected heart attack just minutes after we hung up the phone and I uttered those words. It would turn out it wasn't a heart attack and after some time in hospital John was returned to prison in time to get some better news.

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In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

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After twenty-three years, a last-minute act of clemency from a departing New Jersey governor changed everything for Tariq MaQbool. 150 years became 45, Maximum security became lower. However inside the order that finally gave him hope was language that raises serious questions and when his paperwork arrived, something was on it that had never been there before. As always with these situations with the D.O.C when one door opens another one shuts and all you're left with is just more questions, more confusion and very little in the way of answers.

We sit back down with Tariq to hear what happened.

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We just wrapped up the story of John Spirko, a man who's spent over 40 years in prison for a murder that put him on death row, a murder he's always maintained he's innocent of, even though he was the one who put himself in the firing line of detectives. So as always when we finish these cases, it's time to find out what the man they call 'The Voice of Reason' thinks, does he believe John has a case for innocence, or is he not convinced? Let's find out from Michael Leonard of Leonard Trial Lawyers in Chicago, Illinois.

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In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week!

Apple + HERE

Patreon and find us on Facebook here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week!

Apple + HERE

Patreon and find us on Facebook here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week!

Apple + HERE

Patreon and find us on Facebook here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week!

Apple + HERE

Patreon and find us on Facebook here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week!

Apple + HERE

Patreon and find us on Facebook here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted from her one-room post office in Elgin, Ohio — a town of fifty people and murdered.

Six weeks later, John Spirko, a career criminal with a talent for spinning stories, decided to trade invented information about her death for a deal that would keep his girlfriend out of prison. It didn't work. Instead, his web of lies contradictory, provably wrong, and completely fabricated, somehow became the centrepiece of a capital murder prosecution. No physical evidence. No connection to the victim. No connection to the crime scene. Just the words of a man who admitted he made it all up.

John Spirko has been on Ohio's death row, and now serves life without parole, for over forty years. A federal judge called his conviction a foundation of sand. A governor said there was enough doubt to spare his life but not enough to free him.

This is his story as told by him from his prison cell in Ohio.

EARLY AND AD FREE ACCESS: for as little as $1.69 a week!

Apple + HERE

Patreon and find us on Facebook here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What I Survived explores the extraordinary true stories of people who survived the unthinkable. Each story takes you back to who these people were before everything changed, then inside the moment their lives were pushed to the edge, shipwrecked at sea for weeks, held captive by terrorists, falling 15,000 feet from a plane after a parachute failure, and other extreme, life-or-death situations.

Through first-hand accounts, we follow the ordeal as it happened, the decisions made under unimaginable pressure, and the will it took to survive.

Then what came after, the physical and psychological recovery, and the process of rebuilding a life forever altered.

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Today I catch up with Tariq Maqbool, a man serving 150 years in prison for a double homicide he has always maintained he did not commit, a sentence that would see him die behind bars.

That was until now. Tariq recently petitioned the Governor of New Jersey for clemency, his only real last hope of making it home to his family and he's just received some very welcome news.

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