Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #565 Maggie Freleng with Jane Dorotik

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#565 Maggie Freleng with Jane Dorotik · Wrongful Conviction

0:05
Speaker 1: Jane and Bob Dortik raised three kids and eventually settled
0:09
Speaker 1: outside San Diego. But old issues often resurface when the
0:14
Speaker 1: kids leave the nest.
0:16
Speaker 2: You know, the kids were seemingly gone quickly, almost all
0:19
Speaker 2: at once, and it was just Bob and I. It
0:22
Speaker 2: was just difficult, and we did talk about divorcing. In fact,
0:28
Speaker 2: we actually filed and then decided, after living apart for
0:33
Speaker 2: a short period of time, that we wanted to go
0:35
Speaker 2: to therapy and we wanted to work this out. We
0:38
Speaker 2: were together for thirty years. We truly loved each other
0:41
Speaker 2: and wanted to kind of honor this new phase in
0:44
Speaker 2: our lives.
0:46
Speaker 1: They managed to bounce back and reinvent themselves. Bob even
0:49
Speaker 1: took up running in marathons, occasionally inviting his daughter Claire along.
0:55
Speaker 3: To me, that was like, what incredible modeling for a parent.
0:59
Speaker 3: You know, like this is a hill, like any hill
1:01
Speaker 3: you might face in life, and you can make it
1:04
Speaker 3: to the top.
1:05
Speaker 1: Both Jane and Bob continued to model that can do
1:09
Speaker 1: spirit Through Valentine's Weekend two thousand.
1:12
Speaker 2: We had a stay at home, give each other gifts,
1:16
Speaker 2: make a little cake and a fancy meal Saturday night.
1:20
Speaker 2: The next day Bob went out for a run and
1:24
Speaker 2: never return. And I'm the one that invited the detectives
1:28
Speaker 2: into the house. So we don't need a search warrant.
1:30
Speaker 2: We're welcome in here and look at everything. Help us
1:33
Speaker 2: find these answers.
1:35
Speaker 1: And it appears that a witness came forward with a
1:37
Speaker 1: lead that pointed at two unknown men. But it seems
1:41
Speaker 1: the police went in a different direction.
1:45
Speaker 3: They always look at the family first. Why are we
1:49
Speaker 3: going to work hard? We can find it all right here.
1:51
Speaker 3: There's DNA, there's hair, there's footprints. In fact, we can
1:55
Speaker 3: construct a whole crime scene. And we can tell you
1:59
Speaker 3: in the the courtroom that those curtains were totally full
2:04
Speaker 3: of blood. Guess what, there were no curtains in the bedroom.
2:08
Speaker 2: My name is Jane dorotic I am seventy nine years old.
2:14
Speaker 2: Now I spent twenty years in prison for a crime
2:17
Speaker 2: I didn't commit.
2:19
Speaker 1: From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
2:22
Speaker 1: Freeling today. Jane doritic.
2:34
Speaker 2: I was born in Canada. My parents were both Canadian.
2:39
Speaker 2: We moved to California when I was four, Then we
2:42
Speaker 2: moved to England for a couple of years, and then
2:44
Speaker 2: we moved back to California. I have four siblings, all alive,
2:48
Speaker 2: and both my parents are dead.
2:49
Speaker 4: What did your parents do that They wound up in
2:51
Speaker 4: England and then just did so much traveling.
2:54
Speaker 2: My mom was a stay at home mother and wife.
2:58
Speaker 2: My dad was a contractor consultant for some major companies.
3:02
Speaker 2: I can't even tell you what sort of contracting he did,
3:06
Speaker 2: but it was supposed to be a one year term
3:08
Speaker 2: in England and it lasted for three years. And as
3:12
Speaker 2: a young girl, that's where my love of horses began.
3:15
Speaker 2: In England.
3:16
Speaker 5: Why horses, I.
3:18
Speaker 2: Just was very attracted to them and took riding lessons,
3:22
Speaker 2: learned a little bit about jumping and that sort of thing,
3:25
Speaker 2: and it just was something that I dearly loved.
3:29
Speaker 5: Would you call yourself a horse girl?
3:32
Speaker 2: Kind of? I suppose.
3:34
Speaker 1: After returning to California and finishing her schooling, Jane worked
3:38
Speaker 1: as a registered nurse at UCLA Medical Center, which is
3:41
Speaker 1: when she met her husband, Bob.
3:44
Speaker 2: At the time, I was working as an RN at UCLA,
3:47
Speaker 2: he was working as an engineer at Lockheed and I
3:51
Speaker 2: was living on the beach and he happened to rent
3:53
Speaker 2: an apartment right above mine, So that's how we met.
3:58
Speaker 2: He was a very kind, loving person, and he had aspirations.
4:03
Speaker 2: You know, he was very interested in the environment and
4:07
Speaker 2: what's happening and how can we make it better?
4:10
Speaker 5: Were you guys kind of like hippies.
4:11
Speaker 2: A little bit?
4:13
Speaker 5: A little bit?
4:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:15
Speaker 1: They eventually settled on a horse farm in Tucson, Arizona,
4:18
Speaker 1: where they had three children, two boys, Alex and Nick,
4:22
Speaker 1: and in the middle was Claire.
4:24
Speaker 3: My siblings are Alex and was Nick. Nick is no
4:28
Speaker 3: longer with us. Alex is let's see, eleven months older
4:33
Speaker 3: than I am, and Nick is eight or Nick was
4:36
Speaker 3: nineteen months eighteen months younger. I was blessed with two
4:41
Speaker 3: wonderful parents. They were wonderful role models. My dad was
4:44
Speaker 3: the one who was like, if you want something, go
4:47
Speaker 3: after it, go get it. I'll support you. My mom
4:50
Speaker 3: was always really supportive of my riding and wanted to
4:54
Speaker 3: help me go in whatever direction I wanted to go
4:56
Speaker 3: with the horses.
