Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #494 Maggie Freleng with Annette Cahill

Transcript

#494 Maggie Freleng with Annette Cahill · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, and Nett, it's Maggie.
0:02
Speaker 2: Hi. It's nice to meet you.
0:04
Speaker 1: Nice to meet you too. Can you hear me?
0:06
Speaker 2: All right? I can?
0:08
Speaker 3: Awesome.
0:08
Speaker 2: It's a little lad on this end, and I apologize.
0:11
Speaker 2: It's an open bay phone system, so it's going to
0:16
Speaker 2: be noisy at times. It's the lun shower here.
0:24
Speaker 1: Annette Cahill is the first person I have spoken with
0:27
Speaker 1: who lived their entire life before being arrested, charged, and
0:31
Speaker 1: convicted for a crime they say they did not commit.
0:35
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm just kind of cheerful. Hey, cry real eazy.
0:40
Speaker 1: She's sixty one, has a husband, children, great grandchildren, and
0:45
Speaker 1: five years ago that all got taken away. Tell me
0:50
Speaker 1: about being in your sixties in prison. I mean, it's
0:52
Speaker 1: not like you grew up there, you just stopped.
0:55
Speaker 2: So it is every day is culture fact, It really
1:03
Speaker 2: truly is. There's nothing about prisons where I think I'm
1:09
Speaker 2: going to get used to this someday. This is a nightmare.
1:15
Speaker 1: And I know you've been painted a certain way in
1:18
Speaker 1: the media, so I want to give you the opportunity
1:21
Speaker 1: to talk about who you really are.
1:23
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, that would be refreshing. My name is
1:31
Speaker 2: Annett K. Hill and I have been wrongfully incarcerated for
1:34
Speaker 2: almost exactly five years. It happened on September nineteenth, twenty nineteen.
1:43
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today A net
1:47
Speaker 1: K Hill. A net K Hill was born December twelfth,
1:54
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two.
1:56
Speaker 2: I grew up in a little tiny town of let's
2:00
Speaker 2: than four hundred people, Nichols, Iowa. And it was, oh gosh,
2:08
Speaker 2: so dunk, itty bitty, And you know, it was the cliche.
2:14
Speaker 2: We grew up so poor. We didn't know we were poor.
2:18
Speaker 1: Money was tight raising seven kids.
2:21
Speaker 2: It goes myself, Laurie, Renee, Denny, Charlie, Mike, and Tom.
2:27
Speaker 2: And Renee and Denny were four years apart, but the
2:32
Speaker 2: rest of us are all just two years apart. Wow, Yeah,
2:36
Speaker 2: we're Catholic.
2:40
Speaker 1: Did you guys grow up going to church?
2:43
Speaker 2: We did until I think I was six when we
2:47
Speaker 2: stopped going. I don't know if it was actually true
2:50
Speaker 2: or not, but it was kind of family lare that
2:53
Speaker 2: it had something to do with the dispute with the
2:56
Speaker 2: church about paying for a pew, a church fundraiser paying
3:02
Speaker 2: for a few That's what we always heard, so we
3:06
Speaker 2: quit going to church. Mom said I could, so I did.
3:10
Speaker 1: A Net's mom stayed home raising the kids, and Annette's
3:13
Speaker 1: dad spent most of his time working.
3:16
Speaker 2: And it was a feed company, and then he farmed
3:19
Speaker 2: on the side.
3:20
Speaker 1: Annette rarely got to spend time with her dad, but
3:23
Speaker 1: when she did, it.
3:25
Speaker 2: Was always on Sundays. We would take a ride in
3:28
Speaker 2: the truck and we would pick bluebells. And his mom
3:33
Speaker 2: loved bluebell so we would pick her bouquets of bluebells
3:36
Speaker 2: and take them to her, and that was just a
3:39
Speaker 2: fun time. I think it was just to get out
3:41
Speaker 2: of mom's hair that he would pick us rolls out.
3:46
Speaker 2: It didn't cost a thing, it was just to spend time.
3:49
Speaker 1: But Annette says her dad's main priority was to keep
3:52
Speaker 1: food on the table.
3:54
Speaker 2: He was just always working. And then he had a
3:57
Speaker 2: stroke and my mom went to work then at a
4:01
Speaker 2: company in West Liberty, West Liberty Oil.
4:06
Speaker 1: And that says it was tough providing even just the
4:08
Speaker 1: basics for seven kids on one parent income, So she
4:12
Speaker 1: and her siblings would work in the fields sorting out
4:15
Speaker 1: good corn from bad.
4:16
Speaker 2: Corn what we used to call the roguan cut corn
4:19
Speaker 2: out of beans in the summer and be castled and
4:26
Speaker 2: not a steady job, but always doing something, always earning
4:31
Speaker 2: money on the side.
4:32
Speaker 1: And that was the youngest of the seven, so she
4:34
Speaker 1: says she had it easier than her older siblings.
4:38
Speaker 2: Being the youngest, it was almost like Mom got tired
4:41
Speaker 2: and just let me do whatever I wanted.
4:43
Speaker 1: And what she wanted was to be out causing mischief
4:46
Speaker 1: with all the other kids.
4:48
Speaker 2: We ran the town of Nickels, it was, and there
4:52
Speaker 2: was nothing to do. There really wasn't. We didn't We
4:56
Speaker 2: didn't do anything horrible. We just did good things. We
5:02
Speaker 2: stayed out late. We you know, we got on top
5:06
Speaker 2: of the buildings downtown. We would climb the back of
5:09
Speaker 2: buildings and watch traffic go by. Stupid things like that.
5:13
Speaker 1: But in a small town after a while, Annette says,
5:16
Speaker 1: there's not much to do to help you stay out
5:18
Speaker 1: of trouble.
