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#361 Jason Flom with Audrey Edmunds · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen ninety five, Audrey Edmunds was
0:06
Speaker 1: running a small in home daycare center in Wannakee, Wisconsin.
0:11
Speaker 1: One of the children she cared for was a seven
0:13
Speaker 1: month old girl named Natalie Beard, who had a troubling
0:16
Speaker 1: health history, both known and unknown, in addition to fussiness
0:20
Speaker 1: when it came to feeding. On the morning of October sixteenth,
0:24
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, as per usual, Natalie was set up
0:27
Speaker 1: in a car seat in a quiet room with a
0:29
Speaker 1: bottle to help her focus while feeding. According to Audrey,
0:33
Speaker 1: she had soon found Natalie unresponsive as formula ran from
0:37
Speaker 1: her nose and mouth, and Audrey some in paramedics who
0:41
Speaker 1: noticed Natalie's pupils were fixed and dilated and she was
0:45
Speaker 1: only taking short breaths. Tragically, Natalie died later on that
0:51
Speaker 1: night at the hospital, and her autopsy revealed retinal and
0:54
Speaker 1: brain hemorrhaging, as well as bruising on her scalp. Doctors
0:58
Speaker 1: ruled these findings to be evidence of shit and baby syndrome.
1:01
Speaker 1: That trial. Medical experts testified with certainty that Natalie's death
1:06
Speaker 1: was not the result of an accident, but rather recent
1:09
Speaker 1: intentional forceful conduct and the most recent caregiver was Audrey Edmunds.
1:14
Speaker 1: With the stresses of childcare, it's easy to believe that
1:18
Speaker 1: something inside Audrey could have snapped. But this is wrongful conviction.
1:35
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today, we're going to unpack
1:38
Speaker 1: the case of Audrey Edmunds, who was convicted of a
1:40
Speaker 1: crime that simply never happened, and she was sentenced to
1:44
Speaker 1: eighteen years in prison. Audrey, I'm so sorry for what
1:49
Speaker 1: happened to you, but I'm super grateful that you're here
1:52
Speaker 1: now to share your story with us.
1:54
Speaker 2: Good morning.
1:55
Speaker 1: Likewise, you know, we've covered shaking baby syndrome or SPS,
1:59
Speaker 1: not only a this show, but also in depth on
2:02
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction junk science. When our host Josh Dubin spoke
2:06
Speaker 1: with Kate Judson, the executive director of the Center for
2:08
Speaker 1: Integrity and Forensic Sciences, and we've been asking her to
2:11
Speaker 1: join us when we cover a case like yours. But
2:13
Speaker 1: since the co founder of that organization, Keith Finley, was
2:16
Speaker 1: your post conviction attorney, We're going to give Kate the
2:19
Speaker 1: day off today. Keith, you also co founded the Wisconsin
2:24
Speaker 1: Innocence Project as well as the Innocence Network. I mean, wow, anyway, incredible.
2:31
Speaker 1: We're so honored to have you with us today.
2:33
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Jason, glad to be with you now.
2:36
Speaker 1: I know you know a lot about this hypothesis, which
2:39
Speaker 1: masquerades day in and day out as a decided science.
2:44
Speaker 3: Shake and baby syndrome is. As its founder, doctor Norman
2:48
Speaker 3: guth Kelch referred to it repeatedly, It's a hypothesis, that's
2:53
Speaker 3: all it is.
2:54
Speaker 1: It's a hypothesis, right, And the hypothesis was that violently
2:58
Speaker 1: shaking an infant could cause the brain to sort of
3:02
Speaker 1: slosh around back and forth inside of the skull, which
3:05
Speaker 1: would in turn cause the bridging veins of the brain
3:08
Speaker 1: and eyes to tear and bleed inside the coverings of
3:11
Speaker 1: the brain and retinas, in addition to brain swelling, ultimately
3:16
Speaker 1: resulting in the triad of findings for which doctor gotth
3:19
Speaker 1: Kelch was trying to figure out, try to solve, and
3:22
Speaker 1: this would then cause the child to lose consciousness or
3:26
Speaker 1: potentially even their life.
3:29
Speaker 3: This hypothesis has never, as guth Kelch himself said late
3:33
Speaker 3: in his life, has never been scientifically validated, and it's
3:37
Speaker 3: for a very very good reason. It's nearly impossible to
3:40
Speaker 3: do the kind of validation studies that would be required
3:43
Speaker 3: to really test this scientifically, you need to do randomized
3:47
Speaker 3: controlled studies, But for obvious ethical reasons, you can't shake
3:52
Speaker 3: a certain group of infants and compare them to a
3:55
Speaker 3: group of infants who are not shaken.
3:56
Speaker 1: Right, if this hypothesis was to be believed, then you
3:59
Speaker 1: not not only be submitting these infants to abuse, but
4:03
Speaker 1: also what a proponent of SBS would believe is almost
4:06
Speaker 1: a certain death. However, there have been studies over time
4:10
Speaker 1: that have been able to disprove the hypothesis without shaking infants,
4:14
Speaker 1: and those revelations come down to what other injuries would
4:18
Speaker 1: also have to be present. In addition to the triad
4:20
Speaker 1: of findings.
4:21
Speaker 3: The thing that really informs this is biomechanical research. Biomechanics
4:25
Speaker 3: is the study of the effects of force applied to
4:28
Speaker 3: the body, and what the biomechanical research shows consistently is
4:34
Speaker 3: that the most vigorous shaking that a human being can
4:37
Speaker 3: generate comes nowhere close to meeting the injury thresholds estimated
4:42
Speaker 3: in these kinds of cases, and if sufficient forces could
4:46
Speaker 3: be generated, that force would have to travel from the
4:49
Speaker 3: chest through the neck to the brain. The weak link
4:52
Speaker 3: there is the neck. The neck would almost certainly be
4:55
Speaker 3: severely damaged by that much shaking, and yet these cases
4:59
Speaker 3: almost never have any injuries of that sort.
