Panic Button

Serial Somethin’: Jim grew up to be a serial entrepreneur, have serial marriages and engage in a serial pattern of prolific abuse. Often using our courts as a tool to carry out that abuse. Jim's professional, and personal life are part of what makes him interesting and enigmatic for the women who go on to love and then eventually leave him. He's a sort of most interesting man in the world type of character when you first meet him. Or if you look at it from another lens he learned about how to become a serial fraudster from his father, and never looked back.

You can find the court records and sources for this episode at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-3

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SPEAKERS

Josh Kidd, Colleen McCarty, Donna, Leslie Briggs, Heather, Jim Luman, Newscaster, Tisha, Christen

Colleen McCarty  00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, and language that is not suitable for listeners 18 and under. There are also discussions of necrophilia. Please use caution when listening,

Donna  00:16

my energy never vibed with his energy. There was just something about him that was dark, you know, you know how you know, but you don't know how you know why they've done anything at all for that man. I mean, besides just stepping on the risks, why is it hard that the evidence is there if that had been a man, he had done that too. They would have had him on assault and battery when we didn't have What's so hard about that. He's an awful man. Our justice system system is a reason that women are killed every day. Men like him, man like him that get off, repeat offenders that get off. I could walk in a Walmart and take something and then give me more than what they've ever given Jim and I've looked at his record.

Colleen McCarty  01:11

That was Jim's old landlord, Donna. She learned firsthand what an expert manipulator Jim Luman is, particularly when it comes to court proceedings like an eviction. Donna's struggled to get him out of her home in 2014. When Donna leased the property to Jim she had no idea what kind of person she was dealing with. Like so many others who have done business with Jim, she learned the hard way that he is ruthless, maniacal and an expert manipulator.

Leslie Briggs  01:41

Jim's behavior in Donna's home and throughout the eviction proceedings, evidence a person who is willing to use the courts and manipulate their inefficiencies to his advantage in a serial fashion. Jim grew up to be a serial entrepreneur, have serial marriages and engage in a serial pattern of prolific abuse. Often using our courts as a tool to carry out that abuse. Jim's professional, and personal life are part of what makes him interesting and enigmatic for the women who go on to love and then eventually leave him. He's a sort of most interesting man in the world type of character when you first meet him. Or if you look at it from another lens he learned about how to become a serial fraudster from his father, and never looked back. Every narcissistic abuser has one thing in common charisma and charm. To the naked eye. Jim doesn't look like anything more than just a country boy from Oklahoma. Even though everything he does is an attempt to set himself apart from that. With Jim, there's always something else going on a new scheme, a new job, a new woman a new trip. Just join him for a while on this cruise called life. But how long before you get the rug pulled out from under you and find yourself flooding in a park? Not sure who to call? The answer is that horror happens bit by bit, but then also all at once. I'm Leslie Briggs. And I'm Colleen McCarty. And this is Panic Button. Operational Wildfire, episode three, serial something.

Colleen McCarty  03:18

If you're new to this podcast, we recommend you go back and start from Episode One. Knowing everything that we know about Jim's upbringing, it's likely that he was already abusing his intimate partners by the time he got to high school. He was so young when he got married to Don that his mom Patsy had to sign a consent to allow him to marry her. And about seven or eight months later, after they got married, they had their first child and they're both still teenagers. Jim's dad of course wasn't around for the wedding or the childbirth because he was serving his 30 year sentence in Oklahoma DOC--Department of Corrections. Jim and Dawn were high school sweethearts. Jim accompanied Dawn to one of their high school dances at the Cleveland high school where they both went. Dawn was very active in extracurricular activities, including being voted Most Likely to Succeed by her class. Jim and Dawn were married in November of 1991. And like I said their only child was born in June of 1992. So we'll let you do the math on that one. We reached out and like we said Dawn does not want to participate in the podcast. But we do have personal accounts of two of Jim's survivors both Christin and Ember. If you remember from episode one, Ember told us that she distinctly remembers Dawn warning her to hide her birth control because she was worried that Jim might try to tamper with it to get her pregnant, which we know is a common tactic of abusers to put holes in condoms or take birth control pills in order to try to get their partner's pregnant to tie them to them for a longer period of time.

Leslie Briggs  04:54

Right and you remember he was pushing and pushing and pushing him or to marry him back in you know October of 98, and it's just like it's you can see there's a pattern forming.

Colleen McCarty  05:06

So Ember remembered Dawn sharing her own stories of abuse from Jim with her. And she credits Dawn's openness with helping her get away from Jim after just six months together. Ember expressed such gratitude for Dawn, and she wanted to thank her. So Dawn, we don't know if you're listening to this, or if you will listen. But we hope you know that the impact you had on Ember was a lasting one. And she's grateful. Christen, another survivor of Jim went to high school with Don and Jim. And she had only one memory of the time when Jim and Dawn were married,

Christen  05:41

then to a party one time where he was at in high school, it was at him and Don's house. And I think they just got married. So maybe they were like 17, or something like that. And they had this house. And we got word that there was a party, I can't remember who I went there with. But like we were there 10 minutes, and Jim comes out and shoots a gun off into the air and says everybody needs to leave. And so yeah, we left.

Leslie Briggs  06:06

Then there's the setup of Jim's childhood home,

Christen  06:09

the house was the house he grew up in. So spent a lot of time in the little house on the corner. It's you know, probably like 800 square feet. Jim's room was his childhood room was in. It's like a small little room off of the living room. That's got the guests, like half saloon door, things like no privacy.

Leslie Briggs  06:32

So we're just there's just like questions that we have about. I don't know, just you know, he's getting married at 16, his mother's signing of consent. I think we can surmise that that had a lot to do with Dawn being pregnant.

Colleen McCarty  06:48

I mean, we can just surmise from these circumstances that there was sexual activity happening in the home before he was of a quote of age. And that probably his parental figures knew about it, heard it happening, did nothing to intervene. And some parents have that thought of like, I'd rather them do it, where I know what's happening or whatever. But like, that's just indicative of a lack of boundaries and a lack of like, discipline.

Leslie Briggs  07:19

Yeah, I think it just it's so unsettling. And there's a lot I mean, I think prolific and unsettling are gonna be words that I overuse by the time we get to the end of this podcast, but like, it's unsettling, I think. And we do. I mean, we do have confirmed, there was there are some of his romantic partners that confirmed There was sexual activity that happened later on, not in high school that but these are this is later years, while Patsy's in the

Christen  07:45

room, there's a bedroom that is the largest bedroom, and it has a half wall in it. And on one side of that half wall is a bed and on the other side is a bed. And so Jim's on one side patsies on the other. And in the in the bigger room with the Yeah, I can remember being in there with him whenever his his mother was in the same room, like and we were fooling around. It didn't bother him at all. And I was like, she's gonna hear us...

Colleen McCarty  08:22

unusual, very strange, very unusual.

Leslie Briggs  08:27

Ultimately, though, the marriage to Dawn does not last. She filed for divorce in 1995, citing irreconcilable differences, and I guess it just like an interesting note. It's in 1995 that the appearance of Patrick Pickerill an attorney in Pawnee County comes into the story and he represents Don and the divorce. And he actually goes on to become an associate judge and Pawnee County where Cleveland is located. And in later years, he's presides over some cases that involve Jim

Colleen McCarty  08:57

after his divorce from Dawn, Jim moved to Tulsa and opened a mortgage company it was called American family mortgage. Ember remembers that when she saw her protective order and needed help with service from the sheriff, the officer looked her in the eye and told her, "You need to make better choices."

Leslie Briggs  09:15

It's fucked.

Colleen McCarty  09:16

Real victim centered policing out here in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1998. This interaction might remind you of some of the police interactions that April Wilkens had during the same time with the Tulsa police department. She's the subject of our podcast from season one.

Leslie Briggs  09:31

That shit makes me so mad to think about. You need to make better choices.