5:19
Speaker 2: We drank very early. We found, you know, found people
5:24
Speaker 2: that would buy us beer, being young girls, and we
5:28
Speaker 2: drank early, and we smoked. And I think the very
5:34
Speaker 2: first time I got drunk, I seriously drunk. I was thirteen.
5:39
Speaker 2: I could go to my brother Denny's house, and I
5:41
Speaker 2: could drink anytime I wanted. Yeah, it was it became
5:46
Speaker 2: a habit real quick after that.
5:49
Speaker 1: When Annette was fifteen, she dropped out of school.
5:52
Speaker 2: My mom did not make me go to school. I
5:56
Speaker 2: was bored in school and I wanted to be out
5:59
Speaker 2: having fun.
6:01
Speaker 1: Anette got her ged at community college and continued her
6:04
Speaker 1: party lifestyle. She started working in restaurants and bars.
6:08
Speaker 2: You know, it was just an easy way for an
6:10
Speaker 2: alcoholics to get free drinks.
6:12
Speaker 1: Then at eighteen, she met a.
6:14
Speaker 2: Boy and I got pregnant. So we got married and
6:21
Speaker 2: we had two children.
6:27
Speaker 3: My name is Leanne macrab and I am Anette Cahill's daughter.
6:32
Speaker 1: Leanne is a Net's oldest daughter. She was born in
6:35
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and she remembers Anette struggling those early
6:39
Speaker 1: years of parenthood.
6:41
Speaker 3: Sometimes she'd work one job, sometimes she'd work two jobs.
6:45
Speaker 3: Sometimes she couldn't get a job. There were times when
6:49
Speaker 3: I'd have to get my brother up and get him
6:51
Speaker 3: dressed and take him across town, which wasn't really very far,
6:55
Speaker 3: but take him across town to my grandparents' house so
6:58
Speaker 3: that we could eat breakfast. Because it never food in
7:00
Speaker 3: the house. We wouldn't have electricity, things like that, you know,
7:06
Speaker 3: we never were We never had any extra money to
7:12
Speaker 3: do anything.
7:14
Speaker 1: So, like her dad had done for her and her siblings,
7:17
Speaker 1: Andette figured out how to have fun with her kids
7:19
Speaker 1: without spending money.
7:21
Speaker 3: We would still have you know, games in the dark,
7:24
Speaker 3: or we would you know. We lived in Iowa, where
7:31
Speaker 3: cans popcns were worth five cents. We would go looking
7:34
Speaker 3: for cans and then we would go find the silliest
7:36
Speaker 3: dinners for five cents per can, so we would buy
7:40
Speaker 3: the silliest dinners from the gas station. She never let
7:44
Speaker 3: us know how much we were struggling.
7:47
Speaker 1: But they were. And Nette was a teen mom trying
7:50
Speaker 1: to keep her life and her children's afloat.
7:53
Speaker 2: I wasn't a bad mom. I just wasn't the best
7:56
Speaker 2: mom I could be. Looking back, I was young and dumb,
8:00
Speaker 2: and I could have been a much better mom.
8:03
Speaker 1: Annett's marriage was also rocky. At twenty six, she got
8:06
Speaker 1: divorced and her drinking and partying took over.
8:11
Speaker 2: As we were divorcing, then I hit the bars and
8:19
Speaker 2: that's when I met Corey.
8:21
Speaker 1: Corey Winnicky.
8:22
Speaker 2: He was funny, he was sweet, he was kind. He
8:28
Speaker 2: was a sweetheart. He really was.
8:33
Speaker 1: Corey had been the star football player in high school. Handsome,
8:37
Speaker 1: charming and popular.
8:39
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember if the first time I met him.
8:43
Speaker 2: I think I got called to the bar. I was
8:46
Speaker 2: seeing someone and the person that I was seeing like
8:50
Speaker 2: passed out at the bar, so I had to go
8:53
Speaker 2: get him. And I think Corey was in there at
8:56
Speaker 2: that time, so that I'm pretty sure that was the
8:59
Speaker 2: very first time I met him.
9:01
Speaker 1: The bar was called Winks, and Corey worked there. In fact,
9:05
Speaker 1: his family owned it. Winks was a nickname for Winnicky,
9:10
Speaker 1: and it was one of the two bars in the
9:11
Speaker 1: tiny town of West Liberty.
9:14
Speaker 2: Everybody hung out at Winks, Winks and Shenanigans.
9:16
Speaker 1: Annette wound up working at Winks with Corey.
9:19
Speaker 2: We just became really good friends and.
9:21
Speaker 1: They spent all their time together.
9:23
Speaker 2: I loved him so much.
9:25
Speaker 1: Leanne remembers Corey.
9:27
Speaker 3: We'd go to his bar, we'd playpool, He'd give us
9:30
Speaker 3: bags of chips. We'd fall asleep in the in the
9:33
Speaker 3: booths while mom was working. I mean, it was the eighties,
9:38
Speaker 3: early nineties. It wasn't unheard of. It wasn't taboo back
9:43
Speaker 3: then to have your kids in a bar. We'd hang out, playpool.
9:46
Speaker 3: Everyone knew who we were, and we knew that Corey
9:50
Speaker 3: was her best friend.
9:51
Speaker 1: But Annette and Corey's relationship was more than platonic.
9:55
Speaker 2: It was a sexual relationship with the friendship could. We
10:01
Speaker 2: would be at the bar tall closing, We'd make sure
10:04
Speaker 2: everybody was gone, and we would either stay at the
10:07
Speaker 2: bar or we would spend a lot of afternoons together.
10:10
Speaker 2: You know, we'd find another person to bartend and we'd
10:13
Speaker 2: both take off right. You know, we just spent every
10:17
Speaker 2: minute we did together.
10:19
Speaker 1: But it was complicated.
10:20
Speaker 2: He had a fiance, a fiance.
10:23
Speaker 1: Corey was engaged to his high school sweetheart, Jody Hats.
