Speaker 1: A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care. In nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Gwen Graham was twenty three years old and had high
Speaker 1: hopes and dreams for her future. She was a natural
Speaker 1: caretaker and wanted to be a veterinarian. After moving across
Speaker 1: the country to Michigan, she went to work at a
Speaker 1: nursing home called Alpine Manor.
Speaker 2: Gwen liked it there.
Speaker 1: She enjoyed her coworkers and loved helping people. Gwen men
Speaker 1: and a woman named Kathy who also worked at the
Speaker 1: nursing home, and they started a relationship. During that time,
Speaker 1: some of the patients that Alpine Manor passed away. It
Speaker 1: wasn't unusual though, Many of the residents were elderly or
Speaker 1: in poor health and died of natural causes. But months later,
Speaker 1: after Gwen had broken up with Kathy, she learned that
Speaker 1: Kathy had accused her of doing the unthinkable.
Speaker 3: Let's say, I know the police are coming down to
Speaker 3: talk to me. They told me they said, your extra
Speaker 3: friend said that you killed somebody at an earthy home.
Speaker 3: And I laughed at him. I said, I can't believe
Speaker 3: he came down here for that bullshion. But then when
Speaker 3: they charged me with four more, that's when I started
Speaker 3: losing it. My name is Gwendolin Graham. I've been incarcerated
Speaker 3: in Michigan for thirty five years for something that I
Speaker 3: didn't do, that didn't even happen.
Speaker 1: From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today. Gwen Graham Gwendolyn Gail Graham was born in
Speaker 1: Santa Maria, California, on August sixth, nineteen sixty three, to
Speaker 1: Mac Wade and Linda Ruth Graham.
Speaker 3: I had a normal upbringing. I went to a public school.
Speaker 3: I have a younger sister, Corina, and an older brother, Robert.
Speaker 3: We were always at the beach. My dad used to
Speaker 3: take us down there. He had bought an old vintage truck,
Speaker 3: and those kids would be on the back of the
Speaker 3: truck or like on the sideboards and stuff, and he'd
Speaker 3: be driving around the dunes. He'd let us kids drive,
Speaker 3: so we felt grown up and everything.
Speaker 1: Gwen and her siblings were growing up in a farm
Speaker 1: just a few miles from the beach.
Speaker 3: We have chickens in the backyard, and it was fun
Speaker 3: to have the little chicks when they be born. We
Speaker 3: turned the eggs in the incubator and stuff. We had
Speaker 3: a ducks. They would follow you around. That's like a
Speaker 3: puppy dough would.
Speaker 1: Gwen's younger sister, Karina remembers how Gwen loved and cared
Speaker 1: for these animals.
Speaker 4: Watching her take care of her animals and her little pig, Petunia.
Speaker 4: She loved that little pig. You know. She had a
Speaker 4: dog named Mitzi and she loved that little animal. So
Speaker 4: she was always very compassionate.
Speaker 1: But while Gwen cared for everything and everyone around her,
Speaker 1: she was struggling with herself.
Speaker 3: I didn't really know what to ask her what was
Speaker 3: going on. I felt like there was something. It just
Speaker 3: made me feel real different, probably around seven six and seven,
Speaker 3: because I liked girls, and I knew if that was
Speaker 3: I knew the end that there was something wrong with that,
Speaker 3: because they're supposed to like little boys and I didn't
Speaker 3: like little girls. And I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 3: I just knew that it was different, and I kept
Speaker 3: it to.
Speaker 1: Myself, especially because her family was pretty conservative. They were religious,
Speaker 1: and in their world, being gay was taboo.
Speaker 3: My parents had put us in a private Christian school
Speaker 3: and My uncle was a head administrator there, and I
Speaker 3: remember at some point there was a discussion about homosexuality
Speaker 3: and it was not certainly not in a favorable light.
Speaker 3: And I realized at that time that that was me.
Speaker 3: And I had a friend at school and I went
Speaker 3: and talked to her and I told her I think
Speaker 3: I'm gay, and she told her parents about it, and
Speaker 3: I believe they contacted mind that's how they found out.
