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#256 Maggie Freleng with Patty Prewitt · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: So as as you and I both know, Jason, the
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Speaker 1: majority of the people we talk to are men wrongfully incarcerated.
0:09
Speaker 1: But when we do talk to women, I actually haven't
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Speaker 1: talked to many women who were mothers. They were locked
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Speaker 1: up before being mothers. Have you experienced a lot of
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Speaker 1: women you've talked to trying to navigate motherhood through prison.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's that's a rough one. I can't
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Speaker 2: even begin to imagine severing that bond between mother and
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Speaker 2: child and taking that caregiver away from the child that
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Speaker 2: they love, that they birth, that they have a primal
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Speaker 2: need to care for. I honestly don't know how any
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Speaker 2: mother goes through that and doesn't lose her mind.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: I cut from the same class as over and over.
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Speaker 4: That'sul the drink and that sleep. All I could think
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Speaker 4: about is who has the kids? Where are they? What's
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Speaker 4: going on with them?
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Speaker 5: From love of for Good, I'm Maggie Freeling and this
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Speaker 5: is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Patti Prewit. In
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Speaker 5: the early hours of February eighteenth, nineteen eighty four, Patty
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Speaker 5: prewe It was awakened by a loud noise. Someone then
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Speaker 5: pulled her hair to drag her out of bed, and
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Speaker 5: she was raped in the dark. After the intruder left,
1:40
Speaker 5: she heard her husband, Bill, making gurgling noises as if
1:44
Speaker 5: he were struggling to breathe. She was unable to turn
1:47
Speaker 5: on the lights in the house, so she grabbed her
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Speaker 5: kids and ran to a neighbors to call nine one one.
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Speaker 5: She would later learn Bill had been shot in the
1:55
Speaker 5: head and died. When the police arrived at their home,
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Speaker 5: they over looked critical evidence from the scene. Instead, the
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Speaker 5: police paid attention to Patty's collection of murder mystery novels
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Speaker 5: and Bill's life insurance policy. Patty, not wanting to draw
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Speaker 5: attention to herself in the face of her husband's death,
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Speaker 5: never mentioned she was raped. By nine am that morning,
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Speaker 5: neighbors were already getting calls about Bill's murder, and word
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Speaker 5: was his wife, Patty had killed him. Police found out
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Speaker 5: that she was the beneficiary of Bill's life insurance policy
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Speaker 5: and that years earlier she had some sexual relationships outside
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Speaker 5: of her marriage. These discoveries became the motive for the
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Speaker 5: police and prosecution, and Patty was arrested, charged and convicted
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Speaker 5: of capital murder, But key evidence about Patty's innocence never
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Speaker 5: came out during the trial, and decades later, Patty, who
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Speaker 5: was now a great grandmother, feels her chance at ft
3:00
Speaker 5: ereadom is quickly dwindling.
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Speaker 4: I'm an old lady, seventy two. I've been in prison
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Speaker 4: way too long. I'm the oldest of my siblings, and
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Speaker 4: I'm the only one alive. I was just looking out
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Speaker 4: the window. There's a buzzard out there circling, and I
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Speaker 4: was wondering if he's circling because I'm getting ready to die.
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Speaker 4: I'm Patty Putt, and geez, I'm a prisoner in Missouri
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Speaker 4: and have been for nearly thirty six years. I did
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Speaker 4: not till my husband.
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Speaker 5: Patricia Prewitt was born on July third, nineteen forty nine,
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Speaker 5: to Frank and Anne Slaughter. She grew up on a
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Speaker 5: six hundred and forty acre farm in Lone Jack, Missouri,
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Speaker 5: thirty miles from Kansas City.
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Speaker 4: It was like a cattle ranch. All we had horses.
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Speaker 4: It was multi generational, my grandparents, our family, my uncle
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Speaker 4: and his kids. And it was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful.
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Speaker 6: And how about your parents.
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Speaker 4: They were so in love. Daddy saw my mama when
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Speaker 4: she was in eighth grade, and he saw her somewhere
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Speaker 4: downtown in this little town, and he told his brother that,
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Speaker 4: when that girl grows up, I'm going to marry her.
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Speaker 5: Patty and Bill met when they were in middle school,
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Speaker 5: but at that time they were polar opposites.
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Speaker 4: He was one of the jocks and cool kids, and
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Speaker 4: my best friend Nancy and I were complete nerves.
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Speaker 5: She says. It wasn't until senior year of high school,
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Speaker 5: when they had a class together that they became close and.
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Speaker 4: Hit it off and never looked back.
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Speaker 6: Tell me what it was about him that you loved.
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Speaker 4: He was so sweet, just very great, quickie is handsome,
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Speaker 4: that's always a plus, and time and smart as a whip,
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Speaker 4: and came from good people, as my mom and dad
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Speaker 4: would say. That was always a prerequisite in our family, and.
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Speaker 5: So her family accepted him, she says, and Bill loved
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Speaker 5: coming out to the country to visit despite.
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Speaker 4: What would happen, and we were evil to laim. We
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Speaker 4: put him on the workforce we had, and we did
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Speaker 4: all kinds of ruble things, but he still stuck it out.
