-As far as the eye can see, the great Midwest flood
is spreading. -In the summer of 1993,
in the American Midwest, there were torrential rains
happening for prolonged periods of time, the likes of which
had not been seen in almost a century. -In the face
of a 500-year flood, we know we cannot contain
the fury of a river. -The levees were breaking
in sequence with that last crest of water coming down
the Mississippi River. -We arrived on the scene
just minutes after a levee break in Nutwood, Illinois. -This was the biggest
national-news story. -Heading downstream now
with a vengeance. -It wasn't "if this levee
would fail," it was "when." -If you lived in Quincy,
Illinois, in 1993, you knew exactly where you were
on the night of July 16th when the levee broke. -This is the Ayerco station,
folks, in West Quincy. It has just ignited. -Not one but two disasters
at the same time. -The flood was a catastrophe.
People lost their homes. People lost their farms.
People lost their businesses. By the grace of God,
nobody lost their lives. The real casualty is that
there's still one man rotting in prison for the rest of his life
for causing this flood. -I live that day every day,
you know, every day I wake up in prison. -The motive was this -- James Scott
was going to go break the levee to strand his wife in Missouri just 'cause he wanted to party. Something's not adding up. -I've spent 27 1/2 years
in prison. I've had my whole life
stolen from me. Is it right? Is it fair?
No, it's not. ♪♪ -My name is Dr. Adam Pitluk. I'm an investigative journalist, and I wrote a book
about James Scott and the great Midwestern
floods of 1993. -The mighty Mississippi
is out of control, its banks straining
and bursting along 400 miles, the effort to hold it back
failing. -The river got up, stayed up, and it got up way up. You know, 17 feet
is flood stage, but we're used to dealing --
We can deal with 24 feet. '93, it went over 32 feet. -The Mississippi River
floodwaters were threatening
to overtop the levee, and 14,000 acres
of prime farmland was threatened to be washed out
along with the summer crop. -Agriculture is one of the prime
features of this area. My role during that time
was I was president of the Board of Commissioners. So we hired bulldozers, and we pushed the sand
on the land side up to create a higher levee. -West Quincy, Missouri,
was in a dire situation. When the river levels
started rising, a call for help went out. That call was for everybody -- citizens, National Guard,
law enforcement, paramedics, basically all hands on deck -- to come down to the river
and sandbag and raise the river up. -We had Dad shoveling it in and Junior holding a bag
and Mom tying it off. -There was no other choice. It could not have been done
by the government alone. There wasn't enough manpower. -It was a way to be connected
to the effort to keep
that river from flooding, and it was remarkable. It was remarkable to see. -It worked. The levee held for the 14th,
for the 15th. They thought they were out
of the woods. But the reality was, on July 16, 1993,
the levee gave. -On the night of the 16th,
as the remaining levees looked as if they would hold
for another day, tragedy strikes West Quincy. -As the barge came through
the break in the levee and knocked over
the fuel stations, the inferno that went up and started moving south
with the water -- it was really devastating
to look at that. And it just broke my heart. We'd had a great effort, and it was so efficient
and effective. And then we lost the levee. -How it gave becomes the point
of contention and the real thrust
behind this story. One of the people
that was on the scene that had been sandbagging
that day was James Scott. He was coming down
from the levee when he was stopped
by a local reporter to do
a man-on-the-street interview. -Were you on a break? Were you with a whole bunch
of other men? You weren't there at the levee
when the -- when the break occurred? -No, I -- Everybody else left. You know, I decided I'd stick
around till, uh, uh, the next crew come. -Within minutes of this tragedy, to see that the first person
on the scene being interviewed on television was someone that all
of local law enforcement were quite familiar with -- they thought,
"This is beyond coincidence to be at the scene
of a major catastrophe." So, immediately, the focus
was on Jim Scott. -I knew Jim and his family
and his brother because when they were
juveniles, they burnt down and destroyed a large historic school
called Webster School. I thought there was
a possibility that he may have caused
the levee breach. He was more into partying
than he was being helpful. That's the first thing
that hit me. And the second was what --
what is he doing there? Who authorized him
to be out there on his own? And the answer is,
"He shouldn't have been there." And the next thing I know, they've charged Jimmy, extradited him from Illinois
into Missouri, and then prepared
for the court cases. -I came to know
about James Scott when I was a junior at the University of Missouri
studying journalism. My editor at that newspaper,
at the Columbia Missourian, said, "I want you to go
to the prison and get his side of the story because something's
not adding up." My goal was not to go
and free James Scott. I didn't necessarily believe
that he was innocent. I had a job to do. I had an investigation to do
independently as a journalist. So we are here at the former
Missouri State Penitentiary, Jefferson City
Correctional Center. In 1998, the first time
I interviewed James Scott was this room right here. I'd never been
in a prison before. I'm a kid. He was just a kid. He was in his 20s
at the time, as well. The way he presented his story,
as adamant as he was about it, and the fact
that he had admitted to all of his
past transgressions, I picked up on sincerity
because something he said sounded like
he was telling the truth. Something interesting
came out of the sentencing. The judge, Robert Clayton, said, "I can't take your property
as you took theirs, but I can take your liberty."
