Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, Tala La lay Edwards, a
Speaker 1: young father and husband living in Anchorage, Alaska, was accused
Speaker 1: of killing a one year old child who was in
Speaker 1: his care. TJ was adamant he was innocent. He loved
Speaker 1: children and was known to be a great father to
Speaker 1: his own sons. They couldn't bring one person on my behalf.
Speaker 1: They ever say that they saw me be violent, a
Speaker 1: violent guy, and will do something to a kid. They
Speaker 1: even took my two boys from me when this happened.
Speaker 1: When he went to trial, he was sure the jury
Speaker 1: would see the truth that he wouldn't hurt anyone, let
Speaker 1: alone a child. When they say guilty, I was shocked,
Speaker 1: And what made it real for me was my mom.
Speaker 1: She started belting out crying and I looked back at her.
Speaker 1: Imagine senior just like getting weak and just everybody's trying
Speaker 1: to pick her up. I hate we live in that
Speaker 1: memory that was running to me. I was trying to
Speaker 1: erase it's stuck in there. My name is Tala La
Speaker 1: lay Edwards Junior. Everybody knows me as TJ. I was
Speaker 1: in cars ready for fourteen years for something I didn't commit,
Speaker 1: and I'm here to tell my story from Lava for
Speaker 1: Good This is Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeley today. Tala
Speaker 1: lay Edwards Tala Lala Edwards Junior, known as TJ, was
Speaker 1: born in the Samoan Islands on April seventeenth, nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: to Salome and Edwards Sor. We are from the Islands
Speaker 1: of Samore. Mom was born in western Samoa and my
Speaker 1: dad was from American Samore. For a while, there has
Speaker 1: just been me and my brother, Richard, who's a year
Speaker 1: younger than me, before everybody else came, and it's probably
Speaker 1: like a five or six year gap between the next
Speaker 1: set of like it was. My two sisters came after
Speaker 1: me and Richard, eventually adding up to nine kids in total.
Speaker 1: Although the family lived in California briefly when TJ was young,
Speaker 1: they soon went back to the Samoan Islands. My dad
Speaker 1: took us back to the islands so we can learn
Speaker 1: the culture, the language we speak, and just learn everything
Speaker 1: about the Samoan culture. And so we stayed there for
Speaker 1: about four or five years before moving back to California,
Speaker 1: where the rest of my siblings were born. He is
Speaker 1: like a best friend to me. This is TJ's sister, Salome,
Speaker 1: who was named after their mother. She's six years younger
Speaker 1: than TJ. I just remember him always being the one
Speaker 1: that I looked up to. I wrote a few papers
Speaker 1: on him in school as like the person that I'm
Speaker 1: I look up to the most. After their parents divorced
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five, TJ, as the oldest, found his
Speaker 1: role in the family evolving, so I kind of had
Speaker 1: to play their father figure off like watching over my
Speaker 1: other younger siblings. Helping up my mom was just for
Speaker 1: life because she was just to stay at home mom
Speaker 1: before you know a dad separated. Salome remembers how TJ
Speaker 1: stepped up for the family at the time. She came
Speaker 1: to confide in her brother about everything in her life.
Speaker 1: When I wasn't doing so good in school, I would
Speaker 1: go to him and ask him for help on homework
Speaker 1: or just anything that I wanted to talk to him about,
Speaker 1: even if it was me dating someone. He was very
Speaker 1: patient and also always created a s space for me
Speaker 1: to go and talk to him about anything I was
Speaker 1: going through. TJ was only fourteen at the time and
Speaker 1: couldn't help out financially. Yet, when expenses became too much
Speaker 1: for his mom, she packed up a car with whatever
Speaker 1: they could fit and drove herself and her nine kids
Speaker 1: from California to Anchorage, Alaska, where she had family. So
Speaker 1: what is living in Alaska like? Living in Alaska's um
Speaker 1: It's a pretty, you know, slow motion state. It's pretty
Speaker 1: a mellow. At first, I've never seen snow before. So
Speaker 1: when we came up here, I was like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is nice. You know, it was awesome for the first
Speaker 1: I see six months and two I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm done with the cold. But things were
Speaker 1: still hard for the family. It was a struggle just
Speaker 1: to live up in Alaska. We were poor growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, and we didn't have the finance to go
Speaker 1: get us an apartment, you know, we had to live
Speaker 1: with my auntie. And then when we moved up here.
