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 are an ethical storyteller.
Speaker 2: Is how you like to refer to yourself.
Speaker 3: Yes, and for those who don't know, I also was
Speaker 3: wrongly convicted, which is how we know each other through.
Speaker 2: The Innocence Network.
Speaker 3: So it's great to see you again, Maggie, Amanda.
Speaker 1: When you look at wrongful convictions with women, what are
Speaker 1: maybe the three most common.
Speaker 2: Factors you see?
Speaker 3: So the vast majority of cases where women are wrongly
Speaker 3: convicted actually involve them be accused of a crime that
Speaker 3: never happened in the first place. What ultimately happens in
Speaker 3: a lot of these cases is women who are suddenly
Speaker 3: shocked by a tragic thing that happens to them feel
Speaker 3: a sense of guilt that is then utilized by the
Speaker 3: police to either coerce them to falsely confessing, or is
Speaker 3: used as a way to suggest that they are behaving
Speaker 3: like a guilty person. So someone who is experiencing grief
Speaker 3: or shock is told that they're not acting the way
Speaker 3: that a person is supposed to act in their situation.
Speaker 3: And there's also this assumption that we have that women,
Speaker 3: especially in the caretaking role, are somehow responsible when something
Speaker 3: tragic and unfortunate happens to someone who is in their
Speaker 3: care and we need to push back against those assumptions
Speaker 3: and narratives of the perfect mother and the perfect wife
Speaker 3: and the perfect daughter and instead acknowledge that human beings
Speaker 3: are complicated and that there is more to the story,
Speaker 3: likely than we are being told in the media.
Speaker 4: I kept thinking that I wouldn't have to say anything,
Speaker 4: because in my mind at that time, struggling was thinking
Speaker 4: that it was my fault, that I should have done
Speaker 4: something different. I didn't realize that saying these things was
Speaker 4: making me look guilty. I didn't realize that people were
Speaker 4: 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 twenty second,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, Tammy Pool and her husband Michael
Speaker 1: got into an argument at their home in Chatsworth, Georgia.
Speaker 1: They had a tumultuous relationship and this was not unusual.
Speaker 1: This time, though, a gun was involved and Michael suffered
Speaker 1: a fatal bullet wound to his temple. Tammy says the
Speaker 1: shot was self inflicted and that Michael had often threatened
Speaker 1: suicide in the past, but as the only witness to
Speaker 1: the shooting, police saw Tammy as a suspect. A case
Speaker 1: was quickly built against her, and she was arrested, charged,
Speaker 1: and convicted for the murder of her husband, Michael.
Speaker 4: This is not happening. This can't be happening. How do
Speaker 4: they not know. I didn't realize that my lawyers did nothing.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that there was no science to it,
Speaker 4: just one opinion. He assured me he was going to
Speaker 4: tell the jury how it happened, and that never never happened.
Speaker 4: I am Tammy Poole. I've been incarcerated in Georgia prisons
Speaker 4: for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Tammy Pool was born December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: in l 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.
Speaker 4: I always looked up to my brother. He was just
Speaker 4: great to me. He had this wonderful, big, huge cat.
Speaker 4: I used to share my ice cream with it, and
Speaker 4: I just loved that cat.
Speaker 1: Tammy and her brother learned to find joy in the
Speaker 1: little things, especially since their family didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of money.
Speaker 4: One year, we weren't able to get a birthday cake,
Speaker 4: and my mom had bought a couple of boxes of
Speaker 4: little debbies and arranged them and made it look like
Speaker 4: a clown so it was a clown cake. So I
Speaker 4: remember that being happy.
Speaker 1: But Tammy's childhood was also filled with a lot of trauma.
Speaker 4: My father drank a lot. My mother was a hoarder,
Speaker 4: so there was a lot of things that went on.
Speaker 4: I had different babysitters, so there was some childhood mental, physical,
Speaker 4: and sexual abuse. And I've never I just didn't say anything.
Speaker 4: I kind of closed in on myself.
Speaker 1: As she got older, she admits she started expressing her
Speaker 1: trauma in destructive ways.
Speaker 4: When I was seventeen years old, I was hanging around
Speaker 4: with some people that were a little older than me,
Speaker 4: and they were breaking into houses. I was in the
Speaker 4: vehicle while they went in, and of course they ended
Speaker 4: up getting caught, and then I had got in trouble
Speaker 4: for shoplifting.
Speaker 1: When Tammy was seventeen, she met her first husband, Kenny.
Speaker 1: After about a year together, on August fifth, nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: she gave birth to her first child, Shannessy.
Speaker 4: It was amazing just to see her born, to see
Speaker 4: her little face when she came out, it was just
Speaker 4: absolutely amazing. Then within just a few months, I was
Speaker 4: pregnant again and this was my son, Christopher. He was
Speaker 4: born July twenty third, nineteen ninety three, so that was
Speaker 4: only eleven and a half months after Shannessy, so we
Speaker 4: would call those Irish twins.
Speaker 1: Tammy and her husband bought a house in Chatsworth, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Life was great.
Speaker 1: They were living their dream and their children have fond memories.
Speaker 2: What do you remember about growing up with your mom?
Speaker 5: I remember her taking us to Disney World, I mean
Speaker 5: riding the Tower of Terror and I was terrified.
Speaker 2: This is Tammy's oldest child, Shannessy.
Speaker 5: I remember her like teaching me how to drive when
Speaker 5: I was younger, like bits and pieces, and her taking
Speaker 5: me to beauty pageants. She was like my biggest fan
Speaker 5: when I was in beauty pageants.
Speaker 4: I used to take them to karate practice and I
Speaker 4: tried to coach them in basketball, a little five and
Speaker 4: six year old teams, and I didn't know how to
Speaker 4: play basketball, but I just wanted to spend time with them,
Speaker 4: and I wanted them to have the things that I
Speaker 4: didn't have.
Speaker 1: On the outside, Tammy, Kenny and their kids were a
Speaker 1: picture perfect family, but her marriage with Kenny soon hit
Speaker 1: the rocks.
Speaker 4: We were We were good for a little while, and
Speaker 4: then about ten years in we decided to call it quit.
Speaker 1: Tammy's past had caught up with her and it led
Speaker 1: her to drug use.
Speaker 4: I had battled with addiction to.
Speaker 1: Miss and.
Speaker 4: Ah, I just I'm not sure exactly what to say
Speaker 4: about that. A lot of people may understand that childhood trauma,
Speaker 4: especially untreated childhood trauma, you live your life in a
Speaker 4: way kind of like on autopilot. You just do. You
Speaker 4: don't really think about it. So my struggle with drugs,
Speaker 4: I didn't really think about that. I just I just
Speaker 4: did it.
Speaker 1: Tammy's drug use got out of control. She went to
Speaker 1: jail a couple of time because of it, which led
Speaker 1: to more problems between her and Kenny.
Speaker 4: We had a awful custody battle, and I was usually
Speaker 4: on the losing end.
Speaker 1: Shannessy remembers how it impacted her relationship with her mom.
Speaker 5: It wasn't really a conventional relationship, Like I didn't I
Speaker 5: felt like I didn't really like my mom because of
Speaker 5: everything I had heard, and I wasn't able to form
Speaker 5: my own opinion as a child.
Speaker 1: So what were you hearing like people around town or classmates.
Speaker 5: Family members, mostly family members saying that like, she's always
Speaker 5: going to be a drug addict, she's always going to
Speaker 5: be a bad person. She's always like, uh, never going
Speaker 5: to be there for me.
Speaker 2: And so did you feel like she was a good mom?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean I felt like she was for a
Speaker 5: little while, and then I really don't know when it was,
Speaker 5: but I had like she had to meet us at
Speaker 5: a place for like supervised visitation, and I remember being
Speaker 5: told that she had to take a drug test and
Speaker 5: I remember thinking like, that's that's not what I want
Speaker 5: as a mom, Like that's not who I want my
Speaker 5: mom to be, and that's I didn't really think she
Speaker 5: was a good mom at that point. I did when
Speaker 5: I was younger, but after probably nine, maybe ten, I
Speaker 5: started to think that she was just a junkie and
Speaker 5: a bad person because that's what I had been led
Speaker 5: to believe, and I wasn't really able to get to
Speaker 5: know her because I had already planned in my mind
Speaker 5: that I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Around this time, about two thousand and one, Tammy was
Speaker 1: trying to pick up the pieces of her life when
Speaker 1: she met another man named Robbie. Their son, Brent, was
Speaker 1: born in two thousand three, but that relationship didn't last long.
Speaker 4: So I was still in the middle of those custody
Speaker 4: battles to get trying to get myself together, trying to
Speaker 4: do all these things, but I could never quite reach
Speaker 4: my potential.
Speaker 1: Tammy became more motivated to change things though, when she
Speaker 1: met someone else around January two thousand and four. His
Speaker 1: name was Robert Michael Poole and he went by Michael.
Speaker 4: He seemed like a really nice person. He had his
Speaker 4: own place, he had a job as a carpenter, and
Speaker 4: we just started talking. And I was single at the time,
Speaker 4: so I just thought it was great. I kind of
Speaker 4: thought that he was, Oh, here's this guy that's got
Speaker 4: it together and I keep messing up. He can help me.
Speaker 4: I kind of looked at him as like my savior.
Speaker 1: Tammy was smitten with Michael.
Speaker 4: I just thought that life was gonna get a little better. Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have this normal life. We're gonna be We're
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. We always talked about our kids and we
Speaker 4: would take them places like the river and fishing and
Speaker 4: things like that, fun things with the kids. I don't know,
Speaker 4: we just we called ourselves the Brady Bunch, the Pool Bunch.
Speaker 1: Tammy was finally feeling good in her life. Two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. She went back to school at Appalachian Technical
Speaker 1: College to study accounting and business. She eventually pursued a
Speaker 1: paralegal program, and it was love for her older brother
Speaker 1: Danny that inspired her.
Speaker 4: He had a lot of run ins with the police,
Speaker 4: and I really wanted to keep him out of jail.
Speaker 4: So I thought, if I could be a good attorney,
Speaker 4: I could keep him out of jail.
Speaker 1: But not long after Tammy and Michael got together, things
Speaker 1: took a turn. It started with the house they were
Speaker 1: living in.
Speaker 4: It come to find out, the house that he lived in,
Speaker 4: he didn't actually he wasn't actually rent in that house.
Speaker 4: It wasn't actually his house, so after I had moved
Speaker 4: in there with him, we left and moved in with
Speaker 4: his sister. And it was just it was.
Speaker 1: Little things, and these were things Michael's ex wife had
Speaker 1: already tried to warn her about.
Speaker 4: She tried to talk to me one day, and I
Speaker 4: didn't listen. I always thought that it was her fault
Speaker 4: that they had split up, and I didn't realize till
Speaker 4: probably a year later, that Michael had some serious problems.
Speaker 4: Those little things that I liked. I liked the way
Speaker 4: he watched me. I liked the way he paid attention,
Speaker 4: but it kind of turned dark. If my eyes looked
Speaker 4: the wrong way, I was accused of looking at somebody else.
Speaker 4: Or it was little things, little things like that.
Speaker 1: But Tammy says, the little things at times also turned
Speaker 1: into physical violence.
Speaker 4: And then it was a push and then a harder shove,
Speaker 4: and so of course I pushed back, and then I left,
Speaker 4: and then we got back together, and then I left,
Speaker 4: and then we got back together.
Speaker 1: Timmy says they would follow this cycle countless times.
Speaker 4: But of course, me being me, I would make excuses
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and six, things were really bad between
Speaker 1: the two. One day they were driving in the car
Speaker 1: and got into an argument, and it took the.
Speaker 2: Trouble they were having to a whole other level.
Speaker 4: We had a car accident, but the accident it wasn't
Speaker 4: really an accident, like he ran the car off the
Speaker 4: road because we were arguing and I had just buckled
Speaker 4: my seatbelt because the road that we were on was
Speaker 4: just very very curvy, and we hit a tree.
Speaker 2: So you think he did it on purpose.
Speaker 4: No, he did it on purpose. He said that he
Speaker 4: was gonna kill us both.
Speaker 1: Tammy was lucky she survived, although the accident left her
Speaker 1: badly injured with internal bleeding. She would be in a
Speaker 1: walker for months after. Still, Tammy and Michael stayed together,
Speaker 1: but things continued to deteriorate. Tammy started becoming convinced that
Speaker 1: Michael was having some serious mental health issues.
Speaker 4: We dabbled in Matthews and I'm not sure. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure if he did the wrong kind, if he did
Speaker 4: too much. It was like he started going crazy and
Speaker 4: there was something. It was odd. Everyone noticed his behavior.
Speaker 4: His older sister and I talked about having him committed.
Speaker 4: He had went to his ex wife's house tried to
Speaker 4: get a telephone that belonged to his dad, this anti telephone,
Speaker 4: because he thought he was going to call his The
Speaker 4: problem is his dad had been dead for years, so
Speaker 4: it was I can't really describe it.
Speaker 1: And Tammy says, Michael continued to talk about suicide.
Speaker 4: He had started doing that so much. I had taken
Speaker 4: guns away from him before. His little sister had taken
Speaker 4: got her boyfriend and taken guns away from him. It
Speaker 4: just seemed to be getting worse and worse. I didn't know.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what to do. He had found out
Speaker 4: that his sister and I were talking about putting in
Speaker 4: a mental institution, and he saw that he would He
Speaker 4: would kill me, he would kill her, he would kill
Speaker 4: us both. That he did not want to go to
Speaker 4: a mental institution, and I believe him. The violence at
Speaker 4: home was bad. We argued constantly. It was. It was
Speaker 4: more than I knew how to deal with. I didn't
Speaker 4: know how to help him, help myself, how to convince
Speaker 4: him that I loved him and that we were going
Speaker 4: to be okay. It was a very, very dark time.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On the evening
Speaker 1: of April twenty second, two thousand and seven, Tammy and
Speaker 1: Michael were again arguing.
Speaker 4: I found out that he had been talking to this girl,
Speaker 4: but it turns out he was only talking to her
Speaker 4: about drugs. So we were arguing. I told him, I
Speaker 4: told him that day that I hope he died, you know.
Speaker 4: Then we made up, of course, there's always that makeup period.
Speaker 1: Then Shannessy and Christopher left to spend the evening with
Speaker 1: their father. Brent also went with his dad.
Speaker 4: Of course, after the kids left, we had some you know,
Speaker 4: makeup making out and I don't know what happened. By
Speaker 4: something snap and then he just got really really angry, And.
Speaker 1: Tammy says, this is when Michael went and grabbed a rifle.
Speaker 4: I remember I was on the bed and he pointed
Speaker 4: the gun at me, and I got in the fetal
Speaker 4: position and I was just saying no, please, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: And then he pulled me by my ankle off the
Speaker 4: end of the bed and he was banging the gun.
Speaker 4: It was a rifle. He was banging it against his
Speaker 4: head and it was right there in front of my face.
Speaker 4: And I got up. I was standing, and she leaned
Speaker 4: over in front of me, and he kept reaching for
Speaker 4: the trigger and I had my hands on the end
Speaker 4: of the barrel, and I kept thinking, it's gonna shoot me,
Speaker 4: It's gonna shoot me.
Speaker 2: But Michael didn't shoot her.
Speaker 4: He puts the trigger. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: The bullet hit Michael in the left side of his forehead.
Speaker 4: I didn't have any idea what to do. I didn't
Speaker 4: know CPR. I kept trying to get my phone to
Speaker 4: dial one one one. I didn't want to leave him,
Speaker 4: but I had to go outside to go mine one
Speaker 4: one and I am. It seemed like it took them
Speaker 4: forever to get there. I don't have any idea how
Speaker 4: long it was. It just seemed like a really long time.
Speaker 1: An ambulance finally came and took Michael to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Tammy was driven there by a friend from church. At
Speaker 1: the hospital, Michael was pronounced dead. Tammy was absolutely distraught.
Speaker 4: I just kept saying, I should have I should have
Speaker 4: I should have done something different. I should been nicer.
Speaker 4: I shouldn't have said what I said when I told
Speaker 4: him that day that I hope he died. I shouldn't
Speaker 4: have said that.
Speaker 1: When the police came onto the case, they immediately questioned Tammy.
Speaker 4: I remember they asked me like a lot of questions.
Speaker 4: But I kept thinking that you know, they're gonna know,
Speaker 4: They're gonna know he shout himself.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have to know, right, But police were
Speaker 1: focusing on the fact that Tammy's story kept changing.
Speaker 4: I kept thinking that I wouldn't have to say anything
Speaker 4: because in my mind at that time, I'm struggling with
Speaker 4: thinking that it was my fault, that I should have
Speaker 4: done something.
Speaker 1: Different, because she felt guilty for telling Michael she wished
Speaker 1: she was dead. Timmy didn't want the police to think
Speaker 1: it was a suicide.
Speaker 4: I kept thinking, Okay, well, if I say that a
Speaker 4: gun got caught on a broken laundry basket there, that
Speaker 4: the trigger got caught on that, then it wasn't my fault,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't Michael's fault and everybody can just live
Speaker 4: with a tragic accident. And so that's what I told people.
Speaker 4: Then my landlord called and said, what happened? Was he
Speaker 4: cleaning the gun? And that was the next morning. And
Speaker 4: what was I to say? No, he killed himself because
Speaker 4: I was a bad wife. Rather than saying that, I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what happened. I didn't realize that saying these things
Speaker 4: was making me look guilty. I didn't realize that people
Speaker 4: were watching that every move I was drowning in my pain.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, I don't know what I was thinking.
Speaker 4: I can't I can't describe that.
Speaker 1: A pathologist, doctor William Oliver, performed the autopsy on Michael's
Speaker 1: body and declared that the fatal shot was not self inflicted. This,
Speaker 1: along with her changing statements, solidified the case against Tammy,
Speaker 1: and just a few months later, in June two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, she was arrested for the murder of Michael Poole.
Speaker 1: Tammy's trials started on June ninth, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: a year after Michael's death. Her defense attorney, Richard Thurman,
Speaker 1: was actually Michael's cousin by marriage, and if that sounds.
Speaker 2: Like it's weird, it is.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor was da Jo Hendrix and one of his assistants,
Speaker 1: Mike Baird.
Speaker 2: Their case was straightforward.
Speaker 1: Tammy was the only one in the room with Michael
Speaker 1: she shot him. A firearms examiner from the Georgia Bureau
Speaker 1: of Investigation, Christopher Robinson, took the stand. He said the
Speaker 1: weapon used was the semi automatic rifle found in the
Speaker 1: bedroom Tammy and Michael shared. The prosecutors also called doctor Oliver,
Speaker 1: who testified that the gunshot wound was inflicted not by
Speaker 1: Michael but by someone else. The prosecution also used Tammy
Speaker 1: and Michael's tumultuous relationship, her past run ins with the law,
Speaker 1: and her changing story against her. A woman who had
Speaker 1: been imprisoned in the same facility as Tammy testified that
Speaker 1: Tammy had confessed to her that she had gotten Michael
Speaker 1: quote out of the picture in order to be with
Speaker 1: someone else. Both of Tammy's kids were also called to
Speaker 1: testify against her.
Speaker 5: I remember them hounding me with crazy questions like what
Speaker 5: we had to eat and what I was doing there
Speaker 5: the week before because it was spring break, Things like
Speaker 5: did I see them ever? Like hit each other or
Speaker 5: anything like that, and I just I just didn't think
Speaker 5: that was a Those are questions to ask a child.
Speaker 5: It's like they were trying to get me to say
Speaker 5: that they were physically abusive to each other in front
Speaker 5: of everybody, or like they were. They asked me if
Speaker 5: I had ever seen them be involved in drugs, and
Speaker 5: I was not prepared to answer that on a stand.
Speaker 1: At fourteen, when it came time for Tammy's son, Christopher
Speaker 1: to take the witness stand, he said he saw Tammy
Speaker 1: and my Michael make up after their fight before leaving
Speaker 1: with his dad. Michael's sister testified that she believed Michael
Speaker 1: would kill Tammy and then himself, and Michael's brother in
Speaker 1: law also testified that Michael had said he would kill
Speaker 1: himself if the circumstances did not improve. Defense attorney Thurman
Speaker 1: also cross examined the woman who had allegedly heard Tammy
Speaker 1: confess while she was in jail. Under cross examination, it
Speaker 1: came out that this witness had a motive of her
Speaker 1: own to sell Tammy out for perhaps less severe charges
Speaker 1: for herself, but the defense did not call any experts
Speaker 1: to refute the States expert that Michael's death was not
Speaker 1: a murder.
Speaker 2: The trial was quick, the.
Speaker 1: Jury found Tammy guilty, and she was sentenced to life
Speaker 1: in prison plus twenty seven years.
Speaker 4: This is not happening. This is just this can't be happening.
Speaker 4: How did they not know? I didn't realize that my
Speaker 4: lawyers did nothing. I didn't realize that there was no
Speaker 4: science to it, just one opinion. He assured me he
Speaker 4: was going to tell the jury how it happened, and
Speaker 4: that never never happened.
Speaker 1: Timmy lost everything, including her kids. So did you think
Speaker 1: your mom did this when it first happened.
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 1: After her mother went to prison, Shannessy says she felt worthless.
Speaker 5: I had always been told that I was just like her,
Speaker 5: so I started to think, well, maybe I am. Maybe
Speaker 5: I just can't be good. Maybe I don't know any
Speaker 5: good things to do.
Speaker 1: So Shannessy started running with a bad crowd like her
Speaker 1: mom had done.
Speaker 5: After I turned twenty one, I was really well. After
Speaker 5: I turned eighteen is when I moved out and I
Speaker 5: was able to, Oh goodness, do really crazy things because
Speaker 5: I felt like my whole life was not there, Like
Speaker 5: I didn't have my mom. My relationship with my dad
Speaker 5: was not good. Because of that, and so I just
Speaker 5: I kind of felt like I went off the rails.
Speaker 5: I guess you could say I started to party, to drink,
Speaker 5: being reckless and careless.
Speaker 1: Four years, Shannessye and Tammy went without speaking. During that time,
Speaker 1: Tammy made a point to work on herself. She got
Speaker 1: clean from drugs and sought treatment for her childhood trauma.
Speaker 1: She started doing yoga and focusing on spiritual and physical
Speaker 1: well being. All the while she also kept working on
Speaker 1: her case. Tammy kept thinking.
Speaker 4: Surely, at some point they're gonna know. Surely, at some
Speaker 4: point somebody will see the truth.
Speaker 2: Then someone did see.
Speaker 1: A pro bono attorney picked up Tammy's case, and in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, they filed a motion for a new trial.
Speaker 1: At this point, Tammy reached out to her kids. She
Speaker 1: let them know she had a court hearing coming up
Speaker 1: and she wanted them to attend.
Speaker 5: And I remember going, and I remember sitting in the courtroom,
Speaker 5: and when I heard everything they were saying, it was
Speaker 5: like my mind was blown.
Speaker 1: All these years, Ennessy thought her mom was a cold
Speaker 1: blooded murderer, but now sitting in the courtroom hearing the evidence.
Speaker 5: I couldn't fathom the fact that I was one of
Speaker 5: the ones that was against her when there was no
Speaker 5: possible way she could have done this everything they were
Speaker 5: laying out in court, There was no way. Something was
Speaker 5: seriously wrong with this case. And at that moment, I
Speaker 5: knew that I had to find out and I had
Speaker 5: to get her side, and I had to help her
Speaker 5: because it wasn't fair, Like I felt like I had
Speaker 5: ripped the opportunity from her for her telling me the truth,
Speaker 5: because I didn't give her a chance, because nobody allowed
Speaker 5: me to really get the truth from her. They didn't
Speaker 5: let me see what really happened. From that moment on,
Speaker 5: I have believed in my mom and I will never
Speaker 5: back down again.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, Tammy's motion was denied, but by twenty
Speaker 1: twenty she was back in court.
Speaker 6: Her story was immediately compelling to me. She was an
Speaker 6: immediately compelling person.
Speaker 1: This is Tammy's current lawyer, Brendan Bullard. He came onto
Speaker 1: her case in twenty twenty one. What was compelling about
Speaker 1: her case that made you want to take it for
Speaker 1: you know virtually nothing?
Speaker 6: Well, two things. One, the way Tammy told her story
Speaker 6: to me. I can't count the number of murder cases
Speaker 6: I've handled. At this point, I don't want to think
Speaker 6: about it, but it just it did not jibe with
Speaker 6: any of my past experiences. It just the state's narrative
Speaker 6: what it just didn't seem to fit, especially after talking
Speaker 6: 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.
Speaker 7: There was no gunshot residue, I'm sure because typically when
Speaker 7: you when you fire a gun, there is microscopic residue
Speaker 7: that sort of balloons out or plumes out from around
Speaker 7: the gun and it ends up on your hands, it
Speaker 7: ends up on your clothes, and.
Speaker 6: It can be tested for.
Speaker 7: So there's sort of one piece of forensic evidence that
Speaker 7: you would assume should be there if Tammy fired the
Speaker 7: shot that is wholly absent.
Speaker 1: And Tammy's new team finally has experts that contraday what
Speaker 1: the state said at Tammy's trial. At that time, doctor Oliver,
Speaker 1: the state's expert, said that there is no dispute that
Speaker 1: the fatal shot in Michael's forehead was from close range.
Speaker 8: However, for Tammy to have fired a shot into her
Speaker 8: husband's head at the steep angle that doctor Oliver proposed,
Speaker 8: he would have to have been lying prone.
Speaker 7: She would have to have been holding the rifle at
Speaker 7: his head and pointing toward his body.
Speaker 6: It's just hard to imagine.
Speaker 7: Unless he's unless he's shooting him when he's asleep, and
Speaker 7: there's no suggestion that that's the case.
Speaker 1: The post conviction team brought that testimony to a new expert,
Speaker 1: doctor James Downs, who has been a forensic pathologist for
Speaker 1: three decades. Doctor Downes says that the state's expert was
Speaker 1: flat out wrong. The bullet didn't go downward as doctor
Speaker 1: Oliver had contended, but traveled upward into Michael's head.
Speaker 2: In doctor Down's.
Speaker 1: Words, quote, it's physically impossible for this injury to happen
Speaker 1: with a rifle at that angle.
Speaker 7: But much more plausible and much more physically possible, is
Speaker 7: the diagram of Michael holding a shot.
Speaker 6: Across his body.
Speaker 7: His arm is long enough to reach the trigger pull
Speaker 7: on the Winchester to hold the shot against his head.
Speaker 7: And basically, when you look at the undeniable forensic evidence
Speaker 7: about the direction of the soot, the location of the
Speaker 7: pieces of projectile, and the path of projectile took through
Speaker 7: his head. When you trace that, it just seems obvious
Speaker 7: because it is more natural, it is more plausible. It
Speaker 7: is the explanation that best fits all of the data
Speaker 7: without excluding anything.
Speaker 1: And then, in a surprise twist, one of the original
Speaker 1: States experts is now on Tammy's side. Christopher Robinson, formerly
Speaker 1: of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, had testified at the
Speaker 1: trial about the type of gun that was used. He's
Speaker 1: now retired with his own forensic practice, so Tammy's team
Speaker 1: went back to him and asked him to evaluate the evidence,
Speaker 1: something he had never been asked to do for Tammy's case.
Speaker 6: When Chris looked at the evidence, he simply could not
Speaker 6: avoid the conclusion that it was that it was a
Speaker 6: self inflicted shot, and because it was consistent with other
Speaker 6: suicides he's handled, and and that's his read on the evidence.
