PANIC BUTTON | SEASON 3
Dead silent
Coming Soon.
SEASON TWO –
OPERATION : WILDFIRE
Come with us on a journey through rural Oklahoma, on the backroads and through the courthouses as we track a serial domestic abuser who is still out there. A person with a trail of victims as long as Boston Pool Road– winding all the way back to 1997. What will it take for a punitive system to hold a known violent offender accountable? So many folks said that April Wilkens should have held back, should not have shot so many times, should have left. But what happens when an abuser is left unchecked in Oklahoma? Women are getting life sentences for fighting back— but men go on to abuse with impunity. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
SEASON ONE –
THE APRIL WILKENS CASE
A podcast about a true crime story unlike any other– only there's no whodunnit, and there's no whydunnit. We know exactly who killed Terry Carlton on April 28th, 1998. And we know exactly why. Because she told us--April Wilkens told anyone who would listen that she defended her own life that night. And yet--even in the face of overwhelming evidence and testimony--the jury sentenced her to LIFE.
Attorneys Leslie Briggs and Colleen McCarty deep dive into the facts of the case, and the phenomenon of criminalized survivors in Oklahoma prisons.
OKLAHOMA
APPLESEED
Panic Button is presented by
CENTER FOR LAW & JUSTICE
Oklahoma Appleseed is a non-profit organization that fights for justice and opportunity for all Oklahomans. We approach big issues--like Criminal & Juvenile Justice, Education Justice, and Election Justice--by tackling their root causes. We take our work wherever we believe we can do the most good, whether that’s in the courthouse, at the Capitol, or in the community.
THE PANIC
BUTTON TEAM
COLLEEN McCARTY,ESQ.
Colleen McCarty is an attorney and life-long Oklahoman. In 2017, McCarty went back to the University of Tulsa College of Law to attend law school (JD ‘20). She served as an Articles Submission Editor on the Tulsa Law Review.
Since becoming licensed to practice law in Oklahoma, she has served as Policy Counsel and Deputy Director of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform. In Spring of 2022, McCarty worked with Appleseed Foundation Executive Director, Benet Magnuson, to open Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, where she now serves as Executive Director. She has worked across both sides of the aisle in the Oklahoma legislature on criminal justice policy, and was instrumental in passing medical parole reform in 2020 (SB 320).
McCarty assisted in formulating a proposal for a felony classification & sentencing system, as introduced in SB 1646 (2022) and later in HB 1792 (2023). McCarty has been one of the key advocates pushing for survivor justice reform, which materialized in the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, SB 1835 (2024)—a measure that passed the Oklahoma Senate 46-0 and the Oklahoma House 86-4.
She is admitted to practice in Oklahoma District Court, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
SUBSCRIBE NOW WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS:
