January 9, 2023 • 36 mins
On May 30, 1997, Tasha Shelby found her boyfriend's two and half-year-old toddler having a seizure on his bedroom floor. Bryan was pronounced dead at the hospital the following day, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide. Tasha, a naturally small woman, was on bed rest at the time, after giving birth and undergoing multiple surgeries, and Bryan was more than half Tasha’s size, standing 3 feet tall and weighing 33 pounds. Tasha’s physical inability to have shaken Bryan to death did not stop the state, who prosecuted and convicted Tasha based on the junk science of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Maggie speaks to Tasha Shelby, Penny Warner, Tasha’s aunt, and Valena Beety, Tasha’s attorney.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.change.org/p/free-wrongfully-imprisoned-tasha-shelby
https://freetashashelby.com/clemency/
Call Mississippi Assistant Attorney General Ashley Sulser, Director of the Criminal Appeals Division (601-359-3800 or ashley.sulser@ago.ms.gov), and Harrison County District Attorney Crosby Parker's office (228-865-4003), and ask them to agree to dismiss the charges against Tasha Shelby. https://www.ago.state.ms.us/contact/ ; http://harrison2.co.harrison.ms.us/directory/?department=District%20Attorney
Call Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves's office (601-359-3150 or governor@govreeves.ms.gov) asking him to grant Tasha’s clemency petition. https://governorreeves.ms.gov/
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/172-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-shaken-baby-syndrome/
Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
On August thirteenth nine, Tasha Shelby was arrested and taken
into the Biloxi Police Department. Throughout that sweltering Mississippi day,
she sat handcuffed to a chair while Sergeant Warren Newman
interrogated her relentlessly. Tasha and her new husband, Brian Thompson,
were still mourning the loss of his two and a
half year old son, Little Brian, who had died suddenly
(00:32):
a few months before, but that didn't stop Officer Newman.
His questioning grew more and more aggressive as the hours
wore on, and then finally and it turns into full
fledge like rage where he's just like throwing everything off
to the desk and he's putting his arms in his
hands on either side of my chair, and he's shaken
me and look at me in my face and he
(00:54):
was like, I know you did it, you baby killer.
Like he's calling me a baby killer. He's calling me
that I did this horrible things. And he finally opens
the door and says, this bitch is not going to talk.
Let's book her. My name is Kasha, my Sady Shelby.
(01:16):
I have been incarcerated for twenty five years longfully convicted
for twenty two years from Lava for Good. This is
wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Tasha Shelby. Tasha Shelby
(01:44):
was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on March eighth, to Paul
Douglas Shelby and Sherry Lynn Buttermore, but she was raised
in Texas by her father, Paul. My mother was accent
from my life, and so it was just me and
my dad. UM. I have several siblings that you know
he had with other ladies, um, but for the most part,
(02:06):
it was just me and my dad and we just
kind of lived a pretty nomadic life. Tasha and her
dad did everything together, and his love of music created
some of her most favorite memories with him. He loved
um classic rock, and anytime we would just be cruising around,
(02:28):
he would always like school me on music. A song
would come on the radio and it could be like
Leonard Skinners or led Zeppelin or the Beatles or whatever,
and you know, we'd be sitting there looking at each
other jamming and he turned it down and he's like,
what's the next one? Or he would ask me who
was this? So he kind of like introduced me to
(02:51):
my love of music, which I love all music, but
I have a special pace in my heart classic rock
because of my dad. Life with her dad was a blast.
He also made time to take Tasha to visit his
sister who lived in another state. She was so cute
and little. This is Tasha's Aunt Penny. And she comes
(03:13):
bursting through my door and puts her hands on her
hips and says, you are my uncle Penny. It is
Aunt Panny. She was no Uncle Penny, and until she
was a teenager she called me uncle Panny. And then
when Tasha was fourteen, tragedy struck. When my dad was
(03:34):
thirty three, he was killed in a carrect and after that,
I kind of just felt a little lost in the world,
if I'm being honest. Tasha went to live with her
Aunt Penny in California for a year. Aunt Penny thought
the world of Tasha. Say she's smart, she's funny, um,
(03:54):
she has a very very strong faith, she's very compassionate,
empathetic towards people, and she's really a very strong woman,
much stronger than me. Even though Tasha was in the
loving arms of Aunt Penny, she continued to feel lost
without her dad, so she grew up fast in the
tenth grade, maybe three months in that's when I found
(04:17):
out I was pregnant with my son. I was seventeen,
and I just never went back to school. At seventeen,
Tasha gave birth to her first child, her son, Dakota.
By this time, she was back in Mississippi, and after
a couple of years, she ran into an old acquaintance,
Brian Thompson the Third, also known as Big Brian. Um.
(04:40):
He's one of the first people I see from my
old crew, and he, you know, was like, hey, you
want to go down to the beach. I'm like, yeah,
I haven't seen the latter and forever. And so from
that moment forward, things kind of turned for us in
another way. He was single, I was single, and we
(05:02):
knew each other. We felt comfortable, and we started seeing
ourselves following in love. Tasha says Brian was trustworthy and dependable,
and with him, for the first time in her life,
she finally felt a sense of stability and security. Everything
just felt like permanent, and that'shin in my life had
(05:22):
ever felt permanent. It I always felt like fleeting, and
this was just a moment. It was going to pass,
and it didn't feel like that with him, and I
think he just added to my life. For the first time,
I felt something or someone had added something for me
and to me. Brian and Tasha decided to move to
(05:48):
a three bedroom trailer in Biloxi and blend their families.
Brian had a two and a half year old son
who was called Little Brian, and Tasha had her three
year old son, Dakota. They also found out they were
expecting a child together, a baby girl. Then I did
start having difficulties with my pregnancy. I had pre eclampsia
(06:10):
and I'm still young, and I've never had anyone talk
to me about what pregnant life looks like or any
of these things. You know. My dad certainly didn't talk
to you about those things at fourteen and younger, you know.
So um, I didn't know really what to look for,
and I kept having a lot of pain and it
(06:33):
was early, but for like three weeks leading up to
her birth, we kept having to go to the emergency
room in the middle of the night because I would
wake him up and say, this is it. She's coming,
Let's let's go. Finally, on May fourteenth, Tasha and Big
Brian's daughter Devon was born, but the labor and birth
(06:55):
left Tasha with serious medical problems. With Devin, she actually
almost died and I almost died during the birth. Um
they ended up having to do an emergency C section.
