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I hope you heard Franky’s story from last week, because it’s heartbreaking, and uplifting, and enraging, and inspiring, and it’s the foundation for today’s episode, which is Part 2 of his story. If you haven’t heard it yet, I'd go listen to last week’s episode first.


This episode is nine years old, but on Monday I went to meet Franky for a present-day follow-up and I can’t wait to share that story with you next week. 


You might think of this trilogy with Franky a bit like the 7-Up documentary series, which has followed a group of British children every seven years for more than 60 years now to see how their lives have evolved.  


Of course, I haven’t followed Franky since childhood, but I’ve known him since two years after his release, which you might call his rebirth. For many exonerees and the formerly incarcerated, the return home can be fraught, so four years after the first episode, I went to see how Franky was settling in, and this is the story of how I found him in 2017.


If you’d like to see photos that go with today’s episode, you can find them in these free posts on Substack or Patreon. If you want to unlock 100 more paywalled episodes and help support our work, consider becoming a paying subscriber on either platform today! 


Franky Carrillo is a criminal justice reform advocate, who spent 20 years in prison before his exoneration in 2011. After his release, he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at Loyola Marymount University, and he has since become a leading voice for the wrongfully convicted. He serves as Chief Policy Advisor for the Los Angeles Innocence Project, sits on boards including Death Penalty Focus and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, and has also served on the Los Angeles County Probation Oversight Commission. After the first two stories about Franky aired on Strangers, his case gained wider public attention when he was profiled in the Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files. You can find Franky on Instagram.


You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook, or you can write to us at stories@leathau.com. 


","author_name":"Lea Thau"}