I'm Jason Flomm. Since I began recording Wrongful Conviction back in twenty sixteen, I've interviewed hundreds of Xonneries, and unfortunately that's just the tip of the criminal injustice iceberg. So I've invited new voices to host the show, including people who have personally experienced the horror of that system. This is one of those interviews.
In the summer of nineteen eighty seven, Joyce Watkins lived a good life in Nashville, Tennessee.
She worked a full.
Time job, went to church every Sunday, spent time with her boyfriend, Charlie Dunn, and was preparing to adopt a child. She had a large extended family, including a four year old great niece who lived in Georgia. That summer, the little girl was staying with other family members in Kentucky, but things were not going well. Joyce got a call from her sister, who was watching the child, asking if Joyce could come and pick her up. Busy with her own life, Joyce told their sister she couldn't care for
the child. Over the span of a week, Joyce's sister called several more times, each call more frantic than the last. Finally, Joyce agreed to come pick up the little girl and take her back to Nashville. Joyce and Charlie took her home, noticing almost immediately that she was acting strangely and suffering from abnormal vaginal bleeding. At the hospital, it was clear that the little girl didn't only have a vaginal injury, but was bleeding in her brain. She received emergency care
and was placed on life support. The next day, the four year old died. In an investigation that relied on an erroneous autopsy report and little else. Both Joyce and Charlie were charged with the sexual abuse and death of the child. They were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. This its wrongful conviction. My name is Kimba Smith. I'm a mother, wife, author, and criminal justice advocate. For me, the work of advocating for prison and sentencing reform is personal.
When I was a student in college, I was caught up in a physical, abusive relationship with a drug dealer. He was killed and I was held responsible for his drug crimes. In nineteen ninety four, at the height of the War on Drugs, I was sentenced to twenty four and a half years in prison. When I was just twenty three years old myself. Thankfully I didn't have to serve my full sentence. My case caught the attention of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and many other organizations, as
well as the host of this show, Jason Flom. They fought for me, and I was granted executive clemency by President Clinton. My guest today is a woman who inspires me with not only her story, but her incredible resilience and faith, Miss Joyce Watkins and her attorney, mister Jason Gishner.
Okay, my name is Joyce Watkins and I'm seventy four years old, seventy five years old. I live in Franklin County. Thanks are going real well for me now, I don't have any complaints.
Hey, I'm Jason Gishner. I'm the senior legal counsel at the Tennessee Innocence Project and our office had the great honor of representing Joyce in court on her case.
Well, thank you so very much. And Miss Joyce, you have such a sweet spirit and no one could look at you and anticipate that you have this journey. And I wanted to know more about what your life was like before all of this happened.
I worked in a TI factory, I be at car ties, was working doing good, ready to adopt the key, give some kid a nice home to live in, you know, and I basically just work church sports, I love football, travel, I love my family. So I was just a quiet, laid back person.
Jason, This is where I would like to transition to you. How does a woman like miss Watkins go from being a law abiding, sentence, church going woman, hardworking to being sentenced to life in prison.
Unfortunately, Joyce's story is consistent with what we see in a lot of wrongful convictions. You know, this was really a perfect storm of things that went wrong to make this happen. You know, Joyce and Charlie. Charlie Dunn was Joyce's co defendant who was her boyfriend at the time, and the two of them were both arrested in nineteen eighty seven for a rape and murder that they didn't commit, and neither one of them have ever been in trouble
for anything in their life. Joyce is in Madison and she starts to get phone calls from a family member that's in Kentucky who's taking care of her great niece, who's a four year old girl and she's asking Joyce, can you come pick the little girl up? Well, Joyce has a full time job. As she told you, she was in the process of adopting a child, but didn't have any children of her own at that point, so
she doesn't have daycare. She doesn't have anybody who can watch a child during the day, so she's not able to pick her great niece up. So Joyce says, there's nothing I can do about it. But then there's a week that comes along and the calls start to get more and more frantic, and Joyce realizes that something is wrong, or at least concerning. I should go pick the little
girl up and find out what's the situation here. So on a Friday evening, Joyce had gotten out of work that day, she drives out to Kentucky to pick the little girl up. Charlie gets caught up in this whole thing for no other reason than because he didn't want his girlfriend to have to drive in the dark, so he drives along with Joyce to go pick her up in Kentucky. They picked the little girl up, they head back to Nashville, and pretty quickly when they arrive in Nashville,
Joyce realizes something is wrong. She notices that the little girl has some vaginal bleeding and she's just not acting right. So Joyce does what anybody would do. At this point, it's the middle of the night. By the time they get back to Nashville, it's after midnight. Joyce calls up the little girl's mom in Georgia. She had been staying with this family member in Kentucky. This was nothing out of the ordinary, sort of something that this family did.
