Speaker 1: In early two thousand, Tammy Vance checked herself into drug
Speaker 1: rehab in Columbus, Mississippi. There she met Lee Stubbs, and
Speaker 1: the two became close. As they neared the end of
Speaker 1: the program, Excited for the future, they decided to leave
Speaker 1: and drive back home together along with their friend Kim.
Speaker 1: They headed out, stopping for the night at a motel,
Speaker 1: but when they awoke the next morning, something was terribly
Speaker 1: wrong with Kim. She was snoring really loud, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it stopped, and I freaked out and
Speaker 1: I told thee she's not breathing. She's not breathing. They
Speaker 1: got on the phone with nine one one and nine
Speaker 1: minister CPR until the ambulance got there. At the hospital,
Speaker 1: doctors found injuries that led them to believe Kim had
Speaker 1: experienced a violent sexual assault, and despite their efforts to
Speaker 1: help Kim, the police concluded that Tammy and Lee were
Speaker 1: actually responsible for what had happened to her. You were
Speaker 1: a suspect very quickly. So do you remember feeling that way?
Speaker 1: Do you remember thinking like something was off and what
Speaker 1: they were asking you. I remember thinking they were crazy
Speaker 1: because that was our friend, and we tried to save her.
Speaker 1: My name is Tammy Vance, and I was wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: for thirteen years from Lava for good. This is wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Tammy Vance. Tammy Vance was
Speaker 1: born in San Antonio, Texas, on November fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: to Sandy and Billy Vans. She has one younger brother,
Speaker 1: Billy Junior, who goes by the nickname Bubba. Growing up
Speaker 1: as a child was gonna be. It was greatt I
Speaker 1: had a lot of family, a lot of loving family.
Speaker 1: She was very close to her dad and her brother
Speaker 1: and myself. This is Tammy's mom, Sandy Rabelais. We were
Speaker 1: very close knit family, and a traditional Southern family at
Speaker 1: that with strong Christian values. When Tammy was about three
Speaker 1: or four, her family left San Antonio for Mississippi. For Tammy,
Speaker 1: it was a whole different world, moving from Texas, where
Speaker 1: there's nothing but tumble weeds and small trees. I remember
Speaker 1: thinking when we pulled into Mississippi that it was the
Speaker 1: land of the Giants because of the trees. You know,
Speaker 1: the trees were like so big. Once they adjusted to
Speaker 1: the new landscape, Sandy saw her daughter enjoying Mississippi. She
Speaker 1: was a very fun loving child. She was always very outgoing.
Speaker 1: I always had lots and lots of friends around her.
Speaker 1: But at home, life had gotten difficult for Tammy. My
Speaker 1: father was an alcoholic, my mother she worked two jobs,
Speaker 1: and basically I raised my younger brother. The situation was tough,
Speaker 1: but Tammy was a natural caretaker. She has a huge
Speaker 1: heart and she would just do anything for anybody that's
Speaker 1: having a hard time, Like one family Sandy recalls who
Speaker 1: lived down the street from them when Tammy was around
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve. The mother was an alcoholic. She was
Speaker 1: never there. The dad was struggling to work. There's four
Speaker 1: of those kids, and she became best friends with them.
Speaker 1: She brought them home. You know, it's like, Mom, you
Speaker 1: know they're coming home to night. I want you to
Speaker 1: make sure you're cooking up super form. And she's the
Speaker 1: one that brought him into the family, and she's the
Speaker 1: one that, you know, wanted to make sure they were
Speaker 1: fed and clothed. Eventually, Tammy's father got clean and went
Speaker 1: into recovery for about eight years, and it was like
Speaker 1: the best eight years of my life growing up. I
Speaker 1: actually had my father, you know what I mean, I
Speaker 1: actually had my father at home and it was greggy.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of fun, would go foiling on
Speaker 1: the rivers and yeah, just sports stuff, go to the
Speaker 1: drag races and he would take his places. But Tammy
Speaker 1: couldn't always participate in certain activities because of a disability
Speaker 1: she has. Tammy is legally blind, so that did have
Speaker 1: a lot of limitations on what she could and couldn't
Speaker 1: be involved with. So Tammy made up for her visual
Speaker 1: limitations by embracing another strength. She was very, very music
Speaker 1: in Kline. She loved to go to concerts to listen
Speaker 1: to all different types of music and to share that
Speaker 1: with her friends. Do you remember any specific ones that
Speaker 1: she liked? A CDC Ario Wagon. What did you think
Speaker 1: of her liking a CDC? Well, I went to crazy
Speaker 1: about the music myself. It was of my choice of music,
Speaker 1: but it was certainly ours in her friend's choice of music.
