Speaker 1: A warning for listeners. This episode contains graphic language and
Speaker 1: descriptions of child molestation. Please listen with caution and care.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, Nancy Smith, a single mom, was
Speaker 1: working multiple jobs to provide for her four children. One
Speaker 1: of those jobs was driving preschool aged children to and
Speaker 1: from the head Start program five days a week, and
Speaker 1: Nancy took the responsibility seriously. I was there on time,
Speaker 1: I was there to pick them up on time, and
Speaker 1: I was there to take them home on time. You know,
Speaker 1: I had four kids. I didn't have time to play around.
Speaker 1: And then one day she was called into her boss's office.
Speaker 1: One of the children's mothers had made a shocking allegation
Speaker 1: against Nancy. They said that you didn't take her daughter
Speaker 1: to school, you took her daughter to a birthday party
Speaker 1: where you molested her. And I'm like, what what are
Speaker 1: you talking about. Then other parents started coming forward saying
Speaker 1: the same thing, that Nancy had molested their children. Soon
Speaker 1: the allegations were all over the papers and TV. Things
Speaker 1: escalated until finally Nancy was arrested for multiple accounts of reape.
Speaker 1: They took me down to the police station. They put
Speaker 1: me in a holding sale and I can remember one
Speaker 1: of the detectives come up to the holding sale and
Speaker 1: he just gave me this really nasty look and he said,
Speaker 1: you'll get what you deserve. I'm Nancy Smith. I was
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted for fifteen years from Love of for Good.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Nancy Smith.
Speaker 1: Nancy Smith was born May twenty sixth, nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: to Tom and Shirley Miller. She's one of seven siblings.
Speaker 1: The family lived in Lorraine, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
Speaker 1: When Nancy was growing up, Lorraine was known as the
Speaker 1: International City, celebrating the thriving and diverse immigrant population who
Speaker 1: came looking for work in booming industries like steel production.
Speaker 1: It was, of course, much better when I was growing
Speaker 1: up than it is now. A lot of things have changed,
Speaker 1: but it's, you know, still Loraine today. Like many other
Speaker 1: Rust Belt cities, Lorraine has suffered from population decline and
Speaker 1: urban decay. But back in the fifties and sixties, Lorraine
Speaker 1: was the ideal all American city. We've left a normal childhood. Oh,
Speaker 1: we used to play kickball. Jacks was a big thing,
Speaker 1: jackson balls, just normal things that kids did. Always had
Speaker 1: games and stuff that we played at home. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a whole lot, but we had the
Speaker 1: love that we needed from my mom and dad. But
Speaker 1: for her parents, raising seven kids was tough. My dad
Speaker 1: was like the sole provider. My mom worked when she could.
Speaker 1: But you know what did your dad do for work? Well,
Speaker 1: he worked at a cemetery for forty one years. He
Speaker 1: was a foreman at two different cemeteries. Did you go
Speaker 1: to high school? Oh yeah, I went my whole senior
Speaker 1: year and so embarrassing, and I flunked POD and the
Speaker 1: six weeks POD. What is that? Problems of democracy? I mean,
Speaker 1: which you know, I didn't really think I needed it
Speaker 1: at that time. You know, although she didn't graduate high school,
Speaker 1: Nancy was a hard worker. She held multiple jobs throughout
Speaker 1: her teenage years, including at a flowershop, a marina, and
Speaker 1: the local Why how would you describe yourself? Wow, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I thought I was a good kind person.
Speaker 1: You know. When she was nineteen, Nancy entered a new
Speaker 1: phase of life. She got married and started a family.
Speaker 1: I have four kids, and you know they're they're the
Speaker 1: greatest part of my life. So tell me about growing up, Like,
Speaker 1: what was your mom, like I mean, my mom was
Speaker 1: my mom. You know. This is Courtney Smith, Nancy's second
Speaker 1: youngest child. She's now forty two. No, I specifically remember
Speaker 1: being you know, like happy. I mean to me, I
Speaker 1: would say it was a normal, happy childhood. We lived
Speaker 1: in a very clean household. You know, we never went without.
Speaker 1: We were always fed, and we always had, you know,
Speaker 1: what we needed, not necessarily what we wanted, but you know,
Speaker 1: kids are kids, and Nancy was good at making do
Speaker 1: with what they had. Okay, here's a memory that she's
Speaker 1: probably not gonna laugh at, but I will um. The
Speaker 1: one year for Christmas they gave us plastic like nice,
Speaker 1: and then we had to cut the Christmas presents open
Speaker 1: with knives like plastic, like, we were not allowed to
Speaker 1: rip it? Right, Why couldn't you rip it? Because they
Speaker 1: were being frugal, I don't know. And then you know,
Speaker 1: my listen, Oh, because they wanted to save the paper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were gonna they wanted to save the paper. Okay.
Speaker 1: But although Nancy loved her children, her marriage was crumbling.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a really happy marriage. She and her husband
Speaker 1: eventually divorced. By nineteen ninety three, Nancy was in her
Speaker 1: late thirties and all four of her children were teenagers.
Speaker 1: She worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. You know,
Speaker 1: it was pretty tough to make sure that, you know,
Speaker 1: I could get my kids to school and be home
Speaker 1: in enough time for them to you know, make them dinner,
Speaker 1: get them ready for bed, and whatever. So it was,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't easy for the most part of
Speaker 1: being a single mom. You know, I did the best
Speaker 1: I could. One of her jobs was driving a bus
Speaker 1: for Headstart, a federal program for low income children under
Speaker 1: five to prepare them for school. She also drove her
Speaker 1: meals on wheels and the YMCA, So in between my
Speaker 1: bus routes, I would deliver mills to the senior citizens
Speaker 1: and then I also did a route for the YMCA
Speaker 1: there after school program there and then I would finish
Speaker 1: my day up with picking up the afternoon kids and
Speaker 1: dropping them off at home. At the same time, Nancy
Speaker 1: was also taking night classes to complete her geed. It
Speaker 1: all made for a busy day. I made sure that,
Speaker 1: you know, I was there on time. I was there
Speaker 1: to pick them up on time, and I was there
Speaker 1: to take them home on time. You know, I had
Speaker 1: four kids. I had to do my job so i'd
Speaker 1: get home to my family. I didn't have time to
Speaker 1: play around. So I want to ask about May seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. What do you remember about that day?
Speaker 1: It started out as any other normal day. I went
Speaker 1: to work and I got my bus, warmed up on whatever.
Speaker 1: That's when her boss came over to talk to her.
Speaker 1: When you're done with your bus route. He said, bring
Speaker 1: your take your bus, put it back at the station,
Speaker 1: and then come down to downtown. We'd like to talk
Speaker 1: to you. And I was like, oh, okay, no idea, no,
Speaker 1: I said, what's it about? And he goes, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: just talk to you when you get there. When she
Speaker 1: walked in the office later that day, to her surprise,
Speaker 1: the director of the head Start program was also there.
Speaker 1: That's when she told me that a mother had made
Speaker 1: an allegation against me. And I was like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean an allegation against me? And she said, well,
Speaker 1: they said that you didn't take her daughter to school,
Speaker 1: you took her daughter to a birthday party where you
Speaker 1: molested her. And I'm like, what are you what are
Speaker 1: you talking about the whole thing? It seemed preposterous to Nancy.
Speaker 1: I said, you guys, have my records, I said, you
Speaker 1: have my Minley chet you have there's records shown that
Speaker 1: this kid went to school. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And they were like, well, you know, we just we
Speaker 1: have to address it because this is what some others
Speaker 1: accused in you of. But with all the documentation they had,
Speaker 1: Nancy was certain they'd see the story wasn't true. I
Speaker 1: followed the rules on my job, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I had a bus aide with me at all times.
Speaker 1: How would anybody accuse me of something like that? I
Speaker 1: had two other jobs. When did people think I had
Speaker 1: time to do this, you know? And then and to
Speaker 1: accuse me being a mother of that. I can't even
Speaker 1: tell you what that felt like. You can't even imagine
Speaker 1: being a mother of four kids and having someone say
Speaker 1: something like that about you. It's horrible. Nancy was suspended
Speaker 1: from her head Start bus driving job while the allegations
Speaker 1: were being investigated, but she still had a family to feed,
Speaker 1: so she continued to drive her other roots and the
Speaker 1: next thing I know, it just escalated to this nightmare
Speaker 1: that ended me in prison for fifteen years. After a
Speaker 1: mother accused Nancy of molesting her daughter, An official investigation
Speaker 1: was opened. It was headed up by Detective Tom Cantu,
Speaker 1: a respected twenty year veteran of the force. Cantu spoke
Speaker 1: with the woman who made the allegations, Margie Grondin. He
Speaker 1: also spoke to her daughter, to protect her privacy, will
Speaker 1: call her Grace. While speaking with them, officers observed that
Speaker 1: most of the information about the molestation came from the mother, Margie,
Speaker 1: not from Grace. Grace actually said the abuse never happened,
Speaker 1: until they noted Margie coaxed her to say otherwise. Police
Speaker 1: said the little girl's responses became incoherent or illogical. The
Speaker 1: doctor who examined Grace also stated that she didn't see
Speaker 1: any signs of injury to her body. Based on these
Speaker 1: initial interviews, the police determined that it was unlikely that
Speaker 1: Margie Grondin's story was true, but it was a serious
Speaker 1: allegation and the police were under pressure to do a
Speaker 1: thorough investigation. Detectives then went on to interview the eleven
Speaker 1: other children who rode Nancy's bus. None of them said
Speaker 1: they were abused. In fact, they all said they liked
Speaker 1: Nancy and that she was a nice bus driver. But
Speaker 1: Margie Grondin kept it up. She went to the homes
Speaker 1: of two of the children, whom we'll call Luke and Sarah,
Speaker 1: and she told their parents that their children had been molested.
Speaker 1: When Luke and Sarah were interviewed by the police, it
Speaker 1: was clear they were simply repeating what their parents and
Speaker 1: Margie Grondin told them to say. Detective Canto, for the
Speaker 1: second time, determined there was not enough evidence to substantiate
Speaker 1: the allegations, and he announced that he wanted to close
Speaker 1: the case. I just thought it's never going to go
Speaker 1: nowhere because I didn't do anything, you know, which at
Speaker 1: first it didn't, and then next thing you know, Margaret
Speaker 1: Grondin is all over the media talking about this. Enraged
Speaker 1: that the police were not moving forward on charging Nancy.
Speaker 1: Margie Gronden went to the media saying a molester was
Speaker 1: stalking Headstart children and that the police were doing nothing
Speaker 1: about it. I was just like, oh my god, what
Speaker 1: is this woman doing, What is she doing? Why is
Speaker 1: she doing this to me? I never had any problems
Speaker 1: with her, and her child was always back at her house,
Speaker 1: always at time. I mean, this woman used to give
Speaker 1: me my buss aid gifts at Christmas time, at Easter time,
Speaker 1: and then to turn around and make an allegation like
Speaker 1: this against me was I was just floored, and Nancy
Speaker 1: was especially confused when she found out what she was
Speaker 1: actually being accused of. Margie grind and claimed her daughter
Speaker 1: didn't go to school that day. Instead, she said Nancy
Speaker 1: took Grace to the house of a man named Joseph,
Speaker 1: who was allegedly Nancy's boyfriend, and that he tied Grace up,
Speaker 1: put tape over her eyes, and sexually molested her with
Speaker 1: a stick. At this point, had the name Joseph been
Speaker 1: brought up to you, I never knew about Joseph Allen
Speaker 1: until his pitcher hit the newspaper. 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 communities
Speaker 1: where they work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
Speaker 1: AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the AIG
Speaker 1: Pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support
Speaker 1: to underrepresented communities and individuals. Thanks to Margie Grandin's public accusations,
Speaker 1: Nancy found herself in the center of a media frenzy.
Speaker 1: It was on every news channel, it was in the newspapers.
Speaker 1: I had media coming to my house, knocking on my door.
Speaker 1: Over the next few months, fifteen other children came forward
Speaker 1: with stories of abuse by Nancy and Joseph. Ten were
Speaker 1: proven to be baseless right off the bat, because those
Speaker 1: children didn't ride Nancy's bus route. One of them didn't
Speaker 1: even attend headstart. After these added allegations, Nancy volunteered to
Speaker 1: take a polygraph, which at the time was still believed
Speaker 1: to be a reliable method of detecting lies. According to
Speaker 1: the test administrator, she passed so for the third time.
