#494 Maggie Freleng with Annette Cahill

Here at the Happiness Lab, we're serving up some hot takes for the summer. Big ideas that just might reshape how you think about your wellbeing. Like the radical motion that we should get rid of small talk completely. We talk about current events. We talk about what you do for a living. But not do you love what you do for a living. Is this your dream job? For more surprising ideas backed by psychological science, check out our new series, Happiness Hot Takes. Listen to the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos, on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Sabura Football, the sweet and spicy on and off the field. And Daniela Durán, and this is where we get to know the people behind the game like never before, the pressure, the same. And everything that happens when the camera is to run off. Enjoy conversations with kids like Barbarta, Inez Valencia, Charlones Podar, Pollo de Seno, Pede Pereira, and many more. Listen to Sabura Football on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, my love. I'm Ryan Weiss, and for the past 15 years, I've been an emotional intelligence coach and a spiritual guide, and I'm sharing with you my new podcast, Waking Up With Ryan. Waking Up With Ryan is a daily audio video podcast, here to help you connect with yourself before the noise of the day takes over. So let's start our days together with a moment of calm, that's just for you. Listen to Waking Up With Ryan starting July 7th, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Annette, it's Maggie. Hi, it's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Can you hear me all right? I can. Awesome. It's a little loud on this end, and I apologize. It's an open-bay phone system. So it's going to be noisy at times. It's the lunch hour here. Annette Keehill is the first person I have spoken with, who lived their entire life before being arrested, charged, and convicted. For a crime, they say they did not commit. I'm sorry, I'm just kind of cheerful. A cry or a lesie. She's 61, has a husband, children, great-grandchildren, and five years ago, that all got taken away. Tell me about being in your 60s in prison. I mean, it's not like you grew up there. You just got there. No, no. It is every day is culture-shocks. It really, truly is. There's nothing about prisons where I think I'm going to get used to this someday. This is nightmare. And I know you've been painted a certain way in the media. So I want to give you the opportunity to talk about who you really are, OK? OK. Yeah, that would be refreshing. My name is Annette Keehill, and I have been wrongfully incarcerated for almost exactly five years. It happened on September 19, 2019. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling. Today Annette Keehill. Annette Keehill was born December 12, 1962. I grew up in a little tiny town of less than 400 people. Oh. Nichols, Iowa. And it was-- oh, gosh. So dumb. Itty-bitty. And it was the cliche we grew up so poor we didn't know we were poor. Money was tight raising seven kids. It goes, myself, Lori Renee, Danny Charlie, Mike, and Tom. And Renee and Danny were four years apart. But the rest of us are all just two years apart. Wow. Yeah, we're Catholic. Did you guys grow up going to church? We did until I think I was fixed when we stopped going. I don't know if it was actually true or not, but it was kind of family lore that it had something to do with the dispute with the church about paying for a few-- a church fundraiser paying for a few. That's what we always heard. So we quit going to church. Mom said I could, so I did. Annette's mom stayed home raising the kids, and Annette's dad spent most of his time working. And it was a feed company. And then he farmed on the side. Annette rarely got to spend time with her dad, but when she did. It was always on Sundays. We would take a ride in the truck, and we would pick Blue Bell. And his mom loved Blue Bell. So we would pick her bouquets of Blue Bells and take them to her. And that was just a fun time. I think it was just to get out of mom's hair that he would pick us girls out. It didn't cost the thing. It was just to spend time. But Annette says her dad's main priority was to keep food on the table. He was just always working. And then he had a stroke. And my mom went to work. Then at a company in West Liberty, West Liberty Oil. Annette says it was tough providing even just the basics for seven kids on one parent income. So she and her siblings would work in the fields, sorting out good corn from bad corn. What we used to call the rogans cut corn out of beans in the summer and detachled and not a steady job. But always doing something, always earning money on the side. Annette was the youngest of the seven. So she said she had it easier than her older siblings. Being the youngest, it was almost like mom got tired and just let me do whatever I wanted. And what she wanted was to be out causing mischief with all the other kids. We ran the town of Nichols. It was-- and