The Phantom: The Case of Carlos DeLuna 40 Years Later

Factual America

15 Jul

Written By

After covering The State of Texas vs. Melissa (2021), once again we are talking on Factual America about the death penalty in the state of Texas.

The recently released documentary The Phantom (2021) shines a light on a capital murder case, but probably in ways that most of us have never experienced before. The film follows Carlos DeLuna, who was arrested in 1983 for the murder of a woman service station attendant, but protested his innocence until he was executed, stating another Carlos had committed the crime.

Through interviews with eyewitnesses, Carlos De Luna's family members, and legal experts, the film examines if the judicial system executed an innocent man, and whether or not there could be another Carlos that the prosecution called 'the phantom'.

We’re joined by award-winning director, Patrick Forbes, to discuss how he found out about the case of Carlos DeLuna and how he got involved with making the film. We also talk about the death sentences in Texas and the art of storytelling that Patrick deploys in this documentary.

“Humans are endlessly interesting and curious. You don’t do this job to get rich, you do this job because you like stories and you like people.” - Patrick Forbes

Time Stamps:

00:00 - Introducing the guest, and the trailer for The Phantom.
03:52 - The link Patrick’s film Brexit: A Very British Coup has with America.
05:14 - A brief synopsis of The Phantom.
06:39 - The untrustworthy character of Carlos and why his defence was so unbelievable.
11:32 - The strength of the case against Carlos.
13:14 - Why Patrick presents the events of the documentary in real time.
14:22 - The new aspects of the case Patrick discovered as he was filming.
20:29 - The unreliable nature of eyewitness testimonies.
24:51 - Clip: the tape of the victim's call to 911 just before she was murdered.
28:55 - Why Patrick thought this case deserved to be made into a film.
32:50 - How he got in contact with everyone who was involved in the case.
37:36 - How he brought a 40-year-old case to life.
43:14 - The ‘no-go’ areas there were in some parts of Texas.
47:35 - The challenges that come with being an English filmmaker working in America.
50:04 - Why Patrick interviewed some subjects in Spanish, their mother tongue.
54:14 - The dangerous area the victim had no option but to work in.
57:58 - The importance of the composer and soundtrack of the film.
1:00:30 - The next project Patrick is working on.

Resources:

The Phantom (2021)
Brexit: A Very British Coup (2016)
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Transcript for Factual America Episode 69 - The Phantom: The Case of Carlos DeLuna 40 Years Later

Patrick Forbes 00:01 Well, hello, I'm Patrick Forbes, and I'm the director of The Phantom, which is out in theaters now. And so, go in and watch it, and it's streaming as well.

Speaker 1 00:17 Texas was very violent place.

Speaker 2 00:22 Eventually, law and order, and a thin veneer of civilization, improved things.

Speaker 3 00:32 26 year old Wanda Lopez was working alone. And, while on the phone to a police dispatcher, she was stabbed to death.

Speaker 4 00:42 Took off to the right.

Speaker 5 00:44 Dark pants, white shirt.

Speaker 6 00:50 Freeze, don't move; city police.

Speaker 7 00:54 They had the guy. It made sense. And the case was close.

Speaker 8 00:59 Client is steadfast. I don't want to plead guilty because I am not guilty.

Carlos DeLuna 01:04 Maybe one day the truth will come out.

Speaker 9 01:08 He gave us a name: Carlos Hernandez.

Speaker 10 01:11 Carlos Hernandez looks just like Carlos DeLuna.

Speaker 11 01:15 We got every Carlos Hernandez in Corpus Christi.

Speaker 12 01:18 It was all dead ends.

Speaker 13 01:22 They lie about things they have done, and they lie about things they haven't done.

Speaker 14 01:26 Carlos Hernandez was a phantom.

Speaker 15 01:28 He really, truly may be innocent, and there's not a damn thing anybody can do to stop this.

Speaker 16 01:36 They care if you're Mexican, and you have no money: you're gonna die.

Speaker 17 01:42 I asked him, 'Who is Carlos Hernandez?'.

Speaker 18 01:48 There's not always two sides to a story, sometimes there's three, four or five.

Speaker 19 01:53 The evidence didn't match the state's theory.

Speaker 20 01:56 None of it makes sense.

Speaker 21 01:57 Carlos Hernandez was a police informant. The police denied that he even existed.

Speaker 22 02:03 He was telling everybody that he did it.

Speaker 21 02:05 For some reason they released him.

Speaker 23 02:06 It made me question everything about the death penalty.

Carlos DeLuna 02:12 Maybe one day the truth will come out.

Matthew 02:27 That is a trailer from the documentary, The Phantom. And this is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. And once again, we're talking about the death penalty in the state of Texas. The recently released documentary, The Phantom, shines a light on a capital murder case, but probably in ways most of you have never experienced before. Joining us to discuss the film, the case, Texas, the death penalty, as well as the art of storytelling, is award winning director Patrick Forbes. Patrick, welcome to Factual America.

Patrick Forbes 03:04 Hi there.

Matthew 03:06 How are things with you?

Patrick Forbes 03:07 Well, obviously, as a nation we're in sadness; people are rending their clothes in the streets because we lost at soccer last night. And it's raining. So, you know, it's a traditional picture of London, England.

Matthew 03:20 Yeah, so to set the context there for those of you because I've been told podcasts have a life of like seven years. This is July 12, 2021, the day after football was supposed to come home. But it didn't, and all of us who live in England, well, I speak for myself, obviously, but I have a bit of a sore head today. And, it's probably a few of those gin and tonics I had last night watching the match that went longer than expected. But I think you've got a film called Brexit: A Very British Coup, I was gonna say this is almost Football: A Very English Ending is one way of... have we lost you, Patrick? [Laughter] Oh, no, there you go. I thought we'd lost...

Patrick Forbes 04:05 Brexit: A Very British Coup has a very odd American connection, in that several of the people in it showed it to a man with a large amount of orange hair and said, 'Look, this is the way you can become president'. So, maybe the democracy was leaving home, at least in part, as a result of it.

