Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of July night, police discovered
Speaker 1: the body of twenty four year old Julie Burchett at
Speaker 1: an abandoned palette mill in Monticello, Kentucky. She had been
Speaker 1: brutally murdered. Witnesses said they had seen Julie attacked and
Speaker 1: stabbed by another woman at a house party the night before,
Speaker 1: and that the party was thrown by Hope White at
Speaker 1: her mother's house. Did you ever have parties at your
Speaker 1: mom's house? Absolutely not. My mother would not allow something
Speaker 1: like that to go on. So what did you think
Speaker 1: about this whole party story? Um? I thought it was
Speaker 1: bizarre and crazy, and I really didn't think that I
Speaker 1: had anything to worry about because I thought, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: very easy to prove the the uh they see four
Speaker 1: a lion. But regardless, Hope was arrested and convicted of
Speaker 1: the murder of Julie Hicks pur Chet. My name is
Speaker 1: Hope and a Y and I've been in prison for
Speaker 1: prompanmly thirteen years and four months from love of for good.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Hope White. So,
Speaker 1: I'm from Kentucky and a little small town named Mona Fello.
Speaker 1: Hope White was born in July to Darryl and Tammy White.
Speaker 1: We didn't have a lot of money growing up. My
Speaker 1: mother did work, mostly just at restaurants that didn't pay
Speaker 1: very much or give her many hours. I did um
Speaker 1: look up to my dad, think that he was the
Speaker 1: coolest because he didn't drink and things like that. As
Speaker 1: a young girl, Hope thought her dad just like to
Speaker 1: have a good time. But the truth was, Uh, watched
Speaker 1: my father sheffer from mental illness and indiction to drugs
Speaker 1: from alcohol. As Hope got older, she says she followed
Speaker 1: in his footsteps. Now the age eleven, I was well
Speaker 1: considerate local marijuana, drinking alcohol. I could even go to
Speaker 1: local bootleggers and and buy my own punt DeLisi. I
Speaker 1: was very Uh, I'm a very attention seeking person. Um,
Speaker 1: so I would hang out with whoever gave me an attention.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I might even change my values or my world,
Speaker 1: even my appearance for their's approval. But not everyone saw
Speaker 1: that side of Hope. She was so fun, she was
Speaker 1: so outgoing, outspoken, um passionate it. This is Brittany Hope's sister.
Speaker 1: She is eleven years older than me. So she was
Speaker 1: someone that I looked up to. Um, My early memories
Speaker 1: of her are almost a mother role rather than a sister.
Speaker 1: She was very very passionate about family, about making sure
Speaker 1: that I had the same experiences as her children did.
Speaker 1: Pope had her first daughter, Shawonda, in nine, so she
Speaker 1: was sixteen when she had her first kid. And if
Speaker 1: y'all are eleven years apart, you're actually pretty close in
Speaker 1: age to your nieces and nephews. Correct. Yeah, yes, she
Speaker 1: has two daughters, UM, and the first one is five
Speaker 1: years younger than me, and the second one is nine
Speaker 1: years younger than me. We kind of grew up as
Speaker 1: sisters more so than and and niece, just because we're
Speaker 1: so close in age. When Hope gave birth to Shawnda,
Speaker 1: she knew she won had a better life for her
Speaker 1: daughter than she had growing up. But parenthood spun her
Speaker 1: life in a new direction. Me and her father worked
Speaker 1: at various places in town. It was a lot harder
Speaker 1: than what we thought it would be. It didn't take
Speaker 1: us long to figure out sailing marijuana and deals and
Speaker 1: was really fast money for a small town. Um. I
Speaker 1: began to feel powerful having tons of friends and that
Speaker 1: money and that I wasn't used to having, but to
Speaker 1: her little sister Brittany, she was still the same Hope
Speaker 1: at heart. I remember she had and it seems like
Speaker 1: such a small thing now, but she had went to
Speaker 1: the guest tissue and got bug juice, which is these
Speaker 1: little juice is made for kids, and she had already
Speaker 1: gave them theirs, they had already drank them. And I
Speaker 1: got home and happened to see like a half empty one,
Speaker 1: you know, on the counter. And before I could even
Speaker 1: so much as get a disappointed look on my face,
Speaker 1: she whip to one out of the fridge and was like,
Speaker 1: don't worry, I got you one too. It just made
Speaker 1: me so excited and so happy that even though I
Speaker 1: wasn't there and she didn't have to get me something,
Speaker 1: it was so touching to me, um, knowing that she
Speaker 1: did not have to do that. Hope's second daughter, Desiree,
Speaker 1: was born in two thousand three, and two years later,
Speaker 1: Shanda and Desire's father went to prison for selling drugs.
