Speaker 1: On the night of November twentieth, nineteen ninety nine, Angela Garcia,
Speaker 1: a single mother, was at home with her two toddlers.
Speaker 1: It was a quiet, peaceful evening. The girls were upstairs
Speaker 1: in her bedroom watching Rugrats on TV. Downstairs, Angela was
Speaker 1: on the phone with her family making Thanksgiving plans. Angela
Speaker 1: went up to use the bathroom, and while there, she
Speaker 1: noticed it was getting hard to breathe. She began coughing.
Speaker 2: I knew something was going on, but I couldn't really
Speaker 2: figure out what was happening in the house.
Speaker 1: When she came out of the bathroom, Angela saw smoke
Speaker 1: billowing up from downstairs. Frantically, she searched for her daughters,
Speaker 1: but the smoke was too thick.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find them, and so the only thing I
Speaker 2: thought about was I needed somebody to help me.
Speaker 1: Angela broke the window, jumped down from the second story,
Speaker 1: and ran to the neighbor's house.
Speaker 2: I went to her house, and not to please help me,
Speaker 2: Please help me find my kids. Can't get I can't
Speaker 2: get my kids.
Speaker 1: Both of her children died in the fire. Angela was
Speaker 1: convicted of arson and murder and given a life sentence,
Speaker 1: and then after spending over sixteen years in prison, she
Speaker 1: was faced with an agonizing choice.
Speaker 2: I cried so hard, and I remember praying to God
Speaker 2: and asking God, like, whatever you want me to do
Speaker 2: or do because I just I had to make a
Speaker 2: decision within a couple of minutes that was gonna change
Speaker 2: the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: From lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today Angela Garcia. Angela Garcia was born in New
Speaker 1: York in nineteen seventy seven. She moved to Cleveland when
Speaker 1: she was fourteen.
Speaker 2: My mom got married to my stepdad when I was
Speaker 2: really young, so he kind of raised me.
Speaker 3: I lived with him and my mom.
Speaker 2: So I have a bunch of step brothers and sisters,
Speaker 2: but for my mom, I only have. It's me and
Speaker 2: I have one sister, my sister Judy, for my mom
Speaker 2: were seven years apart.
Speaker 4: She was just a little sister. She always wanted to
Speaker 4: be up under me, as little sisters always want to do.
Speaker 1: This is Angela's older sister, Judy Caddo Nichols, and despite
Speaker 1: their age difference, the two have always been close.
Speaker 2: I have this one memory that I always think about
Speaker 2: my mom had I don't know how old I was.
Speaker 3: I had been really young.
Speaker 2: My mom had bought these telephones and we had this
Speaker 2: long hallway, and I remember us being on these like
Speaker 2: I think they were blue phones.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that is so silly.
Speaker 4: Yes, my mother had bought her for Christmas, these little phones,
Speaker 4: remember them princess phones. Well there was two of them
Speaker 4: attached to one that She'd be in one room and
Speaker 4: I'd be in the other room. We talked. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: that is so silly.
Speaker 3: Hi Angela, Hi Judy.
Speaker 2: I just that's like one of the memories from my
Speaker 2: childhood that is so fond in my mind.
Speaker 4: I think we had a good childhood. You know, we
Speaker 4: would know it was never hungry. We lived nicely.
Speaker 1: The sisters stayed close as they grew older and both
Speaker 1: started families. Judy had a son, dj and Angela had
Speaker 1: two girls, Nayima and Nysa. Their children were around the
Speaker 1: same age and constantly together.
Speaker 2: My oldest daughter was like real bubbly, real talkative and
Speaker 2: just really outgoing. And then my youngest daughter was kind
Speaker 2: of quiet, like real observant. She would be quick to
Speaker 2: speak to people, but like she would try to get
Speaker 2: a feel of people. I A would say that they
Speaker 2: like they were both of my characters kind of like
Speaker 2: split up and got into both of them.
Speaker 4: Naima, she was always smiling. She thought she was big
Speaker 4: sister to her little sister and my son. Yeah, she
Speaker 4: was a smart one. And Nida, Yeah she was the.
Speaker 1: Roly poly one.
Speaker 4: She was more quiet. She was just she was like
Speaker 4: a little Buddha. She's so adorable.
Speaker 3: And I used to love to do to hear, used
Speaker 3: to like braid to hear and for men here.
Speaker 4: And it was spoiled by everyone. They were babies that couldn't.
Speaker 1: Do no wrong. How was she as a mom?
