May 16, 2022 • 38 mins
On December 5, 1998, a 14 year old Mike Politte woke up to find his Mineral Point, MO home filled with smoke. When he checked on his mom, he found her on the floor – on fire. After days of interrogations, investigators decided that Mike had been grieving incorrectly and that he must have been the perpetrator. Despite evidence pointing to other relatives and evidence against Mike eventually being disproved, Mike was convicted of second degree murder in the killing of his own mother and condemned to spend the next 2 decades in prison. Maggie speaks to Mike Politte at Jefferson City Correctional Center in MO., Megan Crane J.D., Mike's advocate, and Melonie Politte, Mike's sister.
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Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Please listen with caution and care. So, Jason, I've been
working on this one episode about a man who went
to prison when he was fourteen years old, an adult prison,
and just thinking about you know what a child growing
up in that kind of environment, Um, what that does
(00:24):
to them? Yeah, you think about I mean a fourteen
year old, that's a child. You're in eighth grade, maybe
ninth grade. I mean, it's unimaginable to take a child
and put them in a situation that is the most
adult of adult nightmarriage. Yeah, I mean, so just even
the concepts that we interrogate children, especially you know, when
(00:46):
police are allowed to lie to them, that is a
Shakespearean type of a scenario, right, And of course we
know that young people are much more likely to confess
to crimes that they didn't commit because they're so aptible
to the tricks and the lies and even physical or
psychological abuse that day endure. You know, I was in
(01:10):
a peg, but yet I was still aware that I
didn't do what they're saying that I did, and I
stuck to that even though they were threatened me with
life in prison and you know what happens with kids
to go to prison. I've never wavered from anything that
I ever said from love of for good. This is
(01:30):
wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Michael Polly as Dawn
broke On December fourteen, year old Mike Polly woke up
to the smell of something burning. His friend Josh was
(01:52):
sleeping over and when they opened his bedroom door, they
were inundated with smoke. Mike and Josh screw ambled to
crawl out of the house to escape. On the way,
Mike stopped by his mother's room to check on her.
What he saw scarred him forever. Rita Polyte was laying
on the floor, face up, with her legs spread open,
(02:12):
with just a pair of underweararm Her body was on fire.
Thirty nine year old Rita Polyte was dead. Josh ran
to a neighbors to call nine one one. Well, Mike
tried to put the fire out with a hose. When
the police showed up, they immediately made it clear that
Mike was the prime suspect in his mother's murder, despite
(02:33):
other suspects linked more closely with the evidence at hand,
including his own father. Mike was arrested, charged and convicted
for the murder of his mother. And then at that
point that's what he said, is your father responsible for him?
And I said yes. He said did you see him?
I said no, So did you hear anything? I said no,
(02:55):
I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. But he's
the only one that I knowed that would hate her
that much to do that to a right And what
I've seen was evil, it was hatred. Michael Pollitt was
born in Mineral Point, Missouri. He grew up in a
(03:18):
poor family. He lived with his parents, Rita and Ed Polly,
and his siblings in a trailer in the village. I
was a pretty happy kid growing up kindergarten through fifth grade, right,
I was on honor roble Freddy student. Loved those school
I was. I was out going over always, always with
my friends, riding by Sybils four with his motorcycles. Mike
(03:41):
is the youngest of three kids. His sister Crystal is
the oldest, and then there's Melanie, who's seven years older
than him. Here's Melanie. So when he was little, he
wasn't a terrible kid. He was just you know, he
was ramnxious, fun and like to like play outside, and
and he had like kif good friends. They weren't ever
in like real bad trouble. I was always his babysitter.
(04:03):
Crystal didn't never have to do anything because she was
the oldest, so she got to go out with her
friends do whatever. I was always the one stuck at
home babysitting like and at the time, I'm like, I
hated it, hated it, But now I'm like, I'm so
glad that happened, because you know, if it didn't, would
we be this close. I don't know. I would like
to hope that we would be, but you never know.
(04:26):
Mike remembers being especially close with his mom Rita. My
mom got me into sports, right she she played softball
when she was younger, getting my first ball glove. You know,
always organized practices in our yard and shed have all
the kids over me practice line. He always took up
for our mom, like with kids at school, you know,
(04:48):
back in the day around this time, they were always
telling your mama jokes like your mama was so fat,
blah blah whatever. Somebody did that to him and he
was very upset about it, and he was like, you
better never talk about my mother. He almost got a
fight with this kid, and it was like, you know, okay,
it's a joke, but that's how sensitive he is about
(05:08):
our mom, you know, like you just don't mess with her.
Mike's dad, Ed also had a special place in Mike's heart,
and he helped foster one of his passions, racing cars.
You know, I looked up to him quite bit. My
dad raised stock cars at the local dirt track. Maybe
you want to do you know, every Saturday night as
a child, I remember going to the races and uh,
(05:30):
really it's been a childhood dreamline. Actually racial late model
on look forward to that in the future. But growing
up it was. It was good up until the point
where our family dynamics began to change because of infidelity
on my father's card. Yeah, there was definitely some physical violence,
(05:52):
a lot of arguing, um, a lot of mental abuse
for you know, from my dad to my mom. He
he also did it to us to you know, like
guilt trips, and he would always talk bad about our
mom to us. I don't know why. That's it's definitely
not good parenting. Mike's and Melanie's dad was also pretty absent.
(06:18):
You work nights at the Ford Motor Plant, and so
Mike and his sisters rarely saw him home. Melanie as
her mom, was really the one who raised them and
took care of them. She was the one going to
all of our games and all our school functions, and
Mike's all of ours. You know, my our dad never went.
You know, he could have went to days if you
really wanted to spend time with his family, I'm sure,
but and he always just chose to work nights at Ford.
(06:40):
I wish we were okay with because honestly, we didn't
like him being around anyway, because he was always cranky
and he always had the TV. So that's when we
were kids, like Dad's gonna be home. Great. Now we're
gonna have to leave for the whole weekend because nobody
wants to be around. Mike's parents divorced when he was young.
His mom did not hide the reason why. I guess
(07:01):
she uh recorded the phone conversation with him and another woman,
and my mom played it for me and both my
sisters and she said, this is why I'm leaving your father.
And we asked him and he denied it and he
united that was even him on the line, And I
(07:23):
think it was that moment and I realized that he
probably wasn't who I thought he was. It was around
this time, as a pre teen that Mike started acting out.
I kind of used the divorce and my parents separation
as a crush as far as my bad behavior. I
(07:43):
would always turn to that and be like, well, it's
their fault because they're getting divorced and now, and people
sampatized with us. So it kind of helped me getting
out of getting getting into trouble with this all kind
and he feel like it. I can as mischievous as
I I wanted to be, really, so what kinds of
things would you do? Well? I, you know, we we
(08:06):
said a lot of fires, me and my friends. Um
I became somewhat of a bully school. I remember once
we doesn't struck. We throw oranges and tomatos, and we
stomped on it on the hood of it and hit
it with golf clubs and baseball bats. I end up
(08:27):
stealing CD from like Walmart. That was about the extent
of bad behavior. And not only did Mike's bad behavior
escalate during the divorce, but so did his father, Ed's behavior. UM.
