0:05

In February of twenty twenty two. Cassandra

0:08

black Elk was a young mother of three

0:10

living in Bismarck, North Dakota. Her

0:13

girls were her whole world.

0:16

Six year old de Laiza loved school

0:19

and wanted to be a biologist. One

0:21

year old a Maria already had a strong

0:23

personality. Cassie called her their wild

0:26

child, and Starlight was

0:28

the baby, just three weeks old. On

0:31

the evening of February eighteenth, Cassie

0:34

was at home with the girls and Starlight's father,

0:36

Seth Eagle.

0:39

Chilling, hanging out with my kids.

0:41

We was watching a movie. It

0:44

was cooking supper.

0:46

Seth left around midnight to go hang out with

0:48

friends. Cassie fed Starlight

0:50

and put the two oldest girls to bed, Then

0:53

she lay down with Starlight beside her and

0:55

fell asleep. She woke

0:57

up around six in the morning to find

0:59

Starlight wasn't breathing. Daliza

1:02

called nine one one, but it was already too

1:05

late. Starlight was dead, and

1:07

before she could fully process what had happened,

1:10

the police were telling Cassie that she was under

1:12

arrest for felony child neglect.

1:16

They were telling me, if somebody did something to

1:18

Starlight, somebody killed her.

1:21

Cassie knew that wasn't true, and she had

1:23

one question for her lawyer, what

1:26

does the autopsy report say?

1:30

I kept the same, Well, what if

1:32

it came back as I wasn't at

1:34

fault? And then he was like telling

1:37

me we could deal with that later.

1:41

But by the time she got the answer, it was too

1:43

late. Cassie was already in prison.

1:46

I'm Cassie black Elk and I was wrongfully

1:49

incarcerated for eleven

1:52

months.

1:54

From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction

1:56

with Maggie Freeling today. Cassandra

1:59

blackout O. Cassandra

2:16

black Elk was born August fourth, nineteen

2:19

ninety five, in Bismarck, North Dakota.

2:22

She's a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe.

2:24

Cassie grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota,

2:27

the middle child of nine.

2:30

It was.

2:32

Busy, chaotic, closest

2:35

to my three little sisters. We'd

2:37

always play house school,

2:41

went swimming at the Why all the time.

2:43

We just ran around the

2:46

trailer park that we used to live in and

2:49

hung out with all our friends. Yeah.

2:53

Cassie had her first daughter, Daliza, at

2:56

nineteen, with a boyfriend from high school.

2:58

At age twenty two, she decided

3:00

to move back to Bismarck to go to school.

3:03

She had plans to become a social worker. Cassie's

3:06

second daughter, Amara, was born

3:08

in twenty twenty and

3:11

then Starlight. When was Starlight.

3:13

Born January

3:15

twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.

3:17

How did you meet Starlight's dad?

3:19

Up here hanging out with friends? Yeah,

3:22

meant the first year I moved up here.

3:25

Cassie and Seth Eagle moved in together

3:27

and at twenty six years old, Cassie

3:29

was happy to be a stay at home mom. She

3:32

loved hanging out with her girls. Seth

3:34

helped to support Starlight and Cassie's

3:36

two older daughters with oil royalties

3:39

he received as a member of the Mja

3:41

tribe the Mandan Hidatsa

3:43

and Arikara nation. On

3:45

the evening of February eighteenth, twenty

3:47

twenty two, Cassie, Seth, and the

3:49

girls were all at home together. So

3:53

what do you remember from that night?

3:55

Like?

3:55

How did the night start? Tell

3:57

me? I guess from the beginning.

3:58

I don't know. We were hanging

4:01

out after my oldest got back from

4:03

school. We was watching a

4:05

movie, We was cooking

4:07

supper, barbecue chicken, steamed

4:10

veggies, and mashed potatoes.

4:13

At what point you and Seth got in an

4:15

argument?

4:16

Yes, yeah, well yeah, well we

4:18

was kind of fighting throughout that whole day. Really.