Matthew 04:29 Well, plenty of things to talk about. But the film we're talking about mostly this evening, is The Phantom. It debuted at Tribeca in June. Released by Greenwich Entertainment. I think you told me - well, I think we've heard earlier that it's in theaters in the US and will be making its way to cinemas here in the UK, and hopefully around the world. So, thanks so much, Patrick, for coming on to the program, and thanks so much for making the film; I thoroughly enjoyed it. Precisely, as some of our listeners know, I've got Texas connections. So, this is quite, I thought it was quite - well, we'll go more into this in a bit. But let's, if you don't mind, get us started. What is The Phantom all about?

Patrick Forbes 05:15 Well, it's all about a terrible - well, the film starts [loud computer bleep] with a terrible - blimey, interruption - the film starts with a terrible night in 1983 in downtown Corpus Christi, when a clerk at a gas station was attacked, and brutally murdered, and half an hour later, cops who flooded the area pulled out a guy from under a truck, and he was half-naked, stinking of drink, possibly more, and as he was pulled out, he said, 'Hey, I'm going to beat this one like I beat every other one'. So, you'll be unsurprised to hear that - and the guy's name was Carlos DeLuna - you'll be unsurprised to hear that the police thought they'd got their man. And the film, basically, explores whether they did or didn't.

Matthew 06:05 And, so, what you - your film - and I can say, as someone who's watched this, and maybe you can tell me how much you're concerned about spoiler alerts for those people because I think your film - well, I mean, it's an interesting one. I mean, it's a historical, this has happened way in the past, but yet, it's got so many - it's an incredible story. It's got so many - it's got more twists and turns than the Nueces river that flows nearby. It's kind of worthy of Victor Hugo. So, you know, you might - I don't know how much we want to go into details of this. But at the same time, it is quite an incredible story.

Patrick Forbes 06:38 It's an amazing story, because he wasn't a lovely guy, he genuinely wasn't a lovely guy, and everything that could go wrong for him, did, you know; he looks terrible as he's pulled out from under the truck; he gets to trial, he's given a hopeless lawyer; that hopeless lawyer is joined by a really good lawyer with only 10 days to go. But, you know, what can he do in 10 days- he's only got 160 bucks to do any research. And it's all looking really bad. And just as he's about to go to trial, he comes up with this apparently crazy defense: it wasn't me; it was another guy called Carlos. And everybody just looked at him like, what? You got to be kidding me. So...

Matthew 07:28 Because precisely, because just before that he had had another story. That...

Patrick Forbes 07:32 Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew 07:33 ... that was completely false. I mean, they debunked that one immediately.

Patrick Forbes 07:39 Yeah. He was a terrible, terrible witness. I mean, he said he was going to meet a couple of girls. You're absolutely right. He was going to meet a couple of girls, and then they were going to go to the ice skating rink. And so the brilliant, I have to say it, prosecuting attorney says, right, well, you know, we'll go and find these girls. When they find one of them. She's nine months pregnant. And she said, 'What's he talking about? It wasn't me, it was- that night, I was having my baby shower'. So, I mean, you know, they produce that on the stand, and his case starts to crumble right in front of his eyes. I was talking to the very nice guy who defended him, the competent attorney, and I just couldn't believe it. I just, you know, that moment, I just thought, what have we got here? This is going so wrong.

Matthew 08:38 Exactly. And I think, I mean, and the other thing is about the, as you say, the brilliant DA, or Assistant DA, or whatever he was, but, I mean, he comes up with this story about this other Carlos. And let's face it, people, there's been lots of stories done about death penalty in the States, especially the state of Texas. I'm from Texas, originally, a lot of prosecutors...

Patrick Forbes 09:03 Where are you from?

Matthew 09:05 I'm from San Antonio. So, I have some insights into Corpus. So, let me just say, I was gonna say later, your films are very evocative of a time and a place, I will say; you know, but we can talk more about that in a minute. Or, we could do it now. But I mean, I think, you know, a lot of prosecutors would have said, 'Ah, he's coming up with another story, I don't even need-' but they did, at least apparently, go do a little research. Let's try to find this other Carlos.

Patrick Forbes 09:39 Yeah, yeah.

Matthew 09:40 And they came back and said, well, we can't find the guy.

Patrick Forbes 09:43 Yeah, absolutely. Because the guy who's the Assistant DA, who, as you rightly say, is the main prosecutor, he's six months; he's new to town. And the impression I have of him then as now is that he's brilliant, he's thorough, and weirdly now, he's opposed to the death penalty. So, I believe him when he says, 'I thought that I'd got all the Carlos Hernandezes that existed, and there was nobody on the list who looked anything like the guy that this - that the defendant was describing. So, the jury, unsurprisingly, go, right, he's going down, and not as he's not really going down. But he's going to go down and be executed, because he's lied so grotesquely about what, apparently, about what has gone on. And in the background, he's got an attack, he's got a prosecution for rape. So, the argument of the prosecution is he is a clear and present danger to women. And that, as you know well, that the state of Texas is grounds for execution.

Matthew 10:55 Exactly. And, I mean, what strikes me is that this is not the most egregious example that anyone will have heard of in terms of a prosecution, you know, there's some cases we've heard about, you can't believe the guy was ever brought to trial, or other things, or there's doubt but the - you know, I mean, so to me, it's not - in some ways, because it's not so - it is so seemingly cut and dry without maybe going into too much detail, in some ways, it's the most damning of any case I've seen of the system.

Patrick Forbes 11:31 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because it was like, it's not, it's not like there's a rogue, a rogue policeman or somebody who's out to fit up somebody. It looks like it's a slam dunk case. And that's what was so interesting for me about it, which was that you can believe one thing one day, and discover that it might not be absolutely the case the next, and what's the significance of that? Well, if you're going to execute somebody based on that, you can't go ahead with it, because the whole system demands certainty.

Matthew 12:14 Yeah. I mean, that's what one of the people in the film says, it relies on certainty. But, as we know, in life, and the film shows there is no certainty is there?

Patrick Forbes 12:25 Yeah. And weirdly, that is, in fact, the prosecuting attorney who said that, which I think gives you a hint as to what then unfolds, basically.

Matthew 12:35 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm happy. I mean, if people want to go, I would suggest, maybe you want to stop here and go find the film: it's easily found online, you can go to Greenwich Entertainment's, you can stream it there, if you don't want to have any particular spoiler alerts. Again, because even though you kind of know what you're getting into, when you sit down to watch this film, I thought, again, we can talk more about how you crafted this, but there are these twists and turns in the way you played it in trying to tell the story. You let them kind of almost happen in real time.

