Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen ninety five, Audrey Edmunds was
Speaker 1: running a small in home daycare center in Wannakee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: One of the children she cared for was a seven
Speaker 1: month old girl named Natalie Beard, who had a troubling
Speaker 1: health history, both known and unknown, in addition to fussiness
Speaker 1: when it came to feeding. On the morning of October sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, as per usual, Natalie was set up
Speaker 1: in a car seat in a quiet room with a
Speaker 1: bottle to help her focus while feeding. According to Audrey,
Speaker 1: she had soon found Natalie unresponsive as formula ran from
Speaker 1: her nose and mouth, and Audrey some in paramedics who
Speaker 1: noticed Natalie's pupils were fixed and dilated and she was
Speaker 1: only taking short breaths. Tragically, Natalie died later on that
Speaker 1: night at the hospital, and her autopsy revealed retinal and
Speaker 1: brain hemorrhaging, as well as bruising on her scalp. Doctors
Speaker 1: ruled these findings to be evidence of shit and baby syndrome.
Speaker 1: That trial. Medical experts testified with certainty that Natalie's death
Speaker 1: was not the result of an accident, but rather recent
Speaker 1: intentional forceful conduct and the most recent caregiver was Audrey Edmunds.
Speaker 1: With the stresses of childcare, it's easy to believe that
Speaker 1: something inside Audrey could have snapped. But this is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today, we're going to unpack
Speaker 1: the case of Audrey Edmunds, who was convicted of a
Speaker 1: crime that simply never happened, and she was sentenced to
Speaker 1: eighteen years in prison. Audrey, I'm so sorry for what
Speaker 1: happened to you, but I'm super grateful that you're here
Speaker 1: now to share your story with us.
Speaker 2: Good morning.
Speaker 1: Likewise, you know, we've covered shaking baby syndrome or SPS,
Speaker 1: not only a this show, but also in depth on
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction junk science. When our host Josh Dubin spoke
Speaker 1: with Kate Judson, the executive director of the Center for
Speaker 1: Integrity and Forensic Sciences, and we've been asking her to
Speaker 1: join us when we cover a case like yours. But
Speaker 1: since the co founder of that organization, Keith Finley, was
Speaker 1: your post conviction attorney, We're going to give Kate the
Speaker 1: day off today. Keith, you also co founded the Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Innocence Project as well as the Innocence Network. I mean, wow, anyway, incredible.
Speaker 1: We're so honored to have you with us today.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Jason, glad to be with you now.
Speaker 1: I know you know a lot about this hypothesis, which
Speaker 1: masquerades day in and day out as a decided science.
Speaker 3: Shake and baby syndrome is. As its founder, doctor Norman
Speaker 3: guth Kelch referred to it repeatedly, It's a hypothesis, that's
Speaker 3: all it is.
Speaker 1: It's a hypothesis, right, And the hypothesis was that violently
Speaker 1: shaking an infant could cause the brain to sort of
Speaker 1: slosh around back and forth inside of the skull, which
Speaker 1: would in turn cause the bridging veins of the brain
Speaker 1: and eyes to tear and bleed inside the coverings of
Speaker 1: the brain and retinas, in addition to brain swelling, ultimately
Speaker 1: resulting in the triad of findings for which doctor gotth
Speaker 1: Kelch was trying to figure out, try to solve, and
Speaker 1: this would then cause the child to lose consciousness or
Speaker 1: potentially even their life.
Speaker 3: This hypothesis has never, as guth Kelch himself said late
Speaker 3: in his life, has never been scientifically validated, and it's
Speaker 3: for a very very good reason. It's nearly impossible to
Speaker 3: do the kind of validation studies that would be required
Speaker 3: to really test this scientifically, you need to do randomized
Speaker 3: controlled studies, But for obvious ethical reasons, you can't shake
Speaker 3: a certain group of infants and compare them to a
Speaker 3: group of infants who are not shaken.
Speaker 1: Right, if this hypothesis was to be believed, then you
Speaker 1: not not only be submitting these infants to abuse, but
Speaker 1: also what a proponent of SBS would believe is almost
Speaker 1: a certain death. However, there have been studies over time
Speaker 1: that have been able to disprove the hypothesis without shaking infants,
Speaker 1: and those revelations come down to what other injuries would
Speaker 1: also have to be present. In addition to the triad
Speaker 1: of findings.
Speaker 3: The thing that really informs this is biomechanical research. Biomechanics
Speaker 3: is the study of the effects of force applied to
Speaker 3: the body, and what the biomechanical research shows consistently is
Speaker 3: that the most vigorous shaking that a human being can
Speaker 3: generate comes nowhere close to meeting the injury thresholds estimated
Speaker 3: in these kinds of cases, and if sufficient forces could
Speaker 3: be generated, that force would have to travel from the
Speaker 3: chest through the neck to the brain. The weak link
Speaker 3: there is the neck. The neck would almost certainly be
Speaker 3: severely damaged by that much shaking, and yet these cases
Speaker 3: almost never have any injuries of that sort.
