Speaker 1: A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care. For Amelia Bird, her
Speaker 1: world never felt safe from a young age. She was mentally, physically,
Speaker 1: and sexually abused by family members. She tried to get
Speaker 1: help from anyone she could. I went to my school
Speaker 1: counselor and begged them to call DFS, call whoever to
Speaker 1: come get me, because I could not live in that
Speaker 1: house any longer. The counselor referred her to a mental
Speaker 1: health facility. I told them I was suicidal, that I
Speaker 1: would die before I ever went back in that house.
Speaker 1: I can't do it no more. When adults in Amelia's
Speaker 1: life continued to fail her, she turned to drugs, alcohol,
Speaker 1: and older men for comfort. But these avid news would
Speaker 1: lead not to escape, but to her biggest downfall. I
Speaker 1: remember waking up thing and then it was stormy, really bad,
Speaker 1: not thinking you've seen, like actually seeing the lightning. My
Speaker 1: window was open so I could hear the rain hit
Speaker 1: in the ten roof. And then I remember going to
Speaker 1: the bathroom and that's when I see blood and I
Speaker 1: heard the words, I can't believe you shot me. My
Speaker 1: name is Amelia Bird. I have been a prison than
Speaker 1: January thirteen, two thousand and six, and I am innocent
Speaker 1: from lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today. Amelia Bird. Amelia Bird was born on April nineteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, to William and Christina Bird in Summersville, Missouri.
Speaker 1: Amelia was the baby in the family. Her brother, Justin,
Speaker 1: is five years older. I grew up on a farm fish.
Speaker 1: We did have horses there at the inn. We were
Speaker 1: getting cattle and stuff, and life both in and out
Speaker 1: of school kept Amelia busy. I worked a school program
Speaker 1: and worked until sometimes seven eight o'clock at night training horses,
Speaker 1: and I loved it. I loved working with horses. At first,
Speaker 1: Amelia was pretty close with her dad. I thought like
Speaker 1: he was the best guy in the world, like I was.
Speaker 1: Daddy's a little girl. From the outside looking it, it
Speaker 1: was like picture perfect. Just like everything, every home has
Speaker 1: its secret, and the secrets in the Bird home were
Speaker 1: dark ones. I always thought that, you know, my mom
Speaker 1: was cheating on my dad, because that's what I would
Speaker 1: overhear the adults things. But as she got older, Amelia
Speaker 1: started realizing her father was the problem. One day, she
Speaker 1: found her mom cowering in fear from her dad. I
Speaker 1: don't really even know what happened. It just remember it
Speaker 1: was on Mother's Day when he had my mom trapped
Speaker 1: against the wall, down the floor, and the whole bedroom
Speaker 1: was destroyed towards pieces, and my grandmother had to come,
Speaker 1: my aunt had to come. And that's like my eyes
Speaker 1: started seeing that my mom wasn't necessarily the bad person,
Speaker 1: that it was more my dad. My father has a
Speaker 1: temper on him. He does not know when to stop
Speaker 1: when he gets angry, whether he verbally or physically abuses.
Speaker 1: You can want to see it like in his eyes changing,
Speaker 1: and Amelia's mother was not the only target of his rage.
Speaker 1: One time, my mom had told me to do something.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it right away, so he gave me
Speaker 1: a whapon and it started outside, then went inside and
Speaker 1: he continued to the point like I was black and
Speaker 1: blue from my lower back almost to the back of
Speaker 1: my knees. Amelia started to notice that her mom never
Speaker 1: stood up for her or for herself. My mom was
Speaker 1: very like quiet and meet and no matter what happened
Speaker 1: to her, like she would just take it and keep going.
