May 25, 2023 • 40 mins
On October 16, 1995, in Waunakee, WI, 34-year-old Audrey Edmunds, a stay-at-home mother who often babysat for neighborhood families, was watching a neighbor’s 7-month-old daughter, Natalie, when Natalie became unresponsive. Audrey immediately ran to her neighbor’s house and called 911. The paramedics found Natalie with fixed and dilated pupils and taking short breaths. She passed away at the hospital that night. Natalie’s autopsy revealed extensive brain damage and a forensic pathologist determined that she died due to Shaken Baby Syndrome. Based on the theory of SBS, and because Audrey was Natalie’s caregiver in the hours prior to her death, Audrey was convicted of Natalie’s murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Jason talks to Audrey Edmunds and Keith Findley, Audrey's attorney.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.amazon.com/Happened-Audrey-Terrifying-Journey-Accused/dp/0985799803
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shaken-baby-syndrome-keith-a-findley/1143053792
https://law.wisc.edu/fjr/clinicals/ip/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
In the fall of nineteen ninety five, Audrey Edmunds was
running a small in home daycare center in Wannakee, Wisconsin.
One of the children she cared for was a seven
month old girl named Natalie Beard, who had a troubling
health history, both known and unknown, in addition to fussiness
when it came to feeding. On the morning of October sixteenth,
(00:24):
nineteen ninety five, as per usual, Natalie was set up
in a car seat in a quiet room with a
bottle to help her focus while feeding. According to Audrey,
she had soon found Natalie unresponsive as formula ran from
her nose and mouth, and Audrey some in paramedics who
noticed Natalie's pupils were fixed and dilated and she was
(00:45):
only taking short breaths. Tragically, Natalie died later on that
night at the hospital, and her autopsy revealed retinal and
brain hemorrhaging, as well as bruising on her scalp. Doctors
ruled these findings to be evidence of sit in baby syndrome.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That trial.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Medical experts testified with certainty that Natalie's death was not
the result of an accident, but rather recent intentional forceful
conduct and the most recent caregiver was Audrey Edmunds. With
the stresses of childcare, it's easy to believe that something
inside Audrey could have snapped. But this is wrongful conviction.
(01:35):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today, we're going to unpack
the case of Audrey Edmunds, who was convicted of a
crime that simply never happened, and she was sentenced to
eighteen years in prison. Audrey, I'm so sorry for what
happened to you, but I'm super grateful that you're here
now to share your story with us.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Likewise, you know, we've covered shaking baby syndrome or SPS,
not only a this show, but also in depth on
wrongful conviction junk science. When our host Josh Dubin spoke
with Kate Judson, the executive director of the Center for
Integrity and Forensic Sciences, and we've been asking her to
join us when we cover a case like yours. But
since the co founder of that organization, Keith Finley, was
(02:16):
your post conviction attorney, We're going to give Kate the
day off today. Keith, you also co founded the Wisconsin
Innocence Project as well as the Innocence Network. I mean, wow, anyway, incredible.
We're so honored to have you with us today.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thanks so much, Jason, glad to be with you now.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I know you know a lot about this hypothesis, which
masquerades day in and day out as a decided science.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Shake and baby syndrome is. As its founder, doctor Norman
guth Kelch referred to it repeatedly, It's a hypothesis, that's
all it is.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's a hypothesis, right, And the hypothesis was that violently
shaking an infant could cause the brain to sort of
slosh around back and forth inside of the skull, which
would in turn cause the bridging veins of the brain
and eyes to tear and bleed inside the coverings of
the brain and retinas, in addition to brain swelling, ultimately
(03:16):
resulting in the triad of findings for which doctor gotth
Kelch was trying to figure out, try to solve, and
this would then cause the child to lose consciousness or
potentially even their life.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
This hypothesis has never, as guth Kelch himself said late
in his life, has never been scientifically validated, and it's
for a very very good reason. It's nearly impossible to
do the kind of validation studies that would be required
to really test this scientifically, you need to do randomized
controlled studies, But for obvious ethical reasons, you can't shake
(03:52):
a certain group of infants and compare them to a
group of infants who are not shaken.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Right, if this hypothesis was to be believed, then you
not not only be submitting these infants to abuse, but
also what a proponent of SBS would believe is almost
a certain death. However, there have been studies over time
that have been able to disprove the hypothesis without shaking infants,
and those revelations come down to what other injuries would
(04:18):
also have to be present. In addition to the triad
of findings.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
The thing that really informs this is biomechanical research. Biomechanics
is the study of the effects of force applied to
the body, and what the biomechanical research shows consistently is
that the most vigorous shaking that a human being can
generate comes nowhere close to meeting the injury thresholds estimated
(04:42):
in these kinds of cases, and if sufficient forces could
be generated, that force would have to travel from the
chest through the neck to the brain. The weak link
there is the neck. The neck would almost certainly be
severely damaged by that much shaking, and yet these cases
almost never have any injuries of that sort.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And it has since been proven that there are a
multitude of other potential causes of the so called.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Triad, everything ranging from choking to inherited conditions, coagulopathies, childhood stroke,
accidental falls, you name it. There's just so many of
them that there's simply no way that a physician can,
so to speak, diagnosis on the basis of the triad
or associated findings. And yet that's exactly what they did
(05:31):
in Audrey's case.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Pers and so many others, because antithetical to the scientific method,
doctors at that time were trained in medical school to
just jump to this false conclusion each and every time
they saw that triad of findings. But before this happened
to you, Audrey, let's go back. Tell us about what
your life was like.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin. I have three brothers.
My dad was a teacher. My mom was a stay
at home mom. We had a very middle class life.
We had a small home, we had one bathroom. We
worked when we were old enough too. I had done
a lot of babysitting, dog sitting.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So you were predisposed of being a caregiver even as
a teenager. And what did you do after high school?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I started a job in the Saint Paul area right
out of high school. And then I was married when
I was almost twenty eight years old, and within a
year we had moved to Ohio, and in Ohio is
where I had my first child, Carrie.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And then when Carrie was still a toddler, your family
moved to Wannakee, Wisconsin, where you went back to childcare.
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
As much as I enjoyed working, I really enjoyed and
wanted to be a stay at home mom. And we
were in a young neighborhood with lots of small children.
People started asking me from time to time if I
would watch their children, And that is how this all
started for me, having children come to my house to
take care of them. And I loved it.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I mean, it all sounds wonderful. And you had two
little ones of your own by that time, and you
were expecting your third, So how great is that to
be able to be with them full time while also
providing this much needed service to your community and to
other parents in the area. So tell me a little
bit about your day care facility.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We had a large ranch house, a kitchen in the
center of the house. I had the master bedroom to
the far left and two other bedrooms in a bathroom
on the right hand side. And I was not a
licensed daycare since I didn't have several children every day,
I took people as needed.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
And one of the families you helped was the Beards
and their seven month old daughter, Natalie, who tragically passed
away on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety five. Were there any
potential warning signs regarding her.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Health Natalie's parents, this was their first child. They'd had
a lot of problems with her fussiness and either taken
her to the doctor or called the doctor twenty five
times in her twenty seven weeks of life.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Wow, twenty five doctor visits. That's a doctor visit a
week pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
That's correct. And then also, Natalie, unfortunately was not able
to roll over on her tummy. She couldn't prop herself
up with her arms as most children do at that age.
