WEBVTT - #284 Jason Flom and Greg Glod with John Jones - RE-RELEASE 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.160 I'm so grateful that many of our guests have been 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:07.160 released from prison, either before or after our coverage was released, 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.840 but others continued to languish behind bars for crimes they 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.920 didn't commit, including the man whose case we're going to 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.239 highlight again today, John Jones. The Ohio Innis's Project is 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.560 still hard at work to set him free, and this 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.639 is his story of how a grieving father's loss was 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:29.360 compounded by his wrongful conviction. John Jones and Deja Ruiz 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.360 had three children while working on their high school diplomas. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.720 After celebrating Deja's mother's birthday on March eighteenth, twenty ten, 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.120 the young family laid down to sleep. Despite the expected 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.200 waking and feeding that comes with six month old twins, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.519 the night was ordinary. When Deja left for school at 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.639 eight am, John propped some bottles on a blanket near 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.280 twins Jada and Jasmine and went back to sleep. Then, 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.760 when John woke again at nine forty am, turned on 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.560 cartoons for his son and went to attend to the twins. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.120 Jada was unresponsive. In a panic. He called family and 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.800 nine one one. The dispatcher coached him through CPR until 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.480 first responders arrived and took over. He did everything a 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.320 concerned father would do, but when testing was done at 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.960 the hospital, doctors found what they mistakenly thought was conclusive 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:24.680 evidence of lethal child abuse. However, over the next decade, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.000 the science that they used to support John's conviction has 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.399 crumbled under the weight of reality. Had a jury heard 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.640 all the other now logical explanations for the symptoms present 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.479 in little Jada's body, John Jones never would have served 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.640 a day of his fifteen to life prison sentence. This 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:59.760 is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.880 That's me, of course, your host, and today we're here 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.240 to tell you the heartbreaking story of John Jones, who 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.280 was just seventeen years old when his six month old daughter, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.800 Jada Ruiz died, and shortly thereafter, the tragedy was compounded 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.840 by the hubris of some in the medical establishment and 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.200 legal system armed with the junk science of shaking baby syndrome. 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.079 And today I'm joined by a phenomenal co host. Avid 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.240 listeners will remember Greg glod from the Junk Science episode 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.000 on roadside drug Testing. He is the criminal Justice fellow 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.440 at Americans for Prosperity. Greg. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.320 I appreciate it. Jason, thank you so much for allowing 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.000 me to co host. You and I have gotten close 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:44.720 over the last couple of months. I've been working on 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.320 criminal Justice Reformed since about twenty fifteen now, and to 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.080 be able to do this today and co host, is 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.040 you know, really an honor? So no, I really thank 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:52.520 you again. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:54.760 Well, I'm the one who really should feel honored, and 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.520 not just because you've joined us, but also because with 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.080 us is one of the world's lead experts in one 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.600 of the most troubling aspects of our criminal legal system, 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.440 shaken Baby syndrome. Now she was also featured on Wrongful 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.120 Conviction Junk Science when we covered this subject. The executive 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.440 director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, Kate Judson, 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:17.320 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.240 Hi, thank you so much, Jason, and Hi Greg. 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.600 And last but not least, we have with us staff 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.280 attorney at the Ohio Innocence Project, the man who's representing 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.880 John Jones, Donald Caster. Donald, Welcome to Wroneful Conviction. Thanks 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:32.560 for being here. 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.639 Hi, Jason, thank you for having me on. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.960 And we'll be joined very soon by John Jones. Was 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.200 going to be calling in from Lebanon Correctional Facility in Ohio. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.160 But first let's get a little background on what John 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.000 was up against when Jada became unresponsive. 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.000 Kate, can you give a brief history on shaken baby syndrome? 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.800 You know where it came from, this hypothesis, and then 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.520 how did it start to enter its way into the 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.920 criminal justice system as a viable scientific theory to convict 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.600 caretakers of murder, Sure. 