A man sits at his desk, in a modern Los Angeles condo, wearing a Duke’s Mayonnaise baseball cap. He spends his days reading, researching, and talking about a man sitting in a cell, in a Florida penitentiary, wearing a prison uniform.
The two have an earnest connection: They both spend their days trying to prove the latter’s innocence. In true 2021 fashion, it’s through a podcast.
Andrew Fuller ’03 is the host of Leonard: Political Prisoner, a show chronicling the story of Leonard Peltier, a Native American man convicted of killing two FBI agents more than 44 years ago. Though he’s only had one 15-minute phone conversation with Peltier due to prison rules and limited availability, Fuller is hellbent on proving the 76-year-old’s innocence.
Fuller, who’s worked in several facets of the Los Angeles film industry since graduating from Colgate, and his cohost, Rory Owen Delaney, were in search of a story to develop into a podcast, and they knew they wanted to tap into the true crime genre. It’s a lucrative section of the podcast world, and Fuller was already a fan: “I used to watch Dateline with my mom growing up, and I love murder mysteries.” But Fuller and Delaney, both documentarians, wanted to find a different way to talk about crime, one that could make a difference in the current moment. Delaney happened upon the thousand-page epic In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: “It’s based on Leonard’s story, but it also tells the plight of Native Americans as you do not really learn about it in school,” Fuller says.
The podcast winds its way through the events that took place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota nearly half a century ago, providing the listener with the facts of the case. In short, two FBI agents were on the reservation searching for a wanted man when they happened upon a red pickup truck matching the description of that man’s vehicle. They soon came under fire by the truck’s occupants and were killed. Three men were arrested — including Peltier. The hosts believe he was framed; even with flimsy evidence and discrepancies in the prosecution’s case, he was given two life sentences. Peltier is now one of America’s longest-serving political prisoners.
By touching on current events, the hosts also tie Peltier’s story to the greater struggle of Native Americans in the United States. For example, on July 4, 2020, when President Donald Trump visited Mount Rushmore, they released an episode detailing the violence toward Native Americans when the government built the national landmark on their sacred land. “It’s a balance of what’s happening in the real world, and then also staying on the narrative through line that we’ve established for the actual events of Leonard’s plight,” Fuller says.
Making a podcast is similar to documentary filmmaking, Fuller explains — it’s a similar level of research and dedication. “When you find something you’re really interested in, you become obsessed with it a little bit.” What sets it apart from many other true crime podcasts, though, is its review process. Peltier himself signed off on the concept, and Fuller sends him the episode transcripts. Fuller is upfront — this podcast is biased.
“At the end of the day, you have a guy who, whatever you feel about him or whatever you think, has actually served the time that he was allotted by the legal system,” Fuller notes. “He’s been unjustifiably denied all kinds of things. The system has really failed this guy.
“And then the more you find out about it, you’re like, ‘Actually, the system has failed the entire Native American population since the beginning of time and it continues to do it.”
Season two, which was released this June, focuses on the particulars of Peltier’s trial. It comes at a good time — Peltier is up for parole in three years.
Maybe then, Fuller will be able to sit down with him for a coffee, and get to know the man whose innocence he’s fighting for. “It’s funny, knowing so much about the guy and then to actually get a chance to talk to him, [I] would probably just [ask] about personal stuff. It would probably just be getting to know him as a human being.”
Fuller is inspired by fellow documentarian Joe Berlinger ’83. “[He’s] somebody I look up to as a great filmmaker, and he’s done a lot of amazing true crime stuff. He did it before people knew it was a genre.”