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Speaker 5: So in nineteen sixty eight, at just nineteen, Patty and
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Speaker 5: Bill got married. It was the height of the Vietnam War,
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Speaker 5: and the draft was active. Although the special exemption for
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Speaker 5: married men was no longer in place at the time,
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Speaker 5: Patty says she and Bill got married in hopes that
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Speaker 5: it could still keep him from going off to war.
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Speaker 5: They tried to use every exemption that existed so he
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Speaker 5: could stay, including college and kids. After they married, Patty's
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Speaker 5: father gave them a small house on three acres of
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Speaker 5: land in Lone Jack, Missouri, and they opened a lumberyard business.
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Speaker 5: In nineteen sixty nine, they welcomed their first child, Jane.
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Speaker 7: Life with my parents was great, you know, her and
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Speaker 7: dad were both very involved parents, both of them. I
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Speaker 7: remember that they were really hard working but really quick
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Speaker 7: to laugh. That they were both really funny people, and
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Speaker 7: that they loved music, they loved dancing. Like we just
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Speaker 7: had a lot of fun together all the time.
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Speaker 5: You know.
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Speaker 7: You remember things as a kid like that my dad
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Speaker 7: would pat my mom on the bottom when she'd be
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Speaker 7: cooking dinner.
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Speaker 5: You could say they were living the American dream. That
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Speaker 5: is until nineteen seventy four. That's when Patty was raped
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Speaker 5: for the first time, a decade before Bill's murder. But
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Speaker 5: he says she was walking to the park and was
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Speaker 5: grabbed by three men. They dragged her behind some bushes,
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Speaker 5: where they all raped her. When a woman walked by,
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Speaker 5: the men quickly ran away. Patty and the woman agreed
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Speaker 5: not to call the police because of the stigma in.
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Speaker 4: Those days, nobody had counseling and nobody told stuff. You
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Speaker 4: kept it to yourself. This did not tell because not
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Speaker 4: only sit there, I think it's just awful. Who wants
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Speaker 4: to talk about a horrible thing, you know? So he
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Speaker 4: just decided not to talk about it.
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Speaker 5: But Patty did tell Bill. She says he was helpful
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Speaker 5: and sweet at first, but then things changed. Bill became
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Speaker 5: standoff fish.
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Speaker 4: I think from Bill's point of view, he was supposed
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Speaker 4: to protect propect jas and media and the kids, and
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Speaker 4: to have something horrible happen like that, he's guilt. Guilt.
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Speaker 4: I felt guilt because that would I went on a
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Speaker 4: little sun dress. It's a horrible thing that you don't
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Speaker 4: want to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about
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Speaker 4: what happened. And then you just get farther and farther
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Speaker 4: and farther away from each other, and then it gets
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Speaker 4: work and work, and then how do you reach back?
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Speaker 5: Their happy marriage crumbled under the weight of what had happened,
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Speaker 5: and so Patty and Bill decided to separate.
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Speaker 4: And so it was kind of convenient as far as
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Speaker 4: not having to tell the family what was going on,
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Speaker 4: for us to be separated, because they.
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Speaker 5: Had just bought a new farm, Patty says, so now
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Speaker 5: they had two places to live.
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Speaker 4: And Bill lived at the original place and the kids
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Speaker 4: and I moved to the new place. And everybody thought
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Speaker 4: he was just working on the house, but we were
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Speaker 4: actually separated and kind of discussing maybe divorced.
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Speaker 5: During this time. By mutual consent, they were both seeing
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Speaker 5: other people.
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Speaker 4: When you're living apart and when you're not part of
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Speaker 4: each other's lives, it just seems like this natural thing.
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Speaker 4: You're not sleeping together.
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Speaker 6: So you guys agreed.
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Speaker 5: You know, we're separated, we're living apart, we can see
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Speaker 5: other people.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 5: In nineteen seventy seven, Patty became pregnant with another man's
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Speaker 5: childs Breaking this news to Bill shattered her.
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Speaker 4: It was horrible, I mean really horrible. That really wasn't
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Speaker 4: part of our agreement. But he God, he always sposed
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Speaker 4: to be. He loved children, and we certainly were not
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Speaker 4: going to not have the baby and I told him,
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Speaker 4: but it's up to you whether I do this a
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Speaker 4: single or we do this together. So how do we
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Speaker 4: want to do this? And I think it was kind
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Speaker 4: of like the breaking point as far as we did
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Speaker 4: love each other and we did want to have our
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Speaker 4: family together. That was when we just kind of came
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Speaker 4: to the agreement that we would come back together as
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Speaker 4: a family and work this out.
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Speaker 5: And they did. Later that year June nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 5: baby Morgan.
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Speaker 4: Was born, and Bill didn't treat him like he was
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Speaker 4: anything but his own child.
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Speaker 5: By now, Patty and Bill were raising five kids. Having
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Speaker 5: their family back together made Patty feel like everything was
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Speaker 5: right in the world.
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Speaker 4: But I look back, I think we were so lively fine.
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Speaker 4: I mean, we ball kings. We were coaching the kids,
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Speaker 4: our business was doing good. All our kids were smart,
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Speaker 4: good looking, and everything was good. Our problems were small problems,
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Speaker 4: you know, nothing serious, nothing can through.
