Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #478 Maggie Freleng with Tonia Miller

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#478 Maggie Freleng with Tonia Miller · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: I've spent the last five years of my journalism career
0:07
Speaker 1: interviewing people who say they've been wrongfully convicted, and among
0:12
Speaker 1: the women I've spoken to, one of the most common
0:16
Speaker 1: charges against them is shaking their babies to death. I
0:20
Speaker 1: see these cases so often that I can't include them
0:24
Speaker 1: all on this show. The accusation of shaking a baby
0:28
Speaker 1: to death evokes a visceral reaction from many people. You
0:32
Speaker 1: might be feeling it right now, Horror, followed by sadness
0:36
Speaker 1: for the defenseless child, and maybe even discussed for the
0:40
Speaker 1: person accused of such a crime. Many jurors at trial
0:45
Speaker 1: certainly feel this way, and the prosecutors count on it.
0:50
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the medical diagnosis used to prosecute
0:55
Speaker 1: this type of crime has been contested time and time again.
1:00
Speaker 1: Last year, the New Jersey Court of Appeals even ruled
1:03
Speaker 1: that in many instances it was junk science. And let
1:08
Speaker 1: me be clear, people do abuse children. They get jailed
1:13
Speaker 1: for it all the time. But often when an infant
1:16
Speaker 1: ends up in an emergency room with what seems like
1:19
Speaker 1: inexplicable internal injuries and no other obvious signs of abuse,
1:24
Speaker 1: doctors and then prosecutors quickly determine. It's what's known as
1:29
Speaker 1: shaken baby syndrome, a scientifically disputed cause of death with
1:34
Speaker 1: often devastating consequences for the people charged. Today we hear
1:40
Speaker 1: from one of them.
1:41
Speaker 2: My name is Tania Miller, and I was incarcerated in
1:44
Speaker 2: Michigan Women's Aran Valley Correctional Facility for eighteen years for
1:48
Speaker 2: a crime I didn't commit.
1:50
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Tanya Miller.
2:04
Speaker 1: Tanya Miller was born May nineteen eighty three and grew
2:08
Speaker 1: up in Fulton, Michigan.
2:11
Speaker 2: Growing up, we lived in the country and my mother
2:14
Speaker 2: worked at a plastics company at the time, and then
2:18
Speaker 2: later on she started working for manufacturing company for car parts,
2:24
Speaker 2: and my father worked at General Motors.
2:26
Speaker 3: But we grew up, you.
2:28
Speaker 2: Know, not very financially secure. We struggled a lot financially,
2:33
Speaker 2: but we were like a really close family, all of
2:36
Speaker 2: the siblings.
2:38
Speaker 1: Tanya has a huge family.
2:40
Speaker 2: My father had been married and divorced a couple of times,
2:43
Speaker 2: and so I have siblings you know, from him from
2:45
Speaker 2: prior marriages.
2:47
Speaker 1: How many of you.
2:48
Speaker 2: My parents have five together, and then my mother had
2:52
Speaker 2: us sixth one later. But my father has four prior
2:56
Speaker 2: to yeah.
2:57
Speaker 1: Ten siblings. Okay, and where do you in the lineup
3:01
Speaker 1: of every in the middle?
3:04
Speaker 3: Yeah?
3:04
Speaker 4: Wow?
3:05
Speaker 1: So what was that like?
3:07
Speaker 2: Maah and my older brother, my mom's oldest were like,
3:11
Speaker 2: we're two peas in a pod.
3:12
Speaker 3: So we were always together.
3:14
Speaker 2: So I was a little tomboy running around doing whatever
3:16
Speaker 2: my brother did. I admired him so much, and we
3:19
Speaker 2: just he would take something apart and I'd put it together.
3:22
Speaker 2: He'd want to climb a tree. I want to climb
3:24
Speaker 2: the tree if he broke a bone that year. I
3:25
Speaker 2: broke a bone that year.
3:26
Speaker 3: It was like we literally followed suit with each other.
3:29
Speaker 1: What were some of your interests.
3:31
Speaker 2: I love having my hands in the dirt. I just
3:33
Speaker 2: love I love gardening. I loved anything that had anything
3:36
Speaker 2: to do with nature. So we were always on four wheelers,
3:39
Speaker 2: on horses. We were doing four h raising chickens and
3:42
Speaker 2: turkeys and cornish tens and you know those kinds of things.
3:45
Speaker 2: So anything that had something to do with nature.
3:49
Speaker 1: Then when she was eleven, Tanya's parents separated.
3:52
Speaker 4: When Tanya moved in she was twelve, I was six.
3:56
Speaker 1: This is Whitney Wesner. She goes by wit.
3:59
Speaker 4: Tanya is considered well, I consider her my best friend
4:02
Speaker 4: and my older sister.
4:03
Speaker 1: When Tanya's parents split, her mom moved to the family
4:06
Speaker 1: to Battle Creek in the house next door to six
4:09
Speaker 1: year old Wit.
4:10
Speaker 4: We even had a shared driveway. I mean I literally
4:13
Speaker 4: could jump out my bedroom window and go up their
4:16
Speaker 4: backsteps right into their house. And I just automatically took
4:25
Speaker 4: a liking to her as like I looked up to her.
4:30
Speaker 4: I actually hung out with her more than I did
4:32
Speaker 4: her siblings.
4:34
Speaker 1: I just so, what was it about Tanya? Because I'm
4:36
Speaker 1: sure some of her siblings were closer in age to
4:38
Speaker 1: you as well.
