Speaker 1: It was the day after Thanksgiving in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and Kim Hoover's Home daycare center in Columbus, Ohio was
Speaker 1: bustling that afternoon. She was caring for three children along
Speaker 1: with her thirteen year old son Bo. Around three o'clock,
Speaker 1: two more girls were dropped off by their father as
Speaker 1: he was on his way to work, two year old
Speaker 1: Dorica and seven month old Samasha. Kim had been caring
Speaker 1: for them for about three months. Samisha was asleep in
Speaker 1: her car seat, so Kim moved her to a crib
Speaker 1: and let her nap while she fed the other kids.
Speaker 1: After a couple of hours, she went to wake the baby.
Speaker 2: I took her snowsued off. I went to try to
Speaker 2: give her a bottle, and that's when I realized that
Speaker 2: she looked lethargic and that she really couldn't hold her
Speaker 2: head up.
Speaker 1: Alarmed, Kim quickly called nine one one and then administered CPR.
Speaker 1: When paramedics arrived, they couldn't revive Semasha. She was rushed
Speaker 1: to the hospital.
Speaker 2: We never did find out that night what happened to Summasias.
Speaker 2: And then December twentieth, I woke up, took my son
Speaker 2: to school, and then came home and then there was
Speaker 2: a knock on the door and Schwatt was there to
Speaker 2: arrest me. My name is Kim Hoover. I was in
Speaker 2: prison for nineteen years for wrongful conviction of telling a
Speaker 2: baby that was in my daycare.
Speaker 1: From love over good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today Kim Hoover. Kim Hoover was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three to a big, loving family. She grew up
Speaker 1: in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 2: My mother was Elizabeth Hoover. She went by Betty. My
Speaker 2: dad was Alfred Hoover, he went by Buck. I have
Speaker 2: two siblings, an older sister, Keina, and a younger brother, Todd.
Speaker 2: We had a great childhood. I remember every winter we
Speaker 2: would get our ice skate and Dad would take us
Speaker 2: around after it had rained and froze. The ground head
Speaker 2: froze or a pond head froze, and then we would
Speaker 2: go ice skating and we all looked forward to that.
Speaker 2: That was something that was fun.
Speaker 3: My name is Keina. I'm Kim Hoover's older sister.
Speaker 1: Tell me about growing up with Kim. Do you have
Speaker 1: any favorite memories of her?
Speaker 4: Typical sister stuff you know, we were twenty three months apart,
Speaker 4: so we were just a typical leave me alone teenager
Speaker 4: kind of thing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Mom was to stay at home mom. She took care
Speaker 2: of all of us. Dad worked for United Parcel Service
Speaker 2: for years.
Speaker 1: And then when Kim was around twelve or thirteen, her
Speaker 1: father had an accident at work. His backbone was crushed
Speaker 1: and he spent a year in traction at the hospital.
Speaker 1: His recuperation took several years more.
Speaker 2: We didn't have any income coming in, so Mom took
Speaker 2: in kids through a daycare that she had started at
Speaker 2: that time, and she ended up having for more than
Speaker 2: thirty five years. She never advertised. It was always word
Speaker 2: of mouth and family and friends. If it hadn't been
Speaker 2: for family and friends and then Mom getting her job
Speaker 2: with her daycare, that we probably would have lost our house.
Speaker 1: Kim and her siblings grew up in the daycare, and
Speaker 1: as she got into her teens, Kim enjoyed helping her
Speaker 1: mother out.
Speaker 2: When she wasn't able to she had a doctor's appointment
Speaker 2: or something like that. I took over watching her daycare kids.
Speaker 1: In her early twenties, Kim was working at Lenscrafter's as
Speaker 1: an apprentice optician, and one day her cousin invited her
Speaker 1: to come up north to Delaware, Ohio for a visit.
Speaker 1: There was someone she wanted Kim to meet.
Speaker 2: And when I went up there, I didn't actually meet
Speaker 2: the person she wanted me to meet. I met somebody else.
Speaker 2: And then we started dating, and about two years later
Speaker 2: we were married.
Speaker 1: Their son Bo was born in nineteen eighty eight, but
Speaker 1: by then, Kim says, the marriage had run its course.