I remember a few violent arguments where they would throw
like pots and pants at each other and stuff like that.
It only happened like twice that I remember when I
(08:48):
was young. Um, But as we got older, we only
really witnessed um like the yelling, the arguments. UM. Mike
unfore sly ain't got to witness the actual violence. Remember specifically,
they're arguing over a sunflower clock to the co worker
gave to her that he wouldn't let her have it,
(09:11):
and the argument became thumps and I grabbed the baseball back.
It was in my room. I ran out of my room.
They were in the living room. He was on top
of her. I told him to get off hooker. He did,
and my mom got up and as we were leaving,
she grabbed the picture of his girlfriend and off the wall.
(09:31):
Food on ground stopped on. We left. During your divorce proceedings,
I actually stestified against my father about this incidents. It
was those moments like that. It puts me further away
from my father, right And it's those moments that I
(09:51):
remember that take me back to when I see my
mother burning on the floor, It's easy for me to
come to the conclusion who's responsible for On December four,
(10:11):
Mike's mom, Rita went out with her friends. One of
her friends remembers fourteen year old Mike calling and saying
he was hungry, so on her way home around eleven
thirty pm, Rita stopped to get subway sandwiches. Mike had
invited his friend Josh to stay over that night. While
the boys waited for Rita to come home with food,
boys being boys, they went and burned railroad ties on
(10:32):
the railroad tracks near the house. Shortly after midnight. Rita
got home soon after the boys eight. They all went
to bed. Mike's sister, Melanie, was twenty one at the
time and she also lived in the trailer, but she
was over at a friend's house that night. In the
early hours of December five, as light was just beginning
to appear, Mike woke to the smell of smoke and
(10:56):
I woke up and either I smell a same smoke,
and I looked down at Josh and asked to smoke
to cigarette. Josh was not. At this point, the trailer
was filling with smoke and they had to get out.
Mike and Josh crawled to escape. On the way, Mike
stopped at his mom's room to check on her. To
his horror, he found Rita burning on the ground. She
(11:17):
was face up, her legs spread open, and was only
wearing a pair of underwear. Mike and Josh both ran
out of the house, Josh to the neighbors and Mike
to get the hose. Around six thirty am, police and
first responders arrived to the ghastly scene. Rita's body was
burned from her pubic region to her head. Immediately, Mike
(11:43):
and Josh were separated into different squad cars and take
into the station for questioning. Detective Kurt Davis took Mike
when he was transporting me from my home to the
stars for me that morning. I asked him, is he's
gonna be able to find out half of my mom?
This is what do you mean we're happened your mom? Well,
(12:04):
well what happened like if he a throw was cutted somewhere.
You guys will be able to tell that. This conversation
was later used against Mike in court, and they used
that as an indication that I was concerned that they
were going to find out but I did right instead
of being a concern working your kid and just witness
a horrible thing. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
(12:34):
a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
in the lives of its employees and in the communities
where we work and live. In light of the compelling
need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
(12:55):
the A i G pro Bono Program provides free legal
services and all or support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
Mike essentially became the prime suspect within moments of this crime.
This is making Crane. She's the co director of the
(13:16):
Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a civil rights organization,
and she thinks Mike immediately became a suspect because of
presumptions around the circumstances. I mean, I think the basic
promise probably was that he was the only family member
home at the time, and in arson cases, that is
the first person who's looked at who else was in
the home, particularly if it's a family member who survived
(13:39):
the fire. So he's auto already under the spotlight for
that fact um but for their things quickly spiraled out
of control because the police mischaracterized him. They saw this
kid who was traumatized, shocked, and they misjudged all of
his reactions, his behaviors as evidence of guilt, as evidence
(14:00):
of a lack of remorse, as evidence of a cold
blooded killer, rather than evidence of adolescent behavior, which research
proves is common to all kids his age, and evidence
of trauma. So after the police picked you up, they
pretty quickly homed in on you and you were arrested
very quickly. What was going through your head? You know
(14:24):
when you're in this interrogations were very intense. There was
on occasions there was multiple interrogators. There was a fire marshal,
there was Eric Davis who was to be detective, and
then also Jule officers who were supposed to be there
(14:47):
to protect being Josh's rights were also asking in quests.
They used the same fine question over and over and over.
I relate the same set of facts over and over
and over. So tell me, like, what were they what
are they asking? They repeatedly they were asking what happened?
Thank me through the day before that, the evening that morning,
(15:09):
and it became it became a point where they were
trying to convince me right that that I've done something,
and I know that I didn't do anything. Mike says,
every time he got to the part where he woke
up and found his mom, they would tell him he
was missing a big gap and asked him what happened
between the time he went to sleep and when he
(15:31):
woke up and found his mom. Tell it again, over
and over. It went for hours, and my understanding, they
treated Josh the same way, and they would they would
tell me that he's telling on me, and they would
tell him that I'm telling on him, tactics that shouldn't
(15:51):
be used on juveniles, on children, for sure, but they
completely ignored the fact that for statements never changed. And
throughout all these interrogations, there's twenty six consistencies between our statements,
and that doesn't happen of two kids that are lying
about something. We're trying to hide something, right, And they
(16:14):
completely ignored all of this information. Back at the crime scene,
officer Tammy Bellfield had arrived and almost immediately was told
by Sheriff Ron Skiles that a woman had intentionally been
set on fire. Fire investigator Jim Holdman had concluded, without
(16:35):
any testing that a fire accelerant had been poured on Rita.
The autopsy also determined that Rita had died of carbon
monoxide poisoning and sustained blunt force trauma to her head.
Two baseball bats, of fire poker and a maglite flashlight
were collected to see if one was the weapon used
to hit Rita, but when tested later, these items returned
(16:57):
no results. I mean, what was going through your head.
We were like, this isn't real, Like what were you thinking?
You're like a little boy? I was. I was, I
was gonna pay. I was in a panic, but yet
I was still aware that I didn't do what you're
saying that I did. And I still do that even
(17:19):
even though I was in a panic, even though they
were threatened me with life in prison, and you know
what happens to kids to go to prison. I never
wavered from anything that I ever said. Because Mike was
a juvenile at the time, a juvenile officer was present
during this interrogation and his dad, Ed was called in
to be with him since Mike couldn't be questioned alone.
But Megan says Mike really did lack critical support. He
(17:43):
did not have an attorney present. The people that were there,
I guess to arguably protect his rights, were one a
juvenile officer who was there for some of the interrogation,
but it's the record makes clear that this juvenile officer
acted essentially as another interrogator, not in any way as
a protector of his rights, and Mike's dad, who was
(18:06):
indisputably at that point, the other prime suspect in this case,
So he had a clear conflict of interest in that
interrogation room and was not an adequate protective figure for Mike,
which seems obvious given Ed's nasty, violent divorce from Rita,
but law enforcement didn't seem to consider this, nor did
they consider how his presence might impact Mike, and in fact,
(18:30):
Mike was uncomfortable answering questions with Ed in the room.
