Photo by Rob Batzdorff

When her brother was wrongfully convicted of murder, Betty Anne Waters put herself through college and law school to fight for his freedom. Beautifully portrayed in the film Conviction, her 18-year battle, and ultimate success in gaining Kenny his freedom, is the most rare and real love story imaginable.

On September 30, Betty Anne sat down with MAIP to talk about her courageous legal battle, the failures of the justice system and, of course, her brother Kenny.

Rachel Cicurel: It must be difficult that the last 18 years you and Kenny spent together was while he was incarcerated. Has it been hard for you to separate your memories of before his arrest from the time he spent in prison?

Betty Anne Waters: Well no, because my brother was one year older than me—and we grew up together, he was my best friend. So when I saw the film, right from the very the beginning as kids, I starting crying right away because it was like Oh my God; it was like it was yesterday. We did the things that were actually on that film, like the truck that we were on. We used to jump on my grandfather’s truck and go into town and he would be like looking for us, looking underneath the truck for our feet, and we’d jump on, go into town, raise trouble in town, and then find my grandfather after because he used to sell vegetables at a local market so then he’d go and have a couple of drinks. We’d wait and watch and we’d say ‘Hi Gramps, we need a ride home!’ And he’d say, ‘I knew you were on the truck!’ I mean so many things we did, we were like wild and free.

RC: And how amazing were those last six months?

BAW: You know, I can’t tell you it was amazing because it was the best six months of his entire life, besides our childhood. Our childhood was so much fun, and then things were, you know, town apart, and then the prison, so those six months he was just the happiest I’ve ever seen him. We did all the morning shows, and he was happy to talk to anybody and everybody that would listen. We did Oprah, and he would go out with other family members to clubs, and everybody wanted to talk to him. Everybody recognized him. And he would call me up: ‘Betty Anne, they want to meet my sister!’ And I’d be like ‘Kenny, I’m in bed!’ It was so cute.

And Kenny actually had hair; you see him and he’s bald. I said ‘Kenny, why did you shave your head?’ And he’d say, ‘I want people to remember me.’ And they did. So everywhere he went, they knew who he was and he loved it. He had so much fun.

RC: You mentioned at last night’s screening that Nancy Taylor wasn’t even a cop. How did she have so much clout and power in ensuring Kenny’s conviction?

BAW: Well that shows how corrupt the Ayer police department was. I don’t know what they’re doing these days but she was a clerk; she was a dispatcher and a secretary to the chief. She was a special officer for rape cases only because for all these women that were raped and wanted to speak to another woman, they’d talk her along, but she was not a police officer. And, as a matter of fact, a couple of weeks before Kenny’s arrest, the town selectman asked her to stop acting as a police officer because she’s not one. But she wanted to be one, and she was a woman in a man’s world in the ‘80s. She wanted to prove herself and she thought this would be a perfect way to do it. ‘I’ll solve this murder’ because somebody called in to sell information, and the information was that Brenda Marsh said Kenny Waters did it. She answered the phone and so she took it from there, and the chief said ‘Let’s go talk to Brenda,’ and it snowballed.

But anybody else would have known and the chief should have known that they shouldn’t have even arrested him because everything they said was a lie. And it was already proven to be a lie by the chief of police, our local officers and state police.

RC: Was Nancy Taylor in contact with Kenny at all after he was arrested and convicted?

BAW: No. She was interviewed after Kenny was released and asked for a comment. And her comment was, ‘I don’t believe in DNA.’

RC: And what about the fingerprint blood that was found?

BAW: That happened only a couple of years ago. That’s not in the movie because the movie was already made, and I knew right after his conviction that there were fingerprints because we’d get a report here and there saying so and so was eliminated, and I’m not a rocket scientist but I’m thinking if one person can be eliminated, everybody can be. And we tried to find those fingerprints, his appeals attorney tried to find them and never did. It took Barry Scheck to find them. It took 28 years to find them.

RC: When did Barry Scheck get involved?

BAW: I want to say 1999. Well, before that I was calling the Innocence Project since 1996, and did all the formal paperwork and I was put on the list where I belonged. Hundreds of people were in front of me, but I pursued becoming a lawyer and finding the evidence, and once I did that, Huy Dao in New York said, ‘Well, you know Betty Anne, if you find this evidence, Barry will be the consultant, and you can go to the top of the list.’ And that’s all I really wanted. So that’s what I did.