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Speaker 5: Patty and Bill had no idea what was about to
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Speaker 5: come crashing down on their family.
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Speaker 4: We were all could, our kids were growing up with
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Speaker 4: Dylan the and yeah, then boom, it's all over. It's
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Speaker 4: all over.
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Speaker 5: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
11:49
Speaker 5: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
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Speaker 5: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
11:57
Speaker 5: in the communities where we work and live. In life
12:00
Speaker 5: night of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance,
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Speaker 5: and in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social
12:07
Speaker 5: justice reform, the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal
12:12
Speaker 5: services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On
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Speaker 5: February eighteenth, nineteen eighty four, Bill and Patty went out
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Speaker 5: to a barbecue at their friend's house, and then they
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Speaker 5: all went out to a bar for a little while,
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Speaker 5: and Patty and Bill got home around two am. Their
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Speaker 5: oldest daughter, Jane, was at a friend's house, and the
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Speaker 5: rest of the kids were fast asleep in bed. Patty
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Speaker 5: tidied up some dishes the kids had left in the sink,
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Speaker 5: and then she joined Bill, who had already climbed into bed.
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Speaker 5: Shortly after, Patty was awakened by what she thought was thunder.
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Speaker 5: She says she was then pulled out of bed by
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Speaker 5: her hair and raped, but it was dark and she
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Speaker 5: couldn't see the man. After the intruder left, she heard
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Speaker 5: Bill making gurgling noises, struggling to breathe, but the lights
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Speaker 5: wouldn't turn on, and the phone wasn't working. She couldn't
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Speaker 5: see Bill, and she couldn't call the police. She quickly
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Speaker 5: woke the kids up and ran with them to a
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Speaker 5: neighbor's house to call nine one one. Specifically, she headed
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Speaker 5: for the home of Cliff Gustin, a former police officer.
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Speaker 4: When was that to the neighbor's house. One in the bathroom,
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Speaker 4: and I put on one of her century napkins because
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Speaker 4: I was bleeding.
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Speaker 5: But after that, Patty says, she quickly forgot about her
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Speaker 5: attack and focused on Bill and her children.
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Speaker 4: The kids were diff rot. Everybody's going crazy, and it
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Speaker 4: seemed like not a time for me to even say
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Speaker 4: anything about me. And I never even never even thought
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Speaker 4: about me anymore.
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Speaker 5: Well, I imagine you were, you know, as a mother
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Speaker 5: to five kids, you were probably in survival mode.
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Speaker 4: Oh, definitely, definitely. I was certainly secondary. When you have mama,
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Speaker 4: you're pretty much secondary. Twice for seven I can't even
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Speaker 4: explain how my brain didn't even work. It was like
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Speaker 4: there was a buzzing in my head and nothing made
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Speaker 4: an expense except at say, the kids. That was the
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Speaker 4: only thing that made any sense whatsoever.
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Speaker 5: When the police arrived, they found that the breaker panel
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Speaker 5: to the entire house's power had been switched off. They
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Speaker 5: turned the power back on. However, police records show they
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Speaker 5: did not take any fingerprints from the breaker panel, nor
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Speaker 5: did they take any other fingerprint evidence from the home
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Speaker 5: or ask Patty if she had been hurt. They instead
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Speaker 5: took note of Patty's collection of murder mystery novels and
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Speaker 5: Bill's life insurance policy. They did find a box of
15:04
Speaker 5: twenty two caliber rounds in the house, the same kind
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Speaker 5: of bullets used to kill Bill, and Patty told police
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Speaker 5: that Bill actually had two guns in the house, but
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Speaker 5: the police could only find one. Eventually, the second gun
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Speaker 5: by twenty two, what they presumed was the murder weapon,
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Speaker 5: would be recovered in a shallow pond on the prove
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Speaker 5: It property. Later that night, Patty was interrogated at the
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Speaker 5: police station by Detective Kevin Hughes, the lead investigator, and.
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Speaker 4: When he said he wanted to swap my hands for
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Speaker 4: a night break, you see if you fired firearms up
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Speaker 4: gun and I was like, oh yeah. But as he's
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Speaker 4: swabbing my hands, I'm thinking, well, why would he want
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Speaker 4: to swap my hands, and that was kind of when
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Speaker 4: I went in my head. I was like, oh my god,
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Speaker 4: he's not even listening to me about Phill's murder. He's
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Speaker 4: not an anting to me at all.
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Speaker 5: The gun residue test came back negative. By this time,
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Speaker 5: standard procedure would dictate that Patty should have had a
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Speaker 5: rape kit because she did tell the police the man
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Speaker 5: in the house who presumably killed Bill had pulled down
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Speaker 5: her pants and was struggling with his belts. But remember
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Speaker 5: she never said she was actually raped. Detectives did, however,
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Speaker 5: collect her pajamas she was wearing, started.
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Speaker 4: Asking me about the insurance and things like that. Then
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Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, this is nobody paying
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Speaker 4: any attention to me. For not pay attention to what
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Speaker 4: I have to say. So went on and on and on.
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Speaker 4: It becomes to a point, well, you don't even know
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Speaker 4: what you're saying.