Speaker 1: And it has since been proven that there are a
Speaker 1: multitude of other potential causes of the so called.
Speaker 3: Triad, everything ranging from choking to inherited conditions, coagulopathies, childhood stroke,
Speaker 3: accidental falls, you name it. There's just so many of
Speaker 3: them that there's simply no way that a physician can,
Speaker 3: so to speak, diagnosis on the basis of the triad
Speaker 3: or associated findings. And yet that's exactly what they did
Speaker 3: in Audrey's case.
Speaker 1: Pers and so many others, because antithetical to the scientific method,
Speaker 1: doctors at that time were trained in medical school to
Speaker 1: just jump to this false conclusion each and every time
Speaker 1: they saw that triad of findings. But before this happened
Speaker 1: to you, Audrey, let's go back. Tell us about what
Speaker 1: your life was like.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin. I have three brothers.
Speaker 4: My dad was a teacher. My mom was a stay
Speaker 4: at home mom. We had a very middle class life.
Speaker 4: We had a small home, we had one bathroom. We
Speaker 4: worked when we were old enough too. I had done
Speaker 4: a lot of babysitting, dog sitting.
Speaker 1: So you were predisposed of being a caregiver even as
Speaker 1: a teenager. And what did you do after high school?
Speaker 4: I started a job in the Saint Paul area right
Speaker 4: out of high school. And then I was married when
Speaker 4: I was almost twenty eight years old, and within a
Speaker 4: year we had moved to Ohio, and in Ohio is
Speaker 4: where I had my first child, Carrie.
Speaker 1: And then when Carrie was still a toddler, your family
Speaker 1: moved to Wannakee, Wisconsin, where you went back to childcare.
Speaker 1: How did that come about?
Speaker 4: As much as I enjoyed working, I really enjoyed and
Speaker 4: wanted to be a stay at home mom. And we
Speaker 4: were in a young neighborhood with lots of small children.
Speaker 4: People started asking me from time to time if I
Speaker 4: would watch their children, And that is how this all
Speaker 4: started for me, having children come to my house to
Speaker 4: take care of them.
Speaker 2: And I loved it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it all sounds wonderful. And you had two
Speaker 1: little ones of your own by that time, and you
Speaker 1: were expecting your third, So how great is that to
Speaker 1: be able to be with them full time while also
Speaker 1: providing this much needed service to your community and to
Speaker 1: other parents in the area. So tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about your day care facility.
Speaker 4: We had a large ranch house, a kitchen in the
Speaker 4: center of the house. I had the master bedroom to
Speaker 4: the far left and two other bedrooms in a bathroom
Speaker 4: on the right hand side. And I was not a
Speaker 4: licensed daycare since I didn't have several children every day,
Speaker 4: I took people as needed.
Speaker 1: And one of the families you helped was the Beards
Speaker 1: and their seven month old daughter, Natalie, who tragically passed
Speaker 1: away on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety five. Were there any
Speaker 1: potential warning signs regarding her.
Speaker 4: Health Natalie's parents, this was their first child. They'd had
Speaker 4: a lot of problems with her fussiness and either taken
Speaker 4: her to the doctor or called the doctor twenty five
Speaker 4: times in her twenty seven weeks of life.
Speaker 1: Wow, twenty five doctor visits. That's a doctor visit a
Speaker 1: week pretty much.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 4: And then also, Natalie, unfortunately was not able to roll
Speaker 4: over on her tummy. She couldn't prop herself up with
Speaker 4: her arms as most children do at that age. She
Speaker 4: couldn't hold her own bottle, and ever since I started
Speaker 4: taking care of her, she had a real hard time sucking,
Speaker 4: and I had asked her mom about that because most
Speaker 4: babies at that age they will take down six to
Speaker 4: seven ounces in five to seven minutes, and it took
Speaker 4: Natalie at least twenty minutes. So I had accommodated her
Speaker 4: over the six plus weeks that I had taken care
Speaker 4: of her, to give her the time needed to hold her,
Speaker 4: to help her eat, and keep her away from noisy people.
Speaker 1: I mean, most of our artis probably at some point
Speaker 1: have been a baby, and as you may have experienced,
Speaker 1: if the baby isn't feeling well or has some other
Speaker 1: stuff going on, it can be hard for them to
Speaker 1: maintain focus while feeding. So anything else notable about the
Speaker 1: lead up to that awful, faithful day.
Speaker 4: Yes, she had not been at my house since the
Speaker 4: previous Wednesday, so I hadn't seen her for four days.
