Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #308 Guest Host Amanda Knox with Heidi Fero

Transcript

#308 Guest Host Amanda Knox with Heidi Fero · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: I'm Jason plom, host of Bronful Conviction. Over the years,
0:03
Speaker 1: hundreds of exanneries have told me their stories. Sadly, with
0:07
Speaker 1: the state of our criminal legal system, we're left with
0:09
Speaker 1: far more cases than I can possibly cover alone. So
0:13
Speaker 1: I've asked some exaneries to handle some of those cases,
0:16
Speaker 1: bringing the kind of perspective to the interviews that could
0:18
Speaker 1: only come from having lived through their own wrongful convictions.
0:23
Speaker 1: This is one of those interviews.
0:29
Speaker 2: In January two thousand and two, Heidi Farah was a
0:32
Speaker 2: young mother living with her boyfriend in Vancouver, Washington. The
0:36
Speaker 2: couple had two children, a five year old daughter and
0:39
Speaker 2: a one year old son. To make a little extra money,
0:42
Speaker 2: she occasionally babysat two other kids, a four year old
0:45
Speaker 2: boy and a fifteen month old girl named Brynn. One night,
0:51
Speaker 2: Heidi was home alone with the four children when her
0:54
Speaker 2: eldest daughter alerted her about something being wrong with Brynn.
0:57
Speaker 2: The fifteen month old girl was shaking and crying, and
1:02
Speaker 2: Heidi comforted and settled her down to sleep. A little
1:05
Speaker 2: while later, though it was obvious that something was seriously wrong.
1:10
Speaker 2: Brynn's eyes had slid open while she slept and she
1:13
Speaker 2: didn't respond when Heidi tried to wake her. Heidi called
1:17
Speaker 2: nine one one. The paramedics took Brynn to the hospital,
1:21
Speaker 2: where she was found to have a fractured leg and
1:23
Speaker 2: bleeding behind her eyes and around her brain. Everything pointed
1:28
Speaker 2: to shaken baby syndrome or SBS, a diagnosis that is
1:33
Speaker 2: also a criminal charge. In SBS cases, the caregiver present
1:39
Speaker 2: is almost always the one charged with abusing the child.
1:43
Speaker 2: Medical studies have shown that there is often a leg
1:46
Speaker 2: from the time of the injury to when the symptoms
1:48
Speaker 2: show up, but the legal system hasn't caught up with
1:51
Speaker 2: those findings. The cause of Brynn's injuries could have happened
1:55
Speaker 2: up to four days before Heidi was watching her, but
1:59
Speaker 2: that didn't matter in the eyes of the law. Brynn
2:03
Speaker 2: would end up permanently blind in one eye and paralyzed
2:06
Speaker 2: on one side of her body. Heidi was charged with
2:10
Speaker 2: first degree assault of a child. She was convicted and
2:14
Speaker 2: sentenced to fifteen years in prison, one year for each
2:18
Speaker 2: month of Brynn's life. This is wrongful conviction. Hi, I'm
2:36
Speaker 2: Amanda Knox and I'll be filling in for Jason today
2:39
Speaker 2: as your guest host. I'm an Exonaree, a previous guest
2:42
Speaker 2: on the show, and I also co host a podcast
2:45
Speaker 2: called Labyrinths. My own wrongful conviction and the years of
2:49
Speaker 2: experience I've gained from working in this space have taught
2:52
Speaker 2: me that taking the simplest answer, the one that would
2:55
Speaker 2: so easily wrap up a tragedy and assigned blame, isn't
2:59
Speaker 2: always the right place one. Criminal investigations, like the world,
3:03
Speaker 2: are full of gray areas, and that is certainly true
3:07
Speaker 2: regarding the crime that my guest, Heidi Pharaoh, was convicted of.
3:11
Speaker 2: Shaken Baby syndrome or SBS. The diagnosis was coined in
3:16
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four to describe a triad of symptoms bleeding
3:21
Speaker 2: on the brain, bleeding in the eyes, and brain damage
3:24
Speaker 2: caused by lack of oxygen. It was meant to deter
3:28
Speaker 2: parents from the then normal practice of shaking a crying infant,
3:32
Speaker 2: but afterwards courts used it to prosecute parents and caregivers
3:37
Speaker 2: for child abuse. The so called forensic sciences are actually
3:42
Speaker 2: more of an art, requiring a professional to interpret the
3:45
Speaker 2: data and draw their own conclusion. It is a field
3:48
Speaker 2: of study that's still developing. In the case of sbs.
3:52
Speaker 2: New evidence has shown that the triad of symptoms that
3:55
Speaker 2: show up in such cases are not always caused by
3:59
Speaker 2: actually shaking a baby. There is reason for doubt, and
4:03
Speaker 2: Heidi was caught up in this gray area of medical
4:06
Speaker 2: science and criminal law. I invited Heidi and a member
4:10
Speaker 2: of her legal team, Lara Zarrowsky, who is the executive
4:14
Speaker 2: and policy director of the Washington Innocence Project, to sit
4:17
Speaker 2: down with me. Let's hop right into it, Heidi, So,
4:27
Speaker 2: I understand that your parents were hippies and activists, and
4:33
Speaker 2: growing up you definitely had that alternative lifestyle happening. By
4:38
Speaker 2: the time you were growing up. What kind of life
4:41
Speaker 2: were you hoping for? What did you imagine for yourself?
4:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I had kind of a so my mom
4:48
Speaker 3: was more of this activist, but my dad was a farmer.
4:52
Speaker 3: He's a dirt farmer. He wasn't my biological father, but
4:55
Speaker 3: he's the man that raised me, and he was just
4:57
Speaker 3: a dirt farmer. Very philosophic goal but still just a
5:02
Speaker 3: good old country boy. My grandparents actually retired from the
5:05
Speaker 3: United States for service, and even though they were also liberal,
5:09
Speaker 3: they tended to be a little more traditional and conservative.
5:12
Speaker 3: So I had these dynamics, and even though my mom's
5:16
Speaker 3: life was what she chose at the time, I really
5:19
Speaker 3: pulled away from it as I got older.
5:22
Speaker 2: And so how old were you when the incident that
5:29
Speaker 2: began your wrongful conviction journey? What was happening in your life?
5:34
Speaker 2: Where were you? What was going on?
5:38
Speaker 3: So I was with my ex husband. We had two children,
5:44
Speaker 3: my daughter Rachel, who was I believe four at the time,
5:48
Speaker 3: and my son Derek, who was about a year old.
5:51
Speaker 3: So I was a very young new mother. How old
5:56
Speaker 3: I think that I was twenty three?
5:58
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, you were a baby, Wes twenty three.
6:02
Speaker 3: We were just struggling young parents, trying to find our way,
6:07
Speaker 3: trying to establish a life. And I was kind of
6:09
Speaker 3: driving for that, like white picket fence, And because his
6:13
Speaker 3: life had been unstable for him growing up, he was
6:15
Speaker 3: also seeking the same thing. And that's what we felt
6:18
Speaker 3: we had in common at the time. So we were
6:21
Speaker 3: really just trying to establish ourselves. I was home with
6:24
Speaker 3: the kids most of the time. I did work part
6:27
Speaker 3: time at a furniture store and he worked. My ex husband,
6:32
Speaker 3: Dustin worked full time at a machine shop. We were
6:35
Speaker 3: just young trying to establish ourselves.
6:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes you babysat, sometimes I babysap.
6:42
Speaker 3: Yeah I did.
6:44
Speaker 2: And how would you say you felt around kids? Did
6:47
Speaker 2: you like being a mom? Like? What was what was
6:50
Speaker 2: that for you?
6:51
Speaker 3: I absolutely loved being a mother and felt like at
6:54
Speaker 3: a very young age that that was my calling. I
6:58
Speaker 3: loved being around a kids. I did actually try to
7:01
Speaker 3: go to school, which is hard when you have two
7:04
Speaker 3: little children. But I was taking early childhood development with
7:08
Speaker 3: the intention that I knew I had a gift when
7:11
Speaker 3: it came to kind of, you know, being comfortable with
7:16
Speaker 3: kids and you know, being able to kind of like
7:18
Speaker 3: understand developmentally where they were at and how to talk
7:21
Speaker 3: to them. And I wanted to do something with that. However,
7:25
Speaker 3: I didn't have X, my ex husband did not support
7:28
Speaker 3: me to go to school, and I had two young children.