4:23

As the evening went on, Cassie and Seth began

4:25

drinking, and when their fight turned physical,

4:28

Cassie ended up with a bloodied ear. Finally,

4:31

Seth stormed out to go see some friends.

4:34

Yeah, he was there all the way up until

4:36

I don't know about midnight

4:39

one.

4:39

Or some Yeah, and what'd you do when

4:41

he left?

4:42

Fed my daughter and laid down with them.

4:45

So when you guys go to sleep, everything

4:48

was normal.

4:50

I thought it was normal.

4:51

I don't know.

4:52

I just I

4:54

didn't think I was gonna wake up too. Everything

4:59

gone.

5:02

What do you remember waking up?

5:08

It's okay, Cassie,

5:15

my daughter gone.

5:18

She was she was stiff and

5:20

cold. I

5:24

was freaking out. My oldest

5:27

had to call nine on one.

5:32

And then when the police got there, what happened.

5:36

Well, right away they were questioning me at

5:38

my house. I

5:40

wasn't even with them in my house for a full

5:42

ten minutes. They

5:44

wanted to know what happened

5:46

here. I was trying to get

5:49

a hold of someone to get a

5:51

hold of Seth and they

5:53

told me I needed to get off my phone. They

5:56

noticed I had a bloody ear,

5:58

and after that they told me to go to the police

6:00

station.

6:05

And then what happens at the police station.

6:09

They start questioning me.

6:12

Were they questioning or were they

6:14

kind of telling you?

6:18

Oh? Yeah,

6:19

they were telling me their story.

6:23

Which was what what was their story?

6:26

Somebody did something to starlight, somebody

6:31

killed her.

6:40

So that first interrogation that she goes

6:42

into is actually three hours long, and

6:45

you can imagine the state that she was in given

6:47

the timing of the interrogation. My

6:53

name is Jim Mayer and I'm a managing attorney

6:56

with the Great North Innocence Project. The

7:00

officers doing the interrogation are

7:03

convinced and have jumped to the conclusion

7:05

that Cassie has done something to the baby. They

7:08

begin their interrogation by telling her

7:10

that the child had bruising, that they could tell

7:12

the child had some injury. They

7:15

start to speculate that maybe there was some

7:17

kind of abusive event, maybe there

7:19

was shaking. They start describing the symptoms

7:21

of shaking baby syndrome to her and how

7:23

that could have happened.

7:26

Remember, this is just a few hours

7:28

after Cassie had found Starlight lifeless

7:30

beside her. The officers telling

7:33

her all this were not trained medical professionals,

7:36

and the body had not even been examined

7:38

yet.

7:40

It sounded to me like one of those officers

7:42

had recently been to a training and learned about

7:44

shaken baby syndrome, which of course

7:47

is a highly controversial and dubious

7:49

diagnosis, as any of us who work in this

7:51

industry know. But he started

7:53

explaining to Cassie in this interrogation

7:56

room what happens when you shake a

7:58

baby and how you know. That

8:00

seemed to fit the situation that she was

8:02

in. Couldn't have been further from the truth,

8:05

but he was insisting that that was probably what had

8:07

happened here and trying to get her to confess

8:09

to it. She continued

8:11

throughout this interrogation to insist that

8:13

there were no injuries, that the baby

8:15

was fine when she had given her a bottle and swaddled

8:18

her and put her to bed around one

8:20

or two in the morning, and that there was

8:22

no injury.

8:23

So the officers ramped up their interrogation.

8:26

They would try all of these techniques, like telling

8:28

her you didn't mean to do it, whatever

8:31

you did was an accident. You just lost control,

8:34

that maybe the baby was crying, maybe the baby

8:36

couldn't sleep, maybe she got frustrated

8:39

and just lost control and shook the baby.

8:42

Just tell us that you're a person who needs help

8:44

and not an evil person, right, and that things

8:46

will go better for you, or

8:48

they would tell her that, you know, the autopsy

8:50

is going to come back and it's going to show there's trauma.