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Speaker 5: Detective Hughes and who investigators immediately started digging into Patty's
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Speaker 5: life after they found out about what they called her
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Speaker 5: quote affairs and quote infidelity. They seemed set with this
17:15
Speaker 5: aspect of her personal life as a motive. After less
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Speaker 5: than a day of investigating, Detective Hughes announced that Patti
17:23
Speaker 5: Pruett was the lead suspect in her husband Bill's murder.
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Speaker 5: Two days later, on February twentieth, Patty was again questioned,
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Speaker 5: this time for about sixteen hours. Only fifteen minutes of
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Speaker 5: the interview was actually recorded.
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Speaker 4: It was like some kind of culture thing that's a
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Speaker 4: to drink, no sleep. All I could think about is
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Speaker 4: who has the kids? Where are they? What's going on
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Speaker 4: with them asking me the same stupid questions. And I
18:04
Speaker 4: kept answering the same questions over and over, and then
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Speaker 4: they would play places and they would scream at me,
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Speaker 4: and then they come in and go the nice you know, well,
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Speaker 4: we can make this okay. All I have to do
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Speaker 4: is some staff and they'll all go away. We'll understand.
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Speaker 6: Did you know that you could ask for a lawyer?
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Speaker 4: No, No, I had no idea. What was nobody This
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Speaker 4: may sound crazy, Nobody in my family had ever been
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Speaker 4: so much as pulled over, arrested or anything. Ever.
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Speaker 5: Patty was arrested that day and charged with capital murder.
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Speaker 5: She was released on bond awaiting trial, and as she
18:47
Speaker 5: and the children struggled to adjust to the loss of
18:49
Speaker 5: their husband and father, things only got worse, Patty was
18:54
Speaker 5: harassed with anonymous phone calls, threats, and robberies. She noticed
18:58
Speaker 5: strange people wandering on her property, and she even found
19:02
Speaker 5: three of her dogs dead on a nearby farm, apparently poisoned.
19:07
Speaker 5: When she got a new dog, he was hung by
19:09
Speaker 5: his collar. Patty was virtually branded with a scarlet letter
19:13
Speaker 5: by the community, Considered both an adulteress and a murderer.
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Speaker 5: Patty was offered a plea deal that would reduce her
19:31
Speaker 5: charges to six or seven years, but she refused it,
19:34
Speaker 5: saying she didn't want to be taken from her children.
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Speaker 5: She insisted she was innocent. The trial started on April sixteenth,
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Speaker 5: nineteen eighty five. Patty's family, children and friends, as well
19:48
Speaker 5: as Bill's relatives all attended. Tom Williams was the prosecutor,
19:53
Speaker 5: and due to the lack of evidence against Patty, he
19:55
Speaker 5: instead emphasized that she was an adulteress and used sexist
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Speaker 5: tropes and gender biases to paint Patty out to be
20:03
Speaker 5: a horrible woman and mother who would kill her husband.
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Speaker 3: The cornerstone of the case, the opening statement of the prosecution,
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Speaker 3: is you know this was a woman motivated by lost
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Speaker 3: and greed.
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Speaker 5: This is Patty's attorney, Brian reichardt he first came across
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Speaker 5: Patty's case in twenty ten when he was in law school,
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Speaker 5: and it stuck with him.
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Speaker 3: You know, when I first read the trial transcript, I
20:29
Speaker 3: was disturbed and I thought, you know, there very well
20:32
Speaker 3: could be a wrongful conviction here. But over the years,
20:36
Speaker 3: as I've learned more about the case, as I've been
20:38
Speaker 3: able to study the investigators records, as I've been able
20:42
Speaker 3: to read accounts from the prosecutor who prosecuted this case,
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Speaker 3: I've become convinced that this is indeed a wrongful conviction
20:50
Speaker 3: and something that needs to be addressed.
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Speaker 5: Bryan says one of the key facts to pay attention
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Speaker 5: to in this case is that Patty's sixteen hour inn
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Speaker 5: with Detective Hughes was not recorded again, only the first
21:04
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes were, and he says this freed Hughes to
21:09
Speaker 5: be able to put forth his version of what Patty
21:13
Speaker 5: supposedly told him.
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Speaker 3: Because it was unrecorded, the lead investigator is able to
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Speaker 3: take the stand and characterize the interview, and so he
21:22
Speaker 3: says things like, oh, you know, I asked her about
21:25
Speaker 3: why she had these affairs, and she says Oh my,
21:28
Speaker 3: my sexual engine is hotter than most.
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Speaker 5: Did you say that?
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Speaker 4: Nobody, no woman in the face of the earth ever
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Speaker 4: said that. I mean really, certainly, no woman who's being
21:45
Speaker 4: interrogated for the murder of her husband ever said going
21:49
Speaker 4: like that. The fact that he said that read romance
21:53
Speaker 4: novels or something.
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Speaker 5: What that another thing? Detective Hughes alleges Patty said over
21:59
Speaker 5: the course of the instigation.
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Speaker 6: Did you invite him to dinner before you went to prison?
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Speaker 4: Oh? My god, he was so mean to me. No,
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Speaker 4: I did not. I mean good dinner. I just wanted
22:12
Speaker 4: to get home to my kids. If I'd never saw
22:15
Speaker 4: him again, I would have been more than having.