7:34
Speaker 3: So I'm wondering, if.
7:35
Speaker 2: We can now just talk a little bit about what happened,
7:39
Speaker 2: maybe you can set the stage for us, Heidi, where
7:43
Speaker 2: are you? Who are the people who are who are
7:47
Speaker 2: going to be involved and what is your relationship to them?
7:51
Speaker 3: Sure, so we were living I'm Vancouver, Washington and in
7:57
Speaker 3: a townhouse, three bedroom townhouse, and so we were picking
8:01
Speaker 3: up any other kind of income that we could, which
8:04
Speaker 3: is why I started working part time at a furniture store.
8:09
Speaker 3: And he was approached by a man that he worked
8:13
Speaker 3: with at the machine shop and they had became friends,
8:17
Speaker 3: and he let him know that he was looking for
8:20
Speaker 3: childcare for his daughter but also her brother, who was
8:27
Speaker 3: four at the time.
8:28
Speaker 2: And the son's name was Cad and the daughter's name
8:33
Speaker 2: was Brinn Brynn.
8:34
Speaker 3: Yes, so Jason, Brie, Cad and Brynn and my ex
8:40
Speaker 3: husband approached me and gave me the offer, and we
8:45
Speaker 3: thought at the time, we agreed that it was a
8:47
Speaker 3: good idea to get some more income. What I want
8:51
Speaker 3: to say is, even going into it, we kind of
8:53
Speaker 3: had some red flags. You know, there was a lot
8:55
Speaker 3: of adversity between the two of them, and it started
8:59
Speaker 3: to come to me that they'd been having trouble keeping
9:02
Speaker 3: babysitters because of the behavioral problems of Kate, and so
9:07
Speaker 3: once we had said yes, then this information started to
9:11
Speaker 3: kind of trickle out.
9:12
Speaker 2: Interesting, so when we talk about behavior problems, like what
9:15
Speaker 2: kind of stuff are we talking about?
9:18
Speaker 3: Anger? He attempted. It's hard for me to say the
9:24
Speaker 3: four year old would attempt suicide, but he was actually
9:27
Speaker 3: hospitalized for wrapping a cord around his neck and strangling himself.
9:31
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
9:32
Speaker 3: He became aggressive with my children, and my grandmother was
9:37
Speaker 3: actually with all of the kids. One evening, I had
9:41
Speaker 3: to run to my office for a minute, my part
9:44
Speaker 3: time work office. When I got back, my grandmother was
9:48
Speaker 3: distraught and not happy with the kids, and she was like,
9:51
Speaker 3: You've got to get this boy out of your house.
9:53
Speaker 3: My son had scratch marks up and down his hands
9:57
Speaker 3: and wrists, and my grandmother said he had I had
10:00
Speaker 3: gotten mad at my son who was in his little
10:02
Speaker 3: playpen and had his hands over the top of his
10:06
Speaker 3: hands and was screaming in his face. And when my
10:08
Speaker 3: grandmother went over there to kind of pull them apart,
10:11
Speaker 3: she had to pry his hands off of my son's
10:15
Speaker 3: there's one year old son. One year old son. Wow.
10:19
Speaker 3: So there was just these these things that were becoming
10:22
Speaker 3: increasingly uncomfortable, and I was concerned, and I was telling
10:26
Speaker 3: my ex husband, I'm concerned, like something doesn't feel right
10:29
Speaker 3: to me, something doesn't sit right to me. And my
10:32
Speaker 3: ex husband is very anti getting into anybody's business or
10:36
Speaker 3: involving any kind of authorities, and he just kept telling
10:39
Speaker 3: me I was overreacting and you know, we don't need
10:42
Speaker 3: to worry about it, and.
10:44
Speaker 2: He's for what harm could he do? Right?
10:47
Speaker 3: And and there were increasing bruises and things showing up
10:51
Speaker 3: on Brinn, and when we would ask, we were told
10:54
Speaker 3: she fell off a counter, or you know, he tripped her.
10:57
Speaker 3: He had done this or these increasing things in just
11:02
Speaker 3: a very short period of time two months. I think
11:06
Speaker 3: the final star for me was I had a gate
11:09
Speaker 3: at the bottom of the stairs at our townhouse, and
11:13
Speaker 3: my sister was actually staying with me, and she was
11:17
Speaker 3: downstairs with the kids, and I had ran upstairs, and
11:20
Speaker 3: Brynn would always follow me around the house. She wanted
11:24
Speaker 3: upstairs where I was at. And so she's a hefty
11:27
Speaker 3: little girl, fifteen month old, and she I think was
11:30
Speaker 3: trying to climb over the bottom gate, or at least
11:33
Speaker 3: was pulling on it, and so she had tumbled with
11:36
Speaker 3: it because she actually got it loose. I reported it
11:39
Speaker 3: to her mother when she picked her up, just hey,
11:41
Speaker 3: she might have a little bit of a bruise, but
11:43
Speaker 3: I don't think she got her I don't think she
11:46
Speaker 3: overly hurt herself. Nothing major. The next day, when she
11:52
Speaker 3: was dropped off, she had severe bruises all over her.
11:56
Speaker 3: And when I asked the mother what happened, she said, oh,
11:59
Speaker 3: you told me she felt down the stairs, and I
12:03
Speaker 3: I was you know, I just was like, my sister
12:06
Speaker 3: was there. We know what she looked like when she
12:08
Speaker 3: left the house and it was not like this, and
12:12
Speaker 3: you know, they were new bruises. So I had called Jason,
12:17
Speaker 3: the father and was like, I'm I don't even know
12:19
Speaker 3: what to think, and he's like, she does that all
12:21
Speaker 3: the time. She blames bruises from you know, bruises at
12:24
Speaker 3: my house. And I think at that point I was
12:27
Speaker 3: just like enough and I had told Jason. I told
12:30
Speaker 3: my ex husband, you guys need to find somebody else.
12:32
Speaker 3: I'm not comfortable doing this. And so we basically went
12:37
Speaker 3: into like a work break. My ex husband and Jason
12:41
Speaker 3: had a two week work break for the Christmas holiday,
12:45
Speaker 3: and the understanding was is they would find somebody else
12:49
Speaker 3: during that time.
12:50
Speaker 2: So then what happened.
12:52
Speaker 4: So they tried, they tried to find another babysitter, someone
12:55
Speaker 4: to take care of the kids. And you know, I
12:57
Speaker 4: think that at the time this wasn't known, but putting
12:59
Speaker 4: it together, have the experience that Heidi had not been
13:02
Speaker 4: comfortable continuing to care for these kids because of Kaid's behavior,
13:06
Speaker 4: but they still hadn't found anyone, so sort of as
13:09
Speaker 4: a this is the last time I will take care
13:11
Speaker 4: you know, I'll help you out this time, but you
13:13
Speaker 4: really need to find someone else. On January seventh, the
13:16
Speaker 4: kids were brought back to the house to be cared
13:19
Speaker 4: for by Heidi, and that was that was the evening
13:23
Speaker 4: that all of this process nightmare I think, began for Heidi.
13:29
Speaker 4: So in this evening this was a there were a
13:31
Speaker 4: few things that were unusual about about this. Actually, when
13:35
Speaker 4: when Brinn and Caid were dropped off, Heidi wasn't even
13:37
Speaker 4: home yet. She was actually at work, so it was
13:40
Speaker 4: Dustin that was there that received the kids and actually
13:43
Speaker 4: noted it was strange that when Brynn was brought in,
13:46
Speaker 4: she was brought in in a car seat, and that's
13:48
Speaker 4: not normally how she was brought in, So she was
13:51
Speaker 4: brought in strapped into a car seat and kind of
13:53
Speaker 4: left there and seemed was described as lethargic and sort
13:56
Speaker 4: of distant, and Derek, whose one, was trying to you know,
14:00
Speaker 4: play with her, and she seemed really uncomfortable and her
14:04
Speaker 4: leg was bothering her. She was kind of had a
14:06
Speaker 4: little had a bit of a limp. There was sort
14:08
Speaker 4: of she was not presenting as she normally and I.