Speaker 4: She was a good mom. Yeah. I kept the kids
Speaker 4: a lot because I had a younger son, so so
Speaker 4: they can play together all the time. So basically I
Speaker 4: had them mostly all the weekends.
Speaker 1: Angela was a single mother, twenty two years old and
Speaker 1: engaged to be married. She was raising her daughters in
Speaker 1: a two story house she rented from her parents in
Speaker 1: East Cleveland. Judy and her family lived nearby. Angela was
Speaker 1: in school and dreamed of becoming a paramedic.
Speaker 3: But it was like schooling was expensive. So me and
Speaker 3: my sister had I think we had.
Speaker 2: Went somewhere and we met a recruiter, and he told
Speaker 2: me like, hey, if you sign up for you know,
Speaker 2: to be in a navy, you know, we'll.
Speaker 3: Pay for you go to school.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I just figured why not, Like, who
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to do that? And knowing that somebody that
Speaker 2: your whole schooling is going to be paid for.
Speaker 1: Basic training would take six weeks, and Angela knew she
Speaker 1: would need someone to take care of her daughters during
Speaker 1: that time, So naturally she asked Judy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not a problem. It wasn't a problem.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I just say, it takes a village to raise a family,
Speaker 4: you know, so we was our little village.
Speaker 3: But yeah, of course that never happened.
Speaker 5: So this case started with a fire at Angela's house
Speaker 5: on November twentieth, nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: This is Joanna Sanchez.
Speaker 5: Managing counsel of the Wrongful Conviction Project at the Office
Speaker 5: of the Ohio Public Defender.
Speaker 1: It was the weekend before Thanksgiving and Angela was at
Speaker 1: home with the girls.
Speaker 2: My daughters used to love Rugrats, so we used to
Speaker 2: watch that all the time they were two and three,
Speaker 2: So it really wasn't like we were doing like a
Speaker 2: whole lot.
Speaker 1: The house was calm and quiet. While the girls watched TV.
Speaker 1: Up in her bedroom, Angela lit a couple of candles.
Speaker 1: I was talking with her stepsister on the phone downstairs.
Speaker 2: And we were just talking about Thanksgiving and who's gonna
Speaker 2: cook and what they're gonna cook and all that. I
Speaker 2: had Winnes say as he used the restroom, and my
Speaker 2: oldest daughter, Naima, she had came in.
Speaker 3: The bathroom and I told him, like, get out the bathroom.
Speaker 2: And she said something to me, but I didn't pay
Speaker 2: any attention whatever she was saying. And to this day,
Speaker 2: I always think about if I would have listened to her.
Speaker 2: Maybe she was telling me something, maybe she seen something,
Speaker 2: heard something and was trying to tell me, But at
Speaker 2: the time I didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 5: When she came out of the bathroom, she noticed she
Speaker 5: was coughing and she saw smoke, so she kind of
Speaker 5: went towards the stairs and saw just smoke billowing up
Speaker 5: the stairs.
Speaker 2: I knew something was going on, but I couldn't really
Speaker 2: figure out what was happening in the house. And I
Speaker 2: knew I was having problems breathing and I couldn't breathe.
Speaker 1: The first thing Angela thought of was her children.
Speaker 2: They were in my bedroom at the time, and so
Speaker 2: I was feeling all over my bed for them, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't find them.
Speaker 5: And by this point the house was just filling with
Speaker 5: thick black smoke.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find them, and so the only thing I
Speaker 2: thought about was I needed somebody to help me. So
Speaker 2: I opened up the window and I was screaming out
Speaker 2: the window, and then somehow I broke. I busted the
Speaker 2: window out trying to get out, and then I jumped down.
Speaker 3: I jumped out the house.
Speaker 2: And in my mind at the time, I thought that
Speaker 2: if I jump, if I jumped out and found somebody
Speaker 2: to help me, I could find my daughters.
Speaker 5: So she did break out the second story window, went
Speaker 5: onto what was the roof of the porch, jumped down
Speaker 5: to the yard, and ran to her neighbor's house to
Speaker 5: get help.
Speaker 2: You don't think like I didn't think about if you
Speaker 2: jump out the window, how are you gonna get back
Speaker 2: in the house.
Speaker 3: I never even thought about that.
Speaker 2: The only thing I thought about was trying to get
Speaker 2: back in, you know, trying to trying to stay them,
Speaker 2: trying to find them. And so I went to the
Speaker 2: next door neighbor's house, and to please help me, please
Speaker 2: help me find my kids. Can't get I can't get
Speaker 2: my kids, and me and her went back to the house.
