February 26, 2024 • 32 mins
“When I tell people that I was sentenced 25 to 50 years, they automatically assume that I was accused of murder,” says Lorinda Swain. “And I always tell them, no, I was accused of worse than that.” In August of 2001, Lorinda was arrested in Calhoun County, Michigan for allegedly sexually molesting her adopted son, who was seven years old at the time. Although the boy recanted the allegation prior to trial and then again after her conviction, Lorinda remained incarcerated for seven years before being released on bond.
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https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/experiential-learning/clinics/michigan-innocence-clinic-0
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of child's
sexual abuse. Please listen with caution and care. In the
summer of two thousand and one, Larinda Swain was a
forty year old single mother of two living in Union City, Michigan.
(00:23):
She had just completed a three month jail term for
a drug charge and was back home on parole. Larinda
was looking forward to seeing her boys, Ronnie and Cody,
who had been living with their father while she was
in jail. She'd been trying to reach her ex husband
to arrange it, but he hadn't returned any.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Of her calls.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Larinda was relaxing in the bathtub at her parents' farmhouse
when there was a knock at the door.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
And so my dad tells that the police are there.
I figured the cops was through there, and they're likes
trying to say I threatened them about having visitation, But it.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Was much more serious than that.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
When I tell people that I was sentenced twenty five
to fifty years, they automatically assumed that I was accused
of murder, and I always tell them, no, I was
accused of worse than that.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
From love of for good, This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today Lorenda Swain. Lorenda Swain was born in
(01:35):
nineteen sixty in Hamilton, Ohio. The family later moved to Michigan.
She was the middle child of six.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I've always heard that that's a bad place to be,
you know, But to be honest, my siblings, if you
had to ask every one of them who they're the
closest to, it would probably be me. So I like
to be in the middle child. I had the very
loving parents, George and Fay. They've been married sixty eight years.
My dad was a two on die maker. My mother
(02:03):
was like a homemaker till we were all in school,
and then she got a job so that we could
buy a farm.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Laarinda admits that as a child she had some unusual hobbies.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I was the cleaner out of the family. I to
cook and clean, and when I was a kid, I
would like, you know, stay up all night and clean
the silver drawers.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
But she also enjoyed more typical kid things.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well. I had a good childhood. I liked sports. We
camped and fished. My mom always took us to Saltaban
and we'd get cherries and ice cream on the way.
A lot of my life felt very lucky to be me.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
When she was a teenager, the family moved to a
farm in Burlington, about forty miles away. Before long, Larinda
fell for someone and they started a serious relationship. She
was seventeen, he was twenty seven. They moved in together
a year later.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Living together back then was like a big deal and
my parents were like, you know, we'll design you. And
the next week they were like at my house and
loved my husband. And I lived there like maybe two
years before we got married. And then I was married
to him for seven years.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
But that marriage didn't work out, and at twenty eight,
Lorenda found herself in transition, about to be divorced, living
in Union City, Michigan, and working at a local Italian restaurant.
And that is where she met Ronald Swain.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I slipped on a piece of ice cleaning up the
salad bar Italian pasta bar, and ron you know, came
to rescue me and I met him, And to be honest,
I you know, like I said, I was getting a
divorce from my first marriage, and I ended up having
to worry if my divorce was going to be final
Before we got married.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Ron was sixteen years older than Lorenda, and as she
describes him, he was handsome enough to be a movie star.
He already had a daughter and just says he was
a good dad. She looked forward to starting a family
with him.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I used to love kids more than anybody in the
entire world. I'm talking nieces and nephews. Prior to having
my own children. We tried twice to have a test
two baby and it didn't work. So we ended up
getting into foster care and adopting.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
They adopted two boys, Ronnie and Cody Joe, who were
thirteen months apart.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They brought me a lot of joy, they did. I
loved them and I was so happy being a mom.
I was so I spoiled them. They brought me so
much joy.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Oh, she was an Ulliban mother.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
This is George Johnson, Lorenda's father.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
She loved them, ever loved her child.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
But she couldn't have children, and so where she got
to adopt these two bull boys.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
It was like a guest from God, you know, worship
them boys.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But unfortunately ron didn't feel the same about the children.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Lorenda says, they didn't make him happy. And you know,
so you know, the marriage didn't work out, and I
think they were like five and six, maybe four and five.
When we got divorced, I had the custody and he
hardly visited. You know, he got to claim him for
(05:28):
taxes as long as he was current on support, and
he didn't even come and visit home, or you know.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Is this her the two boys as their family now?
She really pleased that she was the mother and the
father and they wasn't going to be short changed in
any way.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But still being a single parent wasn't easy. Lorenda says,
before long, things in her life started to go downhill.
She found a new boyfriend who turned out to be violent,
and he introduced her to hard drugs.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And that's what I'm guilty of, is that I made
a bad choice. I did use crack. I did I
was depressed, and you know, maybe that's just an excuse whatever.
