March 11, 2024 • 38 mins
On November 29, 2002, a 7-month-old baby enrolled in Kim Hoover's Columbus, Ohio home day care began to struggle to breathe. After being taken to the hospital, the baby was found to have a skull fracture and bleeding on her brain; tragically passing away two days later. Doctors and authorities began to suspect the child was a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome due to her brain injuries. Despite no evidence of prior abuse or accidents while under her care, Kim was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for murder and child abuse.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
It was the day after Thanksgiving in two thousand and two,
and Kim Hoover's Home daycare center in Columbus, Ohio was
bustling that afternoon. She was caring for three children along
with her thirteen year old son Bo. Around three o'clock,
two more girls were dropped off by their father as
he was on his way to work, two year old
Dorica and seven month old Samasha. Kim had been caring
(00:28):
for them for about three months. Samisha was asleep in
her car seat, so Kim moved her to a crib
and let her nap while she fed the other kids.
After a couple of hours, she went to wake the baby.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I took her snowsued off. I went to try to
give her a bottle, and that's when I realized that
she looked lethargic and that she really couldn't hold her
head up.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Alarmed, Kim quickly called nine one one and then administered CPR.
When paramedics arrived, they couldn't revive Semasha. She was rushed
to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
We never did find out that night what happened to Summasius.
And then December twentieth, I woke up, took my son
to school, and then came home and then there was
a knock on the door and Schwatt was there to
arrest me. My name is Kim Hoover. I was in
prison for nineteen years for wrongful conviction of telling a
(01:27):
baby that was in my daycare.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
From love of for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today Kim Hoover. Kim Hoover was born in
(01:57):
nineteen sixty three to a big, loving family. She grew
up in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
My mother was Elizabeth Hoover. She went by Betty. My
dad was Alfred Hoover, he went by Buck. I have
two siblings, an older sister, Keina, and a younger brother, Todd.
We had a great childhood. I remember every winter we
would get our ice skate and Dad would take us
(02:28):
around after it had rained and froze. The ground head
froze or a pond head froze, and then we would
go ice skating and we all looked forward to that.
That was something that was fun.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
My name is Keina. I'm Kim Hoover's older sister.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Tell me about growing up with Kim. Do you have
any favorite memories of her?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Typical sister stuff. You know, we were twenty three months apart,
so we were just a typical leave me alone teenager
kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Mom was to stay at home mom. She took care
of all of us. Dad worked for United Parcel Service
for years.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And then when Kim was around twelve or thirteen, her
father had an accident at work. His backbone was crushed
and he spent a year in traction at the hospital.
His recuperation took several years more.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
We didn't have any income coming in, so Mom took
in kids through a daycare that she had started at
that time, and she ended up having for more than
thirty five years. She never advertised. It was always word
of mouth and family and friends. If it hadn't been
for family and friends and then Mom getting her job
(03:48):
with her daycare, that we probably would have lost our house.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Kim and her siblings grew up in the daycare, and
as she got into her teens, Kim enjoyed helping her
mother out.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
When she wasn't able to she had a doctor's appointment
or something like that. I took over watching her daycare kids.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
In her early twenties, Kim was working at Lenscrafter's as
an apprentice optician, and one day her cousin invited her
to come up north to Delaware, Ohio for a visit.
There was someone she wanted Kim to meet, and.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
When I went up there, I didn't actually meet the
person she wanted me to meet. I met somebody else.
And then we started dating, and about two years later
we were married.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Their son Bo was born in nineteen eighty eight, but
by then, Kim says, the marriage had run its course.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We were different people and had we dated longer, we
would have realized that and not got married. But about
two and a half years after we were married in
eighty eight, we got a divorce and I raised my
son all by myself. I had so custody.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
What was that like, being a single mother with a newborn.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
It was I had my mom.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
She was his daycare provider while I worked and then
eventually went to school, And so kind of like the
theme of our life is that family is always there
for you no matter what.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well raising her son, Bow, Kim was also working and
going to school.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And I was accumulating debt and I wasn't really making
a whole lot back then. So I went back to
work and I had a series of different jobs, but
I wanted to pay off my student loans, and then
life got in the way and I never did go back.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
So when did you start doing the or open your
own daycare center.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I'm not exactly sure because I just started watching kids on.
Kids were always at my house, you know, There's just
a thing where they would always be there. There was
a little boy who lived near us, and he would
always come over to my house and say he's locked
(06:16):
out or he forgot his key or something to that effect.
And then later on his mother had told me, she said,
there's a key right outside. He wasn't locked out or anything.
He just he didn't want to be alone, you know,
And so I was more than happy to take him
(06:36):
in and give him a snack.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
And you know, like her mother, Kim loved kids and
was a natural caregiver.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The kids thought of my house as a safe place
to be, and I like that. I liked knowing that
they were safe. I liked knowing that they could trust me,
and the families could trust me, And so it was
somewhat of a natural progression when I started my own Actually,
(07:08):
I went to college for and I went to Columbus
State and took classes in early childhood development. So this
was something that I planned on doing until I retired.
You know, I love kids. I should probably have managed
(07:28):
my business more as a business, but once they come
into my house, they become part of my family.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Over the years, Kim took care of around twenty children altogether.
In two thousand and two, she had around half a
dozen regular kids.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I had two eight week old twin daughters, and I
had their brother who was autistic. I had Samasha, her
older sister, Dureka, and I had a seven year old
boy named Euro. I had the twins in the morning
through the afternoon, and then I would have Dureka and
(08:09):
Samasha in the afternoon into the evening hours.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Dareka was two years old and Samisia was seven months.
Kim remembers that their mother, twenty two year old Akila Benson,
first reached out to her in September of two thousand
and two.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
She came to my home and we interviewed, We talked,
and everything was fine, and she said right then and
there that she wanted me to be her daycare provider.
So a few days later, she's supposed to be at
my house. I think around nine, but she showed up
around like eight. I was still in the shower, so
I came running downstairs and she had pushed a double
(08:51):
baby stroller a good two three miles in major traffic
to my house. She had assumed that her husband was
going to give her the only working car that they had,
beings that she had to travel so far to come
to my house, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So Kim bundled the young mother and her kids into
her own car and drove Akila to work that morning.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I told her then, I said, for about the next
two weeks, you know, so you can get your car
pick you get your first paycheck, and get your car PIX.