Speaker 3: I don't remember everything that happened. I remember me and
Speaker 3: her being on the porch because we couldn't get back
Speaker 3: in the house.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, by the time the firefighters came, Nija and Naima
Speaker 5: had died. Initially, the firefighters, they looked at the house,
Speaker 5: they documented the scene. They brought in an accelerant sniffing
Speaker 5: dog who found no accelerant, and they determined that this
Speaker 5: was an accidental fire, and they destroyed the house.
Speaker 1: Is that normal? I thought that was so crazy. Two
Speaker 1: days later, the house is destroyed.
Speaker 5: It's very quick. I mean it prevented certainly the defense
Speaker 5: from ever collecting any evidence in the house. But really
Speaker 5: no evidence was collected. I mean they took photos, but
Speaker 5: no materials were collected for any store of testing for
Speaker 5: accelerance or anything of that nature. So it's very strange.
Speaker 1: So then walk me through. It's an accident. The house
Speaker 1: is leveled. How do we get to where we are?
Speaker 5: So the house is leveled. A couple months later, Angela
Speaker 5: submitted her insurance claim for her renter's insurance, and they
Speaker 5: believed that she had overvalued the contents of her home.
Speaker 5: And so at that point the police and the fire
Speaker 5: investigation unit started looking at this again and determined instead
Speaker 5: that this was an incendiary fire.
Speaker 1: How do they come to that conclusion without the house?
Speaker 5: So what they did was they looked back at some
Speaker 5: of the photographs. There's a large burned through pattern in
Speaker 5: the dining room floor, and so they believed that was
Speaker 5: the area of origin. I think when they had called
Speaker 5: it an accidental fire, the presumption had been that maybe
Speaker 5: one of the gandals had fallen over and caused this fire.
Speaker 5: And so one of the fire investigating unit officers indicated
Speaker 5: that he thought now the candle was too sturdy and
Speaker 5: too far away from any combustibles to have caused the fire,
Speaker 5: and so they came to the conclusion that it must
Speaker 5: have been an intentional fire.
Speaker 1: Angela was barely into her twenties. She had lost both
Speaker 1: her daughters as well as her home.
Speaker 3: That whpe time period.
Speaker 2: I can't even say, you know how when you're sleep
Speaker 2: in like you think you're dreaming, but you're not sure
Speaker 2: because sometimes it looks real something parts of the dream
Speaker 2: looks real something, parts to fake.
Speaker 3: And that's just how I felt for that time period.
Speaker 2: You know, I was I was a young mom, and
Speaker 2: I never really experienced losing anybody. I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to feel. I didn't how to feel. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what I was supposed to feel. Now I know that
Speaker 2: I was in a real bad depression.
Speaker 1: And then just three months later, in February of two thousand,
Speaker 1: Angela was arrested. She was charged with insurance fraud and
Speaker 1: aggravated murder.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe I was arrested. Actually, I was like, what,
Speaker 2: this is crazy? You know, it didn't make no sense
Speaker 2: to me, none whatsoever.
Speaker 3: I knew I didn't hurt my daughters. You know, I
Speaker 3: knew I didn't them.
Speaker 2: I love them like I love myself. You know, I
Speaker 2: always believed that the truth will prevail. I always thought
Speaker 2: that if somebody got arrested, whatever they got arrested for,
Speaker 2: they did because that's what society teaches you to think,
Speaker 2: That's what the news teaches you to think. So why
Speaker 2: would I ever think that the system would let me down?
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
Speaker 1: to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Angela's two daughters,
Speaker 1: three year old Naima and two year old Nyja, had
Speaker 1: died in the house fire, and on August twenty first,
Speaker 1: two thousand, Angela went to trial for the first time
Speaker 1: before Judge Bridget McCafferty. The state sought the death penalty.
Speaker 1: Their case hinged on the theory that Angela had burned
Speaker 1: down her house and killed her children to get the
Speaker 1: insurance money.
Speaker 5: She had a render's insurance policy. She had life insurance
Speaker 5: on herself, and their theory was that she burned down
Speaker 5: her house and murdered her children so that she could
Speaker 5: collect some money on those insurance policies and sort of
Speaker 5: start a new life child free.
Speaker 1: Remember the year before, Angela had been thinking about joining
Speaker 1: the navy.
