Speaker 1: A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care. So, Amanda, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me. I want to introduce you to listeners
Speaker 1: who might not know who you are. You are a podcaster,
Speaker 1: you have a podcast with your husband called Labyrinth, and
Speaker 1: you're an ethical storyteller. Is how you like to refer
Speaker 1: to yourself. Yes, and for those who don't know, I
Speaker 1: also was wrongly convicted, which is how we know each
Speaker 1: other through the Innocence Network. So it's great to see
Speaker 1: you again, Maggie. When you look at wrongful convictions with women,
Speaker 1: what are maybe the three most common factors you see?
Speaker 1: So the vast majority of cases where women are wrongly
Speaker 1: convicted actually involved them being accused of a crime that
Speaker 1: never happened in the first place. What ultimately happens in
Speaker 1: a lot of these cases is women who are suddenly
Speaker 1: shocked by a tragic thing that happens to them feel
Speaker 1: a sense of guilt that is then utilized by the
Speaker 1: police to either coerce them in to falsely confessing, or
Speaker 1: is used as a way to suggest that they are
Speaker 1: behaving like a guilty person. So someone who is experiencing
Speaker 1: grief or shock is told that they're not acting the
Speaker 1: way that a person is supposed to act in their situation.
Speaker 1: And there's also this assumption that we have that women,
Speaker 1: especially in the caretaking role, are somehow responsible when something
Speaker 1: tragic and unfortunate happens to someone who is in their
Speaker 1: care and we need to push back against those assumptions
Speaker 1: and narratives of the perfect mother and the perfect wife
Speaker 1: and the perfect daughter and instead acknowledge that human beings
Speaker 1: are complicated and that there's more to the story, likely
Speaker 1: than we are being told in the media. I kept
Speaker 1: thinking that I wouldn't have to say anything because the
Speaker 1: mamma at that town struggling is thinking that it was
Speaker 1: my fault, that I should have done something different. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that saying these things was making me look guilty.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that people were watching that every moon
Speaker 1: from Lava for Good this is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today Tammy Pool. On the evening of April two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, Tammy Pool and her husband Michael got into
Speaker 1: an argument at their home in Chatsworth, Georgia. They had
Speaker 1: a tumultuous relationship and this was not unusual. This time, though,
Speaker 1: a gun was involved and Michael suffered a fatal bullet
Speaker 1: wound to his temple. Tammy says the shot was self
Speaker 1: inflicted and that Michael had often threatened suicide in the past,
Speaker 1: but as the only witness to the shooting, police saw
Speaker 1: Tammy as a suspect. A case was quickly built against her,
Speaker 1: and she was arrested, charged, and convicted for the murder
Speaker 1: of her husband, Michael. This is not happening. This is
Speaker 1: just this can't be happening. How did they not know?
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. My lawyers did not think. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that, um, there was no science to it,
Speaker 1: just one opinion. He assured me he was going to
Speaker 1: tell the jury how it happened, and that never never happened.
Speaker 1: I am Tammy Pool. I've been incarcerated in uh Georgia
Speaker 1: prisons for fifteen years. Tammy Pool was born December three
Speaker 1: in La j, Georgia to Rose and Curtis David. She's
Speaker 1: the youngest of two kids. Her brother, Danny, is fifteen
Speaker 1: years older. I always looked up to my brother. He
Speaker 1: was just great to me. He had this wonderful, big,
Speaker 1: huge cat. I used to share my ice cream with it,
Speaker 1: and I just loved that cat. Tammy and her brother
Speaker 1: learned to find joy in the little things, especially since
Speaker 1: their family didn't have a lot of money. One year,
Speaker 1: we weren't able to get a birthday cake, and my
Speaker 1: mom had bought some about a couple of boxes of
Speaker 1: little debbies and arranged them and made it look like
Speaker 1: a clown so it was a clown cake. So I
Speaker 1: remember that being happy. But Tammy's childhood was also filled
Speaker 1: with a lot of trauma. My Uh, my father drank
Speaker 1: a lot. Uh my mother was a hoarder, so there
Speaker 1: was a lot of things that went on. Um, I
Speaker 1: had different babysitters, so there was some childhood mental, physical,
Speaker 1: and sexual abuse. And I just I've never I just
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. Um, I kind of closed in all myself.