8:53

You're much better off if you just tell us now what you

8:55

did, it's going to go better

8:57

for a jury. They even told her

8:59

that Child Protective Services had

9:01

taken her other two children and that she

9:04

wouldn't get them back unless she was

9:06

willing to say what it was she did to this baby

9:08

to cause its death, which of course put

9:10

her in an impossible situation because

9:13

she didn't do anything, and she knew she didn't do anything,

9:15

nor had her boyfriend, and so

9:18

she maintained her innocence throughout this interrogation

9:20

despite the pressure that they put on her.

9:27

Did you start questioning yourself

9:30

at any point? Were you wondering, like,

9:33

maybe maybe I did roll over

9:35

on her because she was in the bed with you.

9:36

Right, Yeah? But no,

9:39

no, because the way I had her sleeping.

9:41

She was out a slant away from me and

9:44

my girls were on the other side, and

9:46

I woke up in the same spot, literally,

9:50

like the same way when I went to

9:52

bed.

9:56

Three days later, on February twenty second,

9:59

Cassie was trying charged with felony child's

10:01

neglect. That same day, state

10:03

medical examiner doctor Barry Miller performed

10:06

an autopsy on Starlight. The

10:08

autopsy was attended by the state's attorney,

10:11

Julie Lawyer, and several officers

10:13

from the Bismarck Police Department. While

10:16

they were still awaiting the autopsy results, Cassie's

10:19

case was going forward. She was assigned

10:21

to public defender James Lores.

10:24

And the first thing that happens is they have a bail

10:26

hearing that the prosecution comes in. It says,

10:28

look, this is an infant death case. We

10:31

need to set bail at a high level. She couldn't meet

10:33

it, so she's stuck. She's behind

10:35

bars, awaiting trial. She's

10:37

got two young children from whom she separated

10:40

at this incredibly dramatic time,

10:43

So that's one layer of pressure that was added

10:45

to her.

10:46

And I guess maybe I'm missing something,

10:48

But how is she able to be charged

10:51

without even having a medical diagnosis.

10:54

Can they do that? I mean, I've never

10:56

seen that.

10:58

The charging documents in

11:00

her case, which came out on

11:02

February nineteenth, what

11:04

they said was, we know that she

11:06

was responsible for the death, but we don't

11:09

yet know the mechanism of the death,

11:11

pending the autopsy results.

11:14

So it was just the you know,

11:16

a perfect example of a rush

11:19

to a conclusion with really no solid

11:21

foundation for it whatsoever, just assumptions

11:24

that were made.

11:29

Then, when a plea deal is offered

11:31

by the prosecution, her lawyer

11:34

urges her to take the deal.

11:38

Well, he said that

11:40

they were considering of two years

11:44

and he

11:47

was going to talk to them and see

11:49

if he get it out to eighteen months. And that's when

11:51

I went to eighteen months.

11:52

That following week, her

11:55

attorney was trying to rush Cassie into taking

11:57

the plea because he knew that the prosecute

12:00

was leaving for private practice in a few weeks

12:03

after that. He said the deal might be

12:05

off the table.

12:07

And he says things like, you'll

12:09

be out before you know it. You're pleading guilty,

12:12

you'll get a five year sentence, but you'll only serve

12:14

about eighteen months. And you'll be out before you

12:16

know it. Cassie was resistant

12:18

to that for good reason. She kept

12:20

saying, I know I didn't do anything to my child.

12:23

I'm innocent. When can we see a copy

12:25

of the autopsy report?

12:27

I kept asking him for the autopsy. I

12:29

kept said the same, Well, what if

12:31

it came back as I wasn't at

12:34

fault.

12:35

Ultimately, what her lawyer says to her is,

12:38

you're getting ahead of yourself for now.

12:40

Just plead guilty. If the autopsy

12:42

comes back favorable to you, we'll deal

12:44

with that later.

12:47

How did that make you feel when he was like, no, no,

12:50

and just kind of brushed something

12:52

so important aside.