10:27
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just Jody he was.
10:30
Speaker 2: With, you know. It was a standing joke that he
10:34
Speaker 2: had relationships with everybody in Mescatine County.
10:37
Speaker 1: Did his fiance know? Yes. Eventually, a friend of Jody's
10:44
Speaker 1: would tell the press that she knew of Corey's affairs,
10:47
Speaker 1: and back in nineteen ninety two, Annette knew as well
10:50
Speaker 1: about his affairs and his fiance.
10:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was I knew it, and I really didn't care.
10:58
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like he didn't care either.
11:01
Speaker 2: He didn't care at all. I did care, I just
11:03
Speaker 2: didn't care enough. It was I just didn't care enough.
11:10
Speaker 2: It was very hurtful and I know that now.
11:12
Speaker 1: But you know, it's interesting just thinking about this small
11:16
Speaker 1: town and it sounds like everyone was hooking up with everyone.
11:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It really truly was it was. We
11:26
Speaker 2: ust call it Peyton Place.
11:29
Speaker 1: What's that?
11:29
Speaker 2: I don't know. If you don't remember Peyton Place, I'm sorry.
11:33
Speaker 2: You'll have to look that one up on the YouTube.
11:36
Speaker 1: Okay, A nineteen sixty four drama, got it.
11:40
Speaker 2: It was a soap operas, That's basically what it was.
11:43
Speaker 1: And Nett says everyone was partying and hooking up with
11:46
Speaker 1: each other. She was also seeing other people.
11:48
Speaker 2: It wasn't exclusive in any way, shape or form. It
11:52
Speaker 2: was never going to be.
11:53
Speaker 1: And and Nette says she had bigger worries at the
11:56
Speaker 1: time as her alcohol and drug use started to get
11:58
Speaker 1: out of control. Here's Leanne again.
12:02
Speaker 3: I saw the drinking. I saw her being passed out
12:04
Speaker 3: on the couch. I knew what it was from. I
12:06
Speaker 3: knew that there was drugs involved.
12:09
Speaker 2: I did cocaine, that was that was my drug of choice.
12:13
Speaker 3: So there were times when she could not be a
12:16
Speaker 3: mom and I was aware of that.
12:21
Speaker 1: Do you remember when your dad took custody of you guys.
12:24
Speaker 3: Yes, I was ten, my brother was eight. I remember
12:31
Speaker 3: it was it was really rough. We didn't want it
12:35
Speaker 3: to happen, and I remember my mom telling us it
12:44
Speaker 3: was temporary and she didn't want it to happen either.
12:52
Speaker 3: It was a very emotional time.
12:58
Speaker 1: Still, Linn says she's glad her mom made the decision
13:01
Speaker 1: to have someone else care for them for a while.
13:03
Speaker 3: Because it probably saved us from having to go into
13:09
Speaker 3: state's care. Because I do remember times where the state
13:15
Speaker 3: did show up.
13:17
Speaker 1: Lean says one time Child Protective Services came knocking.
13:21
Speaker 3: And we had to hide, and she kept us very quiet,
13:25
Speaker 3: and she kept us hidden so that we couldn't answer
13:28
Speaker 3: the door. We couldn't make any noise, and I remember
13:33
Speaker 3: that and that's something that I won't ever forget.
13:36
Speaker 1: So instead of foster care, Leanne and her brother went
13:39
Speaker 1: to live with their father in Colorado. But that wasn't
13:42
Speaker 1: easy either.
13:44
Speaker 3: My dad was probably a worse parent, and I held
13:49
Speaker 3: my mom. I was angrier at my mom for that,
13:53
Speaker 3: for putting me in that worse situation, and I went
13:58
Speaker 3: through a lot of therapy and I realized it was
14:00
Speaker 3: not my mom's fault that she could not be a parent.
14:02
Speaker 1: At that time, Annette's life was spiraling. On October twelfth,
14:11
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Annette and Corey were enjoying their usual
14:15
Speaker 1: night of partying at the bar.
14:17
Speaker 2: So I got stupid, I got drunk, stupid.
14:20
Speaker 1: A heated argument ensued between Annette and Corey about another
14:23
Speaker 1: girl Corey had wanted to take home, but Annette says
14:26
Speaker 1: they eventually made up and he drove her home. At
14:29
Speaker 1: the time, she was living with her brother and his
14:31
Speaker 1: wife in a farmhouse.
14:33
Speaker 2: We went back to the farm and we had sex.
14:37
Speaker 2: He left, I passed out and that was the last
14:42
Speaker 2: time I saw him.
14:44
Speaker 1: The next evening, a Nette remembers being at home when
14:47
Speaker 1: two of her coworkers came to the door.
14:49
Speaker 2: They said, you need to come to the bar. Grandma
14:54
Speaker 2: made you to ten bar. Corey is sick and I said, yeah,
14:57
Speaker 2: well right, I said, he's got the brown bottles.
15:00
Speaker 1: Annette says she thought she had to cover for Corey
15:02
Speaker 1: because he had a hangover, but when she got to
15:05
Speaker 1: work she found out the truth.
15:08
Speaker 2: A coworker told her he said he's dead in that
15:12
Speaker 2: and I just lost it.
15:16
Speaker 1: Anette's best friend, her love, twenty two year old Corey
15:20
Speaker 1: Winnekey was dead. Annette couldn't believe it. She had just
15:25
Speaker 1: been with Corey the night before. That morning, she had
15:29
Speaker 1: even gone to Corey's house to apologize for the argument
15:31
Speaker 1: they'd gotten in the night before. She says, she was
15:34
Speaker 1: on her way to run Errand's in Iowa City with
15:36
Speaker 1: her sister in law, Jackie, and they swung by his house,
15:39
Speaker 1: but Corey didn't answer, so they went about their day.
15:43
Speaker 1: At first, Annette says, everyone in town thought Corey had
15:46
Speaker 1: been shot.