Colleen McCarty  09:34

I can think of one person in this scenario that needs to make better choices. And it's not her not her. In 2001. Jim married his second wife, Misty in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Eureka Springs is one of his favorite spots.

Leslie Briggs  09:47

It's like one of my favorite spots.

Colleen McCarty  09:48

I know like you can't have it.

Leslie Briggs  09:50

 You can't have that, Jim. It doesn't belong to you.

Colleen McCarty  09:55

Misty did not want to participate in the podcast but we have reviewed court filings and give a glimpse into the end of their relationship. Missy and Jim were married for 10 years. During that time they had two children. By 2011. Misty had filed for protective order against Jim. In her application for protective order. Misty describes urgent fear that Jim will harm her to the protective order as evidence of her fear. She attaches text messages between the two of them. And also a picture of Jim holding a pistol in his mouth. She describes a history of mental illness in Jim's family, which we talked about in episode two.

Leslie Briggs  10:33

Yeah, with Cathlyn, the PO that that was entered against Cathlyn, he's like using suicide, his potential suicide as a tool for coercive control. Like going I'm putting it on you to save my life. And if you don't, that's on you.

Colleen McCarty  10:50

Unfortunately, the threat of suicide by an abuser is an extremely common abusive tactic, because abusers know that their victims love them, and they don't want them to die. And it often is used as like a last resort to try to control the person keep them to stay, if you leave, I mean, I'm going to kill myself. And it puts that person in a state of like hyper vigilance worrying that if they are gone, and that person does kill themselves, then it's their fault, which is extremely perverse and horrible way to make somebody feel.

Leslie Briggs  11:32

Yep. Yeah, highly manipulative. We're going to read this text exchange. And I'll just tell you, we don't know all the bit players that are there some names in here, we don't know necessarily who everybody is. We're not going to say the names of the kids for our respect their privacy, but so just ride with us through this because it's kind of it's I mean, it's just gnarly.

Colleen McCarty  11:52

Little bit of a roller coaster. So Leslie is going to be Jim, and I'm going to be Misty.

Leslie Briggs  11:59

Okay. "Kids still up?"

Colleen McCarty  12:03

"Yeah. You don't always have to text me. If you want to talk to the kids then call them."

Leslie Briggs  12:08

"Take my fucking kids around Noah and see what that gets you stupid bitch."

Colleen McCarty  12:13

"What are you talking about? They have never even met or seen him. I don't know what [bleep] was talking about."

Leslie Briggs  12:21

"Bull fucking shit. Plus, [bleep] followed up with she's met him. The guy I talked with about the mamas stuff, who has black hair and met him and went to Big Lots with him. Total deal breaker, you stupid worthless motherfucker. filed court papers say you cannot discuss our stuff in front of the kids. And you ignorant fuckers think my kids can be around your attorney at Big Lots and cherry bear. I'm having Kelly file total contempt charges on your worthless ass on every aspect I have. And you will be scheduled a day for you and your fucking attorney to explain everything from being partners with Zanotti to this and all in between. You will also have to prove exactly why you should not go to jail for a minimum of 30 days on contempt to the judge. I've held off doing that to you before because you're the kid's mom, but I'm not now. I'm sending your ass. You will figure this shit out. Fuck you.

Colleen McCarty  13:21

That's total bullshit. They did not see him at Cherry Berry. We went Cody and her son

Leslie Briggs  13:29

go to hell Misty. You motherfuckers that somehow think you're above shit to explain it to the judge and my new co counsel Bernice Schudrich, you're going to jail period.

Colleen McCarty  13:40

Whatever Jimmy

Leslie Briggs  13:42

I could have put you there two weeks ago and held off on it because it didn't seem right. Fuck that I'm going back to the beginning on all counts, including the attorney being in partners with mine, Fuck you I've done with you and you can fucking rot and Creek County as far as I'm concerned, hide and watch bitch, hide and fucking watch.

Colleen McCarty  13:59

Whatever.

Leslie Briggs  14:00

"Okay, tell the judge how you think you can just blatantly go against what is ordered whenever you're like that'll get you pretty far." I mean that you can just feel him seething because she's not doing what he wants.

Colleen McCarty  14:13

Because she potentially has another male around his children

Leslie Briggs  14:17

Like he's not in control. And he is in a rage

Colleen McCarty  14:20

It's called legal abuse. And it's a part of the post separation abuse cycle. That is like extremely under talked about. I think if you're in a custody hearing and you're going before a judge, the judge is going to pick which parent is the most harmonious the most easy to get along with the most letting everybody get visitation the most. letting everybody stick to their dates and schedules and things like that in any parent that is even seen as going against those pre determined conditions is all of a sudden the least favorite parent in the custody like agreement. And so the fact that he knows Was this the fact that he knows that he can use contempt the fact that somebody can. He knows somebody can go to jail for contempt. And he's threatening this person with these very technical legal terms who probably doesn't know much about the legal process can feel very intimidating and scary. I mean, it's like, well, what do I want to do go to jail for 30 days away from my children? Or do I want to just like do what this guy says?

Leslie Briggs  15:25

Right? It's coercive control to the use of the courts. But we're going to this theme of like, abusing a court process to not in pursuit of any kind of justice, but to like harm his former partners. I mean, that is going to come up again and again and again throughout this podcast. And Jim's savvy enough to understand that courts can jail people who are held in contempt, he's manipulative enough to know how to file those applications to do that very thing, and he's abusive enough to follow through.

Colleen McCarty  15:59

In the chaos of his marriage to Misty Jim seems to be struggling to find a meaningful career or in the alternative embarks on a series of strange get rich quick schemes that all go belly up. Over the course of a decade, Jim opens and operates at least five businesses.

Leslie Briggs  16:15

Jim's businesses range from the clever to the morbid. We found a couple of news clips about two of his failed ventures during this chaotic...

 Season two, Episode two: Mafia Meat. In this episode, we go on a quest through Jim's childhood and his hometown to see if we can learn anything from his somewhat murky early life. We want to understand what turns a man into a prolific violent abuser. And what, if anything, can stop him? 

The song you heard toward the end of the episode is Cleveland Summer Nights, by Wink Burcham. You can purchase his music on Apple Music or stream it on Spotify.

• You can find links to pictures, documents and all our sources at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-2
• These cases serve as a reminder of the devastating consequences of domestic violence and the importance of seeking help if you or someone you know is a victim. 
• If you are in immediate danger, please call 911 or your local emergency number. 
• For confidential support and resources you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. 
• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed: okappleseed.org
• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.
• Follow the OKAppleseed on Instagram at @OKAppleseed and on facebook at facebook.org/okappleseedcenter.

Transcript

Leslie Briggs  00:00

This episode contains graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women in particular, and language that is not suitable for listeners under 18 years of age. Other themes that you may hear in the following episode deal with suicide and addiction. Please use caution when listening.

Jim Luman Sr.  00:21

I've been an outlaw since I was three years old when I say that I don't say it. You know, I'm not like today's--I'm not a criminal. You know, I was well as the US Attorney call me a pecuniary threat to society. And I was, I paid the price after all of it's said and done, after all the years and I had to serve, they made it a misdemeanor.

Leslie Briggs  00:48

In this episode, we go on a quest through Jim's childhood and his hometown to see if we can learn anything from his somewhat murky childhood. We want to understand what turns a man into a prolific violent abuser. And what, if anything, can stop them? The voice you just heard is that of Jim Luman Sr., Jim's dad, Jim Luman's dad had a long and colorful criminal history. And he wasn't afraid to share some of that with us. I'm Leslie Briggs. And I'm Colleen McCarty. And this is panic button. Operation Wildfire. This is episode two, Mafia Meat.

