The following interview was recorded in person at the twenty twenty four Innocent Network Conference in New Orleans. On March sixth, two thousand and one, in McHenry, Illinois, two masked men, one armed with a twenty two, attempted to rob a Mexican takeout joy, but the owner grabbed a butcher knife and his employee followed. As they chased the men out, they caught one of the assailants and removed his mask.
The other assailant turned around, ripped off his mask and opened fire, fatally shooting the owner and the surviving employee ran back inside to call the police. The police canvass the area and discovered four young people in a house up the street, including a young woman named Jennifer McMullen. Eventually, she and two of her friends confessed to a role in the robbery homicide. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us at eight three three, two oh seven four six sixty six and tell us how these stories make you feel and what you've done to help the cause, even if it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing on social media, and you might just hear yourself in a future episode. Call us eight three three, two oh seven four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Today's story is it's like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, and the investigation, if you can call it, that, is like something out of The Three Stooges or Keystone Cops or something much more sinister. First of all, we have I don't know why this is first time, but for the first time, we have the co director of the Illinois Innocence Project, Stephanie Cammell. She's been hiding out from us while some of her colleagues have been on
the show multiple times. But it's overdue. But I'm really honored to have you here.
Thank you so much for having us and for profiling Jennifer's case. We really appreciate it.
You go, don't embarrass you, but you're kind of a legend in this space, so you know, it's really great to have you here. And I'm very lucky and honored to have the person here who lived through this ordeal, Jennifer McMullin. Thanks for being here. Welcome to Ronful Conviction.
Thank you so much.
And I always say I'm so happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here because you should have never been on this show in the first place. This is this case came with instructions. You were only nineteen when this happened and the top of what your life was like because you were a law abiding, sort of normal person. You were born where.
Oh, Libertyville, Illinois.
Libertyville ALLNOI it sounds very all American.
It is.
Is it like one traffic light like that kind of place.
I mean, it's it's a busy small town. But yeah, it's an amazing place. I was born there and grew up around Lake Beach with my stepfather and mother, only child, three older siblings. The eldest is my brother, and then the other two are sisters. There's ten years difference between me and the next daughter. So they were all out and getting married and having families, and I was the oops. I came ten years later, so growing up in my teens, I was the only one in the house. But yeah,
it was a great childhood. Never in trouble, was always in sports, softball, soccer, competitive cheer, and dance. Sports was definitely a passion for me got it.
Okay, So it sounds like a nice childhood. Yeah.
Absolutely, I had an amazing childhood, amazing parents, siblings, family.
It was great and quite an athletic resume you have there as well as someone who didn't make the sports teams in high school. I'm a little jealous, but you know, I'm going to let that slide. That's why I played the guitar and smoked pot instead. But that's a different podcast. We're not going to talk about that now. But anyway, okay, So then let's go to this crime. Okay. This was on March six of two thousand and one. Two masked men attempted to rob a small restaurant in McHenry, Illinois,
right a burrito express. The owner, welding a butcher knife and his employee chased the two men out of the restaurant, and an ensuing chase, the owner was shot and killed. Jennifer, you stumbled onto this scene right, so to speak. I mean you were talk about wrong place, wrong time. Absolutely tell us how you came upon this chaotic and terrifying scene and then how you eventually got implicated.
Definitely. So that day, I remember I had got a call from one of my friends who needed to find somebody to borrow a laptop, so I called another friend who I knew had one. So I went and grabbed my three code defendants. We headed out to Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. You know, just young listening to music and join a car ride. Get to Twin Lakes. We end up finding out that my friend wasn't allowed to loan out her laptop.
I think, we say they're about fifty minutes, you know, just chit chatting, and then we were on our way, the four of us again, and headed it out to mckenry, Illinois, where one of my co defendants had a very close family friend who lived out there.
Our listeners may remember mckenry, Illinois from the story of Mario Kasharo, whose lead detective was a former failed hardware store stock boy. Yeah. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. And it's the same prosecutorial team Combs and Kanneely who prosecuted Mario three separate times while having more evidence supporting an alternative narrative. And we're going to have that incredible episode linked in the episode description because Jennifer's case bears such a strong resemblance as.
We're going into mckenry, we heard like a lot of commotion, ambulance squad cars. We ended up going to a smoke shop dispensary type place. Only one code defendant went in and the rest of us stayed in the car. From there we went to another co defendant's friend's house, which ended up being right in the vicinity of the Brito Express.
