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Off Record: A Mother on Trial (with Samantha Michaels) · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 2: The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
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Speaker 2: the speaker and do not necessarily represent the Knife or
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Speaker 2: exactly Right Media.
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Speaker 3: The problem is that often these laws are enforced against
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Speaker 3: women who are being abused by the same man that
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Speaker 3: hurt the kid, and we're throwing these women in prison
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Speaker 3: because they're not strong enough to stop their abuser.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Patia Eton, I'm
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Speaker 1: Hannah Smith. We have an interview with an investigative reporter
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Speaker 1: for you today, but first we want to talk a
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Speaker 1: little bit about our off record episodes and what we're
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Speaker 1: planning on doing with them. We've been doing the show
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Speaker 1: for a little over a year now, which is mind
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Speaker 1: blowing to think about truly, And in the very beginning
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Speaker 1: when we started these off records, they were mainly places
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Speaker 1: for Patient and I to tell stories that we couldn't
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Speaker 1: get interviews for. There's a lot of stories that we
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Speaker 1: pursue that just don't end up working out for an episode,
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Speaker 1: and we didn't want to just throw them away. Also,
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Speaker 1: our crafted narrative episodes are really time consuming.
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Speaker 2: They are so time consuming and they are worth it,
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Speaker 2: and if we could put one out every week, we would,
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Speaker 2: but we can't.
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Speaker 1: We can't, so we want to bring you an episode
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Speaker 1: every week, and we're still going to do those style
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Speaker 1: of off records where patient I will discuss a case
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Speaker 1: as it arises. We've also decided to bring in additional
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Speaker 1: interviews on the show. These are more straightforward interviews, no narration,
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Speaker 1: and we're taking a wider lens. We have encountered a
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Speaker 1: lot of people who have really interesting stories in the
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Speaker 1: scope of crime or the criminal justice system, who aren't
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Speaker 1: necessarily victims who've lived through a crime, and we want
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Speaker 1: to be able to tell those stories too, So it
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Speaker 1: might be an interview with an attorney or an expert
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Speaker 1: in some area, or an advocate.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and often those interviews will still be rooted in
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Speaker 2: a story, something that they worked on, so it's still
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Speaker 2: a crime story, but it's just from the perspectives of
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Speaker 2: someone more peripherally related.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 1: That's the short, little update. We'll have a lot of
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Speaker 1: interesting interviews coming your way, so stay tuned. We're also
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Speaker 1: going to do updates on these off record episodes as
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Speaker 1: they arise on the show. Sometimes we cover an episode
2:32
Speaker 1: and you all have additional questions or thoughts or comments
2:36
Speaker 1: and opinions or opinions which we love and that sound
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Speaker 1: as sarcastic, but we really do love it. We always
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Speaker 1: appreciate people reaching out, even if it's with the criticism.
2:44
Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out. We had an episode recently
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Speaker 1: that was quite controversial on social media, that was the
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Speaker 1: Dusty episode. We do have sort of an update, not
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Speaker 1: a huge update, but do you want to kind of
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Speaker 1: tell people what we know.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the update is that Dusty is still back in
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Speaker 2: custody after the alleged Pearle violation because you know, his
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Speaker 2: lawyer and him are fighting it and very hopeful that
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Speaker 2: he will be re released, and it would be really
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Speaker 2: important that Dusty get back to Indiana, which is his
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Speaker 2: home state and where he really wants to be and
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Speaker 2: just to put this all behind him. But the alleged
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Speaker 2: Pearle violation had to do with Dusty's sex offender status,
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Speaker 2: which because of Billy Brown's actions on that night that
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Speaker 2: Jennifer was murdered and Dusty's presence there, he's on the
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Speaker 2: sex offender registry, which means that he has to alert
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Speaker 2: intimate partners of that status, which he did but for
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Speaker 2: whatever reason, which I'm sure this will all come to
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Speaker 2: light at some point, he was seen as having violated
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Speaker 2: his parole. So he and his attorney are disputing that,
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Speaker 2: and those intimate partners have both said they were well
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Speaker 2: aware of his charges and his sex offender status. But yeah,
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Speaker 2: my opinion, having spent so much time speaking with Dusty
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Speaker 2: and reviewing the case, is that I hope he has
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Speaker 2: released and can go on with his life after this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so we are still waiting to hear updates from
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Speaker 1: his attorney.
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Speaker 4: YEP.
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Speaker 1: On that one. We also have one more note. After
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Speaker 1: our episode with Chancey, we got an email from someone
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Speaker 1: pointing out that there is a segment of the FBI
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Speaker 1: called the Internet Crime Complaint Center and you can find
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Speaker 1: that at www dot iic threethnumber three dot gov. And
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Speaker 1: I think it is a great call to use that
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Speaker 1: resource to report crimes that are committed against you on
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Speaker 1: the Internet. That would cover like what happened to Chancey.
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Speaker 1: If someone scammed you and you lost money, I think
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Speaker 1: it's a great thing to report that to the FBI. Now,
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Speaker 1: it may or may not be helpful in getting your
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Speaker 1: money back or getting anyone caught, but I think it helps,
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Speaker 1: as we see more and more of these scams to
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Speaker 1: have a catalog of the scope of it and for
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Speaker 1: a law enforcement agency to understand how big of a
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Speaker 1: deal it is. So it's still good to make that
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Speaker 1: report and it might help you, you never know.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Chancey's episode, a lot of people reached out and
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Speaker 2: expressed concern for Chancy and compassion for what he's been through,
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Speaker 2: and just to know that there is some place that
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Speaker 2: people in that situation can go and even file a complaint,
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Speaker 2: I think will help our systems and resources like the FBI.
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Speaker 2: Even filing a complaint if it doesn't result in getting
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Speaker 2: your money back, can tell the FBI this is a
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Speaker 2: place where we need to be putting resources because it
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Speaker 2: can help them see the scope of the problem, which
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Speaker 2: they no doubt do see. But real people in real
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Speaker 2: stories go a long way.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely so. For today's episode, we speak with investigative reporter
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Speaker 1: Samantha Michaels about an article she wrote about the controversial
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Speaker 1: failure to protect laws which many states have. These laws
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Speaker 1: were written with the intent to protect children from abuse.
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Speaker 1: Samantha's reporting shows that this is not at all what
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Speaker 1: these laws are actually doing. In fact, they are often
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Speaker 1: targeting mothers.
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Speaker 2: So this interview focuses on Carrie King's case, a mother
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Speaker 2: of four who is currently incarcerated because of the actions
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Speaker 2: of her abusive boyfriend. We wanted to interview Carrie, but
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Speaker 2: we're not able to do a full interview with her
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Speaker 2: since she is in prison, but we did have a
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Speaker 2: short recorded phone call with her, which you can hear
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Speaker 2: at the end of the episode, and as always, we
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Speaker 2: will be back at the end of the episode to
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Speaker 2: discuss it. So stick around and don't forget to follow
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Speaker 2: us on Instagram and Blue Sky at the Knife podcast.
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Speaker 2: You can also email us at the Knife at exactly
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Speaker 2: rightmedia dot com.
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Speaker 1: Let's get into the interview. Samantha, Welcome to the Knife.
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining.
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Speaker 2: Us, Thanks for having me. Really looking forward to speaking
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Speaker 2: with you today. I mean, you've done so much research
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Speaker 2: and work looking in to the case we're going to
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Speaker 2: speak with you about and beyond, so really looking forward
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Speaker 2: to it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, okay, we first reached out to you because
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Speaker 1: we read an article that you wrote. It's called she
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Speaker 1: Never heard her kids? So why is a mother serving
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Speaker 1: more time than the man who abused her daughter? And
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Speaker 1: we are going to talk today with you about Carrie
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Speaker 1: King's case, as well as other cases that fall under
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Speaker 1: the failure to protect laws. But you know, I was
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Speaker 1: thinking about how I wanted to start this interview with you,
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Speaker 1: and I love to hear you talk a little bit
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Speaker 1: about being an investigative journalist, just because I feel like
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Speaker 1: that term gets thrown around so much these days, especially
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Speaker 1: in the podcasting world. Sometimes Patient I will be called
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Speaker 1: investigative journalists and we're like, let's be clear, that's not
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Speaker 1: what we are.
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Speaker 2: Like flattering, but no, thank you.
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Speaker 1: We do not spend three years usually working on a story,
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Speaker 1: and we're not breaking news. We do a lot of research.
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Speaker 1: But you're a legit investigative journalist. So can you just
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Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit and tell us how
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Speaker 1: you chose that path.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. So I am a reporter at Mother Jones magazine.
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Speaker 3: I've worked here for a little over ten years, and
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Speaker 3: I guess I kind of always knew that I wanted
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Speaker 3: to be a writer, So that's kind of what got
8:20
Speaker 3: me started down this path. As a kid, I was like,
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Speaker 3: maybe I would want to be a children's book author
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Speaker 3: or novelist, and then as I got older, I started
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Speaker 3: thinking maybe journalism, So I went to journalism school, and
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Speaker 3: when I started reporting for the first time, I realized
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Speaker 3: that I liked that just as much as writing. I
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Speaker 3: considered myself kind of a shy person, and it seemed
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Speaker 3: like an excuse where I could go and talk to
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Speaker 3: people with very different lives and ask them all different
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Speaker 3: kinds of questions. And I think it kind of appealed
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Speaker 3: to my curiosity and my sense of adventure and my
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Speaker 3: desire to help people. So as an investigative reporter, I
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Speaker 3: mostly write about the criminal justice system. I write a
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Speaker 3: lot about police misconduct, conditions, and prisons, prosecutors, and I
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Speaker 3: will sometimes spend a year looking into a story. I
9:11
Speaker 3: spent more than a year working on this piece that
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Speaker 3: we're going to talk about today. Other times I'll spend
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Speaker 3: a few weeks or a few months. I've spent more
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Speaker 3: than two years looking at a story. And it can
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Speaker 3: take all different forms, but often it's meeting somebody and
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Speaker 3: following them over the course of many months and learning
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Speaker 3: all about their life. It is looking for trial transcripts
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Speaker 3: and court records and talking with police and talking with
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Speaker 3: prosecutors and people on all different sides of the story
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Speaker 3: to figure out what happened.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And when you introduce yourself to like a prosecutor
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Speaker 1: as a reporter with Mother Jones, do you typically find
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Speaker 1: that people are open and willing or do you ever
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Speaker 1: get into situations where there's like pushback against what you're
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Speaker 1: doing because you're trying to expose something.
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Speaker 3: I think it depends what I'm writing about. It also
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Speaker 3: depends a lot on the prosecutor's office. Some prosecutors are
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Speaker 3: more open than others. I think sometimes you'll find prosecutors'
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Speaker 3: offices that do want to share information and also expose
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Speaker 3: their side of the story. And then, of course, other
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Speaker 3: times people are pretty stonewalled. They don't really want to
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Speaker 3: share much information.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
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Speaker 2: When they don't want to share information, does that make
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Speaker 2: you like, Okay, I'm onto something here.
