#285 Maggie Freleng with Tammy Poole

other through the Innocence Network. So it's great to see you again, Maggie. When you look at wrongful convictions with women, what are maybe the three most common factors you see? So the vast majority of cases where women are wrongly convicted actually involved them being accused of a crime that

never happened in the first place. What ultimately happens in a lot of these cases is women who are suddenly shocked by a tragic thing that happens to them feel a sense of guilt that is then utilized by the police to either coerce them in to falsely confessing, or is used as a way to suggest that they are behaving like a guilty person. So someone who is experiencing grief or shock is told that they're not acting the way that a person is supposed to act in their situation.

And there's also this assumption that we have that women, especially in the caretaking role, are somehow responsible when something tragic and unfortunate happens to someone who is in their care and we need to push back against those assumptions and narratives of the perfect mother and the perfect wife and the perfect daughter and instead acknowledge that human beings are complicated and that there's more to the story, likely

than we are being told in the media. I kept thinking that I wouldn't have to say anything because the mamma at that town struggling is thinking that it was my fault, that I should have done something different. I didn't realize that saying these things was making me look guilty. I didn't realize that people were watching that every moon from Lava for Good this is wrongful conviction with Maggie

Freeling today Tammy Pool. On the evening of April two thousand seven, Tammy Pool and her husband Michael got into an argument at their home in Chatsworth, Georgia. They had a tumultuous relationship and this was not unusual. This time, though, a gun was involved and Michael suffered a fatal bullet wound to his temple. Tammy says the shot was self inflicted and that Michael had often threatened suicide in the past, but as the only witness to the shooting, police saw

Tammy as a suspect. A case was quickly built against her, and she was arrested, charged, and convicted for the murder of her husband, Michael. This is not happening. This is just this can't be happening. How did they not know? I didn't realize that. My lawyers did not think. I didn't realize that, um, there was no science to it, just one opinion. He assured me he was going to tell the jury how it happened, and that never never happened. I am Tammy Pool. I've been incarcerated in uh Georgia

prisons for fifteen years. Tammy Pool was born December three in La j, Georgia to Rose and Curtis David. She's the youngest of two kids. Her brother, Danny, is fifteen years older. I always looked up to my brother. He was just great to me. He had this wonderful, big, huge cat. I used to share my ice cream with it, and I just loved that cat. Tammy and her brother learned to find joy in the little things, especially since

their family didn't have a lot of money. One year, we weren't able to get a birthday cake, and my mom had bought some about a couple of boxes of little debbies and arranged them and made it look like a clown so it was a clown cake. So I remember that being happy. But Tammy's childhood was also filled with a lot of trauma. My Uh, my father drank a lot. Uh my mother was a hoarder, so there

was a lot of things that went on. Um, I had different babysitters, so there was some childhood mental, physical, and sexual abuse. And I just I've never I just didn't say anything. Um, I kind of closed in all myself. As she got older, she admits she started expressing her trauma in destructive ways. When I was seventeen years old, I um was hanging around with some people that were a little older than me, and um they were breaking

into houses. I was as eight in the vehicle while they went in, and of course they ended up getting caught, and then I had gotten trouble for shot lifting. When Tammy was seventeen, she met her first husband, Kenny. After about a year together, in August five, she gave birth to her first child, Shannonsy. It was amazing just to see her born, to see her little face when she came out, it was just absolutely amazing. Um. Then within just a few months, I was pregnant again and this

was my son, Christopher. He was born to L twenty third, So that was only eleven and a half months after Shantasy, So we would call those Irish twins. Tammy and her husband bought a house in Chatsworth, Georgia. Life was great. They were living their dream and their children have fond memories to you. What do you remember about growing up with your mom? Remember her taking us to Disney World, I mean driving the Tower of Terror and I was terrified.

This is Tammy's oldest child, Shannonsy. I remember her like teaching me how to drive when I was younger, like bits and pieces, um and her taking me to beauty pageants. She was like my biggest fan when I was in beauty pageants. I used to take them to karate practice and um I tried to coach them in basketball. A little five and six year old teams and UM, I didn't know how to play basketball, but I just wanted to spend time with them, and I wanted them to

have the things that I didn't have. On the outside, Tammy, Kenny and their kids were a picture perfect family, but her marriage with Kenny soon hit the rocks. We were We were good for a little while, and then about ten years in we decided to call it quits. Tammy's past had caught up with her and it led her to drug use. I had battled with UM addiction to myth and UM, I just I'm not sure exactly what to say about that. UM. A lot of people may