there was nothing to do. There really wasn't. We didn't do anything horrible. We just did stupid things. We stayed out late. We got on top of the buildings downtown. We would climb the back of buildings and watch traffic go by. That's stupid things like that. But in a small town after a while, Annette says there's not much to do to help you stay out of trouble. We drank very early. We found people that would buy us beer, being young girls. And we drank early and we smoked. And I think the very first time I got drunk, I seriously drunk. I was 13. I could go to my brother Danny's house and I could drink any time I wanted him. Yeah, it became a habit real quick after that. When Annette was 15, she dropped out of school. My mom did not make me go to school. I was bored in school and I wanted to be out having fun. Annette got her GED at Community College and continued her party lifestyle. She started working in restaurants and bars. It was just an easy way for an alcoholist to get free drinks. Then at 18, she met a boy. And I got pregnant, so we got married. And we had two children. My name is Leanne McCrabbe. And I am Annette K. Hills daughter. Leanne is a net's oldest daughter. She was born in 1982. And she remembers Annette's struggling, those early years of parenthood. Sometimes she'd work one job. Sometimes she'd work two jobs. Sometimes she couldn't get a job. There were times when I'd have to get my brother up and get him dressed and take him across town, which wasn't really very far, but take him across town to my grandparents' house so that we could eat breakfast because there was never food in the house. We wouldn't have electricity. Things like that. We never had any extra money to do anything. So like her dad had done for her and her siblings, Annette figured out how to have fun with her kids without spending money. We would still have games in the dark, or we would-- we lived in Iowa where cans, pop cans, were worth five cents. We would go looking for cans. And then we would go find the silliest dinners for five cents per can. So we would buy the silliest dinners from the gas station. She never let us know how much we were struggling. But they were. Annette was a teen mom trying to keep her life and her children's afloat. It wasn't a bad mom. I just wasn't the best mom. I could be looking back. I was young and dumb. And I could have been a much better mom. Annette's marriage was also rocky. At 26, she got divorced and her drinking and partying took over. As we were divorcing, then I hit the bars. And that's when I met Corey. Corey Winneke. He was funny. He was sweet. He was kind. He was, as we thought, he really was. Cory had been the star football player in high school, handsome, charming, and popular. I tried to remember if the first time I met him, I think I got called to the bar. I was seeing someone and the person that I was seeing like passed out at the bar. So I had to go get him. And I think Cory was in there at that time. So that, I'm pretty sure that was the very first time I met him. The bar was called Winks and Cory worked there. In fact, his family owned it. Winks was a nickname for Winneke. And it was one of the two bars in the tiny town of West Liberty. Everybody hung out at Winks, Winks and shenanigans. A net wound up working at Winks with Cory. We just became really good friends. And they spent all their time together. I loved him so much. - Leanne remembers Cory. - We'd go to his bar, we'd play pool. We'd give us bags of chips. We'd fall asleep in the booths while mom was working. I mean, it was the 80s, early 90s. It wasn't and hard of. It wasn't taboo back then to have your kids in a bar. We'd hang out, play pool. Everyone knew who we were. And we knew that Cory was her best friend. But a net and Cory's relationship was more than platonic. - It was a sexual relationship with the friendship connection. We would be at the bar total closing. We'd make sure everybody was gone and we would either stay at the bar or we would spend a lot of afternoon together. We'd find another person to bar to end and we'd both take off. - Right. - You know, we just spent every minute we could together. - But it was complicated. - Here's a fiance. - A fiance. Cory was engaged to his high school sweetheart, Jodie Hots. But it wasn't just Jodie he was with. - You know, it was a standing joke that he had relationships with everybody and masculine family. - Did his fiance know? - Yes. - Eventually, a friend of Jodie's would tell the press that she knew of Cory's affairs. And back in 1992, a net knew as well about his affairs and his fiance. - Yeah, it was, I knew it and I really didn't care. - Well, it sounds like he didn't care either. - He didn't care at all. I did care. I just didn't care enough. It was very hurtful and I know that now. But. - You know, it's interesting just thinking about this small town and it sounds like everyone was hooking up with everyone. - Yeah, it was. It really truly was. It was, we used to call it Peyton's Lane. - What's that? - I don't