14:12
Speaker 3: Want to emphasize we had not seen them in two weeks. Yeah,
14:15
Speaker 3: so it'd been a couple of weeks and this was,
14:18
Speaker 3: you know, sort of a one off. Already kind of
14:21
Speaker 3: understanding that this was not a workable situation. So as
14:25
Speaker 3: the evening is going on, the dropped off around the
14:28
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, and then later in the evening, Brynn
14:30
Speaker 3: is in a playpen, so kind of like in a
14:34
Speaker 3: safely downstairs in a playpen, and her brother Kate is
14:38
Speaker 3: there with her, and Rachel is down there too, Rachel
14:41
Speaker 3: and her five year old and Heidi's upstairs giving a
14:45
Speaker 3: bath to Derek, who was one at the time, and
14:49
Speaker 3: so Rachel at five was observing what Caid was doing
14:52
Speaker 3: to his sister. So she had reported that he was
14:55
Speaker 3: jumping on her. That kid was jumping on Brin who
14:59
Speaker 3: was fifteen months old, and was bashing her in the head,
15:02
Speaker 3: hitting her in the head, and so Rachel was alerting
15:05
Speaker 3: Heidi that this was happening, and so she got Derek
15:09
Speaker 3: out of the bath, went downstairs to try to manage
15:11
Speaker 3: what was happening, and actually called Jason to let him know,
15:16
Speaker 3: this is what's been happening. How would you like me
15:18
Speaker 3: to discipline him? When I called Jason, he told me
15:23
Speaker 3: to actually lock Kate in a closet.
15:26
Speaker 1: Oh.
15:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. The other thing that I noted that evening was
15:31
Speaker 3: Brynn had very swollen bruises across her abdomen, and when
15:36
Speaker 3: I asked Jason what had happened, he said that Kate
15:39
Speaker 3: had jumped on her from the back of the couch. Yeah.
15:42
Speaker 4: And I think it's the one piece. It's maybe one
15:45
Speaker 4: of the most difficult, but I think important for the
15:47
Speaker 4: trajectory of the story is that after Rachel got Heidie's
15:51
Speaker 4: attention and she came downstairs, she found Brent in the playpen,
15:54
Speaker 4: but sort of on her knees and shaking and sort
15:57
Speaker 4: of crying but not in a vocal way. It was
16:00
Speaker 4: just very unusual and incredibly alarming.
16:04
Speaker 3: Clearly, at one point I go, I think I'm on
16:09
Speaker 3: a phone call with a friend. I'm kind of just,
16:12
Speaker 3: you know, circling around the kids. I had been terribly sick,
16:16
Speaker 3: so my house was disaster, and I'm trying to you know,
16:20
Speaker 3: catch up on stuff, clean stuff up, and went to
16:23
Speaker 3: check on her, and I noticed that her eyes were
16:26
Speaker 3: like halfway open. I kind of lean in and I'm
16:28
Speaker 3: just kind of like checking on her. There was just
16:31
Speaker 3: something that like started to like alarm me about her demeanor, and.
16:37
Speaker 2: Do you remember what it was?
16:39
Speaker 3: I feel like her coloring, even though it was kind
16:42
Speaker 3: of dim in there, like her coloring looked off. She
16:45
Speaker 3: just didn't look very responsive. And when I remember very
16:49
Speaker 3: clearly when I kind of went to kind of rouse
16:52
Speaker 3: her a little bit, like her eyelids just slid open
16:55
Speaker 3: all the way and there was just nothing. And at
16:59
Speaker 3: that point, like I think, I through my phone and
17:03
Speaker 3: started trying to like I just went into like there's
17:07
Speaker 3: an emergency happening, So.
17:09
Speaker 2: What did you do?
17:10
Speaker 3: I took her into the kitchen, kind of set her
17:13
Speaker 3: up on the counter in my arms and was trying
17:16
Speaker 3: to splash. I was, you know, everything was happening fast
17:19
Speaker 3: and extremely slow. At the same time, I was trying
17:24
Speaker 3: to kind of get my mind under control to evaluate
17:28
Speaker 3: and at the same time like panicking because I don't
17:31
Speaker 3: understand what's happening, and very quickly realizing that I don't
17:36
Speaker 3: have any kind of training like to deal with this,
17:39
Speaker 3: and my daughter somehow, I don't know if I asked
17:43
Speaker 3: her to get my phone or bring me my phone,
17:45
Speaker 3: but she gets my phone to me and I call
17:48
Speaker 3: my mom because my mom had been a volunteer firefighter,
17:51
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, what do I do? I think,
17:55
Speaker 3: you know, and I think I need to give a
17:56
Speaker 3: little go context as to why I was questioning my
17:59
Speaker 3: reality in that moment. I had suffered from anxiety and
18:05
Speaker 3: kind of overreacting like if my son choked or and
18:09
Speaker 3: my ex husband had really kind of like made me
18:13
Speaker 3: question my own intuitive sense of things when an emergency
18:18
Speaker 3: was happening, because oftentimes I was really truly overreacting, and
18:22
Speaker 3: so I kind of had started to spiral into that
18:25
Speaker 3: like am I crazy this reality actually happening right now?
18:29
Speaker 3: Or am I overreacting? And so I called my mom.
18:33
Speaker 3: I let her know very quickly like what I'm seeing,
18:36
Speaker 3: and she just said, called nine one one, and I
18:37
Speaker 3: immediately called nine one one.
18:40
Speaker 2: And what did they say to do?
18:42
Speaker 3: You know? I cannot even remember. I think the only
18:47
Speaker 3: thing I can remember is I'm telling me someone's on
18:50
Speaker 3: their way.
18:51
Speaker 2: So maybe Laura, you can walk me through what happens next.
18:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the paramedics do arrive within minutes, so there
18:59
Speaker 4: they're really quickly and they find Brynn unconscious and bruises
19:03
Speaker 4: on her body, which Heidi had observed those as well
19:06
Speaker 4: when she when she first got there. They took her
19:09
Speaker 4: to the hospital and they found that she had retinal hemorrhage,
19:12
Speaker 4: hemorrhaging in both eyes, and also that her leg was fractured,
19:18
Speaker 4: and they so there were there was just I just
19:20
Speaker 4: want to say, there's no question that that Brent experienced
19:24
Speaker 4: really serious injuries. There's no question about that. But she's
19:27
Speaker 4: taken to the hospital and it was the I think
19:31
Speaker 4: the investigation.
19:33
Speaker 3: Did you how soon.
19:34
Speaker 4: Did you learn that they were sort of investigating, because
19:37
Speaker 4: it was months before you were actually so.
19:40
Speaker 3: I knew the next day because CPS came to take
19:44
Speaker 3: my children, Rachel and Derek, and and so we knew
19:49
Speaker 3: the doctors had basically been accusing me or saying that
19:53
Speaker 3: this is the only thing that happened, and she would
19:56
Speaker 3: have been the only one there. We had my children,
20:00
Speaker 3: and just to wrap that up, like, we hired a
20:02
Speaker 3: family law attorney and had my children home in a week.
20:04
Speaker 3: But that initial them coming to take them is when
20:07
Speaker 3: I knew that there was something else going on.
20:11
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine what went through your mind, Like
20:14
Speaker 2: already you're twenty three years old and a child in
20:19
Speaker 2: your care is becomes unresponsive, Like how insanely scary that
20:26
Speaker 2: would be. But for then the next morning, for someone
20:29
Speaker 2: to come and say, we're taking your children away. Can
20:32
Speaker 2: you take me back to that moment, and where were you,
20:36
Speaker 2: what time of day was this, what was your immediate reaction?
20:40
Speaker 3: So we had actually Kate had been left at my
20:44
Speaker 3: house after they took her to the hospital, nobody could
20:48
Speaker 3: find his mother, and then when they did, she obviously
20:53
Speaker 3: went to the hospital, and so we were we waited
20:56
Speaker 3: until like late morning for someone to act come and
21:00
Speaker 3: pick him up, and then I just wanted to go
21:03
Speaker 3: to the hospital. That's the only thing I wanted to do.
