#260 Maggie Freleng with Mike Politte

A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide. Please listen with caution and care.

So, Jason, I've been working on this one episode about a man who went to prison when he was fourteen years old, in adult prison, and just thinking about, you know what a child's growing up in that kind of environment, what that does to them.

Yeah, you think about I mean a fourteen year old, that's a child. You're in eighth grade, maybe ninth grade. I mean, it's unimaginable to take a child and put them in a situation that is the most adult of adult nightmarriage.

Yeah, I mean, so just even the concept that we interrogate children, especially you know, when police are allowed to lie to.

Them, That is a Shakespearean type of a scenario, right, And of course we know that young people are much more likely to confess to crimes that they didn't commit because they're so aptible to the tricks and the lies and even physical or psychological abuse that they endure.

You know, I was in a peg, but yet I was still aware that I didn't do what they're saying that I get, and I stuck to that even though they were threatened me with life in prison. And you know what happens to kids to go to prison. I never wavered from anything.

That I ever said, from love of for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Michael Polly as Dawn broke. On December fifth, nineteen ninety eight, fourteen year old Mike Pollet woke up to the smell of something burning. His friend Josh was sleeping over and when they opened his bedroom door, they were inundated with smoke. Mike and Josh screw to crawl out of the house to escape. On the way, Mike stopped by his mother's room to

And then at that point that's what he said, is your father responsible for what? Haven't I said yes? He said did you see him? I said no. He said, did you hear anything? I said no, I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. But he's the only one that I know that would hate her that much to do that through and what I've seen was evil, it was hatred.

Michael Pollet was born in Mineral Point, Missouri. He grew up in a poor family. He lived with his parents, Rita and ed Polyte, and his siblings in a trailer in the village.

I was pretty happy kid growing up kindergarten through fifth grade, right I was. I was on honor roll Frede's student, loved go to school. I was outgoing. I was always always with my friends, ride and by Sibilsfoose motorcycles.

Mike is the youngest of three kids. His sister Crystal is the oldest, and then there's Melanie, who's seven years older than him. Here's Melanie.

So when he was little, he wasn't a terrible kid.

He was just you know, he was rayloxsious, fun and liked to like play outside, and he had like you have good friends. They weren't never in like real bad trouble. I was always his babysitter. Crystal didn't never have to do anything because she was the oldest, so she got to go out with her friends do whatever. I was

I don't know. I would like to hope that we would be, but you never know.

Mike remembers being especially close with his mom Rita.

My mom got me into sports, right. She played softball when she was younger, giving me my first ball glove. She'd always organized practices in our yard and she could have all the kids over practice.

Lying He always took up for our mom, like with kids at school, you know, back in the day around this time, they were always telling your mama jokes like your mama is.

So fat, blah blah whatever.

Somebody did that to him and he was very upset about it, and he was like, you.

Better never talk about my mother. He almost got a fight with this kid, and it was like, you know, okay.

It's a joke, but that's how sensitive he is about our mom, you know, like.

You just don't mess with her.

Mike's dad, Ed also had a special place and makes heart, and he helped foster one of his passions racing cars.

I looked up to him quite a bit. My dad raced stock cars at the local dirt track. Made me want to do you know, every Saturday night. As a child, I remember going to the races, and really it's been a child of dream mind to actually raise a late model. I'm look forward to that in the future. But growing up it was. It was good up until the point where our family dynamics began to change because of infidelity on my father's part.

Yeah, there was definitely some physical violence, a lot of arguing, a lot of mental abuse for you know, from my dad to my mom.

He also did it to us too, you know, like.

Guilt trips and he would always talk bad about our mom to us.

Don't know why. That's definitely not good parenting.

Mike's and Melanie's dad was also pretty absent. You work nights at the Ford motor plant, and so Mike and his sisters rarely saw him home. Melanie says her mom was really the one who raised them and took care of them.

She was the one going to all of our games and all our school functions and Mike's.

And all of ours. You know, our dad never went.

You know, he could have went to days if he really wanted to spend time with his family, I'm sure.

But he always just chose to work nights at Ford.

I wish we were okay with because honestly, we didn't like him being around anyway, because he was always cranky and he always had the TV.

So that's when we were kids, like a dad's gonna be home.

Great. Now we're gonna have to leave for the whole weekend because nobody wants to be around.

