#333 Maggie Freleng with Ashley Jordan

In the early morning hours, Ashley and Albert woke up to find Mackenzie in distress. Concerned, they took her back to the hospital. Maybe a couple of hours later. The doctor comes in and told that she passed, and my egg mouther hit the floor. He started crying and screaming of rolland and I just kind of sat there looking at the wall. And then I looked at the doctor and said, go get my baby ready so we can

take your home. I think I was just in the nile and shop because you just didn't tell me that my daughter. We did, and then Columbu's police department showed up, and that's when everything pretty much went to hell. My name is Ashley Jordan's. I spent twelve years and two months in the Georgia Department of Corrections prison system. Ropefully convicted the recurme that I did not commit from love of for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today.

Ashley Jordan's actually Jordan was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on May thirteenth, nine four, to Brenda Dolores Jones and Thurman Jordan's sr oh Astley. Growing up, let me tell you about the little Poe. That's a nickname Poe. That's Ashley's mom, Brenda. She was question. She was a sweet little girl. They never had to get no whippers for nothing. She was shod and you know I didn't take much to herd of feeding. Ashley grew up with three brothers in a

military family. After just a few years in Mississippi, Ashley's dad moved their family to Detroit, Michigan. Ashley adored her dad. My dad was very hands on with us. He always made sure we we showed love to each other as brothers and sisters. He helped pray with us at night. Ashley's family loved any excuse to get together, standon is very big, and they like to cook out a lot, so there's a cook out for every thing. We love

to get together and eat. So that's one of the fondest memories I have growing up is being able to get together with our family memberis and we eat and have a good time. But behind closed doors, family life wasn't as picture perfect as it seemed. My childhood life with my mom and dad, Mary was very I like to call it chaotic. It was just a lot of It was always a lot of arguing going on. My mom was a heavy drinker um and my dad wasn't, so a lot of times that was a problem because

they bumped heads with a lot of things. Her parents marriage eventually fell apart, so Ashley's mom packed up and moved with the kids back to their home state. So we moved back to Mississippi in my mom got a job and pretty much just settled us there. I don't think we understood as kids that we were gonna be living in in in Mississippi. I believe that we were just going to visit and we're gonna make home to Detroit. But we started registering for school. It just kind of

came out of nowhere. Where we had to start over again as kids. Brenda worked hard as a single parent to make ends meet. She and Ashley are close now, but at the time, Ashley wanted to get out of that situation. To be honest with you, I didn't want to say my mom anyway at that time because of her drinking. Um, I just didn't like it. All my other friends their moms did drink like that, So I saw a difference in that pattern. Like I said, she was a great mother when it came to taking care

of us. It's just the drinking was very it put it put a strain on me in our relationship. Early on, Ashley opted to leave her mom's house and instead live with her grandparents. However, things weren't much better. Once she made the move. She started to notice similarities between her grandfather's be savior and her mother's My grandfather, her dad was a heavy drinker, heavy drinker, was put in lightly. He was an alcoholic. So I've seen the pattern of

where my mom where the filtered on into her. So in the house of my grandmother, we dealt with a lot of the same chaos. At the same time she was facing these family troubles, Ashley It was also maturing and learning to live her own life. Here's Brenda again, and she grow up and got older. She still coming out of it and still a door that She became machill leaders school stuff like that, played basketball Northeast Jones Tigers. Yes, Lady Tigers. M Yeah, she was a basketball players, chill

leader with the fast sixty legs. Yes. Ashley also loved school. She was smart and ambitious. She even had a career picked out for herself, one that she admits was inspired by her own unique smile. You see, not have a gap between my teeth, and I've always been very fond of teeth. I like teeth and how they look, and I wanted to be orthodonas but Ashley wound up on

a different path. The turning point came one day when she was out shopping with a friend and we were shopping at a place that was right next door to the the the recruiting office for the all of the branches in the military, and it was a recruiter setting outside smoking a cigarette. Ashley was impressed by his uniform. She told him he looked spiffy, and he said, you want one? I said whatever, And before I knew it.