Speaker 1: Gwen doesn't remember much about the discussion she eventually had
Speaker 1: with her parents about her sexuality, but she does remember
Speaker 1: the aftermath.
Speaker 3: The philosophy or whatever the means, was just the prey
Speaker 3: it out of you, I guess. My uncle kept me
Speaker 3: after school for I think about three weeks, and we
Speaker 3: prayed on it and just prayed about it, talked about it,
Speaker 3: and it just never went away. It just didn't happen
Speaker 3: like that for me, and that just made me feel
Speaker 3: like there was even more wrong with me because that
Speaker 3: didn't work.
Speaker 1: So Gwen kept to herself after that.
Speaker 3: There used to be, uh, these really really tall trees
Speaker 3: across the street from us, and he used to crawl
Speaker 3: away into the top of these really tall trees and
Speaker 3: look over like the entire city. I felt like I
Speaker 3: was on top of the world. That's where I would go.
Speaker 3: So I always would go buy some place to be alone.
Speaker 4: She was pretty much closed off.
Speaker 1: This is Gwen's sister Karina. Again.
Speaker 4: As far as being gay, that's not something that she
Speaker 4: and I really talked a whole lot about. I know
Speaker 4: that she had her struggles with it.
Speaker 3: I would decide I was just gonna go ahead and
Speaker 3: pretend like I wasn't and just try to be what
Speaker 3: I was supposed to be date date guys, which that
Speaker 3: was like super rare. Most of the time. I just
Speaker 3: pre didn't like I didn't want to date. It didn't
Speaker 3: bother me, and I just just ignored it. When you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't discuss it. They didn't ask.
Speaker 1: When she was in the second grade, Gwen's family moved
Speaker 1: from California to Texas. She lived there until she was
Speaker 1: about sixteen. That's when her parents split up and she
Speaker 1: went back to California to live with her dad. In California,
Speaker 1: Gwen found herself becoming more accepting of her sexuality.
Speaker 3: I became acquainted with people that were comfortable with that lifestyle.
Speaker 3: They were out in the open about it, and it
Speaker 3: made me comfortable to be out in the open about
Speaker 3: it and not be as a you know, like ashamed,
Speaker 3: outwardly ashamed, publicly ashamed about what I was. I accepted it.
Speaker 3: That's who I am, and that makes me happy. There's
Speaker 3: really nothing I can do about. I can choose to
Speaker 3: be miserable and the rest of my life and live
Speaker 3: for everybody else, or just live for me and just
Speaker 3: be okay with it.
Speaker 2: When did you find out that Gwen was gay?
Speaker 4: That wasn't my later teen years. I guess I was
Speaker 4: like many fifteen. She was sixteen. Then I found out,
Speaker 4: and I just I didn't have a problem with it.
Speaker 4: It didn't change how I felt about her. I've always
Speaker 4: loved her just for who she is.
Speaker 1: Gwen moved back to Texas a few years later. She
Speaker 1: soon met a woman from Michigan and the two started dating.
Speaker 1: They decided to move to Michigan together, but when Gwen
Speaker 1: got there, she realized the change was not what she anticipated.
Speaker 3: She had told me she had a really good job
Speaker 3: either four. I think it was Ford, one of our companies,
Speaker 3: and come to find out, she did not. When I
Speaker 3: got here, she was on public assistance and felt like
Speaker 3: the state owed hood living and she just wasn't going
Speaker 3: to work anymore, so I walked into a really bad situation.
Speaker 2: Did you start working at the nursing home right away?
Speaker 3: Yes? I did. I took the first job. I hit
Speaker 3: the ground run.
Speaker 1: And Gwen took a job at Alpine Manor Nursing Home
Speaker 1: in Walker, a suburb of Grand Rapids. Alpine Manor Nursing
Speaker 1: Home was a safe haven for its residents and its workers.
Speaker 1: Many people who identified as queer or LGBTQ worked there.
Speaker 1: It was a comfortable environment where they felt free to
Speaker 1: joke around with each other and pursue all kinds of relationships.
Speaker 3: I think it was mostly the women. There was a
Speaker 3: few men there. It was an intimidating universe. So I
Speaker 3: was just really shy.
