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498: #498 Maggie Freleng with Rosa Jimenez · Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

• 00:00:05 Speaker 1: All Rosa humanez Ever wanted was to be a mom. 00:00:09 Speaker 2: I read in an article somewhere about you that your daughter has a rose tattoo for you. 00:00:17 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she does. 00:00:21 Speaker 4: She say that in the way that you always represent me by roses. 00:00:26 Speaker 1: I first spoke to Rosa in twenty twenty for my podcast Unjust and Unsolved. She was in prison at the time. 00:00:33 Speaker 5: This call is being recorded and is subject to monitoring. 00:00:36 Speaker 1: I was actually scheduled to meet with Rosa in person, but because of COVID nineteen, all prisons were on lockdown. She called me the day we were supposed to meet. 00:00:46 Speaker 6: I'm so bombed. 00:00:46 Speaker 7: I really wanted to meet. 00:00:47 Speaker 6: You in person. 00:00:49 Speaker 3: I say, extend that day. 00:00:51 Speaker 6: Are you staying safe? 00:00:53 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:00:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, I was six the first week bomb Okay. 00:00:57 Speaker 1: Now, Rosa was lucky in prison. COVID nineteen was devastating. Incarcerated people died at over three times the rate of the free population I have, and Rosa was at the highest risk. She was immunocompromised from kidney failure. When she first got to prison, Rosa got hurt working in the fields picking vegetables and mowing grass. It was lots of walking and physical labor. And one day she felt a pain in her hip and went to the doctor. 00:01:27 Speaker 8: It would telling that you looked to the doctors, they tell you that you were lazy and that you didn't. 00:01:32 Speaker 3: Want to work. 00:01:33 Speaker 1: Rosa was prescribed a proxy in and ivy profen for the pain and sent back to work. 00:01:37 Speaker 4: So before I go. 00:01:38 Speaker 3: To work, I used to just take one peel, then come up from work take another. 00:01:42 Speaker 8: Appeal because I'm already learning. 00:01:44 Speaker 3: If I want to go to sleep. 00:01:46 Speaker 1: Years of doing this damaged her kidneys, and when I first talked to her in twenty twenty, not only was she in pain, but she was dying if not. 00:01:55 Speaker 8: Even vacim give me to better my kidney. 00:01:59 Speaker 3: So I asked him if she can give me a transpilent. 00:02:03 Speaker 8: Then she said no because he. 00:02:05 Speaker 3: Said, I don't want to send you or anything. 00:02:07 Speaker 8: But yet you as a prisoner and everybody in prison, can I get a kidney transfer or any kind of transman, because you are the lower of the society. 00:02:21 Speaker 1: In her late thirties, Rosa was facing down death from a prison cell, but soon her life would change. 00:02:29 Speaker 9: My name is Rosa Humanez and I was wrongly convicted of injury to a child and murder. I was eighteen years in. 00:02:38 Speaker 1: Prison for LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Rosa Jimenez. Rosa Jimenez was born in October nineteen eighty two and raised just outside of Mexico City. 00:03:00 Speaker 9: O little town is cooled at the pic. We were very poor at that time when I was little. 00:03:10 Speaker 1: Rosa's mom, Estella was single with five kids to take care of. 00:03:15 Speaker 9: She used to sell tamales in Mexico. 00:03:18 Speaker 10: You came to sign your laws. 00:03:23 Speaker 1: Estella says. 00:03:23 Speaker 10: She worked every day those. 00:03:29 Speaker 1: Sometimes until two a m. To make sure all her children stayed in school and got their education get out. Estella says she never had a holiday or weekend off while her kids were young. But she didn't let her kids drop out of school, and that's what matters. Estella was a proud woman, just like Rosa. 00:03:57 Speaker 9: No one is going to stop me. That's me. 00:04:01 Speaker 1: Rosa went to college for business and tourism. She wanted to own a restaurant with her mom. 00:04:06 Speaker 9: And then of course I wouldn't have a bunch of kids and get married and be happy. That was me Rosa seventeen year old Rosa. 00:04:16 Speaker 1: But Rosa found focusing on college was difficult when her family was struggling with bills. She remembers coming home from school one day looking for a snack. 00:04:25 Speaker 9: I was hungry. You opened the refrigerator and you was nothing there, and my mom was like, you're hungry, and I was like, no, I was just going to get iced. But then I realized in that moment, then my mom couldn't do it no more by herself, so I decided to come over here. 00:04:42 Speaker 1: At seventeen, Rosa decided she was going to drop out of school and come to the United States to work and send money back to her family. 00:04:50 Speaker 7: How did your mom feel about you coming to the United States. 