21:06
Speaker 3: And so we went to the hospital and I actually
21:09
Speaker 3: went back to see her. There were tubes all over
21:12
Speaker 3: and you know, life support or life you know, saving
21:17
Speaker 3: measures happening, and bandages around her head. And the last
21:20
Speaker 3: thing I remember of my interaction with her was just
21:23
Speaker 3: grabbing her little feet and like just praying that she
21:29
Speaker 3: was going to come out of this. Really having no
21:32
Speaker 3: idea what was Again, like, my reality is just in
21:37
Speaker 3: trauma mode at that moment. So we leave there and
21:42
Speaker 3: I think I went to my grandparents that just was
21:44
Speaker 3: like my safe, comfortable place, and my kids were kind
21:49
Speaker 3: of traumatized as well. I believe it was like eight
21:53
Speaker 3: nine at night. By this time, my ex husband had
21:56
Speaker 3: got back to the house there and they showed up
22:00
Speaker 3: with two police officers and said we are taking the
22:03
Speaker 3: kids into custody. My children had never been away from me.
22:08
Speaker 3: I felt myself start to panic and just like want
22:15
Speaker 3: to freak out, but then at the same time understanding
22:18
Speaker 3: like this is completely out of my control and I
22:21
Speaker 3: don't want to freak my kids out. So I was like,
22:26
Speaker 3: I need to do everything I can so that they're
22:29
Speaker 3: not afraid of what's happening right now, and so I
22:33
Speaker 3: cooperated to not scare my children.
22:47
Speaker 2: Hi there, I'm Amanda Knox. After four years in an
22:51
Speaker 2: Italian prison for a murder I didn't commit. I know
22:54
Speaker 2: what it's like to wind up in a life I
22:56
Speaker 2: never expected, even after I was exonerated, and so alone,
23:01
Speaker 2: like no one would ever understand me I was wrong.
23:05
Speaker 2: We're all navigating our own personal mazes. That's what my
23:08
Speaker 2: podcast labyrinth is about. Along with my partner Christopher Robinson,
23:12
Speaker 2: I'm telling stories about infertility, psychedelics, wrongful conviction, and wild adventure.
23:19
Speaker 2: Every episode of Labyrinths is different, some heart wrenching, some hilarious,
23:24
Speaker 2: with guests that run the gamut from comedians to dominatrixes,
23:27
Speaker 2: to mountain climbers to scientists. But what's always true is
23:31
Speaker 2: that labyrinth gets real. We go to the hard places,
23:36
Speaker 2: ask big philosophical questions, and create an immersive narrative experience.
23:42
Speaker 2: So please get lost with us. Subscribe to Labyrinths wherever
23:45
Speaker 2: you listen. I wonder that first night, when they just
23:56
Speaker 2: automatically came to that assumption and sent cps to your house,
24:02
Speaker 2: did anyone bother to tell them what might have led
24:07
Speaker 2: to Brin's injuries? That wasn't just blatant abuse from her caregiver.
24:12
Speaker 3: I think at the time, the way that lucid intervals
24:16
Speaker 3: were mean accepted, and there hadn't been any additional studies
24:20
Speaker 3: at the time, nothing else mattered, like it had to
24:25
Speaker 3: have happened in these hours, and it would have had
24:29
Speaker 3: to have happened by an adult, and therefore she was
24:33
Speaker 3: the only adult and so this is what happened. I
24:37
Speaker 3: think that's right.
24:38
Speaker 4: I think there's the state had somewhere in the neighborhood
24:43
Speaker 4: of six medical experts doing testimony during the trial saying,
24:47
Speaker 4: there's no way that these injuries could have been inflicted
24:50
Speaker 4: by a child, by a four year old child. There
24:54
Speaker 4: is no way that after sustaining these injuries that this
24:56
Speaker 4: child could remain lucid, they would lose consciousness, There's no way.
25:00
Speaker 4: So all of these really conclusive pieces of testimony were
25:05
Speaker 4: presented during trial in a way that does seem compelling. Right,
25:09
Speaker 4: This is sort of the roadmap to a wrongful conviction
25:12
Speaker 4: in SBS cases that whomever is with the child at
25:15
Speaker 4: the time that the symptoms are presenting, which is not
25:19
Speaker 4: necessarily connected with they're not contemporaneous injuries necessarily, they could
25:24
Speaker 4: have happened up to days before, and in fact, you
25:28
Speaker 4: just don't know in many cases. I think in the
25:30
Speaker 4: testimony with regard to the fracture in Brin's leg, it
25:33
Speaker 4: was estimated that the injury happened sometime between one hour
25:36
Speaker 4: and four days earlier. So that is a pretty tremendous range, especially,
25:41
Speaker 4: you know, and so if the common wisdom is this
25:45
Speaker 4: it also is you know, I think not to go
25:48
Speaker 4: too far up tangent, but I think it's really relevant
25:50
Speaker 4: to how decision making is made in these moments that
25:54
Speaker 4: this sort of folk wisdom that the simplest explanation is
25:59
Speaker 4: usually the right one is an incredibly dangerous notion because
26:04
Speaker 4: the world is complicated and dynamic, and sometimes the thing
26:07
Speaker 4: that appears to be what just happened is not what
26:10
Speaker 4: just happened. So but there is a definite draw and
26:14
Speaker 4: temptation to go with whatever seems most logical and easiest
26:17
Speaker 4: to understand. And while that person was with her right
26:20
Speaker 4: before these injuries, therefore this person inflicted these injuries, and
26:23
Speaker 4: they don't really look too far outside to what those
26:26
Speaker 4: alternate explanations may be. And I think in this case
26:30
Speaker 4: it's especially dynamic in the sense that it's very likely
26:36
Speaker 4: that the injuries were inflicted, at least in part by
26:38
Speaker 4: a five year old child. Clearly it was it was
26:41
Speaker 4: a vicious adult and not a child with behavior issues.
26:45
Speaker 4: Right like that, it's just the easier conclusion to draw, right,
26:48
Speaker 4: it's more comfortable.
26:49
Speaker 2: And the one where we can attribute blame.
26:51
Speaker 4: Exactly where were.
26:53
Speaker 2: You when you were charged? Do you remember how it felt.
26:58
Speaker 3: I think that I just got something in the mail
27:03
Speaker 3: that basically said that they were filing those charges.
27:08
Speaker 2: What about Brinn's parents? Had you been in contact with
27:11
Speaker 2: them ever since that day or the phone call between
27:16
Speaker 2: Dustin and Jason where he was accusing you. Had you
27:22
Speaker 2: heard from them at all?
27:23
Speaker 3: No? Nothing, nothing at all?
27:27
Speaker 2: Wow?
27:28
Speaker 3: So I think I want to touch back on why,
27:31
Speaker 3: you know, why did it take the investigators so long
27:33
Speaker 3: to charge me? And again I'm assuming, but I like
27:37
Speaker 3: to think that they were actually like questioning this narrative.
27:42
Speaker 3: But when you have that many doctors telling you this
27:45
Speaker 3: is the only way, and you, as parents, you have
27:50
Speaker 3: six doctors or however many it was telling you this
27:53
Speaker 3: is the only way, and when you're in a position
27:56
Speaker 3: where you're experiencing a trauma, you want to blame mm hmm.
28:01
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's talk about the trial. I wonder if
28:04
Speaker 2: you can give me a brief brief synopsis of what happened,
28:09
Speaker 2: and of course, if you have any you know, memories
28:12
Speaker 2: or anything that you want to offer, I think that
28:15
Speaker 2: would that would be great. Can you talk about the
28:17
Speaker 2: trial and what went down?
28:19
Speaker 3: Yeah?
28:19
Speaker 4: I think you know, the trial is pretty straightforward. The
28:24
Speaker 4: state had a theory they did. As I mentioned earlier,
28:29
Speaker 4: the state spun a few different theories on the reasons
28:33
Speaker 4: that Heidi would be aggressive with Brnn, that she was crying,
28:38
Speaker 4: that Heidi just lost her temper, that there were all
28:41
Speaker 4: of these different factors that there was no testimony to.
28:45
Speaker 4: This was you know, no one was there with Heidi
28:47
Speaker 4: as she was watching the children, So it wasn't based
28:49
Speaker 4: in anything except just being a theory that would help
28:53
Speaker 4: the jury to say, oh, yeah, I could see how
28:56
Speaker 4: that could happen, right, because Heidi didn't have at any
29:00
Speaker 4: history at all of being aggressive or inappropriate or in
29:05
Speaker 4: any way anything other than just thoroughly nurturing with children
29:08
Speaker 4: and had a very very extensive experience doing that and
29:11
Speaker 4: children of her own, with no experience with CPS, none
29:14
Speaker 4: of these things. And so they kind of had to
29:17
Speaker 4: if they were going to sell the story that was
29:19
Speaker 4: the narrative. And again, you know, they had I think
29:21
Speaker 4: a total of six medical professionals testifying about what must
29:26
Speaker 4: have happened and how this wouldn't have presented at the trial.