Patrick Forbes 13:14 Yeah, yeah, but I think it's really important, because that's sort of - I mean, my background is in making documentaries in real time over years. And so, I thought that, you know, and one of the things that I disliked about some of my colleagues who've made death penalty or miscarriage of justice films is, as you watch it, and you think, oh, I know the answer from the start here. And so does the filmmaker, and it's like, it's not, doesn't feel like you're watching a documentary so much as, sort of, being beaten over the head. So, I thought, you know, in reality, none of us knows the truth about any given situation from the start. And it's best to treat the film almost as though it was real life, that it's unfolding in front of you, and you can go, wow, it's going one way, and then it's going another, and that was really important to me that you understand how things happened, as opposed to had them fit into some template set by a middle class documentary maker.

Matthew 14:17 Exactly. I mean, did you all discover anything new about the case? Because...

Patrick Forbes 14:21 Yeah, yeah, we completely discovered things new because my other presiding philosophy, which drove my producer mad, was that I should film everybody in the spot where things actually happened, and you should film people in multiple locations so that, you know, because I don't know about you, but I don't believe that you stay in that studio where you're sitting right now for the rest of your life. You probably leave there...

Matthew 14:49 In about 45 minutes; yes, hopefully!

Patrick Forbes 14:52 [Laughter] Exactly! So, and, you know, guess what, I made myself go and have a gin and tonic in another room. So, you know, if we're doing, you know, if we're making this movie and it's being as true to life as possible, then we should try and film people in, say, outside the house where they were held captive, or a place where a trial took place. So, that, you know, somebody can say, 'Hey, I, he was sitting over there, he was the defendant, I can remember it', you know, and suddenly, things come alive in a way that they normally don't. And I'm as guilty of this as the next man or woman in that I've made films in which people mysteriously sit in one white room for one hour twenty, you know, with them being blinded by big lights, and I just thought we got to get away from this; we've got to move it on a notch, and it paid off, but it paid off in the most unexpected way, in that, as we were - we were recreating the moment of DeLuna's arrest, and the guy who actually was crawling towards him on the night was once again crawling toward me, as I was DeLuna effectively, for that moment. As he said, 'Freeze, city police; don't move, or I'll shoot'. A guy tapped my producer on the shoulder, and said, 'I was there that night. I saw it all happen. I saw both men run. And that was the first time in 30 - then it was 31 years - that there had ever been an eyewitness to the fact that there were, as the defendant said, two people running from the gas station that night, and it was amazing. And then it didn't stop. It was like, whoa, because then all the crowd of people started getting excited. And they said, you've got to go talk to Bruno Mejia, just a wee bit, a few doors, down; I went, 'Okay, why we got to go do that?' And they said, no, no, you don't understand. Bruno, is the father of Bruno Mejia, Jr who was the cop on the night who was relaying all the witness descriptions from the scene to headquarters in CCPD. And I talked to him, and he said, 'I've always been troubled about what I was hearing, because the witness descriptions were so different. You know, I was saying he was running, and he was unshaven. He was wearing a gray top, and another woman was saying he was running, he was clean shaven, he was wearing a white shirt'. And the longer I talked to all the people who were there, the more I realized that they were talking about two different people. So, it was - anyway, it was an extraordinary moment in that we, to a certain extent cracked a crime by pure accident.

Matthew 17:56 Yeah. That's very interesting, because it's quite, quite poignant in places, I mean, I don't - you have the one - is there one cop there who's, I mean, I don't know if he's still a cop or not, but he's - you at least made him put on an old cop's uniform. And he's testifying there in the courtroom as he would have been testifying...

Patrick Forbes 18:19 He's now deputy head of police, actually.

Matthew 18:20 Really? Wow. I mean, as several things come to mind, I mean, I even just on the way over here, I'm not trying to give a plug to the World Service, but they had a program on and a guy said he was in a courtroom doing a mock trial, because he's someone who'd been convicted and now studying to get a law degree, and when he looked up, he realized - he hadn't realized before - that he was in the courtroom where he had been convicted 15 years earlier, and he broke down. He just completely broke down. Because there's something about that place and immediacy that there's this human connection that I think we sometimes forget about, maybe even 'specially when we've been under lockdown for however long it's been.

Patrick Forbes 19:01 No, no, I mean, that was, that... yeah. And it was really the one I alluded to earlier, when we went back to the place where she had been kidnapped by the actual likely killer, and she'd been held there aged 16, and raped, and forced to do things horrendously against her will, and she was seeing that house for the first time in 20 years. She just started to cry uncontrollably, and I'm not a fan of showing people crying on the screen because I always think it demeans their dignity, but this time, okay, I will just show her wiping away a tear before we cut because it was a moment of raw emotion, the like of which you just don't get otherwise.

Matthew 19:53 And, I mean, I think not too many British filmmakers have been to Eagle Pass, Texas. Not too many. I briefly once but that's about it.

Patrick Forbes 20:03 Well, they should. Come on. I don't know if it's... it's certainly not the roughest place I've been. But it's like..

Matthew 20:09 It's got its challenges, let's put it that way. I mean, I guess this is all because, I mean, this is all the whole case, everything was on eyewitness accounts, as I think you're mentioning. And, I know, I don't know why I'm sharing this but I actually thought or I did witness an attempted gangland shooting in front of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead once. I saw the two guys on a motorcycle take two pot shots at someone who was seemingly standing at A&E, and I found out later there was some - from the cops who questioned me - there were some big gang guy in the ward. But interestingly, I saw the motorcycle as a certain color, and later there were signs all over the place asking if anyone had seen a motorcycle, and it was a different color than I remembered seeing it, you know, and it's one of these things; I'm still to this day - now, I'm not convinced that I did see it correctly.