When they were interrogating me, they asked me, who you know?
Who do you think part of your mother? My father
was like right beside me during these interrogations and her
days asked me, do you one let me ask your
father step out? I said yeah, And then at that
point that's what he said, is your father responsible for
(18:52):
having I said yes. He said did you see him?
I said no? Said did you hear anything? I said no.
I didn't hear anyth I didn't see anything. But he's
the only one that I know that would hate her
that much to do that to her. And what I've
seen was evil, it was hatred, but the cops didn't listen.
(19:15):
Mike was interrogated for two days, and during that time
he was also hooked up to a c v s A,
a computer voice stress analysis test, which is different from
a lie detector test. This test supposedly to text deception
by measuring stress levels in the voice. Hooked to the
microphone up to mind from shirt and put some on
(19:36):
my finger, and they asked me. I think it was
like five basic questions. Did you murder your mother? I
said no. Do you know anybody I want to hurt
you mother? I said no. Um, did you hear anybody?
Did you hear anything? I said no, And I may
have been one or two more I can't remember. But
(19:58):
ultimately they told me that that's true, meaning that the
test showed he was lying. And we can't corroborate whether
Mike fails this stress test since we don't have those
results ourselves. Not that it really matters, though, because these
voice stress tests, which were frequently used by law enforcement
during the nineties have since been determined to be wholly unreliable,
(20:20):
and even if they were reliable, it would have been
no surprise that Mike had failed. Because what we do
know is that Mike was a fourteen year old boy
distraught after finding his mom brutally murdered, that Mike's interrogations
were not recorded, and that police officers did not properly
look into Ed as a suspect. They think we can
(20:41):
build a case against this kid. Ed was a savvier suspect,
and he arguably had an alibi. They did some investigation
into him, not much, but the investigation they did do
had more hurdles than their case they were building against Mike,
So I think they went with the easier target, the
easier case to build. Ed supposedly had this alibi that
(21:02):
he was at work um but there are no time
cards from Ford Motor Company proving that was not held
like accountable to be there at all times. And even
if he left at the time that his shift supposedly ended,
there still was time to make that drive to Hope
Well and back, so his alibi was never rock solid.
(21:26):
On December seven, Mike was arrested for the murder of
his mother Rita police. They arrest him on his lack
of emotion and suspicious reaction to his to his mother's death.
When Mike was arrested, laboratory testing on the items collected
the baseball, bats, flashlight, and poker had not yet returned results,
(21:47):
and after the testing was ultimately completed, nothing pointed to
Accelerant as the fire starter. And I woke up. It's gone.
I lost my mother, I lost my sisters, I lost myself,
like everything, everything's gone. So do have you guys ever
(22:10):
thought about wrongful convictions before? Like? Was that something that
never never, never even thought our never crossed our mind
that something like that happened. No, never, what I have
ever thought the wrongful convictions happened until until they really did,
like arrest him and take him to jail and not
(22:32):
let him out. Mike was sent to a juvenile detention
facility to await trial. Three days after the murder, a
hearing was held to determine whether to keep Mike detained,
and despite the court concluding the case was thin and
circumstantial at best, Mike remained in custody. And it felt
(22:56):
like it felt like no one, It felt like the
only person that would have helped me in that situation.
It was my mother. She was almost with us. So
with that, yeah, I mean I was. I felt completely
along and completely isolated, completely vulnerable, and I don't know
(23:19):
how to handle it. Exactly one month after his arrest,
Mike attempted suicide. I was having I was having problems
adjusting to it and handling it, and I had enough,
I guess, and I tried. I tried to hang myself
and myself Mike tied a sheet to the event and
(23:40):
hung himself from it. Fortunately a guard walked by and
saved his life. Melanie recalls how her little brother looked
when he was arrested. Just looking at him, you could
tell he could not inflict that kind of damn a
(24:00):
john a person. He just was a small boy. He
was about my size I am now because I used
to wear his clothes, and I actually have a pair
of his jeans from back then. I just put on
the other day and they still fits. But by the
time his trial started in January of two thousand two,
Mike was eighteen years old, four years older, four inches taller.
(24:21):
At thirty pounds heavier, he no longer looked like a
little boy. The prosecutors were Richard Hicks, Assistant Attorney General
of Jefferson City, Missouri, and John Rupp, prosecuting attorney for
Washington County, Missouri. The state called seventeen witnesses, which is
a lot, but they presented no real evidence. Only the
(24:42):
alleged acceleran police claimed dogs had smelled on my shoes,
but which remember, the lab never actually found. Before trial,
the prosecution actually offered Mike a plea deal to confess
fifteen years for manslaughter. He would have been out by
Did you ever consider taking that? I never considered it.
(25:05):
Do you wish you had taken it? Absolutely not. I'm
not gonna prett guilty somebody in especially especially if it
denies my mother justice. All of us have a breaking
point when subjected to these course of interrogation tactics, especially kids.
But Mike was desperate to know what had happened to
his mom, so he did withstand this coercion over days,
(25:28):
and he never confessed. I would rather do this for
her and ultimately win in the end and make the
Sheriff's department and prosecutor's office prosecuted people that's responsible for
what happened there. But even with the prosecution's weak evidence,
Mike's defense was even weaker. They only called three witnesses,
(25:51):
and they did not have an expert who could challenge
the state's experts. The trial lasted three days, and after
four hours of deliberation, on April nineteen two, Mike was
convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
M During his first four years in prison, Mike kept
(26:20):
in touch with his father, Ed, despite believing that he
was the one responsible for his mother's murder. Do you
think that your dad intentionally tried to frame you? That's
a hard question. Um. Part of me, the part of
me wants to say yes, right. Another part of me
(26:41):
wants to think that he just got so lucky with
the inconfidence of the of the Washington Gang Shairs per forman.
But he just it just happened that way. It was
well known that I've played with fire as a kid,
and fire was used to ultimately murder my mother. Um,
(27:02):
I can say that he never helped He never tried
to help me. That's that's that he's He's never tried
to help me. Yet, after Mike's direct appeal was denied,
Ed told his son he was going to help him.
In two thousand five, he told Mike that he hired
an attorney to help with his next appeal. He kept
reaching out to the attorney, never hearing back, never hearing back.
(27:24):
Finally he got a friend to call the attorney's office,
and that's when the attorney said, I haven't responded you
because we don't have an attorney client relationship. I'm not
your attorney any longer. And that's when Mike learned his
father had lied to him. He'd never paid this attorney
or even asked him if he would be willing to
file this postconviction petition. And that's the last time Mike
and his father have ever ever spoke. Um and his
(27:46):
sisters have not spoken to their father since then either.
This devastated Mike. And that was when my heavy drugs
came in. When I found out I didn't have a
longer and that you he has been He's been misleading
me for at least a year and a half about
having a lawyer, and once I found out and understood
(28:09):
the significance of not having one and sent me into
a drug induce life. Really, I mean, I left my cell.