4:38
Speaker 4: I was just drawn to her as a person, as
4:41
Speaker 4: like her energy, and I was like, I want to
4:44
Speaker 4: hang out with her. You know, she was the older
4:47
Speaker 4: cool kid to me.
4:48
Speaker 1: And she kept Wit around even if it annoyed Tanya's
4:51
Speaker 1: older friends or boyfriends.
4:53
Speaker 4: Why is this ten twelve year old just constantly wround you?
4:57
Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Like tell her to go
4:59
Speaker 4: away and she's like.
5:00
Speaker 3: No, Why do you think?
5:03
Speaker 1: Because I think if I was when I was her age,
5:05
Speaker 1: I wanted nothing to do with kids, Like I'd be like,
5:07
Speaker 1: why is this ten year old around me? Why do
5:09
Speaker 1: you think she'll let you around.
5:11
Speaker 4: I don't know her, and I just there's just this
5:14
Speaker 4: connection there.
5:16
Speaker 1: Wit says Tanya and her did everything together from baseball.
5:20
Speaker 4: So she's pitching me and she's kind of probably underestimating
5:23
Speaker 4: the whole ten year old with the vat And she
5:26
Speaker 4: pitched me one and turned to talk to somebody, and
5:28
Speaker 4: I clocked it, and oh, she had the biggest black eye.
5:32
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
5:33
Speaker 4: We had to run into my mom's house and put
5:35
Speaker 4: peas on her face like she's like your daughter actually
5:38
Speaker 4: hit the ball.
5:41
Speaker 1: To soccer.
5:41
Speaker 4: She was a great soccer player. So she would take
5:44
Speaker 4: me rollerblading, roora skating around the neighborhood. She did. She
5:47
Speaker 4: taught me a lot of things. She taught me a
5:48
Speaker 4: lot of things that she doesn't even know that she
5:50
Speaker 4: taught me. And you know, to this day, she is
5:53
Speaker 4: my best friend and that has never changed.
5:58
Speaker 1: Tanya, by all accounts family and friends, was great with kids.
6:03
Speaker 4: It was natural. It was natural for her. I never
6:06
Speaker 4: once saw her lose her patience.
6:09
Speaker 1: As often happens with big families. Tanya stepped up to
6:12
Speaker 1: help her mom with all the kids.
6:15
Speaker 2: That was really difficult because then I became like the
6:17
Speaker 2: living babysitter I was the one making sure all the kids,
6:20
Speaker 2: you know, had their dinner, had their baths, had their
6:23
Speaker 2: homework done and stuff. When mom was working, and she
6:26
Speaker 2: had to work a lot to support all of us,
6:28
Speaker 2: so she was hardly there.
6:30
Speaker 1: Tanya played mom and then she became one.
6:33
Speaker 2: At fifteen, I got into a relationship with somebody that
6:37
Speaker 2: was significantly older, not significantly he was twenty four and
6:40
Speaker 2: I didn't know it.
6:41
Speaker 3: He said he was nineteen. So but I ended up.
6:43
Speaker 2: Pregnant, and so I had a daughter at sixteen.
6:47
Speaker 1: Wow. Yes, Tanya gave birth to a baby girl named Kayla.
6:51
Speaker 4: But she had with all her siblings, had already been
6:56
Speaker 4: mothering at that point in her life, so having her
7:02
Speaker 4: own it wasn't like a typical teenager having a baby,
7:08
Speaker 4: Like what do I do?
7:09
Speaker 1: But Tanya was still just sixteen.
7:12
Speaker 2: I ended up not completing the high school scene. I
7:16
Speaker 2: went to like a night school, and so I was
7:18
Speaker 2: able to take my daughter with me.
7:20
Speaker 1: And the relationship with Kayla's dad didn't last.
7:23
Speaker 2: It was not a very good relationship, and I ended
7:26
Speaker 2: up getting back into a relationship with a boy that
7:29
Speaker 2: I had been with before.
7:31
Speaker 1: A boy named Alan, and at eighteen, they had her
7:35
Speaker 1: second daughter, Alicia, you were going to school, were you working?
7:38
Speaker 1: How are you guys surviving?
7:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were working.
7:43
Speaker 2: I was a hostess and he I can't remember if
7:47
Speaker 2: he was a cooker, if he was doing dishes at
7:48
Speaker 2: the time, but he stepped up and really helped, like
7:51
Speaker 2: he get you know, he got jobs here and there
7:52
Speaker 2: when he could the teenagers. You don't always keep a
7:56
Speaker 2: job for long. But it was a struggle.
7:58
Speaker 1: But as always there was wit. Now in her teens,
8:01
Speaker 1: she was ready to help.
8:03
Speaker 4: So I would sit with the kids, you know, while
8:04
Speaker 4: she'd take a shower or you know. I was more
8:06
Speaker 4: involved than the child's father. Yeah, like I was there.
8:12
Speaker 4: It's not that she needed somebody else to help her,
8:17
Speaker 4: because Tanya was a great mother.
8:19
Speaker 1: And she still had plans for herself and her future.
8:22
Speaker 1: She earned herself a scholarship to community college.
8:25
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to be a pediatrician, ironically, but
8:30
Speaker 2: that unfortunately all fell through.
8:43
Speaker 1: Alicia was a very sick baby from birth.