15:47
Speaker 2: We thought someone broke in and shotted until it was
15:50
Speaker 2: on the news. I don't know a day or two
15:53
Speaker 2: later that he had been bludgend He.
15:58
Speaker 4: Is found dead on the floor of his bedroom by
16:01
Speaker 4: his living girlfriend fiancee, Jodi, and he has been beaten
16:06
Speaker 4: to death.
16:07
Speaker 1: This is Erica Nichols Cook. She's the director of the
16:10
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Unit at the Iowa State Public Defender's Office.
16:13
Speaker 4: There's no apparent weapon or breaking or known motive. He's
16:23
Speaker 4: in his underwear next to his bed, So the state
16:27
Speaker 4: has a.
16:27
Speaker 2: Theory that.
16:30
Speaker 4: Someone that he knew came into the house, was mad
16:33
Speaker 4: at him and beat him to death.
16:38
Speaker 1: When you found out he was bludgeoned, what did you think.
16:45
Speaker 2: I thought angry husband or boyfriend? H that was my
16:52
Speaker 2: very first thought.
16:53
Speaker 1: At least one of the women Corey was seeing had
16:56
Speaker 1: a husband. One woman even had his baby.
16:59
Speaker 4: He had a really ship with another woman in town, Wendy,
17:02
Speaker 4: and they had a child together, but a child that
17:05
Speaker 4: he didn't acknowledge.
17:07
Speaker 1: There were also drug related rumors.
17:10
Speaker 4: There was speculation about drug dealing, whether he owed a
17:15
Speaker 4: drug debt, and they did like parlays and gambling at
17:19
Speaker 4: the bar, and whether gambling could have been a motive
17:24
Speaker 4: for someone to want to kill Corey.
17:27
Speaker 1: Being one of the lovers, and Nett was also questioned
17:29
Speaker 1: about the murder.
17:31
Speaker 2: I was obviously suspect.
17:32
Speaker 4: Annette and her sister in law Jackie, voluntarily went to
17:37
Speaker 4: the police department because the earlier in that day before
17:42
Speaker 4: his body is found, they had stopped at his house.
17:46
Speaker 4: She and Corey had had a fight the night before
17:48
Speaker 4: before having makeup sex and she just wanted to, you know,
17:53
Speaker 4: touch base with them, see him. He didn't answer the door.
17:56
Speaker 4: They had to leave for a doctor's appointment, but they
17:59
Speaker 4: had been there and they wanted to help solve it.
18:02
Speaker 4: So Annette took a lie detective test told she passed.
18:09
Speaker 4: They didn't have any other suspects that really they could
18:15
Speaker 4: place at Corey's house that day, and the investigation kind
18:21
Speaker 4: of just goes cold.
18:25
Speaker 1: Leanne remembers trying to have a relationship with her mom
18:28
Speaker 1: long distance after Corey's death.
18:30
Speaker 3: I wasn't there to see the aftermath or the devastation
18:39
Speaker 3: or the big depression that happened after. I was only
18:42
Speaker 3: there to over the phone to hear it. I remember
18:47
Speaker 3: the tears, the constant tears, and I remember the lack
18:50
Speaker 3: of the phone calls. I remember the phone calls just
18:55
Speaker 3: being just weeping when we did talk to her, which
19:01
Speaker 3: was heartbreaking because you know, I was ten years old,
19:05
Speaker 3: eleven years old. It was real hard to hear my
19:08
Speaker 3: mom like that.
19:09
Speaker 1: Once again. Annett was a.
19:11
Speaker 2: Mess, just stupid, drunk. I was drinking, I was doing drugs.
19:17
Speaker 1: But then she met Bill Cahill.
19:20
Speaker 2: I met him in a bar well and I didn't
19:23
Speaker 2: meet him at a bar. I saw him in a bar.
19:25
Speaker 1: Bill was a friend of her brother Denny's, so she'd
19:28
Speaker 1: see him around.
19:29
Speaker 2: Never thought another thing about him until you know, we
19:35
Speaker 2: talked and caught up a little bit. He's just a
19:40
Speaker 2: good guy. He's he's just smart, and he's funny, and
19:48
Speaker 2: he's more loyal than the day is long.
19:53
Speaker 1: And Annette says he was good for her.
19:55
Speaker 2: Our days weren't based on alcohol. We started going out
20:00
Speaker 2: and the rest is history. We married in December of
20:06
Speaker 2: ninety three and we've we're still married. There's the thing
20:10
Speaker 2: about Bill. In thirty two years of knowing each other,
20:15
Speaker 2: we've never had a fight.
20:16
Speaker 1: Well, they do argue over classic rock.
20:20
Speaker 2: He loves Phoebe ray Vaughn. I'm not a big fan.
20:25
Speaker 2: So it's little tiny things like that. That's basically our disagreements.
20:32
Speaker 2: We absolutely agreed how to raise the kids.
20:36
Speaker 1: Three kids, and Nett got her life straight, and Bill
20:39
Speaker 1: took in Leanne and her brother as his own. They
20:41
Speaker 1: even had another child.
20:43
Speaker 3: My mom did a total one eighty totally grew up
20:46
Speaker 3: as a parent, grew up as an adult. My brother
20:51
Speaker 3: got museums as field trips. He got nutritional meals and
21:00
Speaker 3: museums and the zoo and brand new school clothes and
21:08
Speaker 3: never went without a meal. So by the time my
21:13
Speaker 3: children came along, my children got the best grandma my grandkids.
21:23
Speaker 2: Okay, so my youngest grandson was born in twenty fourteen
21:31
Speaker 2: and my oldest granddaughter was born in two thousand.
21:35
Speaker 1: Like Annette, Leanne had her first kid young at seventeen.