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Speaker 5: According to the trial transcripts, here are some of the
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Speaker 5: phrases used by prosecutor Williams during the trial to attack
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Speaker 5: Patty's character. Quote the defendant was motivated by sheer greed
22:30
Speaker 5: and sexual lust and had been for years. Quote. She
22:34
Speaker 5: disregarded her marital vows and the noticeable obligations of motherhood.
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Speaker 5: Quote she pursued one sleazy affair after another, one two
22:45
Speaker 5: at a time. Williams even called three of Patty's former
22:49
Speaker 5: partners to testify against her. Two of them eventually said
22:53
Speaker 5: that they were coerced by the police and prosecution to
22:56
Speaker 5: do so, and these were partners she had while she
22:59
Speaker 5: and Bill were scept and knew that the other person
23:02
Speaker 5: was seeing other people and agreed to it. Partners she
23:06
Speaker 5: had five years before Bill's murder.
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Speaker 3: I mean, if you just take a step back, the
23:12
Speaker 3: state had to argue that a mother of five was
23:16
Speaker 3: going to would kill her husband, and what kind of
23:20
Speaker 3: person would do that? The states I did that the
23:22
Speaker 3: way they were going to move the jury is to
23:25
Speaker 3: paint this mother as a bad mother in an unfaithful life,
23:28
Speaker 3: and so that was so much of their case.
23:32
Speaker 5: Patty's daughter, Sarah, who was thirteen years old at the time,
23:35
Speaker 5: testified that as she was leaving the house that night,
23:38
Speaker 5: she saw a flashlight under the basement stairs and heard
23:41
Speaker 5: someone moving around down there, but her testimony seemed to
23:44
Speaker 5: hold little weight against Prosecutor Williams's case. He also called
23:48
Speaker 5: pathologist James Bridgens to review the autopsy. Bridgins and his
23:52
Speaker 5: testimonies would later become discredited on multiple occasions. For example,
23:57
Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety when he had ruled a case that
24:00
Speaker 5: a woman was stabbed to death. Well later, X Ray
24:03
Speaker 5: showed that she was actually shot four times. Patty's attorneys, meanwhile,
24:12
Speaker 5: never called their own expert to refute his findings. Any
24:15
Speaker 5: potential evidence from Patty's pajamas was never brought up. The
24:19
Speaker 5: defense also did not acknowledge that her alleged affairs were
24:24
Speaker 5: in fact known and agreed to by Bill at the time.
24:28
Speaker 5: Now you might be wondering why Patty never screamed from
24:31
Speaker 5: the roof that this was all consensual. Well, it was
24:35
Speaker 5: Patty's decision. She insisted to her attorneys that she did
24:39
Speaker 5: not want Bill criticized in front of their kids, whether
24:43
Speaker 5: it hurt her or not. She did not want them
24:46
Speaker 5: to know that Bill also had affairs and that they
24:49
Speaker 5: both knew about each other's relationships. She figured it was
24:53
Speaker 5: bad enough the whole town was already gossiping about their mom.
24:57
Speaker 4: I don't want to say to think badly or Badham.
25:01
Speaker 4: I didn't want his family to feel badly Abadham. He
25:06
Speaker 4: wasn't there to extand his decision. I don't know. I
25:12
Speaker 4: just didn't think it was anybody's dog on business. He
25:17
Speaker 4: was such a good guy. She hadn't deserved a heavy
25:21
Speaker 4: black marks, and.
25:25
Speaker 5: Her own rape during the murder was also never mentioned
25:28
Speaker 5: during the trial, because remember, she never told the police
25:31
Speaker 5: about it. All she told them was that the intruder
25:33
Speaker 5: held something to her throat, tried to unbuckle his pants
25:36
Speaker 5: while her pants were down, but fled.
25:39
Speaker 3: One of the things they argued against, you know, Patty's
25:42
Speaker 3: account that she was attacked, and one of the arguments
25:45
Speaker 3: the prosecutor made, you know, in front of the jury was,
25:48
Speaker 3: this is a direct quote from the case, why would
25:50
Speaker 3: you do this to enjoy Patty's often enjoyed sexual favors.
25:55
Speaker 5: Patty didn't tell the police about her rape the night
25:57
Speaker 5: of Bill's murder, but she did tell her toes about it.
26:01
Speaker 5: She also told them to keep it out of court
26:03
Speaker 5: and out of earshot from her kids. However, Patty's daughter
26:08
Speaker 5: Jane says she noticed evidence of the assault days later
26:12
Speaker 5: when they were getting ready for Bill's funeral.
26:14
Speaker 7: And that morning, Mom didn't want me to come in
26:16
Speaker 7: the bathroom, like she's kind of pushing against the door,
26:20
Speaker 7: and I didn't understand what was happening, and I pushed
26:24
Speaker 7: and then I saw her and she was so horribly bruised,
26:28
Speaker 7: her hip bones, her thighs, the inside of her thighs,
26:32
Speaker 7: and I assumed that the police knew this or saw
26:36
Speaker 7: her body, or that her friends or our family.
26:40
Speaker 5: But they didn't. A rape kit was never done, and
26:43
Speaker 5: that crucial evidence is gone forever.
