#323 Maggie Freleng with Tasha Shelby

On August thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven, Tasha Shelby was arrested and taken to the Biloxi Police Department. Throughout that sweltering Mississippi day, she sat handcuffed to a chair while Sergeant Warren Newman interrogated her relentlessly. Tasha and her new husband, Brian Thompson, were still mourning the loss of his two and a half year old son, Little Brian, who had died suddenly a few months before, but that didn't stop

And it turns into full fledged like rage where he's just like throwing everything off to the desk and he's put in his arms in his hands on either side of my chair and he's shaking me and look at me in my face and he was like, I know you did it, you baby killer. Like he's calling me a baby killer. He's calling me that I did this horrible thing, and he's funny, opens the door and says, this bitch is not gonna talk. Let's booker. My name

From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Tasha Shelby. Tasha Shelby was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on March eighth, nineteen seventy five, to Paul Douglas Shelby and Sherry Lynne Buttermore, but she was raised in Texas by her father, Paul.

My mother was accident from my life and so it was just me and my dad. I have several siblings that you know, he had with other ladies, but for the most part, it was just me and my dad and we just kind of lived a pretty nomadic life.

Tasha and her dad did everything together, and his love of music created some of her most favorite memories with him.

He loved classic rock, and anytime we would just be cruising around, he would always like school me on music. A song would come on the radio and it could be like Ynard Skinnard or led Zeppelin or the Beatles or whatever, and you know, we'd be sitting there looking at each other jamming and he'd turn it down and he's like, what's the next one? Or he would ask

Life with her dad was a blast. He also made time to take Tasha to visit his sister who lived in another state.

She was so cute and little.

This is Tasha's aunt Penny.

And she comes bursting through my door and puts her hands on her hips and says, you are my uncle Penny. It's Aunt Panny. She has no uncle Penny. Until she was a teenager, she called me uncle Panny.

And then when Tasha was fourteen, tragedy struck when.

My dad was thirty three, he was killed in a car wreck. And after that, I kind of just that's a little lost in the world, if I'm being honest.

Tasha went to live with her Aunt Penny in California for a year. Aunt Penny thought the world of Tasha.

She's smart, she's funny, she has a very very strong faith, she's very compassionate, empathetic towards people, and she's really a very strong woman, much stronger than me.

Even though Tasha was in the loving arms of Aunt Penny, she continued to feel lost without her dad, So she grew up fast.

In the tenth grade. Maybe three months in that's when I found that I was pregnant with my son. I was seventeen, and I just ever went back to school.

At seventeen, Tasha gave birth to her first child, her son, Dakota. By this time, she was back in Mississippi, and after a couple of years, she ran into an old acquaintance, Brian Thompson the Third, also known as Big Brian.

He's one of the first people I see from my old crew, and he, you know, was like, hey, you want to go down to the beach. I'm like, yeah, I haven't seen the latter in forever. And so from that moment forward, things kind of turned for us in another way. He was single, I was single, and we knew each other. We felt comfortable, and we started seeing ourselves following them love.

Tasha says Brian was trustworthy and dependable, and with him, for the first time in her life, she finally felt a sense of stability and security.

Everything just felt like permanent, and that's in my life had ever felt permanent, and I always felt like fleeting, and this was just a moment. It was going to pass and it didn't feel like that with him, and I think he just added to my life, so the first time I felt something or someone had added something for me.

And to me.

Brian and Tasha decided to move to a three bedroom trailer in Biloxi and blend their families. Brian had a two and a half year old son who was called Little Brian, and Tasha had her three year old son, Dakota. They also found out they were expecting a child together, a baby girl.

Then I did start having difficulties with my pregnancy. I had priaclanpsia. And I'm still young, and I've never had anyone talk to me about what pregnant life looks like or any of these things, you know. My dad certainly didn't talk to you about those things at fourteen and younger, you know. So I didn't know really what to look for.

Finally, on May fourteenth, nineteen ninety seven, Tasha and Big Brian's daughter, Devin, was born, but the labor and birth left Tasha with serious medical problems.

With Devin, she actually almost died and I almost died during the birth. They ended up passing to do an emergency sea section. Devan was pretty big when she was born. She was over eight pounds, and Dakota had only been like six pounds in something.

And Tasha is actually quite small, under five feet tall. Both her pregnancies had taken a toll on her body, so even before she had the sea section, she had already decided the birth would be a good time to get her tubes tied.

And so that's what I was recuperating from, you know, both of those surgeries first, just on any given day is difficult for a woman.

After about three days in the hospital, Tasha was able to go home to her family, Big Brian, Little Brian, Dakota, and Devin. Tasha was on bed rest with Big Brian doing most of the caretaking.

You know, I was given instructions to not do any heavy lifting or bending over. You know, it was going to take time to recuperate from the difficult you know birth I had just given and the surgeries On top of that, were.

You even able to pick up the babies if you wanted to?

It was very difficult. I was able to pick her up, but I didn't do it unless I was home alone without Brian, which only happened on two occasions, which was the night in question.

On May twenty ninth, nineteen ninety seven. Big Brian went to work around seven thirty pm. He had just started a new job at a beer distribution plant and he was on the night shift. Around the same time, Tasha's grandparents came over to help with the kids. They visited for about an hour, talking and watching little Brian play, then they left, taking Dakota with them for the night. Tasha says that before Devin was born, she and little

So we were watching The Brave Little Toaster, eating the popcorn, drinking the pink lemonade. Then it's you know, fast time and bedtime, and I put him to bed and I go to bed. I'm exhausted.

Tasha went to sleep with baby Devin in bed with her and little Brian in his bed, and then in the early morning hours. She was awakened by a loud thud.

And I immediately think Devin has fallen out of the bed. And I look and she's okay, and I'm like, okay, well, that's not what has happened. And so I get out of my bed and it's just like a couple of steps to the doorway and I look and I see, you know, Little Brian is on the floor and it appear me that he's having a seizure. He was laying on the floor, he was his eyes were rolled in the back of his head. His hands, I remember his hands just looking almost paralyzed, if you will. And I'm thinking,

So Tasha called Biloxi Regional Medical Center, the hospital she had just been discharged from. They said to get Little Brian there as quickly as possible. Tasha then called Big Brian, who raced home where Tasha had been trying to administer a CPR.

Brian comes in.

He's in a panic mode. He has him on the floor. He's doing CPR. We've got to go. We've got to go. I have to get a diaper bag for Devin. And when we're rushing to get to the van, Brian hits Little Brian's head on the van door, which is not on purpose. He's almost limped like at this time, and his eyes were just rolled in the back of his head.

In the meantime, hospital staff had called the police to investigate whether Little Brian had been abused. Most states, including Mississippi, have mandatory reporting laws if they're suspicion of child abuse or neglect. And when the police showed.

Up immediately they're asking questions. They're kind of hounding us a little. But I'm thinking this is normal. You know, there's an emergency, and I think this must be what people do when there's an emergency, whichcause they care so much they want to know what's happened.

Little Brian was transferred to a hospital in Mobile, Alabama for further treatment, but it was too late for any meaningful difference. The next day, Big Brian had to make the hard decision to take Little Brian off life support. The child was pronounced dead on May thirty first, nineteen ninety seven. Tasha and Brian left the hospital devastated, and we pull up to our house.

There's already people there waiting to take Devon from me, and they're there telling me that I can't have my daughter. And I'm like why, Like I'm not understanding, and I'm crying. I'm hysterical. We're just pulling in from the loss of Little Brian and they rip her out of my arms, and I'm on my knees, begging and crying and they're taking her. That's when I realized, my god, they seek that I have done something.

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 they 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

Door and they tell me and I am under arrest for the murder Brian Elwis Holmeston before and I kind of lost my bodily functions in that moment. My keyed everywhere and I'm asking can I please change and they're like, no, you can't do that. You have to go like this.

The police transferred Tasha to the precinct. It was summer and scorching hot in Mississippi, and so they take.

Me to this room that has absolutely no air conditioning, no fan, nothing, And they not to be dramatic, but it felt like I was chained, but it was handcuffed. So I'm handcuffed to one side of the chair was my left hand and one side of the chair was my right hand.

Sergeant Warren Newman of the Biloxi Police Department then started interrogating Tasha about the death of little Brian, and.

Warn Newman starts just digging in. You know, oh, we know that you did this. We already have the proof. But I understand you're probably suffering from postpart of depression. This was a lot of stress. You had three children. You just couldn't handle it. It was too much, like saying all these things to me, and I'm just crying. I'm thinking in my mind, like I've had three brothers and two sisters, and I pretty much helped raise all of my siblings. Like three kids is a piece of

Tasha told Officer Newman that that night little Brian fell out of bed. She didn't hurt him, but Officer Newman was not buying it, and then.

It turns into full fledged like rage where he's just like throwing everything off to the desk and he's put in his arms in his hands on either side of my chair and he's shaking my chair because I'm really little, and he's shaking me and look at me in my face and he's like, I know you did it, you baby killer, Like he's calling me a baby killer. He's telling me that I did this horrible thing and I just needed just make it better for myself and tell him the truth.

But Tasha said, the truth is what she already told him. She didn't hurt little.

And he finally opens the door and says, this bitch is not gonna talk. Let's booker.

At twenty two years old, Tasha Shelby was booked into the Harrison County Adult Detention Center to await trial.

I was in a state of shock. I thought, what is going on? Nobody was telling me like any answers, and I just thought someone is going to find out that they're wrong and they're going to give me everything back, you know.

Tasha waited three years in jail for her trial, all the while haunted by what happened to little Brian.

It just did not feel real.

And they would watch something on TV and I would be asleep and I could hear a baby crying on the TV, and I remember waking up thinking that it was all a train, that.

I had been arrested, and that I thought Devan was waking me up clying.

Tasha was appointed public defenders Michael Cox and Donald Smith. At trial, right from the start, Cox and Smith told Judge Robert H. Walker that they were overworked with a capital murder trial and did not feel comfortable representing Tasha, but Judge Walker dismissed their request and Tasha went to trial on June twelfth, two thousand. The prosecutors Remark Ward and Scott Lusk. At trial, they told the jury that little Brian died from shaking baby syndrome or SBS, the theory that if.

A child exhibits bleeding in the brain, bleeding in the eyes, and brain swelling, then that is only caused by one thing, and that one thing is shaking. So the real fallacy of a shaking baby syndrome is that it says nothing else could cause those injuries, just shaking.

This is Velina Beattie.

I'm a law professor at Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and I'm also the deputy director of our Academy for Justice.

She's also Tasha's post conviction attorney. Velina says that at trial, the state argued that Little Brian died from SBS, not from an accident, as Tasha said. The state star witness was doctor Leroy Riddick, the expert forensic pathologist who performs Little Brian's autopsy. Doctor Riddick testified that in addition to massive brain swelling, little Brian was covered in bruises less than two days old.

It's not surprising they believed the child died from shake and baby syndrome. There wasn't that much research out at that time challenging the hypothesis.

In fact, Tasha's own defense team agreed SBS caused the death, but they said it wasn't Tasha who did it. They said it had to have been Big Brian's doing, a theory Tasha vehemently did not agree with.

Absolutely, she did not know. She said, this child did not die from abuse by me or by my husband.

Absolutely, what the defense failed to argue though, was that it was impossible for Tasha to have shaken Little Brian so violently as to kill him. Remember, Tasha was under five feet tall and she was on bed rest after multiple surgeries and giving birth, and at three feet tall, Little Brian was big for his age, and they didn't mention this at all.

She could not physically have had the strength to pick up and shake or abuse a thirty three pound, two and a half year old child who was over half of her sets.