-But I can take your liberty, which I hope, as you have time
to contemplate, that you will come to find
is, uh, more precious. You are a career criminal. There is a perversion about this because you obviously get
a sense of excitement or power or sexual arousal
or all of the above when you commit these acts. -James Scott was a local
bad boy, for sure, but he was never
a violent criminal. He was never a sex offender. This sort of vitriol,
these sorts of labels, the way that the judge
worked himself up and the way that the jury
was worked up during sentencing, there was no other outcome
that could have happened. -When James Scott was convicted,
I think the majority of the citizens
in Quincy and West Quincy -- they felt that justice
had been served. -When he was sentenced, the community reacted
very favorably. They were very happy
for the conviction. And years later, when I
interviewed people in Quincy, one elderly lady said, "Hang him from the nearest tree
and everyone go home for lunch." His mother is basically the lone
presence in his life that has been rock steady
this entire time. She never wavered.
She never doubted him. She never lost faith
that one day he'd be released, even though the life sentence
he received pretty much ensured that if he ever gets out,
it'll be when he's an old man and she likely
won't be around anymore. Hello. How are you? -Hi, Adam. Oh, I'm doing okay. -Good to see you. -It's been a long 25 years,
and we go back a long time. -Yes, ma'am.
-I think we was in the garage doing something
when you pulled up and came in
and told me who you was. -Well, the first time
I came here, wasn't I still in college
at that time? -I think so.
-I was a kid no older than Jimmy when -- when he got picked up.
-Yeah, you was -- Yeah. -His name is Jimmy? -That's what he call-- We called him "Jimmy"
when he was little, and then we just shortened it
down to "Jim" as he got older. Everything I have for Jim is --
is always in this drawer here. This is a picture
in grade school -- a typical child,
wasn't no problem or nothing. He was just
a happy-go-lucky little boy. James sitting on the couch,
relaxing, with a cat on his lap. Another picture.
"Hope you like the photo, Mom. Show everyone. I love you.
Your son, Jim." I enjoy getting pictures
from Jim so I can see how he's matured into the nice young man
that he is. He calls me every night, and we we have about
20 minutes on the phone. [ Telephone rings ] -It's probably Uncle Jim. Yeah, it is. -No, not yet. He called me this morning,
and I told him -- I said, "Jim," I said,
"you're going to be fine." I keep telling him --, I said,
"You're coming home." Love you, too. Bye. I've always had the hope that, you know,
he would be coming home. I ju-- I feel it right here
in my heart. And nobody's going
to take that away. -Right now I'm sitting outside
of a pool hall in Quincy that used to be a spot. Looks pretty empty
from out here, but I'm going to go in and see if anyone might know
where Joe Flax is. For all the years
that I researched this book, I always had this niggling
feeling in the back of my mind that James Scott
was convicted twice by two impartial juries
of his peers, so what am I missing? In 1997, after the second trial, there was this new motive
that came up that wasn't introduced
at the first trial. The motive was this -- a 16-year-old kid
named Joe Flax, who, at the time,
was under house arrest -- he testified that James Scott
told him at a party right before the flood that he was going to go
break the levee to strand his wife in Missouri so he can go party
in Illinois without her. And that made headlines. Here was a story of a man
that caused a natural disaster just 'cause he wanted to party. Joe Flax is still the anomaly
in this equation, in this story. Other than
his explosive testimony, nobody's interviewed him
or talked to him since. All right. So let's go see
what we could find. What's up, guys? Hey.
Let me ask you guys something. You guys were here in '93?
-Say again? -Were you guys here in '93? You know a guy named Joe Flax? -Joe Flax?
-Yeah. He used to shoot stick around here.
-Yeah. I know him. -Where's he -- Is he here? -I haven't seen him.
-No, I don't think so. -You haven't seen him around?