Speaker 2: We were different people and had we dated longer, we
Speaker 2: would have realized that and not got married. But about
Speaker 2: two and a half years after we were married in
Speaker 2: eighty eight, we got a divorce and I raised my
Speaker 2: son all by myself. I had so custody.
Speaker 1: What was that like, being a single mother with a newborn.
Speaker 3: It was I had my mom.
Speaker 2: She was his daycare provider while I worked and then
Speaker 2: eventually went to school, and so kind of like the
Speaker 2: theme of our life is that family is always there
Speaker 2: for you no matter what.
Speaker 1: Well raising her son, Bow, Kim was also working and
Speaker 1: going to school.
Speaker 2: And I was accumulating debt and I wasn't really making
Speaker 2: a whole lot back then. So I went back to
Speaker 2: work and I had a series of different jobs, but
Speaker 2: I wanted to pay off my student loans, and then
Speaker 2: life got in the way and I never did go back.
Speaker 1: So when did you start doing the or open your
Speaker 1: own daycare center.
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure, because I just started watching kids on.
Speaker 2: Kids were always at my house, you know, There's just
Speaker 2: a thing where they would always be there. There was
Speaker 2: a little boy who lived near us, and he would
Speaker 2: always come over to my house and say he's locked
Speaker 2: out or he forgot his key or something to that effect.
Speaker 2: And then later on his mother had told me, she said,
Speaker 2: there's a key right outside. He wasn't locked out or anything.
Speaker 2: He just he didn't want to be alone, you know,
Speaker 2: And so I was more than happy to take him
Speaker 2: in and give him a snack.
Speaker 1: And you know, like her mother, Kim loved kids and
Speaker 1: was a natural caregiver.
Speaker 2: The kids thought of my house as a safe place
Speaker 2: to be, and I like that. I like knowing that
Speaker 2: they were safe. I liked knowing that they could trust me,
Speaker 2: and the families could trust me, And so it was
Speaker 2: somewhat of a natural progression when I started my own Actually,
Speaker 2: I went to college for and I went to Columbus
Speaker 2: State and took classes in early childhood development. So this
Speaker 2: was something that I planned on doing until I retired.
Speaker 2: You know, I love kids. I should probably have managed
Speaker 2: my business more as a business, but once they come
Speaker 2: into my house, they become part of my family.
Speaker 1: Over the years, Kim took care of around twenty children altogether.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, she had around half a
Speaker 1: dozen regular kids.
Speaker 2: I had two eight week old twin daughters, and I
Speaker 2: had their brother who was autistic. I had Samasha, her
Speaker 2: older sister, Dureka, and I had a seven year old
Speaker 2: boy named Euro. I had the twins in the morning
Speaker 2: through the afternoon, and then I would have Daureka and
Speaker 2: Samasha in the afternoon into the evening hours.
Speaker 1: Dareka was two years old and Samisia was seven months.
Speaker 1: Kim remembers that their mother, twenty two year old Akila Benson,
Speaker 1: first reached out to her in September of two thousand
Speaker 1: and two.
Speaker 2: She came to my home and we interviewed, We talked,
Speaker 2: and everything was fine, and she said right then and
Speaker 2: there that she wanted me to be her daycare provider.
Speaker 2: So a few days later she's supposed to be at
Speaker 2: my house. I think around nine but she showed up
Speaker 2: around like eight. I was still in the shower, so
Speaker 2: I came running downstairs and she had pushed a double
Speaker 2: baby stroller a good two three miles in major traffic
Speaker 2: to my house. She had assumed that her husband was
Speaker 2: going to give her the only working car that they had,
Speaker 2: beings that she had to travel so far to come
Speaker 2: to my house, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: So Kim bundled the young mother and her kids into
Speaker 1: her own car and drove Akila to work that morning.
Speaker 2: I told her then, I said, for about the next
Speaker 2: two weeks, you know, so you can get your car
Speaker 2: pick you get your first paycheck, and get your car PIX.
Speaker 2: I'll go ahead and give you rides.
Speaker 1: After she dropped Aquila off at work, Kim drove the
Speaker 1: girls back to her house.
Speaker 2: That's when I took off samacious coat, and that's when
Speaker 2: I realized that she had a green, runny nose, and
Speaker 2: I assumed it was an infection. So when I went
Speaker 2: to pick up the mother from work that day and
Speaker 2: take them all home, I asked her about that, and
Speaker 2: she said she was giving her medication for it. But
Speaker 2: she kind of went into this long spiel about she's
Speaker 2: looking for a new doctor and all of that. So
Speaker 2: I left it at that.
Speaker 1: But as the weeks went by, Samisha's running nose didn't
Speaker 1: get any better.
Speaker 2: In fact, it kept getting worse. And in the about
Speaker 2: two and a half months that I took care of them,
Speaker 2: I asked her on numerous occasions, and each time it
Speaker 2: was a different excuse. She switched doctors, and then it
Speaker 2: came down to that she's giving Samesha her medication before
Speaker 2: she brings her. She doesn't understand why she's not getting
Speaker 2: any better.
Speaker 1: Years later, Kim learned through hospital paperwork that Akila had
Speaker 1: never actually taken Semisha to the doctor.
Speaker 2: She had lied to me about that, which to this day,
Speaker 2: I still don't understand because I'm someone that's trying to
Speaker 2: help her take care of her daughter, and why would
Speaker 2: you lie to me? I don't understand that part even
Speaker 2: today as a mother, as a parent, I don't get that.
Speaker 2: Why do you let your child suffer? That's something that
Speaker 2: I still think about quite often, and how I could
Speaker 2: have I've realized she wasn't getting any better. Had the
Speaker 2: mother said I haven't taken her, I would have driven
Speaker 2: her over to my son's pediatrician. And now there was
Speaker 2: no reason for that to go untreated, and there.
Speaker 1: Were other unusual physical issues that Kim had observed in Sumasha.
Speaker 2: She was twenty pounds at nine months. She was very
Speaker 2: top heavy, her body was not normal, her head was massive,
Speaker 2: her chest was massive, but her legs were still very
Speaker 2: much premature, which she was a premature baby. Her belly
Speaker 2: was so big that she could never get her legs
Speaker 2: up under her to crawl to lose some of that weight.
Speaker 1: Kim also sensed that Akila was having problems with her
Speaker 1: husband window It started that first day when Kim was
Speaker 1: giving her a ride to work.
Speaker 2: She started opening up then about things that were going on.
Speaker 2: I said to her, how long is it going to
Speaker 2: take for you to get your car fixed? And she said, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know. He doesn't really want me to get
Speaker 2: it fixed, and I said, well why not, and then
Speaker 2: she said, well, he doesn't want me working. So I
Speaker 2: started attributing a lot of problems to that. But then
Speaker 2: as time went on, she started telling me about the
Speaker 2: fact that when they were in New York, he had
Speaker 2: gone to jail for supposedly hurting Dureka. And then I
Speaker 2: started seeing being a pattern emerging of domestic violence.
Speaker 1: Over time, Kim began to notice signs that Akila might
Speaker 1: be planning to leave Window. One day, Akila told her
Speaker 1: she'd found a new apartment and asked Kim to drive
Speaker 1: her there to sign the lease.
Speaker 2: When I took her to sign the lease on the apartment,
Speaker 2: she kept asking me, please don't tell him, Please don't
Speaker 2: tell him where it is. And even at the hospital,
Speaker 2: if you go back and look at the hospital paperwork,
Speaker 2: it says do not give out new address to father.
Speaker 1: Kim kept her word. She didn't tell Window about the apartment.
Speaker 2: Within that last month, he was always asking about Akila's plans,
Speaker 2: what is she planning on doing, Where's she going? And
Speaker 2: I think he caught win that she was working to
Speaker 2: get away from him.
Speaker 1: One week in November, Akila didn't bring the girls to Kim's.
Speaker 1: Kim didn't see them until the day after Thanksgiving. That afternoon,
Speaker 1: she was taking care of the eight week old twin
Speaker 1: girls and their brother, along with her son Bo, who
Speaker 1: was thirteen. Around three o'clock, Window brought Dorika and Semisha over.
Speaker 2: I went over and picked up Semisha, took her out
Speaker 2: of that chair. I left her coat on her because
Speaker 2: I had the front door open, but I put her
Speaker 2: in a baby bed beside me on the couch, and
Speaker 2: everything seemed normal at that time.
Speaker 1: A couple hours later, after the other children were picked
Speaker 1: up by their mother, Kim turned her attention to feeding Semasha.
Speaker 2: I took her snowsuit off, I went to try to
Speaker 2: give her a bottle, and that's when I realized that
Speaker 2: she looked lethargic and that she really couldn't hold her
Speaker 2: head up. So at that point in time, I'm thinking
Speaker 2: that the green running nose and her not really wanting
Speaker 2: to eat had turned into something worse like pneumonia. And
Speaker 2: at that point in time, I wasn't calling the parents.
Speaker 2: Called nine to one on.
Speaker 1: The operator told Kim to try doing CPR and Samsha,
Speaker 1: but she didn't revive. When the paramedics arrived, they took
Speaker 1: the baby straight to Columbus Children's Hospital. Meanwhile, police were
Speaker 1: questioning Kim about Semisha's parents.
Speaker 2: They kept asking about Window. They kept asking had I
Speaker 2: met him, and I said, yeah, you know, I wasn't
Speaker 2: really thrilled with him and I didn't want to deal
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 1: The police told her to call the baby's mother to
Speaker 1: meet them there.
Speaker 2: Well, I was her ride, So I said, I have
Speaker 2: to go get her. She doesn't have a way, and
Speaker 2: so I went to pick her up, and her and
Speaker 2: my son and Dareka all drove in the car to
Speaker 2: the hospital.
Speaker 1: Kim and the hospital social worker tried to get Aquila
Speaker 1: to talk to the detectives about what had been going
Speaker 1: on with Window.
Speaker 2: And she wouldn't do it. She laid on the couch
Speaker 2: with her coat over her head and kept saying she
Speaker 2: wanted to go home. She hadn't been in her daughter's room,
Speaker 2: she hadn't seen her daughter. I ended up calling Aquila's mother.
Speaker 2: We ended up taking Aquila home. For whatever reason, she
Speaker 2: wouldn't stay at the hospital.
Speaker 1: Kim told the detectives what she'd observed about Samisha's health
Speaker 1: over the past two months, but they wanted to know more.
Speaker 2: They asked me more about Akila and windows relationship, and
Speaker 2: I told him what I knew at the time. You
Speaker 2: know that she was trying to get away from him
Speaker 2: and all of that, And at that point in time,
Speaker 2: he said, well, we've already got your statements. We need
Speaker 2: to deal with the parents, So you guys you're free
Speaker 2: to go. You know, thank you for bringing her. We
Speaker 2: never did find out that night what happened to Samasha's
Speaker 2: I just kept watching the news like everybody else to
Speaker 2: see what was going on. And then December twentieth, I
Speaker 2: woke up, took my son to school, took it to
Speaker 2: his bus stop, and then came home and then there
Speaker 2: was a knock on the door and Schwat was there
Speaker 2: to arrest me.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 5: From minute one, Kim has said she did not commit
Speaker 5: this crime.
Speaker 1: This is Joanna Sanchez, director of the Wrongful Conviction Project
Speaker 1: at the Ohio Public Defender's Office.
Speaker 5: Kim has always said this child collapsed in my care
Speaker 5: and unfortunately we weren't able to save her, but that
Speaker 5: she did not harm this child.
Speaker 1: At the hospital, Semisha had been treated by doctor Ellen McManus.
Speaker 1: A CT scan showed that the baby had a skull
Speaker 1: fracture and blood across the brain. Ultimately, doctor McManus diagnosed
Speaker 1: Semasha with SBS shaken Baby syndrome.
Speaker 5: Twenty years ago, the understanding of shaken baby syndrome and
Speaker 5: abusive head trauma was very different than what it is today. Particularly,
Speaker 5: the doctors would look for three things which were retinal hemorrhaging,
Speaker 5: hemorrhage on the brain, and brain swelling. And so when
Speaker 5: they saw those three things, the presumption was a child
Speaker 5: was a victim of shaken baby syndrome. As soon as
Speaker 5: the child would shake in within about fifteen minutes, the
Speaker 5: belief was that they would go into distress. And what
Speaker 5: that meant and the criminal context is really the last
Speaker 5: adult with the child was always the suspect and always
Speaker 5: the person who was blamed for what happened to the child.
Speaker 5: And that's exactly what happened in Kim's case.
Speaker 1: When the officers arrived at Kim's house to arrest her,
Speaker 1: she was in complete shock.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even talk, and then they handcuffed me in
Speaker 2: the back and they drove me to the I guess
Speaker 2: downtown to the Sheriff's office or somewhere. I was trying
Speaker 2: to wrap my brain around being arrested.
Speaker 4: I mean the phone call, you know, we got the
Speaker 4: phone call and then everything just like went off the rails.
Speaker 1: Here's Kim's sister, Keina again.
Speaker 4: I don't even know how to explain it. I mean,
Speaker 4: we just didn't believe it. There's just no way that
Speaker 4: it was true. There's no possible way that it happened.
Speaker 4: And heard her daycare.
Speaker 3: Like she didn't do it. Yeah, they got their facts wrong.
Speaker 2: There were all kinds of news photographers and all that.
Speaker 2: They're taking pictures and yelling things, you know, trying to
Speaker 2: get me to talk to them. And then they ushered
Speaker 2: me into the jail and your strip searched your pictures,
Speaker 2: taken your fingerprints, all of that stuff. And then you're
Speaker 2: stuck in a room with other people that have been arrested,
Speaker 2: and time just gets away from you then because there
Speaker 2: isn't a clock that you can look at. I don't
Speaker 2: remember if it was daytime or nighttime or whatever, but
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time there.
Speaker 1: On December thirtieth, two thousand and two, Kim was indicted
Speaker 1: for Samasha's murder. Kim went to trial in Franklin County
Speaker 1: Court in November of two thousand and three, and as always,
Speaker 1: her family was there to support her.
Speaker 4: I remember seeing her being brought out in handcuffs, and
Speaker 4: that was that was the hardest thing.
Speaker 3: Anybody could see. You know, your sister would be like that.
Speaker 3: You know she I could tell she was upset. I
Speaker 3: could tell she she was angry.
Speaker 4: The whole trial was it was like a blur now
Speaker 4: that you look back on it, because you know, I don't.
Speaker 3: Want to remember the bad stuff.
Speaker 4: I don't want to remember any of the bad stuff,
Speaker 4: but you know, you got to, you gotta think about
Speaker 4: the past.
Speaker 5: Kim's trial was very heavily medical based, so it was
Speaker 5: really medical testimony on both sides.
Speaker 1: The prosecution's primary witnesses were doctor McManus, the doctor who
Speaker 1: had treated Samasha, and doctor Charles Johnson, head of the
Speaker 1: child abuse team at Children's Hospital.
Speaker 5: They both testified that the child had these three symptoms
Speaker 5: and that that meant it had to be shaken baby syndrome.
Speaker 5: They also called a deputy coroner, doctor Patrick Fardell, to
Speaker 5: testify at trial, and he provided similar test so he
Speaker 5: said he performed the autopsy at that time. He said
Speaker 5: he hadn't noticed that the child had any pre existing
Speaker 5: injuries and that he believed that this was shaking baby syndrome.
Speaker 2: It was very hard to listen to At times. I
Speaker 2: felt like I had to zone out because It was
Speaker 2: too much for me for anyone to think that I
Speaker 2: could hurt anyone. I've never heard anyone in my life,
Speaker 2: and for someone to make the accusation that I could
Speaker 2: hurt a child, it takes away from who you are.
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine what she's going through. You know,
Speaker 3: you're trying to think, how is she going through this,
Speaker 3: What's what's in her mind?
Speaker 4: She would look over at us and we would smile
Speaker 4: and you know, let her know.
Speaker 3: I guess just letting her know that we were there
Speaker 3: helped her out a lot, you know, But there wasn't
Speaker 3: nothing you could do. I mean, it was weird. Like
Speaker 3: I said, I've never really something you see on TV,
Speaker 3: but worse, you know.
Speaker 2: I assumed that my attorney would be there to make
Speaker 2: sure that things were put right, that the evidence would
Speaker 2: come out, but that really didn't happen. None of their
Speaker 2: hospital paperwork, their reports, their findings, anything were ever brought up.
Speaker 2: Nobody could understand that we had expected that to be
Speaker 2: put into trial and it wasn't, and why it wasn't
Speaker 2: refuted by my own attorney. And that's one thing that
Speaker 2: I think needs to truly be looked at, not just
Speaker 2: in my case. But when we're talking about how people
Speaker 2: get wrongfully convicted, if you don't have the true evidence
Speaker 2: in front of you, how do you know what is
Speaker 2: being said by people on the stand is actually true.
Speaker 5: Kim's defense was that she hadn't harmed this child, that
Speaker 5: this child potentially had been harmed, but it did not
Speaker 5: happen in Kim's care, And so she had her own
Speaker 5: expert who testified by deposition, and what he said was
Speaker 5: that he did believe it was shaken baby syndrome, but
Speaker 5: that the injuries may have occurred hours earlier. A critical
Speaker 5: component of that defense was that the child's parents had
Speaker 5: a history of domestic violence, and so there was evidence
Speaker 5: put forth about that history at Kim's trial. So there
Speaker 5: was police reports documenting a number of calls out to
Speaker 5: the family's house, including incidents where each parent had harmed
Speaker 5: the other, but also an incident or two where the
Speaker 5: children had been harmed. So, for example, one was a
Speaker 5: police report that Samasha's older sister had been shaken, and
Speaker 5: so we knew that there was this history of police
Speaker 5: activity at the home. But in between the family, you know,
Speaker 5: I think as far as the defense, the father was
Speaker 5: the alternate suspect as far as the prosecution, though, they
Speaker 5: had this medical evidence that they believed said that the
Speaker 5: child would have gone into distress, you know, fifteen twenty
Speaker 5: minutes after she was injured, and so as far as
Speaker 5: they were concerned, he was completely eliminated as a suspect
Speaker 5: at that point because of that sort of narrow understanding
Speaker 5: of the timing of these injuries, which now we know
Speaker 5: is inaccurate.
Speaker 1: Kim made the decision to testify on her own behalf.
Speaker 1: She says she had nothing to hide.
Speaker 2: I thought when I testified that I would be able
Speaker 2: to bring out the truth. I thought that I would
Speaker 2: be able to explain some things that didn't make sense
Speaker 2: or that were wrong. Trying to explain that I didn't
Speaker 2: hurt a child in front of people that don't know
Speaker 2: you. You have to, really, they're holding your fate in your hands.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, it's hard to look back and
Speaker 5: see what was a jury thinking when they reached a verdict.
Speaker 5: But I think, you know, what was so critical in
Speaker 5: this case was that they were hearing from doctors who
Speaker 5: essentially told them this couldn't be any other way.
Speaker 2: I can't really fault the jury because the jury did
Speaker 2: not hear the full truth of the matter. They only
Speaker 2: heard basically one side, since my attorney really did not
Speaker 2: or was not prepared or did not understand the medical
Speaker 2: issues enough to refute them.
Speaker 1: On November seventh, two thousand and three, Kim was convicted
Speaker 1: of child endangerment, felonious assault, involuntary manslaughter, and murder. She
Speaker 1: was sentenced to fifteen years to life.
Speaker 2: My whole entire family looked after me, took care of me,
Speaker 2: and after I was arrested, they were the ones that
Speaker 2: keep up the fight for me because once I was
Speaker 2: in prison, I didn't have the resources to take on
Speaker 2: my case as much as I wanted to, so they
Speaker 2: did a lot of the difficult legwork of looking up
Speaker 2: stuff for me and helping gather information that I didn't
Speaker 2: have at that time.
Speaker 3: We were always going up there to see her. We
Speaker 3: had to find a way to do it.
Speaker 4: It's forty five minutes away from here, at least with
Speaker 4: no traffic, so we would try to make it one
Speaker 4: I think there was a limit to once a month
Speaker 4: or twice a month, but we would get up there
Speaker 4: as much as we could. The whole place just made
Speaker 4: you feel at uneasy, like I don't know hard leaving
Speaker 4: her there too. I think the hardest part when you
Speaker 4: see her is walking out of it. You walk in,
Speaker 4: you know, you're grateful to see her, You're grateful to
Speaker 4: have the time, You're grateful to spend the moments with her.
Speaker 4: Of but it's I think the hardest part is where you
Speaker 4: every single time walking out of there and saying goodbye,
Speaker 4: you know, leaving her behind and not wanting to take
Speaker 4: her with you.
Speaker 1: And what made it worse for Kim was that their
Speaker 1: mother was in very poor health.
Speaker 2: She had severe heart problems and she had a heart
Speaker 2: attack when the verdict came down in the courtroom, so
Speaker 2: they had to take her from the courthouse to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Sadly, Kim's mother died while she was in prison.
