Grads help exonerate wrongfully charged man
A documentary by two Concordia graduates has helped a wrongfully convicted New York City man walk free after almost three decades of incarceration.
Their heart-wrenching film, David & Me, traces the relationship of Ray Klonsky, BA 08, and David McCallum, who after 29 years of serving a murder sentence on flimsy evidence, was exonerated on October 15, 2014.
“The feeling of seeing David walk the streets is the best experience of my life,” says Montreal-based co-director Marc Lamy, BA 08.
McCallum and his acquaintance, Willie Stuckey, were found guilty in 1986 of killing Nathan Blenner the previous year and sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars. Both had confessed to murder under duress.
Yet neither DNA nor handprints found at the murder scene matched those of McCallum or Stuckey, who died in prison.
Klonsky and Lamy met in 2006 as video students in Concordia’s Department of Communication Studies.
Klonsky’s relationship with McCallum goes back farther. Klonsky’s father introduced him to McCallum in a last-ditch attempt to warn his then teenaged son where his delinquent ways might lead.
Klonsky and McCallum quickly bonded and David & Me, which premiered at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival last spring, began to take shape.
“He is soft-spoken, but beneath that there is incredible strength,” says Toronto-raised Klonsky of McCallum. “Not only is he not angry, but he is genuinely interested in other people and other people’s lives.”
Marc Lamy, David McCallum and Ray Klonsky | Photo: Markham Street Films
Marc Lamy and Ray Klonsky | Photo: Markham Street Films
- Watch the trailer: David & Me
- To contribute to David McCallum’s recovery fund, please visit davidandme.com.
Yet David & Me may have never been. “Our original idea was a commentary on the criminal justice system,” says Lamy. “Early on, we realized the better story was the relationship between Ray and David.”
David & Me follows Klonsky and Lamy, McCallum’s lawyer and a private investigator as they knock on doors in rough neighbourhoods looking for evidence to exonerate McCallum.
The filmmakers painstakingly gathered footage over eight years. Co-producer Aaron Hancox, BA 07, secured a deal with TVO, which first broadcast the documentary.
One of the leads the filmmakers pursue in the film turned up a man who says he was interrogated four times by police about the killing — a fact never released by police at the time but one that helped get McCallum’s case reopened.
Lamy says at times the decade-long fight to free McCallum felt hopeless. “There were definitely moments where we wanted to walk away but I’m glad we stuck it out.”
In the wake of McCallum’s exoneration Klonsky and Lamy are re-cutting David & Me.
“I am sitting in front of a computer now editing new footage.” David & Me 2.0, Lamy says, will finally have a happy ending.
Related links
- Learn about our university’s notable leaders, prominent researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes and thinkers at concordia.ca/greatconcordians.
- Discover what Concordia achieved first in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and the world at concordia.ca/concordiafirsts.