4:57
Speaker 2: I think it's particularly helpful for little girl girls to
5:01
Speaker 2: get experience around horses. In this society, especially seventy years ago,
5:08
Speaker 2: women were pretty much dismissed, and I think for a
5:10
Speaker 2: young girl to realize you have the power, you have
5:14
Speaker 2: the ability to control such a large animal, and the
5:17
Speaker 2: key to controlling them is not through brute force or
5:20
Speaker 2: anything like that. It's through gaining trust and developing a relationship.
5:24
Speaker 2: And I think that's something that's very important to learn,
5:27
Speaker 2: and Claire totally took to it. I remember at one
5:31
Speaker 2: point I had bought her a pony and I saw
5:35
Speaker 2: Claire come galloping up the driveway bareback on her pony,
5:40
Speaker 2: but she was standing on the pony's back. Oh my gosh,
5:43
Speaker 2: that's what I said, Oh my gosh, I think we
5:45
Speaker 2: should invest in some serious lessons for this little guy.
5:49
Speaker 2: She's obviously talented and has no fears.
5:52
Speaker 5: Wow.
5:53
Speaker 3: People say sometimes they get afraid on horses, and I
5:55
Speaker 3: don't remember ever being afraid of you should have been.
5:58
Speaker 3: And then as I got better, I have many experiences
6:01
Speaker 3: of being at a horse show and somebody would come
6:04
Speaker 3: up to me, and the judge or something'd be like, Okay,
6:06
Speaker 3: you need to go ride with this person. You have
6:08
Speaker 3: some talent. And so then I started writing for other
6:10
Speaker 3: people and it just blossomed into this thing that I
6:13
Speaker 3: was doing. And then my mom and I realized we
6:15
Speaker 3: could take some money buying horses off the racetrack and
6:18
Speaker 3: then selling them as jumpers, and that's actually how I
6:20
Speaker 3: paid for college.
6:22
Speaker 1: While raising and selling horses worked out well. Jane had
6:25
Speaker 1: also gone back to work as a registered nurse in
6:28
Speaker 1: the mental health space, and eventually all of the kids
6:31
Speaker 1: went off to college, which was a major change for
6:34
Speaker 1: her and Bob.
6:35
Speaker 2: We had some difficulties, yes, and I think in retrospect,
6:40
Speaker 2: part of it was being an empty nester, and at
6:43
Speaker 2: some point my mother was not doing well and came
6:47
Speaker 2: to live with us, and Bob was very invested in
6:50
Speaker 2: having that happen, but it didn't work out as well,
6:55
Speaker 2: and that was a bit of a stressor, I think,
6:58
Speaker 2: and also at the time I was travel a lot
7:00
Speaker 2: with my work. It was just difficult, and we did
7:05
Speaker 2: talk about divorcing. In fact, we actually filed and then decided,
7:11
Speaker 2: after living apart for a short period of time, decided
7:15
Speaker 2: that we wanted to go to therapy and we wanted
7:17
Speaker 2: to work this out.
7:18
Speaker 3: I had been living with my mom during a time
7:21
Speaker 3: when they had separated. She had originally moved down to
7:23
Speaker 3: San Diego, and then they got some therapy and we're
7:27
Speaker 3: doing great.
7:28
Speaker 1: Tell me about their relationship because that played a big
7:31
Speaker 1: part in the prosecution trying to convict your mom.
7:35
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they fought all the time, and yeah, oh yeah,
7:38
Speaker 3: my mom really wanted to kill my dad. I got
7:39
Speaker 3: a bunch of bullshit. I'm a marriage therapist, for God's sake.
7:43
Speaker 3: Everybody fights if they don't fight. Actually, as a therapist,
7:46
Speaker 3: you get a little worried because something's going on here.
7:48
Speaker 2: We saw a good therapist. We decided we really wanted
7:52
Speaker 2: to be together and wanted to kind of honor this
7:55
Speaker 2: new phase in our lives and be more accepting of
7:58
Speaker 2: this is our new phase, and there are many opportunities
8:02
Speaker 2: with it.
8:02
Speaker 5: When he died, what were you in a good place
8:04
Speaker 5: in your relationship?
8:05
Speaker 2: We were in a very good place in our relationship.
8:08
Speaker 2: Number One, we had more discretionary money than we'd ever
8:12
Speaker 2: had in our lives. The kids were on their own,
8:14
Speaker 2: they were doing well. I was still very invested in horses.
8:19
Speaker 2: When we moved down to San Diego. He had started
8:22
Speaker 2: his own business building horse jumps made out of PVC.
8:27
Speaker 2: Horse jumps are always heavy to move around, and most
8:30
Speaker 2: horse people are always moving them around to change the course.
8:33
Speaker 2: PVC they're much lighter. They didn't need repainting, they didn't
8:37
Speaker 2: deteriorate so this was an innovative thing. We were very
8:42
Speaker 2: happy in our life. At that point. Bob was running
8:46
Speaker 2: a lot. He had made a decision that he wanted
8:48
Speaker 2: to run a marathon, so he was preparing for it.
8:52
Speaker 3: Yeah. Actually, my dad had always talked about running a
8:55
Speaker 3: marathon at some point, and in high school I ranchack
8:58
Speaker 3: and field, and then a couple of years later I
9:01
Speaker 3: got into longer distance running, and my dad and a
9:04
Speaker 3: friend of mine and Alex and his girlfriend at the time,
9:07
Speaker 3: we all ran a half marathon together. And then I
9:10
Speaker 3: picked up a brochure for a marathon in two weeks,
9:13
Speaker 3: and I said to my dad, let's go do this,
9:16
Speaker 3: and like, you're probably supposed to train a little bit
9:18
Speaker 3: more than two weeks for a marathon, but we were
9:21
Speaker 3: like had momentum, so I was like, Okay, we better
9:23
Speaker 3: go do it. And we ran that marathon together, and
9:26
Speaker 3: that was his first and his only marathon, and I
9:29
Speaker 3: remember him being so excited and my mom telling me
9:31
Speaker 3: that after he came home, he must have called like
9:34
Speaker 3: everybody in the universe to tell him that he had
9:36
Speaker 3: just run this parathon. Had he lived longer, I'm sure
9:41
Speaker 3: we would have run more marathons together.