00:04:52 Speaker 9: Oh, she didn't want me to come. She begged me and begged me to go to school. But you know, when you're young, you like, no, I know what I'm going to do. This is what I decided to do, and I'm going to do it and no one is going to stop you. 00:05:07 Speaker 7: Do you regret coming here? 00:05:14 Speaker 9: That's a hard question, yes and no. 00:05:24 Speaker 1: Life in the United States would turn out to be everything and nothing like Rosa had planned for. Rosa's stepfather lived in the United States, so Rosa's plan was to go to Austin, Texas and get settled with him. 00:05:43 Speaker 9: My stepfather's sister had two kids in Mexico. One was seven and another one was six, and she asked me if I can bring her kids, and if I bring them, she was going to pay the coyote. 00:06:00 Speaker 1: Rosa didn't have the means to come to the United States legally, so she made the harrowing journey into the country with a coyote, a human smuggler. 00:06:10 Speaker 10: Five as had. 00:06:17 Speaker 1: Estella says, she spent every day worried and restless. 00:06:22 Speaker 10: Is that a combinino. 00:06:26 Speaker 1: Praying that her daughter made it out alive. 00:06:30 Speaker 10: It's not so. 00:06:33 Speaker 1: Estella did not want her daughter to cross the border, but Rosa took those children and did it anyway. 00:06:39 Speaker 9: Brough those two kids, and I pretend that they were my kids. I was the only female, well, the little girl and I were the only females. They were like twenty five men. 00:06:51 Speaker 7: Dirty, and when you were seventeen year old and. 00:06:54 Speaker 9: I'm seventeen year old with two kids, it was really scary. 00:07:00 Speaker 1: She remembers. One instance, the whole group was staying in one room for the night. 00:07:04 Speaker 9: No one can lay down in the middle of the night because we're standing up. It's crowded, like the little bathroom with thirty. 00:07:13 Speaker 1: People, and she says a guy tried to touch her. 00:07:16 Speaker 9: I tell the guy not too like, don't come too close to me, and the other guys to start getting mad because hey, you're gonna respect this girl, you know. They tell him that if he comes close to me again that they were going to beat him up. 00:07:30 Speaker 1: Another man protected her and took it upon himself to watch out for her and the kids the rest of the trip. 00:07:36 Speaker 9: It was an older guy. I don't even remember his name that he was like, oh, like a father figure kind of like he didn't like, was protecting me and the kids. I never seen him up again, but. 00:07:51 Speaker 7: You've thought about him all these years. 00:07:52 Speaker 9: Yeah, Yeah, sometimes I feel like they angels, you know, Like I mean, there, you show up to protect. 00:08:00 Speaker 7: You and your guardian angel. 00:08:02 Speaker 9: Yeah. 00:08:04 Speaker 1: When Rosa made it to the US, things didn't work out living with her stepfather, so she wound up with some friends she'd met at ESL school. She worked several jobs, including at a food truck. 00:08:15 Speaker 9: That was the worst experience ahead, Like in a food truck, Yes, how come they're go and pick you up? Like at two o'clock in the morning and you don't finish working by ten pm, so you only have like a little gap to go to sleep. And it was horrible. The payment was like, I'm not even liking to you, like six dollars and fifty cents back then. 00:08:42 Speaker 1: But Rosa kept hustling and sending money back to her mom. 00:08:46 Speaker 9: That was my whole purpose in here to help her. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: And then Rosa met a boy, and her purpose changed. 00:08:56 Speaker 9: At that moment. At that he was myself. 00:08:58 Speaker 1: Eighteen year old, feed well. 00:09:00 Speaker 9: Like he is the man that I wanted to be with the rest of my life. How long were you. 00:09:06 Speaker 7: Here before you got pregnant? 00:09:09 Speaker 9: Not even a year? 00:09:12 Speaker 1: She was still a teenager and she was pregnant, but she was thrilled. Nine months later, baby Brenda was born. In two thousand and two, Rosa's dream was coming true. If she couldn't get her degree, she wanted to be a wife and a mom. A year later, Rosa was pregnant again and had stopped working full time. She picked up babysitting gigs here and there, and eventually she found a steady gig caring for a friend's child a couple times a week. Brian Gutierrez was almost two years old, a few months older than Brenda, so it was perfect for Rosa because she gat care for her daughter and Brian. People who knew Rosa said that she loved that little boy like her own. On the morning of January thirtieth, two thousand and three, Brian's mom dropped him off with Rosa on her way to work at nine am. He and Brenda knapped, and when they woke up, Rosa made them