Colleen McCarty  01:26

So last week, we introduced you to a man who we would call a serial abuser. He has been violent towards women since the earliest reports that we could find in court records about him from the early 1990s. Jim Luman has 12 known domestic violence victims has a particular method of identifying his victims, seducing them into isolation and control. But how did he get that way? I think to understand Jim, you've got to understand where he's from. Jim's from a really small town in Oklahoma called Cleveland, which is not to be confused with Cleveland, Ohio, and also not to be confused with Cleveland County. Cleveland, the town in Oklahoma has a population of about 3282 people, the median income for a household and this was really surprising to me when I looked it up is about $28,861. And a medium income for a family is $36,585. Males had a median income of $30,000.99, females had a median income of $19,000 and 122. That feels like a huge pay gap. Not only is it a pay gap, but that is extremely impoverished those right, those are under statewide, statewide. Median is like 42, I think for a family. Yeah. And so you can see that, you know, living in Cleveland has a very low cost of living, but also there's a very low ability to earn any type of discretionary income, you're gonna see a lot of financially desperate people, making families with other people around them, because there's just no other way to like survive.

Leslie Briggs  03:04

Yeah, I can't. I mean, $19,000 a years is hard. I mean, that's hard to imagine for me. Look, man, look, now that I'm a millionaire, we're public interest lawyers. But like that is that's truly hard to imagine.

Colleen McCarty  03:20

Yeah, it's shocking. So like most towns in Oklahoma, Cleveland was founded in the late 1800s as a trading post between white settlers and the Osage people. And it is an extremely small and close knit community in a really small county called Pawnee, Leslie, and I spent an afternoon in Cleveland trying to learn what the community is like from the people who live there.

Leslie Briggs  03:47

Like, it just seems like Cleveland is America. Do you know what I mean? Like it's just,

Waitress  03:51

it's a small, regular small town right now. Like all small towns, they all have their secrets. Oh, yeah. Jenning's yard forever, and just couple of years ago, 20 years.

Leslie Briggs  04:16

That was our waitress at the Hickory House, one of just a handful of restaurants in Cleveland. She was telling us about a separate crime involving the discovery of buried bodies in a nearby town. She didn't want to elaborate about what she thought was crooked, or what other secrets that Cleveland has. But she wasn't the only person we spoke to who felt that the town had things to hide. We'll hear more about that later.

Colleen McCarty  04:42

Our trip to Cleveland was unusual, largely because we got the sense that even though the community is close knit and outsiders are regarded with suspicion, the insular nature of the community doesn't always lead to justice or accountability when someone causes harm.

Leslie Briggs  04:58

Okay, Cleveland is why why So there's like 4000 people in Cleveland.

Gary  05:03

Roughly. Yeah, maybe. Everybody knows everybody's fucking business all the time. Yes. Oh, pretty much yeah I got away with the last time I had syphilis, nobody heard about

Leslie Briggs  05:33

why is it good and bad? Because

Bar Patron  05:44

Too bad. Everybody knows us and like we're just a phone call away  or something we could assist people on the side.

Leslie Briggs  05:57

I don't know you hear about like, okay, we're from Tulsa. And it's not the biggest city but like, I barely know my needs. That's why, right?

Bar Patron  06:06

Like if I was all my neighbors, personally,

Leslie Briggs  06:09

they this is my point. So you could somebody if you needed help, right? I don't know that. I could do that. But that's the difference between like, Cleveland, or maybe a business

Bartender  06:21

Put it this way, I'd call my neighbors before I'd call the cops.

Colleen McCarty  06:25

Interesting... this town is about 30 minutes outside of Tulsa, which is Oklahoma's second largest city and it has almost half a million people. So even though it's pretty far out in the country, it's really close to a fairly large urban center. And one of the most famous residents of Pawnee County was Pawnee bill he starred in the Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show back in the turn of the century times and he ended up creating his own Wild West show called Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show. And it's still reenacted in Pawnee every year at Pawnee Bill's ranch,

Pawnee Bill  07:03

and Indians from across the western frontiers. Lady, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, are you ready for a real round last show?

Leslie Briggs  07:21

That shits a hell of a show, I have to say you've been to this was like 12, so I don't actually remember it. The rant

Colleen McCarty  07:27

is said to be haunted by the ghost of Ponyville and his wife, and the people have also seen the spirit of their son near the water tower where he tragically hanged himself near the ranch. More recently, Cleveland has grown into the big city as one attorney who worked in Pawnee County described it. It's home to the only remaining bar in the county, the Cleveland lounge, they serve cans of beer take cash only, and you can still smoke cigarettes inside Wellesley and I had a couple of beers at the Cleveland lounge to see if anyone would talk to us about what this little town with a big history is like today, or at least what it was like when Jim was everywhere

Leslie Briggs  08:11

Okay, tell me about 1990 We're in Cleveland. What's it like

Gary  08:16

1990 in Cleveland was pretty pretty friggin awesome.

Colleen McCarty  08:25

That's Gary. He grew up in Cleveland in the 1980s and 90s. And went to high school with Jim and Christen. He spoke very fondly of his high school days in Cleveland.

Gary  08:35

Had a country store little game room ran on the other end of town and there's a lot of kids that's where we showed up to go look for parties build a certain Palace Drug parking lot and drink beer. Remember that the party was always at Osage. and then the they ended up in Osage that's why I live in Osage.

Leslie Briggs  08:56

near a bunch of bodies of water right? You would think people are like come on.

Gary  09:00

It's actually only near one body of water. It just wrapped around Arkansas, Arkansas River Keystone the wraparound but Osage Point back then was a whole bunch of water there and you can go out swim. Go fish. Dogs had hit Boston pool roads and do some partying there's the Y out there you go party and well, you can look up there's a musician named Brent Giddens. Have you ever heard him he actually has a song Boston Pool Road a pretty much nailed it and then you got you got a guy that he wrote a song if you look at Wink Burcham he wrote a Cleveland Summer Nights. It was a lot of backroadin' partying. You start out on Main Street and then the then the contract or which were the Mexican restaurant leaves I'm sorry, like,

Leslie Briggs  10:01

Okay, are you just like driving and drinking beer the whole time and the cops aren't doing anything. Please be

Gary  10:06

able to set their Palace drug parking lot, you'd be able to set their back in the early 90s. If you had beer as long as you just didn't show it, they pull up you had your beers. If you wasnt being a dick head or you know, go to the country store let's pull in. And we're always playing it out when it got pull in check out but we'd always have like five people sitting upstairs and they go check them out. And then we'd have like five or six people pull in and block out the cops in. Everybody that had beers and weed all their Joe Devoe Road. All party now called bullpens go down both pretty often ran back in the 90s.

Leslie Briggs  10:56

What happened?

Gary  10:57

Like I mean, everybody's got a fucking phone and they want to sit there and do this all goddamn day long. They will sit in their basements and drink beer and not drink beer they play video games. World of war or some shit?

Bartender  11:13

Don't blame Nintendo you son of a bitch!

Gary  11:18

Sorry, Mario.

Leslie Briggs  11:21

You can imagine that like, there's not a ton to do?

Colleen McCarty  11:24

No.

Leslie Briggs  11:25

And you're probably getting into trouble.

Colleen McCarty  11:29

I mean, there's not much else to do but get into trouble. And I think even people in Tulsa feel that way. So I can't imagine how people in Pawnee County feel when they're growing up. And there's nothing to do, right. So it's in this environment that Jim was born in Cleveland, Oklahoma in 1975 to Jim Luman, Sr. and Patsy Luman, whose maiden name was O'Donnell. Jim was the youngest of two and his sister was 12 years older than him. By some accounts, Jim had a normal childhood.

Tutu  11:59

I know Jim, when we came to the United States, like in 1980. Their family was like wonderful to us. You know, like they accepted us. And we played you know, like all throughout the childhood years, we even were on the same soccer team. He had a motorcycle that he he kind of led me right in the back, you know, time to time.