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:09.080 Greg, Shakin baby syndrome was originally proposed as a hypothesis 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.160 to explain a phenomenon that a pediatric neurosurgeon in Great 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:15.560 Britain was seeing in his patients. He would sometimes have 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.440 infants who died or were seriously ill without a clear 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.760 cause and without external trauma, and yet the internal features 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.040 looked a lot like kids who had suffered some kind 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.800 of traumatic injury. So those findings were subdural hematoma, which 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.799 is bleeding between the coverings of the brain, retinal hemorrhage 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:34.600 which is bleeding at the back of the eye, and 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.720 encephalopathy and cerebral edema, which sort of acts together as 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.520 one leg of what sometimes people call the triad. Ceribril 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.479 edema is brain swelling and encephalopathy is brain dysfunction. And 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.760 so doctor Guthkelch, the pediatric neurosurgeon, was seeing these findings 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.880 in kids and they looked injured on the inside but 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.520 not on the outside. And he thought that one reason 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.520 for that might be a common disciplinary technique in his 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.240 home Northern England in the seventies, which was shaking. And 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.279 so what doctor goth Kelch said is that these medical 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.040 findings could be due to shaking. And doctor goth Kelch 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.599 wasn't claiming to have the answers, but rather that he 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.360 was hypothesizing about what might be causing these findings. So 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.480 that started to evolve. A radiologist in New York, John Caffey, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.240 built on that and he published articles saying the same thing, right, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.080 that parents should be gentle with infants. But neither of 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.920 these doctors suggested that the medical findings that they associated 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.000 with shaking were exclusively diagnostic to shaking, nor did they 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.480 say that there was a reliable way to place blame 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.760 on a caregiver when a child had these medical. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.279 Findings, right, and so where was the switch then, from 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.280 this just being you know, a hypothesist or an unexplained 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:54.720 phenomena to a verifiable medical diagnosis that actually began convicting 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:56.599 visuals of murder of a child. 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:58.960 And there's a little bit of a gap in understanding 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.599 between the mid to late nine seventies and then when 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.400 we start to see these cases appear in published appellate 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.039 decisions in the late eighties, and we started to see 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:13.280 prosecutors and pediatricians in particular, also pathologists saying that when 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.200 children had this collection of findings, which is sometimes called 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.360 a triad of findings or a constellation of medical findings, 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.279 that shaking could be diagnosed. And that's when it comes 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.680 into the criminal legal system and we start to see 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.600 the trajectory that we're on today where parents are wrongfully 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.599 accused based on only the existence of a particular set 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.599 of medical findings. And I mean to be totally clear, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.479 there's no debate about whether abusive shaking, violent shaking of 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.599 an infant is dangerous. It is and no one should 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:45.560 do it. The debate is really whether shaking reliably explains 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.440 the findings that are often attributed to it, whether shaking 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.440 can be diagnosed as the cause of those findings. 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:53.960 Kate, and doing my research for this, there is a 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.440 large concentration of these shaken baby syndrome cases in the 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.320 state of Ohio. And so I just wanted to see 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.160 if you had any explanation behind why Ohio kind of 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.160 had a higher rate of shaking baby syndrome cases than 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:08.800 many other jurisdictions across the nation. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.000 Researchers aren't one hundred percent sure why some places have 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:16.480 higher concentrations of diagnoses of SBS than others. It's probably 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.360 a combination of factors. But some of those factors include 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.240 prosecutors who are particularly aggressive in going after these are 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.360 kinds of accusations, the media attention certain cases receive in 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:32.120 certain media markets, and the child abuse pediatricians or forensic 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.760 pathologists who work on these cases, if they have a 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.600 particular belief or bent, then there are more likely to 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:42.600 be more accusations of shaking within that person's jurisdiction or 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.920 area of control. And Ohio is one of those places. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.840 And now we'll go to Lebanon Correctional Facility to speak 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.520 with a young man who was doing his best as 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.200 a young teenager to raise three kids while finishing high 0:07:56.240 --> 0:08:01.600 school in the third largest shaken babyies syndrome epicenter in 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.680 the country, Akron, Ohio. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.440 Hello, this is a prepaid debit call. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:14.120 From an inmate. It's Elebanon correctional facility to accept this call. 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.400 Press zero to prevent. 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.960 This call is from a correction facility and is subject 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:21.520 to monitoring and recording. 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:29.000 Thank you for using GTL. Hello John, Yeah this job John. 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.000 Like I always say, I'm glad you're here with us, 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.800 but I'm sorry because of the reason you're here, or 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:36.760 more to the point, because of where you are. 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:38.040 Thanks for having me. 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:41.360 So I wanted you to take us back, if you will, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.640 to your life before this absolute horror happened. You were 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:45.680 growing up in Akron. 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:47.760 I grew up with four sisters who struggled. 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:49.640 I grew up poor. He moved around a lot. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.319 My mom has some struggles strugg edition alcohol addiction. My 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.360 father as well had the same struggles. Regardless of what 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.680 she was going through her own personal problems. My mom 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:00.760 always was around, she was always with us. But my 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.439 grandmother end up getting customery of me. 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.360 When I was real young. She just put us on 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.800 a path to try to be as successful as we could. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:07.439 Growing love. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.240 I did real good at school, always was like an 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.880 honor roll student. Once I became a teenager, and that's 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:12.720 when I came. 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.360 Into contact with my child's mother. 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:19.560 I met her December sixteenth, my fourteenth birthday, and my 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.319 son was can see nine days later. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.080 On Christmas Eve, Christmas night. 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.640 So now on fourteen, I'm expecting a child on the way. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:30.440 I knew that I had. 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.559 A responsibility now, so school. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.480 No longer was a priority. My did what I needed 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:37.640 to do to provide for him. 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.600 As time progressed, me and her eventually began to establish 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.880 a relationship get closer. A couple of years later, that's 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:47.160 when my twins were can See. 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.520 Jada and jazz Man. We ended up getting an apartment 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:51.800 together on our own. 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.360 My grandmother was still technically my legal guardian, so I 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.640 lived with them, but I spent most. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.800 Nights with my child's mother just to be around my children. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:01.560 Growing up. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.960 My father was always in my life, but like I said, 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.600 he was battling with addiction. Even though I loved him unconditionally, 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:09.720 he just wasn't the best that he could have been. 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:11.679 So that it made me want to make sure I 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:11.959 was the. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.160 Best I could have been, regardless of how old I was, 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.160 regardless of school, whatever I was going through, I was 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.280 going to be present every single day in their life, 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.800 no matter what, regardless of the status of me and 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.400 their mother's relationship, how healthy or how unhealthy it was, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:25.800 I was going to make sure I was there for 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:26.880 my kids no matter what. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.960 And that's admirable. And so you, your children's mother, Desa, 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.439 your son Tyshan, and the twins Jada and Jasmine all 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.040 moved into an apartment together. Dajo was eighteen, you're seventeen, 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.840 and you were both finishing high school through an alternative 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.280 school for young parents, and somehow you're making it work. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.000 Which brings us to March nineteenth, twenty ten. 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.360 The night before that morning it was actually her mother's birthday. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.120 Everybody spent some time together. It was a cool little 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.200 vibe though. Everybody was on the same page. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.360 And we went to sleep like any other day. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.320 We slept down in the living room. 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:05.520 I slept on the couch, my daughter, Jaded and she 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.920 slept down on the floor with my daughter, saying, and 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:10.640 my son was down there with as well. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:12.719 But throughout the night she. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.760 Was waking me up, complaining about positioning or beating or 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:19.640 you know, my daughter might have been hungry or whatever. 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.280 She was waking me up throughout the night. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.080 But it was just a typical day, and then that 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.520 morning she had a test that she had to go take. 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.560 Right and from what I understand, you both fed the 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.200 twins at five am and then went back to sleep. 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.320 Then Dasia woke up at seven am to get ready 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.080 for school and left around eight. 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.080 So I get up, walking through the door, you know, 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.360 wishing her look on her task, give her a kiss. 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:44.120 She go out. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.319 At this point, my son's still asleep, my daughter's on 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.360 the couch, they laying down. It's early in the morning, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:50.320 so I'm still tired. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:52.360 I go up to my. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.719 Daughter's I popped the bottles. I learned later on now 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.239 that this wasn't a smart. 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.240 Thing to due just because of the safety. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.439 Concerns with a notewarm, But time I really wasn't aware 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.640 of it, and it was more like a convenient being 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:06.600 away of me going back to sleep, but also feeding 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.280 them if they were having So I placed the bottles up. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.840 On the blanket and I'll prop them up so I'll put. 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:14.480 Them right there, and just so when they do wake up, 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:16.760 the bottle be right there, they'll be able to feed. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:18.679 I can be able to sleep about another hour or 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.200 to whatever. Anbr everybody be cool. We did this every 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:23.840 day must. 