I didn't come back unless I had some heroin, Okay,
wet something and that was my way of coping with it.
As for Melanie, she thinks her dad never intended to
help Mike from the beginning. Her feeling is that Ed
likely framed Mike. Honestly, I think he tried to set
(28:32):
Mike up to take the fall. I mean that sounds horrible,
but honestly that is my that those are my thoughts.
He didn't care about anyone else. He only cares about himself.
He's like a psychopath. I mean like literally, it's I
can't even believe that we came from that because we
(28:54):
don't act anything like him. It's so bizarre. No on him.
It doesn't surprise as me, right because of of what
I've seen in the end. But how I threat my mom,
how I dread it does it's something that I can
honestly look at and say, you know what a business
friend and it is what it is, right, But I
(29:16):
don't need him, and Mike didn't. On his own, he
was able to get clean from the drugs he had
used to cope. He wounded up getting his g e
D in prison and worked with shelter dogs to rehabilitate them.
AH Dog Program. I love the dog program. The greatest
consume accomplishment I feel like is that I was able
(29:36):
to train canines for companions the kids that have autism right,
and that is something that actually touches people on the street.
It's just not an internal department crush the program, something
that I can actually make a difference with. But Mike
(30:01):
was still determined to prove his innocence. He wrote letters
to every attorney and innocence project he could find, until
one wrote back. I wrote the m I pad make
page letters. I'm sure they still have it. I explained
my whole story. I mailed it. Within a few months,
Mike got a visit from Kim Blocker, a staff attorney
for the m I P, which is the Midwest Innocence Project.
(30:24):
Six law students from Missouri University and Kansas University accompanied him.
He sat down in visible and they told me tells
what happened. And I told him and changed my life.
Had saved my life. The expressions that I've seen on
those students faces and Kim's face when I was telling
my story stuck with me. And I knew that they
(30:47):
were going to investigate everything that I just said. I
knew and everything that they were going to find. It's
factually true to everything I just said, and from the
from a day on until when I saved my life
more ways than one. When the Midwest Innocence Project took
(31:10):
Mike's case, they filed a new petition claiming Mike is
innocent based on new evidence, including the fact the mic
shoes did not actually have an accelerant on them. The
material is substance on mike shoes, which were determined to
be gasoline at trial, was actually an aromatic solvent that
was part of the manufacturing process of these tennis shoes.
(31:33):
So this material was in every pair of shoes that
it were sold across the country, was not at all
unique to Mike's pair of shoes um, but was the
thing that was used to convict him and send him
to prison for life. Magan says, the state even concedes
that this evidence is false, yet they are still fighting
his litigation and still fighting to keep him in prison.
(31:56):
One of the detectives has even come forward with her
own opinion ends on the case. Dammy Bellfield, one of
the deputy sheriffs who investie this case, who shared and
confirmed that like this, this was a mess. This was
a police department that was weighing over its head. They
did not have the experience the resources to handle this
(32:18):
type of case or case of this magnitude, and they
didn't know what they were doing, and to the extent
they did, they did it wrong or made the wrong judgments.
Despite the new evidence, all of Mike's appeals have been denied.
On October, he filed another petition quote seeking a writ
of habeas corpus vacating his conviction for second degree murder.
(32:40):
Mike would have to wait months to find out if
this one would also be denied, But then on February
eighth of this year, Mike got a surprise. The parole
board granted him an early release. A new lawn, Missouri
sp allows certain incarsory a juveniles parole after fifteen years.
(33:03):
So in January, Megan Crane and the rest of Mike's
team applied for parole, and despite the difficulty of claiming
innocence for parole, the board granted Mike's release. Now that
Mike is finally getting out of prison, I asked him
what he thinks of his suicide attempt. Do you think
back on that? And you know, I think that you're
(33:26):
glad that they found you. Yeah, because there's only there's
only one explanation, and I can I can draw from
everything that's ever happened to me, is that one, I'm
strong enough and capable of handling everything that they throw
at me. Well, I'm also strong enough and capable of
(33:50):
using it for the better of society, right. M Mike
nowt eight, walked out of prison on April two of
this year. A few days after his release, we spoke again.
(34:13):
Mike was at Melanie's house, surrounded by his sister's niece's
nephews and of course, yeah we got puppy dogs, Blue
Healer and um black Lab. Okay, so tell me how
it's been being home. It's been awesome. I ain't got
much sleep. I've been running u pure adrenaline. We went
to the stock car races Saturday night. I met up
with some family members. I ain't seeing it over two decades. Uh,
(34:35):
it was awesome. So I think, you know, one of
the more incredible things about you, Mike, and what happened
to is that you were so young when you went
to prison, that you really grew up inside prison. And
what's it like to be an adult now outside it's
walking into an alien world, right, because I've spent two
thirds of my life incarcerated, so that's what I knew. Um,
(34:59):
it's a culture shock. All the technology, the speed of everything. Um,
opening the refrigerator and seeing all the food, all the choices.
I went in the walmart and I was like, what, yeah, yeah, so,
and it's it's just so, it's it's just I don't
I don't have the proper verbs to describe it, but
(35:19):
it's just it's just amazing. So what do you want
people to know about what happened to you? And and
really anything, it's an open ended question. You know what
happened to me, It can happen to anybody. And there's
there's countless more people that suffered how I suffered, and
they need help. And I look forward to being a
part of that, you know, for for the greatest country
(35:40):
in the world. Right, Uh, it shouldn't be this hard
when it's discovered that there's innocent people or an innocent
person in prison, and the herculean hurdles that it takes
to get people out and exonerated, even when it's actually
proven that that evidence was used against the people. That's
that's false from misleading or or if there's new discovered evidence,
(36:02):
they don't want to hear it, they ignore it, and
it's it's it's very disappointing, to say the least, that
things like that happened. Mike plans to work with innocence
projects and use his experience to inspire the next generation
of law students to help change the judicial system. But
before signing off, I had one last question for him.
(36:23):
Have you thought about your mom a lot since you've
been out? Yeah? Yeah, I think about her every day,
you know, it's regardless of I was in there out here.
That's something we we tell stories about her. What do
you wish she could see right now? Oh she's smiling. Yeah,
she's smiling. She knows, Uh, so she can finally rest right. UM.
I always always felt that she wasn't at peace, um
(36:47):
with what happened in the aftermath, what happened to her. Um.
But there was a moment when I was in the
parking lot and uh, there was two geese that flew
over and honked right above me, and I just looked
up and I said, Hi, Mom, And it was just instant, Yeah,
it was it was yeah, Yeah, I felt like that
was her celebrating. If you'd like to help Mike get
(37:14):
back on his feet, go to go fund me dot
com and search for Michael Polly. If you or someone
you know is having thoughts of suicide, help is available.
Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at eight hundred
eight to next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling
(37:36):
Brian Parnell. But when they turned around and said to me, yeah,
we have your DNA and we got your fingerprints at
a prime. See you choked this guy from What's chest,
I said, wait a minute, you got the wrong guy.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
(37:59):
links in our bio to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom Kevin Wortis,
as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson,
and story editor Sonja Paul. With additional production by Jeff Clyburne.
The music in this production is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Ja Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast and
(38:22):
on Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava
for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Please listen with caution and care. So, Jason, I've been
working on this one episode about a man who went
to prison when he was fourteen years old, an adult prison,
and just thinking about you know what a child growing
up in that kind of environment, Um, what that does
(00:24):
to them? Yeah, you think about I mean a fourteen
year old, that's a child. You're in eighth grade, maybe
ninth grade. I mean, it's unimaginable to take a child
and put them in a situation that is the most
adult of adult nightmarriage. Yeah, I mean, so just even
the concepts that we interrogate children, especially you know, when
(00:46):
police are allowed to lie to them, that is a
Shakespearean type of a scenario, right, And of course we
know that young people are much more likely to confess
to crimes that they didn't commit because they're so aptible
to the tricks and the lies and even physical or
psychological abuse that day endure. You know, I was in
(01:10):
a peg, but yet I was still aware that I
didn't do what they're saying that I did, and I
stuck to that even though they were threatened me with
life in prison and you know what happens with kids
to go to prison. I've never wavered from anything that
I ever said from love of for good. This is
(01:30):
wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Michael Polly as Dawn
broke On December fourteen, year old Mike Polly woke up
to the smell of something burning. His friend Josh was
(01:52):
sleeping over and when they opened his bedroom door, they
were inundated with smoke. Mike and Josh screw ambled to
crawl out of the house to escape. On the way,
Mike stopped by his mother's room to check on her.
What he saw scarred him forever. Rita Polyte was laying
on the floor, face up, with her legs spread open,
(02:12):
with just a pair of underweararm Her body was on fire.
Thirty nine year old Rita Polyte was dead. Josh ran
to a neighbors to call nine one one. Well, Mike
tried to put the fire out with a hose. When
the police showed up, they immediately made it clear that
Mike was the prime suspect in his mother's murder, despite
(02:33):
other suspects linked more closely with the evidence at hand,
including his own father. Mike was arrested, charged and convicted
for the murder of his mother. And then at that
point that's what he said, is your father responsible for him?
And I said yes. He said did you see him?
I said no, So did you hear anything? I said no,
(02:55):
I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. But he's
the only one that I knowed that would hate her
that much to do that to a right And what
I've seen was evil, it was hatred. Michael Pollitt was
born in Mineral Point, Missouri. He grew up in a
(03:18):
poor family. He lived with his parents, Rita and Ed Polly,
and his siblings in a trailer in the village. I
was a pretty happy kid growing up kindergarten through fifth grade, right,
I was on honor roble Freddy student. Loved those school
I was. I was out going over always, always with
my friends, riding by Sybils four with his motorcycles. Mike
(03:41):
is the youngest of three kids. His sister Crystal is
the oldest, and then there's Melanie, who's seven years older
than him. Here's Melanie. So when he was little, he
wasn't a terrible kid. He was just you know, he
was ramnxious, fun and like to like play outside, and
and he had like kif good friends. They weren't ever
in like real bad trouble. I was always his babysitter.
(04:03):
Crystal didn't never have to do anything because she was
the oldest, so she got to go out with her
friends do whatever. I was always the one stuck at
home babysitting like and at the time, I'm like, I
hated it, hated it, But now I'm like, I'm so
glad that happened, because you know, if it didn't, would
we be this close. I don't know. I would like
to hope that we would be, but you never know.
(04:26):
Mike remembers being especially close with his mom Rita. My
mom got me into sports, right she she played softball
when she was younger, getting my first ball glove. You know,
always organized practices in our yard and shed have all
the kids over me practice line. He always took up
for our mom, like with kids at school, you know,
(04:48):
back in the day around this time, they were always
telling your mama jokes like your mama was so fat,
blah blah whatever. Somebody did that to him and he
was very upset about it, and he was like, you
better never talk about my mother. He almost got a
fight with this kid, and it was like, you know, okay,
it's a joke, but that's how sensitive he is about
(05:08):
our mom, you know, like you just don't mess with her.
Mike's dad, Ed also had a special place in Mike's heart,
and he helped foster one of his passions, racing cars.
You know, I looked up to him quite bit. My
dad raised stock cars at the local dirt track. Maybe
you want to do you know, every Saturday night as
a child, I remember going to the races and uh,
(05:30):
really it's been a childhood dreamline. Actually racial late model
on look forward to that in the future. But growing
up it was. It was good up until the point
where our family dynamics began to change because of infidelity
on my father's card. Yeah, there was definitely some physical violence,
(05:52):
a lot of arguing, um, a lot of mental abuse
for you know, from my dad to my mom. He
he also did it to us to you know, like
guilt trips, and he would always talk bad about our
mom to us. I don't know why. That's it's definitely
not good parenting. Mike's and Melanie's dad was also pretty absent.
(06:18):
You work nights at the Ford Motor Plant, and so
Mike and his sisters rarely saw him home. Melanie as
her mom, was really the one who raised them and
took care of them. She was the one going to
all of our games and all our school functions, and
Mike's all of ours. You know, my our dad never went.
You know, he could have went to days if you
really wanted to spend time with his family, I'm sure,
but and he always just chose to work nights at Ford.
(06:40):
I wish we were okay with because honestly, we didn't
like him being around anyway, because he was always cranky
and he always had the TV. So that's when we
were kids, like Dad's gonna be home. Great. Now we're
gonna have to leave for the whole weekend because nobody
wants to be around. Mike's parents divorced when he was young.
His mom did not hide the reason why. I guess
(07:01):
she uh recorded the phone conversation with him and another woman,
and my mom played it for me and both my
sisters and she said, this is why I'm leaving your father.
And we asked him and he denied it and he
united that was even him on the line, And I
(07:23):
think it was that moment and I realized that he
probably wasn't who I thought he was. It was around
this time, as a pre teen that Mike started acting out.
I kind of used the divorce and my parents separation
as a crush as far as my bad behavior. I
(07:43):
would always turn to that and be like, well, it's
their fault because they're getting divorced and now, and people
sampatized with us. So it kind of helped me getting
out of getting getting into trouble with this all kind
and he feel like it. I can as mischievous as
I I wanted to be, really, so what kinds of
things would you do? Well? I, you know, we we
(08:06):
said a lot of fires, me and my friends. Um
I became somewhat of a bully school. I remember once
we doesn't struck. We throw oranges and tomatos, and we
stomped on it on the hood of it and hit
it with golf clubs and baseball bats. I end up
(08:27):
stealing CD from like Walmart. That was about the extent
of bad behavior. And not only did Mike's bad behavior
escalate during the divorce, but so did his father, Ed's behavior. UM.
I remember a few violent arguments where they would throw
like pots and pants at each other and stuff like that.