I was sitting in his office looking at brochures. In my family, they always encourage you go to college, go to college, and I thought, you know what, I've just been in twelve years in school. I don't want to go to college at He's not right there. I did. She did want to get a college education eventually, so Ashley was sold on the idea that the military would finance her ambition. And all that can people was pay for college. Pay for college. I didn't tell anybody I

was joining got into my mom. I didn't tell anybody. I just kept a secret. After high school graduation in two thousand two, Ashley's friends started going off to college and my mom came on three one day and she said, so, where do you guy going on? And I said what do you mean? She said, are you going to school or you're gonna start working or something? And I was like, well, I got something else playing. She said like what, Because you haven't said anything to me. I looked at One

day my baby came home. She came home from work say she was gonna join the arm I said a whole On the day she told Brenda the news, Ashley brought an army recruiter to her mom's house to meet and talk about her plans. So he comes walking up the driveway and she looked at me and she just thoughted ring me and she was so excited. Said are you happy? And she said, yes, I'm happy. She said, this is a great career. My mom was the most

supportive person I had in my army career. Ashley originally joined as part of the Army Reserve and wound up stationed in South Korea in two thousand seven. She soon worked her way up to sergeant. Ashley loved the military, and after only three months in South Korea, she was about to find another love. Tell me how you meet Albert? But my first time, I was actually going into my barracks room for the first time, and he walked by

and I complimented his calf muscles. He got some nice cat muscles, and he looked at me and was looking at me like this girl was weird. Albert devil Budd was a mail clerk in Ashley's unit. She would often see him around. He was Lord Reagan and I was I ranking, So he just kind of kept it professional, going back and forth and beyond. Every guy at that unit was trying to get my attention to talk to me,

but he wasn't and that kind of intrigued me. So I started to like him and I kind of went after him um and one day I stopped and talking to him and we started watching DVDs together and we realized we had that we love the same kind of movies and the same kind of music, and that's kind of where the conversation started. And so I knew we were going on our first date. So besides his cabs, what else did you like about him when he dressed?

I have this I love the way he dressed, and I realized that he was really nice, like beyond just being a soldier, he was a really nice guy. There's was a whirlwind romance. You know, it was kind of quick, but I don't have a time limit on love. I'm gonna say that I'm the kind of person that I is. There is there, and I'm gonna go for it. So we met, we started dating August two thousand and seven.

We got engaged September two thousand seven, and we got married over nine, two thousand and seven, and the couple had more good news while still in Korea. After their engagement, Ashley found out she was pregnant. I threw the pretty segess in space and she looks, look look, and he looked at me. He's like, what does this mean. Let's say that means we're pregnant. So we were super excited to be having a baby. She and Albert wanted to have their baby in the States, so Ashley was able

to get an honorable discharge. I want to be a hands on mom. I don't want to be thinking that I'm gonna be shipped here and shipp there and my kids are being transferred from here to there. I just didn't want to deal with that. I'd rather be at home with my kids. Before coming to South Korea, Albert had served in Iraq. The newlyweds didn't want to worry about him being deployed again, so they found a military base where Albert could be on active duty without being

marshaled out. So that's how we wind up in Georgia because that was the only due to station that was offering him a non deployable status where he wouldn't miss the baby's birth or I wouldn't be left alone. By March two thousand eight, the young couple was back in the States, getting ready for the birth of their baby. A few months later, Albert was asleep and Ashley was beside him in bed, watching TV and eating. Let me tell you what I was eating. I had a tray

full of food. I had chocolate chip cookies, two peanut butter and jelly son, which is a glass of milk, a bowl of cereals, and grapes and strawberries. And I was sitting there in the band eating and I was watching George Lopez laughing, and I started having contractions and they got so bad that at one point I slung my fists over on the bed because the contraction hit me so hard, and I hit him and he said, what's wrong, and I say, I think I'm having the baby.

They headed to Martin Army Community Hospital. We're on. Ashley gave birth to a baby girl, Mackenzie Leilanie. Ashley had always loved the name Mackenzie, and Leilani was chosen by Albert, who is pullowen. I've had Mackenzie name picked out since the ninth grade. I was super excited to nake my daughter McKenzie. So her limitle name was Leilanie and it means beautiful flower and pull Owen culture. After two and a half days in the hospital, Ashley and Albert were

able to take Mackenzie home. As for many new parents, their first evening home was nerve wracking. I was afraid to go to sleep. My mind Frank kept thinking, if you go to sleep, something's gonnapp She's gonna roll over, she's gonna smother. I don't know, it was just very conscious.