Devin was pretty big when she was born. She was
over eight pounds and Dakota had only been like six
pounds and something. And Tasha is actually quite small, under
(07:18):
five ft tall. Both her pregnancies had taken a toll
on her body, so even before she had the C section,
she had already decided the birth would be a good
time to get her tubes tied. And so that's what
I was recuperating from. You know, both of those surgery first,
just on any given day is difficult for a woman.
(07:42):
After about three days in the hospital, Tasha was able
to go home to her family, Big Brian, Little Brian, Dakota,
and Devon. Tasha was on bedrest with Big Brian doing
most of the caretaking. You know, I was given instructions
to not do any heavy lifting or bending over. You know,
it was going to take time to recuperate from the
(08:03):
difficult you know birth I had just given and the
surgeries top that. Were you even able to pick up
the babies if you wanted to, it was very difficult.
Um I was able to pick her up, but I
didn't do it unless I was home alone without Brian,
which only happened on two occasions, which was the night
(08:26):
in question. Big Brian went to work around seven thirty pm.
(08:47):
He had just started a new job at a beer
distribution plant and he was on the night shift. Around
the same time, Tasha's grandparents came over to help with
the kids. They visited for about an hour, talking and
watching little Brian play, then they left, taking Dakota with
them for the night. Tasha says that before Devon was born,
she and little Brian loved their one on one time.
(09:08):
They made watching movies and having snacks in the living
room a special occasion. So we were watching The Brave
Little Toaster, eating the popcorn, drinking the pink lemonade. Then
it's you know, bath time and bedtime, and I put
him to bed and I go to bed. I'm exhausted.
Tasha went to sleep with baby Devon in bed with
(09:29):
her and little Brian in his bed, and then in
the early morning hours, she was awakened by a loud thud,
and I immediately think Devin has fallen out of the bed.
And I look and she's okay, and I'm like, okay,
well that's not what has happened. And so I get
out of my bed and it's just like a couple
(09:50):
of steps to the doorway and I look and I see,
you know, little Brian is on the floor and it
appear wish to me that he's having a seizure. He
was laying on the floor, he was his eyes were
(10:10):
rolled in the back of his head because hands I
remember his hands just looking almost paralyzed, if you will.
And I'm thinking, I don't know what to do, and
I'm panicking. I'm trying to get to pay attention to
me or hear me, respond to me, and he's not
(10:33):
at all. So Tasha called Biloxi Regional Medical Center, the
hospital she had just been discharged from. They said to
get Little Brian there as quickly as possible. Tasha then
called Big Brian, who raced home where Tasha had been
trying to administer CPR. Brian comes in. He's in a
(10:56):
panic mode. He has him on the floor. He's doing CPR,
like we've got to go, We've got to go. I
have to get a diaper bag for Devin, and when
we're rushing to get to the van, Brian hits Little
Brian's head on the van door, which is not on purpose.
He's almost lamps like at this time, and his eyes
are just rolled in the back of his head. And
(11:20):
then we get to the hospital and the man rushes
him into the emergency room and then we're in the
emergency room and they take Little Brian away from us,
you know, try to help him. In the meantime, hospital
staff had called the police to investigate whether Little Brian
(11:41):
had been abused. Most states, including Mississippi, have mandatory reporting
laws if they're suspicion of child abuse or neglect. And
when the police showed up immediately they're asking questions, they're
kind of hounding us a little that I'm thinking, this
is normal, you know, there's an emergency, and I think
this must be what people do when there's an emergency,
(12:01):
because they care so much they want to know what's happened.
Little Brian was transferred to a hospital in Mobile, Alabama
for further treatment, but it was too late for any
meaningful difference. The next day, Big Brian had to make
the hard decision to take little Brian off life support.
(12:22):
The child was pronounced dead one Tasha and Brian left
the hospital devastated, and we pull up to our house.
There's already people there waiting to take Devon from me,
and they're there telling me that I can't have my daughter.
(12:43):
And I'm like why, Like I'm not understanding, and I'm crying.
I'm hysterical. We're just pulling in from the loss of
little Brian and they rip her out of my arms
and I'm on my knees, begging and crying and they're
taking her. That's when I realized, Oh my god, they
(13:07):
see that I have done something. This episode is underwritten
by A i G, a leading global insurance company. A
i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and to
(13:27):
making a positive difference in the lives of its employees
and in the communities where they 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, the A i G Pro
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
underrepresented communities and individuals. Following the death of Little Brian
(13:59):
and as unas Tasha and Big Brian got home from
the hospital. Baby Devon was taken by Child Protective Services
and put into foster care. Dakota stayed with Tasha's grandparents
while in mourning over Little Brian. Tasha and Big Brian
went to Texas for a week to spend time with
Tasha's family. A month later, they decided to seal their
(14:20):
commitment to each other by getting married. Also during this time,
Little Brian's autopsy report was released, signed by Dr Leroy Riddick.
It listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma
to the head and the manner of death homicide. Two
months after Little Brian died, the police showed up at
(14:41):
Tasha's door and they tell me and I am under
arrest for the murder Brian lwold Hampton the four And
it kind of lust my bodily functions in that moment,
my kid everywhere, and I'm asking, can I please change
(15:02):
and they're like, no, you can't do that. You have
to go like this. The police transferred Tasha to the precinct.
It was summer and scorching hot in Mississippi, and so
they take me to this room that has absolutely no
air conditioning. No fan, nothing, and they not to be dramatic,
(15:23):
but it felt like I was chained, but it was handcuffed,
So I'm handcuffed. One side of the chair was my
left hand and one side of the chair with my
right hand. Sergeant Warren Newman of the Biloxi Police Department
then started interrogating Tasha about the death of little Brian,
and Warren Newman starts just digging in. You know, oh,
(15:46):
we know that you did this. We already have the proof,
but I understand you're probably suffering from a post part
of depression. This was a lot of stress. You have
three children. You just couldn't handle it. It was too
much like saying these things to me, and I'm just crying.