9:44
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the weekend of Bob's death. February
9:48
Speaker 1: twelfth and thirteenth. The couple, now in the early fifties,
9:51
Speaker 1: had enjoyed a nice Valentine's Day meal at the home
9:54
Speaker 1: they rented, about an hour's drive northeast of San Diego
9:57
Speaker 1: in the rural area around Lake Wolfe, California. But the
10:01
Speaker 1: following evening, around seven forty five pm, Jane called the police,
10:05
Speaker 1: saying that Bob had gone for a run. Around one
10:08
Speaker 1: pm that day, well, she attended to the horses in
10:11
Speaker 1: their barn, but when she finished up around four pm,
10:14
Speaker 1: Bob still had not returned.
10:17
Speaker 2: Before I called them, I had jumped in the truck
10:21
Speaker 2: and gone looking because I thought, I know he had
10:25
Speaker 2: a habit sometimes of running down the major hill, turn around,
10:28
Speaker 2: and run right back up. It was a narrow road
10:31
Speaker 2: with a steep fall off on one side, and sometimes
10:34
Speaker 2: people drove crazy. So one of the things that was
10:37
Speaker 2: in my mind is maybe he halfway leaped off the
10:40
Speaker 2: road to avoid a crazy vehicle and fell and sprained
10:44
Speaker 2: his ankle or something like that or worse. So as
10:48
Speaker 2: the night went on and darkness came and he still
10:51
Speaker 2: wasn't back, those feelings that I had just continued to grow,
10:56
Speaker 2: thinking something is really wrong here, and I called the
11:00
Speaker 2: Sheriff's department, got directed to Search and rescue, had them
11:04
Speaker 2: come out.
11:06
Speaker 1: Jane welcomed the team into her home without a warrant,
11:09
Speaker 1: and they took some of Bob's personal items for the
11:12
Speaker 1: search dogs to get his scent.
11:15
Speaker 2: First, they found his jogging suit jacket along the roadside
11:20
Speaker 2: and they brought it to me probably around two o'clock
11:22
Speaker 2: in the morning. From then I just felt heartsick. And
11:26
Speaker 2: then when they came and told me at four forty
11:30
Speaker 2: five in the morning that they'd found his body, there
11:34
Speaker 2: just was this sense of disbelief.
11:52
Speaker 1: Bob's body was found about a half mile into the
11:55
Speaker 1: wooded area off one of his usual training trails, north
11:59
Speaker 1: Lake Wolford Rode. His skull had been fractured in several places,
12:04
Speaker 1: and what was determined to be black paint had been
12:07
Speaker 1: deposited on his skull. He also had been strangled. The
12:11
Speaker 1: rope was still wrapped around his neck. There were also
12:14
Speaker 1: some tire tracks near his body, and while investigators collected
12:18
Speaker 1: evidence at the scene, a witness named Lisa Marie Singh
12:22
Speaker 1: drove up and spoke with officers and news reporters. She
12:25
Speaker 1: was shown a picture of Bob and swore that she
12:28
Speaker 1: saw him in a pickup truck near that spot with
12:31
Speaker 1: two other men the previous afternoon. Meanwhile, investigators sought out
12:35
Speaker 1: leads in the Dora Tick home.
12:38
Speaker 3: Those investigators were in the house for three days and
12:42
Speaker 3: Alex and Nick and I were all like, what, go
12:45
Speaker 3: try to find what happened, Go figure out what like
12:48
Speaker 3: who killed dad? Why are you still in the house,
12:50
Speaker 3: And we were feeling funny about it. And then there
12:52
Speaker 3: was a family, the Crow family, that came to visit
12:55
Speaker 3: us that we didn't even know. We just they contacted
12:58
Speaker 3: my mom and they're like, we got to come meet
12:59
Speaker 3: with They sat us all down in the living room
13:02
Speaker 3: and they said, you guys are in trouble. You get
13:04
Speaker 3: to watch your back. And we're like, what what are
13:07
Speaker 3: you talking about? And they're like, they're probably searching you out, essentially,
13:12
Speaker 3: and the Crow family, their daughter had been murdered. And
13:17
Speaker 3: then those investigators took their then thirteen year old son
13:21
Speaker 3: and interrogated him for thirty six hours until he confessed.
13:25
Speaker 3: And they're like they always look at the family first,
13:30
Speaker 3: watch out. And as I say that to you. Now,
13:33
Speaker 3: if I said that to you after one of your
13:35
Speaker 3: loved ones had been killed, you probably would have been like,
13:37
Speaker 3: you're crazy, They're going to help me. No, they're not
13:40
Speaker 3: going to help you. Are you kidding me? But we
13:42
Speaker 3: were too stupid to note.