I'll go ahead and give you rides.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
After she dropped Aquila off at work, Kim drove the
girls back to her house.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's when I took off samacious coat, and that's when
I realized that she had a green, runny nose, and
I assumed it was an infection. So when I went
to pick up the mother from work that day and
take them all home, I asked her about that, and
(09:48):
she said she was giving her medication for it. But
she kind of went into this long spiel about she's
looking for a new doctor and all of that. So
I left it at that.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
But as the weeks went by, Samisha's running nose didn't
get any better.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
In fact, it kept getting worse. And in the about
two and a half months that I took care of them,
I asked her on numerous occasions, and each time it
was a different excuse. She switched doctors, and then it
(10:25):
came down to that she's giving Samesha her medication before
she brings her. She doesn't understand why she's not getting
any better.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Years later, Kim learned through hospital paperwork that Akila had
never actually taken Semisha to the doctor.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
She had lied to me about that, which to this day,
I still don't understand because I'm someone that's trying to
help her take care of her daughter, and why would
you lie to me? I don't understand that part even
today as a mother, as a parent, I don't get that.
(11:09):
Why do you let your child suffer? That's something that
I still think about quite often, and how I could
have I've realized she wasn't getting any better. Had the
mother said I haven't taken her, I would have driven
(11:31):
her over to my son's pediatrician, and now there was
no reason for that to go untreated.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And there were other unusual physical issues that Kim had
observed in Sumasha.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
She was twenty pounds at nine months. She was very
top heavy, her body was not normal, her head was massive,
her chest was massive, but her legs were still very
much premature, which she was a premature baby. Her belly
(12:07):
was so big that she could never get her legs
up under her to crawl to lose some of that weight.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Kim also sensed that Akila was having problems with her husband.
Window It started that first day when Kim was giving
her a ride to work.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
She started opening up then about things that were going on.
I said to her, how long is it going to
take for you to get your car fixed? And she said, well,
I don't know. He doesn't really want me to get
it fixed, and I said, well why not, and then
she said, well, he doesn't want me working. So I
started attributing a lot of problems to that. But then
(12:46):
as time went on, she started telling me about the
fact that when they were in New York, he had
gone to jail for supposedly hurting Dureka. And then I
started seeing being a pattern emerging of domestic violence.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Over time, Kim began to notice signs that Akila might
be planning to leave Window. One day, Akila told her
she'd found a new apartment and asked Kim to drive
her there to sign the lease.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
When I took her to sign the lease on the apartment,
she kept asking me, please don't tell him, Please don't
tell him where it is. And even at the hospital,
if you go back and look at the hospital paperwork,
it says do not give out new address to father.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Kim kept her word. She didn't tell Window about the apartment.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Within that last month, he was always asking about Akila's plans,
what is she planning on doing, Where's she going? And
I think he caught win that she was working to
get away from him.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
One week in November, Akila didn't bring the girls to Kim's.
Kim didn't see them until the day after Thanksgiving. That afternoon,
she was taking care of the eight week old twin
girls and their brother, along with her son Bo, who
was thirteen. Around three o'clock, Window brought Dorika and Semisha over.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I went over and picked up Semisha, took her out
of that chair. I left her coat on her because
I had the front door open. But I put her
in a baby bed beside me on the couch, and
everything seemed normal at that time.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
A couple hours later, after the other children were picked
up by their mother, Kim turned her attention to feeding Semasha.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I took her snowsuit off, I went to try to
give her a bottle, and that's when I realized that
she looked lethargic and that she really couldn't hold her
head up. So at that point in time, I'm thinking
that the green running nose and her not really wanting
to eat had turned into something worse like pneumonia. And
(14:56):
at that point in time, I wasn't calling the parents.
Called nine to one on.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
The operator told Kim to try doing CPR and Samsha,
but she didn't revive. When the paramedics arrived, they took
the baby straight to Columbus Children's Hospital. Meanwhile, police were
questioning Kim about Semisha's parents.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
They kept asking about Window. They kept asking had I
met him, and I said, yeah, you know, I wasn't
really thrilled with him and I didn't want to deal
with him.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The police told her to call the baby's mother to
meet them there.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, I was her ride, so I said, I have
to go get her. She doesn't have a way, and
so I went to pick her up, and her and
my son and Dareka all drove in the car to
the hospital.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Kim and the hospital social worker tried to get Aquila
to talk to the detectives about what had been going
on with Window.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And she wouldn't do it. She laid on the couch
with her coat over her head and kept saying she
wanted to go home. She hadn't been in her daughter's room,
she hadn't seen her daughter. I ended up calling Aquila's mother.
We ended up taking Aquila home. For whatever reason, she
wouldn't stay at the hospital.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Kim told the detectives what she'd observed about Samisha's health
over the past two months, but they wanted to know more.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
They asked me more about Akila and windows relationship, and
I told him what I knew at the time. You
know that she was trying to get away from him
and all of that, And at that point in time,
he said, well, we've already got your statements. We need
to deal with the parents, so you guys you're free
(16:44):
to go. You know, thank you for bringing her. We
never did find out that night what happened to Samasha's
I just kept watching the news like everybody else to
see what was going on. And then December twentieth, I
woke up, took my son to school, took it to
(17:06):
his bus stop, and then came home and then there
was a knock on the door and Schwat was there
to arrest me.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
From minute one, Kim has said she did not commit
this crime.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
This is Joanna Sanchez, director of the Wrongful Conviction Project
at the Ohio Public Defender's Office.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Kim has always said this child collapsed in my care
and unfortunately we weren't able to save her, but that
she did not harm this child.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
At the hospital, Semisha had been treated by doctor Ellen McManus.
A CT scan showed that the baby had a skull
fracture and blood across the brain. Ultimately, doctor McManus diagnosed
Semasha with SBS shaken Baby syndrome.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Twenty years ago, the understanding of shaken baby syndrome and
abusive head trauma was very different than what it is today. Particularly,
the doctors would look for three things which were retinal hemorrhaging,
hemorrhage on the brain, and brain swelling. And so when
they saw those three things, the presumption was a child
was a victim of shaken baby syndrome. As soon as
the child would shake in within about fifteen minutes, the
(18:57):
belief was that they would go into distress. And what
that meant and the criminal context is really the last
adult with the child was always the suspect and always
the person who was blamed for what happened to the child.