You know, nieces and nephews would go stay for periods of time with family members. So Joyce calls up the family member, the child's mother, who is Joyce's niece also because this was her great niece, and says, hey, something's wrong with your daughter. I'm noticing these medical issues. What should I do about it? So mom says, don't do anything about it. I'm going to come to Nashville and
we'll get this sorted out. So everybody goes to bed, and then they wake up the next morning and the person hasn't arrived from Georgia yet, and Joyce realizes that the situation has gotten worse. The little girl still bleeding and she's not acting right, something's just off. So Joyce says, I can't wait anymore. I'm going to bring her to get some medical care. So Joyce takes her to the hospital, which is, you know, what you'd want somebody to do
in that situation. Unfortunately, by the time they get to the hospital, the situation is deteriorating and the little girl is crashing and they realize that not only does she have a vaginal injury, but she's got a subdural hematoma, she's got a head injury, and her you know, her brain is bleeding, and that becomes the urgent issue that they do everything they can to try and figure out why she has this this hemorrhaging in her brain and if they can do anything about it, and tragically, the
little girl dies the next day.
Basically, you have this, you know, two month period where Beebee was at a relative's house and then with her and mister Dunn with them for nine hours, and they chose to focus in on those nine hours when there was documentation that there was stuff that had been going on previously as well. So can you give us some more background information to this case.
So initially what happens is that everybody is focused on what was going on in Kentucky. This little girl was with Joyce and Charlie for nine hours, and the majority of that time she was sleeping, and part of that time she was driving from Kentucky to Nashville. Nobody really thinks anything strange happened in Nashville. After all, Joyce is the person that brought this child in for medical care and called her mother as soon as she knew something
was wrong. So nobody's even looking at these people, you know, they're sort of focusing on what was going on in Kentucky, and there had been some strange circumstances there. There had been an investigation from the Family Services department out there.
But then things change after the autopsy is conducted. There's an autopsy that is conducted by the assistant medical examiner in Nashville who tells the prosecutor that I know from looking at the brain slides in this autopsy that the head trauma to this little girl had to have happened within this window of time that she was with Joyce
and Charlie. And the reason she says she knows that is because there was a particular type of cell that she was looking for a healing cell which is called a histiocyte, and she says, because I didn't see this cell in the brain slide, that tells me the window of time when this head injury could have happened was when this nine hour window when the little girl was with Joyce and Charlie missus.
Joyce, I wanted to ask you because I mean, you know, I'm formally incarcerated and I actually you know, turned my self in, but just this was such a nightmare for you, and to know that you were preparing to adopt the child and to be faced with these accusations. How did you feel when you were actually arrested and going through this process knowing that you were innocent.
Well, I got medical attention for her because I thought that was the right thing to do. So when I got accused of that, you know, I knew it wasn't true. So it wasn't a time to start stressing over something that you didn't do. You try to find ways to prove that you didn't do it. You just have to be positive thinking about everything and not just fall apart. So I didn't give up, you know, point fingers of
saying anything, lying on people. I just just didn't stress all that, and it was very hard to except.