RC: In real life, did the interviews with Brenda Marsh and Roseanne happen before you found the DNA evidence or after?

BAW: No, it was after. We already had the DNA evidence. Kenny was actually out. See, in the movie, everything you see there really happened, the feelings are all there, but it’s not in the right sequence because it’s a movie and once Kenny gets out, the movie should end. But in real life, they let Kenny out because of the DNA evidence but Martha Coakley said they were going to retry him and that he was probably the accomplice and all these things, so he was out and living at my house when Barry, myself and Abra were reinvestigating and going to see Brenda and Roseanne. And we stopped them from retrying Kenny, and that’s when they did exonerate Kenny.

RC: Did you ever try to talk to them before you actually had your law degree, when you were fighting for Kenny on your own?

BAW: No. I didn’t even want them to know what I was doing. And I didn’t even want the Clerk’s office to know that I was Kenny’s sister looking for evidence—I’d use other names and friends called—because I was afraid that the evidence would never be found.

RC: It seems like Abra Rice played such a pivotal role in the process.

BAW: You’d love Abra. She’s a total riot—you would just absolutely love Abra.

RC: I wish she was here—I really wanted to meet her.

BAW: I know! She is my absolute best friend. I met her my first day of law school, and law school would not have been the same without her. We both often say, ‘Imagine if we didn’t meet. Who would we have been friends with in law school?’ Like, who? We never would have had the same experience. And even though it was hard, we had a lot of laughs. Some people used to think—they’re laughing way too much.

RC: What can this movie do for Innocence Projects, family members who have wrongfully convicted loved ones, and the greater legal community?

BAW: Hopefully it will open eyes of the people that were just like me that thought that people who were in prison were guilty. I never thought my brother would be convicted because he was innocent. And he has had brushes with the law where he was guilty and that’s ok and he paid for those—whatever he did. And told the truth and said ok I did it. But he was innocent so that I thought that’s how the system works and now I know different. And I hope that other people now see the system needs to be fixed, and it can be fixed easily—there are so many things that can be done, as Barry Scheck knows and you know—the lineups, the misidentification, junk science, and the prosecutorial misconduct. And now that we’re in Washington, I’m thinking, checks and balances. They have no checks and balances. The President has checks and balances but prosecutors don’t.

RC: You just mentioned Kenny paying for things he did do when he was younger. When he got caught up in minor fights or situations, was he the type of person to own up to his mistakes?

BAW: Always. You know, it’s funny you ask me that because there were nine in my family. We were always doing things; we were like wild Indians. And I am part Indian so I can say that. And my grandfather would say, ‘Ok, did you do this?’ And everybody would say, ‘Oh, no, not me, Grandpa!’ But Kenny would always tell the truth. He knew if he asked Kenny, it’s going to be the truth. So we’d always be like, ‘Kenny, shut up!’ Because he did, he told the truth. He didn’t lie.

RC: And is that what led you to believe he was 100 percent innocent for all those years?

BAW: Not just that, but I know Kenny. And the movie shows many sides of Kenny and Kenny can’t control his temper, like when somebody confronts him. And it shows in the movie he has many dimensions. Kenny’s not an aggressor. Kenny is not ever going to walk up to somebody for no reason and hurt them, or walk into someone’s house and rob them and kill them. He’s not going to do it. If somebody walks up to him and wants to pick a fight with them, well, there’ll be a problem. But he’s not that aggressive a person that would do that.

RC: How did your other siblings deal with Kenny’s incarceration? Were you as close with them at the time?

BAW: Yes, we were all pretty close and they all did what they could do, but there was nothing to do. That was the problem. Becoming a lawyer opened a lot of doors for me that wouldn’t have been opened. I wouldn’t have been able to find that evidence. We had to depend on somebody else to find it and I don’t think it would have been found. It just wouldn’t have happened the way it was supposed to happen. So the rest of my family did what they could, they’d visit him, send money, always send money, but there just wasn’t a lot they could do.

RC: They must be so proud of you.

BAW: Yeah, they are.