Speaker 1: That was probably her biggest interest was different musical bands,
Speaker 1: and Tammy started looking the part of a rocker too.
Speaker 1: Do you have a mullet? Yeah, nineteen nineties, I'm gonna original,
Speaker 1: heavy and coup. You know, peace love and rock and
Speaker 1: roll or peace love and music. But along with this
Speaker 1: love of music, came a bad habit using drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1: I guess Tammy was about thirteen or fourteen when we
Speaker 1: started dealing with the drugs with her. They continued to
Speaker 1: get worse, and we've only put her in a treatment center.
Speaker 1: When she came out of the treatment center that she
Speaker 1: told me she was getting married to a boy named Ralph,
Speaker 1: whom she started dating in high school. Ralph was a
Speaker 1: couple of years older than Tammy. At age sixteen, Tammy
Speaker 1: dropped out of school to marry him, and I felt
Speaker 1: like they were just way too young. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: starting off on that journey. So I did it when
Speaker 1: I was young, and I knew it was just not
Speaker 1: the answer to a good life. You know. I did
Speaker 1: not want my children to follow on the footsteps. But
Speaker 1: she seemed pretty good German to do it. For Tammy.
Speaker 1: Things with Ralph were good for a while, but then
Speaker 1: about two years after they got married, she was sitting
Speaker 1: on the porch drinking a beer with one of her
Speaker 1: female friends when she had a wake up call. They
Speaker 1: just hit me like a ton of breaks, like what
Speaker 1: is going on here? Why am I more attracted to
Speaker 1: my friend than my husband? That sent me into a tailspin,
Speaker 1: Tammy started realizing she was actually more interested in women
Speaker 1: than men. But Tammy was living in what she describes
Speaker 1: as a redneck county in the eighties, being gay was
Speaker 1: not accepted. I freaked out. What did freaking out look like?
Speaker 1: Freaking out looks like filing for a divorce, leaving everything
Speaker 1: I had behind? Hitting New Orleans and I lived homeless
Speaker 1: for a little while. I left everything behind and I ran.
Speaker 1: I felt like a freak. Once in New Orleans, Tammy
Speaker 1: lived on the streets of the city for about six months.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of when you got into drug use, Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I unfortunately gotta do the heroine. Tammy had hit bottom
Speaker 1: trying to run away from who she was, and drugs
Speaker 1: were a source of consolation. It was when back when
Speaker 1: the all that black tar heroine hit New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: I hung out with the homeless people, and there were
Speaker 1: either alcoholics or addicts, and the black tar heroine was
Speaker 1: so pure these people were used to. There was their
Speaker 1: heroine being stepped down so many times that the people
Speaker 1: were falling over dead. Left him right, and it scared
Speaker 1: me and I came home. When she got back home,
Speaker 1: Tammy decided to be completely honest with her mom about
Speaker 1: her sexuality. How did you feel about that when she
Speaker 1: first told you, very conflicted, wasn't sure if it was
Speaker 1: a phase or if it was a true thing. It
Speaker 1: was a surprise, especially after the fact that she had
Speaker 1: been married and she had dated several different guys. So yes,
Speaker 1: it did come as a surprise to me. I started
Speaker 1: studying up on it and reading on it, and you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out different aspects from it. Of course,
Speaker 1: as a Christian, I'm you know, I'm conflicted very much
Speaker 1: about it. But she is my daughter, and I have
Speaker 1: accepted that that is her lifestyle. My mom, you know,
Speaker 1: she's she's a Christian man. She has that unconditional love man.
Speaker 1: She loves me anyway. So she said to you, She's
Speaker 1: gonna love you no matter what. Basically, yes, ma'am. Opening
Speaker 1: up to her mom was the first step. Tammy finally
Speaker 1: felt like she was finding herself. It was like a
Speaker 1: ten thousand pounds was lifted off for me to know
Speaker 1: who I was. But I still felt like a freak,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't tell anyone except my mom. So Tammy
Speaker 1: continued to live a fairly closeted life in the South,
Speaker 1: she went to rehab for her heroin addiction, started narcotics
Speaker 1: anonymous and got clean, and for years she just worked
Speaker 1: a job in construction and lived a low key life.
