April 17, 2023 • 38 mins
In 1987, five elderly women passed away at a nursing home in Grand Rapids, MI. Gwen Graham and Cathy Wood both worked at this nursing home, and the pair had been in a brief relationship at the time. Months later, when Gwen broke up with Cathy and started seeing someone new, Cathy became angry and told her ex-husband that the five women did not die naturally, but that she and Gwen had smothered them as part of a lover’s pact that would bind them together for life. Shocked, he reported this to authorities, and two of the five bodies were exhumed. Despite there being zero signs of smothering, a medical examiner changed the manners of death from natural causes to homicide, and a seemingly made up story landed Gwen in prison for life. Maggie talks to Gwen Graham, Corina Hilton, Gwen's sister, and Elizabeth Cole, Gwen's attorney.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/experiential-learning/clinics/michigan-innocence-clinic-0
Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Please listen with caution and care. In nineteen eighty seven,
Gwen Graham was twenty three years old and had high
hopes and dreams for her future. She was a natural
(00:22):
caretaker and wanted to be a veterinarian. After moving across
the country to Michigan, she went to work at a
nursing home called Alpine Manor. Gwen liked it there. She
enjoyed her coworkers and loved helping people. Gwen men and
a woman named Kathy who also worked at the nursing home,
and they started a relationship. During that time, some of
(00:45):
the patients that Alpine Manor passed away. It wasn't unusual though,
many of the residents were elderly or in poor health
and died of natural causes. But months later, after Gwen
had broken up with Kathy, she learned that Kathy had
accused her of doing the unthinkable.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Let's saying, I know the police are coming down to
talk to me. They told me they said, your extral
friend said that you killed somebody at an earthy home.
And I laughed at him. I said, I can't believe
he came down here for that bullshion, but then when
they charged me with four more, that's when I started
losing it. My name is Gwendolin Graham. I've been incarcerated
(01:29):
in Michigan for thirty five years for something that I
didn't do, that didn't even happen.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Freeling today. Gwen Graham Gwendolyn Gail Graham was born in
(02:05):
Santa Maria, California, on August sixth, nineteen sixty three, to
Mac Wade and Linda Ruth Graham.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I had a normal upbringing. I went to a public school.
I have a younger sister, Corina, and an older brother, Robert.
We were always at the beach. My dad used to
take us down there. He had bought an old vintage truck,
and those kids would be on the back of the
(02:35):
truck or like on the sideboards and stuff, and he'd
be driving around the dunes. He'd let us kids drive,
so we felt grown up and everything.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Gwen and her siblings were growing up in a farm
just a few miles from the beach.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
We have chickens in the backyard and it was fun
to have the little chicks when they be born. We
turned the eggs in the incubator and stuff. We had
a ducks. They would follow you around us like a
puppy dough would.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Gwen's younger sister, Karina remembers how Gwen loved and cared
for these animals.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Watching her take care of her animals and her little pig, Petunia.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
She loved that little pig. You know.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
She had a dog named Mitzi, and she loved that
little animal.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
So she was always very compassionate.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But while Gwen cared for everything and everyone around her,
she was struggling with herself.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I didn't really know what to ask her what was
going on. I felt like there was something. It just
made me feel real different, probably around seven six and seven,
because I liked girls, and I knew if that was
I knew the end that there was something wrong with that,
because they're supposed to like little boys and I didn't
like little girls. And I didn't know what it was.
(03:58):
I just knew that it was different, and I kept
it to.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Myself, especially because her family was pretty conservative. They were religious,
and in their world, being gay was taboo.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
My parents had put us in a private Christian school,
and my uncle was a head administrator there, and I
remember at some point there was a discussion about homosexuality
and it was not certainly not in a favorable light,
and I realized at that time that that was me.
And I had a friend at school and I went
and talked to her and I told her I think
(04:33):
I'm gay, and she told her parents about it, and
I believe they contacted mind that's how they found out.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Gwen doesn't remember much about the discussion she eventually had
with her parents about her sexuality, but she does remember
the aftermath.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
The philosophy or whatever the means, was just the prey
it out of you, I guess. My uncle kept me
after school for I think about three weeks, and we
prayed on it and just prayed about it, talked about it,
and it just never went away. It just didn't happen
like that for me, and that just made me feel
like there was even more wrong with me because that
(05:09):
didn't work.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So Gwen kept to herself after that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
There used to be, uh, these really really tall trees
across the street from us, and he used to crawl
away into the top of these really tall trees and
look over like the entire city. I felt like I
was on top of the world. That's where I would go.
So I always would go buy some place to be alone.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
She was pretty much closed off.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
This is Gwen's sister Karina.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Again.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
As far as being gay, that's not something that she
and I really talked a whole lot about.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I know that she had her struggles with it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I would decide I was just gonna go ahead and
pretend like I wasn't and just try to be what
I was supposed to be date date guys, which that
was like super rare. Most of the time. I just
pre didn't like I didn't want to date. It didn't
bother me, and I just just ignored it. When you know,
I didn't discuss it. They didn't ask.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
When she was in the second grade, Gwen's family moved
from California to Texas. She lived there until she was
about sixteen. That's when her parents split up and she
went back to California to live with her dad. In California,
Gwen found herself becoming more accepting of her sexuality.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I became acquainted with people that were comfortable with that lifestyle.
They were out in the open about it, and it
made me comfortable to be out in the open about
it and not be as a you know, like ashamed,
outwardly ashamed, publicly ashamed about what I was. I accepted it.
That's who I am, and that makes me happy. There's
(07:04):
really nothing I can do about. I can choose to
be miserable the rest of my life and live for
everybody else, or just live for me and just be
okay with it.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
When did you find out that Gwen was gay?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
That wasn't my later teen years. I guess I was
like many fifteen. She was sixteen. Then I found out,
and I just I didn't have a problem with it.
It didn't change how I felt about her. I've always
loved her just for who she is.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Gwen moved back to Texas a few years later. She
soon met a woman from Michigan and the two started dating.
They decided to move to Michigan together, but when Gwen
got there, she realized the change was not what she anticipated.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
She had told me she had a really good job
either four. I think it was Ford, one of our companies,
and come to find out, she did not. When I
got here, she was on public assistance and felt like
the state owed hood living and she just wasn't going
to work anymore. So I walked into a really bad situation.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Did you start working at the nursing home right away?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yes? I did. I took the first job. I hit
the ground run.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And Gwen took a job at Alpine Manor Nursing Home
in Walker, a suburb of Grand Rapids. Alpine Manor Nursing
Home was a safe haven for its residents and its workers.
