Maryknoll Sisters to Appear on NBC Dateline Friday, June 6

by Sue McCarthy Palmer

Maryknoll, NY – Maryknoll Sister Joanna Chan had heard the story from prisoners hundreds of times before, but something in the eyes of this one inmate as he said those all too familiar words, “I’m innocent,” made her stop and take notice.  “Something about him made me believe his story,” she said, recounting her early conversations with Eric Glisson at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY.

Sister Joanna was a frequent visitor to the prison, where she helped inmates work through their emotions by staging plays for fellow prisoners in the compound.  Acting helped free them to express deep feelings, Sister Joanna discovered, ones they might not be so willing to have surface were they not playing characters on stage.

As she heard Glisson speak matter of factly about the case where he was falsely convicted of murdering taxi driver Baithe Diop in 1995, Sister Joanna sensed something ringing true. She connected him with corporate lawyer Peter Cross, who also became convinced of his innocence.

The details of this fascinating case, which resulted in Glisson’s release in October 2012, will be told on NBC Dateline, Friday, June 6, 2014 at 9 p.m.

During filming of the report this week, Sister Joanna was reunited with Glisson, who now works at a juice shop in the Bronx.  “It brought me great joy to see Eric again,” she wrote Dateline assistant producer Andrew Hongo following the interview, “and to find him doing so well.”