Speaker 5: And because she was a single mother, she was told,
Speaker 5: you can't join the navy with dependence, you know. So
Speaker 5: Angela looked into having her older sister, who she was
Speaker 5: very close with and very close with her children, to
Speaker 5: take temporary custody of them while she pursued this navy career. Ultimately,
Speaker 5: Angela changed her mind and didn't do that.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, the state used that information at trial to bolster
Speaker 1: their narrative that Angela was trying to free herself from
Speaker 1: the responsibility of motherhood by setting fire to her own home.
Speaker 5: They put on their fire investigation unit, a couple officers
Speaker 5: from there, and they testified about what we now know
Speaker 5: are really outdated myths that used to use that indicated
Speaker 5: arson in their minds. So different types of char like
Speaker 5: alligator char on the walls, burned through pattern. They put
Speaker 5: that evidence on.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also presented an insurance adjuster to testify that
Speaker 1: Angela had recently purchased a large renter's insurance policy as
Speaker 1: well as a policy on herself and her daughters.
Speaker 5: The defense put on evidence that indicated she actually hadn't
Speaker 5: sought out those policies. These are salesmen who had come
Speaker 5: to her work and sort of given her a sales pitch,
Speaker 5: and she had reluctantly signed up for insurance.
Speaker 1: In addition to those witnesses, the prosecution presented firefighters and
Speaker 1: neighbors who had witnessed the events that night. They also
Speaker 1: presented a hospital worker who testified that when Naimo was
Speaker 1: brought into the er. She was wrapped in a cord
Speaker 1: from the window blind.
Speaker 5: They alleged that Angela had tied up one of her children.
Speaker 5: There's lots of testimony that shows why she might have
Speaker 5: ended up bound in those blinds. There was testimony from
Speaker 5: the firefighters that they actually came in and they used
Speaker 5: a tool to knock out the windows and knock down
Speaker 5: all the blinds and curtains, and so those blinds would
Speaker 5: have landed on her child. The firefighter then scooped her
Speaker 5: up with the blinds, went outside with her, handed her
Speaker 5: to an EMS worker, who then handed her to someone else.
Speaker 5: And so it's easy to see how during this whole
Speaker 5: process she may have become entangled in the blinds.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also alleged that Angela wasn't reacting properly at
Speaker 1: the hospital, that she wasn't behaving the way a grieving
Speaker 1: mother should.
Speaker 5: You know, that's something that's really interesting about this case
Speaker 5: because originally what the witnesses that the scene were saying
Speaker 5: was that Angela was hysterical. She was sitting on the ground,
Speaker 5: she was rocking back and forth. You know, she was
Speaker 5: screaming about her children. Really, you know, couldn't be consoled
Speaker 5: and when she was interviewed at the hospital by the
Speaker 5: firefighters and the police detectives, they wrote up a report
Speaker 5: said nothing about her demeanor thing out of sorts. Later,
Speaker 5: after they changed the fire to incendiary, they went back
Speaker 5: and added a report about their reflections of her demeanor
Speaker 5: that night in the hospital and said that she was
Speaker 5: too calm.
Speaker 1: When the defense presented their case, they didn't call any
Speaker 1: witnesses to testify.
Speaker 5: What they did was aggressively cross examine the state's witnesses.
Speaker 5: So these trials happened in two thousand and two thousand
Speaker 5: and one, and by then fire science was starting to evolve.
Speaker 5: This guide that fire investigators use n FPA nine to
Speaker 5: twenty one had started to debunk some of these long
Speaker 5: held myths, and so the defense at trial really used
Speaker 5: that to cross examine the fire investigators about, you know,
Speaker 5: all these things that they were relying on that weren't
Speaker 5: supported by science.
Speaker 1: The first trial ended in a hung jury. A few
Speaker 1: months later, there was a second trial, which started in
Speaker 1: January of two thousand and one. The same judge and prosecutors.
Speaker 5: For the second trial, the state presented much of the
Speaker 5: same evidence they did at the first, but then also
Speaker 5: brought in a jailhouse informant.
Speaker 1: That informant's name was Tanya Lanham.
Speaker 5: Tanya and her husband Tim were arrested for passing bad
Speaker 5: checks and they hit the jail at the same time.
Speaker 5: He was on the men's side. She was on the
Speaker 5: women's side with Angela, and so then she would later
Speaker 5: testify that Angela confessed to her during that time.
Speaker 1: And as we've seen in so many wrongful conviction cases,
Speaker 1: that jailhouse confession never actually happened.