understand the childhood trauma, especially untreated childhood trauma. You will live your life in a way kind of like on autopilot. You just do. You don't really think about it. So my struggle with drugs, I didn't really think about that. I just I just did it. Tammy's drug youse got out of control. She went to jail a couple of time is because of it, which led to more problems between her and Kenny. We had a awful custody battle, and I was usually on the losing end. Shantasy remembers

how it impacted her relationship with her mom. It wasn't really a conventional relationship, Like I didn't I felt like I didn't really like my mom because of everything I had heard, and I wasn't able to form my own opinion as a child. So what were you hearing like people around town or classmates, um, family members, mostly family members saying that like, she's always going to be a drug addict, she's always going to be a bad person. She's always like, uh, never going to be there for me.

And so did you feel like she was a good mom? Well, I mean I felt like she was um for a little while. Well and then I really don't know when it was, but I had like she had to meet us at a place for like supervised visitation, and I remember being told that she had to take a drug test and I remember thinking like that's that's not what I want as a mom, Like that's not who I want my mom to be, and that's I didn't really

think she was a good mom at that point. I did when I was younger, um, but after probably nine maybe tien um, I started to think that she was just a junkie and a bad person because that's what I had been led to believe, and I wasn't really able to get to know her because I had already planted in my mind that I didn't want to. Around this time, about two thousand one, Tammy was trying to pick up the pieces of her life when she met another man named Robbie. Their son, Brent, was born in

two thousand three, but that relationship didn't last long. So I was still in the middle of those becaust the battles, trying to get trying to get myself together, trying to do all these things, but I could never quite reach my um potential. Tammy became more motivated to change things though, when she met someone else around January two thousand four. His name was Robert Michael Pool, and he went by Michael.

He seemed like a really nice person. He had his own place, he had a job as a carpenter, and we just started talking. And I was single at the time, so I just thought it was great. I kind of thought that he was, Oh, here's this guy that's got it together and I keep messing up. He can help me. I kind of with him as like my savior. Tammy was smitten with Michael I just thought that, uh, Mike was gonna get a little better. Okay, I'm gonna have this normal life. We're gonna be We're gonna be just fun.

Like Tammy, Michael had three kids. They moved in together, and things were on the up for their blended family. Yeah. Yeah. We always talked about our kids and we would take them places like the river and fishing and things like that. Um, fun things with the kids. I don't know. We just we called ourselves the Brady Bunch, the Pool Bunch. Tammy was finally feeling good in her life, and two thousand five she went back to school at Appalachian Technical College

to study accounting and business. She eventually pursued a paralegal program, and it was love for her older brother Danny that inspired her. He had a lot of run ins with the police, and I really wanted to keep him out of jail. So I thought, if I could be a good attorney, I could keep him out of jail. But not long after Tammy and Michael got together, things took a turn. It started with the house they were living in. It comes found out the house study lived in, he

didn't actually he wasn't actually running that house. It wasn't actually his house. So after I had moved in there with him, we um lift and moved in with his sister. And UM, it was just it was it was little things, and these were things Michael's ex wife had already tried to warn her about. She tried to talk to me one day and and I didn't listen. I I always thought that it was her fault that they had split up, and I didn't realize until probably a year later, that, Um,

Michael had some serious problems. Those little things that I liked. I liked the way he watched me. I like the way he paid attention. But it kind of turned dark. Um, if my eyes looked the wrong way, I was accused of looking at somebody else or um. It was little things, little things like that. But Tammy says, the little things

at times also turned into physical violence. And then it was a push and then the harder shove, and so um, of course I pushed back, and then I left, and then we got back together, and then I left, and then we got back together. Timmy says they would follow the cycle countless times, but of course maybe and me I would make excuses for him. By two thousand six,

things were really bad between the two. One day they were driving in the car and got into an argument, and it took the trouble they were having to a whole other level. We had a car accident. But the accident, um, it wasn't really an accident, Like he ran the car off the road because we were arguing and I had just buckled my seatbelt because the road that we were on was just very very curvy, and we hit a tree. So you think he did it on purpose? Um, No, he did. He did it on purpose. Um. He said

that he was going to kill us both. Tammy was lucky she survived, although the accident left her badly injured with internal bleeding. She would be in a walker for months after. Still, Tammy and Michael stayed together, but things continued to deteriorate. Tammy started becoming convinced that Michael was having some serious mental health issues. We dabbled in Matthews and I'm not sure. I'm not sure if he did the wrong kind, if you did too much. It was

like he started going crazy and there was something. It was odd. Everyone noticed his behavior. His older sister and I talked about having had committed He had went to his ex wife's house, tried to get a telephone that belonged to his dad, this antique telephone, because he thought he was going to call his ad. The problem is his dad had been dead for years, so it was I can't really describe it, and Tammy says, Michael continued to talk about suicide. He had started doing that so much.

I had taken guns away from him before, and his little sister had taken got her boyfriend to take a gun away from him. It just seems to be getting worse and worse. I didn't know. I didn't know what to do. He had found out that his sister and I were talking about putting me in a mental institution, and he sore that he would he would kill me to kill her. He would kills both. That he did not want to go to a mental institution, and I believe him. The violence at home was bad. We argued constantly.

It was. It was more than I knew how to deal with. I didn't know how to help him, help myself, how to convince him that I loved him and that we were going to be okay. It was it was a very very dark time. This episode is underwritten by A I G, a leading global insurance company. A i G 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 a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the a i G Pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. On the evening of April seven, Tammy and Michael were again arguing. I found out that he had been talking to this girl, but it turns out he was only talking to her about drugs. So we

were arguing. Um, I told him. I told him that day that, Um, I hope he died, you know. Then we made up, of course, there's always that makeup period. Then Shantisy and Christopher left to spend the evening with their father. Brent also went with his dad. Of course, after the kids left, we had some you know, makeup making out, um, and I don't know what happened, like something snack, um, And then he just got really really angry and um. Tammy says. This is when Michael went

and grabbed a rifle. I remember I was on the bed and he pointed the gun at me, and I got in the fetal position, and I was just saying no, please, no, no no. And then he pulled me by my ankle off the end of the bed and he was banging that the gun. It was a rifle. He was banging it against his head and it was right there in

front of my face, and and I got up. I was standing, and he leaned over in front of me, and so he kept reaching for the trigger and I had my hands on the end of the barrel, and I kept thinking, it's gonna shoot me, It's gonna shoot me. But Michael didn't shoot her. He put his trigger. I'm sorry. The bullet hit Michael in the left side of his forehead. I didn't have any idea what to do, um, I didn't no CPR. I kept trying to get my phone

down on one one. I didn't want to leave them ahead to go outside to come out one one and I am. It seemed like it too had been forever to get there. I don't have any idea how long was it just seemed like a really long time. An ambulance finally came and took Michael to the hospital. Tammy was driven there by a friend from church. At the hospital, Michael was pronounced dead. Tammy was absolutely distraught, but I just kept saying, I should have I should have I

should have done something different. Um, I should be nicer. I shouldn't have said what I said when I told him that I hope he died. I shouldn't have said that. When the police came onto the case, they immediately questioned Tammy. I remember they asked me like a lot of questions. But I kept thinking that you know, they're gonna know, They're they're gonna know he shot himself. I mean, they have to know, right. The police were focusing on the

fact that Tammy's story kept changing. I kept thinking that I wouldn't have to say anything because my mind at that time struggling with thinking that it was my fault, that I should have done something different. Because she felt guilty for telling Michael she wished he was dead. Tammy didn't want the police to think it was a suicide.

I kept thinking, Okay, well, if I say that the gun got caught on a broken laundry basket there, that the trigger got caught on that then it wasn't my fault and it wasn't Michael's fault, and everybody can just live with a tragic accident. And so that's what I told people. Then my landlord called and said, what happened? Was he cleaning the gun? And that was the next morning. And what was I to say? No, he killed himself because I was a bad wife. Rather than saying that,

I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what happened. I didn't realize that saying these things was making me look guilty. I didn't realize that people were watching that every move I was drowning in my pain. And I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't um I can't describe that. A pathologist, Dr William Oliver, performed the autopsy on Michael's body and declared that the fatal

shot was not self inflicted. This, along with her changing statements, solidified the case against Tammy, and just a few months later, in June two seven, she was arrested for the murder of Michael Pool. Tammy's trial started on June nine, a year after Michael's death. Her defense attorney, Richard Thurman, was actually Michael's cousin by marriage, and if that sounds like it's weird, it is. The prosecutor was d A. Joe Hendrix and one of his assistants, Mike Baird. Their case

was straightforward. Tammy was the only one in the room with Michael she shot him. A firearms examiner from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Robinson, took the stand. He said the weapon used was the semi automatic rifle found in the bedroom Tammy and Michael shared. The prosecutors also called Dr Oliver, who testified that the gunshot wound was