snacks, beans, egg cheese, and picico de gayo. Rosa says that both kids had colds that day and she was constantly wiping their noses. She used a roll of paper towels and at some point she tossed the role in the couch, thinking nothing of it. She then let them watch TV and play while she made lunch. It was afternoon and Rosa was cooking in the kitchen. She says it'd been about ten minutes since she had last checked on the kids. Then suddenly, Brian walks in slowly with a hand on his throat. He appeared to be choking. Rosa says she picked up Brian and rushed to the bathroom, slapped him on the back, then tried to pull out whatever was stuck in his throat, but nothing, so she ran to a neighbor's apartment for help. When emergency responders arrived, they were able to extract a wad of bloody paper towels from Brian's throat. Later it was measured at two and a half inches, almost the size of a tennis ball. When they got Brian to the hospital, he was alive but in critical condition, and police wanted to take Rosa to the station for questioning. 00:11:24 Speaker 9: I called Fidel and I tell him, hey, this happened, and you need to come home because they want me to go to the police's station to give a statement, but you need to take care of Brenda. 00:11:41 Speaker 1: At the station, detective Eric Dela Santos interviewed Rosa. He wanted to know how such a large wad of paper towels wound up down Brian's throat. In his mind, there was no way Brian could have swallowed that himself. It had to have been forced down. Della Santo's quest and Rosa for five hours, insisting she had shoved the paper towels down Brian's mouth. He said Rosa was mad that the kids were playing with the paper towels, shredding them and tossing them around the house. Rosa was terrified. Remember she was a new immigrant. 00:12:17 Speaker 7: Was everything confusing for you? Did you know you had rights? 00:12:21 Speaker 9: I didn't know I have rights. I didn't know anything. 00:12:24 Speaker 1: Rosa says she was unaware she didn't have to answer Delo Santo's questions, or that she had a right to a lawyer. 00:12:30 Speaker 9: In Mexico is so corrupted. You know, you bribe the police and you free, no matter why you do, you free. So I'll come to this country and I don't have knowledge or anything. The only thing I know is where I came from. So I think maybe if I have money, I can bribe the police, and you know, they let me out. I don't know. So I didn't have no knowledge. I don't have I didn't have anything. I didn't mean speak English, nothing. 00:13:03 Speaker 1: Dela Santo spoke Spanish, but Rosa says it was very difficult for her to communicate with him. While the government has to provide trained interpreters at trial, an interpreter isn't constitutionally guaranteed during police questioning, so it was just Dela Santos and Rosa and her head was spinning. Rosa was worried about Brian, and then she thought about Brenda. She begged Dela Santos to let her use the phone to call Fidel. 00:13:31 Speaker 9: When I call, he said, the CPS took Brenda like child Protective Services, and I was just freaking out because I didn't know what child Protective Services was or anything. So I was freaking out. 00:13:48 Speaker 1: When I first spoke with Rosa, she explained that desperation to me, I was like. 00:13:54 Speaker 4: Like me, I can have Blenda back if I said whatever they wanted. You want me to say whatever you've been saying. May not say it, you know, but just let me have Branda back. 00:14:10 Speaker 1: Rosa eventually asked Dela Santos what would happen if she told him she did it, and he told her that she'd be able to go home and see her daughter, and after hours of questioning, Rosa says she considered just saying that she did it. Maybe when she tried to pull the paper towels out, she accidentally shoved them in further, but she didn't actually admit to hurting Brian and wouldn't speak further until she saw Brenda. So Dela Santos drove Rosa home while other officers prepared a warrant, and a few hours later, in the early morning hours of January thirty first, Rosa was arrested for injury to a child. Rosa sat in jail for months awaiting trial, pregnant with her second child, and on April eighteenth, two thousand and three, she started feeling tractions. 00:15:02 Speaker 9: I remember going to the hospital from the jail, and every time you had to go to the hospital, you had to go be in shackles. 