It only happened like twice that I remember when I
(08:48):
was young. Um, But as we got older, we only
really witnessed um like the yelling, the arguments. UM. Mike
unfore sly ain't got to witness the actual violence. Remember specifically,
they're arguing over a sunflower clock to the co worker
gave to her that he wouldn't let her have it,
(09:11):
and the argument became thumps and I grabbed the baseball back.
It was in my room. I ran out of my room.
They were in the living room. He was on top
of her. I told him to get off hooker. He did,
and my mom got up and as we were leaving,
she grabbed the picture of his girlfriend and off the wall.
(09:31):
Food on ground stopped on. We left. During your divorce proceedings,
I actually stestified against my father about this incidents. It
was those moments like that. It puts me further away
from my father, right And it's those moments that I
(09:51):
remember that take me back to when I see my
mother burning on the floor, It's easy for me to
come to the conclusion who's responsible for On December four,
(10:11):
Mike's mom, Rita went out with her friends. One of
her friends remembers fourteen year old Mike calling and saying
he was hungry, so on her way home around eleven
thirty pm, Rita stopped to get subway sandwiches. Mike had
invited his friend Josh to stay over that night. While
the boys waited for Rita to come home with food,
boys being boys, they went and burned railroad ties on
(10:32):
the railroad tracks near the house. Shortly after midnight. Rita
got home soon after the boys eight. They all went
to bed. Mike's sister, Melanie, was twenty one at the
time and she also lived in the trailer, but she
was over at a friend's house that night. In the
early hours of December five, as light was just beginning
to appear, Mike woke to the smell of smoke and
(10:56):
I woke up and either I smell a same smoke,
and I looked down at Josh and asked to smoke
to cigarette. Josh was not. At this point, the trailer
was filling with smoke and they had to get out.
Mike and Josh crawled to escape. On the way, Mike
stopped at his mom's room to check on her. To
his horror, he found Rita burning on the ground. She
(11:17):
was face up, her legs spread open, and was only
wearing a pair of underwear. Mike and Josh both ran
out of the house, Josh to the neighbors and Mike
to get the hose. Around six thirty am, police and
first responders arrived to the ghastly scene. Rita's body was
burned from her pubic region to her head. Immediately, Mike
(11:43):
and Josh were separated into different squad cars and take
into the station for questioning. Detective Kurt Davis took Mike
when he was transporting me from my home to the
stars for me that morning. I asked him, is he's
gonna be able to find out half of my mom?
This is what do you mean we're happened your mom? Well,
(12:04):
well what happened like if he a throw was cutted somewhere.
You guys will be able to tell that. This conversation
was later used against Mike in court, and they used
that as an indication that I was concerned that they
were going to find out but I did right instead
of being a concern working your kid and just witness
a horrible thing. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
(12:34):
a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
in the lives of its employees and in the communities
where we work and live. In light of the compelling
need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
(12:55):
the A i G pro Bono Program provides free legal
services and all or support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
Mike essentially became the prime suspect within moments of this crime.
This is making Crane. She's the co director of the
(13:16):
Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a civil rights organization,
and she thinks Mike immediately became a suspect because of
presumptions around the circumstances. I mean, I think the basic
promise probably was that he was the only family member
home at the time, and in arson cases, that is
the first person who's looked at who else was in
the home, particularly if it's a family member who survived
(13:39):
the fire. So he's auto already under the spotlight for
that fact um but for their things quickly spiraled out
of control because the police mischaracterized him. They saw this
kid who was traumatized, shocked, and they misjudged all of
his reactions, his behaviors as evidence of guilt, as evidence
(14:00):
of a lack of remorse, as evidence of a cold
blooded killer, rather than evidence of adolescent behavior, which research
proves is common to all kids his age, and evidence
of trauma. So after the police picked you up, they
pretty quickly homed in on you and you were arrested
very quickly. What was going through your head? You know
(14:24):
when you're in this interrogations were very intense. There was
on occasions there was multiple interrogators. There was a fire marshal,
there was Eric Davis who was to be detective, and
then also Jule officers who were supposed to be there
(14:47):
to protect being Josh's rights were also asking in quests.
They used the same fine question over and over and over.
I relate the same set of facts over and over
and over. So tell me, like, what were they what
are they asking? They repeatedly they were asking what happened?
Thank me through the day before that, the evening that morning,
(15:09):
and it became it became a point where they were
trying to convince me right that that I've done something,
and I know that I didn't do anything. Mike says,
every time he got to the part where he woke
up and found his mom, they would tell him he
was missing a big gap and asked him what happened
between the time he went to sleep and when he
(15:31):
woke up and found his mom. Tell it again, over
and over. It went for hours, and my understanding, they
treated Josh the same way, and they would they would
tell me that he's telling on me, and they would
tell him that I'm telling on him, tactics that shouldn't
(15:51):
be used on juveniles, on children, for sure, but they
completely ignored the fact that for statements never changed. And
throughout all these interrogations, there's twenty six consistencies between our statements,
and that doesn't happen of two kids that are lying
about something. We're trying to hide something, right, And they
(16:14):
completely ignored all of this information. Back at the crime scene,
officer Tammy Bellfield had arrived and almost immediately was told
by Sheriff Ron Skiles that a woman had intentionally been
set on fire. Fire investigator Jim Holdman had concluded, without
(16:35):
any testing that a fire accelerant had been poured on Rita.
The autopsy also determined that Rita had died of carbon
monoxide poisoning and sustained blunt force trauma to her head.
Two baseball bats, of fire poker and a maglite flashlight
were collected to see if one was the weapon used
to hit Rita, but when tested later, these items returned
(16:57):
no results. I mean, what was going through your head.
We were like, this isn't real, Like what were you thinking?
You're like a little boy? I was. I was, I
was gonna pay. I was in a panic, but yet
I was still aware that I didn't do what you're
saying that I did. And I still do that even
(17:19):
even though I was in a panic, even though they
were threatened me with life in prison, and you know
what happens to kids to go to prison. I never
wavered from anything that I ever said. Because Mike was
a juvenile at the time, a juvenile officer was present
during this interrogation and his dad, Ed was called in
to be with him since Mike couldn't be questioned alone.
But Megan says Mike really did lack critical support. He
(17:43):
did not have an attorney present. The people that were there,
I guess to arguably protect his rights, were one a
juvenile officer who was there for some of the interrogation,
but it's the record makes clear that this juvenile officer
acted essentially as another interrogator, not in any way as
a protector of his rights, and Mike's dad, who was
(18:06):
indisputably at that point, the other prime suspect in this case,
So he had a clear conflict of interest in that
interrogation room and was not an adequate protective figure for Mike,
which seems obvious given Ed's nasty, violent divorce from Rita,
but law enforcement didn't seem to consider this, nor did
they consider how his presence might impact Mike, and in fact,
(18:30):
Mike was uncomfortable answering questions with Ed in the room.
When they were interrogating me, they asked me, who you know?