know if you know. - No, it was a Peyton's Lane. I'm sorry. You'll have to look that one up on the YouTube. - Okay, a 1964 drama got it. - It was a soap opera. That's basically what it was. - And that says everyone was partying and hooking up with each other. She was also seeing other people. - It wasn't exclusive in any way, shape, or form. It was never going to be. - And Annette says she had bigger worries at the time as her alcohol and drug use started to get out of control. Here's Leanne again. - I saw the drinking. I saw her being passed out on the couch. I knew what it was from. I knew there was drugs involved. - I didn't cocaine. That was my drug of choice. So there were times when she could not be a mom. And I was aware of that. Do you remember when your dad took custody of you guys? - Yes, I was 10. My brother was eight. I remember it was really rough. We didn't want it to happen. And I remember my mom telling us it was temporary. And she didn't want it to happen either. It was a very emotional time. Still, Leanne says she's glad her mom made the decision to have someone else care for them for a while. Because it probably saved us from having to go into statescare. Because I do remember times where the state did show up. - Leanne says one time, child protective services came knocking. And we had to hide. And she kept us very quiet and she kept us hidden so that we couldn't answer the door. We couldn't make any noise. And I remember that. And that's something that I won't ever forget. - So instead of foster care, Leanne and her brother went to live with their father in Colorado. But that wasn't easy either. - My dad was probably a worst parent. And I held my mom. I was angry at my mom for that. For putting me in that worst situation. And I went through a lot of therapy and I realized it was not my mom's fault that she could not be a parent at that time. And net life was spiraling. - Hey everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers. If you haven't heard, Arnie podcast is called Hey Jonas. - And this week we're hanging out with someone where really big fans of. - Milly Bobby Brown, that's right. 11 herself. - We talk about her new movie and all of home's three family life and all the amazing things she has going on right now. - Of course. - This blew my mind when I saw this. Milly Bobby Brown. You have over 60 animals. First of all, how do you even keep track of everybody? And second, do you have favorites? Who are they and why? - Yeah, I need to know about this. - Okay. - I don't know where the number 60 and I really got to figure that out. And I could actually have over 60. I just need to really know that number. There have been plenty of sheep in my bed and yeah. - It's a big bed. - In the bed, literally sleeping in the bed, yeah. - Plus we find out what she really feels about stranger things in there. - Five seasons, almost 10 years of your life. - I could have never have guessed it. I started when I was 10 years old. - Our conversation with Milly Bobby Brown is out now. - Go check it out. - Listen to Hey Jonas on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever. You get your podcasts. - Hey, I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hota Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame the fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. - I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum retrashing. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. - Olympic champ, Sean Johnson, revealed why she had no choice, but to be a gymnast. - There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. - Listen to Joy 101 with Hota Kotby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress and I'm confronting them. - Tell me, Sophia, how did she even catch them? - One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kids Christmas gifts with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. - He exposed himself? That's a rookie move. - Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes, and lingerie, he met motor for. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10 page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. - In his luggage, she came to play. - And the second he landed, he blocked her. So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone. - Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone. That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. - That gets worse. He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip. He had planned with his wife. And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the fare to her entire family. That's like a whole public confession. - And spoiler two years later, karma hit some so hard. He's calling his ex-wife in tears, saying about the mistress, "What a mistake that was." To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHAR radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. - On October 12th, 1992, a net and Corey were enjoying their usual night of partying at the bar. - So I got stupid, I got drunk