Speaker 1: All Rosa jumenaz Ever wanted was to be a mom.
Speaker 2: I read in an article somewhere about you that your
Speaker 2: daughter has a rose tattoo for you.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she does. To say that in the way
Speaker 3: that you always represent me by Roses.
Speaker 1: I first spoke to Rosa in twenty twenty for my
Speaker 1: podcast Unjust and Unsolved. She was in prison at the time.
Speaker 3: This call is being recorded and this subject to monitoring.
Speaker 1: I was actually scheduled to meet with Rosa in person,
Speaker 1: but because of COVID nineteen, all prisons were on lockdown.
Speaker 1: She called me the day we were supposed to meet.
Speaker 1: I'm so bombs. I really wanted to meet you in person.
Speaker 3: They say, extend that day.
Speaker 1: Are you staying safe?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I was six the first week bomb Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, Rosa was lucky in prison. COVID nineteen was devastating.
Speaker 1: Incarcerated people died at over three times the rate of
Speaker 1: the free population. So I have cho and Rosa was
Speaker 1: at the highest risk. She was immunal, compromised from kidney failure.
Speaker 1: When she first got to prison, Rosa got hurt working
Speaker 1: in the fields picking vegetables and mowing grass. It was
Speaker 1: lots of walking and physical labor, and one day she
Speaker 1: felt a pain in her hip and went to the doctor.
Speaker 3: It was telling that you looked with the doctors, they
Speaker 3: tell you that you were lazy and that you didn't
Speaker 3: want to work.
Speaker 1: Rosa was prescribed in a proxy in and ivy profen
Speaker 1: for the pain and sent back to work.
Speaker 3: So before I got to work, I used to just
Speaker 3: take one peel, then come up some work, take another
Speaker 3: appeal because I'm already learning to sleep.
Speaker 1: Years of doing this damaged her kidneys, and when I
Speaker 1: first talked to her in twenty twenty, not only was
Speaker 1: she in pain, but she was dying.
Speaker 3: If not even vacim given to better my kidney. So
Speaker 3: I asked him if she can give me a transpident.
Speaker 3: Then she said no because she said, I don't want
Speaker 3: to offend you or anything. But yet you as a
Speaker 3: prisoner and everybody in prison, can I get a kidney
Speaker 3: transfer or any kind of transman, because you are the
Speaker 3: lower of a society.
Speaker 1: In her late thirties, Rosa was facing down death from
Speaker 1: a prison cell, but soon her life would change.
Speaker 4: My name is Rosa Humanez and I was wrongly convicted
Speaker 4: of injury to a child and murder. I was eighteen
Speaker 4: years in.
Speaker 1: Prison for love of for good. This is wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling today. Rosa Jimenez. Rosa Jimenez was born
Speaker 1: in October nineteen eighty two and raised just outside of
Speaker 1: Mexico City.
Speaker 4: Little town is cooed at the pic. We were very
Speaker 4: poor at that time when I was little.
Speaker 1: Rosa's mom, Estella was single with five kids to take
Speaker 1: care of.
Speaker 4: She used to sell tamales in Mexico came to sign laws.
Speaker 1: Estella says she worked every day for those sometimes until
Speaker 1: two am, to make sure all her children stayed in
Speaker 1: school and got their education.
Speaker 5: Get out and.
Speaker 1: Estella says she never had a holiday or weekend off
Speaker 1: while her kids were young. But she didn't let her
Speaker 1: kids drop out of school, and that's what matters. Estella
Speaker 1: was a proud woman, just like Rosa.
Speaker 4: No one is going to stop me. That's me.
Speaker 1: Rosa went to college for business and tourism. She wanted
Speaker 1: to own a restaurant with her mom.
Speaker 4: And then of course I wouldn't have a bunch of
Speaker 4: kids and get married and be happy. That was me
Speaker 4: Rosa seventeen year old Rosa.
Speaker 1: But Rosa found focusing on college was difficult when her
Speaker 1: family was struggling with bills. She remembers coming home from
Speaker 1: school one day looking for a snack.
Speaker 4: I was hungry. You opened the refrigerator and you was
Speaker 4: nothing there, and my mom was like, you're hungry, and
Speaker 4: I was like, no, I was just going to get iced.
Speaker 4: But then I realized in that moment, then my mom
Speaker 4: couldn't do it no more by herself, so I decided
Speaker 4: to come over here.
Speaker 1: At seventeen, Rosa decided she was going to drop out
Speaker 1: of school and come to the United States to work
Speaker 1: and send money back to her family. How did your
Speaker 1: mom feel about you coming to the United States.
Speaker 4: Oh, she didn't want me to come. She begged me
Speaker 4: and begged me to go to school. But you know,
Speaker 4: when you're young, you like, no, I know what I'm
Speaker 4: going to do. This is what I decided to do,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to do it and no one is
Speaker 4: going to stop you.
Speaker 1: Do you regret coming here?
Speaker 4: That's a hard question, yes and no.