Who do you think part of your mother? My father
was like right beside me during these interrogations and her
days asked me, do you one let me ask your
father step out? I said yeah, And then at that
point that's what he said, is your father responsible for
(18:52):
having I said yes. He said did you see him?
I said no? Said did you hear anything? I said no.
I didn't hear anyth I didn't see anything. But he's
the only one that I know that would hate her
that much to do that to her. And what I've
seen was evil, it was hatred, but the cops didn't listen.
(19:15):
Mike was interrogated for two days, and during that time
he was also hooked up to a c v s A,
a computer voice stress analysis test, which is different from
a lie detector test. This test supposedly to text deception
by measuring stress levels in the voice. Hooked to the
microphone up to mind from shirt and put some on
(19:36):
my finger, and they asked me. I think it was
like five basic questions. Did you murder your mother? I
said no. Do you know anybody I want to hurt
you mother? I said no. Um, did you hear anybody?
Did you hear anything? I said no, And I may
have been one or two more I can't remember. But
(19:58):
ultimately they told me that that's true, meaning that the
test showed he was lying. And we can't corroborate whether
Mike fails this stress test since we don't have those
results ourselves. Not that it really matters, though, because these
voice stress tests, which were frequently used by law enforcement
during the nineties have since been determined to be wholly unreliable,
(20:20):
and even if they were reliable, it would have been
no surprise that Mike had failed. Because what we do
know is that Mike was a fourteen year old boy
distraught after finding his mom brutally murdered, that Mike's interrogations
were not recorded, and that police officers did not properly
look into Ed as a suspect. They think we can
(20:41):
build a case against this kid. Ed was a savvier suspect,
and he arguably had an alibi. They did some investigation
into him, not much, but the investigation they did do
had more hurdles than their case they were building against Mike,
So I think they went with the easier target, the
easier case to build. Ed supposedly had this alibi that
(21:02):
he was at work um but there are no time
cards from Ford Motor Company proving that was not held
like accountable to be there at all times. And even
if he left at the time that his shift supposedly ended,
there still was time to make that drive to Hope
Well and back, so his alibi was never rock solid.
(21:26):
On December seven, Mike was arrested for the murder of
his mother Rita police. They arrest him on his lack
of emotion and suspicious reaction to his to his mother's death.
When Mike was arrested, laboratory testing on the items collected
the baseball, bats, flashlight, and poker had not yet returned results,
(21:47):
and after the testing was ultimately completed, nothing pointed to
Accelerant as the fire starter. And I woke up. It's gone.
I lost my mother, I lost my sisters, I lost myself,
like everything, everything's gone. So do have you guys ever
(22:10):
thought about wrongful convictions before? Like? Was that something that
never never, never even thought our never crossed our mind
that something like that happened. No, never, what I have
ever thought the wrongful convictions happened until until they really did,
like arrest him and take him to jail and not
(22:32):
let him out. Mike was sent to a juvenile detention
facility to await trial. Three days after the murder, a
hearing was held to determine whether to keep Mike detained,
and despite the court concluding the case was thin and
circumstantial at best, Mike remained in custody. And it felt
(22:56):
like it felt like no one, It felt like the
only person that would have helped me in that situation.
It was my mother. She was almost with us. So
with that, yeah, I mean I was. I felt completely
along and completely isolated, completely vulnerable, and I don't know
(23:19):
how to handle it. Exactly one month after his arrest,
Mike attempted suicide. I was having I was having problems
adjusting to it and handling it, and I had enough,
I guess, and I tried. I tried to hang myself
and myself Mike tied a sheet to the event and
(23:40):
hung himself from it. Fortunately a guard walked by and
saved his life. Melanie recalls how her little brother looked
when he was arrested. Just looking at him, you could
tell he could not inflict that kind of damn a
(24:00):
john a person. He just was a small boy. He
was about my size I am now because I used
to wear his clothes, and I actually have a pair
of his jeans from back then. I just put on
the other day and they still fits. But by the
time his trial started in January of two thousand two,
Mike was eighteen years old, four years older, four inches taller.
(24:21):
At thirty pounds heavier, he no longer looked like a
little boy. The prosecutors were Richard Hicks, Assistant Attorney General
of Jefferson City, Missouri, and John Rupp, prosecuting attorney for
Washington County, Missouri. The state called seventeen witnesses, which is
a lot, but they presented no real evidence. Only the
(24:42):
alleged acceleran police claimed dogs had smelled on my shoes,
but which remember, the lab never actually found. Before trial,
the prosecution actually offered Mike a plea deal to confess
fifteen years for manslaughter. He would have been out by
Did you ever consider taking that? I never considered it.
(25:05):
Do you wish you had taken it? Absolutely not. I'm
not gonna prett guilty somebody in especially especially if it
denies my mother justice. All of us have a breaking
point when subjected to these course of interrogation tactics, especially kids.
But Mike was desperate to know what had happened to
his mom, so he did withstand this coercion over days,
(25:28):
and he never confessed. I would rather do this for
her and ultimately win in the end and make the
Sheriff's department and prosecutor's office prosecuted people that's responsible for
what happened there. But even with the prosecution's weak evidence,
Mike's defense was even weaker. They only called three witnesses,
(25:51):
and they did not have an expert who could challenge
the state's experts. The trial lasted three days, and after
four hours of deliberation, on April nineteen two, Mike was
convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
M During his first four years in prison, Mike kept
(26:20):
in touch with his father, Ed, despite believing that he
was the one responsible for his mother's murder. Do you
think that your dad intentionally tried to frame you? That's
a hard question. Um. Part of me, the part of
me wants to say yes, right. Another part of me
(26:41):
wants to think that he just got so lucky with
the inconfidence of the of the Washington Gang Shairs per forman.
But he just it just happened that way. It was
well known that I've played with fire as a kid,
and fire was used to ultimately murder my mother. Um,
(27:02):
I can say that he never helped He never tried
to help me. That's that's that he's He's never tried
to help me. Yet, after Mike's direct appeal was denied,
Ed told his son he was going to help him.
In two thousand five, he told Mike that he hired
an attorney to help with his next appeal. He kept
reaching out to the attorney, never hearing back, never hearing back.
(27:24):
Finally he got a friend to call the attorney's office,
and that's when the attorney said, I haven't responded you
because we don't have an attorney client relationship. I'm not
your attorney any longer. And that's when Mike learned his
father had lied to him. He'd never paid this attorney
or even asked him if he would be willing to
file this postconviction petition. And that's the last time Mike
and his father have ever ever spoke. Um and his
(27:46):
sisters have not spoken to their father since then either.
This devastated Mike. And that was when my heavy drugs
came in. When I found out I didn't have a
longer and that you he has been He's been misleading
me for at least a year and a half about
having a lawyer, and once I found out and understood
(28:09):
the significance of not having one and sent me into
a drug induce life. Really, I mean, I left my cell.
I didn't come back unless I had some heroin, Okay,
wet something and that was my way of coping with it.
As for Melanie, she thinks her dad never intended to
help Mike from the beginning. Her feeling is that Ed
likely framed Mike. Honestly, I think he tried to set
(28:32):
Mike up to take the fall. I mean that sounds horrible,
but honestly that is my that those are my thoughts.
