December 2, 2024 • 45 mins
In August 2005, 22-year-old Rosa Jimenez was sentenced to 99 years in prison for murder and injury to a child after a 21-month-old child she was babysitting choked on a wad of paper towels. The prosecution’s experts testified that Rosa had to have shoved the towels down little Bryan’s throat. And Rosa, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who didn’t speak English, had woefully inadequate defense. Years later, several top pediatric ENT experts concluded Bryan’s death had been accidental. And Rosa was exonerated almost two decades later.
Learn more about the practice of shackling incarcerated women who are giving birth:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/childbirth-behind-bars-shackling-maggie-freleng-1234657748/
The Innocence Project
https://innocenceproject.org/
Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
All Rosa humanez Ever wanted was to be a mom.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I read in an article somewhere about you that your
daughter has a rose tattoo for you.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Oh yeah, she does.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
She say that in the way that you always represent
me by roses.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I first spoke to Rosa in twenty twenty for my
podcast Unjust and Unsolved. She was in prison at the time.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
This call is being recorded and is subject to monitoring.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I was actually scheduled to meet with Rosa in person,
but because of COVID nineteen, all prisons were on lockdown.
She called me the day we were supposed to meet.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
I'm so bombed.
Speaker 7 (00:46):
I really wanted to meet.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
You in person.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I say, extend that day.
Speaker 6 (00:51):
Are you staying safe?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, I was six the first week bomb Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Now, Rosa was lucky in prison. COVID nineteen was devastating.
Incarcerated people died at over three times the rate of
the free population I have, and Rosa was at the
highest risk. She was immunocompromised from kidney failure. When she
first got to prison, Rosa got hurt working in the
(01:17):
fields picking vegetables and mowing grass. It was lots of
walking and physical labor. And one day she felt a
pain in her hip and went to the doctor.
Speaker 8 (01:27):
It would telling that you looked to the doctors, they
tell you that you were lazy and that you didn't.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Want to work.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Rosa was prescribed a proxy in and ivy profen for
the pain and sent back to work.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So before I go.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
To work, I used to just take one peel, then
come up from work take another.
Speaker 8 (01:42):
Appeal because I'm already learning.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
If I want to go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Years of doing this damaged her kidneys, and when I
first talked to her in twenty twenty, not only was
she in pain, but she was dying if not.
Speaker 8 (01:55):
Even vacim give me to better my kidney.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So I asked him if she can give me a transpilent.
Speaker 8 (02:03):
Then she said no because he.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Said, I don't want to send you or anything.
Speaker 8 (02:07):
But yet you as a prisoner and everybody in prison,
can I get a kidney transfer or any kind of transman,
because you are the lower of the society.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
In her late thirties, Rosa was facing down death from
a prison cell, but soon her life would change.
Speaker 9 (02:29):
My name is Rosa Humanez and I was wrongly convicted
of injury to a child and murder. I was eighteen
years in.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Prison for LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today. Rosa Jimenez. Rosa Jimenez was born in
October nineteen eighty two and raised just outside of Mexico City.
Speaker 9 (03:00):
O little town is cooled at the pic. We were
very poor at that time when I was little.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Rosa's mom, Estella was single with five kids to take
care of.
Speaker 9 (03:15):
She used to sell tamales in Mexico.
Speaker 10 (03:18):
You came to sign your laws.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Estella says.
Speaker 10 (03:23):
She worked every day those.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Sometimes until two a m. To make sure all her
children stayed in school and got their education get out.
Estella says she never had a holiday or weekend off
while her kids were young. But she didn't let her
(03:50):
kids drop out of school, and that's what matters. Estella
was a proud woman, just like Rosa.
Speaker 9 (03:57):
No one is going to stop me. That's me.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Rosa went to college for business and tourism. She wanted
to own a restaurant with her mom.
Speaker 9 (04:06):
And then of course I wouldn't have a bunch of
kids and get married and be happy. That was me
Rosa seventeen year old Rosa.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
But Rosa found focusing on college was difficult when her
family was struggling with bills. She remembers coming home from
school one day looking for a snack.
Speaker 9 (04:25):
I was hungry. You opened the refrigerator and you was
nothing there, and my mom was like, you're hungry, and
I was like, no, I was just going to get iced.
But then I realized in that moment, then my mom
couldn't do it no more by herself, so I decided
to come over here.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
At seventeen, Rosa decided she was going to drop out
of school and come to the United States to work
and send money back to her family.
Speaker 7 (04:50):
How did your mom feel about you coming to the
United States.
Speaker 9 (04:52):
Oh, she didn't want me to come. She begged me
and begged me to go to school. But you know,
when you're young, you like, no, I know what I'm
going to do. This is what I decided to do,
and I'm going to do it and no one is
going to stop you.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
Do you regret coming here?
Speaker 9 (05:14):
That's a hard question, yes and no.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Life in the United States would turn out to be
everything and nothing like Rosa had planned for. Rosa's stepfather
lived in the United States, so Rosa's plan was to
go to Austin, Texas and get settled with him.
Speaker 9 (05:43):
My stepfather's sister had two kids in Mexico. One was
seven and another one was six, and she asked me
if I can bring her kids, and if I bring them,
she was going to pay the coyote.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Rosa didn't have the means to come to the United
States legally, so she made the harrowing journey into the
country with a coyote, a human smuggler.
Speaker 10 (06:10):
Five as had.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Estella says, she spent every day worried and restless.
Speaker 10 (06:22):
Is that a combinino.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Praying that her daughter made it out alive.
Speaker 10 (06:30):
It's not so.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Estella did not want her daughter to cross the border,
but Rosa took those children and did it anyway.
Speaker 9 (06:39):
Brough those two kids, and I pretend that they were
my kids. I was the only female, well, the little
girl and I were the only females. They were like
twenty five men.
Speaker 7 (06:51):
Dirty, and when you were seventeen year old and.
Speaker 9 (06:54):
I'm seventeen year old with two kids, it was really scary.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
She remembers. One instance, the whole group was staying in
one room for the night.
Speaker 9 (07:04):
No one can lay down in the middle of the
night because we're standing up. It's crowded, like the little
bathroom with thirty.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
People, and she says a guy tried to touch her.
Speaker 9 (07:16):
I tell the guy not too like, don't come too
close to me, and the other guys to start getting
mad because hey, you're gonna respect this girl, you know.
They tell him that if he comes close to me
again that they were going to beat him up.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Another man protected her and took it upon himself to
watch out for her and the kids the rest of
the trip.
Speaker 9 (07:36):
It was an older guy. I don't even remember his
name that he was like, oh, like a father figure
kind of like he didn't like, was protecting me and
the kids. I never seen him up again, but.
Speaker 7 (07:51):
You've thought about him all these years.
Speaker 9 (07:52):
Yeah, Yeah, sometimes I feel like they angels, you know,
Like I mean, there, you show up to protect.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
You and your guardian angel.
Speaker 9 (08:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
When Rosa made it to the US, things didn't work
out living with her stepfather, so she wound up with
some friends she'd met at ESL school. She worked several jobs,
including at a food truck.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
That was the worst experience ahead, Like in a food truck, Yes,
how come they're go and pick you up? Like at
two o'clock in the morning and you don't finish working
by ten pm, so you only have like a little
gap to go to sleep. And it was horrible. The
(08:36):
payment was like, I'm not even liking to you, like
six dollars and fifty cents back then.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
But Rosa kept hustling and sending money back to her mom.
Speaker 9 (08:46):
That was my whole purpose in here to help her.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And then Rosa met a boy, and her purpose changed.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
At that moment. At that he was myself.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Eighteen year old, feed well.
Speaker 9 (09:00):
Like he is the man that I wanted to be
with the rest of my life. How long were you.
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Here before you got pregnant?
Speaker 9 (09:09):
Not even a year?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
She was still a teenager and she was pregnant, but
she was thrilled. Nine months later, baby Brenda was born.
In two thousand and two, Rosa's dream was coming true.