I'm thinking in my mind like I've had three brothers
and two sisters and I pretty much chopped raise all
(16:09):
of my siblings, Like three kids is a piece of
cake to me. You know, this is my life, this
is everything to me. What are you talking about? Tasha
told Officer Newman that that night little Brian fell out
of bed, she didn't hurt him, but Officer Newman was
not buying it. And then it turns into full fledged
(16:32):
like rage where he's just like throwing everything off to
the desk, and he's putting his arms in his hands
on either side of my chair and he's shaking my
chair because I'm really little, and he's shaking me and
look at me in my face and he's like, I
know you did it, you baby killer, Like he's calling
me a baby killer. He's telling me that I did
this horrible thing and I just needed to make it
(16:52):
better for myself and tell him the truth. But Tasha said,
the truth is what she already told him. She didn't
hurt little Ryan. And he finally opens the door and says, this,
this is not gonna talk. Let's book her. At two
years old, Tasha Shelby was booked into the Harrison County
(17:15):
Adult Detention Center to await trial. I was in a
state of shock. I thought, what is going on? Nobody
was telling me like any answers, and I just thought
someone is going to find out that they're wrong and
they're gonna give me everything back, you know. Tasha waited
(17:50):
three years in jail for her trial, all the while
haunted by what happened to little Brian. It just did
not feel real. And they would watch something on TV.
And I would be asleep and I could hear a
baby crying on the TV, and I remember waking up
thinking that it was all a drain, that I had
(18:10):
been arrested, and that I thought Devon was waking me
up crying. Tasha was appointed public defenders Michael Cox and
Donald Smith. At trial, right from the start, Cox and
Smith told Judge Robert H. Walker that they were overworked
with a capital murder trial and did not feel comfortable
(18:33):
representing Tasha, but Judge Walker dismissed their request and Tasha
went to trial on June twelfth, two thousand. The prosecutors
Remark Ward and Scott Lusk. At trial, they told the
jury that little Brian died from shaking baby syndrome or SBS,
the theory that if a child exhibits bleeding in the brain,
(18:56):
bleeding in the eyes, and brain swelling, then that is
only caused by one thing, and that one thing is shaking.
So the real fallacy of a shaken baby syndrome is
that it says nothing else could cause those injuries, just shaking.
This is Villina Beatty. I'm a law professor at Arizona
(19:17):
State University. Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and I'm
also the deputy director of our Academy for Justice. She's
also Tasha's post conviction attorney. Villina says that at trial,
the state argued that Little Brian died from SPS, not
from an accident as Tasha said. The state star witness
was Dr Leroy Riddick, the expert forensic pathologist who performs
(19:40):
Little Brian's autopsy. Dr Riddick testified that in addition to
massive brain swelling, little Brian was covered in bruises less
than two days old. It's not surprising they believed the
child died from shaken baby syndrome. There wasn't that much
research out at that time challenging the hypothesis. In fact,
(20:01):
Tasha's own defense team agreed SBS caused to the death,
but they said it wasn't Tasha who did it. They
said it had to have been Big Brian's doing, a
theory Tasha vehemently did not agree with. Absolutely, she did
not know. She said, this child did not die from
abuse by me or by my husband. Absolutely. What the
(20:24):
defense failed to argue, though, was that it was impossible
for Tasha to have shaken Little Brian so violently as
to kill him. Remember, Tasha was under five ft tall
and she was on bed rest after multiple surgeries and
giving birth, and at three ft tall, Little Brian was
big for his age, and they didn't mention this at all.
(20:44):
She could not physically have had the strength to pick
up and shake or abuse a thirty three pound two
and a half year old child who was over half
of her sons. Big Brian also testified at trial he
believed in Tasha's innocence, but because the prosecution was considering
(21:06):
charging him as well, he was scared. In the end,
he distanced himself from Tasha and actually cooperated with the prosecution.
On the stand, Big Brian talked about his Natasha's concerns
about Little Brian's health. Tasha was concerned about his development
and that he was eating mud. He he just didn't
(21:29):
seem to be progressing at the same rate that Dakota,
the other child in the household, who is approximately the
same age, so they should be at, you know, approximately
the same development level. Big Brian also said that several
weeks before his death, little Brian's eyes appeared bloodshot. He
(21:49):
and Tasha had also noticed Little Brian staring off into space,
his eyes rolling back into his head. This phenomenon would
now be diagnosed as a petit mall seizure. Big Brian
testified that he and Tasha had taken Little Brian to
the pediatrician, who suggested they see a neurologist. In fact,
the appointment was scheduled for seven days after Little Brian's death.
(22:12):
Tasha had also written about her concern over Little Brian
and her diary. However, neither her diary nor the family
calendar or they had written the appointment with the neurologists
were ever recovered or presented to the jury. It was
(22:32):
truly just a make believe trial. That's how Tasha's Penny
remembers it. They withheld evidence, they destroyed evidence. You know,
they just lied about her. And you know, she had
the journals that she kept. In those journals she talked about,
you know, how much she loved little Brian and how
much she loved the mom. And well, they took those
(22:53):
storms and then they lost them. I didn't find them.
The defense argued the best case they could for a
reasonable doubt, that it was possible Little Brian had died
from falling out of bed, or that he had a seizure.
Or even that Big Brian was responsible. However, it was
(23:13):
not enough. On June two thousand, at the age of
Tasha was sentenced to life without parole. Sentenced to life
in prison. Tasha struggled to come to terms with what
(23:35):
was happening to her. I didn't know that, you know
that this was really yet knowing that I didn't have
my life, my children and my family, you know everything,
in that moment, it just felt like it had been
taken for me. Even Big Brian was gone. The last
time Tasha saw him, she was still in County jail
(23:57):
two years before she was convicted. It was her twenty
third birthday, March the eight. We had a context hesitation.
We actually got to hold each other and touched each other,
and you know, it's only happy birthday. I love you
all of these things. Everything's gonna be okay. You know
I'm here. He walked out that night and said, I
(24:21):
will call you tomorrow. The next day, I call like
I normally would, and I hear the recording that this
number is no longer in service. And I have never
spoken to him again. And I do not know what happened,
(24:46):
but others in her family have stayed in Tasha's life
and continue to champion her innocence. The first time she
visited Tasha in prison, her aunt Penny found Tasha just
as she remembered her. She was still the same Tasha,
still a little and cute and funny and smart and uh,
you know, it's like no time it'd ever passed at all.
(25:09):
Although Tasha was doing life in prison, she was determined
to make the most of her time, so she joined
an art program and tutored women getting their g e D.
And she began taking college courses, including one that she
says has changed her life, the History of Southern Women
OWD to may Wells and Sainty lou Hammer, and learning
(25:31):
about these women that went through these struggles. From that
moment forward, really started realizing who I am, really started
realizing my voice and and I don't have to accept this,
that I am innocent, that I'm going to fight, and
(25:52):
I'm going to keep on fighting. Then I don't care
what struggles I have to go through. I saw these
women that it through way more horrific things that I
went through, and they rose above each time. It put
something inside of me that will never be taken away
(26:12):
from me. And it empowered me in a new way.
Tasha started finding appeal after appeal after appeal on her case,
but all were denied. Finally, in two thousand and ten,
she met Villina Beady, who you heard from earlier. I
(26:35):
had just started working on shake and baby syndrome cases
and realizing the extreme problems with that diagnosis and the
number of people who have been wrongfully convicted based on
that diagnosis. According to the University of Michigan Journal of
Law Reform, as of two thousand twelve, an average of
two hundred defendants were being convicted of SPS related crimes annually.
(26:59):
Vilina says that, unfortunately, it's not unusual in these cases
for suspicion to fall on the child's caregiver. The allegation
is the person who was alone with the child, who
is frequently a woman, must have abused the child and
killed the child. And it's a horrific allegation. In fact,
(27:19):
symptoms once used to diagnose SPS have since been shown
to be inconclusive. In two thousand one, there's this amazing
researcher Dr Plunkett who uncovered that short falls uh so
less than three ft tall can cause bleeding in the brain,
and we now know that again there can be bleeding
from small injuries or even no injuries at all, like
(27:43):
the process of a traumatic birth can even cause bleeding
in the brain. After Vilina took on Tasha's case, her
team filed a second post conviction relief petition arguing that
the conviction should be thrown out base on new scientific
research on shaking baby syndrome. Once we get the medical records.
(28:06):
We had experts who were radiology experts, biomechanical experts, and
forensic pathology experts. So one of each look at her
case and look at the medical records to give us
an opinion as to whether they thought the cause of
death was abuse or shaking. So they all came back
(28:27):
and said no, they did not think it was abuse
or shaking. That short fall definitely could have caused the
bleeding in the brain. Uh and having a seizure could
have been part of this as well. A short fall
and a seizure just like Tasha said she heard and saw.
The experts also noted that little Brian had asthma and
(28:49):
difficulty breathing and lack of oxygen could have contributed to
his collapse. They were also able to demystify the alleged
bruising scene on Little Brian's boddie. There were these two
large areas on little Brian's back and on his buttocks
and part of his leg that looked like bruising and
(29:11):
looked really horrible, And photos of Little Brian were shown
to the jury and the jury was told that those
were massive bruises, when instead they were actually a birthmark
known as Mongolian spots. So it wasn't abuse, it was
a natural thing this child had. It's nothing harmful, but
(29:35):
Dr Riddick mistakenly said that they were bruises. Armed with
all this information, Billina reached out to the state's star
witness at trial, Dr Riddick, who had been adamant that
the cause of Little Brian's death was SBS. They sent
(29:58):
Dr Riddick all the new information and waited and waited.
Then finally he calls. He leaves a message saying, you know,
maybe I made a mistake. Doctor Riddick, who died, actually
revised his diagnosis. In this deposition he says is that
(30:23):
I made a mistake on my conclusions and that given
the information I have now that the child died from
hypoxic and selfholopathy with harniation the two seizure disorder. Dr
(30:44):
Rittick literally changed the death certificate, so the death certificate
no longer says homicide. It now says accident as the
cause of death, and that gave Tasha's team the opening
they needed to be granted and evidentially hearing. At the hearing,
Dr riddicks testimony lasted half a day. He admitted he
(31:05):
was wrong, but that wasn't enough for the court. Tasha's
motion for a new trial was denied. That judge ultimately
decided that he simply believed Dr Riddick's trial testimonymore. Wow,
this man is sitting there telling him I was wrong,
and he's telling him you're not wrong exactly exactly. I mean,
(31:31):
it's not funny, it's just absurd. It's shocking to me
that the medical examiner who the state relied on to
convict Tasha Shelby, that he changed his opinion and the
court just dismissed that. It's just horrifying to me that
we can't acknowledge when science changes, and even when the
(31:53):
experts change their opinions, we have to still keep people convicted.
Tasha now has a habeas corpus petition pending in the
Southern District of Mississippi, and she's waiting to hear whether
(32:16):
the judges will grant her a hearing, reverse her conviction,
or uphold her conviction. Penny now lives on a farm
in Tennessee with lots of animals, including donkeys that Tasha's
excited to meet, and there's a room for Tasha at
(32:38):
Penny's house when the time comes. So I've sent her
pictures of what her view will be like once she
gets here. I'm just waiting on the phone call and
I will rob the Mississippi and getter and bring her home.
Tasha hopes to someday be reunited with her children. Devon
was a newborn and Dakota was three when Tasha was arrested.
(33:01):
When Dakota turned eighteen, he reached out to Tasha and
they've been in touch occasionally via email, but she hasn't
spoken to Devon and hasn't seen either child since, so
Tasha wants to send a message to them in hopes
that they're listening. Dakota and Devon, I want you to
(33:22):
know that I love you so much. I'm an issue
and I think of you every single day. I don't
know what you think or what you've heard, but I
want you to hear from me, as your mom, that
I am innocent and I will continue fighting for my
innocence as long as it takes. I look forward to
the day that we could be reunited and could see
(33:45):
one another again face to face, and I pray and
hope to restore and rebuild all that has been lost
between us. I love you so much. I also would
like to tell my family and my friends, all the
people of the supported me throughout this journey that your
belief in me is what has propelled me to be
able to keep fighting. And I love you all, and
(34:07):
you mean the world to me, and thank you very much.