21:38
Speaker 3: My kids get this grandma who wanted to bake with them,
21:44
Speaker 3: and wanted to cook with them, and wanted to teach
21:47
Speaker 3: them all her recipes and wanted to fill up the
21:52
Speaker 3: pool in the backyard and go splash around with them.
21:56
Speaker 3: She created this thing called the Phenomenal Bags with them.
22:00
Speaker 3: Whenever they were good, they'd get to a pick out
22:02
Speaker 3: a dollar store prize out of these bags. So she
22:06
Speaker 3: taught them the word phenomenal and what it meant, and
22:08
Speaker 3: then she'd reward them for the silliest things. And like
22:13
Speaker 3: it was just it was so neat to see that
22:18
Speaker 3: that was the mom that I was so proud to have.
22:23
Speaker 3: And I'm going to tear up while I'm saying this,
22:25
Speaker 3: because because that was the mom that I was so
22:29
Speaker 3: proud to see with my kids. That was the mom
22:33
Speaker 3: that I wanted my kids to see that I had,
22:37
Speaker 3: and they love her.
22:41
Speaker 1: Finally, Annette Cahill was living her best life an adoring husband, grandkids,
22:47
Speaker 1: baking and playtime. She also had a steady job. She
22:50
Speaker 1: worked as a proofreader and in customer service at the
22:53
Speaker 1: police Law institute, which does online training for law enforcement.
22:58
Speaker 1: It was a far cry from her previous life, but
23:02
Speaker 1: she still thought about Corey. She'd even check in with
23:05
Speaker 1: the police for updates.
23:07
Speaker 2: Through the years. I called them all the time, all
23:11
Speaker 2: the time, and as for updates, you know, please, what's
23:15
Speaker 2: going on? Do you have anything new?
23:17
Speaker 1: Did you think calling would make you look suspicious? Like
23:21
Speaker 1: when you were calling, what were you thinking?
23:25
Speaker 2: Just that, you know, God, maybe they have something new.
23:29
Speaker 4: And sometimes they did, every so often or every you know,
23:33
Speaker 4: a few years, something would come up, or they would
23:36
Speaker 4: have an agent working on cold cases. They visited a
23:39
Speaker 4: psychic at one point about several other cold cases in
23:43
Speaker 4: the region and tried to get information and leads. They
23:49
Speaker 4: had received some information that a group called the Clan,
23:54
Speaker 4: who was selling drugs in that area at the time,
23:58
Speaker 4: were involved. You know, somebody's girlfriend would come forward and
24:02
Speaker 4: say they bragged about breaking into this guy's house and
24:06
Speaker 4: you know, killing him with the baseball bat.
24:08
Speaker 1: A baseball bat was the presumed murder weapon. Investigators searched
24:13
Speaker 1: the ditches on the rural road near Corey's house but
24:16
Speaker 1: found nothing until a news reporter covering the story spotted
24:20
Speaker 1: a bloody aluminum bat on the road. Police were able
24:24
Speaker 1: to match the blood on the bat to Corey's blood type,
24:26
Speaker 1: but that was it. Despite the leads, nothing panned out
24:30
Speaker 1: for decades.
24:32
Speaker 2: It was just in insane. At that point, I had
24:37
Speaker 2: pretty much convinced myself that I was going to die
24:42
Speaker 2: without ever knowing who committed the crime. So you came
24:46
Speaker 2: to chunge with it and kind of moved on.
24:50
Speaker 1: That was until March twenty eighteen, when the police came knocking,
25:02
Speaker 1: more than twenty five years after the death of Corey
25:05
Speaker 1: Winnikey and Nette ca Hill got a knock on her door.
25:08
Speaker 1: It was Detective John Turbett.
25:10
Speaker 2: He said, hey, had some you know, some new information,
25:13
Speaker 2: some good news, you know, had some had some things
25:18
Speaker 2: he wanted to show me, and I said, oh my god,
25:21
Speaker 2: thank god finally.
25:23
Speaker 1: So Annette went with him to the police station.
25:25
Speaker 2: I walked into the interrogation room and I saw the
25:31
Speaker 2: bat on a table and I just went cold, and
25:37
Speaker 2: I thought, oh my god, they think it's me. They
25:41
Speaker 2: think it's me, And then it just changed everything.
25:45
Speaker 1: A Nette shut down.
25:47
Speaker 2: I didn't want to talk to them. I said, you
25:49
Speaker 2: have an hour of my time, and I said that's
25:51
Speaker 2: all I have I was angry, really really angry.
25:55
Speaker 1: Too, and Nette says Bill tried to support her and
25:58
Speaker 1: tell her that the police just doing their job and
26:01
Speaker 1: they hadn't accused her of anything yet.
26:04
Speaker 2: But boy, when they came back in April, he really,
26:08
Speaker 2: he really came at me with you know, you know,
26:12
Speaker 2: our investigations closed in it, and you're the only one
26:15
Speaker 2: we think you did it.
26:17
Speaker 1: So how do they go from all of these leads
26:23
Speaker 1: to a net.
26:26
Speaker 4: It's one of the craziest things I've ever come across.
26:32
Speaker 4: A DCI agent, Trent Valletta, was working another case and
26:37
Speaker 4: was at the University of Iowa hospital one night.
26:40
Speaker 1: It was twenty seventeen, and this agent with Iowa's Division
26:43
Speaker 1: of Criminal Investigation says a nurse named Jesse Becker approached
26:46
Speaker 1: him and said she.
26:49
Speaker 4: Was nine years old in nineteen ninety two and she
26:53
Speaker 4: was friends with Annette's niece and told DCI that she
27:00
Speaker 4: knew who killed Corey.