If she couldn't get her degree, she wanted to be
a wife and a mom. A year later, Rosa was
(09:36):
pregnant again and had stopped working full time. She picked
up babysitting gigs here and there, and eventually she found
a steady gig caring for a friend's child a couple
times a week. Brian Gutierrez was almost two years old,
a few months older than Brenda, so it was perfect
for Rosa because she gat care for her daughter and Brian.
People who knew Rosa said that she loved that little
(09:59):
boy like her own. On the morning of January thirtieth,
two thousand and three, Brian's mom dropped him off with
Rosa on her way to work at nine am. He
and Brenda knapped, and when they woke up, Rosa made
them snacks, beans, egg cheese, and picico de gayo. Rosa
says that both kids had colds that day and she
(10:21):
was constantly wiping their noses. She used a roll of
paper towels and at some point she tossed the role
in the couch, thinking nothing of it. She then let
them watch TV and play while she made lunch. It
was afternoon and Rosa was cooking in the kitchen. She
says it'd been about ten minutes since she had last
checked on the kids. Then suddenly, Brian walks in slowly
(10:44):
with a hand on his throat. He appeared to be choking.
Rosa says she picked up Brian and rushed to the bathroom,
slapped him on the back, then tried to pull out
whatever was stuck in his throat, but nothing, so she
ran to a neighbor's apartment for help. When emergency responders arrived,
they were able to extract a wad of bloody paper
(11:05):
towels from Brian's throat. Later it was measured at two
and a half inches, almost the size of a tennis ball.
When they got Brian to the hospital, he was alive
but in critical condition, and police wanted to take Rosa
to the station for questioning.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
I called Fidel and I tell him, hey, this happened,
and you need to come home because they want me
to go to the police's station to give a statement,
but you need to take care of Brenda.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
At the station, detective Eric Dela Santos interviewed Rosa. He
wanted to know how such a large wad of paper
towels wound up down Brian's throat. In his mind, there
was no way Brian could have swallowed that himself. It
had to have been forced down. Della Santo's quest and
Rosa for five hours, insisting she had shoved the paper
(12:03):
towels down Brian's mouth. He said Rosa was mad that
the kids were playing with the paper towels, shredding them
and tossing them around the house. Rosa was terrified. Remember
she was a new immigrant.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
Was everything confusing for you? Did you know you had rights?
Speaker 9 (12:21):
I didn't know I have rights. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Rosa says she was unaware she didn't have to answer
Delo Santo's questions, or that she had a right to
a lawyer.
Speaker 9 (12:30):
In Mexico is so corrupted. You know, you bribe the
police and you free, no matter why you do, you free.
So I'll come to this country and I don't have
knowledge or anything. The only thing I know is where
I came from. So I think maybe if I have money,
(12:53):
I can bribe the police, and you know, they let
me out. I don't know. So I didn't have no knowledge.
I don't have I didn't have anything. I didn't mean
speak English, nothing.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Dela Santo spoke Spanish, but Rosa says it was very
difficult for her to communicate with him. While the government
has to provide trained interpreters at trial, an interpreter isn't
constitutionally guaranteed during police questioning, so it was just Dela
Santos and Rosa and her head was spinning. Rosa was
(13:24):
worried about Brian, and then she thought about Brenda. She
begged Dela Santos to let her use the phone to
call Fidel.
Speaker 9 (13:31):
When I call, he said, the CPS took Brenda like
child Protective Services, and I was just freaking out because
I didn't know what child Protective Services was or anything.
So I was freaking out.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
When I first spoke with Rosa, she explained that desperation
to me, I was like.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Like me, I can have Blenda back if I said
whatever they wanted. You want me to say whatever you've
been saying. May not say it, you know, but just
let me have Branda back.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Rosa eventually asked Dela Santos what would happen if she
told him she did it, and he told her that
she'd be able to go home and see her daughter,
and after hours of questioning, Rosa says she considered just
saying that she did it. Maybe when she tried to
pull the paper towels out, she accidentally shoved them in further,
(14:30):
but she didn't actually admit to hurting Brian and wouldn't
speak further until she saw Brenda. So Dela Santos drove
Rosa home while other officers prepared a warrant, and a
few hours later, in the early morning hours of January
thirty first, Rosa was arrested for injury to a child.
(14:51):
Rosa sat in jail for months awaiting trial, pregnant with
her second child, and on April eighteenth, two thousand and three,
she started feeling tractions.
Speaker 9 (15:02):
I remember going to the hospital from the jail, and
every time you had to go to the hospital, you
had to go be in shackles.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
This is standard practice volunte oj custody, shackling prisoners who
are giving birth with an officer assigned to watch over them.
Speaker 9 (15:19):
Is that police officer you know, just watching you give
Sure you're not gonna escape what you are giving birth? Like,
how can that happen? I mean, you are a lot
of pain, you have contractions, you're pushing. How can you
gonna start pushing and then run? I don't see that possible.
(15:41):
But it was very It was very sad. I remember
that night. I have a female officer and she had
to be there the whole time, and I was having
like contractions, but I was not going in labor. And
(16:02):
I was like literally praying to go on labor because
I didn't know who was the other officer was gonna
be and I didn't want it to be a male.
And I'm you know, with your legs all open and
chuckles and like I was scared. I was scared. I
was really scared.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
After a few hours of labor, her son, Aiden was born.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
Did they let you hold him?
Speaker 9 (16:29):
No?
Speaker 7 (16:30):
You didn't even get to hold your son.
Speaker 10 (16:32):
No.
Speaker 9 (16:32):
I had to beg later on when I went to
the room, I had to beg the nurse to let
me hold my kid. Because of the nature of the crime.
They didn't let me get close to Aiden.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Because Rosa was charged with a crime against a child,
she wasn't allowed near anyone under eighteen, not even her
newborn son. However, in a moment of grace or sympathy,
once they were alone, the nurse let Rosa hold Aiden
for a little while. But as one baby came into
the world, another left. Brian Gutierrez succumbed to his injuries
(17:12):
and died just over a week after Aiden was born.
Ros's charges were upgraded to felony murder two years later.
Rosa went to trial in August two thousand and five.
She was tried in Travis County Criminal District Court by
Gary Cobb and Alison Wetzel.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
This trial is.
Speaker 11 (17:30):
About something that happened to a little boy named Brian
on January thirty of two thousand and three. He was
twenty one months old. He lived in North Austin with
his mother, Victoria, and with her family, and he was
a healthy baby. He was a happy baby, and his
family loved him very very much.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Doctors and first responders who took the stand for the
prosecution all said it would have been impossible for Brian
to have shoved the paper towels down his throat on
his own. His gag reflex would have pushed them out.
Someone had to hold him down and push the wall
of paper towels past the reflex. How much do you
think racism played into Rose's case?
Speaker 12 (18:17):
Racism played a huge role in Rosa's case. She is
one of other people that we know about who women
of color in this jurisdiction at this time period, who
ended up being prosecuted in cases where children were injured
in accidents.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Vanessa Pupkin is the director of Special Litigation at the
Innocence Project.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
It's something that we see throughout the country when it
comes to children who die or are injured, and if
the parents are people of color. There's a rush to
call this a homicide or some type of abuse.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And it's hard to argue when you hear Wetzel in
her own words at trial. Here she is questioning Detective
Delo Santo's on the stand about his interrogation with Rosa.
Speaker 9 (19:06):
And despite being.
Speaker 11 (19:09):
From Mexico, she's very intelligent, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 9 (19:14):
I think she's a smart lady.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
And did it appear to you that she manipulated you
at the end of the interview by getting you to
bring her.
Speaker 9 (19:24):
Daughter to you?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You know, I'm gonna say yes.
Speaker 11 (19:27):
I don't think she ever intended to tell me if
she did.
Speaker 9 (19:31):
This, that she did it.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
In Rosa's defense, her attorney, Leonard Martinez, called multiple witnesses
who said Rosa was a peaceful person who was not
quick to anger. But that was pretty much it.
Speaker 12 (19:47):
She just had woefully an adequate counsel. Her trial counsel
only consulted with one expert. That expert had no experience
in pediatric pathology.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
In fact, none of the experts that trial did not
even the prosecutions, but the expert hired by Rosa's lawyer
was particularly bad.