To find out more about Tasha and how you can help,
go to Free Tasha Shelby dot com. You can sign
a petition for her freedom to be delivered to Mississippi
Governor Tate Reeves a change dot org. These and other
(34:30):
links are on our bio page. Next Time Unwrongful Conviction
with Maggie Freeling Janetta Carr. He asked me if I
was in a gang, told me that I was a
dangerous threat to society and that I was going to
(34:51):
prison for f and live. When I asked for my mom,
he told me that it was not a Girl Scouts
meeting and that my mom was not allowed to come
down there. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in our bio to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom and
(35:14):
Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer, Annie Chelsea,
producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul. The show
is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production
by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music in this
production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
(35:35):
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Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one on
On August thirteenth nine, Tasha Shelby was arrested and taken
into the Biloxi Police Department. Throughout that sweltering Mississippi day,
she sat handcuffed to a chair while Sergeant Warren Newman
interrogated her relentlessly. Tasha and her new husband, Brian Thompson,
were still mourning the loss of his two and a
half year old son, Little Brian, who had died suddenly
(00:32):
a few months before, but that didn't stop Officer Newman.
His questioning grew more and more aggressive as the hours
wore on, and then finally and it turns into full
fledge like rage where he's just like throwing everything off
to the desk and he's putting his arms in his
hands on either side of my chair, and he's shaken
me and look at me in my face and he
(00:54):
was like, I know you did it, you baby killer.
Like he's calling me a baby killer. He's calling me
that I did this horrible things. And he finally opens
the door and says, this bitch is not going to talk.
Let's book her. My name is Kasha, my Sady Shelby.
(01:16):
I have been incarcerated for twenty five years longfully convicted
for twenty two years from Lava for Good. This is
wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Tasha Shelby. Tasha Shelby
(01:44):
was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on March eighth, to Paul
Douglas Shelby and Sherry Lynn Buttermore, but she was raised
in Texas by her father, Paul. My mother was accent
from my life, and so it was just me and
my dad. UM. I have several siblings that you know
he had with other ladies, um, but for the most part,
(02:06):
it was just me and my dad and we just
kind of lived a pretty nomadic life. Tasha and her
dad did everything together, and his love of music created
some of her most favorite memories with him. He loved
um classic rock, and anytime we would just be cruising around,
(02:28):
he would always like school me on music. A song
would come on the radio and it could be like
Leonard Skinners or led Zeppelin or the Beatles or whatever,
and you know, we'd be sitting there looking at each
other jamming and he turned it down and he's like,
what's the next one? Or he would ask me who
was this? So he kind of like introduced me to
(02:51):
my love of music, which I love all music, but
I have a special pace in my heart classic rock
because of my dad. Life with her dad was a blast.
He also made time to take Tasha to visit his
sister who lived in another state. She was so cute
and little. This is Tasha's Aunt Penny. And she comes
(03:13):
bursting through my door and puts her hands on her
hips and says, you are my uncle Penny. It is
Aunt Panny. She was no Uncle Penny, and until she
was a teenager she called me uncle Panny. And then
when Tasha was fourteen, tragedy struck. When my dad was
(03:34):
thirty three, he was killed in a carrect and after that,
I kind of just felt a little lost in the world,
if I'm being honest. Tasha went to live with her
Aunt Penny in California for a year. Aunt Penny thought
the world of Tasha. Say she's smart, she's funny, um,
(03:54):
she has a very very strong faith, she's very compassionate,
empathetic towards people, and she's really a very strong woman,
much stronger than me. Even though Tasha was in the
loving arms of Aunt Penny, she continued to feel lost
without her dad, so she grew up fast in the
tenth grade, maybe three months in that's when I found
(04:17):
out I was pregnant with my son. I was seventeen,
and I just never went back to school. At seventeen,
Tasha gave birth to her first child, her son, Dakota.
By this time, she was back in Mississippi, and after
a couple of years, she ran into an old acquaintance,
Brian Thompson the Third, also known as Big Brian. Um.
(04:40):
He's one of the first people I see from my
old crew, and he, you know, was like, hey, you
want to go down to the beach. I'm like, yeah,
I haven't seen the latter and forever. And so from
that moment forward, things kind of turned for us in
another way. He was single, I was single, and we
(05:02):
knew each other. We felt comfortable, and we started seeing
ourselves following in love. Tasha says Brian was trustworthy and dependable,
and with him, for the first time in her life,
she finally felt a sense of stability and security. Everything
just felt like permanent, and that'shin in my life had
(05:22):
ever felt permanent. It I always felt like fleeting, and
this was just a moment. It was going to pass,
and it didn't feel like that with him, and I
think he just added to my life. For the first time,
I felt something or someone had added something for me
and to me. Brian and Tasha decided to move to
(05:48):
a three bedroom trailer in Biloxi and blend their families.
Brian had a two and a half year old son
who was called Little Brian, and Tasha had her three
year old son, Dakota. They also found out they were
expecting a child together, a baby girl. Then I did
start having difficulties with my pregnancy. I had pre eclampsia
(06:10):
and I'm still young, and I've never had anyone talk
to me about what pregnant life looks like or any
of these things. You know. My dad certainly didn't talk
to you about those things at fourteen and younger, you know.
So um, I didn't know really what to look for,
and I kept having a lot of pain and it
(06:33):
was early, but for like three weeks leading up to
her birth, we kept having to go to the emergency
room in the middle of the night because I would
wake him up and say, this is it. She's coming,
Let's let's go. Finally, on May fourteenth, Tasha and Big
Brian's daughter Devon was born, but the labor and birth
(06:55):
left Tasha with serious medical problems. With Devin, she actually
almost died and I almost died during the birth. Um
they ended up having to do an emergency C section.
Devin was pretty big when she was born. She was
over eight pounds and Dakota had only been like six
pounds and something. And Tasha is actually quite small, under
(07:18):
five ft tall. Both her pregnancies had taken a toll
on her body, so even before she had the C section,
she had already decided the birth would be a good
time to get her tubes tied. And so that's what
I was recuperating from. You know, both of those surgery first,
just on any given day is difficult for a woman.
