Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis: Podcasters helped set Georgia men free 25 years after murder conviction
ROME, GEORGIA: Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey walked out of the Floyd County Jail on Thursday night, December 8, as free men. They were both 17 when they were arrested for the 1996 shooting death of 15-year-old Brian Bowling.
After investigative podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis began scrutinizing the case in their true-crime podcast 'Proof' in 2021, they discovered two critical pieces of information that led to the release, as stated by the Georgia Innocence Project. First, the party hostess, a key witness in the case, was coerced into giving false statements and testimony regarding the remarks Storey and Clark purportedly made; police threatened that they would take her children from her if she failed to comply with their demands. And second, a hearing and speech-impaired man had been misunderstood at trial due to his unique way of communicating. In 1976, the man had witnessed an unrelated, factually similar shooting and he was unable to effectively separate the facts of that case from the circumstances surrounding Bowling’s 1996 shooting death.
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Photos shared by the Georgia Innocence Project showed Clark walking out and hugging his family. Commenting on his release, Clark said, "You never think something like that is going to happen to you. Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do. I’m just glad the truth finally came to light after 25 years. I’m so thankful for the Georgia Innocence Project and Proof Podcast for what they did. Without them, I would still be in prison.”
Senior Attorney Christina Cribbs and Accountability Counsel Meagan Hurley responded to the release. "We are elated to see Lee and his family finally obtain the justice that is so long overdue. This would not have been possible without the Bowling family’s support and a district attorney’s office that was willing to take an objective, new look at an old case,” said Cribbs. “The Bowling family suffered a great loss when Brian died. Their strength, open minds, willingness to question information that has been presented as ‘fact,’ and quest for the truth is inspiring.”
Who are Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis?
According to their website, Davis, who is a mother of three sons, is an executive producer at Red Marble Media, where she has worked on several true crime series including Discovery’s top-rated shows ‘Evil Lives Here' and 'Shattered'. Over her career, she has won two Emmy Awards— a Primetime Emmy for the Discovery Channel documentary ‘Vietnam Prisoners of War: Stories of Survival’ and a Sports Emmy for the HBO documentary ‘The Curse of the Bambino'. She holds a BA degree from the University of Maryland in Psychology. On the other hand, Simpson is an attorney in Washington, DC. She cohosted the political podcast ‘The 45th', which ran from 2017 to 2021.