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Speaker 3: Sometimes yeah, and then you get creative and try to
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Speaker 3: find other ways to get that information. Nice.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So we want to talk to you about this
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Speaker 1: article and your investigation that led to this article. You know, Patient,
10:47
Speaker 1: I have a bit of a running joke on this
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Speaker 1: podcast that every single story we cover takes place in Oklahoma.
10:54
Speaker 1: I don't know how it's happened, and it's not every
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Speaker 1: single one, but This is probably like our sixth episode
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Speaker 1: about something that happened in Oklahoma and we've only.
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Speaker 2: Been on a year.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, the criminal justice system in Oklahoma is especially
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Speaker 3: messed up.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, not something to be proud of of my home state.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is also an Oklahoma story, or
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Speaker 1: at least Carrie King story is So can you tell us,
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Speaker 1: you know, what was that first seed of the idea
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Speaker 1: that made you want to go down this path? Like
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Speaker 1: what was the question or that first like investigative nugget
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Speaker 1: that came across your desk.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. So in twenty nineteen, I was just reading the
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Speaker 3: news and I saw a story in the New York
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Speaker 3: Times about a woman in Oklahoma who was getting out
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Speaker 3: of prison. Her name was tan DeLeo Hall, and she
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Speaker 3: had basically been in an abusive relationship and her boyfriend
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Speaker 3: had broken bones in her kid's legs and she had
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Speaker 3: not been able to stop him from doing that, and
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Speaker 3: as a result, she had gotten thirty years in prison
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Speaker 3: and he had only gotten two years in jail. So
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Speaker 3: there was this article because she was being released from
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Speaker 3: prison early. There was a massive commutation in Oklahoma and
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Speaker 3: she was getting out after about fifteen years and I
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Speaker 3: saw this, and you know, it was supposed to be
12:18
Speaker 3: kind of, in some ways a good news story, She's
12:21
Speaker 3: getting out of prison. But I was outraged at the
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Speaker 3: disparity in these sentences. She had gotten thirty years and
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Speaker 3: her boyfriend, who had actually done the violence, had gotten
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Speaker 3: two years. And so I called the ACLU in Oklahoma
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Speaker 3: and I was like, tell me more about this. How
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Speaker 3: is this even possible? And the ACLU, an attorney there,
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Speaker 3: explained that there's this law called failure to protect in
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Speaker 3: Oklahoma that allows, you know, a parent to be incarcerated
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Speaker 3: for failing to stop somebody else's violence against their kid.
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Speaker 3: And the ACLU also told me that it was not
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Speaker 3: just this one exceptional case. Tontala o'hall was not the
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Speaker 3: only one. That there actually were many many women in
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Speaker 3: Oklahoma prisons that were serving time for this sentence. But
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Speaker 3: nobody knew exactly how many women because it's very difficult
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Speaker 3: to track failure to protect offenses. And so I wanted
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Speaker 3: to figure out how I'd spread this was how many
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Speaker 3: women were serving time, and I wanted to dig into
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Speaker 3: some other cases. So that's kind of what got the
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Speaker 3: ball rolling.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So how did you first hear the name Carrie King?
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Speaker 1: Or how did you come across her case and why
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Speaker 1: did you choose to follow her?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was asking me Aclu about this and
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Speaker 3: they mentioned many different names of women who were in
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Speaker 3: prison for failure to protect and so I started looking
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Speaker 3: up some of their court records to learn more about
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Speaker 3: their case, and I found court records for Carrie. Carrie
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Speaker 3: was sentenced to thirty years in prison and her use
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Speaker 3: of boyfriend got eighteen years.
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Speaker 1: I'd love for you to tell us a little bit
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Speaker 1: about Carrie and walk us through that time and what
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Speaker 1: you've learned from you know, core documents as well as
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Speaker 1: speaking with her. You know, can you take us to
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Speaker 1: January of twenty fifteen and sort of what was happening
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Speaker 1: in her life or was she living who was living
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Speaker 1: in her house? Give us like an idea of what
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Speaker 1: was going on with her.
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Speaker 3: So in January of twenty fifteen, Carry King was living
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Speaker 3: in Tulsa. She was living with her boyfriend, John Purty,
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Speaker 3: and she was the mother of four children. The oldest
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Speaker 3: was Persia and then William and Lilah was four years old,
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Speaker 3: and then she had a baby named Trinity.
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Speaker 1: How old was Trinity at that time?
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Speaker 3: Do you remember about one year I think, okay, yeah.
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Speaker 1: And she had had trinity with John Purdy, her boyfriend
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Speaker 1: that she was living with.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. The older three children were from a former marriage,
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Speaker 3: so Carrie's relationship with John was pretty abusive. He had
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Speaker 3: been abusing her for about a year. And one day
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Speaker 3: Carrie was giving a bath to her four year old daughter, Lilah,
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Speaker 3: and she saw bruises on Lila's legs and Lila said
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Speaker 3: something like John was mean, and Carrie was kind of confused, like,
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Speaker 3: what did you mean. Lila didn't really explain. So Carrie
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Speaker 3: had been abused for about a year, but she had
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Speaker 3: never seen John hurt any of her kids, and so
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Speaker 3: she asked John about it, and he said that Lila
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Speaker 3: slipped on the ice. And so Carrie stays home from
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Speaker 3: work just kind of to make sure that nothing else happens.
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Speaker 3: Then a couple of days later, it's late at night,
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Speaker 3: it's about two in the morning, and Carrie wakes up.
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Speaker 3: She's groggy, and John is not in bed with her,
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Speaker 3: so she gets out of bed and she sees that
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Speaker 3: there's a light on in Lila's bedroom. So she walks
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Speaker 3: down the hall and she goes into the room and
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Speaker 3: she sees that John has his hands around Lila's neck,
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Speaker 3: and John says like, oh, you know, we're having a
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Speaker 3: pillow fight. But Lila is like whimpering, and so Carrie
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Speaker 3: you know, does the only thing that she can think of.
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Speaker 3: She you know, makes a fist and she punches John
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Speaker 3: in the face, and obviously this angers John. He's like,
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Speaker 3: you know, you think you can hit me, and he
16:35
Speaker 3: takes her and he slams Carrie's head against the wall
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Speaker 3: and then he says, you know, Carrie, hold down Lila.
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Speaker 3: Lila needs to be punished. Hold her down. You know,
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Speaker 3: we're going to spank her. And Carrie you know, has
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Speaker 3: to make a choice here, and she kind of reluctantly
16:53
Speaker 3: agrees to hold down Lilah. She's sort of thinking, maybe
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Speaker 3: if I hold her down, you know, he'll go faster,
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Speaker 3: Maybe he won't go as hard if I'm here, you know,
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Speaker 3: if we go along with it, if we don't fight
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Speaker 3: him on it. But he starts to hit Lila, you know,
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Speaker 3: once or twice, and as soon as Carrie sees how
17:12
Speaker 3: hard it is, she throws her body over Lilah's and
17:16
Speaker 3: so Carrie is actually taking like the belt lashes on
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Speaker 3: her own body, and John rips Carrie off, and so
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Speaker 3: Carrie starts to run out of the house, or she
17:26
Speaker 3: tries to. She wants to go out and try to
17:28
Speaker 3: get help from a neighbor or the police or anyone.
17:31
Speaker 3: But John blocks her at the door and says, you know,
17:33
Speaker 3: you're not going anywhere, and he drags her by her
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Speaker 3: hair to their bedroom and he says, you know, if
17:40
Speaker 3: you leave here, I'm going to kill you. And then
17:42
Speaker 3: he goes into Lilah's room and he locks the door
17:45
Speaker 3: and he has Carrie's phone in his pocket, so she's
17:48
Speaker 3: not able to call someone, and she's afraid to leave.
17:52
Speaker 3: You know. She can hear her daughter behind the locked
17:54
Speaker 3: door crying, and she feels paralyzed. She doesn't know what
17:57
Speaker 3: to do, and so she, you know, begs with John,
18:01
Speaker 3: please stop, please come out, And eventually she convinces John
18:06
Speaker 3: to come out and to take a shower together. She's
18:08
Speaker 3: like trying to distract him, and at some point in
18:12
Speaker 3: the night, John leaves her phone out, and so she
18:16
Speaker 3: texts her mom and she says, help me, and then
18:19
Speaker 3: she deletes the text message because she doesn't want John
18:23
Speaker 3: to see it. And a minute later, her mom, who
18:25
Speaker 3: was like woken up from this text message, calls and
18:28
Speaker 3: says what's going on? And John answers the phone and
18:30
Speaker 3: he gets really upset, and so he you know, slams
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Speaker 3: Carrie into a wall and is like, why did you
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Speaker 3: call your mom? He makes Carrie call her mom back
18:39
Speaker 3: and say, you know, everything's fine, We're totally fine, nothing
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Speaker 3: to worry about, like I was just kidding. And so
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Speaker 3: then they go to sleep, and the next morning they
18:50
Speaker 3: have a roommate. John won't let Carrie or Lila leave
18:53
Speaker 3: the house, but the roommate sneaks out and tells a
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Speaker 3: contractor like, please call the police, And then the police
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Speaker 3: and they find Lilah in a room by herself, crying.
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Speaker 3: She's got bruises and cuts and chunks of her hair
19:07
Speaker 3: are missing, and they take her to the hospital.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just horrific. And you know, also thinking
19:21
Speaker 1: about the fact that she has like a one year
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Speaker 1: old and has been being abused by him for a year,
19:26
Speaker 1: that means like right after she gave birth, it would
19:29
Speaker 1: be the timing that he's been abusing her that first
19:31
Speaker 1: whole year of her youngest child's life. So then are
19:35
Speaker 1: the other three kids in the house as well.
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Speaker 3: No, the older to William and Persia had been staying
19:42
Speaker 3: with Carrie's mom in the Chicago area at that time.
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Speaker 1: But the baby is there, I think.
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Speaker 3: So the baby doesn't really like appear in a lot
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Speaker 3: of the narrative from that night in the court records.
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Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, And so only her roommate was able to
20:01
Speaker 1: sneak out and call the police. The police arrived and
20:05
Speaker 1: see Lila and the extent of her injuries, which from
20:09
Speaker 1: you know, your article and what I've read, it sounds
20:11
Speaker 1: like or really bad, like really horrible. And so I
20:15
Speaker 1: assume that she's taken to the hospital and what happens
20:20
Speaker 1: to John at that time?
20:23
Speaker 3: So John is arrested and he's taken to jail and
20:27
Speaker 3: is ultimately charged with child abuse.
20:30
Speaker 1: So he's just charged with child abuse.
20:34
Speaker 3: Okay. Interesting.
20:35
Speaker 2: Do you know what the roommate that snuck out told
20:39
Speaker 2: the person or police that they called for help. Do
20:42
Speaker 2: you know how they described the situation?
20:45
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I was never able to talk with
20:47
Speaker 3: that person. Okay.