13:44
Speaker 1: On February sixteenth, criminalist Caroline Gannett said that she felt
13:48
Speaker 1: a wet spot in the carpet in the master bedroom,
13:50
Speaker 1: as well as seeing a red stain, so they got
13:53
Speaker 1: a search warrant. Then Charles Merritt, an expert in blood
13:57
Speaker 1: stain pattern analysis, a now well known junk science, sprayed
14:01
Speaker 1: the bedroom with fluoresceine, a chemical that reacts under blue
14:04
Speaker 1: light with various substances including bleach, cleaning products, oxidizers, iron, copper, rust, soil, urine,
14:12
Speaker 1: and other biological materials like semen and blood. In the home,
14:17
Speaker 1: stains fluoresced on the ceiling, a lampshade, a nightstand, the headboard,
14:21
Speaker 1: a pillow shamp, the comforter, the underside of the mattress
14:24
Speaker 1: under a wet area on the carpet, on the ceiling
14:26
Speaker 1: of a storage room under the master bed, as well
14:29
Speaker 1: as a wall at the bottom of the stairs, and
14:32
Speaker 1: they swabbed what they could to confirm whether or not
14:34
Speaker 1: the stains were made in blood. They also found a
14:37
Speaker 1: syringe in a waste basket that later tested positive for
14:41
Speaker 1: animal tranquilizer. The syringe also had a stain, along with
14:45
Speaker 1: Jane's fingerprint, all of which Jane tried to explain. Both
14:49
Speaker 1: family dogs had recently been treated by a vet, one
14:52
Speaker 1: for an abscess and the other a torn dew claw,
14:55
Speaker 1: and then Bob had a nosebleed.
14:58
Speaker 2: Initially, they said would I take a light at test
15:01
Speaker 2: when we were still in the house, and I said yes,
15:03
Speaker 2: of course, And when I got in the detective's car,
15:06
Speaker 2: they had someone pat me down, and I remember sitting
15:09
Speaker 2: in the car saying to the detective, do I need
15:13
Speaker 2: an attorney here? And the detective, of course said I
15:16
Speaker 2: can't advise you on that, and I immediately said I
15:21
Speaker 2: need an attorney. After they arrested me, I switched from
15:26
Speaker 2: processing Bob's death to survival mode for myself.
15:32
Speaker 1: Their theory was that Bob had not gone jogging at all,
15:35
Speaker 1: and that as early as Saturday night, Jane had bludgeoned
15:38
Speaker 1: Bob with a fire poker. We supposed to account for
15:41
Speaker 1: the black paint, and then they believed she strangled him,
15:44
Speaker 1: after which she dressed him in his running gear, dragged
15:47
Speaker 1: him out to the Ford F two fifty pick a truck,
15:49
Speaker 1: and drove a half a mile into the woods off
15:53
Speaker 1: North Lake Wolford Road to where his body was discovered.
15:57
Speaker 3: First of all, physically, my mom has a broken hid.
16:00
Speaker 3: She was probably like, I don't know, fifty sixty pounds overweight,
16:03
Speaker 3: not active at all. I don't know what my dad weigh.
16:07
Speaker 3: Let's say he weigh one hundred and seventy pounds. No
16:08
Speaker 3: way she can be able to drag him down a
16:11
Speaker 3: set of stairs and into the back of a truck.
16:13
Speaker 3: I mean, that's just not happening. Also, my mom has
16:17
Speaker 3: never demonstrated any anger or any desire whatsoever to hurt
16:22
Speaker 3: humans or animals. It's not in her nature. But Alex
16:27
Speaker 3: nick Dan thought it was in massive denial with my mom.
16:31
Speaker 1: In a case with only circumstantial evidence, the preponderance of
16:35
Speaker 1: items without explanation can appear to paint a picture of guilt,
16:39
Speaker 1: like the tire tracks near the body being consistent with
16:42
Speaker 1: a Ford F two fifty, the syringe in the wastebasket
16:45
Speaker 1: with a potential blood stain, and Jane's fingerprint and all
16:49
Speaker 1: of these stains in the bedroom that might have been
16:51
Speaker 1: Bob's blood. However, the state was not able to match
16:55
Speaker 1: the tire tracks to the specific characteristics of Jane's tires.
16:59
Speaker 1: There were no traces of animal tranquilizer in Bob's body.
17:02
Speaker 1: And then the biological testing wasn't going as the investigators
17:06
Speaker 1: thought it would.
17:07
Speaker 2: They told my sons that the bedroom was a crime scene,
17:11
Speaker 2: that the fire poker was the murder weapon. Even though
17:14
Speaker 2: the fire poker they sent out for testing three different
17:17
Speaker 2: times to try and find some blood or DNA or
17:19
Speaker 2: something on it, never found it, and they had opportunity
17:23
Speaker 2: to correct that assumption. And then in my trial they
17:27
Speaker 2: said it was a hammer, but they never found a hammer.
17:30
Speaker 1: Additionally, the prosecution had represented to Alex and Nick and
17:34
Speaker 1: later the jury that all of the stains had been
17:37
Speaker 1: tested for DNA and all of it was Bob's blood,
17:40
Speaker 1: but that wasn't true and it wasn't discovered for years. Sadly,
17:46
Speaker 1: their trust in law enforcement broke their faith in their
17:49
Speaker 1: own mother. So Claire was the only one visiting Jane
17:52
Speaker 1: in pre trial detention where they'd discuss the strategy of
17:56
Speaker 1: defense counsel.
17:57
Speaker 2: Claire came regularly to visit and she said, a, Mom,
18:00
Speaker 2: they want you to go along with this plan. They're
18:03
Speaker 2: going to come and tell you about it, and please.
18:06
Speaker 2: They say, if you go along with this plan, you
18:09
Speaker 2: will not be convicted. I remember at the time having
18:12
Speaker 2: a bit of a funny feeling about it, but I
18:14
Speaker 2: was horrified to learn how they had presented the plan
18:18
Speaker 2: to her. In other words, how much do you love
18:21
Speaker 2: your mom?
18:22
Speaker 1: The plan was to point to Claire and their farm
18:24
Speaker 1: hand Lionel Morales, as a team of alternate suspects. Lionel
18:28
Speaker 1: Chevy S ten pickup was already being compared to the
18:31
Speaker 1: tire marks at the dump site, and at a pre
18:33
Speaker 1: trial hearing, both asserted their Fifth Amendment right to silence,
18:37
Speaker 1: which gave the appearance of guilt and potentially just enough
18:41
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt to overcome the circumstantial evidence. However, the judge
18:46
Speaker 1: would not allow them to testify at the actual trial.