00:15:11 Speaker 1: This is standard practice volunte oj custody, shackling prisoners who are giving birth with an officer assigned to watch over them. 00:15:19 Speaker 9: Is that police officer you know, just watching you give Sure you're not gonna escape what you are giving birth? Like, how can that happen? I mean, you are a lot of pain, you have contractions, you're pushing. How can you gonna start pushing and then run? I don't see that possible. But it was very It was very sad. I remember that night. I have a female officer and she had to be there the whole time, and I was having like contractions, but I was not going in labor. And I was like literally praying to go on labor because I didn't know who was the other officer was gonna be and I didn't want it to be a male. And I'm you know, with your legs all open and chuckles and like I was scared. I was scared. I was really scared. 00:16:24 Speaker 1: After a few hours of labor, her son, Aiden was born. 00:16:27 Speaker 7: Did they let you hold him? 00:16:29 Speaker 9: No? 00:16:30 Speaker 7: You didn't even get to hold your son. 00:16:32 Speaker 10: No. 00:16:32 Speaker 9: I had to beg later on when I went to the room, I had to beg the nurse to let me hold my kid. Because of the nature of the crime. They didn't let me get close to Aiden. 00:16:48 Speaker 1: Because Rosa was charged with a crime against a child, she wasn't allowed near anyone under eighteen, not even her newborn son. However, in a moment of grace or sympathy, once they were alone, the nurse let Rosa hold Aiden for a little while. But as one baby came into the world, another left. Brian Gutierrez succumbed to his injuries and died just over a week after Aiden was born. Ros's charges were upgraded to felony murder two years later. Rosa went to trial in August two thousand and five. She was tried in Travis County Criminal District Court by Gary Cobb and Alison Wetzel. 00:17:30 Speaker 5: This trial is. 00:17:30 Speaker 11: About something that happened to a little boy named Brian on January thirty of two thousand and three. He was twenty one months old. He lived in North Austin with his mother, Victoria, and with her family, and he was a healthy baby. He was a happy baby, and his family loved him very very much. 00:17:53 Speaker 1: Doctors and first responders who took the stand for the prosecution all said it would have been impossible for Brian to have shoved the paper towels down his throat on his own. His gag reflex would have pushed them out. Someone had to hold him down and push the wall of paper towels past the reflex. How much do you think racism played into Rose's case? 00:18:17 Speaker 12: Racism played a huge role in Rosa's case. She is one of other people that we know about who women of color in this jurisdiction at this time period, who ended up being prosecuted in cases where children were injured in accidents. 00:18:35 Speaker 1: Vanessa Pupkin is the director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project. 00:18:40 Speaker 12: It's something that we see throughout the country when it comes to children who die or are injured, and if the parents are people of color. There's a rush to call this a homicide or some type of abuse. 00:18:55 Speaker 1: And it's hard to argue when you hear Wetzel in her own words at trial. Here she is questioning Detective Delo Santo's on the stand about his interrogation with Rosa. 00:19:06 Speaker 9: And despite being. 00:19:09 Speaker 11: From Mexico, she's very intelligent, wouldn't you agree? 00:19:14 Speaker 9: I think she's a smart lady. 00:19:17 Speaker 11: And did it appear to you that she manipulated you at the end of the interview by getting you to bring her. 00:19:24 Speaker 9: Daughter to you? 00:19:26 Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna say yes. 00:19:27 Speaker 11: I don't think she ever intended to tell me if she did. 00:19:31 Speaker 9: This, that she did it. 00:19:36 Speaker 1: In Rosa's defense, her attorney, Leonard Martinez, called multiple witnesses who said Rosa was a peaceful person who was not quick to anger. But that was pretty much it. 00:19:47 Speaker 12: She just had woefully an adequate counsel. Her trial counsel only consulted with one expert. That expert had no experience in pediatric pathology. 00:19:59 Speaker 1: In fact, none of the experts that trial did not even the prosecutions, but the expert hired by Rosa's lawyer was particularly bad. 00:20:09 Speaker 12: He had not done any publishing except for one article, which was how to turn a murder into an accident? So could you imagine when that came out in front of the jury what that did to his credibility. 00:20:25 Speaker 6: It was a disaster. 00:20:27 Speaker 1: Rosa sat through a week long trial believing that even though she was confused by the proceedings and what people were saying, everything was going to be okay. 00:20:36 Speaker 9: I believe in the United States system. I believe the yeah, we're not corrupted. I believe the yeah, we're going to search the truth and the truth we're going to set me free. 00:20:48 Speaker 1: But on August thirty first, two thousand and five, Rosa was convicted of injury to a child and felony murder. She was sentenced to ninety nine years in prison. 00:20:58 Speaker 2: I remember during her try you were getting all this information through a translator. 