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