Speaker 4: The previous Wednesday, after she'd been at my house, they
Speaker 4: took her into the doctor the next morning because they
Speaker 4: said she was fussy, and the doctor treated her with
Speaker 4: an ear infection. To the best of my knowledge, the
Speaker 4: coroner had noted that there was no ear infection in
Speaker 4: the autopsy, but also on that note, the mother did
Speaker 4: not tell me, But Natalie had projectile vomited that morning
Speaker 4: in her car seat on the way to my house,
Speaker 4: which is just around a half a block from their
Speaker 4: house to my house, So what was really wrong with her?
Speaker 4: Many doctors who have studied these cases have said, when
Speaker 4: the parents continue to bring her in for medical attention
Speaker 4: because they're crying, they need to start doing head scans
Speaker 4: to see if something is wrong internally that can't be
Speaker 4: detected with the little light that the doctor puts in
Speaker 4: the eyes and ears and.
Speaker 1: Nose, And had head scans been a regular practice back then,
Speaker 1: we might have known what was happening inside Natalie before
Speaker 1: it was too late for both her and for you.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, as these findings manifested and took
Speaker 1: her life while she was in your care.
Speaker 4: And it's proven these symptoms can take hours, if not days,
Speaker 4: to manifest before there's an outward symptom, as it did
Speaker 4: happen in my care.
Speaker 1: But at that time, the most recent caregiver was almost
Speaker 1: always the one who was blamed. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: that morning. It was around seven thirty am on October sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, when Cindy Beard dropped Natalie off.
Speaker 4: That morning, the mother could not get her to take
Speaker 4: her bottle, and babies should be hungry when they haven't
Speaker 4: eaten for eight to ten hours. But I knew that
Speaker 4: she was a very sensitive baby to noise, to any
Speaker 4: little jolting, and that's why I decided to put her
Speaker 4: away from the noise of the rest of the house.
Speaker 3: Audrey tried to comb the child by propping her up
Speaker 3: in a quiet bedroom in a car seat with a bottle,
Speaker 3: and she then went to ten to other children in
Speaker 3: her care, and within less than an hour, when she
Speaker 3: checked on Natalie, she found the child to be unresponsive,
Speaker 3: turning blue.
Speaker 4: I thought that she was choking, and I propped her
Speaker 4: upright against my body. I'm patting her on the back.
Speaker 4: She's not responding, and I run outside with her in
Speaker 4: my arm, screaming for a neighbor lady who comes down,
Speaker 4: and I'm babbling telling her what's going on, and she's saying,
Speaker 4: you've got to call nine one one.
Speaker 3: The nine one one call itself is really revealing from
Speaker 3: the very get go. Audrey is telling the rescue people
Speaker 3: that there was all kinds of formula coming out of
Speaker 3: the infant's nose and mouth, and when paramedics arrived. They
Speaker 3: said that they noted that there was formula coming out
Speaker 3: of the child. They said they found a child who
Speaker 3: had aspirated formula and it appeared by all accounts to
Speaker 3: be a choking incident.
Speaker 1: So the paramedics also noted that Natalie's pupils were fixed
Speaker 1: and dilated and she was taking short breaths. She was
Speaker 1: flown to University Hospital in Madison, where tragically she died
Speaker 1: that very night. A forensic pathologist named doctor Robert Huntington
Speaker 1: performed the autopsy, which revealed extensive brain damage, dual retinal hemorrhaging,
Speaker 1: bleeding in the coverings of the brain, and bruising on
Speaker 1: her scalp. So the bleeds represent part of the triad,
Speaker 1: But what about the bruise.
Speaker 4: They couldn't say the timing of it. It was maybe fresh,
Speaker 4: but how fresh is for rush? Is it two hours?
Speaker 4: Is it two days?
Speaker 1: Could that have happened in transit to the hospital or
Speaker 1: while this little child was struggling to survive? What did
Speaker 1: Huntington make of that?
Speaker 3: Doctor Huntington said he thought it was too small to
Speaker 3: be of any consequence, and therefore he concluded this had
Speaker 3: to have been shaking right.
Speaker 1: Huntington ruled out accidental injury, saying that it was quote
Speaker 1: intentional forceful conduct directed specifically at Natalie. But this murder
Speaker 1: diagnosi is completely ignored not only her medical history that
Speaker 1: we've already discussed, but also what should have been a
Speaker 1: big red flag at the autopsy.
Speaker 3: Their own brain scans showed that this child had a
Speaker 3: chronic subdural hematoma, meaning previous episode of bleeding around the brain.
Speaker 3: That's well established in the medical research. The chronic subdural
Speaker 3: hematomas are very susceptible to rebleeding based on very little
Speaker 3: additional trauma, or sometimes no trauma, just spontaneously like a
Speaker 3: spontaneous nosebleed. And the prosecution and ultimately the court simply
Speaker 3: ignored all of these indications that the child was not
Speaker 3: a healthy baby, and that she was a previously brain
Speaker 3: injured child.