00:21:02 Speaker 9: Yes, correct. 00:21:04 Speaker 2: What was that like when you found out you're convicted. Did you understand at that moment what was happening? 00:21:12 Speaker 9: No? Two. I mean she's saying that they convict me to ninety nine years in prison, But it was like, no, it cannot. 00:21:22 Speaker 10: Be leftanarass busy are. 00:21:33 Speaker 1: Estella was there watching her daughter get tried and sentenced, and she didn't understand what was happening either. She says she asked Ross's lawyer to please translate to tell her what was going on. 00:21:46 Speaker 3: It is. 00:21:54 Speaker 1: That was the last time she saw her daughter in person, and Estella says, there are simply no words to describe vibe that kind of pain. At twenty two years old, everything Rosa had ever dreamed of was gone. 00:22:16 Speaker 12: You know, here's so many people these days talk about like, oh, their career, what they want to be, and she wanted to be a mother. 00:22:21 Speaker 6: That was her thing that she wanted very much. 00:22:25 Speaker 1: But now her kids were being taken from her. Fidel was young and had no means of caring for them. In fact, he disappeared from Rosa's life shortly after her conviction. So Rosa's children were put in foster care while her mom fought for custody from Mexico. Brenda and Aidan were placed with a family who will call the Smiths. At first, Rosa says, the Smiths would bring her kids to see her in prison. 00:22:50 Speaker 9: But then they started asking me for an adoption, to sign papers, and I tell them no. So then that we sit, says Stars getting you know, far away and far away. 00:23:03 Speaker 1: Rosa felt like she was being manipulated, like. 00:23:07 Speaker 9: If you give them to adoption to us, then you're going to be able to see them more often. But if you don't, then you're not going to be able to see them. And then part of me was really sad, and part of me was like, I'm not going to give my kids to adoption. They're my kids, So she didn't. 00:23:28 Speaker 7: Did you think you were ever going to get out to be able to be a mom to them? Was that part of your decision making? 00:23:36 Speaker 9: Honestly? I mean when you in prison, Maggie, like you believe in God, you have this strong faith, and you believe because you don't have nothing else. They strip you from your kids, your family, everything that you dream of. You don't have no more. So the only thing that you have got, that's it. So you hold into with you old God, with everything you had in you because you don't have nothing else. So part of me believed that I was going to go home, but the realistic part of me was telling me, you're not one. You don't have no money, you don't have no support, you don't have no family here, so how are you gonna get out? You're not. 00:24:30 Speaker 1: Brenda and Aden were raised by the Smiths, and as the years passed, Rosa got to see them less and less. She tried to be a mom from prison, but it was fruitless. They became strangers both. Estella says she tried to get a visa twice to come here and visit Rosa, but both times it was denied. 00:24:57 Speaker 10: Let's pre very soon, but for this week it's. 00:25:05 Speaker 1: Only official told her it was because Rosa was in trouble with the state. 00:25:10 Speaker 5: Almost Rosa was only allowed a handful of very short international calls. 00:25:24 Speaker 1: So for eighteen years they stayed in touch through letters. 00:25:33 Speaker 9: Yes, through letters, but it's like so hard, like as in a letter and she will get that letter like in fifteen days, twenty days so and then for her to write me. Sometimes the letter get lost, so it was not a good communication. 00:25:53 Speaker 1: In one of those letters, Rosa had to tell her mom she had kidney failure and the outlook was not good. When I spoke to Rosa, she was waiting to start dialysis. 00:26:03 Speaker 3: The only thing they could me is. 00:26:07 Speaker 7: And then a one minute left. 00:26:09 Speaker 3: Eventually when my kidneys dropped MM, they had to tick another unit when they do dialysis, and then after that that will be it. He said a person can only live with dialysis of seen years. 00:26:26 Speaker 1: The clock was ticking for Rosa, but fortunately the story of a young Mexican immigrant wronged by the American legal system was making headlines. 00:26:38 Speaker 12: Rosa had the support of the Mexican government. She had been working with the consulate since. 00:26:44 Speaker 1: Trial Vanessa Potkin. 00:26:46 Speaker 6: Again, they had. 00:26:46 Speaker 12: Stood by her for close to two decades, trying to get counsel, hiring lawyers, and were very supportive throughout the entire process. 