Leslie Briggs  12:22

That's Tutu when he was seven, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Oklahoma. He remembers Jim's family as kind and welcoming to him. Despite being an outsider in a place that might not always welcome people who are different.

Colleen McCarty  12:37

One of Jim's other classmates growing up was a woman named Christen, she grew up with Jim in Cleveland. And eventually, many years later, Jim would smashed Kristen space into his mother's gravel driveway during a harrowing assault in 2014. We'll hear more about that in a later episode.

Christen  12:54

Here's Christen. first memory of him is probably at the laundromat as a child, maybe I'm five years old or so. And my mom takes the laundry there, and his grandmother and grandfather owned the laundry mat. So he was there playing and I don't remember much other than, you know, just playing Chase and, and was showing me how he stole all the coke out of the coke bottles that were in the glass bottles that were there, he popped off all the lids and Drake called the coke out or whatever. But so that's like first memory. And then, of course, we went to click on schools together. And we were both in the same graduating class of '92. Everybody knew who he was because he would know he dressed differently. I remember him getting in trouble because he wouldn't stop driving a car to school, he didn't have a license to drive. So they would tell him or, you know, give him suspend him or whatever trouble you get into for continuing to drive to school when you're on the license. And it was like a red Ferro, if I'm saying like a little tiny red car. And mine. Well, you guys don't know. But the high school and his mother's house is like you could walk there. It's like a quarter of a mile. But he would drive that car up there and get in trouble. I mean, he's like, obviously just trying to get in trouble. You know, I think people known for that his style and you know, getting in trouble.

Leslie Briggs  14:22

Everyone seems to know that Jim has trouble and very few people wanted to comment on it directly. So you know, Jim,

Gary  14:30

Jim, I won't say that on here.

Leslie Briggs  14:35

That includes Jim Sr..

Jim Luman Sr.  14:38

Well, if I if I lend credence to three or four out in there two or three or four, which I've I've never talked to him other than Marcy, now his ex wife.

Leslie Briggs  14:49

Even though Jim senior didn't want to comment on the allegations about Jim's abuse. He was willing to speak with me about his own criminal past. The first arrest we could find on Jim senior It was from 1969 in Okmulgee county because I had

Jim Luman Sr.  15:03

to escape from the McGee county jail over the first one to prison for other since convicted of six bags of pecan nuts in Okmulgee County.

Leslie Briggs  15:18

After escaping the oak multi county jail, Jim Sr. Went on the run to California where he says he went to law school at Pepperdine for two years under an assumed name.

Jim Luman Sr.  15:30

Yeah, when I quit, you know, no offense to you. I went to law school myself and I dropped out when the same error my wife went to Pepperdine. Pepperdine law school in California. Under a Believe it or not, it's under an assumed name

Leslie Briggs  15:44

because I had to are you willing to tell me what aliases you used?

Jim Luman Sr.  15:47

I can tell you what I remember. Girl I had to change my aliases about every month, I had to fire up the Xerox machine and start in wideout, start making me a new Birth Certificate. Get go get a new driver's life after John or Joe or George, whatever the hell I was usin'.

Leslie Briggs  16:04

Well, what's what was the one you used in law school? That was kind of the most interesting, do you remember?

Jim...

We’re back with Season Two of Panic Button. This Season is called Operation Wildfire. If the monster who hurt you was still out there? How far would you go to warn others? And what would you do if the justice system was no longer on your side? 

You can find links to pictures, documents and all our sources at https://www.panicbuttonpodcast.com/season-2-operation-wildfire/episode-1

• These cases serve as a reminder of the devastating consequences of domestic violence and the importance of seeking help if you or someone you know is a victim. 
• 
  
• 
  
• If you are in immediate danger, please call 911 or your local emergency number. 
• 
  
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• For confidential support and resources you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
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• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed: okappleseed.org
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• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
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• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
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• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.
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• Follow the OKAppleseed on Instagram at @OKAppleseed and on facebook at facebook.org/okappleseedcenter.
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Episode Transcript 

Colleen McCarty  00:00

An important note before you listen to this podcast. This series Chronicles real events as they occurred over the last 30 plus years, during the course of multiple court cases and criminal investigations. During the course of these events, there were many systemic failings and harm that could have been prevented. We ask that you reserve judgment until you've listened to the entire season, and that you consider the lives that were affected by these events. This podcast includes graphic accounts of domestic and sexual violence. So listener discretion is strongly advised.

Heather  00:38

It wasn't about jealousy was about loving him, it wasn't about what's gonna be in his life. This was about how do I make him accountable so that he can get to the next one. So at the beginning, there was a lot of more risky sexual stuff going on. And I didn't have a problem with that. But then after we got married, like the day we got married, we were driving the day after we were driving home. And he looked at me, we were still in Arkansas. And he looked at me and he said, you understanding my property now. And at that moment, everything just spiraled out of control. The sexual stuff escalated into pure torture, pure torture was systematically pulled away from my family. Looking back, it was classic, methodical abuse, you'd love to walk up and just backhand me in the mouth, to get my mouth, my lip to bleed. And then he pulled me in and suck the blood off my lip, it became very apparent, but no, he needed to be held accountable for everything that he had done. Oh, man lost trust, trying to love a good woman and that this was a methodical and iving pattern of behavior from him. It's not been taken seriously, like so many different agencies. The day that I got beat up in October, that was actually take him to a district attorney, and that she said that they weren't interested in pursuing it. Why life from this time I left him and tell probably April, was a complete whirlwind. My kitchen table was full of papers, trying to figure out how to stop him from getting to the next one. None of this, none of this ever has been about revenge, or about getting even or being jealous. None of this has ever been about that. It has always been about how can I make sure he doesn't get to do this to somebody else? I don't want somebody else to have to live like this, the wife after me. And so living with the same stuff, probably worse. Amen. I failed. That's where you look at this. And once you start to figure out the atrocities that he did, and it just thickens and the plot just gets bigger and bigger and you're like, oh my gosh

Colleen McCarty  03:02

that was Heather. She was the fourth wife of Jim Lumet. They met on plenty of fish in 2017. When Jim was embroiled in a defamation suit, he brought against a woman who claimed he was a serial abuser. Back then Heather was on his side, attending court with him and staring across the aisle at the women who were hell bent on taking her husband down. But at home, she would face physical punishment, whatever Jimmy didn't get his way. And sometimes even when he did, Heather and Jim lived in Iowa together where she works as a nurse. But Jim is originally from Cleveland, Oklahoma. Jim's abuses started as early as we can tell in northeast Oklahoma in the early 1990s. He moved from Cleveland to Tulsa after his first marriage, when that started when he was just 16 and didn't divorce. There was a darkness in Jim even back then. But he wasn't all bad. At least not yet. But the culture of non accountability. Jim was steeped in in Oklahoma, opened door after door for him to continue accelerating his violence against women. Violence that would go on to consume the physical safety, finances and mental health of over a dozen women. I'm Colleen McCarty, an attorney in Oklahoma who works to uncover systemic and justices. I'm the Executive Director of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. Last year, we launched this podcast to shed light on a decade's old murder case from Tulsa County, April Wilkens shot and killed her abuser after years of physical and sexual abuse. April is still in prison to this day, despite our numerous legal attempts to free her.

Leslie Briggs  04:53

And I'm Leslie Briggs, also an attorney and the legal director at Oklahoma Appleseed when we uncovered Brady violations in April's case last year through our podcast investigation. We filed for post conviction relief based on prior perjury. We discovered the arresting officer in her case had committed. But April's case got us wondering if a woman gets life in prison for fighting back. What kind of consequences are men facing for doing the actual abuse? That question led us to the cases of Jim lumen. Jim has had at least eight women accused him of serious domestic abuse and a police report or legal filing, and many others have simply shared their experiences with us or with trusted friends and family. But to begin unraveling this tangled web of survivors, we need to go back to 1998 right here in Tulsa, just a few weeks before April Wilkens would fatally shoot Terry Carlton and self defense. Welcome to Season Two of panic button. Operation Wildfire. This is episode one, Burning Ember.