(07:42):
After about three days in the hospital, Tasha was able
to go home to her family, Big Brian, Little Brian, Dakota,
and Devon. Tasha was on bedrest with Big Brian doing
most of the caretaking. You know, I was given instructions
to not do any heavy lifting or bending over. You know,
it was going to take time to recuperate from the
(08:03):
difficult you know birth I had just given and the
surgeries top that. Were you even able to pick up
the babies if you wanted to, it was very difficult.
Um I was able to pick her up, but I
didn't do it unless I was home alone without Brian,
which only happened on two occasions, which was the night
(08:26):
in question. Big Brian went to work around seven thirty pm.
(08:47):
He had just started a new job at a beer
distribution plant and he was on the night shift. Around
the same time, Tasha's grandparents came over to help with
the kids. They visited for about an hour, talking and
watching little Brian play, then they left, taking Dakota with
them for the night. Tasha says that before Devon was born,
she and little Brian loved their one on one time.
(09:08):
They made watching movies and having snacks in the living
room a special occasion. So we were watching The Brave
Little Toaster, eating the popcorn, drinking the pink lemonade. Then
it's you know, bath time and bedtime, and I put
him to bed and I go to bed. I'm exhausted.
Tasha went to sleep with baby Devon in bed with
(09:29):
her and little Brian in his bed, and then in
the early morning hours, she was awakened by a loud thud,
and I immediately think Devin has fallen out of the bed.
And I look and she's okay, and I'm like, okay,
well that's not what has happened. And so I get
out of my bed and it's just like a couple
(09:50):
of steps to the doorway and I look and I see,
you know, little Brian is on the floor and it
appear wish to me that he's having a seizure. He
was laying on the floor, he was his eyes were
(10:10):
rolled in the back of his head because hands I
remember his hands just looking almost paralyzed, if you will.
And I'm thinking, I don't know what to do, and
I'm panicking. I'm trying to get to pay attention to
me or hear me, respond to me, and he's not
(10:33):
at all. So Tasha called Biloxi Regional Medical Center, the
hospital she had just been discharged from. They said to
get Little Brian there as quickly as possible. Tasha then
called Big Brian, who raced home where Tasha had been
trying to administer CPR. Brian comes in. He's in a
(10:56):
panic mode. He has him on the floor. He's doing CPR,
like we've got to go, We've got to go. I
have to get a diaper bag for Devin, and when
we're rushing to get to the van, Brian hits Little
Brian's head on the van door, which is not on purpose.
He's almost lamps like at this time, and his eyes
are just rolled in the back of his head. And
(11:20):
then we get to the hospital and the man rushes
him into the emergency room and then we're in the
emergency room and they take Little Brian away from us,
you know, try to help him. In the meantime, hospital
staff had called the police to investigate whether Little Brian
(11:41):
had been abused. Most states, including Mississippi, have mandatory reporting
laws if they're suspicion of child abuse or neglect. And
when the police showed up immediately they're asking questions, they're
kind of hounding us a little that I'm thinking, this
is normal, you know, there's an emergency, and I think
this must be what people do when there's an emergency,
(12:01):
because they care so much they want to know what's happened.
Little Brian was transferred to a hospital in Mobile, Alabama
for further treatment, but it was too late for any
meaningful difference. The next day, Big Brian had to make
the hard decision to take little Brian off life support.
(12:22):
The child was pronounced dead one Tasha and Brian left
the hospital devastated, and we pull up to our house.
There's already people there waiting to take Devon from me,
and they're there telling me that I can't have my daughter.
(12:43):
And I'm like why, Like I'm not understanding, and I'm crying.
I'm hysterical. We're just pulling in from the loss of
little Brian and they rip her out of my arms
and I'm on my knees, begging and crying and they're
taking her. That's when I realized, Oh my god, they
(13:07):
see that I have done something. This episode is underwritten
by A i G, a leading global insurance company. A
i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and to
(13:27):
making a positive difference in the lives of its employees
and in the communities where they 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, the A i G Pro
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
underrepresented communities and individuals. Following the death of Little Brian
(13:59):
and as unas Tasha and Big Brian got home from
the hospital. Baby Devon was taken by Child Protective Services
and put into foster care. Dakota stayed with Tasha's grandparents
while in mourning over Little Brian. Tasha and Big Brian
went to Texas for a week to spend time with
Tasha's family. A month later, they decided to seal their
(14:20):
commitment to each other by getting married. Also during this time,
Little Brian's autopsy report was released, signed by Dr Leroy Riddick.
It listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma
to the head and the manner of death homicide. Two
months after Little Brian died, the police showed up at
(14:41):
Tasha's door and they tell me and I am under
arrest for the murder Brian lwold Hampton the four And
it kind of lust my bodily functions in that moment,
my kid everywhere, and I'm asking, can I please change
(15:02):
and they're like, no, you can't do that. You have
to go like this. The police transferred Tasha to the precinct.
It was summer and scorching hot in Mississippi, and so
they take me to this room that has absolutely no
air conditioning. No fan, nothing, and they not to be dramatic,
(15:23):
but it felt like I was chained, but it was handcuffed,
So I'm handcuffed. One side of the chair was my
left hand and one side of the chair with my
right hand. Sergeant Warren Newman of the Biloxi Police Department
then started interrogating Tasha about the death of little Brian,
and Warren Newman starts just digging in. You know, oh,
(15:46):
we know that you did this. We already have the proof,
but I understand you're probably suffering from a post part
of depression. This was a lot of stress. You have
three children. You just couldn't handle it. It was too
much like saying these things to me, and I'm just crying.
I'm thinking in my mind like I've had three brothers
and two sisters and I pretty much chopped raise all
(16:09):
of my siblings, Like three kids is a piece of
cake to me. You know, this is my life, this
is everything to me. What are you talking about? Tasha
told Officer Newman that that night little Brian fell out
of bed, she didn't hurt him, but Officer Newman was
not buying it. And then it turns into full fledged
(16:32):
like rage where he's just like throwing everything off to
the desk, and he's putting his arms in his hands
on either side of my chair and he's shaking my
chair because I'm really little, and he's shaking me and
look at me in my face and he's like, I
know you did it, you baby killer, Like he's calling
me a baby killer. He's telling me that I did
this horrible thing and I just needed to make it
(16:52):
better for myself and tell him the truth. But Tasha said,
the truth is what she already told him. She didn't
hurt little Ryan. And he finally opens the door and says, this,
this is not gonna talk. Let's book her. At two
years old, Tasha Shelby was booked into the Harrison County
(17:15):
Adult Detention Center to await trial. I was in a
state of shock. I thought, what is going on? Nobody
was telling me like any answers, and I just thought
someone is going to find out that they're wrong and
they're gonna give me everything back, you know. Tasha waited
(17:50):
three years in jail for her trial, all the while
haunted by what happened to little Brian. It just did
not feel real. And they would watch something on TV.