Patrick Forbes 21:09 Early on in my career was caught - I was doing a police documentary - as many British documentary makers do - and I went to do some research, and it was a rough night in a violent town in the British Midlands. And suddenly we were surrounded by a crowd of 30 odd people, and they start to rock the police van to and fro, and all the police said, Patrick, this is not a time to be a hero, get inside; don't worry, there's no danger of me being hero at any stage. And then I was called up about nine months later; I was called up to be a witness at trial. And the barrister said was - the attorney in the British system - said, 'Was the assailant wearing brown trousers or blue trousers, Mr. Forbes?' And I went, 'Brown, blue, blue, no brown'. And I had absolutely no clear recollection; I just, you know. Anyway, as I have discovered eyewitness evidence is the worst possible evidence there is.

Matthew 22:16 And then, so - as we know, we've been talking about there's this other Carlos, there's the dos Carloses, that they couldn't track down, seemingly. I know you get the Columbia Law legal team from Columbia University's involved and they're pretty convinced that this other Carlos might have been some sort of informant, but then I know you also get someone from the DA's office who's pretty adamant that he wasn't, and, you know, is it kind of... did you come to any firm conclusions on that?

Patrick Forbes 22:52 Well, I did, yes, I think I have, now. I think mentally I've now pieced it together as to how it could have worked largely by talking to one of the other guys in the film. But it's also, I hope, one of the things that people will take away from - I don't want people to be given the answer, and so I want you to say 'Who do I believe? Do I believe him, saying he wasn't an informant? Or do I believe him who says, 'oh, no, he wasn't''. Even though he looks a bit shifty when he said he wasn't; what I think is the truth is that Carlos Hernandez, a guy with an all too horrible fondness for using a knife on women, he was terrified of going to jail. He'd had an appalling experience in jail as a kid, and so he would do anything to stay out of jail. And Corpus at that stage was a very, very violent town, so, there was a lot of stuff going on. And so, it wasn't like he was a regular informant. But I think what would happen is as he was held up on yet another GBH charge, or aggravated charge, he would trade information to stay out of jail. And that I think, was what was going on. And so, I think, as it were, both sides are right, or both sides are telling half the story.

Matthew 24:18 I think that's a good place to actually take a little break here for our listeners, and let our sponsor say a few things. So, we'll be right back with Patrick Forbes, director of The Phantom.

Factual America midroll 24:30 You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @alamopictures, to keep up to date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Speaker 1 24:52 Were you on duty at approximately 8-8:30 that night?

Speaker 2 24:55 Yes. Spotted somebody in a pickup truck.

Speaker 3 25:00 When they pulled them out from under the truck, they found a wad of bills in his front pants pocket totaling $149, which was about the amount of money that was taken from the cash register, in the robbery at the service station.

Speaker 4 25:19 And what made it even worse, they had the audio. That was just horrible.

Speaker 5 25:34 The biggest thing that happened was the playing of the tape, which was just chilling, and so sad, and so compelling. There was not a cough, there was not a rustle of paper, there was - everyone was rapt.

Speaker 6 25:51 The impact was shocking to them. They're not used to hearing stuff like that. The 911 call establishes that there's absolutely no reason for him to kill her.

Speaker 7 26:08 According to the tape, she was complying, she was handing over the money.

Speaker 6 26:12 She just says, 'You can have it all', and then he kills her.

Matthew 26:17 Welcome back to Factual America. I'm with BAFTA award winning director Patrick Forbes. The film is The Phantom, debuted at Tribeca in June. It's available at Greenwich Entertainment, or various streamers, or if you're in the US where most of our listeners are, actually it's in theaters there now. And will be coming to cinemas here in the UK, and around the world, hopefully very soon. Patrick, how'd this film come about?

Patrick Forbes 26:45 By accident! Well, I was doing another movie about a little known guy called Julian Assange, and my very, very good producer said, 'hey, have you seen this article about a possible miscarriage of justice in the States, and I regret to say at the time, what I said was, 'Yeah, yeah, never mind miscarriages of justice, there are lots of those. Let's concentrate on dealing with Assange and WikiLeaks'. And she said, 'No, no, no, no, this is really a big deal. There's a guy who could have got executed, and he didn't do it, possibly'. And I went, 'Oh, hang on'. Anyway, a couple of days later, I read the article. And I just thought, wow, I'm in. This is extraordinary, because it's the stuff of anyone's nightmare. You haven't done something. You're accused of a crime. And then, not only are you tried and found guilty, but you're executed. And that is the stuff of drama; of, you know, big deal feature film, or plays, and books. And so, I just thought, right, we're gonna do this. And I didn't, my background isn't in films about miscarriages of justice, and I deliberately don't do crusading films, because I hate that kind of thing. But I was just intrigued. And so, we set off to try and find out what the hell did happen.

Matthew 28:24 Now, I mean, it's - had been - well, there's original reporting, and then there's obviously there's the, I don't know which article you saw, there's the Chicago Tribune, three part series that were nominated for a Pulitzer, the Columbia Law School obviously did a lot of stuff. They even turned into I think, a book called The Wrong Carlos. What did you see that made you think, there's - not only that there's a film here, but I'm the one to tell it and this is, you know, this is a - this needs a filmed treatment, if you will.

Patrick Forbes 28:55 Well, hey, you should never ask a director why they're suited to doing something!

Matthew 28:59 You obviously are! It's not so much even you personally but, like, why, I mean, you know, I mean, like you said, there's, like you say, there's - and often they are kind of crusading films, and they're not - and they're horrible situations, obviously, with these people on death row and miscarriages of justice. But, what was it, I mean, that you...

Patrick Forbes 29:25 There were two things about it, is the honest - first of all, was, as I said, the intrinsic drama in it. But secondly, when I got to Corpus to start researching it, I sort of began to realize that - and I decided to tell it as a 360 degree movie - that it was, you know, I wanted everybody on either side to tell the story, and because that's what makes films interesting. That actually - it was almost like an act of catharsis for lots of people they just were fed up. As you said. There have been all these reports like Chicago report, the reports from, you know, the Columbia, and the most common remark I got was we're fed up with all these Northerners telling our story, we want to tell our story. It's a very Texan response...

Matthew 30:19 It is!