5:03
Speaker 1: And it has since been proven that there are a
5:07
Speaker 1: multitude of other potential causes of the so called.
5:10
Speaker 3: Triad, everything ranging from choking to inherited conditions, coagulopathies, childhood stroke,
5:18
Speaker 3: accidental falls, you name it. There's just so many of
5:21
Speaker 3: them that there's simply no way that a physician can,
5:25
Speaker 3: so to speak, diagnosis on the basis of the triad
5:28
Speaker 3: or associated findings. And yet that's exactly what they did
5:31
Speaker 3: in Audrey's case.
5:32
Speaker 1: Pers and so many others, because antithetical to the scientific method,
5:38
Speaker 1: doctors at that time were trained in medical school to
5:41
Speaker 1: just jump to this false conclusion each and every time
5:44
Speaker 1: they saw that triad of findings. But before this happened
5:47
Speaker 1: to you, Audrey, let's go back. Tell us about what
5:50
Speaker 1: your life was like.
5:52
Speaker 4: I grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin. I have three brothers.
5:56
Speaker 4: My dad was a teacher. My mom was a stay
5:58
Speaker 4: at home mom. We had a very middle class life.
6:03
Speaker 4: We had a small home, we had one bathroom. We
6:06
Speaker 4: worked when we were old enough too. I had done
6:09
Speaker 4: a lot of babysitting, dog sitting.
6:11
Speaker 1: So you were predisposed of being a caregiver even as
6:15
Speaker 1: a teenager. And what did you do after high school?
6:18
Speaker 4: I started a job in the Saint Paul area right
6:22
Speaker 4: out of high school. And then I was married when
6:26
Speaker 4: I was almost twenty eight years old, and within a
6:29
Speaker 4: year we had moved to Ohio, and in Ohio is
6:33
Speaker 4: where I had my first child, Carrie.
6:35
Speaker 1: And then when Carrie was still a toddler, your family
6:38
Speaker 1: moved to Wannakee, Wisconsin, where you went back to childcare.
6:41
Speaker 1: How did that come about?
6:42
Speaker 4: As much as I enjoyed working, I really enjoyed and
6:45
Speaker 4: wanted to be a stay at home mom. And we
6:48
Speaker 4: were in a young neighborhood with lots of small children.
6:51
Speaker 4: People started asking me from time to time if I
6:54
Speaker 4: would watch their children, And that is how this all
6:58
Speaker 4: started for me, having children come to my house to
7:01
Speaker 4: take care of them.
7:02
Speaker 2: And I loved it.
7:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it all sounds wonderful. And you had two
7:05
Speaker 1: little ones of your own by that time, and you
7:08
Speaker 1: were expecting your third, So how great is that to
7:11
Speaker 1: be able to be with them full time while also
7:14
Speaker 1: providing this much needed service to your community and to
7:17
Speaker 1: other parents in the area. So tell me a little
7:19
Speaker 1: bit about your day care facility.
7:22
Speaker 4: We had a large ranch house, a kitchen in the
7:26
Speaker 4: center of the house. I had the master bedroom to
7:29
Speaker 4: the far left and two other bedrooms in a bathroom
7:33
Speaker 4: on the right hand side. And I was not a
7:36
Speaker 4: licensed daycare since I didn't have several children every day,
7:41
Speaker 4: I took people as needed.
7:42
Speaker 1: And one of the families you helped was the Beards
7:44
Speaker 1: and their seven month old daughter, Natalie, who tragically passed
7:47
Speaker 1: away on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety five. Were there any
7:52
Speaker 1: potential warning signs regarding her.
7:54
Speaker 4: Health Natalie's parents, this was their first child. They'd had
7:59
Speaker 4: a lot of problems with her fussiness and either taken
8:03
Speaker 4: her to the doctor or called the doctor twenty five
8:06
Speaker 4: times in her twenty seven weeks of life.
8:09
Speaker 1: Wow, twenty five doctor visits. That's a doctor visit a
8:12
Speaker 1: week pretty much.
8:14
Speaker 2: That's correct.
8:15
Speaker 4: And then also, Natalie, unfortunately was not able to roll
8:19
Speaker 4: over on her tummy. She couldn't prop herself up with
8:22
Speaker 4: her arms as most children do at that age. She
8:26
Speaker 4: couldn't hold her own bottle, and ever since I started
8:29
Speaker 4: taking care of her, she had a real hard time sucking,
8:33
Speaker 4: and I had asked her mom about that because most
8:37
Speaker 4: babies at that age they will take down six to
8:40
Speaker 4: seven ounces in five to seven minutes, and it took
8:44
Speaker 4: Natalie at least twenty minutes. So I had accommodated her
8:48
Speaker 4: over the six plus weeks that I had taken care
8:52
Speaker 4: of her, to give her the time needed to hold her,
8:56
Speaker 4: to help her eat, and keep her away from noisy people.
9:00
Speaker 1: I mean, most of our artis probably at some point
9:03
Speaker 1: have been a baby, and as you may have experienced,
9:06
Speaker 1: if the baby isn't feeling well or has some other
9:08
Speaker 1: stuff going on, it can be hard for them to
9:11
Speaker 1: maintain focus while feeding. So anything else notable about the
9:16
Speaker 1: lead up to that awful, faithful day.
9:19
Speaker 4: Yes, she had not been at my house since the
9:21
Speaker 4: previous Wednesday, so I hadn't seen her for four days.