Big Brian also testified at trial he believed in Tasha's innocence, but because the prosecution was considering charging him as well, he was scared. In the end, he distanced himself from Tasha and actually cooperated with the prosecution. On the stand, Big Brian talked about his and Tasha's concerns about Little Brian's health.

Tasha was concerned about his development and that he was eating mud. He just didn't seem to be progressing at the same rate that Dakota, the other child in the household, who is approximately the same age, so they should be at, you know, approximately the same development level.

Big Brian also said that several weeks before his death, little Brian's eyes appeared bloodshot. He and Tasha had also noticed Little Brian's staring off into space, his eyes rolling back into his head. This phenomenon would now be diagnosed as a petite mal seizure. Big Brian testified that he and Tasha had taken Little Brian to the pediatrician, who suggested they see a neurologist. In fact, the appointment was scheduled for seven days after Little Brian's death. Tasha had

It was truly just a mate believe trial.

That's how Tasha's Penny remembers it.

They withheld evidence, they destroyed evidence. You know, they just lied about her. And you know she had out of the journals that she kept. In those journals, she talked about, you know, how much she's loved O'Brien and how much she loved the mom, and well, they took those journals and then they lost them, didn't find them.

The defense argued the best case they could for reasonable doubt that it was possible Little Brian had died from falling out of bed, or that he had a seizure, or even that Big Brian was responsible. However, it was not enough. On June sixteenth, two thousand, at the age of twenty five, Tasha was sentenced to life without parole. Sentenced to life in prison. Tasha struggled to come to terms with what was happening to her.

I didn't oh that, you know that this was real. Yet knowing that I didn't have my life, my children and my family, you know, everything in that moment just felt like it had been taken from me.

Even Big Brian was gone. The last time Tasha saw him, she was still in County jail, two years before she was convicted. It was her twenty third birthday, March.

Eight, rankteen ninety eight. We had a contact visitation. We actually got to hold each other and touch each other, and you know, it's only happy birthday. I love you, all of these things. Everything's gonna be okay. You know I'm here. He walked out that night and said, I will call you tomorrow. The next day, I call like I normally would, and I hear the recording that this number is no longer in service, and I have never spoken to him again, and I do not know what happened.

But others in her family have stayed in Tasha's life and continue to champion her innocence. The first time she visited Tasha in prison, her aunt Penny found Tasha just as she remembered her.

She was still the same Tash. I was still a little and cute and funny and smart, and you know, it's like no time it ever passed at all.

Although Tasha was doing life in prison, she was determined to make the most of her time, so she joined an art program and tutored women getting their ged, and she began taking college courses, including one that she says has changed her life.

The history of Southern women had to may Wells and Saney lou Hammer and learning about these women that went through these struggles. From that moment forward, I really started realizing who I am, really started realizing my voice, and that I don't have to accept this, that I am innocent, that I'm going to fight and I'm going to keep on fighting. Then I don't care what struggles I have to go through. I saw these women through way more

Tasha started finding appeal after appeal after appeal on her case, but all were denied. Finally, in twenty ten, she met Velena Beattie, who you heard from earlier.

I had just started working on shake and baby syndrome cases and realizing the extreme problems with that diagnosis and the number of people who had been wrongfully convicted based on that diagnosis.

According to the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, as of twenty twelve, an average of two hundred defendants were being convicted of SBS related crimes annually. Velena says that, unfortunately, it's not unusual in these cases for suspicion to fall on the child's caregiver.

The allegation is the person who was alone with the child, who is frequently a woman, must have abused the child and killed the child. And it's a horrific allegation.

In fact, symptoms once used to diagnose SBS have since been shown to be inconclusive.

In two thousand and one, there's this amazing researcher, doctor Plunkett, who uncovered that short falls so less than three feet tall can cause bleeding in the brain. And we now know that again there can be bleeding from small injuries or even no injuries at all, like the process of a traumatic birth can even cause bleeding in the brain.

In twenty fifteen, after Velina took on Tasha's case, her team filed a second post conviction relief petition arguing that the conviction should be thrown out base on new scientific research on shaken baby syndrome.