So, Jason, if you don't mind going into initially with troal, what was miss Watkin's defense, what was presented by her attorney.
I mean, the defense was essentially, these people didn't do it. You know, they were interviewed, they said they didn't do it, and there was you know, nothing about them or their character that should make anyone believe that they did it,
which we're all appropriate things to say. The problem is that the jury was confronted with a medical opinion from an expert on a subject that they don't know anything about, that none of us would know anything about if we weren't, you know, didn't go to medical school ourselves, and nobody
told them that that opinion was wrong. The big revelation that doesn't come out until years later is that the type of cell that the medical examiner was looking for in these brain slides is not a cell that ever goes to that part of the brain. That's not a thing. It doesn't ever happen. Trying to date this injury by
looking for this cell is an impossibility. And the other thing that the medical examiner failed to take into account, which didn't come out until twenty twenty one when we started having these exoneration hearings, was that the cells that were evident in the vaginal slides were cells called macrophages that showed that this is an injury that had happened in the days prior, well before this child was ever
with Joyce or Charlie. So there was no medical evidence whatsoever connecting the head injury to this nine hour window. And there was definitive medical evidence that whatever happened in terms of any type of vaginal injury happened well before the child was with these two people. And you know, if you put yourself in a jurors shoes in that situation,
what are you going to do. I have a lot of blame that I throw around in this case, but it's not really at the jury, because I don't know what the jury could have done otherwise, because nobody gave them the information they needed to hear. If they hear from a doctor saying I know these people did it and medically this is why, and that's not contested, then they're stuck. And that's that's effectively what happened. And the other interesting thing that happened during the trial, which you know,
Joyce can talk about if you'd like her to. Is that the prosecution tried to offer Joyce a deal in the middle of the trial. You know, they offered her, effectively a one year sentence to flip on Charlie, to say that he raped and murdered this little girl. And Joyce flat out turned them down in the middle of the trial and walked right back in the courtroom and you know, and waited for the jury to give her
a life sentence. And Charlie's family never knew that. They learned about that at the exoneration hearing in December of twenty twenty one. So you know, these kids grew up thinking that their dad was a murderer and thinking that he had gotten brought into this thing because he had gone along for a ride with Joyce, and they never knew that. You know, Joyce effectively took a life sentence because she was unwilling to lie on Charlie and say he did something he didn't do.
Joyce, So wow, that miss Joyce. That is Can you share more with us about that if you don't mind, I mean, because that is definitely again commendable in this day and age. If you know a young person goes through the system and is bought with that type of opportunity to free themselves. You know, it's in the culture just to you know, take that. But I know you knew your innocence. Can you explain to us that process and what you were thinking.
I just didn't feel like I need to lie and send that man to prison for something that I know he didn't do. So you know, when I was off of the year to say that he did it, I'd say, well, I'm not going to do that, and I went back in the courtroom. You know, you don't do things just save yourself, but you're hurt that person and you're hurting their family. So I just thought I did the right thing about not just lying on the man because he hadn't done anything.
It's just interesting how the government will create opportunities like that. You know, with my situation, I was pregnant and they fed me information that they wanted me to say and thought that I would say what they wanted to say
in order to save myself. And what baffles me with your situation again is you know they were targeting you, then they wanted you to cooperate to flip on mister Dunn, And it just seems evident throughout this that they weren't even interested in finding out and getting justice for the victim.
How do you feel about that? As far as whoever the prosecutor was, whoever those parties, they were just wanting to get a conviction by any means necessary, you know, instead of doing their jobs and trying to seek and find justice, using you guys escape ghoasts because they needed an arrest and to block somebody up. How do you feel about that?
It was wrong what they did. You don't hate anybody for anything, but you know that what they did was wrong, and there were things that they could have done and should have done to find out the truth. But since they had focused on us, that is all they wanted. They just wanted the conviction to close the case. They didn't care if you did it or not. They didn't care if they had the right person the wrong person. They just wanted a conviction, and that's what they thought
they was gonna get. But I just wasn't gonna fall into that trap.