I never even knew what it was and sure didn't
plan it, and it's one of my deepest regrets, but
it's you know, I can't change it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
After she got out of that relationship, Lorenda got back
on her feet. Her living situation got more stable, and
she began to feel like she and the boys were
doing okay.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I was living with a boyfriend that I did treework
for in my parents one of their rental properties. They
had more than one, and I would move there and
I would like fix it up, landscape, clean the yard,
clean the house. That great, and then they would get
me to move to another. We'll get Larna to move
there because she'll fix it up.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But then Lorenda made another bad choice. She stole one
of her parents' credit cards and used it to score drugs.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
She got it, maxed it out, maxed it out overnight.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
My parents didn't prosecute, but I got probation. I had
no criminal history prior to this.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Lorenda wasn't incarcerated, but she was on parole and she
couldn't kick old habits.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I did go back out news and my dad loved
me and was so worried about me that he turned
me in. He wanted me to go to jail because
he was afraid if I didn't that I was going
to get killed. You know, doing drugs.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Well that was really the We got to do something,
and you steal from your parents, that's about as low
as you can get, you know. And we worked with
her all along, but at that point somebody else had
to help her.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I wasn't able to do it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Lorendo was sent to prison on the drug violation for
ninety days, and while she was there, Ronnie and Cody
were in the custody of their dad and his new
wife Lynn. When Lorendo was released in August of two
thousand and one, she was still on probation and had
to wear an ankle monitor. She wasted no time trying
to contact ron to see her children.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And my husband wouldn't answer the phone or whatever, and
I just told that, Hey, if you don't get a
hold of me by Friday, you'll be in contempt at court.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
A couple of days later, Lorinda was at her parents' farm.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm actually in the bathtub with my leg up on
the side of the tub with a plastic bag around
it because back then you couldn't get the tethers wet.
And so my dad tells that the police are there.
I figured the cops will be there, and they're likes
trying to say I threatened them about having visitation.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
But it wasn't about the visitation at all. The police
were there to take Lorenda in. She had been accused
of committing an unimaginable crime.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
And so can you walk us through what happened in
this case, not necessarily the prosecution theory, but what happened.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Ronnie, who was the older son, who by this point
was about fourteen years old, was caught by his stepmother
committing sexual misconduct with a relative.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
This is Dave Moran. He's the co director and co
founder of the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of
Michigan Law School.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
And the stepmother apparently suggested to Ronnie that he must
have learned that from someone else, and Ronnie then implicated
Lorenda and claimed that Lorenda had performed oral sex on him.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
According to the allegations, this had all happened years before,
when Ronnie was about seven.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Many many times, in fact, every day before catching the
school bus. According to Ronnie, Lorenda pulled down his pants
and performed oral sex on him.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Ronnie was the most honest kid. So when they first
accused me of it down at the jail halls after
they've picked me up at my parents' firm, I told
the guy, I don't believe Ronnie said that. He said
I witnessed Ronnie said, I said, well, then he's a
goddamn liar. Because I said, I never dreamed of doing that.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Oh, I know she didn't do it. I know she
didn't do it the way she loved them. Rayne don't
Wayne Hill and she harmed up boys like something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
But based on Ronnie's allegation alone, Lorenda was arrested and
charged with sexually molesting her oldest son. The trial was
scheduled for the following August, and then soon after his
mother was arrested, Ronnie confessed that the story was a lie.
It would be the first of many times that he
tried to recant.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
The first time he recranted, my dad and my sister
and my nephew went with a tape recorder thing and
asked if they, you know, he would talk to him,
and he agreed to.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
You know, I asked him, what on earth did you?
You know? What? What's sadil? And me it wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Then they called the other grandma, his birth grandma, and
he admitted to her that I didn't do it, And
he admitted to my parents that I didn't do it,
and my dad had it on tape.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
But those tapes were never introduced at trial by Lorenda's defense.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
My lawyer just counted on Ronnie telling the truth, and
that was when I realized at the trial, I'm going
to be found guilty.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Lorenda's trial began in
(12:24):
August of two thousand and two in Calhoun County, Michigan.
The primary witnesses for the prosecution were Ronnie, who was
now fifteen, and his younger brother, Cody, who was fourteen.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Cody didn't implicate her directly in any kind of sexual misconduct,
but just kind of backed up that she supposedly had
behaved inappropriately. Then you had the stepmother testifying about what
Ronnie had told her, and that was pretty much. Yet
the prosecution didn't really have any other substantial witnesses.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The story worry that the jury heard from Ronnie and
Cody at trial went like this.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
The allegations were quite specific, namely that for this period
of several years, Lorenda would get the boys up and
get them ready for school, and then she would send
the younger son, Cody out to wait for the school bus,
and then she would molest Ronnie, and then Cody would
come running down the driveway to alert everybody that the
(13:25):
school bus was coming, and then Lorenda would pull up
Ronnie's pants and send them out there to join Cody
and catch the bus.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
No kid ever waited out there alone. They usually were
watching cartoons, eating fruit roll ups, and when I see
the bus coming, I'd had to hurry and get them
to go run out to the end of the driveway.
You know what I'm saying. No one kid ever sat
out there by himself.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
And so Lorenda at her trial, she didn't have a
very good lawyer, but she tried to assert the defenses herself,
and so at one point while she was testifying, she
blurted out, the story is not true, asked the neighbor
boy and the school bus driver.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
My lawyer should stop the trial right then, and said, look,
we need to get the bus driver in. The little
neighbor boy so he was telling the truth here, but
he didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Instead, Lorenda's attorney was counting on Ronnie to tell the
truth on the stand, but that didn't happen either.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Ronnie recanted before trial and in fact, he recanted at trial,
and then he had a private conversation with a prosecutor.
Then he came back in and unrecanted.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
My lawyer said to Ronnie three times, don't you want
to tell the truth here today? The third time Ronnie
started crying, the judge stopped the trial ordered everybody out
of the courtroom. I knew he was crying because he
knew I had never dreamed of doing anything like that.