26:46
Speaker 7: And even though I was fourteen, I thought of her
26:49
Speaker 7: as being much bigger than me, and that morning I
26:53
Speaker 7: remember thinking, she's not that big, like she seemed small
26:57
Speaker 7: to me, and she'd been hurt.
27:00
Speaker 5: Jane never testified, but her sister Sarah, the one who
27:03
Speaker 5: saw the light under the basement, did.
27:06
Speaker 3: If you look at the women's accounts, it's interesting how
27:10
Speaker 3: the voices of women in this case were ignored and
27:14
Speaker 3: the voices of men, even though when there was reason
27:17
Speaker 3: to be suspicious of those arguments, they were raised as truth.
27:22
Speaker 5: The trial lasted four days. At the end the jury
27:26
Speaker 5: was deadlocked. They were told to go back and try harder.
27:30
Speaker 5: They eventually came back with a unanimous guilty verdict and
27:34
Speaker 5: Patty was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility
27:37
Speaker 5: of parole but after fifty years. She's eligible in twenty
27:42
Speaker 5: thirty six, when she'll be eighty six years old.
27:49
Speaker 7: When the verdict came, everybody just lost it. I mean,
27:53
Speaker 7: the judge was telling us all to be quiet. Nobody
27:56
Speaker 7: wanted to be quiet. My brother's sisters were just screamed, mean,
28:00
Speaker 7: just screaming, and one of my sisters ran out out
28:05
Speaker 7: of the courthouse into the street like it was a
28:10
Speaker 7: really traumatic time. I don't think that any of us
28:13
Speaker 7: could have been emotionally prepared to be there for that
28:15
Speaker 7: and hear the verdict, and to hear fifty years life
28:21
Speaker 7: with no parole for fifty years, that was just unbelievable.
28:27
Speaker 5: Was there anything in their relationship or from your memory
28:31
Speaker 5: that would indicate to you that your mother would murder
28:35
Speaker 5: your father?
28:37
Speaker 7: No, No, not at all. They no, No, Like you know,
28:48
Speaker 7: they were really good friends and they seemingly had a
28:51
Speaker 7: lot of fun together, and I think that when things
28:54
Speaker 7: were tense, even when they were younger, when we were
28:59
Speaker 7: all young, that they worked it out. And she was
29:03
Speaker 7: not that kind of person at all.
29:14
Speaker 3: The lead investigator made a decision very early on that
29:18
Speaker 3: Patty was the prime suspect, and that colored the way
29:21
Speaker 3: he conducted the investigation, and he led the investigation.
29:26
Speaker 5: This is Patty's attorney, Brian Reichard again talking about Detective Hughes.
29:30
Speaker 5: Even before trial. He says things went horribly wrong with
29:34
Speaker 5: Patty's investigation.
29:36
Speaker 3: And one of the primary things we've seen is this
29:39
Speaker 3: concept of tunnel vision, when a lead investigator gets it
29:42
Speaker 3: in their head that somebody is the prime suspect and
29:47
Speaker 3: focuses all of their energy on confirming that suspicion and
29:51
Speaker 3: ignoring everything else. You know, if you knew there were
29:54
Speaker 3: areas like the breaker box that cut off the electricity
29:56
Speaker 3: to the house, you know, whoever committed this crime touched that,
30:01
Speaker 3: you know, you would ust that for Prince and lift prince.
30:03
Speaker 3: They didn't do that. You would collect hair, they didn't
30:06
Speaker 3: do that. You would follow leads. For example, you know,
30:11
Speaker 3: Patty's daughter shared an account of seen a light from
30:14
Speaker 3: the basement when they were leaving the house, and so
30:16
Speaker 3: that would indicate somebody's in the basement. There's no evidence
30:19
Speaker 3: that they followed up on that report from Patty's daughter.
30:24
Speaker 5: And also one of the neighbors had tried to issue
30:27
Speaker 5: a report with the sheriff's office stating she had seen
30:30
Speaker 5: a suspicious vehicle parked on the wrong side of the
30:33
Speaker 5: road facing the preu at home hours before the murder,
30:37
Speaker 5: but it was ignored. So this information was never disclosed
30:41
Speaker 5: to the defense.
30:42
Speaker 3: And again, this is rural Missouri, so it's abnormal for
30:45
Speaker 3: there to be a car in the middle of the
30:46
Speaker 3: night that the neighbors don't know about. The lead investigator
30:50
Speaker 3: did nothing about this.
30:52
Speaker 5: One of the most bizarre things about Patty's case is
30:55
Speaker 5: that in twenty sixteen, decades after her conviction, a book
31:00
Speaker 5: written by the lead prosecutor, Tom Williams was published called
31:04
Speaker 5: Practice to Deceive. Williams had died two years before his
31:08
Speaker 5: book came out after his death. Now, the book does
31:11
Speaker 5: not say Patty is innocent, but it does criticize what
31:16
Speaker 5: Williams acknowledges was a shoddy investigation, and Williams boasts that
31:21
Speaker 5: if it were not for his own prosecutorial skills, Patty
31:26
Speaker 5: would be free right now.
31:27
Speaker 3: He described sloppy evidence management. He describes a forensic expert
31:33
Speaker 3: who was a star Warsness as a doctor cop. He
31:36
Speaker 3: describes how he gratuitously asked questions of Patty on the
31:41
Speaker 3: stand to portray her as a bad mother to move
31:43
Speaker 3: the jury. I mean, he admits this. He's affirming everything
31:48
Speaker 3: we're saying about tunnel vision.
