Speaker 1: A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care. So, Jason, I've been
Speaker 1: working on this one episode about a man who went
Speaker 1: to prison when he was fourteen years old, an adult prison,
Speaker 1: and just thinking about you know what a child growing
Speaker 1: up in that kind of environment, Um, what that does
Speaker 1: to them? Yeah, you think about I mean a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old, that's a child. You're in eighth grade, maybe
Speaker 1: ninth grade. I mean, it's unimaginable to take a child
Speaker 1: and put them in a situation that is the most
Speaker 1: adult of adult nightmarriage. Yeah, I mean, so just even
Speaker 1: the concepts that we interrogate children, especially you know, when
Speaker 1: police are allowed to lie to them, that is a
Speaker 1: Shakespearean type of a scenario, right, And of course we
Speaker 1: know that young people are much more likely to confess
Speaker 1: to crimes that they didn't commit because they're so aptible
Speaker 1: to the tricks and the lies and even physical or
Speaker 1: psychological abuse that day endure. You know, I was in
Speaker 1: a peg, but yet I was still aware that I
Speaker 1: didn't do what they're saying that I did, and I
Speaker 1: stuck to that even though they were threatened me with
Speaker 1: life in prison and you know what happens with kids
Speaker 1: to go to prison. I've never wavered from anything that
Speaker 1: I ever said from love of for good. This is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Michael Polly as Dawn
Speaker 1: broke On December fourteen, year old Mike Polly woke up
Speaker 1: to the smell of something burning. His friend Josh was
Speaker 1: sleeping over and when they opened his bedroom door, they
Speaker 1: were inundated with smoke. Mike and Josh screw ambled to
Speaker 1: crawl out of the house to escape. On the way,
Speaker 1: Mike stopped by his mother's room to check on her.
Speaker 1: What he saw scarred him forever. Rita Polyte was laying
Speaker 1: on the floor, face up, with her legs spread open,
Speaker 1: with just a pair of underweararm Her body was on fire.
Speaker 1: Thirty nine year old Rita Polyte was dead. Josh ran
Speaker 1: to a neighbors to call nine one one. Well, Mike
Speaker 1: tried to put the fire out with a hose. When
Speaker 1: the police showed up, they immediately made it clear that
Speaker 1: Mike was the prime suspect in his mother's murder, despite
Speaker 1: other suspects linked more closely with the evidence at hand,
Speaker 1: including his own father. Mike was arrested, charged and convicted
Speaker 1: for the murder of his mother. And then at that
Speaker 1: point that's what he said, is your father responsible for him?
Speaker 1: And I said yes. He said did you see him?
Speaker 1: I said no, So did you hear anything? I said no,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. But he's
Speaker 1: the only one that I knowed that would hate her
Speaker 1: that much to do that to a right And what
Speaker 1: I've seen was evil, it was hatred. Michael Pollitt was
Speaker 1: born in Mineral Point, Missouri. He grew up in a
Speaker 1: poor family. He lived with his parents, Rita and Ed Polly,
Speaker 1: and his siblings in a trailer in the village. I
Speaker 1: was a pretty happy kid growing up kindergarten through fifth grade, right,
Speaker 1: I was on honor roble Freddy student. Loved those school
Speaker 1: I was. I was out going over always, always with
Speaker 1: my friends, riding by Sybils four with his motorcycles. Mike
Speaker 1: is the youngest of three kids. His sister Crystal is
Speaker 1: the oldest, and then there's Melanie, who's seven years older
Speaker 1: than him. Here's Melanie. So when he was little, he
Speaker 1: wasn't a terrible kid. He was just you know, he
Speaker 1: was ramnxious, fun and like to like play outside, and
Speaker 1: and he had like kif good friends. They weren't ever
Speaker 1: in like real bad trouble. I was always his babysitter.
Speaker 1: Crystal didn't never have to do anything because she was
Speaker 1: the oldest, so she got to go out with her
Speaker 1: friends do whatever. I was always the one stuck at
Speaker 1: home babysitting like and at the time, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: hated it, hated it, But now I'm like, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that happened, because you know, if it didn't, would
Speaker 1: we be this close. I don't know. I would like
Speaker 1: to hope that we would be, but you never know.