00:26:57 Speaker 1: An attorney named Bryce Bingett was hired by the Mexican Consulate to work on Rosa's case. In twenty eighteen, he took a job with the Innocence Project and brought her case with him. 00:27:07 Speaker 12: At that point, there had been already some medical evidence developed to suggest that Rosa had been convicted of something that was an accidental choking. 00:27:20 Speaker 1: Over the years, her case has been looked at by multiple judges. 00:27:24 Speaker 12: Five judges at different points that had reviewed Rosa's case and said she's likely in acent. 00:27:30 Speaker 6: This is a miscarriage of justice. 00:27:32 Speaker 1: One of those judges, Charlie Baird, wrote that Rosa's trial was quote fatally affected by constitutional error. I remember that expert Rosa's defense attorney used. Judge Baird said that in his decades long career, his court had quote never seen such unprofessional and biased conduct from any witness, much less from a purported expert. Still, Rosa remained in prison. In Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals has final say on innocence claims, and it refused to give Rosa a new trial. It was relentless. Then finally, in twenty twenty, she was granted relief. 00:28:13 Speaker 12: So she had a federal court review her case and say her trial lawyer was deficient. The trial council never consulted with any expert that could have meaningfully told the jury what could have happened in this case. 00:28:30 Speaker 1: None of the witnesses called were experts in pediatric airways. 00:28:34 Speaker 12: It would be like having a problem with your heart and going to a foot doctor. Both doctors, but you can't get your opinion from the foot doctor. 00:28:45 Speaker 1: So Rosa was granted a new trial, but again someone got in the way. The Texas Attorney General's office appealed the decision, a process that could have taken years. Years Rosa likely didn't have as a person with kidney failed. You're in a pandemic, so how did. 00:29:04 Speaker 6: You get her out. 00:29:06 Speaker 12: We saw an opportunity at that point to say, okay, let's figure out who are the top pediatric NT doctors in the country, perhaps the world, and let's submit Rosa's case to them. Let's say, here's this incident, this is what happened with the child. Is this intentional? Could this be an accident? What happened here? And all of these doctors had the same reaction. They were like, wait, this woman's in prison, she was convicted. They couldn't believe it. This was an accident, and the idea that this could have happened intentionally. 00:29:48 Speaker 6: Is so far fetched. 00:29:50 Speaker 9: They said. 00:29:51 Speaker 1: The gag reflex would actually have pulled the wad further into Brian's throat instead of expelling it, like experts testified to at. 00:29:59 Speaker 12: Trial, completely turned on its head the evidence that had been used at her trial and exposed that that evidence had been false. 00:30:09 Speaker 1: Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court recommended that Rosa's conviction be vacated, and on January twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, she was released on bond, but her troubles were far from over. Rosa had been released from prison, but she wasn't free. 00:30:29 Speaker 12: The issue was that because of her immigration status while she was in prison, a deportation order had been lodged against her. And so if somebody has any type of hold by ICE, when their conviction is vacated, ICE is notified and ICE has two days forty eight hours to come pick up that person and take them into ICE attention. 00:30:54 Speaker 9: And in my mind, I was like, they leave me in Mexico, like great coming back, But part of me was scared because I don't know Mexico anymore. You know, I left when I was seventeen, now almost forty. And if they leave me at the border with no money, nothing, how I'm gonna call my mom. How I'm gonna get all the way to Mexico. 00:31:21 Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Vanessa was in New York frantic. 00:31:24 Speaker 12: We had an immigration lawyer trying to see if they could get in touch with ICE. We're calling, We're like, is there any update on Rosa's situation. 00:31:34 Speaker 1: She learned that Immigration was coming to pick up Rosa in Texas that day. 00:31:38 Speaker 12: So I decided, I was in New York, I'm gonna get on a plane and fly to Texas. 00:31:44 Speaker 1: Vanessa was getting rapid updates. 00:31:47 Speaker 12: And then the next email we get is they've decided to expedite deportation. 00:31:55 Speaker 1: Then she got an email that Rosa had been picked up. 00:31:59 Speaker 12: So by the time I land in Texas, Rosa was in a vehicle and we're just told that she's going to be deported. It really did feel like being run over by a mac truck. And we are like, how are we going to push this truck off of us and get from underneath this? If she gets deported, she's never coming back, that's just like the end of it. She wants to. 00:32:20 Speaker 6: See her children. Her children are waiting for her to come out. 00:32:24 Speaker 12: We are just like in our minds having this vision that she is in a car and like being driven to go across the border. 