Mike's parents divorced when he was young. His mom did not hide the reason why.

I guess she recorded the phone conversation with him and another woman, and my mom played it for me and both my sisters, and she said, this is why I'm leaving your father. And we asked him and he denied it, and he united that was even him on the line, And I think it was that moment and I realized that he probably wasn't who I thought he was.

It was around this time as a pre team that Mike started acting out.

I kind of used the divorce and my parents' separation as a crush as far as my bad behavior. I would always turn to that and be like, well, it's their fault because they're getting divorced and now, and people sympathize with it. So it kind of helped me getting out of getting getting into trouble with this kind of maybe feel like that I can, you know, be as mischievous as I was. I wanted to be really.

So what kinds of things would you do?

Well? I, you know, we we said a lot of fires, me and my friends. I became somewhat of a bully as school. I remember once we does It's truck, We throw oranges and natos and we stomped on on the hood of it and hit it with golf clubs and baseball bats, and I ended up stealing CDs and like Walmart. That was about the extent of bad behavior.

And not only did Mike's bad behavior escalate during the divorce, but so did his father, Ed's behavior.

I remember a few violent arguments where they would throw like pops and pans at each other and stuff like that.

It only happened like twice that I remember when I was young.

But as we got older, we only really witnessed like the yelling, the arguments. Mike unfortunately ain't got to witness the actual violence.

I remember specifically they were arguing over a sunflower clock and a coworker gaze to her that he wouldn't let her have it, and the argument became thumps, and I grabbed the baseball back to my room. I ran out of my room. They were in the living room. He was on top of her. I told him to get off of her. He did, and my mom got up and as we were leaving, she grabbed a picture of his girlfriend and off the wall. Food on ground, stopped on and we left, throwing her divorce proceedings. I actually

On December fourth, nineteen ninety eight, Mike's mom, Rita, went out with her friends. One of her friends remembers fourteen year old Mike calling and saying he was hungry, so on her way home around eleven thirty pm, Rita stopped to get subway sandwiches. Mike had invited his friend Josh to stay over that night. While the boys waited for Rita to come home. With food, boys being boys, they went and burned railroad ties on the railroad tracks near

And I woke up and either I smelled or I seemed smoked, and I looked down at Josh and smoking a cigarette.

Josh was not At this point, the trailer was filling with smoke and they had to get out. Mike and Josh crawled to escape. On the way, Mike stopped at his mom's room to check on her. To his horror, he found Rita burning on the ground. She was face up, her legs spread open, and was only wearing a pair of underwear. Mike and Josh both ran out of the house, Josh to the neighbors and Mike to get the hose. Around six thirty am, police and first responders arrived to

Mike when he was transporting me from my home to the Stares forman that morning. I asked him if he's gonna be able to find out half of my mom. He says, what do you mean, what happened to your mom? Well, well, what happened like if vers throw was cuttered somewhere, you guys wanna be able to tell that.

This conversation was later used against Mike in court, and they.

Used that as an indication that I was concerned that they were going to find out, but I did right. Instead of being a concern fourteen year old kid who just witness a horrible thing.

This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference in the lives of its employees and in the communities where we work and live. In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and all support to underrepresented communities and individuals.

Mike essentially became the prime suspect within moments of this crime.

This is making Crane. She's the co director of the Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a civil rights organization, and she thinks Mike immediately became a suspect because of presumptions around the circumstances.

I mean, I think the basic premise probably was that he was the only family member home at the time, and in arson cases, that is the first person who's looked at who else was in the home, particularly if it's a family member who survived the fire. So he's already under the spotlight for that fact. But for there things quickly spiraled out of control because the police mischaracterized him.

So after the police picked you up, they pretty quickly homed in on you, and you were arrested very quickly. What was going through your head? You know when you're in this interrogation.

The interrogations were very intense. There was on occasions there was multiple interrogators. There was a fire marshal, there was Kerk Davis, who was the lead detective, and then also the juvenile officers who were supposed to be there to protect me and Josh's right. We're also asking in questions. They used the same mind up questions over and over and over. I related the same set of facts over and over and over.

So tell me, like, what were they what are they asking? They repeatedly, Hey.

They were asking what happened?

Thank me?

Through the day before that evening that morning, and it became it became a point where they were trying to convince me right that I've done something, and I know that I didn't do anything.