9:26
Speaker 4: The previous Wednesday, after she'd been at my house, they
9:30
Speaker 4: took her into the doctor the next morning because they
9:33
Speaker 4: said she was fussy, and the doctor treated her with
9:37
Speaker 4: an ear infection. To the best of my knowledge, the
9:41
Speaker 4: coroner had noted that there was no ear infection in
9:44
Speaker 4: the autopsy, but also on that note, the mother did
9:48
Speaker 4: not tell me, But Natalie had projectile vomited that morning
9:53
Speaker 4: in her car seat on the way to my house,
9:56
Speaker 4: which is just around a half a block from their
9:59
Speaker 4: house to my house, So what was really wrong with her?
10:04
Speaker 4: Many doctors who have studied these cases have said, when
10:08
Speaker 4: the parents continue to bring her in for medical attention
10:12
Speaker 4: because they're crying, they need to start doing head scans
10:16
Speaker 4: to see if something is wrong internally that can't be
10:20
Speaker 4: detected with the little light that the doctor puts in
10:23
Speaker 4: the eyes and ears and.
10:24
Speaker 1: Nose, And had head scans been a regular practice back then,
10:28
Speaker 1: we might have known what was happening inside Natalie before
10:31
Speaker 1: it was too late for both her and for you.
10:35
Speaker 1: As it turns out, as these findings manifested and took
10:38
Speaker 1: her life while she was in your care.
10:41
Speaker 4: And it's proven these symptoms can take hours, if not days,
10:45
Speaker 4: to manifest before there's an outward symptom, as it did
10:50
Speaker 4: happen in my care.
10:51
Speaker 1: But at that time, the most recent caregiver was almost
10:54
Speaker 1: always the one who was blamed. So let's talk about
10:57
Speaker 1: that morning. It was around seven thirty am on October sixteenth,
11:01
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, when Cindy Beard dropped Natalie off.
11:04
Speaker 4: That morning, the mother could not get her to take
11:07
Speaker 4: her bottle, and babies should be hungry when they haven't
11:10
Speaker 4: eaten for eight to ten hours. But I knew that
11:13
Speaker 4: she was a very sensitive baby to noise, to any
11:17
Speaker 4: little jolting, and that's why I decided to put her
11:20
Speaker 4: away from the noise of the rest of the house.
11:23
Speaker 3: Audrey tried to comb the child by propping her up
11:26
Speaker 3: in a quiet bedroom in a car seat with a bottle,
11:30
Speaker 3: and she then went to ten to other children in
11:32
Speaker 3: her care, and within less than an hour, when she
11:36
Speaker 3: checked on Natalie, she found the child to be unresponsive,
11:40
Speaker 3: turning blue.
11:41
Speaker 4: I thought that she was choking, and I propped her
11:44
Speaker 4: upright against my body. I'm patting her on the back.
11:48
Speaker 4: She's not responding, and I run outside with her in
11:52
Speaker 4: my arm, screaming for a neighbor lady who comes down,
11:55
Speaker 4: and I'm babbling telling her what's going on, and she's saying,
12:00
Speaker 4: you've got to call nine one one.
12:02
Speaker 3: The nine one one call itself is really revealing from
12:05
Speaker 3: the very get go. Audrey is telling the rescue people
12:09
Speaker 3: that there was all kinds of formula coming out of
12:12
Speaker 3: the infant's nose and mouth, and when paramedics arrived. They
12:15
Speaker 3: said that they noted that there was formula coming out
12:18
Speaker 3: of the child. They said they found a child who
12:20
Speaker 3: had aspirated formula and it appeared by all accounts to
12:24
Speaker 3: be a choking incident.
12:27
Speaker 1: So the paramedics also noted that Natalie's pupils were fixed
12:30
Speaker 1: and dilated and she was taking short breaths. She was
12:33
Speaker 1: flown to University Hospital in Madison, where tragically she died
12:36
Speaker 1: that very night. A forensic pathologist named doctor Robert Huntington
12:41
Speaker 1: performed the autopsy, which revealed extensive brain damage, dual retinal hemorrhaging,
12:46
Speaker 1: bleeding in the coverings of the brain, and bruising on
12:48
Speaker 1: her scalp. So the bleeds represent part of the triad,
12:53
Speaker 1: But what about the bruise.
12:54
Speaker 4: They couldn't say the timing of it. It was maybe fresh,
12:58
Speaker 4: but how fresh is for rush? Is it two hours?
13:01
Speaker 4: Is it two days?
13:02
Speaker 1: Could that have happened in transit to the hospital or
13:05
Speaker 1: while this little child was struggling to survive? What did
13:09
Speaker 1: Huntington make of that?
13:11
Speaker 3: Doctor Huntington said he thought it was too small to
13:13
Speaker 3: be of any consequence, and therefore he concluded this had
13:17
Speaker 3: to have been shaking right.
13:18
Speaker 1: Huntington ruled out accidental injury, saying that it was quote
13:22
Speaker 1: intentional forceful conduct directed specifically at Natalie. But this murder
13:29
Speaker 1: diagnosi is completely ignored not only her medical history that
13:33
Speaker 1: we've already discussed, but also what should have been a
13:37
Speaker 1: big red flag at the autopsy.
13:39
Speaker 3: Their own brain scans showed that this child had a
13:43
Speaker 3: chronic subdural hematoma, meaning previous episode of bleeding around the brain.
13:49
Speaker 3: That's well established in the medical research. The chronic subdural
13:52
Speaker 3: hematomas are very susceptible to rebleeding based on very little
13:56
Speaker 3: additional trauma, or sometimes no trauma, just spontaneously like a
14:01
Speaker 3: spontaneous nosebleed. And the prosecution and ultimately the court simply
14:07
Speaker 3: ignored all of these indications that the child was not
14:10
Speaker 3: a healthy baby, and that she was a previously brain
14:14
Speaker 3: injured child.