Speaker 1: But soon Gwen made friends and started socializing. A woman
Speaker 1: named Don became one of Gwen's first friends. Don's roommate
Speaker 1: also worked there at the nursing home. Her name was
Speaker 1: Kathy Wood.
Speaker 2: So she became a friend. What did you like about her?
Speaker 2: What was your friendship like?
Speaker 3: Well, Kathy was very intelligent, a lot of fun to
Speaker 3: be around.
Speaker 1: At the time, both Gwen and Kathy were getting fed
Speaker 1: up with their respective partners.
Speaker 3: Don had lost her job and she was just sitting
Speaker 3: around the house doing nothing, and my Griffert didn't want
Speaker 3: to work. She didn't want to do anything, she didn't
Speaker 3: want to move forward in life, and I just felt
Speaker 3: like over time her and I decided that well, she
Speaker 3: didn't want to support Don anymore, and I didn't want
Speaker 3: to support the person I was with. So I'm moving
Speaker 3: with Kathy. After she made Don leave.
Speaker 1: They started out his roommates. Gwen was seeing another woman
Speaker 1: who worked at the nursing home, and Kathy was married
Speaker 1: to her husband Ken, but Kathy and Ken were going
Speaker 1: through a rocky time.
Speaker 3: She said that her husband was coming over that night
Speaker 3: to pick up some of his things, and I said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going out on the eight with a girl, and
Speaker 3: so I went over to the girl's house. And I
Speaker 3: wasn't over there at the girl's house very long, and
Speaker 3: Kathy had called and she was hysterical and saying that
Speaker 3: Ken was going to hurt her and please hurry back,
Speaker 3: and she was just really hysterical. I said, yeah, I'm coming.
Speaker 1: Gwen headed over ready to go to battle for her friend,
Speaker 1: but she.
Speaker 3: Stops me at the door and she's tea saying everything's okay,
Speaker 3: everything's okay. So I walked in and Ken was sitting there.
Speaker 3: He stood up and he introduced himself. He was really polite,
Speaker 3: really well spoken, and we sat down and had a
Speaker 3: friendly conversation. And the whole time I'm thinking about the
Speaker 3: phone conversation and what happened is that.
Speaker 1: After Ken left, Gwen asked Kathy what that was all about.
Speaker 1: Kathy tried to explain, but things weren't adding up.
Speaker 3: It didn't take me too long to figure out that
Speaker 3: she had done that because she was it was manipulative
Speaker 3: and she just didn't want me out with the girl.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about that, like, about Kathy
Speaker 2: being manipulative and a liar. Is this like one of
Speaker 2: the first times you started to realize.
Speaker 3: That that wasn't the first incident. I thought, well, it
Speaker 3: can't really be that bad. I mean, the girl likes
Speaker 3: me and stuff, and we ended up being together.
Speaker 1: Gwen really liked Kathy, but as time went on, she
Speaker 1: started noticing that Kathy was becoming increasingly jealous and manipulative.
Speaker 3: Over time, thanks to God to be more vicious, more calculated,
Speaker 3: and not really good motive. Sometime just took the minute
Speaker 3: to sit down and think about the thing that she
Speaker 3: did figure out why she did him.
Speaker 1: Gwen remembers one day she was with her good friend
Speaker 1: Lisa outside of the nurse home waiting for Kathy to
Speaker 1: get off work. When Kathy saw them together, she was
Speaker 1: suspicious and vindictive.
Speaker 3: She ended up calling Lisa's cousin and telling him that
Speaker 3: Lisa had confided in her that the baby that they
Speaker 3: had together was not his, that she had had an
Speaker 3: affair on him. She just really visious stuff like it.
Speaker 3: It wasn't true, but this caused the conflict with him,
Speaker 3: and I do believe they ended up not together. Her
Speaker 3: and her husband ended up splitting up over it.
Speaker 4: If I was to pick a partner for Gwen, she
Speaker 4: would not be absolutely not be one that I would
Speaker 4: choose for her. Some of the things that she'd done
Speaker 4: to Gwen, you just don't do to somebody that you
Speaker 4: say you care about on your love.
Speaker 1: Gwen dated Kathy for nine months before they split up.