Speaker 6: And you know, his is a hard opinion to discount.
Speaker 6: He's willing to come in and just say, look, this
Speaker 6: is I'm in this because it is wrong, because the
Speaker 6: conviction is wrong. And if the GBI had asked me
Speaker 6: to look at the case the way I've since been
Speaker 6: asked to look at the case, I would have come
Speaker 6: to the same conclusion.
Speaker 1: Robinson also suggested that the gun be tested for DNA.
Speaker 7: If Tammy fired the shot, she would have had her
Speaker 7: hands around the trigger of the gun, around the butt
Speaker 7: and the trigger pull and the trigger guard, so she
Speaker 7: would have likely deposited skin cells there, so that can
Speaker 7: be sampled and determined. And at this point, what we
Speaker 7: fully expect DNA testing to show is that her skin
Speaker 7: cells are not there. That they might be saying near
Speaker 7: the barrel of the gun or on the barrel of
Speaker 7: the gun where she she moved it, but they weren't
Speaker 7: near the trigger that Michael's and also that Michael's are.
Speaker 1: Tammy's team is currently petitioning for the DNA testing. Between
Speaker 1: the lack of gunshot residue on Tammy or her clothes
Speaker 1: and doctor Down's and Christopher Robinson's testimonies, plus the potential
Speaker 1: new DNA evidence, Tammy, her family, and her team are
Speaker 1: hopeful she will be granted a new trial and come home.
Speaker 1: Shannessy says she's ready to have her mom finally back
Speaker 1: in her life and to start their relationship over.
Speaker 2: So how is it now amazing?
Speaker 5: We talk every day. She's my biggest supporter.
Speaker 4: So much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she uh she does everything she can to help.
Speaker 5: She is seriously the strongest woman I know at this point,
Speaker 5: Like she hasn't been through so much and yet she
Speaker 5: still sees the positive side of everything. But she she's smart,
Speaker 5: she's funny, she's dedicated to her family. She talks to
Speaker 5: my kids every day that she calls. And she's in prison.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine how how happy I could have been
Speaker 5: if she would have been in my life when she
Speaker 5: was supposed to be, Like if we would have been
Speaker 5: able to talk when I turned eighteen or seventeen or
Speaker 5: sixteen even, and she could have told me that I
Speaker 5: am like, I am worth it, and I am okay,
Speaker 5: and I'm not like anybody else, and she's not like
Speaker 5: anybody else. And you can change, you can accept your
Speaker 5: past and then change your future.
Speaker 1: And when her mom does get out, Shannessy's first order
Speaker 1: of business.
Speaker 5: We're going to dye her hair. That's what she wants.
Speaker 5: She wants me to bring a box of hair dye
Speaker 5: and die her hair because she's great. Yes, yeah, so,
Speaker 5: and then we're going to go to six Flags and
Speaker 5: Lake Winnie and take the kids to Florida, and I'm
Speaker 5: going to be able to go on a date with
Speaker 5: my fiance because she'll be able to watch my kids
Speaker 5: and she'll love it anyway, So it's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 1: So when you get out, Tammy, what's like the first
Speaker 1: things you want to do?
Speaker 4: Hug all three of my grandchildren? Maybe just be grateful
Speaker 4: for every second. Thanks, kiss the outside ground.
Speaker 1: If you want to help Tammy, you can go to
Speaker 1: change dot org and search Tammypool. There's a petition started
Speaker 1: by Shannessy for her freedom. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank Amanda Knox for bringing
Speaker 1: Tammy's case to our attention and for joining me on
Speaker 1: the show today. Starting next week, Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling is taking a break for a while, but we'll
Speaker 1: be back with season two real soon. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. We've still got lots of these stories
Speaker 1: to tell, and you can still catch Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm every Thursday. See you in season two. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please
Speaker 1: support your local innocence organizations and go to the links
Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wurtis,
Speaker 1: as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson,
Speaker 1: story editor Sonya Paul, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn
Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated.
Speaker 2: Composer Jay Ralph.
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