14:15
Speaker 1: And these kinds of earlier bleeds are sometimes written off
14:18
Speaker 1: as proof of previous abuse. But since they also believed
14:22
Speaker 1: that violence shaking caused an immediate demise in the SBS
14:25
Speaker 1: proponent's mind, perhaps the alleged previous abuse wasn't forceful enough
14:31
Speaker 1: to kill. But now the alleged repeat offender, the most
14:35
Speaker 1: recent caregiver had just finally been caught by way of
14:39
Speaker 1: the child's death, and that puts the onus on you, Audrey.
14:43
Speaker 1: Now did you get the sense that Natalie's parents believed
14:46
Speaker 1: this as well?
14:48
Speaker 4: So Cindy called me at noontime that day, and she
14:51
Speaker 4: was very compassionate to me, asked me what happened. She
14:55
Speaker 4: was very concerned. I went to the hospital that afternoon,
14:59
Speaker 4: short after four, and we hugged and we both cried,
15:02
Speaker 4: and I talked to her and I told her how
15:05
Speaker 4: much I cared and how much I had tried to
15:08
Speaker 4: help Natalie that morning. She was very kind to me,
15:11
Speaker 4: and then once the prosecution went on the witch hunt
15:14
Speaker 4: after me, they told her not to speak to me anymore.
15:18
Speaker 1: So when did this witch hunt, as you so aptly
15:22
Speaker 1: called it, begin, or when were you made aware of it?
15:26
Speaker 4: I had no clue that anything was trying to be
15:29
Speaker 4: held against me until January. I was just talking to
15:35
Speaker 4: anybody that came to talk to me. The chief of
15:38
Speaker 4: police who had come to my house earlier, mister Geezy,
15:42
Speaker 4: he was very very kind. I just answered whatever questions,
15:46
Speaker 4: showed them anything they wanted to see. They took photos,
15:50
Speaker 4: and I thought this was just regular protocol.
15:53
Speaker 1: Typically, we see this diagnosis at the autopsy quickly turned
15:56
Speaker 1: into an accusation, charges and arrest, but that didn't materialize
16:00
Speaker 1: until five months later, on March nineteenth, nineteen ninety six.
16:03
Speaker 1: Now you were charged with first degree reckless homicide. As
16:08
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, you had two kids of your own
16:11
Speaker 1: and one more on the way. Perhaps they were waiting
16:14
Speaker 1: for that baby to arrive before bringing you in. I
16:17
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean just thinking about you having to
16:21
Speaker 1: leave behind your two young children and a newborn. It's
16:26
Speaker 1: too much.
16:27
Speaker 4: It was horrible. My youngest was one month old. I
16:31
Speaker 4: had no clue why this was even happening, why I
16:35
Speaker 4: was charged, what they thought happened. I was so so scared,
16:39
Speaker 4: but yet I kept thinking, well, nothing happened, so everything
16:43
Speaker 4: will be okay.
16:44
Speaker 2: And I was wrong.
16:57
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by global law firm Greenberg Trowig
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17:04
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17:14
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Speaker 1: for their work.
17:30
Speaker 3: On five death penalty cases.
17:32
Speaker 1: GT is reimagining what big law can be because of a
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Speaker 1: more just world. Only happens by design.
17:46
Speaker 3: This is what we call a science dependent prosecution. The science,
17:50
Speaker 3: the medicine, the expert testimony comprised the entire case. It's
17:54
Speaker 3: almost unique in the law in that sense. There are
17:57
Speaker 3: really three things the prosecution had to prove. One is
18:00
Speaker 3: what's known as the actus reus, what happened. The medical
18:04
Speaker 3: professionals would come in and say, we can tell you
18:06
Speaker 3: exactly what happened. This child was violently shaken. The second
18:10
Speaker 3: thing they have to prove is what's known in the
18:12
Speaker 3: laws the mensraa, the mental state of the perpetrator. And
18:16
Speaker 3: in this case, the experts came in and testified, and
18:19
Speaker 3: we can tell you what mental state the perpetrator had.
18:22
Speaker 3: Because this would require such force the equivalent of a
18:26
Speaker 3: second story fall or thirty mile an hour automobile accident,
18:30
Speaker 3: that it couldn't be done accidentally. And the third thing
18:33
Speaker 3: they have to prove is identity. The way the expert
18:36
Speaker 3: would prove identity would be to say, a child so
18:39
Speaker 3: injured would become immediately comatose, flaccid, unresponsive, and therefore the
18:44
Speaker 3: last person with the child is the one who did it.
18:48
Speaker 3: That was Audrey. So that was the entirety of the
18:51
Speaker 3: case against Audrey.
18:52
Speaker 1: So the trial began on November eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
18:56
Speaker 1: The judge was Daniel Moser, and the prosecutor was to
19:00
Speaker 1: Da Dretchen Hayward. And the star witness for the prosecution
19:04
Speaker 1: was doctor Robert Huntington, the forensic pathologists who had done
19:07
Speaker 1: the autopsy.
19:08
Speaker 3: He was joined in his testimony by a number of
19:12
Speaker 3: other doctors, pediatricians, ophthalmologists, a range of others who were
19:17
Speaker 3: uniform in their opinion that, as they said, nothing could
19:22
Speaker 3: cause this triad of findings except violent shaking.
19:26
Speaker 1: So what did Audrey's defense attorney Steve Hurley present the
19:30
Speaker 1: counter all of that combined so called medical expertise.