Patrick Forbes 30:20 ... and it was like- it was extraordinary. So, it wasn't really a case of, you know, I Patrick Forbes, the greatest director in the world, is the only person who can tell this story. It was more that the whole town had decided that, well, for good or ill we're gonna go with the limey, and we're going to finally find somebody who'll tell it our way. And that was kind of a responsibility that I felt I had to embrace. And it was extraordinary. I mean, it was. Anyway, there are so many moments when you make documentaries, I always think that a making of the documentary is often as or if not more interesting than the film itself. And there was a great character in the movie who's a really tough, old school lawyer called Rene Rodriguez, who was defending the victim's family and I was having a tough day getting a lot of no's. I rang him up, and I thought, oh I'm going to get another 'no'. And he said, 'Okay, you can come by for a beer', thinking it's three in the afternoon, right-ho. So, I went round, we had our beer, we didn't talk about anything other than the differences between Texas - great; England - not so great. And which he informed me at great length about, and then at the end of it all after having laughed continuously 45 minutes, he said, 'You're alright'. I went, 'what?'. He said, 'Okay, we'll do it with you'. And then having passed some kind of test, he then rang up the DA and said, 'Alright, this guy, who I've got here, now you should work with him, you should tell the story'. And so, I went around the DA's office. I had my sort of interrogation at their hands. They said, 'Alright, we'll do it'. They then rang the chief of police. And so it started to happen, and the whole town decided to talk to the limey. And, as you can see, I don't have Hugh Grant's hair. And I don't have all his charm!

Matthew 32:19 I know you're being very harsh on yourself! But I mean, I think, that's very interesting because that's what - I mean, how did you? Because that's what's amazing about this to me is that, you know, we're coming on, it won't be long, it will be 40 years since this happened. And it seems like, you know, except for the obvious characters, unfortunately, the victim, the típicos, two Carloses. Everyone seems to still be around mostly, I mean, and you tracked them all down, and how did you do that? Because that was - I mean, I think you've just alluded to it, you just a lot of time on the phone.

Patrick Forbes 32:55 Yeah, well, the shoe leather. It's the only way, and I had, you know, I was - had two very brilliant Spanish speaking producers who went to see - who were both women which is quite important when you're dealing with victims of male violence - who went to see the women involved. And I think that's a very important part of this film, because that's another thing I dislike about quite a lot of miscarriage of justice films, is they're sort of only told with the, as it were, the boss class; they're told with, you know, the cops and the lawyers, and you sort of weirdly, don't spend much time with either the people who've been affected by the violence, or have perpetrated the violence. So, I thought it was really important that you get a sense of what this was about, and that the victim had her life recognized, and the value of that life recognized, and not traduced as is all too often the case. And, so, yeah, we just spent a lot of time in Texas. And I love Texas, now, I have to say; I don't know about you, but, you know, since you're in England.

Matthew 34:01 I am living here, but that doesn't mean I've turned in my Texas citizenship. I think it's a - no, it made me, oddly enough, a film about a miscarriage of justice did make me feel homesick because I mean, you know, this guy, you're talking about, this tough as nails lawyer for the victim's family. I mean, he's, in some ways, he reminds me a bit of my - I'm not Hispanic - but he reminds me of my grandfather. I mean, you know, my grandfather would have asked you if you'd wanted to make a film, oddly enough, I don't know why you would have but if he had been involved, it would have been more like two o'clock in the afternoon, he would have asked you over for a beer. And he would have, you know, and he would have, whatever you would have talked about, and then he'd say, 'Yeah, he's okay', you know.

Patrick Forbes 34:46 But that's the culture, and it's fantastic. And it's also - it's an amazing oral culture as well. People tell stories.

Matthew 34:53 Yeah. We've had - I mean, we've, as you can imagine, I get lucky here, and I've had a few Texas themed films, and that's come out quite a bit about the sort of storytelling aspects of it. I mean, people think it sounds just too good to be true, or too cliche, or something, but no, people do sit around until, or at least they did, I don't know how much it's happening more with social media, and all that stuff, but, you know, people telling stories, you know, to each other.

Patrick Forbes 35:22 And people still, to this day, I mean, I was dealing with lawyers, and people, you know, and the barrios, and a lot of storytelling there. But, you know, people just hang out in bars of an evening, and telling stories that are often true; sometimes, not!

Matthew 35:40 I know! Speaking of my grandfather, I'm not sure how much what he told me is true. But there you go. I still believe him that my great-grandfather ran into Bonnie and Clyde. So, you know, there we go. I'll stick with it. But, yeah...

Patrick Forbes 35:57 And there's a serious side to it all, because which - anyway, you can tell me better than I can tell you - but the point is that really big deal things have happened in these towns, you know, San Antonio, Corpus, were for a long time, the front line in a war. And that, I think, and the legacy of that, and the bitterness it's brought on the one hand, and also the hope and opportunism that's now bringing those places, is massive. So, it's completely fascinating. And you get a sense of, you know, people when we say Britain, oh, what a place of history, well, it's sort of true and not true. I think the point about Texas is history is alive, and is affecting people in a way you find in very few places in the world. And that also, I hope comes over in the movie.

Matthew 36:49 Yeah, I think; well, we were talking earlier about how evocative it was. I mean, there's things you did that, I mean, I grew up there in the 70s and 80s, so, I felt like I was in a bit of a time machine, I will say, I don't know if you realize how good a job you did. But I think - but then yeah, there's- what's that?

Patrick Forbes 37:11 You can tell me that again!

Matthew 37:12 Yeah, well, you did an amazing job, because it's like, oh, I know that old pickup truck. Oh, yeah, gosh, you know, and they even - I mean, even just, okay, it's, yes, it's archive and TV stuff, you know, that you bring out but it's, I mean, I will say, and it's making me feel old, is that how old you made the 80s look, but I don't think you did that; I mean, that's just the reality, right. But, and speaking of which, I mean, how do you make a - how do you go about bringing a nearly 40 year old case to life, because that must have been a challenge.

