March 20, 2023 • 37 mins
In March 2000, Tami Vance and Leigh Stubbs completed a 60-day drug rehab program. Once discharged, their friend Kim Williams joined them and they went to Kim’s boyfriend’s house. He had been in a car accident and always had an ample supply of Oxycontin to manage his pain. Kim had stolen his pain pills in the past and did so again that night. She and Tami took them while Leigh drove to a motel. Tami woke up the next morning violently ill. Kim remained asleep until Tami and Leigh found her overdosing. While Kim survived, doctors determined that she had suffered a severe sexual assault. Tami and Leigh, who identified as lesbians, were blamed. And with the help of junk bite mark science as well as a homophobic narrative, they were sentenced to 44 years in prison. Maggie talks to Tami Vance, Sandi Rabalais, Tami’s mother, and Valena Beety, Tami’s attorney.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
In early two thousand, Tammy Vance checked herself into drug
rehab in Columbus, Mississippi. There she met Lee Stubbs, and
the two became close. As they neared the end of
the program, Excited for the future, they decided to leave
and drive back home together along with their friend Kim.
They headed out, stopping for the night at a motel,
(00:26):
but when they awoke the next morning, something was terribly
wrong with Kim. She was snoring really loud, and all
of a sudden it stopped, and I freaked out and
I told thee she's not breathing. She's not breathing. They
got on the phone with nine one one and nine
(00:47):
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
(01:10):
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
(01:30):
for thirteen years from Lava for good. This is wrongful
conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Tammy Vance. Tammy Vance was
(01:56):
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.
(02:16):
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,
(02:37):
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
(03:01):
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,
(03:22):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:06):
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
(04:29):
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
(04:50):
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
(05:11):
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.
(05:32):
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
(05:57):
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,
(06:18):
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
(06:40):
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
(07:03):
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
(07:26):
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.
(07:49):
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
(08:11):
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
(08:35):
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
(08:56):
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,
(09:19):
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.
(09:44):
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
(10:04):
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
(10:27):
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
(10:47):
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.
(11:12):
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
(11:34):
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
(11:58):
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
(12:19):
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
(12:40):
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
(13:01):
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
(13:22):
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
(13:48):
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
(14:09):
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.
(14:29):
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
(14:51):
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
(15:13):
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
(15:34):
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
(15:56):
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
(16:20):
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
(16:42):
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
(17:04):
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,
(17:24):
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
(17:49):
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
(18:10):
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
(18:33):
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
(18:57):
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
(19:18):
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
(19:41):
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
(20:05):
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
(20:31):
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
(20:51):
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
(21:15):
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
(21:37):
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
(21:58):
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
(22:22):
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,
(22:46):
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
(23:09):
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
(23:31):
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
(23:55):
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.
(24:20):
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
(24:43):
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
(25:04):
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
(25:26):
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
(25:49):
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
(26:11):
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
(26:34):
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,
(26:59):
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,
(27:24):
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
(27:58):
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
(28:18):
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,
(28:41):
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
(29:01):
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
(29:24):
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
(29:47):
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.
(30:10):
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,
(30:30):
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
(30:53):
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
(31:15):
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.
(31:37):
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
(32:00):
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
(32:24):
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
(32:46):
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.
(33:12):
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
(33:32):
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
(33:57):
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
(34:18):
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
(34:39):
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
(35:01):
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
(35:27):
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
(35:52):
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
(36:16):
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
(36:37):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
In early two thousand, Tammy Vance checked herself into drug
rehab in Columbus, Mississippi. There she met Lee Stubbs, and
the two became close. As they neared the end of
the program, Excited for the future, they decided to leave
and drive back home together along with their friend Kim.
They headed out, stopping for the night at a motel,
(00:26):
but when they awoke the next morning, something was terribly
wrong with Kim. She was snoring really loud, and all
of a sudden it stopped, and I freaked out and
I told thee she's not breathing. She's not breathing. They
got on the phone with nine one one and nine
(00:47):
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
(01:10):
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
(01:30):
for thirteen years from Lava for good. This is wrongful
conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Tammy Vance. Tammy Vance was
(01:56):
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.
(02:16):
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,
(02:37):
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
(03:01):
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,
(03:22):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:06):
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
(04:29):
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
(04:50):
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
(05:11):
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.
(05:32):
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
(05:57):
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,
(06:18):
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
(06:40):
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
(07:03):
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
(07:26):
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.
(07:49):
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
(08:11):
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
(08:35):
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
(08:56):
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,
(09:19):
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.
(09:44):
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
(10:04):
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
(10:27):
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
(10:47):
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.
(11:12):
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
(11:34):
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
(11:58):
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
(12:19):
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
(12:40):
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
(13:01):
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
(13:22):
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
(13:48):
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
(14:09):
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.
(14:29):
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
(14:51):
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
(15:13):
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
(15:34):
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
(15:56):
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
(16:20):
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
(16:42):
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
(17:04):
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,
(17:24):
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
(17:49):
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
(18:10):
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
(18:33):
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
(18:57):
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
(19:18):
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
(19:41):
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
(20:05):
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
(20:31):
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
(20:51):
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
(21:15):
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
(21:37):
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
(21:58):
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
(22:22):
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,
(22:46):
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
(23:09):
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
(23:31):
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
(23:55):
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.
(24:20):
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
(24:43):
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
(25:04):
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
(25:26):
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
(25:49):
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
(26:11):
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
(26:34):
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,
(26:59):
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,
(27:24):
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
(27:58):
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
(28:18):
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,
(28:41):
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
(29:01):
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
(29:24):
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
(29:47):
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.
(30:10):
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,
(30:30):
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
(30:53):
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
(31:15):
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.
(31:37):
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
(32:00):
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
(32:24):
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
(32:46):
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.
(33:12):
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
(33:32):
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
(33:57):
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
(34:18):
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
(34:39):
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
(35:01):
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
(35:27):
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
(35:52):
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
(36:16):
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
(36:37):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!