12:54

Like it didn't matter. I

12:56

don't think it mattered to anybody. How Starlight

12:59

passed away.

13:03

At her lawyer's urging, Cassie finally

13:06

gave in and pled guilty to the charge

13:08

of felony child's neglect. The

13:10

plea deal did not mention Starlight's

13:12

death. It simply said that Cassie

13:15

had willfully failed to provide proper parental

13:17

care or control necessary

13:19

for the physical health of her baby. She

13:22

received a sentence of five years, with

13:25

all but eighteen months of it suspended

13:28

because Seth was not the father of the two older

13:30

girls. They were placed in foster care.

13:33

Cassie was sent to the Dakota Women's Correctional

13:35

Center in New England, North Dakota.

13:40

What was prison like? Well,

13:43

I don't recommend it to nobody. Everybody

13:46

says it's a cakewalk and what not, but it

13:48

wasn't. It's like how, It's

13:51

just how.

13:52

When you first got in there, did you tell anybody

13:54

like I don't belong here. I didn't

13:56

do.

13:57

This, yep. I told everyone that

13:59

every day. A

14:01

lot of girls in there just content with

14:03

that life.

14:04

Not me.

14:06

So that's not me, that's not my life. I

14:08

couldn't relate to half their stories.

14:10

I just didn't know what to say to half of them.

14:14

I was always just angry because I felt like I

14:16

shouldn't have been in jail. Everybody

14:18

heard it from me. Oh

14:20

no, I lost my daughter. None of that

14:22

made sense, none of it

14:25

was okay. So

14:27

I was always mad.

14:31

So here she is, she's pled guilty,

14:33

she's been sentenced, she's in prison serving her

14:35

sentence, and her lawyer had essentially

14:37

told her that he couldn't help her get the autopsy report

14:40

at that point, but she didn't give up. She

14:42

kept working on her own to get a

14:44

copy of it.

14:46

Cassie called the Medical Examiner's office in

14:48

Bismarck over and over from

14:50

prison, asking for the report.

14:55

Finally she was able to fill out an online

14:57

form to have it mailed to her, and

15:00

then she waited and

15:02

waited. Three

15:05

months went by.

15:08

And then eventually she gets that copy, I think sometime

15:10

in July of twenty twenty two,

15:13

where she gets to read, you know, the story

15:15

of what actually happened to her baby

15:17

for the first time.

15:33

You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie

15:35

Freeling. You can listen to this and all

15:37

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Podcasts.

15:53

Doctor Miller's final autopsy report

15:55

was dated May twenty seven, twenty twenty

15:58

two, two weeks after cast entered

16:00

her plea, and it confirmed

16:02

what she had always known, which

16:04

she had tried to tell everyone that

16:06

she hadn't done anything to hurt

16:09

her baby. There was no evidence

16:11

of neglect, trauma, or abuse. Three

16:14

week old Starlight had died of unexplained

16:17

sudden infant death syndrome. Do

16:26

you remember that moment when you got

16:28

it and reading it.

16:30

Yeah, I felt a whole

16:32

lot of relief, but didn't really

16:34

do much. So I was just sat there crying because

16:37

there was nothing I could do. I was already

16:40

sent in prison.

16:43

My name's Adam Martin. I'm ten years

16:45

sober, formally incarcerated, have multiple

16:48

felonies on my background.

16:49

Adam is the founder and CEO of

16:52

the F five Project, a nonprofit

16:54

based in Fargo, North Dakota. It

16:56

provides the formally incarcerated with support

16:59

and re entry resources.

17:01

You know, all my friends were either dying or going

17:03

to prison, and so after

17:06

the last friend had went

17:08

to prison and then the couple had overdosed

17:10

off fetanol or heroin

17:13

or whatever, I just felt like I

17:15

wanted to do something different

17:17

than what was being done. There was

17:19

no real plan to start it. I just started

17:22

going into the jail and trying to help guys

17:24

that were being released, really just

17:26

through storytelling. I didn't have any services

17:28

or resources or anything. And then what

17:31

happened is is that the guy started calling me when they

17:33

were getting out of prison or jail, and

17:35

I didn't have anything, so I just let him

17:37

sleep on my couch. And then it

17:39

turned into seven years

17:41

later, we have over sixty employees

17:44

in that we're in nine different cities

17:46

and have three transitional houses or three

17:49

cities that we have transitional houses in Okay.