As you speak about, you know, the conviction. Once both sides finished speaking and the guilty verdict was handed down, what were your thoughts at that moment.
Oh, I was let down. I was heartbroken over it, you know, because I knew I wasn't gonna get a chance to spend much more time with my family. And it just was a hurting situation. But as the years went through, you know, my family tried to get me out, but then my family, my siblings started passing away. So I lost four brothers and a sister, you know, seven or eight aunties and office and stuff. But I didn't give up. I just kept hoping and praying and trusting.
But it was a hurting situation. But you know, like I say, I don't flip or get stressed over something because that doesn't help. That doesn't help solve the problem anyway.
Your resilience, Miss Joyce, I mean you tap in with the ancestors and all of what our ancestors went through to be where we are today, that resilience just oozes out of you. Because your positivity through all of this is remarkable and I don't see how you have such peace. But if you could, can you tell us about the parole process and when were you eligible for parole? Let me just start there after how much time were you actually eligible to go up for parole what.
The law said. I was to do seventeen point five under the old law, but I did the twenty seven years. But I had went up for parole two or three times and they turned me down. So at the Charlie Pass I made parole. The little girl's mother, my nieces and my sister, they came to the parole board and told them she don't know what happened. She needs a lot of goal, you know, she don't know. They don't know what happened, so I might parole. But being on parole wasn't a nice thing to be, not a Tennessee.
I'm kem before it's worth. I'm shocked and have always been shocked that they parole Joyce at all. I mean, as you know, most of the time, if you're going to get paroled, you've got to go in there and say, yeah, I did it, I'm sorry, and let me prove to you that I'm sorry. Joyce every time she has ever been asked about this by anybody, said I didn't do this.
You've got somebody in prison who's innocent. You know, a lot of times, unfortunately, people who are wrongfully convicted who maintain their innocence don't parole out because they're never going to be in a position where they admitted that they committed a crime and that they're sorry they committed a crime because they didn't commit.
A crime, right, And that is an excellent point. And you're right, that is what they expect to say, that you did it and that you thrush your remorse. And so it was meant to be to happen that way. But how did it feel, Joyce walking out of prison? And what were some of the conditions of parole once you were released.
I had certain places I could go, such streets I could go on, you know, certain peoples I could talk to. They were come into your house when they got ready tear it up.
Whatever hold on, Miss Joyce. You said they would come in your house and tear it up.
They would go through everything you had, everything, every piece of everything.
Joyce, explain to Kimba. Because you weren't just on parole because of the rape conviction. You were also on the sex offender Registry for life. So that's like parole times one thousand.
Sure is. I had certain streets I could go to, certain peoples I could talk to, certain places I could go. I had to be at home six o'clock. I had to get permission to go to church. Such stuff I could have in the house, No Internet, they would check myself phone.
Couldn't live within a thousand feet of a school or a daycare facility, not even close.
Not even close to a school or daycare. I couldn't pass by during school hours. If kids was walking the streets and I was on the post, I had to go in till they leave.
And again it speaks to your your perspective and resilience through it, because I know there are some people that are on sexophreond or registries where that could be quite challenging and depending on you know, who's supervising them, it could be the least little thing and they could be back, you know, in prison. So I appreciate you sharing what that was like. Jason, can you tell the audience how the Innocence Project of Tennessee Nashville became involved in Miss Joyce's case.