00:32:34 Speaker 1: As we're speaking, Rosa was in a van with two ICE agents. 00:32:39 Speaker 9: I see them talking among themselves, and they keep looking back at me, talking among themselves and looking at me. Why can't I hear anything? They sing? And they started getting phone calls and phone calls and phone calls. And in my soul, my car, you something happened, like not bad, but something happened. 00:33:06 Speaker 1: Vanessa was getting out from under the map truck. 00:33:09 Speaker 12: And I think it was ultimately the intervention of the Mexican government reaching out because next thing you know, we were informed, oh. 00:33:19 Speaker 6: You can go get Rosa in San Antonio. 00:33:23 Speaker 1: Instead of going to the border. Rosa was taken to a detention center in San Antonio. Her deportation was intercepted. The agent told her to call someone to pick her up, so she called Vanessa for advice, thinking Vanessa was still in New York. Then Rosa sees someone walking towards her. 00:33:40 Speaker 9: She had a mask on her and I wonder, who's that lady? And then she come in and hugged me, and I'm still like, like, what is this lady hug and then she's like you okay. 00:33:57 Speaker 1: Rosa was more than okay, kah. 00:34:00 Speaker 5: She was freewill overwhilm. 00:34:06 Speaker 1: Estella remembers seeing a press conference of her daughter online. 00:34:10 Speaker 9: I'm just so overwhelmed right now, and I don't think I can really talk. But I just want to say thank you to all the people that stood behind me all these. 00:34:18 Speaker 10: Years, moral she says. 00:34:26 Speaker 1: Rosa was standing there in front of the microphones, carrying a bag over her shoulder, and she says it broke her. 00:34:39 Speaker 9: And Luci. 00:34:47 Speaker 5: She was happy and sad all at once, to say you're am. 00:34:55 Speaker 1: She cried seeing her daughter finally free. 00:35:02 Speaker 10: Lucian even moral, but she. 00:35:07 Speaker 1: Was carrying all the hopes and illusions of nearly two decades in a little bag over her shoulder. Rosa remembers the first time she was able to speak to her mom on the phone. 00:35:26 Speaker 9: It was nice to hear her voice. I remember I was crying and she was like, don't cry anymore. That is sober. That journey is over. 00:35:40 Speaker 1: And a new one was starting. A week later, Rosa was at Brenda's wedding, trying to catch up on the eighteen years she's lost from her kids' lives. 00:35:51 Speaker 9: When you come home, you want everything that they took from you back you wanted at the same ex sect mean you ow, you want to back, You want the love, you want your kids. You want everything. When I say everything is everything that they took from you, you want to back. But the sad thing is that you cannot get those things met. And you head your kids are still small. Everything is like in like everything stopped and now you ow and you realize that nothing has stopped you. Life is stopped, but no one's life has stopped. 00:36:36 Speaker 1: Brenda Roses little girl was an adult now in her twenties. Vanessa was at the wedding as well, and she says the day was complicated. 00:36:48 Speaker 12: Because you had, you know, her daughter was getting married. It's like this most important moment. And there were some beautiful parts where Roses going to the hotel room before and she's putting out her dress and getting her may get ready. But then at the ceremony itself, you saw that the mother who had really raised Rosa's daughter was occupying that space of the mother of the bride, and Rosa was there as not a spectator, but just like in such a weird position, And how bittersweet that would be to be able to be at that moment and see your daughter and see this monumental moment happening in her life, but also feel so disconnected from the experience and all that had transpired since she was two years old, which was when Rosa went away. 00:37:43 Speaker 1: Life had moved on without her. 00:37:57 Speaker 13: As prosecutors, we have an obligation to ensure the integrity of convictions and to seek justice. 00:38:04 Speaker 1: On August seventh, twenty twenty three, Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza dismissed Rose's murder charges and she was officially exonerated. 00:38:14 Speaker 13: Dismissing Missimenez's case is the right thing to do. Our hearts also continued to break for the Gutierrez family. In this case, our criminal justice system failed them. It also failed ross Achimenez. Our hope is that by our actions today, by exposing the truth that Missimenez did not commit the crime for which she was accused, that we can bring some sense of closure and peace to both families. 