Speaker 1: Despite the hardships, TJ has fond memories of his childhood
Speaker 1: being with my siblings up here, you know, just all
Speaker 1: of us out there and snow and kind of like
Speaker 1: just enjoying each other's company, you know, just us bonding
Speaker 1: together and being there for each other. Was like that
Speaker 1: was all to me. All I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: keep the smile on their faces. We were pretty spoiled
Speaker 1: because of him. Salome remembers TJ taking his siblings everywhere
Speaker 1: he went, like sports games and their favorite hangout, we
Speaker 1: always want to chuck e cheese. We went like probably
Speaker 1: once a week, literally, but life in their part of
Speaker 1: town was rough. I dropped out of tenth grade because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of shootings going on and our family
Speaker 1: was definitely one of those houses. I was getting shot
Speaker 1: at because of you know, certain gangs or whatever they
Speaker 1: call each other, clicks up here that we're going through
Speaker 1: some battles back and forth. The gangs and anchorage included
Speaker 1: Samoan Street gangs that sometimes fought with Tongan gangs, and
Speaker 1: they thought that we were involved in that, me and
Speaker 1: my siblings, you know, they thought we were involving any
Speaker 1: of the gang activities and it wasn't the case, but
Speaker 1: we were just caught in a crossfire of things, and
Speaker 1: that's what kind of made me and my brothers stepped
Speaker 1: out of school, like dropped out. TJ says. At the time,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of racism and anchorage against Polynesians.
Speaker 1: Polynesians were getting into altercations with the police and stuff
Speaker 1: like that at that time, and we were definitely being
Speaker 1: frowned upon as far as growing up here with the
Speaker 1: law against you know, the poly community back then, and
Speaker 1: it was difficult to like, you know, call them for
Speaker 1: any kind of help because as soon as they pull
Speaker 1: up and find out, oh, there's a poly community or
Speaker 1: Polynesian family, didn't they kind of like turned the backs
Speaker 1: on us or not even give us a help that
Speaker 1: we needed, you know what I mean. After TJ dropped
Speaker 1: out of high school, he went on to receive an
Speaker 1: education with the Alaska Youth Military Program. It was for
Speaker 1: kids that they were troubled youth or whatever and that
Speaker 1: didn't graduate, but they given this chance to either you
Speaker 1: go there to military or you know, you be able
Speaker 1: to get your diploma that way. At this point, TJ
Speaker 1: also had a girlfriend, Leona, and when I went into
Speaker 1: this youth academy program in ninety nine, come to find
Speaker 1: out that we were expecting the kid later on that
Speaker 1: year in November, which I had my first son, which
Speaker 1: is John tay Moses Edwards. So we got married August fourteenth,
Speaker 1: ninety nine and Johns was born eleven seventeen, nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: TJ was nineteen at the time. He had been considering
Speaker 1: a career in the military, but becoming a father put
Speaker 1: a spin on his plans. It was just one of
Speaker 1: those things that I fell in love with seeing my
Speaker 1: son being born. I didn't want him to grow up
Speaker 1: without a father, you know what I mean, being away,
Speaker 1: So just me and my siblings growing up without our father.
Speaker 1: That's what really made me want to stay home with
Speaker 1: him and all the time, and didn't want to go nowhere,
Speaker 1: and so I ended up not going to the military. Instead.
Speaker 1: TJ took on two jobs in Anchorage, one at Applebee's
Speaker 1: and when it's a security guard. He and Leona got
Speaker 1: their own place. In the spring of two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: TJ and Leona opened their house up to their close
Speaker 1: friend Melissa and her one year old son, Derek. Derek
Speaker 1: was TJ and Leona's godson, so they didn't hesitate when
Speaker 1: Melissa needed a place to live. We didn't want them
Speaker 1: to be out there in the streets and I having
Speaker 1: nowhere to stay, so we had an extra room and
Speaker 1: absolutely I said sure, why not. She ended up moving
Speaker 1: in with us, and he started noting, seeing like a pattern.