stupid. - A heated argument ensued between a net and Corey about another girl Corey had wanted to take home. But a net says they eventually made up and he drove her home. At the time, she was living with her brother and his wife in a farmhouse. - We went back to the farm and we had sex. He left. I passed out. And that was last time I saw him. - The next evening, a net remembers being at home when two of her coworkers came to the door. - They said you need to come to the bar. Grandma needs you to 10 bar, Corey is sick. And I said to the owl, right, as he needs to go to the brown bottle flu. - A net says she thought she had to cover for Corey because he had to hang over. But when she got to work, she found out the truth. A coworker told her, - He said he's dead in that and I just lost it. A net's best friend, her love, 22-year-old Corey Winneke, was dead. A net couldn't believe it. She had just been with Corey the night before. That morning, she had even gone to Corey's house to apologize for the argument they'd gotten in the night before. She said she was on her way to run errands in Iowa City with her sister-in-law Jackie, and they swung by his house. But Corey didn't answer, so they went about their day. At first, a net says everyone in town thought Corey had been shot. We thought someone broke in and shot him. Until it was on the news, I don't know a day or two later, but he had been, you know, bludgeoned. He is found dead on the floor of his bedroom by his live-in girlfriend, fiance Jody, and he has been beaten to death. This is Erica Nichol's cook. He's the director of the wrongful conviction unit at the Iowa State Public Defender's Office. There's no apparent weapon or break-in or known motive. He's in his underwear next to his bed. So the state has a theory that someone that he knew came into the house, was mad at him, and beat him to death. When you found out he was bludgeoned, what did you think? I thought angry husband or boyfriend. That was my very first thought. At least one of the women Corey was seeing had a husband. One woman even had his baby. He had a relationship with another woman in town, Wendy, and they had a child together, but a child that he didn't acknowledge. There were also drug-related rumors. There was speculation about drug dealing, whether he owed a drug debt, and they did like parlayes and gambling at the bar, and whether gambling could have been a motive for someone to want to kill Corey. Being one of the lovers, Annette was also questioned about the murder. I was obviously a suspect. Annette and her sister-in-law, Jackie, voluntarily went to the police department because the earlier and that day before his body is found, they had stopped at his house. She and Corey had had a fight the night before, before having makeup sex, and she just wanted to touch base with them, see him. He didn't answer the door. They had to leave for a doctor's appointment, but they had been there, and they wanted to help solve it. So Annette took a lie detector test, told she passed. They didn't have any other suspects that really they could place at Corey's house that day. And the investigation kind of just goes cold. Leanne remembers trying to have a relationship with her mom long distance after Corey's death. I wasn't there to see the aftermath or the devastation or the big depression that happened after I was only there to hear over the phone to hear it. I remember the tears, the constant tears, and I remember the lack of the phone calls. I remember the phone calls just being just weeping when we did talk to her, which was heartbreaking because, you know, I was 10 years old, 11 years old. It was real hard to hear my mom like that. Once again Annette was a mess. Just stupid drunk. I was drinking. I was doing drugs. But then she met Phil Kehoe. I met him in a bar and well, I didn't meet him in a bar. I saw him in a bar. Bill was a friend of her brother, Denny's. So she'd see him around. Never thought another thing about him until we talked and caught up a little bit. He's just a good guy. He's just smart, he's funny. He's more loyal than the day he was long. And Annette says he was good for her. Our dates weren't based on alcohol. We started going out and the rest of the history we married in December of '93 and we were still married. There's something about Bill in 32 years of knowing each other. He's never had a fight. Well, they do argue over classic rock. He loves TV rays on. I'm not a big fan. So it's little tiny things like that. That's basically our disagreements. We absolutely agreed how to raise the kids. Three kids. Annette got her life straight and Bill took in Leanne and her brother as his own. They even had another child. My mom did a total 180. Totally grew up as a parent, grew up as an adult. My brother got museums as field trips. He got nutritional meals and museums and the zoo and brand new school clothes and never went without a meal. So by the time my children came along, my children got the best grandma. My grandkids, okay. So my youngest