And I would be asleep and I could hear a
baby crying on the TV, and I remember waking up
thinking that it was all a drain, that I had
(18:10):
been arrested, and that I thought Devon was waking me
up crying. Tasha was appointed public defenders Michael Cox and
Donald Smith. At trial, right from the start, Cox and
Smith told Judge Robert H. Walker that they were overworked
with a capital murder trial and did not feel comfortable
(18:33):
representing Tasha, but Judge Walker dismissed their request and Tasha
went to trial on June twelfth, two thousand. The prosecutors
Remark Ward and Scott Lusk. At trial, they told the
jury that little Brian died from shaking baby syndrome or SBS,
the theory that if a child exhibits bleeding in the brain,
(18:56):
bleeding in the eyes, and brain swelling, then that is
only caused by one thing, and that one thing is shaking.
So the real fallacy of a shaken baby syndrome is
that it says nothing else could cause those injuries, just shaking.
This is Villina Beatty. I'm a law professor at Arizona
(19:17):
State University. Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and I'm
also the deputy director of our Academy for Justice. She's
also Tasha's post conviction attorney. Villina says that at trial,
the state argued that Little Brian died from SPS, not
from an accident as Tasha said. The state star witness
was Dr Leroy Riddick, the expert forensic pathologist who performs
(19:40):
Little Brian's autopsy. Dr Riddick testified that in addition to
massive brain swelling, little Brian was covered in bruises less
than two days old. It's not surprising they believed the
child died from shaken baby syndrome. There wasn't that much
research out at that time challenging the hypothesis. In fact,
(20:01):
Tasha's own defense team agreed SBS caused to the death,
but they said it wasn't Tasha who did it. They
said it had to have been Big Brian's doing, a
theory Tasha vehemently did not agree with. Absolutely, she did
not know. She said, this child did not die from
abuse by me or by my husband. Absolutely. What the
(20:24):
defense failed to argue, though, was that it was impossible
for Tasha to have shaken Little Brian so violently as
to kill him. Remember, Tasha was under five ft tall
and she was on bed rest after multiple surgeries and
giving birth, and at three ft tall, Little Brian was
big for his age, and they didn't mention this at all.
(20:44):
She could not physically have had the strength to pick
up and shake or abuse a thirty three pound two
and a half year old child who was over half
of her sons. Big Brian also testified at trial he
believed in Tasha's innocence, but because the prosecution was considering
(21:06):
charging him as well, he was scared. In the end,
he distanced himself from Tasha and actually cooperated with the prosecution.
On the stand, Big Brian talked about his Natasha's concerns
about Little Brian's health. Tasha was concerned about his development
and that he was eating mud. He he just didn't
(21:29):
seem to be progressing at the same rate that Dakota,
the other child in the household, who is approximately the
same age, so they should be at, you know, approximately
the same development level. Big Brian also said that several
weeks before his death, little Brian's eyes appeared bloodshot. He
(21:49):
and Tasha had also noticed Little Brian staring off into space,
his eyes rolling back into his head. This phenomenon would
now be diagnosed as a petit mall seizure. Big Brian
testified that he and Tasha had taken Little Brian to
the pediatrician, who suggested they see a neurologist. In fact,
the appointment was scheduled for seven days after Little Brian's death.
(22:12):
Tasha had also written about her concern over Little Brian
and her diary. However, neither her diary nor the family
calendar or they had written the appointment with the neurologists
were ever recovered or presented to the jury. It was
(22:32):
truly just a make believe trial. That's how Tasha's Penny
remembers it. They withheld evidence, they destroyed evidence. You know,
they just lied about her. And you know, she had
the journals that she kept. In those journals she talked about,
you know, how much she loved little Brian and how
much she loved the mom. And well, they took those
(22:53):
storms and then they lost them. I didn't find them.
The defense argued the best case they could for a
reasonable doubt, that it was possible Little Brian had died
from falling out of bed, or that he had a seizure.
Or even that Big Brian was responsible. However, it was
(23:13):
not enough. On June two thousand, at the age of
Tasha was sentenced to life without parole. Sentenced to life
in prison. Tasha struggled to come to terms with what
(23:35):
was happening to her. I didn't know that, you know
that this was really yet knowing that I didn't have
my life, my children and my family, you know everything,
in that moment, it just felt like it had been
taken for me. Even Big Brian was gone. The last
time Tasha saw him, she was still in County jail
(23:57):
two years before she was convicted. It was her twenty
third birthday, March the eight. We had a context hesitation.
We actually got to hold each other and touched each other,
and you know, it's only happy birthday. I love you
all of these things. Everything's gonna be okay. You know
I'm here. He walked out that night and said, I
(24:21):
will call you tomorrow. The next day, I call like
I normally would, and I hear the recording that this
number is no longer in service. And I have never
spoken to him again. And I do not know what happened,
(24:46):
but others in her family have stayed in Tasha's life
and continue to champion her innocence. The first time she
visited Tasha in prison, her aunt Penny found Tasha just
as she remembered her. She was still the same Tasha,
still a little and cute and funny and smart and uh,
you know, it's like no time it'd ever passed at all.
(25:09):
Although Tasha was doing life in prison, she was determined
to make the most of her time, so she joined
an art program and tutored women getting their g e D.
And she began taking college courses, including one that she
says has changed her life, the History of Southern Women
OWD to may Wells and Sainty lou Hammer, and learning
(25:31):
about these women that went through these struggles. From that
moment forward, really started realizing who I am, really started
realizing my voice and and I don't have to accept this,
that I am innocent, that I'm going to fight, and
(25:52):
I'm going to keep on fighting. Then I don't care
what struggles I have to go through. I saw these
women that it through way more horrific things that I
went through, and they rose above each time. It put
something inside of me that will never be taken away
(26:12):
from me. And it empowered me in a new way.