Speaker 12 (20:09):
He had not done any publishing except for one article,
which was how to turn a murder into an accident?
So could you imagine when that came out in front
of the jury what that did to his credibility.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
It was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Rosa sat through a week long trial believing that even
though she was confused by the proceedings and what people
were saying, everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 9 (20:36):
I believe in the United States system. I believe the yeah,
we're not corrupted. I believe the yeah, we're going to
search the truth and the truth we're going to set
me free.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
But on August thirty first, two thousand and five, Rosa
was convicted of injury to a child and felony murder.
She was sentenced to ninety nine years in prison.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I remember during her try you were getting all this
information through a translator.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
Yes, correct.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
What was that like when you found out you're convicted.
Did you understand at that moment what was happening?
Speaker 9 (21:12):
No? Two. I mean she's saying that they convict me
to ninety nine years in prison, But it was like, no,
it cannot.
Speaker 10 (21:22):
Be leftanarass busy are.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Estella was there watching her daughter get tried and sentenced,
and she didn't understand what was happening either. She says
she asked Ross's lawyer to please translate to tell her
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
It is.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
That was the last time she saw her daughter in person,
and Estella says, there are simply no words to describe
vibe that kind of pain. At twenty two years old,
everything Rosa had ever dreamed of was gone.
Speaker 12 (22:16):
You know, here's so many people these days talk about like, oh,
their career, what they want to be, and she wanted
to be a mother.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
That was her thing that she wanted very much.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
But now her kids were being taken from her. Fidel
was young and had no means of caring for them.
In fact, he disappeared from Rosa's life shortly after her conviction.
So Rosa's children were put in foster care while her
mom fought for custody from Mexico. Brenda and Aidan were
placed with a family who will call the Smiths. At first,
(22:47):
Rosa says, the Smiths would bring her kids to see
her in prison.
Speaker 9 (22:50):
But then they started asking me for an adoption, to
sign papers, and I tell them no. So then that
we sit, says Stars getting you know, far away and
far away.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Rosa felt like she was being manipulated, like.
Speaker 9 (23:07):
If you give them to adoption to us, then you're
going to be able to see them more often. But
if you don't, then you're not going to be able
to see them. And then part of me was really sad,
and part of me was like, I'm not going to
give my kids to adoption. They're my kids, So she didn't.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
Did you think you were ever going to get out
to be able to be a mom to them? Was
that part of your decision making?
Speaker 9 (23:36):
Honestly? I mean when you in prison, Maggie, like you
believe in God, you have this strong faith, and you
believe because you don't have nothing else. They strip you
from your kids, your family, everything that you dream of.
You don't have no more. So the only thing that
(23:59):
you have got, that's it. So you hold into with
you old God, with everything you had in you because
you don't have nothing else. So part of me believed
that I was going to go home, but the realistic
part of me was telling me, you're not one. You
(24:21):
don't have no money, you don't have no support, you
don't have no family here, so how are you gonna
get out? You're not.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Brenda and Aden were raised by the Smiths, and as
the years passed, Rosa got to see them less and less.
She tried to be a mom from prison, but it
was fruitless. They became strangers both. Estella says she tried
(24:51):
to get a visa twice to come here and visit Rosa,
but both times it was denied.
Speaker 10 (24:57):
Let's pre very soon, but for this week it's.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Only official told her it was because Rosa was in
trouble with the state.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Almost Rosa was only allowed a handful of very short
international calls.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
So for eighteen years they stayed in touch through letters.
Speaker 9 (25:33):
Yes, through letters, but it's like so hard, like as
in a letter and she will get that letter like
in fifteen days, twenty days so and then for her
to write me. Sometimes the letter get lost, so it
was not a good communication.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
In one of those letters, Rosa had to tell her
mom she had kidney failure and the outlook was not good.
When I spoke to Rosa, she was waiting to start dialysis.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
The only thing they could me is.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
And then a one minute left.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Eventually when my kidneys dropped MM, they had to tick
another unit when they do dialysis, and then after that
that will be it. He said a person can only
live with dialysis of seen years.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
The clock was ticking for Rosa, but fortunately the story
of a young Mexican immigrant wronged by the American legal
system was making headlines.
Speaker 12 (26:38):
Rosa had the support of the Mexican government. She had
been working with the consulate since.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Trial Vanessa Potkin.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Again, they had.
Speaker 12 (26:46):
Stood by her for close to two decades, trying to
get counsel, hiring lawyers, and were very supportive throughout the
entire process.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
An attorney named Bryce Bingett was hired by the Mexican
Consulate to work on Rosa's case. In twenty eighteen, he
took a job with the Innocence Project and brought her
case with him.
Speaker 12 (27:07):
At that point, there had been already some medical evidence
developed to suggest that Rosa had been convicted of something
that was an accidental choking.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Over the years, her case has been looked at by
multiple judges.
Speaker 12 (27:24):
Five judges at different points that had reviewed Rosa's case
and said she's likely in acent.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
This is a miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
One of those judges, Charlie Baird, wrote that Rosa's trial
was quote fatally affected by constitutional error. I remember that
expert Rosa's defense attorney used. Judge Baird said that in
his decades long career, his court had quote never seen
such unprofessional and biased conduct from any witness, much less
(27:53):
from a purported expert. Still, Rosa remained in prison. In Texas,
the Court of Criminal Appeals has final say on innocence claims,
and it refused to give Rosa a new trial. It
was relentless. Then finally, in twenty twenty, she was granted relief.
Speaker 12 (28:13):
So she had a federal court review her case and
say her trial lawyer was deficient. The trial council never
consulted with any expert that could have meaningfully told the
jury what could have happened in this case.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
None of the witnesses called were experts in pediatric airways.
Speaker 12 (28:34):
It would be like having a problem with your heart
and going to a foot doctor. Both doctors, but you
can't get your opinion from the foot doctor.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So Rosa was granted a new trial, but again someone
got in the way. The Texas Attorney General's office appealed
the decision, a process that could have taken years. Years
Rosa likely didn't have as a person with kidney failed.
You're in a pandemic, so how did.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
You get her out.
Speaker 12 (29:06):
We saw an opportunity at that point to say, okay,
let's figure out who are the top pediatric NT doctors
in the country, perhaps the world, and let's submit Rosa's
case to them. Let's say, here's this incident, this is
what happened with the child. Is this intentional? Could this
(29:29):
be an accident? What happened here? And all of these
doctors had the same reaction. They were like, wait, this
woman's in prison, she was convicted. They couldn't believe it.
This was an accident, and the idea that this could
have happened intentionally.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Is so far fetched.
Speaker 9 (29:50):
They said.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
The gag reflex would actually have pulled the wad further
into Brian's throat instead of expelling it, like experts testified
to at.
Speaker 12 (29:59):
Trial, completely turned on its head the evidence that had
been used at her trial and exposed that that evidence
had been false.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court recommended that Rosa's
conviction be vacated, and on January twenty seventh, twenty twenty one,
she was released on bond, but her troubles were far
from over. Rosa had been released from prison, but she
wasn't free.
Speaker 12 (30:29):
The issue was that because of her immigration status while
she was in prison, a deportation order had been lodged
against her. And so if somebody has any type of
hold by ICE, when their conviction is vacated, ICE is
notified and ICE has two days forty eight hours to
(30:51):
come pick up that person and take them into ICE attention.
Speaker 9 (30:54):
And in my mind, I was like, they leave me in Mexico,
like great coming back, But part of me was scared
because I don't know Mexico anymore. You know, I left
when I was seventeen, now almost forty. And if they
leave me at the border with no money, nothing, how
(31:15):
I'm gonna call my mom. How I'm gonna get all
the way to Mexico.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Meanwhile, Vanessa was in New York frantic.
Speaker 12 (31:24):
We had an immigration lawyer trying to see if they
could get in touch with ICE. We're calling, We're like,
is there any update on Rosa's situation.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
She learned that Immigration was coming to pick up Rosa
in Texas that day.
Speaker 12 (31:38):
So I decided, I was in New York, I'm gonna
get on a plane and fly to Texas.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Vanessa was getting rapid updates.
Speaker 12 (31:47):
And then the next email we get is they've decided
to expedite deportation.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Then she got an email that Rosa had been picked up.
Speaker 12 (31:59):
So by the time I land in Texas, Rosa was
in a vehicle and we're just told that she's going
to be deported. It really did feel like being run
over by a mac truck. And we are like, how
are we going to push this truck off of us
and get from underneath this? If she gets deported, she's
never coming back, that's just like the end of it.
(32:20):
She wants to.
Speaker 6 (32:20):
See her children. Her children are waiting for her to
come out.
Speaker 12 (32:24):
We are just like in our minds having this vision
that she is in a car and like being driven
to go across the border.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
As we're speaking, Rosa was in a van with two
ICE agents.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
I see them talking among themselves, and they keep looking
back at me, talking among themselves and looking at me.
Why can't I hear anything? They sing? And they started
getting phone calls and phone calls and phone calls. And
in my soul, my car, you something happened, like not bad,
(33:04):
but something happened.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Vanessa was getting out from under the map truck.
Speaker 12 (33:09):
And I think it was ultimately the intervention of the
Mexican government reaching out because next thing you know, we
were informed, oh.
Speaker 6 (33:19):
You can go get Rosa in San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Instead of going to the border. Rosa was taken to
a detention center in San Antonio. Her deportation was intercepted.
The agent told her to call someone to pick her up,
so she called Vanessa for advice, thinking Vanessa was still
in New York. Then Rosa sees someone walking towards her.
Speaker 9 (33:40):
She had a mask on her and I wonder, who's
that lady? And then she come in and hugged me,
and I'm still like, like, what is this lady hug
and then she's like you okay.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Rosa was more than okay, kah.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
She was freewill overwhilm.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Estella remembers seeing a press conference of her daughter online.
Speaker 9 (34:10):
I'm just so overwhelmed right now, and I don't think
I can really talk. But I just want to say
thank you to all the people that stood behind me
all these.
Speaker 10 (34:18):
Years, moral she says.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Rosa was standing there in front of the microphones, carrying
a bag over her shoulder, and she says it broke her.
Speaker 9 (34:39):
And Luci.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
She was happy and sad all at once, to say
you're am.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
She cried seeing her daughter finally free.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
Lucian even moral, but she.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Was carrying all the hopes and illusions of nearly two
decades in a little bag over her shoulder. Rosa remembers
the first time she was able to speak to her
mom on the phone.
Speaker 9 (35:26):
It was nice to hear her voice. I remember I
was crying and she was like, don't cry anymore. That
is sober. That journey is over.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And a new one was starting. A week later, Rosa
was at Brenda's wedding, trying to catch up on the
eighteen years she's lost from her kids' lives.
Speaker 9 (35:51):
When you come home, you want everything that they took
from you back you wanted at the same ex sect
mean you ow, you want to back, You want the love,
you want your kids. You want everything. When I say
everything is everything that they took from you, you want
to back. But the sad thing is that you cannot
(36:14):
get those things met. And you head your kids are
still small. Everything is like in like everything stopped and
now you ow and you realize that nothing has stopped you.
Life is stopped, but no one's life has stopped.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Brenda Roses little girl was an adult now in her twenties.
Vanessa was at the wedding as well, and she says
the day was complicated.
Speaker 12 (36:48):
Because you had, you know, her daughter was getting married.
It's like this most important moment. And there were some
beautiful parts where Roses going to the hotel room before
and she's putting out her dress and getting her may
get ready. But then at the ceremony itself, you saw
that the mother who had really raised Rosa's daughter was
(37:10):
occupying that space of the mother of the bride, and
Rosa was there as not a spectator, but just like
in such a weird position, And how bittersweet that would
be to be able to be at that moment and
see your daughter and see this monumental moment happening in
her life, but also feel so disconnected from the experience
(37:36):
and all that had transpired since she was two years old,
which was when Rosa went away.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Life had moved on without her.
Speaker 13 (37:57):
As prosecutors, we have an obligation to ensure the integrity
of convictions and to seek justice.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
On August seventh, twenty twenty three, Travis County District Attorney
Jose Garza dismissed Rose's murder charges and she was officially exonerated.
Speaker 13 (38:14):
Dismissing Missimenez's case is the right thing to do. Our
hearts also continued to break for the Gutierrez family. In
this case, our criminal justice system failed them. It also
failed ross Achimenez. Our hope is that by our actions today,
(38:37):
by exposing the truth that Missimenez did not commit the
crime for which she was accused, that we can bring
some sense of closure and peace to both families.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
That same day, Rosa also became a grandmother.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
You didn't get to really raise Brenda, but you got
to meet her daughter.
Speaker 7 (39:01):
And what was that like?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (39:06):
That was at that moment I thought, oh my god,
everything that I lost or they took or they robbed me,
I can live again with my grand baby. I can
experience all those things and teach her how to walk
and you know, be there for her, give her everything
(39:30):
that I have. But they didn't have to like that.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Things didn't work out as planned, and Rosa doesn't have
a relationship with either of her kids right now. Both
Aiden and Brenda have lived with her since her release.
They tried to build a bond, but it never worked out.
Speaker 9 (39:47):
So my kids, they're already grown, they don't know me.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I don't know them, and Rosa didn't know herself.
Speaker 9 (39:57):
I was trying to figure out myself. I didn't know
who I was when I came out from person. I
didn't know who I was, what I want, what I like?
I didn't know.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
Is there a piece you can make with losing your kids.
Speaker 9 (40:12):
No, No, it's like I can. I don't know if
I can relate to actually a mother that has lost
their kids. But it's really hard to know that you
have kids and you can see them or they cannot
call you whatever. You know, it's really hard. It's sad.
(40:34):
It's really sad. Like I'm in this house and I wish,
you know, like my kids can come and visit and stay,
and they don't.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
On September of this year, Rosa flud in New York
to get a kidney transplant.
Speaker 12 (40:54):
You know, some people go many years without being able
to find donor.
Speaker 7 (41:01):
This seems pretty fast that she got a donor.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
It was I think that happened. I guess she touched
somebody out in the world.
Speaker 12 (41:16):
Hopefully this new kidney supports her in a very long,
healthy life. And you know, she's never going to be
a whole in the sense that she's never going to
be able to get that time back or the relationship
back with her children. And I think coming to terms
with that has been hard for her because you spend
(41:37):
so much time fighting to try to get to something
that you're never going to fully be able to get
back to.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
But Rosa is busy building a new life. She lives
outside of San Antonio in a brand new house overlooking
the vast Texas Plains with her chihuahuas, Tequila and to see,
like plus a few more.
Speaker 7 (42:05):
There's two more dogs that live here.
Speaker 9 (42:07):
We have five. You have five dogs.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
So you might not have your human children as close anymore,
but you have your dog children now right, Oh.
Speaker 9 (42:17):
Yeah, I love them.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
And she has her wife, Mary Jane.
Speaker 9 (42:22):
She's the only person that has been there for me
and it has the patient to teach me. And I
know she gets frustrated, but she's there for me. She
knows the damage that presented to me, like I have
a lot of damage, you know, And she has to
put up with all them, you know, and like teach
(42:44):
me a little by little, Hey, the world is.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Okay, and that Mary Jane's urging. Rosa is still trying
to stay in touch with her kids.
Speaker 9 (42:55):
She's like, so just text them, let them know you
love them, let them know that you think about them.
And if they don't respond, that's their choice. But you're
doing what a mother needs to do.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
And she keeps looking towards the future. Once she's healed
and her immigration status has worked out, she says she
wants to travel first to Mexico to visit her mom,
who she hasn't seen since her trial in two thousand
and five, then somewhere for her and Mary Jane.
Speaker 9 (43:24):
My word was suggesting a what are those things called
where you go in a boat, A cruise, A cruse?
Speaker 7 (43:35):
Yeah, oh, I could see you on a cruise. I
think you'd like that.
Speaker 9 (43:39):
And then I was like, do they allow dogs? And
just like no, and I'm like, oh, what are we
going to do with the girls?
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Life doesn't have perfect endings, but Rosa is grateful.