Speaker 1: As she got older, she admits she started expressing her
Speaker 1: trauma in destructive ways. When I was seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: I um was hanging around with some people that were
Speaker 1: a little older than me, and um they were breaking
Speaker 1: into houses. I was as eight in the vehicle while
Speaker 1: they went in, and of course they ended up getting caught,
Speaker 1: and then I had gotten trouble for shot lifting. When
Speaker 1: Tammy was seventeen, she met her first husband, Kenny. After
Speaker 1: about a year together, in August five, she gave birth
Speaker 1: to her first child, Shannonsy. It was amazing just to
Speaker 1: see her born, to see her little face when she
Speaker 1: came out, it was just absolutely amazing. Um. Then within
Speaker 1: just a few months, I was pregnant again and this
Speaker 1: was my son, Christopher. He was born to L twenty third,
Speaker 1: So that was only eleven and a half months after Shantasy,
Speaker 1: So we would call those Irish twins. Tammy and her
Speaker 1: husband bought a house in Chatsworth, Georgia. Life was great.
Speaker 1: They were living their dream and their children have fond
Speaker 1: memories to you. What do you remember about growing up
Speaker 1: with your mom? Remember her taking us to Disney World,
Speaker 1: I mean driving the Tower of Terror and I was terrified.
Speaker 1: This is Tammy's oldest child, Shannonsy. I remember her like
Speaker 1: teaching me how to drive when I was younger, like
Speaker 1: bits and pieces, um and her taking me to beauty pageants.
Speaker 1: She was like my biggest fan when I was in
Speaker 1: beauty pageants. I used to take them to karate practice
Speaker 1: and um I tried to coach them in basketball. A
Speaker 1: little five and six year old teams and UM, I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to play basketball, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to spend time with them, and I wanted them to
Speaker 1: have the things that I didn't have. On the outside, Tammy,
Speaker 1: Kenny and their kids were a picture perfect family, but
Speaker 1: her marriage with Kenny soon hit the rocks. We were
Speaker 1: We were good for a little while, and then about
Speaker 1: ten years in we decided to call it quits. Tammy's
Speaker 1: past had caught up with her and it led her
Speaker 1: to drug use. I had battled with UM addiction to
Speaker 1: myth and UM, I just I'm not sure exactly what
Speaker 1: to say about that. UM. A lot of people may
Speaker 1: understand the childhood trauma, especially untreated childhood trauma. You will
Speaker 1: live your life in a way kind of like on autopilot.
Speaker 1: You just do. You don't really think about it. So
Speaker 1: my struggle with drugs, I didn't really think about that.
Speaker 1: I just I just did it. Tammy's drug youse got
Speaker 1: out of control. She went to jail a couple of
Speaker 1: time is because of it, which led to more problems
Speaker 1: between her and Kenny. We had a awful custody battle,
Speaker 1: and I was usually on the losing end. Shantasy remembers
Speaker 1: how it impacted her relationship with her mom. It wasn't
Speaker 1: really a conventional relationship, Like I didn't I felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't really like my mom because of everything I
Speaker 1: had heard, and I wasn't able to form my own
Speaker 1: opinion as a child. So what were you hearing like
Speaker 1: people around town or classmates, um, family members, mostly family
Speaker 1: members saying that like, she's always going to be a
Speaker 1: drug addict, she's always going to be a bad person.
Speaker 1: She's always like, uh, never going to be there for me.