Speaker 1: Mike remembers being especially close with his mom Rita. My
Speaker 1: mom got me into sports, right she she played softball
Speaker 1: when she was younger, getting my first ball glove. You know,
Speaker 1: always organized practices in our yard and shed have all
Speaker 1: the kids over me practice line. He always took up
Speaker 1: for our mom, like with kids at school, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the day around this time, they were always
Speaker 1: telling your mama jokes like your mama was so fat,
Speaker 1: blah blah whatever. Somebody did that to him and he
Speaker 1: was very upset about it, and he was like, you
Speaker 1: better never talk about my mother. He almost got a
Speaker 1: fight with this kid, and it was like, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: it's a joke, but that's how sensitive he is about
Speaker 1: our mom, you know, like you just don't mess with her.
Speaker 1: Mike's dad, Ed also had a special place in Mike's heart,
Speaker 1: and he helped foster one of his passions, racing cars.
Speaker 1: You know, I looked up to him quite bit. My
Speaker 1: dad raised stock cars at the local dirt track. Maybe
Speaker 1: you want to do you know, every Saturday night as
Speaker 1: a child, I remember going to the races and uh,
Speaker 1: really it's been a childhood dreamline. Actually racial late model
Speaker 1: on look forward to that in the future. But growing
Speaker 1: up it was. It was good up until the point
Speaker 1: where our family dynamics began to change because of infidelity
Speaker 1: on my father's card. Yeah, there was definitely some physical violence,
Speaker 1: a lot of arguing, um, a lot of mental abuse
Speaker 1: for you know, from my dad to my mom. He
Speaker 1: he also did it to us to you know, like
Speaker 1: guilt trips, and he would always talk bad about our
Speaker 1: mom to us. I don't know why. That's it's definitely
Speaker 1: not good parenting. Mike's and Melanie's dad was also pretty absent.
Speaker 1: You work nights at the Ford Motor Plant, and so
Speaker 1: Mike and his sisters rarely saw him home. Melanie as
Speaker 1: her mom, was really the one who raised them and
Speaker 1: took care of them. She was the one going to
Speaker 1: all of our games and all our school functions, and
Speaker 1: Mike's all of ours. You know, my our dad never went.
Speaker 1: You know, he could have went to days if you
Speaker 1: really wanted to spend time with his family, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but and he always just chose to work nights at Ford.
Speaker 1: I wish we were okay with because honestly, we didn't
Speaker 1: like him being around anyway, because he was always cranky
Speaker 1: and he always had the TV. So that's when we
Speaker 1: were kids, like Dad's gonna be home. Great. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to leave for the whole weekend because nobody
Speaker 1: wants to be around. Mike's parents divorced when he was young.
Speaker 1: His mom did not hide the reason why. I guess
Speaker 1: she uh recorded the phone conversation with him and another woman,
Speaker 1: and my mom played it for me and both my
Speaker 1: sisters and she said, this is why I'm leaving your father.
Speaker 1: And we asked him and he denied it and he
Speaker 1: united that was even him on the line, And I
Speaker 1: think it was that moment and I realized that he
Speaker 1: probably wasn't who I thought he was. It was around
Speaker 1: this time, as a pre teen that Mike started acting out.
Speaker 1: I kind of used the divorce and my parents separation
Speaker 1: as a crush as far as my bad behavior. I
Speaker 1: would always turn to that and be like, well, it's
Speaker 1: their fault because they're getting divorced and now, and people
Speaker 1: sampatized with us. So it kind of helped me getting
Speaker 1: out of getting getting into trouble with this all kind
Speaker 1: and he feel like it. I can as mischievous as
Speaker 1: I I wanted to be, really, so what kinds of
Speaker 1: things would you do? Well? I, you know, we we
Speaker 1: said a lot of fires, me and my friends. Um
Speaker 1: I became somewhat of a bully school. I remember once
Speaker 1: we doesn't struck. We throw oranges and tomatos, and we
Speaker 1: stomped on it on the hood of it and hit
Speaker 1: it with golf clubs and baseball bats. I end up
Speaker 1: stealing CD from like Walmart. That was about the extent
Speaker 1: of bad behavior. And not only did Mike's bad behavior
Speaker 1: escalate during the divorce, but so did his father, Ed's behavior. UM.
Speaker 1: I remember a few violent arguments where they would throw
Speaker 1: like pots and pants at each other and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It only happened like twice that I remember when I
Speaker 1: was young. Um, But as we got older, we only
Speaker 1: really witnessed um like the yelling, the arguments. UM. Mike
Speaker 1: unfore sly ain't got to witness the actual violence. Remember specifically,
Speaker 1: they're arguing over a sunflower clock to the co worker
Speaker 1: gave to her that he wouldn't let her have it,
Speaker 1: and the argument became thumps and I grabbed the baseball back.