Speaker 9 (43:52):
Nonetheless, angels were behind me the whole time.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
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,
and to learn more about the practice of shackling women
who are giving birth, check out an article I wrote
for Rolling Stone. Wel link to it as well. This
episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing
(44:24):
and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer
is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research
by Alison Levy and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn.
Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Bordis.
The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
(44:46):
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number one. The
Ma
All Rosa humanez Ever wanted was to be a mom.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I read in an article somewhere about you that your
daughter has a rose tattoo for you.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Oh yeah, she does.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
She say that in the way that you always represent
me by roses.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I first spoke to Rosa in twenty twenty for my
podcast Unjust and Unsolved. She was in prison at the time.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
This call is being recorded and is subject to monitoring.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I was actually scheduled to meet with Rosa in person,
but because of COVID nineteen, all prisons were on lockdown.
She called me the day we were supposed to meet.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
I'm so bombed.
Speaker 7 (00:46):
I really wanted to meet.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
You in person.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I say, extend that day.
Speaker 6 (00:51):
Are you staying safe?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, I was six the first week bomb Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Now, Rosa was lucky in prison. COVID nineteen was devastating.
Incarcerated people died at over three times the rate of
the free population I have, and Rosa was at the
highest risk. She was immunocompromised from kidney failure. When she
first got to prison, Rosa got hurt working in the
(01:17):
fields picking vegetables and mowing grass. It was lots of
walking and physical labor. And one day she felt a
pain in her hip and went to the doctor.
Speaker 8 (01:27):
It would telling that you looked to the doctors, they
tell you that you were lazy and that you didn't.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Want to work.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Rosa was prescribed a proxy in and ivy profen for
the pain and sent back to work.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So before I go.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
To work, I used to just take one peel, then
come up from work take another.
Speaker 8 (01:42):
Appeal because I'm already learning.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
If I want to go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Years of doing this damaged her kidneys, and when I
first talked to her in twenty twenty, not only was
she in pain, but she was dying if not.
Speaker 8 (01:55):
Even vacim give me to better my kidney.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So I asked him if she can give me a transpilent.
Speaker 8 (02:03):
Then she said no because he.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Said, I don't want to send you or anything.
Speaker 8 (02:07):
But yet you as a prisoner and everybody in prison,
can I get a kidney transfer or any kind of transman,
because you are the lower of the society.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
In her late thirties, Rosa was facing down death from
a prison cell, but soon her life would change.
Speaker 9 (02:29):
My name is Rosa Humanez and I was wrongly convicted
of injury to a child and murder. I was eighteen
years in.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Prison for LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Maggie Freeling today. Rosa Jimenez. Rosa Jimenez was born in
October nineteen eighty two and raised just outside of Mexico City.
Speaker 9 (03:00):
O little town is cooled at the pic. We were
very poor at that time when I was little.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Rosa's mom, Estella was single with five kids to take
care of.
Speaker 9 (03:15):
She used to sell tamales in Mexico.
Speaker 10 (03:18):
You came to sign your laws.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Estella says.
Speaker 10 (03:23):
She worked every day those.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Sometimes until two a m. To make sure all her
children stayed in school and got their education get out.
Estella says she never had a holiday or weekend off
while her kids were young. But she didn't let her
(03:50):
kids drop out of school, and that's what matters. Estella
was a proud woman, just like Rosa.
Speaker 9 (03:57):
No one is going to stop me. That's me.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Rosa went to college for business and tourism. She wanted
to own a restaurant with her mom.
Speaker 9 (04:06):
And then of course I wouldn't have a bunch of
kids and get married and be happy. That was me
Rosa seventeen year old Rosa.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
But Rosa found focusing on college was difficult when her
family was struggling with bills. She remembers coming home from
school one day looking for a snack.
Speaker 9 (04:25):
I was hungry. You opened the refrigerator and you was
nothing there, and my mom was like, you're hungry, and
I was like, no, I was just going to get iced.
But then I realized in that moment, then my mom
couldn't do it no more by herself, so I decided
to come over here.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
At seventeen, Rosa decided she was going to drop out
of school and come to the United States to work
and send money back to her family.
Speaker 7 (04:50):
How did your mom feel about you coming to the
United States.
Speaker 9 (04:52):
Oh, she didn't want me to come. She begged me
and begged me to go to school. But you know,
when you're young, you like, no, I know what I'm
going to do. This is what I decided to do,
and I'm going to do it and no one is
going to stop you.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
Do you regret coming here?
Speaker 9 (05:14):
That's a hard question, yes and no.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Life in the United States would turn out to be
everything and nothing like Rosa had planned for. Rosa's stepfather
lived in the United States, so Rosa's plan was to
go to Austin, Texas and get settled with him.
Speaker 9 (05:43):
My stepfather's sister had two kids in Mexico. One was
seven and another one was six, and she asked me
if I can bring her kids, and if I bring them,
she was going to pay the coyote.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Rosa didn't have the means to come to the United
States legally, so she made the harrowing journey into the
country with a coyote, a human smuggler.
Speaker 10 (06:10):
Five as had.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Estella says, she spent every day worried and restless.
Speaker 10 (06:22):
Is that a combinino.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Praying that her daughter made it out alive.
Speaker 10 (06:30):
It's not so.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Estella did not want her daughter to cross the border,
but Rosa took those children and did it anyway.
Speaker 9 (06:39):
Brough those two kids, and I pretend that they were
my kids. I was the only female, well, the little
girl and I were the only females. They were like
twenty five men.
Speaker 7 (06:51):
Dirty, and when you were seventeen year old and.
Speaker 9 (06:54):
I'm seventeen year old with two kids, it was really scary.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
She remembers. One instance, the whole group was staying in
one room for the night.
Speaker 9 (07:04):
No one can lay down in the middle of the
night because we're standing up. It's crowded, like the little
bathroom with thirty.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
People, and she says a guy tried to touch her.
Speaker 9 (07:16):
I tell the guy not too like, don't come too
close to me, and the other guys to start getting
mad because hey, you're gonna respect this girl, you know.
They tell him that if he comes close to me
again that they were going to beat him up.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Another man protected her and took it upon himself to
watch out for her and the kids the rest of
the trip.
Speaker 9 (07:36):
It was an older guy. I don't even remember his
name that he was like, oh, like a father figure
kind of like he didn't like, was protecting me and
the kids. I never seen him up again, but.
Speaker 7 (07:51):
You've thought about him all these years.
Speaker 9 (07:52):
Yeah, Yeah, sometimes I feel like they angels, you know,
Like I mean, there, you show up to protect.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
You and your guardian angel.
Speaker 9 (08:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
When Rosa made it to the US, things didn't work
out living with her stepfather, so she wound up with
some friends she'd met at ESL school. She worked several jobs,
including at a food truck.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
That was the worst experience ahead, Like in a food truck, Yes,
how come they're go and pick you up? Like at
two o'clock in the morning and you don't finish working
by ten pm, so you only have like a little
gap to go to sleep. And it was horrible. The
(08:36):
payment was like, I'm not even liking to you, like
six dollars and fifty cents back then.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
But Rosa kept hustling and sending money back to her mom.
Speaker 9 (08:46):
That was my whole purpose in here to help her.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And then Rosa met a boy, and her purpose changed.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
At that moment. At that he was myself.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Eighteen year old, feed well.
Speaker 9 (09:00):
Like he is the man that I wanted to be
with the rest of my life. How long were you.
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Here before you got pregnant?
Speaker 9 (09:09):
Not even a year?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
She was still a teenager and she was pregnant, but
she was thrilled. Nine months later, baby Brenda was born.
In two thousand and two, Rosa's dream was coming true.
If she couldn't get her degree, she wanted to be
a wife and a mom. A year later, Rosa was
(09:36):
pregnant again and had stopped working full time. She picked
up babysitting gigs here and there, and eventually she found
a steady gig caring for a friend's child a couple
times a week. Brian Gutierrez was almost two years old,
a few months older than Brenda, so it was perfect
for Rosa because she gat care for her daughter and Brian.
People who knew Rosa said that she loved that little
(09:59):
boy like her own. On the morning of January thirtieth,
two thousand and three, Brian's mom dropped him off with
Rosa on her way to work at nine am. He
and Brenda knapped, and when they woke up, Rosa made
them snacks, beans, egg cheese, and picico de gayo. Rosa
says that both kids had colds that day and she
(10:21):
was constantly wiping their noses. She used a roll of
paper towels and at some point she tossed the role
in the couch, thinking nothing of it. She then let
them watch TV and play while she made lunch. It
was afternoon and Rosa was cooking in the kitchen. She
says it'd been about ten minutes since she had last
checked on the kids. Then suddenly, Brian walks in slowly
(10:44):
with a hand on his throat. He appeared to be choking.
Rosa says she picked up Brian and rushed to the bathroom,
slapped him on the back, then tried to pull out
whatever was stuck in his throat, but nothing, so she
ran to a neighbor's apartment for help. When emergency responders arrived,
they were able to extract a wad of bloody paper
(11:05):
towels from Brian's throat. Later it was measured at two
and a half inches, almost the size of a tennis ball.
When they got Brian to the hospital, he was alive
but in critical condition, and police wanted to take Rosa
to the station for questioning.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
I called Fidel and I tell him, hey, this happened,
and you need to come home because they want me
to go to the police's station to give a statement,
but you need to take care of Brenda.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
At the station, detective Eric Dela Santos interviewed Rosa. He
wanted to know how such a large wad of paper
towels wound up down Brian's throat. In his mind, there
was no way Brian could have swallowed that himself. It
had to have been forced down. Della Santo's quest and
Rosa for five hours, insisting she had shoved the paper
(12:03):
towels down Brian's mouth. He said Rosa was mad that
the kids were playing with the paper towels, shredding them
and tossing them around the house. Rosa was terrified. Remember
she was a new immigrant.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
Was everything confusing for you? Did you know you had rights?
Speaker 9 (12:21):
I didn't know I have rights. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Rosa says she was unaware she didn't have to answer
Delo Santo's questions, or that she had a right to
a lawyer.
Speaker 9 (12:30):
In Mexico is so corrupted. You know, you bribe the
police and you free, no matter why you do, you free.
So I'll come to this country and I don't have
knowledge or anything. The only thing I know is where
I came from. So I think maybe if I have money,
(12:53):
I can bribe the police, and you know, they let
me out. I don't know. So I didn't have no knowledge.
I don't have I didn't have anything. I didn't mean
speak English, nothing.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Dela Santo spoke Spanish, but Rosa says it was very
difficult for her to communicate with him. While the government
has to provide trained interpreters at trial, an interpreter isn't
constitutionally guaranteed during police questioning, so it was just Dela
Santos and Rosa and her head was spinning. Rosa was
(13:24):
worried about Brian, and then she thought about Brenda. She
begged Dela Santos to let her use the phone to
call Fidel.
Speaker 9 (13:31):
When I call, he said, the CPS took Brenda like
child Protective Services, and I was just freaking out because
I didn't know what child Protective Services was or anything.
So I was freaking out.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
When I first spoke with Rosa, she explained that desperation
to me, I was like.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Like me, I can have Blenda back if I said
whatever they wanted. You want me to say whatever you've
been saying. May not say it, you know, but just
let me have Branda back.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Rosa eventually asked Dela Santos what would happen if she
told him she did it, and he told her that
she'd be able to go home and see her daughter,
and after hours of questioning, Rosa says she considered just
saying that she did it. Maybe when she tried to
pull the paper towels out, she accidentally shoved them in further,
(14:30):
but she didn't actually admit to hurting Brian and wouldn't
speak further until she saw Brenda. So Dela Santos drove
Rosa home while other officers prepared a warrant, and a
few hours later, in the early morning hours of January
thirty first, Rosa was arrested for injury to a child.
(14:51):
Rosa sat in jail for months awaiting trial, pregnant with
her second child, and on April eighteenth, two thousand and three,
she started feeling tractions.
Speaker 9 (15:02):
I remember going to the hospital from the jail, and
every time you had to go to the hospital, you
had to go be in shackles.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
This is standard practice volunte oj custody, shackling prisoners who
are giving birth with an officer assigned to watch over them.
Speaker 9 (15:19):
Is that police officer you know, just watching you give
Sure you're not gonna escape what you are giving birth? Like,
how can that happen? I mean, you are a lot
of pain, you have contractions, you're pushing. How can you
gonna start pushing and then run? I don't see that possible.
(15:41):
But it was very It was very sad. I remember
that night. I have a female officer and she had
to be there the whole time, and I was having
like contractions, but I was not going in labor. And
(16:02):
I was like literally praying to go on labor because
I didn't know who was the other officer was gonna
be and I didn't want it to be a male.
And I'm you know, with your legs all open and
chuckles and like I was scared. I was scared. I
was really scared.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
After a few hours of labor, her son, Aiden was born.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
Did they let you hold him?
Speaker 9 (16:29):
No?
Speaker 7 (16:30):
You didn't even get to hold your son.
Speaker 10 (16:32):
No.
Speaker 9 (16:32):
I had to beg later on when I went to
the room, I had to beg the nurse to let
me hold my kid. Because of the nature of the crime.
They didn't let me get close to Aiden.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Because Rosa was charged with a crime against a child,
she wasn't allowed near anyone under eighteen, not even her
newborn son. However, in a moment of grace or sympathy,
once they were alone, the nurse let Rosa hold Aiden
for a little while. But as one baby came into
the world, another left. Brian Gutierrez succumbed to his injuries
(17:12):
and died just over a week after Aiden was born.
Ros's charges were upgraded to felony murder two years later.
Rosa went to trial in August two thousand and five.
She was tried in Travis County Criminal District Court by
Gary Cobb and Alison Wetzel.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
This trial is.
Speaker 11 (17:30):
About something that happened to a little boy named Brian
on January thirty of two thousand and three. He was
twenty one months old. He lived in North Austin with
his mother, Victoria, and with her family, and he was
a healthy baby. He was a happy baby, and his
family loved him very very much.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Doctors and first responders who took the stand for the
prosecution all said it would have been impossible for Brian
to have shoved the paper towels down his throat on
his own. His gag reflex would have pushed them out.
Someone had to hold him down and push the wall
of paper towels past the reflex. How much do you
think racism played into Rose's case?
Speaker 12 (18:17):
Racism played a huge role in Rosa's case. She is
one of other people that we know about who women
of color in this jurisdiction at this time period, who
ended up being prosecuted in cases where children were injured
in accidents.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Vanessa Pupkin is the director of Special Litigation at the
Innocence Project.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
It's something that we see throughout the country when it
comes to children who die or are injured, and if
the parents are people of color. There's a rush to
call this a homicide or some type of abuse.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And it's hard to argue when you hear Wetzel in
her own words at trial. Here she is questioning Detective
Delo Santo's on the stand about his interrogation with Rosa.
Speaker 9 (19:06):
And despite being.
Speaker 11 (19:09):
From Mexico, she's very intelligent, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 9 (19:14):
I think she's a smart lady.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
And did it appear to you that she manipulated you
at the end of the interview by getting you to
bring her.
Speaker 9 (19:24):
Daughter to you?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You know, I'm gonna say yes.
Speaker 11 (19:27):
I don't think she ever intended to tell me if
she did.
Speaker 9 (19:31):
This, that she did it.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
In Rosa's defense, her attorney, Leonard Martinez, called multiple witnesses
who said Rosa was a peaceful person who was not
quick to anger. But that was pretty much it.
Speaker 12 (19:47):
She just had woefully an adequate counsel. Her trial counsel
only consulted with one expert. That expert had no experience
in pediatric pathology.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
In fact, none of the experts that trial did not
even the prosecutions, but the expert hired by Rosa's lawyer
was particularly bad.
Speaker 12 (20:09):
He had not done any publishing except for one article,
which was how to turn a murder into an accident?
So could you imagine when that came out in front
of the jury what that did to his credibility.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
It was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Rosa sat through a week long trial believing that even
though she was confused by the proceedings and what people
were saying, everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 9 (20:36):
I believe in the United States system. I believe the yeah,
we're not corrupted. I believe the yeah, we're going to
search the truth and the truth we're going to set
me free.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
But on August thirty first, two thousand and five, Rosa
was convicted of injury to a child and felony murder.