Speaker 1: Detective Can'tu wrote a report stating that he believed the
Speaker 1: allegations were unfounded and that he wouldn't bring any charges
Speaker 1: against Nancy. Detective Can'tu was then taken off the case.
Speaker 1: Other detectives resumed the investigation, and for months the only
Speaker 1: information they had about the second suspect was that his
Speaker 1: name was Joseph. The police ultimately believed five children, Grace, Luke, Sarah,
Speaker 1: and two of the fifteen who came forward after the
Speaker 1: media frenzy. They all had varying descriptions of Joseph, sometimes
Speaker 1: saying he was white, sometimes black, and sometimes black with
Speaker 1: white spots. One of the children identified a white man
Speaker 1: whose name was not Joseph, as the perpetrator, but his
Speaker 1: house did not match the description of the house the
Speaker 1: children had given, so he was ruled out. Another white man,
Speaker 1: the owner of a gay bar, was identified and also
Speaker 1: ruled out. The police became frustrated with the children's muddled
Speaker 1: and unreliable information, and while trying to get answers, they
Speaker 1: asked leading repetitive questions designed to fit the narrative given
Speaker 1: by the parents. So when you do start seeing these
Speaker 1: media reports that its it starts becoming an actual situation.
Speaker 1: I think when it first hit me was the day
Speaker 1: that they rest at me in front of my kids.
Speaker 1: The arrest happened six months after the alleged crimes took place,
Speaker 1: on November tenth, nineteen ninety three. They came to my parents'
Speaker 1: home and it was like five cop cars and they
Speaker 1: handcuffed me in front of my children. That's something they
Speaker 1: should never have had to worry about, and that's something
Speaker 1: that I never should have had to worry about. Eventually,
Speaker 1: police also settled on their second suspect, a thirty nine
Speaker 1: year old black man named Joseph Allen, who was being
Speaker 1: investigated for an unrelated crime. Nancy remembers seeing his picture
Speaker 1: in the news before they were both arrested, and that
Speaker 1: was the first time that I actually ever seen Joseph Allen.
Speaker 1: I remember calling Jack Bradley, my attorney at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, Jack, who is
Speaker 1: this guy. I don't even know who the guy is.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, they're trying to say that this
Speaker 1: was your boyfriend. I said, I don't know who this
Speaker 1: man is. I've never even met this man before. Nancy
Speaker 1: was charged with multiple accounts of rape. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember if they even said anything to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point, I think I just kind of like
Speaker 1: just blanked out because they you know, they handcuffed me.
Speaker 1: They took me down to the police station. They put
Speaker 1: me in a holding cell, and I can remember one
Speaker 1: of the detectives come up to the holding cell and
Speaker 1: he just gave me this really nasty look and he said,
Speaker 1: you'll get what you deserve and he walked away, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sitting there, I'm I'm just I'm crying
Speaker 1: and I don't know what to do. You know, they
Speaker 1: just let me lay there for hours and hours and
Speaker 1: hours on this just this still bed, nothing, just a
Speaker 1: play still bed. They just let me lay there for
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours. The trial started in July
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety four. The prosecutor was Jonathan Rosenbaum. He
Speaker 1: called Margie Grondin along with a few other parents to
Speaker 1: testify as to what they heard and saw from the children.
Speaker 1: He also called a bus aid who said she had
Speaker 1: previously seen Joseph Allen with Nancy during her bus route.
Speaker 1: He also presented four of the five children who said
Speaker 1: they were molested. One of them said on the stand
Speaker 1: the abuse never happened, but the other three went into
Speaker 1: detail when talking about the sexual allegations. It's the sort
Speaker 1: of things that like a kid who doesn't actually know
Speaker 1: about sexual interactions might say when someone says, what happened
Speaker 1: to you down there? This is Mark Godsey, a professor
Speaker 1: of law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law
Speaker 1: and director of the Ohio Innocence Project. He says the
Speaker 1: kids stories were not only inconsistent with each other and
Speaker 1: with the previous statements, but that they were also obviously
Speaker 1: made up, so they would say things like, you know,
Speaker 1: they stuck sticks up our butt, they make us drink pe.
Speaker 1: This is like the sort of ridiculous things at three
Speaker 1: and four year olds when they're doing bathroom talk talk about.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just ridiculous, you know, to sit
Speaker 1: there and watch these little kids talk about something that
Speaker 1: they didn't even know what they were talking about, including
Speaker 1: things like I was tied up to a tree out
Speaker 1: on a busy street and I was naked, and I
Speaker 1: was tied up all day long, Like like any kid
Speaker 1: that's like four years old is going to be naked
Speaker 1: and tied to a tree right by a busy road
Speaker 1: all day and somebody's not going to call the police,
Speaker 1: and no one's going to have any memory of this,
Speaker 1: you know, just very bizarre type things. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there listening to this, like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: I mean, are you really kidding me? Where's this ship
Speaker 1: coming from? Can I cuss? Because I have a bat?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I get when I start getting talking about it,
Speaker 1: I get, really I can say some pretty horrible words.
Speaker 1: Mark understands why Nancy is frustrated. The thing that's difficult
Speaker 1: about this case is that it's hard to imagine how
Speaker 1: bad the defense attorney did. The defense attorney was Jack Bradley.
Speaker 1: Mark says that Bradley did a horrible job at presenting
Speaker 1: evidence to disprove the allegations. There are things that you
Speaker 1: just can't get past that proved this did not happen,
Speaker 1: and they were all either not introduced or ignored. It
Speaker 1: was like a perfect storm. For example, on the day
Speaker 1: in question, and every day there was a babysitter in
Speaker 1: the back of the bus who was willing to testify
Speaker 1: I was back there. There was never a day where
Speaker 1: I got taken to some boyfriend of Nancy's house and
Speaker 1: these kids were molested. Of course, not right, and this
Speaker 1: person was not called as a witness, Like, how can
Speaker 1: you make this up? There were attendance records showing that
Speaker 1: the kids were there on the day in question, and
Speaker 1: in fact, the kids who were part of this allegation
Speaker 1: and testified at trial were never all absent on the
Speaker 1: same day. Was that brought up at trial when Bradley
Speaker 1: called Nancy to testify, she said she had never seen
Speaker 1: Joseph Allen in her life. He also called a transportation
Speaker 1: manager from a local County agency who testified that they
Speaker 1: checked Nancy's bus mileage and did not detect any side trips,
Speaker 1: but no documents were entered into evidence or shown to
Speaker 1: the jury. It doesn't matter if you think the allegations
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter if they're ludicrous. If you've got
Speaker 1: evidence showing it didn't happen, you still got to introduce it.
Speaker 1: The defense attorney didn't introduce any of it, and to evidence,
Speaker 1: I think he thought there's no way there's going to
Speaker 1: be a conviction. I mean, that was like a fog,
Speaker 1: sitting in this trial by a man that I didn't
Speaker 1: even know, being falsely accused of molesting children, having my
Speaker 1: family sitting in a court room and listened to this
Speaker 1: appalling ship that was coming out of their mouth, the lies,
Speaker 1: and the people getting on stand and lieing, and just
Speaker 1: did you think that you would be convicted? No, No,
Speaker 1: there's no way. I thought there's no way. But on
Speaker 1: August fourth, nineteen ninety four, Nancy was convicted of all charges.
Speaker 1: She was sentenced to thirty to ninety years in prison.
Speaker 1: And I can remember Jonathan Rosa Bob making a smirk
Speaker 1: ass face that he always did, and I lunched toward
Speaker 1: the table. I remember that Jack. I remember Jack pulled
Speaker 1: me back and thend them taking me down to the
Speaker 1: holding cell. I mean, I felt like I was like,
Speaker 1: it was just so unreal. I'm sorry, I don't need
Speaker 1: to cry. It's so hard to try to relive this.
Speaker 1: Nancy's daughter, Courtney, who was fourteen at the time, also
Speaker 1: remembers that moment her mom was convicted. She and her
Speaker 1: siblings weren't allowed in the courtroom, so she was in
Speaker 1: the hallway of the courthouse watching the trial on TV.
Speaker 1: I remember watching it going dumbfounded, right, like what is
Speaker 1: going on? And uh? I remember like all the newspapers,
Speaker 1: you know, the reporters and the TV stations and they're
Speaker 1: all flashing and I remember screaming at Margie and going
Speaker 1: are you happy now? The B word? And the next day,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm being like pulled away and she's like,
Speaker 1: your mother did this, you know, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: she did it, but you know, they pulled me out,
Speaker 1: and then I just remember sitting there going, what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen to us? You know? After the convictions, Margie Grondin,
Speaker 1: along with several other parents, sued the Lorraine County Head
Speaker 1: Start program for damages. They won their cases and settled
Speaker 1: for one point five million dollars each. So in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties we went through this era where there
Speaker 1: were a couple famous cases where individuals claimed that their
Speaker 1: very young children had been sexually abused in daycarese that
Speaker 1: had some sort of deep pockets behind them, like Headstart,
Speaker 1: federally funded places. You could get some sort of big
Speaker 1: settlement and it was like part of the Satanic panic
Speaker 1: where the parents who would be able to draw up
Speaker 1: these charges were making millions. The phrase satanic panic came
Speaker 1: about because, in addition to molestations, children sometimes also described
Speaker 1: satanic rituals, which is flying through the air and other
Speaker 1: bizarre events. One of the most notorious examples is the
Speaker 1: McMartin case. In the early nineteen eighties, members of the
Speaker 1: McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California,
Speaker 1: were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse involving
Speaker 1: children under their care. The story set off a national
Speaker 1: media frenzy. It was like this hysteria that was like
Speaker 1: whipped up that, Oh my god, all these little kids
Speaker 1: are being molested by these daycare centers. This is like
Speaker 1: a you know, a pandemic. This is a huge problem
Speaker 1: that's going on and sweeping the country. The McMartin case
Speaker 1: was ultimately dismissed seven years later, but not before dozens
Speaker 1: of similar, unfounded lawsuits had erupted back in the nineties
Speaker 1: and even the eighties. Were you aware of any other
Speaker 1: cases like yours, like specifically this McMartin case is a
Speaker 1: really famous one. No, No, I never, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was too busy being a mom and doing what
Speaker 1: I was doing to you know, really wasn't into the
Speaker 1: news and stuff like that. After her sentencing, Nancy was
Speaker 1: sent to Marysville Reformatory. It's prison in Ohio. I think
Speaker 1: the first two years I cried myself to sleep every night.
Speaker 1: So Courtney, did you stay close with your mom? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: We talked whenever she could afford to, And it got
Speaker 1: easier when I had a job so we could send
Speaker 1: her buddy. Somebody would always take us down, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was like a monthly thing. And then when
Speaker 1: we got old enough when we could go ourselves. I
Speaker 1: mean there was times that I took friends with me
Speaker 1: so they could meet her. What is seeing your mom
Speaker 1: in prison? Like? No, it's not a fun, enjoyable experience.
Speaker 1: So it really was never a pleasant experience, but at
Speaker 1: least we were able to go see her. Eventually. Nancy
Speaker 1: felt some joy when she joined the prison's horticulture program,
Speaker 1: like that was my saving grace. I mean, honestly, I
Speaker 1: did this program for nine years and then the man
Speaker 1: who ran the program asked me if I would stay
Speaker 1: on at his aid, and so I would be the
Speaker 1: one that they would go in the greenhouse and just
Speaker 1: water all the flowers. I can remember just putting my
Speaker 1: headphones on and just go in there and just thinking
Speaker 1: I was just in a whole different place. After Mark
Speaker 1: and the Ohio Innocence Project took on her case, things
Speaker 1: started to turn around for Nancy. In two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: a new state law in Ohio required Nancy to be resentenced.
Speaker 1: Mark and his team petitioned the court arguing there was
Speaker 1: not enough evidence for a conviction, and Judge James Burge agreed.
Speaker 1: So Nancy's conviction was vacated and she went home and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, this is fine. This nightmare
Speaker 1: is finally over. It's finally over. But thirty days later,
Speaker 1: the state appealed the ruling. And Nancy's conviction was restored.
Speaker 1: She didn't return to prison them her hearing was delayed
Speaker 1: for two years, and during that time, Nancy tried to
Speaker 1: resume a semblance of normalcy. So what was picking up
Speaker 1: the pieces of your life? Like? The first five years,
Speaker 1: I was home, like I wouldn't go anywhere without anybody.
Speaker 1: Somebody had to be with me at all times, because
Speaker 1: I don't know how I would react as half somebody
Speaker 1: come up and say something really negative to me. I
Speaker 1: was already angry for all these years that I spent
Speaker 1: in prison and fighting this case for so many years,
Speaker 1: and so the first five years was really tough for
Speaker 1: me to know the postmatic stress disorder, the anxiety, not
Speaker 1: knowing if I'm going back to prisoners, stay at home
Speaker 1: or whatever. In the meantime, Mark and his team were
Speaker 1: focused on filing a post conviction motion for clemency based
Speaker 1: on a bombshell video they discovered that had been withheld
Speaker 1: by the prosecution. The video showed the police lineup where
Speaker 1: the children from Headstart were being asked to identify their molester,
Speaker 1: and what was actually going on in that room was shocking.
Speaker 1: The parents were coaching during the I wouldn't identification and
Speaker 1: like taking the kid's hands and pointing them at Joseph Allen.
Speaker 1: The Ohio Innocence Project also compiled records showing the abuse
Speaker 1: could not have occurred because all the children were in
Speaker 1: school the day it supposedly happened, and they submitted affidavits
Speaker 1: from Nancy's bus aides stating that they saw Nancy drop
Speaker 1: the kids at school. On top of that, Mark and
Speaker 1: his team also submitted to the court records showing she
Speaker 1: was working two other jobs the afternoon in question. In
Speaker 1: April of twenty twelve, Mark, along with the law firm Davis,
Speaker 1: Polk and Wardwell, filed a petition for clemency with the
Speaker 1: Ohio Parole Board and Governor John Kasik. In addition to
Speaker 1: Nancy's innocence, the petition also argued that child psychologists have
Speaker 1: since discredited the techniques used for questioning the children at
Speaker 1: the time this was going on. What the common belief
Speaker 1: was that if a kid is saying this, it must
Speaker 1: be true, because why would a kid make this up?
Speaker 1: And you know, from the mouths of babes, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's the phrase that kids are always telling the
Speaker 1: truth because they don't they don't know to lie yet
Speaker 1: when in reality, when they're being coached or when an
Speaker 1: adult is trying to get them to say something, they're
Speaker 1: very adaptable and they're very easy to manipulate and get
Speaker 1: to say what the adult wants them to say. You know,
Speaker 1: children will come to believe what they're being told over
Speaker 1: and over again and what they're being coached to believe.
Speaker 1: And that's well established in the psychological literature. And now
Speaker 1: decades later, when the smoke is cleared, we realized that
Speaker 1: this was most of these people are actually innocent. A
Speaker 1: lot of these cases were drummed up for people who
Speaker 1: were seeking to sue and get monetary damages, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly what Nancy Smith got unfortunately wrapped up in. In
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Nancy was finally resentenced to twelve years and
Speaker 1: having already served fourteen, she was granted time served, but
Speaker 1: she was still not exonerated of the charges, meaning to
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, Nancy was still a conicted
Speaker 1: child rapist. Fast forward to twenty twenty one, when there
Speaker 1: was a changing of the guard in Lorraine County. We
Speaker 1: had an open minded prosecutor who was going to take
Speaker 1: a second look at it. The new prosecutor, JD. Tomlinson
Speaker 1: actually started his own investigation into Nancy's case in conjunction
Speaker 1: with Mark and his team. This was promising, and then
Speaker 1: late one night, Mark was working in his office when
Speaker 1: something completely unexpected happened. I get a call from Dino Grunden.
Speaker 1: Dino was the son of Margie Grunden and Grace's older brother,
Speaker 1: who said, I've got a story for you, Like I
Speaker 1: have a daughter now, this is the same age, and
Speaker 1: Margie Grunden is her grandmother, my mother, and Margie Grunden
Speaker 1: is manipulating her the same way I saw Margie grunn
Speaker 1: And manipulate my little sister when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: She's doing the same thing again. She's like coaching my
Speaker 1: own kid. And so I became concerned that Margie Garden
Speaker 1: is trying to set up the same scenario that she
Speaker 1: had done back in the nineties where she was able
Speaker 1: to get money by using her own child, at this
Speaker 1: time doing at their grandchild. The authorities confirmed Dino's allegations
Speaker 1: by catching Margie on a nanny camp. They found that
Speaker 1: the child was being coached when they left the room,
Speaker 1: but they left the taper quarter on and she was
Speaker 1: like practicing and practice crying and stuff. This is what
Speaker 1: exactly what Dino Grunden was telling us was going on.
Speaker 1: This revelation, along with an affidavit from the original investigator,
Speaker 1: Detective Cantu, was enough for Prosecutor Tomlinson. After his own
Speaker 1: five month investigation, Tomlinson was sure of Nancy's innocence and
Speaker 1: he moved to have the charges dismissed, and at a
Speaker 1: hearing on February twenty fifth, twenty twenty two, he offered
Speaker 1: a public apology. Did you missed that? I apologize to you,
Speaker 1: especially for what was done to you and to your
Speaker 1: fans as a result of this ill conceived prosecution. I'll
Speaker 1: be handed to the stable Ohio. I wish nothing but
Speaker 1: the best for you, Andrew about most and I hope
Speaker 1: that in the future only happiness and could fortune me
Speaker 1: a bob, You're right, all right, I will be moving
Speaker 1: this honorable courts to dismiss these matters. That day, Judge
Speaker 1: Chris Cook vacated Nancy's convictions for the final time. Today,
Speaker 1: Nancy is still living in Lorraine, Ohio. She's a dog
Speaker 1: groomer and volunteers at her church to give back to
Speaker 1: people less fortunate. She still doesn't like to go places alone,
Speaker 1: but she's received much more support than she expected. I
Speaker 1: would have people come up and say, can I just
Speaker 1: give you a hug, or come up to me and say,
Speaker 1: we're just so glad. We always believed in you. We
Speaker 1: knew that this was fogus. We knew that this case
Speaker 1: was not true. So Courtney, why do you think Margie
Speaker 1: Grunden did this money? I think one hundred and time percent.
Speaker 1: She concocted a game for money, and that's why she
Speaker 1: did this. You know, to me, she's a narcissist. What
Speaker 1: does that feel like that your mom's life was worth
Speaker 1: less than some money? I think it feels horrible. But
Speaker 1: you know, the older you get, the more mature you get,
Speaker 1: you know, you really start understanding that there are truly
Speaker 1: people out there that don't care, and they don't care
Speaker 1: what they put other people through, and they're gonna do
Speaker 1: whatever they want to get whatever they want. And then
Speaker 1: this is just one of those cases. All it takes
Speaker 1: is one person, one person, a Margie Grunted to do
Speaker 1: this to you, and before you know what, your life's
Speaker 1: just gone from you. You know, I mean, one thing
Speaker 1: I can say today is that I will never ever
Speaker 1: let somebody else do this to me again. But know
Speaker 1: that I survived, and I got through this with the
Speaker 1: grace of God. I got through this with Mark Godzi
Speaker 1: and the Innocent Project. I got through this with Judge Burge.
Speaker 1: I got through this with JD. Tomlinson. And I'll continue
Speaker 1: to get through every obstacle that ever comes my way
Speaker 1: in life because I know that I can, and I
Speaker 1: know that I can, you know, continue not to live
Speaker 1: the best life that I can do. To help Ohio
Speaker 1: XS honorees, Nancy suggests supporting the Phoenix Initiative, which provides
Speaker 1: clothing to Willa trees and other necessities to exonorees when
Speaker 1: they're released. Links to this and to the Ohio Innocence
Speaker 1: Project will be in our bio next time. Un Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling Tammy Vans. She was snoring really loud,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it stopped, and I freaked
Speaker 1: out and I telled THEE she's not breathing, She's not breathing.
Speaker 1: They got on the phone with nine one one and
Speaker 1: I Minister CPR until the ambulance got there. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your
Speaker 1: local innocence organizations and go to the links in our
Speaker 1: bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wurdas, as
Speaker 1: well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robin,
Speaker 1: and story editor Sonia Paul. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cleburne
Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at Wrong Conviction, as
Speaker 1: well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
Speaker 1: you can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter
Speaker 1: at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one