Speaker 1: And so did you feel like she was a good mom? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I felt like she was um for a
Speaker 1: little while. Well and then I really don't know when
Speaker 1: it was, but I had like she had to meet
Speaker 1: us at a place for like supervised visitation, and I
Speaker 1: remember being told that she had to take a drug
Speaker 1: test and I remember thinking like that's that's not what
Speaker 1: I want as a mom, Like that's not who I
Speaker 1: want my mom to be, and that's I didn't really
Speaker 1: think she was a good mom at that point. I
Speaker 1: did when I was younger, um, but after probably nine
Speaker 1: maybe tien um, I started to think that she was
Speaker 1: just a junkie and a bad person because that's what
Speaker 1: I had been led to believe, and I wasn't really
Speaker 1: able to get to know her because I had already
Speaker 1: planted in my mind that I didn't want to. Around
Speaker 1: this time, about two thousand one, Tammy was trying to
Speaker 1: pick up the pieces of her life when she met
Speaker 1: another man named Robbie. Their son, Brent, was born in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, but that relationship didn't last long. So
Speaker 1: I was still in the middle of those becaust the battles,
Speaker 1: trying to get trying to get myself together, trying to
Speaker 1: do all these things, but I could never quite reach
Speaker 1: my um potential. Tammy became more motivated to change things though,
Speaker 1: when she met someone else around January two thousand four.
Speaker 1: His name was Robert Michael Pool, and he went by Michael.
Speaker 1: He seemed like a really nice person. He had his
Speaker 1: own place, he had a job as a carpenter, and
Speaker 1: we just started talking. And I was single at the time,
Speaker 1: so I just thought it was great. I kind of
Speaker 1: thought that he was, Oh, here's this guy that's got
Speaker 1: it together and I keep messing up. He can help me.
Speaker 1: I kind of with him as like my savior. Tammy
Speaker 1: was smitten with Michael I just thought that, uh, Mike
Speaker 1: was gonna get a little better. Okay, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: this normal life. We're gonna be We're gonna be just fun.
Speaker 1: Like Tammy, Michael had three kids. They moved in together,
Speaker 1: and things were on the up for their blended family. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We always talked about our kids and we would take
Speaker 1: them places like the river and fishing and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: fun things with the kids. I don't know. We just
Speaker 1: we called ourselves the Brady Bunch, the Pool Bunch. Tammy
Speaker 1: was finally feeling good in her life, and two thousand
Speaker 1: five she went back to school at Appalachian Technical College
Speaker 1: to study accounting and business. She eventually pursued a paralegal program,
Speaker 1: and it was love for her older brother Danny that
Speaker 1: inspired her. He had a lot of run ins with
Speaker 1: the police, and I really wanted to keep him out
Speaker 1: of jail. So I thought, if I could be a
Speaker 1: good attorney, I could keep him out of jail. But
Speaker 1: not long after Tammy and Michael got together, things took
Speaker 1: a turn. It started with the house they were living in.
Speaker 1: It comes found out the house study lived in, he
Speaker 1: didn't actually he wasn't actually running that house. It wasn't
Speaker 1: actually his house. So after I had moved in there
Speaker 1: with him, we um lift and moved in with his sister.
Speaker 1: And UM, it was just it was it was little things,
Speaker 1: and these were things Michael's ex wife had already tried
Speaker 1: to warn her about. She tried to talk to me
Speaker 1: one day and and I didn't listen. I I always
Speaker 1: thought that it was her fault that they had split up,
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize until probably a year later, that, Um,
Speaker 1: Michael had some serious problems. Those little things that I liked.
Speaker 1: I liked the way he watched me. I like the
Speaker 1: way he paid attention. But it kind of turned dark. Um,
Speaker 1: if my eyes looked the wrong way, I was accused
Speaker 1: of looking at somebody else or um. It was little things,
Speaker 1: little things like that. But Tammy says, the little things
Speaker 1: at times also turned into physical violence. And then it
Speaker 1: was a push and then the harder shove, and so um,
Speaker 1: of course I pushed back, and then I left, and
Speaker 1: then we got back together, and then I left, and
Speaker 1: then we got back together. Timmy says they would follow
Speaker 1: the cycle countless times, but of course maybe and me
Speaker 1: I would make excuses for him. By two thousand six,
Speaker 1: things were really bad between the two. One day they
Speaker 1: were driving in the car and got into an argument,
Speaker 1: and it took the trouble they were having to a
Speaker 1: whole other level. We had a car accident. But the accident, um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really an accident, Like he ran the car
Speaker 1: off the road because we were arguing and I had
Speaker 1: just buckled my seatbelt because the road that we were
Speaker 1: on was just very very curvy, and we hit a tree.