Jennifer's friends and later co defendants Kenneth Smith, Justin Hoftling, and David Collette. Their sole connection to the situation was that they arrived at their friend's house near the Burrito Express in the aftermath of this robbery turned homicide that occurred around seven to twenty pm the same evening.
Two masked men came into the Brito Express. No one was in there except the owner of all Presento and his employee at Wardo Pardo, and they were in the back and the first mask man had a twenty two caliber gun and they were attempting to rob the Brito Express. Mister Briseno took the butcher knife and started chasing them, with mister Pardo following right behind him. They chased them out. Now,
this is March in northern Illinois. There's ice, it's cold, and one of the perpetrators slips on the ice and falls, and so mister Pardo grabs him, takes off his mask so he gets a good look at him and starts dragging him back to the restaurant. Mister Briseno, the owner, has yelled at a passing car to call the police, and the perpetrator starts yelling to his friend because he's now been caught. The friend turns around and removes his
mask and starts shooting. He's trying to get him to let his friend go, and mister Preseno and Pardo are dragging him back to the Brito Express. At one point, mister Presento gets hit, and so mister Pardo drops the perpetrator and runs in and calls the police. By the time he comes back out, the two men are gone and mister Burzeno is on the ground and has been shot. He died a little bit later. Within ten minutes of
everything starting. The police were there, and mister Pardo spent a couple of hours that night with law enforcement, and they got composite sketches of each of the suspects that night.
Pardo also said that the assailant heat caught was wearing green leather jacket and police began to canvass the area looking for suspects. Meanwhile, Jennifer and her friends were just up the hill from the Burrito Express.
Throughout the evening, we were watching out the back window of that house. We saw detectives putting you know, the yellow markers on the ground for the different things that they were finding. I ended up not driving home that night because I was scared. I called my mother and told her, you know, something was going on in this area. I'm gonna go ahead and stay here for the night. It was the four of us. The mother came home from work, she worked at a gas station nearby the house.
There was a couple of younger kids there, you know, and we were just in the house actually watching the news of the scene of the crime in what was going on. Of course you're interested, and it's you know, happening right behind you. And then we all eventually went to sleep. While we were sleeping, mc henry police were doing canvassing of the neighborhood and when they had came to the house, they asked for the people's IDs who
were in the house. I was sleeping and they were given to my id out of my purse.
As she said, they canvassed the neighborhood and had all the different identification and so Jennifer I think, was questioned a couple of different times and obviously told them they knew nothing about this. And what we've learned later is they seemed to zero in on her friend, her co defendant, Ken Smith, and I've heard that they thought he may
have gotten away with something else, another crime. He hadn't really been in trouble before, and so I think it just seemed like all of a sudden, they thought he's right here behind the Burrito Express, must have done this.
It was later discovered that mister Pardo had viewed a photo array that contained photos of Jennifer's co defendants, but did not identify them. It's believed that he was deported and Jennifer and her friends remained the focus of the investigation.
The police theory was that Jennifer and perhaps David Collette, drove Ken Smith and Justin Hoftling to the Burrito Express before the crime, and may or may not have known what the assailants had planned, and they brought Jennifer in on May eleventh, two thousand and one to take a polygraph.
I went in willingly. It was to mckenry County detectives, a round the beach police officer who was actually a friend of the family and family yes, and was accompanying me in this situation, assuring my mother they just want to talk to her. You know, you don't need a lawyer.
Don't worry. Her mother specifically asked if she needed to get her a lawyer. Yes, you're told that if you have nothing to hide, why would you need a lawyer, And that is so incorrect. Make sure that you have representation as you're trying to be helpful to the police.
But there was another factor at play here.
I was diagnosed with bipolar and manic depression, so I was on medication. Before I went into the light detective test, I was given a dose of one of my medications, which was clanipin, so clonopin is a sleep aid.
After that or she had the light detector test, there were only four questions asked. After that, they come out and say a couple answers were highly suspicious, and so then they start trying to what really happened? What really happened? They didn't believe her. They didn't believe her.
By two thousand and one, polygraphs were no longer admissible in court. And when law enforcement tells the subject that they failed or their answers were suspicious, this serves to arm interrogators with a pseudo scientific reason why their subjects denials just cannot be believed.
We get back to mckenry County Police Department. They take me into almost like a boardroom with long tables, big screen TV. They pop in a VHS and it was footage of the smoke shop, which was called Cloud nine. And the footage did show one of my co defendants in their shopping around, which did happen that night We did go to the smoke shop. So they asked me to identify who was on the tape. I did so.
It was David Collette on video at seven thirty eight pm. Importantly, they were all still together at Jennifer's ordeal continued.
Another detective comes in that that I hadn't met that day yet, So it becomes three detectives in myself in.
The room, multiple mail, law enforcement officers, no parent, no attorney, nothing, and.
He basically just started saying, this is what we want you to say, tell us what we want to hear, and you can go home. We know you didn't have anything to do with it. Just give us this name and all this can be done and over with. And as I keep saying, we didn't commit this crime, I don't know you know what you want me to say. I don't know what you're talking about, Like this isn't right, you know. Sorry.
At any time, you know, an attorney could have said this is not going to go on anymore. She kept asking to go home and thought she was going to go home, and they kept saying, oh, we will take you home, you know, until it gets longer and longer again. Social science study shows people's defenses start to break down after about an hour and a half.
This went on for over fourteen hours, as they kept drilling, starting and stopping recording. Just tell us what we want to hear and you can go. I just remember being in a daze from the medication, not understanding, just wanting it to be over with.
Oftentimes people they'll say anything just to get out of the situation, thinking well, we'll get out of the situation, and then they'll find out the evidence and it'll show that I didn't do it. You know, they'll go get the actual perpetrators, right.
So eventually one of them sat with like a yellow legal pad and he would write down descriptions of things that happened in the crime. Even drew a picture of like the gun that was used and kind of like a description of it. And he said, if there's anything at you mess up on, you can glance over here at this legal tablet. And every time I didn't get something great, you would shut off the camera recording and
just start screaming. And then I just couldn't take any more, and I told them what they wanted to hear, just that we can be over with. I just wanted to go home.
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In a videotape statement that ended around ten ten pm, Jennifer said that she saw police activity in the area, then lent her card to her three friends.
Then they returned and admitted to the shooting. But why would there be police activity before the alleged assailants even left to commit the crime that makes absolutely no sense.
There are two different videotape interrogations. In the first one, she starts breaking down and giving them information, but again highly unreliable. They take a break and while they said they did not give her medication until after the second interrogation, the video stops recording, but on the audio you hear a man say, do you want coffee with your medication?
And then the false confession from that first videotape wasn't really accurate, So then they do another videotape and they get the confession that ends up being used at her trial, which is more accurate. But again none of the withheld facts from the crime. Did she know? Did her code defendants know? Had no idea.
Often police will withhold information from the public in order to better assess the credibility of witnesses. In this case, there were two details well, that mister Persseno had a head injury that was consistent with being histol whipped, and two that mister Persseno had yelled to a passing car
to call nine one one. Jennifer mentioned neither. Instead, she placed herself in the car, alleging that all three of her co defendants had participated, and that only one wore a mask, directly contradicting the known facts of the crime.
I remember falling asleep in the corner of the interrogation room. I remember a blanket being thrown on me. The next morning, I woke up in a holding cell. I woke up to a detective throwing a bag of McDonald's breakfast at me and saying, you need to get up. We're charging you with first degree murder.
Wow.
They shackled me, put me in a squad car, and took me to mckenry County Jail.
The following day, they arrested fifteen year old Justin Hoftling, who informed the police that he was on hallucinogenic drugs, but they interrogated him anyway. The buck I'm sorry. He maintained his innocence, but changed his story when he was told a lie that all three of his friends, not just Jennifer, had made incriminating statements and that if he did too, he could make a deal. He said that Jennifer drove him and Smith to the Burrito Express and they committed the robbery homicide.
Her co defendant, who was fifteen, gave a very unreliable confession, didn't have any of the facts correct. When they gave him choices of the gun, he chose an automatic, not a twenty deal. Yes, yeah, he was under the influence of drugs too during his false confession.
Justin Hoftling was facing potentially sixty seven years in prison, and so he accepted a twenty year sentence. David Colette accepted five years to testify that Jennifer drove all three of them to the Burrito Express where he split from Ken and Justin and did not participate. But before anyone appeared in court, the mother of an alternate suspect came forward and pointed the finger at her own daughter.
Was never disclosed to Jennifer's trial council was there was an alternate suspect group that had repeatedly confessed to family and friends of committing this crime. In November of two thousand and one, the mom called in to the police and she says, my daughter told me you have the wrong people. That her daughter was driving in the car and saw her friends run into the Brito Express and then saw them run out, and the owner yelled at her to call the police.
Wow.
She also said that her daughter saw the person that was doing the shooting come back and hit mister Bresento in the head with the butt of the gun to knock him over to let go of his friend. That's two pieces of information about the crime that they withheld from the public to corroborate confessions.
The daughter's name is Suzanne de Chico and her friend's names are Russell Levon and Adam Hyland.
The alternate suspect was at her mom and stepdad's home, which was also close to the Brito Express And because it was a bloody struggle, the alternate suspect got cut up on his shins from the ice, but also his hand got a cut from the knife, and they end up burning their clothes because there's so much blood. And eight weeks to ten weeks later, they took her card over the board in Wisconsin and torched the car because they couldn't get the blood out from the back seat
of the car. Jennifer's car. In twenty twenty still, when we were going in for DNA testing, it was still impounded by the police. They had it in their custody, you know. Nineteen years later, they never found anything in the car because it wasn't nothing was in there, right, So you have this mother calling in. She identifies the two friends of her daughter's and her daughter her daughter has confessed to other.
People, and the police didn't just ignore this tip.
When this mother called in, she also said they stole my husband's gun. Then they tested that gun and found that the bullet that was taken from mister Zunno's body matched five of the six grooves, but they couldn't say it definitively matched, but it had a crack in the handle, which her daughter talked about him hitting mister Bresento in the forehead with the butt of the gun to get him to let go of his front.
When it comes to ballistics testing, guns can only be definitively ruled out not matched, to the exclusion of all of the guns on the planet. But with the cracked handle and matching mother daughter confessions, it appears that this crime basically solved itself. Even still, police and prosecutors hid this information from the defense and put Justin Hoffling and David Collette on the stand of Jennifer's trial in March two thousand and two. But theirs and Jennifer's stories were
inconsistent with each other. As well as inconsistent with reality, which naturally raised doubts.
So it was last day of the trial, the jury was arguing they couldn't come to a decision. The judge I had Arnold stated to the jury that they had to hurry up and come up with the decision, and the jury was brought in and I was found guilty.
You see on the sentencing documents stating that she did not participate in the planning or carrying out of this, that she wasn't a threat to society, that she'd never been in trouble with the law, but because she drove them, he sentenced her harshly to twenty seven years in prison.
And the crazy irony is that the people that she drove also had nothing to do with it.
Yes, exactly, although of course law enforcement said her friends committed this crime.
Even if that were true, that would mean that if you at home speaking to everybody who's listening for me, or you were just sitting in our car and a couple of friends come up and go, hey, can I get a ride down the block, and you give them a ride, not knowing that they may have done anything, you can now be convicted. A sense to twenty seven years in prison.
Twenty seven years straight through, no good days, no credit for school, no contracts for good time, straight through.
I hope it's making everybody else's angry as it makes me, because it's absurd. It's actually absurd. But the other thing about this that I got to go back to is the fact that they had to have known because of this conscientious mom. There should be so much credibility in that phone call. Yes, and she had the accurate information, yes, but Jennifer didn't right and her code events confession was wrong in different ways exactly. So the jury comes back and finds you guilty.
Yes, as he read the verdict, I remember watching the judge like everything was in slow motion, and I turned around and looked at my mom, and I just saw fum and disbelief. And then they took people away, being in prison and being innocent of the crime that you're convicted of. One time I told somebody, I've never felt
so alone around so many people. When you go through something like this, it's like you go through stages like, Okay, I know I'm wrongfully convicted, but at nineteen, they're sending me to an adult max women's facility. I have to prepare myself for this. You finally get there and you're like, Okay, I'm here. I don't know what's going on. I know that I'm innocent. Now I have to take this next step, this next stage, and the stages you went through before that.
You never heal from any of it because you're just facing the next one, facing the next one, trying to get through every day, trying to get you know, and it's all on you to figure out what you're going to do every day to help yourself get through it. Cooling programs, different things that you can do to stay sane.
While Jennifer was Brave in prison, the evidence about the alternate suspect was coming out during Ken Smith's first trial, and her appellate council used that evidence, albeit unsuccessfully.
So Jennifer had been represented up to a point and then her case was basically dormant. But all along, her co defendant, Ken Smith, who they alleged was the actual shooter, was tried by McHenry County three different times. As we go in and litigate cases, defense attorneys and prosecutors are making motions to bring stuff in, keep stuff out. His convictions kept getting overturned by the appellate court immediately because evidence kept being left out.
Importantly, the ballistics testing for Suzanne to Chico's step father's twenty two caliber rifle came to light, as well as even more confessions from Suzanne to Chico.
She was in trouble often with the law. They knew her. They were talking to her about something else, and she told two different police officers about this and they didn't take her seriously. They said she was bragging and trying to get street cred.
And it appears that Justin Hoftling also had a guilty conscience.
Yes, he wrote Jennifer four months later apologizing for lying he wouldn't testify against her co defendant Ken Smith in his first trial. That trial got overturned. They go to retry him again in the second trial. He gets on the stand and gives his false confession. On cross examination, he admits that he just lied, that Ken didn't do this. They didn't do this, but he had to stick with his false confession or they were going to revoke his
plea deal. They then prosecute him for perjury and he gets five and a half more years.
The judge also blocked any evidence implicating the alternate suspects, even though Adam Hyland had allegedly confessed to his roommate and to others.
And the roommate said, you need to talk to an attorney and took him to see a defense attorney, and he told the defense attorney, with his roommate sitting there, me and my friend did this. We were trying to rob the Brito Express. And the defense attorney told him to be quiet, don't say anything. They already have other people for this crime.
How do we know all that?
Well, in her co defendant's third trial, the roommate got on the stand and under oath testified to that.
However, at Smith's third trial in twenty twelve, once again amount of evidence corroborating the alternate suspects was not admitted. But even with that, it's still surprising that the jury once again convicted and sent Ken away for sixty seven years. When law enforcement just too kind to say they botch it when they really cover it up for the actual perpetrators. That means our tax dollars are paying these people to work in service of the actual people who committed these crimes.
Yes, well, and we know in this case that these alternate suspects have gone on to commit multiple crimes. McHenry has prosecuted them over and over and in something out of a movie that you couldn't script. When we went into ru the DNA motion, the alternate suspect, who were pretty certain was the shooter, was being arraigned on drug induced homicide charges same day in the same court, and.
That homicide happened after that.
Oh, this was twenty twenty. We're in there, but they've prosecuted him over and over for multiple crimes. He's been in and out of prison, as has the other alternate suspect.
Right, had they done even a fraction of their jobs, these other people who were harmed or killed by these two guys would have never met those fates. Right, And the PRESENTO family, the part of family, is deprived of justice as well.
Unfortunately, they do not know all of the new evidence that we have, and so they only know what they're told. And the state's attorney and the prosecutors are certain that they still got the right people despite her co defendants exoneration, and so you know, they think that we're trying to just pin it on someone else. I mean, you know, they which is too bad. You know, the DNA testing that we did in twenty twenty one of the crime
scene evidence, the knife, the clothing. Of course we all know Jennifer's going to be excluded, but all three co defendants all excluded, and you know there was that close tussle and they're dragging him the knife. But there's one unknown male DNA that is in there that has not been compared to the alternate suspect standards. They won't always see.
That time and again. Yeah, so then how did you end up connecting with the Illinois ANISIS project.
I found a paralegal out of Lincoln, Illinois by the name of Fonda Robbins, So I contacted her. I sent her paperwork copies of everything I had, which I had done multiple times, you know, to different pro bono lawyers, different states. I went through years and years of doing that, and finally Fonda Robbins contacted me and I got blessed with the contact information to mister John Hanlin.
He was our executive director. He's still working with us on cases, but he retired from the executive director role.
Some months had went by, and all of a sudden I got a call to go up to the visiting room, which was a surprise to me. My visits with family were always planned because they live so far away. So I get up there, go through the whole strip search situation, get in there, and this man comes around the corner and he says, Jennifer, my name is John Hanlin, and
I worked with the Illinois Innocence Project. We then went into a private room and as I turned the corner, I want to say, there was about six or seven people there, including students, supporters, and other attorneys there just to listen and to help.
Finally, John started on her case and I joined the project about a year and a half later, and he brought me on to Jennifer's case and turn it over to me. So I started in twenty nineteen on her case.
I mean, you got busy.
We did, and you know, interestingly, we filed that DNA motion and actually were in court same day with the alternate suspect argued it right the day before the courts shut down with COVID to get evidence shipped out for DNA testing. So we get the DNA results April twenty twenty one, and that's the point where the state comes and offers Jennifer a plea deal.
What did that look like.
We expected that she would be exonerated, that they would say, look, we got it wrong, she needs to be released, and they said, no, we got it right. With Ken three juries convicted him. It didn't matter that they kept not hearing all the evidence, and so they said, but she's already spent way too long in prison. Even if she's guilty for what you know she was convicted of, it's
been way too long. It was a harsh sentence. So if she will plead guilty to armed violence, which again she never participated in the crime, we'll let her out for time served. But if she resumes her post conviction litigation to prove her innocence, we will revoke her plea deal and she will be returned to prison, even though they've said she's already spent way too long in prison.
And so she had this hard decision. So we told her, you can either take this deal and get out immediately, but you're going to have this Class X felony of armed violence on your record, or we're going to keep representing you and will file your successive post conviction petition and litigate your innocence. But you're going to be sitting in prison for at least another few years.
It's like a Sophie's choice. Yeah, right.
So I lost my mom eight years into my incarceration. I was actually released on her birthday. A big part of me taking the plea was being home to help my family. I had already saw my mother in a casket shackled from head to toe. About six years ago, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia, and I wanted to make it home and for him to see me home before he didn't know who I was, so I was so thankful for that. Going to court that day was it was a hard decision.
You know.
At first, when I gave my false confession, people would say, well, why would you do that if you really didn't commit this crime. You don't know what it feels like until you're going through it. And even now they said, well, why would you plead guilty to that charge if you're innocent, if you didn't commit this crime. Again, you don't know what it feels like. But going to court that day was it was hard at having to be guilty to
something I didn't do. Yeah, you know, as they're reading, you know the description of the crime and what went on, and my soul called role. I just stood there and cried, you know, standing next to my lawyers.
You accept this play. It's a bittersweet, obviously, but you're calling home.
When I left from mckenry County, I was nineteen years old, going to prison, coming back to mckenry to get released, I was almost forty, and as I walked into the bullpins and entering you know, the county jail, I had officers who became sergeants and lieutenants throughout the years that I was, you know, incarcerated, and they said, finally the truth is coming out and you guys are going home.
Everybody all these years has known the truth, and you know, has known that you guys, you didn't come at this crime.
I mean, we obviously wanted to see the day when the full exoneration comes to pass.
Our only option now is clemency, which we filed and presented a clemency petition to the Prisoner Review Board in January on her behalf. Because that's not a legal proceeding. That is Jennifer's only way to be exonerated.
A pardon, yes, and you ritually deserve one, so can people write somewhere.
Write to Governor Pritzker, because we have, as I said, presented her clemency petition to the Prisoner Review Board and they will be making a recommendation, but he's the one who ultimately will make that decision.
So we'll have like a sample letter in the episode description. Will make it easy for you. I know it sounds like what do I write? What do I write? Too, We're going to make it easy. Go to the episode description and we'll have everything you need to write a letter. And with that, now we turn to my favorite part of the show, which is called closing arguments, and it
works like this. First of all, I thank you both once again, and I now have the privilege of just listening to anything else you want to say.
First of all, just I want to thank you so much Jason for asking us here and highlighting Jennifer's story. You know, it's a privilege for us to get to share her story. You know, one thing I'd like to say is when these wrongful convictions happen. You know, as we take on these cases, we're very cognizant of the fact that you have someone who is a victim of
a crime. Before we take on a case. We do so much investigation and testing to make sure because what happens when someone's wrongfully convicted, You now have another victim of a crime, and the original victim never got true justice because the real perpetrators are still out there and often committing other crimes. And so it's really important that we represent these people that are wrongfully convicted, and I want victims of crimes to understand that's what we're doing.
We are not trying to get perpetrators out of jail.
She was a.
Victim herself and we want justice, and real justice is getting the true perpetrators in crime and getting innocent people out of prison.
Jennifer, it's an honor to be here. I want to thank everybody tremendously for the work that you do, all the innocence projects around the world, because if it wasn't for you guys, we wouldn't be here, and all the hard work that you do. Been a long journey, good days, bad days, but I'm here taking it one day at a time, and I just appreciate life so much more. And if there was one thing that I could tell everybody's it can happen to anybody, and it happens more
than people know. I met people every day, you know, where different things went on in their case, and they just didn't have the strength to fight, you know. But I knew that I had to keep on fighting. Another big thing is know your rights when it comes to interrogations. Lawyers, Miranda Wrights, you.
Know, get the knowledge behind it.
I know that if I knew and I understood at a young age, I don't think that they would have went that far.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts. And association with signal Company number one