Speaker 1: And these kinds of earlier bleeds are sometimes written off
Speaker 1: as proof of previous abuse. But since they also believed
Speaker 1: that violence shaking caused an immediate demise in the SBS
Speaker 1: proponent's mind, perhaps the alleged previous abuse wasn't forceful enough
Speaker 1: to kill. But now the alleged repeat offender, the most
Speaker 1: recent caregiver had just finally been caught by way of
Speaker 1: the child's death, and that puts the onus on you, Audrey.
Speaker 1: Now did you get the sense that Natalie's parents believed
Speaker 1: this as well?
Speaker 4: So Cindy called me at noontime that day, and she
Speaker 4: was very compassionate to me, asked me what happened. She
Speaker 4: was very concerned. I went to the hospital that afternoon,
Speaker 4: short after four, and we hugged and we both cried,
Speaker 4: and I talked to her and I told her how
Speaker 4: much I cared and how much I had tried to
Speaker 4: help Natalie that morning. She was very kind to me,
Speaker 4: and then once the prosecution went on the witch hunt
Speaker 4: after me, they told her not to speak to me anymore.
Speaker 1: So when did this witch hunt, as you so aptly
Speaker 1: called it, begin, or when were you made aware of it?
Speaker 4: I had no clue that anything was trying to be
Speaker 4: held against me until January. I was just talking to
Speaker 4: anybody that came to talk to me. The chief of
Speaker 4: police who had come to my house earlier, mister Geezy,
Speaker 4: he was very very kind. I just answered whatever questions,
Speaker 4: showed them anything they wanted to see. They took photos,
Speaker 4: and I thought this was just regular protocol.
Speaker 1: Typically, we see this diagnosis at the autopsy quickly turned
Speaker 1: into an accusation, charges and arrest, but that didn't materialize
Speaker 1: until five months later, on March nineteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: Now you were charged with first degree reckless homicide. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, you had two kids of your own
Speaker 1: and one more on the way. Perhaps they were waiting
Speaker 1: for that baby to arrive before bringing you in. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean just thinking about you having to
Speaker 1: leave behind your two young children and a newborn. It's
Speaker 1: too much.
Speaker 4: It was horrible. My youngest was one month old. I
Speaker 4: had no clue why this was even happening, why I
Speaker 4: was charged, what they thought happened. I was so so scared,
Speaker 4: but yet I kept thinking, well, nothing happened, so everything
Speaker 4: will be okay.
Speaker 2: And I was wrong.
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Speaker 3: This is what we call a science dependent prosecution. The science,
Speaker 3: the medicine, the expert testimony comprised the entire case. It's
Speaker 3: almost unique in the law in that sense. There are
Speaker 3: really three things the prosecution had to prove. One is
Speaker 3: what's known as the actus reus, what happened. The medical
Speaker 3: professionals would come in and say, we can tell you
Speaker 3: exactly what happened. This child was violently shaken. The second
Speaker 3: thing they have to prove is what's known in the
Speaker 3: laws the mensraa, the mental state of the perpetrator. And
Speaker 3: in this case, the experts came in and testified, and
Speaker 3: we can tell you what mental state the perpetrator had.
Speaker 3: Because this would require such force the equivalent of a
Speaker 3: second story fall or thirty mile an hour automobile accident,
Speaker 3: that it couldn't be done accidentally. And the third thing
Speaker 3: they have to prove is identity. The way the expert
Speaker 3: would prove identity would be to say, a child so
Speaker 3: injured would become immediately comatose, flaccid, unresponsive, and therefore the
Speaker 3: last person with the child is the one who did it.
Speaker 3: That was Audrey. So that was the entirety of the
Speaker 3: case against Audrey.
Speaker 1: So the trial began on November eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: The judge was Daniel Moser, and the prosecutor was to
Speaker 1: Da Dretchen Hayward. And the star witness for the prosecution
Speaker 1: was doctor Robert Huntington, the forensic pathologists who had done
Speaker 1: the autopsy.
Speaker 3: He was joined in his testimony by a number of
Speaker 3: other doctors, pediatricians, ophthalmologists, a range of others who were
Speaker 3: uniform in their opinion that, as they said, nothing could
Speaker 3: cause this triad of findings except violent shaking.
Speaker 1: So what did Audrey's defense attorney Steve Hurley present the
Speaker 1: counter all of that combined so called medical expertise.
Speaker 3: The defense called their own expert witness, but reflecting how
Speaker 3: early this is in the life story of the shaking
Speaker 3: baby Center hypothesis. At that point, there was virtually no
Speaker 3: one who was challenging or disputing the hypothesis itself. So
Speaker 3: at the trial, all of the prosecution's witnesses were of
Speaker 3: one voice, were unanimous this had to be shaking, and
Speaker 3: nothing but shaking could cause it. The defense witness also
Speaker 3: believed this had to be shaking, because that's just what
Speaker 3: the unquestioned dogma of the day was, and so the
Speaker 3: defense expert agreed it had to be shaking. The only
Speaker 3: thing she introduced was but it could have happened before
Speaker 3: the child was in Audrey's care.