But I realized to the twelve strangers, they think he's
(14:53):
crying because they guy really did do this.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
On August twentieth, two thousand and two, the jury found
Lorenda guilty on all four counts of first degree criminal
sexual conduct. She was sentenced to twenty five to fifty
years in prison.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
When I was first found guilty of a crime I
never dreamed of doing, I was sure. I was so
naive to think that when they realized that I didn't
do it, they'll tear the doors down, you know. Eventually,
I knew they knew they had made a mistake, but
they'd sooner appeal or fight it and not care if
(15:33):
my family and my life is wrecked. To this day,
I can't believe it was real. The whole while I
was in there. I knew it was real, but I
couldn't believe it was real at the same time. You know,
I've done some wrong in my day, I really have,
but I sure didn't do this. Like I said, a
(15:59):
lot in my life, I felt really lucky to be me.
But when I was in a jail cell on my
forty first birthday, accused of when I was accused of,
I felt like the most unlucky person in the entire
world for a very long time. You know, when I
(16:37):
tell people that I was sentenced twenty five to fifty years,
they automatically assumed that I was accused of murder, and
how always tell him, no, I was accused of worse
than that. You know, I would have rather been accused
of killing my mom and dad than to be accused
of molesting your adopted son.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You know, Laurinda knew that because of the nature of
the crime she was charged with, she was going to
have a tough time of it in prison.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
People were cruel to some people, and a lot of
times it was like sexual assault people. You know, I
had a couple different confrontations where one girl did say
to me, you sucked your kid's dick the size of
my pinky and put her pinky up and said that
in my face. The thought was in my head to
(17:32):
pick the pan up and beat her fricking brains out.
But God also put the thought in my head. Sticks
and stones can break your bones, but names can never
harm you unless you hurt that girl. I'll tell you
what I drink. I smoke pot. I swear. I certainly
(17:57):
am not a saint, but I love God. I know
he's real. I'm sorry, I'm the sinner. I talked to
him all the time, and when I was in prison,
I was talking to him and I was even swearing
at him, telling them the Bible is a damn lie says,
you don't put more on us and we can bear,
and this is way more than I can bear.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan opened its
doors in January of two thousand and nine. Dave remembers
that Lorenda's was one of the first cases they took on.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
We took it within the first few months of the
clinic being open because it came to us recommended by
Bill Procter, who was an investigative journalist and then later
private investigator that we knew and trusted, and we heard
from Brad Edwards, another investigative journalist who'd done a story
on Lorenda's case, and so after meeting Lorenda in prison,
(18:55):
we very quickly decided to take on the case.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Well, so how did you disprove it? Because that's the
like what it was. It was ninety six and ninety
four he said his mom was molesting him, and now
you know, we're years later.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
So how did you Well, because we talked to Ronnie
pretty early on and Cody both and they were both
firm that this did not happen, that Ronnie and Cody
had been manipulated by the stepmother into making these charges
against Lorenda, And so that made us think that this
(19:28):
was a wrongful conviction. But we knew that Ronnie and
Cody alone couldn't do it because they had already recanted.
So that wasn't going to be new evidence. We had
to find new evidence, and the most obvious place to
look was what Lorendo had shout out at trial, the
they were kid and the school bus driver. The jury
never heard from them, what about that neighbor boy? What
about that school bus driver? And we found them and
(19:51):
the neighbor boy agreed that the Swain brothers came out
every morning together and waited with him for the school bus.
And then we actually found the school bus driver, and
she had an amazing memory of the routes that she
drove and who she picked up at each point.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
At a post conviction hearing before Judge Conrad, since both
the neighbor and the bus driver were called as witnesses,
the bus driver testified that she saw the Swain brothers
waiting at the stop together every day along with the
neighbor boy. She never saw Cody running to get his
brother from the house.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
The prosecutor got up, you know, just dripping with sarcasm, like,
oh yeah, sure, after all these years. You know, by
this point we're close to twenty years or fifteen twenty years,
and so so the prosecutor just fell right into the
trap and he said, all right, so you know, who
did you pick up the stop before the Swains? And
she named like two or three kids, and all right,
(20:51):
what about what about the stop before that? She named
two or three more kids. Well what about to stop
after the swing kids? And she named the kids she
picked up there, and you can just tell the judge
was utterly convinced by this veteran school bus driver with
the photographic memory.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And in their investigation, Dave's team had uncovered another witness,
Dennis Book, who was Larinda's living boyfriend at the time
of the alleged abuse.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
And he provided utterly crucial testimony because he was there
when the boys would catch the bus, because he would
leave after that to go to work, and so he
could affirm that this absolutely didn't happen. And what made
him such a great witness was that he absolutely hated Larinda.
They had a terrible breakup. But even more crucially what
(21:38):
he revealed is that he had been contacted by Detective Picket,
who was the officer in charge of the case against Larinda,
and he had told Detective Picket and know uncertain terms,
you know, I detest that woman, but this absolutely didn't happen,
and if it had happened, I would have turned her
in myself.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Knowing how much Dennis Book hated Larinda, her defense attorney
never called him at trial. He was afraid that Dennis's
testimony would hurt Larinda's case. An officer Pickett never revealed
to the defense what Dennis Book had told him that
Larinda didn't do it.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
And so that became a Brady violation because had the
defense lawyer known what Dennis Book had told Detective Picket,
then that would have changed the calculus entirely.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
What made him want to testify?
Speaker 6 (22:25):
For you guys, he didn't, especially it took several visits
with him to persuade him to testify, and then of
course we did subpoena him, so he actually was under
legal obligation to show up. So I can imagine the
person that you've had the worst breakup in your life
with coming in and saying, basically, you're a terrible person,
but you didn't do this. That is a credible witness.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
In August of two thousand and nine, as a result
of the new evidence, Judge sent granted Larinda a new
trial and she was released on bond.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
When I was in prison, I watched two sets of Olympics,
and I used to think the closest thing I'd ever
feel to what they must feel when they touch that
pool first or cross that finish line, would be if
my name was cleared and I got justice. Well it
felt good leaving there August fifth, o nine, and I thought,
(23:21):
I'm going to know what it feels like to be
the Olympic athlete in six months to a year. For sure,
that's what it looked like.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
But Loreinda's journey wasn't over when she was released on bond.
Speaker 6 (23:33):
And then the case though, lingered for another seven years
from that point for us trying to you know, finalize
the victory, and it kept going up and down the
appellate chain, and we would lose rounds and then we'd
win around, and the prosecution, when we'd lose around, would
move to send her back to prison. So we have
to go back to the trial judge and try and
keep her out of prison.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I had no idea it was going to be seven
more years that I'd have to worry that I'm going
to have to either go back to prison or kill
me myself, because I wasn't going back to prison, and
I wasn't going to take off and make my parents
lose their thirty thousand dollars they'd put up for bond.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
And there were some scary moments because Lorenda was very
dead set about not going back to prison, and so
we were very concerned about her health and safety.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Did she express to you her maybe suicidal idiations that
if she was going to go back, that was that
was it.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Yes, And you know, we were try and talk her
out of it, but it was a lot of pressure
on it. And there was one hearing in particular where
we had just lost around and then the prosecution moved
to cancel her bond and tether and send her back
to prison. And we went to court and there was
a guy there from the Department of Corrections waiting and
he was he was holding his you know, leg irons
and waist chain and handcuffs and you know, playing with them, cling,
(24:47):
clinking them like the grim Reaper.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
We've heard that Ronnie recant did his allegation many times,
and he continued to maintain that Lorenda hadn't done this.
But that still leaves the question why did Ronnie make
up this story in the first place. It all started
when Lorenda was in prison for the drug violation and
(25:11):
Ronnie and Cody were living with their father and stepmother.
As it came out later, fourteen year old Ronnie had
been caught in an act of sexual misconduct with a
young relative, a three year old girl who was also
living in the house.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
He knew he had done wrong. The little girl told
on him. Ronnie first denied it, then he admitted he
did it and said he was playing game called babies.
So they took him to the therapist and had him
tell the therapists I had done this, you know, lots of times,
way years ago, and that's why he did it.
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Years later, Ronnie admitted that actually he had learned about
oral sex from watching some of the movies and magazines
in his father's porn stash.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And so how did it come about where they were like, oh,
we're going to blame Lorinda.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Do you know how that happens?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yes? Yes, because the stepmother told Ronnie. She said, Ronnie,
if this happened to you, you won't go to jail.
Your mom will get a little bit of time in
jail and we'll help her with her using her drugs.
She'll get six months in jail, but I got twenty
five to fifty years in jail.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Allegations of child sexual abuse are taken very seriously by
the courts, But Ronnie had recanted his story multiple times
to authorities, So why would that not be enough to
overturn the conviction. As Dave explains, when it comes to
these kinds of cases, It's not always that simple.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Even a recantation from the complainant is likely not to
be enough because there are so many reasons that the
courts will appoint to. If the prosecutors will point to
as to why somebody might recant a child sexual abuse allegation,
it's true, for example, because they're under pressure from family members,
or because they feel guilty about sending somebody to prison,
or they think that somebody has been punished enough and
(27:04):
it's time time to bring them home. And so it's
just never enough to have the complainant in a child
sex abuse case wecan't and in fact it wasn't enough
in this case. Loreinda had gotten nowhere, even though Ronnie
had vociferously recanted many times. You have to be able
to corroborate the recantation. You have to be able to
show why the claim objectively couldn't be true. And so
(27:28):
we were very lucky in this case that we were
able to do that.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
And that was through the bus driver and the neighbor boy.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
And the ex boyfriend Dennis Book.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Over the next seven years, Loreinda was granted a retrial
multiple times, but Calhoun County Prosecutor Susan Maladanov objected each time. Finally,
in twenty sixteen, the Michigan Innocence Clinic persuaded the state
Supreme Court to order a new trial for Lareinda, and
then on May nineteenth, twenty sixteen, the prosecution dropped the charges.
(28:14):
She was finally free.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I did end up getting to feel what that athlete
felt like when they touched that pool. When Dave called
me and told me the Supreme Court decision is back
and you're exonerated.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
That was great. I mean, that was euphoork. A lot
of pressure on her, a lot of pressure on us
all those years. But to actually be able to complete
the exoneration, have her cut off that tether that she'd
been wearing for seven years and be free, it was
one of the great moments at the clinic.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Larinda is no longer in touch with Ronnie and Cody,
and you know, I.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Do forgive them. They didn't ask me to adopt them.
I did use drugs. You know, I forgive them, but
I can't. I just can't forget with the wrecked mine
and my parents' life.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
In July of twenty seventeen, Loreinda filed a lawsuit against
Calhoun County seeking damages for her wrongful conviction. The suit
was settled in twenty eighteen, which allowed Lorenda to put
her life back together and finally make a new start.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I work hard, I rest hard, and I play hard.
I have a dog that I've had for almost fourteen years.
We're little old ladies together. I love to work on
my home, in my yard. I have a garden. I
have the best neighbors. I have a great boyfriend. I
(29:53):
you know, I dance, a shop, I cooked, I cleaned,
I want, I played tennis, and I'm sixty three, but
in my heart I'm ten. In my heart, I am ten,
and I'm so grateful to Almighty God for giving me
the strength to get through it, giving me loving parents
(30:14):
and you know you have em and my prison boss
and just different people that that helped to make a difference.
So in the end, God showed me that I had
more strength than I ever knew, and I did persevere.
I did meddle through it, and I met incredible people
because of it.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
If you'd like to help support the important work the
Michigan Innocence Clinic is doing, please check out their link
in our episode description and thank you, thank you for
(31:03):
listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your
local innocence organizations and go to the links in the
episode description to see how you can help. I'd like
to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and
Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer
Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
(31:25):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava
for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow
me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
(31:46):
Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one
A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of child's
sexual abuse. Please listen with caution and care. In the
summer of two thousand and one, Larinda Swain was a
forty year old single mother of two living in Union City, Michigan.
(00:23):
She had just completed a three month jail term for
a drug charge and was back home on parole. Larinda
was looking forward to seeing her boys, Ronnie and Cody,
who had been living with their father while she was
in jail. She'd been trying to reach her ex husband
to arrange it, but he hadn't returned any.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Of her calls.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Larinda was relaxing in the bathtub at her parents' farmhouse
when there was a knock at the door.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
And so my dad tells that the police are there.
I figured the cops was through there, and they're likes
trying to say I threatened them about having visitation, But it.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Was much more serious than that.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
When I tell people that I was sentenced twenty five
to fifty years, they automatically assumed that I was accused
of murder, and I always tell them, no, I was
accused of worse than that.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
From love of for good, This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today Lorenda Swain. Lorenda Swain was born in
(01:35):
nineteen sixty in Hamilton, Ohio. The family later moved to Michigan.
She was the middle child of six.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I've always heard that that's a bad place to be,
you know, But to be honest, my siblings, if you
had to ask every one of them who they're the
closest to, it would probably be me. So I like
to be in the middle child. I had the very
loving parents, George and Fay. They've been married sixty eight years.
My dad was a two on die maker. My mother
(02:03):
was like a homemaker till we were all in school,
and then she got a job so that we could
buy a farm.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Laarinda admits that as a child she had some unusual hobbies.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I was the cleaner out of the family. I to
cook and clean, and when I was a kid, I
would like, you know, stay up all night and clean
the silver drawers.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
But she also enjoyed more typical kid things.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well. I had a good childhood. I liked sports. We
camped and fished. My mom always took us to Saltaban
and we'd get cherries and ice cream on the way.
A lot of my life felt very lucky to be me.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
When she was a teenager, the family moved to a
farm in Burlington, about forty miles away. Before long, Larinda
fell for someone and they started a serious relationship. She
was seventeen, he was twenty seven. They moved in together
a year later.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Living together back then was like a big deal and
my parents were like, you know, we'll design you. And
the next week they were like at my house and
loved my husband. And I lived there like maybe two
years before we got married. And then I was married
to him for seven years.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
But that marriage didn't work out, and at twenty eight,
Lorenda found herself in transition, about to be divorced, living
in Union City, Michigan, and working at a local Italian restaurant.
And that is where she met Ronald Swain.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I slipped on a piece of ice cleaning up the
salad bar Italian pasta bar, and ron you know, came
to rescue me and I met him, And to be honest,
I you know, like I said, I was getting a
divorce from my first marriage, and I ended up having
to worry if my divorce was going to be final
Before we got married.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Ron was sixteen years older than Lorenda, and as she
describes him, he was handsome enough to be a movie star.
He already had a daughter and just says he was
a good dad. She looked forward to starting a family
with him.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I used to love kids more than anybody in the
entire world. I'm talking nieces and nephews. Prior to having
my own children. We tried twice to have a test
two baby and it didn't work. So we ended up
getting into foster care and adopting.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
They adopted two boys, Ronnie and Cody Joe, who were
thirteen months apart.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They brought me a lot of joy, they did. I
loved them and I was so happy being a mom.
I was so I spoiled them. They brought me so
much joy.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Oh, she was an Ulliban mother.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
This is George Johnson, Lorenda's father.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
She loved them, ever loved her child.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
But she couldn't have children, and so where she got
to adopt these two bull boys.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
It was like a guest from God, you know, worship
them boys.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But unfortunately ron didn't feel the same about the children.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Lorenda says, they didn't make him happy. And you know,
so you know, the marriage didn't work out, and I
think they were like five and six, maybe four and five.
When we got divorced, I had the custody and he
hardly visited. You know, he got to claim him for
(05:28):
taxes as long as he was current on support, and
he didn't even come and visit home, or you know.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Is this her the two boys as their family now?
She really pleased that she was the mother and the
father and they wasn't going to be short changed in
any way.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But still being a single parent wasn't easy. Lorenda says,
before long, things in her life started to go downhill.
She found a new boyfriend who turned out to be violent,
and he introduced her to hard drugs.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And that's what I'm guilty of, is that I made
a bad choice. I did use crack. I did I
was depressed, and you know, maybe that's just an excuse whatever.
I never even knew what it was and sure didn't
plan it, and it's one of my deepest regrets, but
it's you know, I can't change it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
After she got out of that relationship, Lorenda got back
on her feet. Her living situation got more stable, and
she began to feel like she and the boys were
doing okay.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I was living with a boyfriend that I did treework
for in my parents one of their rental properties. They
had more than one, and I would move there and
I would like fix it up, landscape, clean the yard,
clean the house. That great, and then they would get
me to move to another. We'll get Larna to move
there because she'll fix it up.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But then Lorenda made another bad choice. She stole one
of her parents' credit cards and used it to score drugs.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
She got it, maxed it out, maxed it out overnight.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
My parents didn't prosecute, but I got probation. I had
no criminal history prior to this.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Lorenda wasn't incarcerated, but she was on parole and she
couldn't kick old habits.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I did go back out news and my dad loved
me and was so worried about me that he turned
me in. He wanted me to go to jail because
he was afraid if I didn't that I was going
to get killed. You know, doing drugs.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Well that was really the We got to do something,
and you steal from your parents, that's about as low
as you can get, you know. And we worked with
her all along, but at that point somebody else had
to help her.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I wasn't able to do it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Lorendo was sent to prison on the drug violation for
ninety days, and while she was there, Ronnie and Cody
were in the custody of their dad and his new
wife Lynn. When Lorendo was released in August of two
thousand and one, she was still on probation and had
to wear an ankle monitor. She wasted no time trying
to contact ron to see her children.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And my husband wouldn't answer the phone or whatever, and
I just told that, Hey, if you don't get a
hold of me by Friday, you'll be in contempt at court.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
A couple of days later, Lorinda was at her parents' farm.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm actually in the bathtub with my leg up on
the side of the tub with a plastic bag around
it because back then you couldn't get the tethers wet.
And so my dad tells that the police are there.
I figured the cops will be there, and they're likes
trying to say I threatened them about having visitation.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
But it wasn't about the visitation at all. The police
were there to take Lorenda in. She had been accused
of committing an unimaginable crime.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
And so can you walk us through what happened in
this case, not necessarily the prosecution theory, but what happened.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Ronnie, who was the older son, who by this point
was about fourteen years old, was caught by his stepmother
committing sexual misconduct with a relative.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
This is Dave Moran. He's the co director and co
founder of the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of
Michigan Law School.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
And the stepmother apparently suggested to Ronnie that he must
have learned that from someone else, and Ronnie then implicated
Lorenda and claimed that Lorenda had performed oral sex on him.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
According to the allegations, this had all happened years before,
when Ronnie was about seven.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Many many times, in fact, every day before catching the
school bus. According to Ronnie, Lorenda pulled down his pants
and performed oral sex on him.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Ronnie was the most honest kid. So when they first
accused me of it down at the jail halls after
they've picked me up at my parents' firm, I told
the guy, I don't believe Ronnie said that. He said
I witnessed Ronnie said, I said, well, then he's a
goddamn liar. Because I said, I never dreamed of doing that.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Oh, I know she didn't do it. I know she
didn't do it the way she loved them. Rayne don't
Wayne Hill and she harmed up boys like something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
But based on Ronnie's allegation alone, Lorenda was arrested and
charged with sexually molesting her oldest son. The trial was
scheduled for the following August, and then soon after his
mother was arrested, Ronnie confessed that the story was a lie.
It would be the first of many times that he
tried to recant.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
The first time he recranted, my dad and my sister
and my nephew went with a tape recorder thing and
asked if they, you know, he would talk to him,
and he agreed to.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
You know, I asked him, what on earth did you?
You know? What? What's sadil? And me it wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Then they called the other grandma, his birth grandma, and
he admitted to her that I didn't do it, And
he admitted to my parents that I didn't do it,
and my dad had it on tape.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
But those tapes were never introduced at trial by Lorenda's defense.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
My lawyer just counted on Ronnie telling the truth, and
that was when I realized at the trial, I'm going
to be found guilty.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Lorenda's trial began in
(12:24):
August of two thousand and two in Calhoun County, Michigan.
The primary witnesses for the prosecution were Ronnie, who was
now fifteen, and his younger brother, Cody, who was fourteen.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Cody didn't implicate her directly in any kind of sexual misconduct,
but just kind of backed up that she supposedly had
behaved inappropriately. Then you had the stepmother testifying about what
Ronnie had told her, and that was pretty much. Yet
the prosecution didn't really have any other substantial witnesses.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The story worry that the jury heard from Ronnie and
Cody at trial went like this.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
The allegations were quite specific, namely that for this period
of several years, Lorenda would get the boys up and
get them ready for school, and then she would send
the younger son, Cody out to wait for the school bus,
and then she would molest Ronnie, and then Cody would
come running down the driveway to alert everybody that the
(13:25):
school bus was coming, and then Lorenda would pull up
Ronnie's pants and send them out there to join Cody
and catch the bus.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
No kid ever waited out there alone. They usually were
watching cartoons, eating fruit roll ups, and when I see
the bus coming, I'd had to hurry and get them
to go run out to the end of the driveway.
You know what I'm saying. No one kid ever sat
out there by himself.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
And so Lorenda at her trial, she didn't have a
very good lawyer, but she tried to assert the defenses herself,
and so at one point while she was testifying, she
blurted out, the story is not true, asked the neighbor
boy and the school bus driver.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
My lawyer should stop the trial right then, and said, look,
we need to get the bus driver in. The little
neighbor boy so he was telling the truth here, but
he didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Instead, Lorenda's attorney was counting on Ronnie to tell the
truth on the stand, but that didn't happen either.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Ronnie recanted before trial and in fact, he recanted at trial,
and then he had a private conversation with a prosecutor.
Then he came back in and unrecanted.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
My lawyer said to Ronnie three times, don't you want
to tell the truth here today? The third time Ronnie
started crying, the judge stopped the trial ordered everybody out
of the courtroom. I knew he was crying because he
knew I had never dreamed of doing anything like that.
But I realized to the twelve strangers, they think he's
(14:53):
crying because they guy really did do this.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
On August twentieth, two thousand and two, the jury found
Lorenda guilty on all four counts of first degree criminal
sexual conduct. She was sentenced to twenty five to fifty
years in prison.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
When I was first found guilty of a crime I
never dreamed of doing, I was sure. I was so
naive to think that when they realized that I didn't
do it, they'll tear the doors down, you know. Eventually,
I knew they knew they had made a mistake, but
they'd sooner appeal or fight it and not care if
(15:33):
my family and my life is wrecked. To this day,
I can't believe it was real. The whole while I
was in there. I knew it was real, but I
couldn't believe it was real at the same time. You know,
I've done some wrong in my day, I really have,
but I sure didn't do this. Like I said, a
(15:59):
lot in my life, I felt really lucky to be me.
But when I was in a jail cell on my
forty first birthday, accused of when I was accused of,
I felt like the most unlucky person in the entire
world for a very long time. You know, when I
(16:37):
tell people that I was sentenced twenty five to fifty years,
they automatically assumed that I was accused of murder, and
how always tell him, no, I was accused of worse
than that. You know, I would have rather been accused
of killing my mom and dad than to be accused
of molesting your adopted son.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You know, Laurinda knew that because of the nature of
the crime she was charged with, she was going to
have a tough time of it in prison.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
People were cruel to some people, and a lot of
times it was like sexual assault people. You know, I
had a couple different confrontations where one girl did say
to me, you sucked your kid's dick the size of
my pinky and put her pinky up and said that
in my face. The thought was in my head to
(17:32):
pick the pan up and beat her fricking brains out.
But God also put the thought in my head. Sticks
and stones can break your bones, but names can never
harm you unless you hurt that girl. I'll tell you
what I drink. I smoke pot. I swear. I certainly
(17:57):
am not a saint, but I love God. I know
he's real. I'm sorry, I'm the sinner. I talked to
him all the time, and when I was in prison,
I was talking to him and I was even swearing
at him, telling them the Bible is a damn lie says,
you don't put more on us and we can bear,
and this is way more than I can bear.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan opened its
doors in January of two thousand and nine. Dave remembers
that Lorenda's was one of the first cases they took on.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
We took it within the first few months of the
clinic being open because it came to us recommended by
Bill Procter, who was an investigative journalist and then later
private investigator that we knew and trusted, and we heard
from Brad Edwards, another investigative journalist who'd done a story
on Lorenda's case, and so after meeting Lorenda in prison,
(18:55):
we very quickly decided to take on the case.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Well, so how did you disprove it? Because that's the
like what it was. It was ninety six and ninety
four he said his mom was molesting him, and now
you know, we're years later.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
So how did you Well, because we talked to Ronnie
pretty early on and Cody both and they were both
firm that this did not happen, that Ronnie and Cody
had been manipulated by the stepmother into making these charges
against Lorenda, And so that made us think that this
(19:28):
was a wrongful conviction. But we knew that Ronnie and
Cody alone couldn't do it because they had already recanted.
So that wasn't going to be new evidence. We had
to find new evidence, and the most obvious place to
look was what Lorendo had shout out at trial, the
they were kid and the school bus driver. The jury
never heard from them, what about that neighbor boy? What
about that school bus driver? And we found them and
(19:51):
the neighbor boy agreed that the Swain brothers came out
every morning together and waited with him for the school bus.
And then we actually found the school bus driver, and
she had an amazing memory of the routes that she
drove and who she picked up at each point.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
At a post conviction hearing before Judge Conrad, since both
the neighbor and the bus driver were called as witnesses,
the bus driver testified that she saw the Swain brothers
waiting at the stop together every day along with the
neighbor boy. She never saw Cody running to get his
brother from the house.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
The prosecutor got up, you know, just dripping with sarcasm, like,
oh yeah, sure, after all these years. You know, by
this point we're close to twenty years or fifteen twenty years,
and so so the prosecutor just fell right into the
trap and he said, all right, so you know, who
did you pick up the stop before the Swains? And
she named like two or three kids, and all right,
(20:51):
what about what about the stop before that? She named
two or three more kids. Well what about to stop
after the swing kids? And she named the kids she
picked up there, and you can just tell the judge
was utterly convinced by this veteran school bus driver with
the photographic memory.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And in their investigation, Dave's team had uncovered another witness,
Dennis Book, who was Larinda's living boyfriend at the time
of the alleged abuse.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
And he provided utterly crucial testimony because he was there
when the boys would catch the bus, because he would
leave after that to go to work, and so he
could affirm that this absolutely didn't happen. And what made
him such a great witness was that he absolutely hated Larinda.
They had a terrible breakup. But even more crucially what
(21:38):
he revealed is that he had been contacted by Detective Picket,
who was the officer in charge of the case against Larinda,
and he had told Detective Picket and know uncertain terms,
you know, I detest that woman, but this absolutely didn't happen,
and if it had happened, I would have turned her
in myself.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Knowing how much Dennis Book hated Larinda, her defense attorney
never called him at trial. He was afraid that Dennis's
testimony would hurt Larinda's case. An officer Pickett never revealed
to the defense what Dennis Book had told him that
Larinda didn't do it.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
And so that became a Brady violation because had the
defense lawyer known what Dennis Book had told Detective Picket,
then that would have changed the calculus entirely.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
What made him want to testify?
Speaker 6 (22:25):
For you guys, he didn't, especially it took several visits
with him to persuade him to testify, and then of
course we did subpoena him, so he actually was under
legal obligation to show up. So I can imagine the
person that you've had the worst breakup in your life
with coming in and saying, basically, you're a terrible person,
but you didn't do this. That is a credible witness.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
In August of two thousand and nine, as a result
of the new evidence, Judge sent granted Larinda a new
trial and she was released on bond.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
When I was in prison, I watched two sets of Olympics,
and I used to think the closest thing I'd ever
feel to what they must feel when they touch that
pool first or cross that finish line, would be if
my name was cleared and I got justice. Well it
felt good leaving there August fifth, o nine, and I thought,
(23:21):
I'm going to know what it feels like to be
the Olympic athlete in six months to a year. For sure,
that's what it looked like.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
But Loreinda's journey wasn't over when she was released on bond.
Speaker 6 (23:33):
And then the case though, lingered for another seven years
from that point for us trying to you know, finalize
the victory, and it kept going up and down the
appellate chain, and we would lose rounds and then we'd
win around, and the prosecution, when we'd lose around, would
move to send her back to prison. So we have
to go back to the trial judge and try and
keep her out of prison.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I had no idea it was going to be seven
more years that I'd have to worry that I'm going
to have to either go back to prison or kill
me myself, because I wasn't going back to prison, and
I wasn't going to take off and make my parents
lose their thirty thousand dollars they'd put up for bond.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
And there were some scary moments because Lorenda was very
dead set about not going back to prison, and so
we were very concerned about her health and safety.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Did she express to you her maybe suicidal idiations that
if she was going to go back, that was that
was it.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Yes, And you know, we were try and talk her
out of it, but it was a lot of pressure
on it. And there was one hearing in particular where
we had just lost around and then the prosecution moved
to cancel her bond and tether and send her back
to prison. And we went to court and there was
a guy there from the Department of Corrections waiting and
he was he was holding his you know, leg irons
and waist chain and handcuffs and you know, playing with them, cling,
(24:47):
clinking them like the grim Reaper.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
We've heard that Ronnie recant did his allegation many times,
and he continued to maintain that Lorenda hadn't done this.
But that still leaves the question why did Ronnie make
up this story in the first place. It all started
when Lorenda was in prison for the drug violation and
(25:11):
Ronnie and Cody were living with their father and stepmother.
As it came out later, fourteen year old Ronnie had
been caught in an act of sexual misconduct with a
young relative, a three year old girl who was also
living in the house.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
He knew he had done wrong. The little girl told
on him. Ronnie first denied it, then he admitted he
did it and said he was playing game called babies.
So they took him to the therapist and had him
tell the therapists I had done this, you know, lots of times,
way years ago, and that's why he did it.
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Years later, Ronnie admitted that actually he had learned about
oral sex from watching some of the movies and magazines
in his father's porn stash.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And so how did it come about where they were like, oh,
we're going to blame Lorinda.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Do you know how that happens?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yes? Yes, because the stepmother told Ronnie. She said, Ronnie,
if this happened to you, you won't go to jail.
Your mom will get a little bit of time in
jail and we'll help her with her using her drugs.
She'll get six months in jail, but I got twenty
five to fifty years in jail.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Allegations of child sexual abuse are taken very seriously by
the courts, But Ronnie had recanted his story multiple times
to authorities, So why would that not be enough to
overturn the conviction. As Dave explains, when it comes to
these kinds of cases, It's not always that simple.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Even a recantation from the complainant is likely not to
be enough because there are so many reasons that the
courts will appoint to. If the prosecutors will point to
as to why somebody might recant a child sexual abuse allegation,
it's true, for example, because they're under pressure from family members,
or because they feel guilty about sending somebody to prison,
or they think that somebody has been punished enough and
(27:04):
it's time time to bring them home. And so it's
just never enough to have the complainant in a child
sex abuse case wecan't and in fact it wasn't enough
in this case. Loreinda had gotten nowhere, even though Ronnie
had vociferously recanted many times. You have to be able
to corroborate the recantation. You have to be able to
show why the claim objectively couldn't be true. And so
(27:28):
we were very lucky in this case that we were
able to do that.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
And that was through the bus driver and the neighbor boy.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
And the ex boyfriend Dennis Book.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Over the next seven years, Loreinda was granted a retrial
multiple times, but Calhoun County Prosecutor Susan Maladanov objected each time. Finally,
in twenty sixteen, the Michigan Innocence Clinic persuaded the state
Supreme Court to order a new trial for Lareinda, and
then on May nineteenth, twenty sixteen, the prosecution dropped the charges.
(28:14):
She was finally free.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I did end up getting to feel what that athlete
felt like when they touched that pool. When Dave called
me and told me the Supreme Court decision is back
and you're exonerated.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
That was great. I mean, that was euphoork. A lot
of pressure on her, a lot of pressure on us
all those years. But to actually be able to complete
the exoneration, have her cut off that tether that she'd
been wearing for seven years and be free, it was
one of the great moments at the clinic.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Larinda is no longer in touch with Ronnie and Cody,
and you know, I.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Do forgive them. They didn't ask me to adopt them.
I did use drugs. You know, I forgive them, but
I can't. I just can't forget with the wrecked mine
and my parents' life.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
In July of twenty seventeen, Loreinda filed a lawsuit against
Calhoun County seeking damages for her wrongful conviction. The suit
was settled in twenty eighteen, which allowed Lorenda to put
her life back together and finally make a new start.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I work hard, I rest hard, and I play hard.
I have a dog that I've had for almost fourteen years.
We're little old ladies together. I love to work on
my home, in my yard. I have a garden. I
have the best neighbors. I have a great boyfriend. I
(29:53):
you know, I dance, a shop, I cooked, I cleaned,
I want, I played tennis, and I'm sixty three, but
in my heart I'm ten. In my heart, I am ten,
and I'm so grateful to Almighty God for giving me
the strength to get through it, giving me loving parents
(30:14):
and you know you have em and my prison boss
and just different people that that helped to make a difference.
So in the end, God showed me that I had
more strength than I ever knew, and I did persevere.
I did meddle through it, and I met incredible people
because of it.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
If you'd like to help support the important work the
Michigan Innocence Clinic is doing, please check out their link
in our episode description and thank you, thank you for
(31:03):
listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your
local innocence organizations and go to the links in the
episode description to see how you can help. I'd like
to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and
Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer
Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
(31:25):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava
for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow
me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
(31:46):
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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