She couldn't hold her own bottle, and ever since I
started taking care of her, she had a real hard
time sucking, and I had asked her mom about that
(08:36):
because most babies at that age they will take down
six to seven ounces in five to seven minutes, and
it took Natalie at least twenty minutes. So I had
accommodated her over the six plus weeks that I had
taken care of her, to give her the time needed
to hold her, to help her eat, and keep her
(08:59):
away from noisy people.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I mean, most of our artis probably at some point
have been a baby, and as you may have experienced,
if the baby isn't feeling well or has some other
stuff going on, it can be hard for them to
maintain focus while feeding. So anything else notable about the
lead up to that awful, faithful day.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yes, she had not been at my house since the
previous Wednesday, so I hadn't seen her for four days.
The previous Wednesday, after she'd been at my house, they
took her into the doctor the next morning because they
said she was fussy, and the doctor treated her with
an ear infection. To the best of my knowledge, the
(09:41):
coroner had noted that there was no ear infection in
the autopsy, but also on that note, the mother did
not tell me, But Natalie had projectile vomited that morning
in her car seat on the way to my house,
which is just around a half a block from their
house to my house, So what was really wrong with her?
(10:04):
Many doctors who have studied these cases have said, when
the parents continue to bring her in for medical attention
because they're crying, they need to start doing head scans
to see if something is wrong internally that can't be
detected with the little light that the doctor puts in
the eyes and ears.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And nose, And had head scans been a regular practice
back then, we might have known what was happening inside
Natalie before it was too late for both her and
for you. As it turns out, as these findings manifested
and took her life while she was in your care.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
And it's proven these symptoms can take hours, if not days,
to manifest before there's an outward symptom, as it did
happen in my care.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
But at that time, the most recent caregiver was almost
always the one who was blamed. So let's talk about
that morning. It was around seven thirty am on October sixteenth,
nineteen ninety five, when Cindy Beard dropped Natalie off.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
That morning, the mother could not get her to take
her bottle, and babies should be hungry when they haven't
eaten for eight to ten hours. But I knew that
she was a very sensitive baby to noise, to any
little jolting, and that's why I decided to put her
away from the noise of the rest of the house.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Audrey tried to comb the child by propping her up
in a quiet bedroom in a car seat with a bottle,
and she then went to ten to other children in
her care, and within less than an hour, when she
checked on Natalie, she found the child to be unresponsive,
turning blue.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
I thought that she was choking, and I propped her
upright against my body. I'm patting her on the back.
She's not responding, and I run outside with her in
my arm, screaming for a neighbor lady who comes down,
and I'm babbling telling her what's going on, and she's saying,
you've got to call nine one one.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
The nine one one call itself is really revealing from
the very get go. Audrey is telling the rescue people
that there was all kinds of formula coming out of
the infant's nose and mouth, and when paramedics arrived. They
said that they noted that there was formula coming out
of the child. They said they found a child who
had aspirated formula and it appeared by all accounts to
(12:24):
be a choking incident.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
So the paramedics also noted that Natalie's pupils were fixed
and dilated and she was taking short breaths. She was
flown to University Hospital in Madison, where tragically she died
that very night. A forensic pathologist named doctor Robert Huntington
performed the autopsy, which revealed extensive brain damage, dual retinal hemorrhaging,
bleeding in the coverings of the brain, and bruising on
(12:48):
her scalp. So the bleeds represent part of the triad,
But what about the bruise.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
They couldn't say the timing of it. It was maybe fresh,
but how fresh is for rush? Is it two hours?
Is it two days?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Could that have happened in transit to the hospital or
while this little child was struggling to survive? What did
Huntington make of that?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Doctor Huntington said he thought it was too small to
be of any consequence, and therefore he concluded this had
to have been shaking right.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Huntington ruled out accidental injury, saying that it was quote
intentional forceful conduct directed specifically at Natalie. But this murder
diagnosi is completely ignored not only her medical history that
we've already discussed, but also what should have been a
big red flag at the autopsy.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Their own brain scans showed that this child had a
chronic subdural hematoma, meaning previous episode of bleeding around the brain.
That's well established in the medical research. The chronic subdural
hematomas are very susceptible to rebleeding based on very little
additional trauma, or sometimes no trauma, just spontaneously like a
(14:01):
spontaneous nosebleed. And the prosecution and ultimately the court simply
ignored all of these indications that the child was not
a healthy baby, and that she was a previously brain
injured child.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And these kinds of earlier bleeds are sometimes written off
as proof of previous abuse. But since they also believed
that violence shaking caused an immediate demise in the SPS
proponent's mind, perhaps the alleged previous abuse wasn't forceful enough
to kill. But now the alleged repeat offender, the most
(14:35):
recent caregiver had just finally been caught by way of
the child's death, and that puts the onus on you, Audrey.
Now did you get the sense that Natalie's parents believed
this as well?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
So Cindy called me at noontime that day, and she
was very compassionate to me, asked me what happened. She
was very concerned. I went to the hospital that afternoon,
short after four, and we hugged and we both cried,
and I talked to her and I told her how
much I cared and how much I had tried to
help Natalie that morning. She was very kind to me,
(15:11):
and then once the prosecution went on the witch hunt
after me, they told her not to speak to me anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So when did this witch hunt, as you so aptly
called it, begin, or when were you made aware of it?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I had no clue that anything was trying to be
held against me until January. I was just talking to
anybody that came to talk to me. The chief of
police who had come to my house earlier, mister Geezy,
he was very very kind. I just answered whatever questions,
showed them anything they wanted to see. They took photos,
(15:50):
and I thought this was just regular protocol.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Typically, we see this diagnosis at the autopsy quickly turned
into an accusation, charges and arrest, but that didn't materialize
until five months later, on March nineteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Now you were charged with first degree reckless homicide. As
I mentioned earlier, you had two kids of your own
and one more on the way. Perhaps they were waiting
(16:14):
for that baby to arrive before bringing you in. I
don't know. I mean just thinking about you having to
leave behind your two young children and a newborn. It's
too much.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
It was horrible. My youngest was one month old. I
had no clue why this was even happening, why I
was charged, what they thought happened. I was so so scared,
but yet I kept thinking, well, nothing happened, so everything
will be okay.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And I was wrong. This episode is underwritten by global
law firm Greenberg Trowig through its pro bono program. Greenberg
Trowig leverages its more than twenty six hundred lawyers across
(17:06):
forty four offices to serve the greater good of our
communities and provide equal access to justice for all. In
the field of criminal justice. Greenberg Trowrig attorneys have exonerated
and free demanded. Philadelphia represent numerous individuals previously sentenced to
life for crimes committed as juveniles and resentencing hearings, and
receive the American Bar Association's twenty twenty one Exceptional Service
(17:28):
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be because of a more just world. Only happens by design.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
This is what we call a science dependent prosecution. The science,
the medicine, the expert testimony comprised the entire case. It's
almost unique in the law in that sense. There are
really three things the prosecution had to prove. One is
what's known as the actus reus, what happened. The medical
professionals would come in and say, we can tell you
(18:06):
exactly what happened. This child was violently shaken. The second
thing they have to prove is what's known in the
law as the mensraa, the mental state of the perpetrator.
And in this case, the experts came in and testified,
and we can tell you what mental state the perpetrator had.
Because this would require such force the equivalent of a
(18:26):
second story fall or thirty mile an hour automobile accident,
that it couldn't be done accidentally. And the third thing
they have to prove is identity. The way the expert
would prove identity would be to say, a child so
injured would become immediately comatose, flaccid, unresponsive, and therefore the
last person with the child is the one who did it.
