#344 Maggie Freleng with Tami Vance

I told thee she's not breathing. She's not breathing. They got on the phone with nine one one and nine minister CPR until the ambulance got there. At the hospital, doctors found injuries that led them to believe Kim had experienced a violent sexual assault, and despite their efforts to help Kim, the police concluded that Tammy and Lee were actually responsible for what had happened to her. You were a suspect very quickly. So do you remember feeling that way?

Do you remember thinking like something was off and what they were asking you. I remember thinking they were crazy because that was our friend, and we tried to save her. My name is Tammy Vance, and I was wrongfully convicted for thirteen years from Lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Tammy Vance. Tammy Vance was born in San Antonio, Texas, on November fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight, to Sandy and Billy Vans. She has one younger brother,

Billy Junior, who goes by the nickname Bubba. Growing up as a child was gonna be. It was greatt I had a lot of family, a lot of loving family. She was very close to her dad and her brother and myself. This is Tammy's mom, Sandy Rabelais. We were very close knit family, and a traditional Southern family at that with strong Christian values. When Tammy was about three or four, her family left San Antonio for Mississippi. For Tammy, it was a whole different world, moving from Texas, where

there's nothing but tumble weeds and small trees. I remember thinking when we pulled into Mississippi that it was the land of the Giants because of the trees. You know, the trees were like so big. Once they adjusted to the new landscape, Sandy saw her daughter enjoying Mississippi. She was a very fun loving child. She was always very outgoing. I always had lots and lots of friends around her.

But at home, life had gotten difficult for Tammy. My father was an alcoholic, my mother she worked two jobs, and basically I raised my younger brother. The situation was tough, but Tammy was a natural caretaker. She has a huge heart and she would just do anything for anybody that's having a hard time, Like one family Sandy recalls who lived down the street from them when Tammy was around eleven or twelve. The mother was an alcoholic. She was

never there. The dad was struggling to work. There's four of those kids, and she became best friends with them. She brought them home. You know, it's like, Mom, you know they're coming home to night. I want you to make sure you're cooking up super form. And she's the one that brought him into the family, and she's the one that, you know, wanted to make sure they were fed and clothed. Eventually, Tammy's father got clean and went into recovery for about eight years, and it was like

the best eight years of my life growing up. I actually had my father, you know what I mean, I actually had my father at home and it was greggy. We had a lot of fun, would go foiling on the rivers and yeah, just sports stuff, go to the drag races and he would take his places. But Tammy couldn't always participate in certain activities because of a disability she has. Tammy is legally blind, so that did have a lot of limitations on what she could and couldn't

be involved with. So Tammy made up for her visual limitations by embracing another strength. She was very, very music in Kline. She loved to go to concerts to listen to all different types of music and to share that with her friends. Do you remember any specific ones that she liked? A CDC Ario Wagon. What did you think of her liking a CDC? Well, I went to crazy about the music myself. It was of my choice of music, but it was certainly ours in her friend's choice of music.

That was probably her biggest interest was different musical bands, and Tammy started looking the part of a rocker too. Do you have a mullet? Yeah, nineteen nineties, I'm gonna original, heavy and coup. You know, peace love and rock and roll or peace love and music. But along with this love of music, came a bad habit using drugs and alcohol. I guess Tammy was about thirteen or fourteen when we

started dealing with the drugs with her. They continued to get worse, and we've only put her in a treatment center. When she came out of the treatment center that she told me she was getting married to a boy named Ralph, whom she started dating in high school. Ralph was a couple of years older than Tammy. At age sixteen, Tammy dropped out of school to marry him, and I felt like they were just way too young. I'm gonna be

starting off on that journey. So I did it when I was young, and I knew it was just not the answer to a good life. You know. I did not want my children to follow on the footsteps. But she seemed pretty good German to do it. For Tammy. Things with Ralph were good for a while, but then about two years after they got married, she was sitting on the porch drinking a beer with one of her female friends when she had a wake up call. They just hit me like a ton of breaks, like what

is going on here? Why am I more attracted to my friend than my husband? That sent me into a tailspin, Tammy started realizing she was actually more interested in women than men. But Tammy was living in what she describes as a redneck county in the eighties, being gay was not accepted. I freaked out. What did freaking out look like? Freaking out looks like filing for a divorce, leaving everything I had behind? Hitting New Orleans and I lived homeless