00:38:53 Speaker 1: That same day, Rosa also became a grandmother. 00:38:57 Speaker 2: You didn't get to really raise Brenda, but you got to meet her daughter. 00:39:01 Speaker 7: And what was that like? 00:39:05 Speaker 4: Oh? 00:39:06 Speaker 9: That was at that moment I thought, oh my god, everything that I lost or they took or they robbed me, I can live again with my grand baby. I can experience all those things and teach her how to walk and you know, be there for her, give her everything that I have. But they didn't have to like that. 00:39:35 Speaker 1: Things didn't work out as planned, and Rosa doesn't have a relationship with either of her kids right now. Both Aiden and Brenda have lived with her since her release. They tried to build a bond, but it never worked out. 00:39:47 Speaker 9: So my kids, they're already grown, they don't know me. 00:39:52 Speaker 1: I don't know them, and Rosa didn't know herself. 00:39:57 Speaker 9: I was trying to figure out myself. I didn't know who I was when I came out from person. I didn't know who I was, what I want, what I like? I didn't know. 00:40:07 Speaker 7: Is there a piece you can make with losing your kids. 00:40:12 Speaker 9: No, No, it's like I can. I don't know if I can relate to actually a mother that has lost their kids. But it's really hard to know that you have kids and you can see them or they cannot call you whatever. You know, it's really hard. It's sad. It's really sad. Like I'm in this house and I wish, you know, like my kids can come and visit and stay, and they don't. 00:40:48 Speaker 1: On September of this year, Rosa flud in New York to get a kidney transplant. 00:40:54 Speaker 12: You know, some people go many years without being able to find donor. 00:41:01 Speaker 7: This seems pretty fast that she got a donor. 00:41:04 Speaker 6: It was I think that happened. I guess she touched somebody out in the world. 00:41:16 Speaker 12: Hopefully this new kidney supports her in a very long, healthy life. And you know, she's never going to be a whole in the sense that she's never going to be able to get that time back or the relationship back with her children. And I think coming to terms with that has been hard for her because you spend so much time fighting to try to get to something that you're never going to fully be able to get back to. 00:41:45 Speaker 1: But Rosa is busy building a new life. She lives outside of San Antonio in a brand new house overlooking the vast Texas Plains with her chihuahuas, Tequila and to see, like plus a few more. 00:42:05 Speaker 7: There's two more dogs that live here. 00:42:07 Speaker 9: We have five. You have five dogs. 00:42:11 Speaker 2: So you might not have your human children as close anymore, but you have your dog children now right, Oh. 00:42:17 Speaker 9: Yeah, I love them. 00:42:20 Speaker 1: And she has her wife, Mary Jane. 00:42:22 Speaker 9: She's the only person that has been there for me and it has the patient to teach me. And I know she gets frustrated, but she's there for me. She knows the damage that presented to me, like I have a lot of damage, you know, And she has to put up with all them, you know, and like teach me a little by little, Hey, the world is. 00:42:48 Speaker 1: Okay, and that Mary Jane's urging. Rosa is still trying to stay in touch with her kids. 00:42:55 Speaker 9: She's like, so just text them, let them know you love them, let them know that you think about them. And if they don't respond, that's their choice. But you're doing what a mother needs to do. 00:43:08 Speaker 1: And she keeps looking towards the future. Once she's healed and her immigration status has worked out, she says she wants to travel first to Mexico to visit her mom, who she hasn't seen since her trial in two thousand and five, then somewhere for her and Mary Jane. 00:43:24 Speaker 9: My word was suggesting a what are those things called where you go in a boat, A cruise, A cruse? 00:43:35 Speaker 7: Yeah, oh, I could see you on a cruise. I think you'd like that. 00:43:39 Speaker 9: And then I was like, do they allow dogs? And just like no, and I'm like, oh, what are we going to do with the girls? 00:43:48 Speaker 1: Life doesn't have perfect endings, but Rosa is grateful. 00:43:52 Speaker 9: Nonetheless, angels were behind me the whole time. 00:44:02 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help, and to learn more about the practice of shackling women who are giving birth, check out an article I wrote for Rolling Stone. Wel link to it as well. This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research by Alison Levy and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn. Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Bordis. The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number one. The Ma