She was sentenced to ninety nine years in prison.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I remember during her try you were getting all this
information through a translator.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
Yes, correct.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
What was that like when you found out you're convicted.
Did you understand at that moment what was happening?
Speaker 9 (21:12):
No? Two. I mean she's saying that they convict me
to ninety nine years in prison, But it was like, no,
it cannot.
Speaker 10 (21:22):
Be leftanarass busy are.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Estella was there watching her daughter get tried and sentenced,
and she didn't understand what was happening either. She says
she asked Ross's lawyer to please translate to tell her
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
It is.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
That was the last time she saw her daughter in person,
and Estella says, there are simply no words to describe
vibe that kind of pain. At twenty two years old,
everything Rosa had ever dreamed of was gone.
Speaker 12 (22:16):
You know, here's so many people these days talk about like, oh,
their career, what they want to be, and she wanted
to be a mother.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
That was her thing that she wanted very much.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
But now her kids were being taken from her. Fidel
was young and had no means of caring for them.
In fact, he disappeared from Rosa's life shortly after her conviction.
So Rosa's children were put in foster care while her
mom fought for custody from Mexico. Brenda and Aidan were
placed with a family who will call the Smiths. At first,
(22:47):
Rosa says, the Smiths would bring her kids to see
her in prison.
Speaker 9 (22:50):
But then they started asking me for an adoption, to
sign papers, and I tell them no. So then that
we sit, says Stars getting you know, far away and
far away.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Rosa felt like she was being manipulated, like.
Speaker 9 (23:07):
If you give them to adoption to us, then you're
going to be able to see them more often. But
if you don't, then you're not going to be able
to see them. And then part of me was really sad,
and part of me was like, I'm not going to
give my kids to adoption. They're my kids, So she didn't.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
Did you think you were ever going to get out
to be able to be a mom to them? Was
that part of your decision making?
Speaker 9 (23:36):
Honestly? I mean when you in prison, Maggie, like you
believe in God, you have this strong faith, and you
believe because you don't have nothing else. They strip you
from your kids, your family, everything that you dream of.
You don't have no more. So the only thing that
(23:59):
you have got, that's it. So you hold into with
you old God, with everything you had in you because
you don't have nothing else. So part of me believed
that I was going to go home, but the realistic
part of me was telling me, you're not one. You
(24:21):
don't have no money, you don't have no support, you
don't have no family here, so how are you gonna
get out? You're not.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Brenda and Aden were raised by the Smiths, and as
the years passed, Rosa got to see them less and less.
She tried to be a mom from prison, but it
was fruitless. They became strangers both. Estella says she tried
(24:51):
to get a visa twice to come here and visit Rosa,
but both times it was denied.
Speaker 10 (24:57):
Let's pre very soon, but for this week it's.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Only official told her it was because Rosa was in
trouble with the state.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Almost Rosa was only allowed a handful of very short
international calls.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
So for eighteen years they stayed in touch through letters.
Speaker 9 (25:33):
Yes, through letters, but it's like so hard, like as
in a letter and she will get that letter like
in fifteen days, twenty days so and then for her
to write me. Sometimes the letter get lost, so it
was not a good communication.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
In one of those letters, Rosa had to tell her
mom she had kidney failure and the outlook was not good.
When I spoke to Rosa, she was waiting to start dialysis.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
The only thing they could me is.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
And then a one minute left.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Eventually when my kidneys dropped MM, they had to tick
another unit when they do dialysis, and then after that
that will be it. He said a person can only
live with dialysis of seen years.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
The clock was ticking for Rosa, but fortunately the story
of a young Mexican immigrant wronged by the American legal
system was making headlines.
Speaker 12 (26:38):
Rosa had the support of the Mexican government. She had
been working with the consulate since.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Trial Vanessa Potkin.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Again, they had.
Speaker 12 (26:46):
Stood by her for close to two decades, trying to
get counsel, hiring lawyers, and were very supportive throughout the
entire process.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
An attorney named Bryce Bingett was hired by the Mexican
Consulate to work on Rosa's case. In twenty eighteen, he
took a job with the Innocence Project and brought her
case with him.
Speaker 12 (27:07):
At that point, there had been already some medical evidence
developed to suggest that Rosa had been convicted of something
that was an accidental choking.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Over the years, her case has been looked at by
multiple judges.
Speaker 12 (27:24):
Five judges at different points that had reviewed Rosa's case
and said she's likely in acent.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
This is a miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
One of those judges, Charlie Baird, wrote that Rosa's trial
was quote fatally affected by constitutional error. I remember that
expert Rosa's defense attorney used. Judge Baird said that in
his decades long career, his court had quote never seen
such unprofessional and biased conduct from any witness, much less
(27:53):
from a purported expert. Still, Rosa remained in prison. In Texas,
the Court of Criminal Appeals has final say on innocence claims,
and it refused to give Rosa a new trial. It
was relentless. Then finally, in twenty twenty, she was granted relief.
Speaker 12 (28:13):
So she had a federal court review her case and
say her trial lawyer was deficient. The trial council never
consulted with any expert that could have meaningfully told the
jury what could have happened in this case.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
None of the witnesses called were experts in pediatric airways.
Speaker 12 (28:34):
It would be like having a problem with your heart
and going to a foot doctor. Both doctors, but you
can't get your opinion from the foot doctor.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So Rosa was granted a new trial, but again someone
got in the way. The Texas Attorney General's office appealed
the decision, a process that could have taken years. Years
Rosa likely didn't have as a person with kidney failed.
You're in a pandemic, so how did.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
You get her out.
Speaker 12 (29:06):
We saw an opportunity at that point to say, okay,
let's figure out who are the top pediatric NT doctors
in the country, perhaps the world, and let's submit Rosa's
case to them. Let's say, here's this incident, this is
what happened with the child. Is this intentional? Could this
(29:29):
be an accident? What happened here? And all of these
doctors had the same reaction. They were like, wait, this
woman's in prison, she was convicted. They couldn't believe it.
This was an accident, and the idea that this could
have happened intentionally.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Is so far fetched.
Speaker 9 (29:50):
They said.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
The gag reflex would actually have pulled the wad further
into Brian's throat instead of expelling it, like experts testified
to at.
Speaker 12 (29:59):
Trial, completely turned on its head the evidence that had
been used at her trial and exposed that that evidence
had been false.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court recommended that Rosa's
conviction be vacated, and on January twenty seventh, twenty twenty one,
she was released on bond, but her troubles were far
from over. Rosa had been released from prison, but she
wasn't free.
Speaker 12 (30:29):
The issue was that because of her immigration status while
she was in prison, a deportation order had been lodged
against her. And so if somebody has any type of
hold by ICE, when their conviction is vacated, ICE is
notified and ICE has two days forty eight hours to
(30:51):
come pick up that person and take them into ICE attention.
Speaker 9 (30:54):
And in my mind, I was like, they leave me in Mexico,
like great coming back, But part of me was scared
because I don't know Mexico anymore. You know, I left
when I was seventeen, now almost forty. And if they
leave me at the border with no money, nothing, how
(31:15):
I'm gonna call my mom. How I'm gonna get all
the way to Mexico.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Meanwhile, Vanessa was in New York frantic.
Speaker 12 (31:24):
We had an immigration lawyer trying to see if they
could get in touch with ICE. We're calling, We're like,
is there any update on Rosa's situation.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
She learned that Immigration was coming to pick up Rosa
in Texas that day.
Speaker 12 (31:38):
So I decided, I was in New York, I'm gonna
get on a plane and fly to Texas.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Vanessa was getting rapid updates.
Speaker 12 (31:47):
And then the next email we get is they've decided
to expedite deportation.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Then she got an email that Rosa had been picked up.
Speaker 12 (31:59):
So by the time I land in Texas, Rosa was
in a vehicle and we're just told that she's going
to be deported. It really did feel like being run
over by a mac truck. And we are like, how
are we going to push this truck off of us
and get from underneath this? If she gets deported, she's
never coming back, that's just like the end of it.