grandson was born in 2014 and my oldest granddaughter was born in 2000. Like Annette, Leanne had her first kid young at 17. My kids get this grandma who wanted to bake with them and wanted to cook with them and wanted to teach them all her recipes and wanted to fill up the pool in the backyard and go splash around with them. She created this thing called the phenomenal bags with them. So whenever they were good, it'd get you a pick out of dollars to our prize out of these bags. So she taught them the word phenomenal and what it meant and then she'd reward them for the silliest things. And like it was just, it was so neat to see that that was the mom that I was so proud to have. And I'm going to tear up while I'm saying this because because that was the mom that I was so proud to see with my kids. So it was the mom that I went in my kids to see that I had and they love her. Finally, Annette K. Hill was living her best life. An adoring husband, grandkids, baking and playtime. She also had a steady job. She worked as a proofreader and in customer service at the police law institute, which does online training for law enforcement. It was a far cry from her previous life. But she still thought about Corey. She'd even check in with the police for updates. Through the years, I called them all the time, all the time and after updates, you know, please, what's going on? Do you have anything new? Did you think calling would make you look suspicious? Like when you were calling, what were you thinking? Um, just that, you know, God, maybe they have something new. And sometimes they did. Maybe so often or every, you know, few years, something would come up or they would have an agent working on cold cases. They visited a psychic at one point about several other cold cases in the region and try to get information and leads. They had received some information that a group called the Klan, um, who was selling drugs in that area at the time were involved. You know, somebody's girlfriend would come forward and say they bragged about breaking into this guy's house and, you know, killing him with the baseball bat. A baseball bat was the presumed murder weapon. Investigators searched the ditches on the rural road near Corey's house, but found nothing until a news reporter covering the story spotted a bloody aluminum bat on the road. Police were able to match the blood on the bat to Corey's blood type, but that was it. Despite the leads, nothing panned out for decades. It was just insane. At that point, I had pretty much convinced myself that I was going to die without ever knowing who committed the crime. So you came to terms with it and kind of moved on. That was until March 2018 when the police came knocking. Hey, everybody, it's the Jonas Brothers. This week on the podcast, Hey, Jonas, we're so excited to be hanging out with Mika Abdullah from the hit show off campus. Congratulations on the massive show and massive success. Got through about episode five. I left the next morning to go meet the guys came back was like, "Hey, you guys are going The coolest pickup where we left off and that series have been completed without me. - Oh no, that's like the number one rule of watching some, yeah it's literally cheating, that's crazy. - We talk about what it's been like watching the show become such a massive hit, what's next for season two, and just how close the off-campus cast really is. - We're genuinely so close. - What's the group chat called? If you can say, if it's allowed to be set on the on pod, it's a great question. - One of them is off-campus Brazil. - Okay, love it. Shout out Brazil. - And then the boys have their own group chat called Dean's (beep) (laughing) - Our conversation with Mika Abdullah is out now. - Go check it out. - Listen to Hey Jonas in the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. - Hey I'm Hota Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hota Kotby. Okay if you know me, you know this. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. - Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. - Listen to Joy 101 with Hota Kotby on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - My husband is currently on vacation with his mistress and I'm confronting them. - Tell me Sophia, how did she even catch them? That is a bold move. - That it gets worse. He had planned with his wife and then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the fare to her entire family. - That's like a whole public confession. - And spoiler two years later, karma hit some so hardies calling his ex-wife in tears saying about the mistress, "What a mistake that was." To find out what happened, listen to the Okay Storytime podcast on the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - More than 25 years after the death of Cory Winicky, a netk hill got a knock on her door. It was Detective John Turbett. - He said, "Hey, he had some, you know, some new information, some good news. You know, he had some, had some things he wanted to show me and I said, "Oh my