18:50
Speaker 1: But the damage to Claire's relationship with Alex and Nick
18:54
Speaker 1: may never be undone.
18:56
Speaker 3: So the private investigator says to me, it's our job
18:59
Speaker 3: to get your mom off, but if we fuck up
19:01
Speaker 3: your family in the process, that's your job to fix.
19:05
Speaker 2: I wish I had stuck with my original plan of
19:07
Speaker 2: just dumping him and getting a new attorney, But at
19:10
Speaker 2: that point I had already spent over six figures on
19:13
Speaker 2: him representing me.
19:15
Speaker 5: You had felt though, that he wasn't doing a good job.
19:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like he wasn't investigating enough. There were
19:22
Speaker 2: other leads, and it was disconcerting to me that the
19:24
Speaker 2: investigator would say, who's this person? And I felt like,
19:28
Speaker 2: that's your job to know. I don't even recognize that name.
19:31
Speaker 2: It was a witness who had called in saying he
19:33
Speaker 2: had seen Bob out jogging.
19:35
Speaker 1: It was important that the defense build a new alternate
19:38
Speaker 1: suspect theory, as they did with Lisa Marie Singh, since
19:40
Speaker 1: their plan with Claire pleading the fifth hadn't panned out. Plus,
19:44
Speaker 1: the state's tire mark expert claimed that Lionel Morales's Chevy
19:48
Speaker 1: S ten could not have made all four tire tracks
19:51
Speaker 1: in the woods. Continuing on that, he claimed that the
19:54
Speaker 1: tire marks were consistent with a Ford F two fifties tires,
19:58
Speaker 1: but was not able to go as far as saying
20:00
Speaker 1: that they matched the specific details of Jane's tires and
20:04
Speaker 1: the circumstantial evidence continued including the couple's marital troubles, their
20:08
Speaker 1: life insurance policies, that the ropes in their house were
20:11
Speaker 1: consistent with the rope found around Bob's neck, and that
20:14
Speaker 1: there were multiple stains in their bedroom and home that
20:17
Speaker 1: the state claimed were blood, much of which came in
20:20
Speaker 1: through a stipulation agreed to by the defense.
20:23
Speaker 2: A stipulation means you agree to what the prosecution to what.
20:26
Speaker 2: The DA's office is already contending that the bedroom was
20:30
Speaker 2: a crime scene, and I said, just not possible. I
20:34
Speaker 2: know you found some blood in the bedroom, but I'm
20:37
Speaker 2: the one that told you Bob had a nose bleed
20:39
Speaker 2: in there.
20:39
Speaker 1: Additionally, both of her dogs were recently treated by a vet,
20:43
Speaker 1: one for an abscess and the other for a torn
20:45
Speaker 1: dew claw, all of which can explain the presence of
20:48
Speaker 1: that syringe and some of the stains that appeared to
20:51
Speaker 1: be pooled blood lake on the underside of the mattress
20:54
Speaker 1: or the carpet. The stipulation also stated that Bob's DNA
20:58
Speaker 1: was found on the carpet, on a wall at the
21:00
Speaker 1: bottom of the stairs leading up to the door, in
21:02
Speaker 1: a storage area under the bedroom, and on a bottle
21:06
Speaker 1: of cleaning fluid, to which I think it needs to
21:08
Speaker 1: be said, why wouldn't Bob's DNA be in his own
21:13
Speaker 1: home on these things? But I digress. Then the blood
21:18
Speaker 1: stain pattern. Analyst Charles Merritt testified about impact spatter, which
21:23
Speaker 1: just means that the blood was flung rather than dripped.
21:26
Speaker 1: Yet Merritt used these stains to confidently tell the jury
21:30
Speaker 1: what he imagined happened, not what he could scientifically prove,
21:35
Speaker 1: including how many times Bob was struck in the bedroom
21:38
Speaker 1: with what they said at trial was an unidentified hammer.
21:43
Speaker 2: So here's this criminalist saying, there's all of these spots
21:46
Speaker 2: of blood in the master bedroom. You know, I don't
21:49
Speaker 2: blame the jury originally for convicting me, because they were
21:52
Speaker 2: told by the prosecution that everything was absolutely tested and
21:57
Speaker 2: it all came back to be Bob's blood and Bob's DNA. Well,
22:02
Speaker 2: that was entirely false. Less than half of it was
22:05
Speaker 2: actually even tested. And what wasn't you know, was it
22:08
Speaker 2: turned out to not be blood at all. It was
22:10
Speaker 2: coffee stains or something like that, and most of it
22:13
Speaker 2: wasn't even visible to the naked eye.
22:15
Speaker 1: Yet it would stand to reason that a hammer attack
22:17
Speaker 1: might leave a bit more of a mess. Then there
22:20
Speaker 1: was this syringe that contained traces of an animal tranquilizer.
22:24
Speaker 5: The prosecutor had.
22:25
Speaker 1: To admit that Bob didn't have any in his system,
22:28
Speaker 1: but they still introduced it to the court, maintaining that
22:31
Speaker 1: Jane's fingerprint had been pressed in blood on the syringe,
22:35
Speaker 1: which sounds incredibly damning, but it was discovered much later
22:39
Speaker 1: that this claim was not supported by the lab report. Nonetheless,
22:44
Speaker 1: that's what the jury heard, along with how all of
22:47
Speaker 1: the stains they'd swabbed were made in Bob's blood, So
22:50
Speaker 1: they reached a predictable conclusion, sending Jane away for twenty
22:55
Speaker 1: five to life.