Speaker 1: Hope was left to support her family on her own,
Speaker 1: but soon she met someone new, a man named Bobby Buster.
Speaker 1: At first, our relationship was very um good. We were
Speaker 1: good for each other, we we got each other, so
Speaker 1: we're He got a good job building houses for a cackle.
Speaker 1: I wasn't how much the kids and uh before he
Speaker 1: played the bills and everything. So we still didn't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money. And I began listen that
Speaker 1: fast money. So therefore I started uh sailing again, and
Speaker 1: eventually we started to use again together. I started giving
Speaker 1: a bad one in harder drugs. I began to do
Speaker 1: things that I wasn't proud of. I'd live. She still,
Speaker 1: I was very depressed and struggled with anger in my
Speaker 1: whole life. So UM, I acted out a lot of
Speaker 1: times in violence, many different forms, whether it was getting banks, steeple,
Speaker 1: or even harm in myself. Hope says that violence eventually
Speaker 1: showed up in her relationship with Bobby. It started with
Speaker 1: their arguments, which soon erupted into physical altercations. By the
Speaker 1: time Shonda was around nine years old, the neighbors were
Speaker 1: starting to notice. The night of the murder, there was
Speaker 1: a domestic violence called to your house? Correct, Yes, can
Speaker 1: you tell me about that? What happened? Um? Well? Um
Speaker 1: our fight actually started at the light on July tight
Speaker 1: Hope spent most of the day shopping with her mom. Later,
Speaker 1: when Bobby got off work, Hope met up with him
Speaker 1: and their friends Janet and Billie Burke. The four of
Speaker 1: them drove out to f and T Lake, a few
Speaker 1: miles outside of Monticello, to hang out and ride four wheelers.
Speaker 1: They left for the lake about four thirty PM, and
Speaker 1: an hour later, Bobby got a citation from Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife for operating his two willer illegally because their sides
Speaker 1: will over the place down there, saying that those types
Speaker 1: of things aren't supposed to be on the property. The
Speaker 1: evening went downhill from there. Bobby and Hope got into
Speaker 1: a fight. I really don't even remember what we were
Speaker 1: fighting about. I was drinking pretty heavily that day, and um,
Speaker 1: I do remember a spighting at the lake and it escalated.
Speaker 1: UM I hit myself in the head with a rock
Speaker 1: at the lake. Once they got back to their apartment,
Speaker 1: the arguing continued. At around nine PM, a neighbor reported
Speaker 1: hearing Hope and Bobby fighting. Sometime after that, police received
Speaker 1: a second call reporting a suspected domestic violence incident at
Speaker 1: their apartment. Finally, at around eleven that night, the police
Speaker 1: showed up. They first treated the cut on Hope's forehead
Speaker 1: from the rock injury earlier that day, and then Deputy
Speaker 1: John Heard arrested Hope for an active bench warrant for
Speaker 1: an unpaid fine. Former mont Cello police officer Derek Lester
Speaker 1: was also at Hope's apartment at that time, but he
Speaker 1: left to resp on to a reckless driving call. On
Speaker 1: the way, he drove by an abandoned palette mill and
Speaker 1: noticed a familiar car parked in the lot. It was
Speaker 1: one officers had been alerted to pay attention to because
Speaker 1: it's driver didn't have a license. The car belonged to
Speaker 1: year old Julie Hicks for Chet, so Officer Lester parked
Speaker 1: and walked towards the car with a flashlight. As he approached,
Speaker 1: he saw Julie sprawled across the front seat of her car.