Mike says, every time he got to the park where he woke up and found his mom, they would tell him he was missing a big gap and ask him what happened between the time he went to sleep and when he woke up and found his mom. Tell it again, over and over.

It went for hours, and my understanding, they treated Josh the same way, and they would they would tell me that he's telling on me, and they would tell him that I'm telling on him, tactics that shouldn't be used on juveniles, on children, for sure, but they completely ignored the fact that statements never changed. And throughout all these interrogations, there's twenty six consistencies between our statements, and that doesn't

Back at the crime scene, officer Tammy Bellfield had arrived and almost immediately was told by Sheriff Ron Skyles that a woman had intentionally been set on fire. Fire Investigator Jim Holdman had concluded without any testing that a fire accelerant had been poured on Rita. The autopsy also determined that Rita had died of carbon monoxide poisoning and sustained

I mean, what was going through your head where you were like, this isn't real, Like what were you thinking?

You're like a little boy.

I was in a pack. I was in a panic, but yet I was still aware that I didn't do what they're saying that I get and I stuck to that, even though I was in a panic, even though they were threatened me with life in prison, and you know what happened to kids to go to prison. I never wavered from anything that I ever said.

Because Mike was a juvenile at the time, a juvenile officer was present during this interrogation and his dad, Ed was called in to be with him since Mike couldn't be questioned alone. But Megan says Mike really did lack critical support.

He did not have an attorney present. The people that were there, I guess to arguably protect his rights. Were one a juvenile officer who was there for some of the interrogation, But it's the record makes clear that this juvenile officer acted essentially as another interrogator, not in any

Which seems obvious given Ed's nasty, violent divorce from Rita, but law enforcement didn't seem to consider this, nor did they consider how his presence might impact Mike, and in fact, Mike was uncomfortable answering questions with Ed in the room.

When they were interrogating me, they asked me who you know? Who do you think heard of your mother? My father was like right beside me during these interrogations, and Karkas asked me, do you want let me ask your father's stepfather? I said yeah, And then at that point that's when he said, is your father responsible for what have I said yes, he said did you see him? I said no? He said Did you hear anything? I said no, I

But the cops didn't listen. Mike was interrogated for two days, and during that time he was also hooked up to a CVSA, a computer voice stress analysis test, which is different from a lie detector test. This test supposedly to text deception by measuring stress levels in the voice.

They hooked the microphone up to my other shirt and put some on my finger, and they asked me. I think it was like five basic questions. Did you murder your mother? I said no. Do you know anybody I want to hurt your mother? I said no. Did you hear anybody? Did you hear anything? I said no. And it may have been one or two more I can't remember, But ultimately they told me that are true.

Meaning that the test showed he was lying. And we can't corroborate whether Mike failed this stress test since we don't have those results ourselves. Not that it really matters, though, because these voice stress tests, which were frequently used by law enforcement during the nineties have since been determined to be wholly unreliable, and even if they were reliable, it

They think we can build a case against this kid. Ed was a savvier suspect, and he arguably had an alibi. They did some investigation into him, not much, but the investigation they did do had more hurdles than their case they were building against Mike, So I think they went

On December seventh, Mike was arrested for the murder of his mother, Rita Polle.

They arrest him on his lack of emotion and suspicious reaction to his mother's death.

When Mike was arrested, laboratory testing on the items collected the baseball, bats, flashlight, and poker had not yet returned results, and after the testing was ultimately completed, nothing pointed to Accelerant as the fire starter.

And I woke up my entire wolvers just gone. I lost my murder, I lost my sisters, I lost myself, like everything was everything was gone.

So had you guys ever thought about wrongful convictions before?

Like?

Was that something that never never, never even thought our never crossed our mind that something like that happened.

No, never what I've ever thought the wrongful convictions happened until.

Until they really did, like arrest them and take them to jail and let him out.

Mike was sent to a juvenile detention facility to await trial. Three days after the murder, a hearing was held to determine whether to keep Mike detained, and despite the court concluding the case was thin and circumstantial at best, Mike remained in custody.

And it felt like it felt like no one. It felt like the only person that would have helped me in that situation was my mother. Yeah, she was on long with us. So with that, I mean I was. I felt completely alone, completely isolated, completely vulnerable, and I didn't know how to handle it.

Exactly one month after his arrest, Mike attempted suicide.