Speaker 1: She loves to go out and have fun, often leaving
Speaker 1: Derek and TJ's care but he was fine with that.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't mind watching my godson because him
Speaker 1: and my son are pretty much, you know, the same age.
Speaker 1: Melissa and Leonel worked together, so when TJ wasn't working
Speaker 1: and the babysitter was unavailable, TJ took care of both
Speaker 1: Derek and John Tay. TJ even got certified as a
Speaker 1: caregiver and learned CPR and other first aid. One day,
Speaker 1: while TJ was watching the boys, he noticed a scratch
Speaker 1: on the back of Derek's head and he mentioned it
Speaker 1: to Melissa. He was like, hey, have you noticed anything
Speaker 1: wrong with your son's hey? Like, and she was like,
Speaker 1: she had no idea where the scratch came from. Derek
Speaker 1: had also been sick for a few days. He wasn't
Speaker 1: eating and was throwing up a lot. Melissa was already
Speaker 1: planning to bring him to the doctor, so we tell there's, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you should probably go and have this looked at,
Speaker 1: you know, when you go to a doctor. So when
Speaker 1: you brought Derek back to the house, we asked him, so,
Speaker 1: did you mentioned anything about the head injury? And she
Speaker 1: never mentioned it, So we were kind of like stump,
Speaker 1: like why not, why didn't you tell the doctor whoever
Speaker 1: it was seeing him about, you know, that scratch behind
Speaker 1: his head. A few days later, on the morning of
Speaker 1: May eighth, two thousand and one, Melissa left Derek with
Speaker 1: TJ and John Tay while she went to work. Leona
Speaker 1: had already left the house for the day to TJ
Speaker 1: was alone with the boys. She brought him in the room.
Speaker 1: He was sort of crying a little bit, and then
Speaker 1: he stopped crying, and then you know, we went downstairs.
Speaker 1: I started cleaning up the house and everything. But soon
Speaker 1: TJ noticed Derek wasn't doing well. I noticed him not
Speaker 1: responding or it just breathing. Period. When TJ picked him up,
Speaker 1: he saw that Derek's eyes were half open and his
Speaker 1: fists were clenched. TJ tried blowing air in his face
Speaker 1: to arouse him, but Derek was not responding, and so
Speaker 1: I immediately I freaked out. I started doing CPR on
Speaker 1: them and wrest them, rushing to the hospital instead of
Speaker 1: calling nine one one, because TJ still didn't trust the police.
Speaker 1: I've had the issues with calling any kind of authorities
Speaker 1: or whatever, So my immediate reaction was to make sure
Speaker 1: that Derek makes it there. Alive still. This episode is
Speaker 1: underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is
Speaker 1: committed to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive
Speaker 1: difference in the lives of its employees and in the
Speaker 1: communities 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 at the hospital. Once
Speaker 1: the doctors took Derek, TJ was left alone to process
Speaker 1: what had just happened. They went back there and the
Speaker 1: tip favor for them to come. Tell me where was
Speaker 1: glonas lay sir, can you go on the front? You
Speaker 1: got some class, I want to talk to you, stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and I'm like, okay, I'm thinking maybe they'ren't
Speaker 1: tend me what's going on, But instead one of the
Speaker 1: detectives started questioning him. TJ told the detective everything he knew.
Speaker 1: He was just cleaning up the house when he noticed
Speaker 1: Derek struggling to breathe. He's saying, now something happened. You
Speaker 1: should the baby or something, and I'm like should the baby?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? You know, And I was
Speaker 1: kind of dumbfounded about the whole situation, like why are
Speaker 1: you accused me? At eight fifty five that night, Derek
Speaker 1: was taken off ventilator support and died. Doctors had discovered
Speaker 1: that Derek's brain was bleeding and swollen, but showed no
Speaker 1: signs of blunt force trauma. Brain bleeding and swelling, bleeding
Speaker 1: in the eyes, and little or no evidence of external
Speaker 1: trauma were known at the time as the triad supposedly
Speaker 1: telltale signs of SPS or shaken baby syndrome. Experts at
Speaker 1: the time claimed these injuries had only three known causes,
Speaker 1: falls from a three story building, high speed motor vehicle crashes,
Speaker 1: or violent shaking. Because he had been the last dult
Speaker 1: alone with Derek before his death, TJ immediately became the
Speaker 1: only suspect. They're you know, the whole time, they're like
Speaker 1: convinced that I did it that morning, you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, look how big he is. And that's what
Speaker 1: the detective was kept drilling to me after one years
Speaker 1: interview here, like TJ, man, look how big you are.
