#333 Maggie Freleng with Ashley Jordan

A note for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide. Please listen with caution and care. In May of two thousand and eight, Ashley and Albert Deblbot welcomed their first baby, girl, Mackenzie Leilani. The Deblebots were a successful military couple stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia, and the birth of their daughter filled them with more joy than they ever imagined. Once they brought baby Mackenzie home from the hospital, the new

Maybe a couple hours later. The doctor comes in and tells that she passed, and my ex husban hit the floor. He started crying and screaming, 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 can take her home. I think I was just in denial and shop because you just didn't tell me that my daughter was dead. And then Columbus Police Department showed up, and that's when everything pretty much

Commit from love of for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today. Ashley Jordan actually Jordan, was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on May thirteenth, nineteen eighty four, to Brenda Dolores Jones and Thurman Jordan sr.

Oh.

As they're growing up, let me tell you about the little Poe. That's her nickname, Poe.

That's Ashley's mom, Brenda.

She was.

She was a sweet little girl. Didn't never have to get no whoopings for nothing. She was shad and you know I didn't take.

Much of her to feed it.

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 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.

Our family is very big and They liked to cook out a lot, so there's a cook out for every We love to get together and eat, So that was one of the fondest memories I have from grown up is being able to get together with our family members 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 married 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 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 nineteen ninety two. My mom got a job and pretty much just settled us there. I don't think we understood as kids that we were going to be living in in in Mississippi. I believed that we were just going to visit and we were going to 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.

Brendo 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 save my mom anyway at that time because of her drinking. I just didn't like it. All my other friends, their moms didn't 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 a strain on me and 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 behal behavior and her mother's.

My grandfather, her dad was a heavy drinker, heavy drinker, was putting it lightly. He was an alcoholic. So I've seen the pattern of where my mom where. That filtered on then to 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 was also maturing and learning to live her own life. Here's Brenda again.

And she grew up and got older. She saw coming out of it and saw a door that she became a cheerleader school stuff like that, played basketball Northeast Jones Tigers.

Yes, Lady Tigers.

Mm hmm, Yeah, she was a basketball player.

Cheer leader with those five 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've seen and I 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 an orthodonosis.

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 recruiting office for the aug of the branches in the military, and it was a recruiter sign 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 to go to college, go to college, and I thought, you know what, I've just been twelve years in school. I don't want to go to college. He's not right then, and 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 I can think 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 it a secret.

After high school graduation in two thousand and two, Ashley's friends started going off to college.

And my mom came to me one day and she said, so, what do you got going on? And I said what do you mean? She said, are you going to school or are you going to 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 up.

One day my baby came home.

She came home from work, said she was in to join the Earth. I said, oh who.

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 started She was so excited. I 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 and 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.

By my first time. I was actually going into my barricks room for the first time, and he walked by and I complimented his calf muscles. He got some nice calf muscles. And he looked at me and was looking at me like, this girl is weird.

Albert double Bud was a mail clerk in Ashley's unit. She would often see him around.

He was lower ranking and I was high, and 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,

So besides his cabs, what else did you like about him?

We weren't 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.

Theirs was a whirlwind romance, you know.

It was kind of quick, but I don't have a time living on love. I'm gonna say that I'm the kind of person that it's there, is there, and I'm going to go for it. So we met, we started dating August two thousand and seven, We got engaged September two thousand and seven, and we got married over in nineteen 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 this pretticages in face. She looks, look look, and he looked at me. He's like, what does this mean? I said, it 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 going to be shipped here, shipped 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 the 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 and 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 peanutreater and jelly salwiches, a glass of milk, a bowl of cereals, and grapes and strawberries. And I was sitting there in the bed eating, and I was watching George Lopez laughing, and I started having contractions, and it 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. I think I'm having the baby.

They headed to Martin Army Community Hospital, where on May twenty ninth, two thousand and eight, Ashley gave birth to a baby girl, Mackenzie Leilanie. Ashley had always loved the name Mackenzie, and Leilani was chosen by Albert, who is pollowin.

I've had Mackenzie name picked out since the ninth grade. I was super excited to name my daughter McKenzie. So her middle name is Leilani and it means beautiful flower and allowing 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 gonna have She's gonna roll over, she's gonna smother. I don't know. I was just very cautious. I was scared. My mom, of course, you know, advice from older people was saying, Ashley, 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 bacinet next to the bed. In the early morning hours of June first, 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 baconet.

I said, well, it's your turn to feeder. So he was getting the bottle ready and I was getting her out of the bassinette. I would tell him about my dream. I said, I was dreaming I was faring through elevator shaft. I said, but when I got to the bottom, I woke up. He said, Oh my god, I was dreaming if falling off a cliff. He said, but when I got to the bottom, I woke up. And I said, that's crazy. And we just started feeding her, and then I noticed the lump on her head and I said, what is that.

Ashley 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 left everything at a disarray and we left in such of 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 get me even stopped the car, I was jumping out and I ran inside 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 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

We's trying to get them, trying to get the fans Laku and she just as said, maybe I'm on the way.

We're erratic, we're scared. 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 her home. I think I was just in denial and shot 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 framed, I was like, no, this is not this is not normal. Nobody calls the police when somebody passes away. This is not normal. She wasn't murdered. Why

Police took note that Albert was devastated, but that Ashley wasn't showing as much emotion.

And at that time, I just lost a baby and I don't know how to grieve. At this point, it was just kind of unbelieved, 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 was I, like, what time I went to sleep? How long was Albert a sleep before I to 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 couldn't go up there.

By this point, Ashley's mother had arrived.

That was just that was two devils. That was just over. That was too much. Oh and I asked he was just.

Crying and and aver he was just screaming that background. She was stronger than he were, you know, asked, was slow and he was just screaming and crying, and she said, mamma, 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 they separated us, and then that's when interrogation started.

Ashley was interrogated by Detective Andrew Tyner.

I will never forgive him because he caught me a monster, and he said the preliminary optoxic results said that she died from blunt force trauma to they 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 four hours.

Now, mind you, on postpartum, I just had a baby and my breast are filling it with milk, and they just sat there and 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, though. 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 y'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 one. 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 I can 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.

Ashley and Albert were arrested that same day. Did you think it was possible that they could have done this at all? Did you think that was possible?

Oh?

No, baby, I never even think twice, not even for a split second, that they done something to that baby. Oh they were They owned a child, and they had everything going for them.

Are you serious?

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

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 wouldn't have been on top of the world, had a new marriage. I was mad a baby, and then I woke up in the whole rebel was on top of me and I didn't know how to breathe. And at that moment is when I contemplated killing myself. I kept looking around thinking like what can I do? How can I do it?

Over a year later, on October twenty sixth, two thousand, the trial started. The prosecutor was Sadana 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 Jiminyue 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 appropriate sadness when her baby died, and that whatever was going on, they were trying to hide things. And then they presented doctor Darisol 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.

Doctor Laura Darisaw 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. Doctor Darisaw 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.

Doctor Darisol 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.

Tarvor'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 asked, she says nothing. I just spanked her and put her to bed.

Tell me about the jailhouse snitch. Can you tell me what you thought when you saw them on the stand.

I was livid. I was ready to jump over that table and fight, and I'm not a light in 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 so 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.

Jiminique says that off the bat, Ashley and Albert were at a disadvantage.

There was a systemic breakdown in a fundamentally fair trial for Albert in 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 attorneys 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 Dearisol 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 SBS. 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 SBS. Today, SBS is acknowledged to be junk science. But there was

And there was no way that the a defendant can 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 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 Pullan, 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 doctor Dearisol.

Neither the defense attorney nor the judge stopped the prosecutor when she shifted the burden too. The debl bot 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.

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 Burton.

Either. Ashley nor Albert's attorneys objected to that misrepresentation of reasonable doubt, and Daley 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 twenty ninth, two thousand and 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 I tried to take all my pills, and I had f 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. If people say stack your paper your money, I said, no, stack your resume.

In two thousand and 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 twenty fourteen, Jimmynique 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 in twenty fifteen. 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 twenty eighth, twenty twenty, the Georgia Supreme Court vacated their convictions based on any effective assistance of counsel at trial. Tell me about when you found out Ashley and Albert were going to get out.

Oh, I found that before CD and it's why just called me and told me, told me.

I dropped the phone.

Brenda couldn't wait to tell her daughter the good news.

She called me and I said, well, Ashley, I said, y'all, convision has been overturned.

Sweetie, I heard, don't was She's screamed.

She just just bust out his though A you for Rea.

She's the right, ast, greatest, saying thank you. She kept saying thank you, thank you, the thanks.

After their release, the current district Attorney Mark Jones apologized publicly to the devile bots on behalf of the court. In his apology, Jones 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 were able to see each other occasionally, the trauma they had endured was too

He was so busy fighting 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 as a woner. He didn't even remember me as that person.

What did that feel like when he when he said that, I was devastated.

I felt less than I felt ugly because of course I can't dress up and look nice like I would if we were home. So where 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 could remember what I looked like before this, because all he see is this. So a lot of people ran through my mind.

They never got to grieve for their child and then were left to sit in prison for years, the prime years of their lives while they waited hoping to get justice. The devil Bots 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 a child too. She lost a 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 would just cook all this food like I had a big family living here with me, and I would take her food too.

And that day Miss Jackie was with her daughter, Freda, 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 Freedo one day and I was like, this is happening. We started talking, I guess talking in March, and I asked her to marry me October first.

Now Ashley is making a family with Freda and Frida'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. An addition to 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 prison. 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 twenty twenty one. I asked Ashley if she has anything she'd like to say to listeners, and she does.

If anybody's listening, miss, you're registered to vote. And I say this because there's over one hundred and ninety thousand people on Paroland 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 prison 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 that

To help support the cause of ex offender voting rights, go to Women on the RISEGA dot org or the Southern Center for Human Rights at SCCHR dot org. You'll find all those links in our bio. Next time, on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Charles Jackson.

They put their guns on me.

They asked me for my driver's license, saw my name is, I guess just him and locked me up.

So I didn't had none to wordy about because I didn't do anything.

Three four days later, you know I was tried 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 Flamm and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson, and story editor Sonya 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