Speaker 1: Life in the United States would turn out to be
Speaker 1: everything and nothing like Rosa had planned for. Rosa's stepfather
Speaker 1: lived in the United States, so Rosa's plan was to
Speaker 1: go to Austin Texas and get settled with him.
Speaker 4: My stepfather's sister had two kids in Mexico. One was
Speaker 4: seven and another one was six, and she asked me
Speaker 4: if I can bring her kids, and if I bring them,
Speaker 4: she was going to pay the coyote.
Speaker 1: Rosa didn't have the means to come to the United
Speaker 1: States legally, so she made the harrowing journey into the
Speaker 1: country with a coyote a human smugglers reels. Estella says
Speaker 1: she spent every day worried and restless. Is that binstino
Speaker 1: praying that her daughter made it out alive. It's Estella
Speaker 1: did not want her daughter to cross the border, but
Speaker 1: Rosa took those children and did it anyway.
Speaker 4: I brough those two kids and I pretend that they
Speaker 4: were my kids. I was the only female, well, the
Speaker 4: little girl and I were the only females. They were
Speaker 4: like twenty five mens, dirty, and.
Speaker 1: You're seventeen year old and I'm.
Speaker 4: Seventeen year old with two kids. It was really scary.
Speaker 1: She remembers. One instance, the whole group was staying in
Speaker 1: one room for the night.
Speaker 4: No one can lay down in the middle of the
Speaker 4: night because we're standing up. It's crowded like the little
Speaker 4: bathroom with thirty people, and.
Speaker 1: She says a guy tried to touch her.
Speaker 4: I tell the guy not too like, don't come too
Speaker 4: close to me, and the other guys to start getting
Speaker 4: mad because hey, you're gonna respect this girl, you know.
Speaker 4: They tell him that if he comes close to me
Speaker 4: again that they were going to beat him up.
Speaker 1: Another man protected her and took it upon himself to
Speaker 1: watch out for her and the kids the rest of
Speaker 1: the trip.
Speaker 4: It was an older guy. I don't even remember his
Speaker 4: name that he was like, oh, like a father figure
Speaker 4: kind of like he didn't like, was protecting me and
Speaker 4: the kids. I never seen him up again, but you've.
Speaker 1: Thought about him all these years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, sometimes I feel like they angels, you know,
Speaker 4: Like I mean that you show up to protect you.
Speaker 1: And your guardian angel.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When Rosa made it to the US, things didn't work
Speaker 1: out living with her stepfather, so she wound up with
Speaker 1: some friends she'd met at ESL school. She worked several jobs,
Speaker 1: including at a food truck.
Speaker 4: That was the worst experience ahead.
Speaker 1: Like in a food truck, Yes, how come.
Speaker 4: They're go and pick you up like at two o'clock
Speaker 4: in the morning and you don't finish working by ten pm,
Speaker 4: so you only have like a little gap to go
Speaker 4: to sleep. And it was horrible. The payment was like,
Speaker 4: I'm not even liing to you, like six dollars and
Speaker 4: fifty cents back then.
Speaker 1: But Rosa kept hustling and sending money back to her mom.
Speaker 4: That was my whole purpose in here to help her.
Speaker 1: And then Rosa met a boy, and her purpose changed.
Speaker 4: At that moment. At that he was myself.
Speaker 1: Eighteen year old feet well, like he.
Speaker 4: Is the man that I wanted to be with the
Speaker 4: rest of my life.
Speaker 1: How long were you here before you got pregnant?
Speaker 4: Now even a.
Speaker 1: Year she was still a teenager and she was pregnant,
Speaker 1: but she was thrilled. Nine months later, baby Brenda was born.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, Rosa's dream was coming true.
Speaker 1: If she couldn't get her degree, she wanted to be
Speaker 1: a wife and a mom. A year later, Rosa was
Speaker 1: pregnant again and had stopped working full time. She picked
Speaker 1: up babysitting gigs here and there, and eventually she found
Speaker 1: a steady gig caring for a friend's child a couple
Speaker 1: times a week. Brian Gutierrez was almost two years old.
Speaker 1: A few months older than Brenda, so it was perfect
Speaker 1: for Rosa because she gat care for her daughter and Brian.
Speaker 1: People who knew Rosa said that she loved that little
Speaker 1: boy like her own. On the morning of January thirtieth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, Brian's mom dropped him off with
Speaker 1: Rosa on her way to work at nine am. He
Speaker 1: and Brenda napped, and when they woke up, Rosa made
Speaker 1: them snacks, beans, egg cheese, and pico de gayo. Rosa
Speaker 1: says that both kids had colds that day and she
Speaker 1: was constantly wiping their noses. She used a roll of
Speaker 1: paper towels, and at some point she tossed the role
Speaker 1: in the couch, thinking nothing of it. She then let
Speaker 1: them watch TV and play while she made lunch. It
Speaker 1: was afternoon and Rosa was cooking in the kitchen. She
Speaker 1: says it'd been about ten minutes since she had last
Speaker 1: checked on the kids. Then suddenly, Brian walks in slowly
Speaker 1: with a hand on his throat. He appeared to be choking.