17:52

So what is far going North Dakota, Like, I

17:54

mean, maybe tell me a little bit about the

17:56

demographic. I mean, we know Cassie is

17:58

Indigenous, so tell me about it.

18:00

Yeah, So the landscape is you know,

18:02

obviously it's like eighty five percent white.

18:05

We have there's not even a million people

18:07

in North Dakota, Okay. So there's like seven hundred

18:10

and seventy thousand of that seven seventy

18:13

to about two hundred and

18:15

forty thousand identifies having a criminal

18:17

conviction. And so we're about

18:19

twenty eight percent of

18:22

our general population identify as that,

18:24

which is about three percent higher than the national

18:26

average. Of that Native

18:29

Americans or Indigenous people account

18:31

for around five percent of

18:33

the population, but they account for twenty

18:35

five percent of the prison population. And

18:38

so a lot of the stuff that we see nationally

18:40

trending is similar here, but

18:42

just with different groups and then higher percentages.

18:46

Adam's work with F five led him

18:48

to joining the board of the Great North Innocence

18:50

Project, where he met Jim in

18:53

August of twenty twenty two, they went

18:55

together to speak about their organizations

18:57

at the New England Women's Prison.

19:00

And so this young Native American woman

19:02

came up to me and she was very

19:05

timid, and she

19:07

couldn't even look me in the eye. She was shaking, she

19:09

was teary, teary eyed, and

19:12

she just all she said to me was I

19:14

don't belong here.

19:16

Cassie told Adam that she was in prison for killing

19:18

her baby, but she was innocent. And

19:21

then she told him about the autopsy

19:23

report.

19:27

And I've been in court enough to

19:29

know that autosy reports

19:32

are a big deal, right, And

19:35

the fact that it came out after she was

19:37

convicted sent off a red flag.

19:39

And I was like, okay, well what did it say? And she said

19:42

that my baby died of SIDS. And

19:44

so I introduced her right there to James.

19:47

And when we left the prison, James

19:49

came up to me and he was like, we

19:52

have a case. She

19:54

has a case, and we're going to get her released.

20:00

In a way, her story was just so simple

20:02

and straightforward. You know, you

20:04

tell a lot of these stories and you see how convoluted

20:07

they can be. Cassie's story

20:09

is not convoluted at all. There was

20:11

a tragic death of her baby

20:13

that could not have been prevented by

20:16

anyone.

20:31

In December of twenty twenty two, Jim

20:33

moved to vacate Cassie's conviction, citing

20:35

the autopsy report as new evidence,

20:38

and also that Cassie's attorney had

20:40

provided ineffective representation by

20:42

advising her to take the plea and

20:45

evidentiary hearing was held on January

20:47

nineteenth, twenty twenty three, before

20:50

Judge Daniel Borkin.

20:53

We presented the testimony from the medical

20:55

examiner herself. She testified about

20:58

the fact that there was no trauma in this case, that

21:00

there was no evidence that the death

21:02

resulted from something Cassie did or did

21:04

not do.

21:05

Doctor Miller told the court that she would have been willing

21:08

to share her preliminary findings with the defense

21:10

prior to the final report, but

21:12

Cassie's defense attorney never asked

21:15

for it. The prosecution, however,

21:17

knew all along what it would say.

21:20

One of the claims we made in our petition was

21:22

that the state's attorney was present

21:24

at the autopsy, so she knew

21:27

that the autopsy was not showing any signs

21:29

of trauma. And yet she

21:32

managed to extract a guilty plea without disclosing

21:35

what she knew.

21:36

But in addition to the evidence they had, Jim

21:39

knew that in order to present the most effective

21:41

case, Cassie would have to testify.