Tasha started finding appeal after appeal after appeal on her case,
but all were denied. Finally, in two thousand and ten,
she met Villina Beady, who you heard from earlier. I
(26:35):
had just started working on shake and baby syndrome cases
and realizing the extreme problems with that diagnosis and the
number of people who have been wrongfully convicted based on
that diagnosis. According to the University of Michigan Journal of
Law Reform, as of two thousand twelve, an average of
two hundred defendants were being convicted of SPS related crimes annually.
(26:59):
Vilina says that, unfortunately, it's not unusual in these cases
for suspicion to fall on the child's caregiver. The allegation
is the person who was alone with the child, who
is frequently a woman, must have abused the child and
killed the child. And it's a horrific allegation. In fact,
(27:19):
symptoms once used to diagnose SPS have since been shown
to be inconclusive. In two thousand one, there's this amazing
researcher Dr Plunkett who uncovered that short falls uh so
less than three ft tall can cause bleeding in the brain,
and we now know that again there can be bleeding
from small injuries or even no injuries at all, like
(27:43):
the process of a traumatic birth can even cause bleeding
in the brain. After Vilina took on Tasha's case, her
team filed a second post conviction relief petition arguing that
the conviction should be thrown out base on new scientific
research on shaking baby syndrome. Once we get the medical records.
(28:06):
We had experts who were radiology experts, biomechanical experts, and
forensic pathology experts. So one of each look at her
case and look at the medical records to give us
an opinion as to whether they thought the cause of
death was abuse or shaking. So they all came back
(28:27):
and said no, they did not think it was abuse
or shaking. That short fall definitely could have caused the
bleeding in the brain. Uh and having a seizure could
have been part of this as well. A short fall
and a seizure just like Tasha said she heard and saw.
The experts also noted that little Brian had asthma and
(28:49):
difficulty breathing and lack of oxygen could have contributed to
his collapse. They were also able to demystify the alleged
bruising scene on Little Brian's boddie. There were these two
large areas on little Brian's back and on his buttocks
and part of his leg that looked like bruising and
(29:11):
looked really horrible, And photos of Little Brian were shown
to the jury and the jury was told that those
were massive bruises, when instead they were actually a birthmark
known as Mongolian spots. So it wasn't abuse, it was
a natural thing this child had. It's nothing harmful, but
(29:35):
Dr Riddick mistakenly said that they were bruises. Armed with
all this information, Billina reached out to the state's star
witness at trial, Dr Riddick, who had been adamant that
the cause of Little Brian's death was SBS. They sent
(29:58):
Dr Riddick all the new information and waited and waited.
Then finally he calls. He leaves a message saying, you know,
maybe I made a mistake. Doctor Riddick, who died, actually
revised his diagnosis. In this deposition he says is that
(30:23):
I made a mistake on my conclusions and that given
the information I have now that the child died from
hypoxic and selfholopathy with harniation the two seizure disorder. Dr
(30:44):
Rittick literally changed the death certificate, so the death certificate
no longer says homicide. It now says accident as the
cause of death, and that gave Tasha's team the opening
they needed to be granted and evidentially hearing. At the hearing,
Dr riddicks testimony lasted half a day. He admitted he
(31:05):
was wrong, but that wasn't enough for the court. Tasha's
motion for a new trial was denied. That judge ultimately
decided that he simply believed Dr Riddick's trial testimonymore. Wow,
this man is sitting there telling him I was wrong,
and he's telling him you're not wrong exactly exactly. I mean,
(31:31):
it's not funny, it's just absurd. It's shocking to me
that the medical examiner who the state relied on to
convict Tasha Shelby, that he changed his opinion and the
court just dismissed that. It's just horrifying to me that
we can't acknowledge when science changes, and even when the
(31:53):
experts change their opinions, we have to still keep people convicted.
Tasha now has a habeas corpus petition pending in the
Southern District of Mississippi, and she's waiting to hear whether
(32:16):
the judges will grant her a hearing, reverse her conviction,
or uphold her conviction. Penny now lives on a farm
in Tennessee with lots of animals, including donkeys that Tasha's
excited to meet, and there's a room for Tasha at
(32:38):
Penny's house when the time comes. So I've sent her
pictures of what her view will be like once she
gets here. I'm just waiting on the phone call and
I will rob the Mississippi and getter and bring her home.
Tasha hopes to someday be reunited with her children. Devon
was a newborn and Dakota was three when Tasha was arrested.
(33:01):
When Dakota turned eighteen, he reached out to Tasha and
they've been in touch occasionally via email, but she hasn't
spoken to Devon and hasn't seen either child since, so
Tasha wants to send a message to them in hopes
that they're listening. Dakota and Devon, I want you to
(33:22):
know that I love you so much. I'm an issue
and I think of you every single day. I don't
know what you think or what you've heard, but I
want you to hear from me, as your mom, that
I am innocent and I will continue fighting for my
innocence as long as it takes. I look forward to
the day that we could be reunited and could see
(33:45):
one another again face to face, and I pray and
hope to restore and rebuild all that has been lost
between us. I love you so much. I also would
like to tell my family and my friends, all the
people of the supported me throughout this journey that your
belief in me is what has propelled me to be
able to keep fighting. And I love you all, and
(34:07):
you mean the world to me, and thank you very much.
To find out more about Tasha and how you can help,
go to Free Tasha Shelby dot com. You can sign
a petition for her freedom to be delivered to Mississippi
Governor Tate Reeves a change dot org. These and other
(34:30):
links are on our bio page. Next Time Unwrongful Conviction
with Maggie Freeling Janetta Carr. He asked me if I
was in a gang, told me that I was a
dangerous threat to society and that I was going to
(34:51):
prison for f and live. When I asked for my mom,
he told me that it was not a Girl Scouts
meeting and that my mom was not allowed to come
down there. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in our bio to see how you can help.
I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom and
(35:14):
Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer, Annie Chelsea,
producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul. The show
is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production
by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. The music in this
production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
(35:35):
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
wrong 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 on
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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