Speaker 1: Rosa says she picked up Brian and rushed to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: slapped him on the back, then tried to pull out
Speaker 1: whatever was stuck in his throat, but nothing, so she
Speaker 1: ran to a neighbor's apartment for help. When emergency responders arrived,
Speaker 1: they were able to extract a wad of bloody paper
Speaker 1: towels from Brian's throat. Later it was measured at two
Speaker 1: and a half inches, almost the size of a tennis ball.
Speaker 1: When they got Brian to the hospital, he was alive
Speaker 1: but in critical condition, and police wanted to take Rosa
Speaker 1: to the station for questioning.
Speaker 4: I called Fidel and I tell him, hey, this happened,
Speaker 4: and you need to come home because they want me
Speaker 4: to go to the police's station to give a statement,
Speaker 4: but you need to take care of Brenda.
Speaker 1: At the station, detective Eric Dela Santos interviewed Rosa. He
Speaker 1: wanted to know how such a large wad of paper
Speaker 1: towels wound up down Brian's throat. In his mind, there
Speaker 1: was no way Brian could have swallowed that himself. It
Speaker 1: had to have been forced down. Della Santo's question Rosa
Speaker 1: for five hours, insisting she had shoved the paper towels
Speaker 1: down Brian's mouth. He said Rosa was mad that the
Speaker 1: kids were playing with the paper towels, shredding them and
Speaker 1: tossing them around the house. Rosa was terrified. Remember she
Speaker 1: was a new immigrant. Was everything confusing for you? Did
Speaker 1: you know you had rights?
Speaker 4: I didn't know I have rights. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1: Rosa says she was unaware she didn't have to answer
Speaker 1: Delo Santo's questions, or that she had a right to
Speaker 1: a lawyer.
Speaker 4: In Mexico is so corrupted. You know, you bribe the
Speaker 4: police and you free, no matter why you do, you free.
Speaker 4: So I'll come to this country and I don't have
Speaker 4: knowledge or anything. The only thing I know is where
Speaker 4: I came from. So I think maybe if I have money,
Speaker 4: I can bribe the police, and you know, they let
Speaker 4: me out. I don't know. So I didn't have no knowledge.
Speaker 4: I don't have I didn't have anything. I didn't mean
Speaker 4: speak English, nothing.
Speaker 1: Dela Santo spoke Spanish, but Rosa says it was very
Speaker 1: difficult for her to communicate with him. While the government
Speaker 1: has to provide trained interpreters at trial, an interpreter isn't
Speaker 1: constitutionally guaranteed during police questioning, so it was just Delo
Speaker 1: Santos and Rosa and her head was spinning. Rosa was
Speaker 1: worried about Brian, and then she thought about Brenda. She
Speaker 1: begged Dela Santos to let her use the phone to
Speaker 1: call Fidel.
Speaker 4: When I call, he said, the CPS took Brenda like
Speaker 4: child Protective services, and I was just freaking out because
Speaker 4: I didn't know what child protective Services was or anything.
Speaker 4: So I was freaking out.
Speaker 1: When I first spoke with Rosa, she explained that desperation
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: I was like, like me, I can have Blenda back
Speaker 3: if I said whatever they wanted to. You wanted to
Speaker 3: say whatever you've been saying. Man, I say it, you know,
Speaker 3: but just let me try Branda back.
Speaker 1: Rosa eventually asked Dela Santos what would happen if she
Speaker 1: told him she did it, and he told her that
Speaker 1: she'd be able to go home and see her daughter,
Speaker 1: and after hours of questioning, Rosa says she considered just
Speaker 1: saying that she did it. Maybe when she tried to
Speaker 1: pull the paper towels out, she accidentally shoved them in further,
Speaker 1: but she didn't actually admit to hurting Brian and wouldn't
Speaker 1: speak further until she saw Brenda. So Dela Santos drove
Speaker 1: Rosa home while other officers prepared a warrant, and a
Speaker 1: few hours later, in the early morning hours of January
Speaker 1: thirty first, Rosa was arrested for injury to a child.
Speaker 1: Rosa sat in jail for months awaiting trial, pregnant with
Speaker 1: her second child, and on April eighteenth, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: she started feeling contra fractions.
Speaker 4: I remember going to the hospital from the jail, and
Speaker 4: every time you had to go to the hospital, you
Speaker 4: had to go be in shackles.
Speaker 1: This is standard practice while in DJ custody, shackling prisoners
Speaker 1: who are giving birth with an officer assigned to watch
Speaker 1: over them.
Speaker 4: Is that police officer, you know, just watching you give?
Speaker 4: Sure you're not gonna escape what you are giving? Birned, Like,
Speaker 4: how can that happen? I mean, you and a lot
Speaker 4: of pain, you have contractions, you're pushing. How can you
Speaker 4: gonna start pushing and then run? I don't I don't
Speaker 4: see that possible. But it was very It was very sad.
Speaker 4: I remember that night. I have a female officer and
Speaker 4: she had to be there the whole time, and I
Speaker 4: was having like contractions, but I was not going in labor.
Speaker 4: And I was like literally praying to go on labor
Speaker 4: because I didn't know who was the other officer was
Speaker 4: gonna be and I didn't want it to be a male.
Speaker 4: And I'm you know, with your legs all open and shackles,
Speaker 4: and like I was scared. I was scared. I was
Speaker 4: really scared.
Speaker 1: After a few hours of labor, her son, Aiden was born.
Speaker 1: Did they let you hold him?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: You didn't even get to hold your son.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: I had to beg later on when I went to
Speaker 4: the room, I had to beg the nurse to let
Speaker 4: me hold my kid. Because of the nature of the crime.
Speaker 4: They didn't let me get close to Aiden.
Speaker 1: Because Rosa was charged with a crime against a child,
Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed near anyone under eighteen, not even her
Speaker 1: newborn son. However, in a moment of grace or sympathy,
Speaker 1: once they were alone, the nurse let Rosa hold Aiden
Speaker 1: for a little while. But as one baby came into
Speaker 1: the world, another left. Brian Gutierrez succumbed to his injuries
Speaker 1: and died just over a week after Aiden was born.
Speaker 1: Ros's charges were upgraded to felony murder two years later.
Speaker 1: Rosa went to trial in August two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: She was tried in Travis County Criminal District Court by
Speaker 1: Gary Cobb and Alison Wetzel.
Speaker 4: This trial is.
Speaker 6: About something that happened to a little boy named Brian
Speaker 6: on January thirty of two thousand and three.
Speaker 4: He was twenty.
Speaker 1: One months old. He lived in North Austin with his.
Speaker 6: Mother, Victoria, and with her family, and he was a
Speaker 6: healthy baby. He was a happy baby, and his family.
Speaker 1: Loved him very very much. Doctors and first responders who
Speaker 1: took the stand for the prosecution all said it would
Speaker 1: have been impossible for Brian to have shoved the paper
Speaker 1: towels down his throat on his own. His gag reflex
Speaker 1: would have pushed them out. Someone had to hold him
Speaker 1: down and push the wat of paper towels past the reflex.
Speaker 1: How much do you think racism played into Rose's case?
Speaker 7: Racism played a huge role in Rosa's case. She is
Speaker 7: one of other people that we know about who women
Speaker 7: of color in this jurisdiction at this time period, who
Speaker 7: ended up being prosecuted in cases where children were injured
Speaker 7: in accidents.
Speaker 1: Vanessa Pupkin is the director of Special Litigation at The
Speaker 1: Innocence Project.
Speaker 7: It's something that we see throughout the country when it
Speaker 7: comes to children who die or are injured and if
Speaker 7: the parents are people of color, there's a rush to
Speaker 7: call this a homicide or some type of abuse.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to argue when you hear Wetzel in
Speaker 1: her own words at trial. Here she is questioning Detective
Speaker 1: Delo Santo's on the stand about his interrogation with Rosa.
Speaker 6: And despite being from Mexico, she's very intelligent, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 4: I think she's a smart lady.
Speaker 6: And did it appear to you that she manipulated you
Speaker 6: at the end of the interview by getting you to
Speaker 6: bring her daughter to you?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm gonna say yes. I don't think she
Speaker 4: ever intended to tell me if she.
Speaker 1: Did this, that she did it. In Rosa's defense, her attorney,
Speaker 1: Leonard Martinez, called multiple witnesses who said Rosa was a
Speaker 1: peaceful person who was not quick to anger. But that
Speaker 1: was pretty much it.
Speaker 7: She just had woefully an adequate counsel. Her trial counsel
Speaker 7: only consulted with one expert. That expert had no experience
Speaker 7: in pediatric pathology.
Speaker 1: In fact, none of the experts that trial did not
Speaker 1: even the prosecutions, but the expert hired by Rosa's lawyer
Speaker 1: was particularly bad.
Speaker 7: He had not done any publishing except for one article,
Speaker 7: which was how to turn a murder into an accident?
Speaker 7: So could you imagine when that came out in front
Speaker 7: of the jury what that did to his credibility.
Speaker 4: It was a disaster.
Speaker 1: Rosa sat through a week long trial believing that, even
Speaker 1: though she was confused by the proceedings and what people
Speaker 1: were saying, everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 4: I believe in the United States system. I believe the yeah,
Speaker 4: we're not corrupted. I believe the yeah, we're going to
Speaker 4: search the truth and the truth we're going to set
Speaker 4: me free.
Speaker 1: But on August thirty first, two thousand and five, Rosa
Speaker 1: was convicted of injury to a child and felony murder.
Speaker 1: She was sentenced to ninety nine years in prison.
Speaker 2: I remember during your trial you were getting all this
Speaker 2: information through a translator.
Speaker 4: Yes, correct.