Speaker 1: I knew she was scared of him because she had
Speaker 1: left him twice the time Mother's Day and then another
Speaker 1: time she had left him again, and we actually moved
Speaker 1: into a whole other house, took the horses, everything like
Speaker 1: we packed up and everything. But her mom always went
Speaker 1: back and in comparison to how they treated her, Amelia's
Speaker 1: parents often spoiled and favored her brother justin anything he
Speaker 1: said was right, something would happen and they'd always be like,
Speaker 1: why can't you be like your brother? Why do you
Speaker 1: have to misbehave so much? Why can't you're a great
Speaker 1: to be better? It was like one thing on top
Speaker 1: of another, and they always compared me to him. This
Speaker 1: was painful enough for Amelia, but worse than that, she says,
Speaker 1: was that her brother took advantage of her. My brother
Speaker 1: had sexually abused me, and I knew no matter what
Speaker 1: was said, they would always take his side over mine
Speaker 1: and tell me that I'm just making it up to
Speaker 1: get attention. Amelia says her cousin sexually abused her too.
Speaker 1: By the time she was ten, To deal with the
Speaker 1: emotional and physical pain of the ongoing abuse, Amelia began
Speaker 1: to self medicate. The first thing that I'd gotten introduced
Speaker 1: to was just filled and they were like yellow jackets,
Speaker 1: and like, weren't there stuff uppers to try to keep
Speaker 1: me awake? Me because I had a whole fear and
Speaker 1: phobia of going to sleep because that's when it seems
Speaker 1: that everything bad always happened. So like I didn't like
Speaker 1: to go to sleep. If I did, I wanted somebody there,
Speaker 1: whether it was my dog Fred or whether it was
Speaker 1: somebody else like one of my exis. The pills soon
Speaker 1: led to alcohol, and that was that I don't even
Speaker 1: remember who. It was at a friend's house that she
Speaker 1: told me. She was like, this will help, and we
Speaker 1: started drinking and it started off with just like sour
Speaker 1: apple Tucker say. It led to vodka and hard liquor,
Speaker 1: and then one time she had moonshine. Then I started
Speaker 1: hanging out with this other girl and we partied all
Speaker 1: the time. She introduced me to we mushrooms and more pills.
Speaker 1: I can tell you what all of those were, because
Speaker 1: we would put them all in a bowl and just
Speaker 1: grab them and take them and take a shot. I
Speaker 1: felt so much shame. I felt like it was my
Speaker 1: fault for a very long time over it, because I
Speaker 1: didn't understand why it happened. So Amelia began looking for
Speaker 1: a way out for herself. I found a college that
Speaker 1: was like a rodeo school to where I a barrel
Speaker 1: race on the side, but also get an education, and
Speaker 1: I really wanted to do that. I loved barrel racing.
Speaker 1: My biggest dream was I wanted to ride my horse
Speaker 1: through every state. I had mapped it out when I
Speaker 1: was ten years old. But these dreams were crushed by
Speaker 1: her father. He's told me that I'm too stupid to
Speaker 1: do anything, never going to mount to nothing in life,
Speaker 1: that I need to give up all my dreams. Amelia
Speaker 1: felt trapped. Starting from age eleven, she confided in adults
Speaker 1: about what was going on at home. However, Amelia says
Speaker 1: the adults she turned to always betrayed her. By the
Speaker 1: time she was fourteen, she was desperate. I went to
Speaker 1: my school counselor and begged them to call DFS, call
Speaker 1: whoever to come get me because I could not live
Speaker 1: in that house any longer. And they brought in a
Speaker 1: juvenile lobster that scared me. He told me we had
Speaker 1: to talk to my parents. I said, you might as
Speaker 1: well give it up. I don't want to talk to them,
Speaker 1: if you're going to talk to my parents. It ended
Speaker 1: up he did end up getting to hold of my
Speaker 1: parents and we all sit down, and then they made
Speaker 1: me go home and they had my dad drive me
Speaker 1: to the next down over to meet some people to
Speaker 1: pick me up to drive me to the hospital. Once
Speaker 1: she got to the mental health facility, I told them
Speaker 1: I was suicidal. They I would die before I ever
Speaker 1: went back in that house. I can't do it no more.