Speaker 1: It was in my room. I ran out of my room.
Speaker 1: They were in the living room. He was on top
Speaker 1: of her. I told him to get off hooker. He did,
Speaker 1: and my mom got up and as we were leaving,
Speaker 1: she grabbed the picture of his girlfriend and off the wall.
Speaker 1: Food on ground stopped on. We left. During your divorce proceedings,
Speaker 1: I actually stestified against my father about this incidents. It
Speaker 1: was those moments like that. It puts me further away
Speaker 1: from my father, right And it's those moments that I
Speaker 1: remember that take me back to when I see my
Speaker 1: mother burning on the floor, It's easy for me to
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion who's responsible for On December four,
Speaker 1: Mike's mom, Rita went out with her friends. One of
Speaker 1: her friends remembers fourteen year old Mike calling and saying
Speaker 1: he was hungry, so on her way home around eleven
Speaker 1: thirty pm, Rita stopped to get subway sandwiches. Mike had
Speaker 1: invited his friend Josh to stay over that night. While
Speaker 1: the boys waited for Rita to come home with food,
Speaker 1: boys being boys, they went and burned railroad ties on
Speaker 1: the railroad tracks near the house. Shortly after midnight. Rita
Speaker 1: got home soon after the boys eight. They all went
Speaker 1: to bed. Mike's sister, Melanie, was twenty one at the
Speaker 1: time and she also lived in the trailer, but she
Speaker 1: was over at a friend's house that night. In the
Speaker 1: early hours of December five, as light was just beginning
Speaker 1: to appear, Mike woke to the smell of smoke and
Speaker 1: I woke up and either I smell a same smoke,
Speaker 1: and I looked down at Josh and asked to smoke
Speaker 1: to cigarette. Josh was not. At this point, the trailer
Speaker 1: was filling with smoke and they had to get out.
Speaker 1: Mike and Josh crawled to escape. On the way, Mike
Speaker 1: stopped at his mom's room to check on her. To
Speaker 1: his horror, he found Rita burning on the ground. She
Speaker 1: was face up, her legs spread open, and was only
Speaker 1: wearing a pair of underwear. Mike and Josh both ran
Speaker 1: out of the house, Josh to the neighbors and Mike
Speaker 1: to get the hose. Around six thirty am, police and
Speaker 1: first responders arrived to the ghastly scene. Rita's body was
Speaker 1: burned from her pubic region to her head. Immediately, Mike
Speaker 1: and Josh were separated into different squad cars and take
Speaker 1: into the station for questioning. Detective Kurt Davis took Mike
Speaker 1: when he was transporting me from my home to the
Speaker 1: stars for me that morning. I asked him, is he's
Speaker 1: gonna be able to find out half of my mom?
Speaker 1: This is what do you mean we're happened your mom? Well,
Speaker 1: well what happened like if he a throw was cutted somewhere.
Speaker 1: You guys will be able to tell that. This conversation
Speaker 1: was later used against Mike in court, and they used
Speaker 1: that as an indication that I was concerned that they
Speaker 1: were going to find out but I did right instead
Speaker 1: of being a concern working your kid and just witness
Speaker 1: a horrible thing. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. A i G 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 we work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
Speaker 1: a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the A i G pro Bono Program provides free legal
Speaker 1: services and all or support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
Speaker 1: Mike essentially became the prime suspect within moments of this crime.
Speaker 1: This is making Crane. She's the co director of the
Speaker 1: Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a civil rights organization,
Speaker 1: and she thinks Mike immediately became a suspect because of
Speaker 1: presumptions around the circumstances. I mean, I think the basic
Speaker 1: promise probably was that he was the only family member
Speaker 1: home at the time, and in arson cases, that is
Speaker 1: the first person who's looked at who else was in
Speaker 1: the home, particularly if it's a family member who survived
Speaker 1: the fire. So he's auto already under the spotlight for
Speaker 1: that fact um but for their things quickly spiraled out
Speaker 1: of control because the police mischaracterized him. They saw this
Speaker 1: kid who was traumatized, shocked, and they misjudged all of
Speaker 1: his reactions, his behaviors as evidence of guilt, as evidence
Speaker 1: of a lack of remorse, as evidence of a cold
Speaker 1: blooded killer, rather than evidence of adolescent behavior, which research
Speaker 1: proves is common to all kids his age, and evidence
Speaker 1: of trauma. So after the police picked you up, they
Speaker 1: pretty quickly homed in on you and you were arrested
Speaker 1: very quickly. What was going through your head? You know
Speaker 1: when you're in this interrogations were very intense. There was
Speaker 1: on occasions there was multiple interrogators. There was a fire marshal,
Speaker 1: there was Eric Davis who was to be detective, and
Speaker 1: then also Jule officers who were supposed to be there
Speaker 1: to protect being Josh's rights were also asking in quests.