Speaker 1: So you think he did it on purpose? Um, No,
Speaker 1: he did. He did it on purpose. Um. He said
Speaker 1: that he was going to kill us both. Tammy was
Speaker 1: lucky she survived, although the accident left her badly injured
Speaker 1: with internal bleeding. She would be in a walker for
Speaker 1: months after. Still, Tammy and Michael stayed together, but things
Speaker 1: continued to deteriorate. Tammy started becoming convinced that Michael was
Speaker 1: having some serious mental health issues. We dabbled in Matthews
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure. I'm not sure if he did
Speaker 1: the wrong kind, if you did too much. It was
Speaker 1: like he started going crazy and there was something. It
Speaker 1: was odd. Everyone noticed his behavior. His older sister and
Speaker 1: I talked about having had committed He had went to
Speaker 1: his ex wife's house, tried to get a telephone that
Speaker 1: belonged to his dad, this antique telephone, because he thought
Speaker 1: he was going to call his ad. The problem is
Speaker 1: his dad had been dead for years, so it was
Speaker 1: I can't really describe it, and Tammy says, Michael continued
Speaker 1: to talk about suicide. He had started doing that so much.
Speaker 1: I had taken guns away from him before, and his
Speaker 1: little sister had taken got her boyfriend to take a
Speaker 1: gun away from him. It just seems to be getting
Speaker 1: worse and worse. I didn't know. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do. He had found out that his sister and
Speaker 1: I were talking about putting me in a mental institution,
Speaker 1: and he sore that he would he would kill me
Speaker 1: to kill her. He would kills both. That he did
Speaker 1: not want to go to a mental institution, and I
Speaker 1: believe him. The violence at home was bad. We argued constantly.
Speaker 1: It was. It was more than I knew how to
Speaker 1: deal with. I didn't know how to help him, help myself,
Speaker 1: how to convince him that I loved him and that
Speaker 1: we were going to be okay. It was it was
Speaker 1: a very very dark time. This episode is underwritten by
Speaker 1: A I G, a leading global insurance company. A i
Speaker 1: G 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 we work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and
Speaker 1: in recognition of a i g s commitment to criminal
Speaker 1: and social justice reform, the a i G Pro Bono
Speaker 1: Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented
Speaker 1: communities and individuals. On the evening of April seven, Tammy
Speaker 1: and Michael were again arguing. I found out that he
Speaker 1: had been talking to this girl, but it turns out
Speaker 1: he was only talking to her about drugs. So we
Speaker 1: were arguing. Um, I told him. I told him that
Speaker 1: day that, Um, I hope he died, you know. Then
Speaker 1: we made up, of course, there's always that makeup period.
Speaker 1: Then Shantisy and Christopher left to spend the evening with
Speaker 1: their father. Brent also went with his dad. Of course,
Speaker 1: after the kids left, we had some you know, makeup
Speaker 1: making out, um, and I don't know what happened, like
Speaker 1: something snack, um, And then he just got really really
Speaker 1: angry and um. Tammy says. This is when Michael went
Speaker 1: and grabbed a rifle. I remember I was on the
Speaker 1: bed and he pointed the gun at me, and I
Speaker 1: got in the fetal position, and I was just saying no, please, no,
Speaker 1: no no. And then he pulled me by my ankle
Speaker 1: off the end of the bed and he was banging
Speaker 1: that the gun. It was a rifle. He was banging
Speaker 1: it against his head and it was right there in
Speaker 1: front of my face, and and I got up. I
Speaker 1: was standing, and he leaned over in front of me,
Speaker 1: and so he kept reaching for the trigger and I
Speaker 1: had my hands on the end of the barrel, and
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, it's gonna shoot me, It's gonna shoot me.