8:46
Speaker 2: They during labor and delivery, they did lose her heartbeat
8:50
Speaker 2: at one point and had to do an internal monitor
8:53
Speaker 2: on her. So then they were very quickly trying to
8:56
Speaker 2: get her born. Wow, And so they were kind of
8:59
Speaker 2: worried about her being low birthway. She was six pounds,
9:04
Speaker 2: you know, she was small, but she wasn't you know,
9:06
Speaker 2: premi or anything like that. Immediately, everything seemed to be okay,
9:11
Speaker 2: But then after a couple of weeks at bringing her home,
9:15
Speaker 2: things just were not the same. You expect it to
9:18
Speaker 2: kind of be like your first one where you don't
9:20
Speaker 2: really have any issues or anything, and so I knew
9:22
Speaker 2: something wasn't right, but I didn't know how to communicate
9:25
Speaker 2: it or what it was.
9:27
Speaker 3: Exactly.
9:28
Speaker 4: My first experience with Alicia that scared me was she
9:35
Speaker 4: would she would you'd be holding her and she would
9:37
Speaker 4: just like gus for air out of nowhere. I would
9:42
Speaker 4: get nervous and just hand her back. I had never
9:44
Speaker 4: seen that in a child. She would space off at
9:47
Speaker 4: the bright lights and not even like blink.
9:51
Speaker 2: She didn't want to eat very much. She would almost
9:54
Speaker 2: chew on the nipple as if she was teething, but
9:58
Speaker 2: she wasn't teething. Her diapers weren't she wasn't, you know,
10:04
Speaker 2: urinating like she was supposed to. It was just a
10:07
Speaker 2: lot of little things, and then eventually it was she
10:10
Speaker 2: looked like she was staring right through you she would
10:12
Speaker 2: just go limp.
10:14
Speaker 1: Did you take her to the doctor multiple times? And
10:16
Speaker 1: what did they say?
10:18
Speaker 2: That I was a paranoid mom and yeah, So when
10:22
Speaker 2: she had quit breathing, they basically told me that she
10:26
Speaker 2: was angry and learn how to.
10:27
Speaker 3: Hold her breath.
10:29
Speaker 1: That's what they said.
10:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they didn't take me serious at all. I
10:32
Speaker 2: don't know if it was because I was a young,
10:34
Speaker 2: unwed mother of two children on Medicaid, and so that
10:38
Speaker 2: was why they didn't take me serious, but they put
10:41
Speaker 2: that in my file. So whenever I would call, I
10:45
Speaker 2: wouldn't even get the appointments.
10:46
Speaker 1: She says. Her family and friends also knew something was wrong.
10:50
Speaker 3: But we didn't.
10:50
Speaker 2: We couldn't pinpoint anything.
10:52
Speaker 3: We didn't know what.
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Speaker 2: To call it, what it was, what to research, so
10:57
Speaker 2: I had no idea.
11:03
Speaker 1: October nineteenth, two thousand and one, started off normal for
11:06
Speaker 1: Tanya and her family.
11:08
Speaker 2: Alan had gone fishing really early in the morning, and
11:12
Speaker 2: so I was up with the baby trying to get
11:13
Speaker 2: her to eat a bottle.
11:14
Speaker 3: She absolutely refused to.
11:16
Speaker 1: Eat, so she laid her back down.
11:18
Speaker 2: Cayla got up a little bit later and had her
11:21
Speaker 2: cereal and was watching her movie and then eventually Alicia
11:24
Speaker 2: decided to wake up, and she was just as happy
11:27
Speaker 2: as could be.
11:28
Speaker 1: They played until Alicia got fussy, and then called Wit
11:31
Speaker 1: to come and help while she got ready, Can.
11:33
Speaker 4: You head over in about twenty minutes so that you
11:37
Speaker 4: can watch the girls while I jump in the shower.
11:39
Speaker 4: So I said, of course absolutely.
11:41
Speaker 1: While she waited for Wit, Tanya tried to feed Alicia again.
11:46
Speaker 3: So I'm holding her.
11:47
Speaker 2: I'm feeding her, and she coughs, and formula is like
11:51
Speaker 2: pouring out of her eyeballs, out of her nose, out
11:54
Speaker 2: of her mouth, and so I hold her upright, and
11:59
Speaker 2: her one eye like went to the back, and like
12:01
Speaker 2: it just rolled to the back, and then she went limp,
12:04
Speaker 2: and it was so unexpected.
12:05
Speaker 3: I had almost.
12:06
Speaker 2: Dropped her, and so I laid her on the floor.
12:09
Speaker 3: And I called nine to one one.
12:10
Speaker 1: Tanya also called Wit.
12:12
Speaker 4: All I hears frantically, is I Alicia's on the way
12:15
Speaker 4: to the hospital. She stopped breathing.
12:17
Speaker 1: Alicia was raced to the hospital, transferred to a pediatric unit,
12:21
Speaker 1: and qut on life support. Then doctors ordered act scan
12:28
Speaker 1: that showed mild swelling in Alicia's brain as well as bleeding.
12:32
Speaker 1: An eye examination also found retinal hemorrhaging. By this time,
12:37
Speaker 1: Alan and the whole family had gathered in the hospital
12:40
Speaker 1: waiting room, anxious for any information about what was going on.
12:48
Speaker 1: Then the doctor came in with news. He said, based
12:55
Speaker 1: on the symptoms, Alicia was showing she had quote abusive
12:59
Speaker 1: head trop or shaken baby syndrome.