(18:48):
That was Audrey. So that was the entirety of the
case against Audrey.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So the trial began on November eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
The judge was Daniel Moser, and the prosecutor was to
Da Dretchen Hayward. And the star witness for the prosecution
was doctor Robert Huntington, the forensic pathologists who had done
the autopsy.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
He was joined in his testimony by a number of
other doctors, pediatricians, ophthalmologists, a range of others who were
uniform in their opinion that, as they said, nothing could
cause this triad of findings except violent shaking.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So what did Audrey's defense attorney Steve Hurley present the
counter all of that combined so called medical expertise.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
The defense called their own expert witness, but reflecting how
early this is in the life story, of the shaking
baby center hypothesis. At that point, there was virtually no
one who was challenging or disputing the hypothesis itself. So
at the trial, all of the prosecution's witnesses were of
one voice, were unanimous this had to be shaking, and
(19:58):
nothing but shaking could cause it. The defense witness also
believed this had to be shaking, because that's just what
the unquestioned dogma of the day was, and so the
defense expert agreed it had to be shaking. The only
thing she introduced was but it could have happened before
the child was in Audrey's care.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Audrey, what about Natalie's mother, Cindy Beard. You mentioned that
she didn't seem to blame you when Natalie was taken
to the hospital. In fact, she expressed kindness and understanding.
As you recall. Did she testify at the trial.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yes, she did. I don't recall a whole lot about it.
She had a hard time, of course, when Steve Hurley
cross examined her and talked to her about Natalie's pre
existing conditions. He was gentle around it, but he had
some good, strong topics.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
The prosecutors basically told them that Audrey murdered your child,
and despite the absurdity of that claim, that's what they
led them to believe. And so I think that used
an inevitable hostility. And who wouldn't be angry if you
were told that your baby was murdered by someone? Right?
(21:06):
I mean, these people suffered a terrible tragedy. The problem
is that I'm afraid that the prosecution kind of victimized
the parents again by making them believe this story of
murder rather than what It's still awful, but not as awful,
perhaps that the child died of natural causes.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And other than the defenses expert Audrey, who else testified
on your behalf.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
A lot of people thankfully came to my defense because
they had seen me with Natalie day after day when
I had her. I interacted with a lot of moms
and neighbors, and they would see when she would cry,
and I'd pick her up, and I'd pat her and
I'd comfort her, just little things like that.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
So, if I can just add Jason, the defense was
built a lot on the notion that this was just
absurd to think that Audrey, with this sterling track record,
would have snapped in less than an hour of caring
for Natalie. After not having cared for her for four
or five days, Stan snapped to the point of violently
shaking her to death.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Nonetheless, with that bevy of tuber confident medical expert testimony,
it doesn't appear that even a sterling track record made
a bit of difference to the jury. On November twenty sixth,
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
The courtroom was full. Both sides had a lot of supporters,
family friends, and the closing arguments were horrifying. When Gretchen
Hayward still wants to talk like she was standing in
my kitchen that day telling how I had shaken this
child and bonked her head against a wall. And then
(22:48):
the jury had some questions about first degree reckless homicide
versus second degree and utter disregard to human life. My
palms get sweaty just think thinking about sitting in the
hallway waiting, and then when we hear the jury has
come to a decision, and it's late at night, and
(23:08):
we go in and I heard that one awful, ugly
word and I thought I was going to die. The
(23:29):
judge when he said eighteen years, I felt like he
was saying, you have taken a life so I want
your kids to be away from you until they're adults.
To this day, I still can't wrap my head around
trying to prepare to be torn away from them. So
much is taken away from you. You're put into a
(23:51):
concrete cell with a tin toilet and a stranger, and
you're trying to do the best you can to adapt
and hold on to hope that this won't last long. Thankfully,
my children's dad and my parents and other family members
were wonderful for almost six years in bringing my children
(24:13):
almost every weekend to see me, and on top of that,
I had multiple phone calls to them throughout the week.
We wrote a lot of letters. My kids teachers throughout
the years were great to send me things, report cards, projects.
So I am really really fortunate in that area because
(24:35):
a lot of moms had little of no contact with
their children. Then my kid's dad and I divorced about
six years after I was in and then I didn't
see them as much, but I saw them often and
we kept in very close touch throughout all the years.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, I'm glad to hear that. And meanwhile, you were
doing literally everything you could possibly do to prove your innocence. Now,
in two thousand and two, your first appeal was denied,
and then in two thousand and three, Keith and the
Wisconsin Innocence Project got involved. Now, from what I understand,
Audrey's case was your introduction to the SBS hypothesis and
(25:13):
eventually inspired you to start the Center for Integrity and
Forensic Science. But at that time, knowing very little about
the science. What made you take her case.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It was a high profile case here, so we all
knew about the case and knew that it was a
controversial conviction from the beginning. And her lawyer, Steve Hurley,
is a really outstanding lawyer, and her appellate lawyer was
Dean Strang, who many of you may remember as one
of Steve and Avery's lawyers in the Netflix Docuseriies Making
a Murderer, who was a remarkable lawyer as well. And
(25:44):
I knew them both well and knew that they were
really troubled by this conviction, believing firmly that she was innocent.
But the thing that really got us going is that
a physician at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, doctor Javid,
approached us and said he thought there were or problems
with the scientific evidence with the medical evidence that was
used to convict her, and that we should look into it.
(26:06):
We started investigating, and we found that that forensic pathologist,
the medical examiner, you remember him, doctor Robert Huntington. He
had written a letter to the Journal of the National
Association of Medical Examiners in which he basically said, you
know what, our beliefs about timing of these injuries may
(26:26):
have been wrong. I don't think he said, we can
actually time them to the last person with the child anymore.
And he based that on an experience he had autopsying
another child who died after being in the hospital for
about seventeen hours under expert supervision, and the child presented
(26:46):
with the full triad just like Natalie, but the child
had been in the hospital for seventeen hours where she
was completely lucid. She was fussy and clingy, but she
was lucid, aware, alert, and therefore she had what in
the literature is known as an extended lucid interval. And
from this doctor Huntington wrote, what we used to believe
that the child would become unresponsive immediately, that's not always true.
(27:10):
We can't conclude that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And so the medical examiner actually admitted that he was wrong.
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
He also said that having research this further, there was
now emerging, growing body of research that was challenging the
very hypothesis itself. And he therefore said he could no
longer be confident with his testimony that this child was
shaken at all. And so we reached out to doctor
Huntington and said we were working with Audrey Edmonds. The
(27:38):
first thing he said, first thing out of his mouth,
was oh, Audrey Edmunds, what are we going to do
about Audrey Edmonds?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
So in two thousand and seven you got an evidentiary
hearing in which you presented, among several expert witnesses, doctor
Huntington himself.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Doctor Huntington was courageous and forthright, and he on the
witness stand, and he acknowledged that he was no longer
comfortable with the testimony he had offered at Audrey's trial.
One he said he could no longer stand by his
testimony that the injury almost certainly happened within two hours
(28:14):
of the child's collapse. Elucid interval was possible, so he
couldn't time it to match Audrey's care. The second thing
he said, though, which was equally powerful, was that while
at trial he was certain this case had to involved
a violent shaking, he now said because the whole field
had become so much more controversial and more uncertain, he
(28:37):
could no longer say whether there was any shaking at all,
or whether this might have been an impact. He said
that original bruise that he saw at autopsy, that he
originally discounted as having been two minor to have been
of consequence, He said he now couldn't rule that out.