Speaker 1: But Michael didn't shoot her. He put his trigger. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: The bullet hit Michael in the left side of his forehead.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any idea what to do, um, I
Speaker 1: didn't no CPR. I kept trying to get my phone
Speaker 1: down on one one. I didn't want to leave them
Speaker 1: ahead to go outside to come out one one and
Speaker 1: I am. It seemed like it too had been forever
Speaker 1: to get there. I don't have any idea how long
Speaker 1: was it just seemed like a really long time. An
Speaker 1: ambulance finally came and took Michael to the hospital. Tammy
Speaker 1: was driven there by a friend from church. At the hospital,
Speaker 1: Michael was pronounced dead. Tammy was absolutely distraught, but I
Speaker 1: just kept saying, I should have I should have I
Speaker 1: should have done something different. Um, I should be nicer.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have said what I said when I told
Speaker 1: him that I hope he died. I shouldn't have said that.
Speaker 1: When the police came onto the case, they immediately questioned Tammy.
Speaker 1: I remember they asked me like a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: But I kept thinking that you know, they're gonna know,
Speaker 1: They're they're gonna know he shot himself. I mean, they
Speaker 1: have to know, right. The police were focusing on the
Speaker 1: fact that Tammy's story kept changing. I kept thinking that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have to say anything because my mind at
Speaker 1: that time struggling with thinking that it was my fault,
Speaker 1: that I should have done something different. Because she felt
Speaker 1: guilty for telling Michael she wished he was dead. Tammy
Speaker 1: didn't want the police to think it was a suicide.
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, Okay, well, if I say that the
Speaker 1: gun got caught on a broken laundry basket there, that
Speaker 1: the trigger got caught on that then it wasn't my
Speaker 1: fault and it wasn't Michael's fault, and everybody can just
Speaker 1: live with a tragic accident. And so that's what I
Speaker 1: told people. Then my landlord called and said, what happened?
Speaker 1: Was he cleaning the gun? And that was the next morning.
Speaker 1: And what was I to say? No, he killed himself
Speaker 1: because I was a bad wife. Rather than saying that,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what happened. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that saying these things was making me look guilty.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that people were watching that every move
Speaker 1: I was drowning in my pain. And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was thinking. I can't um
Speaker 1: I can't describe that. A pathologist, Dr William Oliver, performed
Speaker 1: the autopsy on Michael's body and declared that the fatal
Speaker 1: shot was not self inflicted. This, along with her changing statements,
Speaker 1: solidified the case against Tammy, and just a few months later,
Speaker 1: in June two seven, she was arrested for the murder
Speaker 1: of Michael Pool. Tammy's trial started on June nine, a
Speaker 1: year after Michael's death. Her defense attorney, Richard Thurman, was
Speaker 1: actually Michael's cousin by marriage, and if that sounds like
Speaker 1: it's weird, it is. The prosecutor was d A. Joe
Speaker 1: Hendrix and one of his assistants, Mike Baird. Their case
Speaker 1: was straightforward. Tammy was the only one in the room
Speaker 1: with Michael she shot him. A firearms examiner from the
Speaker 1: Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Robinson, took the stand. He
Speaker 1: said the weapon used was the semi automatic rifle found
Speaker 1: in the bedroom Tammy and Michael shared. The prosecutors also
Speaker 1: called Dr Oliver, who testified that the gunshot wound was
Speaker 1: inflicted not by Michael but by someone else. The prosecution
Speaker 1: also used Tammy and Michael's tumultuous relationship, her past run
Speaker 1: ins with the law, and her changing story against her.
Speaker 1: A woman who had been imprisoned in the same facility
Speaker 1: as Tammy testified that Tammy had confessed to her that
Speaker 1: she had gotten Michael quote out of the picture in
Speaker 1: order to be with someone else. Both of Tammy's kids
Speaker 1: were also called to testify against her. I remember them
Speaker 1: hounding me with crazy questions like what we had to
Speaker 1: eat and what I was doing there the week before
Speaker 1: because it was spring break. Things like um did I
Speaker 1: see them ever like hit each other or anything like that,
Speaker 1: And I just I just didn't think that was a
Speaker 1: Those are questions to ask a child. It's like they
Speaker 1: were trying to get me to say that they were
Speaker 1: physically abusive to each other in front of everybody, or
Speaker 1: like they were. They asked me if I had ever
Speaker 1: seen them be involved in drugs, and I I was
Speaker 1: not prepared to answer that on a stand. At fourteen,
Speaker 1: when it came time for Tammy's son, Christopher to take
Speaker 1: the witness stand, he said he saw Tammy and my
Speaker 1: Michael make up after their fight before leaving with his dad.