Speaker 1: I can't do the arguments, I can't do the abuse.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to stand up for nobody, and I'm done.
Speaker 1: But even at the hospital, she still felt that no
Speaker 1: one believed her. I started thinking that I was delusional
Speaker 1: and that he really wasn't a big deal, and then
Speaker 1: I was the one in the wrong, Like I really
Speaker 1: started feeling like that there was something wrong with me.
Speaker 1: Amelia stayed in the hospital for about eleven days and
Speaker 1: then she was released back to her family and to
Speaker 1: the abuse. Her dad was the one who came to
Speaker 1: drive her home from the hospital, and the whole time,
Speaker 1: you would not speak to me. That night, he just
Speaker 1: yelled at me. They made fun of me. They said,
Speaker 1: you'd better be careful. What you say she might become
Speaker 1: suicidal and made comments like, well, we'll just beat it
Speaker 1: out of her and then she'll be better. We don't
Speaker 1: need no hospital. When Amelia left the facility, doctors prescribed
Speaker 1: her prozac and trazodone, but when her dad said it
Speaker 1: was too expensive, that she was costing the family too
Speaker 1: much money, she stopped taking the medication. Still, Amelia and
Speaker 1: her mother grew closer. She especially cherishes one good memory
Speaker 1: of being with her mom, and that was a float trip.
Speaker 1: It was just me and her, and it didn't start
Speaker 1: off very good and it didn't end good. That the
Speaker 1: middle part was amazing. Amelia and her mom were just
Speaker 1: bonding and having heart to hearts as they floated on
Speaker 1: the river together. But then a thunderstorm struck. Then we
Speaker 1: got trapped and it was like two in the morning
Speaker 1: when somebody finally found us from the river. It was
Speaker 1: my dad and he was mad, that's all get out
Speaker 1: for even having to come looking for us. But the
Speaker 1: whole trip itself, like in the middle, just me and
Speaker 1: her out on the water, was so much fun and amazing,
Speaker 1: and it's like one of my last memories of her.
Speaker 1: In the fall of two thousand and five, the abuse
Speaker 1: was still rampant. In addition to self medicating, Amelia was
Speaker 1: also seeking out relationships with older men. I didn't really
Speaker 1: associate with a lot of people my age. They were
Speaker 1: just not mentally on the same level as me. Like
Speaker 1: I've grown up very fast. I never really had a childhood,
Speaker 1: So I always hung out with people that were way
Speaker 1: older than me, and I would meet them, like at
Speaker 1: horse shows, and they would not even know my age.
Speaker 1: They would just assume I was older. Amelia began and
Speaker 1: on again off again relationship with a guy named Maynard,
Speaker 1: who was about five years older than her. My family
Speaker 1: hated him. They blamed him for the drugs staff while
Speaker 1: they blamed him for me going to the hospital. They
Speaker 1: blamed him for so much, but Amelia says that Maynard
Speaker 1: always protected her. He would even sneak in and spend
Speaker 1: the night with her when she was too afraid to sleep,
Speaker 1: But her parents had no tolerance for him. Maynard and
Speaker 1: Amelia's dad even got into a physical fight once. Eventually,
Speaker 1: things with Maynard ended, and one day Amelia, now sixteen,
Speaker 1: came home from work and met nineteen year old Chad Brantley.