I was scared. My mom, of course, you know, advice from older people was saying, actually, you can go to sleep, and Albert was already asleep preparing to go back to work, so Ashley relented and tried to get some sleep herself with Mackenzie in the bassinet next to the bed. In the early morning hours of June one, Ashley and Albert were both sleeping fitfully. We were tussling in the bed and we both woke each other up, and we both were dreaming. And I looked at him, he looked at me.

I said, I just had the craziest dream, and he said me too. And then they heard Mackenzie fussing in her bassonet. I said, well, is your turn the feeder? So he was getting the bottle ready and I was getting wrapped beast and that, I said, I was. I would tell him by my dream. I said, I was dreaming I was falling to the elevator shaft, I said, but when I got to the bottom, I woke up. He said, Oh my god, I was dreaming I was falling off a cliff, he said, but when I got

to the bottom, I woke up. I said, that's crazy. And we just started feeder and then I noticed the lump on her head and I said, what is that. Actually called the hospital and spoke to a doctor about the lump of Mackenzie's forehead, but the doctor said she was fine. So then we tried to feed her and she was like she was gasping for air, like she just looked she just couldn't breathe. And I called him back and said, we're bringing her in. And by this

time we're hysterical because she doesn't look good. She looks like she's turning colors, and we're we left everything at this array, and we looked at such a her. We left our cell phones at the house. Within minutes, Mackenzie had taken a turn for the worst, and we get to the hospital and before he didn't even stopped the car. I was jumping out and I ran the tide of the Mercy room and I threw her out at the nurse and I said, please help my baby. Something wrong.

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 they 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. Ashley called her mom from the hospital to tell her what was happening. Brenda and her husband had already planned to come meet Mackenzie the following day, but now she was racing to get to the hospital. We just trying to get them, trying to get the fens that could and see just as a babe ONEm on the way. We're errating, We're scare.

We don't know what's going on. A couple of hours passed as the new parents waited anxiously for news of their baby. Finally, a doctor came to tell Ashley and Albert that Mackenzie had passed away. Albert collapsed on the floor. He started crying and screaming and rolling and I just kind of sat there looking at the wall. And then I looked at the doctor and said, go get my

baby ready so we could take your home. I think I was just in denial and shock because you just didn't tell me that my daughter was dead, and I just didn't want to believe it. And then almost immediately after Albert and Ashley heard the news about their baby girl, personnel from the military showed up, and I was a little weird about why they were there. And then Columbus Police department showed up, and that's when everything pretty much went to hell. And in my mind frame, I was like, no,

this is not This is not normal. Nobody calls the police when somebody passed it away. This is not normal. She wasn't murdered. Why are they here? And when they separated us, and the kind of questions they would asking in the way the detective was looking at me, that's when I was I said, they think we've done this. Police took note that Albert was devastated, but that Ashley wasn't showing as much emotion. And at that time, I just lost the baby, and um, I don't know how

to grieve. At this point, it was just kind of unbelief, like this was it was like a nightmare happening before my eyes. But at that point police took Ashley back to her and Albert's apartment to photograph and search their home. They began questioning her about what had happened that night, where we're where was I? Like? What time I went to sleep? How long was Albert to sleep before I into sleep? When do we do that day? Who came

to the house? Things like that, they were asking. Once the police were done at the apartment, Ashley and Albert were left to process all that had just happened. We couldn't even sleep in our room because her room was right next to ours with all her stuff, so we slept downstairs. We we couldn't go up there. By this point, Ashley's mother had arrived. That was just that was two devils. That was just oh, that was two months. Oh. And I asked me just crying and and Avery. He was

just screaming that background. She was slowing and he wore, you know, asked was slower and he was just screaming, the crying, and she said, my mom would go, let me go, try to take care of, you know, look after him. The next morning, the police called and said the preliminary autopsy report was ready and that the couple should come to the station. Do you remember when you realized that they thought that you and Albert had done this? I realized that when he separated us, and then that's

when interrogation started. Ashley was interrogated by Detective Andrew Tyner. I would never forgive him because he caught me a monster, and he said the preliminary I've talked to results said that she died from blunt force trauma to the head and she had multiple score fractures, and that we did it. Ashley and Albert were adamant they had nothing to do with Mackenzie's death and had no idea what happened to her. Yet they were held and interrogated for hours. No mind