And that's exactly what happened in Kim's case.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
When the officers arrived at Kim's house to arrest her,
she was in complete shock.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I couldn't even talk, and then they handcuffed me in
the back and they drove me to the I guess
downtown to the Sheriff's office or somewhere. I was trying
to wrap my brain around being arrested.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I mean the phone call. You know, we got the
phone call and then everything just like went off the rails.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Here's Kim's sister Keina.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Again, I don't even know how to explain it. I mean,
we just didn't believe it. There's just no way that
it was true. There's no possible way that it happened
in her daycare, like she didn't do it. Yeah, they
got their facts wrong.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
There were all kinds of news photographers and all that.
They're taking pictures and yelling things, you know, trying to
get me to talk to them. And then they ushered
me into the jail and your strip, searched, your pictures,
taken your fingerprints, all of that stuff, and then you're
(20:20):
stuck in a room with other people that have been arrested,
and time just gets away from you then because there
isn't a clock that you can look at. I don't
remember if it was daytime or nighttime or whatever, but
I spent a lot of time there.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
On December thirtieth, two thousand and two, Kim was indicted
for Samasha's murder. Kim went to trial in Franklin County
Court in November of two thousand and three, and as always,
her family was there to support her.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
I remember seeing her being brought out in handcuffs, and
that was that was the hardest thing. Anybody could see.
You know, your sister would be like that, you know
she I could tell she was upset. I could tell
she she was angry. The whole trial was it was
like a blur now that you look back on it,
because you know, I don't want to remember the bad stuff.
(21:20):
I don't want to remember any of the bad stuff,
but you know, you got to, you gotta think about
the past.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Kim's trial was very heavily medical based, so it was
really medical testimony on both sides.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
The prosecution's primary witnesses were doctor McManus, the doctor who
had treated Samasha, and doctor Charles Johnson, head of the
child abuse team at Children's Hospital.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
They both testified that the child had these three symptoms
and that that meant it had to be shaken baby syndrome.
They also called a deputy coroner, doctor Patrick Fardell, to
testify a trial, and he provided similar test so he
said he performed the autopsy at that time. He said
he hadn't noticed that the child had any pre existing
injuries and that he believed that this was shaking baby syndrome.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
It was very hard to listen to At times. I
felt like I had to zone out because it was
too much for me for anyone to think that I
could hurt anyone. I've never heard anyone in my life,
and for someone to make the accusation that I could
hurt a child, it takes away from who you are.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I can't even imagine what she's going through. You know,
you're trying to think, how is she going through this,
What's what's in her mind? She would look over at
us and we would smile and you know, let her know.
I guess just letting her know that we were there
helped her out a lot, you know, but there wasn't
nothing you could do. I mean, it was weird. Like
I said, I've never really something you see on TV,
(22:57):
but worse, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I assumed that my attorney would be there to make
sure that things were put right, that the evidence would
come out, but that really didn't happen. None of their
(23:19):
hospital paperwork, their reports, their findings, anything were ever brought up.
Nobody could understand that we had expected that to be
put into trial and it wasn't, and why it wasn't
refuted by my own attorney. And that's one thing that
(23:39):
I think needs to truly be looked at not just
in my case, but when we're talking about how people
get wrongfully convicted, If you don't have the true evidence
in front of you, how do you know what is
being said by people on the stand is actually true.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Kim's defense was that she hadn't harmed this child, that
this child potentially had been harmed, but it did not
happen in Kim's care, and so she had her own
expert who testified by deposition, and what he said was
that he did believe it was shaken baby syndrome, but
that the injuries may have occurred hours earlier. A critical
(24:27):
component of that defense was that the child's parents had
a history of domestic violence, and so there was evidence
put forth about that history at Kim's trial. So there
was police reports documenting a number of calls out to
the family's house, including incidents where each parent had harmed
the other, but also an incident or two where the
(24:48):
children had been harmed. So, for example, one was a
police report that Samasha's older sister had been shaken, and
so we knew that there was this history of police
activity at the home. But in between the family, you know,
I think as far as the defense, the father was
the alternate suspect. As far as the prosecution, though, they
(25:09):
had this medical evidence that they believed said that the
child would have gone into distress, you know, fifteen twenty
minutes after she was injured, and so as far as
they were concerned, he was completely eliminated as a suspect
at that point because of that sort of narrow understanding
of the timing of these injuries, which now we know
is inaccurate.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Kim made the decision to testify on her own behalf.
She says she had nothing to hide.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I thought when I testified that I would be able
to bring out the truth. I thought that I would
be able to explain some things that didn't make sense
or that were wrong. Trying to explain that I didn't
hurt a child in front of people that don't know
you. You have to really, they're holding your fate in your hands.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I think, you know, it's hard to look back and
see what was a jury thinking when they reached a verdict.
But I think, you know, what was so critical in
this case was that they were hearing from doctors who
essentially told them this couldn't be any other way.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I can't really fault the jury because the jury did
not hear the full truth of the matter. They only
heard basically one side, since my attorney really did not
or was not prepared or did not understand the medical
issues enough to refute them.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
On November seventh, two thousand and three, Kim was convicted
of child endangerment, felonious assault, involuntary manslaughter, and murder. She
was sentenced to fifteen years to life.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
My whole entire family looked after me, took care of me,
and after I was arrested, they were the ones that
keep up the fight for me because once I was
in prison, I didn't have the resources to take on
my case as much as I wanted to, so they
(27:31):
did a lot of the difficult legwork of looking up
stuff for me and helping gather information that I didn't
have at that time.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
We were always going up there to see her. We
had to find a way to do it. It's forty five
minutes away from here, at least with no traffic, so
we would try to make it one I think there
was a limit to once a month or twice a month,
but we would get up there as much as we could.