God, thank God, finally." - So a net went with him to the police station. - I walked into the interrogation room and I saw the bat on a table and I just went cold and I thought, "Oh my God, they think it's me. They think it's me." And then it just changed everything. - A net shut down. - I didn't wanna talk to them. I said, "Do you have an hour of my time?" I said, "That's all I have." I was angry, really, really angry too. A net says Bill tried to support her and tell her that the police were just doing their job and they hadn't accused her of anything yet. - But boy, when they came back in April, he really, he really came at me with, you know, our investigation is closed to that and you're the only one. We think you did it. - So how do they go from all of these leads to a net? - It's one of the craziest things I've ever come across. A DCI agent, Trent Villetta, was working in another case and was at the University of Iowa Hospital one night. - It was 2017 and this agent with eye was Division of Criminal Investigation says a nurse named Jesse Becker approached him and said, "She was nine years old in 1992 and she was friends with Annette's niece and told DCI that she knew who killed Cory." - According to Villetta, Jesse proceeded to share a memory she'd been holding onto for 25 years. Jesse said that back in October of 1992, when she was nine years old, she was at a sleepover with some girls at her friend Kayla's house. Kayla was the daughter of Danny Hayson and Net's brother. Remember at the time, Annette lived at her brother's farmhouse. So it was the middle of the night in 1992 and Jesse told Villetta she remembered it sneaking down the stairs with another girl for a snack. When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, they were stopped cold by the sound of a woman's voice, weeping. - They hear Annette apologizing for killing Cory. Telling Cory, she's sorry, she killed him, that there's just lighting black candles. From the stairs, Jesse said they saw Annette sobbing over the black candles, saying, "Cory, I never meant to hurt you and I'm so sorry, I never meant to kill you. I love you." Jesse would go on to tell police that after the sleepover, she had told her mom, Cynthia, what she'd seen. She told her she saw Annette crying and lighting black candles and Cynthia allegedly told her that even though it was strange, she heard that people sometimes burned black candles to bring out evil spirits. Decades later, Cynthia would corroborate the story, adding that they hadn't come forward because they were scared of Annette and law enforcement believed them. Several months after Jesse Becker came forward with her story, Leanne remembers being at home. - Ann, my cousin, Shauna says, text me and says, "Oh my god, Leanne, I'm so sorry, have you heard?" And I had no idea what she was talking about when I text her back in her legs like, "Have I heard what?" And she says, "Your mom was arrested." And instantly I knew what for. I knew what was for Cory's murder. - On May 31, 2018, Annette Keehill was arrested and charged with first degree murder for the death of Cory Winneke. Almost a year later, she went to trial, prosecuting attorney Alan Ostergren contended that Annette killed Cory in a jealous rage. - They painted a picture of a woman, like a spurned lover, who wanted to run away with Cory and that was very jealous and mad. So the night before he dies, they're all at winks, including the baby mother, Wendy, and Annette gets mad and Cory's being mean to her with the bar and the state argues that Annette had just had enough. And they said that she was so angry at him that she killed him. - Ostergren said that when Annette stopped by Cory's the morning of October 13th, instead of knocking and leaving like she told police, she actually went in the house and beat him to death with the bat. The state called Jesse Becker and her mom Cynthia to testify about what they remembered from 27 years prior. And Jesse retooled her story about Annette and the remorseful crying and the black candles. Leanne says it was surreal. - We were like, this is ridiculous. Like who in the world is gonna believe this, especially off the memory of a nine-year-old 25 years later? - And the jury didn't believe it. They came back hung nine to three to acquit, but Ostergren was not gonna give up. - Well, the county attorney said, we're gonna retry this and we'll come up with some better evidence. Well, how do you come up with better evidence? - Mm-hmm. - And then he did. He miraculously came up with Scott Payne. - Scott Payne's mom was good friends with the victim Cory's mom. And after the hung jury, the mom's talked and then called law enforcement and said, you need to talk to Scott because he used to hang out at Annette's house with her brother and they did drugs together and he saw them burning bloody clothes. - In a second trial in September of 2019, Scott testified that back in '92, he was at the farmhouse hanging out when he saw Annette burning bloody clothes in a burn barrel. In both