21:44

And I was a little nervous about telling her that because

21:46

she was so quiet and soft spoken. I thought that would

21:49

scare her. And she said

21:51

something like, I'm ready, I can do that, and

21:53

I just thought, Wow, She's come a long way in

21:55

the few months that I've known her in terms of

21:57

her confidence, and part of that

21:59

was just that she was ready to tell her story.

22:02

So Cassie took the stand and told Judge

22:04

Borgan everything that had happened.

22:07

The conversations with her defense lawyer, where

22:09

she's professing her innocence and saying I want

22:11

the autopsy. I want the autopsy, and

22:14

he's telling her, just take this plea. We'll deal with

22:16

that later. She tells that entire story,

22:18

and her testimony was very, very

22:21

credible, which the judge found and that was a big

22:23

reason why he granted relief.

22:28

Cassie was released from prison the next day pending

22:31

a new trial.

22:35

And one of the North Dakota Supreme Court

22:37

justices actually wrote separately to

22:39

say that with the new evidence of

22:41

the autopsy report, it's

22:44

very likely that she would be acquitted at

22:46

trial as a matter of law, because they just

22:48

didn't have the evidence.

22:50

At that point. Jim says, the state had

22:52

a decision to make.

22:53

Do they now let the case go or do they

22:56

choose to recharge her. Again, very

22:58

disappointed to learn from them that they and to

23:00

continue to prosecute. So

23:05

they shifted their theory to say that

23:08

because Cassie had been drinking alcohol

23:10

that night, regardless of whether that

23:12

had anything to do with her baby's

23:15

death, that in and of itself, drinking

23:17

alcohol while you have children at home is

23:19

felony child neglect, and so they

23:22

pursued the case on that theory.

23:26

Has that ever been a precedent that was

23:28

set before drinking equals

23:30

felony child neglect?

23:32

I have not seen an example where

23:35

that fact alone was constituting

23:37

felony child neglect. That really

23:40

makes you wonder in terms of a charging decision,

23:42

whether a middle class white mother who'd

23:45

had a few glasses of wine at the ballet

23:47

and was still under the influence when she

23:49

relieved the nanny would be charged. I

23:52

seriously doubt it. I spoke

23:55

to a lot of other defense lawyers about

23:57

this, you know, in other states around the

23:59

country, and

24:01

what I heard mostly was your client's

24:03

not white, is she m? I

24:06

said, no, she isn't. So I guess

24:09

sometimes drinking while being non white

24:11

and in charge of children could get in some

24:13

more trouble than other folks would see.

24:23

I think some assumptions were made based

24:25

on who Cassie is and what she looks like,

24:28

and what community she comes from.

24:30

I also think that on

24:33

all sides of the issue, people

24:36

didn't think that it was such a big deal for Cassie

24:39

to go to prison for eighteen months. I

24:41

mean, even her own lawyer told her something to

24:43

the effect of you'll be home before you

24:45

know it. She'd never been in prison before.

24:48

This was a totally new experience for her,

24:50

so the idea that they wouldn't be such a big deal

24:53

to go to prison for eighteen months is

24:55

just shocking.

24:58

After Judge Morgan's ruling, this Date

25:00

continued with its efforts to prosecute

25:02

Cassie, but when the judge ordered

25:04

them to identify specific conduct

25:06

from Cassie that constituted felony child

25:09

neglect, they were unable to do so

25:11

because she wasn't guilty. So

25:14

on October nineteenth, twenty twenty three,

25:16

the state moved to dismiss the charges. Cassie

25:20

was finally free. Adam

25:22

remember seeing her united with her two daughters.

25:26

I got a picture of when they were

25:28

all hanging out and they were hugging her, and I just,

25:31

I just I was emotional wreck. Just

25:35

the moment of joy that that she's

25:37

feeling at that moment. Enclosure

25:40

was it was, It was inspiring

25:42

for sure.

25:45

Since then, Adam and f five have been

25:47

helping Cassie to rebuild her life outside

25:49

of prison.

25:51

I've often played out the scenario like

25:54

what person would it be the

25:56

hardest for in re entry? And

25:58

my opinion is, actually, here native

26:00

American female that's

26:03

being released from prison that

26:05

has a bunch of felonies on her background is

26:08

by far going to be the most stigmatized.

26:10

You know, one of the worst things

26:12

that happened to her was that when she was

26:15

arrested, she was absolutely savaged

26:18

in the Bismarck media. You

26:20

know, her mugshot was plastered on the

26:22

front pages of papers with

26:24

a headline suggesting that she was a baby killer,

26:27

right that she'd been arrested for killing her own

26:29

child, and

26:31

that was so awful for her to see that and

26:33

to have that be the story about

26:35

her, to have her name associated

26:37

with that. I think it started to

26:39

feel empowering for her to take back her

26:42

name and take back her own narrative.

26:44

And so through all that stuff that she'd been through,

26:47

that negative mindset that exists

26:49

is basically just one big ball of trauma.

26:52

And so if your listeners are you

26:54

know, praying people, or if they're you

26:56

know, thoughtful people, just having

26:58

her in your thoughts and just given sending

27:01

her good vibes and good prayers is going to

27:03

be. She's going to need it because she's got

27:05

a long journey ahead of her.

27:11

Eventually, Cassie hopes to return to

27:13

Rapid City and to school. For

27:15

now, she's just enjoying spending time

27:17

with Dealeza and em Maria. She

27:20

says that being separated for all those

27:22

months took a toll on their relationship and

27:24

she's working to rebuild that bond, and

27:28

Cassie says, all three of them mean time

27:30

to heal from losing Starlight.

27:36

I'm traumatized. It's

27:39

traumatized and losing my baby,

27:42

but I went through a lot more with it.

27:46

Like even my babies, my three

27:48

year old and my eight year old, are affected, not

27:51

just me.

27:53

How often do you think about her, Cassie

27:56

every day?

28:01

Yeah, yep.

28:03

I see my two oldest and I always think of

28:05

how would have been with all three.

28:17

We all still talk.

28:18

About my daughter. My

28:22

oldest always talks about because

28:24

she remembers how she was. She was a calm little baby.

28:28

My three year old she doesn't

28:30

understand it. She kind of makes me laugh.

28:32

She thinks she carries my starlight

28:35

in her stomach. Whenever she

28:37

gets really fool or she's

28:40

done eating a snack, she'll say, Starlight's

28:42

making her stomach hurt because.

28:44

It looks like she's pregnant.

28:46

Yeah, she's

28:48

really funny with all that. Or

28:58

like three peas in a pod.

29:00

Yeah,

29:03

I always tease everybody and say we're cool

29:05

out in public. We'll get along, all

29:07

three of us, but we get back in our house,

29:10

it's chaos disastery.

29:23

If you'd like to help support Cassie and her daughters

29:26

as they restart their life together, there's

29:28

a GoFundMe for her. We'll have that link

29:30

in the episode description. And if

29:32

you'd like to know more about the Great North Innocence

29:34

Project and the F five Project. Please

29:36

check out their links on the page as well.

29:53

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie

29:56

Freeling. Please support your local innocence

29:58

organizations and go to the in the episode

30:00

description to see how you can help. I'd

30:03

like to thank our executive producers Jason

30:05

Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis,

30:07

as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,

30:10

producer Kathleen Fink, story

30:12

editor Hannah Beal, and researcher

30:14

Shelby Sorels. Mixing and

30:16

sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with

30:19

additional production by Jeff Cleiburn

30:21

and Connor Hall. The music is

30:23

by three time OSCAR nominated composer

30:25

Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow

30:27

us on all social media platforms

30:30

at Lava for Good and at Wrongful

30:32

Conviction. You can also follow me on

30:34

all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful

30:37

Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production

30:39

of Lava for Good Podcasts in association

30:41

with Signal Company Number one