Speaker 1: Chad was at her family's house with a friend who
Speaker 1: was buying a truck from her dad. We just started
Speaker 1: hanging out in between my schedule and stuff. And then
Speaker 1: he didn't have no job, no education. He played music
Speaker 1: at a bar, he was a drummer. He told me
Speaker 1: he would starting to do in ged classes. He told
Speaker 1: me he would get a job everything. Amelia really liked Chat,
Speaker 1: even though he was somewhat adrift. She felt like he
Speaker 1: took care of her. She even confided in Chat about
Speaker 1: the abuse she was enduring at home. But quickly this
Speaker 1: relationship also turned volatile. He got to where he was
Speaker 1: demanding that I spend all this time with him. If
Speaker 1: I didn't, he would get angry with me. It would
Speaker 1: get loud. He liked to drink, and he done meth
Speaker 1: and other stuff. I don't even know what all he done,
Speaker 1: but I know he'd done meth and other stuff a
Speaker 1: lot more harder than what I done. I told him
Speaker 1: about my dreams, what I wanted to do. I wanted
Speaker 1: to show. I wanted to train. I wanted to do
Speaker 1: all that like that was my goal in mind, to
Speaker 1: be this amazing trainer. He wanted me to give up horses,
Speaker 1: and I never would give up the horses because that
Speaker 1: was my whole life. With Chad's violent and controlling behavior,
Speaker 1: their relationship didn't last long. We started fighting really bad
Speaker 1: because he was to mean too much, and I told
Speaker 1: him I needed time in space, that I'm still a kid. Then,
Speaker 1: on the afternoon of January thirteenth, two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Amelia was leaving school when she spotted him. It wasn't
Speaker 1: an accident. Chad was sitting there waiting for me. I
Speaker 1: told him I did not want to talk to him
Speaker 1: right then, that we would talk later, that I had
Speaker 1: to go to work. I told him i'd call him
Speaker 1: when I could. That night, right before midnight, Amelia woke
Speaker 1: up to a thunderstorm. My window was open so I
Speaker 1: could hear the rain hit in the ten roof. And
Speaker 1: then I remember going to the bathroom, and on her
Speaker 1: way to the bathroom, she passed her parents' bedroom and
Speaker 1: that's when I see but my mom was laying there
Speaker 1: and my dad's standing there, and all I heard the
Speaker 1: swords that can't believe you shot me. Amelia couldn't tell
Speaker 1: who was talking to whom or who they were talking too.
Speaker 1: She raced to call nine one one, and then like
Speaker 1: from there, everything got really confused. I remember calling ninety one,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember calling my brother. I don't remember
Speaker 1: none of that. I read the reports all the time,
Speaker 1: and it's just like I don't remember how the stuff.
Speaker 1: It was all a blur. Before Amelia could even process
Speaker 1: what was happening, police showed up. They determined that her mother,
Speaker 1: Christina Byrd, had died from gunshot wounds. Her father was
Speaker 1: taken to the er. Eventually he survived. 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. Immediately before any investigation
Speaker 1: took place, Amelia was a suspect and was whisked off
Speaker 1: to the police station. She was questioned that night, and
Speaker 1: she says there was no adult present aside from the investigators.
Speaker 1: The conversation was not recorded. Or documented. They kept questioning
Speaker 1: me and talking to me about not really even the
Speaker 1: crime itself. They would talk to me about my mom's job.
Speaker 1: They talked to me about my boyfriends, or they would
Speaker 1: talk to me about my sexual relationships with men. They'd
Speaker 1: asked me about Mainhard if I knew where Mainherd was
Speaker 1: or if I had seen him, and I knew that
Speaker 1: that's why they were questioning about him. It's because him
Speaker 1: and my dad and my mom had that altercation. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I haven't seen him in a long time,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know where he is. They asked me
Speaker 1: about what TV shows I watched, like it made no
Speaker 1: sense to me. To Amelia, the questions seemed suggestive, leading
Speaker 1: and confusing. I got mad because I'm like, why are
Speaker 1: you spending all those time asking me these questions. Why
Speaker 1: aren't you doing your job? Why are you not out
Speaker 1: there looking for whoever or checking the house for any
Speaker 1: kind of evidence? And I kept telling them, like nobody
Speaker 1: could physically enter our house without leaving some kind of evidence.
Speaker 1: Because it was raining and we've lived on a farm.