Speaker 1: Like if I was a kid and you were over here,
Speaker 1: like shaking me. I would I would be in the
Speaker 1: same just and derek'son, I'm like, what are you a
Speaker 1: big guy? Yeah? I was. I wouldn't say like a
Speaker 1: big guy, but I mean I was. I was too
Speaker 1: sixty at that time. I was, you know, pretty athletic
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I didn't really see myself as a
Speaker 1: as a Polynesian like a big you know, and that's
Speaker 1: how they they look at us, you know, They're all
Speaker 1: you guys are pretty big people, and so I yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of like freaking out, like wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: actually telling me for me now. The investigation into Derek's
Speaker 1: death took nearly six months. During that time, police failed
Speaker 1: to investigate any other angles besides SPS. In fact, they
Speaker 1: often disregarded evidence that did not point to SPS. For example,
Speaker 1: police and doctors ignored the fact that Derek had been
Speaker 1: sick before his death, and was in fact taking multiple
Speaker 1: medications a doctor had prescribed to address his symptoms. Also,
Speaker 1: in the weeks before his death, while being babysat by
Speaker 1: two twelve year old girls, Derek suffered a fall. The
Speaker 1: police did not ask the babysitters about this, nor did
Speaker 1: they follow up on any of his other medical issues.
Speaker 1: When Derek first got to the hospital that day, doctors
Speaker 1: also noted that he was doing something called posturing, which
Speaker 1: is what TJ saw with Derek's clench fists and bent arms.
Speaker 1: Posturing is a sign of seizure activity and can also
Speaker 1: indicate swelling in the brain. But when doctors discovered the
Speaker 1: brain swelling, they then focus their attention on confirming their
Speaker 1: suspicions of SBS, ignoring any other possible causes. During the
Speaker 1: investigation period, TJ and Leona were still in touch with Melissa.
Speaker 1: She didn't blame TJ for the death of her son,
Speaker 1: and in fact had told that to the police. She said, yes,
Speaker 1: I went to the cops and I told him that
Speaker 1: she didn't do it. I know you didn't do it.
Speaker 1: You would never do something like this for my son,
Speaker 1: because she knew, like I took care of her son
Speaker 1: better than she's ever done, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I've always been there to bathe him, and you know,
Speaker 1: whenever she's too tired to care for him or whatnot.
Speaker 1: And plus, you know, Derek and my son, like we're
Speaker 1: almost the same age and they play with each other.
Speaker 1: So when she made that statement that she knew that
Speaker 1: she knew I didn't do nothing to her son to
Speaker 1: cause this harm all against Derek. They looked at her
Speaker 1: as a suspect. They didn't turn her. I say, what
Speaker 1: was that. You're a TJ. Now, if you're saying that
Speaker 1: TJ didn't do it, then you're the one. And so
Speaker 1: that's when she retracted her statement and made another statement.
Speaker 1: On October tenth, two thousand and one, TJ was working
Speaker 1: one of his jobs when the police showed up. There
Speaker 1: is like seven patrol cars that came on base. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on. I'd seen my boss
Speaker 1: walking with a whole bunch of guys behind them. Those
Speaker 1: were the detectives that are coming up to apprehend me
Speaker 1: for the charge of the shaking baby Syner case. TJ
Speaker 1: was arrested and charged with manslaughter and second degree murder.
Speaker 1: Salome was shocked when she found out. She remembers thinking
Speaker 1: about her youngest sister, who is teen years younger than TJ.