29:31
Speaker 4: There were and correct me if I'm wrong, Heidi, but
29:34
Speaker 4: I don't believe there were any medical professionals testifying on
29:37
Speaker 4: your behalf, Is that right?
29:39
Speaker 2: Was?
29:39
Speaker 4: It was more or less just trying to chip away
29:42
Speaker 4: at what the state was presenting. And so even though
29:45
Speaker 4: in two thousand and three, there likely would have been,
29:49
Speaker 4: you know, some doctors who would have testified, No, there's
29:51
Speaker 4: other ways that this could have happened that was not
29:55
Speaker 4: presented at trial. So it was really just sort of
29:58
Speaker 4: trying to defend against the the emotion of you know,
30:03
Speaker 4: sort of presenting these really extensive injuries to this fifteen
30:06
Speaker 4: month old and all of their different, various explanations for
30:10
Speaker 4: how that could have happened.
30:12
Speaker 2: You know, you weren't the only one in that house
30:14
Speaker 2: that night. Did the kids testify? Yes, And what did
30:19
Speaker 2: they say?
30:20
Speaker 3: Going back to the week that they took the kids
30:23
Speaker 3: from the home and put them in foster care, Rachel
30:26
Speaker 3: was repeating even then to the foster care mother what
30:29
Speaker 3: had happened and what she had seen. Her story never wavered,
30:34
Speaker 3: so when she testified, it was the same thing kind
30:36
Speaker 3: of what she had witnessed that night and Kaid's behavior.
30:40
Speaker 3: And Caid testified as well. His story changed multiple times,
30:48
Speaker 3: And this is the part where I screamed internally during
30:51
Speaker 3: the trial. When he was testifying, they asked him a question.
30:57
Speaker 3: My attorney asked him a question about what he was
31:00
Speaker 3: doing in the playpen, and he just said she wasn't breathing,
31:06
Speaker 3: and so he had memory of something occurring that night.
31:12
Speaker 3: And I felt like it was like this major moment
31:15
Speaker 3: during the trial, like do you guys hear him like,
31:19
Speaker 3: but nothing ever came out of it, but his story. Yes,
31:23
Speaker 3: I mean he was kind of even, you know, the
31:25
Speaker 3: judge had to get on him to, you know, answer
31:30
Speaker 3: the questions. But these are children, right.
31:32
Speaker 2: So you mentioned that the defense did not bring forward
31:37
Speaker 2: any medical professionals who could speak about alternate reasons or
31:43
Speaker 2: methods that Brin could have sustained these injuries, and that
31:47
Speaker 2: really was what ultimately the case came down to. Do
31:52
Speaker 2: you remember when you heard guilty?
31:59
Speaker 3: When they said guilty, it just kind of it was
32:03
Speaker 3: like the nail in the coffin. I think I had
32:06
Speaker 3: already been laying in the coffin for the last year
32:10
Speaker 3: before the trial, and that was just the nail that
32:14
Speaker 3: sealed it. I remember being pulled out into the hallway.
32:20
Speaker 3: I remember I was hysterical. I was crying. I could
32:23
Speaker 3: barely stand up. I had heard my mom gasping and
32:29
Speaker 3: breaking down into sobs behind me. I remember running into
32:35
Speaker 3: a juror in the hallway and she started crying. She
32:41
Speaker 3: was waiting for the elevator, and my ex husband took
32:45
Speaker 3: me down the stairs. We went straight to my attorney's office,
32:49
Speaker 3: which was a few blocks so I sat in his
32:54
Speaker 3: office on the floor, sobbing and didn't understand what really
33:00
Speaker 3: any of this meant. But I felt doomed. I just
33:04
Speaker 3: felt absolutely doomed.
33:06
Speaker 2: What was your sentence?
33:09
Speaker 3: Originally it was I believe fifteen years, but they re
33:15
Speaker 3: appealed that and we won on appeal because they weren't
33:20
Speaker 3: able to actually inflict that. I say inflict because that's
33:24
Speaker 3: how I feel, and so it was reduced to ten.
33:32
Speaker 3: And then one thing I will not ever forget about
33:34
Speaker 3: the sentencing was the judge. My judge stated that he's
33:40
Speaker 3: not at all convinced of my guilt, but that he
33:43
Speaker 3: has to honor the verdict of the jury. Wow, and
33:48
Speaker 3: I just thought, how can he say he's not convinced
33:53
Speaker 3: and still sentence me right now?
33:55
Speaker 2: So I understand you didn't immediately go to prison. Why
33:59
Speaker 2: was that.
34:02
Speaker 3: My judge, with all of his weird reasons he denied
34:10
Speaker 3: the prosecution or the state's request to do that, and
34:17
Speaker 3: he denied their requests to separate me from my other children,
34:21
Speaker 3: and he granted me an appeal bond to remain home
34:26
Speaker 3: with my children while we appealed the case.
34:29
Speaker 2: That's pretty extraordinary. Have you ever heard of that?
34:32
Speaker 4: It is extraordinary. I've heard of it, not in any
34:34
Speaker 4: of our other cases. I've certainly heard of it, but
34:37
Speaker 4: rarely it is. And I do think it speaks to
34:40
Speaker 4: the hesitation that the judge had, and also clearly the
34:45
Speaker 4: judge not being concerned and in fact prioritizing Heidi spending
34:49
Speaker 4: more time with her children.
34:50
Speaker 3: I was pregnant. I should have mentioned that I was
34:52
Speaker 3: pregnant with my youngest son, Dylan during the trial.
34:55
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, so you appealed. The appeal was successful in
35:07
Speaker 2: a way. It reduced the sentence, but it did not
35:11
Speaker 2: overturn your conviction.
35:12
Speaker 3: Correct, And it took about three years.
35:15
Speaker 2: So were you hoping three years two thousand and six
35:20
Speaker 2: during the appeals process. Did any part of you think like,
35:25
Speaker 2: this next go around, they're going to figure out that
35:27
Speaker 2: this is all a big mistake.
35:29
Speaker 3: No, I completely I completely shrunk away from what was happening.
35:37
Speaker 3: I was pregnant. I just kind of like built up
35:45
Speaker 3: this little burrow or dun or walls or whatever you
35:49
Speaker 3: want to call it, and tried to push the case
35:51
Speaker 3: out on the other side. I just wanted to I
35:55
Speaker 3: never lost the sense of doom. I stopped. I continued
35:59
Speaker 3: to think, they're coming for me, is just a matter
36:01
Speaker 3: of when, not if, and I'm just going to be
36:06
Speaker 3: a mom. And I did that for three years, and
36:11
Speaker 3: then what happened, Well, the appeals was lost, and we
36:17
Speaker 3: started talking about that I would have to turn myself
36:21
Speaker 3: in and start serving the sentence.
36:25
Speaker 2: How did you like What were those conversations like with
36:28
Speaker 2: your family and specifically with your kids.
36:35
Speaker 3: When I realized that it was imminent and that I
36:40
Speaker 3: was going to have to say goodbye. My boys were
36:44
Speaker 3: too young to really understand, and so my daughter was nine.
36:50
Speaker 3: I went for a drive with her, intending to kind
36:52
Speaker 3: of take her somewhere and explain to her that mommy
36:56
Speaker 3: was going to have to go away. But I couldn't
36:58
Speaker 3: even make it to anyone. I had no idea where
37:01
Speaker 3: to take her, so I just pulled over on the
37:03
Speaker 3: side of the road and told her that sometimes when
37:09
Speaker 3: her and her brothers fight. Sometimes we don't know who
37:13
Speaker 3: is telling the truth and who isn't, and sometimes we
37:16
Speaker 3: get it wrong, and that the system had gotten it wrong,
37:23
Speaker 3: and that I was going to have to go away.