31:49
Speaker 5: And Williams also discusses detective Hughes.
31:53
Speaker 3: He describes this investigator as an ambitious young I mean
31:56
Speaker 3: you think he was twenty seven deputy sheriff who had
31:59
Speaker 3: ambition to move up, and he needed a case with
32:02
Speaker 3: a lot of interest where he could take the lead
32:05
Speaker 3: and get publicity. That's the words of the prosecutor.
32:08
Speaker 5: And he did. Hughes went on to become a private
32:10
Speaker 5: detective in Wyoming. He later resigned following an internal investigation
32:15
Speaker 5: into his conduct. Up until twenty seventeen, crucial evidence in
32:24
Speaker 5: this case was presumed to be lost. This included Patty's pajamas,
32:28
Speaker 5: and once this evidence was uncovered, Patty's team petitioned the
32:31
Speaker 5: courts to test her pajamas for DNA along with other evidence.
32:36
Speaker 5: Remember DNA testing was not available in nineteen eighty four,
32:40
Speaker 5: the year of the crime, a hearing was granted by
32:43
Speaker 5: Judge Robert L. Kaufman.
32:45
Speaker 3: And it was an extraordinary moment because as we're making
32:50
Speaker 3: this argument, the judge, who was a different judge than
32:53
Speaker 3: the trial judge, didn't work on Patty's case, but was
32:57
Speaker 3: still in the courtroom at the time of the trial.
33:00
Speaker 2: Oh.
33:00
Speaker 3: I remember this case because I remember she testified that
33:04
Speaker 3: her sexual engine burns hotter than others. I remember that
33:08
Speaker 3: that's what makes this case unique, and that was just
33:12
Speaker 3: an astounding moment for a number of reasons.
33:15
Speaker 5: It goes to show the impact that misogyny had on
33:18
Speaker 5: Patty's case even decades later. Judge Kaufman quickly denied the request,
33:22
Speaker 5: writing quote, you cannot believe her story, and DNA findings
33:26
Speaker 5: of any kind do not change that fact. In other words,
33:30
Speaker 5: Kaufman believed that because of Patty's alleged promiscuity, the presence
33:33
Speaker 5: of DNA on Patty's pajamas would not necessarily confirm that
33:38
Speaker 5: she was raped or that she wasn't the murderer. He
33:41
Speaker 5: also notes, quote, it should be kept in mind there
33:43
Speaker 5: were numerous showings that Miss Pruett was not a truth teller.
33:51
Speaker 5: Patty's legal team says there were other people in the
33:53
Speaker 5: community who could have had motive, means, an opportunity, and
33:58
Speaker 5: may have wanted Bill out of the picture.
34:01
Speaker 3: Bill and Patty were active in their community, and what
34:05
Speaker 3: we've heard from folks who lived in Holden at the
34:09
Speaker 3: time was there was concerns about drugs, and Patty and Bill,
34:15
Speaker 3: as parents of kids, were concerned about their kids and
34:19
Speaker 3: started to look into what was going on in their
34:21
Speaker 3: community with the drug trade.
34:24
Speaker 5: Police did not thoroughly investigate this or other leads, including
34:27
Speaker 5: the unknown car that Patty's neighbor had seen on the street.
34:31
Speaker 5: DNA testing might have helped Patty's case, but by now
34:34
Speaker 5: Patty has exhausted her appeals. Her only hope is clemency.
34:40
Speaker 5: Patty has applied for clemency multiple times. Her petition from
34:44
Speaker 5: December of twenty ten is still waiting a response for
34:48
Speaker 5: Missouri Governor Mike Parson. It is one of more than
34:51
Speaker 5: three thousand clemency petitions he has yet to review. While
35:03
Speaker 5: she waits, Patty and her family have had thirty six
35:07
Speaker 5: years to process their losses, including the death of Patty's son,
35:11
Speaker 5: Matt in nineteen ninety two when he was just eighteen.
35:15
Speaker 5: His death was ruled a suicide, and at the same
35:18
Speaker 5: time Patty lost her kids when she was sent to prison.
35:21
Speaker 5: They also lost their mother. You know, when you're sixteen,
35:25
Speaker 5: you're going through the most formative time of your life.
35:27
Speaker 5: You know, boyfriends or girlfriends or whoever in periods and
35:32
Speaker 5: those kinds of things. I mean, who did you go.
35:35
Speaker 6: To for that?
35:36
Speaker 7: Mostly Mom's sister, my aunt Mary, who has since passed.
35:40
Speaker 7: She was great about all those kind of things, which
35:43
Speaker 7: was which was great but she was also you know,
35:48
Speaker 7: young mom was only thirty six when she left for prison,
35:52
Speaker 7: and Mary would have been thirty three, and she was
35:55
Speaker 7: a single mom with two little boys, so she had
35:59
Speaker 7: a lot on her place also, right right, absolutely, so
36:04
Speaker 7: you kind of you know, even if you have people
36:07
Speaker 7: in your life, you still kind of feel like you're
36:09
Speaker 7: a burden when it's not your parents taking care of you.