Speaker 3: I just got tired of all the the manipulating, the games,
Speaker 3: and I just couldn't do it anymore. I just wanted
Speaker 3: to be happy. I didn't want to be in this
Speaker 3: situation anymore, and I rubbed her.
Speaker 1: Gwen and Cathy agreed to remain friends after the breakup.
Speaker 1: Gwen then left Alpine Manor for another job and started
Speaker 1: seriously dating another woman from the nursing home named Heather.
Speaker 1: The two decided to move out of Michigan and out
Speaker 1: of respect for their friendship. Gwen told Kathy the.
Speaker 3: News, and I thought that everything was okay. I told her,
Speaker 3: I'm going to Texas and I'm going with Heather, and
Speaker 3: she seemed to be okay with everything.
Speaker 2: So you thought everything was fine. So you and Heather
Speaker 2: go to Texas and then tell me what happens.
Speaker 3: Last thing I know, the police are coming down to
Speaker 3: talk to me about her, saying that I killed people
Speaker 3: at a nursing home or killed a person up to
Speaker 3: nursing home as I was started out.
Speaker 1: In August of nineteen eighty seven, around the same time
Speaker 1: that Gwen moved away with Heather, Kathy told her now
Speaker 1: ex husband Ken a shocking tale. Between January and April
Speaker 1: that year, while Gwen and Kathy were still working at
Speaker 1: Alpine Manor, a number of the patients passed away. Among
Speaker 1: them were sixty year old Marguerite Chambers, May Mason and
Speaker 1: Bell Burkhard, who were both in their seventies, and Edith
Speaker 1: Cook and Myrtle Luce, who were in their nineties. Like
Speaker 1: most of the residents at the nursing home, these women
Speaker 1: were either elderly, ill, or both, and their causes of
Speaker 1: death were listed as natural, such as Alzheimer's and heart attack.
Speaker 1: But Kathy told her ex husband these five women hadn't
Speaker 1: died of natural causes. She told him she and Gwen
Speaker 1: had plotted to murder the women as part of a
Speaker 1: lover's pact that would bind them together for life. Kathy
Speaker 1: painted Gwen as the mass remind of the crime, saying
Speaker 1: that she herself had acted as a lookout while Gwen
Speaker 1: killed the patients by smothering them. Over a year later,
Speaker 1: in October nineteen eighty eight, Ken went to authorities and
Speaker 1: told them what Kathy had said. His report launched an
Speaker 1: entirely new investigation into these women's deaths. Three of the
Speaker 1: bodies had been cremated, but the medical examiner, doctor Stephen Cole,
Speaker 1: had the other two exhumed in order to re examine them.
Speaker 1: Upon this second look, doctor Cole determined that these two
Speaker 1: women had died from asphyxiation. He proceeded to change the
Speaker 1: manners of death on both their death certificates, from natural
Speaker 1: causes to homicide. Quickly, the media started buzzing about the
Speaker 1: case in salacious detail. Newspapers seized on Gwen and Kathy's sexuality,
Speaker 1: depicting them as a pair of lesbian serial killers.
Speaker 3: And it was in the paper and they were saying
Speaker 3: that people were killed at the nursing home. And I
Speaker 3: wasn't too worried about it. I never really thought it
Speaker 3: was going to go anywhere. So when they showed up
Speaker 3: at the door, when they came to talk to me,
Speaker 3: that that was sound of ridiculous. They told me, they said,
Speaker 3: your ext girlfriend said that you killed somebody at a
Speaker 3: nursing home. And I left him. I couldn't believe, I said,
Speaker 3: I can't believe he came down here for that bullshit.
Speaker 1: But on December fourth, nineteen eighty eight, Gwen was arrested
Speaker 1: for murder. When she was arrested and brought back to Michigan,
Speaker 1: Gwen still thought things would be cleared up, that the
Speaker 1: police would realize Kathy was lying and that she would
Speaker 1: be released, but that didn't happen. The police and prosecutors
Speaker 1: then used doctor Cole's conclusions to bolster the story that
Speaker 1: Kathy was telling, saying that the other three women also
Speaker 1: must have died by asphyxiation.
Speaker 3: When they charged me with four I think four or more.