And the important thing about that is if that bruise,
if that impact of the head was the cause, it
(28:58):
could have been the product of prior abuse before the
child got to Audrey's care, or it could have been
an accident, because another thing that the biomechanical research shows
is that even minor falls, falls from just a few
feet generate fifty times more accelerations or more force than
the most violent shaking that a human being can produce,
(29:21):
and that even those kinds of minor accidental type falls
do generate sufficient forces to exceed estimated injury thresholds. So
he basically said, I can't time it to Audrey, and
I can't tell you if there was shaking or whether
this was intentional or accidental. The medicine doesn't answer those questions, pretty.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Much refuting his own very damning testimony at the original trial,
and to back him up, you had five other expert witnesses,
all prominent physicians and pediatric neurosurgeons.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
In response, the state called four experts, most of whom
had testified at the trial originally. And what we showed
through the course of this was that there indeed can
be elucid interval, that a child so injured can experience
a period where they are alert and responsive for hours,
(30:12):
if not days. That although the medical science had been
undisputed at the time of Audrey's trial except for the
question of timing, since then enormous research had emerged that
suggested that shaking is an unlikely if impossible cause of
these findings, that it's simply myth, there's no science behind it.
(30:36):
And we established that there are multiple possible causes for
these findings, and that's particularly important in a case like
this where the child was previously ill, the child had
a pre existing subdural hematoma, and was sick, and was
fussy and clingy, and the research now shows that those
are all potential indications that the child is neurologically compromised
(31:01):
and heading towards collapse.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
And yet after you had established all of this updated
scientific evidence, the original trial judge, Daniel Moser, was not persuaded.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
He denied the motion and basically said, I believe the
state's experts more.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, sounds like you gave that a lot of thought.
But of course you appealed, which brings us up to
January thirty first, two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeals reversed the
trial court judge and said that Audrey had indeed presented
newly discovered evidence in the form of new medical research
that created a probability that at a retrial she would
be acquitted. And they said the trial judge had legally
(31:44):
aired by applying the wrong standard by substituting his own
judgment about the guilty innocence for that of the jury,
and therefore Audrey was entitled to a new trial. Conviction vacated.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Hey man, that was a great day.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
That was a great day.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I believe it. Audrey. Can you tell me about those
first moments on February sixth, two thousand and eight, when
you found out you were finally going.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
To be released.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
It was awesome. It was a snowy day. I'm working
on this auto part scrapping line and my supervisor's supervisor
comes to me and says, Audrey, I have gotten a
call and you can legally come to my office to
(32:32):
take a telephone call. And at first I was like,
oh no, I can't do that. I was scared to death.
You don't touch a telephone. You don't even think about
touching a telephone because that's a form of escape. I'm
this close to getting out, I'm not going to do anything.
And she said everything is okay. So I went to
her office and we had a call with some people
at Keith's office and they said the judge has a
(32:56):
big trial next week, but he will put you in
for you release hearing on Wednesday at noon. That Wednesday
was a terrible snowstorm day. Medisine got two feet of
snow and at quarter to three that day, in a
massive snowstorm, I walked out. I didn't care where I
slept that night, as long as I was on the
(33:17):
other side of the fence.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
By the way, there's this iconic, beautiful photograph of Audrey.
I believe in the parking lot meeting with meeting with
her friends, being reunited with them, with the snowstorm swirling
around them and the wind blowing, and they're all reaching
out to hug each other. It's just such pure joys.
It makes it all amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
And I have to say on one thing, the prosecutor
did say that they had contacted the parents and neither
one objected to my release, because had they objected, I
could have been having to go back to County jail
until the July hearing. So that was a big plus.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Right, So although you were out, you were still in
legal limbo until that hearing.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Once Audrey's conviction was overturned and the prosecution was thinking
about whether to retry them, and then ultimately when they
dismissed the charges, the prosecution continued to insist publicly and
to tell the parents that Audrey had murdered their child,
even though they no longer had any proof, no evidence,
(34:22):
And to me, that was just morally indefensible. It was
such a harmful thing to do to everyone, as a prosecutor,
as a public servant, as a minister of justice. In theory,
you either prove your case in court by the requisite
legal standard, or you accept the presumption of innocence, and
they refuse to give Audrey that they refused to give
(34:43):
Natalie Beard's family that.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yeah, it was. It was atrocious. I've never expected and
I'm sorry for them, but I wish they would be
big enough to say the truth that the medical evidence
does not support the charge.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
But they did dismiss the case on July eleventh, two
thousand eight, and you were finally exonerated of these completely ludicrous,
false and unjust charges and able to return to your
family at last. And I have to ask, I'm sure
everyone's wondering, how are you doing now? And how are
(35:17):
your kids because they were, in a sense in prison
with you during your entire ordeal, doing their own sort
of time because of this horrible persecution.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And they're good. They all have very good jobs. Two
of them are married. I just found out that my
baby is pregnant, so I will have two grand babies.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I just saw my middle one over the weekend. She
lives in Iowa and she will be taking her boards
to be a licensed practical nurse. And I'm just super
thankful that they are doing well. I'm sure they have
a scar from this. They don't hardly talk about it.
I think it's just too hard for them. But they
know that there are things still going on in my
(36:00):
life that I speak out like I am today, and
I'm grateful that there's just more and more awareness of
these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And you've also written a memoir called It Happened to Audrey,
A terrifying journey from loving mom to accuse baby killer.
We're going to put a link to that at our bio.
I'm going to order a copy, I hope everybody does.
And Keith, you've also co authored a book along with
a number of leading experts in this field, which is
coming out very soon. I've already ordered this one, by
the way, the book is called Shaken Baby Syndrome, Investigating
(36:33):
the Abusive Head Trauma Controversy. I highly recommend it for
anyone who has even a passing interest in learning more
about this terrible, faulty hypothesis that has destroyed thousands of
people's lives. Will have a link to that in the
bio too. And now we've come to one of my favorite,
(36:54):
well my favorite part of the show really, which we
call closing arguments, and this is the part where, first
of all, I'm going to thank you you Audrey for
your courage and your strength and your grace and for
being here to tell your incredible story. And Keith, as always,
thank you for being an inspiration to all of us
in the movement. And now I'm just going to turn
my mic off, kick back in my chair with my
(37:15):
headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to anything
else you want to say. Keith, let's start with you.
Then you can just pass the mic off to Audrey
and she can take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, Audrey's case. In the end, the whole topic of
shaking baby syndrome represents what is all too common and
wrongful convictions, and that is a rush to judgment, an
unquestioning acceptance of expertise and authorities even when they are flawed,
and a real vindictiveness and sort of the punitive nature
(37:50):
of the culture we live in that you know, when
a baby dies, somebody's got to pay for it, and
that's really really tragic. The struggle continues. But the bright
side of this, that the bright note here is that
there is a growing body of physicians, biomechanical engineers, and
other scientists who are re examining shaking baby syndrome, the
(38:12):
entire hypothesis who are publishing in response to it. There
will be more pushback, there will be efforts to silence
or discredit critics, but eventually scientific truth will prevail. I'm confident.
I just hope not too many more innocent people suffer
the faith that Audrey suffered.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
In the meantime, just please be aware if you're around
a jury, really listen to truth and facts, no matter
how many witnesses one side has versus the other, use
some common sense, know the facts, know the truth, know
the validity of any witness. Really be open minded. Just
(38:51):
because somebody is charged doesn't mean they have done the
appropriate investigation and know all the facts of the case.
And especially in cases like mine, please please look at
the medical scientific facts, not opinion. Opinion doesn't matter anymore
and can be so well discredited as there are more
(39:12):
and more people who are experts who are researching these
who came to my attention, who came to Keith's attention,
and don't look at these people that are not upgrading
and updating their medical knowledge.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. I want to
thank our production team, Connor Hall, any Chelsea Lyla Robinson,
Jeff Cleburn, and Kevin Warris. The music in this production
was supplied 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
(39:53):
wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Vlahmer. Ravel Conviction is
a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with
Signal Company Number one
In the fall of nineteen ninety five, Audrey Edmunds was
running a small in home daycare center in Wannakee, Wisconsin.
One of the children she cared for was a seven
month old girl named Natalie Beard, who had a troubling
health history, both known and unknown, in addition to fussiness
when it came to feeding. On the morning of October sixteenth,
(00:24):
nineteen ninety five, as per usual, Natalie was set up
in a car seat in a quiet room with a
bottle to help her focus while feeding. According to Audrey,
she had soon found Natalie unresponsive as formula ran from
her nose and mouth, and Audrey some in paramedics who
noticed Natalie's pupils were fixed and dilated and she was
(00:45):
only taking short breaths. Tragically, Natalie died later on that
night at the hospital, and her autopsy revealed retinal and
brain hemorrhaging, as well as bruising on her scalp. Doctors
ruled these findings to be evidence of sit in baby syndrome.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That trial.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Medical experts testified with certainty that Natalie's death was not
the result of an accident, but rather recent intentional forceful
conduct and the most recent caregiver was Audrey Edmunds. With
the stresses of childcare, it's easy to believe that something
inside Audrey could have snapped. But this is wrongful conviction.
(01:35):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today, we're going to unpack
the case of Audrey Edmunds, who was convicted of a
crime that simply never happened, and she was sentenced to
eighteen years in prison. Audrey, I'm so sorry for what
happened to you, but I'm super grateful that you're here
now to share your story with us.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Likewise, you know, we've covered shaking baby syndrome or SPS,
not only a this show, but also in depth on
wrongful conviction junk science. When our host Josh Dubin spoke
with Kate Judson, the executive director of the Center for
Integrity and Forensic Sciences, and we've been asking her to
join us when we cover a case like yours. But
since the co founder of that organization, Keith Finley, was
(02:16):
your post conviction attorney, We're going to give Kate the
day off today. Keith, you also co founded the Wisconsin
Innocence Project as well as the Innocence Network. I mean, wow, anyway, incredible.
We're so honored to have you with us today.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thanks so much, Jason, glad to be with you now.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I know you know a lot about this hypothesis, which
masquerades day in and day out as a decided science.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Shake and baby syndrome is. As its founder, doctor Norman
guth Kelch referred to it repeatedly, It's a hypothesis, that's
all it is.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's a hypothesis, right, And the hypothesis was that violently
shaking an infant could cause the brain to sort of
slosh around back and forth inside of the skull, which
would in turn cause the bridging veins of the brain
and eyes to tear and bleed inside the coverings of
the brain and retinas, in addition to brain swelling, ultimately
(03:16):
resulting in the triad of findings for which doctor gotth
Kelch was trying to figure out, try to solve, and
this would then cause the child to lose consciousness or
potentially even their life.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
This hypothesis has never, as guth Kelch himself said late
in his life, has never been scientifically validated, and it's
for a very very good reason. It's nearly impossible to
do the kind of validation studies that would be required
to really test this scientifically, you need to do randomized
controlled studies, But for obvious ethical reasons, you can't shake
(03:52):
a certain group of infants and compare them to a
group of infants who are not shaken.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Right, if this hypothesis was to be believed, then you
not not only be submitting these infants to abuse, but
also what a proponent of SBS would believe is almost
a certain death. However, there have been studies over time
that have been able to disprove the hypothesis without shaking infants,
and those revelations come down to what other injuries would
(04:18):
also have to be present. In addition to the triad
of findings.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
The thing that really informs this is biomechanical research. Biomechanics
is the study of the effects of force applied to
the body, and what the biomechanical research shows consistently is
that the most vigorous shaking that a human being can
generate comes nowhere close to meeting the injury thresholds estimated
(04:42):
in these kinds of cases, and if sufficient forces could
be generated, that force would have to travel from the
chest through the neck to the brain. The weak link
there is the neck. The neck would almost certainly be
severely damaged by that much shaking, and yet these cases
almost never have any injuries of that sort.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And it has since been proven that there are a
multitude of other potential causes of the so called.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Triad, everything ranging from choking to inherited conditions, coagulopathies, childhood stroke,
accidental falls, you name it. There's just so many of
them that there's simply no way that a physician can,
so to speak, diagnosis on the basis of the triad
or associated findings. And yet that's exactly what they did
(05:31):
in Audrey's case.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Pers and so many others, because antithetical to the scientific method,
doctors at that time were trained in medical school to
just jump to this false conclusion each and every time
they saw that triad of findings. But before this happened
to you, Audrey, let's go back. Tell us about what
your life was like.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin. I have three brothers.
My dad was a teacher. My mom was a stay
at home mom. We had a very middle class life.
We had a small home, we had one bathroom. We
worked when we were old enough too. I had done
a lot of babysitting, dog sitting.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So you were predisposed of being a caregiver even as
a teenager. And what did you do after high school?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I started a job in the Saint Paul area right
out of high school. And then I was married when
I was almost twenty eight years old, and within a
year we had moved to Ohio, and in Ohio is
where I had my first child, Carrie.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And then when Carrie was still a toddler, your family
moved to Wannakee, Wisconsin, where you went back to childcare.
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
As much as I enjoyed working, I really enjoyed and
wanted to be a stay at home mom. And we
were in a young neighborhood with lots of small children.
People started asking me from time to time if I
would watch their children, And that is how this all
started for me, having children come to my house to
take care of them. And I loved it.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I mean, it all sounds wonderful. And you had two
little ones of your own by that time, and you
were expecting your third, So how great is that to
be able to be with them full time while also
providing this much needed service to your community and to
other parents in the area. So tell me a little
bit about your day care facility.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We had a large ranch house, a kitchen in the
center of the house. I had the master bedroom to
the far left and two other bedrooms in a bathroom
on the right hand side. And I was not a
licensed daycare since I didn't have several children every day,
I took people as needed.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
And one of the families you helped was the Beards
and their seven month old daughter, Natalie, who tragically passed
away on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety five. Were there any
potential warning signs regarding her.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Health Natalie's parents, this was their first child. They'd had
a lot of problems with her fussiness and either taken
her to the doctor or called the doctor twenty five
times in her twenty seven weeks of life.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Wow, twenty five doctor visits. That's a doctor visit a
week pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
That's correct. And then also, Natalie, unfortunately was not able
to roll over on her tummy. She couldn't prop herself
up with her arms as most children do at that age.
She couldn't hold her own bottle, and ever since I
started taking care of her, she had a real hard
time sucking, and I had asked her mom about that
(08:36):
because most babies at that age they will take down
six to seven ounces in five to seven minutes, and
it took Natalie at least twenty minutes. So I had
accommodated her over the six plus weeks that I had
taken care of her, to give her the time needed
to hold her, to help her eat, and keep her
(08:59):
away from noisy people.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I mean, most of our artis probably at some point
have been a baby, and as you may have experienced,
if the baby isn't feeling well or has some other
stuff going on, it can be hard for them to
maintain focus while feeding. So anything else notable about the
lead up to that awful, faithful day.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yes, she had not been at my house since the
previous Wednesday, so I hadn't seen her for four days.