36:14
Speaker 5: And since Patty was unable to be a parent to
36:16
Speaker 5: her own kids, she became a proxy mom for young
36:20
Speaker 5: women in prison.
36:22
Speaker 4: Well, what person matter is I'm a mama at my core,
36:26
Speaker 4: and when I came to prison, I was thirty foot
36:30
Speaker 4: and most kids in prison are much younger. So I
36:34
Speaker 4: came in as an adult. And if you can to
36:41
Speaker 4: help people, what's the used to being alive?
36:46
Speaker 3: You know, she has every right to be angry at
36:49
Speaker 3: the world. You know, she's lost so much. She obviously
36:53
Speaker 3: lost her husband, she effectively lost her children. Just in
36:57
Speaker 3: the last twelve years, I've seen her lose her father,
37:01
Speaker 3: her mother, her sister, and her brother, and obviously she
37:05
Speaker 3: lost her son years earlier. She hasn't been able to
37:08
Speaker 3: go to any of those funerals, and just the pain
37:12
Speaker 3: that she's been through and as I said, she has
37:14
Speaker 3: every right to be angry at the world. And what
37:16
Speaker 3: is she doing. She's mothering and mentoring generations of women
37:21
Speaker 3: behind bars and women who are doing well now and
37:25
Speaker 3: they credit Patty, and it's really it's awe inspiring and
37:29
Speaker 3: it's extraordinary.
37:32
Speaker 5: Many of the women Patty has met in prison credit
37:34
Speaker 5: her with their rehabilitation and ability to pursue their dreams.
37:38
Speaker 5: In a video created by Patty's legal team, these women
37:41
Speaker 5: urge Governor Parson to grant Patty clemency.
37:44
Speaker 8: Patty never stopped believing in me. She always encouraged me
37:47
Speaker 8: to write, to improve myself, to exercise, to just simply
37:53
Speaker 8: do the next right thing and believe in myself. She
37:55
Speaker 8: changed my entire life and I was a repeat offender,
37:59
Speaker 8: not looking to be anything.
38:00
Speaker 5: But if she could do that for me, imagine what
38:03
Speaker 5: she can do for the world.
38:12
Speaker 4: So the only way these kids are ever going to
38:14
Speaker 4: be somebody and get out of this endless loop of
38:18
Speaker 4: incarcration is to believe in themselves and realize that they're
38:23
Speaker 4: good people, as they deserve a good life. And if
38:28
Speaker 4: that's why I'm in this damn place, then I will
38:31
Speaker 4: try to stay as many of these kids as I did.
38:37
Speaker 5: Who's your cheerleader, Patty? When you're helping everybody and be
38:40
Speaker 5: in the mama, who's there for you?
38:42
Speaker 4: Listen, I'm a big girl. I'm gonna don't so helping
38:48
Speaker 4: them is what helped me if I didn't have these
38:51
Speaker 4: kids around me. Good lord, I'm an old lady. I
38:55
Speaker 4: know all the new songs, I know the new dances.
38:59
Speaker 4: I mean, the kid's keep me young.
39:02
Speaker 5: Despite her circumstances, Patty has made the best of it.
39:06
Speaker 4: I'm a student in Washington University out of Saint Louis.
39:11
Speaker 4: That is still is amazing to me that this opportunity
39:15
Speaker 4: has come to me.
39:16
Speaker 5: Patty says she's committed to one day getting her bachelor's degree,
39:19
Speaker 5: and if she gets out of prison, she also has
39:22
Speaker 5: a lot more planned.
39:23
Speaker 4: And I've got all these kids and grandkids, and I've
39:27
Speaker 4: got a book I'm writing. I know they've wrought some
39:29
Speaker 4: books out there by prisons, but I would like to.
39:35
Speaker 4: But especially women, know what Christmas like. People keep adding
39:40
Speaker 4: money to a conference to build prisons. It's not doing
39:44
Speaker 4: any good. It's just the opposite. And I would love
39:50
Speaker 4: to lobby. They would hate me with the capital because
39:55
Speaker 4: I would be like to tend So, Yeah, I'm going
39:59
Speaker 4: to cause some problem. That's what. That's Michael.
40:04
Speaker 6: There's nothing better than an old lady wreaking havoc.
40:15
Speaker 5: If you have any information about this case or want
40:17
Speaker 5: to help Patty, go to Pattiprouit dot com. On our
40:22
Speaker 5: next episode, how does a guy with nineteen alibi witnesses
40:26
Speaker 5: get convicted for murder?
40:28
Speaker 6: It didn't matter what I had to say, what type
40:30
Speaker 6: of evidence of the alibis that I had to present,
40:34
Speaker 6: It just didn't matter.
40:35
Speaker 4: Only one it was to get in an arrest.
40:40
Speaker 5: Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, Melvin Ortiz,
40:49
Speaker 5: thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
40:52
Speaker 5: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
40:55
Speaker 5: links in our bio to see how you can help.
40:58
Speaker 5: I'd like to thank executive producers Bason Flamm Kevin Burtis,
41:01
Speaker 5: as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson,
41:05
Speaker 5: and story editor Sonia Paul, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn.
41:11
Speaker 5: Music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
41:14
Speaker 5: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
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41:25
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41:34
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