Colleen McCarty  06:03

So the story is actually really a lot longer than I originally thought. And it spans across multiple decades, multiple people and multiple states, you would be surprised to learn that it actually starts a few miles away. And within a few weeks of when April Wilkins, shot Terry Carlton and Self Defense in April of 1998, in Tulsa, and we ended that story with her serving a life sentence in prison and having served the last 25 years behind bars and Mabel Bassett. So I think it's really interesting that we're about to examine a story of someone who has committed perpetual and chronic violence in the same place with the same court system and how differently that person has experienced the court systems then

Leslie Briggs  06:56

how April did, this individual has not been held accountable, not in Oklahoma, accountability has been fleeting,

Colleen McCarty  07:03

fleeting, to see belief, like invisible imaginary.

Leslie Briggs  07:10

So let's go back to April, April of 1998. We're at the University of Tulsa College of Law,

Colleen McCarty  07:16

which is interestingly, where we both went to law school streaming. So we have a fun place in our heart for this law school. And I think our listeners will appreciate what ends up happening

Leslie Briggs  07:24

there. Yeah. And we're gonna tell you the story of we're giving our codename. Yeah.

Colleen McCarty  07:29

So this individual that we're telling the story about does not want to go on the record publicly because of personal reasons. And so we're calling this person codename ember. To be

Leslie Briggs  07:38

clear, she has given us permission to tell her story on her behalf. But she did not want to give a recorded interview and wanted us to not use her real name.

Colleen McCarty  07:46

That's correct. However, everything that happens in the story is documented by either personal notes, emails, or court records. Codename Ember is actually a law student at the University of Tulsa College of Law in 1998. In April, Ember is dating and meeting, guys. And at that time, the Internet was relatively new. And online dating was like a brand new thing you would get on your AOL? Dial up internet, your AOL chat room? Yeah. So you can I can hear it now. Me too. She had met a man online. His name was Jim Luman.

Leslie Briggs  08:28

And he sort of builds trust with her immediately by telling her that his sister's a lawyer, right?

Colleen McCarty  08:34

Yes. Also, when you're a young law student, and you are really pretty new to the profession. It's kind of exciting and interesting to meet other lawyers who have been in practice for a while. That's true, too. So I think that was probably something that attracted her at

Leslie Briggs  08:49

first. So Ember actually goes and like confirms that fact, right? That this guy, Jim Luman, he's got a sister who's a lawyer, and she decides, Okay, well, I met this guy online, but he's telling me the truth.

Colleen McCarty  08:59

Yes. And they begin dating. And it's a typical dating relationship, it seems. And even though he was relatively young, he was already divorced from his first wife and had a young son. So she would sometimes meet his son on the weekends, and they would hang out and she would see him as a dad. And it seems like relatively early in the relationship, Amber started to realize that this wasn't going to be very serious of a relationship for her, but because of how well Jim charms people, and it's very romantic in the early phases of a relationship. She was like, kind of swept off her feet.

Leslie Briggs  09:38

Yeah, I mean, I think he's been described as just this really charming, interesting, romantic kind of guy. Yes.

Colleen McCarty  09:45

And also, like what we see in a lot of these relationships after we've talked to so many survivors is that it's called love bombing. Right? So you would just sort of really quickly in the relationship and really intensely be expressing Seeing your feelings and that you're in love and that this is the person you want to be with for the rest of your life, and let's get married and never felt like this before. And this person makes you feel so special. And you're the one and all of these kinds of things that you say that in a normal relationship probably don't come on for maybe a couple of months. This is sort of like way faster than that. And way more intense than that.

Leslie Briggs  10:25

Yeah, I mean, because we see, we have letters, I thought it was interesting it also when we got these documents, we actually got a copy of the envelope that he sent the letter in. And he sent it in a letter addressed to Ember, but rather than using her last name, he wrote in lumen, his last name,

Colleen McCarty  10:43

so they've been together for a couple of months, and he addresses a letter to her in the mail to her first name,

Leslie Briggs  10:51

Mrs. Ember Luman. Okay, wow, Mrs. That's pretty a lot. And it's not even months, it's I mean, weeks, it's within a few weeks. So it says, "Dearest Ember, I thought I might give you a little surprise, since I'm going to be gone this weekend, I thought a little letter from me might pick you up. If you were in fact missing me. I already miss you. And I haven't even left town yet. I cannot believe that I am already lost when you are not with me. But I guess it means that everything is going good. Since I already feel this way. I'm sure you're getting tired of hearing this. But I truly have never felt like this before about anyone in my whole life. Nothing has ever felt so right and comfortable. I never thought that I would be able to choose the person I wanted to marry. And I certainly never thought that I would ever have the perfect match that I have with you. There is nothing more that I want in my life than to marry you and spend the rest of my life being partners with you. Then on to seven kids, you also need to think about that real hard. And be sure before you marry me, because after you've done it, there is no getting out. You never get to leave me after you're here. No divorces or separations or anything, you're just going to have to be stuck with me forever. So you had better be sure I am what you want. I really wish that you could go with me this weekend. I think it will be fun. Although it will not be as fun for me as it should be. Since I will be spending the majority of my time missing you. You know what? Promise not to tell anyone. I'll tell you if you promise, I love you. So anyhow, I better get to work so I can get out of here. You will be on my mind all weekend. And I hope that your weekend goes good. I'll be counting the minutes until Sunday when I can see you again. Have fun and be good. I love you, Jim."

Colleen McCarty  12:47

It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a real lot. I mean, I also like when I read this earlier, I didn't notice this part as much. But I'm noticing now that he says I never thought I would be able to choose the person I wanted to marry.

Leslie Briggs  13:01

I noticed that too. And we have to talk about Dawn. So Dawn is Jim's first wife, they're actually highschool sweethearts. They get married in November of 1991. But Jim's mom has to sign an affidavit of consent, because he's only 16 years old. There's not a consent on file for dawn. So I don't know how old Dawn was at the time. But seven months after they get married. Their son is born in June of 1992.

Colleen McCarty  13:32

And that's not to say they didn't really feel love for each other. They were teenagers, you know and love and they were expecting a child. So that's a lot for people who are really young. Yeah. And we tried to talk to dawn to see her impressions of her time that she was with Jim, but she has refused interview for this podcast. So yeah, and

Leslie Briggs  13:52

the reason that Dawn is relevant to Ember's story is that she serves as a warning for her. You know, it's not clear from embers memories of it now, you know, almost 30 years later, whether it was necessarily an intentional warning, or if it just was someone being honest about their experience and and about what to expect because we know that as Emperor reports it to us, Dawn warned her to protect her birth control so that it wouldn't be tampered with.

Colleen McCarty  14:20

That's a heavy,

Leslie Briggs  14:21

that's a heavy warning. Yeah. That he would attempt to get her pregnant as a means of control.

Colleen McCarty  14:27

Especially since we know that Dawn did get pregnant, probably unintentionally.

Leslie Briggs  14:31

Who knows? Yeah. Who knows? Because I mean, but Dawn

Colleen McCarty  14:35

also warned ember that she said to ember that she was physically abused.

Leslie Briggs  14:41

So Dawn is relevant to the story in that she really does serve as a warning for Ember and invert. She's a young law student. She's like a smart and savvy individual. She's actually not from Oklahoma. She's from the entire opposite side of the country. She's here to go to law school. She doesn't have family nearby. And yet she manages to get Out of this relationship after what transpires? So we'll walk through that in a minute. But she manages to get out of it by the end of August of 1998.

Colleen McCarty  15:09

Yeah. Be and she credits that largely to the early warning signs from non.