20:50
Speaker 1: I really liked how you and your article talked about
20:53
Speaker 1: this moment being kind of like a moment where a
20:57
Speaker 1: bunch of different things could have happened with Carrie. There
21:02
Speaker 1: was a lot of different options that law enforcement could
21:04
Speaker 1: have taken. Can you talk a little bit about that
21:07
Speaker 1: and also tell us then what ultimately happened with Carrie.
21:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean Lila was taken to the hospital,
21:16
Speaker 3: but Carrie also had bruises. Carrie had also been beaten
21:20
Speaker 3: that night, and it was pretty clear. And so I
21:24
Speaker 3: think in an alternate universe, you know, there's the potential
21:28
Speaker 3: where law enforcement might have actually tried to help Carrie
21:31
Speaker 3: and recognize that she was also in this abusive situation.
21:35
Speaker 3: Maybe you know, also get her medical care, take her
21:39
Speaker 3: to a women's shelter, counseling, basically give her resources to
21:45
Speaker 3: help her as well, treat her as a victim of abuse. Instead.
21:50
Speaker 3: What happened is that about a week after the incident,
21:54
Speaker 3: police came to Carrie's house and they asked her to
21:57
Speaker 3: come into the station to talk with them about what
22:01
Speaker 3: had happened to Lila, and Carrie walked them through it
22:06
Speaker 3: and explained, you know, that she was trying to protect
22:09
Speaker 3: her daughter. But the police wanted to know why Carrie
22:14
Speaker 3: had held Lila down. Initially, remember when John said hold
22:18
Speaker 3: her down, we have to spank her. The police also
22:21
Speaker 3: wanted to know why Carrie did not call nine one one,
22:25
Speaker 3: Why didn't Carrie get help somehow? Why didn't Carrie stop it?
22:29
Speaker 3: And they said, you know, you're a parent, you have
22:33
Speaker 3: a duty to protect your child, and you failed, and
22:37
Speaker 3: so because of that, they charged her with failure to
22:40
Speaker 3: protect the official charges enabling or permitting child abuse. And
22:47
Speaker 3: I watched video of this interrogation and Carrie was crying
22:51
Speaker 3: and saying, you know, I'm not a bad mom, like
22:53
Speaker 3: I really tried, but they took her to jail, and
22:56
Speaker 3: ultimately she ended up spending a year in jail before
23:00
Speaker 3: her trial.
23:02
Speaker 1: And Mother Jones did a short documentary as a result
23:06
Speaker 1: of your investigation and partnered with your article, and there's
23:10
Speaker 1: a bit of that police interview included, and it's just
23:14
Speaker 1: really hard to watch because these two police officers, who
23:19
Speaker 1: are I think both women, by the way, are really
23:22
Speaker 1: harsh on her and basically do say like you failed
23:26
Speaker 1: as a mother, Like your job as a mother is
23:29
Speaker 1: to protect your child. You didn't do your job. We're
23:33
Speaker 1: going to arrest you. Is the line that they give her,
23:37
Speaker 1: And it feels like comes down to such semantics of
23:40
Speaker 1: like she did hold her child down in that moment.
23:44
Speaker 1: There was potentially a moment when he went into the
23:47
Speaker 1: bedroom with Lyle un locked the door, that she could
23:50
Speaker 1: have in theory run out of the house at that time.
23:53
Speaker 1: But as you have talked about, and as we'll get
23:55
Speaker 1: into more, it's like there's so much that goes into
23:57
Speaker 1: that psychologically, especially as a victim of abuse herself.
24:01
Speaker 2: Right, So Carrie has bruises on her body from John Party,
24:07
Speaker 2: who also had abused Lyla. Were those injuries acknowledged by
24:14
Speaker 2: the police in her interrogation a week later? I'm trying
24:20
Speaker 2: to remember, it has been a few years since.
24:23
Speaker 3: I've watched that video. I remember seeing in the documentation,
24:29
Speaker 3: like in the legal documentation, photos of Carrie, so you
24:33
Speaker 3: could see like her busted lip and you know, some
24:36
Speaker 3: of the cuts. I'm not sure if they talked about
24:40
Speaker 3: it in the interrogation, though I think that they would have.
24:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, by the way, like the idea
24:46
Speaker 2: that your child is behind a locked door being abused,
24:50
Speaker 2: and then to physically put distance between you and that door,
24:55
Speaker 2: that would be an excruciating decision to have to make.
24:58
Speaker 2: And I have a daughter about that age. I cannot
25:01
Speaker 2: imagine mm hmm.
25:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, Carrie described how she felt paralyzed, like she was
25:08
Speaker 3: unable to move. And you also have to remember she
25:10
Speaker 3: had tried to run out of the house and John
25:13
Speaker 3: had stopped her and said he would kill her if
25:16
Speaker 3: she went anywhere. So there's just a lot of calculus
25:19
Speaker 3: going on, Like the decision to try to leave and
25:21
Speaker 3: go get help is not that simple.
25:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like that threat he would kill her, it's like,
25:27
Speaker 1: we don't know that could be real. Like, there are
25:30
Speaker 1: so many instances of people in domestic violent situations that
25:34
Speaker 1: when they do leave or they try to leave, things
25:37
Speaker 1: become incredibly violent and sometimes deadly. And so you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: that doesn't to me sound just like a flippant threat,
25:44
Speaker 1: especially if you're in that moment and you're just like
25:46
Speaker 1: really heightened and trying to survive and protect your kid totally.
25:51
Speaker 2: And if moments earlier he's thrown her head into a wall.
25:54
Speaker 2: I mean that alone could kill a person.
25:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the past, he had like cut her with
26:00
Speaker 3: a kitchen knife, like he was a pretty violent person.
26:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one thing that we didn't talk about was
26:09
Speaker 1: that he was also using drugs, right, and it sounded
26:13
Speaker 1: like started to force her to use drugs as.
26:16
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, which also complicated the case. So that night
26:19
Speaker 3: that Lila was abused, Carrie and John were both on
26:23
Speaker 3: heroin and John had been using for a long time
26:28
Speaker 3: and had forced Carrie to He and his friend had
26:31
Speaker 3: like held down her arm and injected her. And so
26:35
Speaker 3: that had happened like a couple of weeks prior, and
26:37
Speaker 3: so they had been high on heroin at the time.
26:40
Speaker 2: So prior to this incident of abuse with Lila, where
26:44
Speaker 2: these arrests unfold, John party in a friend of his.
26:47
Speaker 2: It held down Carrie's arm and forced a heroin needle
26:50
Speaker 2: into her arm. But when the heroin was in her
26:53
Speaker 2: system later on the night of Lyla's abuse, do we
26:57
Speaker 2: know if that was a similar circuit or if she
27:01
Speaker 2: had then become addicted.
27:03
Speaker 3: I asked her about that, and she said that initially
27:06
Speaker 3: it was forced and then she liked it, And so
27:10
Speaker 3: it was not forced that particular night, at least not physically,
27:15
Speaker 3: you know, arm held down.
27:17
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, addiction is its own sort of tidal
27:20
Speaker 2: wave of harshness, Like how if you're up against that
27:23
Speaker 2: can be very difficult.
27:25
Speaker 1: And so she's arrested, she's waiting for trial for a year,
27:28
Speaker 1: you said, and was she able to see her children
27:32
Speaker 1: during that time.
27:34
Speaker 3: No, so her oldest two, Persia and William. They continued
27:38
Speaker 3: to live with her mom in the Chicago area. Lila,
27:43
Speaker 3: when she came out of the hospital, went to foster
27:46
Speaker 3: care and then went to live with her ex husband's
27:50
Speaker 3: mom and then Carrie. They took away parental rights for
27:54
Speaker 3: her youngest kid, Trinity, the one year old. So Carrie
27:58
Speaker 3: was devastated. She was like losing her children, even though
28:02
Speaker 3: at that point she hadn't been found guilty of anything.
28:05
Speaker 3: She herself was a victim of abuse.
28:07
Speaker 1: Talk to us about the trial, where and when did
28:10
Speaker 1: it take place? And I'm assuming she went to trial
28:14
Speaker 1: because there wasn't a plea deal or she declined a
28:17
Speaker 1: plea deal.
28:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, So she had this decision while she was in jail,
28:21
Speaker 3: like is she going to take a plea deal or
28:23
Speaker 3: is she going to go to trial? And at the time,
28:27
Speaker 3: her mom was encouraging her to go to trial, and
28:30
Speaker 3: she also was thinking it made sense to go to
28:32
Speaker 3: trial because she was like, I didn't do anything wrong here,
28:36
Speaker 3: Like I was a victim, I tried to help my daughter.
28:40
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything wrong. I don't deserve to go
28:42
Speaker 3: to prison, So she decided that she was going to
28:45
Speaker 3: go to trial and fight her case. And the trial
28:48
Speaker 3: took place actually on Halloween in twenty sixteen or that's
28:51
Speaker 3: that's when it started. And so, you know, they brought
28:55
Speaker 3: Carrie from from jail, and she was up against a
29:00
Speaker 3: prosecutor named Sarah mcgamis, who had a reputation for fighting
29:05
Speaker 3: child abuse cases. Sarah mcgamis was very passionate about these
29:09
Speaker 3: types of cases, had said in the past, you know,
29:12
Speaker 3: that she'd disapproved of women who got into relationships with
29:15
Speaker 3: men that maybe they didn't know very well, who then
29:18
Speaker 3: hurt their kids. She talked about how child murder victims were,
29:22
Speaker 3: you know, looking down from heaven to make sure that
29:25
Speaker 3: justice was achieved. And so the trial begins. Carrie is black,
29:32
Speaker 3: most of the members of the jury appear white. Sarah
29:36
Speaker 3: mccamis kind of in her opening statements talks about how
29:41
Speaker 3: Carrie was part of the abuse, Carrie held her daughter down,
29:46
Speaker 3: and throughout the course of the trial, Sarah mcgamis talks
29:50
Speaker 3: about the abuse that Carrie has endured, but uses it
29:55
Speaker 3: to say that because Carrie was being abused, Carrie should
29:59
Speaker 3: have known that her children were at risk Carrie was
30:03
Speaker 3: abused and therefore Carrie was a bad mom. The prosecutor
30:09
Speaker 3: talked quite a bit about Carrie's previous relationship with her
30:12
Speaker 3: ex husband, So that's Lilah Persia and William's dad, and
30:17
Speaker 3: he had also been abusive. He had, you know, been
30:20
Speaker 3: abusive to Carrie for many years and had ultimately gone
30:23
Speaker 3: to prison for shooting up their house with an AK
30:26
Speaker 3: forty seven. And the prosecutor was like saying, oh, you
30:30
Speaker 3: were a bad mom for this. Were the kids having
30:33
Speaker 3: fun like when he was shooting up their house with
30:36
Speaker 3: an AK forty seven. But again in that situation too,
30:38
Speaker 3: Carrie actually had like shielded the children with her own body.
30:43
Speaker 3: So the prosecutor was just very very harsh. And there
30:47
Speaker 3: were child welfare investigators that testified about how badly Lilah
30:53
Speaker 3: had been injured and how sort of devastating that was.
30:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was Carrie carry's defense? Who is representing her?
31:03
Speaker 2: Or did anyone testify on her behalf?