Speaker 1: She went to gay bars to be around others she
Speaker 1: could relate to, but publicly she kept her sexuality to herself.
Speaker 1: So you've never seen her with a girlfriend or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I have seen her with a girlfriend, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen her display affection with a girlfriend, gotcha, other
Speaker 1: than just you know, hey, this is my buddy. You know.
Speaker 1: I know that she's been with them, but just not
Speaker 1: in front of me. At the age of thirty one,
Speaker 1: over a decade after she got cleaned from heroin, Tammy relapsed.
Speaker 1: In January two thousand, she checked herself into the Katie
Speaker 1: Hill Drug Recovery Center in Columbus, Mississippi. Basically, I knew
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go back where I had come from,
Speaker 1: and I had to say something about it. What do
Speaker 1: you mean back where you came from? Heroin? At Katie Hill,
Speaker 1: Tammy was again in a twelve step recovery program, and
Speaker 1: while there she met twenty year old Lee Stubbs. Lee
Speaker 1: had recently broken up with her boyfriend, and like Tammy
Speaker 1: a decade before, had spiraled into drug addiction. So tell
Speaker 1: me about meeting Lee. What was Lee like? She was cool?
Speaker 1: She just had that personality, that trait, that distinct distinction
Speaker 1: about it on the inside. Just with conversations and the
Speaker 1: way we play, the way we worked well together and
Speaker 1: things like that, we would get very good friends. And
Speaker 1: then it turned into more than the hut. Was that
Speaker 1: a conversation you guys had that you were both gay? Like?
Speaker 1: How did that come about? That you guys gay? Are?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but you know you can kind of tell.
Speaker 1: By March of two thousand, both Tammy and Lee were
Speaker 1: nearing the end of the program and we're allowed certain
Speaker 1: privileges like weekend passes to leave and see family. The
Speaker 1: first time they were romantic was on a weekend trip home.
Speaker 1: It turned out their destinations were just an hour away
Speaker 1: from each other. We'll say her mom was in Collins
Speaker 1: and my mom was in by room. So she went
Speaker 1: to her mom's. I went to my mom's, And then
Speaker 1: the next morning we held back up. She came to
Speaker 1: buy a room and we went and right to swinging Bridge.
Speaker 1: What's a swinging bridge? I don't know. What that is.
Speaker 1: It's an old timmy bridge that sways when you like
Speaker 1: drive across it. We would like get to go and
Speaker 1: really fast and then just slam on the brakes and
Speaker 1: the middle of it and it would just sway us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was real cool. We spent the whole weekend together.
Speaker 1: Tammy and Lee had a sweet time together visiting Tammy's
Speaker 1: hometown and then they headed back to Katie Hill. But
Speaker 1: when they arrived they found the place in an uproar.
Speaker 1: There is this discriminational thing going on because someone had
Speaker 1: hung a black doll on a doorknob, and it was
Speaker 1: a really racial thing, and it was a lot of drama,
Speaker 1: and you know, we had just gotten and it was
Speaker 1: all that's going on. To avoid the chaos, Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee decided to leave again in a hurry, stuffing their
Speaker 1: clothes and belongings into garbage bags and throwing them in
Speaker 1: the back of Lee's truck. As they were about to go,
Speaker 1: they saw their friend Kim Williams, who was also packing
Speaker 1: to leave. Him asked could she have a ride? She
Speaker 1: wanted ride to her boyfriends, so we said, sure, we'll tyke.
Speaker 1: The three women drove through Mississippi, stopping along the way
Speaker 1: to buy liquor. Him and hour drinking, but he was not.
Speaker 1: She was driving, and we might it all the way
Speaker 1: to Canton, Mississippi. We stopped and got another fit of
Speaker 1: the liquor. Might it to Jackson, Mississippi. Finally they made
Speaker 1: it to Kim's boyfriend's house, but as they were dropping
Speaker 1: Kim off, she and her boyfriend got in a fight.