Speaker 1: My mom left my dad when she was only a
Speaker 1: week old. So TJ was literally like her father growing up,
Speaker 1: and I've seen him like change her diverse, you know,
Speaker 1: literally everything. So it was hard to it was hard
Speaker 1: to even accept that's what they were charging him with
Speaker 1: or arresting him for it, because that's just not what
Speaker 1: I could ever imagine him doing. In addition to the charges,
Speaker 1: TJ was hit with a double whammy. They even took
Speaker 1: my two boys from me when this happened. By this time,
Speaker 1: Leona had given birth to their second son, Javin. They
Speaker 1: said I couldn't be around my kids until further investigation,
Speaker 1: and then when they took my kids from us, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. I just felt like it was a nightmare.
Speaker 1: I just I still remember that day like vividly right now,
Speaker 1: and that's why I was like, man, I just hated
Speaker 1: that feeling. TJ's trial started two and a half years
Speaker 1: later in March of two thousand and four. The prosecutor
Speaker 1: was Adrian Bachmann, and the case against TJ was thin.
Speaker 1: They couldn't bring one person on my behalf they ever
Speaker 1: say that they saw me be violent, a violent guy,
Speaker 1: and will do something to this, you know, to a kid.
Speaker 1: The prosecution's entire case rested solely on the idea that
Speaker 1: only violently shaking a baby could cause the symptoms Derek had,
Speaker 1: and that the injuries could have only happened within a
Speaker 1: few hours of Derek's death, when only TJ was home
Speaker 1: with him. The testimony at trial was pretty consistent with
Speaker 1: if these three symptoms show up, it's child abuse and
Speaker 1: shaking baby, and it has to have happened within the
Speaker 1: last couple of hours. This is Bill Oberlei. He's the
Speaker 1: executive legal director of the Alaska Innocence Project. He says
Speaker 1: this was pretty much the only evidence presented at trial.
Speaker 1: No signs on Derek of any fresh injuries, no signs
Speaker 1: that he was picked up and held tightly and shaken,
Speaker 1: no neck injuries. There was nothing presented that would support
Speaker 1: provide physical evidence of the allegations they were making. However,
Speaker 1: one neighbor did testify to hearing a noise like furniture
Speaker 1: dropping quote loud enough that it shook the ceiling. The
Speaker 1: prosecution suggested this was TJ slamming Derek on the floor.
Speaker 1: So how did the defense respond? That was much of
Speaker 1: the defense was that there was no indication of any
Speaker 1: fresh injuries. TJ's attorney was Rex Butler. The defense called
Speaker 1: one expert witness, doctor Janice Apoven, who was a forensic pathologist.
Speaker 1: Doctor Opoven testified that there were indications of iron deposits
Speaker 1: in Derek's brain. When blood starts to decompose after bleeding,
Speaker 1: like in the brain, iron is formed, and so the
Speaker 1: presence of iron in Derek's brain meant that the injury
Speaker 1: he suffered would have been five to seven days old,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't enough reasonable doubt for the jury. After
Speaker 1: three days of deliberations, on April first, two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: TJ was convicted of second degree murder. I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was real because I got convicted on April Fools Day.
Speaker 1: When they say guilty, I looked at my attorney, I say, easy,
Speaker 1: did they just say guilty? I was shocked. And what
Speaker 1: made it real for me that I knew that they
Speaker 1: say guilty was my mom. She started helping out crying
Speaker 1: and I looked back at her. I just seen her
Speaker 1: just like getting weak and just everybody's trying to pick
Speaker 1: her up, and I just started like breaking down. I
Speaker 1: can't believe it. It didn't finally hit me until they
Speaker 1: closed the door after escorting me back. When they hold people,
Speaker 1: it was tough. It was I hate reliving that memory
Speaker 1: and I was one memory I was trying to erase,
Speaker 1: but it's it's stuck in there. Twenty two year old
Speaker 1: TJ was sentenced to twenty years in prison, the minimum
Speaker 1: sentence at the time. First, it was a scary you know,
Speaker 1: just as scary this is being in cars already. You
Speaker 1: see a lot of movies about prison, and you know,
Speaker 1: for me to actually be there, and yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do nothing. I didn't even eat
Speaker 1: their food for a whole year. I started questioning that, man,
Speaker 1: what did I go wrong? And you know, with my life,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of questions going through my head.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. Leona brought their kids
Speaker 1: to see TJ regularly, but as his years in prison
Speaker 1: went on, TJ's relationship with Leona deteriorated. I didn't blame
Speaker 1: her for it, you know what I mean. It gets
Speaker 1: lonely out there for people. Of course, she has needs
Speaker 1: and wants stuff like that they need to be met.