Speaker 3: That's when I started losing it. I couldn't believe that
Speaker 3: it got as far as it did.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 1: in the communities where they work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Gwen's trial star
Speaker 1: in September of nineteen eighty nine. The state's case was
Speaker 1: presented by Assistant Kent County Prosecutor David Scheiber. He started
Speaker 1: by telling the jury about the alleged lover's packed that
Speaker 1: Kathy had described.
Speaker 5: This idea of the lover's packed, this lover's tryst, this
Speaker 5: homicidal lesbian duo was extremely shocking and salacious. At the time.
Speaker 1: This is Elizabeth Cole, clinical fellow at the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Speaker 5: It was no secret at the time that Gwen was
Speaker 5: in a relationship with another woman, that she had dated
Speaker 5: other women in the past, and that she identified as gay,
Speaker 5: and that played a really large part of trial. It
Speaker 5: was sort of central to the prosecutor's theme.
Speaker 1: And that's how the prosecutor targeted his audience.
Speaker 5: I mean, Grand Rapids is beautiful, but it is not
Speaker 5: the most liberal of towns, especially not in the eighties.
Speaker 5: As Gwen has told me before, there's a church on
Speaker 5: every street corner, and we have seen in the transcripts
Speaker 5: this intense undertone of homophobia throughout.
Speaker 1: Schiper used that to his full advantage. When questioning Gwen
Speaker 1: on the stand.
Speaker 5: The prosecutor asks her about her relationship with Kathy and
Speaker 5: whether or not that relationship was satisfying. And there was
Speaker 5: a lot of questions about whether or not Gwen had
Speaker 5: attempted to seduce other women, and whether or not Gwen
Speaker 5: had been faithful to Kathy in this relationship. And I
Speaker 5: think that all of these little things really tried to
Speaker 5: show how the prosecution was trying to portray Gwen, which
Speaker 5: was this controlling, corruptive individual who has no sense of
Speaker 5: morals and who is a day from every aspect.
Speaker 3: They spent more time to just going over details of
Speaker 3: my sex life, saying it was kinky. And I was
Speaker 3: thinking if it was my person, my grandma, that had
Speaker 3: been killed and they were talking about that, I would
Speaker 3: have been out in the courtroom and probably would have
Speaker 3: set up said well, the fun does I got to
Speaker 3: do with anything? Can we get back to, you know,
Speaker 3: my grandma?
Speaker 1: But the actual evidence against Gwen was thin. It was
Speaker 1: a story that started with Kathy. And before trial, when
Speaker 1: Gwen and Kathy were in holding cells next to each other,
Speaker 1: Gwen says she had a chance to ask Kathy about it.
Speaker 3: I said, why are you doing this? She said, because
Speaker 3: you hurt me, because you lied to me, because you
Speaker 3: cheated on me. I said, there is nothing I can
Speaker 3: do to change that, and she started She started crying
Speaker 3: and saying, but I loved you, and started banging her
Speaker 3: head on the wall in there, and so I was
Speaker 3: calling the guard and telling them she's over there hurting herself.
Speaker 1: After that, Gwen thought that Kathy would come clean on
Speaker 1: the stand.
Speaker 3: That's not what she did at all. I don't know
Speaker 3: what happened to her between that and getting on the stand.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, she was totally composed and nailing
Speaker 3: me to the cloth.
Speaker 1: Kathy testified as to what she told Ken and eventually
Speaker 1: told police that she and Gwen plotted to kill the
Speaker 1: women in a lover's pact. The medical examiner, doctor Cole,
Speaker 1: testified that the cause of death for the two women
Speaker 1: he re examined was asphyxiation, and finally, witnesses from the
Speaker 1: nursing home said they had heard Gwen and Kathy making
Speaker 1: jokes about killing patients. So what did the defense do
Speaker 1: at trial? How did they try and refute this?
Speaker 5: So the defense really tried, I think, to poke holes
Speaker 5: in every space that they could.
Speaker 1: Gwen's defense attorney, James Piazza, started with Kathy.