31:06
Speaker 3: So Carrie had a public defender, So she testified like
31:11
Speaker 3: for herself, which was also quite difficult because she's having
31:18
Speaker 3: to relive that night in detail. She's facing a prosecutor
31:23
Speaker 3: who in some ways is kind of using like intimidation
31:27
Speaker 3: tactics that kind of mirror some of the abuse that
31:29
Speaker 3: Carrie has been through, and it did not go well.
31:34
Speaker 3: The prosecutor, Sarah mccamis, really got under Carrie's skin with
31:38
Speaker 3: some of her comments about how bad of a mom
31:40
Speaker 3: she was, and so Carrie got kind of snippy with
31:44
Speaker 3: the prosecutor and the jury didn't like that. It kind
31:47
Speaker 3: of made them think that, Okay, Carrie can be aggressive,
31:51
Speaker 3: like maybe she could have hurt her daughter.
31:54
Speaker 1: Which just feels so racist. Also, like, let's just say it.
32:00
Speaker 1: I think anyone who's like a mother being questioned and
32:05
Speaker 1: told repeatedly about what a bad mom she is would
32:09
Speaker 1: probably have that urge to be like, screw you. You
32:11
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about. But I mean, you
32:15
Speaker 1: can see how it becomes this perfect storm where then
32:18
Speaker 1: she reacts and suddenly she's being judged for that.
32:22
Speaker 3: Totally.
32:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also shocking to me that someone would advise
32:27
Speaker 2: her to take this stand in her own defense. I
32:31
Speaker 2: guess my understanding of that is that it can be
32:34
Speaker 2: very dicey to do that, especially when it's such an
32:38
Speaker 2: emotionally difficult case. Yeah, so that didn't go well.
32:46
Speaker 3: The other thing that really kind of sunk the ship,
32:48
Speaker 3: I think for Carrie was that the prosecutor mentioned that
32:52
Speaker 3: while Carrie was in jail, she was talking on the
32:54
Speaker 3: phone with John, and the jury did not like to
32:57
Speaker 3: hear that. Carrie said that basically in the beginning, she
33:02
Speaker 3: talked to John because she wanted to understand like why
33:05
Speaker 3: he did what he did.
33:06
Speaker 1: He was awaiting trial as well, he was incarcerated as well.
33:10
Speaker 3: He ended up not going to trial. He took a
33:13
Speaker 3: plead deal.
33:14
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, okay, And it's during that time that they
33:16
Speaker 1: were chatting on the phone.
33:19
Speaker 3: But the prosecutor was like, painting, this is just more
33:23
Speaker 3: evidence that Carrie is a horrible mom and that she's complicit.
33:28
Speaker 3: Carrie's attorney read quotes from those phone calls, and you
33:32
Speaker 3: can hear in those phone calls that John is still
33:35
Speaker 3: being quite abusive. You know, he's saying like tell me
33:38
Speaker 3: you love me, I'll cut you, I'll you know, like
33:41
Speaker 3: he's like making like physical threats to her, and that
33:45
Speaker 3: there's still like a lot of abuse going on in
33:47
Speaker 3: those in those phone calls. So, yeah, the trial concludes
33:52
Speaker 3: and the jury ultimately finds her guilty and she's given
33:57
Speaker 3: to thirty year sentences. The judge says that they can
34:01
Speaker 3: run concurrently. So thirty years in prison compared with John
34:07
Speaker 3: who got eighteen.
34:08
Speaker 1: Years because he took a plea deal. Because he took
34:11
Speaker 1: a plea deal. So again, another case where the person
34:15
Speaker 1: who did the abuse is serving less time. Yeah, I mean,
34:18
Speaker 1: it's just unbelievable.
34:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.
34:21
Speaker 2: Was the jury made aware of John's sentence or plea
34:26
Speaker 2: when they were determining Carrie's guilt.
34:31
Speaker 3: No, So I actually talked with a member of the
34:35
Speaker 3: jury and she said that they had asked about John's case.
34:40
Speaker 3: But a lot of times in these failure to protect cases,
34:43
Speaker 3: the abuser and the mother, their cases are separated, they're
34:47
Speaker 3: heard separately, and so someone on the jury had asked
34:51
Speaker 3: the judge about John, and the judge had kind of said,
34:54
Speaker 3: don't worry about that. That's a separate case. So the
34:57
Speaker 3: jury didn't know how much time he had. And the
35:00
Speaker 3: member of the jury that I spoke to was shocked
35:02
Speaker 3: when she found out, and she said that if she
35:05
Speaker 3: had known, it would have changed her mind, and she
35:07
Speaker 3: thinks it would have changed the mind and others on
35:09
Speaker 3: the jury as well.
35:11
Speaker 1: Carrie's mom was she at the trial did she take
35:14
Speaker 1: the stand.
35:15
Speaker 3: Do you recall I'm not sure if she was at
35:18
Speaker 3: the trial. I know that her ex husband, who had
35:22
Speaker 3: gotten out of prison for the abuse, was there and
35:25
Speaker 3: some of his family was there. They actually did not
35:29
Speaker 3: think that Carrie should be convicted. They were rooting for
35:32
Speaker 3: her in this case. They were absolutely shocked when she
35:35
Speaker 3: was convicted and got thirty years in prison. They thought
35:37
Speaker 3: it was just an absolute travesty. And when I spoke
35:41
Speaker 3: with them, they told me that Carrie was a good mom,
35:44
Speaker 3: that they had seen that she was a good mom,
35:46
Speaker 3: and that she really cared for her kids.
35:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is really shocking, especially because, as
35:54
Speaker 1: you already laid out, there was multiple instances in which
35:57
Speaker 1: she tried to ask for help, and even that text
36:01
Speaker 1: to her mom help me and then deleting it quickly.
36:05
Speaker 1: You know, you could play Devil's advocate and say, well,
36:08
Speaker 1: why didn't she say call nine one one or why
36:12
Speaker 1: didn't she try to call nine on one quickly? But
36:14
Speaker 1: you can imagine in that scenario you might have just
36:17
Speaker 1: like one second to do this thing, and she's also
36:20
Speaker 1: afraid for her life at the time and her daughter's life,
36:25
Speaker 1: so being able to even have the presence of mine
36:27
Speaker 1: to think to text someone and then delete the text
36:31
Speaker 1: to me shows so much effort in crying out for
36:35
Speaker 1: help really, But you know, it also shows how much
36:39
Speaker 1: control John had over her because he then was right
36:42
Speaker 1: there to answer the phone when her mom called and
36:46
Speaker 1: was able to convince her to then lie to her mom.
36:49
Speaker 1: So it just shows this extreme control, yeah, from my perspective,
36:54
Speaker 1: that he seemed to have over the situation.
36:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. Like when her mom back and said what's
37:01
Speaker 3: going on? John handled it and hung up the phone,
37:04
Speaker 3: and then he like threw Carrie against another wall, like
37:09
Speaker 3: you know, he used more violence and forced her to
37:12
Speaker 3: call her mom back. And then as he was forcing
37:16
Speaker 3: Carrie to say, like we're all fine, John had like
37:19
Speaker 3: Lilah on his lap and was like covering Lila's mouth
37:23
Speaker 3: with his hand. So I mean there was a lot
37:27
Speaker 3: going on behind the scenes that was affecting Carrie's ability
37:31
Speaker 3: to call for help.
37:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I imagine in that moment you have
37:35
Speaker 2: this like incredibly violent man, either your daughter's on his
37:39
Speaker 2: lap or within his reach at any moment, and if
37:43
Speaker 2: he can fly off the handle that quickly, I think
37:46
Speaker 2: it would be not right to judge her reaction in
37:49
Speaker 2: that moment, because she's in survival mode truly, from one
37:53
Speaker 2: moment to the next.
37:56
Speaker 1: And later. I want to talk about if she has
37:59
Speaker 1: a path forward where her case stands now, but I
38:02
Speaker 1: want to get into talking about the failure to protect laws.
38:07
Speaker 1: Where did you start when you started to look into
38:09
Speaker 1: the failure protect laws in Oklahoma? Can you talk to
38:12
Speaker 1: us a little bit about what you learned, like the
38:14
Speaker 1: history of that law, how it came about, and you
38:17
Speaker 1: know what it was intended for.
38:18
Speaker 3: I guess so failure to protect laws actually, like a
38:22
Speaker 3: majority of states have these laws, and they basically say
38:27
Speaker 3: that as a parent, you are required to protect your
38:31
Speaker 3: child from harm if you know, or you reasonably should
38:34
Speaker 3: have known that another adult was abusing or might abuse
38:39
Speaker 3: your child. Oklahoma has had one of these laws since
38:43
Speaker 3: two thousand, but I think twenty nine states have laws
38:47
Speaker 3: like this. And the intention behind these laws I think
38:53
Speaker 3: is good. They're trying to prevent child abuse. If a
38:58
Speaker 3: parent sees that a kid might be harmed, they need
39:01
Speaker 3: to step in and intervene. But the problem is, you know,
39:05
Speaker 3: as we see with Carrie's case, that often these laws
39:09
Speaker 3: are enforced against women who are themselves victims of abuse.
39:14
Speaker 3: They're enforced against women who are being abused by the
39:17
Speaker 3: same man that hurt the kid, and we're throwing these
39:21
Speaker 3: women in prison because they're not strong enough to stop
39:25
Speaker 3: their abuser. The history of these laws, so the first
39:29
Speaker 3: ones kind of started springing up in the nineteen sixties
39:33
Speaker 3: as child abuse protocols were changing. Around that time, you
39:36
Speaker 3: started having a requirement that doctors become like mandated reporters
39:42
Speaker 3: if they see signs of mistreatment or abuse, and so
39:45
Speaker 3: the same kind of theory is at play with failure
39:47
Speaker 3: to protect laws. If a parent sees signs of mistreatment,
39:51
Speaker 3: they have to step in and intervene. But these laws
39:54
Speaker 3: became a lot more common after a very high profile
39:58
Speaker 3: case in New York City in the nineteen teen eighties,
40:01
Speaker 3: there was a child abuse case. There was a man
40:03
Speaker 3: named Joel Steinberg and he had adopted a six year
40:06
Speaker 3: old girl named Lisa. He beat her unconscious and he
40:10
Speaker 3: and his girlfriend did not call nine one one for many,
40:13
Speaker 3: many hours. Lisa ended up dying and at the time
40:17
Speaker 3: both Joel and his girlfriend had ANESSPAM were charged, but
40:23
Speaker 3: prosecutors ended up dropping the charges against Heta when they
40:28
Speaker 3: saw that she had been brutally abused over the course
40:31
Speaker 3: of the relationship. She was malnourished, she had been very abused.
40:36
Speaker 3: They didn't think that she could have hurt the little girl.
40:39
Speaker 3: They didn't think that she could have even stepped into
40:41
Speaker 3: inner fiend. So they dropped those charges. But there was
40:44
Speaker 3: a lot of public backlash at the time. People were
40:48
Speaker 3: really split. Is the girlfriend a victim or is she
40:51
Speaker 3: a co conspirator? There were, i mean, oped's in the
40:54
Speaker 3: Washington Post saying how could a mother sit by and
40:58
Speaker 3: watch this happen to their child? So it was a
41:01
Speaker 3: huge case. The public was very, very divided, and after
41:05
Speaker 3: this case, a lot of lawmakers in different states were
41:10
Speaker 3: kind of compelled to pass failure to protect laws and
41:14
Speaker 3: to start enforcing them, so they became a lot more popular.
41:17
Speaker 4: Then.
41:18
Speaker 1: It's just wild when you break that down in the
41:21
Speaker 1: history of this it's like, oh, in my view, and
41:26
Speaker 1: I obviously don't know a lot about that case you're referencing,
41:29
Speaker 1: but when you describe how malnourished the girlfriend was, it
41:34
Speaker 1: feels so clear that she's also a victim. The prosecutors,
41:38
Speaker 1: in my mind, did the right thing there, and they
41:41
Speaker 1: went after the person who was causing the abuse, the
41:44
Speaker 1: person who was perpetrating the abuse on everyone else in
41:47
Speaker 1: the household. But it's so wild that society can't accept this.
41:53
Speaker 1: And if there's a woman in the household who's a
41:56
Speaker 1: motherly figure where abuse is happening, then she must be punished.
42:01
Speaker 1: Like that's what it feels like, you know, like, why
42:04
Speaker 1: is it not enough that the man was punished who
42:06
Speaker 1: was doing the abuse.
42:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have such high expectations for women and mothers,
42:12
Speaker 3: such double standards that, you know, the woman should be
42:16
Speaker 3: the moral center of the home. The woman should be
42:19
Speaker 3: able to rein in the man's like bad impulses. The
42:23
Speaker 3: woman should be able to protect her kid, even if
42:27
Speaker 3: it means sacrificing herself. I think we get more mad
42:31
Speaker 3: at the mother that's not able to protect her kid
42:35
Speaker 3: than we do against the man who actually did the abuse.
42:39
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of you know, sexism. Even in
42:43
Speaker 3: this case in New York City that I was talking about,
42:46
Speaker 3: people were outraged that had a you know, the girlfriend
42:49
Speaker 3: continued to defend Joel that she didn't cry very much,
42:55
Speaker 3: that you know, she didn't appear like so remorseful. So
43:00
Speaker 3: I just think there's a lot of sexism that goes
43:02
Speaker 3: into these cases.
43:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I have to imagine when these laws were
43:09
Speaker 2: being written that they weren't accounting for the impact of
43:15
Speaker 2: abuse on someone and what it means to live and
43:18
Speaker 2: exist in an abusive relationship yourself. Because in other cases,
43:23
Speaker 2: maybe I don't know specifically about if this was the
43:25
Speaker 2: case with Carrie, but leaving your abusive partner could mean
43:29
Speaker 2: being without housing, you know, without food. It's not as
43:33
Speaker 2: obvious totally. And also if you're in an abusive relationship
43:38
Speaker 2: and you go to the police for help to try
43:40
Speaker 2: to stop, you know, abuse of your kid, if the
43:43
Speaker 2: police don't actually step in and do something and you
43:46
Speaker 2: have to go back to your partner, it could be
43:48
Speaker 2: even worse.
43:49
Speaker 3: He could kill you. I mean, like that could escalate things.
43:52
Speaker 3: And you're right, I mean when these laws were passed,
43:55
Speaker 3: they weren't really considering intimate partner violence. The law maker
44:00
Speaker 3: who passed the law in Oklahoma was asked about this
44:03
Speaker 3: many years later explicitly, and she said it hadn't really
44:05
Speaker 3: been on her radar, she hadn't been thinking about it.
44:08
Speaker 3: Most states that have these laws have no exception for
44:12
Speaker 3: women that were being abused at the time, and some
44:15
Speaker 3: of them have really harsh sentences. Oklahoma's is like one
44:19
Speaker 3: of the most extreme. But in Oklahoma, you can go
44:22
Speaker 3: to prison for life for failing to protect your kid.
44:31
Speaker 1: And so when you started to look into some of
44:33
Speaker 1: the statistics in Oklahoma, because in the beginning of the interview,
44:37
Speaker 1: you mentioned that there wasn't a lot of information about,
44:42
Speaker 1: you know, how many people were incarcerated due to these
44:46
Speaker 1: failure to protect laws in Oklahoma. What did you find
44:50
Speaker 1: about that when you started to look into it.
44:53
Speaker 3: So it's quite difficult to figure out, you know, how
44:56
Speaker 3: many people across the country are incarcerated for failure to
44:59
Speaker 3: protect because when you you look at the legal documents,
45:02
Speaker 3: the court dockets, it doesn't say failure to protect. It
45:06
Speaker 3: will just say child abuse. And you have to start
45:09
Speaker 3: digging through the details of the case to see, oh, no,
45:13
Speaker 3: this person didn't actually hurt a child. It was just
45:15
Speaker 3: like failing to stop someone else from hurting the child.
45:18
Speaker 3: So it's very difficult to figure it out. And I
45:20
Speaker 3: teamed up with a data reporter, Ryan Little, to try
45:24
Speaker 3: to see if we could get a sense of the
45:26
Speaker 3: situation in Oklahoma. And so Ryan actually scraped more than
45:31
Speaker 3: a million case records from Oklahoma's court websites and went
45:36
Speaker 3: through all of them. And in Oklahoma there actually is
45:39
Speaker 3: like a specific charge enabling or permitting child abuse that
45:44
Speaker 3: does show up in the records. So he was able
45:46
Speaker 3: to see how many of these cases there were.
45:49
Speaker 2: But it took someone like him, it sounds like, to
45:52
Speaker 2: distinguish between child abuse and failure to protect.
45:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it was quite an endeavor to go
45:59
Speaker 3: through all of these cases, and so he was looking
46:02
Speaker 3: for cases in Oklahoma that said like permitting or enabling
46:06
Speaker 3: child abuse, so he didn't have to go through like
46:09
Speaker 3: all of the records like you would in some other
46:11
Speaker 3: states where it would just say child abuse. But after
46:14
Speaker 3: going through all these records, we were able to find
46:16
Speaker 3: that since Oklahoma's failure to protect law was revised in
46:20
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine, three hundred and twenty one people
46:24
Speaker 3: had been charged with failure to protect, and ninety percent
46:30
Speaker 3: of the people who were incarcerated were women, which is
46:34
Speaker 3: really a stunning statistic. I mean, these laws were written
46:37
Speaker 3: in a gender neutral way. Men can also be charged
46:41
Speaker 3: with failure to protect. Deaths can also be charged with
46:43
Speaker 3: failure to protect, but it's not happening in Oklahoma. Ninety
46:47
Speaker 3: percent of the people going to prison for this are women.
46:51
Speaker 3: We also found that nineteen percent of people going to
46:54
Speaker 3: prison were black, even though only eight percent of Oklahoma's
46:58
Speaker 3: population is black, so it's also being enforced in a
47:01
Speaker 3: very racist way. We found that since two thousand and nine,
47:06
Speaker 3: over I think one hundred and thirty people had been
47:09
Speaker 3: incarcerated for failure to protect. At the time of our investigation,
47:13
Speaker 3: which was twenty twenty two, there were fifty five people
47:17
Speaker 3: that were still in prison. A smaller analysis of just
47:23
Speaker 3: about a dozen counties in Oklahoma by the ACLU found
47:29
Speaker 3: that about half of the people convicted of failure to
47:32
Speaker 3: protect were themselves victims of intimate partner violence. That's a
47:37
Speaker 3: huge number of survivors that are going to prison for
47:40
Speaker 3: somebody else's violence. And then we were able to find
47:45
Speaker 3: fifteen cases, and this is probably an undercount, but fifteen
47:49
Speaker 3: cases where the survivor, someone like Carrie King, got significantly
47:56
Speaker 3: more time than the abuser more prison time.
48:00
Speaker 1: Wow. That's really shocking and not but I mean especially
48:04
Speaker 1: the part where it seems pretty clear that the intention
48:09
Speaker 1: behind the law, even when it was written, as you said,
48:12
Speaker 1: in this very gender neutral way, doesn't really seem like
48:16
Speaker 1: lawmakers set out to say, let's target mothers who are
48:20
Speaker 1: also victims of abuse, but it really just has been
48:25
Speaker 1: put into practice in a way that disproportionately affects this population.
48:31
Speaker 3: I spoke with attorneys who have followed these cases, and
48:34
Speaker 3: some of them said that they had never seen a
48:37
Speaker 3: father charged with failure to protect in this way. It
48:40
Speaker 3: does happen. I found some cases it does happen, but
48:43
Speaker 3: it's rare, and you have these experts they're saying, like
48:46
Speaker 3: some of them have never even seen it.
48:48
Speaker 2: As someone learning more about this, it's also just even
48:51
Speaker 2: the language behind, like the idea of failure to protect.
48:55
Speaker 2: It's like you're hearing that someone failed to protect. You're
48:59
Speaker 2: not hearing like attempted to protect. You know, Carrie threw
49:04
Speaker 2: her body over her daughter to spare her from John
49:09
Speaker 2: Perty's abuse. In that moment, She's attempting to reach out
49:13
Speaker 2: for help to her mom, to pacify him by offering
49:17
Speaker 2: to take a shower, which I'm sure she didn't want
49:20
Speaker 2: to do in that moment, and yet all you hear
49:22
Speaker 2: is just she failed.
49:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
49:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's such an important point.
49:28
Speaker 1: Such an important point, and it also makes me think
49:31
Speaker 1: about which we haven't even talked about. But the way
49:34
Speaker 1: that I ended up coming across your article was actually
49:37
Speaker 1: that initially I was looking into cases in which women
49:42
Speaker 1: were incarcerated because they had killed their abusive partners, usually
49:49
Speaker 1: in an attempt to protect themselves or their children. And
49:52
Speaker 1: so you also have women in prison for murder because
49:56
Speaker 1: they killed their abusive partner to protect their children.
50:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't win. You get thrown in prison. If
50:06
Speaker 3: you take action and you kill your abuser, you get
50:10
Speaker 3: thrown in prison. If you don't take enough action and
50:12
Speaker 3: you're not able to stop your abuser, there's no way
50:15
Speaker 3: to win.
50:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I have to imagine also just anyone being
50:20
Speaker 2: able to point to well, Carrie was using drugs, you know,
50:25
Speaker 2: then there's just so much judgment that comes along with that,
50:28
Speaker 2: on top of everything else she was already up against.
50:34
Speaker 1: You know, I'm from Oklahoma, and I mean haven't lived
50:37
Speaker 1: there in twelve years, but I had never heard of
50:40
Speaker 1: these laws before. I was surprised to hear it. And
50:43
Speaker 1: I was curious if you came across anyone that you
50:46
Speaker 1: were speaking to from the ACLU to other you know,
50:50
Speaker 1: people that you interviewed, is there a movement to try
50:53
Speaker 1: to educate people and to try to, you know, change
50:56
Speaker 1: these laws like what is being done right now.