-No. -So they know who he is. They haven't seen him
around in a while. And they said this is
the only show in town right now. So I figure we'll try one
or two more bars. Question --
I'm looking for the guy that might have used
to drink here or hang out here. This rabbit hole seems to be
getting a little bit deeper. Let me ask you, if you're
a 45-year-old badass in town, what bar would you hang out at? -[ Laughs ]
-The pub. -The last-ditch attempt
tonight -- I have a phone number
for Joe Flax that dates back to 2004 or 2005, when I was doing research
for the book, and I haven't called it since, so I figure
I might as well give it a shot. [ Ringing ] -Your call has been forwarded to an automatic
voice-message system. -I'm not going to leave
a message. I'm going to -- If it is his phone, I'm going to hope curiosity
gets the best of him tonight and he calls back to see
who the number was. I'll probably try him
another time just to get on his phone twice, and if that doesn't work,
I'll call him tomorrow morning and leave a message
and say who I am. But he wouldn't talk to me
15 years ago. I don't anticipate him
talking to me now. At one point,
I'd made contact with him. He said he would talk to me
if I paid him. I told him
it's not a journalistic practice to pay for a story
and I wouldn't pay him, and I haven't talked
to him since. James Scott was convicted on purely circumstantial
evidence, no physical evidence at all. I think that there's
a laundry list of circumstances that you could point to that show James Scott
is innocent. Two independent soil scientists were shown
a topographic map of the area. Both of them were independently
asked to point to, "If there were to be
a breach of this levee, where would it be?" And they both picked
the exact same spot. That's the science that makes it
irrefutable, in my opinion. -This is where the levee broke, opposite of Quincy,
which is over here. The conditions that increase
the likelihood of levee failure are all clearly visible
right here, even to the point that
the narrowest place in the river is right here
where the levee broke. And then, on top of that,
we have the Corps of Engineers desperately, in the last hours before
the levee inevitably failed, bulldozing the backside, cutting channels
in the backside. There is no way in the world that this levee
was not going to fail. That is my professional opinion, and it hasn't wavered one bit
in the 28 years since I started
looking at these data and these situations
and going through the evidence. James Scott is innocent. -Where we're standing right now,
that's it right there. That's where the levee broke.
-That's correct. -Let's go take a look at it. -When these levees
that were overtopped, particularly levees like this that are pretty much homogeneous
with texture -- this levee is pure sand.
We're still walking on sand. -Yeah. You're sinking in it
while you walk. Let me ask you. I mean, this is how soft
the levee is. -[ Chuckles ]
-I mean, it's bone dry and I'm sinking in it.
-Yeah. -I mean, imagine
when it was saturated. -This was the only location in which insurance
paid for damages, and they did it because
"a human created the disaster," not a natural disaster. And guess who
the largest landowner was on the Missouri side
of the levee break. It was the civilian chair of the Levee District
Commission, Norman Haerr,
who has a new house, which he built
with his disaster relief funds that he should never have
received in the first place. So one of the key witnesses
for the prosecution in the James Scott trial had a financial stake in the
outcome and never admitted it. -You need to have
flood insurance for the houses in the bottoms
ahead of the flood or you won't get reimbursed
for the damage to your houses. -In my research,
I try not to go down the conspiracy-theory
rabbit hole, but for the farmers
to be made whole, they needed a scapegoat in order
to have a insurance claim because they did not have
federal flood insurance through FEMA
that covers flooding. They did have
homeowners' insurance that covered vandalism. So were it not for somebody
vandalizing the levee, they would not be able
to file a claim. Acts of God, force majeure,
was not covered. Acts of vandalism were. -The insurance covered
somewhat all of it, yes, but, you know,
your insurance never covers -- If you have a car wreck,
you've got your deductibles and they're not going to
cover everything, but it helps. -And what were your feelings
about James Scott? -I would rather not say. James Scott has served his time in the Jefferson City prison,
as I understand, and I think that
he has served his time. Whether he earned
his prison term or not, I'm not going to say,
but the judge thought he did, so that's up
to the court systems. -Dr. Hammer, have you
ever met James Scott? -No, I have not. I'm at the age now where it's
time to actually do something, and I'm going to attempt
to get to the governor and see if we can drum up
enough information and get him to grant
James Scott a pardon, because, frankly, this makes Missouri
look terrible as a state. It makes us look like
we're back in the 1820s. -Yeah, Midwest river justice.
-Midwest river justice. Absolutely exact. ♪♪ -So, how many years has it been
since we saw each other? -14 years? 13 years? -It's been that long?
-Been a long time. -You're looking good, man.
-Yeah, thank you. -You're holding up well.
-So are you. -Yeah, couple of kids later.