inflicted not by Michael but by someone else. The prosecution also used Tammy and Michael's tumultuous relationship, her past run ins with the law, and her changing story against her. A woman who had been imprisoned in the same facility as Tammy testified that Tammy had confessed to her that she had gotten Michael quote out of the picture in order to be with someone else. Both of Tammy's kids

were also called to testify against her. I remember them hounding me with crazy questions like what we had to eat and what I was doing there the week before because it was spring break. Things like um did I see them ever like hit each other or anything like that, And I just I just didn't think that was a Those are questions to ask a child. It's like they were trying to get me to say that they were physically abusive to each other in front of everybody, or

like they were. They asked me if I had ever seen them be involved in drugs, and I I was not prepared to answer that on a stand. At fourteen, when it came time for Tammy's son, Christopher to take the witness stand, he said he saw Tammy and my Michael make up after their fight before leaving with his dad. Michael's sister testified that she believed Michael would kill Tammy and then himself, and Michael's brother in law also testified that Michael had said he would kill himself if the

circumstances did not improve. Defense attorney Thurman also cross examined the woman who had allegedly heard Tammy confess while she was in jail. Under cross examination, it came out that this witness had a motive of her own to sell Tammy out for perhaps less severe charges for herself, but the defense did not call any experts to refute the

States expert that Michael's death was not a murder. The trial was quick, the jury found Tammy guilty, and she was sentenced to life in prison plus twenty seven years. This is not happening. This is just this can't be happening. How did they not know? I didn't realize that. My lawyers did not think. I didn't realize that, um, there was no science to it, just one opinion. He assured me he was going to tell the jury how it happened,

and that never never happened. Timmy lost everything, including her kids. So did you think your mom did this when it first happened. I did. After her mother went to prison, Shannonsy says she felt worthless. I had always been told that I was just like her, So I started to think, well, maybe I am. Maybe I just can't be good. Maybe I don't know any good things to do. So Shannonsy started running with a bad crowd like her mom had done.

After I turned twenty one, I was really well. After I turned eighteen is when I moved out and I was able to, Oh goodness, do really crazy things because I felt like my whole life was not there, Like I didn't I didn't have my mom. My relationship with my dad was not good because of that, and so I just I kind of felt like a went off the rails. I guess you could say I started to party, to drink, being reckless and careless. For years, Shannonsy and

Tammy went without speaking. During that time, Tammy made a point to work on herself. She got clean from drugs and sought treatment for her childhood trauma. She started doing yoga and focusing on spiritual and physical well being. All the while she also kept working on her case. Tammy kept thinking, surely, at some point they're going to know. Surely, at some point somebody will see the truth. Then someone

did see. A pro bono attorney picked up Tammy's cave, and in two thousand eleven, they filed a motion for a new trial. At this point, Tammy reached out to her kids. She let them know she had a court hearing coming up and she wanted them to attend. And I remember going, and I remember sitting in that courtroom, and when I heard everything they were saying, it was like my mom was blown. All these years, Chantasy thought her mom was a cold blooded murderer, but now sitting

in the courtroom hearing the evidence. I couldn't fathom the fact that I was one of the ones that was against her when there was no possible way she could have done this everything they were laying out in court, There was no way. Something was seriously wrong with this case.

And at that moment, I knew that I had to find out and I had to get her side, and I had to help her because it wasn't fair, Like I felt like I had ripped the opportunity from her, from her telling me the truth because I didn't give her a chance, because nobody allowed me to really get the truth from her. They didn't let me see what really happened. From that moment on, I have believed in my mom and I will never back down again. In Tammy's motion was denied, but by she was back in court,

her story was immediately compelling to me. She was an immediately compelling person. This is Tammy's current lawyer, Brendan Bullard. He came onto her case in what what was compelling about her case that made you want to take it for? You know? Virtually nothing? Well, two things, uh, One, Tammy. The way Tammy told her story to me, I can't count the number of murder cases I've handled at this point, I don't want to think about it that. Uh, it just it did not jibe with with any of my

past experiences. It just the state's narrative, what what It just didn't seem to fit, especially after talking to her. One of the main pieces of evidence for Tammy's innocence is the results of a gunshot residue test. These results

had actually been presented at the trial. There was no gunshot residue because typically when you when you fire a gun, there is microscopic residue that sort of balloons out or plumes out from from around the gun and it ends up on your hands, it ends up in your clothes, and it can be tested for. So there's sort of one piece of forensic evidence that you would assume should be there if Tammy fired the shot that is wholly absent. And Tammy's new team finally has experts that contract to