(32:20):
She wants to.
Speaker 6 (32:20):
See her children. Her children are waiting for her to
come out.
Speaker 12 (32:24):
We are just like in our minds having this vision
that she is in a car and like being driven
to go across the border.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
As we're speaking, Rosa was in a van with two
ICE agents.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
I see them talking among themselves, and they keep looking
back at me, talking among themselves and looking at me.
Why can't I hear anything? They sing? And they started
getting phone calls and phone calls and phone calls. And
in my soul, my car, you something happened, like not bad,
(33:04):
but something happened.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Vanessa was getting out from under the map truck.
Speaker 12 (33:09):
And I think it was ultimately the intervention of the
Mexican government reaching out because next thing you know, we
were informed, oh.
Speaker 6 (33:19):
You can go get Rosa in San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Instead of going to the border. Rosa was taken to
a detention center in San Antonio. Her deportation was intercepted.
The agent told her to call someone to pick her up,
so she called Vanessa for advice, thinking Vanessa was still
in New York. Then Rosa sees someone walking towards her.
Speaker 9 (33:40):
She had a mask on her and I wonder, who's
that lady? And then she come in and hugged me,
and I'm still like, like, what is this lady hug
and then she's like you okay.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Rosa was more than okay, kah.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
She was freewill overwhilm.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Estella remembers seeing a press conference of her daughter online.
Speaker 9 (34:10):
I'm just so overwhelmed right now, and I don't think
I can really talk. But I just want to say
thank you to all the people that stood behind me
all these.
Speaker 10 (34:18):
Years, moral she says.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Rosa was standing there in front of the microphones, carrying
a bag over her shoulder, and she says it broke her.
Speaker 9 (34:39):
And Luci.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
She was happy and sad all at once, to say
you're am.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
She cried seeing her daughter finally free.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
Lucian even moral, but she.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Was carrying all the hopes and illusions of nearly two
decades in a little bag over her shoulder. Rosa remembers
the first time she was able to speak to her
mom on the phone.
Speaker 9 (35:26):
It was nice to hear her voice. I remember I
was crying and she was like, don't cry anymore. That
is sober. That journey is over.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And a new one was starting. A week later, Rosa
was at Brenda's wedding, trying to catch up on the
eighteen years she's lost from her kids' lives.
Speaker 9 (35:51):
When you come home, you want everything that they took
from you back you wanted at the same ex sect
mean you ow, you want to back, You want the love,
you want your kids. You want everything. When I say
everything is everything that they took from you, you want
to back. But the sad thing is that you cannot
(36:14):
get those things met. And you head your kids are
still small. Everything is like in like everything stopped and
now you ow and you realize that nothing has stopped you.
Life is stopped, but no one's life has stopped.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Brenda Roses little girl was an adult now in her twenties.
Vanessa was at the wedding as well, and she says
the day was complicated.
Speaker 12 (36:48):
Because you had, you know, her daughter was getting married.
It's like this most important moment. And there were some
beautiful parts where Roses going to the hotel room before
and she's putting out her dress and getting her may
get ready. But then at the ceremony itself, you saw
that the mother who had really raised Rosa's daughter was
(37:10):
occupying that space of the mother of the bride, and
Rosa was there as not a spectator, but just like
in such a weird position, And how bittersweet that would
be to be able to be at that moment and
see your daughter and see this monumental moment happening in
her life, but also feel so disconnected from the experience
(37:36):
and all that had transpired since she was two years old,
which was when Rosa went away.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Life had moved on without her.
Speaker 13 (37:57):
As prosecutors, we have an obligation to ensure the integrity
of convictions and to seek justice.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
On August seventh, twenty twenty three, Travis County District Attorney
Jose Garza dismissed Rose's murder charges and she was officially exonerated.
Speaker 13 (38:14):
Dismissing Missimenez's case is the right thing to do. Our
hearts also continued to break for the Gutierrez family. In
this case, our criminal justice system failed them. It also
failed ross Achimenez. Our hope is that by our actions today,
(38:37):
by exposing the truth that Missimenez did not commit the
crime for which she was accused, that we can bring
some sense of closure and peace to both families.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
That same day, Rosa also became a grandmother.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
You didn't get to really raise Brenda, but you got
to meet her daughter.
Speaker 7 (39:01):
And what was that like?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (39:06):
That was at that moment I thought, oh my god,
everything that I lost or they took or they robbed me,
I can live again with my grand baby. I can
experience all those things and teach her how to walk
and you know, be there for her, give her everything
(39:30):
that I have. But they didn't have to like that.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Things didn't work out as planned, and Rosa doesn't have
a relationship with either of her kids right now. Both
Aiden and Brenda have lived with her since her release.
They tried to build a bond, but it never worked out.
Speaker 9 (39:47):
So my kids, they're already grown, they don't know me.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I don't know them, and Rosa didn't know herself.
Speaker 9 (39:57):
I was trying to figure out myself. I didn't know
who I was when I came out from person. I
didn't know who I was, what I want, what I like?
I didn't know.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
Is there a piece you can make with losing your kids.
Speaker 9 (40:12):
No, No, it's like I can. I don't know if
I can relate to actually a mother that has lost
their kids. But it's really hard to know that you
have kids and you can see them or they cannot
call you whatever. You know, it's really hard. It's sad.
(40:34):
It's really sad. Like I'm in this house and I wish,
you know, like my kids can come and visit and stay,
and they don't.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
On September of this year, Rosa flud in New York
to get a kidney transplant.
Speaker 12 (40:54):
You know, some people go many years without being able
to find donor.
Speaker 7 (41:01):
This seems pretty fast that she got a donor.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
It was I think that happened. I guess she touched
somebody out in the world.
Speaker 12 (41:16):
Hopefully this new kidney supports her in a very long,
healthy life. And you know, she's never going to be
a whole in the sense that she's never going to
be able to get that time back or the relationship
back with her children. And I think coming to terms
with that has been hard for her because you spend
(41:37):
so much time fighting to try to get to something
that you're never going to fully be able to get
back to.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
But Rosa is busy building a new life. She lives
outside of San Antonio in a brand new house overlooking
the vast Texas Plains with her chihuahuas, Tequila and to see,
like plus a few more.
Speaker 7 (42:05):
There's two more dogs that live here.
Speaker 9 (42:07):
We have five. You have five dogs.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
So you might not have your human children as close anymore,
but you have your dog children now right, Oh.
Speaker 9 (42:17):
Yeah, I love them.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
And she has her wife, Mary Jane.
Speaker 9 (42:22):
She's the only person that has been there for me
and it has the patient to teach me. And I
know she gets frustrated, but she's there for me. She
knows the damage that presented to me, like I have
a lot of damage, you know, And she has to
put up with all them, you know, and like teach
(42:44):
me a little by little, Hey, the world is.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Okay, and that Mary Jane's urging. Rosa is still trying
to stay in touch with her kids.
Speaker 9 (42:55):
She's like, so just text them, let them know you
love them, let them know that you think about them.
And if they don't respond, that's their choice. But you're
doing what a mother needs to do.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
And she keeps looking towards the future. Once she's healed
and her immigration status has worked out, she says she
wants to travel first to Mexico to visit her mom,
who she hasn't seen since her trial in two thousand
and five, then somewhere for her and Mary Jane.
Speaker 9 (43:24):
My word was suggesting a what are those things called
where you go in a boat, A cruise, A cruse?
Speaker 7 (43:35):
Yeah, oh, I could see you on a cruise. I
think you'd like that.
Speaker 9 (43:39):
And then I was like, do they allow dogs? And
just like no, and I'm like, oh, what are we
going to do with the girls?
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Life doesn't have perfect endings, but Rosa is grateful.
Speaker 9 (43:52):
Nonetheless, angels were behind me the whole time.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
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,
and to learn more about the practice of shackling women
who are giving birth, check out an article I wrote
for Rolling Stone. Wel link to it as well. This
episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing
(44:24):
and sound design by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer
is Kathleen Fink. Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research
by Alison Levy and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn.
Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Bordis.
The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
(44:46):
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number one. The
Ma
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com