19:35
Speaker 3: The defense called their own expert witness, but reflecting how
19:38
Speaker 3: early this is in the life story of the shaking
19:41
Speaker 3: baby Center hypothesis. At that point, there was virtually no
19:45
Speaker 3: one who was challenging or disputing the hypothesis itself. So
19:50
Speaker 3: at the trial, all of the prosecution's witnesses were of
19:54
Speaker 3: one voice, were unanimous this had to be shaking, and
19:58
Speaker 3: nothing but shaking could cause it. The defense witness also
20:02
Speaker 3: believed this had to be shaking, because that's just what
20:05
Speaker 3: the unquestioned dogma of the day was, and so the
20:08
Speaker 3: defense expert agreed it had to be shaking. The only
20:11
Speaker 3: thing she introduced was but it could have happened before
20:14
Speaker 3: the child was in Audrey's care.
20:16
Speaker 1: Audrey, what about Natalie's mother, Cindy Beard. You mentioned that
20:20
Speaker 1: she didn't seem to blame you when Natalie was taken
20:22
Speaker 1: to the hospital. In fact, she expressed kindness and understanding.
20:27
Speaker 1: As you recall. Did she testify at the trial.
20:30
Speaker 2: Yes, she did.
20:32
Speaker 4: I don't recall a whole lot about it. She had
20:34
Speaker 4: a hard time, of course, when Steve Hurley cross examined
20:38
Speaker 4: her and talked to her about Natalie's pre existing conditions.
20:42
Speaker 4: He was gentle around it, but he had some good,
20:45
Speaker 4: strong topics.
20:46
Speaker 3: The prosecutors basically told them that Audrey murdered your child,
20:51
Speaker 3: and despite the absurdity of that claim, that's what they
20:55
Speaker 3: led them to believe. And so I think that used
21:00
Speaker 3: an inevitable hostility. And who wouldn't be angry if you
21:04
Speaker 3: were told that your baby was murdered by someone? Right?
21:06
Speaker 3: I mean, these people suffered a terrible tragedy. The problem
21:10
Speaker 3: is that I'm afraid that the prosecution kind of victimized
21:13
Speaker 3: the parents again by making them believe this story of
21:18
Speaker 3: murder rather than what It's still awful, but not as awful,
21:23
Speaker 3: perhaps that the child died of natural causes.
21:27
Speaker 1: And other than the defenses expert Audrey, who else testified
21:31
Speaker 1: on your behalf.
21:33
Speaker 4: A lot of people thankfully came to my defense because
21:36
Speaker 4: they had seen me with Natalie day after day when
21:39
Speaker 4: I had her. I interacted with a lot of moms
21:42
Speaker 4: and neighbors, and they would see when she would cry,
21:45
Speaker 4: and I'd pick her up, and I'd pat her and
21:47
Speaker 4: I'd comfort her, just little things like that.
21:50
Speaker 3: So, if I can just add Jason, the defense was
21:52
Speaker 3: built a lot on the notion that this was just
21:55
Speaker 3: absurd to think that Audrey, with this sterling track record,
21:59
Speaker 3: would have snapped in less than an hour of caring
22:03
Speaker 3: for Natalie. After not having cared for her for four
22:05
Speaker 3: or five days, Stan snapped to the point of violently
22:08
Speaker 3: shaking her to death.
22:09
Speaker 1: Nonetheless, with that bevy of tuber confident medical expert testimony,
22:14
Speaker 1: it doesn't appear that even a sterling track record made
22:19
Speaker 1: a bit of difference to the jury. On November twenty sixth,
22:23
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six.
22:24
Speaker 4: The courtroom was full. Both sides had a lot of supporters,
22:28
Speaker 4: family friends, and the closing arguments were horrifying. When Gretchen
22:36
Speaker 4: Hayward still wants to talk like she was standing in
22:39
Speaker 4: my kitchen that day telling how I had shaken this
22:43
Speaker 4: child and bonked her head against a wall. And then
22:48
Speaker 4: the jury had some questions about first degree reckless homicide
22:53
Speaker 4: versus second degree and utter disregard.
22:56
Speaker 2: To human life.
22:58
Speaker 4: My palms get sweaty just think thinking about sitting in
23:01
Speaker 4: the hallway waiting, and then when we hear the jury
23:05
Speaker 4: has come to a decision, and it's late at night,
23:08
Speaker 4: and we go in and I heard that one awful,
23:12
Speaker 4: ugly word and I thought I was going to die.
23:28
Speaker 4: The judge when he said eighteen years, I felt like
23:32
Speaker 4: he was saying, you have taken a life so I
23:35
Speaker 4: want your kids to be away from you until they're adults.
23:40
Speaker 4: To this day, I still can't wrap my head around
23:44
Speaker 4: trying to prepare to be torn away from them. So
23:48
Speaker 4: much is taken away from you. You're put into a
23:51
Speaker 4: concrete cell with a tin toilet and a stranger, and
23:56
Speaker 4: you're trying to do the best you can to adapt
24:01
Speaker 4: and hold on to hope that this won't last long. Thankfully,
24:05
Speaker 4: my children's dad and my parents and other family members
24:09
Speaker 4: were wonderful for almost six years in bringing my children
24:13
Speaker 4: almost every weekend to see me, and on top of that,
24:17
Speaker 4: I had multiple phone calls to them throughout the week.
24:21
Speaker 4: We wrote a lot of letters. My kids teachers throughout
24:25
Speaker 4: the years were great to send me things, report cards, projects.
24:31
Speaker 4: So I am really really fortunate in that area because
24:35
Speaker 4: a lot of moms had little of no contact with
24:38
Speaker 4: their children. Then my kid's dad and I divorced about
24:41
Speaker 4: six years after I was in and then I didn't
24:45
Speaker 4: see them as much, but I saw them often and
24:48
Speaker 4: we kept in very close touch throughout all the years.