Speaker 1: Audrey, what about Natalie's mother, Cindy Beard. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: she didn't seem to blame you when Natalie was taken
Speaker 1: to the hospital. In fact, she expressed kindness and understanding.
Speaker 1: As you recall. Did she testify at the trial.
Speaker 2: Yes, she did.
Speaker 4: I don't recall a whole lot about it. She had
Speaker 4: a hard time, of course, when Steve Hurley cross examined
Speaker 4: her and talked to her about Natalie's pre existing conditions.
Speaker 4: He was gentle around it, but he had some good,
Speaker 4: strong topics.
Speaker 3: The prosecutors basically told them that Audrey murdered your child,
Speaker 3: and despite the absurdity of that claim, that's what they
Speaker 3: led them to believe. And so I think that used
Speaker 3: an inevitable hostility. And who wouldn't be angry if you
Speaker 3: were told that your baby was murdered by someone? Right?
Speaker 3: I mean, these people suffered a terrible tragedy. The problem
Speaker 3: is that I'm afraid that the prosecution kind of victimized
Speaker 3: the parents again by making them believe this story of
Speaker 3: murder rather than what It's still awful, but not as awful,
Speaker 3: perhaps that the child died of natural causes.
Speaker 1: And other than the defenses expert Audrey, who else testified
Speaker 1: on your behalf.
Speaker 4: A lot of people thankfully came to my defense because
Speaker 4: they had seen me with Natalie day after day when
Speaker 4: I had her. I interacted with a lot of moms
Speaker 4: and neighbors, and they would see when she would cry,
Speaker 4: and I'd pick her up, and I'd pat her and
Speaker 4: I'd comfort her, just little things like that.
Speaker 3: So, if I can just add Jason, the defense was
Speaker 3: built a lot on the notion that this was just
Speaker 3: absurd to think that Audrey, with this sterling track record,
Speaker 3: would have snapped in less than an hour of caring
Speaker 3: for Natalie. After not having cared for her for four
Speaker 3: or five days, Stan snapped to the point of violently
Speaker 3: shaking her to death.
Speaker 1: Nonetheless, with that bevy of tuber confident medical expert testimony,
Speaker 1: it doesn't appear that even a sterling track record made
Speaker 1: a bit of difference to the jury. On November twenty sixth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: The courtroom was full. Both sides had a lot of supporters,
Speaker 4: family friends, and the closing arguments were horrifying. When Gretchen
Speaker 4: Hayward still wants to talk like she was standing in
Speaker 4: my kitchen that day telling how I had shaken this
Speaker 4: child and bonked her head against a wall. And then
Speaker 4: the jury had some questions about first degree reckless homicide
Speaker 4: versus second degree and utter disregard.
Speaker 2: To human life.
Speaker 4: My palms get sweaty just think thinking about sitting in
Speaker 4: the hallway waiting, and then when we hear the jury
Speaker 4: has come to a decision, and it's late at night,
Speaker 4: and we go in and I heard that one awful,
Speaker 4: ugly word and I thought I was going to die.
Speaker 4: The judge when he said eighteen years, I felt like
Speaker 4: he was saying, you have taken a life so I
Speaker 4: want your kids to be away from you until they're adults.
Speaker 4: To this day, I still can't wrap my head around
Speaker 4: trying to prepare to be torn away from them. So
Speaker 4: much is taken away from you. You're put into a
Speaker 4: concrete cell with a tin toilet and a stranger, and
Speaker 4: you're trying to do the best you can to adapt
Speaker 4: and hold on to hope that this won't last long. Thankfully,
Speaker 4: my children's dad and my parents and other family members
Speaker 4: were wonderful for almost six years in bringing my children
Speaker 4: almost every weekend to see me, and on top of that,
Speaker 4: I had multiple phone calls to them throughout the week.
Speaker 4: We wrote a lot of letters. My kids teachers throughout
Speaker 4: the years were great to send me things, report cards, projects.
Speaker 4: So I am really really fortunate in that area because
Speaker 4: a lot of moms had little of no contact with
Speaker 4: their children. Then my kid's dad and I divorced about
Speaker 4: six years after I was in and then I didn't
Speaker 4: see them as much, but I saw them often and
Speaker 4: we kept in very close touch throughout all the years.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to hear that. And meanwhile, you were
Speaker 1: doing literally everything you could possibly do to prove your innocence. Now,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, your first appeal was denied,
Speaker 1: and then in two thousand and three, Keith and the
Speaker 1: Wisconsin Innocence Project got involved. Now, from what I understand,
Speaker 1: Audrey's case was your introduction to the SBS hypothesis and
Speaker 1: eventually inspired you to start the Center for Integrity and
Speaker 1: Forensic Science. But at that time, knowing very little about
Speaker 1: the science. What made you take her case.
