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MARCH 25, 2013
DEMITELLS
ASHTON
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Carrie Fisher
COPING WITH
BEING BIPOLAR
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Contents
ALSO IN
THIS ISSUE
MAILBAG ........................6
PEOPLE.COM ................ 8
STAR TRACKS .............. 10
SCOOP ......................... 23
PIN BOARD ...................32
PASSAGES ................... 34
REVIEWS ....................... 37
SECOND LOOK ...... l04
PUZZLER .................... 108
STYLE WATCH ........... lll
BEAUTY WATCH ...... ll4
CHATTER .................. 118
30 ROYAL BABY WATCH
Wonder what the royal heir
or heiress will look like? Baby
photos of the Queen, Charles
and others might offer clues
70 Wrongfully imprisoned
and some facing death, 50
people won freedom thanks
to Jim McCloskey
74 HEROESAMONGUS
The Cervantes family
throws birthday celebrations
for homeless kids
6
4
82
Fast for two days, feast
for five. The skinny on the
popular-and extremenew diet fad from Britain
88
Kelly Osbourne gets
a clean bill of health after
having a seizure, but her
affliction is still a mystery
100 Author Susan SpencerWendel traveled the world
making memories with loved
ones after learning she has
a terminal disease
7 After a bipolar episode,
Carrie Fisher shares her
116 Kristin Cavallari,
Usher and others share their
journey of recovery
favorite childhood photos
March 25, 2013 PEOPLE
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n Febru~ry 2012,
Richard Miles, wearin~ his late father's
su1t, walked out of a
packed Dallas courtroom and into the arms
I
of his mother a free man. He'd spent 15
years in a cold, tiny cell. "In that
moment, life was breathed back into
me," says Miles, 37, who now runs an
inmate support group. "Finally, someone was able to prove me innocent."
That someone was Jim McCloskey, a
businessman turned lay minister,
whose 15-month investigation cracked
Miles's case wide open. The smoking
gun? McCloskey and his band of investigators at the Princeton, N.J.-based
Centurion Ministries found a lost
police memo which revealed another
man had confes sed to the 1994
killing. "It was buried treasure," says
McCloskey. "There's nothing more
beautiful than the truth."
That insatiable belief that the truth
will set the innocent free has been a
driving force for McCloskey, 70, a selftaught sleuth whose team recently
helped release its 5oth inmate since his
first case in 1980. Run·solely on donations (investigations can cost a half million dollars), Centurion's staff of seven,
none of whom have police training, can
spend years re-interviewing witnesses,
poring over documents and tracking
down sources police never talked to.
"Centurion is a ray ofhope for the innocent languishing behind bars," says
Steven Drizin, a Northwestern University law professor. "They're a lifeline."
For Clarence Brandley, a custodian
accused of raping and killing a Texas high
school student, McCloskey was a lifesaver: He helped stop the 1987 execution of Brandley just eight days before
his lethal injection. "He's an angel;' says
Brandley, who walked off death
row three years later with McCloskey
behind him. "The guards and inmates
were cheering," he recalls. "They shut
the prison down for me."
Raised in suburban Philadelphia,
McCloskey, a lifelong bachelor, left a
72
March 25, 2013 PEOPLE
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tice Den•sB~Y h 19gsslay 1ngofa
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lucrative corporate executive job at age
37 for Princetol). Theological Seminary
in search of purpose. During his second
year he served as a student chaplain
at the New Jersey State Prison, where
he met Jorge De Los Santos, a heroin
addict accused of murder. "He challenged me to free him," says McCloskey,
who succeeded three years later. "Jorge
gave me a mission in life."
Although the inmates they've helped
free have collectively served 972 years,
most have not been compensated, and
only one real killer has been brought to
justice. "There's a lot of heartache in
this work," says McCloskey, "but to
have a mother thank us for bringing
her son or daughter home, that's all the
reward we need."
#50 I Free at Last
"In February 1995, I literally .
collapsed in the police station
when detectives accused me
of murdering a cab driver. Iwas
stripped away from my daughter," says Cathy Watkins, 45 (left,
with Kate Germond, Centurion's
director), a single mom from
Harlem exonerated on Dec.13
after Germond took on her case.
"For more than 17 years in my
cell, I never stopped saying, ·
'You got the wrong person.' I
could've lost my mind in there,
but Ihad to stop asking, 'Why
me?' Iearned a sociology degree
and never lost hope." A rumor her
codefendant heard in prison led
U.S. attorneys to the real killers,
clearing Watkins's name with
Centurion's help."l was finally
able to exhale. It was over."