Speaker 1: It's muddy everywhere, Like you can't even walk in the
Speaker 1: back door without even dust footprints on the stupid rug
Speaker 1: that her mom insists on keeping down on the ground
Speaker 1: that they just wasn't make any sense to me. Who
Speaker 1: did you think did this? At the beginning, I didn't
Speaker 1: couldn't for the life of me figure it out, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't know who did it. I swear that I
Speaker 1: seen somebody, but then I questioned whether or not I
Speaker 1: even really seen that person, because the way they made
Speaker 1: it seem that I didn't see anybody. To this day,
Speaker 1: I questioned whether or not I even seen anybody, Like
Speaker 1: there's so many things that I seek that I know
Speaker 1: that I've seen, but then there's so many things that
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're even real or if it's
Speaker 1: something that has been twisted and sit in my head
Speaker 1: to make me fake that I've seen this person or
Speaker 1: didn't see this person. When talking to the police, Amelia
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned that her ex boyfriend Chad Brantley could have
Speaker 1: possibly been behind the gruesome crime, but after a police
Speaker 1: talked to Chad, they determined that his and Amelia's stories
Speaker 1: conflicted and that to them was suspicious. They arrested both
Speaker 1: Amelia and Chad on January fourteenth, two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: The day after the shooting, they were both threatened with
Speaker 1: the death penalty. Chad admitted to police that he was
Speaker 1: responsible for killing Amelia's mother and that he intended to
Speaker 1: kill both parents, but he also said that Amelia had
Speaker 1: put him up to the murder and that they planned
Speaker 1: the shooting together. Did you ever ask Chad to kill
Speaker 1: your parents. No. I might have said something like I
Speaker 1: wish they would get out of my life. Oh, I
Speaker 1: can't stand then leave me alone. But I never blatantly
Speaker 1: went up to him and said, hey, will you do this?
Speaker 1: Not one time. Did you actually want them dead? No,
Speaker 1: I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted my
Speaker 1: dad to leave my mom alone and me alone, but
Speaker 1: I didn't want him dead. To save himself from the
Speaker 1: death penalty, Chad wound up taking a plea deal. He
Speaker 1: admitted to shooting Amelia's parents and was sentenced to life
Speaker 1: in prison at the age of sixteen. Amelia was charged
Speaker 1: as an adult two years later. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: she was assigned public defender Donna Holden. Terrified of the
Speaker 1: death penalty, Amelia took Holden's advice and accepted a plea.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. As a miner. At the time
Speaker 1: of the crime, Amelia was not legally eligible for the
Speaker 1: death penalty, yet her attorney, Donna Holden, never told her this.
Speaker 1: The way she made him seem is I would only
Speaker 1: serve ten years. So I figured, what's ten years. I
Speaker 1: get away from the family. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's all taken care of. Everybody's left alone, and I'm
Speaker 1: done with whatever. And then I got to prison. They
Speaker 1: actually brought me in and told me that I had
Speaker 1: two life sentences running wild, in other words, two consecutive
Speaker 1: life sentences. Amelia immediately wrote to the Public Defender's office
Speaker 1: to question the sentencing, and one of the responses was
Speaker 1: something like, well, it's up to DC at how much
Speaker 1: time you actually serve. I told you that in the beginning,
Speaker 1: which is not what she told me. And I'm so
Speaker 1: angry because I felt like I had been betrayed yet again.
Speaker 1: So I kept saying, is I want to go to
Speaker 1: trial because I didn't do nothing wrong, and I would
Speaker 1: have went to trial. I really wish I would have
Speaker 1: went to trial. Despite no hard evidence connecting her to
Speaker 1: the shooting of her parents and death of her mother,
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Amelia received the two life sentences to
Speaker 1: be served consecutively, and because Amelia accepted a plea deal,
Speaker 1: her right to direct appeals was strictly limited to filing
Speaker 1: a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, and Amelia believes
Speaker 1: that her public defender gave her bad advice by telling
Speaker 1: her to take the plea deal. Donna Holden never filed
Speaker 1: an ineffective assistance of counsel claim to argue this, nor
Speaker 1: did she pass the case on to someone else to
Speaker 1: file it on Amelia's behalf. Amelia missed all the deadlines
Speaker 1: and opportunities for relief, so she settled into life behind bars.
Speaker 1: When I first got here, I kind of stayed to myself,
Speaker 1: didn't really know what to do. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: my JD first off. That was like her first goal
Speaker 1: because they would let me school. She also had a
Speaker 1: small identity change. When did the nickname Millie come about? Well,
Speaker 1: when the first lady met me in prison, what we
Speaker 1: call old head. Just know what they called me, so
Speaker 1: it's crazy, but she took me under her wing and
Speaker 1: was like, your new name Millie. She was like, you're
Speaker 1: not a million and you're not burned. You're Millie and
Speaker 1: it stuck. Milly earned her ged within a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but because of her life sentence, she can't take college classes.
Speaker 1: Many prisons in the US believe spending resources on people
Speaker 1: who will never leave prison is a waste of money,
Speaker 1: but Millie is kept busy with other prison activities such
Speaker 1: as theater, softball, and her prison factory job. And she's
Speaker 1: worked hard through therapy to improve her mental health and
Speaker 1: overcome the traumas that shaped her youth. But what has
Speaker 1: changed her life inside prison the most was joining the
Speaker 1: CHAMP Assistance Dog Program helping to train service dogs. Amelia
Speaker 1: started with CHAMP in two thousand and nine and that
Speaker 1: became my whole life. I fell in love with it.
Speaker 1: The CHAMP program trade service dogs for them for ten years.
Speaker 1: That was my world. To hear when they get placed
Speaker 1: a client, To know how much you change that Verson's
Speaker 1: life is a basic. She was from the beginning an
Speaker 1: excellent trainer and she became absolutely a vital part of
Speaker 1: our program. Up there. This is Nola Yours. She's the
Speaker 1: director of CHAMP, which stands for Canine Helpers Allow More Possibilities.
Speaker 1: CHAMP operates in prisons throughout the country and Nola says
Speaker 1: it's a fitting program for people who are incarcerated. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of learning about yourself when you're working dogs.
Speaker 1: In order to be a good trainer, you have to
Speaker 1: develop patients. You have to train yourself to look for
Speaker 1: positive things, and those are the things that you want
Speaker 1: to reward. Consistency, of course, never losing your temper. You've
Speaker 1: got to do everything you can to build up this
Speaker 1: trust and try to never do those things that are
Speaker 1: going to harm that bond. So there's I think there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things in there that are kind
Speaker 1: of relate to not just working with dogs. Nola saw
Speaker 1: firsthand how the program helped Millie come out of her shell.
Speaker 1: If I gave her something to do, she jump on it,
Speaker 1: tackle it, get it done. And I love that because
Speaker 1: quite honestly, not not all the trainers will like that.
Speaker 1: Not all of them were quite as dedicated. I needed
Speaker 1: her to be able to share those skills and to
Speaker 1: teach some of the other trainers how to be better trainers,
Speaker 1: and and she did. It was not comfortable for her,
Speaker 1: I think, by any means, but she did it and
Speaker 1: really ended up being I think my primary trainer up there.
Speaker 1: While Millie was building a better life for herself and
Speaker 1: the dog she works with. She was also trying to
Speaker 1: figure out ways to prove her innocence. So I want
Speaker 1: to ask about the Willow Project. How did you find
Speaker 1: out about them and why did you reach out? Well,
Speaker 1: I actually I watched Weekly Blonde and got the ideal
Speaker 1: of the write Harvard a letter to see if they
Speaker 1: would help me fight may case. They wrote me back
Speaker 1: very nicely, told me I was in the wrong state.
Speaker 1: So I went to the library and I found the
Speaker 1: college book for everybody in Missouri that was in law school,
Speaker 1: and I wrote a letter to them, and the Willow
Speaker 1: Project reached back out to me, and we've been together.
Speaker 1: Ship Willow actually stands for women initiate legal lifelines to
Speaker 1: other women. This is an Garrity rather, a professor of
Speaker 1: legal studies and gender and Sexuality Studies at Webster University
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis, Missouri. She's also the director of the
Speaker 1: Willow Project, a wrongful convictions project for women. There aren't
Speaker 1: very many, if any, other wrongful conviction programs that are
Speaker 1: devoted only to people who are in women's prisons, so
Speaker 1: it's sort of unique in that way. The Willow Project
Speaker 1: emerged from the case of a woman named Angel Stewart.
Speaker 1: Can you explain who Angel is? Yeah? So, Angel. After
Speaker 1: a childhood of horrific physical and sexual abuse by family members,
Speaker 1: she ran away from home at the age of twelve.
Speaker 1: She became a prostitute, but she has a very serious
Speaker 1: developmental disability. When she was about eighteen or nineteen years old,
Speaker 1: she became held against her will in the sex trafficking industry. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what happened was that she was held against her will
Speaker 1: horrifically abused. Her traffickers then dragged her along in a
Speaker 1: crime spree during which they kidnapped and killed two elderly women.
Speaker 1: Angel was charged with first degree murder and first degree
Speaker 1: kidnapping along with both men, and Angel took a plea
Speaker 1: deal to kidnapping rather than murder, receiving life sentences in
Speaker 1: both Missouri and Iowa. Angel is still in prison. The
Speaker 1: Willow Project was started to help women like Angel and
Speaker 1: Millie who do not have sufficient access to representation due
Speaker 1: to injustices like poverty, oppression, exploitation, and violence. When the
Speaker 1: Willow Project received Millie's letter, Anne instantly noticed red flags
Speaker 1: in her case. She was also horrifically physically and sexually
Speaker 1: abused throughout her life. And that's sort of where the
Speaker 1: parallels exist within the realm of the clients that we
Speaker 1: take on. So that was her situation. This went on
Speaker 1: for several years where she kept trying to get away
Speaker 1: or get someone to listen to her. Nobody would listen
Speaker 1: to her, and so at the age of sixteen, you know,
Speaker 1: as with many sixteen year olds, she hated her parents,
Speaker 1: and she pretty much told everybody that she hated them.
Speaker 1: I think it makes a lot of sense. A lot
Speaker 1: of sixteen year olds hate their parents with no real motivation,
Speaker 1: so hating your parents when they actually are abusing you
Speaker 1: is a logical thing. But she was very outspoken about it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that ultimately was what led
Speaker 1: to her being accused wrongfully. But Anne acknowledges that cases
Speaker 1: like Millie's may be more difficult to fight for if
Speaker 1: there is no DNA. Those cases become far more complicated
Speaker 1: because it's often, you know, one part sin's word against another.
Speaker 1: This is especially common when women are involved in wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: So I think currently, out of the hundreds of people
Speaker 1: who have been exonerated based on DNA evidence, Only thirteen
Speaker 1: of them are women, and that's because a lot of
Speaker 1: the crimes of which women are charged and convicted don't
Speaker 1: involve DNA. What's more, only eight to nine percent of
Speaker 1: all exonorees are women, and part of that is because
Speaker 1: people tend to not believe women. We've seen this throughout
Speaker 1: the Me Too movement, and so somewhere along the line,
Speaker 1: I decided that if people were going to tell me
Speaker 1: they were innocent, I was at least going to entertain
Speaker 1: that to be true. Despite the lack of any possible
Speaker 1: exonerating physical or forensic evidence or any means of appeal
Speaker 1: or relief. Anne believed Millie and dug into her case.
Speaker 1: I believe her because, you know, everything that could corroborate
Speaker 1: her story in terms of research does corroborator's story. And
Speaker 1: also believes that Chad was solely responsible for these crimes
Speaker 1: and that his motive was manipulation. She had broken up
Speaker 1: with Chad, but he kept coming back into the picture
Speaker 1: and you know, trying to, you know, as he said it,
Speaker 1: win back her affection, but mostly it was just regain
Speaker 1: control in my estimation of their relationship. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, that is the impetus for the whole set
Speaker 1: of crimes that he believed if he could get her
Speaker 1: away from that house, that he could have her for
Speaker 1: himself in whatever way and marry her, but essentially just
Speaker 1: have total control over her. His motivation, obviously was to
Speaker 1: as the actual shooter, to have his sentence reduced, and
Speaker 1: the only way he's going to be able to do
Speaker 1: that was to implicate her and to turn state's evidence
Speaker 1: against her, which you did. The Willow Project has tried
Speaker 1: to argue this and defend Millie's innocence the best they can.
Speaker 1: With no legal options for relief, Anne has been filing
Speaker 1: clemency petitions, lobbying legislators, and arguing for parole. Through the
Speaker 1: dog training program, Nola has gotten to know Millie very
Speaker 1: well over the years. They even co parent a dog
Speaker 1: together named Deja. So I asked her, you have written
Speaker 1: to the parole board on Millie's behalf. What did you
Speaker 1: say in the letter? What I said in my letter
Speaker 1: is that I was so happy to see how she
Speaker 1: had grown over the years that she'd been up there.
Speaker 1: She'd not only improved her training skills. It's a wonderfully
Speaker 1: specific skill set to learn how to train service dogs,
Speaker 1: but it impacts so much. I'd also say that I
Speaker 1: was really happy how she had developed those skills were
Speaker 1: king with other people. She became an excellent role model
Speaker 1: for our other trainers and offenders, and she's offered a
Speaker 1: job when she gets out. Correct. We would love to
Speaker 1: have her, Seriously, she has all the service dog skills
Speaker 1: that we would love to see. Really, we'd welcome her.
Speaker 1: Millie looks forward to getting out of prison and taking
Speaker 1: that job, but for now, she spends a lot of
Speaker 1: time reflecting on her life and family. Milly grew closer
Speaker 1: to her mother before she died, so she's been grieving
Speaker 1: that loss over the years. She hasn't spoken to her
Speaker 1: brother since before the crime, and she no longer has
Speaker 1: a relationship with her father, but she's staying strong, moving
Speaker 1: forward and learning from her past. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: would say to younger you sixteen pre sixteen? Is there
Speaker 1: anything you'd want her to know or any other girls
Speaker 1: in that situation. I was just want them to know
Speaker 1: that you ever doubt themselves even though people are pushing
Speaker 1: them down, and just stand up for themselves. Don't give up,
Speaker 1: don't ever give up. Let your voice be heard, Like
Speaker 1: even no, people are telling you that you're a one
Speaker 1: in the wrong. Just stand up for yourself. I'm not
Speaker 1: this bad person that I've been made out to be like.
Speaker 1: I'm really not, and I'm just hoping day to get
Speaker 1: my second chance to prove to everybody. To find out
Speaker 1: more about the Willow Project and how to help support
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted women like Amelia and Angel, go to Willow
Speaker 1: Project stl dot org. You can also find links to
Speaker 1: Amelia's Facebook support page and to Champ Assistance Dogs on
Speaker 1: our bio. Next time Unwrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Butch Martin,
Speaker 1: the fire Marshal comes out and writes an opinion saying
Speaker 1: you cannot say that this wasn't intentionally set fire. You
Speaker 1: could fill the shift in the courtroom when the judge
Speaker 1: and the prosecutor I think really started to realize, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, we got an innocent man. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local
Speaker 1: innocence organizations and go to the links in our bio
Speaker 1: to see how you can help. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wurdis, as well
Speaker 1: as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and
Speaker 1: story editor Sonia Paul. The show is edited and mixed
Speaker 1: by Annie Chelsey, with additional production by Jeff Cleburne and
Speaker 1: Connor Hall. The music in this production is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well
Speaker 1: as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you
Speaker 1: can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter at
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number one