Speaker 3: It was a high profile case here, so we all
Speaker 3: knew about the case and knew that it was a
Speaker 3: controversial conviction from the beginning. And her lawyer, Steve Hurley,
Speaker 3: is a really outstanding lawyer, and her appellate lawyer was
Speaker 3: Dean Strang, who many of you may remember as one
Speaker 3: of Steve and Avery's lawyers in the Netflix Docuseriies Making
Speaker 3: a Murderer, who was a remarkable lawyer as well. And
Speaker 3: I knew them both well and knew that they were
Speaker 3: really troubled by this conviction, believing firmly that she was innocent.
Speaker 3: But the thing that really got us going is that
Speaker 3: a physician at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, doctor Javid,
Speaker 3: approached us and said he thought there were or problems
Speaker 3: with the scientific evidence with the medical evidence that was
Speaker 3: used to convict her, and that we should look into it.
Speaker 3: We started investigating, and we found that that forensic pathologist,
Speaker 3: the medical examiner, you remember him, doctor Robert Huntington. He
Speaker 3: had written a letter to the Journal of the National
Speaker 3: Association of Medical Examiners in which he basically said, you
Speaker 3: know what, our beliefs about timing of these injuries may
Speaker 3: have been wrong. I don't think he said, we can
Speaker 3: actually time them to the last person with the child anymore.
Speaker 3: And he based that on an experience he had autopsying
Speaker 3: another child who died after being in the hospital for
Speaker 3: about seventeen hours under expert supervision, and the child presented
Speaker 3: with the full triad just like Natalie, but the child
Speaker 3: had been in the hospital for seventeen hours where she
Speaker 3: was completely lucid. She was fussy and clingy, but she
Speaker 3: was lucid, aware, alert, and therefore she had what in
Speaker 3: the literature is known as an extended lucid interval. And
Speaker 3: from this doctor Huntington wrote, what we used to believe
Speaker 3: that the child would become unresponsive immediately, that's not always true.
Speaker 3: We can't conclude that.
Speaker 1: And so the medical examiner actually admitted that he was wrong.
Speaker 1: That's huge.
Speaker 3: He also said that having research this further, there was
Speaker 3: now emerging, growing body of research that was challenging the
Speaker 3: very hypothesis itself. And he therefore said he could no
Speaker 3: longer be confident with his testimony that this child was
Speaker 3: shaken at all. And so we reached out to doctor
Speaker 3: Huntington and said we were working with Audrey Edmonds. The
Speaker 3: first thing he said, first thing out of his mouth,
Speaker 3: was oh, Audrey Edmunds, what are we going to do
Speaker 3: about Audrey Edmonds?
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and seven you got an evidentiary
Speaker 1: hearing in which you presented, among several expert witnesses, doctor
Speaker 1: Huntington himself.
Speaker 3: Doctor Huntington was courageous and forthright, and he on the
Speaker 3: witness stand, and he acknowledged that he was no longer
Speaker 3: comfortable with the testimony he had offered at Audrey's trial.
Speaker 3: One he said he could no longer stand by his
Speaker 3: testimony that the injury almost certainly happened within two hours
Speaker 3: of the child's collapse. Elucid interval was possible, so he
Speaker 3: couldn't time it to match Audrey's care. The second thing
Speaker 3: he said, though, which was equally powerful, was that while
Speaker 3: at trial he was certain this case had to involved
Speaker 3: a violent shaking, he now said because the whole field
Speaker 3: had become so much more controversial and more uncertain, he
Speaker 3: could no longer say whether there was any shaking at all,
Speaker 3: or whether this might have been an impact. He said
Speaker 3: that original bruise that he saw at autopsy, that he
Speaker 3: originally discounted as having been two minor to have been
Speaker 3: of consequence, He said he now couldn't rule that out.
Speaker 3: And the important thing about that is if that bruise,
Speaker 3: if that impact of the head was the cause, it
Speaker 3: could have been the product of prior abuse before the
Speaker 3: child got to Audrey's care, or it could have been
Speaker 3: an accident, because another thing that the biomechanical research shows
Speaker 3: is that even minor falls, falls from just a few
Speaker 3: feet generate fifty times more accelerations or more force than
Speaker 3: the most violent shaking that a human being can produce,
Speaker 3: and that even those kinds of minor accidental type falls
Speaker 3: do generate sufficient forces to exceed estimated injury thresholds. So
Speaker 3: he basically said, I can't time it to Audrey, and
Speaker 3: I can't tell you if there was shaking or whether
Speaker 3: this was intentional or accidental. The medicine doesn't answer those questions, pretty.
Speaker 1: Much refuting his own very damning testimony at the original trial,
Speaker 1: and to back him up, you had five other expert witnesses,
Speaker 1: all prominent physicians and pediatric neurosurgeons.