Speaker 1: Unlike Tammy and Lee, Kim hadn't actually finished rehab and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend was mad she hadn't stayed in treatment. So anyway,
Speaker 1: she comes and gets in our truck and ask us
Speaker 1: to take her to her uncle's house. Okay, so we
Speaker 1: say sure. So we get down the road and she
Speaker 1: pulls out all these pills x X soma, oxycotton, a
Speaker 1: lot of narcotics. It turns out Kim had stolen the
Speaker 1: pills from her boyfriend, who had been prescribed to them
Speaker 1: for his back. I had been drinking, She had been drinking.
Speaker 1: We both took a handful. You just left rehab, Why
Speaker 1: were you using I just I was a follower and
Speaker 1: not the later I should have been. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: what I needed, which was some weed, and so I
Speaker 1: just started drinking. That's what happened, all right. So you
Speaker 1: guys took the drugs and then what passed out? We
Speaker 1: passed out, and they didn't know what to do. She
Speaker 1: was in the middle of nowhere. She pulled into a motel.
Speaker 1: She actually told the lady at the front desk, you know,
Speaker 1: if these two in the drug looked dead, they're not drunk.
Speaker 1: And so we pulled in and basically she grabbed his
Speaker 1: boat under our arms into the dawn motel room. Into
Speaker 1: the motel room. I'm sorry, and latest on the bed.
Speaker 1: When I woke up, she was a white watching Scooby Doo.
Speaker 1: I was very sick, puking, sick and dehydrated to death,
Speaker 1: the thirstiest I've ever been in my life. And that's
Speaker 1: so I asked her what she please, please go give
Speaker 1: me some drink, and so she ran down to the
Speaker 1: code machine and while she was gone, I was literally
Speaker 1: drowning in my home puke. She comes back in with
Speaker 1: the drinks and pulls my head about the water and
Speaker 1: what was Kim doing At this point she was still
Speaker 1: passed out on the other bed, fully dressed, shoes and
Speaker 1: awe and snoring like she was in like a deep sleep.
Speaker 1: By then, It was the next day, March sixth, around
Speaker 1: four pm, and Kim was still asleep. Tammy says Kim
Speaker 1: was snoring so loudly that when she stopped, it was noticeable,
Speaker 1: and Tammy could hear that something was wrong, and I
Speaker 1: told thee she's not breathing. She's not breathing. They got
Speaker 1: on the phone with nine one one and nine Minister
Speaker 1: CPR until the ambulance got there. This episode is underwritten
Speaker 1: by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed
Speaker 1: to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
Speaker 1: in the lives of its employees and in the commun
Speaker 1: unities where they work and live. In light of the
Speaker 1: compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition
Speaker 1: of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the
Speaker 1: AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other
Speaker 1: support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Kim had overdosed. When
Speaker 1: the paramedics arrived, Tammy and Lee tried to be as
Speaker 1: helpful as possible. As a matter of fact, we even
Speaker 1: gave them the drugs she took from her boyfriend. In
Speaker 1: total where she took them from, We gave them to
Speaker 1: the people in the ambulance so that they would know
Speaker 1: what she was on so they would know what to do.
Speaker 1: The paramedics gave Kim narkhan to try and reverse the
Speaker 1: drug's effects. She was rushed to the hospital in a
Speaker 1: coma and respiratory arrest. Once at the hospital, Kim was
Speaker 1: diagnosed as having suffered an overdose, but a nurse also
Speaker 1: noted that Kim had injuries that didn't seem to be
Speaker 1: related to the overdose. Allegedly, her breasts were swollen, her
Speaker 1: vagina was bruised and swollen, and there were bite marks
Speaker 1: on her body and marks on her butt that looked
Speaker 1: like they could have come from a beating with a
Speaker 1: stick or a belt. A doctor described it as looking
Speaker 1: like a quote brutal sexual assault. The doctor informed police
Speaker 1: that Kim had been sexually assaulted. Police immediately questioned Tammy
Speaker 1: and Lee. They wanted to know what happened, and we
Speaker 1: told them, but officers didn't believe them that it was
Speaker 1: solely an overdose. They continued to push the belief that
Speaker 1: Kim had been assaulted. I remember thinking they were crazy
Speaker 1: because that was our friend and we tried to save
Speaker 1: We were trying to save her, and they promised us, actually,
Speaker 1: if we would take a lot of tax or test
Speaker 1: with the highway patrol, that be aludle with the question,
Speaker 1: and one'll be audle with. We both prayed, we both
Speaker 1: passed and the question and never stopped. Fortunately, Kim survived.
Speaker 1: She woke up twelve days later with no memory of
Speaker 1: what had happened whatsoever, which meant that she could not
Speaker 1: definitively report whether or not she was assaulted. Six months
Speaker 1: after the incident, on September twentieth, two thousand, Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee were arrested and charged with taking and possessing Kim's
Speaker 1: boyfriend's oxycotton and the aggravated assault of Kim Williams. The
Speaker 1: following year, in June of two thousand and one, Tammy
Speaker 1: and Lee went to trial. The prosecutors were District Attorneys
Speaker 1: Dunlampton and Jerry Rushing. Their case was that Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee had conspired with Kim to steal her boyfriend's OxyContin pills.
Speaker 1: The state alleged that once Kim passed out, Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee violently sexually assaulted her, and that that violent sexual
Speaker 1: assault involves very severe bite marks involves biting off part
Speaker 1: of Kim's labia and that this behavior is indicative of
Speaker 1: a homosexual assault of a lesbian assault. This is Billina Beatie,
Speaker 1: an attorney formally with the Mississippi Innocence Project, which ultimately
Speaker 1: took on Tammy and Lee's case. Villina says the crux
Speaker 1: of the state's case was that lesbians are sexual deviance.
Speaker 1: So the fact that Kim was with her two lesbian friends,
Speaker 1: Tammy and Lee, right before she overdosed and was brought
Speaker 1: to the hospital leads the police and the prosecutor and
Speaker 1: a direct line to the two of them as having
Speaker 1: assaulted her. Velina also says the prosecutors knew the jury
Speaker 1: pool they would have in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and targeted their
Speaker 1: case accordingly. It would have been a very Christian town,
Speaker 1: and at the time, if we looked at studies that
Speaker 1: were done on jurors and homophobia, we did see a
Speaker 1: connection between people who were particularly religious and heightened homophobia
Speaker 1: among jurors. So just looking at that information from juries,
Speaker 1: we could see how a jury in Mississippi at that time,
Speaker 1: you know, it might be more likely to see Lee
Speaker 1: and Tammy as not just deviant because of their sexual orientation,
Speaker 1: but violent because of their sexual orientation. The state star
Speaker 1: witness was doctor Michael West, who was at the time
Speaker 1: a renowned forensic odontologist. So bite mark evidence or forensic
Speaker 1: odontology is the belief that by looking at a mark
Speaker 1: on skin, we're able to tell whether a certain person
Speaker 1: created that mark with their teeth. Doctor West was an
Speaker 1: expert in bite mark evidence. He testified for prosecution offices
Speaker 1: in nine different states. At Tammy's trial, doctor West testified
Speaker 1: that there appeared to be a bite mark on Kim's
Speaker 1: hip and said it was likely from Lee. West went
Speaker 1: on to say, quote, and it's more than just a
Speaker 1: possibility to me, I would see it as a probability,
Speaker 1: But is it a probability of actual a hundred percent? No.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors then asked doctor West his opinion on whether he
Speaker 1: would expect to find bite marks in a homosexual rape case.
Speaker 1: He said that would not be unusual. In fact, it
Speaker 1: could almost be expected. And that's with this history in
Speaker 1: the United States of seeing queerness as dangerous, as depraved,
Speaker 1: as deviant, and as violent. So all of that meshes
Speaker 1: together against this person who is kind and innocent but
Speaker 1: is perceived a different way because of her open sexual orientation.
Speaker 1: In addition to the bite marks, doctor West extended his
Speaker 1: so called expertise to other aspects of the case. He
Speaker 1: also analyzed the surveillance footage from the night the three
Speaker 1: women stayed at the motel. The footage appears to show
Speaker 1: someone taking something from the toolbox in Lee's truck and
Speaker 1: carrying it into the motel room. What West is telling
Speaker 1: the jury it is is that Lee is picking up
Speaker 1: Kim's body that they have put into the toolbox, picking
Speaker 1: up Kim's body and carrying her into the hotel room.
Speaker 1: When you have an ex like doctor West, who's on
Speaker 1: the stand and is showing that video again and again
Speaker 1: and again and again and each time telling the jury
Speaker 1: this is a body. They are the legs, there's the
Speaker 1: long hair. This is Kim. The jury then starts to
Speaker 1: believe it. The defense did refute this, however. Tammy's defense
Speaker 1: attorney was Ken McNees and Lee's was Bill Barnett. Both
Speaker 1: were private attorneys. They presented evidence that hair was found
Speaker 1: in the toolbox and that it was not Kim's. They
Speaker 1: also called doctor Rodrigo Galvez, a forensic pathologist, who said
Speaker 1: that Kim could not have physically fit in the toolbox.
Speaker 1: I mean, and this idea that they could put her
Speaker 1: in a toolbox and then that Lee could whisk her
Speaker 1: out of this toolbox in a matter of seconds, you know,
Speaker 1: like lift up her friend who weighs the same weight
Speaker 1: that she does, and jump off the back of the
Speaker 1: truck with her, is incredibly fanciful. Doctor Galvez also said
Speaker 1: there were many other objects that could have possibly made
Speaker 1: the alleged bite marks. However, upon cross examination, doctor Galvez
Speaker 1: dealt an unexpected blow to the defense by admitting he
Speaker 1: would expect to find biting in a situation involving a
Speaker 1: lesbian rape. And then he gives this really shocking testimony
Speaker 1: about how lesbians and homosexuals are more likely to commit
Speaker 1: violent assaults, that the most violent assaults he's ever seen
Speaker 1: have been homosexual assaults. I mean, it's all of this
Speaker 1: magical thinking to create this story and this narrative where
Speaker 1: Lee and Tammy are violent and violent against Kim, which
Speaker 1: they're not. I never believed it for a moment. I never,
Speaker 1: for one fraction of a second believed that her early
Speaker 1: physically hurt someone. Even though you're sitting there at trial
Speaker 1: and the prosecutor is saying gay people are deviance and
Speaker 1: this is what they do. You still didn't believe it, no, man,
Speaker 1: and they were wheeled. On June thirtieth, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: the jury convicted both Tammy and Lee of all charges.
Speaker 1: They were ordered to pay one hundred and fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in fines and costs, as well as half of
Speaker 1: Kim's medical bills, and they were each sentenced to forty
Speaker 1: four years in prison. After their conviction, Tammy and Lee
Speaker 1: were both sent to the same prison, the Central Mississippi
Speaker 1: Correctional Facility in Pearl, Mississippi. Did you continue a relationship
Speaker 1: when you were in prison? Things had really changed with
Speaker 1: all of this. We remained friends and we have a
Speaker 1: bond that cannot be broken, but romantically it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't there anymore, no, ma'am. Kind of ended right there,
Speaker 1: but our friendship became stronger. Man. Lee, We made on
Speaker 1: that yard alone and we would discuss our case, like
Speaker 1: how you were going to prove your innocence? Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: what was the plan? We were researching cases, law library,
Speaker 1: we were reaching out with family attorneys, innocent projects, writing letters,
Speaker 1: helping inmates, doing all we should survive. While Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee were busy fighting for their innocence from prison, their
Speaker 1: families were also helping on the outside. Lee's father filed
Speaker 1: a Freedom of Information Act petition requesting documents relating to
Speaker 1: any analysis performed on the surveillance video from the motel,
Speaker 1: and what he got back was shocking. They found out
Speaker 1: that someone at the FBI had been asked pre trial
Speaker 1: to examine the surveillance video and had done a complete
Speaker 1: report on it, saying, Okay, there's only one person in
Speaker 1: the video, there's not two, and that one person is
Speaker 1: taking a unidentified dark object out of the toolbox that
Speaker 1: they don't think it's a body. These FBI analysis results
Speaker 1: were never disclosed to the defense or the jury. What
Speaker 1: we are actually seeing is a blurry image because it's
Speaker 1: a surveillance video of Lee getting up into the flatbed
Speaker 1: of the truck, opening up the toolbox that is in
Speaker 1: the back of the flatbed, and taking out these garbage
Speaker 1: bags that are filled with her clothes from the rehab facility.
Speaker 1: And then she's jumping down and taking the bags with her.
Speaker 1: That's what we're seeing. Armed with this new evidence, the
Speaker 1: Mississippi Innocence Project took on the case. When an innocent
Speaker 1: project fell into place is when Hope said it, because finally,
Speaker 1: somebody else in this world, this whole wild world, openly
Speaker 1: you can finally. In twenty eleven, Villina and the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Innocence Project filed a petition claiming that doctor West presented
Speaker 1: false evidence and that the prosecution had failed to disclose
Speaker 1: the results of the FBI analysis of the surveillance video.
Speaker 1: By this time, doctor West had also been completely discredited.
Speaker 1: As early as nineteen ninety four, his credibility was being questioned.
Speaker 1: News outlets like sixty Minutes profiled him and the dubious
Speaker 1: science of bite mark evidence. West was eventually suspended by
Speaker 1: the American Board of Forensic Odeontology. Bite mark evidence is
Speaker 1: now considered junk science. In fact, doctor West has now
Speaker 1: testified in at least five cases where the person was
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted based on bite mark evidence and later exonerated.
Speaker 1: In a twenty eleven deposition, doctor West even testified that
Speaker 1: he no longer believed his own testimony about the bite
Speaker 1: marks on Kim's body. He admitted that if he was
Speaker 1: asked to testify and Tammy and Lee's case again, he
Speaker 1: would say quote I don't believe it's a system that's
Speaker 1: reliable enough to be used in court. And so what
Speaker 1: did it all wind up being? Was it actually a
Speaker 1: bite mark? No? Oh gosh, no no, And half of
Speaker 1: her labia was not missing either, So no, none of
Speaker 1: that ended up being true or accurate at all. Velina
Speaker 1: says that the supposed bite mark evidence on Kim's hip
Speaker 1: was actually just a bruce, and while there was potentially
Speaker 1: evidence of a sexual encounter, there was no evidence of
Speaker 1: it being a non consensual assault. On June twenty seven,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, over a decade after they were convicted, Lincoln
Speaker 1: County Circuit Court Judge Michael Taylor agreed that Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee did not get a fair trial and granted them
Speaker 1: a new one. They were released on bond that same day.
Speaker 1: What was it like when you found out that your
Speaker 1: case was going to be overturned and that you were
Speaker 1: going to get a new trial. I actually sat down
Speaker 1: cried happy tears. Yeah. Did you ever think that would happen? No, ma'am.
Speaker 1: I really thought I was going to die alone in prison.
Speaker 1: Sandy remembers the day she picked up Tammy from prison.
Speaker 1: That day, it was just a joyful data to get
Speaker 1: her out. The news people were there, and of course
Speaker 1: Felina and then were there, and it was just it
Speaker 1: was just so awesome to get to hold her and
Speaker 1: take her to eat her favorite foods, things like macaroni
Speaker 1: and cheese and roast and quiet potatoes. It was hard
Speaker 1: to eat those things when she was in there, not
Speaker 1: she couldn't. And we had bought her Christmas presents every
Speaker 1: year or so. Her bed was palifi with her Christmas
Speaker 1: presents from the years she'd been gone, so it was
Speaker 1: wonderful to bring her home. Tammy wound up pleading no
Speaker 1: contest to a charge of possession of oxycotton. The rest
Speaker 1: of the charges were eventually thrown out. Today, Tammy and
Speaker 1: Lee are still friends. Lee is a nurse and Tammy
Speaker 1: is busy trying to make up for the years she
Speaker 1: lost in prison. I'm very simple. I enjoy the cool
Speaker 1: stuff in life because you know, I had enough time
Speaker 1: to choose what that what I had to God was
Speaker 1: that innocent time. So I like to fly kites, I
Speaker 1: like to fade ducks. I like to take wrong rides
Speaker 1: in the country. I'm just hibby and cool. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to help support the Mississippi Innocence Project now known
Speaker 1: as the George C. Cochrane Innocence Project. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot ol E MSS dot edu. Velina also wrote
Speaker 1: a book about Tammy and Lee and the wrongful convictions
Speaker 1: of women called Manifesting Justice. The links to all of
Speaker 1: this will be in our bio next time. On Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling, James Richardson, do you think race
Speaker 1: had anything to do with us as far as me
Speaker 1: getting convicted? I do. Lack of gag person Q two
Speaker 1: quite individual. I feel like, Okay, yeah, we gotta show him,
Speaker 1: but I didn't do it. Thanks for listening to Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations
Speaker 1: and go to the links in our bio to see
Speaker 1: how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive
Speaker 1: producers Jason Flom and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our
Speaker 1: senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor
Speaker 1: Sonja Paul. The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: with additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The
Speaker 1: music in this production is by three time Oscar nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one