50:59
Speaker 3: So there have been attempts to reform these laws, including
51:03
Speaker 3: in Oklahoma, but these attempts have not gained a lot
51:07
Speaker 3: of traction. I think it's very difficult to reform these
51:10
Speaker 3: laws because no politician wants to appear weak on child abuse.
51:15
Speaker 3: But in Oklahoma, for example, the acl you tried to
51:20
Speaker 3: get a politician to introduce legislation in twenty nineteen to
51:24
Speaker 3: reform the failure to protect law, and they were trying
51:28
Speaker 3: to basically reduce the maximum sentence. So I said that
51:32
Speaker 3: a woman can get thrown in prison for life for
51:34
Speaker 3: failing to protect her kid. So they tried to reduce
51:37
Speaker 3: that I think to ten years. They couldn't get it
51:40
Speaker 3: to pass. People didn't want to appear weak on child abuse. Also,
51:43
Speaker 3: the prosecutors did not want to reform the law. Prosecutors
51:48
Speaker 3: want that life sentence as an option because they say
51:51
Speaker 3: that they need it in order to successfully prosecute child
51:55
Speaker 3: abuse cases. They want the threat of a life sentence
52:00
Speaker 3: so that they can convince women to testify against their abuser.
52:05
Speaker 3: It's like leverage in the case. So prosecutors oppose any
52:10
Speaker 3: reform to this law, and prosecutors have a lot of
52:14
Speaker 3: weight politically, so it's hard to convince lawmakers to change
52:18
Speaker 3: these laws. So that reform attempt in twenty nineteen failed.
52:23
Speaker 3: Then a couple of years later there was a new
52:27
Speaker 3: push to try to help some of these women in
52:30
Speaker 3: a different way. In twenty twenty four, the Oklahoma Survivors
52:36
Speaker 3: Act finally passed after years of pushing for it, and
52:42
Speaker 3: this law basically was trying to help incarcerated survivors reduce
52:49
Speaker 3: their prison sentences if they could prove that their offense
52:53
Speaker 3: stemmed from abuse that they had experienced. So this was
52:57
Speaker 3: not just for failure to protect cases. It was also
53:00
Speaker 3: you know, for cases where maybe someone killed their abuser,
53:04
Speaker 3: maybe someone was sentenced to prison because their abuser had
53:08
Speaker 3: forced them to sell drugs or commit another crime. Maybe
53:13
Speaker 3: they were in prison for failure to protect. So theoretically
53:16
Speaker 3: this law was intended to help all of those people,
53:20
Speaker 3: but ultimately the language was watered down and the law
53:25
Speaker 3: that passed is pretty targeted to try to help women
53:30
Speaker 3: that killed their abusers or that committed violence against their abusers.
53:34
Speaker 3: You can still theoretically help someone who was convicted of
53:39
Speaker 3: failure to protect, but it's very difficult and no one
53:42
Speaker 3: has successfully been able to use the law to reduce
53:45
Speaker 3: their prison time. And then in the last session another
53:50
Speaker 3: bill was introduced to try to specifically reform failure to protect,
53:53
Speaker 3: again to reduce the sentence to ten years in prison,
53:57
Speaker 3: and again the prosecutors fought it couldn't get any traction,
54:01
Speaker 3: and it didn't pass. So now you know, the ACLU
54:05
Speaker 3: and other groups are back to just trying to educate people,
54:09
Speaker 3: trying to educate lawmakers, trying to educate the public and
54:13
Speaker 3: kind of flip some of these narratives so that people
54:16
Speaker 3: understand that this law is not actually stopping child abuse,
54:21
Speaker 3: it's just incarcerating mothers who are themselves victims of horrible abuse. Yeah,
54:28
Speaker 3: and watching the documentary and reading your article, it's also
54:33
Speaker 3: just so clear that in Carrie King's case, her children
54:37
Speaker 3: are aching for her, they are missing their mother, and
54:40
Speaker 3: they are being victimized in a whole new way by
54:44
Speaker 3: having her taken from them. Yeah, And like something else
54:48
Speaker 3: to point out, So we're taking non violent, non abusive
54:53
Speaker 3: parents like these mothers and we're putting them in prison, Well,
54:56
Speaker 3: then who is there to take care of the children?
54:59
Speaker 3: Do the children and go to foster care where maybe
55:01
Speaker 3: they face higher rates of abuse. In Carrie King's case,
55:05
Speaker 3: she went to prison, the state decided to send her
55:09
Speaker 3: children to her ex husband, the man who had gone
55:13
Speaker 3: to prison for shooting at their house with an AK
55:15
Speaker 3: forty seven, the man who, you know, the prosecutor at
55:19
Speaker 3: Carrie's trial said, Carrie, you were a bad mom because
55:23
Speaker 3: you were being abused by your ex husband. He shot
55:26
Speaker 3: up your house with an AK forty seven. You were
55:28
Speaker 3: a bad mom. Let's send your kids to that man. Now.
55:32
Speaker 3: To be fair, her ex husband had never abused the children.
55:36
Speaker 3: He only hurt Carrie, and he you know, kind of
55:39
Speaker 3: turned over a new leaf after getting out of prison.
55:42
Speaker 3: The kids said that they liked being with him. But
55:45
Speaker 3: you know, in twenty twenty two, when my investigation was
55:48
Speaker 3: being published, right before it was published, he ended up
55:52
Speaker 3: getting arrested again for you know, a gun charge, and
55:55
Speaker 3: he was incarcerated again. So the kids lost you know,
55:59
Speaker 3: their day their mom's in prison. They ended up going
56:02
Speaker 3: to stay with his family. But it's just incredibly difficult
56:06
Speaker 3: on the children, losing their mom. So the whole goal
56:09
Speaker 3: of these failure to protect laws is to you know,
56:12
Speaker 3: protect kids and make their lives better, but it's not
56:15
Speaker 3: always better for the kids to lose their mom. Yeah.
56:19
Speaker 1: I mean it really makes you question who this is helping,
56:23
Speaker 1: who these types of laws are helping, because you would
56:25
Speaker 1: hope that good laws are in place to help people,
56:30
Speaker 1: right like keep people safer and remove an abuser from
56:35
Speaker 1: children's lives. And it's very hard to see who this
56:39
Speaker 1: type of law is helping as far as the way
56:41
Speaker 1: that it's being enacted, because that's so much instability now
56:45
Speaker 1: that's been created in these children's lives, and even having
56:49
Speaker 1: their mother be taken from them for thirty years, that's
56:52
Speaker 1: their whole childhoods. I just don't know how that can
56:57
Speaker 1: be justified as a good thing. It's really tragic.
57:02
Speaker 3: You know. It's called failure to protect, and we're blaming
57:05
Speaker 3: these mothers for failing to protect their kids. But I
57:08
Speaker 3: think the question that we need to be asking is
57:10
Speaker 3: like who is failing to protect who? Like why aren't
57:13
Speaker 3: the police protecting these mothers who are being abused? You know,
57:18
Speaker 3: there are systems in place that are failing these mothers,
57:22
Speaker 3: you know, sexism, and people don't have the financial resources
57:28
Speaker 3: to leave these relationships. These mothers are being failed as well,
57:32
Speaker 3: but no one kind of looks higher up to see
57:35
Speaker 3: who else is responsible for this situation.
57:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I thought so much about how Carrie
57:41
Speaker 2: stayed home from work after noticing the bruises, because for
57:46
Speaker 2: a lot of people, staying home from work means your
57:49
Speaker 2: paycheck is less next time you see it. And she
57:53
Speaker 2: clearly sought to protect her child by doing that.
58:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a trial the child welfare investigator basically was
58:05
Speaker 3: like that wasn't enough. Staying home from work was not enough,
58:08
Speaker 3: Like she should have done more.
58:11
Speaker 1: Wow.
58:12
Speaker 2: It shows a lot of ignorance, like people not understanding
58:16
Speaker 2: what it means to be in an abusive relationship. And
58:19
Speaker 2: it's a real tragedy.
58:22
Speaker 1: And during the year that you spent investigating this, you
58:26
Speaker 1: met Carrie, spoke with Carrie, and I believe for kids
58:29
Speaker 1: as well. Can you tell us a little bit about
58:31
Speaker 1: meeting all of them.
58:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Carrie is still in prison, and so when
58:37
Speaker 3: I started this investigation, I really wanted to go and
58:41
Speaker 3: meet her, but prison officials kind of sat on my
58:45
Speaker 3: application for a long time, so I wasn't able to
58:47
Speaker 3: go right away. So instead Carrie and I started talking
58:51
Speaker 3: on the phone and over the course of the investigation.
58:55
Speaker 3: I think I spent like twenty five hours on the
58:58
Speaker 3: phone with Carrie. We would just check in all the time,
59:01
Speaker 3: but because it's a prison phone system, because it's a
59:04
Speaker 3: prison phone system, we could only talk in twenty minute increments.
59:09
Speaker 3: So we spoke in twenty minute increments for twenty five hours,
59:12
Speaker 3: and I really got to know her quite well and
59:14
Speaker 3: got to know her story, and eventually, you know, she
59:17
Speaker 3: trusted me enough to let me try to meet her
59:20
Speaker 3: children in Oklahoma. So I went out to Oklahoma and
59:25
Speaker 3: I got to meet her three oldest kids and spent
59:30
Speaker 3: some time there and interviewed the family, and interviewed other
59:35
Speaker 3: experts on failure to protect and you know, another mom
59:38
Speaker 3: who had been incarcerated for failure to protect. And then finally,
59:43
Speaker 3: many many months later, the prison approved my application to
59:47
Speaker 3: come visit Carrie. So in the very end, I was
59:50
Speaker 3: able to go and I was able to meet Carrie
59:52
Speaker 3: in the prison, and we spent a couple of hours
59:56
Speaker 3: talking in person, which was really special.
59:59
Speaker 2: Does carry do you have hope of being released?
1:00:03
Speaker 3: Carrie is having a really hard time. She still has
1:00:07
Speaker 3: I think around twenty years left in her sentence, and
1:00:13
Speaker 3: I mentioned this law the Oklahoma Survivors Act that was
1:00:16
Speaker 3: passed in twenty twenty four that could help incarcerated survivors
1:00:20
Speaker 3: shorten their sentence. She reached out to attorneys when that
1:00:25
Speaker 3: law was passed, seeing if they could help her, and
1:00:27
Speaker 3: she heard back like a week or two ago saying that,
1:00:31
Speaker 3: you know, as I mentioned, the law was written in
1:00:33
Speaker 3: a way, it was watered down. It doesn't really leave
1:00:36
Speaker 3: very much room to help people with failure to protect cases.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: It's more so for people who like killed their abuser.
1:00:43
Speaker 3: And so she heard back a week or two ago
1:00:45
Speaker 3: and they said that how the law is written right now,
1:00:47
Speaker 3: they didn't think that they could help her. So she
1:00:50
Speaker 3: is grieving that a little bit right now. I mean,
1:00:54
Speaker 3: it's just infuriating to think that John Perty will walk
1:00:57
Speaker 3: out of prison before she, well, twelve years, twelve years
1:01:02
Speaker 3: before she will. It's unbelievable. I mean, he is, based
1:01:07
Speaker 3: on his actions, a dangerous person. I mean, yeah, I
1:01:12
Speaker 3: mean people really were outraged by this story. I heard
1:01:16
Speaker 3: from people all over the country who wrote to me.
1:01:18
Speaker 3: They wanted to see how they could help carry. I
1:01:22
Speaker 3: do think that these stories and these investigations can do good.
1:01:26
Speaker 3: I think, you know, it also helped Carrie and her
1:01:30
Speaker 3: family feel heard. But I think sometimes change is slow,
1:01:35
Speaker 3: and you know, in the meantime, you have these lives,
1:01:38
Speaker 3: these people who are just forever changed by it.
1:01:44
Speaker 2: What can someone do, Like could they write the governor
1:01:46
Speaker 2: or what could someone potentially do to sort of say, hey,
1:01:50
Speaker 2: we need to do something about this to the people
1:01:52
Speaker 2: who could potentially do something about it.
1:01:55
Speaker 3: So let's talk about Oklahoma just as an example. I
1:01:59
Speaker 3: think if lots of people started calling and sending letters,
1:02:04
Speaker 3: you know, explaining that they want to reform failure to
1:02:07
Speaker 3: protect law, they want to reduce the maximum sentence or
1:02:10
Speaker 3: create an exception for women who have been abused, I
1:02:14
Speaker 3: think that's a step forward. I think the other thing
1:02:16
Speaker 3: we can do is vote in elections. So in Tulsa,
1:02:21
Speaker 3: for example, there is a district attorney election coming up.
1:02:25
Speaker 3: You know the head prosecutor, and right now, the head
1:02:28
Speaker 3: prosecutor is a man who has prosecuted these failure to
1:02:32
Speaker 3: protect cases. He doesn't want to reform the law. He
1:02:36
Speaker 3: has someone who's running against him in the primary, Colleen McCarty.
1:02:41
Speaker 3: She is an attorney who has spent much of her
1:02:44
Speaker 3: career actually trying to help incarcerated survivors like Carrie King.
1:02:50
Speaker 3: Colleen McCarty helped pass the Survivors Act in twenty twenty
1:02:54
Speaker 3: four that tries to help incarcerated survivors shorten their sentences
1:02:59
Speaker 3: so people can vote. You know, across the country, DA's
1:03:03
Speaker 3: elections are really important. Prosecutors have a lot of power.
1:03:07
Speaker 3: They have discretion to decide how they're going to enforce
1:03:11
Speaker 3: these laws, if they're going to prioritize enforcing certain laws
1:03:15
Speaker 3: over others. We saw like in that case in New
1:03:18
Speaker 3: York City where they decided that they were not going
1:03:21
Speaker 3: to charge the girlfriend. So prosecutors have a lot of power,
1:03:25
Speaker 3: and prosecutors are elected officials. So I think really that
1:03:30
Speaker 3: is where people can make the most difference by voting
1:03:33
Speaker 3: in local elections.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: Okay, well, Tulsan's go out there and vote. Make us proud,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: Make me proud. I would be voting if I lived there.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: We'll never do another Oklahoma story.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you don't get out and vote, we'll never
1:03:52
Speaker 1: cover anything from Oklahoma again.
1:03:54
Speaker 2: Just make as oh there's less for us to cover.
1:03:56
Speaker 3: Please.
1:03:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Samantha Hannah and I aren't investigative journalists,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: but we try to tackle difficult stories with a purpose
1:04:06
Speaker 2: and telling them, and I want to just acknowledge that
1:04:09
Speaker 2: sometimes that can take a real emotional toll, and it's
1:04:13
Speaker 2: not easy to be in the trenches that long. But
1:04:17
Speaker 2: I think it's really important work and I'm so glad
1:04:20
Speaker 2: we had the chance to speak with you today. Thank
1:04:23
Speaker 2: you so much for highlighting it.
1:04:25
Speaker 3: I really appreciate having the chance to come and talk
1:04:27
Speaker 3: about this story what happened to Carrie. I still think
1:04:31
Speaker 3: about it all the time, and I hope that some
1:04:34
Speaker 3: of this can make a difference.
1:04:39
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Samantha Michaels. Before we get
1:04:41
Speaker 1: into our conversation at the end of the episode, we
1:04:44
Speaker 1: want to play a short phone call that I was
1:04:47
Speaker 1: able to have with Carrie King. She didn't want to
1:04:50
Speaker 1: dig into her trauma or talk about her case, but
1:04:53
Speaker 1: we did want to say hello and hear her voice
1:04:55
Speaker 1: and include that in the episode. We had a very
1:04:57
Speaker 1: limited time to speak and unfortunately the audio, you know,
1:05:00
Speaker 1: quality isn't very good, So we're just going to play
1:05:03
Speaker 1: a short clip for you here and then patient I
1:05:05
Speaker 1: will be back at the end of the episode to
1:05:07
Speaker 1: discuss I'm just so thankful to be able to connect
1:05:12
Speaker 1: with you and talk with you, How are you?
1:05:14
Speaker 3: How are you doing?
1:05:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm.
1:05:16
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm tired of being in here, you know. But
1:05:20
Speaker 4: other than that, like I'm all right. I mean, I'm
1:05:25
Speaker 4: the kids, you know, I'm just the normal stuff of
1:05:29
Speaker 4: not wanting to be.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: As we're talking, you know, in April of twenty twenty six,
1:05:36
Speaker 1: how long have you been incarcerated at this point.
1:05:40
Speaker 4: It'll be eleven years September sixteenth, twenty twenty six, because
1:05:44
Speaker 4: I it was September twenty fifteen that I got locked though.
1:05:48
Speaker 4: That interested me.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: And how is your relationship with your kids now?
1:05:53
Speaker 4: Are you?
1:05:53
Speaker 1: How often are you able to talk with them?
1:05:56
Speaker 4: I talk mostly to my oldest child. Others two it's
1:06:01
Speaker 4: been more difficult to talk to them, mostly because they
1:06:05
Speaker 4: never liked to get on the phone when they were little.
1:06:08
Speaker 4: But I definitely stay in contact with my old child.
1:06:13
Speaker 3: That's tough.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to go into details on
1:06:15
Speaker 1: your case, but I wanted to ask from your perspective,
1:06:18
Speaker 1: is there anything that you want people to know about
1:06:22
Speaker 1: your story or your case, Like what's the most important
1:06:25
Speaker 1: message for you to get out there?
1:06:27
Speaker 4: I feel like people like, well, look at what happened.
1:06:30
Speaker 4: What they say on the noodles, you know, and the
1:06:32
Speaker 4: media and everything, and they always twist the narrative to
1:06:37
Speaker 4: favor whatever the least are saying, and it's not always
1:06:41
Speaker 4: the case. And I just know that they had made
1:06:43
Speaker 4: it seem like I was just a horrible person and
1:06:46
Speaker 4: the horrible mother, you know, and made it like I
1:06:51
Speaker 4: want kids to hurt my kids, and it's just so
1:06:55
Speaker 4: so so so far from the truth. I just hate
1:06:58
Speaker 4: that outlook that the police are always right or the
1:07:03
Speaker 4: media is always right, and it's not always right. There's
1:07:07
Speaker 4: always three sides of the story. There's their side, the
1:07:09
Speaker 4: other side, and then the truth, you know, and I
1:07:12
Speaker 4: would just like the truth to be told, not any
1:07:16
Speaker 4: perverted versions of that makes you look like you're just
1:07:20
Speaker 4: this horrible person. I mean, everybody has claws, you know,
1:07:23
Speaker 4: everybody has their own things, their own battles that they
1:07:26
Speaker 4: have to face within themselves. But you can't just look
1:07:30
Speaker 4: at one side and immediately just define a person or
1:07:35
Speaker 4: and make a judgment on somebody.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: From that hundred percent. I think that it would be
1:07:43
Speaker 1: like so horrifying to hear you go through this thing
1:07:47
Speaker 1: in your life and then to hear like how it's
1:07:49
Speaker 1: been portrayed that is like, not, your experience is terrible.
1:07:54
Speaker 1: What is your hope for the future, Like, is there
1:07:57
Speaker 1: anything right now that is bringing you hope.
1:08:01
Speaker 4: I'm just really grateful to God that I'm still here.
1:08:05
Speaker 4: You know that He's really kept me through being in here.
1:08:09
Speaker 4: He's put me around people who have really been supportive
1:08:15
Speaker 4: to me throughout all of the trials that you faced
1:08:19
Speaker 4: in here. I mean, of course it's prison, but it
1:08:22
Speaker 4: can be really really difficult dealing with all the different
1:08:26
Speaker 4: politics that go on inside these types of places. And
1:08:31
Speaker 4: I'm just very grateful that I've had a really strong
1:08:34
Speaker 4: support system that God has put really people in my life.
1:08:44
Speaker 2: That is a heartbreaking story, and I'm so glad there
1:08:47
Speaker 2: are people like Samantha Michaels who are willing to immerse
1:08:50
Speaker 2: themselves in something so just gut wrenching in order to
1:08:56
Speaker 2: expose a system or a law that's not serving us.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, what she does is so cool, really hard work,
1:09:04
Speaker 1: and we talked about this at the very beginning, but
1:09:06
Speaker 1: it's like sometimes people call us investigative reporters. The thing
1:09:10
Speaker 1: about being a journalist is like you don't have to
1:09:12
Speaker 1: have a degree for it, So technically a lot of
1:09:15
Speaker 1: what we do is journalism and reporting. But when she
1:09:18
Speaker 1: was talking about going through all of these cases and
1:09:22
Speaker 1: trying to actually figure out how many people in Oklahoma
1:09:26
Speaker 1: were incarcerated because of these failure to protect laws, which
1:09:28
Speaker 1: no one had ever counted or reported on, that's like real,
1:09:33
Speaker 1: like in the weeds, difficult, rigorous reporting. It's not really
1:09:39
Speaker 1: something that we do. We do a lot of research
1:09:41
Speaker 1: and sometimes we do work on a story for over
1:09:43
Speaker 1: a year, but that type of stuff is just I
1:09:46
Speaker 1: have so much respect for what she does because that's
1:09:50
Speaker 1: such an important piece of information to learn that these
1:09:52
Speaker 1: laws are targeting mothers.