The previous Wednesday, after she'd been at my house, they
took her into the doctor the next morning because they
said she was fussy, and the doctor treated her with
an ear infection. To the best of my knowledge, the
(09:41):
coroner had noted that there was no ear infection in
the autopsy, but also on that note, the mother did
not tell me, But Natalie had projectile vomited that morning
in her car seat on the way to my house,
which is just around a half a block from their
house to my house, So what was really wrong with her?
(10:04):
Many doctors who have studied these cases have said, when
the parents continue to bring her in for medical attention
because they're crying, they need to start doing head scans
to see if something is wrong internally that can't be
detected with the little light that the doctor puts in
the eyes and ears.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And nose, And had head scans been a regular practice
back then, we might have known what was happening inside
Natalie before it was too late for both her and
for you. As it turns out, as these findings manifested
and took her life while she was in your care.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
And it's proven these symptoms can take hours, if not days,
to manifest before there's an outward symptom, as it did
happen in my care.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
But at that time, the most recent caregiver was almost
always the one who was blamed. So let's talk about
that morning. It was around seven thirty am on October sixteenth,
nineteen ninety five, when Cindy Beard dropped Natalie off.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
That morning, the mother could not get her to take
her bottle, and babies should be hungry when they haven't
eaten for eight to ten hours. But I knew that
she was a very sensitive baby to noise, to any
little jolting, and that's why I decided to put her
away from the noise of the rest of the house.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Audrey tried to comb the child by propping her up
in a quiet bedroom in a car seat with a bottle,
and she then went to ten to other children in
her care, and within less than an hour, when she
checked on Natalie, she found the child to be unresponsive,
turning blue.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
I thought that she was choking, and I propped her
upright against my body. I'm patting her on the back.
She's not responding, and I run outside with her in
my arm, screaming for a neighbor lady who comes down,
and I'm babbling telling her what's going on, and she's saying,
you've got to call nine one one.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
The nine one one call itself is really revealing from
the very get go. Audrey is telling the rescue people
that there was all kinds of formula coming out of
the infant's nose and mouth, and when paramedics arrived. They
said that they noted that there was formula coming out
of the child. They said they found a child who
had aspirated formula and it appeared by all accounts to
(12:24):
be a choking incident.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
So the paramedics also noted that Natalie's pupils were fixed
and dilated and she was taking short breaths. She was
flown to University Hospital in Madison, where tragically she died
that very night. A forensic pathologist named doctor Robert Huntington
performed the autopsy, which revealed extensive brain damage, dual retinal hemorrhaging,
bleeding in the coverings of the brain, and bruising on
(12:48):
her scalp. So the bleeds represent part of the triad,
But what about the bruise.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
They couldn't say the timing of it. It was maybe fresh,
but how fresh is for rush? Is it two hours?
Is it two days?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Could that have happened in transit to the hospital or
while this little child was struggling to survive? What did
Huntington make of that?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Doctor Huntington said he thought it was too small to
be of any consequence, and therefore he concluded this had
to have been shaking right.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Huntington ruled out accidental injury, saying that it was quote
intentional forceful conduct directed specifically at Natalie. But this murder
diagnosi is completely ignored not only her medical history that
we've already discussed, but also what should have been a
big red flag at the autopsy.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Their own brain scans showed that this child had a
chronic subdural hematoma, meaning previous episode of bleeding around the brain.
That's well established in the medical research. The chronic subdural
hematomas are very susceptible to rebleeding based on very little
additional trauma, or sometimes no trauma, just spontaneously like a
(14:01):
spontaneous nosebleed. And the prosecution and ultimately the court simply
ignored all of these indications that the child was not
a healthy baby, and that she was a previously brain
injured child.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And these kinds of earlier bleeds are sometimes written off
as proof of previous abuse. But since they also believed
that violence shaking caused an immediate demise in the SPS
proponent's mind, perhaps the alleged previous abuse wasn't forceful enough
to kill. But now the alleged repeat offender, the most
(14:35):
recent caregiver had just finally been caught by way of
the child's death, and that puts the onus on you, Audrey.
Now did you get the sense that Natalie's parents believed
this as well?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
So Cindy called me at noontime that day, and she
was very compassionate to me, asked me what happened. She
was very concerned. I went to the hospital that afternoon,
short after four, and we hugged and we both cried,
and I talked to her and I told her how
much I cared and how much I had tried to
help Natalie that morning. She was very kind to me,
(15:11):
and then once the prosecution went on the witch hunt
after me, they told her not to speak to me anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So when did this witch hunt, as you so aptly
called it, begin, or when were you made aware of it?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I had no clue that anything was trying to be
held against me until January. I was just talking to
anybody that came to talk to me. The chief of
police who had come to my house earlier, mister Geezy,
he was very very kind. I just answered whatever questions,
showed them anything they wanted to see. They took photos,
(15:50):
and I thought this was just regular protocol.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Typically, we see this diagnosis at the autopsy quickly turned
into an accusation, charges and arrest, but that didn't materialize
until five months later, on March nineteenth, nineteen ninety six.
Now you were charged with first degree reckless homicide. As
I mentioned earlier, you had two kids of your own
and one more on the way. Perhaps they were waiting
(16:14):
for that baby to arrive before bringing you in. I
don't know. I mean just thinking about you having to
leave behind your two young children and a newborn. It's
too much.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
It was horrible. My youngest was one month old. I
had no clue why this was even happening, why I
was charged, what they thought happened. I was so so scared,
but yet I kept thinking, well, nothing happened, so everything
will be okay.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And I was wrong. This episode is underwritten by global
law firm Greenberg Trowig through its pro bono program. Greenberg
Trowig leverages its more than twenty six hundred lawyers across
(17:06):
forty four offices to serve the greater good of our
communities and provide equal access to justice for all. In
the field of criminal justice. Greenberg Trowrig attorneys have exonerated
and free demanded. Philadelphia represent numerous individuals previously sentenced to
life for crimes committed as juveniles and resentencing hearings, and
receive the American Bar Association's twenty twenty one Exceptional Service
(17:28):
Award for Death Penalty Representation for their work on five
death penalty cases. GT is reimagining what big law can
be because of a more just world. Only happens by design.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
This is what we call a science dependent prosecution. The science,
the medicine, the expert testimony comprised the entire case. It's
almost unique in the law in that sense. There are
really three things the prosecution had to prove. One is
what's known as the actus reus, what happened. The medical
professionals would come in and say, we can tell you
(18:06):
exactly what happened. This child was violently shaken. The second
thing they have to prove is what's known in the
law as the mensraa, the mental state of the perpetrator.
And in this case, the experts came in and testified,
and we can tell you what mental state the perpetrator had.
Because this would require such force the equivalent of a
(18:26):
second story fall or thirty mile an hour automobile accident,
that it couldn't be done accidentally. And the third thing
they have to prove is identity. The way the expert
would prove identity would be to say, a child so
injured would become immediately comatose, flaccid, unresponsive, and therefore the
last person with the child is the one who did it.
(18:48):
That was Audrey. So that was the entirety of the
case against Audrey.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So the trial began on November eighteenth, nineteen ninety six.