Once we get the medical records, we had experts who were radiology experts, biomechanical experts, and forensic pathology experts.

So one of.

Each look at her case and look at the medical records to give us an opinion as to whether they thought the cause of death was abuse or shaking. So they all came back and said, no, they did not think it was abuse or shaking. That shortfall definitely could have caused the bleeding in the brain, and having a seizure could have been part of this as well.

A short fall and a seizure just like Tasha said she heard and saw. The experts also noted that Little Brian had asthma and difficulty breathing and lack of oxygen could have contributed to his collapse. They were also able to demystify the alleged bruising seen on little Brian's There.

Were these two large areas on little Brian's back and on his buttocks and part of his leg that looked like bruising and looked really horrible, And photos of little Brian were shown to the jury and the jury was told that those were massive bruises, when instead they were actually a birthmark known as Mongolian spots. So it wasn't abuse, it was a natural thing this child had. It's nothing harmful, but doctor Ridick mistakenly said that they were bruises.

Armed with all this information, Billina reached out to the state's star witness at trial, doctor Riddick, who had been adamant that the cause of Little Brian's death was SBS. They sent doctor Ridick all the new information and waited and waited. Then finally he calls.

He leaves a message saying, you know, maybe I made a mistake.

Doctor Ridick, who died in twenty twenty one, actually revised his diagnosis in this twenty seventeen deposition.

He says that I made a mistake on my conclusions and that given the information I have now that the child died from hypoxic and soul philopathy with herniation due to seizure disorder.

Doctor Ridick literally changed the death certificate. So the death certificate no longer says homicide. It now says accident as the cause of death.

And that gave Tasha's team the opening they needed to be granted and evidentiary hearing. At the hearing, doctor Riddick's testimony lasted half a day. He admitted he was wrong, but that wasn't enough for the court. Tasha's motion for a new trial was denied.

That judge ultimately decided that he simply believed doctor Riddick's trial testimonymore.

Wow, this man is sitting there telling him I was wrong, and he's telling him you're.

Not wrong exactly exactly.

I mean, it's not funny, it's just absurd.

It's shocking to me that the medical examiner who the state relied on to convict Tasha Shelby, that he changed his opinion and the court just dismissed that. It's just horrifying to me. That we can't acknowledge when science changes, and even when the experts change their opinions, we have to still keep people convicted.

Tasha now has a habeas corpus petition pending in the Southern District of Mississippi, and she's waiting to hear whether the judges will grant her a hearing, reverse her conviction, or uphold her conviction. Penny now lives on a farm in Tennessee with lots of animals, including donkeys that Tasha's excited to meet, and there's a room for Tasha at Penny's house when the time comes.

So I've sent her pictures of what her view will be like once she gets here. I'm just waiting on the phone call and I will dribe the Mississippi and get her and bring her home.

Tasha hopes to someday be reunited with her children. Devin was a newborn and Dakota was three when Tasha was arrested. When Dakota turned eighteen, he reached out to Tasha and they've been in touch occasionally via email, but she hasn't spoken to Devin and hasn't seen either child since. So Tasha wants to send a message to them in hopes that they're listening.

Dakota and Devin, I want you to know that I love you so much. I'm a missue and I think of you every single day. I don't know what you think or what you've heard, but I want you to hear from me, as your mom, that I am innocent and I will continue fighting for my innocence as long as it takes. I look forward to the day that we could be reunited, it can see one another again face to face, and I pray and hope to restore and rebuild all that has been lost between us. I

To find out more about Tasha and how you can help, go to Free Tasha Shelby dot com. You can sign a petition for her freedom to be delivered to Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves at change dot org. These and other links are on our bio page. Next Time Unwrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Janetta Carr.

He asked me if I was in a gang. He told me that I was a danger and to society and that I was going to prison for f and live. When I asked my mom, he told me that it was not a girl Scouts meeting and that my mom was not allowed to come down there.

Thanks 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 Flamm and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson, and story editor Sonia Paul. The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by

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