13:03
Speaker 2: When the originally when the doctor walked in and said it,
13:05
Speaker 2: Alan kind of went after him, like the nerve of you,
13:08
Speaker 2: like this is not no, this didn't happen. And then
13:11
Speaker 2: they separated us and they started questioning him and started
13:14
Speaker 2: questioning me. But when they asked me to do like
13:17
Speaker 2: I just did with you and go through the entire
13:19
Speaker 2: day and tell them what happened throughout the day, they
13:21
Speaker 2: kept stopping me and leaving the room talking to whoever
13:24
Speaker 2: and coming back in and saying, well, that couldn't have
13:26
Speaker 2: possibly happened. You must have dropped her, or you must.
13:29
Speaker 3: Have this, or you know.
13:29
Speaker 2: It was always it was just like what I was
13:31
Speaker 2: saying was not what they wanted to hear, and so
13:35
Speaker 2: they kept making it seemed like I was changing my
13:37
Speaker 2: story when I'm simply just trying to tell you what
13:39
Speaker 2: happened from the beginning to the end.
13:42
Speaker 1: It was harrowing and it was about to get worse.
13:47
Speaker 1: Alicia was taken off life support on October twentieth and
13:52
Speaker 1: died at seven twenty seven pm. She was eleven weeks old.
14:03
Speaker 1: Two days later, Tanya was brought to the station for
14:05
Speaker 1: questioning by Detective Tim Hurt of the Battle Creek Police Department,
14:10
Speaker 1: but they didn't get far. Tanya asked for an attorney
14:13
Speaker 1: and was released the next day.
14:15
Speaker 2: I guess they didn't have enough to even arraign me
14:18
Speaker 2: at the time, so they just let me go.
14:20
Speaker 1: But Tanya's life was falling apart. The state eventually took
14:25
Speaker 1: away her two year old and placed her in foster care.
14:29
Speaker 2: It was very difficult being home and looking over and
14:34
Speaker 2: seeing a toddler bed with no toddler in it, you know,
14:37
Speaker 2: a bass in that with no baby in it, and
14:40
Speaker 2: just to know like it's never going to be the
14:43
Speaker 2: same again.
14:44
Speaker 1: And at eighteen she was being investigated in her newborn
14:48
Speaker 1: baby's death.
14:50
Speaker 2: It was so traumatic and having no help, not getting
14:54
Speaker 2: any kind of help therapy wise, having no way to
14:58
Speaker 2: really truly grieve, and just knowing every move was being watched,
15:02
Speaker 2: every conversation I was having, you know, anything I'm just
15:06
Speaker 2: all over the newspapers. I didn't want to have a TV.
15:08
Speaker 2: I didn't want to see the news. I just didn't
15:10
Speaker 2: want the trauma of all of it anymore. I seriously
15:16
Speaker 2: had contemplated suicide. Just life was meaningless at that point.
15:22
Speaker 1: Were you even able to grieve Alicia?
15:25
Speaker 3: Not like I should have.
15:26
Speaker 2: No, I would find myself at the cemetery a lot,
15:31
Speaker 2: just you know, laying there with her basically, but to
15:35
Speaker 2: actually grieve. Looking back, No, I never did have that opportunity.
15:41
Speaker 1: Even though she wanted out of life, Tanya knew she
15:44
Speaker 1: had to stick around.
15:46
Speaker 2: I couldn't follow through it that I had Kayla, and
15:48
Speaker 2: I truly believed that I was going to be found innocent.
15:50
Speaker 1: Of that, but she wasn't. Tanya was arrested, charged, and
15:55
Speaker 1: tried for the death of her baby Alicia on April eighth,
15:58
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. Trial prosecutor Daniel Buscher called multiple
16:09
Speaker 1: experts to prove his case that Tanya had shaken Alicia
16:13
Speaker 1: to death. The star was the man who performed the autopsy,
16:17
Speaker 1: doctor Brian Hunter.
16:19
Speaker 5: His testimony was that she had retinal hemorrhages and bleeding
16:25
Speaker 5: on the outer layers as a brain and swelling of
16:29
Speaker 5: the brain, and those was the classic tryad of symptoms
16:32
Speaker 5: for shaking baby syndrome.
16:34
Speaker 1: This is Dave Moran.
16:35
Speaker 5: I am the co director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic
16:38
Speaker 5: at University of Michigan Law School.
16:40
Speaker 1: Dave says, this tryaud of symptoms is the gold standard
16:44
Speaker 1: for shaking baby syndrome. Brain injury, bleeding around the brain,
16:48
Speaker 1: and bleeding around the eyes. That's what every doctor at
16:51
Speaker 1: the time was taught, including pathologist doctor Hunter.
16:55
Speaker 5: So to him, this was a slam dunk case of
16:58
Speaker 5: shaking baby syndrome.
17:01
Speaker 1: Wit was thirteen during Tanya's trial, and she remembers every
17:06
Speaker 1: moment of it.
17:10
Speaker 4: Honestly. To sit there and listen to how they portrayed
17:16
Speaker 4: this person that I've known for so long on a
17:19
Speaker 4: daily basis, it broke my heart.
17:23
Speaker 1: What were some of those things that they were saying
17:25
Speaker 1: about her that you knew not to be true.
17:28
Speaker 4: Oh, she's a young mother and she just.
17:30
Speaker 1: Snapped, got headaches. You're strussing out living at the Dolls house.
17:35
Speaker 2: You have no money, no job, you're not getting along
17:38
Speaker 2: as your boyfriend.