Leslie Briggs  15:16

Yeah. Then she credits, she credits the resources also that were available to her. But yeah, she noted for us that that Dawn was pretty instrumental. And

Colleen McCarty  15:24

she wanted the message to come through in this podcast that she was really grateful for that. That's right.

Leslie Briggs  15:32

So we get that letter from Jim to Ember. In April of 1998. We also have another letter from the April time period of 1998. And all it says is, guess what? I love you. And you better know who it's from. Smiley face, smiley, smiley face, exclamation point. We don't have a ton of detail about the April to June period of their relationship, but they do move in together. And then we get to June of 1998. So June 10 1998, the first incidence of...

The team at Panic Button has been hard at work producing Season 2 of the podcast. Here's a one minute promo to get you excited for the Season 2 release on June 27th, 2023!

Leslie and Colleen give a short update on April's case, the efforts in Oklahoma to bring justice to survivors, and the activities happening in Oklahoma next week to support HB 1639, a bill that will help people who were victims of domestic violence at the time of their crime get sentencing relief.

______

TRANSCRIPTION

SPEAKERS

Colleen McCarty, Leslie Briggs

Leslie Briggs  00:17

Hey, Colleen.

Colleen McCarty  00:18

Hey Leslie,

Leslie Briggs  00:19

welcome back to the studio.

Colleen McCarty  00:21

I'm so glad to be back here. Bison & Bean with you.

Leslie Briggs  00:25

It's been too long.

Colleen McCarty  00:26

It's been a wild ride,

Leslie Briggs  00:28

guys, we have updates.

Colleen McCarty  00:30

We have so many updates. We never sleep. So

Leslie Briggs  00:34

we do not sleep. It's gnarly. I'm so tired.

Colleen McCarty  00:38

We don't wish this on you. But we're happy to give you all the updates and all the work we've been doing for the last six months since we wrapped our last episode of panic button. The April Wilkins case. Yeah. What's been happening?

Leslie Briggs  00:51

Well, I came to work for you. Oh, that's

Colleen McCarty  00:53

right. Pretty sweet. That

Leslie Briggs  00:56

happened a little while ago. So yeah, I'm the new legal director at OK Appleseed, the nonprofit that puts on the panic button podcast. What do you do at Oklahoma Appleseed, Lesley. Well, I try to execute your vision. protect the rights of every Oklahoman. We're doing a lot of cool stuff. Really.

Colleen McCarty  01:14

Oh my gosh, I know every day I wake up and I'm like, I can't believe I get to do this for a job. And

Leslie Briggs  01:19

me too. I love it so much. Yeah, chaotic, and awesome. Just like us just like just a good time, dude,

Colleen McCarty  01:28

seriously, we strive for a good time. And seeking justice at the same time. Right. And so in service of seeking justice, we we did this big story about April's case that all of you have heard and I hope it has lit a fire under you because it lit a fire under us. And in service of seeking justice for her. We wrote what's called a post conviction relief application. And I'm going to let Leslie talk to you about what that means and and how we're trying to help her get out of prison.

Leslie Briggs  01:57

Yeah, we actually wound up doing that throughout the fall before I came on full time with OK Appleseed. And it's based on new evidence that we uncovered. And we believe that evidence warrants a new trial, or a vacation or sentence, or modification to time served. And that's what we've asked the court to do. We were we lost at the district court, you can go and read all of the pleadings online if you're a legal nerd, or you just want to know more about what the evidence was that we found, but it's currently on appeal. We appealed that district court decision to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. And if we lose there, we're going to take it all the way to the top.

Colleen McCarty  02:39

How long does it usually take to hear back from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals?

Leslie Briggs  02:43

Oh, I mean, I don't know what the what an average time is, but probably several months, I imagine will be on appeal through the summer at least. And then maybe have a decision at the end of the summer.

Colleen McCarty  02:55

Have you talked to April about how she's feeling about all of this?

Leslie Briggs  02:59

I think April, I mean, April has been through every possible legal hurdle, multiple times. I mean, she has this is her third post conviction relief application. And she's been through the appellate process before so April kind of knows how to temper expectations and just see what happens more than anything, though. I think April is extremely motivated and excited about the other work we've been doing, which I'm hoping you'll ever give everyone an update about which is our legislative push to change the system.

Colleen McCarty  03:32

Yeah, so the nice thing about Oklahoma Appleseed is that we work across multiple sectors of the legal system. So we have been working on multiple fronts to bring justice to April and people like her. That's one of the nice things about the Appleseed model is we work on multiple fronts of the legal system. So we can work in the courts for direct advocacy. But then we also work at the legislative level, and the legal research level and the community organizing level and this project with April and criminalized survivorship in Oklahoma has kind of touched all four of those areas in different ways. We were really trying to think outside the box about how we could help April but not just her but everyone in her situation. And we started looking around the country to see what other folks have been doing. And we found this big group in New York that passed a bill called the domestic violence survivor Justice Act, and that has helped several people since it was passed in 2019. Essentially, people who are in prison who can show proof that they were abused at the time of their crime and that the abuse was substantially related to the crime can apply to their sentencing court and receive sentencing relief or a lower sentence. So we thought about how we could make that something that was really made for Oklahomans by Oklahomans. And we worked with a bunch of groups here in Oklahoma to sort of figure out what survivors need. And we also got several survey responses from over 100 survivors and an Oklahoma prison here where April is called Mabel Bassett. And we've started to put together really what these experiences look like, and how these people are being prosecuted for crimes that stem from their survivorship. And we worked together to come up with some language that we thought would formulate a nice law change here in Oklahoma that would give a lot of these people sentencing relief, but then would also provide a mitigation procedure for people who are currently being prosecuted that can show they can show in a sentencing hearing any evidence that they have of their abuse and get a shorter sentence on the front end of the system, too. So it's not just a retroactive reform, it will do both things which we were pretty excited about putting this together back in the fall, and we were not sure where it was going to go. And then we heard back from a Republican legislator in Oklahoma named Toni Hasenbeck, who's from Elgin, Oklahoma, and she is a fierce champion for women's rights. And she was very disturbed by some of the stories that we were hearing from survivors in prison. And she agreed to author this bill for us.

Leslie Briggs  06:22

So Bill have a number. The bill does have finally

Colleen McCarty  06:24

has a number. It's HB 1639. It's starting in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. And it will be traveling through it's been introduced, and it has language and we expect it to be heard in committee. Next Wednesday, which is the 28th of February, the year of our Lord 2023. At 10:30am. In the rotunda

Leslie Briggs  06:49

Be there or be square. Yeah, right. Yes. We want you to come join us. We have we're doing a ton of stuff at the Capitol next week in celebration and advocacy of this monumental and historic effort that Rep. Hasenbeck is undertaking and Colleen's gonna give you some of those deets.

Colleen McCarty  07:08

Yeah, so we'd love to see anyone who's in the Oklahoma City area next week. We have two capital days that volunteers are free to come and meet us in the Supreme Court hallway. We will have water and snacks and talking points and anything you will need to be prepared to speak to your legislators. That date is February 27. We will start advocating at nine and probably be there all day until five. There's a bus leaving from Tulsa, Oklahoma from OSU Tulsa downtown. That will leave at 830 and arrive to the Capitol at about 10 and leave the Capitol at about three and be back by 430 to make sure everyone can pick up their kids and things like that. So if you need a ride, do not hesitate to hop on the just bus just bus I named it myself if I'm really proud of it.

Leslie Briggs  08:05

Oh man,

Colleen McCarty  08:06

just bus or bust.

Leslie Briggs  08:10

Say that three times. Dude, that just bus bust just bear in Tulsa. You do not want to miss that just but

Colleen McCarty  08:21

I feel like we're gonna I'm gonna set everybody up with a playlist and it's gonna be fire so far. So get on the bus or don't drive your ass down there.

Leslie Briggs  08:30

I don't care. We want to see you there, though.