you on postpartum. I just had a baby. I am Margine, and my breast of filling up with milk, and they just set them interrogating me for hours and wouldn't give me any feminine hygiene products, and I was bleeding from having the baby, and they just sat there and kept interrogating me, and so I didn't understand what was happening. So I just assumed that I would go home, like I just thought that we would go home. I didn't think it would be what happened for sure, but we

didn't go home. And eventually the detectives tried to turn Ashley and Albert against each other. If one of y'all just say y'all did it, because both of y'all gonna go to jail, and both of you'all gonna go to prison. But if one of y'all just say y'all did it, then one of y'all can go home and help fight for the other way. That's what they told us. But they made sure nothing was recording when they did that.

And he was about to say he did it just so and go home and won't go to jail, and I looked at him and I grabbed his hand and I said, no, you're not. You will not lie for these people. He said, but I don't want you to go to jail, said, I don't care. We're gonna go together then, and that's just what it's gonna be, I said, because we didn't do anything wrong. Ashley and Albert were arrested that same day. Did you think it was possible that they could have done this at all? Did that?

Did you think that was possible? Oh? No, baby, I never even think twice, not even for a split sucker, that they dune something to that baby. That's like, oh that we was the only child and they had everything going for them. How you say they had everything going for them. Ashley was charged with malice murder, felony murder, and cruelty to children in the first degree. And it was the most humiliating experience is being booked into the

county jail. They strip you of everything that was ever yours. I'm bleeding from having a baby. They don't provide you with any type of extra clothing. They just give you. They give you their uniform and I said, well, I don't have any underwear and I'm bleeding. But it was like, so, we don't provide that. And they sent me in a cell and a cold sale for hours on concrete, and then I got took a mug shot and they put me in a suicide sale, and I remember bleeding in

a lot of my pants. I just feel disgusted. I just remember crying and crying in that sale, thinking this can't be happening to us, like we didn't we didn't do nothing wrong. Alone in the cell, Ashley's mind was racing. I started thinking about him. I started thinking about our daughter. I started thinking about our life and how they were portraying us to be. I want to being on top

of the world. I a marriage, I was mad a baby, and then I woke up in the whole robles on top of me and I didn't know how to breathe. And that then put moment is when I contemplated killing myself. I just kept looking around thinking like what can I do? How can I do it? Over a year later, on October, the trial started. The prosecutor was Sadanna Daily. Ashley and

Albert each had a separate defense team. One of the things that the state really wanted to present was to depict Ashley as a cold hearted, really this angry black woman, because that's the kind of woman that would harm her

own child. This is Jimminy Rodgers. She's a criminal defense attorney and a doctoral student in criminal justice and criminology and has represented Ashley, and so what the jury heard was the state saying that Ashley was this cold hearted woman who was controlling, controlling of Albert, and that she didn't show any our appropriate sadness when her baby died, and that whatever was going on, they were trying to

hide things. And then they presented Dr. Derressol to say that there is no way, there's no other way other than intentionally an intentional blunt force trauma, that the injuries to Mackenzie would have occurred. Dr Laura Derrissau was a medical examiner for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the state's primary witness. She performed the autopsy on Mackenzie the

day after she died. Dr Derrisau said she found extensive fractures on Mackenzie's head and bleeding in the brain, and once she saw blood, she deemed this to be a homicide and reached out, called out to law enforcement and communicated that unless the parents had some other explanation for this, then it had to be blunt force trauma, either by a series of blows to Mackenzie's head or a crushing

type of injury. Dr Derrissaw concluded that the injuries happened near the time of Mackenzie's death by no more than four hours, and the injuries were so traumatic that if they had happened during birth, the hospital would have noticed. The prosecution concluded that, without any other explanation, this was a homicide by the only two people who were with Mackenzie that night. The state also presented a jailhouse informant, Melvin Tarver, who had been in jail at the same

time as Albert. He testified that on the morning that trial was about to start, Albert told him that his wife had harmed the baby. Tarver's story was that Albert told him he had gone out to get drugs that night, and when he returned, the baby wasn't moving. According to Albert, he asked Ashley, you know what you did? What did you do? And as she says nothing, I just spanked her and put her to bed. Tell me about the jail house snitch. Can you tell me what you thought

when you saw them on the stand. I was living. I was ready to jump over that table and fight, and I'm not a lining person. But when he came to the door, I looked at Albert, I said, do you know him? He said, no, I don't know him at all, and I know he was in line because I'm sociable. I'm the person that can walk into a room full of strangers and make friends. He's gonna walk into the room and sit by himself. He's not talking to anybody because he's quiet. He's very humble, very to himself.