I was having I was having problems adjusting to it and the handling it, and I had enough, I guess, and I tried to I tried to hang myself and myself.

Mike tied a sheet to the vent and hung himself from it. Fortunately a guard walked by and saved his life. Melanie recalls how her little brother looked when he was arrested.

Just looking at him, you could tell he could not inflict that kind of damn. I'm a john up person. He just was a small boy. He was about my.

Size I am now because I used to wear his clothes, and I actually have a pair of his genes from back then.

I just put on the other day and they still fit.

But by the time his trial started in January of two thousand and two, Mike was eighteen years old, four years older, four inches taller at thirty pounds, heavier, he no longer looked like a little boy. The prosecutors were Richard Hicks, Assistant Attorney General of Jefferson City, Missouri, and John Rupp, prosecuting attorney for Washington County, Missouri. The state called seventeen witnesses, which is a lot, but they presented

No, never, I never considered it.

Do you wish you had taken it?

Absolutely not. I'm not going to put guilty somebody in there, especially especially if it denies my mother justice.

All of us have a breaking point when subjected to these course of interigation tactics, especially kids. But Mike was desperate to know what had happened to his mom, so he did withstand this coercion over days, and he never confessed.

Now, I would rather do this for her and ultimately win in the end and make the Sheriff's department and prosecutor's office prosecute the people that responsible for what would happened here.

But even with the prosecution's weak evidence, Mike's defense was even weaker. They only called three witnesses, and they did not have an expert who could challenge the state's experts. The trial lasted three days, and after four hours of deliberation, on April nineteenth, two thousand and two, Mike was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. During his first four years in prison, Mike kept in touch with his father ed despite believing that he was

That's a hard question. The part of me, the part of me wants to say yes, right. Another part of me wants to think that he just got so lucky with the inconfidence of the Washington guys Chaff's department, that he just it just happened that way. It was well known that I've played with fire as a kid, and fire was used to ultimately murder my mother. I can say that he never helped me. He never tried to help me. I can's that's just one He's never tried to help me.

Yet, after Mike's direct appeal was denied, Ed told his son he was going to help him. In two thousand and five, he told Mike that he'd hired an attorney to help with his next appeal.

He kept reaching out to the attorney, never hearing back, never hearing back. Finally he got a friend to call the attorney's office, and that's when the attorney said, I haven't responded to you because we don't have an attorney client relationship. I'm not your attorney any longer. And that's when Mike learned his father had lied to him. He'd never paid this attorney or even asked him if he

This devastated Mike.

And that was when my heavy drug use came in. When I found out I didn't have a lawyer and that he has been He's been misleading me for at least a year and a half about having a lawyer, and once I found out and understood the significance of not having one, he sent me into a drug induce life. Really, I mean I left my cell. I didn't come back unless I had some heroin. Okay, weat something and that was my way of coping with it.

As for Melanie, she thinks her dad never intended to help Mike from the beginning. Her feeling is that Ed likely framed Mike.

Honestly, I think he tried to set Mike up to take the fall. I mean that sounds horrible, but honestly that is my that those are my thoughts. He didn't care about anyone else. He only cares about himself.

He's like a psychopath.

I mean, like literally, it's I can't even believe that we came from that because we don't act anything like him.

It's so bizarre knowing him.

It doesn't suffer me, right, because of what I've seen in the end, how I treat my mom, how he treated us, It's something that I can honestly look at and say, you know what it does, It's fright, it is what it is right.

But I don't need him, and Mike didn't. On his own, he was able to get clean from the drugs he had used to cope. He wound up getting his ged in prison and worked with shelter dogs to rehabilitate them.

Oh dog program. I love the dog program. The greatest con accomplishment I feel like is that I was able to train ca Nines for companions the kids that have autism right, and that is something that actually touches people on the street. It's just not an internal department correction program, like something I can actually make the difference with.

But Mike was still determined to prove his innocence. He wrote letters to every attorney and innocence project he could find until one wrote back.

I wrote the MIP seven eight page letters. I'm sure they still have it. I explained my whole story. I mailed it.

Within a few months, Mike got a visit from Kim Blocker, a staff attorney for the MIP, which is the Midwest Innocence Project. Six law students from Missouri University and Kansas University accompanied him.