24:52
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to hear that. And meanwhile, you were
24:56
Speaker 1: doing literally everything you could possibly do to prove your innocence. Now,
25:01
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, your first appeal was denied,
25:03
Speaker 1: and then in two thousand and three, Keith and the
25:05
Speaker 1: Wisconsin Innocence Project got involved. Now, from what I understand,
25:09
Speaker 1: Audrey's case was your introduction to the SBS hypothesis and
25:13
Speaker 1: eventually inspired you to start the Center for Integrity and
25:16
Speaker 1: Forensic Science. But at that time, knowing very little about
25:19
Speaker 1: the science. What made you take her case.
25:22
Speaker 3: It was a high profile case here, so we all
25:25
Speaker 3: knew about the case and knew that it was a
25:26
Speaker 3: controversial conviction from the beginning. And her lawyer, Steve Hurley,
25:31
Speaker 3: is a really outstanding lawyer, and her appellate lawyer was
25:34
Speaker 3: Dean Strang, who many of you may remember as one
25:37
Speaker 3: of Steve and Avery's lawyers in the Netflix Docuseriies Making
25:41
Speaker 3: a Murderer, who was a remarkable lawyer as well. And
25:44
Speaker 3: I knew them both well and knew that they were
25:46
Speaker 3: really troubled by this conviction, believing firmly that she was innocent.
25:50
Speaker 3: But the thing that really got us going is that
25:53
Speaker 3: a physician at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, doctor Javid,
25:57
Speaker 3: approached us and said he thought there were or problems
26:01
Speaker 3: with the scientific evidence with the medical evidence that was
26:03
Speaker 3: used to convict her, and that we should look into it.
26:06
Speaker 3: We started investigating, and we found that that forensic pathologist,
26:11
Speaker 3: the medical examiner, you remember him, doctor Robert Huntington. He
26:14
Speaker 3: had written a letter to the Journal of the National
26:19
Speaker 3: Association of Medical Examiners in which he basically said, you
26:23
Speaker 3: know what, our beliefs about timing of these injuries may
26:26
Speaker 3: have been wrong. I don't think he said, we can
26:29
Speaker 3: actually time them to the last person with the child anymore.
26:32
Speaker 3: And he based that on an experience he had autopsying
26:37
Speaker 3: another child who died after being in the hospital for
26:40
Speaker 3: about seventeen hours under expert supervision, and the child presented
26:46
Speaker 3: with the full triad just like Natalie, but the child
26:49
Speaker 3: had been in the hospital for seventeen hours where she
26:52
Speaker 3: was completely lucid. She was fussy and clingy, but she
26:56
Speaker 3: was lucid, aware, alert, and therefore she had what in
27:00
Speaker 3: the literature is known as an extended lucid interval. And
27:03
Speaker 3: from this doctor Huntington wrote, what we used to believe
27:06
Speaker 3: that the child would become unresponsive immediately, that's not always true.
27:10
Speaker 3: We can't conclude that.
27:12
Speaker 1: And so the medical examiner actually admitted that he was wrong.
27:17
Speaker 1: That's huge.
27:18
Speaker 3: He also said that having research this further, there was
27:22
Speaker 3: now emerging, growing body of research that was challenging the
27:26
Speaker 3: very hypothesis itself. And he therefore said he could no
27:29
Speaker 3: longer be confident with his testimony that this child was
27:33
Speaker 3: shaken at all. And so we reached out to doctor
27:35
Speaker 3: Huntington and said we were working with Audrey Edmonds. The
27:38
Speaker 3: first thing he said, first thing out of his mouth,
27:41
Speaker 3: was oh, Audrey Edmunds, what are we going to do
27:44
Speaker 3: about Audrey Edmonds?
27:46
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and seven you got an evidentiary
27:48
Speaker 1: hearing in which you presented, among several expert witnesses, doctor
27:51
Speaker 1: Huntington himself.
27:52
Speaker 3: Doctor Huntington was courageous and forthright, and he on the
27:59
Speaker 3: witness stand, and he acknowledged that he was no longer
28:02
Speaker 3: comfortable with the testimony he had offered at Audrey's trial.
28:06
Speaker 3: One he said he could no longer stand by his
28:10
Speaker 3: testimony that the injury almost certainly happened within two hours
28:14
Speaker 3: of the child's collapse. Elucid interval was possible, so he
28:19
Speaker 3: couldn't time it to match Audrey's care. The second thing
28:23
Speaker 3: he said, though, which was equally powerful, was that while
28:26
Speaker 3: at trial he was certain this case had to involved
28:30
Speaker 3: a violent shaking, he now said because the whole field
28:33
Speaker 3: had become so much more controversial and more uncertain, he
28:37
Speaker 3: could no longer say whether there was any shaking at all,
28:41
Speaker 3: or whether this might have been an impact. He said
28:44
Speaker 3: that original bruise that he saw at autopsy, that he
28:47
Speaker 3: originally discounted as having been two minor to have been
28:49
Speaker 3: of consequence, He said he now couldn't rule that out.
28:53
Speaker 3: And the important thing about that is if that bruise,
28:55
Speaker 3: if that impact of the head was the cause, it
28:58
Speaker 3: could have been the product of prior abuse before the
29:02
Speaker 3: child got to Audrey's care, or it could have been
29:05
Speaker 3: an accident, because another thing that the biomechanical research shows
29:09
Speaker 3: is that even minor falls, falls from just a few
29:12
Speaker 3: feet generate fifty times more accelerations or more force than
29:18
Speaker 3: the most violent shaking that a human being can produce,
29:21
Speaker 3: and that even those kinds of minor accidental type falls
29:25
Speaker 3: do generate sufficient forces to exceed estimated injury thresholds. So
29:30
Speaker 3: he basically said, I can't time it to Audrey, and
29:34
Speaker 3: I can't tell you if there was shaking or whether
29:36
Speaker 3: this was intentional or accidental. The medicine doesn't answer those questions, pretty.
