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[0:00] Adam Kleinhoffer: This episode of Adam Kleinhofer's Nowhere to Run, Injustice in East Cleveland is brought to you by Magic Inbox. Let us cast a spell on your email. Magic Inbox uses your voice to answer emails and you never have to see them. Magic Inbox, we know you. Use code RUN for 15% off your first email purge, clean up, and answer bot.

[0:30] Adam Kleinhoffer: Nowhere to Run. Episode III. The Mother.

[0:53] Mrs. Delphin: Are you Mr. Kleinhofer?

[0:56] Adam Kleinhoffer: Yes, that's me. Hi.

[0:58] Mrs. Delphin: Oh, you have a girl with you.

[1:02] Melanie Lavin: I do, I do. This is my assistant, Melanie.

[1:05] Mrs. Delphin: Hi, it's so nice to meet you.

[1:07] Adam Kleinhoffer: She grew up in Cleveland.

[1:08] Mrs. Delphin: You did? Where, dear?

[1:11] Melanie Lavin: Near Largemere.

[1:13] Mrs. Delphin: Oh, good. An Eastside girl, like me.

[1:19] Mrs. Delphin: I want to offer you tea, but I don't drink it, so I never have any. Coffee?

[1:26] Adam Kleinhoffer: Audra Delphin is a stooped woman. It's the first thing I noticed when I studied pictures of the court steps the day of the verdict. Although not an old woman, I'd place her in her mid-forties, her back makes almost a perfect C. She looks like a question mark.

[1:44] Mrs. Delphin: Those are all pictures of Darius. That's his first communion.

[1:52] Mrs. Delphin: There he is on the baseball team. He was pretty good. Not great, but he loved being on the team.

[2:02] Adam Kleinhoffer: Is that Michael Kemp?

[2:04] Mrs. Delphin: Yes. And Freddie Wallop's there, too. They've been friends since they were little.

[2:11] Mrs. Delphin: I lived here since before I had Darius, when I was pregnant with Jenny, my oldest.

[2:16] Mrs. Delphin: Freddie Wallop and Michael Kemp, along with Darius and another young man, Paul Harcourt, were arrested for the brutal stabbing murder of their neighbor, Tabitha McGill, in late 2015.

[2:27] Mrs. Delphin: All of them were 18, seniors at East Cleveland's Shaw High School.

[2:32] Mrs. Delphin: Oh, and I remember when Tabby McGill's mother was pregnant with her, because Darius was almost two, and Tabby's mother was so pregnant. Some women just carry it that big way.

[2:48] Mrs. Delphin: And I thought to myself, no, thank you. Not again.

[2:55] Adam Kleinhoffer: Was Darius friends with Tabby?

[2:58] Mrs. Delphin: They got along. I don't know. Darius dated a lot of girls. Well, maybe they don't. I don't know. They call it hanging out now, but he was always on his phone texting a girl.

[3:13] Mrs. Delphin: But he wasn't. I think it was only one at a time, but I think he saw Tabby as a kid. He wasn't interested in her.

[3:32] Mrs. Delphin: These look great. Did you make them?

[3:36] Mrs. Delphin: My neighbor made them for me. Everyone has been very kind.

[3:42] Mrs. Delphin: They know I'm struggling. They know Darius didn't do it.

[3:47] Mrs. Delphin: They know the appeal. They know what it's doing to me.

[3:54] Adam Kleinhoffer: They're delicious.

[3:57] Mrs. Delphin: If Darius, the other boys, if he had done this thing, I wouldn't be talking to you.

[4:04] Mrs. Delphin: Of course I wouldn't. I probably wouldn't be talking to him.

[4:10] Mrs. Delphin: I wasn't. I'm not that kind of mother that would just love and support her son if he...

[4:19] Mrs. Delphin: I would still love him probably, but I wouldn't stand by him.

[4:26] Mrs. Delphin: I would lie and speak on his behalf. I have very expensive attorneys.

[4:33] Mrs. Delphin: I'm not that kind of mother. But he didn't.

[4:43] Mrs. Delphin: Thinking of him, they just transferred him to a prison almost in Columbus.

[4:58] Adam Kleinhoffer: Adam.

[5:04] Mrs. Delphin: It's okay.

[5:12] Adam Kleinhoffer: I don't spend much of my time with the Mrs. Delphins of this world. The stooped, the broken, the ones caught up in circumstances beyond their control. I spend a lot of time among people with exceptional luck.