17:39
Speaker 4: You take care of your child ninety nine point.
17:42
Speaker 2: Nine percent the night, and you snapped that particular day,
17:45
Speaker 2: That's when happened, isn't it.
17:47
Speaker 4: And it's like, no, I never once saw her loser
17:51
Speaker 4: patience with children like that, never once saw her even
17:56
Speaker 4: get frustrated in that type of way. So to hear
17:59
Speaker 4: them portray ray somebody you love and know so deeply
18:03
Speaker 4: on the news and in the papers and in a
18:06
Speaker 4: courtroom where you can't say anything, it was just it
18:11
Speaker 4: was awful. It was awful.
18:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did she look like during all that?
18:15
Speaker 4: In shock? And Matt was portrayed badly too. Oh look
18:21
Speaker 4: she has no emotion. Oh she's sitting there speechless. She's
18:27
Speaker 4: a teenager who lost her daughters, and you people, you know,
18:34
Speaker 4: you know she's being charged with these horrendous crimes.
18:38
Speaker 1: Tanya needed a great defense to beat the quote slam
18:42
Speaker 1: dunk case. The prosecution claimed they had.
18:45
Speaker 2: My mom, bless her heart, you know, went through the
18:47
Speaker 2: yellow pages trying to find an attorney who would agreed
18:50
Speaker 2: to take a murder case. She found Headinger and Headinger
18:54
Speaker 2: out of Kalamazoo. Her and my grandmother had to go
18:59
Speaker 2: through there fork just to get the funds to retain him.
19:03
Speaker 1: Tanya's family paid Edwin Hedinger for what they thought was
19:06
Speaker 1: going to be the best defense, but the defense actually
19:11
Speaker 1: agreed that it was shaking baby party. It wasn't.
19:14
Speaker 5: Yes, the original defense at trial did not contest to
19:17
Speaker 5: shaking baby syndrome.
19:19
Speaker 1: Dave says, in those days, there weren't many people disputing
19:22
Speaker 1: these science behind shaking baby syndrome, at least not locally.
19:26
Speaker 5: I really don't think that there was anybody in Michigan
19:29
Speaker 5: who was questioning any part of the shaking baby syndrome
19:31
Speaker 5: dogma at that point.
19:34
Speaker 1: So Tanya's attorney worked with the knowledge and resources he had.
19:38
Speaker 2: He believed that a crime had been committed, but didn't
19:41
Speaker 2: believe that it was me that did it, So his
19:43
Speaker 2: focus was on somebody else.
19:46
Speaker 1: Doing it, someone else like Alan.
19:50
Speaker 2: I didn't want to believe it, and I still to
19:51
Speaker 2: this day don't believe it. But it was just, you know,
19:55
Speaker 2: when they're saying that this is absolutely positively what happened,
19:58
Speaker 2: and I know I didn't do it, my mind is like,
20:01
Speaker 2: you know, maybe he did, but I don't believe he
20:05
Speaker 2: ever would have harmed her.
20:07
Speaker 1: Especially now that you know.
20:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I knew him back then and
20:10
Speaker 2: I knew that's not something that he would have done.
20:12
Speaker 1: But at the time that's the only defense she had
20:16
Speaker 1: casting reasonable doubt as to who may have shaken Alicia.
20:20
Speaker 5: Maybe the baby could have been shaken when she was
20:23
Speaker 5: in the custody of her paternal grandparents the day before,
20:28
Speaker 5: and then the symptoms only showed up the next day.
20:32
Speaker 1: Tanya also testified in her own defense.
20:34
Speaker 5: She tried to testify about Alicia's sickliness, her troubles breathing before,
20:40
Speaker 5: but that didn't really lead anywhere because again, that wasn't
20:43
Speaker 5: the defense theory. There was no expert to back that up.
20:45
Speaker 5: Maybe there was something else going on here.
20:48
Speaker 1: Is there any explanation why that wasn't Was it tried
20:51
Speaker 1: to be presented and then it was barred, or why
20:54
Speaker 1: wasn't any of this previous medical history entered?
20:57
Speaker 5: Well, I think the defense layer correctly recognized that it
21:01
Speaker 5: would have been treated as a red herring. The prosecution
21:04
Speaker 5: would have criticized him for creating a red herring because
21:07
Speaker 5: you've heard from all the experts that none of what
21:10
Speaker 5: happened before matters. All that matters now is this baby
21:13
Speaker 5: was shaken just before she died, so none of that
21:16
Speaker 5: would have worked.
21:17
Speaker 1: Tanya felt like there was no winning.
21:20
Speaker 2: At that point, I kind of felt like I'm going
21:23
Speaker 2: to prison.
21:26
Speaker 1: During jury deliberations, she remembers her lawyer saying.
21:30
Speaker 2: If the jury comes out and they refuse to look
21:32
Speaker 2: you in the eye, you're pretty much guaranteed that they're
21:35
Speaker 2: going to find you guilty.
21:36
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what happened. My heart just.
21:39
Speaker 2: Dropped watching them walk out of there, and only one
21:42
Speaker 2: of them looked me in the eye. The rest of
21:45
Speaker 2: them just looked at the floor and made their way
21:47
Speaker 2: back to their seats before they handed over their verdict.
21:51
Speaker 4: I was not actually prepared for them to find her guilty,
21:55
Speaker 4: because I knew she was innocent, so that and I mean,
22:00
Speaker 4: who can prepare you for that?