(28:05):
The whole place just made you feel at uneasy, like
I don't know, hard leaving her there too. I think
the hardest part when you see her is walking out
of it. You walk in, you know, you're grateful to
see her, You're grateful to have the time, You're grateful
to spend the moments with her. Of but it's I think
the hardest part is when you every single time walking
(28:27):
out of there and saying goodbye, you know, leaving her
behind and not wanting to take her with you.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
And what made it worse for Kim was that their
mother was in very poor health.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
She had severe heart problems, and she had a heart
attack when the verdict came down in the courtroom, so
they had to take her from the courthouse to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Sadly, Kim's mother died while she was in prison.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
My father died in two thousand and my mother passed
away about seven years ago. She held on as long
as she could, but she didn't see me get out
of prison.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
What was that like to have your mom die before
you were fully exonerated.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was hard, It was really really hard. But in
the phone calls home, I could tell in her voice
that she was fading, and like I said, she hung
on for years because she knew I was innocent. She knew.
She actually kept telling me that I'll see you again
(29:32):
outside of prison. I will, but she just could not
hold on long enough to see me get out of prison.
And I wasn't allowed to go to her funeral because
I was a lifer and the crime that I had,
the prison would not take me to her funeral.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Kim's first appeal in two thousand and four was denied,
but with her family support, she continued to fight for
her innocence, and then in twenty ten, Kim wrote to
the newly formed Wrongful Conviction Project at the Ohio Public
Defender's Office.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
I think it was twenty page letter laying out everything
that happened, and we were immediately interested in her case
because it was really this critical time where we were
seeing shaken baby syndrome exonerations across the country. The literature
was increasing, and we really knew that there were some
problems with the way this was diagnosed back in two
(30:38):
thousand and three and before. What we know now and
what was sort of starting to be discovered at that time,
is that these symptoms that doctors used to identify shake
and baby syndrome or abusive head trauma could really be
caused by a number of things, including birth trauma, infection, diseases, shortfalls,
and so we immediately started looking at Kim's case from
that medical standpoint and our investigation. The really tricky thing
(31:03):
in Kim's case is that for years and years we
did not have access to the medical records in this case.
So it's kind of strange. It is a medical case,
but not a single medical record was admitted as an
exhibit at Kim's trial. We tried to get her medical
records from her trial attorney, but he misplaced his file.
We tried to get him from the child's mother, from
(31:24):
the prosecutors. We filed emotion to get the records, and
we were unable to get them.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Fortunately, Joanna was able to get the tissue slides from
Samisha's autopsy.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Doctor Janisophovin, who is a forensic pediatric pathologist. She was
able to look at those slides and say, this child
had an old brain injury, which was huge in this case. Wow,
that was something that wasn't ever presented at trial. It
wasn't known that this child had actually suffered a brain
injury weeks or months prior and that that's ultimately what
(31:59):
progressed to cause her to go into distress and to
cause her death, that it was nothing that happened in
Kim's care.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Armed with that information, the team went back to doctor Fardel,
the coroner who had performed Samisha's autopsy, and asked him
to review his diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
He was retired at the time, and you know, it
took a while for him to get access to a
microscope to be able to do that, But ultimately he
also looked at the slides and he applied these special
iron stains which he had not applied at the time
of the autopsy, and he reached the same conclusion that
there was an old head injury that rebled and that
he had missed before. We also got a radiologist to
(32:39):
look at the records, you know, from that standpoint, same conclusion.
So in June twenty twenty one, we filed emotion asking
for a new trial for Kim, and ultimately, after looking
at it and looking at all the medical evidence and
the expert opinions, and I believe consulting with their own expert,
the prosecutor's office agreed with us, and so in October
twenty twenty one, they called us up and they said,
(33:01):
we're ready to dismiss all the charges. The judge agreed
and Kim was released.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I kind of knew that things were happening, that the
prosecutor's office wasn't going to fight it, but I felt
that the judge would say, give me weeks months, you know,
to look this over. I did not realize that I
was actually he was actually going to sign paperwork that
day to release me.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
I got the phone call at work. I had to
go into a room, close the door, and I just
cried like I was. It was one of those joy moments,
but your sad moments. I mean, you're crying, you're happy.
Then you want to know when, why?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
How? Where?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
When can I get? Can I leave right now to
go get her?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I was going about my day to day life in prison,
and the warden's assistant came to me and said, did
you know you're leaving prison now? And I'm like no,
I wasn't packed, I wasn't ready. It was later on
that afternoon that I walked out of person. They were
all out in the parking lot waiting on me.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
It was a joyous, joyous time. Joanna pulled up later
my husband pulled up later, and then all the cousins
came in and it was like a hurry up and wait,
another hurry up and wait situation. We gotta get there,
we gotta get there, and then we got to wait, wait, wait, wait,
and then we saw her come out, finally, carrying her
(34:32):
whole life in a plastic bag. Twenty years of her
whole life like in one plastic bag. It was heart wrenching,
heart wrenching.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It was overwhelming, it really was. My legs kind of
gave out on me. I couldn't really walk. They ran
up to me. I had just kind of like stood there,
and I kept thinking that I was going to be
pulled back in, you know, pulled right back into the prison.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Keina and her husband a room waiting for Kim at
home in Westerville, and she moved right in and started
to rebuild her life. While in prison, Kim had earned
a liberal arts degree and she was working on a
business degree when she was released.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I do want to go back and finish my degree.
Whether I continue in that vein or not, it would
be helpful no matter what type of job that you do,
to have a business background.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Right now, Kim is taking things slowly as she readjusts
to life outside. She says she sometimes can't believe she
was actually incarcerated for all that time.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I did not realize until weeks later when I started
trying to remember my life in prison. I couldn't remember
my life in prison. It's like the further I got
away from prison, all of my memories were being pulled
and left in prison because I had to start this
(35:58):
new life here. I went back to prison a couple
of weeks ago. I went back to see a friend
that's there, and it took me a while to get
out of the car, and then I walked through that
very same gravel parking lot that I walked out of
the prison. I was walking back into the prison. And
(36:21):
it just seems like it's a different life. It's like
like I maybe saw it in a movie. You know,
it wasn't my life. But then there are other times like, yeah,
I remember, I remember going through that door. I remember
what's on the other side of that door.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And then she says, it all comes flooding back.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I'll be out walking my sister's dogs, or i will
be somewhere and then I'll realize it's four fifteen and
I might have a panic attack because I'm not on
my bed at four o'clock for four o'clock count in prison.