Speaker 5: The defense really tried to show that this was nothing
Speaker 5: more than a story made up by Kathy, but he
Speaker 5: was limited in what he was able to do. He
Speaker 5: requested mental health records on Kathy to be able to
Speaker 5: discuss that with her. So the judge says, after reviewing
Speaker 5: the records himself, that he was denying the motion for
Speaker 5: her psychological records to be revealed.
Speaker 1: The judge determined that Kathy's mental health records would be
Speaker 1: irrelevant to the defense and could potentially even hurt their case.
Speaker 1: Despite this being an attorney's decision to make, the judge
Speaker 1: maintained that having these files available might actually help the
Speaker 1: prosecution's case because it would help argue that Kathy was
Speaker 1: susceptible to manipulate by Gwen. After an unsuccessful attempt at
Speaker 1: dismantling Kathy's credibility, defense attorney Piazza then pointed out the
Speaker 1: homophobia that was on display in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: Everyone's sex life is not important because we're talking about
Speaker 5: murders here, and so I think he tried to sort
Speaker 5: of minimize the idea that because everyone is gay or
Speaker 5: was in a relationship with one another, that that meant
Speaker 5: something in this case.
Speaker 1: Then Piazza focused on doctor Cole. On cross examination. Piazza
Speaker 1: questioned Cole about changing the manner of death for two
Speaker 1: of the women on their death certificates. Did he see
Speaker 1: any evidence in these two bodies that it was a homicide.
Speaker 5: Based upon his testimony at trial. The short answer is no.
Speaker 5: There were a number of other things that these people
Speaker 5: could have passed away from. They were at a nursing home.
Speaker 5: Most of them had multiple maladies that could have been
Speaker 5: the reason they passed away, and doctor Cole at trial
Speaker 5: testified that there really wasn't any typical signs of smothering,
Speaker 5: which was the allegations that each of these individuals had
Speaker 5: been smothered, such as burst capillaries, bruising on the face
Speaker 5: or in the mouth, things like that. He said there
Speaker 5: was no evidence of that, but based on what Kathy stated,
Speaker 5: he determined that it was a homicide. Each time.
Speaker 1: Doctor Cole admitted that if it wasn't for Cathy's confession,
Speaker 1: which he knew was the reason for the re examinations,
Speaker 1: he would not have determined the cause of death to
Speaker 1: be asphyxiation as for the other three women, because there
Speaker 1: had been no reexaminations. Piazza asked the judge to determine
Speaker 1: that there wasn't sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude
Speaker 1: that they were murdered. His request was denied. Finally, Gwen
Speaker 1: took the stand to defend herself, but it didn't go
Speaker 1: over as she hoped.
Speaker 5: I think she feels like she didn't get to explain
Speaker 5: her side of the story the way that she wanted to.
Speaker 5: When she was testifying at trial. I think that she
Speaker 5: tried to explain a lot of the things that were presented,
Speaker 5: like the joke about killing people.
Speaker 1: Gwen admits that the atmosphere at the nursing home sometimes
Speaker 1: led to gallows humor.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was things that we did that were
Speaker 3: silly and just just to get through. It's a real
Speaker 3: hard place to work where you know, people pass away
Speaker 3: and people were sick in there, and you know that
Speaker 3: this is not a place that people were coming to
Speaker 3: get too muths or better.
Speaker 1: What she was talking about was something witnesses testified to
Speaker 1: hearing at the nursing home. Gwen says this joke started
Speaker 1: with a horror movie Motel Hell, that a group of
Speaker 1: them had watched at a party. In the film, motel
Speaker 1: owners killed their guests and sold their bodies as meat
Speaker 1: to annoying customers.
Speaker 3: And so I believe it was two of the boys
Speaker 3: at the party that started saying, well, the body is
Speaker 3: at a nursing home, We're about doing a chili cook off.
Speaker 3: And that's just where it started. It just went from there,
Speaker 3: and every time that somebody would die, it was just
Speaker 3: a joke that we're going to have a chili cook Off.
Speaker 3: That's all it ever was.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about making those jokes?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: I mean really awful, really awful, Yeah, really really awful
Speaker 3: considering where it went. I can't even imagine that if
Speaker 3: it had been my grandma or my mother and I
Speaker 3: heard her stuff like that and people making jokes about it,
Speaker 3: and you know, her death, and you know, I'd the.