Speaker 1: And she ended up going her separate way. And it
Speaker 1: was tough to even explain it to my kids, but
Speaker 1: they knew what was going on. I in some of
Speaker 1: our visits will start kissing and hugging each other. And
Speaker 1: then as we started getting years in, they noticing us
Speaker 1: just not even doing that. I'm doing that with my kids,
Speaker 1: I'm hugging them, and so they started noticing that we're
Speaker 1: not holding hands in a disney room. It was definitely tough.
Speaker 1: TJ and Leone divorced in twenty ten, but in the
Speaker 1: middle of that, TJ got some good news. His sister,
Speaker 1: Salome told him she was engaged. The reason why I
Speaker 1: even seem potential in my husband's because he reminds me
Speaker 1: so much of my brother m bodies, everything that I
Speaker 1: could say that I would be looking for in a man.
Speaker 1: But Salome told her fiance that they couldn't get married
Speaker 1: until TJ was out. She had always dreamed of having
Speaker 1: her big brother walk her down the aisle, and because
Speaker 1: of that, we were waiting for his appeals they were
Speaker 1: getting denied. After about five years, TJ told her not
Speaker 1: to wait any longer. He called me and he said,
Speaker 1: I don't know why you keep putting your life on hold.
Speaker 1: You should go ahead and marry him. And I didn't
Speaker 1: want to because I wanted him to be there, but
Speaker 1: because he was like, all my appeals are getting denied.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna get out anytime soon, So
Speaker 1: stop putting your life on hold for me, and that
Speaker 1: was like the hardest thing for me to accept, and
Speaker 1: I just remember crying and telling him I didn't want
Speaker 1: to But I did eventually get married and he wasn't there,
Speaker 1: and it was like it was like I was trying
Speaker 1: to be happy, but at the same time, there was
Speaker 1: a big part of me that was missing. Life was
Speaker 1: passing t J by as he sat in prison. All
Speaker 1: I was trying to do was get out as soon
Speaker 1: as i could, like going and hating the law library,
Speaker 1: learning about my case and just seeing what kind of
Speaker 1: what else I can do to help give me out sooner.
Speaker 1: And so that's what thought about the Alaska Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: He immediately reached out to tell them about his case,
Speaker 1: and in twenty eleven he got a letter back from
Speaker 1: Bill Oberleigh and he's willing to take over my case
Speaker 1: and give it a shot, you know, give me a
Speaker 1: second chance to go on the courts. I was like, wow.
Speaker 1: I remember calling my family up and just in tears
Speaker 1: is of happiness, like, oh wow, this is the second
Speaker 1: chance that I've always wanted, I prayed for. I look
Speaker 1: forward to it, you know what I mean. So just
Speaker 1: to know that I do have a fighting chance to
Speaker 1: get out. We at the OSK Innocence Project and all
Speaker 1: the innocence projects in America take their jobs really seriously,
Speaker 1: and we have to be convinced that our client is
Speaker 1: innocent before we are willing to go forward. And that
Speaker 1: is my feeling about t J. Edwards, that I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that he is innocent. Two eleven was when
Speaker 1: the shaking baby syndrome belief was starting to be challenged
Speaker 1: in a fairly strong degree. And as I dug deeper
Speaker 1: into TJ's case, two things became clear to me. One,
Speaker 1: I met TJ and realized what kind of individual he
Speaker 1: was and that on one level convinced me that he
Speaker 1: could not have done what he was accused of doing
Speaker 1: or convicted of doing. And secondly, I looked into the
Speaker 1: facts of the case as it related to shaking baby
Speaker 1: syndrome and realized that the challenges that were being put
Speaker 1: forward on shaking baby cases all pretty much applied to
Speaker 1: TJ's case. Today, experts agree that there can be other
Speaker 1: explanations for the triad, like seizures or even a short fall.