[5:27] Adam Kleinhoffer: I consider myself a person of exceptional luck. I cannot imagine a world where I am accused of a crime I didn't commit.

[5:35] Adam Kleinhoffer: And if something like that were to happen, I cannot imagine it lasting, sticking. Surely someone would come to help me.

[5:45] Adam Kleinhoffer: Someone smart who trusts me will fix everything. But I sit in her kitchen with its ancient lace curtains, its mismatched chairs, the plate of cookies, her C-shaped back, and I think...

[5:59] Adam Kleinhoffer: I have to be the smart one. I have to be the person who steps in for Mrs. Delphin. And Freddy's mother. And Michael's mother. And Paul. No one else is coming. It's me.

[6:29] Adam Kleinhoffer: The Caldwell Cosmetics website is a distinctly mid-2000s affair.

[6:48] Adam Kleinhoffer: Even though the company is active and thriving, it feels cluttered and stuck in time.

[6:53] Adam Kleinhoffer: When I click the link for lipsticks, I get a 404 error.

[6:56] Adam Kleinhoffer: When I click the link to become a representative, I'm taken to a payment page with no explanation as to what I'm signing up for.

[7:04] Adam Kleinhoffer: I'm promised I will get a welcome packet after my credit card is charged.

[7:09] Adam Kleinhoffer: I'm not interested in becoming a Caldwell cutie. Yes, that's the name for newbie Caldwell reps. I'm interested in the message boards.

[7:17] Adam Kleinhoffer: You don't have to be a Caldwell rep to post on the boards. You just need to create an account.

[7:22] Adam Kleinhoffer: So I do. Most of the threads are about swapping product.

[7:25] Adam Kleinhoffer: Hey, I've got too much of the caramel latte palette. Anyone want to swap in exchange for some of the new glosses?

[7:32] Adam Kleinhoffer: With a few threads complaining in an incredibly cheerful manner about how they're failing at recruiting other cuties.

[7:38] Adam Kleinhoffer: Anyone here having trouble finding people to fill your downline? I've been trying to recruit my friends and they say thanks, but no thanks.

[7:45] Adam Kleinhoffer: I know they're great products. They should sell themselves. But on Forge, I'm the one who has to do the talking. LOL.

[7:53] Adam Kleinhoffer: Ugh, you are not alone.

[7:54] Adam Kleinhoffer: Same, girl.

[7:55] Adam Kleinhoffer: But there is another kind of thread amongst the emojis and exclamation points.

[8:00] Adam Kleinhoffer: One is simply titled coordinates.

[8:03] Adam Kleinhoffer: 44 degrees, 0 minutes and 1 second north, 74 degrees, 30 minutes and 0 seconds west.

[8:12] Adam Kleinhoffer: It's not much of a code. Those are obviously latitude and longitude.

[8:15] Adam Kleinhoffer: But why are they on a multi-level marketing company's message board?

[8:19] Adam Kleinhoffer: Another thread is simply titled, what should I leave?

[8:23] Adam Kleinhoffer: A scarf, brightly colored. Or if you don't have that, anything that could fall out of your purse.

[8:29] Adam Kleinhoffer: I scour the rest of the threads, spending hours sifting through sales tips, beauty tips, pleas for help with recruitment, and sometimes strange spam, or in the case of one post with no replies, a breakdown of how the cosmetics industry is tied to the Illuminati.

[8:45] Adam Kleinhoffer: And then, as I'm about to sign off for the night, a thread pops up.

[8:51] Adam Kleinhoffer: Have you seen this woman?

[8:54] Adam Kleinhoffer: I click, and suddenly a photo of a woman with vibrant red hair fills my screen.

[8:58] Adam Kleinhoffer: Whoever uploaded it didn't realize how high-res it is. I have to scroll over and down to see the entirety of her face.

[9:05] Adam Kleinhoffer: A stick-straight bob, sly eyes, big teeth. I've never thought of teeth as cheerful, but that's the only word that comes to mind.

[9:15] Adam Kleinhoffer: She's in her late 40s, but her skin is wrinkle-free and luminous.

[9:21] Adam Kleinhoffer: I refresh. At the bottom of the photo, if you've seen this woman, please call.

[9:28] Adam Kleinhoffer: And then a number. So, I call.

[9:34] Adam Kleinhoffer: Because I have seen this woman.