Speaker 1: She had multiple stab wounds on her body and was
Speaker 1: lying in a pool of blood dead. This episode is
Speaker 1: underwritten by a i G, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: A i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and
Speaker 1: to making a positive difference in the lives of its
Speaker 1: employees and in the communities were they work and live.
Speaker 1: In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal
Speaker 1: assistance and in recognition of a i g s commitment
Speaker 1: to criminal and social justice reform, the a i G
Speaker 1: Pro Bono program provides free legal services and other support
Speaker 1: to underrepresented communities and individuals. As soon as officer Lester
Speaker 1: found the body at twelve thirty six am, he made
Speaker 1: a distraught call to his department. He needed all hands
Speaker 1: on deck at the mill. Officers immediately released Hope from
Speaker 1: custody and went to the crime scene, and it was
Speaker 1: a spectacle. People throughout the neighborhood, including Bobby and Hope,
Speaker 1: gathered to see what the commotion was about. Hope had
Speaker 1: known Julie most of their lives. We wrote the same
Speaker 1: fool bus together, um our whole entire last going to
Speaker 1: school and UM after we started having a good round
Speaker 1: together when we got out, or when she got into
Speaker 1: UM doing drugs and how that anti stale and drugs
Speaker 1: she would actually come about and from me. The investigation
Speaker 1: into Julie's murder lasted almost a full year. Witnesses said
Speaker 1: they had seen Julie's car at the mill starting at
Speaker 1: ten thirty that morning, and they had seen her coming
Speaker 1: and going. Her car, however, remained there throughout the day,
Speaker 1: with different men passing by until about seven thirty pm.
Speaker 1: The minimal forensic evidence police collected at the scene was
Speaker 1: of little value. Some of it wasn't tested at all,
Speaker 1: and the items that were tested did not return any
Speaker 1: fingerprints or DNA matches. The items included a lighter that
Speaker 1: was found near Julie's car and a large Janko sweatshirt
Speaker 1: that appeared to have blood on it at the time.
Speaker 1: The DNA samples on the sweatshirt weren't large enough to
Speaker 1: develop a profile, and while the lighter was fingerprinted, it
Speaker 1: wasn't tested for DNA at all. Fingernail scrapings were collected,
Speaker 1: and multiple hairs were also found on Julie's body, clothes
Speaker 1: and in the car, but none of this was tested
Speaker 1: at the time of the investigation. The case went cold
Speaker 1: for months, and then a man named Jason Miller was
Speaker 1: arrested on felony drug charges. He met with the lead
Speaker 1: detective for the state Police and the prosecutor and said
Speaker 1: he knew something about the murder. This is Miranda Hellman,
Speaker 1: an attorney with the Kentucky Innocence Project who now represents Hope.
Speaker 1: Miranda says how exactly Jason came forward is unknown. Not
Speaker 1: a lot of it is recorded. We do know from
Speaker 1: there that they kind of took Jason out into the
Speaker 1: county and had him tried to walk through the narrative.
Speaker 1: Jason Miller told police that the night of Julie's murder,
Speaker 1: he was at a party at Hope's mother's house and
Speaker 1: that he had seen Hope killed Julie in a fight there.
Speaker 1: His story was that Hope confronted Julie about sleeping with
Speaker 1: her boyfriend and then stabbed her, spewing blood everywhere. Police
Speaker 1: wanted more details, so they actually take him on a
Speaker 1: ride along from the courthouse where he's supposed to point
Speaker 1: out where the party occurred, where Hope's mom lived, how
Speaker 1: things occurred, um, but he couldn't identify the house, he
Speaker 1: couldn't identify the route UM. Julie's cell phone was missing.