Speaker 1: Michael's sister testified that she believed Michael would kill Tammy
Speaker 1: and then himself, and Michael's brother in law also testified
Speaker 1: that Michael had said he would kill himself if the
Speaker 1: circumstances did not improve. Defense attorney Thurman also cross examined
Speaker 1: the woman who had allegedly heard Tammy confess while she
Speaker 1: was in jail. Under cross examination, it came out that
Speaker 1: this witness had a motive of her own to sell
Speaker 1: Tammy out for perhaps less severe charges for herself, but
Speaker 1: the defense did not call any experts to refute the
Speaker 1: States expert that Michael's death was not a murder. The
Speaker 1: trial was quick, the jury found Tammy guilty, and she
Speaker 1: was sentenced to life in prison plus twenty seven years.
Speaker 1: This is not happening. This is just this can't be happening.
Speaker 1: How did they not know? I didn't realize that. My
Speaker 1: lawyers did not think. I didn't realize that, um, there
Speaker 1: was no science to it, just one opinion. He assured
Speaker 1: me he was going to tell the jury how it happened,
Speaker 1: and that never never happened. Timmy lost everything, including her kids.
Speaker 1: So did you think your mom did this when it
Speaker 1: first happened. I did. After her mother went to prison,
Speaker 1: Shannonsy says she felt worthless. I had always been told
Speaker 1: that I was just like her, So I started to think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I am. Maybe I just can't be good. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know any good things to do. So Shannonsy
Speaker 1: started running with a bad crowd like her mom had done.
Speaker 1: After I turned twenty one, I was really well. After
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen is when I moved out and I
Speaker 1: was able to, Oh goodness, do really crazy things because
Speaker 1: I felt like my whole life was not there, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't have my mom. My relationship with
Speaker 1: my dad was not good because of that, and so
Speaker 1: I just I kind of felt like a went off
Speaker 1: the rails. I guess you could say I started to party,
Speaker 1: to drink, being reckless and careless. For years, Shannonsy and
Speaker 1: Tammy went without speaking. During that time, Tammy made a
Speaker 1: point to work on herself. She got clean from drugs
Speaker 1: and sought treatment for her childhood trauma. She started doing
Speaker 1: yoga and focusing on spiritual and physical well being. All
Speaker 1: the while she also kept working on her case. Tammy
Speaker 1: kept thinking, surely, at some point they're going to know. Surely,
Speaker 1: at some point somebody will see the truth. Then someone
Speaker 1: did see. A pro bono attorney picked up Tammy's cave,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand eleven, they filed a motion for
Speaker 1: a new trial. At this point, Tammy reached out to
Speaker 1: her kids. She let them know she had a court
Speaker 1: hearing coming up and she wanted them to attend. And
Speaker 1: I remember going, and I remember sitting in that courtroom,
Speaker 1: and when I heard everything they were saying, it was
Speaker 1: like my mom was blown. All these years, Chantasy thought
Speaker 1: her mom was a cold blooded murderer, but now sitting
Speaker 1: in the courtroom hearing the evidence. I couldn't fathom the
Speaker 1: fact that I was one of the ones that was
Speaker 1: against her when there was no possible way she could
Speaker 1: have done this everything they were laying out in court,
Speaker 1: There was no way. Something was seriously wrong with this case.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, I knew that I had to
Speaker 1: find out and I had to get her side, and
Speaker 1: I had to help her because it wasn't fair, Like
Speaker 1: I felt like I had ripped the opportunity from her,
Speaker 1: from her telling me the truth because I didn't give
Speaker 1: her a chance, because nobody allowed me to really get
Speaker 1: the truth from her. They didn't let me see what
Speaker 1: really happened. From that moment on, I have believed in
Speaker 1: my mom and I will never back down again. In
Speaker 1: Tammy's motion was denied, but by she was back in court,
Speaker 1: her story was immediately compelling to me. She was an
Speaker 1: immediately compelling person. This is Tammy's current lawyer, Brendan Bullard.