Speaker 2: What was that like when you found out you're convicted?
Speaker 2: Did you understand at that moment what was happening?
Speaker 4: No? Two, I mean she's saying that they convict me
Speaker 4: to ninety nine years in prison, But it was like, no,
Speaker 4: it cannot.
Speaker 5: Be lestas busy a level that act. Where have you seen.
Speaker 1: Estella was there watching her daughter get tried and sentenced,
Speaker 1: and she didn't understand what was happening either. She says,
Speaker 1: she asked Rosa's lawyer to please translate to tell her
Speaker 1: what was going on.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 1: That was the last time she saw her daughter in person,
Speaker 1: and Estella says, there are simply no words to describe
Speaker 1: that kind of pain. At twenty two years old, everything
Speaker 1: Rosa had ever dreamed of was gone.
Speaker 7: You know, here's so many people these days talk about like, oh,
Speaker 7: their career, what they want to be, and she wanted
Speaker 7: to be a mother.
Speaker 4: That was her thing that she wanted very much.
Speaker 1: But now her kids were being taken from her. Fidel
Speaker 1: was young and had no means of caring for them.
Speaker 1: In fact, he disappeared from Rosa's life shortly after her conviction.
Speaker 1: So Rosa's children were put in foster care while her
Speaker 1: mom fought for custody from Mexico. Brenda and Aiden were
Speaker 1: placed with a family who will call the Smiths. At first,
Speaker 1: Rosa says, the Smiths would bring her kids to see
Speaker 1: her in prison.
Speaker 4: But then they start asking me for an adoption, to
Speaker 4: sign papers, and I tell them no. So then that
Speaker 4: we sit, says starts getting you know, far away and
Speaker 4: far away.
Speaker 1: Rosa felt like she was being manipulated, like.
Speaker 4: If you give them to adoption to us, then you're
Speaker 4: going to be able to see them more often. But
Speaker 4: if you don't, then you're not going to be able
Speaker 4: to see them. And then part of me was really sad,
Speaker 4: and part of me was like, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: give my kids to adoption. They're my kids, So she didn't.
Speaker 1: Did you think you were ever going to get out
Speaker 1: to be able to be a mom to them? Was
Speaker 1: that part of your decision making?
Speaker 4: Honestly? I mean when you in prison, Maggie, like you
Speaker 4: believe in God, you have this strong faith and you
Speaker 4: believe because you don't have nothing else. They strip you
Speaker 4: from your kids, your family, everything that you dream of.
Speaker 4: You don't have no more. So the only thing that
Speaker 4: you have is God. That's it. So you hold into
Speaker 4: with you old God with everything you had in you
Speaker 4: because you don't have nothing else. So part of me
Speaker 4: believed that I was going to go home, but the
Speaker 4: realistic part of me was telling me, you're not one.
Speaker 4: You don't have no money, you don't have no support,
Speaker 4: you don't have no family here, so how are you
Speaker 4: gonna get out you're not.
Speaker 1: Brenda and Adam were raised by the Smiths, and as
Speaker 1: the years passed, Rosa got to see them less and less.
Speaker 1: She tried to be a mom from prison, but it
Speaker 1: was fruitless. They became strangers, both races.
Speaker 5: To pay.
Speaker 1: Estella says she tried to get a visa twice to
Speaker 1: come here and visit Rosa, but both times it was.
Speaker 5: Denied let very soon, but for this week.
Speaker 1: Official told her it was because Rosa was in trouble
Speaker 1: with the state.
Speaker 5: Almost for.
Speaker 1: Rosa was only allowed a handful of very short international calls.
Speaker 1: So for eighteen years they stayed in touch through letters.
Speaker 5: Scat.
Speaker 4: Yes, through letters, but it's like so hard, like I
Speaker 4: s in a letter and she will get that letter,
Speaker 4: like in fifteen days, twenty days so and then for
Speaker 4: her to write me. Sometimes the letter get lost, so
Speaker 4: it was not a good communication.
Speaker 1: In one of those letters, Rosa had to tell her
Speaker 1: mom she had kidney failure and the outlook was not good.
Speaker 1: When I first spoke to Rosa, she was waiting to
Speaker 1: start dialysis.
Speaker 3: The only thing they for me is through and then
Speaker 3: one minute left. Eventually, when my kidneys dropped m they
Speaker 3: had to pick another unit. When they do dialysis and
Speaker 3: then after that that will be it. He said, a
Speaker 3: person can only live with dialysis of seen years.
Speaker 1: The clock was ticking for Rosa, but fortunately the story
Speaker 1: of a young Mexican immigrant wronged by the American legal
Speaker 1: system was making headlines.
Speaker 7: Rosa had the support of the Mexican government. She had
Speaker 7: been working with the consulate.
Speaker 1: Since trial Vanessa Potkin. Again, they had.
Speaker 7: Stood by her for close to two decades, trying to
Speaker 7: get counsel, hiring lawyers, and were very supportive throughout the
Speaker 7: entire process.
Speaker 1: An attorney named Bryce Bingett was hired by the Mexican
Speaker 1: Consulate to work on Rosa's case. In twenty eighteen, he
Speaker 1: took a job with the Innocence Project and brought her
Speaker 1: case with him.
Speaker 7: At that point, there had been already some medical evidence
Speaker 7: developed to suggest that Rosa had been convicted of something
Speaker 7: that was an accidental choking.
Speaker 1: Over the years, her case has been looked at by
Speaker 1: multiple judges.
Speaker 7: Five judges at different points that had reviewed Rosa's case
Speaker 7: and said she's likely innocent, this is a miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1: One of those judges, Charlie Baird, wrote that Rosa's trial
Speaker 1: was quote fatally affected by constitutional error. I remember that
Speaker 1: expert Rosa's defense attorney used. Judge Baird said that in
Speaker 1: his decades long career, his court had quote never seen
Speaker 1: such unprofessional and biased conduct from any witness, much less
Speaker 1: from a purported expert. Still, Rosa remained in prison In Texas.
Speaker 1: The Court of Criminal Appeals has final say on innocence claims,
Speaker 1: and it refused to give Rosa a new trial. It
Speaker 1: was relentless. Then finally, in twenty twenty, she was granted relief.
Speaker 7: So she had a federal court review her case and
Speaker 7: say her trial lawyer was deficient. The trial council never
Speaker 7: consulted with any expert that could have meaningfully told the
Speaker 7: jury what.
Speaker 1: Could have happened in this case. None of the witnesses
Speaker 1: called were experts in pediatric airways.
Speaker 7: It would be like having a problem with your heart
Speaker 7: and going to a foot doctor. Both doctors, but you
Speaker 7: can't get your opinion from the foot doctor.
Speaker 1: So Rosa was granted a new trial, but again someone
Speaker 1: got in the way. The Texas Attorney General's office appealed
Speaker 1: the decision, a process that could have taken years. Years
Speaker 1: Rosa likely didn't have as a person with kidney failed.
Speaker 1: You're in a pandemic, so how did you get her out?
Speaker 7: We saw an opportunity at that point to say, okay,
Speaker 7: let's figure out who are the top pediatric NT doctors
Speaker 7: in the country, perhaps the world, and let's submit Rosa's
Speaker 7: case to them. Let's say, here's this incident, this is
Speaker 7: what happened with the child. Is this intentional? Could this
Speaker 7: be an accident? What happened here? And all of these
Speaker 7: doctors had the same reaction. They were like, wait, this
Speaker 7: woman's in prison, she was convicted. They couldn't believe it.
Speaker 7: This was an accident, and the idea that this could
Speaker 7: have happened intentionally is so far fetched.
Speaker 1: They said. The gag reflex would actually have pulled the
Speaker 1: wad further into Brian's throat instead of expelling it, like
Speaker 1: experts testified to at trial.
Speaker 7: I completely turned on its head the evidence that had
Speaker 7: been used at her trial and exposed that that evidence
Speaker 7: had been false.
Speaker 1: Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court recommended that Rosa's
Speaker 1: conviction be vacated, and on January twenty seventh, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: she was released on bond, but her troubles were far
Speaker 1: from over. Rosa had been released from prison, but she
Speaker 1: wasn't free.
Speaker 7: The issue was that because of her immigration status while
Speaker 7: she was in prison, a deportation order had been lodged
Speaker 7: against her. And so if somebody has any type of
Speaker 7: hold by ICE, when their conviction is vacated, ICE is
Speaker 7: notified and ICE has two days forty eight hours to
Speaker 7: come pick up that person and take them into ICE attention.
Speaker 4: And in my mind, I was like, they leave me
Speaker 4: in Mexico, like great coming back, But part of me
Speaker 4: was scared because I don't know Mexico anymore. You know,
Speaker 4: I left when I was seventeen. Now I'm almost forty.
Speaker 4: And if they leave me at the border with no money, nothing,
Speaker 4: how I'm gonna call on mom. How I'm gonna get
Speaker 4: all the way to Mexico.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Vanessa was in New York frantic.
Speaker 7: We had an immigration lawyer trying to see if they
Speaker 7: could you get in touch with ICE. We're calling, We're like,
Speaker 7: is there any update on Rosa's situation.
Speaker 1: She learns that Immigration was coming to pick up Rosa
Speaker 1: in Texas that day.
Speaker 7: So I decided, I was in New York, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: get on a plane and fly to Texas.
Speaker 1: Vanessa was getting rapid updates.
Speaker 7: And then the next email we get is they've decided
Speaker 7: to expedite deportation.
Speaker 1: Then she got an email that Rosa had been picked up.
Speaker 7: So by the time I land in Texas, Rosa was
Speaker 7: in a vehicle and we're just told that she's going
Speaker 7: to be deported. It really did feel like being run
Speaker 7: over by a mac truck.
Speaker 4: And we are like, how are we.