Speaker 1: Bill says that Derek's strange sickness and the symptoms days
Speaker 1: before he died clearly showed something else was going on
Speaker 1: with him, and that investigators should have considered this the
Speaker 1: basis of the conviction. The medical legal testimony that was
Speaker 1: the basis of the conviction can no longer support the conviction,
Speaker 1: and therefore it is a wrongful conviction that needs to
Speaker 1: be overturned. Four years Bill worked on preparing TJ's appeal,
Speaker 1: but in twenty fifteen, twenty years after he was first incarcerated,
Speaker 1: TJ was released on parole. He completed his parole term
Speaker 1: in the summer of twenty twenty one. Although TJ is
Speaker 1: no longer a prisoner of the state, he is still
Speaker 1: labeled a convicted baby killer. I'm somewhat free. I'm still
Speaker 1: with my name not clear. That's how I look at
Speaker 1: I'm still incarcerated still, you know what I mean, Until
Speaker 1: everything is exhausted and getting clear from the system, that's
Speaker 1: I look at being free. Meanwhile, TJ is trying to
Speaker 1: adjust to life outside prison. I ain't gonna lie this
Speaker 1: whole incarceration. That definitely I lost, like my joy in life,
Speaker 1: as far as like all the fun things I used
Speaker 1: to love. I used to love Christmas, I used to
Speaker 1: love birthdays. I used to love anniversaries. I used to
Speaker 1: love like just celebration. Right when I got out, I
Speaker 1: feel like if I was to be celebrated and like happy,
Speaker 1: like you'll get taken away from me, just like that.
Speaker 1: If I have too much fun, it's gonna get taken away.
Speaker 1: And that's what incarceration did for me. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Bill filed a post conviction challenge to TJ's conviction, stating
Speaker 1: that the changes in forensic evidence invalidate the conviction. They
Speaker 1: are still in litigation. The fact that a short fall
Speaker 1: cannot cause these injuries is no longer valid testimony. How
Speaker 1: many doctors do you need to come forward and say that.
Speaker 1: TJ is now working at an oil field in the
Speaker 1: North Slope Borough in Alaska and is saving to buy
Speaker 1: a home for his family. He's remarried to a woman
Speaker 1: named Morgan, is a father to her children, Caden and Victoria,
Speaker 1: and of course continues to have a relationship with both
Speaker 1: of his sons from his first marriage. His family is
Speaker 1: planning to move to California to be closer to Salome,
Speaker 1: who is ecstatic her best friend is out of prison.
Speaker 1: What I love about him too, is that even if
Speaker 1: he's in a shower or doing something. He always picks up.
Speaker 1: So it's great to be able to have that communication
Speaker 1: and for me to be able to call him instead
Speaker 1: of having a wait until he is available. I was
Speaker 1: just laughing about this the other day because because of him,
Speaker 1: I FaceTime a lot now. TJ is very much He
Speaker 1: doesn't like calling just on the phone. He wants to
Speaker 1: FaceTime all the time. TJ says now that he's he
Speaker 1: wants to continue to mentor kids like he used to
Speaker 1: do his own siblings and as he did in prison.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was a therapist in there, you know,
Speaker 1: giving out advices and some of the people I have
Speaker 1: relationships now when I get out, they're the reason why
Speaker 1: I'm up here. I'm a slope now, you know, having
Speaker 1: a good job up here. I feel like my work
Speaker 1: here in Alaska is not done as far as like,
Speaker 1: you know, wanting to go out here and speaking to
Speaker 1: some of the youth up here and just share my story,
Speaker 1: you know, with them. This can happen to you. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're you're thinking you got a perfect life going
Speaker 1: and a snap of a finger, you're just on the
Speaker 1: other side now. To help support the Alaska Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: Go to Alaska Innocence Project dot org or check out
Speaker 1: the links in our bio. Next time on Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling, Gwen Graham, let's think I know of
Speaker 1: the police are coming down to talk to me. They said,
Speaker 1: your ex girlfriend said that you killed somebody at an
Speaker 1: earsing home, and I laughed at him. I second believe
Speaker 1: you came down here for that bullshit. But then when
Speaker 1: they charge me with I think four and more, That's
Speaker 1: when I started losing 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 Flam and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our
Speaker 1: senior producer Annie Chelsey, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor
Speaker 1: Sonja Paul. The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsey,
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