Patrick Forbes 37:43 Well, it was and it wasn't, ironically, because quite a lot of the 1970s and 80s, is still standing in Corpus, and that was the surprise, because when I went to the courtroom, I didn't think to myself, this will be the very courtroom where this trial took place. And then somebody said, 'You do realize nothing has changed in 40 years'. So, I had an amazing set, if I am to use a crude term, to work with, but then you had the extraordinary witnesses who were all - who could bring it to life in that Texan way. But also, I think one of the things I've noticed in - when you're making these kind of films, you don't want to pierce the veil, you don't want actors to say things. So, I thought that when I was recreating events, it was going to be mute, and nobody would be suddenly turning to each other and saying, 'Hey, get me the Bud.' in that terrible way that people do. Or that, you know, there's an awful thing you can often see in, you know, World War Two movies, 'Hello, Starling, where is - I don't know - Brezhnev', or whatever. That's not how people talk. So, I thought it was quite important that you create completely credible environments that were as dramatic as conceivably could be. And then people would then tell the story. And from that moment on, you'd sort of hopefully feel you were in the 1970s and 80s. And you weren't being sort of jerked into a present reality.

Matthew 39:18 Yeah, because as you already are really aware, I mean, re-enactments have a bit of a bad name in our camp, and rightfully so in many cases. So, you know, how do you go about doing that without taking away from the story or creating the...

Patrick Forbes 39:35 Yeah. And also, in my case, the great movie that you want to sort of slightly measure yourself against is The Thin Blue Line, which is completely beautiful and stunning, and you just think, whatever we do, we mustn't in any way, we can pay homage to it subtly, which I hope we did, but you mustn't in anyway try and replicate it.

Matthew 40:00 And then I think, and as I said, you know, I will say it again, does - I think you're right. I mean, that's what surprised me that when you were filming, I was like, Gods, places like that are still standing. So, like, some of the, like, the lounges in the barrios, and the -some of these places, the houses, the shotgun shacks, in some of the neighborhoods, the projects, which, you know, people think of America, they think projects, they think, you know, tall, high rises in Chicago, or New York, but these low rise versions that you get in Texas - or talking to someone else in, you know, even other states, which was more the style. And I, you know, I've been in a few of those places, and that's, you know, they're still there. They're not, they don't look any different than they did 40-50 years ago, as you say.

Patrick Forbes 40:51 No, they don't; and tragically, the conditions inside those places are still pretty much the way they were 40-50 years ago. And it's still - Corpus is still quite a rough town. And you could sort of see, that was the other thing that struck me during the initial research, apart from the extraordinary fact that most of it was still standing in the place, you know, pretty much untouched, was that edge of violence, which lies behind the movie was still around. I mean, I did an initial recci to film a trailer for the movie. And, as we were doing it, just the three of us, people started to emerge out of the shadows. And I found myself with a guy standing in front of me saying, 'What do you think you're doing?' And anyway, I explained in my best, this instance, Hugh Grant accent. And anyway, it worked, and we walked away, and I said to the guys, or rather, one of the guy, one of the assistants said to the director of photography, 'So, how many do you think were packing?' And he said, 'Everybody'.

Matthew 42:01 Well, I mean, it's been - I mean, I know, because - I know the war you're alluding to is the, you know, actual wars that have occurred in the - the prosecuting attorney talks about what life was like, between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, until relatively recently. It's been depicted in various ways in fiction, and, you know, even Lonesome Dove, I think talks about it, and places, like - things like that. But it was also, I mean, what I do pick up even as a really little kid was that there's, you know, drug wars going on, there was, you know, heroin was big in the 60s and 70s, and, I think, into the 80s. And then other drugs came along, and there were always - so, it doesn't have to be Corpus; all those towns, or cities of a certain size, had areas: they had the barrios, they had these places, there was the - every night on the local news led with a story of a stabbing at one of these- a lounge in one of these neighborhoods, and things like that. And it just kind of, in that sense, the way it was covered, too, was became sort of almost self-fulfilling. This is no good, no go areas you didn't, you know...

Patrick Forbes 43:11 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And no-go areas, and areas where there's so much crime, and so much violence, that the local police weren't trying as hard as they should have been. And there's such a volume of crime. And one of the other themes in the movie, which you picked up on is, you know, people that, again and again, amongst the cops, say it was like the Wild West back then, man, we didn't want to, you know, we didn't waste around. And the pathologist, incredibly, said, 'Yeah, if there was anything involving a child, we'd just hang the guy on the nearest tree, and that would be that'. And you just think, what, right? Wow, that's a bit different. So, yeah, it was - you can understand, given all that melee of history, of current violence, of drugs, dying to come through, and Corpus is a very big deal port, very close to some major shipping routes, so, the tale is that a lot of Colombia's second main export went through it, that this was a town on the edge of falling apart as much as - I've been shown pictures from the time you were growing up; there were hookers literally standing on street corners every 100 yards. I mean, the fabric of the whole place was collapsing. And this crime is emblematic, not only of a complete failure on the part of the judicial system, but also a sort of terrifying breakdown in social order that was underway at that time, just as you said.

Matthew 44:51 And to be honest, now I think about it, we kind of lived with it. I mean, we - just reminded me, one of the things I had to do when I did driving school, as a 16 year old, was they would take us on a night drive. And they would take us downtown in San Antonio to the - one of these streets you're talking about. And just drive us through where all the hookers were standing, yeah, it was Cherry Street, and it was - well, we had, also, you know what a DPS officer is?

Patrick Forbes 45:24 Yeah.

Matthew 45:25 Yeah, so, he was a former DPS officer, ran this driving school, and he would just - he had all kinds of things. So, one school class was, he had all these probably pirated photos of really bad car accidents from the 60s and 70s that he would show us to scare us straight not to ever speed, or anything like that. I mean, this is before, like, seatbelts, and certainly airbags, or anything like this. So, you know, this is, like, it's good to scare the hell out of you. And then, yeah, it was, like, you got to - that was the big thing. You knew you're gonna drive downtown, and it was like, I have no idea. It was so weird, and so dodgy, in that sense. But the idea was that to keep your eye on the road, so, don't be distracted by what you may, or may not, be seeing on the street corners. But, yeah, these were, kind of, accepted sort of things, you know, and you don't realize how until you see things like your film or talk about it that, you know, these things were happening. I know there's all this reminiscing, and we can feel nostalgic for times, and youth, and stuff like that, but there's also things that I wouldn't necessarily want to have to have to relive. So...

Patrick Forbes 46:48 Yeah, well, it was weird, because, like you say, people were living with it. But there's a funny gap in the corporate museum's library of pictures; strangely, there are none from the 1970s and early 80s. And, I think it's for precisely that reason; it was such a violent town that people live with it, but they didn't want to look back on what the hell actually happened then too much, for fear of uncovering more stuff like this.