The judge was Daniel Moser, and the prosecutor was to
Da Dretchen Hayward. And the star witness for the prosecution
was doctor Robert Huntington, the forensic pathologists who had done
the autopsy.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
He was joined in his testimony by a number of
other doctors, pediatricians, ophthalmologists, a range of others who were
uniform in their opinion that, as they said, nothing could
cause this triad of findings except violent shaking.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So what did Audrey's defense attorney Steve Hurley present the
counter all of that combined so called medical expertise.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
The defense called their own expert witness, but reflecting how
early this is in the life story, of the shaking
baby center hypothesis. At that point, there was virtually no
one who was challenging or disputing the hypothesis itself. So
at the trial, all of the prosecution's witnesses were of
one voice, were unanimous this had to be shaking, and
(19:58):
nothing but shaking could cause it. The defense witness also
believed this had to be shaking, because that's just what
the unquestioned dogma of the day was, and so the
defense expert agreed it had to be shaking. The only
thing she introduced was but it could have happened before
the child was in Audrey's care.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Audrey, what about Natalie's mother, Cindy Beard. You mentioned that
she didn't seem to blame you when Natalie was taken
to the hospital. In fact, she expressed kindness and understanding.
As you recall. Did she testify at the trial.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yes, she did. I don't recall a whole lot about it.
She had a hard time, of course, when Steve Hurley
cross examined her and talked to her about Natalie's pre
existing conditions. He was gentle around it, but he had
some good, strong topics.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
The prosecutors basically told them that Audrey murdered your child,
and despite the absurdity of that claim, that's what they
led them to believe. And so I think that used
an inevitable hostility. And who wouldn't be angry if you
were told that your baby was murdered by someone? Right?
(21:06):
I mean, these people suffered a terrible tragedy. The problem
is that I'm afraid that the prosecution kind of victimized
the parents again by making them believe this story of
murder rather than what It's still awful, but not as awful,
perhaps that the child died of natural causes.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And other than the defenses expert Audrey, who else testified
on your behalf.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
A lot of people thankfully came to my defense because
they had seen me with Natalie day after day when
I had her. I interacted with a lot of moms
and neighbors, and they would see when she would cry,
and I'd pick her up, and I'd pat her and
I'd comfort her, just little things like that.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
So, if I can just add Jason, the defense was
built a lot on the notion that this was just
absurd to think that Audrey, with this sterling track record,
would have snapped in less than an hour of caring
for Natalie. After not having cared for her for four
or five days, Stan snapped to the point of violently
shaking her to death.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Nonetheless, with that bevy of tuber confident medical expert testimony,
it doesn't appear that even a sterling track record made
a bit of difference to the jury. On November twenty sixth,
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
The courtroom was full. Both sides had a lot of supporters,
family friends, and the closing arguments were horrifying. When Gretchen
Hayward still wants to talk like she was standing in
my kitchen that day telling how I had shaken this
child and bonked her head against a wall. And then
(22:48):
the jury had some questions about first degree reckless homicide
versus second degree and utter disregard to human life. My
palms get sweaty just think thinking about sitting in the
hallway waiting, and then when we hear the jury has
come to a decision, and it's late at night, and
(23:08):
we go in and I heard that one awful, ugly
word and I thought I was going to die. The
(23:29):
judge when he said eighteen years, I felt like he
was saying, you have taken a life so I want
your kids to be away from you until they're adults.
To this day, I still can't wrap my head around
trying to prepare to be torn away from them. So
much is taken away from you. You're put into a
(23:51):
concrete cell with a tin toilet and a stranger, and
you're trying to do the best you can to adapt
and hold on to hope that this won't last long. Thankfully,
my children's dad and my parents and other family members
were wonderful for almost six years in bringing my children
(24:13):
almost every weekend to see me, and on top of that,
I had multiple phone calls to them throughout the week.
We wrote a lot of letters. My kids teachers throughout
the years were great to send me things, report cards, projects.
So I am really really fortunate in that area because
(24:35):
a lot of moms had little of no contact with
their children. Then my kid's dad and I divorced about
six years after I was in and then I didn't
see them as much, but I saw them often and
we kept in very close touch throughout all the years.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, I'm glad to hear that. And meanwhile, you were
doing literally everything you could possibly do to prove your innocence. Now,
in two thousand and two, your first appeal was denied,
and then in two thousand and three, Keith and the
Wisconsin Innocence Project got involved. Now, from what I understand,
Audrey's case was your introduction to the SBS hypothesis and
(25:13):
eventually inspired you to start the Center for Integrity and
Forensic Science. But at that time, knowing very little about
the science. What made you take her case.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It was a high profile case here, so we all
knew about the case and knew that it was a
controversial conviction from the beginning. And her lawyer, Steve Hurley,
is a really outstanding lawyer, and her appellate lawyer was
Dean Strang, who many of you may remember as one
of Steve and Avery's lawyers in the Netflix Docuseriies Making
a Murderer, who was a remarkable lawyer as well. And
(25:44):
I knew them both well and knew that they were
really troubled by this conviction, believing firmly that she was innocent.
But the thing that really got us going is that
a physician at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, doctor Javid,
approached us and said he thought there were or problems
with the scientific evidence with the medical evidence that was
used to convict her, and that we should look into it.
(26:06):
We started investigating, and we found that that forensic pathologist,
the medical examiner, you remember him, doctor Robert Huntington. He
had written a letter to the Journal of the National
Association of Medical Examiners in which he basically said, you
know what, our beliefs about timing of these injuries may
(26:26):
have been wrong. I don't think he said, we can
actually time them to the last person with the child anymore.
And he based that on an experience he had autopsying
another child who died after being in the hospital for
about seventeen hours under expert supervision, and the child presented
(26:46):
with the full triad just like Natalie, but the child
had been in the hospital for seventeen hours where she
was completely lucid. She was fussy and clingy, but she
was lucid, aware, alert, and therefore she had what in
the literature is known as an extended lucid interval. And
from this doctor Huntington wrote, what we used to believe
that the child would become unresponsive immediately, that's not always true.
(27:10):
We can't conclude that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And so the medical examiner actually admitted that he was wrong.
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
He also said that having research this further, there was
now emerging, growing body of research that was challenging the
very hypothesis itself. And he therefore said he could no
longer be confident with his testimony that this child was
shaken at all. And so we reached out to doctor
Huntington and said we were working with Audrey Edmonds. The
(27:38):
first thing he said, first thing out of his mouth,
was oh, Audrey Edmunds, what are we going to do
about Audrey Edmonds?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
So in two thousand and seven you got an evidentiary
hearing in which you presented, among several expert witnesses, doctor
Huntington himself.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Doctor Huntington was courageous and forthright, and he on the
witness stand, and he acknowledged that he was no longer
comfortable with the testimony he had offered at Audrey's trial.
One he said he could no longer stand by his
testimony that the injury almost certainly happened within two hours
(28:14):
of the child's collapse. Elucid interval was possible, so he
couldn't time it to match Audrey's care. The second thing
he said, though, which was equally powerful, was that while
at trial he was certain this case had to involved
a violent shaking, he now said because the whole field
had become so much more controversial and more uncertain, he
(28:37):
could no longer say whether there was any shaking at all,
or whether this might have been an impact. He said
that original bruise that he saw at autopsy, that he
originally discounted as having been two minor to have been
of consequence, He said he now couldn't rule that out.