Many people who identified as queer or LGBTQ worked there.
It was a comfortable environment where they felt free to
(08:49):
joke around with each other and pursue all kinds of relationships.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I think it was mostly the women. There was a
few men there. It was intimidating universe. So I was
just really shy.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But soon Gwen made friends and started socializing. A woman
named Don became one of Gwen's first friends. Don's roommate
also worked there at the nursing home. Her name was
Kathy Wood.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
So she became a friend. What did you like about her?
What was your friendship like?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, Kathy was very intelligent, a lot of fun to
be around.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
At the time, both Gwen and Kathy were getting fed
up with their respective partners Don.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Had lost her job and she was just sitting around
the house doing nothing, and my Griffert didn't want to work.
She didn't want to do anything, she didn't want to
move forward in life, and I just felt like over
time her and I decided that well, she didn't want
to support Don anymore, and I didn't want to support
the person I was with. So I'm moving with Kathy.
After she made Don leave.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
They started out his roommates. Gwen was seeing another woman
who worked at the nursing home, and Kathy was married
to her husband Ken, but Kathy and Ken were going
through a rocky time.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
She said that her husband was coming over that night
to pick up some of his things, and I said, well,
I'm going out on the eight with a girl, and
so I went over to the girl's house. And I
wasn't over there at the girl's house very long, and
Kathy had called and she was hysterical and saying that
Ken was going to hurt her and please hurry back,
and she was just really hysterical. I said, yeah, I'm coming.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Gwen headed over ready to go to battle for her friend,
but she.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Stops me at the door and she's tea saying everything's okay,
everything's okay. So I walked in and Ken was sitting there.
He stood up and he introduced himself. He was really polite,
really well spoken, and we sat down and had a
friendly conversation. And the whole time I'm thinking about the
phone conversation and what happened is that.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
After Ken left, Gwen asked Kathy what that was all about.
Kathy tried to explain, but things weren't adding up.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It didn't take me too long to figure out that
she had done that because she was it was manipulative
and she just didn't want me out with the girl.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
I want to ask you about that, like, about Kathy
being manipulative and a liar. Is this like one of
the first times you started to realize.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
That that wasn't the first incident. I thought, well, it
can't really be that bad. I mean, the girl likes
me and stuff, and we ended up being together.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Gwen really liked Kathy, but as time went on, she
started noticing that Kathy was becoming increasingly jealous and manipulative.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Over time, thanks to God to be more vicious, more calculated,
and not really good motive. Sometime just took me minute
to sit down and think about the thing that she
did figure out why she did him.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Gwen remembers one day she was with her good friend
Lisa outside of the nurse home waiting for Kathy to
get off work. When Kathy saw them together, she was
suspicious and vindictive.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
She ended up calling Lisa's cousin and telling him that
Lisa had confided in her that the baby that they
had together was not his, that she had had an
affair on him. She just really visious stuff like it.
It wasn't true, but this caused the conflict with him,
and I do believe they ended up not together. Her
and her husband ended up splitting up over it.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
If I was to pick a partner for Gwen, she
would not be absolutely not be one that.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I would choose for her.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Some of the things that she'd done to Gwen, you
just don't do to somebody that you say you care
about on your love.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Gwen dated Kathy for nine months before they split up.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I just got tired of all the the manipulating, the games,
and I just couldn't do it anymore. I just wanted
to be happy. I didn't want to be in this
situation anymore, and I rubbed her.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Gwen and Cathy agreed to remain friends after the breakup.
Gwen then left Alpine Manor for another job and started
seriously dating another woman from the nursing home named Heather.
The two decided to move out of Michigan and out
of respect for their friendship. Gwen told Kathy the.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
News, and I thought that everything was okay. I told her,
I'm going to Texas and I'm going with Heather, and
she seemed to be okay with everything.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
So you thought everything was fine. So you and Heather
go to Texas and then tell me what happens.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Last thing I know, the police are coming down to
talk to me about her, saying that I killed people
at a nursing home or killed a person up to
nursing home as I was started out.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
In August of nineteen eighty seven, around the same time
that Gwen moved away with Heather, Kathy told her now
ex husband Ken a shocking tale. Between January and April
that year, while Gwen and Kathy were still working at
Alpine Manor, a number of the patients passed away. Among
them were sixty year old Marguerite Chambers, May Mason and
(14:26):
Bell Burkhard, who were both in their seventies, and Edith
Cook and Myrtle Luce, who were in their nineties. Like
most of the residents at the nursing home, these women
were either elderly, ill, or both, and their causes of
death were listed as natural, such as Alzheimer's and heart attack.
But Kathy told her ex husband these five women hadn't
(14:48):
died of natural causes. She told him she and Gwen
had plotted to murder the women as part of a
lover's pact that would bind them together for life. Kathy
painted Gwen as the mass remind of the crime, saying
that she herself had acted as a lookout while Gwen
killed the patients by smothering them. Over a year later,
(15:10):
in October nineteen eighty eight, Ken went to authorities and
told them what Kathy had said. His report launched an
entirely new investigation into these women's deaths. Three of the
bodies had been cremated, but the medical examiner, doctor Stephen Cole,
had the other two exhumed in order to re examine them.
(15:31):
Upon this second look, doctor Cole determined that these two
women had died from asphyxiation. He proceeded to change the
manners of death on both their death certificates, from natural
causes to homicide. Quickly, the media started buzzing about the
case in salacious detail. Newspapers seized on Gwen and Kathy's sexuality,
(15:53):
depicting them as a pair of lesbian serial killers.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And it was in the paper and they were saying
that people were killed at the nursing home. And I
wasn't too worried about him. I never really thought it
was going to go anywhere. So when they showed up
at the door, when they came to talk to me,
that that was sound of ridiculous. They told me, they said,
your ext girlfriend said that you killed somebody at a
(16:18):
nursing home. And I left him. I couldn't believe, I said,
I can't believe he came down here for that bullshit.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
But on December fourth, nineteen eighty eight, Gwen was arrested
for murder. When she was arrested and brought back to Michigan,
Gwen still thought things would be cleared up, that the
police would realize Kathy was lying and that she would
be released, but that didn't happen. The police and prosecutors
(16:45):
then used doctor Cole's conclusions to bolster the story that
Kathy was telling, saying that the other three women also
must have died by asphyxiation.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
When they charged me with four I think four or more.
That's when I started losing it. I couldn't believe that
it got as far as it did.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
in the communities where they work and live. In light
of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
(17:41):
the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Gwen's trial star
in September of nineteen eighty nine. The state's case was
(18:04):
presented by Assistant Kent County Prosecutor David Scheiber. He started
by telling the jury about the alleged lover's packed that
Kathy had described.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
This idea of the lover's packed, this lover's tryst, this
homicidal lesbian duo was extremely shocking and salacious. At the time.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
This is Elizabeth Cole, clinical fellow at the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
It was no secret at the time that Gwen was
in a relationship with another woman, that she had dated
other women in the past, and that she identified as gay,
and that played a really large part of trial. It
was sort of central to the prosecutor's theme.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
And that's how the prosecutor targeted his audience.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
I mean, Grand Rapids is beautiful, but it is not
the most liberal of towns, especially not in the eighties.
As Gwen has told me before, there's a church on
every street corner, and we have seen in the transcripts
this intense undertone of homophobia throughout.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Schiper used that to his full advantage. When questioning Gwen
on the stand.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
The prosecutor asks her about her relationship with Kathy and
whether or not that relationship was satisfying. And there was
a lot of questions about whether or not Gwen had
attempted to seduce other women, and whether or not Gwen
had been faithful to Kathy in this relationship. And I
(19:44):
think that all of these little things really tried to
show how the prosecution was trying to portray Gwen, which
was this controlling, corruptive individual who has no sense of
morals and who is a day from every aspect.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They spent more time to just going over details of
my sex life, saying it was kinky. And I was
thinking if it was my person, my grandma, that had
been killed and they were talking about that, I would
have been out in the courtroom and probably would have
set up said well, the fun does I got to
do with anything? Can we get back to, you know,
my grandma?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But the actual evidence against Gwen was thin. It was
a story that started with Kathy. And before trial, when
Gwen and Kathy were in holding cells next to each other,
Gwen says she had a chance to ask Kathy about it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I said, why are you doing this? She said, because
you hurt me, because you lied to me, because you
tee it on me. I said, there is nothing I
can do to change that, and she started She started
crying and saying, but I loved you, and started banging
her head on the wall in there, and so I
was calling the guard and telling them she's over there
(21:04):
hurting herself.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
After that, Gwen thought that Kathy would come clean on
the stand.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
That's not what she did at all. I don't know
what happened to her between that and getting on the stand.
All of a sudden, she was totally composed and nailing
me to the cloth.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Kathy testified as to what she told Ken, and eventually
told police that she and Gwen plotted to kill the
women in a lover's pact. The medical examiner, doctor Cole,
testified that the cause of death for the two women
he re examined was asphyxiation, and finally, witnesses from the
nursing home said they had heard Gwen and Kathy making
(21:52):
jokes about killing patients. So what did the defense do
at trial? How did they try and refute this?
Speaker 6 (22:00):
So the defense really tried, I think, to poke holes
in every space that they could.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Gwen's defense attorney, James Piazza, started with Kathy.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
The defense really tried to show that this was nothing
more than a story made up by Kathy, but he
was limited in what he was able to do. He
requested mental health records on Kathy to be able to
discuss that with her. So the judge says, after reviewing
(22:31):
the records himself, that he was denying the motion for
her psychological records to be revealed.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
The judge determined that Kathy's mental health records would be
irrelevant to the defense and could potentially even hurt their case.
Despite this being an attorney's decision to make, the judge
maintained that having these files available might actually help the
prosecution's case because it would help argue that Kathy was
susceptible to manipulate by Gwen. After an unsuccessful attempt at
(23:04):
dismantling Kathy's credibility, defense attorney Piazza then pointed out the
homophobia that was on display in the courtroom.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
Everyone's sex life is not important because we're talking about
murders here, and so I think he tried to sort
of minimize the idea that because everyone is gay or
was in a relationship with one another, that that meant
something in this case.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Then Piazza focused on doctor Cole. On cross examination. Piazza
questioned Cole about changing the manner of death for two
of the women on their death certificates. Did he see
any evidence in these two bodies that it was a homicide.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
Based upon his testimony at trial. The short answer is no.
There were a number of other things that these people
could have passed away from. They were at a nursing home.
Most of them had multiple maladies that could have been
the reason they passed away, and doctor Cole at trial
testified that there really wasn't any typical signs of smothering,
(24:15):
which was the allegations that each of these individuals had
been smothered, such as burst capillaries, bruising on the face
or in the mouth, things like that. He said there
was no evidence of that, but based on what Kathy stated,
he determined that it was a homicide. Each time.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Doctor Cole admitted that if it wasn't for Cathy's confession,
which he knew was the reason for the re examinations,
he would not have determined the cause of death to
be asphyxiation as for the other three women, because there
had been no reexaminations. Piazza asked the judge to determine
that there wasn't sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude
(24:56):
that they were murdered. His request was denied. Finally, Gwen
took the stand to defend herself, but it didn't go
over as she hoped.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
I think she feels like she didn't get to explain
her side of the story the way that she wanted to.
When she was testifying at trial. I think that she
tried to explain a lot of the things that were presented,
like the joke about killing people.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Gwen admits that the atmosphere at the nursing home sometimes
led to gallows humor.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, there was things that we did that were
silly and just just to get through. It's a real
hard place to work where you know, people pass away
and people were sick in there, and you know that
this is not a place that people were coming to
get too muths or better.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
What she was talking about was something witnesses testified to
hearing at the nursing home. Gwen says this joke started
with a horror movie Motel Hell, that a group of
them had watched at a party. In the film, motel
owners killed their guests and sold their bodies as meat
to annoying customers.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And so I believe it was two of the boys
at the party that started to say, well, the body
is at a nursing home. We're about doing a chili
cook off. And that's just where it started and just
went from there, and every time that somebody would die,
it was just a joke that we're going to have
a chili cook off. That's all it ever was.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
How do you feel about making those jokes?
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Now?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I mean really awful, really awful, Yeah, really really awful
considering where it went. I can't even imagine that if
it had been my grandma or my mother and I
heard her stuff like that and people making jokes about it,
and you know, her death, and you know, I'd the
horrible about it.
Speaker 6 (26:59):
I think she tried to explain that, but after so
many people had testified to it, it sort of fell flat.
And I think that Gwen wasn't able really to talk
about what it was that she wanted to talk about,
which was her innocence. And so looking at Gwen's testimony,
it seems like they tried to address all of the
(27:20):
issues that had been presented at trial. They sort of
went point by point and tried to address every conversation
she had had with every witness, and I just think
that the impact wasn't felt by the jury, That sincerity
wasn't felt by the jury.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Cathy took a plea deal of second degree murder in
exchange for her testimony against Gwen. She was sentenced to
twenty to forty years on September twentieth. Nineteen eighty nine,
Gwen was convicted of all counts and given six concurrent
sentences of life without parole.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Were you surprised when you found out she was convicted
of this?
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Oh yeah, I cried. I still cry, and I feel
like she was railroaded.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
It was fifteen years before Karina was able to visit
Gwen in prison. At first, she didn't recognize her sister.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I know she was like twenty five or so when
she went in, but her appearance had changed. Of course
mine had changed. So I mean I remember standing in
the middle of the room just.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Looking around, just like.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Calling her name, and then I looked at this lady
sedued her chair and she was just crying that I
knew it was her, And.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
So they allowed us to hug.
Speaker 7 (28:55):
Who were like, it's really you, You're really here. I'm like, yeah,
I'm early here. Sho is so beautiful.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
It was.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
It was really nice, really great a moment.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Goud.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I'll never forget to be able to see her again.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I had a really hard time coping with how did
this happen? I was in shock for probably years. I
was just like an autopilot. I went through the motions
there were times when I just couldn't do it anymore.
I just felt like I just couldn't do it anymore.
I tried to hang myself a couple of times, and
officers found me and cut me down, and I quit
(29:50):
trying because I figured, well, if guy's not going to
let me kill myself unless be here for something, so
let's get to it. I'd figured out through therapy that
out is for me fixing other things. I spent a
lot of time fixing other things and helping other people
and fixing their things because I have an inability to
(30:13):
fix my own. No matter what I tried, I can't
seem to to fix this to make people see that.
How am I ever going to make him see him?
But I didn't do this.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Although Gwen didn't think she could fix her wrongful conviction,
she still tried. Gwen wrote letters to experts, attorneys, and
innocence projects. In twenty twenty two, Elizabeth Cole was handed
Gwen's case to review by the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
When you read the story of the case, it doesn't
seem fully plausible. It seems really fantastical, like it would
make great TV. And usually that stands out to us.
The other thing about this case in particular, and I
think why we decided to investigate, is that this case
(31:18):
is based around some very weak evidence.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Currently, Elizabeth and the Michigan Innocence Clinic are looking at
two specific angles that reinforce Helgwen's case was set up
to fail. First, they're exploring how doctor Cole was prejudiced
by outside information given to him prior to the re
examination of the two bodies.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
Each of these women were determined to have been murdered
by smothering, and doctor Cole was very clear about the
fact that that all came from his conversations with the
police and from Cathy's statement, which he believed. I can't
stress this enough. There is no medical basis for the
(32:00):
homicide determination, and this was testified to at trial and
then reconfirmed during a review by another medical examiner some
years later that there is no medical evidence to support
a theory of smothering.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Elizabeth says, the bottom line is any theory of a
case should not be shared with medical examiners or similar
personnel until after they make unbiased judgments, because this information
can and likely will affect their opinions. The second avenue
that the clinic is focusing on is the rampant homophobia
(32:39):
exhibited throughout the trial.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
This was an incredibly salacious trial. The testimony was especially salacious,
and so there was sort of this connection for the
prosecution between like this lack of morality and Gwen's sexual preferences.
This idea of homophobia that was played very heavily throughout
(33:04):
trial really colors everything else. It colors her relationships with
the people who testified. It colors who she is. It
colors police opinion of her, It colors juror's opinion of her.
It certainly colored the media's opinion of her. That colors
every aspect of this case, and so that impacted Gwen
and really prevented her from having a fair trial.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
The Michigan Innocence Clinic is currently writing a clemency petition
on Gwen's behalf that will focus on these two issues,
with the ultimate goal of getting Gwen out of prison.
In twenty twenty, Kathy was released on parole, but only
after spending almost thirty years in prison based on a
(33:49):
lie she told to put Gwen behind bars. To this day,
Kathy has not admitted she lied. Why do you think
she's stuck with the story for so long or forever.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I thought along and hard about it when she said
that we were killing all people's nursing home, and for
her to sit there and tell anybody in the world
that it was a lie and everything, and then she
would have to have that on her shoulders for the
rest of the life, and I just don't think that
she can live with it. I think that she was
okay with the time that she did because because I'm
(34:26):
here for nothing, I think she was okay with her
like she was paying her own little price for what
she did to me. And as long as she never
says anything, she'll always be in control of my life.
So always be in control.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
When you do get out, What do you hope to
do with you, with your future, with your life.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I'm going to take my sister walk around the world.
I want to just take her around the world and
travel because she works so hard, also does work, work, work,
and I just want her to slow down and have
fond and I just want to spend time with her.
The older I get, the more I realize that if
(35:13):
I walk out of here, I'm not going to have
a lot of time left. So my fucking list to
get shorter and shorter. I'm not a killer. I'm a
good person. I care about people. Though I felt like
the world that I cared so much about left me
(35:35):
behind and forgot about me. I still care.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
If you want to help Gwen, you can contact Michigan
Governor Gretchen Whitmer in support of Gwen and her clemency petition.
You can also contact the Michigan Innocence Clinic to share
your support for Gwen. These links will be in our bio.
(36:09):
Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, we'll revisit
our season one episode with death row prisoner Hank Skinner.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
But I think with the evidence we have now that
they're going to have to let me go, and they're
going to have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I think,
after all I've suffered, that I deserve a chance. I
deserve to be with my wife. I deserve to have
a life. I deserve to be released and get the
hell out of here, and I won't out.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Hank died in February at the prison hospital in Galveston, Texas,
from complications following surgery for an aggressive brain tumor. Up
until his death, he continued to maintain his innocence and
to fight for exoneration. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction
(37:07):
with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and
go to the links in our bio to see how
you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers
Jason Flamm and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer,
Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul.
The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with
additional production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music
(37:30):
in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
On all three platforms, you can also follow me on
both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
(37:51):
Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one
A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Please listen with caution and care. In nineteen eighty seven,
Gwen Graham was twenty three years old and had high
hopes and dreams for her future. She was a natural
(00:22):
caretaker and wanted to be a veterinarian. After moving across
the country to Michigan, she went to work at a
nursing home called Alpine Manor. Gwen liked it there. She
enjoyed her coworkers and loved helping people. Gwen men and
a woman named Kathy who also worked at the nursing home,
and they started a relationship. During that time, some of
(00:45):
the patients that Alpine Manor passed away. It wasn't unusual though,
many of the residents were elderly or in poor health
and died of natural causes. But months later, after Gwen
had broken up with Kathy, she learned that Kathy had
accused her of doing the unthinkable.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Let's saying, I know the police are coming down to
talk to me. They told me they said, your extral
friend said that you killed somebody at an earthy home.
And I laughed at him. I said, I can't believe
he came down here for that bullshion, but then when
they charged me with four more, that's when I started
losing it. My name is Gwendolin Graham. I've been incarcerated
(01:29):
in Michigan for thirty five years for something that I
didn't do, that didn't even happen.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Freeling today. Gwen Graham Gwendolyn Gail Graham was born in
(02:05):
Santa Maria, California, on August sixth, nineteen sixty three, to
Mac Wade and Linda Ruth Graham.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I had a normal upbringing. I went to a public school.
I have a younger sister, Corina, and an older brother, Robert.
We were always at the beach. My dad used to
take us down there. He had bought an old vintage truck,
and those kids would be on the back of the
(02:35):
truck or like on the sideboards and stuff, and he'd
be driving around the dunes. He'd let us kids drive,
so we felt grown up and everything.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Gwen and her siblings were growing up in a farm
just a few miles from the beach.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
We have chickens in the backyard and it was fun
to have the little chicks when they be born. We
turned the eggs in the incubator and stuff. We had
a ducks. They would follow you around us like a
puppy dough would.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Gwen's younger sister, Karina remembers how Gwen loved and cared
for these animals.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Watching her take care of her animals and her little pig, Petunia.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
She loved that little pig. You know.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
She had a dog named Mitzi, and she loved that
little animal.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
So she was always very compassionate.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But while Gwen cared for everything and everyone around her,
she was struggling with herself.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I didn't really know what to ask her what was
going on. I felt like there was something. It just
made me feel real different, probably around seven six and seven,
because I liked girls, and I knew if that was
I knew the end that there was something wrong with that,
because they're supposed to like little boys and I didn't
like little girls. And I didn't know what it was.
(03:58):
I just knew that it was different, and I kept
it to.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Myself, especially because her family was pretty conservative. They were religious,
and in their world, being gay was taboo.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
My parents had put us in a private Christian school,
and my uncle was a head administrator there, and I
remember at some point there was a discussion about homosexuality
and it was not certainly not in a favorable light,
and I realized at that time that that was me.
And I had a friend at school and I went
and talked to her and I told her I think
(04:33):
I'm gay, and she told her parents about it, and
I believe they contacted mind that's how they found out.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Gwen doesn't remember much about the discussion she eventually had
with her parents about her sexuality, but she does remember
the aftermath.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
The philosophy or whatever the means, was just the prey
it out of you, I guess. My uncle kept me
after school for I think about three weeks, and we
prayed on it and just prayed about it, talked about it,
and it just never went away. It just didn't happen
like that for me, and that just made me feel
like there was even more wrong with me because that
(05:09):
didn't work.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So Gwen kept to herself after that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
There used to be, uh, these really really tall trees
across the street from us, and he used to crawl
away into the top of these really tall trees and
look over like the entire city. I felt like I
was on top of the world. That's where I would go.
So I always would go buy some place to be alone.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
She was pretty much closed off.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
This is Gwen's sister Karina.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Again.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
As far as being gay, that's not something that she
and I really talked a whole lot about.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I know that she had her struggles with it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I would decide I was just gonna go ahead and
pretend like I wasn't and just try to be what
I was supposed to be date date guys, which that
was like super rare. Most of the time. I just
pre didn't like I didn't want to date. It didn't
bother me, and I just just ignored it. When you know,
I didn't discuss it. They didn't ask.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
When she was in the second grade, Gwen's family moved
from California to Texas. She lived there until she was
about sixteen. That's when her parents split up and she
went back to California to live with her dad. In California,
Gwen found herself becoming more accepting of her sexuality.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I became acquainted with people that were comfortable with that lifestyle.
They were out in the open about it, and it
made me comfortable to be out in the open about
it and not be as a you know, like ashamed,
outwardly ashamed, publicly ashamed about what I was. I accepted it.
That's who I am, and that makes me happy. There's
(07:04):
really nothing I can do about. I can choose to
be miserable the rest of my life and live for
everybody else, or just live for me and just be
okay with it.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
When did you find out that Gwen was gay?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
That wasn't my later teen years. I guess I was
like many fifteen. She was sixteen. Then I found out,
and I just I didn't have a problem with it.
It didn't change how I felt about her. I've always
loved her just for who she is.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Gwen moved back to Texas a few years later. She
soon met a woman from Michigan and the two started dating.
They decided to move to Michigan together, but when Gwen
got there, she realized the change was not what she anticipated.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
She had told me she had a really good job
either four. I think it was Ford, one of our companies,
and come to find out, she did not. When I
got here, she was on public assistance and felt like
the state owed hood living and she just wasn't going
to work anymore. So I walked into a really bad situation.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Did you start working at the nursing home right away?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yes? I did. I took the first job. I hit
the ground run.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And Gwen took a job at Alpine Manor Nursing Home
in Walker, a suburb of Grand Rapids. Alpine Manor Nursing
Home was a safe haven for its residents and its workers.
Many people who identified as queer or LGBTQ worked there.
It was a comfortable environment where they felt free to
(08:49):
joke around with each other and pursue all kinds of relationships.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I think it was mostly the women. There was a
few men there. It was intimidating universe. So I was
just really shy.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But soon Gwen made friends and started socializing. A woman
named Don became one of Gwen's first friends. Don's roommate
also worked there at the nursing home. Her name was
Kathy Wood.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
So she became a friend. What did you like about her?
What was your friendship like?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, Kathy was very intelligent, a lot of fun to
be around.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
At the time, both Gwen and Kathy were getting fed
up with their respective partners Don.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Had lost her job and she was just sitting around
the house doing nothing, and my Griffert didn't want to work.
She didn't want to do anything, she didn't want to
move forward in life, and I just felt like over
time her and I decided that well, she didn't want
to support Don anymore, and I didn't want to support
the person I was with. So I'm moving with Kathy.
After she made Don leave.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
They started out his roommates. Gwen was seeing another woman
who worked at the nursing home, and Kathy was married
to her husband Ken, but Kathy and Ken were going
through a rocky time.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
She said that her husband was coming over that night
to pick up some of his things, and I said, well,
I'm going out on the eight with a girl, and
so I went over to the girl's house. And I
wasn't over there at the girl's house very long, and
Kathy had called and she was hysterical and saying that
Ken was going to hurt her and please hurry back,
and she was just really hysterical. I said, yeah, I'm coming.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Gwen headed over ready to go to battle for her friend,
but she.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Stops me at the door and she's tea saying everything's okay,
everything's okay. So I walked in and Ken was sitting there.
He stood up and he introduced himself. He was really polite,
really well spoken, and we sat down and had a
friendly conversation. And the whole time I'm thinking about the
phone conversation and what happened is that.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
After Ken left, Gwen asked Kathy what that was all about.
Kathy tried to explain, but things weren't adding up.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It didn't take me too long to figure out that
she had done that because she was it was manipulative
and she just didn't want me out with the girl.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
I want to ask you about that, like, about Kathy
being manipulative and a liar. Is this like one of
the first times you started to realize.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
That that wasn't the first incident. I thought, well, it
can't really be that bad. I mean, the girl likes
me and stuff, and we ended up being together.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Gwen really liked Kathy, but as time went on, she
started noticing that Kathy was becoming increasingly jealous and manipulative.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Over time, thanks to God to be more vicious, more calculated,
and not really good motive. Sometime just took me minute
to sit down and think about the thing that she
did figure out why she did him.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Gwen remembers one day she was with her good friend
Lisa outside of the nurse home waiting for Kathy to
get off work. When Kathy saw them together, she was
suspicious and vindictive.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
She ended up calling Lisa's cousin and telling him that
Lisa had confided in her that the baby that they
had together was not his, that she had had an
affair on him. She just really visious stuff like it.
It wasn't true, but this caused the conflict with him,
and I do believe they ended up not together. Her
and her husband ended up splitting up over it.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
If I was to pick a partner for Gwen, she
would not be absolutely not be one that.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I would choose for her.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Some of the things that she'd done to Gwen, you
just don't do to somebody that you say you care
about on your love.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Gwen dated Kathy for nine months before they split up.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I just got tired of all the the manipulating, the games,
and I just couldn't do it anymore. I just wanted
to be happy. I didn't want to be in this
situation anymore, and I rubbed her.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Gwen and Cathy agreed to remain friends after the breakup.
Gwen then left Alpine Manor for another job and started
seriously dating another woman from the nursing home named Heather.
The two decided to move out of Michigan and out
of respect for their friendship. Gwen told Kathy the.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
News, and I thought that everything was okay. I told her,
I'm going to Texas and I'm going with Heather, and
she seemed to be okay with everything.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
So you thought everything was fine. So you and Heather
go to Texas and then tell me what happens.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Last thing I know, the police are coming down to
talk to me about her, saying that I killed people
at a nursing home or killed a person up to
nursing home as I was started out.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
In August of nineteen eighty seven, around the same time
that Gwen moved away with Heather, Kathy told her now
ex husband Ken a shocking tale. Between January and April
that year, while Gwen and Kathy were still working at
Alpine Manor, a number of the patients passed away. Among
them were sixty year old Marguerite Chambers, May Mason and
(14:26):
Bell Burkhard, who were both in their seventies, and Edith
Cook and Myrtle Luce, who were in their nineties. Like
most of the residents at the nursing home, these women
were either elderly, ill, or both, and their causes of
death were listed as natural, such as Alzheimer's and heart attack.
But Kathy told her ex husband these five women hadn't
(14:48):
died of natural causes. She told him she and Gwen
had plotted to murder the women as part of a
lover's pact that would bind them together for life. Kathy
painted Gwen as the mass remind of the crime, saying
that she herself had acted as a lookout while Gwen
killed the patients by smothering them. Over a year later,
(15:10):
in October nineteen eighty eight, Ken went to authorities and
told them what Kathy had said. His report launched an
entirely new investigation into these women's deaths. Three of the
bodies had been cremated, but the medical examiner, doctor Stephen Cole,
had the other two exhumed in order to re examine them.
(15:31):
Upon this second look, doctor Cole determined that these two
women had died from asphyxiation. He proceeded to change the
manners of death on both their death certificates, from natural
causes to homicide. Quickly, the media started buzzing about the
case in salacious detail. Newspapers seized on Gwen and Kathy's sexuality,
(15:53):
depicting them as a pair of lesbian serial killers.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And it was in the paper and they were saying
that people were killed at the nursing home. And I
wasn't too worried about him. I never really thought it
was going to go anywhere. So when they showed up
at the door, when they came to talk to me,
that that was sound of ridiculous. They told me, they said,
your ext girlfriend said that you killed somebody at a
(16:18):
nursing home. And I left him. I couldn't believe, I said,
I can't believe he came down here for that bullshit.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
But on December fourth, nineteen eighty eight, Gwen was arrested
for murder. When she was arrested and brought back to Michigan,
Gwen still thought things would be cleared up, that the
police would realize Kathy was lying and that she would
be released, but that didn't happen. The police and prosecutors
(16:45):
then used doctor Cole's conclusions to bolster the story that
Kathy was telling, saying that the other three women also
must have died by asphyxiation.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
When they charged me with four I think four or more.
That's when I started losing it. I couldn't believe that
it got as far as it did.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
in the communities where they work and live. In light
of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
(17:41):
the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Gwen's trial star
in September of nineteen eighty nine. The state's case was
(18:04):
presented by Assistant Kent County Prosecutor David Scheiber. He started
by telling the jury about the alleged lover's packed that
Kathy had described.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
This idea of the lover's packed, this lover's tryst, this
homicidal lesbian duo was extremely shocking and salacious. At the time.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
This is Elizabeth Cole, clinical fellow at the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
It was no secret at the time that Gwen was
in a relationship with another woman, that she had dated
other women in the past, and that she identified as gay,
and that played a really large part of trial. It
was sort of central to the prosecutor's theme.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
And that's how the prosecutor targeted his audience.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
I mean, Grand Rapids is beautiful, but it is not
the most liberal of towns, especially not in the eighties.
As Gwen has told me before, there's a church on
every street corner, and we have seen in the transcripts
this intense undertone of homophobia throughout.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Schiper used that to his full advantage. When questioning Gwen
on the stand.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
The prosecutor asks her about her relationship with Kathy and
whether or not that relationship was satisfying. And there was
a lot of questions about whether or not Gwen had
attempted to seduce other women, and whether or not Gwen
had been faithful to Kathy in this relationship. And I
(19:44):
think that all of these little things really tried to
show how the prosecution was trying to portray Gwen, which
was this controlling, corruptive individual who has no sense of
morals and who is a day from every aspect.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They spent more time to just going over details of
my sex life, saying it was kinky. And I was
thinking if it was my person, my grandma, that had
been killed and they were talking about that, I would
have been out in the courtroom and probably would have
set up said well, the fun does I got to
do with anything? Can we get back to, you know,
my grandma?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But the actual evidence against Gwen was thin. It was
a story that started with Kathy. And before trial, when
Gwen and Kathy were in holding cells next to each other,
Gwen says she had a chance to ask Kathy about it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I said, why are you doing this? She said, because
you hurt me, because you lied to me, because you
tee it on me. I said, there is nothing I
can do to change that, and she started She started
crying and saying, but I loved you, and started banging
her head on the wall in there, and so I
was calling the guard and telling them she's over there
(21:04):
hurting herself.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
After that, Gwen thought that Kathy would come clean on
the stand.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
That's not what she did at all. I don't know
what happened to her between that and getting on the stand.
All of a sudden, she was totally composed and nailing
me to the cloth.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Kathy testified as to what she told Ken, and eventually
told police that she and Gwen plotted to kill the
women in a lover's pact. The medical examiner, doctor Cole,
testified that the cause of death for the two women
he re examined was asphyxiation, and finally, witnesses from the
nursing home said they had heard Gwen and Kathy making
(21:52):
jokes about killing patients. So what did the defense do
at trial? How did they try and refute this?
Speaker 6 (22:00):
So the defense really tried, I think, to poke holes
in every space that they could.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Gwen's defense attorney, James Piazza, started with Kathy.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
The defense really tried to show that this was nothing
more than a story made up by Kathy, but he
was limited in what he was able to do. He
requested mental health records on Kathy to be able to
discuss that with her. So the judge says, after reviewing
(22:31):
the records himself, that he was denying the motion for
her psychological records to be revealed.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
The judge determined that Kathy's mental health records would be
irrelevant to the defense and could potentially even hurt their case.
Despite this being an attorney's decision to make, the judge
maintained that having these files available might actually help the
prosecution's case because it would help argue that Kathy was
susceptible to manipulate by Gwen. After an unsuccessful attempt at
(23:04):
dismantling Kathy's credibility, defense attorney Piazza then pointed out the
homophobia that was on display in the courtroom.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
Everyone's sex life is not important because we're talking about
murders here, and so I think he tried to sort
of minimize the idea that because everyone is gay or
was in a relationship with one another, that that meant
something in this case.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Then Piazza focused on doctor Cole. On cross examination. Piazza
questioned Cole about changing the manner of death for two
of the women on their death certificates. Did he see
any evidence in these two bodies that it was a homicide.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
Based upon his testimony at trial. The short answer is no.
There were a number of other things that these people
could have passed away from. They were at a nursing home.
Most of them had multiple maladies that could have been
the reason they passed away, and doctor Cole at trial
testified that there really wasn't any typical signs of smothering,
(24:15):
which was the allegations that each of these individuals had
been smothered, such as burst capillaries, bruising on the face
or in the mouth, things like that. He said there
was no evidence of that, but based on what Kathy stated,
he determined that it was a homicide. Each time.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Doctor Cole admitted that if it wasn't for Cathy's confession,
which he knew was the reason for the re examinations,
he would not have determined the cause of death to
be asphyxiation as for the other three women, because there
had been no reexaminations. Piazza asked the judge to determine
that there wasn't sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude
(24:56):
that they were murdered. His request was denied. Finally, Gwen
took the stand to defend herself, but it didn't go
over as she hoped.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
I think she feels like she didn't get to explain
her side of the story the way that she wanted to.
When she was testifying at trial. I think that she
tried to explain a lot of the things that were presented,
like the joke about killing people.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Gwen admits that the atmosphere at the nursing home sometimes
led to gallows humor.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, there was things that we did that were
silly and just just to get through. It's a real
hard place to work where you know, people pass away
and people were sick in there, and you know that
this is not a place that people were coming to
get too muths or better.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
What she was talking about was something witnesses testified to
hearing at the nursing home. Gwen says this joke started
with a horror movie Motel Hell, that a group of
them had watched at a party. In the film, motel
owners killed their guests and sold their bodies as meat
to annoying customers.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And so I believe it was two of the boys
at the party that started to say, well, the body
is at a nursing home. We're about doing a chili
cook off. And that's just where it started and just
went from there, and every time that somebody would die,
it was just a joke that we're going to have
a chili cook off. That's all it ever was.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
How do you feel about making those jokes?
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Now?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I mean really awful, really awful, Yeah, really really awful
considering where it went. I can't even imagine that if
it had been my grandma or my mother and I
heard her stuff like that and people making jokes about it,
and you know, her death, and you know, I'd the
horrible about it.
Speaker 6 (26:59):
I think she tried to explain that, but after so
many people had testified to it, it sort of fell flat.
And I think that Gwen wasn't able really to talk
about what it was that she wanted to talk about,
which was her innocence. And so looking at Gwen's testimony,
it seems like they tried to address all of the
(27:20):
issues that had been presented at trial. They sort of
went point by point and tried to address every conversation
she had had with every witness, and I just think
that the impact wasn't felt by the jury, That sincerity
wasn't felt by the jury.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Cathy took a plea deal of second degree murder in
exchange for her testimony against Gwen. She was sentenced to
twenty to forty years on September twentieth. Nineteen eighty nine,
Gwen was convicted of all counts and given six concurrent
sentences of life without parole.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Were you surprised when you found out she was convicted
of this?
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Oh yeah, I cried. I still cry, and I feel
like she was railroaded.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
It was fifteen years before Karina was able to visit
Gwen in prison. At first, she didn't recognize her sister.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I know she was like twenty five or so when
she went in, but her appearance had changed. Of course
mine had changed. So I mean I remember standing in
the middle of the room just.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Looking around, just like.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Calling her name, and then I looked at this lady
sedued her chair and she was just crying that I
knew it was her, And.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
So they allowed us to hug.
Speaker 7 (28:55):
Who were like, it's really you, You're really here. I'm like, yeah,
I'm early here. Sho is so beautiful.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
It was.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
It was really nice, really great a moment.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Goud.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I'll never forget to be able to see her again.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I had a really hard time coping with how did
this happen? I was in shock for probably years. I
was just like an autopilot. I went through the motions
there were times when I just couldn't do it anymore.
I just felt like I just couldn't do it anymore.
I tried to hang myself a couple of times, and
officers found me and cut me down, and I quit
(29:50):
trying because I figured, well, if guy's not going to
let me kill myself unless be here for something, so
let's get to it. I'd figured out through therapy that
out is for me fixing other things. I spent a
lot of time fixing other things and helping other people
and fixing their things because I have an inability to
(30:13):
fix my own. No matter what I tried, I can't
seem to to fix this to make people see that.
How am I ever going to make him see him?
But I didn't do this.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Although Gwen didn't think she could fix her wrongful conviction,
she still tried. Gwen wrote letters to experts, attorneys, and
innocence projects. In twenty twenty two, Elizabeth Cole was handed
Gwen's case to review by the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
When you read the story of the case, it doesn't
seem fully plausible. It seems really fantastical, like it would
make great TV. And usually that stands out to us.
The other thing about this case in particular, and I
think why we decided to investigate, is that this case
(31:18):
is based around some very weak evidence.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Currently, Elizabeth and the Michigan Innocence Clinic are looking at
two specific angles that reinforce Helgwen's case was set up
to fail. First, they're exploring how doctor Cole was prejudiced
by outside information given to him prior to the re
examination of the two bodies.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
Each of these women were determined to have been murdered
by smothering, and doctor Cole was very clear about the
fact that that all came from his conversations with the
police and from Cathy's statement, which he believed. I can't
stress this enough. There is no medical basis for the
(32:00):
homicide determination, and this was testified to at trial and
then reconfirmed during a review by another medical examiner some
years later that there is no medical evidence to support
a theory of smothering.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Elizabeth says, the bottom line is any theory of a
case should not be shared with medical examiners or similar
personnel until after they make unbiased judgments, because this information
can and likely will affect their opinions. The second avenue
that the clinic is focusing on is the rampant homophobia
(32:39):
exhibited throughout the trial.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
This was an incredibly salacious trial. The testimony was especially salacious,
and so there was sort of this connection for the
prosecution between like this lack of morality and Gwen's sexual preferences.
This idea of homophobia that was played very heavily throughout
(33:04):
trial really colors everything else. It colors her relationships with
the people who testified. It colors who she is. It
colors police opinion of her, It colors juror's opinion of her.
It certainly colored the media's opinion of her. That colors
every aspect of this case, and so that impacted Gwen
and really prevented her from having a fair trial.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
The Michigan Innocence Clinic is currently writing a clemency petition
on Gwen's behalf that will focus on these two issues,
with the ultimate goal of getting Gwen out of prison.
In twenty twenty, Kathy was released on parole, but only
after spending almost thirty years in prison based on a
(33:49):
lie she told to put Gwen behind bars. To this day,
Kathy has not admitted she lied. Why do you think
she's stuck with the story for so long or forever.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I thought along and hard about it when she said
that we were killing all people's nursing home, and for
her to sit there and tell anybody in the world
that it was a lie and everything, and then she
would have to have that on her shoulders for the
rest of the life, and I just don't think that
she can live with it. I think that she was
okay with the time that she did because because I'm
(34:26):
here for nothing, I think she was okay with her
like she was paying her own little price for what
she did to me. And as long as she never
says anything, she'll always be in control of my life.
So always be in control.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
When you do get out, What do you hope to
do with you, with your future, with your life.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I'm going to take my sister walk around the world.
I want to just take her around the world and
travel because she works so hard, also does work, work, work,
and I just want her to slow down and have
fond and I just want to spend time with her.
The older I get, the more I realize that if
(35:13):
I walk out of here, I'm not going to have
a lot of time left. So my fucking list to
get shorter and shorter. I'm not a killer. I'm a
good person. I care about people. Though I felt like
the world that I cared so much about left me
(35:35):
behind and forgot about me. I still care.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
If you want to help Gwen, you can contact Michigan
Governor Gretchen Whitmer in support of Gwen and her clemency petition.
You can also contact the Michigan Innocence Clinic to share
your support for Gwen. These links will be in our bio.
(36:09):
Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, we'll revisit
our season one episode with death row prisoner Hank Skinner.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
But I think with the evidence we have now that
they're going to have to let me go, and they're
going to have to acknowledge that I'm innocent. I think,
after all I've suffered, that I deserve a chance. I
deserve to be with my wife. I deserve to have
a life. I deserve to be released and get the
hell out of here, and I won't out.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Hank died in February at the prison hospital in Galveston, Texas,
from complications following surgery for an aggressive brain tumor. Up
until his death, he continued to maintain his innocence and
to fight for exoneration. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction
(37:07):
with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and
go to the links in our bio to see how
you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers
Jason Flamm and Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer,
Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson, and story editor Sonya Paul.
The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with
additional production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music
(37:30):
in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good.
On all three platforms, you can also follow me on
both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
(37:51):
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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