22:06
Speaker 2: My niece was in the background, and if you ever
22:09
Speaker 2: pull up the court documents, you will hear her like
22:11
Speaker 2: scream when they read the verdict teeth.
22:21
Speaker 4: And it was not even a second after that that
22:24
Speaker 4: they were dragging her out, and I'm trying to reach
22:27
Speaker 4: over the banister and grab her hands, and you know,
22:30
Speaker 4: everybody's crying. Everybody's screaming, and we're all trying to grab
22:34
Speaker 4: at her. You know, they wouldn't even let her say anything,
22:36
Speaker 4: you know, they just drug her out like this. Horrendous criminal.
22:42
Speaker 4: They wouldn't even let her say about.
22:43
Speaker 1: It her family.
22:45
Speaker 4: So for me, you know, thirteen, seeing them my best
22:54
Speaker 4: friend away and my bigger sister to me like that,
22:57
Speaker 4: and it was heartbreaking.
23:00
Speaker 1: On April fourteenth, two thousand and three, then twenty year
23:03
Speaker 1: old Tanya Miller was convicted of second screen murder and
23:07
Speaker 1: was later sentenced to almost three decades behind bars. What
23:15
Speaker 1: were your first years in prison?
23:18
Speaker 2: Like, it's a very it's a huge culture shock to
23:24
Speaker 2: just have everything taken away and just be told what
23:27
Speaker 2: you can have or what you can do. And so
23:32
Speaker 2: they asked you a bunch of questions about, you know,
23:34
Speaker 2: your mental health, about your.
23:35
Speaker 3: Past and whatnot.
23:37
Speaker 2: And this man literally looked me in my face and
23:39
Speaker 2: was like, you can't tell me that you're twenty years
23:41
Speaker 2: old with a twenty year sentence and you've never done
23:43
Speaker 2: drugs or alcohol. Like he did not believe that you
23:47
Speaker 2: had never done drugs at aol, never never had an
23:50
Speaker 2: inclination to attempt anything, still don't. So it just blew
23:55
Speaker 2: me away that, like my attorney didn't believe in me.
23:58
Speaker 2: And now I'm sitting here and I'm telling you that
24:00
Speaker 2: I've never done this and you're like, I don't believe you.
24:02
Speaker 1: What and you had doctors not believing.
24:05
Speaker 2: You and doctors not believing me.
24:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine feeling so small when nobody believes what
24:13
Speaker 1: you're saying. Yeah, But Tanya's family believed her, and for
24:19
Speaker 1: as long as they could, they tried to support her.
24:23
Speaker 2: My family, you know, they're not financially secure really, so
24:27
Speaker 2: that drive and you know, having to buy like photo
24:31
Speaker 2: tickets or you know, a meal card or whatever to
24:34
Speaker 2: be able to sit comfortably and just chat and you know,
24:36
Speaker 2: eat with them and whatnot.
24:37
Speaker 3: It was a lot on them.
24:39
Speaker 2: And my mom had a really hard time leaving me there,
24:43
Speaker 2: and my baby's sister had a really hard time leaving
24:46
Speaker 2: me there, and so my mom kind of felt like
24:49
Speaker 2: it wasn't worth bringing her or coming when it was,
24:54
Speaker 2: it took so long for her to recover afterward.
24:57
Speaker 1: So they stopped visiting as much.
24:58
Speaker 2: I'm like, I have so many so if they just come,
25:01
Speaker 2: you know, once a month, I'll have somebody come, you know,
25:02
Speaker 2: every every month for a year. And it just didn't
25:05
Speaker 2: work out that way at all. So the longer you do,
25:09
Speaker 2: the less you'll see them, the less you'll hear from them.
25:12
Speaker 2: The less a lands of the phone, and that is
25:14
Speaker 2: one hundred percent the truth.
25:15
Speaker 1: That as always there was Wit writing and calling and
25:20
Speaker 1: checking in.
25:21
Speaker 4: I feared for her life in prison, you know, all
25:25
Speaker 4: the time, because of what they say she did and
25:30
Speaker 4: what people can do to people in prison at her children,
25:35
Speaker 4: even though she didn't so like. I constantly feared for her.
25:39
Speaker 1: But Tanya says she kept out of trouble by keeping busy.
25:43
Speaker 2: I worked the entire time, and I worked as much
25:46
Speaker 2: as they would let me, and I took as many
25:50
Speaker 2: classes as I could, whatever I could get into. I
25:52
Speaker 2: even applied for like AA and NA, just to be
25:56
Speaker 2: a part of something.
25:57
Speaker 1: And between work and classes, Tanya's life was passing her by.
26:02
Speaker 1: No twenty first birthday celebration, no college commencement ceremony.
26:07
Speaker 4: So many missed Christmases, birthdays, holidays. Life's not fair. Life's
26:15
Speaker 4: not fair.
26:16
Speaker 1: And Tanya was missing out on her daughter, Kayla's life
26:19
Speaker 1: as well. At first, Kayla staved with family, and Wit
26:23
Speaker 1: tried to remain a constant in Kayla's life too.
26:27
Speaker 4: I went out there every weekend. I bought we had
26:30
Speaker 4: matching pajamas. That was my little buddy, blues Clues. I
26:35
Speaker 4: took off his pictures as many pictures as I could
26:37
Speaker 4: every weekend that I went. I went out there every weekend,
26:40
Speaker 4: and I made this giant photo album for her and
26:43
Speaker 4: just added through it throughout the years of like the
26:46
Speaker 4: letters she would send me or the drawing she would
26:48
Speaker 4: send me. I just tried to keep her in the
26:51
Speaker 4: loop with the other child until I couldn't anymore.