Yeah. -That's what angers me most
about my case in general, is that they stole the chance
of me having children. -When I first interviewed you,
you know, we were both kids. I remember asking you
how you're being received. You were saying that
no one could believe it, like, why you were in there,
when you told them your case. Has that ever changed
all these years later? -No. The new guard now,
they're like -- They hear about my case,
and they're like, "You're locked up for a flood?" -You've been in here
in 27 1/2 years. How do you replay those days,
those -- those June and July days
sandbagging? Do you ever think,
"Did anything I do -- Could it have possibly
contributed to the flood?" -There were some people
who made statements saying that "Jimmy wanted
the levee to break so he can party, mess around
on Suzie," and this and that. You know, I had stake
in the West Quincy levee. There was an entire community,
and I was part of that. -And that's an important point,
though, is that everybody was there. Your original parole date,
if I recall, should have been in 2021. -They've changed my parole
hearing date to July 2026, so I'm not eligible
to be released until 2028. That's what they tell me. -What's going to happen
at that parole hearing? I know you've been maintaining
your innocence all these years. Would it not be easier
for you to go in there and say, "I'm sorry,
let me out"? -Why?
-Just to get out. -Why? That goes against
everything I believe. I've -- I've -- I've done
a lot of stuff my past I'm not proud of --
the fires, you know, the burglaries,
the thefts, you name it. I have a past
that I am not proud of. But when it comes
to West Quincy levee, I'm sorry for what people lost. I'm sorry for what we went
through as a community, 'cause, like I said,
I'm part of that. I have a stake in that --
in the -- in the levee. But for me to go in there
and say I'm sorry for something I haven't done --
I can't do it. -Well, I mean, you know
what that's going to mean? -Oh, yeah,
I'm fully aware of that. -So you're willing to do the
rest of your life in this place? -For something I haven't done? -I haven't seen you in 14 years. The last time I was here,
we took a picture together in front of that mural
right there that's still there.
-Yes. -You've been looking
at that mural for 14 years. I haven't had the same posters
on my wall or pictures now, artwork on my wall,
for 14 years. You're in the same spot
for 14 years. If I get angry,
what -- what do you get? -I stopped being... angry and bitter
a long time ago. -How do you do that? -That's not the kind of person
I want to be today. I hate this case. I-I-I-I don't hate the people
involved with the case. I hate what they did.
I hate the lies that was told. I hate the -- the --
the bull's eye that was put on my back. I've spent 27 1/2 years
in prison for something I haven't done. I've had my whole life
stolen from me. I spent my whole
adult life in prison. Is it right? Is it fair?
No, it's not. They say,
"Well, you was convicted." Well, yeah, I was. I was convicted
on circumstantial evidence. I never caused
the West Quincy levee to fail. And I'll take that to my grave. -I think society would tell you that a person's past kind of tells you
what path he's taken. If you have enough circumstances
and -- it's like a puzzle. You just keep getting piece
after piece after piece. Pretty soon
you've got a picture. I feel like the right person
was prosecuted and convicted. I've gotten people that have killed people
and did six years. You know, Jimmy is serving
a lifetime sentence, and that is strange. -What does it say
for the criminal-justice system as a whole?
I mean, it clearly has its flaws when this guy and many like him that committed what ultimately
were nonviolent crimes -- Remember, nobody died. Nobody was even injured
in this flood. They're just eking time away
from what could be a reformed or productive life.
There is no reform. I mean, he's gone through
all the classes that they put you through
in here to learn how to reform, to learn how to re-enter
and re-commit to society. And we're still
in the exact same place. -This is what the Lord says. "You will be in Babylon
for 70 years, but then I will come
and do for you all the good things
I have promised and I will bring you home
again." And this -- this is a praise. It's an answer to prayer.
Jim is coming home. I don't know when,
but Jim's coming home. And he's going to call me
one of these days and say, "Mom, I've got my stuff packed.
I'm coming ba-- I'm heading to the house."
So -- And I believe that. -I'm continuing to speak out
for James Scott because, essentially,
there's nobody left, other than his mother, and she doesn't have
the platform. So while I still have
a platform, I'm going to use it,
because I think it's a very sad reality that James Scott
might die in prison. I think he'll maintain
his innocence and they'll say
that he shows no remorse and they'll put him back in. Legally, I don't see
any other option other than a gubernatorial
pardon or Supreme Court. I don't see that happening. -There are people here
in the State of Missouri who have done
more heinous crimes. But because I'm not serving
a life sentence or on death row as a result of a rape,
murder, child molestation, sodomy,
anything that involves DNA, people just will not assist me. -In 1993,
this is the biggest story in terms of natural disasters -- the 500-year flood. All the disasters that we've
come to unfortunately accept because they've been happening
with more frequency hadn't happened yet. Are there more people out there
that we can pin floods on or hurricanes or tornadoes? That's the problem
I'm still having, is that you have one person
in prison for causing part of the great
Midwestern floods of 1993. The whole country
was underwater, the whole midsection. But there's one guy
in prison for it. Think about that the next time there's a flood and it's all over
the national news for a week and then it goes away.