Matthew 47:22 Yeah. Well, I mean, you were talking, too, you've mentioned your 'limey-ness' a few times. I mean, that helped, but did it pose any challenges?

Patrick Forbes 47:34 Yeah, yeah; of course it posed some challenges. I mean, you know, I - yeah, I mean, it posed challenges in that beyond a certain time, you could sense that people were thinking, am I really going to tell him all this? Sure I want to unburden my soul? And then, the sort of gravity of the case overwhelmed it. But yeah, I think I would be lying if I didn't say it did. I mean, you know, because it gave - I mean, it was an advantage for me as a filmmaker, in that I had, arguably, a slightly clearer perspective on it simply because I was such an outsider, in that sense. So, people would talk to me, and they'd be interested in talking to me as an outsider, but obviously enough, you know, you're going to tolerate an outsider, like, like a guest in your home; after a while, you're gonna think, oh, is there no time that Patrick is gonna leave?

Matthew 48:32 He's already been here for two nights. I mean, I think we're, you know, I wasn't expecting him to stay that long, you know? Yeah, but at the same time, it gives you some license does it? I mean you can ask any question, there is no stupid questions, because you're the outsider, you could - 'Oh, he's just that British guy who doesn't know anything about Texas', or...

Patrick Forbes 48:53 No, well, no, that was the great advantage of doing the film the way we did it, in that, all my questions were stupid; they were all, like, 'So what happened then?', which is how I like to ask questions. I don't like, you know, I don't like asking questions that show you in a good light. And there's a terrible tradition amongst current affairs journalists that they're completely uninterested in what the person in front of them is actually saying; all it's about is the length of their question. And I'm, I hope - I mean, I notice you are at the other way around; you ask the simple, direct question: 'What happened? What did they do then?', you know; to that extent, we're the dummies, but I'd say better to be dumb, and an outsider than any other way.

Matthew 49:36 Well, yeah, I'm very good at being a dummy! Whether I'm an outsider or not, is another issue. But, yeah, I think, well, or the other way I look at it is, I'm not very interesting, so I'd rather hear what the other person has to say. And then I guess, as you said earlier, you had these two women- were they researchers, or fellow filmmakers that were helping you with the...

Patrick Forbes 50:03 So, yeah, I thought it was important that the one thing that we were not going to be an outsider, and the one thing was really vital, was that if you're a woman, and a Hispanic woman, and you have been attacked, and brutalized, and nearly killed, you need to be speaking in your native tongue to somebody who understands you perfectly, there's no dissonance, and I thought that was a way of showing respect if no other thing, and so, yes; that extent, I wasn't reliant on being an outsider, in fact, the exact reverse because I thought, you know, if you're going to tell that story, you've got to, you've just got to let everybody take it slow.

Matthew 50:53 I think we touched on it briefly earlier, but even this woman that you've tracked down and met with her on the border, I mean, who showed the scars, literally, the scars. I mean, that's an incredible scene.

Patrick Forbes 51:09 And it was a ridiculous moment because we had been - the whole interview process had been very fraught, and the place that we were interviewing had, we had been warned, that there was a lot of cartel activity. And so, we were late getting there, because there have been so many border checks, and so many checks for our security, so the whole interview had a sort of atmosphere of heightened tension; anyway, we start rolling. And almost without any warning, she suddenly says, you know, you understand what this guy was like, and lifts up her shirt in this childlike manner and shows the scar that he had created by using a knife to slice open her stomach like that, and it was incredibly moving. I can remember that one of the crew was wiping a tear away in the corner. My female producer who done it wasn't able to look, and it was a sort of perfect illustration of both the violence that men, particularly men, can be, and secondly, the legacy of it 30-40 years later, she was still as traumatized today, as she was then; it had completely ruined her life, and this was her way of showing it. And she had fled from Corpus. First of all, she fled to San Antonio but Carlos Hernandez had pursued her there. And then she just thought, there's no way I'm going to get away from this guy unless I flee back to Mexico. So, she crossed the border and she would never come anywhere near Texas for fear, even though he's dead, for fear that, as it were, bad men would come after her. It was horrendous. And very, very moving.

Patrick Forbes 53:10 And as you said previously, as well, I mean, bringing this back to the whole original - and you even - the film starts with Wanda Lopez, right, the victim of this horrendous, very vicious murder. I don't think - maybe, I'm sure you picked up on this, but I remember as a kid when you'd hear, like, maybe a family member or someone you knew was going to start working at a filling station, gas station, whatever you want to call it late at night, that that was almost a death sentence. I mean, that was, you know, these robberies of gas stations late at night with armed, you know, certainly in certain neighborhoods. You just knew that - so, this is a woman who was, as I think you've picked up very well in talking to the lawyer, and he's even mentioned that now seeing her daughter who's grown up and the impact that this is all had on her. This was someone who was trying to make as best she could the most of her life, and then she just gets savagely, you know...

Patrick Forbes 54:14 And it’s a classic thing. She was a single mother with a young baby, and where are you going to get a job, and you're going to have to work at night, after she's gone to sleep, and when somebody is looking after her. And like you said, this was - the place that she was working, was the roughest place imaginable: it was right next to a biker bar, and across the way from a strip joint. So, it was not a delightful clientele that were passing through that gas station, and there was a particularly tough gang that frequented the biker bar. So, it was a really, really rough place. And the irony of it was that she had been moved on from another slightly safer gas station because she had, quite rightly and honestly, pointed out that her manager was stealing the cash from the cash desk; so...

Matthew 55:05 Oh my goodness.

Patrick Forbes 55:06 Yeah. It's terrible. I mean, the whole film is about how life can basically take a succession of wrong turns with just no warning.

Matthew 55:20 And, yes, and I think - and thank you so much for making it because I think it's - because it's more than - I mean, on that note, it sounds very heavy; it sounds very depressing, which, I mean, obviously, there's horrible things that happened. But you've told it in a way that I think that doesn't - I hate to say it, doesn't get in the way of the story, right? I mean, I think for some people that might be, like you said, campaign films, I don't think those work because they try to hit people over the head. Other things have happened. But this is told in a very, using your storytelling roots, told in a way that pulls you in, gets you interested in the story. And then when it's all said and done, it's like reading any, you know, great story; you've learned a lot. And yet, you've, you know, maybe gone places you hadn't necessarily thought you'd...