26:54
Speaker 1: Eventually, Kayla was adopted and denied contact with Tanya and
26:58
Speaker 1: her loved ones, and the years kept passing by until
27:03
Speaker 1: one day, out of the blue, a man reached out
27:06
Speaker 1: to Tanya by the name of Jeremy Perry.
27:10
Speaker 2: He was just a layman on the street. He had
27:12
Speaker 2: no interest in the whole system or anything. He was
27:17
Speaker 2: a I believe in a computer engineer. Maybe I might
27:20
Speaker 2: have that wrong, but he's seen my picture and he
27:25
Speaker 2: was like, your picture just stood in my mind because
27:27
Speaker 2: you were so young, with such a long time, and
27:29
Speaker 2: so he said it was probably a year later, like
27:32
Speaker 2: my name kind of fell back into his mind and
27:34
Speaker 2: he looked me up and he said he immediately believed
27:39
Speaker 2: that I didn't do that, And so he wrote to
27:41
Speaker 2: me and he asked me if I had heard of
27:43
Speaker 2: the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
27:44
Speaker 5: I'm thinking it was about twenty fifteen when we first
27:49
Speaker 5: reviewed the case. We by that point had litigated several
27:53
Speaker 5: other shaking baby syndrome cases. We had our first case
27:58
Speaker 5: in twenty ten out of Julie Bomber, and we had
28:03
Speaker 5: taken on several other cases.
28:05
Speaker 1: Dave says that in the decade since Tanya had been convicted,
28:09
Speaker 1: there had been a sea change in shake and baby
28:12
Speaker 1: syndrome science.
28:13
Speaker 5: What we've learned about shake baby syndrome really as twofold is,
28:17
Speaker 5: first of all, it may not exist at all because
28:20
Speaker 5: of the biomechanical difficulties.
28:23
Speaker 1: Dave says, it's virtually impossible to shake a baby hard
28:26
Speaker 1: enough to cause the triad of symptoms without breaking its neck.
28:31
Speaker 5: If you could shake a baby hard enough to cause
28:34
Speaker 5: these particular symptoms, you would almost certainly fracture the neck
28:37
Speaker 5: and that would be the cause of death. And there
28:40
Speaker 5: was no neck injury to Alicia.
28:41
Speaker 1: And then there was Alicia's medical history.
28:44
Speaker 5: One of the important things is is there a prior
28:48
Speaker 5: history and have there been prior instances of the baby
28:53
Speaker 5: not being well which can lead us and especially of
28:58
Speaker 5: course our experts to see are any of the alternative
29:02
Speaker 5: causes for the symptoms present, and we had all of
29:05
Speaker 5: that in spades.
29:05
Speaker 4: Here.
29:05
Speaker 5: We had medical records showing that Alicia had had a
29:09
Speaker 5: series of collapses before our student attorneys went out and
29:13
Speaker 5: interviewed the people who had seen Alicia have these problems.
29:19
Speaker 1: And there was a smoking gun that came from the
29:22
Speaker 1: prosecution's own expert in.
29:25
Speaker 5: One line on page seven of the autopsy report, which
29:28
Speaker 5: was the very last page of the report. The forensic
29:31
Speaker 5: pathologist who did the autopsy on Alicia after she died,
29:35
Speaker 5: and he actually noted that Alicia had a cute bronchial
29:42
Speaker 5: pneumonia pneumonia.
29:43
Speaker 1: The slides from Alicia's lungs during autopsy showed a cute
29:47
Speaker 1: bronchial pneumonia. Tanya had been right all along. Alicia was
29:58
Speaker 1: really sick. In so many of these cases, women are
30:17
Speaker 1: just not believed. Is this a pattern, you see? And
30:22
Speaker 1: how is the pneumonia not caught? It's just kind of
30:24
Speaker 1: mind blowing.
30:25
Speaker 5: It is it is. It's amazing that you could have slides.
30:31
Speaker 5: I mean, it's so obvious that there's something terribly terribly wrong,
30:35
Speaker 5: but it's this dogma that it still exists today.
30:40
Speaker 1: A dogma that leads doctors to almost instinctively diagnosed shaken
30:45
Speaker 1: baby syndrome, ignoring the pleading mothers in front of them.
30:49
Speaker 5: This was somebody who is doing her level best to
30:53
Speaker 5: try and get the appropriate help for her infant and
30:56
Speaker 5: was getting blown off. Shaking baby syndrome results in lots
31:01
Speaker 5: and lots of wrongful conviction of women, probably more than
31:05
Speaker 5: anything else, because women are usually the primary caregivers for
31:10
Speaker 5: young infants.
31:11
Speaker 1: Dave hired four of the leading experts in shaking baby
31:14
Speaker 1: syndrome to look at Tanya's case.
31:17
Speaker 5: They all came to very similar, overlapping conclusions about what
31:22
Speaker 5: had actually happened to Alicia. Doctor Francis Green, who is
31:26
Speaker 5: one of the world's leading experts in pediatric lung pathology,
31:30
Speaker 5: who looked at the slides and he said, those slides
31:34
Speaker 5: are inconsistent with life because Alicia had a case of
31:39
Speaker 5: acute pneumonia that was so serious that she could not
31:43
Speaker 5: have survived it. So we filed the case.
31:46
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, they were granted a hearing and up
31:50
Speaker 1: against the experts and the facts, the judge ruled in
31:53
Speaker 1: favor of Tanya and granted her a new trial.
31:57
Speaker 5: It was really no contest between the prosecution's one expert
32:01
Speaker 5: from two thousand and three coming back and our experts,
32:04
Speaker 5: and so the prosecution knew they could not win a retrial,
32:07
Speaker 5: and so in early twenty twenty one, Tanya was released,
32:12
Speaker 5: and that was a glorious day.
32:17
Speaker 1: Tanya remembers leaving the prison and the people inside she
32:21
Speaker 1: had grown up with.
32:23
Speaker 2: And so then when I was leaving, there all banging
32:25
Speaker 2: on the windows and you know, waving their goodbyes and everything.
32:28
Speaker 2: Eighteen years, eighteen years, Yeah, it becomes a family unit
32:32
Speaker 2: in there.
32:34
Speaker 1: But now Tanya was free to be with her family
32:37
Speaker 1: on the outside.
32:38
Speaker 2: So I took some time just to really get to
32:40
Speaker 2: know all of my siblings' children, how my nieces and nephews,
32:44
Speaker 2: because they were all married and divorce and having kids
32:46
Speaker 2: and everything while I was gone. You know, I lost
32:49
Speaker 2: my father, I lost my grandparents. I have one surviving
32:52
Speaker 2: grandmother right now, and so it was I took a
32:54
Speaker 2: lot of time just kind of focusing on family.
32:58
Speaker 4: I'm surprised I didn't break her bones from houganers so.
33:02
Speaker 1: Hard, and that family includes wit.
33:05
Speaker 4: Wait, is this real? Like she's really out, Like Okay,
33:10
Speaker 4: I'm immediately going to Michigan. I spent the night there
33:13
Speaker 4: with her. You know, we had a bonfire and hung out,
33:17
Speaker 4: and we'd never been able to hang out as adults.
33:21
Speaker 1: And remember the photo album Whit made while Tanya was
33:24
Speaker 1: in prison.
33:25
Speaker 4: She gave it to her, pictures of when we were
33:27
Speaker 4: kids together. I had all her letters she wrote me
33:31
Speaker 4: from jail in it, even her newspaper clip things. I
33:35
Speaker 4: clipped them all out as a kid.
33:37
Speaker 1: Wit still admires and looks up to Tanya after all
33:40
Speaker 1: these years.
33:41
Speaker 4: You see her and she's always laughing. And you know,
33:43
Speaker 4: she's not sitting over there like with a nasty look
33:46
Speaker 4: on her face or you know what I mean. She's happy.
33:49
Speaker 4: She's living her life that she deserved to live. And
33:54
Speaker 4: I tell her, live your life than she is.
33:57
Speaker 2: I've kind of done a few things I probably never
34:00
Speaker 2: would have done.
34:02
Speaker 3: What jumping out of a plane. Oh my gosh, she
34:05
Speaker 3: went skydiving. I went skydiving. Yeah, how was that? It
34:08
Speaker 3: was incredible? To be honest, yeah it was.
34:12
Speaker 2: I can't even describe the free inness that you feel
34:16
Speaker 2: just doing that.
34:22
Speaker 1: But there's still one part about her life that's on hold,
34:26
Speaker 1: her relationship with her first born Kayla, now twenty three
34:30
Speaker 1: years old. Tanya's reached out a couple of times but
34:33
Speaker 1: has been shut out.
34:36
Speaker 2: Trying to put myself in her shoes and just give
34:38
Speaker 2: her that time, in that space and hope that eventually
34:42
Speaker 2: she'll understand that I loved her all of these years,
34:45
Speaker 2: and I didn't do this to her little sister, and
34:47
Speaker 2: I would have been in her life if I had
34:48
Speaker 2: the opportunity, and you know, just that her family really
34:52
Speaker 2: truly does love her. Everybody wants to get to know her.
34:56
Speaker 2: Everybody wants a part of her life. They were all
34:59
Speaker 2: kind of tol that they couldn't be a part of
35:01
Speaker 2: her life, and so nobody abandoned her. She's never been abandoned,
35:08
Speaker 2: She's never been forgotten. We celebrate her birthday every year,
35:11
Speaker 2: you know, we talk about her all the time.
35:14
Speaker 3: We just wish her well.
35:20
Speaker 1: According to the National Registry of Exonerations, at least thirty
35:25
Speaker 1: shaken baby syndrome convictions have been overturned in the last
35:29
Speaker 1: three decades. Prosecutors continue to charge parents and caretakers with
35:35
Speaker 1: this crime. Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction with
35:40
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
35:44
Speaker 1: to the links in the episode description to see how
35:47
Speaker 1: you can help. This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling,
35:51
Speaker 1: with story editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada.
35:55
Speaker 1: Our producer is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher Shelby Sorels, with
35:59
Speaker 1: additional mixing by Josh Allen and additional production help by
36:02
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn and Connor Hall. Thank you to the podcast
36:06
Speaker 1: Life of the Law and the Midial Justice Project for
36:09
Speaker 1: letting us use their audio of Tanya's trial. Executive producers
36:13
Speaker 1: are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis. The music
36:16
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make
36:20
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on all social media platforms at
36:23
Speaker 1: Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also
36:26
Speaker 1: follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction
36:29
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good
36:32
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One