And the important thing about that is if that bruise,
if that impact of the head was the cause, it
(28:58):
could have been the product of prior abuse before the
child got to Audrey's care, or it could have been
an accident, because another thing that the biomechanical research shows
is that even minor falls, falls from just a few
feet generate fifty times more accelerations or more force than
the most violent shaking that a human being can produce,
(29:21):
and that even those kinds of minor accidental type falls
do generate sufficient forces to exceed estimated injury thresholds. So
he basically said, I can't time it to Audrey, and
I can't tell you if there was shaking or whether
this was intentional or accidental. The medicine doesn't answer those questions, pretty.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Much refuting his own very damning testimony at the original trial,
and to back him up, you had five other expert witnesses,
all prominent physicians and pediatric neurosurgeons.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
In response, the state called four experts, most of whom
had testified at the trial originally. And what we showed
through the course of this was that there indeed can
be elucid interval, that a child so injured can experience
a period where they are alert and responsive for hours,
(30:12):
if not days. That although the medical science had been
undisputed at the time of Audrey's trial except for the
question of timing, since then enormous research had emerged that
suggested that shaking is an unlikely if impossible cause of
these findings, that it's simply myth, there's no science behind it.
(30:36):
And we established that there are multiple possible causes for
these findings, and that's particularly important in a case like
this where the child was previously ill, the child had
a pre existing subdural hematoma, and was sick, and was
fussy and clingy, and the research now shows that those
are all potential indications that the child is neurologically compromised
(31:01):
and heading towards collapse.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
And yet after you had established all of this updated
scientific evidence, the original trial judge, Daniel Moser, was not persuaded.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
He denied the motion and basically said, I believe the
state's experts more.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, sounds like you gave that a lot of thought.
But of course you appealed, which brings us up to
January thirty first, two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeals reversed the
trial court judge and said that Audrey had indeed presented
newly discovered evidence in the form of new medical research
that created a probability that at a retrial she would
be acquitted. And they said the trial judge had legally
(31:44):
aired by applying the wrong standard by substituting his own
judgment about the guilty innocence for that of the jury,
and therefore Audrey was entitled to a new trial. Conviction vacated.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Hey man, that was a great day.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
That was a great day.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I believe it. Audrey. Can you tell me about those
first moments on February sixth, two thousand and eight, when
you found out you were finally going.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
To be released.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
It was awesome. It was a snowy day. I'm working
on this auto part scrapping line and my supervisor's supervisor
comes to me and says, Audrey, I have gotten a
call and you can legally come to my office to
(32:32):
take a telephone call. And at first I was like,
oh no, I can't do that. I was scared to death.
You don't touch a telephone. You don't even think about
touching a telephone because that's a form of escape. I'm
this close to getting out, I'm not going to do anything.
And she said everything is okay. So I went to
her office and we had a call with some people
at Keith's office and they said the judge has a
(32:56):
big trial next week, but he will put you in
for you release hearing on Wednesday at noon. That Wednesday
was a terrible snowstorm day. Medisine got two feet of
snow and at quarter to three that day, in a
massive snowstorm, I walked out. I didn't care where I
slept that night, as long as I was on the
(33:17):
other side of the fence.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
By the way, there's this iconic, beautiful photograph of Audrey.
I believe in the parking lot meeting with meeting with
her friends, being reunited with them, with the snowstorm swirling
around them and the wind blowing, and they're all reaching
out to hug each other. It's just such pure joys.
It makes it all amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
And I have to say on one thing, the prosecutor
did say that they had contacted the parents and neither
one objected to my release, because had they objected, I
could have been having to go back to County jail
until the July hearing. So that was a big plus.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Right, So although you were out, you were still in
legal limbo until that hearing.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Once Audrey's conviction was overturned and the prosecution was thinking
about whether to retry them, and then ultimately when they
dismissed the charges, the prosecution continued to insist publicly and
to tell the parents that Audrey had murdered their child,
even though they no longer had any proof, no evidence,
(34:22):
And to me, that was just morally indefensible. It was
such a harmful thing to do to everyone, as a prosecutor,
as a public servant, as a minister of justice. In theory,
you either prove your case in court by the requisite
legal standard, or you accept the presumption of innocence, and
they refuse to give Audrey that they refused to give
(34:43):
Natalie Beard's family that.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yeah, it was. It was atrocious. I've never expected and
I'm sorry for them, but I wish they would be
big enough to say the truth that the medical evidence
does not support the charge.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
But they did dismiss the case on July eleventh, two
thousand eight, and you were finally exonerated of these completely ludicrous,
false and unjust charges and able to return to your
family at last. And I have to ask, I'm sure
everyone's wondering, how are you doing now? And how are
(35:17):
your kids because they were, in a sense in prison
with you during your entire ordeal, doing their own sort
of time because of this horrible persecution.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And they're good. They all have very good jobs. Two
of them are married. I just found out that my
baby is pregnant, so I will have two grand babies.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I just saw my middle one over the weekend. She
lives in Iowa and she will be taking her boards
to be a licensed practical nurse. And I'm just super
thankful that they are doing well. I'm sure they have
a scar from this. They don't hardly talk about it.
I think it's just too hard for them. But they
know that there are things still going on in my
(36:00):
life that I speak out like I am today, and
I'm grateful that there's just more and more awareness of
these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And you've also written a memoir called It Happened to Audrey,
A terrifying journey from loving mom to accuse baby killer.
We're going to put a link to that at our bio.
I'm going to order a copy, I hope everybody does.
And Keith, you've also co authored a book along with
a number of leading experts in this field, which is
coming out very soon. I've already ordered this one, by
the way, the book is called Shaken Baby Syndrome, Investigating
(36:33):
the Abusive Head Trauma Controversy. I highly recommend it for
anyone who has even a passing interest in learning more
about this terrible, faulty hypothesis that has destroyed thousands of
people's lives. Will have a link to that in the
bio too. And now we've come to one of my favorite,
(36:54):
well my favorite part of the show really, which we
call closing arguments, and this is the part where, first
of all, I'm going to thank you you Audrey for
your courage and your strength and your grace and for
being here to tell your incredible story. And Keith, as always,
thank you for being an inspiration to all of us
in the movement. And now I'm just going to turn
my mic off, kick back in my chair with my
(37:15):
headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to anything
else you want to say. Keith, let's start with you.
Then you can just pass the mic off to Audrey
and she can take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, Audrey's case. In the end, the whole topic of
shaking baby syndrome represents what is all too common and
wrongful convictions, and that is a rush to judgment, an
unquestioning acceptance of expertise and authorities even when they are flawed,
and a real vindictiveness and sort of the punitive nature
(37:50):
of the culture we live in that you know, when
a baby dies, somebody's got to pay for it, and
that's really really tragic. The struggle continues. But the bright
side of this, that the bright note here is that
there is a growing body of physicians, biomechanical engineers, and
other scientists who are re examining shaking baby syndrome, the
(38:12):
entire hypothesis who are publishing in response to it. There
will be more pushback, there will be efforts to silence
or discredit critics, but eventually scientific truth will prevail. I'm confident.
I just hope not too many more innocent people suffer
the faith that Audrey suffered.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
In the meantime, just please be aware if you're around
a jury, really listen to truth and facts, no matter
how many witnesses one side has versus the other, use
some common sense, know the facts, know the truth, know
the validity of any witness. Really be open minded. Just
(38:51):
because somebody is charged doesn't mean they have done the
appropriate investigation and know all the facts of the case.
And especially in cases like mine, please please look at
the medical scientific facts, not opinion. Opinion doesn't matter anymore
and can be so well discredited as there are more
(39:12):
and more people who are experts who are researching these
who came to my attention, who came to Keith's attention,
and don't look at these people that are not upgrading
and updating their medical knowledge.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. I want to
thank our production team, Connor Hall, any Chelsea Lyla Robinson,
Jeff Cleburn, and Kevin Warris. The music in this production
was supplied 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
(39:53):
wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Vlahmer. Ravel Conviction is
a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with
Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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