Speaker 2: My father died in two thousand and my mother passed
Speaker 2: away about seven years ago. She held on as long
Speaker 2: as she could, but she didn't see me get out
Speaker 2: of prison.
Speaker 1: What was that like to have your mom die before
Speaker 1: you were fully exonerated.
Speaker 2: It was hard, It was really really hard. But in
Speaker 2: the phone calls home, I could tell in her voice
Speaker 2: that she was fading, And like I said, she hung
Speaker 2: on for years because she knew I was innocent. She knew.
Speaker 2: She actually kept telling me that I'll see you again
Speaker 2: outside of prison. I will, but she just could not
Speaker 2: hold on long enough to see me get out of prison.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't allowed to go to her funeral because
Speaker 2: I was a lifer and the crime that I had,
Speaker 2: the prison would not take me to her funeral.
Speaker 1: Kim's first appeal in two thousand and four was denied,
Speaker 1: but with her family support, she continued to fight for
Speaker 1: her innocence, and then in twenty ten, Kim wrote to
Speaker 1: the newly formed Wrongful Conviction Project at the Ohio Public
Speaker 1: Defender's Office.
Speaker 5: I think it was twenty page letter laying out everything
Speaker 5: that happened, and we were immediately interested in her case
Speaker 5: because it was really this critical time where we were
Speaker 5: seeing shaken baby syndrome exonerations across the country. The literature
Speaker 5: was increasing, and we really knew that there were some
Speaker 5: problems with the way this was diagnosed back in two
Speaker 5: thousand and three and before. What we know now and
Speaker 5: what was sort of starting to be discovered at that time,
Speaker 5: is that these symptoms that doctors used to identify shake
Speaker 5: and baby syndrome or abusive head trauma could really be
Speaker 5: caused by a number of things including birth trauma, infection, diseases, shortfalls,
Speaker 5: and so we immediately started looking at Kim's case from
Speaker 5: that medical standpoint and our investigation. The really tricky thing
Speaker 5: in Kim's case is that for years and years we
Speaker 5: did not have access to the medical records in this case.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of strange. It is a medical case,
Speaker 5: but not a single medical record was admitted as an
Speaker 5: exhibit at Kim's trial. We tried to get her medical
Speaker 5: records from her trial attorney, but he misplaced his file.
Speaker 5: We tried to get him from the child's mother, from
Speaker 5: the prosecutors. We filed emotion to get the records and
Speaker 5: we were unable to get them.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, Joanna was able to get the tissue slides from
Speaker 1: Samisha's autopsy.
Speaker 5: Doctor Janisophovin, who is a forensic pediatric pathologist. She was
Speaker 5: able to look at those slides and say, this child
Speaker 5: had an old brain injury, which was huge in this case. Wow,
Speaker 5: that was something that wasn't ever presented at trial. It
Speaker 5: wasn't known that this child had actually suffered a brain
Speaker 5: injury weeks or months prior, and that that's ultimately what
Speaker 5: progressed to cause her to go into distress and to
Speaker 5: cause her death, that it was nothing that happened in
Speaker 5: Kim's care.
Speaker 1: Armed with that information, the team went back to doctor Fardel,
Speaker 1: the coroner who had performed Samisha's autopsy, and asked him
Speaker 1: to review his diagnosis.
Speaker 5: He was retired at the time, and you know, it
Speaker 5: took a while for him to get access to a
Speaker 5: microscope to be able to do that. But ultimately he
Speaker 5: also looked at the slides and he applied these special
Speaker 5: iron stains which he had not applied at the time
Speaker 5: of the autopsy, and he reached the same conclusion that
Speaker 5: there was an old head injury that rebled and that
Speaker 5: he had missed before. We also got a radiologist to
Speaker 5: look at the records, you know, from that standpoint, same conclusion.
Speaker 5: So in June twenty twenty one, we filed emotion asking
Speaker 5: for a new trial for Kim, and ultimately, after looking
Speaker 5: at it and looking at all the medical evidence and
Speaker 5: the expert opinions, and I believe consulting with their own expert,
Speaker 5: the prosecutor's office agreed with us, and so in October
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one, they called us up and they said,
Speaker 5: we're ready to dismiss all the charges. The judge agreed,
Speaker 5: and Kim was released.