37:27
Speaker 3: What did she say? She started crying. She asked me
37:33
Speaker 3: for how long? She asked me if she would be
37:36
Speaker 3: able to see me. I once I started to reassure
37:40
Speaker 3: her that those things would happen. Kids are resilient. She
37:44
Speaker 3: just wanted to know if she's going to be able
37:46
Speaker 3: to see me? Really, and I think I just started
37:50
Speaker 3: talking about, you know, what I would do to make
37:53
Speaker 3: sure she wasn't alone, to the point where I saw
37:59
Speaker 3: a book walking through like target that said the Caring
38:03
Speaker 3: Keeping of You, realizing that I wasn't couldn't be there
38:10
Speaker 3: to talk to her about things that girls need their
38:13
Speaker 3: mothers therefore, and it was like this book was just
38:17
Speaker 3: sitting on the shelf explaining all of that. I bought
38:20
Speaker 3: it for her and took it home to her.
38:47
Speaker 2: What was it like to raise your children from afar?
38:51
Speaker 3: I became something else. My focus was I didn't care
38:58
Speaker 3: how incommunion it made anything else for anybody out there.
39:02
Speaker 3: I mean, I was going to bull doze my way
39:04
Speaker 3: through anything and anything to have access to my children
39:08
Speaker 3: and for them to have access to me. I called home.
39:13
Speaker 3: I don't I can't remember a day I didn't call
39:15
Speaker 3: home when my son I just I think the person,
39:20
Speaker 3: this quiet, more naive person, really became a lot fiercer
39:26
Speaker 3: trying to pave a way for me to just be
39:28
Speaker 3: still parent from inside.
39:31
Speaker 2: So you had to serve your full sentence. It did.
39:37
Speaker 3: Science doesn't move quickly.
39:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, when were you released?
39:42
Speaker 3: Twenty fourteen?
39:45
Speaker 2: What was that like for you?
39:48
Speaker 3: Nothing that I thought it would look like.
39:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, talk to me. What were you thinking it
39:53
Speaker 2: was going to look like?
39:54
Speaker 3: You know? I think I had spent the first two
39:58
Speaker 3: thirds just imagining returning to that life. My husband and I,
40:05
Speaker 3: you know, we were married, we had bought a home,
40:08
Speaker 3: we had dug in and survived the whole time. We'd
40:11
Speaker 3: gotten the kids through this, and I was just going
40:14
Speaker 3: to go home and pick up those pieces and keep going.
40:18
Speaker 3: And then twenty thirteen, a year before I would have
40:22
Speaker 3: came home, I was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer
40:26
Speaker 3: and went through every piece of treatment that they will
40:33
Speaker 3: inflict on you, because that's also inflicted. And things started
40:39
Speaker 3: to change between my husband my then husband and I
40:42
Speaker 3: I and we were never meant for each other. We
40:49
Speaker 3: were young when we got together, and I think that
40:51
Speaker 3: those pieces started to unravel, that, you know, and the
40:55
Speaker 3: cancer just really became an even more driving wedge. My values,
41:02
Speaker 3: my purposes, my desires, my experience was so much more
41:10
Speaker 3: advanced than him at that point, the things I didn't
41:15
Speaker 3: want to take for granted, the life I wanted to live,
41:19
Speaker 3: And the more we had these conversations, the more intimidated
41:23
Speaker 3: he was by them. And so by the time I
41:26
Speaker 3: released in twenty fourteen, we had almost become estranged, and
41:33
Speaker 3: so when I came home, it was an understanding that
41:37
Speaker 3: we were more than likely going to be divorcing. I
41:43
Speaker 3: didn't go to our house. I released to my mother's,
41:47
Speaker 3: and we just continued to deteriorate after in that first year.
41:52
Speaker 2: Gosh, not that you know, movie moment that people am
42:00
Speaker 2: or hope for. How did it feel to pick up
42:04
Speaker 2: the pieces in that kind of environment?
42:08
Speaker 3: Brutal? I very quickly realized I didn't know my kids's
42:14
Speaker 3: daily routines, that no matter how fiercely I stayed involved
42:20
Speaker 3: from inside, there were still so many gaps.
42:25
Speaker 2: How old were they?
42:27
Speaker 3: There were nine five and two when I went in,
42:30
Speaker 3: and seventeen thirteen and ten when I came home. So
42:34
Speaker 3: my ten year old didn't even remember me being home.
42:38
Speaker 3: He only knew me from inside the prison.
42:43
Speaker 2: How did they react to you coming home?
42:47
Speaker 3: Initially happy, but it was all very overshadowed by the
42:51
Speaker 3: separation between their father and I. It's like we had
42:53
Speaker 3: held it together that whole time, and then we're completely
42:57
Speaker 3: falling apart at the end. And my kids went through
43:00
Speaker 3: the that was more trauma than the prison sends. To
43:04
Speaker 3: be honest. I know it's difficult to say that, but
43:07
Speaker 3: they've never recovered fully from their father and I is divorce.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I also imagine it's like it's the straw
43:16
Speaker 2: on the camel's back kind of thing. That's like, you've
43:19
Speaker 2: I've already gone through this and then but of course
43:23
Speaker 2: life is complicated and you can't control that. Laura, what
43:27
Speaker 2: was the turning point in Heidi's case?
43:30
Speaker 4: Boy, I think that the well interesting. I think that
43:33
Speaker 4: the turning point in terms of the science, in terms
43:37
Speaker 4: of what would make relief possible. I think we're still turning. Frankly,
43:42
Speaker 4: we've basically we're waiting for some more published studies you
43:45
Speaker 4: can kind of like see where that you can see
43:47
Speaker 4: it on the horizon, But if you're not there yet,
43:49
Speaker 4: then there's not going to be anything that constitutes newly
43:53
Speaker 4: discovered evidence that allows you to get back into that case.
43:56
Speaker 4: And that's act still what we ended up facing when
43:59
Speaker 4: it came to Heidie's case. That and we finally had
44:02
Speaker 4: our own medical experts.
44:04
Speaker 2: Yes, there you go. I want to know more about that,
44:07
Speaker 2: Like it seems like if only you had had a
44:09
Speaker 2: medical expert with you at your first trial. Who were
44:15
Speaker 2: these experts, how did you find them and what was
44:18
Speaker 2: their position on the facts of your case.
44:21
Speaker 3: Doctor Patrick Barnes was found first, and he had become
44:26
Speaker 3: an outspoken advocate against the diagnosis, and he was difficult
44:32
Speaker 3: to get I know that he I don't know if
44:35
Speaker 3: he agreed initially to take the case, but finally, after
44:38
Speaker 3: a lot of nudging, he did. And then doctor op
44:41
Speaker 3: Haven came on as well, and I you know, I
44:44
Speaker 3: think they were heroes to me. I'll never forget getting
44:52
Speaker 3: some documents from you know, my attorneys while I was
44:56
Speaker 3: still inside from doctor op Haven where she just said
45:00
Speaker 3: in her medical professional opinion that these injuries had occurred
45:07
Speaker 3: or whatever. It was that had occurred, had happened so
45:11
Speaker 3: many hours before that it wasn't possible that this had
45:15
Speaker 3: happened at my home. And it was the like just
45:21
Speaker 3: feeling validated for the first time ever seeing those words
45:25
Speaker 3: on paper.
45:26
Speaker 2: Did you think, Like, I think one of the things
45:30
Speaker 2: that maybe people don't appreciate is that at for someone
45:34
Speaker 2: who served out their entire sentences, you were freed, but
45:37
Speaker 2: you weren't free. You were a convicted dellain. Yeah, and
45:46
Speaker 2: so the first maybe hint of hope that you might
45:51
Speaker 2: go back to the life that you deserved was having
45:55
Speaker 2: somebody somewhere say, actually, this not only is not her fault,
46:02
Speaker 2: it can't be her fault.
46:04
Speaker 3: I think it was the first time that like I
46:07
Speaker 3: actually did have hope that something could turn around, that
46:14
Speaker 3: somebody was on my side. And I don't mean like
46:18
Speaker 3: my attorneys or my family, but like somebody actually saw
46:25
Speaker 3: the truth.
46:26
Speaker 2: So how did that manifest itself? Did these experts go
46:29
Speaker 2: into court and throw down their paperwork and say get
46:33
Speaker 2: this lady out of this battled down?
46:36
Speaker 3: How did this work out? Yeah?
46:39
Speaker 4: You know, we've got a number of clients that are
46:41
Speaker 4: in well, a couple of clients that are in this
46:43
Speaker 4: situation or part of our freedom exonerated family that had
46:46
Speaker 4: to serve their entire sentence before any kind of relief
46:49
Speaker 4: was granted in their case. And so we had filed
46:53
Speaker 4: with Chris Barrett and with our staff attorneys had filed
46:56
Speaker 4: what's Washington State's version of habeas, which is called a
47:01
Speaker 4: personal restraint petition. So we had filed that we called
47:04
Speaker 4: a PRP. We had filed that with the new evidence
47:07
Speaker 4: of the change in science. So we've got these experts
47:10
Speaker 4: now who are coming in. This is the newly discovered evidence.