They sat down the vision room with me and they told me tells what happened, And I told him and it changed my life. It saved my life. The expressions that I seen on those students' faces and Kim's face when I was telling my story, stuck with me, and I knew that they were going to investigate everything that I just said. I knew and everything that they were going to find. It's factually true to everything I just said and from day on up until so let's save my life more ways than one.

When the Midwest Innocence Project took Mike's case, they filed a new petition claiming Mike is innocent based on new evidence, including the fact the Mike's shoes did not actually have an accelerant on them.

The material of substance on Mike's shoes, which were determined to be gasoline at trial, was actually an aromatic solvent that was part of the manufacturing process of these tennis shoes. So this material was in every pair of shoes that it were sold across the country, was not at all unique to Mike's par of shoes, but was the thing that was used to convict him and send him to prison for a life.

Mecan says, the state even concedes that this evidence is.

False, yet they are still fighting his litigation and still fighting to keep him in prison.

One of the detectives has even come forward with her own opinion on the case.

Tammy Bellfield, one of the deputy sheriffs who investigated this case, who shared and confirmed that like this, this was a mess. This was a police department that was way in over its head. They did not have the experience the resources to handle this type of case or case of this magnitude, and they didn't know what they were doing, and to the extent they did, they did it wrong or made the wrong judgments.

Despite the new evidence, all of Mike's appeals have been denied. On October thirteenth, twenty twenty one, he filed another petition quote seeking a writ of habeas corpus vacating his conviction for second degree murder. Mike would have to wait months to find out if this one would also be denied, But then on February eighth of this year, Mike got a surprise. The parole board granted him an early release.

Yeah? Okay, there's only there's only one explanation, and I can I can draw from everything that's ever happened to me. Is that one. I'm strong enough and capable of handling everything that they throw at me. I'm also strong enough and capable of using it for the better of society. Right.

Mike, now thirty eight, walked out of prison on April twenty second of this year. A few days after his release, we spoke again. Mike was at Melanie's house, surrounded by his sister's nieces nephews, and of course, yeah we got.

The puppy dogs. Yeah, a blue heeler and black.

Lab Okay, so tell me how it's been being home.

It's been awesome. I ain't got much sleep. I've been running on a pure adrenaline. We went to the stock car races Saturday night. I met up with some family members I ain't seen in over two decades.

Yeah, it was awesome.

So I think, you know, one of the more incredible things about you, Mike, and what happened to is that you were so young when you went to prison that you really grew up inside prison. And what's it like to be an adult now outside?

It's walking into an alien world, right because I've spent two thirds of my life incarcerated, so that's what I knew. It's a culture shock. All the technology, the speed of everything, opening the refrigerator and seeing all the food, all the choices. I went in the Walmart and I.

Was like, what, yeah, yeah, so, and it's it's just so, it's it's just I don't I don't have the proper verbs to describe it, but it's just.

It's just amazing.

So what do you want people to know about what happened to you? And and really anything, it's an open ended question.

You know, what happened to me can happen to anybody. And there's there's countless more people that suffered how I suffered, and they need help and I look forward to being a part of that, you know, for for the greatest country in the world. Right, Uh, it shouldn't be this hard. When it's discovered that there's innocent people or an innocent person in prison and the herculean hurdles that it takes to get people out and exonerated, even when it's actually

Mike plans to work with innocence projects and use his experience to inspire the next generation of law students to help change the judicial system. But before signing off, I had one last question for him.

Have you thought about your mom a lot since you've been out?

Yeah?

Yeah, I think about her every day, you know, regardless if I was in there out here. That's something we tell stories about her.

Yeah.

What do you wish she could see right now?

Oh she's smiling.

Yeah, she's smiling.

She knows.

Uh, she can finally rest right away. I always felt that she wasn't at peace with what happened in the after math of what happened to her. But there was a moment when I was in the parking lot and uh, there was two geese that flew over and honked right above me, and I just looked up and I said, I Mom, And it was just.

Instant, Yeah, it was It was yeah, yeah.

I felt like that was her celebrating.

If you'd like to help Mike get back on his feet, go to GoFundMe dot com and search for Michael Polly. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, help is available. Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at eight hundred two seven three eight two five y five. Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Brian Parnell.

But when they turned around and said to me, yeah, we have your DNA and we got your fingerprints at a prime. See you choked this guy from What's just I said, wait a minute, you got the wrong guy.

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam Kevin Wortis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn. The music in this production is by three time OSCAR