Speaker 1: They used the same fine question over and over and over.
Speaker 1: I relate the same set of facts over and over
Speaker 1: and over. So tell me, like, what were they what
Speaker 1: are they asking? They repeatedly they were asking what happened?
Speaker 1: Thank me through the day before that, the evening that morning,
Speaker 1: and it became it became a point where they were
Speaker 1: trying to convince me right that that I've done something,
Speaker 1: and I know that I didn't do anything. Mike says,
Speaker 1: every time he got to the part where he woke
Speaker 1: up and found his mom, they would tell him he
Speaker 1: was missing a big gap and asked him what happened
Speaker 1: between the time he went to sleep and when he
Speaker 1: woke up and found his mom. Tell it again, over
Speaker 1: and over. It went for hours, and my understanding, they
Speaker 1: treated Josh the same way, and they would they would
Speaker 1: tell me that he's telling on me, and they would
Speaker 1: tell him that I'm telling on him, tactics that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be used on juveniles, on children, for sure, but they
Speaker 1: completely ignored the fact that for statements never changed. And
Speaker 1: throughout all these interrogations, there's twenty six consistencies between our statements,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't happen of two kids that are lying
Speaker 1: about something. We're trying to hide something, right, And they
Speaker 1: completely ignored all of this information. Back at the crime scene,
Speaker 1: officer Tammy Bellfield had arrived and almost immediately was told
Speaker 1: by Sheriff Ron Skiles that a woman had intentionally been
Speaker 1: set on fire. Fire investigator Jim Holdman had concluded, without
Speaker 1: any testing that a fire accelerant had been poured on Rita.
Speaker 1: The autopsy also determined that Rita had died of carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide poisoning and sustained blunt force trauma to her head.
Speaker 1: Two baseball bats, of fire poker and a maglite flashlight
Speaker 1: were collected to see if one was the weapon used
Speaker 1: to hit Rita, but when tested later, these items returned
Speaker 1: no results. I mean, what was going through your head.
Speaker 1: We were like, this isn't real, Like what were you thinking?
Speaker 1: You're like a little boy? I was. I was, I
Speaker 1: was gonna pay. I was in a panic, but yet
Speaker 1: I was still aware that I didn't do what you're
Speaker 1: saying that I did. And I still do that even
Speaker 1: even though I was in a panic, even though they
Speaker 1: were threatened me with life in prison, and you know
Speaker 1: what happens to kids to go to prison. I never
Speaker 1: wavered from anything that I ever said. Because Mike was
Speaker 1: a juvenile at the time, a juvenile officer was present
Speaker 1: during this interrogation and his dad, Ed was called in
Speaker 1: to be with him since Mike couldn't be questioned alone.
Speaker 1: But Megan says Mike really did lack critical support. He
Speaker 1: did not have an attorney present. The people that were there,
Speaker 1: I guess to arguably protect his rights, were one a
Speaker 1: juvenile officer who was there for some of the interrogation,
Speaker 1: but it's the record makes clear that this juvenile officer
Speaker 1: acted essentially as another interrogator, not in any way as
Speaker 1: a protector of his rights, and Mike's dad, who was
Speaker 1: indisputably at that point, the other prime suspect in this case,
Speaker 1: So he had a clear conflict of interest in that
Speaker 1: interrogation room and was not an adequate protective figure for Mike,
Speaker 1: which seems obvious given Ed's nasty, violent divorce from Rita,
Speaker 1: but law enforcement didn't seem to consider this, nor did
Speaker 1: they consider how his presence might impact Mike, and in fact,
Speaker 1: Mike was uncomfortable answering questions with Ed in the room.
Speaker 1: When they were interrogating me, they asked me, who you know?
Speaker 1: Who do you think part of your mother? My father
Speaker 1: was like right beside me during these interrogations and her
Speaker 1: days asked me, do you one let me ask your
Speaker 1: father step out? I said yeah, And then at that
Speaker 1: point that's what he said, is your father responsible for
Speaker 1: having I said yes. He said did you see him?