He didn't care about anyone else. He only cares about himself.
He's like a psychopath. I mean like literally, it's I
can't even believe that we came from that because we
(28:54):
don't act anything like him. It's so bizarre. No on him.
It doesn't surprise as me, right because of of what
I've seen in the end. But how I threat my mom,
how I dread it does it's something that I can
honestly look at and say, you know what a business
friend and it is what it is, right, But I
(29:16):
don't need him, and Mike didn't. On his own, he
was able to get clean from the drugs he had
used to cope. He wounded up getting his g e
D in prison and worked with shelter dogs to rehabilitate them.
AH Dog Program. I love the dog program. The greatest
consume accomplishment I feel like is that I was able
(29:36):
to train canines for companions the kids that have autism right,
and that is something that actually touches people on the street.
It's just not an internal department crush the program, something
that I can actually make a difference with. But Mike
(30:01):
was still determined to prove his innocence. He wrote letters
to every attorney and innocence project he could find, until
one wrote back. I wrote the m I pad make
page letters. I'm sure they still have it. I explained
my whole story. I mailed it. Within a few months,
Mike got a visit from Kim Blocker, a staff attorney
for the m I P, which is the Midwest Innocence Project.
(30:24):
Six law students from Missouri University and Kansas University accompanied him.
He sat down in visible and they told me tells
what happened. And I told him and changed my life.
Had saved my life. The expressions that I've seen on
those students faces and Kim's face when I was telling
my story stuck with me. And I knew that they
(30:47):
were going to investigate everything that I just said. I
knew and everything that they were going to find. It's
factually true to everything I just said, and from the
from a day on until when I saved my life
more ways than one. When the Midwest Innocence Project took
(31:10):
Mike's case, they filed a new petition claiming Mike is
innocent based on new evidence, including the fact the mic
shoes did not actually have an accelerant on them. The
material is substance on mike shoes, which were determined to
be gasoline at trial, was actually an aromatic solvent that
was part of the manufacturing process of these tennis shoes.
(31:33):
So this material was in every pair of shoes that
it were sold across the country, was not at all
unique to Mike's pair of shoes um, but was the
thing that was used to convict him and send him
to prison for life. Magan says, the state even concedes
that this evidence is false, yet they are still fighting
his litigation and still fighting to keep him in prison.
(31:56):
One of the detectives has even come forward with her
own opinion ends on the case. Dammy Bellfield, one of
the deputy sheriffs who investie this case, who shared and
confirmed that like this, this was a mess. This was
a police department that was weighing over its head. They
did not have the experience the resources to handle this
(32:18):
type of case or case of this magnitude, and they
didn't know what they were doing, and to the extent
they did, they did it wrong or made the wrong judgments.
Despite the new evidence, all of Mike's appeals have been denied.
On October, he filed another petition quote seeking a writ
of habeas corpus vacating his conviction for second degree murder.
(32:40):
Mike would have to wait months to find out if
this one would also be denied, But then on February
eighth of this year, Mike got a surprise. The parole
board granted him an early release. A new lawn, Missouri
sp allows certain incarsory a juveniles parole after fifteen years.
(33:03):
So in January, Megan Crane and the rest of Mike's
team applied for parole, and despite the difficulty of claiming
innocence for parole, the board granted Mike's release. Now that
Mike is finally getting out of prison, I asked him
what he thinks of his suicide attempt. Do you think
back on that? And you know, I think that you're
(33:26):
glad that they found you. Yeah, because there's only there's
only one explanation, and I can I can draw from
everything that's ever happened to me, is that one, I'm
strong enough and capable of handling everything that they throw
at me. Well, I'm also strong enough and capable of
(33:50):
using it for the better of society, right. M Mike
nowt eight, walked out of prison on April two of
this year. A few days after his release, we spoke again.
(34:13):
Mike was at Melanie's house, surrounded by his sister's niece's
nephews and of course, yeah we got puppy dogs, Blue
Healer and um black Lab. Okay, so tell me how
it's been being home. It's been awesome. I ain't got
much sleep. I've been running u pure adrenaline. We went
to the stock car races Saturday night. I met up
with some family members. I ain't seeing it over two decades. Uh,
(34:35):
it was awesome. So I think, you know, one of
the more incredible things about you, Mike, and what happened
to is that you were so young when you went
to prison, that you really grew up inside prison. And
what's it like to be an adult now outside it's
walking into an alien world, right, because I've spent two
thirds of my life incarcerated, so that's what I knew. Um,
(34:59):
it's a culture shock. All the technology, the speed of everything. Um,
opening the refrigerator and seeing all the food, all the choices.
I went in the walmart and I was like, what, yeah, yeah, so,
and it's it's just so, it's it's just I don't
I don't have the proper verbs to describe it, but
(35:19):
it's just it's just amazing. So what do you want
people to know about what happened to you? And and
really anything, it's an open ended question. You know what
happened to me, It can happen to anybody. And there's
there's countless more people that suffered how I suffered, and
they need help. And I look forward to being a
part of that, you know, for for the greatest country
(35:40):
in the world. Right, Uh, it shouldn't be this hard
when it's discovered that there's innocent people or an innocent
person in prison, and the herculean hurdles that it takes
to get people out and exonerated, even when it's actually
proven that that evidence was used against the people. That's
that's false from misleading or or if there's new discovered evidence,
(36:02):
they don't want to hear it, they ignore it, and
it's it's it's very disappointing, to say the least, that
things like that happened. Mike plans to work with innocence
projects and use his experience to inspire the next generation
of law students to help change the judicial system. But
before signing off, I had one last question for him.
(36:23):
Have you thought about your mom a lot since you've
been out? Yeah? Yeah, I think about her every day,
you know, it's regardless of I was in there out here.
That's something we we tell stories about her. What do
you wish she could see right now? Oh she's smiling. Yeah,
she's smiling. She knows, Uh, so she can finally rest right. UM.
I always always felt that she wasn't at peace, um
(36:47):
with what happened in the aftermath, what happened to her. Um.
But there was a moment when I was in the
parking lot and uh, there was two geese that flew
over and honked right above me, and I just looked
up and I said, Hi, Mom, And it was just instant, Yeah,
it was it was yeah, Yeah, I felt like that
was her celebrating. If you'd like to help Mike get
(37:14):
back on his feet, go to go fund me dot
com and search for Michael Polly. If you or someone
you know is having thoughts of suicide, help is available.
Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at eight hundred
eight to next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling
(37:36):
Brian Parnell. But when they turned around and said to me, yeah,
we have your DNA and we got your fingerprints at
a prime. See you choked this guy from What's chest,
I said, wait a minute, you got the wrong guy.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
(37:59):
links in our bio to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom Kevin Wortis,
as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson,
and story editor Sonja Paul. With additional production by Jeff Clyburne.
The music in this production is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Ja Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast and
(38:22):
on Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava
for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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