27:02
Speaker 1: According to Valletta, Jesse proceeded to share a memory she'd
27:05
Speaker 1: been holding onto for twenty five years. Jesse said that
27:09
Speaker 1: back in October of nineteen ninety two, when she was
27:11
Speaker 1: nine years old, she was out a sleepover with them,
27:14
Speaker 1: girls at her friend Kayla's house. Kayla was the daughter
27:17
Speaker 1: of Denny Hazen, Anette's brother. Remember, at the time, Anette
27:20
Speaker 1: lived at her brother's farmhouse, so it was the middle
27:23
Speaker 1: of the night in nineteen ninety two, and Jesse told
27:26
Speaker 1: the Letta she remembered sneaking down the stairs with another
27:29
Speaker 1: girl for a snack. When they reached the bottom of
27:31
Speaker 1: the stairwell, they were stopped cold by the sound of
27:35
Speaker 1: a woman's voice weeping.
27:37
Speaker 4: They hear Annette apologizing for killing Corey, telling Corey she's
27:43
Speaker 4: sorry she killed him, that she's lighting black candles.
27:47
Speaker 1: From the stairs, Jesse said they saw a Nette sobbing
27:50
Speaker 1: over the black candles, saying Corey, I never meant to
27:53
Speaker 1: hurt you and I'm so sorry. I never meant to
27:56
Speaker 1: kill you. I love you. Jesse would go I wanted
28:00
Speaker 1: to tell police that after the sleepover, she had told
28:03
Speaker 1: her mom, Cynthia, what she'd seen. She told her she
28:07
Speaker 1: saw Annette crying and lighting black candles, and Cynthia allegedly
28:12
Speaker 1: told her that, even though it was strange, she heard
28:15
Speaker 1: that people sometimes burned black candles to bring out evil spirits.
28:20
Speaker 1: Decades later, Cynthia would corroborate the story, adding that they
28:24
Speaker 1: hadn't come forward because they were scared of a net
28:28
Speaker 1: and law enforcement believed them. Several months after Jesse Becker
28:33
Speaker 1: came forward with her story, Leanne remembers being.
28:36
Speaker 3: At home and my cousin Shawna says text me and says,
28:41
Speaker 3: oh my god, Leanne, I'm so sorry. Have you heard?
28:45
Speaker 3: And I had no idea what she was talking about.
28:49
Speaker 3: And I text her back in my lay is like,
28:50
Speaker 3: have I heard what? And she says, your mom was arrested,
28:57
Speaker 3: and instantly I knew what for. I knew it was
28:59
Speaker 3: for Corey's murder.
29:01
Speaker 1: On May thirty first, twenty eighteen, Annette Cahill was arrested
29:05
Speaker 1: and charged with first degree murder for the death of
29:08
Speaker 1: Corey Winnikey. Almost a year later, she went to trial.
29:12
Speaker 1: Prosecuting attorney Alan Ostergren contended that Annette killed Corey in
29:17
Speaker 1: a jealous rage.
29:19
Speaker 4: They painted a picture of a woman like a spurned
29:22
Speaker 4: lover who wanted to run away with Corey, and that
29:29
Speaker 4: was very jealous and mad. So the night before he dies,
29:34
Speaker 4: they're all at Winks, including the baby mother Wendy, and
29:38
Speaker 4: Annette gets mad and Corey's being mean to her at
29:41
Speaker 4: the bar, and the state argues that a. Nett had
29:45
Speaker 4: just had enough, and they said that she was so
29:49
Speaker 4: angry at him that she killed him.
29:53
Speaker 1: Ostergren said that when Anette stopped by Corey's the morning
29:55
Speaker 1: of October thirteenth, instead of knocking and leaving like she
29:59
Speaker 1: told police, she actually went in the house and beat
30:02
Speaker 1: him to death with the bat. The state called Jesse
30:06
Speaker 1: Becker and her mom, Cynthia, to testify about what they
30:09
Speaker 1: remembered from twenty seven years prior, and Jesse retold her
30:14
Speaker 1: story about Annette and the remorseful crying and the black candles.
30:19
Speaker 1: Leanne says it was surreal.
30:21
Speaker 3: We were like, this is ridiculous, Like, who in the
30:24
Speaker 3: world's going to believe this, especially off the memory of
30:28
Speaker 3: a nine year old twenty five years later?
30:31
Speaker 1: And the jury didn't believe it. They came back hung
30:34
Speaker 1: nine to three to acquit but Ostergren was not going
30:39
Speaker 1: to give up.
30:40
Speaker 2: Well, the county attorney said, you know, we're going to
30:42
Speaker 2: retry this and we'll come up with some better evidence. Well,
30:47
Speaker 2: how do you come up with better evidence? And then
30:52
Speaker 2: then he did. He miraculously came up with Scott Pain.
30:58
Speaker 4: Scott Paine's mom was good friends with the victim, Corey's mom,
31:04
Speaker 4: and after the hung jury, the moms talked and then
31:10
Speaker 4: called law enforcement and said, you need to talk to
31:13
Speaker 4: Scott because he used to hang out at a nets
31:17
Speaker 4: house with her brother and they did drugs together and
31:22
Speaker 4: he saw them burning bloody clothes.
31:25
Speaker 1: In a second trial in September of twenty nineteen, Scott
31:28
Speaker 1: testified that back in ninety two he was at the
31:31
Speaker 1: farmhouse hanging out when he saw a Net burning bloody
31:34
Speaker 1: clothes in a burn barrel. In both trials, a Net's
31:39
Speaker 1: attorney did not present much of a defense. They called Jackie,
31:43
Speaker 1: a Net's sister in law, her alibi, but.
31:46
Speaker 4: She got so twisted up and intimidated by the county attorney.
31:53
Speaker 4: The county attorney that did this trial, he has a
31:56
Speaker 4: reputation of being intimidating and style, and I don't think
32:02
Speaker 4: she was very prepared for that. And then she had
32:06
Speaker 4: given so many statements over the twenty plus years that
32:11
Speaker 4: it was very easy for her to get confused.
32:14
Speaker 1: Again, the jury went to deliberate, and again they came
32:17
Speaker 1: back hung, so the judge ordered what's known as an
32:21
Speaker 1: Allen charge.
32:22
Speaker 4: The court tells them to keep deliberating, keep trying, and
32:26
Speaker 4: they come back pretty quick after that unanimously guilty.
32:29
Speaker 1: Leanne couldn't believe it.
32:31
Speaker 3: The second time should have been a hung jury. But
32:33
Speaker 3: then the judge says, nope, go back in. I don't
32:35
Speaker 3: accept it. It just it blows my mind.
32:39
Speaker 1: Erica says, these kinds of charges can be coercive.
32:42
Speaker 4: If the jurors are telling you that they can't come
32:46
Speaker 4: to an agreement, telling them to keep trying isn't necessarily
32:50
Speaker 4: going to do anything but put pressure on those that
32:55
Speaker 4: are the holdouts, And our shows there was one or
33:00
Speaker 4: two holdouts that got overpowered by the rest.
33:05
Speaker 1: On September nineteenth, twenty nineteen, Annette Cahill was convicted of
33:09
Speaker 1: second degree murder and eventually sentenced to up to fifty
33:12
Speaker 1: years in prison at fifty six years old, essentially the
33:17
Speaker 1: rest of her life. You said you don't think you'll
33:24
Speaker 1: ever get used to it. I mean, do you think
33:26
Speaker 1: about the possibility that this is your life now?
33:31
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah? And I think you know. And people say
33:36
Speaker 2: that if you have not thought of a way to
33:40
Speaker 2: commit suicide, you're a liar, And that's true. If you
33:44
Speaker 2: thought this is what you had to live every day
33:47
Speaker 2: of your life. Yeah, you would, you would go in samee.
33:51
Speaker 1: But fortunately someone with resources was paying attention to a
33:55
Speaker 1: NETS case.
33:56
Speaker 4: I kind of followed it in the news when they
33:58
Speaker 4: made the arrest and thought it it didn't sound right,
34:04
Speaker 4: didn't look right.
34:05
Speaker 1: What about that didn't sound or look right?
34:08
Speaker 4: The fact that a memory of a child it was
34:11
Speaker 4: enough to me. It's just childhood memory is not reliable,
34:17
Speaker 4: and there wasn't any forensic evidence, and in twenty nineteen
34:20
Speaker 4: you expect there to be some forensic evidence, especially and
34:23
Speaker 4: I really close contact a fence, right, it's a beating
34:30
Speaker 4: is really personal. There's blood spatter everywhere, and there's nothing
34:34
Speaker 4: to connect a NET to the bedroom or to a
34:40
Speaker 4: supposed weapon or the victim, and so it always just
34:43
Speaker 4: kind of raised red flags to me.
34:46
Speaker 1: After her conviction, a NET appealed the lost so she
34:50
Speaker 1: wrote Erica's office and we kind of just.
34:53
Speaker 2: Jumped on it. I signed the contract on my birthday.
34:57
Speaker 2: It was a pretty good gift.
34:59
Speaker 1: And how is that been so far? Do you have
35:01
Speaker 1: more hope now?
35:04
Speaker 2: I have? Yeah, all the hope. Yeah, they have worked
35:09
Speaker 2: so hard.
35:12
Speaker 1: The prosecution relied primarily on the memories of a child
35:15
Speaker 1: to try and convict a net and from the jump.
35:18
Speaker 1: Erica and her team found holes in the prosecution's case
35:22
Speaker 1: and Jesse's memories. At trial, Jesse testified that she remembered
35:27
Speaker 1: creeping down the stairwell back in nineteen ninety two and
35:30
Speaker 1: seeing a net from the steps lighting black candles. But
35:34
Speaker 1: Erica says that would not have been physically possible.
35:37
Speaker 4: It's not that kind of stairwell. It's enclosed with walls
35:42
Speaker 4: and adore at the bottom of it. It's not possible.
35:46
Speaker 1: Do we know who the other child was she said
35:48
Speaker 1: she was with. Did anyone corroborate this?
35:52
Speaker 4: So we've learned that there were well we believe to
35:56
Speaker 4: be three girls at the sleepover, Kayla, another friend, Lindsay,
36:02
Speaker 4: and then Jesse and investigators never talked to Lindsay, and
36:09
Speaker 4: we have she's signed an affid David that nothing like
36:13
Speaker 4: that ever happened. She you know, Anette didn't say anything,
36:17
Speaker 4: They didn't creep down the stairs, and that nobody talked
36:22
Speaker 4: to her before the trial.
36:24
Speaker 1: So did Jesse make this story up?
36:27
Speaker 4: She might believe she's telling the truth. There's no corroboration
36:31
Speaker 4: for anything that Jesse says. There is, in fact, physical
36:37
Speaker 4: evidence of the layout of the house that shows that
36:41
Speaker 4: she's wrong, that her memory is wrong. I don't know
36:46
Speaker 4: if she's looking for her attention, but this whole tip
36:52
Speaker 4: the statement reignited the entire investigation and led to Anett's
36:58
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction.
37:00
Speaker 1: Reached out to Jesse for comment on Facebook and still
37:02
Speaker 1: haven't heard back. Another detail worth noting is that around
37:06
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, Jesse's stepfather, Lester, had an affair with
37:10
Speaker 1: a Net and later divorced her mother, Cynthia, though at trial,
37:14
Speaker 1: Cynthia testified that she held no ill will against a
37:17
Speaker 1: Net for sleeping with her husband. During their investigation, Erica
37:23
Speaker 1: and her team wondered, if not a Net, then who,
37:27
Speaker 1: So they followed up on those leads from decades ago.
37:30
Speaker 4: Claims about who else had motive what they missed. We
37:35
Speaker 4: have a claim about the living girlfriend, Jody that is
37:39
Speaker 4: fascinating to me because in the discovery we just got,
37:45
Speaker 4: there's letters that Jody wrote to Corey that are evidence
37:50
Speaker 4: the race relationship wasn't great.