Speaker 6: Horrible about it.
Speaker 5: I think she tried to explain that, but after so
Speaker 5: many people had testified to it, it sort of fell flat.
Speaker 5: And I think that Gwen wasn't able really to talk
Speaker 5: about what it was that she wanted to talk about,
Speaker 5: which was her innocence. And so looking at Gwen's testimony,
Speaker 5: it seems like they tried to address all of the
Speaker 5: issues that had been presented at trial. They sort of
Speaker 5: went point by point and tried to address every conversation
Speaker 5: she had had with every witness, and I just think
Speaker 5: that the impact wasn't felt by the jury, that sincerity
Speaker 5: wasn't felt by the jury.
Speaker 1: Cathy took a plea deal of second degree murder in
Speaker 1: exchange for her testimony against Gwen. She was sentenced to
Speaker 1: twenty to forty years on September twentieth, nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: Gwen was convicted of all counts and given six concurrent
Speaker 1: sentences of life without parole.
Speaker 2: Were you surprised when you found out she was convicted
Speaker 2: of this?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I cried. I still cry, and I feel like
Speaker 4: she was railroaded.
Speaker 1: It was fifteen years before Karina was able to visit
Speaker 1: Gwen in prison. At first, she didn't recognize her sister.
Speaker 4: I know she was like twenty five or so when
Speaker 4: she went in, but her appearance had changed. Of course
Speaker 4: mine had changed. So I mean I remember standing in
Speaker 4: the middle of the room just looking around, just like
Speaker 4: calling her name, and then I looked at this lady
Speaker 4: sedued her chair and she was just crying that I
Speaker 4: knew it was her, And so they allowed us to hug.
Speaker 4: Who were like, it's really you, You're really here. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm early here. To shoe is so beautiful. It was.
Speaker 4: It was really nice, really great a moment.
Speaker 1: Goud.
Speaker 4: I'll never forget to be able to see her again.
Speaker 3: I had a really hard time coping with how did
Speaker 3: this happen? I was in shock for probably years. I
Speaker 3: was just like an autopilot. I went through the motions.
Speaker 3: There were times when I just couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 3: I just felt like I just couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 3: I tried to hang myself a couple of times, and
Speaker 3: officers found me and cut me down, and I quit
Speaker 3: trying because I figured, well, if guy's not going to
Speaker 3: let me kill myself, unless be here for something, so
Speaker 3: let's get to it. I figured out through therapy that
Speaker 3: out is for me fixing other things. I spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time fixing other things and helping other people
Speaker 3: and fixing their things because I have an inability to
Speaker 3: fix my own no matter what I tried. I can't
Speaker 3: seem to to fix this to make people see that.
Speaker 3: How am I ever going to make him see him?
Speaker 3: But I didn't do this.
Speaker 1: Although Gwen didn't think she could fix her wrongful conviction,
Speaker 1: she still tried. Gwen wrote letters to experts, attorneys, and
Speaker 1: innocence projects. In twenty twenty two, Elizabeth Cole was handed
Speaker 1: Gwen's case to review by the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Speaker 5: When you read the story of the case, it doesn't
Speaker 5: seem fully plausible. It seems really fantastical, like it would
Speaker 5: make great TV. And usually that stands out to us
Speaker 5: The other thing about this case in particular, and I
Speaker 5: think why we decided to investigate, is that this case
Speaker 5: is based around some very weak evidence.
Speaker 1: Currently, Elizabeth and the Michigan Innocence Clinic are looking at
Speaker 1: two specific angles that reinforce Helgwen's case was set up
Speaker 1: to fail. First, they're exploring how doctor Cole was prejudiced
Speaker 1: by outside information given to him prior to the re
Speaker 1: examination of the two bodies.
