How I fell in love with a
A Kiwi woman has vowed to win the freedom of the man she loves – a convicted killer who might never be released from a US prison. Hamish McNeilly reports.
VETERAN radio hosts Polly Gillespie and Grant Kereama are leaving The Hits for good, but they don’t plan to stay off the airwaves for long.
The long-time co-hosts and former married couple were taken off the air a month ago, after Gillespie posted a Facebook video hinting that she might walk away from The Hits over concerning clauses in her new contract.
Gillespie confirmed the pair’s existing contracts ended yesterday, and they had decided against re-signing.
In a Facebook post on Friday night, Gillespie said The Hits’ owner NZME may try to ‘‘spin’’ their departure as a ‘‘retirement’’, when that wasn’t the case.
Gillespie said they had been ‘‘blindsided’’ by NZME’s press releases about their future in recent months, and believed another press release about their departure may be imminent.
‘‘They will want YOU to think that we were moved along because it was time for ‘new and exciting’ blood. That’s not the truth, but it’s how I think they will try and spin it. They may not ... They may say they respect and appreciate our fine service…..but I won’t believe that, and neither should you,’’ she wrote.
‘‘Grant and I have not retired. We’re nowhere near retiring. We may be part of ‘their’ history but we are very ‘present’ and part of the future of broadcasting in this country. We’re not fading away,’’ she said.
Gillespie said the duo were ‘‘bound to end up back on the radio sometime …soonish…. maybe……’’, and promised a tell-all in the future.
Kereama shared Gillespie’s post, with the message: ‘‘Polly can always say it better than me, so here’s the truth, my friend.’’
On March 15, he had posted: ‘‘Ten days until I can you tell you what’s been happening in the cut-throat world of radio... It’s been such an interesting 3 months, my friend.’’ NZME declined to comment. The duo found out just before Christmas that were being dumped from Auckland airwaves in favour of TVNZ weatherman Sam Wallace and Seven Sharp co-host Toni Street.
In February, bosses at rival broadcaster MediaWorks admitted they could be interested in hiring the pair.
MediaWorks head of radio Leon Wratt said their long track record on radio was impressive and could be an asset to the MediaWorks radio stable. BROOKE McGregor arrived in the United States on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration. It was the Dunedin 23-yearold’s first overseas trip, and she found a country in turmoil. While the eyes of the world were fixed on Washington DC, she headed to Ohio to meet the man who was consuming her thoughts. ‘‘And it all kind of went crazy.’’ Michael Douglass was sent to prison aged 18 for a murder, he maintains, he didn’t commit. He has spent the past nine years inside the Toledo Correctional Institution serving a life sentence with no prospect of parole following the murder of an Ohio man. Now 27, Douglass can only glimpse the outside world from a caged enclosure, with his only visitors being family members who visit every few months. He has faced all kinds of struggles inside the 1000-strong prison; ‘‘gangs, sexual predators, racism, physical and verbal abuse and even struggled with suicide’’. But his life changed when he signed up for pen pal website writeaprisoner.com in August, 2016. ‘‘Hey there, I hope your day is going good,’’ his profile said. Douglass had a few other contacts including an older man who wanted a ‘sugar daddy’ type relationship, and two Australian women who stopped writing after a few months. McGregor put pen to paper and sent him a letter on August 31 – the day after his birthday – and told him of her interests: animals, music, tattoos, criminal justice, and horror movies. ‘‘I was drawn to his cheeky smile, his eyes – they begged for love and somebody to care,’’ McGregor said. Within a day he wrote back, saying he too had a horror movie tattoo on his arm, and he didn’t mind she was writing from New Zealand as he just wanted a friend.
‘‘I knew right then and there I loved her and that she was someone very special,’’ Douglass says from inside prison.
After a whirlwind few months of contact she made a ‘‘snap decision’’ and booked a ticket to the United States. ‘‘It just felt right at the time.’’ Douglass, and accomplices Roger Whitten and his sister Amber Rodriguez were arrested hours after the grisly death of Sabyasachi Debnath in an Ohio motel on November 12, 2007.
According to a police report, the former Bangladeshi man was found bound at the feet, thighs