Colleen McCarty  08:32

We want to see all of your faces, even if it's like, I'm just here because I listen to the podcast. I don't care. I want you there.

Leslie Briggs  08:38

Yeah, we want you there. We think that I mean, just to support this bill to support what rep Hasselbeck is trying to achieve. For survivors of domestic violence in the state of Oklahoma. It's I mean, it's historic. It's something that we need

Colleen McCarty  08:52

it is we just found out that the 2020 numbers showed that more women in Oklahoma are killed by their partners than any other state except one. So we're second in the nation for the number of women being killed by their intimate partners. But then we also know on the flip side, when those survivors rarely are the ones that live in an altercation like that. They're getting life and 30 years and 40 years in prison. And it's not a rare situation.

Leslie Briggs  09:19

Yeah. Which is actually kind of a good segue. But it's a good segue into

Colleen McCarty  09:25

our teaser, we're previewing also today this season two for

Leslie Briggs  09:31

season two, panic button, season two. Should we say the title?

Colleen McCarty  09:35

Yeah, we should say the title. That's a good title.

Leslie Briggs  09:38

Operation Wildfire.

Colleen McCarty  09:40

Yep. Panic Button. Season two Operation Wildfire. We can't spoiler you tonight about why it's called that.

Leslie Briggs  09:47

No sport. Yeah, no, absolutely no spoilers, but we'll just say this that like the question. I think that season two is going to be exploring is a lot of people. Plenty of people We'll have rightly asked, Why didn't April just leave? Like, I think that that's not an a strange question to wonder? Like, why didn't April just get out and get away? And so season two, I think is gonna we're gonna really get to explore what happens when they when someone does. What happens when someone gets away? Yeah. What happens to the abuser? What happens to that person? And

Colleen McCarty  10:25

yeah, I also think it speaks to what happens when people band together to try to stop a violent person. Yeah. And the power in that but also the questions that that kind of like causes

Leslie Briggs  10:43

the obstacles, the challenges and then yeah, like the I think yeah, questions about tactics, questions about results, questions about, I think systemic. I guess failings is the word. But it doesn't seem to really do it justice. It's more like systemic. Like I'm thinking of, well, my sink is broken right now. So it's like, clogs, right? And like the way that the system is just clogged and can't function and you can't get get get the water through to the pipes on the down on this metaphor. It's working. With all these hand motions of sink troubles right now, what's top of mind. But

Colleen McCarty  11:26

I think also, it's just like, this is gonna sound like a rant. But for the majority of human history, people were just killing each other, and there were no consequences. Then we had a little bit of human history where the only consequences for any wrongdoing were death, and everyone's getting killed. And then it was like, Okay, well, we can't kill everybody. So let's wind that back a little bit, and just put people in prison for a really long time. But now, we're to this point where it's like, the only real violence at mass scale that happens in our society is violence against women. And there's really Yeah.

Leslie Briggs  12:08

What about like mass shootings?

Colleen McCarty  12:10

I mean, sure, that is a totally different crime type than what we're talking. Yeah. Yeah. Like a domestic violence call is made every second in America,

Leslie Briggs  12:22

right? I mean, we've seen the data here in Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City, our largest metropolitan area. Yeah. So

Colleen McCarty  12:28

43,000 domestic violence calls made in 2021. And less than 1000 of those lead to arrest. And so it just starts to ask this question about like, this is the most prevalent type of violence that the system is the most bad at responding to

Leslie Briggs  12:46

that I agree with wholeheartedly. Like this violence is so prevalent, and our system doesn't effectively curtail it, or really even punish it, which it's a punitive system. I mean, if it does nothing, well, it punishes people. Well. Yeah, that's this,

Colleen McCarty  13:06

but not this. And then it's like, there are just so many ways to get away with it. Right. And the people who know how to get away with it, get away with really get away with it so much, really get away with it. And it's startling, it really is because like I come from criminal justice reform, where everyone's getting punished for every goddamn thing. Yeah. Yeah. And we're trying to stop people for getting punished as much as they are. Yeah. And then walking into this world of domestic violence advocacy and victims advocacy and saying,

Leslie Briggs  13:44

This is so warped way. So warped, yeah. Like, it's not capturing the right bad actors at the right moment.

Colleen McCarty  13:53

No, and it's not preventing any violence. No, it's actually like, allowing, we talked about this with April's case. But it's allowing these cycles of violence to like, expand and expand and expound because, you know, if you talk to people who work in trauma, or people who try to heal trauma, they will tell you that subconsciously or subconscious wounds are acting themselves out until something happens to cause you to heal it. And if you just keep not getting held accountable. Yeah, it just keeps getting like louder and bigger and more people getting hurt.

Leslie Briggs  14:30

Yeah, more chaotic more untethered. I think and those themes are going to be coming through in season two. Certainly.

Colleen McCarty  14:37

Yes, but you are going to meet some really fun character. So too.

Leslie Briggs  14:40

Yeah. And it's another Oklahoma based story. So we're, we're excited. We're in the research phase. We have two excellent, top notch interns that are plugging away getting us all the details and so they are basically legal research superheroes. I think I called them or Swiss Army Knife interns the other day. I love that they do everything for us there like, I mean, I will message either one of them at like 5pm It'd be like, I need this thing and I'm sorry. It will be like 615 They're like it's done.

Colleen McCarty  15:11

It's done. It's in the file.

Leslie Briggs  15:12

It's good. Love it. So excellent. So shout out. Alison cat. You guys are true heroes.

Colleen McCarty  15:18

Yes. So we don't want to take too much more of your time because we want you to start preparing to come to the Capitol with us next week. There's two days you can do that you can do that Monday the 27th or Thursday, the second we will be conducting community art projects and bringing people together and speaking to the survivor experience in Oklahoma. So we hope you will join us and stay tuned for season two of panic button.

Leslie Briggs  15:47

Operation Wildfire.

Colleen McCarty  15:54

Panic Button is a co production of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Leslie bricks. We're your hosts Colleen McCarty and Leslie Briggs. Our theme music is velvet rope by Guillaume the production team is Lesley Briggs and rusty row were recorded at Bison and be in studio in Tulsa. Special thanks to Lynn Worley, Amanda Ross and Ashlyn Faulkner for their work on this case. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at the hotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233 help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow us at Oka underscore Appleseed across all social platforms. You can subscribe right now in the Apple podcasts app by clicking on our podcasts logo and then hit the subscribe button. If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our panic button podcast community on book clubs. Join for free at BIT dot L y slash three in our H O eight. See. Thanks so much for listening

On September 24th, 2022, Panic Button hosts Colleen McCarty and Leslie Briggs were featured on a live panel with domestic violence expert Molly Bryant, and #freeaprilwilkens advocate Amanda Ross. Amanda is April Wilkens's niece. The panel was moderated by local indigenous activist Apollonia Piña. The panel was hosted by the Center for Public Secrets in Tulsa. 

Listen to the event audio, and hear the audience Q&A as the panel discusses April's case, as well as the larger cultural question of how create a survivor-led revolution in domestic violence policy.

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• Center for Public Secrets - https://www.centerforpublicsecrets.org/

Colleen McCarty is one of the hosts, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, and producer.  Leslie Briggs is the other host who is a civil rights and immigration attorney, and producer. Rusty Rowe provides substantial audio production support. We're recorded at Bison and Bean Studios in Tulsa. Additional support from Amanda Ross and Ashlyn Faulkner. Our theme music is Velvet Rope by Gyom. 

Panic Button is created in partnership with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Leslie Briggs. Follow OK Appleseed on Twitter and Instagram at @ok_appleseed.

If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our Panic Button podcast community on Bookclubs at bit.ly/3NRHO8C.

On the final episode of Season 1, Panic Button hosts discuss the verdict. Listeners will hear from a juror what the focus of jury deliberations was, and how they came to decide April was guilty.

Listeners will also hear what happened on appeal and where April's case stands now. 