1:09:54
Speaker 2: Calling into a question a law that is called failure
1:09:57
Speaker 2: to protect is really brave because the whole point of
1:10:01
Speaker 2: calling it failure to protect is like, of course, if
1:10:04
Speaker 2: you fail to protect children, well there should be punishment
1:10:07
Speaker 2: for that, but it really doesn't speak to the scope
1:10:09
Speaker 2: of the problem and the layers here that is why
1:10:12
Speaker 2: women are being unfairly punished. And I just thought, wow,
1:10:17
Speaker 2: like she really took something that on its face people
1:10:21
Speaker 2: think of as like, of course, yeah, let's protect children
1:10:24
Speaker 2: from abuse. We can all get behind that. Yeah, and
1:10:27
Speaker 2: she questioned it and rightfully, so.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is so interesting It's one of those laws
1:10:32
Speaker 1: where like, if I just heard about this law, I
1:10:35
Speaker 1: would probably think, yes, that sounds amazing. Of course I
1:10:38
Speaker 1: would support that. No one wants to see child abuse
1:10:42
Speaker 1: happening at all, and we should all want to protect children.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: But it's so interesting that laws can be created and
1:10:48
Speaker 1: then the way that they're enacted could actually just be
1:10:51
Speaker 1: completely different than what they were supposed to do. Like
1:10:55
Speaker 1: it's actually taking non abusive mothers and putting them in
1:10:59
Speaker 1: prison and then hurting children.
1:11:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's giving off this idea that
1:11:05
Speaker 2: a mother is standing idly by, or a parent or
1:11:08
Speaker 2: a guardian is standing idly by while their child is
1:11:11
Speaker 2: experiencing abuse, and that is just I'm sure that is
1:11:15
Speaker 2: almost never the case. And to learn that Carrie is
1:11:20
Speaker 2: spending more time behind bars than the actual abuser is
1:11:26
Speaker 2: hard to stomach. And that's what I mean really when
1:11:28
Speaker 2: I talk about like, wow, Samantha puts herself in a
1:11:32
Speaker 2: really difficult headspace to do this work. I mean, we
1:11:35
Speaker 2: have done stories on our show that we're not spending
1:11:39
Speaker 2: a year on, and they'll still keep me up at
1:11:41
Speaker 2: nights sometimes. I mean I often talk to you about
1:11:43
Speaker 2: that episode Gone without a warrant like that episode, just
1:11:47
Speaker 2: the story has scared me.
1:11:49
Speaker 3: Scared for me.
1:11:49
Speaker 1: Their children were taken away in the middle of the night. Yeah,
1:11:52
Speaker 1: because of an incident at the hospital that ended up
1:11:55
Speaker 1: being a complete accident. It wasn't child abuse. Great episode.
1:11:58
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to it, listen it is hard
1:12:01
Speaker 1: to listen to it.
1:12:01
Speaker 2: It's hard to listen to And even that kept me
1:12:03
Speaker 2: up at night. And I can imagine, you know, Samantha
1:12:06
Speaker 2: just putting herself right in front of information that is
1:12:11
Speaker 2: just really hard to process is commendable because we should
1:12:16
Speaker 2: be looking at the numbers and saying, is this law
1:12:19
Speaker 2: working the way that it was supposed to do. Yeah.
1:12:23
Speaker 1: So, as you all heard at the end of the episode,
1:12:25
Speaker 1: I did have a phone call with Carrie. It wasn't
1:12:28
Speaker 1: an option to do a video call, it was just
1:12:31
Speaker 1: a phone call. So I recorded that call. But the
1:12:34
Speaker 1: audio quality, unfortunately, just is not that great in those scenarios.
1:12:38
Speaker 1: So we included some of it because we really wanted
1:12:40
Speaker 1: to Carrie's voice in this episode and we were so
1:12:42
Speaker 1: grateful that she would talk to us. Samantha helped make
1:12:45
Speaker 1: that connection happen. Carrie made it clear that she didn't
1:12:48
Speaker 1: want to go into detail and any of her story
1:12:51
Speaker 1: and like revisit that trauma on the call, which totally
1:12:54
Speaker 1: makes sense and respected it. There were a few other
1:12:57
Speaker 1: things we talked about briefly that I just wanted to mention.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: You know, she has been able to stay in contact
1:13:02
Speaker 1: with her children to a certain degree, as she mentioned,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: but it's tough because one of the things I asked
1:13:08
Speaker 1: her was, do you have an advocate on the outside,
1:13:13
Speaker 1: someone in your family, someone who is in touch with
1:13:16
Speaker 1: your children, who can be advocating for you to be
1:13:19
Speaker 1: able to stay in contact with them, And she said no.
1:13:22
Speaker 1: So the reality is is that how often she sees
1:13:25
Speaker 1: her kids is not up to her at all. She's
1:13:28
Speaker 1: at the mercy of whoever is taking care of them
1:13:31
Speaker 1: at that time, which just has to be so hard.
1:13:34
Speaker 1: And so she hasn't seen her kids physically in person
1:13:37
Speaker 1: in like two years.
1:13:39
Speaker 2: It's unimaginable as a parent, like, it makes my stomach
1:13:42
Speaker 2: just twist into not to think about a mother being
1:13:45
Speaker 2: in that position, especially after everything she has been through.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so that's really difficult. I asked her about
1:13:53
Speaker 1: her case and if she's doing anything or of her
1:13:56
Speaker 1: attorney is doing anything right now she's pretty much exhausted
1:14:01
Speaker 1: all of her appeals options. She at the moment is
1:14:05
Speaker 1: just waiting for there to be some movement on these
1:14:08
Speaker 1: failure to protect laws. You know, she's always keeping an
1:14:12
Speaker 1: eye out for that. She doesn't want to file appeals
1:14:16
Speaker 1: and other things under different laws because I don't know
1:14:19
Speaker 1: from what she said, that could delay her case for years.
1:14:23
Speaker 1: You know, she just doesn't want there to be anything
1:14:26
Speaker 1: in motion on her case because as soon as there's
1:14:29
Speaker 1: some law that can amend these failure to protect laws,
1:14:33
Speaker 1: or even as Samantha was saying, maybe limit the amount
1:14:36
Speaker 1: of time that mothers can serve time to like ten years,
1:14:40
Speaker 1: she wants to be able to apply to that immediately,
1:14:43
Speaker 1: and so she's ready. She's hopeful. But as Samantha Michael's
1:14:47
Speaker 1: also said, change takes time. You know, getting the word
1:14:50
Speaker 1: out is really important, but change does take time. And
1:14:54
Speaker 1: she's also working in the kitchen. That's her job. She
1:14:58
Speaker 1: does inventory, plan and management stuff, you know, keeping Excel spreadsheets, ordering,
1:15:03
Speaker 1: et cetera. And she said she really enjoys that kind
1:15:05
Speaker 1: of work and hopefully is able to get out, you know,
1:15:09
Speaker 1: sooner than she has got like twenty years maybe left.
1:15:12
Speaker 1: She would love hopefully to get out sooner and be
1:15:14
Speaker 1: able to continue that type of work on the outside.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: So it was great to be able to connect with
1:15:19
Speaker 1: her and we wish her the best. We will keep
1:15:22
Speaker 1: updated on her case.
1:15:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as far as seeing movement with the way
1:15:27
Speaker 2: that we utilize the failure to protect law, there is
1:15:32
Speaker 2: something we can do to help, which Samantha spoke a
1:15:34
Speaker 2: little bit about in the episode. But you know, it
1:15:36
Speaker 2: can be overwhelming to think about changing a law, but
1:15:41
Speaker 2: it is doable, and people can vote. We can all
1:15:45
Speaker 2: vote in local elections, but if you are in Tulsa,
1:15:50
Speaker 2: the DA election is this year and Colleen McCarty is
1:15:53
Speaker 2: running for District Attorney and she has been a huge
1:15:56
Speaker 2: advocate for the Oklahoma Survivors Act and legislation that allows
1:16:00
Speaker 2: domestic abuse survivors convicted of crimes against their abusers to
1:16:04
Speaker 2: seek resentencing.
1:16:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, she said her campaign will focus on criminal justice
1:16:09
Speaker 1: reform and accountability within the office. You know, the District
1:16:13
Speaker 1: Attorney has so much power actually over how laws are enacted,
1:16:19
Speaker 1: and you know, this Oklahoma Survivor's Act was passed, but
1:16:22
Speaker 1: from what we've heard, the current DA is not really
1:16:25
Speaker 1: pursuing enacting it on past cases, and Colin McCarty is
1:16:30
Speaker 1: committed to doing that. So when we talk about trying
1:16:33
Speaker 1: to right wrongs, I just think it would be amazing
1:16:36
Speaker 1: to have a district attorney who was more concerned with
1:16:40
Speaker 1: getting things right and righting wrongs and seeking true justice
1:16:44
Speaker 1: than just reelection or winning cases.
1:16:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for me, it's like, this is what the
1:16:50
Speaker 2: true crime genre is. Actually, this is the reason for
1:16:55
Speaker 2: it to me is that, Yeah, we're listening to these
1:16:58
Speaker 2: incredibly difficult stories worries at times, and they can be
1:17:02
Speaker 2: sad and dark, and they can feel really hopeless. But
1:17:06
Speaker 2: the point of talking about it is to raise awareness
1:17:09
Speaker 2: that this problem even exists because Carrie King is sitting
1:17:13
Speaker 2: somewhere in prison, unable to see her children, looking at
1:17:17
Speaker 2: what twenty more years ahead of her, and there is
1:17:20
Speaker 2: something that can be done. And so that's why these
1:17:24
Speaker 2: stories are important to tell, despite the fact that sometimes
1:17:29
Speaker 2: they can just be very sad.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. So obviously, because this takes place in Oklahoma and
1:17:34
Speaker 1: the DA election in Tulsa is coming up, we're going
1:17:37
Speaker 1: to highlight it. But you know, it's great to tap
1:17:40
Speaker 1: in and figure out what's going on with your local DA.
1:17:43
Speaker 1: When is that election, and who is that person?
1:17:46
Speaker 3: What are they about?
1:17:47
Speaker 1: So that's something this episode really made me think about,
1:17:51
Speaker 1: so really quickly we cut this out of the episode.
1:17:53
Speaker 1: But Samantha is continuing on with her reporting. She's now
1:17:57
Speaker 1: working on stories that have to do with immigration, the
1:18:00
Speaker 1: intersection of criminal justice system and immigration enforcement, which is
1:18:04
Speaker 1: also really heavy, and she's been covering stories of families
1:18:08
Speaker 1: ripped apart and children separated from their parents. She said
1:18:11
Speaker 1: something like, Yeah, I guess I just can't get away
1:18:14
Speaker 1: from stories about kids being ripped away from their moms,
1:18:18
Speaker 1: which is just intense but also really important to talk about.
1:18:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, she is doing really important work and I'm so
1:18:26
Speaker 2: glad she took the time to speak with us.
1:18:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we are going to put a link to
1:18:30
Speaker 1: her article that we discuss and the documentary in the
1:18:34
Speaker 1: show notes, So take a look at that.
1:18:36
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:18:37
Speaker 3: We'll be back next week.
1:18:40
Speaker 2: If you have a story for us, we would love
1:18:42
Speaker 2: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactly
1:18:45
Speaker 2: rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
1:18:47
Speaker 2: at the Knife podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
1:18:51
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced by.
1:18:54
Speaker 2: Me Hannah Smith and me Patia eating. Our producers are
1:18:57
Speaker 2: Tom Brivogel and Alexis Samarosi.
1:19:00
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
1:19:02
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
1:19:04
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
1:19:07
Speaker 2: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
1:19:08
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.