Speaker 1: He came onto her case in what what was compelling
Speaker 1: about her case that made you want to take it for?
Speaker 1: You know? Virtually nothing? Well, two things, uh, One, Tammy.
Speaker 1: The way Tammy told her story to me, I can't
Speaker 1: count the number of murder cases I've handled at this point,
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about it that. Uh, it
Speaker 1: just it did not jibe with with any of my
Speaker 1: past experiences. It just the state's narrative, what what It
Speaker 1: just didn't seem to fit, especially after talking to her.
Speaker 1: One of the main pieces of evidence for Tammy's innocence
Speaker 1: is the results of a gunshot residue test. These results
Speaker 1: had actually been presented at the trial. There was no
Speaker 1: gunshot residue because typically when you when you fire a gun,
Speaker 1: there is microscopic residue that sort of balloons out or
Speaker 1: plumes out from from around the gun and it ends
Speaker 1: up on your hands, it ends up in your clothes,
Speaker 1: and it can be tested for. So there's sort of
Speaker 1: one piece of forensic evidence that you would assume should
Speaker 1: be there if Tammy fired the shot that is wholly absent.
Speaker 1: And Tammy's new team finally has experts that contract to
Speaker 1: what the state said at Tammy's trial. At that time,
Speaker 1: Dr Oliver, the state's expert, said that there is no
Speaker 1: dispute that the fatal shot in Michael's forehead was from
Speaker 1: close range. However, for Tammy to have fired a shot
Speaker 1: into her husband's head at at at the steep angle
Speaker 1: that Dr Oliver proposed, he would have to have been
Speaker 1: lying prone. She would have to have been holding the
Speaker 1: rifle at his head and pointing towards his body. It's
Speaker 1: just hard to him unless he's unless he's shooting him
Speaker 1: when he's asleep, and there's no suggestion that that's the case.
Speaker 1: The post conviction team brought that testimony to a new expert,
Speaker 1: Dr James Downs, who has been a forensic pathologist for
Speaker 1: three decades. Dr Down says that the state's expert was
Speaker 1: flat out wrong. The bullet didn't go downward as Dr
Speaker 1: Oliver had contended, but traveled upward into Michael's head. And
Speaker 1: Dr Down's words quote, it's physically impossible for this injury
Speaker 1: to happen with a rifle at that angle. But much
Speaker 1: more plausible and much more physically possible, is the diagram
Speaker 1: of Michael holding shot across his body. His arm is
Speaker 1: long enough to reach the trigger pull on the Winchester
Speaker 1: to hold the shot against his head. And basically, when
Speaker 1: you look at the undeniable forensic evidence of the direction
Speaker 1: of the foot, the location of the pieces that rejectile,
Speaker 1: and the path of rejectile took through his head. When
Speaker 1: you trace that, it just seems obvious because it is
Speaker 1: where natural is more plausible. It is the explanation that
Speaker 1: best fits all of the data without excluding anything. And then,
Speaker 1: in a surprise twist, one of the original States experts
Speaker 1: is now on Tammy's side. Christopher Robinson, formerly of the
Speaker 1: Georgia Bureau of Investigation, had testified at the trial about
Speaker 1: the type of gun that was used. He's now retired
Speaker 1: with his own forensic practice, so Tammy's team went back
Speaker 1: to him and asked him to evaluate the evidence, something
Speaker 1: he had never been asked to do for Tammy's case.