Speaker 7: Going to push this truck off of us and get
Speaker 7: from underneath this? If she gets deported, she's never coming back.
Speaker 7: That's just like the end of it. She wants to
Speaker 7: see her children. Her children are waiting for her to
Speaker 7: come out. We are just like in our minds having
Speaker 7: this vision that she is in a car and like
Speaker 7: being driven to go across the border.
Speaker 1: As we're speaking, Rosa was in a van with two
Speaker 1: ICE agents.
Speaker 4: I see them talking among themselves, and they keep looking
Speaker 4: back at me, talking among themselves and looking at me.
Speaker 4: Why can I hear anything? They sing, and they started
Speaker 4: getting phone calls and phone calls and phone calls, And
Speaker 4: in my soul, my car, you something happened, like not bad,
Speaker 4: but something happened.
Speaker 1: Vanessa was getting out from under the mac truck.
Speaker 7: And I think it was ultimately the intervention of the
Speaker 7: Mexican government reaching out, because next thing you know, we
Speaker 7: were informed, oh, you can go get Rosa in San Antonio.
Speaker 1: Instead of going to the border. Rosa was taken to
Speaker 1: a detention center in San Antonio. Her deportation was intercepted.
Speaker 1: The agent told her to call someone to pick her up,
Speaker 1: so she called Vanessa for advice, thinking Vanessa was still
Speaker 1: in New York. Then Rosa sees someone walking towards her.
Speaker 4: She had a mask on her and I was like,
Speaker 4: I wonder, who's that lady. And then she come in
Speaker 4: and hug me, and I'm still like, like, what is
Speaker 4: this lady hugging? And then she's like you okay.
Speaker 1: Rosa was more than okaya.
Speaker 8: She was freem overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Estella remembers seeing a press conference of her daughter online.
Speaker 9: I'm just so overwhelmed right now and I don't think
Speaker 9: I can really talk. But I just want to say
Speaker 9: thank you to all the people that stood behind me
Speaker 9: all these years.
Speaker 1: Moral she says. Rosa was standing there in front of
Speaker 1: the microphones, carrying a bag over her shoulder, and she
Speaker 1: says it broke her. She was happy and sad all
Speaker 1: at once. She cried seeing her daughter finally free.
Speaker 5: Even more, but she.
Speaker 1: Was carrying all the hopes and illusions of nearly two
Speaker 1: decades in a little bag over her shoulder. Rosa remembers
Speaker 1: the first time she was able to speak to her
Speaker 1: mom on the phone.
Speaker 4: It was nice to hear her voice. I remember I
Speaker 4: was crying and she was like, don't cry anymore. That
Speaker 4: is sober.
Speaker 1: That journey so over, and a new one was starting.
Speaker 1: A week later, Rosa was at Brenda's wedding, trying to
Speaker 1: catch up on the eighteen years she's lost from her kids' lives.
Speaker 4: When you come home, you want everything that they took
Speaker 4: from you back you wanted at the same exact mean
Speaker 4: you ow, you want to back, You want the love,
Speaker 4: you want your kids. You want everything. When I say
Speaker 4: everything is everything that they took from you, you want
Speaker 4: to back. But the sad thing is that you cannot
Speaker 4: get those things met. And you head your kids are
Speaker 4: still small. Everything is like in like everything stopped and
Speaker 4: now you ow and you realize that nothing has stopped you.
Speaker 4: Life is stopped, but no one's life has stopped.
Speaker 1: Brenda Roses little girl was an adult now in her twenties.
Speaker 1: Vanessa was at the wedding as well, and she says
Speaker 1: the day was complicated.
Speaker 7: Because you had, you know, her daughter was getting married.
Speaker 7: It's like this most important moment. And there was some
Speaker 7: beautiful parts where Roses going to the hotel room before
Speaker 7: and she's putting out her dress and getting her may
Speaker 7: get ready. But then at the ceremony itself, you saw
Speaker 7: that the mother who had really raised Rosa's daughter was
Speaker 7: occupying that space of the mother of the bride, and
Speaker 7: Rosa was there as not a spectator, but just like
Speaker 7: in such a weird position, And how bittersweet that would
Speaker 7: be to be able to be at that moment and
Speaker 7: see your daughter and see this monumental moment happening in
Speaker 7: her life, but also feel so disconnected from the experience
Speaker 7: and all that had transpired since she was two years old,
Speaker 7: which was when Rosa went away.
Speaker 1: Life had moved on without her.
Speaker 10: As prosecutors, we have an obligation to ensure the integrity
Speaker 10: of convictions and to seek justice.
Speaker 1: On August seventh, twenty twenty three, Travis County District Attorney
Speaker 1: Jose Garza dismissed Rose's murder charges and she was officially exonerated.
Speaker 10: Dismissing Missyimenez's case is the right thing to do. Our
Speaker 10: hearts also continued to break for the Gutierrez family. In
Speaker 10: this case, our criminal justice system failed them. It also
Speaker 10: failed Rosa Chimenez. Our hope is that by our actions today,
Speaker 10: by exposing the truth that Missimnez did not commit the
Speaker 10: crime for which she was accused, that we can bring
Speaker 10: some sense of closure and peace to both families.