Speaker 5: Years later, Tim would write a letter to Angela indicating
Speaker 5: that you know that was a lie, and what he
Speaker 5: said was that the police approached them. After her first
Speaker 5: trial about testifying against Angela.
Speaker 1: The prosecution denied that Tanya and Tim had been offered
Speaker 1: any kind of deal, but after she gave that information
Speaker 1: to the police, Hanya received a sixty day suspended sentence
Speaker 1: for the bad checks charge. That second trial also ended
Speaker 1: in a mistrial. The jury couldn't reach a verdict there either,
Speaker 1: but the state just would not give up.
Speaker 5: By the time we got to the third trial, the
Speaker 5: prosecution had completely changed its prosecutors. They really enhanced their
Speaker 5: evidence about the financial motives. It really became a trial
Speaker 5: almost entirely about that. And they also alleged that in
Speaker 5: between the second and third trial, they had discovered a
Speaker 5: second area of origin for the fire in the house,
Speaker 5: So now they were saying this didn't just start in
Speaker 5: the dining room. There was also a poor pattern on
Speaker 5: the stairs, and so the state's theory was an accidental
Speaker 5: fire couldn't start in two different locations. They also brought
Speaker 5: on and this is kind of maybe one of the
Speaker 5: more shocking parts of the third trial, they had a
Speaker 5: firefighter testify that he was at the scene the night
Speaker 5: of the fire and that on the stairs he found
Speaker 5: an intact bit lighter that he didn't photograph, didn't tell
Speaker 5: anyone about. He just looked at it, put it back down,
Speaker 5: and never said anything until trial number three. And then
Speaker 5: the other thing the defense did in the third trial,
Speaker 5: which they hadn't done in the first two is they
Speaker 5: called an expert witness. So they brought in doctor Richard Roby,
Speaker 5: who was a chemical engineer and an expert on fire science,
Speaker 5: and he testified that the fire investigators had relied on
Speaker 5: outdated signs of arson. He really debunked a lot of
Speaker 5: what the state's evidence was. He described this concept of
Speaker 5: flashover that really changes how fire investigations should be conducted.
Speaker 5: And so he was really kind of ahead of his time.
Speaker 5: And the state at the third trial called him junk
Speaker 5: science and said that he had kind of created a
Speaker 5: quote miracle theory of flashover and tried to discredit him,
Speaker 5: and they effectively so, and Angela was convicted at the
Speaker 5: end of that trial.
Speaker 2: By the time my second trial happened, I just I
Speaker 2: really believe that, you know, I had two hung juries. Okay,
Speaker 2: they're gonna let me go, because why would you still
Speaker 2: why would you still keep trying me? And it's like
Speaker 2: mentally it starts to weigh you down, and you know,
Speaker 2: hearing people say things about me that's not true, or
Speaker 2: you know, certain people call me a predator, and you know,
Speaker 2: all these different type of names and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So I was really going through it and I just
Speaker 2: had like this overwhelmingly tired feeling, you know, I was.
Speaker 2: I was just so overwhelmingly tired.
Speaker 1: Joana. I feel like we'd think after one or two
Speaker 1: mistrials they would just let this go, but they did not.
Speaker 1: The state kept coming for Angela. Was there something else
Speaker 1: going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think that there's certainly Racism and misogyny are a
Speaker 5: big factor in Angela's conviction. You know, we often see
Speaker 5: this with women who are wrongfully convicted of killing their children.
Speaker 5: This idea that they're a horrible mutter is running throughout
Speaker 5: their trial, right And in Angela's trial, there's also a
Speaker 5: huge degree of racism the way she was characterized throughout
Speaker 5: the trial. Angela's Puerto Rican She was referred to as
Speaker 5: a predator, as an animal. They suggested that her family
Speaker 5: were engaged in fraudulent business or fraudulent practices without any
Speaker 5: proof of that. Jurors were interviewed after the first and
Speaker 5: second trial, and we know that the deliberations often broke
Speaker 5: down along racial lines, and so I think race was
Speaker 5: a huge undercurrent in this trial.
Speaker 1: Angela was convicted of three counts of arson, two counts
Speaker 1: of murder, and four counts of aggravated murder. She was
Speaker 1: given two life sentences. She would not become eligible for
Speaker 1: parole for almost fifty years. When they convicted you, what
Speaker 1: did you think? I mean, that was the moment that
Speaker 1: it all became pretty real.