37:53
Speaker 1: Jody, Corey's high school sweetheart and fiance.
37:56
Speaker 4: That perhaps Jody wasn't okay with him having multiple other
38:00
Speaker 4: girlfriends and sleeping with other people, and telling him that
38:06
Speaker 4: he's going to have to move out.
38:08
Speaker 1: Erica also says the letters from Jody to Corey about
38:11
Speaker 1: their relationship being on the rocks were not disclosed to
38:14
Speaker 1: the defense. She says this is a Brady violation with
38:17
Speaker 1: holding potentially exculpatory evidence.
38:22
Speaker 4: Once law enforcement believed jesse Becker, they found her to
38:26
Speaker 4: be credible. She's former military, she's a nurse. The people
38:29
Speaker 4: at the hospital like her. She's telling the truth. They
38:32
Speaker 4: ignored everything that pointed away from a net, every other lead.
38:38
Speaker 1: She says. The state did not investigate allegations that Corey
38:41
Speaker 1: had stolen money from Winks, his family bar, that he
38:44
Speaker 1: had a drug debt to dealers, or that he was
38:47
Speaker 1: involved in illegal gambling. But Erica says most troubling.
38:51
Speaker 4: They didn't even try to do DNA testing before the
38:54
Speaker 4: trial to see if they could connect a net. Now
38:58
Speaker 4: and DNA testing changes every few years.
39:00
Speaker 1: Erica says, the results may have pointed them in a
39:03
Speaker 1: different direction.
39:05
Speaker 4: We have an unknown female profile on the baseball bat
39:09
Speaker 4: that doesn't match a NET or her sister in law, Jackie,
39:12
Speaker 4: and we have a partial mail profile on the handle
39:15
Speaker 4: that's not the victim. So we're continuing to investigate there
39:19
Speaker 4: to present evidence of her innocence at trial.
39:23
Speaker 1: So she was really just convicted on the word of
39:27
Speaker 1: two people's memories, one of which is a nine year
39:30
Speaker 1: old from three decades ago. Yes, a Net has a
39:40
Speaker 1: hearing scheduled for April twenty twenty five to present all
39:44
Speaker 1: the new evidence Erica and her team have found.
39:47
Speaker 4: So we have an application for DNA testing, and then
39:51
Speaker 4: we filed a application for post conviction relief alleging and
39:56
Speaker 4: effective assistans of Council Brady violations for holding documents from
40:02
Speaker 4: the trial councils and presenting false evidence about you know,
40:08
Speaker 4: different things, and due process because the jurors. We interviewed
40:13
Speaker 4: jurors and one of them described going home and researching
40:18
Speaker 4: what reasonable doubt was on her own, which is a
40:22
Speaker 4: no no. And the issues with the investigation. You know,
40:26
Speaker 4: what they didn't do is what we've been trying to do.
40:32
Speaker 1: How are you adjusting to her being in prison.
40:37
Speaker 3: I'm not. I'm not adjusting. I'm waiting for her to
40:42
Speaker 3: come home. Every time I set up that video chat,
40:46
Speaker 3: I've just another little piece of me, just.
40:49
Speaker 1: Chips off and from a net too.
40:52
Speaker 3: She's even losing her love for drawing, and that's really
40:59
Speaker 3: hard because she's just losing pieces of herself as days
41:05
Speaker 3: go by.
41:08
Speaker 1: Anette wants to be home with her family, back to
41:11
Speaker 1: playing with phenomenal bags and acquainting herself with new additions
41:14
Speaker 1: to the family, her great grandchildren.
41:17
Speaker 2: I have three grades that were born while I was
41:21
Speaker 2: in here, so I would have to go through my
41:24
Speaker 2: book and get the dates on that. My memory is
41:27
Speaker 2: horrid now, stress is it's horrible on my memory.
41:35
Speaker 1: That's something new for you.
41:37
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And Nett, what.
41:41
Speaker 1: Do you want people to know about you?
41:46
Speaker 2: But I'm not a monster. But I've never heard the soul. Okay,
41:52
Speaker 2: I take that back. I have a physically soul. I
41:57
Speaker 2: have done some stupid things in my life, but I've
42:00
Speaker 2: never hurt anyone, not physically. And I have tried my
42:05
Speaker 2: best to make up for any pain I've ever caused anyone.
42:13
Speaker 2: I've tried to be giving and loving and generous and
42:16
Speaker 2: kind this last thirty years because I knew I did
42:20
Speaker 2: some stupid shit when I was young.
42:24
Speaker 1: You're a very honest person. It seems like you've had
42:28
Speaker 1: a lot of time to think about, you know, life
42:31
Speaker 1: and life's mistakes.
42:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna
42:37
Speaker 2: sugarcoat what I wasn't. And you know, there's times when
42:43
Speaker 2: I was good, there's times when I wasn't.
42:46
Speaker 1: I think that's called being human.
42:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Well, and the older we get, the easier
42:53
Speaker 2: it is to admit that we're not always perfect.
43:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
43:07
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
43:10
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
43:13
Speaker 1: If you're interested in contacting public officials about a NETS case,
43:17
Speaker 1: you can reach out to the Muscatine County Prosecutor's Office.
43:20
Speaker 1: We'll have links on our website, and if you live
43:22
Speaker 1: in Iowa, you can reach out to your elected officials.
43:25
Speaker 1: This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
43:28
Speaker 1: editing and sound designed by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our
43:31
Speaker 1: producer is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with
43:35
Speaker 1: research by Alison Levy and additional production help by Jeff Cleiburn.
43:39
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis.
43:43
Speaker 1: The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
43:47
Speaker 1: Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
43:49
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
43:52
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
43:56
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
43:59
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one