Speaker 2: I kind of knew that things were happening, that the
Speaker 2: prosecutor's office wasn't going to fight it, but I felt
Speaker 2: that the judge would say, give me weeks months, you know,
Speaker 2: to look this over. I did not realize that I
Speaker 2: was actually he was actually going to sign paperwork that
Speaker 2: day to release me.
Speaker 3: I got the phone call at work. I had to
Speaker 3: go into a room, close the door, and I just
Speaker 3: cried like I was. It was one of those joy moments,
Speaker 3: but your sad moments. I mean, you're crying, you're happy.
Speaker 3: Then you want to know when, why?
Speaker 2: How?
Speaker 3: Where? When can I get? Can I leave right now
Speaker 3: to go get her?
Speaker 2: I was going about my day to day life in prison,
Speaker 2: and the warden's assistant came to me and said, did
Speaker 2: you know you're leaving prison now? And I'm like no,
Speaker 2: I wasn't packed, I wasn't ready. It was later on
Speaker 2: that afternoon that I walked out of person. They were
Speaker 2: all out in the parking lot waiting on me.
Speaker 3: It was a joyous, joyous time. Joanna pulled up.
Speaker 4: Later, my husband pulled up later, and then all the
Speaker 4: cousins came in, and it was like a hurry up
Speaker 4: and wait, another hurry.
Speaker 3: Up and wait situation. We gotta get there, we gotta
Speaker 3: get there, and then we got.
Speaker 4: To wait, wait, wait, wait, and then we saw her
Speaker 4: come out, finally, carrying her whole life in a plastic bag.
Speaker 4: Twenty years of her whole life like in one plastic bag.
Speaker 4: It was heart wrenching, heart wrenching.
Speaker 2: It was overwhelming, it really was. My legs kind of
Speaker 2: gave out on me. I couldn't really walk. They ran
Speaker 2: up to me. I had just kind of like stood there,
Speaker 2: and I kept thinking that I was going to be
Speaker 2: pulled back in, you know, pulled right back into the prison.
Speaker 1: Keina and her husband a room waiting for Kim at
Speaker 1: home in Westerville, and she moved right in and started
Speaker 1: to rebuild her life. While in prison, Kim had earned
Speaker 1: a liberal arts degree and she was working on a
Speaker 1: business degree when she was released.
Speaker 2: I do want to go back and finish my degree,
Speaker 2: whether I continue in that vein or not, it would
Speaker 2: be helpful no matter what type of job that you do,
Speaker 2: to have a business background.
Speaker 1: Right now, Kim is taking things slowly as she readjusts
Speaker 1: to life outside. She says she sometimes can't believe she
Speaker 1: was actually incarcerated for all that time.
Speaker 2: I did not realize until weeks later when I started
Speaker 2: trying to remember my life in prison. I couldn't remember
Speaker 2: my life in prison. It's like the further I got
Speaker 2: away from prison, all of my memories were being pulled
Speaker 2: and left in prison because I had to start this
Speaker 2: new life here. I went back to prison a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago. I went back to see a friend
Speaker 2: that's there, and it took me a while to get
Speaker 2: out of the car, and then I walked through that
Speaker 2: very same gravel parking lot that I walked out of
Speaker 2: the prison. I was walking back into the prison, and
Speaker 2: it just seems like it's a different life. It's like
Speaker 2: like I maybe saw it in a movie. You know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't my life. But then there are other times
Speaker 2: like yeah, I remember, I remember going through that door.
Speaker 2: I remember what's on the other side of that door.
Speaker 1: And then she says, it all comes flooding back.
Speaker 2: I'll be out walking my sister's dogs, or i will
Speaker 2: be somewhere and then I'll realize it's four fifteen and
Speaker 2: I might have a panic attack because I'm not on
Speaker 2: my bed at four o'clock for four o'clock count in prison.
Speaker 2: You know those memories. It's like I'm back in prison,
Speaker 2: and that happens quite a bit. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to explain that. It's something that if you have to
Speaker 2: live it to understand it, and it's not something that
Speaker 2: I tell a lot of people. I just I have
Speaker 2: to realize that I'm here.
Speaker 5: I'm not there.
Speaker 2: I'm here now.
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 the episode description to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producer Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
Speaker 1: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one