You know those memories. It's like I'm back in prison,
(37:06):
and that happens quite a bit. I don't know how
to explain that. It's something that if you have to
live it to understand it, and it's not something that
I tell a lot of people. I just I have
to realize that I'm here.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
I'm not there.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I'm here now.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Thank you for 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 producer Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
(38:11):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
this production 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
(38:33):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
It was the day after Thanksgiving in two thousand and two,
and Kim Hoover's Home daycare center in Columbus, Ohio was
bustling that afternoon. She was caring for three children along
with her thirteen year old son Bo. Around three o'clock,
two more girls were dropped off by their father as
he was on his way to work, two year old
Dorica and seven month old Samasha. Kim had been caring
(00:28):
for them for about three months. Samisha was asleep in
her car seat, so Kim moved her to a crib
and let her nap while she fed the other kids.
After a couple of hours, she went to wake the baby.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I took her snowsued off. I went to try to
give her a bottle, and that's when I realized that
she looked lethargic and that she really couldn't hold her
head up.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Alarmed, Kim quickly called nine one one and then administered CPR.
When paramedics arrived, they couldn't revive Semasha. She was rushed
to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
We never did find out that night what happened to Summasius.
And then December twentieth, I woke up, took my son
to school, and then came home and then there was
a knock on the door and Schwatt was there to
arrest me. My name is Kim Hoover. I was in
prison for nineteen years for wrongful conviction of telling a
(01:27):
baby that was in my daycare.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
From love of for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today Kim Hoover. Kim Hoover was born in
(01:57):
nineteen sixty three to a big, loving family. She grew
up in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
My mother was Elizabeth Hoover. She went by Betty. My
dad was Alfred Hoover, he went by Buck. I have
two siblings, an older sister, Keina, and a younger brother, Todd.
We had a great childhood. I remember every winter we
would get our ice skate and Dad would take us
(02:28):
around after it had rained and froze. The ground head
froze or a pond head froze, and then we would
go ice skating and we all looked forward to that.
That was something that was fun.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
My name is Keina. I'm Kim Hoover's older sister.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Tell me about growing up with Kim. Do you have
any favorite memories of her?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Typical sister stuff. You know, we were twenty three months apart,
so we were just a typical leave me alone teenager
kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Mom was to stay at home mom. She took care
of all of us. Dad worked for United Parcel Service
for years.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And then when Kim was around twelve or thirteen, her
father had an accident at work. His backbone was crushed
and he spent a year in traction at the hospital.
His recuperation took several years more.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
We didn't have any income coming in, so Mom took
in kids through a daycare that she had started at
that time, and she ended up having for more than
thirty five years. She never advertised. It was always word
of mouth and family and friends. If it hadn't been
for family and friends and then Mom getting her job
(03:48):
with her daycare, that we probably would have lost our house.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Kim and her siblings grew up in the daycare, and
as she got into her teens, Kim enjoyed helping her
mother out.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
When she wasn't able to she had a doctor's appointment
or something like that. I took over watching her daycare kids.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
In her early twenties, Kim was working at Lenscrafter's as
an apprentice optician, and one day her cousin invited her
to come up north to Delaware, Ohio for a visit.
There was someone she wanted Kim to meet, and.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
When I went up there, I didn't actually meet the
person she wanted me to meet. I met somebody else.
And then we started dating, and about two years later
we were married.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Their son Bo was born in nineteen eighty eight, but
by then, Kim says, the marriage had run its course.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We were different people and had we dated longer, we
would have realized that and not got married. But about
two and a half years after we were married in
eighty eight, we got a divorce and I raised my
son all by myself. I had so custody.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
What was that like, being a single mother with a newborn.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
It was I had my mom.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
She was his daycare provider while I worked and then
eventually went to school, And so kind of like the
theme of our life is that family is always there
for you no matter what.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well raising her son, Bow, Kim was also working and
going to school.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And I was accumulating debt and I wasn't really making
a whole lot back then. So I went back to
work and I had a series of different jobs, but
I wanted to pay off my student loans, and then
life got in the way and I never did go back.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
So when did you start doing the or open your
own daycare center.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I'm not exactly sure because I just started watching kids on.
Kids were always at my house, you know, There's just
a thing where they would always be there. There was
a little boy who lived near us, and he would
always come over to my house and say he's locked
(06:16):
out or he forgot his key or something to that effect.
And then later on his mother had told me, she said,
there's a key right outside. He wasn't locked out or anything.
He just he didn't want to be alone, you know,
And so I was more than happy to take him
(06:36):
in and give him a snack.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
And you know, like her mother, Kim loved kids and
was a natural caregiver.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The kids thought of my house as a safe place
to be, and I like that. I liked knowing that
they were safe. I liked knowing that they could trust me,
and the families could trust me, And so it was
somewhat of a natural progression when I started my own Actually,
(07:08):
I went to college for and I went to Columbus
State and took classes in early childhood development. So this
was something that I planned on doing until I retired.
You know, I love kids. I should probably have managed
(07:28):
my business more as a business, but once they come
into my house, they become part of my family.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Over the years, Kim took care of around twenty children altogether.
In two thousand and two, she had around half a
dozen regular kids.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I had two eight week old twin daughters, and I
had their brother who was autistic. I had Samasha, her
older sister, Dureka, and I had a seven year old
boy named Euro. I had the twins in the morning
through the afternoon, and then I would have Dureka and
(08:09):
Samasha in the afternoon into the evening hours.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Dareka was two years old and Samisia was seven months.
Kim remembers that their mother, twenty two year old Akila Benson,
first reached out to her in September of two thousand
and two.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
She came to my home and we interviewed, We talked,
and everything was fine, and she said right then and
there that she wanted me to be her daycare provider.
So a few days later, she's supposed to be at
my house. I think around nine, but she showed up
around like eight. I was still in the shower, so
I came running downstairs and she had pushed a double
(08:51):
baby stroller a good two three miles in major traffic
to my house. She had assumed that her husband was
going to give her the only working car that they had,
beings that she had to travel so far to come
to my house, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So Kim bundled the young mother and her kids into
her own car and drove Akila to work that morning.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I told her then, I said, for about the next
two weeks, you know, so you can get your car
pick you get your first paycheck, and get your car PIX.
I'll go ahead and give you rides.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
After she dropped Aquila off at work, Kim drove the
girls back to her house.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's when I took off samacious coat, and that's when
I realized that she had a green, runny nose, and
I assumed it was an infection. So when I went
to pick up the mother from work that day and
take them all home, I asked her about that, and
(09:48):
she said she was giving her medication for it. But
she kind of went into this long spiel about she's
looking for a new doctor and all of that. So
I left it at that.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
But as the weeks went by, Samisha's running nose didn't
get any better.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
In fact, it kept getting worse. And in the about
two and a half months that I took care of them,
I asked her on numerous occasions, and each time it
was a different excuse. She switched doctors, and then it
(10:25):
came down to that she's giving Samesha her medication before
she brings her. She doesn't understand why she's not getting
any better.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Years later, Kim learned through hospital paperwork that Akila had
never actually taken Semisha to the doctor.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
She had lied to me about that, which to this day,
I still don't understand because I'm someone that's trying to
help her take care of her daughter, and why would
you lie to me? I don't understand that part even
today as a mother, as a parent, I don't get that.
(11:09):
Why do you let your child suffer? That's something that
I still think about quite often, and how I could
have I've realized she wasn't getting any better. Had the
mother said I haven't taken her, I would have driven
(11:31):
her over to my son's pediatrician, and now there was
no reason for that to go untreated.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And there were other unusual physical issues that Kim had
observed in Sumasha.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
She was twenty pounds at nine months. She was very
top heavy, her body was not normal, her head was massive,
her chest was massive, but her legs were still very
much premature, which she was a premature baby. Her belly
(12:07):
was so big that she could never get her legs
up under her to crawl to lose some of that weight.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Kim also sensed that Akila was having problems with her husband.
Window It started that first day when Kim was giving
her a ride to work.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
She started opening up then about things that were going on.
I said to her, how long is it going to
take for you to get your car fixed? And she said, well,
I don't know. He doesn't really want me to get
it fixed, and I said, well why not, and then
she said, well, he doesn't want me working. So I
started attributing a lot of problems to that. But then
(12:46):
as time went on, she started telling me about the
fact that when they were in New York, he had
gone to jail for supposedly hurting Dureka. And then I
started seeing being a pattern emerging of domestic violence.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Over time, Kim began to notice signs that Akila might
be planning to leave Window. One day, Akila told her
she'd found a new apartment and asked Kim to drive
her there to sign the lease.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
When I took her to sign the lease on the apartment,
she kept asking me, please don't tell him, Please don't
tell him where it is. And even at the hospital,
if you go back and look at the hospital paperwork,
it says do not give out new address to father.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Kim kept her word. She didn't tell Window about the apartment.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Within that last month, he was always asking about Akila's plans,
what is she planning on doing, Where's she going? And
I think he caught win that she was working to
get away from him.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
One week in November, Akila didn't bring the girls to Kim's.
Kim didn't see them until the day after Thanksgiving. That afternoon,
she was taking care of the eight week old twin
girls and their brother, along with her son Bo, who
was thirteen. Around three o'clock, Window brought Dorika and Semisha over.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I went over and picked up Semisha, took her out
of that chair. I left her coat on her because
I had the front door open. But I put her
in a baby bed beside me on the couch, and
everything seemed normal at that time.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
A couple hours later, after the other children were picked
up by their mother, Kim turned her attention to feeding Semasha.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I took her snowsuit off, I went to try to
give her a bottle, and that's when I realized that
she looked lethargic and that she really couldn't hold her
head up. So at that point in time, I'm thinking
that the green running nose and her not really wanting
to eat had turned into something worse like pneumonia. And
(14:56):
at that point in time, I wasn't calling the parents.
Called nine to one on.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
The operator told Kim to try doing CPR and Samsha,
but she didn't revive. When the paramedics arrived, they took
the baby straight to Columbus Children's Hospital. Meanwhile, police were
questioning Kim about Semisha's parents.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
They kept asking about Window. They kept asking had I
met him, and I said, yeah, you know, I wasn't
really thrilled with him and I didn't want to deal
with him.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The police told her to call the baby's mother to
meet them there.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, I was her ride, so I said, I have
to go get her. She doesn't have a way, and
so I went to pick her up, and her and
my son and Dareka all drove in the car to
the hospital.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Kim and the hospital social worker tried to get Aquila
to talk to the detectives about what had been going
on with Window.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And she wouldn't do it. She laid on the couch
with her coat over her head and kept saying she
wanted to go home. She hadn't been in her daughter's room,
she hadn't seen her daughter. I ended up calling Aquila's mother.
We ended up taking Aquila home. For whatever reason, she
wouldn't stay at the hospital.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Kim told the detectives what she'd observed about Samisha's health
over the past two months, but they wanted to know more.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
They asked me more about Akila and windows relationship, and
I told him what I knew at the time. You
know that she was trying to get away from him
and all of that, And at that point in time,
he said, well, we've already got your statements. We need
to deal with the parents, so you guys you're free
(16:44):
to go. You know, thank you for bringing her. We
never did find out that night what happened to Samasha's
I just kept watching the news like everybody else to
see what was going on. And then December twentieth, I
woke up, took my son to school, took it to
(17:06):
his bus stop, and then came home and then there
was a knock on the door and Schwat was there
to arrest me.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
From minute one, Kim has said she did not commit
this crime.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
This is Joanna Sanchez, director of the Wrongful Conviction Project
at the Ohio Public Defender's Office.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Kim has always said this child collapsed in my care
and unfortunately we weren't able to save her, but that
she did not harm this child.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
At the hospital, Semisha had been treated by doctor Ellen McManus.
A CT scan showed that the baby had a skull
fracture and blood across the brain. Ultimately, doctor McManus diagnosed
Semasha with SBS shaken Baby syndrome.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Twenty years ago, the understanding of shaken baby syndrome and
abusive head trauma was very different than what it is today. Particularly,
the doctors would look for three things which were retinal hemorrhaging,
hemorrhage on the brain, and brain swelling. And so when
they saw those three things, the presumption was a child
was a victim of shaken baby syndrome. As soon as
the child would shake in within about fifteen minutes, the
(18:57):
belief was that they would go into distress. And what
that meant and the criminal context is really the last
adult with the child was always the suspect and always
the person who was blamed for what happened to the child.
And that's exactly what happened in Kim's case.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
When the officers arrived at Kim's house to arrest her,
she was in complete shock.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I couldn't even talk, and then they handcuffed me in
the back and they drove me to the I guess
downtown to the Sheriff's office or somewhere. I was trying
to wrap my brain around being arrested.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I mean the phone call. You know, we got the
phone call and then everything just like went off the rails.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Here's Kim's sister Keina.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Again, I don't even know how to explain it. I mean,
we just didn't believe it. There's just no way that
it was true. There's no possible way that it happened
in her daycare, like she didn't do it. Yeah, they
got their facts wrong.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
There were all kinds of news photographers and all that.
They're taking pictures and yelling things, you know, trying to
get me to talk to them. And then they ushered
me into the jail and your strip, searched, your pictures,
taken your fingerprints, all of that stuff, and then you're
(20:20):
stuck in a room with other people that have been arrested,
and time just gets away from you then because there
isn't a clock that you can look at. I don't
remember if it was daytime or nighttime or whatever, but
I spent a lot of time there.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
On December thirtieth, two thousand and two, Kim was indicted
for Samasha's murder. Kim went to trial in Franklin County
Court in November of two thousand and three, and as always,
her family was there to support her.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
I remember seeing her being brought out in handcuffs, and
that was that was the hardest thing. Anybody could see.
You know, your sister would be like that, you know
she I could tell she was upset. I could tell
she she was angry. The whole trial was it was
like a blur now that you look back on it,
because you know, I don't want to remember the bad stuff.
(21:20):
I don't want to remember any of the bad stuff,
but you know, you got to, you gotta think about
the past.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Kim's trial was very heavily medical based, so it was
really medical testimony on both sides.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
The prosecution's primary witnesses were doctor McManus, the doctor who
had treated Samasha, and doctor Charles Johnson, head of the
child abuse team at Children's Hospital.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
They both testified that the child had these three symptoms
and that that meant it had to be shaken baby syndrome.
They also called a deputy coroner, doctor Patrick Fardell, to
testify a trial, and he provided similar test so he
said he performed the autopsy at that time. He said
he hadn't noticed that the child had any pre existing
injuries and that he believed that this was shaking baby syndrome.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
It was very hard to listen to At times. I
felt like I had to zone out because it was
too much for me for anyone to think that I
could hurt anyone. I've never heard anyone in my life,
and for someone to make the accusation that I could
hurt a child, it takes away from who you are.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I can't even imagine what she's going through. You know,
you're trying to think, how is she going through this,
What's what's in her mind? She would look over at
us and we would smile and you know, let her know.
I guess just letting her know that we were there
helped her out a lot, you know, but there wasn't
nothing you could do. I mean, it was weird. Like
I said, I've never really something you see on TV,
(22:57):
but worse, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I assumed that my attorney would be there to make
sure that things were put right, that the evidence would
come out, but that really didn't happen. None of their
(23:19):
hospital paperwork, their reports, their findings, anything were ever brought up.
Nobody could understand that we had expected that to be
put into trial and it wasn't, and why it wasn't
refuted by my own attorney. And that's one thing that
(23:39):
I think needs to truly be looked at not just
in my case, but when we're talking about how people
get wrongfully convicted, If you don't have the true evidence
in front of you, how do you know what is
being said by people on the stand is actually true.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Kim's defense was that she hadn't harmed this child, that
this child potentially had been harmed, but it did not
happen in Kim's care, and so she had her own
expert who testified by deposition, and what he said was
that he did believe it was shaken baby syndrome, but
that the injuries may have occurred hours earlier. A critical
(24:27):
component of that defense was that the child's parents had
a history of domestic violence, and so there was evidence
put forth about that history at Kim's trial. So there
was police reports documenting a number of calls out to
the family's house, including incidents where each parent had harmed
the other, but also an incident or two where the
(24:48):
children had been harmed. So, for example, one was a
police report that Samasha's older sister had been shaken, and
so we knew that there was this history of police
activity at the home. But in between the family, you know,
I think as far as the defense, the father was
the alternate suspect. As far as the prosecution, though, they
(25:09):
had this medical evidence that they believed said that the
child would have gone into distress, you know, fifteen twenty
minutes after she was injured, and so as far as
they were concerned, he was completely eliminated as a suspect
at that point because of that sort of narrow understanding
of the timing of these injuries, which now we know
is inaccurate.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Kim made the decision to testify on her own behalf.
She says she had nothing to hide.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I thought when I testified that I would be able
to bring out the truth. I thought that I would
be able to explain some things that didn't make sense
or that were wrong. Trying to explain that I didn't
hurt a child in front of people that don't know
you. You have to really, they're holding your fate in your hands.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I think, you know, it's hard to look back and
see what was a jury thinking when they reached a verdict.
But I think, you know, what was so critical in
this case was that they were hearing from doctors who
essentially told them this couldn't be any other way.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I can't really fault the jury because the jury did
not hear the full truth of the matter. They only
heard basically one side, since my attorney really did not
or was not prepared or did not understand the medical
issues enough to refute them.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
On November seventh, two thousand and three, Kim was convicted
of child endangerment, felonious assault, involuntary manslaughter, and murder. She
was sentenced to fifteen years to life.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
My whole entire family looked after me, took care of me,
and after I was arrested, they were the ones that
keep up the fight for me because once I was
in prison, I didn't have the resources to take on
my case as much as I wanted to, so they
(27:31):
did a lot of the difficult legwork of looking up
stuff for me and helping gather information that I didn't
have at that time.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
We were always going up there to see her. We
had to find a way to do it. It's forty five
minutes away from here, at least with no traffic, so
we would try to make it one I think there
was a limit to once a month or twice a month,
but we would get up there as much as we could.
(28:05):
The whole place just made you feel at uneasy, like
I don't know, hard leaving her there too. I think
the hardest part when you see her is walking out
of it. You walk in, you know, you're grateful to
see her, You're grateful to have the time, You're grateful
to spend the moments with her. Of but it's I think
the hardest part is when you every single time walking
(28:27):
out of there and saying goodbye, you know, leaving her
behind and not wanting to take her with you.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
And what made it worse for Kim was that their
mother was in very poor health.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
She had severe heart problems, and she had a heart
attack when the verdict came down in the courtroom, so
they had to take her from the courthouse to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Sadly, Kim's mother died while she was in prison.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
My father died in two thousand and my mother passed
away about seven years ago. She held on as long
as she could, but she didn't see me get out
of prison.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
What was that like to have your mom die before
you were fully exonerated.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was hard, It was really really hard. But in
the phone calls home, I could tell in her voice
that she was fading, and like I said, she hung
on for years because she knew I was innocent. She knew.
She actually kept telling me that I'll see you again
(29:32):
outside of prison. I will, but she just could not
hold on long enough to see me get out of prison.
And I wasn't allowed to go to her funeral because
I was a lifer and the crime that I had,
the prison would not take me to her funeral.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Kim's first appeal in two thousand and four was denied,
but with her family support, she continued to fight for
her innocence, and then in twenty ten, Kim wrote to
the newly formed Wrongful Conviction Project at the Ohio Public
Defender's Office.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
I think it was twenty page letter laying out everything
that happened, and we were immediately interested in her case
because it was really this critical time where we were
seeing shaken baby syndrome exonerations across the country. The literature
was increasing, and we really knew that there were some
problems with the way this was diagnosed back in two
(30:38):
thousand and three and before. What we know now and
what was sort of starting to be discovered at that time,
is that these symptoms that doctors used to identify shake
and baby syndrome or abusive head trauma could really be
caused by a number of things, including birth trauma, infection, diseases, shortfalls,
and so we immediately started looking at Kim's case from
that medical standpoint and our investigation. The really tricky thing
(31:03):
in Kim's case is that for years and years we
did not have access to the medical records in this case.
So it's kind of strange. It is a medical case,
but not a single medical record was admitted as an
exhibit at Kim's trial. We tried to get her medical
records from her trial attorney, but he misplaced his file.
We tried to get him from the child's mother, from
(31:24):
the prosecutors. We filed emotion to get the records, and
we were unable to get them.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Fortunately, Joanna was able to get the tissue slides from
Samisha's autopsy.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Doctor Janisophovin, who is a forensic pediatric pathologist. She was
able to look at those slides and say, this child
had an old brain injury, which was huge in this case. Wow,
that was something that wasn't ever presented at trial. It
wasn't known that this child had actually suffered a brain
injury weeks or months prior and that that's ultimately what
(31:59):
progressed to cause her to go into distress and to
cause her death, that it was nothing that happened in
Kim's care.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Armed with that information, the team went back to doctor Fardel,
the coroner who had performed Samisha's autopsy, and asked him
to review his diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
He was retired at the time, and you know, it
took a while for him to get access to a
microscope to be able to do that, But ultimately he
also looked at the slides and he applied these special
iron stains which he had not applied at the time
of the autopsy, and he reached the same conclusion that
there was an old head injury that rebled and that
he had missed before. We also got a radiologist to
(32:39):
look at the records, you know, from that standpoint, same conclusion.
So in June twenty twenty one, we filed emotion asking
for a new trial for Kim, and ultimately, after looking
at it and looking at all the medical evidence and
the expert opinions, and I believe consulting with their own expert,
the prosecutor's office agreed with us, and so in October
twenty twenty one, they called us up and they said,
(33:01):
we're ready to dismiss all the charges. The judge agreed
and Kim was released.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I kind of knew that things were happening, that the
prosecutor's office wasn't going to fight it, but I felt
that the judge would say, give me weeks months, you know,
to look this over. I did not realize that I
was actually he was actually going to sign paperwork that
day to release me.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
I got the phone call at work. I had to
go into a room, close the door, and I just
cried like I was. It was one of those joy moments,
but your sad moments. I mean, you're crying, you're happy.
Then you want to know when, why?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
How? Where?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
When can I get? Can I leave right now to
go get her?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I was going about my day to day life in prison,
and the warden's assistant came to me and said, did
you know you're leaving prison now? And I'm like no,
I wasn't packed, I wasn't ready. It was later on
that afternoon that I walked out of person. They were
all out in the parking lot waiting on me.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
It was a joyous, joyous time. Joanna pulled up later
my husband pulled up later, and then all the cousins
came in and it was like a hurry up and wait,
another hurry up and wait situation. We gotta get there,
we gotta get there, and then we got to wait, wait, wait, wait,
and then we saw her come out, finally, carrying her
(34:32):
whole life in a plastic bag. Twenty years of her
whole life like in one plastic bag. It was heart wrenching,
heart wrenching.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It was overwhelming, it really was. My legs kind of
gave out on me. I couldn't really walk. They ran
up to me. I had just kind of like stood there,
and I kept thinking that I was going to be
pulled back in, you know, pulled right back into the prison.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Keina and her husband a room waiting for Kim at
home in Westerville, and she moved right in and started
to rebuild her life. While in prison, Kim had earned
a liberal arts degree and she was working on a
business degree when she was released.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I do want to go back and finish my degree.
Whether I continue in that vein or not, it would
be helpful no matter what type of job that you do,
to have a business background.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Right now, Kim is taking things slowly as she readjusts
to life outside. She says she sometimes can't believe she
was actually incarcerated for all that time.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I did not realize until weeks later when I started
trying to remember my life in prison. I couldn't remember
my life in prison. It's like the further I got
away from prison, all of my memories were being pulled
and left in prison because I had to start this
(35:58):
new life here. I went back to prison a couple
of weeks ago. I went back to see a friend
that's there, and it took me a while to get
out of the car, and then I walked through that
very same gravel parking lot that I walked out of
the prison. I was walking back into the prison. And
(36:21):
it just seems like it's a different life. It's like
like I maybe saw it in a movie. You know,
it wasn't my life. But then there are other times like, yeah,
I remember, I remember going through that door. I remember
what's on the other side of that door.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And then she says, it all comes flooding back.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I'll be out walking my sister's dogs, or i will
be somewhere and then I'll realize it's four fifteen and
I might have a panic attack because I'm not on
my bed at four o'clock for four o'clock count in prison.
You know those memories. It's like I'm back in prison,
(37:06):
and that happens quite a bit. I don't know how
to explain that. It's something that if you have to
live it to understand it, and it's not something that
I tell a lot of people. I just I have
to realize that I'm here.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
I'm not there.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I'm here now.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Thank you for 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 producer Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
(38:11):
Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
this production 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
(38:33):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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