So no, so I didn't believe it. But I was so mad because I was looking, what is he? What is who is this guy? But what made me mad was that the fact that the judge even allowed it to happen. Jimminique says that off the bat, Ashley and Albert were at a disadvantage. There was a systemic breakdown in a fundamentally fair trial for Albert and Ashley. They sat in jail for quite some time without proper representation, and that sets the stage for what happened with their

attorneys once they got in court. Ashley hired private attorney Sandy Callahan and Albert was appointed Bill Mason, and both of these were highly respected attorneys. They had two very different perspectives of going into the trial. Albert's attorney's strategy was to not challenge the medical evidence to be presented by doctor Derrissol and the prosecutor. On the other hand, Ashley's attorney wanted and intended to challenge that medical evidence.

In order to challenge the prosecution's medical evidence, Callahan brought in John Plunkett, a forensic expert, to talk about shaking baby syndrome or SPS. The science behind this diagnosis was starting to be questioned at the time. Experts had found other causes or conditions that could mimic symptoms of SPS. Today, SBS is acknowledged to be junk science. But there was

a problem with Plunkett refuting Dr Derrissov. The judge Douglas Pullen did not require the prosecution to turn over the medical evidence they were going to use at trial, and there was no way that the defendant can't prepare a defense a medical defense without the evidence that the prosecutor has, And because of the collaborative efforts of the judge and the prosecutor in the case, the defense was of never able to get this information. So at that point Ashley's

attorney asked for a continuance. Albert's attorney opposed it, and the judge, Judge Douglas Poland, denied it and so that was the context in which the trial began, so ultimately Ashley was unable to have a medical defense. In fact, Callahan didn't put on much of a defense for Ashley at all. During closing arguments, prosecutor Daily pointed out that the defense did not present any evidence contradicting Dr Deissov.

Neither the defense attorney nor the judge stop the prosecutor when she shifted the burden too the devil Bots, saying they had the responsibility to present some evidence that this was not homicide, and they would have, but they don't have any evidence. And then they ended by arguing and closing that the state didn't even have to prove, really what we consider proof beyond a reasonable doubt. At the end of any trial, if there's a doubt, the jury

must acquit. The prosecution's burden was to prove beyond any doubt that Albert and Ashley were guilty. But in her closing argument, Daily shifted the meaning of reasonable doubt, and she goes on and says, this means we don't have to prove that ninety percent. You don't have to be ninety percent sure, you don't have to be eighty percent sure. You don't have to be fifty one percent sure. It

does not mean to a mathematical certainty. The fifty one percent sure is so offensive because it simply means that this prosecution doesn't have to present and doesn't have to meet any Burthen. Either Ashley nor Albert's attorneys objected to that misrepresentation of reasonable doubt, and Daily went on to make other misstatements and inaccuracies that the defense failed to object to as well. After a short four day trial, on October nine, Ashley and Albert were convicted of all

three charges and sentenced to life in prison. When Ashley got to prison, she had no hope left. I will try to commit suicide, and in I tried to take all my appeals, and I had saw my medicine, and I tried to do it again, but a friend walked in and stopped me. Ashley knew she needed to create a routine if she wanted to survive, so she got a job and started making friends and taking courses and classes. One thing I learned while I was there was to

stack your paper. And people say stack your paper your money. I think, no, stack your resume. In two thousand nine, Ashley's team moved for a new trial, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel based largely on a failure to present medical evidence, rebutting the state's case. A few years later, in Jimmy Nique came on Ashley's case, they were only arrested because there was a lack of the ability for them, as

parents to explain what happened to their child. They were then denied the opportunity to have a full medical analysis of their case to get a fair day in court. That day finally came Judge Arthur Smith the Third heard medical testimonies from defense experts who concluded that Mackenzie's injuries likely happened before birth. After years of appeals being denied, finally on February, the Georgia Supreme Court vacated their convictions

based on in effective assistance of counsel at trial. Tell me about when you found out Ashley and Albert we're going to get out. Oh I fat miss why. I just called me and told me. She told me. I dropped the phone. Brenda couldn't wait to tell her daughter the good news. She called me and I said, well, Astley, I said, y'all, convicion has been overturn sleety I heard h was she's she's screamed. She just just recism. She's a runnest, greedest Thanka. She comes a thank you ze,

thank you ze Thanka. After their release, the current district Attorney Mark Jones apologized publicly to the devil Bots on behalf of the court. In his apology, Joan said, there is now quote mounting medical evidence that says the child was born this way. Ashley was finally free, but although she and Albert stayed in touch during their imprisonment and we're able to see each other occasionally, the trauma they had endured was too much for their marriage. While they

were still incarcerated, Albert asked for a divorce. He was so busy fight for his life. How do you fight for your marriage to stay when you're trying to fight for your life? He said, he didn't even know me, no more of a wife. He didn't even remember me as that person. What did that feel like when he said when he said that, devastate? I was devastated. I felt less than I felt ugly because of course I can't dress up. It looked nice like I would if

we were home, So whever time he saw me. I had on a jail uniform that was dirty and dingy. My hair wasn't comb like I like it in and it just looks awful. So I felt like maybe he thought I was ugly now, and maybe he couldn't remember what I looked like before this because all he see is this. So a lot of things ran through my mind. They never got to grieve for their child, and then we're left to sit in prison for years, the prime years of their lives while they waited hoping to get justice.

The Devil Box can never go back. They can never go back and recover the years that they lost. But Ashley is trying. She moved into her own place, started working, is in school for health administration and management, and has made friends with her neighbor, Miss Jackie. We kind of bonded because she lost the child too. She lost her son, and we bonded off dealing with that as a whole as mother's. Like the rest of her large family, Ashley

loves to cook and share meals. One day, Ashley was bringing over food to Miss Jackie, so I will just cook all this food like I had a big family living here with me, and I would take your food too, and that day Miss Jackie was with her daughter, Frieda, a sergeant in the military. When she met Freda, Ashley felt herself opening up to love again. I enjoyed being a wife. I enjoyed being a mom. I enjoyed that life and I wanted it back. But I just didn't know how I wanted it back because I was so

afraid of people. I was afraid to trust people. I was afraid to be around people. And I looked up freed to one day and I was like, this is happening. We started talking, I guess talking in March, and I actually to marry me October one. Now actually is making

a family with Frieda and Frieda's son. Everything is still so new to me and I'm learning, but I'm so glad that I have a partner that's willing to be patient with me and kind with me and loving with me and let me be a mother and additional mother to her son. Ashley is also focused on advocating for

reform within the prison system. I'm using what happened to me as a beacon for goodness and for positiveness, because even though I was innocent, a lot of my friends are guilty and they have to do their time, but they still deserve to be treated with humane conditions and respecting dignity. And that's not what's happening in the prisons. But I would have never known that unless this happened to me. Ashley applied for compensation for her wrongful conviction

from the state of Georgia. In Georgia, a specific bill has to be passed for each individual, and Ashley's bill for compensation was denied in two thousand twenty one. I asked Ashley if she has anything she'd like to say to listeners, and she does. If anybody's listening, mass' registered to vote. And I say this because there's over a hundred and ninety thousand people on parole and to say

to Georgia and they're not allowed to vote. There's over nineteen thousand people that are on probation in Georgia and they're not allowed to vote. They get out of Prayerson after they're saved their time successfully, they pay taxes in the state that they're not allowed to even vote for the leadership over them in the actual state. So if you don't vote for anybody else, vote for those who can't vote for themselves. And that's all I gotta say.

To help support the cause of ex offender voting rights, go to Women on the Rise g A dot org or the Southern Center for Human Rights at s c h R dot org. You'll find all those links in our bio. Next time, Unwrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Charles Jackson. They put their guns on me. They asked me for my driver's license, shaw my name is, I guess just him and locked me up. So I had none to worry about because I didn't do anything. Three four days later,

you know I was tired with murder. 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 Flam and Kevin Wurtas, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul. The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cleburne 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 wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on 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