29:41
Speaker 1: Much refuting his own very damning testimony at the original trial,
29:45
Speaker 1: and to back him up, you had five other expert witnesses,
29:49
Speaker 1: all prominent physicians and pediatric neurosurgeons.
29:52
Speaker 3: In response, the state called four experts, most of whom
29:56
Speaker 3: had testified at the trial originally. And what we showed
30:01
Speaker 3: through the course of this was that there indeed can
30:04
Speaker 3: be elucid interval, that a child so injured can experience
30:08
Speaker 3: a period where they are alert and responsive for hours,
30:12
Speaker 3: if not days. That although the medical science had been
30:17
Speaker 3: undisputed at the time of Audrey's trial except for the
30:20
Speaker 3: question of timing, since then enormous research had emerged that
30:25
Speaker 3: suggested that shaking is an unlikely if impossible cause of
30:30
Speaker 3: these findings, that it's simply myth, there's no science behind it.
30:36
Speaker 3: And we established that there are multiple possible causes for
30:41
Speaker 3: these findings, and that's particularly important in a case like
30:45
Speaker 3: this where the child was previously ill, the child had
30:47
Speaker 3: a pre existing subdural hematoma, and was sick, and was
30:52
Speaker 3: fussy and clingy, and the research now shows that those
30:55
Speaker 3: are all potential indications that the child is neurologically compromised
31:01
Speaker 3: and heading towards collapse.
31:03
Speaker 1: And yet after you had established all of this updated
31:06
Speaker 1: scientific evidence, the original trial judge, Daniel Moser, was not persuaded.
31:11
Speaker 3: He denied the motion and basically said, I believe the
31:14
Speaker 3: state's experts more.
31:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds like you gave that a lot of thought.
31:17
Speaker 1: But of course you appealed, which brings us up to
31:21
Speaker 1: January thirty first, two thousand and eight.
31:24
Speaker 3: In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeals reversed the
31:28
Speaker 3: trial court judge and said that Audrey had indeed presented
31:33
Speaker 3: newly discovered evidence in the form of new medical research
31:37
Speaker 3: that created a probability that at a retrial she would
31:41
Speaker 3: be acquitted. And they said the trial judge had legally
31:44
Speaker 3: aired by applying the wrong standard by substituting his own
31:49
Speaker 3: judgment about the guilty innocence for that of the jury,
31:52
Speaker 3: and therefore Audrey was entitled to a new trial. Conviction vacated.
31:57
Speaker 2: Hey man, that was a great day.
31:59
Speaker 3: That was a great day.
32:01
Speaker 1: I believe it. Audrey. Can you tell me about those
32:04
Speaker 1: first moments on February sixth, two thousand and eight, when
32:08
Speaker 1: you found out you were finally going.
32:11
Speaker 3: To be released.
32:12
Speaker 2: It was awesome. It was a snowy day.
32:15
Speaker 4: I'm working on this auto part scrapping line and my
32:21
Speaker 4: supervisor's supervisor comes to me and says, Audrey, I have
32:27
Speaker 4: gotten a call and you can legally come to my
32:30
Speaker 4: office to take a telephone call.
32:34
Speaker 2: And at first I was like, oh no, I can't
32:36
Speaker 2: do that. I was scared to death. You don't touch
32:38
Speaker 2: a telephone.
32:39
Speaker 4: You don't even think about touching a telephone because that's
32:43
Speaker 4: a form of escape. I'm this close to getting out,
32:46
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do anything. And she said everything
32:48
Speaker 4: is okay. So I went to her office and we
32:50
Speaker 4: had a call with some people at Keith's office and
32:54
Speaker 4: they said the judge has a big trial next week,
32:58
Speaker 4: but he will put you in for you release hearing
33:01
Speaker 4: on Wednesday at noon. That Wednesday was a terrible snowstorm day.
33:08
Speaker 4: Medisine got two feet of snow and at quarter to
33:11
Speaker 4: three that day, in a massive snowstorm, I walked out.
33:14
Speaker 4: I didn't care where I slept that night, as long
33:16
Speaker 4: as I was on the other side of the fence.
33:18
Speaker 3: By the way, there's this iconic, beautiful photograph of Audrey.
33:22
Speaker 3: I believe in the parking lot meeting with meeting with
33:25
Speaker 3: her friends, being reunited with them, with the snowstorm swirling
33:29
Speaker 3: around them and the wind blowing, and they're all reaching
33:32
Speaker 3: out to hug each other. It's just such pure joys.
33:35
Speaker 3: It makes it all amazing.
33:37
Speaker 4: And I have to say on one thing, the prosecutor
33:41
Speaker 4: did say that they had contacted the parents and neither
33:45
Speaker 4: one objected to my release, because had they objected, I
33:49
Speaker 4: could have been having to go back to County jail
33:53
Speaker 4: until the July hearing.
33:55
Speaker 2: So that was a big plus.
33:57
Speaker 1: Right, So although you were out, you were still in
33:58
Speaker 1: legal limbo until that hearing.
34:00
Speaker 3: Once Audrey's conviction was overturned and the prosecution was thinking
34:05
Speaker 3: about whether to retry them, and then ultimately when they
34:08
Speaker 3: dismissed the charges, the prosecution continued to insist publicly and
34:14
Speaker 3: to tell the parents that Audrey had murdered their child,
34:18
Speaker 3: even though they no longer had any proof, no evidence,
34:22
Speaker 3: And to me, that was just morally indefensible. It was
34:26
Speaker 3: such a harmful thing to do to everyone, as a prosecutor,
34:29
Speaker 3: as a public servant, as a minister of justice. In theory,
34:33
Speaker 3: you either prove your case in court by the requisite
34:36
Speaker 3: legal standard, or you accept the presumption of innocence, and
34:40
Speaker 3: they refuse to give Audrey that they refused to give
34:43
Speaker 3: Natalie Beard's family that.
34:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was atrocious.
34:48
Speaker 4: I've never expected and I'm sorry for them, but I
34:51
Speaker 4: wish they would be big enough to say the truth
34:53
Speaker 4: that the medical evidence does not support the charge.
34:56
Speaker 1: But they did dismiss the case on July eleventh, two
34:59
Speaker 1: thousand eight, and you were finally exonerated of these completely ludicrous,
35:05
Speaker 1: false and unjust charges and able to return to your
35:09
Speaker 1: family at last. And I have to ask, I'm sure
35:13
Speaker 1: everyone's wondering, how are you doing now? And how are
35:17
Speaker 1: your kids because they were, in a sense in prison
35:20
Speaker 1: with you during your entire ordeal, doing their own sort
35:24
Speaker 1: of time because of this horrible persecution.
35:28
Speaker 4: And they're good. They all have very good jobs. Two
35:31
Speaker 4: of them are married. I just found out that my
35:34
Speaker 4: baby is pregnant, so I will have two grand babies.
35:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, congratulations.
35:39
Speaker 2: I just saw my middle one over the weekend.
35:41
Speaker 4: She lives in Iowa and she will be taking her
35:44
Speaker 4: boards to be a licensed practical nurse. And I'm just
35:48
Speaker 4: super thankful that they are doing well. I'm sure they
35:51
Speaker 4: have a scar from this. They don't hardly talk about it.
35:55
Speaker 4: I think it's just too hard for them. But they
35:58
Speaker 4: know that there are things still going on in my
36:00
Speaker 4: life that I speak out like I am today, and
36:04
Speaker 4: I'm grateful that there's just more and more awareness of
36:08
Speaker 4: these wrongful convictions.
36:10
Speaker 1: And you've also written a memoir called It Happened to Audrey,
36:14
Speaker 1: A terrifying journey from loving mom to accuse baby killer.
36:17
Speaker 1: We're going to put a link to that at our bio.
36:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to order a copy, I hope everybody does.
36:21
Speaker 1: And Keith, you've also co authored a book along with
36:24
Speaker 1: a number of leading experts in this field, which is
36:26
Speaker 1: coming out very soon. I've already ordered this one, by
36:28
Speaker 1: the way, the book is called Shaken Baby Syndrome, Investigating
36:33
Speaker 1: the Abusive Head Trauma Controversy. I highly recommend it for
36:38
Speaker 1: anyone who has even a passing interest in learning more
36:43
Speaker 1: about this terrible, faulty hypothesis that has destroyed thousands of
36:48
Speaker 1: people's lives. Will have a link to that in the
36:51
Speaker 1: bio too. And now we've come to one of my favorite,
36:54
Speaker 1: well my favorite part of the show really, which we
36:56
Speaker 1: call closing arguments, and this is the part where, first
36:58
Speaker 1: of all, I'm going to thank you you Audrey for
37:00
Speaker 1: your courage and your strength and your grace and for
37:03
Speaker 1: being here to tell your incredible story. And Keith, as always,
37:07
Speaker 1: thank you for being an inspiration to all of us
37:10
Speaker 1: in the movement. And now I'm just going to turn
37:13
Speaker 1: my mic off, kick back in my chair with my
37:15
Speaker 1: headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to anything
37:19
Speaker 1: else you want to say. Keith, let's start with you.
37:22
Speaker 1: Then you can just pass the mic off to Audrey
37:24
Speaker 1: and she can take us off into the sunset.
37:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, Audrey's case. In the end, the whole topic of
37:30
Speaker 3: shaking baby syndrome represents what is all too common and
37:34
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions, and that is a rush to judgment, an
37:39
Speaker 3: unquestioning acceptance of expertise and authorities even when they are flawed,
37:45
Speaker 3: and a real vindictiveness and sort of the punitive nature
37:50
Speaker 3: of the culture we live in that you know, when
37:52
Speaker 3: a baby dies, somebody's got to pay for it, and
37:54
Speaker 3: that's really really tragic. The struggle continues. But the bright
37:59
Speaker 3: side of this, that the bright note here is that
38:01
Speaker 3: there is a growing body of physicians, by mechanical engineers
38:07
Speaker 3: and other scientists who are re examining shaking baby syndrome,
38:11
Speaker 3: the entire hypothesis who are publishing in response to it.
38:16
Speaker 3: There will be more pushback, there will be efforts to
38:18
Speaker 3: silence or discredit critics, but eventually scientific truth will prevail.
38:23
Speaker 3: I'm confident. I just hope not too many more innocent
38:26
Speaker 3: people suffer the faith that Audrey suffered.
38:28
Speaker 4: In the meantime, just please be aware if you're around
38:32
Speaker 4: a jury, really listen to truth and facts, no matter
38:36
Speaker 4: how many witnesses one side has versus the other, use
38:41
Speaker 4: some common sense, know the facts, know the truth, know
38:45
Speaker 4: the validity of any witness. Really be open minded. Just
38:51
Speaker 4: because somebody is charged doesn't mean they have done the
38:54
Speaker 4: appropriate investigation and know all the facts of the case.
39:00
Speaker 4: And especially in cases like mine, please please look at
39:03
Speaker 4: the medical scientific facts, not opinion. Opinion doesn't matter anymore
39:09
Speaker 4: and can be so well discredited as there are more
39:12
Speaker 4: and more people who are experts who are researching these
39:16
Speaker 4: who came to my attention, who came to Keith's attention,
39:20
Speaker 4: and don't look at these people that are not upgrading
39:23
Speaker 4: and updating their medical knowledge.
39:31
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. I want to
39:34
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall, any Chelsea Lyla Robinson,
39:38
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Warris. The music in this production
39:42
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
39:46
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