Speaker 2: Do you know I wasn't in like a state of shock,
Speaker 2: because when I got found guilty, I didn't believe it.
Speaker 3: I didn't believe it.
Speaker 2: How do you send someone innocent to prison when you
Speaker 2: know I didn't do this. I was like in never
Speaker 2: never Land, like I was in a world by myself,
Speaker 2: in my own head, because I just could not believe
Speaker 2: that these people are sending me to prison for forty
Speaker 2: nine and a half the life life. When I was
Speaker 2: in prison, you know, sometimes women can be very cruel,
Speaker 2: you know, and people would say, oh, I would have
Speaker 2: died with my kids, I would have did this, and
Speaker 2: I would have did that. But you know, at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, no one could honestly say what
Speaker 2: they would or wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: And so what was life like for you in prison
Speaker 1: before this happened? You were going to school? Were you
Speaker 1: able to continue with that when you entered prison?
Speaker 2: So initially I was doing forty nine and a half
Speaker 2: the life, so I wasn't able to go to school.
Speaker 2: So I just kind of like had nothing to do
Speaker 2: for the most part. And so until I Gentleman as
Speaker 2: he was a teacher there. He helped me a whole lot,
Speaker 2: and he taught me a whole lot of like by
Speaker 2: construction and things like that. And Blue Princess just like
Speaker 2: a lot of different things, and so like he let
Speaker 2: me become his aid for the class, and he let
Speaker 2: me take an apprenticeship, and so he let me weld
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So if it wasn't for him,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I would have been doing in there,
Speaker 2: because it's so easy to get caught up in drama
Speaker 2: and all type of other stuff. So that kind of
Speaker 2: kept me out the way.
Speaker 1: Some Judy, your two nieces died and then your sister
Speaker 1: is arrested for their deaths. What were you thinking when
Speaker 1: all of this was happening.
Speaker 4: For one, I used to live in that house and
Speaker 4: there was already issues going on with the electrical, and
Speaker 4: there was already issues going on. Everyone already knew that,
Speaker 4: you know. The first thing my dad said, oh my god,
Speaker 4: the electrical. You know, I should have got the guys
Speaker 4: in there. And electrician actually went in there. He told Angela,
Speaker 4: I'll be back. So many people have guilt over this.
Speaker 4: The guy that's supposed to come back to the electricity,
Speaker 4: he had guilt. Everyone felt I had some sort of
Speaker 4: guilt over this. You know, I did, because usually I
Speaker 4: get the kids on the weekends, and I didn't have
Speaker 4: the kids that day. I don't know what happened, but
Speaker 4: I didn't have the kids that weekend.
Speaker 1: When she was in prison. Were you guys still close?
Speaker 1: Did you talk often? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yes, one hundred and ten percent. We was going every weekend. Wow,
Speaker 4: until they changed the visitation and it got to the
Speaker 4: point where the guards knew us. They would be like, hey,
Speaker 4: how you doing, Hi? I see it from Yeah, it
Speaker 4: got to that point. But we was there all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't ask her, and I usually do,
Speaker 1: but did she struggle in prison? Did she ever tell
Speaker 1: you about any really hard times she was having in there?
Speaker 4: She didn't want us to know anything that was going on.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't ask any questions. I told her,
Speaker 4: whatever happened in here, leave it there. Don't nobody want
Speaker 4: to relive that. You know, if she wants to share,
Speaker 4: whenever she's ready, she can share. But I told her,
Speaker 4: when you come home, you leave that there.
Speaker 1: Angela's family continued to support her and believe in her innocence,
Speaker 1: and so did the fathers of Naima and Nija.
Speaker 2: Both my daughter's fathers did yes anything I needed.
Speaker 3: They were there for me. Even after we had children together.
Speaker 2: We still we had a good relationship, and I've talked
Speaker 2: them through my whole the whole time I was in prison.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, Angela applied for assistance to
Speaker 1: the Wrongful Conviction Project at the Ohio Public Defender's Office.
Speaker 5: We had just started that year, in fact, and so
Speaker 5: it was one of our very first cases that we
Speaker 5: really dug into. And what we did is we had
Speaker 5: some expert witnesses look at the fire in light of
Speaker 5: new evidence and particularly the shift in science related to
Speaker 5: fire investigation.
Speaker 1: One of those witnesses was the renowned fire expert John
Speaker 1: de Haan. His expertise has been key in reinvestigating many
Speaker 1: other Arsen convictions, including Karen Bow's and Deborah Nichols. We've
Speaker 1: covered them both on previous episodes.
Speaker 5: What he found was that, again the state really relied
Speaker 5: on unreliable factors, unscientific signs of arson. He also noted
Speaker 5: that there were other potential accidental causes of the fire
Speaker 5: that the state completely failed to consider.
Speaker 1: And one of those possible causes ties in with something
Speaker 1: Judy told us about earlier.
Speaker 5: They found pretty compelling proof that this was actually an
Speaker 5: electrical fire. There was what they called like an unsystemic
Speaker 5: mix of wires and that was visible in the ceiling
Speaker 5: of the basement, the floor of the dining room, and
Speaker 5: there's evidence that there was like a low burning, sustained
Speaker 5: fire in that section. They were also able to use
Speaker 5: fire toxicology, which wasn't really used in fire investigation in
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty nine, to show that there couldn't possibly have
Speaker 5: been a second poor pattern on the stairs. So with that,
Speaker 5: we filed emotion asking for Angela to have a new trial,
Speaker 5: and we are actually supposed to have a hearing on
Speaker 5: that in May twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: And then on the morning of the hearing, there was
Speaker 1: a surprise development.
Speaker 5: The prosecution came in and they offered Angela a plea
Speaker 5: deal and essentially what they said is plead guilty to
Speaker 5: a lesser offensive involuntary manslaughter, will let you go home
Speaker 5: from prison in five years.
Speaker 1: This type of plea is known as a dark plea.
Speaker 5: Dark plea is a term that Ohio Supreme Court Justice
Speaker 5: Michael Donnelly actually coined after learning about Angela's case, and
Speaker 5: he uses it to refer to please that happened exactly
Speaker 5: like how angelus did. So we think about plea bargaining
Speaker 5: in the system, and we usually think about it before trial, right,
Speaker 5: somebody decides to enter into a plea instead of going
Speaker 5: to trial. A dark plea is one that happens after
Speaker 5: an individual has already been convicted. They're incarcerated, and they've
Speaker 5: found proof of their innocence, and they're asking for a
Speaker 5: new trial, and that dark plea offer comes right at
Speaker 5: that time. The danger in it is that it's incredibly
Speaker 5: coercive because this person has been convicted, they're living in prison,
Speaker 5: they've lost their liberty, and what they're looking at is
Speaker 5: take a risk, take a gamble on my future and
Speaker 5: hope that the system that has wrongfully convicted me gets
Speaker 5: it right, or have this certain freedom and justice. Donley
Speaker 5: describes it as essentially negotiating with a gun to your head.
Speaker 2: I always said that I'm innocent and I would never
Speaker 2: plead anything.
Speaker 3: Nope, I'm going to fight, fight, fight.
Speaker 2: However, as time go on, I stepdad, past, my moms,
Speaker 2: getting older, you know, you start thinking differently.
Speaker 3: So Joanna said, hey, they offered you something.
Speaker 1: I'm like what she was like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 4: And it was like a last minute thing they gave her,
Speaker 4: you know, didn't even give it time to think about anything,
Speaker 4: but what ten minutes, fifteen minutes, not even you know,
Speaker 4: there was like make a decision to make it now?
Speaker 4: You know, come on, does somebody's life you don't just
Speaker 4: tell them, make a decision to make it now.
Speaker 2: I cried so hard, and I remember praying to God
Speaker 2: and asking God, like, whatever you want me to do,
Speaker 2: I'll do. I can't do this on my own. I
Speaker 2: need you, you know. And that's the one time in
Speaker 2: my life that I was all by myself.
Speaker 3: But I didn't feel alone.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a very like religious person, but I
Speaker 2: felt like God's spirit with me because I just I
Speaker 2: had to make a decision within a couple of minutes
Speaker 2: that was gonna end change the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: This deal.
Speaker 4: I told her, Angela, you have all the people standing
Speaker 4: behind you.
Speaker 1: We had the.
Speaker 4: Workers, the kids' fathers all standing behind her. But Angela
Speaker 4: was frightened. She was scared.
Speaker 2: I think I was forty at the time and don't
Speaker 2: have to worry about doing another thirty seventhing years in
Speaker 2: prison for something I didn't do.
Speaker 3: And then, you know what makes it.
Speaker 2: Even worse for me is that I didn't take my
Speaker 2: children's lives, and now here I am.
Speaker 3: I did the one thing that I said I would
Speaker 3: never do.
Speaker 1: I took the tlee that morning. Rather than face a
Speaker 1: fourth trial, Angela pled guilty to one count of aggravated
Speaker 1: arson and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Under the Plea agreement,
Speaker 1: her sentence was reduced to twenty two years. She would
Speaker 1: be out in less than six years.
Speaker 2: I didn't have time to think about, Oh, when you
Speaker 2: get out, you're gonna be a convicted felon.
Speaker 1: Angela was finally released in January of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: but life isn't exactly back to normal with the felony
Speaker 1: convictions still on her record. Even the most basic things
Speaker 1: in life can be a challenge when.
Speaker 3: You get out.
Speaker 2: You can never get an apartment because they don't rent
Speaker 2: apartments to convict the felons. You know how hard it
Speaker 2: is to get a job having a record. You know,
Speaker 2: it's so many different things that I didn't get a
Speaker 2: chance to think about, you know, And then now I
Speaker 2: you know, of course, now I think about, like, did
Speaker 2: I make the right decision?
Speaker 1: Well, do you regret doing it?
Speaker 3: Sometimes I do? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I wish I
Speaker 3: had the courage to fight.
Speaker 2: But you know, all the things that I've seen that
Speaker 2: happen in the courtroom, and I was scared, did I
Speaker 2: have the mental strength to go through all that again?
Speaker 2: Did I want to take my mom through all that again?
Speaker 2: Or anybody else in my family, you know? And I
Speaker 2: just figured, like, if I took this plea, like I
Speaker 2: could be home. I could be home my mom. I
Speaker 2: could take her out to eat, you know, and I
Speaker 2: can lay to bed with her and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: When Angela first got out of prison, adjusting to her
Speaker 1: new life was harder than she expected.
Speaker 2: When I first got locked up, I had to figure
Speaker 2: out prison. I had to figure out how and what
Speaker 2: I had to do to survive.
Speaker 3: And it's like kind of the.
Speaker 2: Same concept, but being free, it's not like the prison
Speaker 2: or anybody says, you know, hey, listen, here's a manual.
Speaker 2: This is what this is, this is life, this is
Speaker 2: what you need to do. This is how things are
Speaker 2: going to be. You know, you don't get that.
Speaker 3: When I I came home, it was weird being around
Speaker 3: my friends because we were all once young.
Speaker 2: Now they're older women, and not only are they older women,
Speaker 2: but their grandmas. Sometimes I will you go out with
Speaker 2: my friends, and I will feel out of place, because
Speaker 2: it's just like I think that, like when you're in prison,
Speaker 2: especially for a long time, it's like that's how you
Speaker 2: picture them.
Speaker 3: Even with my mom, Like my mom's.
Speaker 2: In her seventies now, but I still picture her as
Speaker 2: this forty seven year old woman, you know, And so
Speaker 2: like sometimes I look at my mom and she'll do
Speaker 2: something and I'll be.
Speaker 3: Like, man, my mom's old lady now.
Speaker 1: But Angela, still in the prime of her life and
Speaker 1: with a renewed sense of purpose, plans to get married
Speaker 1: and start a nonprofit organization like a.
Speaker 2: Sober living home to help people that have been in prison,
Speaker 2: let them have a place to come to.
Speaker 3: So I've been trying to work on that.
Speaker 2: And just trying to work on myself and just trying
Speaker 2: to become a better me, a better daughter.
Speaker 3: A bet it's still a better ant.
Speaker 1: You're still quite young, do you do you want to
Speaker 1: have kids or adopt kids or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I'm young.
Speaker 1: I think you're forty six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I can know fifties doors like, come on in, No,
Speaker 3: I can't have any more children.
Speaker 2: After I had my children, I had complications. And that's
Speaker 2: another reason why my daughters meant so much to me
Speaker 2: because I just felt like God gave me these two.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you. I mean, this is so
Speaker 1: hard to talk about, so how come you do talk
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 2: I talk about it because my situation can happen to
Speaker 2: anybody else out there, and I want people to be
Speaker 2: aware of the things that.
Speaker 3: Happened to me and to many others. I want people to.
Speaker 2: Understand that our judicious system is not always right, and
Speaker 2: our judicial system.
Speaker 3: Is not always fair.
Speaker 2: And you know a lot of people are not aware
Speaker 2: of all the people that have been wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 3: It's my same situation. Could be your daughter, your mother,
Speaker 3: your sister. You know, it could happen to anybody.
Speaker 2: I want people to understand that everybody that takes it
Speaker 2: plea is not guilty.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
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 producers 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