Speaker 5: Each of these women were determined to have been murdered
Speaker 5: by smothering, and doctor Cole was very clear about the
Speaker 5: fact that that all came from his conversations with the
Speaker 5: police and from Cathy's statement, which he believed. I can't
Speaker 5: stress this enough. There is no medical basis for the
Speaker 5: homicide determination, and this was testified to at trial and
Speaker 5: then reconfirmed during a review by another medical examiner some
Speaker 5: years later that there is no medical evidence to support
Speaker 5: a theory of smothering.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth says, the bottom line is any theory of a
Speaker 1: case should not be shared with medical examiners or similar
Speaker 1: personnel until after they make unbiased judgments, because this information
Speaker 1: can and likely will affect their opinions. The second avenue
Speaker 1: that the clinic is focusing on, is the rampant homophobia
Speaker 1: exhibited throughout the trial.
Speaker 5: This was an incredibly salacious trial. The testimony was especially salacious,
Speaker 5: and so there was sort of this connection for the
Speaker 5: prosecution between like this lack of morality and Gwen's sexual preferences.
Speaker 5: This idea of homophobia that was played very heavily throughout
Speaker 5: trial really colors everything else. It colors her relationships with
Speaker 5: the people who testified. It colors who she is. It
Speaker 5: colors police opinion of her, It colors juror's opinion of her.
Speaker 5: It certainly colored the media's opinion of her. That colors
Speaker 5: every aspect of this case, and so that impacted Gwen
Speaker 5: and really prevented her from having a fair trial.
Speaker 1: The Michigan Innocence Clinic is currently writing a clemency petition
Speaker 1: on Gwen's behalf that will focus on these two issues,
Speaker 1: with the ultimate goal of getting Gwen out of prison.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, Kathy was released on parole, but only
Speaker 1: after spending almost thirty years in prison based on a
Speaker 1: lie she told to put Gwen behind bars. To this day,
Speaker 1: Kathy has not admitted she lied. Why do you think
Speaker 1: she's stuck with the story for so long or forever, I.
Speaker 3: Thought along and hard about it when she said that
Speaker 3: we were killing all people's nursing home, and for her
Speaker 3: to sit there and tell anybody in the world that
Speaker 3: it was a lie and everything, and then she would
Speaker 3: have to have that on her shoulders for the rest
Speaker 3: of the life, and I just don't think that she
Speaker 3: can live with it. I think that she was okay
Speaker 3: with the time that she did because because I'm here
Speaker 3: for nothing, I think she was okay with her like
Speaker 3: she was paying her own little price for what she
Speaker 3: did to me. And as long as she never says anything,
Speaker 3: she'll always be in control of my life. So always
Speaker 3: be in control.
Speaker 2: When you do get out, What do you hope to
Speaker 2: do with you, with your future, with your life.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take my sister walk around the world.
Speaker 3: I want to just take her around the world and
Speaker 3: travel because she works so hard also does work, work, work,
Speaker 3: and I just want her to slow down and have
Speaker 3: fond and I just want to spend time with her.
Speaker 3: The older I get, the more I realize that if
Speaker 3: I walk out of here, I'm not going to have
Speaker 3: a lot of time left. So my fucking list to
Speaker 3: get shorter. And shorter. I'm not a killer. I'm a
Speaker 3: good person. I care about people. Though I felt like
Speaker 3: the world that I cared so much about left me
Speaker 3: behind and forgot about me. I still care.
Speaker 1: If you want to help Gwen, you can contact Michigan
Speaker 1: Governor Gretchen Whitmer in support of Gwen and her clemency petition.
Speaker 1: You can also contact the Michigan Innocence Clinic to share
Speaker 1: your support for Gwen. These links will be in our bio.
Speaker 1: Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, we'll revisit
Speaker 1: our season one episode with death row prisoner Hank Skinner.
Speaker 6: But I think with the evidence we have now that
Speaker 6: they're going to have to let me go and they're
Speaker 6: going to have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I think,
Speaker 6: after all I've suffered, that I deserve a chance. I
Speaker 6: deserve to be with my wife. I deserve to have
Speaker 6: a life. I deserve to be released and get the
Speaker 6: hell out of here, and I won't out.
Speaker 1: Hank died in February at the prison hospital in Galveston, Texas,
Speaker 1: from complications following surgery for an aggressive brain tumor.
Speaker 2: Up until his.
Speaker 1: Death, he continued to maintain his innocence and to fight
Speaker 1: for exoneration. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: producer Lyla Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul. The show
Speaker 1: is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production
Speaker 1: by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in this
Speaker 1: production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one