Speaker 1: That same day, Rosa also became a grandmother.
Speaker 2: You didn't get to really raise Brenda, but you got
Speaker 2: to meet her daughter.
Speaker 1: And what was that like?
Speaker 4: Oh? That was at that moment I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 4: everything that I lost or they took or they robbed me,
Speaker 4: I can live again with my grand baby. I can
Speaker 4: experience all those things and teach her how to walk
Speaker 4: and you know, be there for her, give her everything
Speaker 4: that I have. But they didn't happen like that.
Speaker 1: Things didn't work out as planned, and Rosa doesn't have
Speaker 1: a relationship with either of her kids right now. Both
Speaker 1: Aiden and Brenda have lived with her since her release.
Speaker 1: They tried to build a bond, but it never worked out.
Speaker 4: So my kids, they're already grown. They don't know me.
Speaker 8: I don't know them, and Rosa didn't know herself. I
Speaker 8: was trying to figure out myself. I didn't know who
Speaker 8: I was when I came out from person. I didn't
Speaker 8: know who I was, what I want, what I like?
Speaker 8: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: Is there a piece you can make with losing your kids?
Speaker 4: No, No, it's like I can. I don't know if
Speaker 4: I can relate to actually a mother that has lost
Speaker 4: their kids. But it's really hard to know that you
Speaker 4: have kids and you can see them or they cannot
Speaker 4: call you whatever. You know, it's really hard. It's sad.
Speaker 4: It's really sad, Like I'm in this house and I wish,
Speaker 4: you know, like my kids can come and visit and stay,
Speaker 4: and they don't.
Speaker 1: On September of this year, Rosa flood in New York
Speaker 1: to get a kidney transplant.
Speaker 7: You know, some people go many years without being able
Speaker 7: to find it donor.
Speaker 1: This seems pretty fast that she got a donor.
Speaker 4: It was I think that happened. I guess she touched.
Speaker 7: Somebody out in the world. Hopefully this new kidney supports
Speaker 7: her in a very long, healthy life, and you know,
Speaker 7: she's never going to be a whole in the sense
Speaker 7: that she's never going to be able to get that
Speaker 7: time back or the relationship back.
Speaker 1: With her children.
Speaker 7: And I think coming to terms with that has been
Speaker 7: hard for her because you spend so much time fighting
Speaker 7: to try to get to something that you're never going
Speaker 7: to fully be able to get back to.
Speaker 1: But Rosa's busy building a new life.
Speaker 9: O God.
Speaker 1: She lives outside of San Antonio in a brand new
Speaker 1: house overlooking the vast Texas Plains with her chihuahuas, Tequila
Speaker 1: and to see plus a few more. There's two more
Speaker 1: dogs that live here.
Speaker 4: We have five.
Speaker 1: You have five dogs.
Speaker 2: So you might not have your human children as close anymore,
Speaker 2: but you have your dog children now right.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love them.
Speaker 1: And she has her wife, Mary Jane.
Speaker 4: She's the only person that has been there for me
Speaker 4: and it has the patient to teach me. And I
Speaker 4: know she gets frustrated, but she's there for me. She
Speaker 4: knows the damage that presented to me like a lot.
Speaker 4: I have a lot of damage, you know, And she
Speaker 4: has to put up with all them, you know, and
Speaker 4: like teach me a little by little. Hey, the world is.
Speaker 1: Okay, and that Mary Jane's urging. Rosa is still trying
Speaker 1: to stay in touch with her kids.
Speaker 4: She's like, so just text them, let them know you
Speaker 4: love them, let know that you think about them. And
Speaker 4: if they don't respond, that's their choice. But you're doing
Speaker 4: what a mother needs to do.
Speaker 1: And she keeps looking towards the future. Once she's healed
Speaker 1: and her immigration status has worked out, she says she
Speaker 1: wants to travel first to Mexico to visit her mom,
Speaker 1: who she hasn't seen since her trial in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, then somewhere for her and Mary Jane.
Speaker 4: My word was suggesting a what are those things called
Speaker 4: where you go in a boat, A cruise, A cruse?
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I could see you on a cruise. I
Speaker 1: think you'd like that.
Speaker 4: And I was like, do they all loud dogs? And
Speaker 4: just like no, and I'm like, oh, what are we
Speaker 4: going to do with the girls?
Speaker 1: Life doesn't have perfect endings, but Rosa is grateful.
Speaker 4: Nonetheless, angels were behind me the whole time.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local Innocent organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can
Speaker 1: help and to learn more about the practice of shackling
Speaker 1: women who are giving birth. Check out an article I
Speaker 1: wrote for Rolling Stone well linked to it as well.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
Speaker 1: editing and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with
Speaker 1: research by Alison Levy and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis.
Speaker 1: The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number one