Speaker 3: In response, the state called four experts, most of whom
Speaker 3: had testified at the trial originally. And what we showed
Speaker 3: through the course of this was that there indeed can
Speaker 3: be elucid interval, that a child so injured can experience
Speaker 3: a period where they are alert and responsive for hours,
Speaker 3: if not days. That although the medical science had been
Speaker 3: undisputed at the time of Audrey's trial except for the
Speaker 3: question of timing, since then enormous research had emerged that
Speaker 3: suggested that shaking is an unlikely if impossible cause of
Speaker 3: these findings, that it's simply myth, there's no science behind it.
Speaker 3: And we established that there are multiple possible causes for
Speaker 3: these findings, and that's particularly important in a case like
Speaker 3: this where the child was previously ill, the child had
Speaker 3: a pre existing subdural hematoma, and was sick, and was
Speaker 3: fussy and clingy, and the research now shows that those
Speaker 3: are all potential indications that the child is neurologically compromised
Speaker 3: and heading towards collapse.
Speaker 1: And yet after you had established all of this updated
Speaker 1: scientific evidence, the original trial judge, Daniel Moser, was not persuaded.
Speaker 3: He denied the motion and basically said, I believe the
Speaker 3: state's experts more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds like you gave that a lot of thought.
Speaker 1: But of course you appealed, which brings us up to
Speaker 1: January thirty first, two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeals reversed the
Speaker 3: trial court judge and said that Audrey had indeed presented
Speaker 3: newly discovered evidence in the form of new medical research
Speaker 3: that created a probability that at a retrial she would
Speaker 3: be acquitted. And they said the trial judge had legally
Speaker 3: aired by applying the wrong standard by substituting his own
Speaker 3: judgment about the guilty innocence for that of the jury,
Speaker 3: and therefore Audrey was entitled to a new trial. Conviction vacated.
Speaker 2: Hey man, that was a great day.
Speaker 3: That was a great day.
Speaker 1: I believe it. Audrey. Can you tell me about those
Speaker 1: first moments on February sixth, two thousand and eight, when
Speaker 1: you found out you were finally going.
Speaker 3: To be released.
Speaker 2: It was awesome. It was a snowy day.
Speaker 4: I'm working on this auto part scrapping line and my
Speaker 4: supervisor's supervisor comes to me and says, Audrey, I have
Speaker 4: gotten a call and you can legally come to my
Speaker 4: office to take a telephone call.
Speaker 2: And at first I was like, oh no, I can't
Speaker 2: do that. I was scared to death. You don't touch
Speaker 2: a telephone.
Speaker 4: You don't even think about touching a telephone because that's
Speaker 4: a form of escape. I'm this close to getting out,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do anything. And she said everything
Speaker 4: is okay. So I went to her office and we
Speaker 4: had a call with some people at Keith's office and
Speaker 4: they said the judge has a big trial next week,
Speaker 4: but he will put you in for you release hearing
Speaker 4: on Wednesday at noon. That Wednesday was a terrible snowstorm day.
Speaker 4: Medisine got two feet of snow and at quarter to
Speaker 4: three that day, in a massive snowstorm, I walked out.
Speaker 4: I didn't care where I slept that night, as long
Speaker 4: as I was on the other side of the fence.
Speaker 3: By the way, there's this iconic, beautiful photograph of Audrey.
Speaker 3: I believe in the parking lot meeting with meeting with
Speaker 3: her friends, being reunited with them, with the snowstorm swirling
Speaker 3: around them and the wind blowing, and they're all reaching
Speaker 3: out to hug each other. It's just such pure joys.
Speaker 3: It makes it all amazing.
Speaker 4: And I have to say on one thing, the prosecutor
Speaker 4: did say that they had contacted the parents and neither
Speaker 4: one objected to my release, because had they objected, I
Speaker 4: could have been having to go back to County jail
Speaker 4: until the July hearing.
Speaker 2: So that was a big plus.
Speaker 1: Right, So although you were out, you were still in
Speaker 1: legal limbo until that hearing.
Speaker 3: Once Audrey's conviction was overturned and the prosecution was thinking
Speaker 3: about whether to retry them, and then ultimately when they
Speaker 3: dismissed the charges, the prosecution continued to insist publicly and
Speaker 3: to tell the parents that Audrey had murdered their child,
Speaker 3: even though they no longer had any proof, no evidence,
Speaker 3: And to me, that was just morally indefensible. It was
Speaker 3: such a harmful thing to do to everyone, as a prosecutor,
Speaker 3: as a public servant, as a minister of justice. In theory,
Speaker 3: you either prove your case in court by the requisite
Speaker 3: legal standard, or you accept the presumption of innocence, and
Speaker 3: they refuse to give Audrey that they refused to give
Speaker 3: Natalie Beard's family that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was atrocious.