So most people they either write us letters from prison, or their families reach out to us, or sometimes their former lawyers reach out to us. Joyce paroled in twenty and fifteen, and our organization started in Tennessee in twenty nineteen and Joyce just showed up. We don't get a lot of walkins over at the Tennessee Innocence Project, but Joyce walked in and basically said, all right, I was wrongfully convicted. I'm still on the sex offender registry for
a rape that I didn't commit. Y'all need to hear my story, and y'all need to help. And you know you've probably figured out by now that you know Joyce is a force of nature and there was no saying no to Joyce when she did that. So she she came in, she told the story to everybody, and then,
you know, Joyce and I eventually started working together. And you know, when I first met with Joyce, there was another person in the office with me who was working here, and she kind of laid it all out and then I kicked that person out and I closed the door. I said, all right, Joyce, like, here's the deal. If we're going to do this, you need to tell me your story, like legit. I need to believe you. I want to know the real deal. And she didn't hesitate. She's like, I did not do this. I am one
hundred percent innocent. Y'all need to figure out how you're going to fix it. But I did not do this. And you know, part of me at the time was also like, well, look, I get that maybe you're saying you didn't do it, but what about what about Charlie. Now Charlie's passed away at this point, you know she can she can say whatever she wants about Charlie. Nobody's ever going to know, and it's just me and her
sitting in my office. But she is exactly the same in that situation as she is when you interview her in a pot cast or you put her on TV. Charlie did not do this. That man is innocent, and you can't just get me exonerated. You need to exonerate him too, because he doesn't deserve this. His family doesn't deserve this. And you know we're a two for one package. If you're going to take this case, you're taking both of us.
Wow, that is yes. I can see her now that I've talked to her more. I can see her coming into your office and saying and doing just those things. And I know you briefly touched it. But what stuck out the most as you were doing this post conviction work that ultimately led to miss Joyce's innocence.
So, I mean, at the heart of it, like we talked about before, this is a medical case, right, There are all of these other things in the mix. But we knew that if we were going to get these people exonerated and their names cleared, we were going to have to medically make everybody understand that they didn't commit
this crime. So we had these phenomenal experts, so we were able to really establish that the medicine and the science and the case was wrong, and it had always been wrong, and everything we know now, you know, over the last three decades was more evidence that it was wrong. So we had that. The other thing that we had going for us, which was huge in this case, is that there's a conviction review unit that exists within the Nashville Davidson County District Attorney's Office, and they take these
cases seriously. You know, they conducted their own independent investigation when we brought them this case, and they went out and talked to their own people and confirmed that Joyce and Charlie were innocent. And after we were able to collaborate on this case with their office, we jointly went back to court together and asked the judge to dismiss
these charges and exonerate these people. And Glenn Funk, who's the district attorney in Nashville, was at the court date and stood up in the court room and apologized to Joyce and Charlie's family and told them, you know that they're innocent and this never should have happened. And on behalf of the District Attorney's office, he's sorry what happened
to them. And that was big right, because that was really the first time that anybody that had anything to do with the state stood up and acknowledged what happened and told Joyce that they were sorry for what happened.
Can you explain when the judge did say that her case was dismissed, what that feeling was like for you, having walk this journey with her, and then miss Joyce, I would like to hear your response as well.
It was a lot. I mean, it was a pretty moving, emotional day. And I'm not really an emotional kind of guy, but it was hard to keep it together that day. I mean, Joyce was there, her family was there, Charlie's whole family was there, My whole family was there. The Tennessee Innocence Project was there. I mean it was a packed house and it was I mean heartbreaking how we got there. But that day was a celebration. And that day, I mean, that day was wonderful.
Miss Joyce.
When I was exonerated, you know, and she said you've been exonerated, I said, thank you Jesus. Was just it was just a happy, happy day. And I said right there and I said, you know, one of my niece, she said, I tell you what you're gonna do. The first thing I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go to the cemetery and visit my mother and my sisters and brothers funerals. So I got a chance to do that. You know, it was a I mean, you just don't know how happy I was.
You know.