Speaker 1: He said that he was in his car and he
Speaker 1: threw it out into the woods on the way out
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood, you know, away from Hope's mom's house.
Speaker 1: And then he had literally the prosecutor and the police
Speaker 1: looking for a cell phone in the ditch UM, but
Speaker 1: was never located. Jason also couldn't say what date this happened,
Speaker 1: or what Julie was wearing. Rather, he gave the names
Speaker 1: of three people he said, we're also at the party.
Speaker 1: The first witness Jason named was Seth Frost, but Frost
Speaker 1: denied any knowledge of the murder. Meanwhile, Adam Manning, the
Speaker 1: second witness, was also in jail an appending felony charge.
Speaker 1: When he was questioned, Manning said he arrived at the
Speaker 1: party at ten pm and that there were approximately thirty
Speaker 1: to thirty five people there. He said the stabbing happened
Speaker 1: at around midnight, but in a completely different location in
Speaker 1: the house than where Jason Miller had placed it. Scotty Stanton,
Speaker 1: the third witness Miller named, gave a statement different from
Speaker 1: all the others. He said they went to the party
Speaker 1: after a football game around eleven pm, although it wasn't
Speaker 1: football season. He said they saw some girls arguing and left,
Speaker 1: and he didn't see anything related to a stabbing. Stanton
Speaker 1: couldn't give an exact date either. None of it adds up,
Speaker 1: and that no one's story is consistent enough to even
Speaker 1: really say it happened on you know this day and July,
Speaker 1: so you know when all these people were supposed to
Speaker 1: be at this party, but only three can tell you
Speaker 1: a story that even points to Hope. Is incredibly concerning.
Speaker 1: And it's not just concerning for me, you know, as
Speaker 1: a citizen and me as a defense attorney, or me
Speaker 1: as an advocate for Hope. It's concerning and that you know,
Speaker 1: why did they push so hard to get this story?
Speaker 1: You know, why did they use these people that had
Speaker 1: pending charges. And despite the allegations that dozens of people
Speaker 1: were at this party, no one called the police after
Speaker 1: Julie was supposedly brutally murdered, and no one was identified
Speaker 1: or interviewed from the alleged party other than Jason Miller
Speaker 1: and the three witnesses he named. One of them says
Speaker 1: they're there for an hour. One of them says they're
Speaker 1: there for five minutes, and that there was a fight
Speaker 1: in the back of the house and arguing. Hope came
Speaker 1: out of the bathroom in the back of the house
Speaker 1: and just picked up an knife. Um, no one really
Speaker 1: describes what the knife is. If it's a kitchen knife,
Speaker 1: a pocket knife, two knives, one knife, nobody really knows
Speaker 1: um and just stabs her. The stories get even more
Speaker 1: confused from there, nobody says how many times, nobody really
Speaker 1: says where in the house. They all described the house
Speaker 1: as this open floor plan, had a pool table in
Speaker 1: the middle of the living room and a chair in
Speaker 1: the corner, and that Hope had walked out into this
Speaker 1: living room and that's where the stabbing occurred, somewhere between
Speaker 1: the hallway and the living room. And then everyone says
Speaker 1: they left. Jason says he left as soon as that
Speaker 1: stabbing happens. Adam and Scotty say the same. So there's
Speaker 1: there's no testimony or explanation about what happens after that,
Speaker 1: how a body would have been transported, Who would have
Speaker 1: transported it. I've been in Tammy's house multiple times. Um,
Speaker 1: we actually had the layout at trial the defense attorneys
Speaker 1: did to show whatever house they were to describing couldn't
Speaker 1: have been Tammy's house. It's not how her house is
Speaker 1: laid out. Despite these shaky testimonies, police executed a search
Speaker 1: warrant for Tammy White's house. They went in with cadaver
Speaker 1: dogs and luminal, which is just like a spray that
Speaker 1: reacts to black light, and it will react when it
Speaker 1: hits certain things. So that one of the big ones
Speaker 1: is blood or bodily fluids. So the quote at trial
Speaker 1: was that when they hit the black light in Tammy's
Speaker 1: house that it lit up like a Christmas tree. And
Speaker 1: I've seen the photos it did that. The walls, the floor,
Speaker 1: every piece of this house looked like it was having
Speaker 1: a reaction to Loominal. So they pull floor samples, carpet samples, door, drywall, everything.
Speaker 1: But when they tested these samples, no blood or DNA
Speaker 1: showed up on any of them. Police also never interviewed
Speaker 1: any of Tammy's neighbors to find out if they saw
Speaker 1: a party happening. These neighbors would have had a direct
Speaker 1: line of sight to the house and would have seen
Speaker 1: dozens of people and cars coming and going. The police, however,
Speaker 1: did speak to Bobby. The cops really um pushed for
Speaker 1: him to find safe evidence against me, to say that, um,
Speaker 1: this party did happen, and that he did witness a murder,
Speaker 1: and uh, they really pushed him to say that, um,
Speaker 1: this is the truth and this is what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: or we're going to charge you for the murder. Also
Speaker 1: and also said that they would let him off his
Speaker 1: charges that he was facing if he would just tell
Speaker 1: the truth about the whole murders, but Bobby refused to
Speaker 1: lie as the cops were pressuring him to do. Despite that,
Speaker 1: Hope was ultimately indicted on August two thousand nine. When
Speaker 1: they first residently, I wasn't really I wasn't really worried
Speaker 1: about it. I just thought, Okay, this is a mix up.
Speaker 1: This is very easy to prove that these se four
Speaker 1: are lying, and I have people to back me up
Speaker 1: where I was at, what I was doing. This will
Speaker 1: be cleared up in no time. I'll go to accounting
Speaker 1: and get booked in and I will be released. So
Speaker 1: Hope cooperated with the police. She had nothing to hide.
Speaker 1: They asked me for a sample my d n A.
Speaker 1: I gave back to them. They asked me for a
Speaker 1: lot of sector tests I gave back to him, which
Speaker 1: I passed. Yet, investigators continued to focus on Hope as
Speaker 1: a prime suspect instead of doing any other investigation on
Speaker 1: any other leads that they may have had at the
Speaker 1: time or could have done, such as Julie's ex boyfriend
Speaker 1: at the time. Clues about this came from Julie's purse,
Speaker 1: which was found in the trunk of her car. Inside
Speaker 1: it were numerous love letters from a man named Billie Shepherd,
Speaker 1: alluding to buying her a wedding ring and saying if
Speaker 1: he could not be with her, then he did not
Speaker 1: want to live. Shepherd also called Julie on the afternoon
Speaker 1: of her murder, but he was never investigated. Police also
Speaker 1: had another suspect, Rodney Porter, who drove a car that
Speaker 1: was seen at the mill a day Julie was murdered.
Speaker 1: Even though she was married at the time, Porter was
Speaker 1: rumored to also have been in a relationship with Julie.
Speaker 1: He was a suspect for some amount of time. We
Speaker 1: know he's listed as a suspect in many of the
Speaker 1: police documents, and then about six months of investigation occurs
Speaker 1: and at some point the suspect changes to Hope. Really,
Speaker 1: there's no explanation other than the story from Jason Miller.
Speaker 1: When you were at trial, did you think everything was
Speaker 1: going to work out? Absolutely? Did um. I had based
Speaker 1: in the justice system that yes, that people didn't go
Speaker 1: to jail. So once this happened to me, I realized
Speaker 1: now and by looking at back at everything that's happened,
Speaker 1: of how much corruption is in a small falm who
Speaker 1: when I lived in Hope's trial started on April six.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Matthew Leverage laid out the state's case. He said
Speaker 1: that Hope I thought Bobby was cheating on her Julie,
Speaker 1: so she killed her. To this allegation, Hope admits that she,
Speaker 1: Bobby and Julie sometimes participated in casual three zones, but
Speaker 1: it was all mutually consensual. Um. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: the police even knew that we had had these uh
Speaker 1: encounters and private but they asked me about him, and
Speaker 1: I was honest, and they kind of took their own
Speaker 1: a little bit of the truth and sun it into
Speaker 1: their own theory and of events that are supposedly played
Speaker 1: out in the non in question. The prosecution called all
Speaker 1: four alleged witnesses once again. They all gave different accounts,
Speaker 1: with very few details matching their original statements or those
Speaker 1: of each other. The only person whose story was consistent
Speaker 1: with what he told police was Seth Frost. He said
Speaker 1: this didn't happen. He said, they've talked to the police,
Speaker 1: They've threatened me. I'm terrified, but this never happened and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it did. So the jury.
Speaker 1: Here's testimony from these witnesses talking about this party with
Speaker 1: the understanding that we're going to find Julie's blood in
Speaker 1: this house and it's damning evidence against Hope. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, there was no blood found
Speaker 1: on any of the items submitted from Tammy's house. Nothing
Speaker 1: ties anyone to this murder, and most certainly does not
Speaker 1: tie Hope or her home or her mother's home to
Speaker 1: Julian anyway. There was also no blood found outside of
Speaker 1: Julie's car. The inside of the car, though, was soaked
Speaker 1: in blood, indicating that the murder happened inside the car,
Speaker 1: which totally invalidated the story of the stabbing at Tammy
Speaker 1: White's house. When it came to the physical evidence, the
Speaker 1: prosecution reiterated that the case lacked forensic evidence. Except there
Speaker 1: actually was some. It was either just untested or simply
Speaker 1: did not incriminate Hope. Yet the jury never heard this.
Speaker 1: Much of the trial felt like smoke in mirrors. It
Speaker 1: was alluding to what you're going to hear and then
Speaker 1: you never hear it, alluding to there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: evidence against her. But really the evidence were just these
Speaker 1: eyewitness statements that truly weren't I don't believe believable eyewitness statements,
Speaker 1: so Hopes public defenders Jim Cox and Teresa Whittaker were
Speaker 1: left to try and discredit these supposed eyewitnesses and their stories.
Speaker 1: They called a witness who said he saw Hope and
Speaker 1: Bobby at the lake that day, and that he drove
Speaker 1: past Tammy's house later that night and didn't see any party.
Speaker 1: Hope also testified at her trial, as did Bobby. He
Speaker 1: said Hope was with him all day and night and
Speaker 1: they were not at a party. Did you ever have
Speaker 1: parties at your mom's house? Absolutely not. My mother would
Speaker 1: not allow something like that to go on. She knew
Speaker 1: that they drug some stuff sometimes, that she was basically
Speaker 1: she would be in my but all the time about
Speaker 1: what I was ship be doing, and what I should
Speaker 1: not be going, and what my kids should and should
Speaker 1: not be around, and she would never allow something like
Speaker 1: that to go on in her home. They also called
Speaker 1: Hope's younger sister, Brittany to the stand. Brittany, who lived
Speaker 1: with their mother Tammy, had been home alone all evening.
Speaker 1: She testified that she vividly remembered this phone call that
Speaker 1: she had with her friend. Her friend actually testified to
Speaker 1: that yes, I was on the phone with Brittany all night.
Speaker 1: We talked till two o'clock in the morning, and I
Speaker 1: don't think there was a party there. Tammy was not
Speaker 1: home that night, so Brittany was home alone. I had
Speaker 1: never been in a courtroom before, had never been in
Speaker 1: front of a judge. I remember being so scared, especially
Speaker 1: whenever it was the prosecution stern. I understood enough, you know,
Speaker 1: to know that they were going to try to say
Speaker 1: things to confuse me, or maybe make it look like
Speaker 1: I wasn't telling the truth, things like that. So it
Speaker 1: was really terrifying, and I felt a lot of weight,
Speaker 1: you know, from making sure I said the right thing
Speaker 1: and not saying something incorrectly or it come off incorrectly
Speaker 1: just because I didn't know how to word it, because
Speaker 1: how was a kid, you know, when it happened. The
Speaker 1: defense stressed to the jury that there was no way
Speaker 1: this party happened, and that Hope could not have killed
Speaker 1: Julie at the same time she was at the lake
Speaker 1: or at the same time police were at her apartment
Speaker 1: responding to the domestic violence call. But that is all
Speaker 1: they could do. You know. It's very hard to say
Speaker 1: those three people are lying and this party never happened,
Speaker 1: because you know what, what proof do you have of
Speaker 1: the negative? So it was really it was a struggle
Speaker 1: at trial to be able to disprove, you know, no
Speaker 1: matter how impossible the timelines were or the stories were,
Speaker 1: to believe that this truly didn't happen. It was a
Speaker 1: very emotional. Um. I tried not to show emotion while
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, and I tried her maths my feeling
Speaker 1: really seeing her pictures and the things that Julie went
Speaker 1: through was very dramatic and distraughting to me. Um, I
Speaker 1: had dreams about it for a long time. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: still do. But a jury convicted Hope of Julie's murder.
Speaker 1: She was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Hope was
Speaker 1: in absolute shock, but her first thoughts were for her family.
Speaker 1: The only thing I could hear was my mom screaming,
Speaker 1: oh my God, my baby, and she ran out of
Speaker 1: the courtroom crying, and that UM, I hear that a
Speaker 1: lot still in the pain in her voice, and that
Speaker 1: I kept feeling my attorney's uh, please go check on
Speaker 1: my mom, Please go check on my mom. My children
Speaker 1: everything to me. A year and a half after Hope's trial.
Speaker 1: Her conviction was actually overturned due to a legal error,
Speaker 1: and she was granted a second trial. I didn't have
Speaker 1: no hope during that second trial. I knew I was
Speaker 1: coming back to prison, but Hope was again convicted and
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty five years in prison. So what has
Speaker 1: it been like for you and the family to have
Speaker 1: Hope and present? Um? It was really really hard, honestly, um.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I can speak for me and
Speaker 1: my nieces whenever I say that they were so little, um,
Speaker 1: whenever it happened. So it was really really hard to
Speaker 1: have to explain to them, you know, where their mom went, um,
Speaker 1: and while she wasn't there for Christmases or birthdays and
Speaker 1: things like that. So yeah, it was pretty traumatizing and
Speaker 1: really really hard. And Hope desperately missed her kids, right,
Speaker 1: never spent her night without me but maybe go see
Speaker 1: my mom for a weekend or something that. Other than that,
Speaker 1: they was never out of my side and being without them,
Speaker 1: h I said before of struggle with depression my whole life,
Speaker 1: and I really struggled on hurting myself for years, Um,
Speaker 1: because I didn't have them in my life anymore, and
Speaker 1: because of what had happened to me. Yes, I'm just
Speaker 1: grateful that I wasn't strong enough to be able to
Speaker 1: know realize that they needed me more, whether it was
Speaker 1: inside of these walls than not at all. So as
Speaker 1: soon as she could, Hope reached out to the Kentucky
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and in they took on her case that
Speaker 1: had every marker that you know of of a wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction case that that we know about. UM. From day
Speaker 1: one of trial of attendee trial, it was obvious that
Speaker 1: nothing in the case matched a timeline that could exist. UM.
Speaker 1: There were testimony that was conflicting, you know, all over
Speaker 1: the place, and all of the physical evidence that was
Speaker 1: supposed to be presented against Hope from the beginning of
Speaker 1: the trial never came to fruition. Not only that, rumors
Speaker 1: were floating around town about the police officers who were
Speaker 1: involved in the case and whether they could be trusted.
Speaker 1: Do you think there was police corruption in your case? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: there was a loss of police corruption in that case.
Speaker 1: It was really weird. From Derek wester Uh founding Julie
Speaker 1: and the ways that he got Julie and how he
Speaker 1: was even out of his jurisdiction to be in that
Speaker 1: area to begin with, because Hope says, Julie had also
Speaker 1: told her something about Derrick Lester Eric what I have
Speaker 1: for sexual fighters to keep her from getting a driving
Speaker 1: on no license. What's more, Miranda says that other aspects
Speaker 1: of the story, the states strung together didn't make sense.
Speaker 1: It's physically impossible to drive to the places that they
Speaker 1: would have have to be driven to in the timeframe
Speaker 1: that they had. Our theory was always that this happened
Speaker 1: in her vehicle because of the amount of blood, but
Speaker 1: that was never really presented at trial. Someone stood over
Speaker 1: her and stabbed her, and this person could also have
Speaker 1: been the one whose hairs were found at the scene.
Speaker 1: There's a very good chance that that hair belongs to
Speaker 1: the person who committed this crime. Um or could have
Speaker 1: been on her, you know, from during the day and
Speaker 1: and would tell us more about who she was with
Speaker 1: and where she was. So that hair seems incredibly important.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, Hope's trial defense team did
Speaker 1: not even know the hairs existed and they were never tested.
Speaker 1: So Miranda and the Kentucky Innocence Project have been focused
Speaker 1: on getting those hairs tested and acquiring other evidence that
Speaker 1: was either tested years ago with limited technology or never
Speaker 1: tested at all. After the requests for DNA testing were
Speaker 1: denied a few times, there was a glimmer of hope.
Speaker 1: So we were recently actually UM granted an oral argument
Speaker 1: to talk about the testing statute as an applies to
Speaker 1: Hope and hopefully as an applies to many more of
Speaker 1: our clients that could benefit for UM from this more
Speaker 1: liberal review of cases that should be eligible for post
Speaker 1: conviction testing. In the meantime, Hope focuses on moving forward.
Speaker 1: Since I've been incarcerated, I have gotten my cheat and
Speaker 1: I would lack to finish college right now. I have
Speaker 1: a job. I'm doing land UH. If I'm not at work, UM,
Speaker 1: either on the file with the family members or my children,
Speaker 1: Shaunda and Desiree are now adults. Hope watch them grow
Speaker 1: up from behind bars. I talked to them all of now.
Speaker 1: We have a very good relationship since I've been in here. UM.
Speaker 1: Shonda has three daughters of her own now, and Brittany
Speaker 1: believes that her sister will be proven innocent. Do you
Speaker 1: talk about her getting out? Do you talk about the
Speaker 1: future all the time? UM? I think that helps her
Speaker 1: a lot, because that gives her something to look forward to.
Speaker 1: It's cheesy, but I joked with her all the time
Speaker 1: that her name is her name for a reason. Of course,
Speaker 1: my mom didn't know that when she named her, but
Speaker 1: that's something that we use now a lot to try
Speaker 1: to encourage her. UM and just tell her, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to keep having Hope. I really want to
Speaker 1: do something to help other people. My really dream is
Speaker 1: to becomin attorney and UM or someone lacks the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project and be able to help people that have dronkfully convicted.
Speaker 1: That's my dream. If you want to help Hope and
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Innocence Project, go to the link in our bio.
Speaker 1: Next time, Unwrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Brendan Woodruff. They
Speaker 1: felt like he was a lot more sinister when really
Speaker 1: it was just me being myself. But your clothing doesn't
Speaker 1: make you a killer, and you liking guys and girls
Speaker 1: or just guys or just girls, they doesn't make you
Speaker 1: a killer either. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
Speaker 1: to the links in our bio to see how you
Speaker 1: can help I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason
Speaker 1: Flom and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonja Paul.
Speaker 1: The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with
Speaker 1: additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music
Speaker 1: in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: On all three platforms, you can also follow me on
Speaker 1: both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one O