47:12
Speaker 4: As we were framing it, we should Heidi should be
47:15
Speaker 4: able to is entitled to a new trial because there's
47:18
Speaker 4: now this testimony, the evidence that was presented at her trial.
47:22
Speaker 4: There's now this ability to you know, to challenge that
47:26
Speaker 4: and cause into question the conviction itself.
47:29
Speaker 2: And so so WHOA, that's a that's a big deal.
47:32
Speaker 3: That's huge.
47:33
Speaker 2: So what does that mean?
47:34
Speaker 3: That's huge?
47:35
Speaker 4: So it means that for legal purposes, So a lot
47:39
Speaker 4: of people have this question in the post conviction realm, Well,
47:41
Speaker 4: if she already served her sentence, doesn't mean that doesn't
47:43
Speaker 4: that mean that double jeopardy, you know, would attach and
47:45
Speaker 4: you can't you can't now face any kind of no,
47:49
Speaker 4: because when a conviction is overturned, they vacate the conviction
47:52
Speaker 4: and it's as if legally, as if it never happened.
47:54
Speaker 4: And so it puts you if she were to theoretically
47:58
Speaker 4: be tried again and convicted again and be sent since
48:00
Speaker 4: the credit for the time she's already served would apply, right.
48:04
Speaker 4: But there is also the possibility that if there were
48:07
Speaker 4: some in some scenarios, there's a possibility that an aggravating
48:10
Speaker 4: factor could be added if they have new information. And
48:13
Speaker 4: so in another of our clients cases, Ted Bradford, that
48:16
Speaker 4: was something that they were They charged him with an
48:18
Speaker 4: aggravating circumstance. So even though it'd served as trial, they
48:20
Speaker 4: retried him and he could have gone back for more.
48:22
Speaker 4: So this is just there's it's not that there's no
48:24
Speaker 4: risk after being out of custody, right, So there's there's
48:27
Speaker 4: still sort of jeopardy that still can attach in that way.
48:31
Speaker 4: So the Court of Appeals did said yes, she's entitled
48:34
Speaker 4: to a new trial, and then the state appealed.
48:36
Speaker 2: So just so we're clear, the appeals court vacated her
48:42
Speaker 2: conviction yes, and said you're entitled to a new trial,
48:47
Speaker 2: the prosecution comes in and says no.
48:52
Speaker 3: Yes, rewind. The appellate court vacated the conviction because this
49:00
Speaker 3: date showed up with no argument. They didn't challenge my innocence.
49:04
Speaker 3: They said I filed too late. Ah, so they had
49:08
Speaker 3: nothing to show up and argue as to, basically showing
49:14
Speaker 3: that they don't even have any evidence any longer.
49:18
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So I was.
49:20
Speaker 3: Pregnant again in the middle of all of this with
49:25
Speaker 3: my daughter Vanna, and you know, just kind of enjoying life,
49:30
Speaker 3: living life, knowing that we were, you know, in this
49:34
Speaker 3: victory path. And then some pictures were sent to my
49:44
Speaker 3: attorneys with no message, no notes attached, and they were
49:49
Speaker 3: photos of me pregnant taken from my Facebook page, one
49:52
Speaker 3: with my dog and just one with me kind of
49:55
Speaker 3: you know, with my tummy. And my attorneys at the
49:59
Speaker 3: time I met the Innocence Project felt threatened by these
50:03
Speaker 3: photos sent by the prosecutor's office.
50:06
Speaker 2: They were sent by the prosecutor's office. Yes, wait, wait,
50:09
Speaker 2: wait wait, the prosecutor's office went onto your Facebook page
50:14
Speaker 2: and like a weird stalk or creeper dude printed them
50:19
Speaker 2: out and then sent them to the Innocence Project without explanation.
50:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I remember correctly, they were like in a
50:28
Speaker 3: packet of like other legal papers. But there was no
50:32
Speaker 3: reason why they would be in there.
50:35
Speaker 2: That is bizarre. That is so bizarre. Okay, so what
50:42
Speaker 2: do you do with that?
50:44
Speaker 3: So my attorneys took it as a threat. You know,
50:50
Speaker 3: here I am trying to enjoy my pregnancy. I'm trying
50:55
Speaker 3: to do all the things that everybody does to just
50:58
Speaker 3: kind of you know, celebrate it. And the next thing
51:01
Speaker 3: I know, I'm getting a call. We need you to
51:03
Speaker 3: shut down all your social media. We're hiring you a
51:07
Speaker 3: family law attorney. We're worried that they're going to come
51:11
Speaker 3: and take the baby from the hospital. Oh oh god,
51:19
Speaker 3: they weren't going to let me.
51:22
Speaker 1: Just be.
51:25
Speaker 3: What went through your mind? It felt like burning down
51:28
Speaker 3: the world. I felt silenced again that they weren't just
51:34
Speaker 3: going to let me be. So I felt intimidated that
51:40
Speaker 3: they were trying to get me to quit fighting. So
51:43
Speaker 3: I met with a family law attorney. And you know,
51:46
Speaker 3: we knew that once we were in front of family court,
51:49
Speaker 3: like there would be a not you know, that it
51:52
Speaker 3: wouldn't be an issue. But and they knew that, but
51:56
Speaker 3: just to be vindictive, and take her initially and make
52:01
Speaker 3: us jump through those hoops.
52:03
Speaker 2: So what was it like when you finally were giving
52:07
Speaker 2: birth to Havana.
52:09
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like I had kind of gone
52:12
Speaker 3: back in a bubble. Like I felt like I came
52:14
Speaker 3: out of out of it for a minute and felt,
52:16
Speaker 3: you know, like I was living in truth and living
52:19
Speaker 3: in victory and living in all those things. And then
52:21
Speaker 3: that just kind of forced me back into this protective bubble.
52:26
Speaker 3: And so I'm just, you know, I just want to
52:28
Speaker 3: have my baby. I just want to like, you know,
52:32
Speaker 3: and thankfully nothing came at the hospital.
52:38
Speaker 2: But were you scared?
52:39
Speaker 3: I was scared. Yeah. It was not out of my
52:43
Speaker 3: mind for one minute, and and I was extremely uncomfortable
52:51
Speaker 3: and even outraged and having to sit there and watch
52:57
Speaker 3: SBS videos and you know, sign paperwork, and just even
53:05
Speaker 3: though I knew this was a routine, it felt personal. Yeah. Yeah.
53:10
Speaker 3: And I couldn't. Yeah, I just I couldn't even fathom
53:15
Speaker 3: going back to a trial. I couldn't fathom being taken
53:20
Speaker 3: away from another child. I couldn't. It wasn't that I
53:23
Speaker 3: just couldn't fathom it. I couldn't bear it. Yeah.
53:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like you've your one laser focus throughout
53:32
Speaker 2: this entire thing is that your kids are everything for
53:36
Speaker 2: you and that you would do nothing to risk being
53:42
Speaker 2: away from them.
53:45
Speaker 4: And the cost of that has been, you know, for
53:49
Speaker 4: Heidi having to be in this limbo where you know,
53:53
Speaker 4: we're basically, you know, at this moment, don't poke the bear.
53:56
Speaker 4: You know, what would happen if if, right now, if
53:58
Speaker 4: Heidi we were to move forward filing a you know,
54:03
Speaker 4: claim for post conviction compensation, What would happen?
54:06
Speaker 2: Right What would happen if.
54:07
Speaker 4: We filed emotion with the State Supreme Court to clarify
54:10
Speaker 4: what this ruling means. Since there's no majority, you know,
54:13
Speaker 4: there's since there's there's not a majority opinion that everyone
54:17
Speaker 4: signed on to. What would it all mean? And those
54:19
Speaker 4: are things that could be explored at any time. But
54:22
Speaker 4: the cost benefit for Heidi is the is the real
54:27
Speaker 4: tragedy there? I think that keeps it, that keeps it going.
54:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think people don't understand this about the
54:35
Speaker 2: criminal justice system, that one it could be so weirdly unresolved.
54:42
Speaker 2: We have this idea that it's black and white. It
54:45
Speaker 2: either is or it isn't. And we also like to
54:49
Speaker 2: think that you know, you just you you fight until
54:55
Speaker 2: you win, and it's like, well at what cost?
54:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, this crazy limbo? And I think for me, you know,
55:05
Speaker 3: after I made that decision and a couple you know,
55:10
Speaker 3: another year went by, the decision to back off, to
55:18
Speaker 3: bring my baby home and just tuck in, something else
55:24
Speaker 3: started like developing inside of me. And I think it
55:29
Speaker 3: was a little rebellious. It was like fuck them, Like
55:33
Speaker 3: why do I need their approval?
55:35
Speaker 2: What?
55:36
Speaker 3: Like I know who I am. And it started to
55:38
Speaker 3: become unimportant for me to even continue fighting. And maybe
55:42
Speaker 3: it was driven out of fear, but like I just
55:46
Speaker 3: started thinking like I'm not going to stop talking and
55:49
Speaker 3: I'm not going to stop telling the world what they
55:51
Speaker 3: have done to me, and I don't need their seal
55:53
Speaker 3: of approval, like they're going to know this is how
55:56
Speaker 3: I have to live, that, this is what the position
56:00
Speaker 3: and they've done to me, the fear that they drive
56:02
Speaker 3: into me, And I started realizing, like there's so many
56:06
Speaker 3: of us like that that I need to be a
56:08
Speaker 3: voice for that.
56:10
Speaker 2: Speaking of how do you move forward from this? What
56:14
Speaker 2: have you been doing well?
56:17
Speaker 3: From that place? I just refused to let them keep
56:23
Speaker 3: me silent any longer. And you know, I really started
56:28
Speaker 3: to realize that I have this gift of connecting with
56:32
Speaker 3: others and really drawing people out into wanting, you know,
56:39
Speaker 3: to live life, because you know, that's all we can do.
56:43
Speaker 3: And so in twenty twenty one, I became the client
56:49
Speaker 3: support coordinator for the Washington Innocence Project and I'm now
56:54
Speaker 3: one of five directly impacted staff members of an organization
56:59
Speaker 3: across the country. So that basically we just continue to
57:05
Speaker 3: grow our support of each other to really truly become
57:10
Speaker 3: a network or a nation of freedom, exonerated persons who
57:14
Speaker 3: are there for each other, backed by the organizations and
57:18
Speaker 3: the network.
57:20
Speaker 2: Well, I've talked to you guys's head off, So I
57:23
Speaker 2: think the one thing I want to ask to wrap
57:26
Speaker 2: all of this up is you both are very passionate,
57:30
Speaker 2: very busy people who work within this world. And I'm
57:33
Speaker 2: sure a lot of people who are listening are wondering
57:37
Speaker 2: how can I help? And there's a lot of need
57:41
Speaker 2: kind of scattered all over the place because we're human
57:44
Speaker 2: beings in this world is very messy as it turns out,
57:47
Speaker 2: So how can people who are listening support the work
57:52
Speaker 2: you're doing, Heidi, and the support that you're doing Laura,
57:55
Speaker 2: how can they come to the aid of directly impacted
57:59
Speaker 2: people but also their families.
58:02
Speaker 3: The first thing that I'm going to say is, don't
58:05
Speaker 3: come unless you genuinely can follow through with what you're offering,
58:09
Speaker 3: because that hurts us the most. We have so many
58:13
Speaker 3: people that hear our stories or you know, hear what
58:16
Speaker 3: the you know, the attorneys talk about what's happening, and
58:19
Speaker 3: they want to get involved, and they you know, they
58:22
Speaker 3: feel it in the moment. But then when we follow through,
58:25
Speaker 3: you know, hunting down these offers, sometimes they just completely
58:30
Speaker 3: ghost us. And that just you know, that's a waste
58:34
Speaker 3: of time when I'm trying to find out if you're
58:36
Speaker 3: going to help us or not, or help our my peers,
58:39
Speaker 3: our clients. So don't come if you're not genuine The
58:44
Speaker 3: things that we need are endless, the things, you know,
58:47
Speaker 3: the resources. We need, dental work, we need medical care,
58:51
Speaker 3: we need we need massages, we need you know, we
58:59
Speaker 3: need people, We need therapy, we need you know, we
59:04
Speaker 3: need the opportunity, you know, if you're a skydiver, take
59:08
Speaker 3: us skydiving. We need to heal, and we need to
59:12
Speaker 3: be physically taken care of, and we need houses, and
59:15
Speaker 3: we need jobs, and we need financial support, support as
59:20
Speaker 3: in how to budget. There's just so many things that
59:25
Speaker 3: we're behind in because of the time away from society
59:31
Speaker 3: that we're going to always be playing catch up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Echo.
59:38
Speaker 4: And I'm so glad Heidi that you said, don't show
59:40
Speaker 4: up unless you're unless you mean it, because it is
59:44
Speaker 4: a responsibility to offer support. The one thing you always
59:48
Speaker 4: have is your voice. And the world is absolutely run
59:52
Speaker 4: by the people who show up. And showing up in
59:55
Speaker 4: this space means calling your legislator. Call it you're in
59:59
Speaker 4: Wash It's leg dot Waduck gov. Every state legislator has
1:00:03
Speaker 4: a website. Find out by your address who your legislator is,
1:00:06
Speaker 4: and let them know that this is an issue that
1:00:08
Speaker 4: you care about. You want accountability and prosecutions. You want
1:00:11
Speaker 4: the truth to matter, not just saying we got it
1:00:15
Speaker 4: right and the jury over upheld it and we're just
1:00:17
Speaker 4: going to look the other way. Legislators don't understand, even
1:00:22
Speaker 4: in places like Washington that are supposed to be liberal,
1:00:24
Speaker 4: we're not. We're very purple, very very purple. They don't
1:00:27
Speaker 4: think it's a voter's issue. They don't think that this
1:00:30
Speaker 4: is something that voters really care about So if you
1:00:33
Speaker 4: react viscerally to that statement like I do, call your
1:00:36
Speaker 4: legislators and make sure they know it's something that matters
1:00:38
Speaker 4: to you, and tell everyone that you know to do
1:00:40
Speaker 4: the same.
1:00:45
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for coming all the way
1:00:48
Speaker 2: out to my home to spend all this time with
1:00:51
Speaker 2: me talking about the worst experience of your life.
1:00:55
Speaker 3: I get it.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: I get it, Heidi, And I'm sorry. All right, should
1:01:03
Speaker 2: we go play with our kids or something.
1:01:05
Speaker 3: Let's go do that.
1:01:07
Speaker 4: I need to hold a baby, a baby.
1:01:14
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
1:01:18
Speaker 2: Amanda Knox. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
1:01:22
Speaker 2: Flamm and Kevin Wardis. The Senior producer for this episode
1:01:26
Speaker 2: is Jackie Paully, and our producers are Lyla Robinson and
1:01:30
Speaker 2: Jeff Clyburn. Our editor is Roxandra Guiedy. The music in
1:01:35
Speaker 2: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
1:01:41
Speaker 2: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
1:01:44
Speaker 2: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
1:01:48
Speaker 2: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
1:01:51
Speaker 2: all three platforms, you can also follow me Amanda Knox
1:01:56
Speaker 2: at Amanda Knox on Twitter and at a Mamma Knox
1:01:59
Speaker 2: on Instagram. You can listen to my podcast Labyrinths wherever
1:02:03
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
1:02:07
Speaker 2: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: Next week, on the guest hosted episodes of Wrongful Conviction,
1:02:21
Speaker 1: Laura and iRider returns to Wrongful Conviction to interview Herman
1:02:25
Speaker 1: Williams about the murder of his ex wife and the
1:02:27
Speaker 1: fabricated confession that landed Herman in prison for twenty nine years.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: Herman was only recently released in September twenty twenty two,
1:02:36
Speaker 1: and this is an emotional conversation about a family torn
1:02:39
Speaker 1: apart and the many lives that were ruined by this
1:02:43
Speaker 1: egregious miscarriage of justice. Laura is one of the top
1:02:47
Speaker 1: attorneys in the Wrongful Conviction space, bar nun and a
1:02:51
Speaker 1: freedom fighter who lives and breathes to do this work.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: Listen next Monday in the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed