The Truth About True Crime
carl allen fontenot was born on august
10
1964 in ada oklahoma
for more than 35 of his 56 years on
earth he’s been better known as oklahoma
department of corrections inmate number
148909 the state of oklahoma convicted
phone to know
in 1985 of raping and killing a young
woman named donna haraway
police interrogated fontenot upon his
arrest in 1984
for nearly two hours then they switched
on a video recorder
the investigators urged phone to know on
as he confessed to abducting haraway
with two other men
in this videotaped portion of fontenot’s
interrogation
he confessed that the three men first
took hair away to an abandoned house
there they raped and murdered her before
burning her body
i’ll tell you more about phone in a
moment but let me step back
when each of us is presented with any
type of media or communication
our minds take cognitive shortcuts or
leaps
and judgment making so we can decide how
to react
these are sometimes called biases as
communicators relying on storytelling to
share ideas
we frame people like carl phone to know
not as proven guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt
we frame him as a character and a story
and each character in a story
has a role to play the hero the victim
the perpetrator
carl has been each of these characters
for us now
first he was the villain defendant in
the 1980s in local tv and newspaper
media
over time his case was extensively
documented across three books
a netflix series and true crime podcast
episodes
what he hasn’t been is treated fairly by
our democratic institutions
in order for there to be a crusader of
justice and popular entertainment
there must be a corresponding villain in
order for us to perceive law enforcement
as inherently good
news reporters are responsible for
considering the perspective of everyone
across the spectrum of a given story
yet we rely on storytelling shortcuts
every day
suspense conflict drama to convey
important information to our audiences
we do this all while trying our best not
to frame people like carl fontenot
is the good guy or the bad guy and much
of the time journalists fail miserably
at this task
you may have heard the expression
perception is everything
it is we must seek to become more
intelligent consumers of media
and messages by understanding how
framing
and media biases cloud our perceptions
when fontenol was sentenced to death in
1985 oklahoma authorities had not found
the body of donna haraway
there was no physical evidence at all in
fact linking phone to note 2 or killing
no one could say for certain when he was
convicted that haraway had been murdered
in the first place
juries in oklahoma nonetheless
determined on two occasions that
fontenot was guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt
of taking heroine’s life
i wanted to know more so i studied
functional’s case
a lot he hardly had a chance to develop
emotionally between a horrific
upbringing in ada and decades in prison
he roamed the streets of veda with no
real home or family until his arrest in
1984 and for years
he received virtually no visitors other
than legal representatives
much of the remainder of his life has
been spent the most unforgiving of
oklahoma’s correctional institutions
carl fontenot’s story has been told many
times now in popular culture
but it remains a story that’s full
meaning has escaped us all along
there’s nothing sinister about our love
of true crime entertainment in fact
we’re hardwired to love it
but it’s critical to know how we
perceive characters in a story
when their lives are at stake
we can do this and still love true crime
drink wine and be in bed by night
part of what attracted me so much to the
story of carl fontenot
is that from a distance he didn’t seem
to cleanly fit the cultural framework
we’ve assembled for ourselves
of wrongfully convicted people
despite the books and netflix series and
podcast episodes
it remained difficult to tell if he was
a victim or a villain
fontenot didn’t easily meet our needs as
storytellers
but he did tell an important story about
fairness
in order for criminal justice to work in
the united states and here in oklahoma
whether karl fonsino neatly fits as a
character in his own drama
does it matter if so many people now
question his conviction
and that list of critics includes a
federal judge in his case
fontenot was sentenced to death twice
before being re-sentenced
to life in prison the oklahoma innocence
project took up funtinel’s case when the
law clinic was first formed at oklahoma
city university in 2011.
and by 2019 oklahoma police and
prosecutors had admitted
that they never found any evidence to
corroborate what fontenot described in
his confession
in fact newly discovered evidence that
was previously withheld from fontenot by
oklahoma law enforcement
contradicts his own confession
according to the federal judge this new
evidence provides quote solid
proof of mr fontenot’s probable
innocence in the judge’s nearly 200-page
ruling
one statement reaches to the heart of
carl’s case quote
no rational juror who was able to set
aside the tragedy of miss haraway’s
death
could find beyond a reasonable doubt
that mr fontenot should be convicted by
his own words
that extraordinary statement only
occurred after fontenot had exhausted
his appeals in oklahoma
i’m not trying to dissuade you today
from consuming true crime entertainment
we rely upon storytelling and loosely
shared understandings to simplify
and act upon media messages and events
in our lives
but the courts we also share are not
responsible for assigning tv roles to
each of us
they’re responsible for ensuring that
each of us is granted fairness
due process and equal protection under
the law
fontenot was released from prison in
december of 2019 after being declared
innocent of the crimes for which he was
accused almost 40 years ago now
but his time on the outside could be
short-lived
even now he has never been exonerated by
the state of oklahoma
oklahoma attorney general mike hunter
has appealed the federal judge’s ruling
and maintains the phone to know as
guilty and not entitled to a new trial
he must return to an oklahoma courtroom
and could wind up in prison
all over again perhaps for the rest of
his life
so while the netflix series and the
books and the podcast episodes
are over now for us carl fontenot’s
horror story
never ends for him thank you