Patrick Forbes 56:12 Don't you think that's key, as well? I don't know, I'm a terrible devotee of detective fiction. So, I felt that on one level, this film should work as, you know - I don't know what, Poirot - I mean, that's the truth, but it should be about finding out, and then all the messages are there to be found, be found and discussed, and talked about later, but it should actually be - it should work as a film. That's what it's about. We're all sitting down for 80 minutes, you know? And, you should be drawn along, and along the way, you should think to yourself, is this really happening? Oh, I wonder who did it? What's that? Oh, do I like him? Not sure about her- all the stuff that you do when you sit down in front of a TV to watch, I don't know, a Netflix drama of an evening, or stuff like that. And I think that's really important as well.

Matthew 56:45 And for me, personally, you didn't try to draw it out over several episodes. You didn't try to - I won't name names, but you know, I mean, it's, like, you know, that's - what do they say, how long should it be? It's as long as it takes to tell the story. And that's exactly what you've done.

Patrick Forbes 57:25 Well that at least is, well, about the only advantage of being the director that I am, is that they did come to me at some stage and say, 'Look, do you think we should make this over six episodes, and I just laughed, and said, 'Really?! It's been tricky enough to get to 80 minutes. Man, it would be like watching War and Peace without any of the excitement!

Matthew 57:51 Exactly! And then, how important was the musical score?

Patrick Forbes 57:58 Vital. Completely vital. Because nodding to - I think the astute watcher will have guessed that that's the most obvious homage to Thin Blue Line. Coz one of the things that happens in that movie is there's an amazing score by Philip Glass, and that's the ultimate in sort of rhythmic driving music; so, I thought, okay, well, we've got a standard here. And Rob who's a brilliant composer. I sort of said, 'Yeah, Philip Glass', and he went 'Oh, great, thanks'. But no, we worked incredibly hard. I know every director works incredibly hard with the composer, but we really, really did work incredibly hard. And let me tell you, working incredibly hard with your composer is tough at the best of times, and it's tougher still in a pandemic. And eventually, we had to go and sit in the same studio. And he looked at me and said, 'Well, if you infect me, my children will be very unhappy'. And I said, 'And so will mine, Rob!' So, on that basis, we then spent four of the most intense days of my life, working out how we score this movie, so that it goes - its journey, as it were, mirrors the journey of the movie, you start thinking one thing, you start to change your mind midway through, and then you have the shock of your life after about 40 minutes.

Matthew 59:23 Well, I think it's - yeah, I picked up on it. It's definitely it's one of those things. Well, I picked up on it. I shouldn't say it quite that way. I mean, it's one of those things, like any good score, you don't, at first maybe even notice it at first before then you realize...

Patrick Forbes 59:36 Yeah, well that's vital. That's absolutely vital. It was one of the things that we did, and working with the sound engineers, was that we felt that you had to create space rather than being in your face, like the Glass score, that you had to create space around the characters, so that you're just - it's sort of subtly moving you on. It's not like the child tugging at your arm. It's like, I'm sort of gently ushering you toward another place, I hope.

Matthew 1:00:05 Yeah. Well, I think you've achieved that. And what we've also achieved is, I think we're about to come up on the end of our time together. So, I hate to say, but I mean, before we do sign off, I mean, what's next for you? Now that you've got this released.

Patrick Forbes 1:00:28 Insofar as I can talk about it...

Patrick Forbes 1:00:30 It's related to the thing that we've all been experiencing around the world. That's all I can say, because the negotiations are underway. But if it comes off, it will be extraordinary. Anyway, there have been some positives that have come out of this horrible experience. And, I believe we're about to have exclusive access to one of the positives; so, if that is, that will be what you'll be sitting through in two to three years time, anyway.

Matthew 1:00:31 They always do this!

Matthew 1:00:34 Okay. But speaking of which, now - has there - because a lot of the films we bring on to this were either mostly filmed before the pandemic, a lot of post-production, obviously, massive amounts of post-production done during the pandemic - do you think there's been a bit of a dip in- do we think there's gonna be a gap here where there's not really that much...

Patrick Forbes 1:01:21 Oh, yeah, undoubtedly. I mean, it's been, I don't know, for people in jobs like yours and mine, I think it's been the most frightening wake up call. Because you sit there, or I sat there after two months, the first lockdown, and I looked at my wife, and I said, 'This could be the end of my career', and she, in that sensible. wifely way, went, 'Shut up. Stop moaning. It'll be alright. Okay?' But no, being serious, all around the world. Anyone who makes documentaries was thinking, wow, what am I going to do? Indeed, to a lesser extent, feature films because they manage, so. But a profession that depends on standing two feet from somebody and asking them questions, isn't exactly the best thing you can do in the middle of COVID.

Matthew 1:01:22 Yeah. And not everyone can make an archival driven doc., you know, or nor would they want to, you know, I mean, it's just, you know, it's...

Patrick Forbes 1:02:18 No, well, I mean, I think part of the fascination of what we both do is that humans are endlessly interesting and curious, and- you don't do this job to get rich, hey; you do this job, because you like stories, and you like people, and that's why you do it. And, you know, you meet the most extraordinary people, and you stumble across the most unlikely stories.

Matthew 1:02:48 Well, I asked, and I'm happy that we've, I shouldn't say stumbled upon you, but that we finally got you on to the show. And it's great to have you on Patrick. It's been a joy. And look forward to- hopefully it's not two to three years, but even if it is, you know, I look forward to having you again, and to talking to you about this next project.

Patrick Forbes 1:03:13 It's been a real pleasure. That's been great.

Matthew 1:03:16 So, big thank you again to Patrick Forbes, the director of The Phantom. Available now wherever you stream, or you can go to Greenwich Entertainment's website, or if you're in the States, it's in theaters on a selected run. A big shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio, in Escrick, England, that's just outside York. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures who ensures we continue getting such great guests like Patrick onto the show. And finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you, so please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen, or watch, podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 1:04:05 You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

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