If you want to follow our efforts to change the laws in Oklahoma to allow criminalized survivors like April to be resentenced by the court after a showing of abuse, sign up at freeaprilwilkens.com or okappleseed.org.

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• Lynn Worley's 2009 letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board 
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• 
  
• Don Carlton's marriage certificate showing Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals judge Charles Johnson performed his wedding.
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• 
  
• 
  
• Detailed Timeline of Events in April's Case compiled by April herself with help from her niece, Amanda: https://aprilwilkensblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/timeline-of-events/
• 
  
• 
  
• Sign the Change.org petition to support April's release: https://www.change.org/p/oklahoma-pardon-parole-board-commute-the-life-sentence-of-abuse-survivor-april-wilkens?signed=true
• 
  
• 
  
• Donate to keep our work going!: neappleseed.org/okappleseed
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed: okappleseed.org
• 
  
• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
• 
  
• 
  
• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about criminalized survival at www.survivedandpunishedny.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act at www.nysda.org/page/DVSJA.
• 
  
• 
  
• Follow the #freeaprilwilkens campaign on Instagram at @freeaprilwilkens, on Twitter and on their webpage at freeaprilwilkens.com.
• 
  

Colleen McCarty is one of the hosts, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, and producer.  Leslie Briggs is the other host who is a civil rights and immigration attorney, and producer. Rusty Rowe provides substantial audio production support. We're recorded at Bison and Bean Studios in Tulsa. Additional support from Amanda Ross and Ashlyn Faulkner. Our theme music is Velvet Rope by Gyom. 

Panic Button is created in partnership with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Leslie Briggs. Follow OK Appleseed on Twitter and Instagram at @ok_appleseed.

If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our Panic Button podcast community on Bookclubs at bit.ly/3NRHO8C.

On the last episode, we heard about how April's expert witness at trial, Dr. John Call, was not truly an expert in Battered Womens' Syndrome. So, on this episode we wanted to hear from some real experts about domestic violence, how the research has changed since April's trial, and the biggest issues with John Call's testimony.

We welcome two experts: 1) Molly Bryant, Licensed Master Social Worker, who formerly worked with victims at Domestic Violence Intervention Services, and 2) Angela Beatty, Chief Program Officer at YWCA Oklahoma City who is working on her Masters' in Social Work. Both of these experts are certified Battered Womens Syndrome experts in Oklahoma Courts. This discussion with them was so enlightening and further helped us realize what was missing from April's defense. 

___________________

• DVIS 
• 
  
• 
  
• YWCA Oklahoma City 
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• 
  
• Research on trauma informed care for domestic violence survivors
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Detailed Timeline of Events in April's Case compiled by April herself with help from her niece, Amanda: https://aprilwilkensblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/timeline-of-events/
• 
  
• 
  
• Sign the Change.org petition to support April's release: https://www.change.org/p/oklahoma-pardon-parole-board-commute-the-life-sentence-of-abuse-survivor-april-wilkens?signed=true
• 
  
• 
  
• Donate to keep our work going!: neappleseed.org/okappleseed
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed: okappleseed.org
• 
  
• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
• 
  
• 
  
• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about criminalized survival at www.survivedandpunishedny.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act at www.nysda.org/page/DVSJA.
• 
  
• 
  
• Follow the #freeaprilwilkens campaign on Instagram at @freeaprilwilkens, on Twitter and on their webpage at freeaprilwilkens.com.
• 
  

Colleen McCarty is one of the hosts, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, and producer.  Leslie Briggs is the other host who is a civil rights and immigration attorney, and producer. Rusty Rowe provides substantial audio production support. We're recorded at Bison and Bean Studios in Tulsa. Additional support from Amanda Ross and Ashlyn Faulkner. Our theme music is Velvet Rope by Gyom. 

Panic Button is created in partnership with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Leslie Briggs. Follow OK Appleseed on Twitter and Instagram at @ok_appleseed.

If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our Panic Button podcast community on Bookclubs at bit.ly/3NRHO8C.

This week's episode we talk through the second part of the defense's case in April Wilkens' murder trial.  We look at what the prosecution had to prove to overcome April's claim of self defense, and the difference between traditional self defense and the defense of Battered Womens' Syndrome. 

April's attorney called an expert witness to explain to the jury what Battered Women's Syndrome was, and how it could explain April's behavior leading up to Terry's death. Unfortunately, instead of explaining anything he calls April's behavior "stupid" and "unreasonable" from the stand.

_________________________

• See the Battered Women's Syndrome instruction send back with the jury in April's murder case: okappleseed.org/episode-10-show-notes
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Detailed Timeline of Events in April's Case compiled by April herself with help from her niece, Amanda: https://aprilwilkensblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/timeline-of-events/
• 
  
• 
  
• Sign the Change.org petition to support April's release: https://www.change.org/p/oklahoma-pardon-parole-board-commute-the-life-sentence-of-abuse-survivor-april-wilkens?signed=true
• 
  
• 
  
• Donate to keep our work going!: neappleseed.org/okappleseed
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed: okappleseed.org
• 
  
• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
• 
  
• 
  
• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about criminalized survival at www.survivedandpunishedny.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act at www.nysda.org/page/DVSJA.
• 
  
• 
  
• Follow the #freeaprilwilkens campaign on Instagram at @freeaprilwilkens, on Twitter and on their webpage at freeaprilwilkens.com.
• 
  

Colleen McCarty is one of the hosts, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, and producer.  Leslie Briggs is the other host who is a civil rights and immigration attorney, and producer. Rusty Rowe provides substantial audio production support. We're recorded at Bison and Bean Studios in Tulsa. Additional support from Amanda Ross and Ashlyn Faulkner. Our theme music is Velvet Rope by Gyom. 

Panic Button is created in partnership with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Leslie Briggs. Follow OK Appleseed on Twitter and Instagram at @ok_appleseed.

If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our Panic Button podcast community on Bookclubs at bit.ly/3NRHO8C.

This week's episode we talk through the first part of the defense's case in April Wilkens' murder trial.  April testified in her own defense for three days about how she was pushed to a breaking point after over two years of horrific abuse. Coupled with a total apathy on the part of the police, April felt the only choice she had was to defend her life.

The rest of the defense's case centers on what led April to have to fight for her life the night of April 28th, 1998. Even with all the evidence of April's prior abuse coming in, the jury has a hard time making sense of the scrambled timeline. 

_________________________

• 
  
• Detailed Timeline of Events in April's Case compiled by April herself with help from her niece, Amanda: https://aprilwilkensblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/timeline-of-events/
• 
  
• 
  
• Sign the Change.org petition to support April's release: https://www.change.org/p/oklahoma-pardon-parole-board-commute-the-life-sentence-of-abuse-survivor-april-wilkens?signed=true
• 
  
• 
  
• Donate to keep our work going!: neappleseed.org/okappleseed
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about Oklahoma Appleseed: okappleseed.org
• 
  
• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
• 
  
• 
  
• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about criminalized survival at www.survivedandpunishedny.org/.
• 
  
• 
  
• Learn more about the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act at www.nysda.org/page/DVSJA.
• 
  
• 
  
• Follow the #freeaprilwilkens campaign on Instagram at @freeaprilwilkens, on Twitter and on their webpage at freeaprilwilkens.com.
• 
  

Colleen McCarty is one of the hosts, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, and producer.  Leslie Briggs is the other host who is a civil rights and immigration attorney, and producer. Rusty Rowe provides substantial audio production support. We're recorded at Bison and Bean Studios in Tulsa. Additional support from Amanda Ross and Ashlyn Faulkner. Our theme music is Velvet Rope by Gyom. 

Panic Button is created in partnership with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Leslie Briggs. Follow OK Appleseed on Twitter and Instagram at @ok_appleseed.

If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our Panic Button podcast community on Bookclubs at bit.ly/3NRHO8C.