22:56
Speaker 2: It was horrifying. It was Claire was sitting in the
23:00
Speaker 2: courtroom and crying hysterically, and I was thinking what can
23:06
Speaker 2: I do to help her, what's the next phase, what's
23:12
Speaker 2: an appeal? All about? How long will it take? And
23:15
Speaker 2: then scared to death knowing that they were going to
23:18
Speaker 2: ship me off to prison in a matter of a
23:20
Speaker 2: few days. And the only understanding I had about prison
23:25
Speaker 2: was from TV shows. When I first got to prison,
23:41
Speaker 2: I felt terribly claustrophobic and terribly afraid and trying to
23:45
Speaker 2: figure out, how am I going to survive this? Being
23:49
Speaker 2: horrified at the oppression and domination that I saw all
23:53
Speaker 2: around me, with the guards being so aggressive toward the women.
24:00
Speaker 2: Most of the guards in the prison system are male,
24:03
Speaker 2: even in a female prison, and they have no qualms
24:07
Speaker 2: about walking into the shower room. I've seen guards turn
24:11
Speaker 2: around and flat out pepper spray a woman right in
24:14
Speaker 2: the face because she talked back to them. It was
24:19
Speaker 2: a horrifying experience.
24:22
Speaker 3: You know, my mom wouldn't her to fly, but that
24:24
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that she's not going to be caught in
24:25
Speaker 3: the mill of something. I mean, that would be my
24:27
Speaker 3: biggest fear that my mom would dian prison.
24:30
Speaker 2: I did an awful lot of things to try and
24:34
Speaker 2: keep myself saying, recognizing, you can't live in this oppressive
24:38
Speaker 2: environment without it affecting you, so you've got to be active.
24:42
Speaker 2: So I would go and walk on like a big,
24:45
Speaker 2: big jogging track, and I would pretend to myself that
24:49
Speaker 2: I was riding one of the horses, and I would
24:52
Speaker 2: pretend that we're going along the trail and here's a
24:54
Speaker 2: jump in front of us, so now steady yourself, horse,
24:57
Speaker 2: now up and over the jump. And I probably sometimes
25:02
Speaker 2: I'd between something with my legs and people would probably
25:04
Speaker 2: look at me and say, what the.
25:05
Speaker 5: Hell was she do?
25:08
Speaker 2: But I actively did those things so that I could
25:12
Speaker 2: take myself out of that environment and be somewhere else
25:16
Speaker 2: for a period of time. And I guess at some
25:18
Speaker 2: point I started learning the statistics of the likelihood of
25:21
Speaker 2: winning an appeal. We're only four percent. I just started
25:25
Speaker 2: working in the law library, figuring I have to be
25:28
Speaker 2: more of an active participant in this. So I became
25:31
Speaker 2: a pretty good jailhouse lawyer, and I got several people
25:35
Speaker 2: out of prison, and again became more and more horrified
25:39
Speaker 2: at some of the cases that I saw. Almost without exception,
25:42
Speaker 2: every woman that I've talked to was a victim of
25:46
Speaker 2: some kind of violence in a relationship with a man
25:50
Speaker 2: and had no choice. I know a woman who was
25:54
Speaker 2: threatened if she did not do what this man told
25:58
Speaker 2: her to do in his commission of a crime, he
26:01
Speaker 2: was going to kill her. And she knew he had
26:03
Speaker 2: a gun, and she knew he had shot other people.
26:07
Speaker 2: And what is she going to do? And why was
26:10
Speaker 2: that not allowed to be brought out in her trial.
26:12
Speaker 2: She's been in prison for thirty five years, and she's
26:15
Speaker 2: still in prison today. The whole thing about the felony
26:18
Speaker 2: murder is horrible. Is an organization then, Felony Murder Elimination
26:23
Speaker 2: Project that I also work with, and our goal is
26:26
Speaker 2: to eliminate that kind of a rule and the whole
26:30
Speaker 2: special circumstance that allows women to be overly prosecuted and
26:35
Speaker 2: spend their lives in prison and restricts the judge from
26:38
Speaker 2: doing anything but giving either the death penalty or death
26:41
Speaker 2: by incarceration.
26:44
Speaker 1: Finally, Jane had a win for herself in twenty fifteen,
26:48
Speaker 1: three years after she filed a motion for DNA testing.
26:52
Speaker 2: I wrote my own motion for DNA testing and I
26:56
Speaker 2: want it. I said, I want Bob's fingernails tested, and
27:00
Speaker 2: I want the rope that they found around his neck,
27:02
Speaker 2: and I don't want to use the San Diego crime
27:04
Speaker 2: Lab because I've been under lots of scrutiny for many years.
27:10
Speaker 2: And I clearly said, do not test all of the evidence,
27:13
Speaker 2: save fifty percent for future testing, because by then I
27:16
Speaker 2: was a whole lot smarter about how things can go wrong.
27:19
Speaker 2: At that was the point where I get this letter
27:23
Speaker 2: from Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent saying we
27:26
Speaker 2: understand you're seeking help, and I'm thinking to myself, when
27:31
Speaker 2: did I write them? I was so used to writing
27:34
Speaker 2: so many different organizations, and then I get this wonderful
27:38
Speaker 2: letter from Paula Mitchell.
27:40
Speaker 1: Paula Mitchell began hiring experts to review all of the
27:43
Speaker 1: case evidence, one of whom discovered that the paint found
27:46
Speaker 1: on Bob's skull likely came from a tire iron or
27:50
Speaker 1: Priye bar, and it was later revealed that the state
27:52
Speaker 1: knew this pre trial but did not disclose it. Mitchell
27:57
Speaker 1: also hired a medical examiner who not only play least
28:00
Speaker 1: the time of death, most likely on February thirteenth, but
28:04
Speaker 1: also said that the wounds were such that, if inflicted
28:06
Speaker 1: in the bedroom, would have been nearly impossible to clean up.