what the state said at Tammy's trial. At that time, Dr Oliver, the state's expert, said that there is no dispute that the fatal shot in Michael's forehead was from close range. However, for Tammy to have fired a shot into her husband's head at at at the steep angle that Dr Oliver proposed, he would have to have been lying prone. She would have to have been holding the

rifle at his head and pointing towards his body. It's just hard to him unless he's unless he's shooting him when he's asleep, and there's no suggestion that that's the case. The post conviction team brought that testimony to a new expert, Dr James Downs, who has been a forensic pathologist for three decades. Dr Down says that the state's expert was flat out wrong. The bullet didn't go downward as Dr

Oliver had contended, but traveled upward into Michael's head. And Dr Down's words quote, it's physically impossible for this injury to happen with a rifle at that angle. But much more plausible and much more physically possible, is the diagram of Michael holding shot across his body. His arm is long enough to reach the trigger pull on the Winchester

to hold the shot against his head. And basically, when you look at the undeniable forensic evidence of the direction of the foot, the location of the pieces that rejectile, and the path of rejectile took through his head. When you trace that, it just seems obvious because it is where natural is more plausible. It is the explanation that best fits all of the data without excluding anything. And then, in a surprise twist, one of the original States experts

is now on Tammy's side. Christopher Robinson, formerly of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, had testified at the trial about the type of gun that was used. He's now retired with his own forensic practice, so Tammy's team went back to him and asked him to evaluate the evidence, something he had never been asked to do for Tammy's case. When Chris looked at the evidence, he simply could not avoid the conclusion that it was that it was a self inflicted shot and because it was consistent with with

other suicides he's handled. And that's the and that's his read on the evidence. And you know, his is a hard opinion to discount. He's willing to come in and say, look this this is I'm I'm in this because it is wrong, because the conviction is wrong. And if the g b I had asked me to look at the case the way I've since been asked to look the case, I would have come to the same conclusion. Robinson also

suggested that the gun be tested for DNA. If Tammy fired the shot, she would have had her hands around the trigger of the gun, around the butt and the trigger pull and the trigger guard, and so she would have likely deposited skin cells there, so that can be sampled and determined. And at this point what we fully expect DNA testing the show is that her skin cells

are not there. That they might be saying near the barrel of the gun or on the barrel gun where she she moved it, but they weren't near the trigger, and that Michael's and also that Michael's are Tammy's team is currently petitioning for the DNA testing. Between the lack of gunshot residue on Tammy or her clothes and dr downs and Christopher Robinson's testimonies, plus the potential new DNA evidence, Tammy, her family and her team are hopeful she will be

granted a new trial and come home. Shannessy says she's ready to have her mom finally back in her life and to start their relationship over. So, how is it now amazing? We talk every day Um, she's my biggest supporter. Somebody girl. Huh yeah she uh. She does everything she can to help. She is seriously the strongest woman I know at this point, Like she hasn't been through so much and yet she still sees the positive side of everything. But she she's smart, she's funny. Um, she's dedicated to

her family. Um, she talks to my kids every day that she calls. And she sent prison. I can't imagine how how happy I could have been if she would have been in my life when she was supposed to be, Like if we would have been able to talk when I turned eighteen or seventeen or sixteen even, and she could have told me that I am like, I am worth it, and I am okay, and I'm not like anybody else, and she's not like anybody else. And you can change, you can accept you're past and then change

your future. And when her mom does get out, Shantonsy's first order of business, We're gonna die her hair. That's what she wants. She wants me to bring a box of hair die and die her hair because she's yes, yeah, so And they were going to go to six Flags and Lake Winnie and take the kids to Florida, and I'm gonna be able to go on a date my fiance because she'll be able to watch my kids and she'll love it anyway. So it's gonna be amazing. So when you get out, Tammy, what's like the first things

you want to do? Um? Hug all three of my grandchildren. Um, maybe just be grateful for every second. Thank you, kiss the outside ground. If you want to help Tammy, you can go to change dot org and search Tammy Pool. There's a petition started by Shannonsy for her freedom. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank Amanda Knox for bringing Tammy's case to our attention and

for joining me on the show today. Starting next week, Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is taking a break for a while, but we'll be back with season two real soon. In the meantime, don't go anywhere. We've still got lots of these stories to tell, and you can still catch Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom every Thursday. See you in season two. 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 and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul, with additional production by Jeff Klaiburne and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer

Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at Wrongful Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one h