I think that's the happiest I ever been in my life. You know, even if I'd have got a million dollars, I wouldn't be that happy, you know, just because to me, I would have said, well this money. But you know, that was one happy day. And when the charges were dropped, oh, I can't even explain that because I know I didn't have to live under nobody else's rules like the Jersey say you have to answer to anybody. So I just
had her aunt toode, you not listen to nobody. You know, my first place I went to was my sister's house. I usually have to call and say, well, I'm going to Nashville. I ain't have to call nobody. I just got my kids and my purse and I told my neighbor next door. She said, mis chourge, where are you going? I said, up, fixed to go to maps, got in the card, left, She said, okay. You know when I came here, she said her, Are you sure?
Was happy?
I said, I have to answer nobody. It was just just the happy.
Thing to do.
Just your patience and faith and will to know that things were going to change. And you know, twenty seven years is not you know, twenty seven months. Like you held on to that faith and resilience for twenty seven years, and there's no ill, angry feelings in your heart. And I think that is what is just simply amazing. You want to comment, you.
Know, I getting anger. It doesn't help. They're on at least all strokes, heart attacks, dimssion, losing your mind, you know, want to commit suicide. Uh, I'm not angry. I don't have any anger in me. I mean, I've tried to get angry, but it didn't work. So I said, well, I said, well, you know, I just need to stay like I am. I have no anger in me. I don't hate anybody for what happened. I just don't have any anger.
I mean, I think Joyce is really the perfect example to be talking about these cases. I mean, one because of all the things you're seeing, right, her grace and her forgiveness and the stuff that sort of shines out from her, but also because she's just so innocent, right, I mean when you dig into her case, I mean, she's just innocent every way you possibly look at this, and it highlights the tragedy of these cases and the reality of these cases that this actually happens to people
like Joyce. You know, good people who've never been in trouble, who are doing everything right, who are productive citizens, And if it can happen to Joyce, it can happen to anybody. And the fact that one that it happened to someone like her, and the strength and perseverance that has gotten her through it, and the grace that she's able to talk about it now, it's just so inspiring. Sure to those of us that do this work, but it's enlightening
for anybody who gets to hear her story. Which it's why it's so important that she tells her story and that she's gracious enough to continue to tell her story, because unfortunately, there's lots of other choices that are locked up right now for stuff that they didn't do, and it's impossible to navigate these cases on your own from
behind bars without help. And unless people recognize that the problem exists and work with the organizations and help the people out there that are trying to work on these cases, other people like Joys don't get represented, and these stories don't get told, and these people don't get their freedom. Ms.
Joyce, you know, I wish you nothing but success as you move on, and you know, I pray that your story continues to be uplifted so it can help bring some light to the injustice that happens in our system.
I hope it help, and I hope it do some good into justice cinema, and I hope they look at cases a little bit closer than what they're doing so this never happened to someone else. Just because you know, you don't present all the evidence. I just wish they would do the right thing about everything, because they're not accomplished nothing by sending them some people of the prison.
What's the final take that you have for our audience today from your experience and what you've shared.
To never give up, Never give up. You know there are organizations somebody out there will help you, but you can't give up and expect to achieve your freedom. You just can't give up. You just have to keep going and going until you get to the right person. And that's what I did until I got to the right person. But don't give up. Whatever you do, don't give up.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host, Kemba Smith. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Watis. The senior producer for the episode is Jackie Paully, and our producers are Leila Robinson and Jeff Cliburn. Our editor is Roxandra Guidi. The music in this production is three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Routh. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
wrong Conviction. As well as at Lava for Good on all three platforms. You can find me on Instagram at Kemba Smith and read more about my story in my memoir poster Child. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one.
Next week, on the guest hosted episodes of Wrongful Conviction, Laura and I Writer will be back with an absolutely insane false confession story. She's going to speak with Vincent Ellerby, who served almost twenty five years in prison after he was falsely identified in a deadly arson attack on a subway token booth, an event that captivated New York City.
Vincent was only recently exonerated, totally innocent, and this emotional interview is the first time he's sharing his story publicly anywhere. Listen next Monday. This is a must listen episode. Listen next Monday in the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed