Jamie Morgan Kane – innocent and incarcerated for 34 years

Hello,

Todays post is a little bit different but last night I attended a talk in Shoreditch (London) by a man who was released from prison this year after serving 34 years in California.

Born on the Isle of Man, Jamie was raised in America by a woman he thought to be his mother. During the Vietnam war, he served as a medic in the thick of the gore and was special ops trained.

In California, he married, had a child and worked as a mechanic. But unsuspecting to Jamie, his seemingly normal life was about to be turned upside down… after discovering a corpse in his house, he removed it out of fear he would be blamed. The man who was dead on his floor had been killed with cyanid on his asthma pills,  which Jamie’s wife had given him from the girlfriend of the man. The same girlfriend forges his signature to get money from his account once he is dead: she does this by driving to the bank in Jamie’s truck, with his wife helping her.

The prosecutor wanted to give Jamie’s wife the death penalty. The attorneys, convinced Jamie to take responsibility for the crime instead of them giving his wife the death penalty twice over, even after a hung jury. Jamie accepted and this let his wife go free and taking care of his son. As soon as he accepts the responsibility for a crime he did not commit, the DA goes back on their promise tries to put his wife back on trial. The jury subsequently drop the charges because he took responsibility.

Jamie’s deal he was given stated he will only serve 13 years in prison and get to see his son graduate from high school. Unfortunately this never happened. The system changed and screwed him over and he spent the next 34 years in prison.

In Folsom prison, Jamie’s military training earned him a reputation as a skilled fighter, which upset a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Numerous attempts were made on his life. Eventually, he settled down to helping people in the prison until his final release in 2018.

Jamie served time with some infamous people:

• Edmund Kemper known as big ed in prison
• Herbet Mullin known as herbie in prison
• Charles Manson
• charles tex watson known as Tex in prison

 

Jamie on Edmund kemper:

Jamie described Edmund Kemper as a 6’9 man who spoke in a monotone voice, but also told us how Edmund didn’t care much for people but cared for the men in prison who had HIV. He spent time with them and helped bring some awareness around it.

Jamie on ‘Herbie’ Mullin:

Jamie spoke about the first time he encountered Herbie. Herbie called jamie over on the field as they were all going inside and told Jamie to put on these headphones he had and this had Jamie confused as nothing was playing, he noticed Herbie was holding the cord in his hand and said this which had Herbie reply ‘listening to the earth’. Jamie said Herbie is one of the people he would never like to see out of jail, stating he was too dangerous but a nice prison mate.

 

 

Jamie on Tex

Jamie gave us some entertaining stories on his and Tex’s interactions in prison. They both weren’t keen on one another. Tex’s cell was right above Jamie’s and Jamie got ahold of a cell mates tape which featured the Beatles helter skelter on it, this gave Jamie the opportunity to play helter skelter through the vent to Tex’s room. (If none of you are aware, helter skelter was written on the walls during the Manson murders) Tex reported this and the next day Jamie was searched by guards but he’d already returned the tape to the owner. Tex was given special protection in prison, he had his own button on his ankle which allowed him to press it if he was in trouble. Another entertaining story was Jamie talking about the bus ride to their new prisons they were getting transferred to and Tex kept repeating words over and over behind Jamie, getting them both in trouble as no talking was allowed. I found his encountered with Tex the most entertaining.

 

 

Jamie spoke about his time in the prison with the gangs and how he got respected by showing he didn’t need to be apart of any gang. Jamie witnessed prison deaths, fights, was involved in some. he had seen it all and experienced all of prison, yet is the most optimistic person. Although Jamie spent 34 years in prison he kept a positive mentality and never once gave up. He has no resentment for anyone and doesn’t blame anyone. The one thing I couldn’t get over was how his wife left him and went off with another man and their son. Jamie saved her life and she did that to him. I find that unforgivable!

Jamie struggles with PSTD now, from his time in Vietnam and prison! He has found it difficult over here for firwork nights at the moment, that breaks my heart.

Jamie is such a positive man, he is full of interesting stories and I’m in absolute complete AWE of him and his life. I left the talk just full of emotions and couldn’t quite process everything until I got back to my flat. I still find the prison system sad, they were willing to put an innocent man in jail even though they knew he didn’t commit the crime.

I’m so excited to see what Jamie does next, he was lovely to listen to last night and I could have listened to him for hours.  The talk was recorded so I will edit this post with the link and update you all, when it’s up!

 

If you any time and want to learn more about Jamie (I’m going from memory) then there is a podcast here, 3 hours long https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQuWApn4mz4&t=4079s

 

Bethany

 

 

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