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.600 Of a time, so it was just another I said, 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:26.440 it was just another day. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.720 But it's at this point, between eight and nine forty 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.200 am that, according to the state's theory and what passed 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.880 for expert testimony, that you allegedly abused your daughter Jada 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.280 in such a way that it caused all of these 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.480 supposed injuries or symptoms that were later observed at the hospital, 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.640 the same ones that Kate had mentioned earlier that make 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.280 up the triad of shaking baby syndrome. But as we 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.200 now know, there are a myriad of medical conditions that 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.400 can and do cause these symptoms in addition to an 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.840 accidental or intentional traumatic event, and even in those events, 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.480 it's important to note that a child may be lucid 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.040 up to seventy two hours or even more before the 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.960 symptoms or injuries become a parent, and in this case, 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.520 they became apparent to you when you checked on Jada 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.480 and Jasmine at around nine forty am on that faithful, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.280 awful day. And you know, as a father myself, it's 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.240 every parent's worst nightmare. So at nine forty am you 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.480 woke up, put on cartoons for Tyshon and go to 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.760 check on your daughters, only to find that Jada was unresponsive. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:37.439 That was the. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:39.840 Scariest moment in my life. That was the worst day 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:41.960 of my life. I didn't know what to do in 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:44.600 that moment. She wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving, she wasn't 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.920 responsor for at all. I instantly get on the phone. 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.640 My first reaction was to call our family because my 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:52.880 daughters were born with accid reflects. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:55.840 They when they feed, they were regard to take the food. 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:57.480 It would come up their most sometimes it would come 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.120 up their mouth. It didn't happen every time, but it 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:00.000 happened frequently. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.960 So at first I was wondering if this was the case. 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.520 So I actually called my mom and I tell them 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:06.040 what's going on. 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:07.360 But I'm panicking, so I didn't want to stay on 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:08.559 the phone with them too long because. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.720 I'm realizing she's not breathing or nothing. But I called 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:12.640 her family as well to let them know. I get 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:14.600 off the phone. I called nine one one tell them 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:16.760 the whole situation is. I'm listening to the nine one 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:17.400 one operator. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.760 She's explaining to me how to do the test confession 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:21.880 and the mouth to mouth. I tried. I did everything 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:22.280 I could. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.640 Nothing was working like so at this point, I'm becoming 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:29.840 more scared, more upset. I'm crying, and I'm just waiting 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.760 seem like a second favers. They finally arrived, They grab her, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.040 they take her out, and I begin to speak to 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:35.960 the detectives or whatever. 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.240 I'm telling them everything pretty much that I'm telling. 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:39.760 You, this my recolation of that night. 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.440 In the morning, nothing really stood out telling me. From 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.360 that point, family members started rising. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:46.360 Everybody's fron sign. 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:48.840 We all head down to the hospital, and then a 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:50.120 couple hours later, that's when we. 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:55.480 Hear the doctor's opinion about what they believed was the 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:56.520 cause of everything. 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.080 When the first responders arrived then see any signs of 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.720 any external injuries. They didn't see any bruising or obvious 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:09.520 deformities or bone fractures. They were under the impression that 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.360 Jada might have suffered from SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.560 And the police see John doing what you would expect 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.600 a distraught father to be doing. It's an officer named 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.440 Dennis Bard starts taking pictures of the scene. There are 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.600 blankets that are collected. One of the things that's not 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.640 collected is the bottles that were feeding two of the children. 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.160 And that becomes critical later on in the state's theory 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:34.600 of the case. 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.240 The bottles are important, at least according to the state, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.520 because one of the doctors who testified on behalf of 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.720 the state told the jury that how much milk and 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.640 formula was in the bottle would have been really important 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.920 in establishing the timing of abuse, because, according to the 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:55.120 state's doctor, Jada wouldn't have been able to consume anything 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:59.560 from the bottle after suffering the type of injuries that 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:01.360 they Jada had suffered. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.600 And what we now know, and this is so important, 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.000 is that a child can experience seventy two hours or 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:12.680 more of lucidity after a traumatic event, whether accidental or intentional, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.800 which it's not entirely clear that this is in fact 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.720 what happened to cause these symptoms. And I say symptoms 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.880 because a myriad of medical conditions can cause what happened 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.200 to Jada to happen. But we're getting a little bit 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.040 of ahead of ourselves here. So the first responders see 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.200 this situation as a non criminal death, not a homicide. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.880 So the bottle was just left there and the lead investigator, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.800 Detective Shady, drove John to. 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:45.080 The hospital, Detective Shady also does a very brief interview 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.480 of John at the time. Detective Shady and John go 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.920 to the hospital following the ambulance, and once they get 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.080 to the hospital, they find out that Jada had been 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:59.840 successfully resuscitated. John makes phone calls to family members to 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.920 let them know that things were at least looking a 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.160 little bit better now that they were at the hospital, 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:09.240 and then doctors at the hospital start to do medical tests. 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.800 They do a cat scan, other tests, and again, ultimately 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:17.280 the doctors began to believe that there were actual injuries 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.280 to Jada, and in fact, once they got to the hospital, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.280 John was confronted by a doctor who who did not 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.399 testify a trial, but a significant to the case, a 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.679 doctor Darryl Steiner, who came in and told John and 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.000 the detective that Jada had suffered from what he called 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:38.360 non accidental injuries. The hospital staff also claimed that there 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.639 were old injuries, insinuating that abuse had taken place for 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.520 a significant period of time. 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.800 So, John, you had just been through one of the 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:52.200 most harrowing experiences that anyone can ever go through, and 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.200 you were waiting to hear what the path forward might 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.720 be for your daughter and the doctors at Aquan Children's Hospital, 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.600 again the number three epicenter for shaking baby syndrome diagnoses 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.320 and prosecutions in the country. Those doctors tell you the 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:14.800 family and detectives their opinion that the medical facts observed 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.399 in Jata retinal bleeding, subdual bleeding and brain swelling, as 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.320 well as a series of fractures, that these could only 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.639 have been the result of a non accidental traumatic event, 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:30.520 in other words, child abuse, violent shaking by Jada's caretaker 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.320 at the time that she went unresponsive. And again, we 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.000 now know that there are a slew of medical conditions 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:43.480 that can cause these symptoms, and that children can experience 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.480 seventy two hours or more of relatively normal behavior after 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.160 such a traumatic event, if a traumatic event even ever 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.280 occurred and was in fact what caused these symptoms. So 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.760 back then many in the medical establishment, these doctors thought 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.199 that they could diagnose a crime and the time of 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.760 that crime, which we now know that they could not. Meanwhile, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.520 your story has remained consistent ever since that faithful day, 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.840 and nowhere in your recollection of events does even a 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.600 minor frustration occur, let alone violence shaking. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.360 Never, never, never, We all sitting in the weiting room 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:25.760 or in the area when they come in and they 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.080 tell us, well, we believe that what's wrong with her 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.639 was my accident and was intentional, was caused by somebody, 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:35.760 was caused by specifically somebody who was there. 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.480 So then at that point I felt like I was. 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.480 Being accused or even suspected of something. 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:44.399 And the only other person that was there with me 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:45.760 was their mother. 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:48.920 I know I did do nothing to her. I never 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.240 will so a man. Things running through my head at 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:52.680 that moment. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.760 I'm scared first and foremost most completely for my daughter. 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.280 Now I'm questioning it, like why are they saying somebody 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.440 did this? Why they say somebody causes like like did 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.680 she do something? So a conversation was had afterward outside 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:05.200 with just. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.480 Me and her, and you know, I asked her straight up, 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:09.720 like did she do something? 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:10.920 And she did not. 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.040 You know, I didn't do nothing. I don't know what 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.119 they're talking about. Like, so now now I'm just confused, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:17.960 like I just don't know what. 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:18.720 I don't know. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.640 But they take this, continue to question me, they keep 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.560 talking to me. My natural reaction was to corrop grad 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:26.960 with them. You know what I'm saying, it's my baby 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:28.520 so however, I can help whatever I can say, But 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:30.040 at the end of the day, I don't know much. 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:31.040 I don't know what to say. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.679 I'm confused like anybody else, everybody else, I don't know 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.440