Speaker 1: When Chris looked at the evidence, he simply could not
Speaker 1: avoid the conclusion that it was that it was a
Speaker 1: self inflicted shot and because it was consistent with with
Speaker 1: other suicides he's handled. And that's the and that's his
Speaker 1: read on the evidence. And you know, his is a
Speaker 1: hard opinion to discount. He's willing to come in and say,
Speaker 1: look this this is I'm I'm in this because it
Speaker 1: is wrong, because the conviction is wrong. And if the
Speaker 1: g b I had asked me to look at the
Speaker 1: case the way I've since been asked to look the case,
Speaker 1: I would have come to the same conclusion. Robinson also
Speaker 1: suggested that the gun be tested for DNA. If Tammy
Speaker 1: fired the shot, she would have had her hands around
Speaker 1: the trigger of the gun, around the butt and the
Speaker 1: trigger pull and the trigger guard, and so she would
Speaker 1: have likely deposited skin cells there, so that can be
Speaker 1: sampled and determined. And at this point what we fully
Speaker 1: expect DNA testing the show is that her skin cells
Speaker 1: are not there. That they might be saying near the
Speaker 1: barrel of the gun or on the barrel gun where
Speaker 1: she she moved it, but they weren't near the trigger,
Speaker 1: and that Michael's and also that Michael's are Tammy's team
Speaker 1: is currently petitioning for the DNA testing. Between the lack
Speaker 1: of gunshot residue on Tammy or her clothes and dr
Speaker 1: downs and Christopher Robinson's testimonies, plus the potential new DNA evidence, Tammy,
Speaker 1: her family and her team are hopeful she will be
Speaker 1: granted a new trial and come home. Shannessy says she's
Speaker 1: ready to have her mom finally back in her life
Speaker 1: and to start their relationship over. So, how is it
Speaker 1: now amazing? We talk every day Um, she's my biggest supporter.
Speaker 1: Somebody girl. Huh yeah she uh. She does everything she
Speaker 1: can to help. She is seriously the strongest woman I
Speaker 1: know at this point, Like she hasn't been through so
Speaker 1: much and yet she still sees the positive side of everything.
Speaker 1: But she she's smart, she's funny. Um, she's dedicated to
Speaker 1: her family. Um, she talks to my kids every day
Speaker 1: that she calls. And she sent prison. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: how how happy I could have been if she would
Speaker 1: have been in my life when she was supposed to be,
Speaker 1: Like if we would have been able to talk when
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen or seventeen or sixteen even, and she
Speaker 1: could have told me that I am like, I am
Speaker 1: worth it, and I am okay, and I'm not like
Speaker 1: anybody else, and she's not like anybody else. And you
Speaker 1: can change, you can accept you're past and then change
Speaker 1: your future. And when her mom does get out, Shantonsy's
Speaker 1: first order of business, We're gonna die her hair. That's
Speaker 1: what she wants. She wants me to bring a box
Speaker 1: of hair die and die her hair because she's yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so And they were going to go to six Flags
Speaker 1: and Lake Winnie and take the kids to Florida, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be able to go on a date my
Speaker 1: fiance because she'll be able to watch my kids and
Speaker 1: she'll love it anyway. So it's gonna be amazing. So
Speaker 1: when you get out, Tammy, what's like the first things
Speaker 1: you want to do? Um? Hug all three of my grandchildren. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe just be grateful for every second. Thank you, kiss
Speaker 1: the outside ground. If you want to help Tammy, you
Speaker 1: can go to change dot org and search Tammy Pool.
Speaker 1: There's a petition started by Shannonsy for her freedom. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: Amanda Knox for bringing Tammy's case to our attention and
Speaker 1: for joining me on the show today. Starting next week,
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is taking a break for
Speaker 1: a while, but we'll be back with season two real soon.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, don't go anywhere. We've still got lots
Speaker 1: of these stories to tell, and you can still catch
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom every Thursday. See you in
Speaker 1: season two. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations. And go
Speaker 1: to the links in our bio to see how you
Speaker 1: can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
Speaker 1: Flam and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul, with
Speaker 1: additional production by Jeff Klaiburne and Connor Hall. The music
Speaker 1: in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: On all three platforms, you can also follow me 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 h