28:10
Speaker 1: In addition, the States expert Charles Merritt, who testified that
28:14
Speaker 1: all of the potential bloodstains were tested and belonged to
28:17
Speaker 1: Bob Well, they discovered a lab text notes who had
28:20
Speaker 1: been tasked with testing if the fluids were actually blood.
28:24
Speaker 2: The lab technician, Connie Milton. Her handwritten notes say something
28:28
Speaker 2: to the effect of all of the evidence in the
28:31
Speaker 2: Doratic case were brought for me to analyze and I
28:35
Speaker 2: looked at all of it and it was all negative.
28:39
Speaker 2: That was in her handwritten notes, and then they were negative.
28:43
Speaker 2: There's a line crossed through it and on top of
28:45
Speaker 2: it is written positive. And so my attorney said, how
28:50
Speaker 2: does that happen? And she said something like sometimes you
28:53
Speaker 2: just take a second look at something and it looks different.
28:56
Speaker 1: It turned out only a small fraction of the materials
28:59
Speaker 1: where ever tested did and many were not blood at all.
29:02
Speaker 5: Plus, as far back.
29:03
Speaker 1: As two thousand and nine, the state had disclosed that
29:06
Speaker 1: a lab tech had questioned Charles Merritt's technical skills prior
29:10
Speaker 1: to trial, a lack of confidence later confirmed by both
29:13
Speaker 1: a state and defense expert. Mitchell's team also discovered evidence
29:17
Speaker 1: showing a serious breach of the chain of custody for
29:20
Speaker 1: the blood collected from Bob at autopsy.
29:23
Speaker 2: This criminalist at the autopsy accepts the vials of blood,
29:27
Speaker 2: which is not really protocol. You know, the coroner is
29:30
Speaker 2: the one who takes the blood. Anyway, he accepts the
29:33
Speaker 2: vials of blood and then they're not entered into evidence
29:36
Speaker 2: until two weeks later. So where are they in his
29:40
Speaker 2: back pocket? And meanwhile, he's the person that is also
29:44
Speaker 2: examining the master bedroom, saying there's all of these spots
29:49
Speaker 2: of blood and yeah, no, we can't prove that this
29:52
Speaker 2: criminalist did anything with it that he shouldn't have done,
29:56
Speaker 2: like open the vials and scatter blood in the bedroom.
29:59
Speaker 2: But I I have to tell you that goes through
30:01
Speaker 2: my mind because there's a chain of custody for evidence
30:04
Speaker 2: and he clearly didn't follow it. Why don't you?
30:08
Speaker 1: Which brings up the syringe that was alleged to have
30:11
Speaker 1: Jane's fingerprint pressed in Bob's blood. Will not only do
30:14
Speaker 1: these lab notes and chain of custody revelations call into
30:17
Speaker 1: question the origin and identification of that blood, but in addition,
30:21
Speaker 1: a crime lab report said that they had not tested
30:24
Speaker 1: the area of the fingerprint. Yet the opposite was represented
30:27
Speaker 1: to Jane's jury that her fingerprint was made in Bob's
30:31
Speaker 1: blood and if you want to trust the state even less.
30:34
Speaker 1: A district attorney investigator later claimed that the vile in
30:37
Speaker 1: question was full, but upon further inspection, it was reported
30:41
Speaker 1: that the vial was less than half full and had
30:44
Speaker 1: a little nick in the top where someone might have
30:46
Speaker 1: inserted a syringe. Meanwhile, the DNA testing of the rope
30:50
Speaker 1: and fingernail scrapings found foreign DNA in two of Bob's scrapings,
30:55
Speaker 1: both of which excluded Jane, and then the rope revealed
30:59
Speaker 1: two countries, one of whom was Bob, and again Jane
31:02
Speaker 1: was excluded. All of this evidence was filed in a
31:06
Speaker 1: habeas petition that dragged through April twenty twenty, when Paula
31:11
Speaker 1: filed a motion for Jane's release as a seventy five
31:14
Speaker 1: year old woman in danger during the onset of the
31:16
Speaker 1: COVID pandemic, and on April twenty second, twenty twenty, it
31:20
Speaker 1: was granted.
31:22
Speaker 2: The judge that had been hearing my case the whole
31:24
Speaker 2: time knew all about the false evidence by then, so
31:28
Speaker 2: he was very confident that I was going to be exonerated,
31:32
Speaker 2: and he was also retiring, so he's the one that
31:35
Speaker 2: allowed the release before my case was actually dismissed the
31:40
Speaker 2: first time. I've been very grateful to that judge.
31:44
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, an evidentiary hearing was scheduled for that July to
31:48
Speaker 1: hear the claims of false evidence plus even more new evidence,
31:52
Speaker 1: including an alternate suspect. In January two thousand, there had
31:56
Speaker 1: been a violent roadside attack in the same spot than that,
31:59
Speaker 1: a a methamphetamine user named John Pierre, who was known
32:03
Speaker 1: for sudden fits of violence, was arrested and convicted for
32:07
Speaker 1: that January attack. But before these bombshells could be released
32:11
Speaker 1: at the evidentiary hearing, this state filed a motion to
32:14
Speaker 1: dismiss based on the DNA findings, well stating their intention
32:19
Speaker 1: to retry Jane.
32:20
Speaker 2: They knew everything was wrong, and yet they still wanted
32:24
Speaker 2: to retry me, mainly because they did not want to
32:28
Speaker 2: be wrong. Kurt Mechels was the original second chair prosecutor
32:33
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one. He came back in in
32:36
Speaker 2: twenty twenty through twenty two to try and put a
32:40
Speaker 2: new gloss on the false forensics. I mean, there's so
32:43
Speaker 2: many things that we found were wrong. One of the
32:45
Speaker 2: detectives got on the stand and said, this is in
32:49
Speaker 2: the preliminary hearing. She said, the thing that struck me
32:52
Speaker 2: most about that bedroom being a crime scene is there
32:56
Speaker 2: was blood all over the curtains. And one of the
32:59
Speaker 2: trial attorneys, Mike Cavaloussi, went along and he said, I
33:02
Speaker 2: know it's hard to remember things, especially twenty years ago,
33:05
Speaker 2: but some things just stick out in your mind, like
33:08
Speaker 2: blood on the curtains. Yes, yes, that was entrenched in
33:12
Speaker 2: my mind. So then he puts a photograph of the
33:15
Speaker 2: bedroom up on the screen in the courtroom.
33:18
Speaker 3: Well, guess what, there were no fucking curtains. There were
33:22
Speaker 3: no curtains in the bedroom. I'm getting a little worked though.
33:25
Speaker 2: So this memory that she has of blood all over
33:27
Speaker 2: the curtains that she's testifying to is completely false.
33:31
Speaker 1: But even after that debacle, they still pushed ahead with
33:36
Speaker 1: a second trial.
33:37
Speaker 2: They came in at the final hour, just when the
33:40
Speaker 2: jury was about to be seated. They came in the
33:43
Speaker 2: day before and said, Okay, we're going to dismiss the case.
33:48
Speaker 2: We don't have enough evidence to convict her. So look
33:52
Speaker 2: at all of the taxpayer money spent on that, all
33:55
Speaker 2: of the prosecutors, all of the things that they did
33:58
Speaker 2: to my sons, that they told my sons.
34:01
Speaker 5: What's your relationship like with them?
34:03
Speaker 2: Now? My youngest son died a year ago with an
34:09
Speaker 2: accidental overdose. Through all of it, the prosecution was trying
34:13
Speaker 2: to coerce him to come and testify against me in
34:17
Speaker 2: a second trial, and he was terribly torn and didn't
34:21
Speaker 2: want to do it, and got back into drugs and
34:26
Speaker 2: overdosed yeah, And if it sounds like I blame them
34:30
Speaker 2: for it, I do.
34:33
Speaker 5: What is life like now?
34:34
Speaker 2: You know?
34:35
Speaker 4: I know you just said your son passed. Your life's
34:38
Speaker 4: been turned upside down? So what's it been like picking
34:41
Speaker 4: up the pieces these past five almost six years?
34:45
Speaker 2: You know? I still sort of struggle with some of
34:48
Speaker 2: the effects of being in prison for twenty years. You
34:51
Speaker 2: can't be in an environment like that, where it's so
34:54
Speaker 2: much oppression, so much violence, always watching your back. It's
34:59
Speaker 2: very hard learn to trust, and that stays with me.
35:02
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'll ever get over that. I
35:04
Speaker 2: don't know if I'll ever get over feeling like, how
35:09
Speaker 2: can we have a system that is so wrong? Most
35:13
Speaker 2: people are good people? How can we accept this? And
35:16
Speaker 2: that's why I'm so passionate about doing the work that
35:19
Speaker 2: I'm doing with the UC Sentencing Project and the California
35:22
Speaker 2: Coalition of Women Prisoners. And it's very gratifying. I've been
35:25
Speaker 2: able to get myself to go back into CIW the
35:29
Speaker 2: person I spent so many years at WOW and visit
35:32
Speaker 2: women that I lived alongside for a period of time
35:35
Speaker 2: and continue to try and help them get out.
35:38
Speaker 1: We will be linking both of those organizations in the
35:40
Speaker 1: episode description for folks to see how they can get
35:43
Speaker 1: involved in the work that means so much to Jane Claire.
35:47
Speaker 5: Is there anything else you want to say?
35:49
Speaker 3: I think that the whole concept of wrongful convictions is
35:53
Speaker 3: not given enough attention. I am probably going to get
35:57
Speaker 3: some emails for this one, but I think the Hire
36:00
Speaker 3: police Department, prosecution department, and prison system needs an overhaul.
36:05
Speaker 3: I think I want to live in a world where
36:07
Speaker 3: I think the police are here to protect me. That's
36:10
Speaker 3: the world I want to live in. So I would
36:11
Speaker 3: not have had any desire whatsoever to challenge that belief,
36:16
Speaker 3: but I was forced to see it for what it is.
36:19
Speaker 3: It is not that way at all, and I wish
36:23
Speaker 3: more people would because you know, it's almost like a cult.
36:26
Speaker 3: You know, they can continue to get away with this
36:28
Speaker 3: because they have managed to pull the wool over people's eyes,
36:31
Speaker 3: and you know, people to to think that they are
36:33
Speaker 3: just and they're ethical and all of that, and it's
36:36
Speaker 3: total bullshit. They're not at all.
36:39
Speaker 2: I want people to understand that the prison system is
36:43
Speaker 2: a system that's really gone awry. It's gravely compromised. It's
36:48
Speaker 2: so full of oppression and hate and dominance. It has
36:52
Speaker 2: nothing to do with public safety, and the harm that
36:56
Speaker 2: we cause by supporting this system is ridiculous. We could
37:02
Speaker 2: do much better as a society. I don't say that
37:05
Speaker 2: everyone in prison is innocent, but there are so many
37:08
Speaker 2: circumstances that send people to prison that are social problems
37:13
Speaker 2: that we're not solving by putting people in cages.
37:21
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
37:24
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
37:27
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
37:31
Speaker 1: Kevin Burtis, and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production
37:35
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
37:39
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms
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Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
37:45
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
37:49
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
37:52
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with the Signal Company Number One.
37:56
Speaker 3: We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
37:59
Speaker 3: this show are accurate.
38:00
Speaker 5: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
38:03
Speaker 5: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
38:06
Speaker 5: those of Lava for Good