Speaker 4: I've never expected and I'm sorry for them, but I
Speaker 4: wish they would be big enough to say the truth
Speaker 4: that the medical evidence does not support the charge.
Speaker 1: But they did dismiss the case on July eleventh, two
Speaker 1: thousand eight, and you were finally exonerated of these completely ludicrous,
Speaker 1: false and unjust charges and able to return to your
Speaker 1: family at last. And I have to ask, I'm sure
Speaker 1: everyone's wondering, how are you doing now? And how are
Speaker 1: your kids because they were, in a sense in prison
Speaker 1: with you during your entire ordeal, doing their own sort
Speaker 1: of time because of this horrible persecution.
Speaker 4: And they're good. They all have very good jobs. Two
Speaker 4: of them are married. I just found out that my
Speaker 4: baby is pregnant, so I will have two grand babies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, congratulations.
Speaker 2: I just saw my middle one over the weekend.
Speaker 4: She lives in Iowa and she will be taking her
Speaker 4: boards to be a licensed practical nurse. And I'm just
Speaker 4: super thankful that they are doing well. I'm sure they
Speaker 4: have a scar from this. They don't hardly talk about it.
Speaker 4: I think it's just too hard for them. But they
Speaker 4: know that there are things still going on in my
Speaker 4: life that I speak out like I am today, and
Speaker 4: I'm grateful that there's just more and more awareness of
Speaker 4: these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: And you've also written a memoir called It Happened to Audrey,
Speaker 1: A terrifying journey from loving mom to accuse baby killer.
Speaker 1: We're going to put a link to that at our bio.
Speaker 1: I'm going to order a copy, I hope everybody does.
Speaker 1: And Keith, you've also co authored a book along with
Speaker 1: a number of leading experts in this field, which is
Speaker 1: coming out very soon. I've already ordered this one, by
Speaker 1: the way, the book is called Shaken Baby Syndrome, Investigating
Speaker 1: the Abusive Head Trauma Controversy. I highly recommend it for
Speaker 1: anyone who has even a passing interest in learning more
Speaker 1: about this terrible, faulty hypothesis that has destroyed thousands of
Speaker 1: people's lives. Will have a link to that in the
Speaker 1: bio too. And now we've come to one of my favorite,
Speaker 1: well my favorite part of the show really, which we
Speaker 1: call closing arguments, and this is the part where, first
Speaker 1: of all, I'm going to thank you you Audrey for
Speaker 1: your courage and your strength and your grace and for
Speaker 1: being here to tell your incredible story. And Keith, as always,
Speaker 1: thank you for being an inspiration to all of us
Speaker 1: in the movement. And now I'm just going to turn
Speaker 1: my mic off, kick back in my chair with my
Speaker 1: headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to anything
Speaker 1: else you want to say. Keith, let's start with you.
Speaker 1: Then you can just pass the mic off to Audrey
Speaker 1: and she can take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Audrey's case. In the end, the whole topic of
Speaker 3: shaking baby syndrome represents what is all too common and
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions, and that is a rush to judgment, an
Speaker 3: unquestioning acceptance of expertise and authorities even when they are flawed,
Speaker 3: and a real vindictiveness and sort of the punitive nature
Speaker 3: of the culture we live in that you know, when
Speaker 3: a baby dies, somebody's got to pay for it, and
Speaker 3: that's really really tragic. The struggle continues. But the bright
Speaker 3: side of this, that the bright note here is that
Speaker 3: there is a growing body of physicians, by mechanical engineers
Speaker 3: and other scientists who are re examining shaking baby syndrome,
Speaker 3: the entire hypothesis who are publishing in response to it.
Speaker 3: There will be more pushback, there will be efforts to
Speaker 3: silence or discredit critics, but eventually scientific truth will prevail.
Speaker 3: I'm confident. I just hope not too many more innocent
Speaker 3: people suffer the faith that Audrey suffered.
Speaker 4: In the meantime, just please be aware if you're around
Speaker 4: a jury, really listen to truth and facts, no matter
Speaker 4: how many witnesses one side has versus the other, use
Speaker 4: some common sense, know the facts, know the truth, know
Speaker 4: the validity of any witness. Really be open minded. Just
Speaker 4: because somebody is charged doesn't mean they have done the
Speaker 4: appropriate investigation and know all the facts of the case.
Speaker 4: And especially in cases like mine, please please look at
Speaker 4: the medical scientific facts, not opinion. Opinion doesn't matter anymore
Speaker 4: and can be so well discredited as there are more
Speaker 4: and more people who are experts who are researching these
Speaker 4: who came to my attention, who came to Keith's attention,
Speaker 4: and don't look at these people that are not upgrading
Speaker 4: and updating their medical knowledge.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. I want to
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall, any Chelsea Lyla Robinson,
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Warris. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
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