Speaker 1: I said no? Said did you hear anything? I said no.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anyth I didn't see anything. But he's
Speaker 1: the only one that I know that would hate her
Speaker 1: that much to do that to her. And what I've
Speaker 1: seen was evil, it was hatred, but the cops didn't listen.
Speaker 1: Mike was interrogated for two days, and during that time
Speaker 1: he was also hooked up to a c v s A,
Speaker 1: a computer voice stress analysis test, which is different from
Speaker 1: a lie detector test. This test supposedly to text deception
Speaker 1: by measuring stress levels in the voice. Hooked to the
Speaker 1: microphone up to mind from shirt and put some on
Speaker 1: my finger, and they asked me. I think it was
Speaker 1: like five basic questions. Did you murder your mother? I
Speaker 1: said no. Do you know anybody I want to hurt
Speaker 1: you mother? I said no. Um, did you hear anybody?
Speaker 1: Did you hear anything? I said no, And I may
Speaker 1: have been one or two more I can't remember. But
Speaker 1: ultimately they told me that that's true, meaning that the
Speaker 1: test showed he was lying. And we can't corroborate whether
Speaker 1: Mike fails this stress test since we don't have those
Speaker 1: results ourselves. Not that it really matters, though, because these
Speaker 1: voice stress tests, which were frequently used by law enforcement
Speaker 1: during the nineties have since been determined to be wholly unreliable,
Speaker 1: and even if they were reliable, it would have been
Speaker 1: no surprise that Mike had failed. Because what we do
Speaker 1: know is that Mike was a fourteen year old boy
Speaker 1: distraught after finding his mom brutally murdered, that Mike's interrogations
Speaker 1: were not recorded, and that police officers did not properly
Speaker 1: look into Ed as a suspect. They think we can
Speaker 1: build a case against this kid. Ed was a savvier suspect,
Speaker 1: and he arguably had an alibi. They did some investigation
Speaker 1: into him, not much, but the investigation they did do
Speaker 1: had more hurdles than their case they were building against Mike,
Speaker 1: So I think they went with the easier target, the
Speaker 1: easier case to build. Ed supposedly had this alibi that
Speaker 1: he was at work um but there are no time
Speaker 1: cards from Ford Motor Company proving that was not held
Speaker 1: like accountable to be there at all times. And even
Speaker 1: if he left at the time that his shift supposedly ended,
Speaker 1: there still was time to make that drive to Hope
Speaker 1: Well and back, so his alibi was never rock solid.
Speaker 1: On December seven, Mike was arrested for the murder of
Speaker 1: his mother Rita police. They arrest him on his lack
Speaker 1: of emotion and suspicious reaction to his to his mother's death.
Speaker 1: When Mike was arrested, laboratory testing on the items collected
Speaker 1: the baseball, bats, flashlight, and poker had not yet returned results,
Speaker 1: and after the testing was ultimately completed, nothing pointed to
Speaker 1: Accelerant as the fire starter. And I woke up. It's gone.
Speaker 1: I lost my mother, I lost my sisters, I lost myself,
Speaker 1: like everything, everything's gone. So do have you guys ever
Speaker 1: thought about wrongful convictions before? Like? Was that something that
Speaker 1: never never, never even thought our never crossed our mind
Speaker 1: that something like that happened. No, never, what I have
Speaker 1: ever thought the wrongful convictions happened until until they really did,
Speaker 1: like arrest him and take him to jail and not
Speaker 1: let him out. Mike was sent to a juvenile detention
Speaker 1: facility to await trial. Three days after the murder, a
Speaker 1: hearing was held to determine whether to keep Mike detained,
Speaker 1: and despite the court concluding the case was thin and
Speaker 1: circumstantial at best, Mike remained in custody. And it felt
Speaker 1: like it felt like no one, It felt like the
Speaker 1: only person that would have helped me in that situation.
Speaker 1: It was my mother. She was almost with us. So
Speaker 1: with that, yeah, I mean I was. I felt completely
Speaker 1: along and completely isolated, completely vulnerable, and I don't know
Speaker 1: how to handle it. Exactly one month after his arrest,
Speaker 1: Mike attempted suicide. I was having I was having problems
Speaker 1: adjusting to it and handling it, and I had enough,
Speaker 1: I guess, and I tried. I tried to hang myself
Speaker 1: and myself Mike tied a sheet to the event and
Speaker 1: hung himself from it. Fortunately a guard walked by and
Speaker 1: saved his life. Melanie recalls how her little brother looked
Speaker 1: when he was arrested. Just looking at him, you could
Speaker 1: tell he could not inflict that kind of damn a
Speaker 1: john a person. He just was a small boy. He
Speaker 1: was about my size I am now because I used
Speaker 1: to wear his clothes, and I actually have a pair
Speaker 1: of his jeans from back then. I just put on
Speaker 1: the other day and they still fits. But by the
Speaker 1: time his trial started in January of two thousand two,
Speaker 1: Mike was eighteen years old, four years older, four inches taller.
Speaker 1: At thirty pounds heavier, he no longer looked like a
Speaker 1: little boy. The prosecutors were Richard Hicks, Assistant Attorney General
Speaker 1: of Jefferson City, Missouri, and John Rupp, prosecuting attorney for
Speaker 1: Washington County, Missouri. The state called seventeen witnesses, which is
Speaker 1: a lot, but they presented no real evidence. Only the
Speaker 1: alleged acceleran police claimed dogs had smelled on my shoes,
Speaker 1: but which remember, the lab never actually found. Before trial,
Speaker 1: the prosecution actually offered Mike a plea deal to confess
Speaker 1: fifteen years for manslaughter. He would have been out by
Speaker 1: Did you ever consider taking that? I never considered it.
Speaker 1: Do you wish you had taken it? Absolutely not. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna prett guilty somebody in especially especially if it
Speaker 1: denies my mother justice. All of us have a breaking
Speaker 1: point when subjected to these course of interrogation tactics, especially kids.
Speaker 1: But Mike was desperate to know what had happened to
Speaker 1: his mom, so he did withstand this coercion over days,
Speaker 1: and he never confessed. I would rather do this for
Speaker 1: her and ultimately win in the end and make the
Speaker 1: Sheriff's department and prosecutor's office prosecuted people that's responsible for
Speaker 1: what happened there. But even with the prosecution's weak evidence,
Speaker 1: Mike's defense was even weaker. They only called three witnesses,
Speaker 1: and they did not have an expert who could challenge
Speaker 1: the state's experts. The trial lasted three days, and after
Speaker 1: four hours of deliberation, on April nineteen two, Mike was
Speaker 1: convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 1: M During his first four years in prison, Mike kept
Speaker 1: in touch with his father, Ed, despite believing that he
Speaker 1: was the one responsible for his mother's murder. Do you
Speaker 1: think that your dad intentionally tried to frame you? That's
Speaker 1: a hard question. Um. Part of me, the part of
Speaker 1: me wants to say yes, right. Another part of me
Speaker 1: wants to think that he just got so lucky with
Speaker 1: the inconfidence of the of the Washington Gang Shairs per forman.
Speaker 1: But he just it just happened that way. It was
Speaker 1: well known that I've played with fire as a kid,
Speaker 1: and fire was used to ultimately murder my mother. Um,
Speaker 1: I can say that he never helped He never tried
Speaker 1: to help me. That's that's that he's He's never tried
Speaker 1: to help me. Yet, after Mike's direct appeal was denied,
Speaker 1: Ed told his son he was going to help him.
Speaker 1: In two thousand five, he told Mike that he hired
Speaker 1: an attorney to help with his next appeal. He kept
Speaker 1: reaching out to the attorney, never hearing back, never hearing back.
Speaker 1: Finally he got a friend to call the attorney's office,
Speaker 1: and that's when the attorney said, I haven't responded you
Speaker 1: because we don't have an attorney client relationship. I'm not
Speaker 1: your attorney any longer. And that's when Mike learned his
Speaker 1: father had lied to him. He'd never paid this attorney
Speaker 1: or even asked him if he would be willing to
Speaker 1: file this postconviction petition. And that's the last time Mike
Speaker 1: and his father have ever ever spoke. Um and his
Speaker 1: sisters have not spoken to their father since then either.
Speaker 1: This devastated Mike. And that was when my heavy drugs
Speaker 1: came in. When I found out I didn't have a
Speaker 1: longer and that you he has been He's been misleading
Speaker 1: me for at least a year and a half about
Speaker 1: having a lawyer, and once I found out and understood
Speaker 1: the significance of not having one and sent me into
Speaker 1: a drug induce life. Really, I mean, I left my cell.
Speaker 1: I didn't come back unless I had some heroin, Okay,
Speaker 1: wet something and that was my way of coping with it.
Speaker 1: As for Melanie, she thinks her dad never intended to
Speaker 1: help Mike from the beginning. Her feeling is that Ed
Speaker 1: likely framed Mike. Honestly, I think he tried to set
Speaker 1: Mike up to take the fall. I mean that sounds horrible,
Speaker 1: but honestly that is my that those are my thoughts.
Speaker 1: He didn't care about anyone else. He only cares about himself.
Speaker 1: He's like a psychopath. I mean like literally, it's I
Speaker 1: can't even believe that we came from that because we
Speaker 1: don't act anything like him. It's so bizarre. No on him.
Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise as me, right because of of what
Speaker 1: I've seen in the end. But how I threat my mom,
Speaker 1: how I dread it does it's something that I can
Speaker 1: honestly look at and say, you know what a business
Speaker 1: friend and it is what it is, right, But I
Speaker 1: don't need him, and Mike didn't. On his own, he
Speaker 1: was able to get clean from the drugs he had
Speaker 1: used to cope. He wounded up getting his g e
Speaker 1: D in prison and worked with shelter dogs to rehabilitate them.
Speaker 1: AH Dog Program. I love the dog program. The greatest
Speaker 1: consume accomplishment I feel like is that I was able
Speaker 1: to train canines for companions the kids that have autism right,
Speaker 1: and that is something that actually touches people on the street.
Speaker 1: It's just not an internal department crush the program, something
Speaker 1: that I can actually make a difference with. But Mike
Speaker 1: was still determined to prove his innocence. He wrote letters
Speaker 1: to every attorney and innocence project he could find, until
Speaker 1: one wrote back. I wrote the m I pad make
Speaker 1: page letters. I'm sure they still have it. I explained
Speaker 1: my whole story. I mailed it. Within a few months,
Speaker 1: Mike got a visit from Kim Blocker, a staff attorney
Speaker 1: for the m I P, which is the Midwest Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: Six law students from Missouri University and Kansas University accompanied him.
Speaker 1: He sat down in visible and they told me tells
Speaker 1: what happened. And I told him and changed my life.
Speaker 1: Had saved my life. The expressions that I've seen on
Speaker 1: those students faces and Kim's face when I was telling
Speaker 1: my story stuck with me. And I knew that they
Speaker 1: were going to investigate everything that I just said. I
Speaker 1: knew and everything that they were going to find. It's
Speaker 1: factually true to everything I just said, and from the
Speaker 1: from a day on until when I saved my life
Speaker 1: more ways than one. When the Midwest Innocence Project took
Speaker 1: Mike's case, they filed a new petition claiming Mike is
Speaker 1: innocent based on new evidence, including the fact the mic
Speaker 1: shoes did not actually have an accelerant on them. The
Speaker 1: material is substance on mike shoes, which were determined to
Speaker 1: be gasoline at trial, was actually an aromatic solvent that
Speaker 1: was part of the manufacturing process of these tennis shoes.
Speaker 1: So this material was in every pair of shoes that
Speaker 1: it were sold across the country, was not at all
Speaker 1: unique to Mike's pair of shoes um, but was the
Speaker 1: thing that was used to convict him and send him
Speaker 1: to prison for life. Magan says, the state even concedes
Speaker 1: that this evidence is false, yet they are still fighting
Speaker 1: his litigation and still fighting to keep him in prison.
Speaker 1: One of the detectives has even come forward with her
Speaker 1: own opinion ends on the case. Dammy Bellfield, one of
Speaker 1: the deputy sheriffs who investie this case, who shared and
Speaker 1: confirmed that like this, this was a mess. This was
Speaker 1: a police department that was weighing over its head. They
Speaker 1: did not have the experience the resources to handle this
Speaker 1: type of case or case of this magnitude, and they
Speaker 1: didn't know what they were doing, and to the extent
Speaker 1: they did, they did it wrong or made the wrong judgments.
Speaker 1: Despite the new evidence, all of Mike's appeals have been denied.
Speaker 1: On October, he filed another petition quote seeking a writ
Speaker 1: of habeas corpus vacating his conviction for second degree murder.
Speaker 1: Mike would have to wait months to find out if
Speaker 1: this one would also be denied, But then on February
Speaker 1: eighth of this year, Mike got a surprise. The parole
Speaker 1: board granted him an early release. A new lawn, Missouri
Speaker 1: sp allows certain incarsory a juveniles parole after fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So in January, Megan Crane and the rest of Mike's
Speaker 1: team applied for parole, and despite the difficulty of claiming
Speaker 1: innocence for parole, the board granted Mike's release. Now that
Speaker 1: Mike is finally getting out of prison, I asked him
Speaker 1: what he thinks of his suicide attempt. Do you think
Speaker 1: back on that? And you know, I think that you're
Speaker 1: glad that they found you. Yeah, because there's only there's
Speaker 1: only one explanation, and I can I can draw from
Speaker 1: everything that's ever happened to me, is that one, I'm
Speaker 1: strong enough and capable of handling everything that they throw
Speaker 1: at me. Well, I'm also strong enough and capable of
Speaker 1: using it for the better of society, right. M Mike
Speaker 1: nowt eight, walked out of prison on April two of
Speaker 1: this year. A few days after his release, we spoke again.
Speaker 1: Mike was at Melanie's house, surrounded by his sister's niece's
Speaker 1: nephews and of course, yeah we got puppy dogs, Blue
Speaker 1: Healer and um black Lab. Okay, so tell me how
Speaker 1: it's been being home. It's been awesome. I ain't got
Speaker 1: much sleep. I've been running u pure adrenaline. We went
Speaker 1: to the stock car races Saturday night. I met up
Speaker 1: with some family members. I ain't seeing it over two decades. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was awesome. So I think, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the more incredible things about you, Mike, and what happened
Speaker 1: to is that you were so young when you went
Speaker 1: to prison, that you really grew up inside prison. And
Speaker 1: what's it like to be an adult now outside it's
Speaker 1: walking into an alien world, right, because I've spent two
Speaker 1: thirds of my life incarcerated, so that's what I knew. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a culture shock. All the technology, the speed of everything. Um,
Speaker 1: opening the refrigerator and seeing all the food, all the choices.
Speaker 1: I went in the walmart and I was like, what, yeah, yeah, so,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just so, it's it's just I don't
Speaker 1: I don't have the proper verbs to describe it, but
Speaker 1: it's just it's just amazing. So what do you want
Speaker 1: people to know about what happened to you? And and
Speaker 1: really anything, it's an open ended question. You know what
Speaker 1: happened to me, It can happen to anybody. And there's
Speaker 1: there's countless more people that suffered how I suffered, and
Speaker 1: they need help. And I look forward to being a
Speaker 1: part of that, you know, for for the greatest country
Speaker 1: in the world. Right, Uh, it shouldn't be this hard
Speaker 1: when it's discovered that there's innocent people or an innocent
Speaker 1: person in prison, and the herculean hurdles that it takes
Speaker 1: to get people out and exonerated, even when it's actually
Speaker 1: proven that that evidence was used against the people. That's
Speaker 1: that's false from misleading or or if there's new discovered evidence,
Speaker 1: they don't want to hear it, they ignore it, and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's very disappointing, to say the least, that
Speaker 1: things like that happened. Mike plans to work with innocence
Speaker 1: projects and use his experience to inspire the next generation
Speaker 1: of law students to help change the judicial system. But
Speaker 1: before signing off, I had one last question for him.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about your mom a lot since you've
Speaker 1: been out? Yeah? Yeah, I think about her every day,
Speaker 1: you know, it's regardless of I was in there out here.
Speaker 1: That's something we we tell stories about her. What do
Speaker 1: you wish she could see right now? Oh she's smiling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's smiling. She knows, Uh, so she can finally rest right. UM.
Speaker 1: I always always felt that she wasn't at peace, um
Speaker 1: with what happened in the aftermath, what happened to her. Um.
Speaker 1: But there was a moment when I was in the
Speaker 1: parking lot and uh, there was two geese that flew
Speaker 1: over and honked right above me, and I just looked
Speaker 1: up and I said, Hi, Mom, And it was just instant, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was yeah, Yeah, I felt like that
Speaker 1: was her celebrating. If you'd like to help Mike get
Speaker 1: back on his feet, go to go fund me dot
Speaker 1: com and search for Michael Polly. If you or someone
Speaker 1: you know is having thoughts of suicide, help is available.
Speaker 1: Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at eight hundred
Speaker 1: eight to next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling
Speaker 1: Brian Parnell. But when they turned around and said to me, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have your DNA and we got your fingerprints at
Speaker 1: a prime. See you choked this guy from What's chest,
Speaker 1: I said, wait a minute, you got the wrong guy.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom Kevin Wortis,
Speaker 1: as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson,
Speaker 1: and story editor Sonja Paul. With additional production by Jeff Clyburne.
Speaker 1: The music in this production is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Ja Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Wrongful 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