trials, Annette's attorney did not present much of a defense. - They called Jackie. - Annette's sister-in-law, her alibi. - But she got so twisted up and intimidated by the county attorney. The county attorney that did this trial, he has a reputation of being intimidating and hostile. And I don't think she was very prepared for that. And then she did. given so many statements over the 20 plus years that it was very easy for her to get confused. Again, the jury went to deliberate and again, they came back hung. So the judge ordered what's known as an Allen charge. The court tells them to keep deliberating, keep trying, and they come back pretty quick after that unanimously guilty. Leanne couldn't believe it. The second time should have been a hung jury, but then the judge says, "Nope, go back in, I don't accept it." It just blows my mind. Erica says these kinds of charges can be coercive. If the jurors are telling you that they can't come to an agreement, telling them to keep trying isn't necessarily going to do anything, but prepressure on those that are the holdouts. And our research shows there was one or two holdouts that got overpowered by the risk. On September 19th, 2019, a net-k-hill was convicted of second-degree murder, and eventually sentenced to up to 50 years in prison. At 56 years old, essentially the rest of her life. You said you don't think you'll ever get used to it. I mean, do you think about the possibility that this is your life now? Yes, yes. And I think, you know, and people say that if you have not thought of a way to commit suicide, you're a liar. And that's true. If you thought this is what you had to live every day of your life, you would go insane. But fortunately, someone with resources was paying attention to a net's case. I kind of followed it in the news when they made the arrest and thought it didn't sound right. Didn't look right. What about that didn't sound or look right? The fact that a memory of a child, it was enough. To me, it's just childhood memory is not reliable. And there wasn't any forensic evidence. And in 2019, you expect there to be some forensic evidence, especially in a really close contact offense, right? A beating is really personal. There's blood spatter everywhere. And there's nothing to connect a net to the bedroom or to the supposed weapon or the victim. And so it always just kind of raised red flags to me. After her conviction, a net appealed the lost. So she wrote Erica's office. And we kind of just jumped on it. I signed the contract on my birthday. It was a pretty good gift. And how has that been so far? Do you do have more hope now? I have, yeah, all the hope. They have worked so hard. The prosecution relied primarily on the memories of a child to try and convict a net. And from the jump, Erica and her team found holes in the prosecution's case and Jessie's memories. At trial, Jessie testified that she remembered creeping down the stairwell back in 1992 and seeing a net from the steps, lighting black candles. But Erica says that would not have been physically possible. It's not that kind of stairwell. It's enclosed with walls and a door at the bottom of it. It's not possible. Do we know who the other child was? She said she was with. Did anyone corroborate this? So we've learned that there were, well, we believe to be three girls at the sleepover. Anet's and East Kayla, another friend Lindsay and then Jessie. And the investigators never talked to Lindsay. And we have. She signed an affidavit that nothing like that ever happened. She, you know, Annette didn't say anything. They didn't creep down the stairs. And that nobody talked to her before the trial. So did Jessie make this story up? She might believe she's telling the truth. There's no corroboration for anything that Jessie says. There is in fact physical evidence, the layout of the house that shows that she's wrong, that her memory is wrong. I don't know if she's looking for attention. But this whole tip, this statement reignited the entire investigation and led to Annette's wrongful conviction. We've reached out to Jessie for comment on Facebook and still haven't heard back. Another detail worth noting is that around 1991, Jessie's stepfather Lester had an affair with Annette and later divorced her mother Cynthia. Though at trial, Cynthia testified that she held no ill will against Annette for sleeping with her husband. During their investigation, Erica and her team wandered. If not Annette, then who? So they followed up on those leads from decades ago. Claims about who else had motive what they missed. We have a claim about the live-and-girlfriend Jodie that is fascinating to me because in the discovery we just got, there's letters that Jodie wrote to Corey that her evidence that race relationship wasn't great. Jodie, Corey's high school sweetheart and fiancee. That perhaps Jodie wasn't okay with him. Having multiple other girlfriends and sleeping with other people and telling him that he's going to have to move out. Erica also says the letters from Jodie to Corey about their relationship being on the rocks were not disclosed to the defense. She says this is a Brady violation, withholding potentially exculpatory evidence. Once law enforcement believed Jessie Becker, they found her to be credible. She's former military. She's a nurse. The people at the hospital, Lyker, she's telling the truth. They ignored everything that pointed away from Annette. Every other lead. She says the state did not investigate allegations that Corey had stolen money from Winks, his family bar, that he had a drug debt to dealers or that he was involved in illegal gambling. But Erica says most troubling. They didn't even try to do DNA testing before the trial to see if they could connect Annette now. And DNA testing changes every few years. Erica says the results may have pointed them in a different direction. We have an unknown female profile on the baseball bat that doesn't match Annette or her sister in law Jackie. And we have a partial male profile on the handle that's not the victim. So we're continuing to investigate there to present evidence of her innocence at trial. So she was really just convicted on the word of two people's memories, one of which is a nine year old from three decades ago. Yes. Annette has a hearing scheduled for April 2025 to present all the new evidence Erica and her team have found. So we have an application for DNA testing and then we filed an application for post conviction relief, alleged ineffective assistance, a council, Brady violations for withholding documents from the trial councils and presenting false evidence about different things. And do process because the jurors, we interviewed jurors and one of them described going home and researching what reasonable doubt was on her own, which is a no no. And the issues with the investigation, you know, what they didn't do is what we've been trying to do. How are you adjusting to her being in prison? I'm not, I'm not adjusting. I'm waiting for her to come home. Every time I set up that video chat, I've just another little piece of me just chips off. And from Annette too, she's even losing her love for drawing. And that's really hard because she's just losing pieces of herself at this day's goodbye. Annette wants to be home with her family back to playing with phenomenal bags and acquainting herself with new additions to the family, her great grandchildren. I have three greats that were born while I was in here. So I would have to go through my book and get the dates on that. My memory is horrid now. Stress is a, it's horrible on my memory. That's something new for you? Yes, absolutely. Annette, what do you want people to know about you? I'm not a monster. They've never heard of Seoul. Okay, I think that back. I haven't physically heard of Seoul. I have done some stupid things in my life. But I've never heard anyone not physically. And I have tried my best to make for any pain I've ever caused anyone. I've tried to be giving and loving and generous and kind this last 30 years because I knew I did some stupid shit when I was young. You were a very honest person. It seems like you've had a lot of time to think about, you know, life and life's mistakes. Yeah, and you know, I'm not going to sugarcoat what I was on. And you know, there's times when I was good, there's times when I was young. I think that's called being human. Yeah, yeah. Well, in the older we get, the easier it is to admit that we're not always perfecting. Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help. If you're interested in contacting public officials about a net's case, you can reach out to the Muscatine County Prosecutors Office. We'll have links on our website. And if you live in Iowa, you can reach out to your elected officials. This episode was written by me, Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound designed by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer is Kathleen Fink, our mixer is Josh Allen. With research by Allison Levy, an additional production help by Jeff Clyburn. Executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler and Kevin Wurtis. The music is by three time Oscar-nominated composer J. Ralph. Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms at Laval for Good and at wrongful conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. The wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Laval for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company No. 1. Do you love what you do for a living? Laurie Santos, on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Sova de Football, the sweet and spicy on and off the field. And Daniela Durán, and this is where we get to know the people behind the game like never before. And everything that happens when the camera is to turn off. Enjoy conversations with guests like Barbara, Edmila Lensia, Charlene Escobar, Pollo de Seno, Feder Pereira, and many more. Listen to Sova de Football on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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