for a little while. I left everything behind and I ran. I felt like a freak. Once in New Orleans, Tammy lived on the streets of the city for about six months. And that's kind of when you got into drug use, Yes, ma'am, I unfortunately gotta do the heroine. Tammy had hit bottom trying to run away from who she was, and drugs

were a source of consolation. It was when back when the all that black tar heroine hit New Orleans, and I hung out with the homeless people, and there were either alcoholics or addicts, and the black tar heroine was so pure these people were used to. There was their heroine being stepped down so many times that the people were falling over dead. Left him right, and it scared me and I came home. When she got back home, Tammy decided to be completely honest with her mom about

her sexuality. How did you feel about that when she first told you, very conflicted, wasn't sure if it was a phase or if it was a true thing. It was a surprise, especially after the fact that she had been married and she had dated several different guys. So yes, it did come as a surprise to me. I started studying up on it and reading on it, and you know, just trying to figure out different aspects from it. Of course, as a Christian, I'm you know, I'm conflicted very much

about it. But she is my daughter, and I have accepted that that is her lifestyle. My mom, you know, she's she's a Christian man. She has that unconditional love man. She loves me anyway. So she said to you, She's gonna love you no matter what. Basically, yes, ma'am. Opening up to her mom was the first step. Tammy finally felt like she was finding herself. It was like a ten thousand pounds was lifted off for me to know who I was. But I still felt like a freak,

like I couldn't tell anyone except my mom. So Tammy continued to live a fairly closeted life in the South, she went to rehab for her heroin addiction, started narcotics anonymous and got clean, and for years she just worked a job in construction and lived a low key life. She went to gay bars to be around others she could relate to, but publicly she kept her sexuality to herself. So you've never seen her with a girlfriend or anything

like that. I have seen her with a girlfriend, I haven't seen her display affection with a girlfriend, gotcha, other than just you know, hey, this is my buddy. You know. I know that she's been with them, but just not in front of me. At the age of thirty one, over a decade after she got cleaned from heroin, Tammy relapsed. In January two thousand, she checked herself into the Katie Hill Drug Recovery Center in Columbus, Mississippi. Basically, I knew I didn't want to go back where I had come from,

and I had to say something about it. What do you mean back where you came from? Heroin? At Katie Hill, Tammy was again in a twelve step recovery program, and while there she met twenty year old Lee Stubbs. Lee had recently broken up with her boyfriend, and like Tammy a decade before, had spiraled into drug addiction. So tell me about meeting Lee. What was Lee like? She was cool? She just had that personality, that trait, that distinct distinction

about it on the inside. Just with conversations and the way we play, the way we worked well together and things like that, we would get very good friends. And then it turned into more than the hut. Was that a conversation you guys had that you were both gay? Like? How did that come about? That you guys gay? Are? I'm sorry, but you know you can kind of tell. By March of two thousand, both Tammy and Lee were nearing the end of the program and we're allowed certain

privileges like weekend passes to leave and see family. The first time they were romantic was on a weekend trip home. It turned out their destinations were just an hour away from each other. We'll say her mom was in Collins and my mom was in by room. So she went to her mom's. I went to my mom's, And then the next morning we held back up. She came to buy a room and we went and right to swinging Bridge. What's a swinging bridge? I don't know. What that is.

It's an old timmy bridge that sways when you like drive across it. We would like get to go and really fast and then just slam on the brakes and the middle of it and it would just sway us. Yeah, it was real cool. We spent the whole weekend together. Tammy and Lee had a sweet time together visiting Tammy's hometown and then they headed back to Katie Hill. But when they arrived they found the place in an uproar.

There is this discriminational thing going on because someone had hung a black doll on a doorknob, and it was a really racial thing, and it was a lot of drama, and you know, we had just gotten and it was all that's going on. To avoid the chaos, Tammy and Lee decided to leave again in a hurry, stuffing their clothes and belongings into garbage bags and throwing them in the back of Lee's truck. As they were about to go, they saw their friend Kim Williams, who was also packing

to leave. Him asked could she have a ride? She wanted ride to her boyfriends, so we said, sure, we'll tyke. The three women drove through Mississippi, stopping along the way to buy liquor. Him and hour drinking, but he was not. She was driving, and we might it all the way to Canton, Mississippi. We stopped and got another fit of the liquor. Might it to Jackson, Mississippi. Finally they made it to Kim's boyfriend's house, but as they were dropping Kim off, she and her boyfriend got in a fight.

Unlike Tammy and Lee, Kim hadn't actually finished rehab and her boyfriend was mad she hadn't stayed in treatment. So anyway, she comes and gets in our truck and ask us to take her to her uncle's house. Okay, so we say sure. So we get down the road and she pulls out all these pills x X soma, oxycotton, a lot of narcotics. It turns out Kim had stolen the pills from her boyfriend, who had been prescribed to them for his back. I had been drinking, She had been drinking.

We both took a handful. You just left rehab, Why were you using I just I was a follower and not the later I should have been. I couldn't find what I needed, which was some weed, and so I just started drinking. That's what happened, all right. So you guys took the drugs and then what passed out? We passed out, and they didn't know what to do. She was in the middle of nowhere. She pulled into a motel.

She actually told the lady at the front desk, you know, if these two in the drug looked dead, they're not drunk. And so we pulled in and basically she grabbed his boat under our arms into the dawn motel room. Into the motel room. I'm sorry, and latest on the bed. When I woke up, she was a white watching Scooby Doo. I was very sick, puking, sick and dehydrated to death,

the thirstiest I've ever been in my life. And that's so I asked her what she please, please go give me some drink, and so she ran down to the code machine and while she was gone, I was literally drowning in my home puke. She comes back in with the drinks and pulls my head about the water and what was Kim doing At this point she was still passed out on the other bed, fully dressed, shoes and awe and snoring like she was in like a deep sleep. By then, It was the next day, March sixth, around

four pm, and Kim was still asleep. Tammy says Kim was snoring so loudly that when she stopped, it was noticeable, and Tammy could hear that something was wrong, and I told thee she's not breathing. She's not breathing. They got on the phone with nine one one and nine Minister CPR until the ambulance got there. 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 commun unities 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 other

support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Kim had overdosed. When the paramedics arrived, Tammy and Lee tried to be as helpful as possible. As a matter of fact, we even gave them the drugs she took from her boyfriend. In total where she took them from, We gave them to the people in the ambulance so that they would know what she was on so they would know what to do. The paramedics gave Kim narkhan to try and reverse the drug's effects. She was rushed to the hospital in a

coma and respiratory arrest. Once at the hospital, Kim was diagnosed as having suffered an overdose, but a nurse also noted that Kim had injuries that didn't seem to be related to the overdose. Allegedly, her breasts were swollen, her vagina was bruised and swollen, and there were bite marks on her body and marks on her butt that looked like they could have come from a beating with a stick or a belt. A doctor described it as looking like a quote brutal sexual assault. The doctor informed police

that Kim had been sexually assaulted. Police immediately questioned Tammy and Lee. They wanted to know what happened, and we told them, but officers didn't believe them that it was solely an overdose. They continued to push the belief that

Kim had been assaulted. I remember thinking they were crazy because that was our friend and we tried to save We were trying to save her, and they promised us, actually, if we would take a lot of tax or test with the highway patrol, that be aludle with the question, and one'll be audle with. We both prayed, we both passed and the question and never stopped. Fortunately, Kim survived. She woke up twelve days later with no memory of what had happened whatsoever, which meant that she could not

definitively report whether or not she was assaulted. Six months after the incident, on September twentieth, two thousand, Tammy and Lee were arrested and charged with taking and possessing Kim's boyfriend's oxycotton and the aggravated assault of Kim Williams. The following year, in June of two thousand and one, Tammy and Lee went to trial. The prosecutors were District Attorneys

Dunlampton and Jerry Rushing. Their case was that Tammy and Lee had conspired with Kim to steal her boyfriend's OxyContin pills. The state alleged that once Kim passed out, Tammy and Lee violently sexually assaulted her, and that that violent sexual assault involves very severe bite marks involves biting off part of Kim's labia and that this behavior is indicative of

a homosexual assault of a lesbian assault. This is Billina Beatie, an attorney formally with the Mississippi Innocence Project, which ultimately took on Tammy and Lee's case. Villina says the crux of the state's case was that lesbians are sexual deviance. So the fact that Kim was with her two lesbian friends, Tammy and Lee, right before she overdosed and was brought to the hospital leads the police and the prosecutor and a direct line to the two of them as having

assaulted her. Velina also says the prosecutors knew the jury pool they would have in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and targeted their case accordingly. It would have been a very Christian town, and at the time, if we looked at studies that were done on jurors and homophobia, we did see a connection between people who were particularly religious and heightened homophobia

among jurors. So just looking at that information from juries, we could see how a jury in Mississippi at that time, you know, it might be more likely to see Lee and Tammy as not just deviant because of their sexual orientation, but violent because of their sexual orientation. The state star witness was doctor Michael West, who was at the time

a renowned forensic odontologist. So bite mark evidence or forensic odontology is the belief that by looking at a mark on skin, we're able to tell whether a certain person created that mark with their teeth. Doctor West was an expert in bite mark evidence. He testified for prosecution offices in nine different states. At Tammy's trial, doctor West testified that there appeared to be a bite mark on Kim's

hip and said it was likely from Lee. West went on to say, quote, and it's more than just a possibility to me, I would see it as a probability, But is it a probability of actual a hundred percent? No. Prosecutors then asked doctor West his opinion on whether he would expect to find bite marks in a homosexual rape case. He said that would not be unusual. In fact, it could almost be expected. And that's with this history in the United States of seeing queerness as dangerous, as depraved,

as deviant, and as violent. So all of that meshes together against this person who is kind and innocent but is perceived a different way because of her open sexual orientation. In addition to the bite marks, doctor West extended his so called expertise to other aspects of the case. He also analyzed the surveillance footage from the night the three women stayed at the motel. The footage appears to show someone taking something from the toolbox in Lee's truck and

carrying it into the motel room. What West is telling the jury it is is that Lee is picking up Kim's body that they have put into the toolbox, picking up Kim's body and carrying her into the hotel room. When you have an ex like doctor West, who's on the stand and is showing that video again and again and again and again and each time telling the jury this is a body. They are the legs, there's the long hair. This is Kim. The jury then starts to

believe it. The defense did refute this, however. Tammy's defense attorney was Ken McNees and Lee's was Bill Barnett. Both were private attorneys. They presented evidence that hair was found in the toolbox and that it was not Kim's. They also called doctor Rodrigo Galvez, a forensic pathologist, who said that Kim could not have physically fit in the toolbox.

I mean, and this idea that they could put her in a toolbox and then that Lee could whisk her out of this toolbox in a matter of seconds, you know, like lift up her friend who weighs the same weight that she does, and jump off the back of the truck with her, is incredibly fanciful. Doctor Galvez also said there were many other objects that could have possibly made

the alleged bite marks. However, upon cross examination, doctor Galvez dealt an unexpected blow to the defense by admitting he would expect to find biting in a situation involving a lesbian rape. And then he gives this really shocking testimony about how lesbians and homosexuals are more likely to commit violent assaults, that the most violent assaults he's ever seen

have been homosexual assaults. I mean, it's all of this magical thinking to create this story and this narrative where Lee and Tammy are violent and violent against Kim, which they're not. I never believed it for a moment. I never, for one fraction of a second believed that her early physically hurt someone. Even though you're sitting there at trial and the prosecutor is saying gay people are deviance and this is what they do. You still didn't believe it, no, man,

and they were wheeled. On June thirtieth, two thousand and one, the jury convicted both Tammy and Lee of all charges. They were ordered to pay one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in fines and costs, as well as half of Kim's medical bills, and they were each sentenced to forty four years in prison. After their conviction, Tammy and Lee were both sent to the same prison, the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, Mississippi. Did you continue a relationship

when you were in prison? Things had really changed with all of this. We remained friends and we have a bond that cannot be broken, but romantically it wasn't. It wasn't there anymore, no, ma'am. Kind of ended right there, but our friendship became stronger. Man. Lee, We made on that yard alone and we would discuss our case, like how you were going to prove your innocence? Yes, ma'am,

what was the plan? We were researching cases, law library, we were reaching out with family attorneys, innocent projects, writing letters, helping inmates, doing all we should survive. While Tammy and Lee were busy fighting for their innocence from prison, their families were also helping on the outside. Lee's father filed a Freedom of Information Act petition requesting documents relating to any analysis performed on the surveillance video from the motel,

and what he got back was shocking. They found out that someone at the FBI had been asked pre trial to examine the surveillance video and had done a complete report on it, saying, Okay, there's only one person in the video, there's not two, and that one person is taking a unidentified dark object out of the toolbox that they don't think it's a body. These FBI analysis results

were never disclosed to the defense or the jury. What we are actually seeing is a blurry image because it's a surveillance video of Lee getting up into the flatbed of the truck, opening up the toolbox that is in the back of the flatbed, and taking out these garbage bags that are filled with her clothes from the rehab facility. And then she's jumping down and taking the bags with her. That's what we're seeing. Armed with this new evidence, the

Mississippi Innocence Project took on the case. When an innocent project fell into place is when Hope said it, because finally, somebody else in this world, this whole wild world, openly you can finally. In twenty eleven, Villina and the Mississippi Innocence Project filed a petition claiming that doctor West presented false evidence and that the prosecution had failed to disclose the results of the FBI analysis of the surveillance video.

By this time, doctor West had also been completely discredited. As early as nineteen ninety four, his credibility was being questioned. News outlets like sixty Minutes profiled him and the dubious science of bite mark evidence. West was eventually suspended by the American Board of Forensic Odeontology. Bite mark evidence is

now considered junk science. In fact, doctor West has now testified in at least five cases where the person was wrongfully convicted based on bite mark evidence and later exonerated. In a twenty eleven deposition, doctor West even testified that he no longer believed his own testimony about the bite marks on Kim's body. He admitted that if he was asked to testify and Tammy and Lee's case again, he would say quote I don't believe it's a system that's

reliable enough to be used in court. And so what did it all wind up being? Was it actually a bite mark? No? Oh gosh, no no, And half of her labia was not missing either, So no, none of that ended up being true or accurate at all. Velina says that the supposed bite mark evidence on Kim's hip was actually just a bruce, and while there was potentially evidence of a sexual encounter, there was no evidence of

it being a non consensual assault. On June twenty seven, twenty twelve, over a decade after they were convicted, Lincoln County Circuit Court Judge Michael Taylor agreed that Tammy and Lee did not get a fair trial and granted them a new one. They were released on bond that same day. What was it like when you found out that your case was going to be overturned and that you were going to get a new trial. I actually sat down cried happy tears. Yeah. Did you ever think that would happen? No, ma'am.

I really thought I was going to die alone in prison. Sandy remembers the day she picked up Tammy from prison. That day, it was just a joyful data to get her out. The news people were there, and of course Felina and then were there, and it was just it was just so awesome to get to hold her and take her to eat her favorite foods, things like macaroni and cheese and roast and quiet potatoes. It was hard to eat those things when she was in there, not

she couldn't. And we had bought her Christmas presents every year or so. Her bed was palifi with her Christmas presents from the years she'd been gone, so it was wonderful to bring her home. Tammy wound up pleading no contest to a charge of possession of oxycotton. The rest of the charges were eventually thrown out. Today, Tammy and Lee are still friends. Lee is a nurse and Tammy is busy trying to make up for the years she

lost in prison. I'm very simple. I enjoy the cool stuff in life because you know, I had enough time to choose what that what I had to God was that innocent time. So I like to fly kites, I like to fade ducks. I like to take wrong rides in the country. I'm just hibby and cool. If you'd like to help support the Mississippi Innocence Project now known as the George C. Cochrane Innocence Project. Go to Innocence

Project dot ol E MSS dot edu. Velina also wrote a book about Tammy and Lee and the wrongful convictions of women called Manifesting Justice. The links to all of this will be in our bio next time. On Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, James Richardson, do you think race had anything to do with us as far as me getting convicted? I do. Lack of gag person Q two quite individual. I feel like, Okay, yeah, we gotta show him, but I didn't do it. 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 Flom and Kevin Wurdis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story editor Sonja 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