01x02 - Who k*lled Amber Bennett

[bunniefuu]

Boyer: I didn´t know what was
causing the paranormal

stuff to start happening
to me again,

but this time it´s worse.
The smoke from Amber´s room

was billowing out
into the hallway.

The curtain´s on fire,

and the wallpaper was
starting to catch on fire.

And I just snatched her up

and carried her
like a football.

So much was happening.

The feelings inside of me, I
mean, I felt like a time b*mb.

When you push stuff down,
it´s gonna come out somehow.

Teresa:
We got a frantic call from Tina

and you could hear
the terror in her voice.

All she got out was,
"It´s happening.

It´s happening again."

I picked her up,
brought her to my apartment.

She took my hand.
Just like this.

That´s a grip that somebody

that´s going over
the edge of a cliff grabs

when they don´t want
to lose that grip.

Boyer: Say, "Hi, Mommy."

My back was against the wall.

My only priority is to get
someplace safe with Amber.

But I don´t have
any family support,

so I don´t have anywhere
to go with Amber.

I could only stay with Teresa
for a limited time.

Amber was her life.
She would feed Amber.

And if she didn´t have
enough money for food left,

she would go hungry.
And I´d have to tell her,

"You need to eat, too.

You can´t take care of Amber
if you don´t take

care of you as well."

♫ a, b, c, d, f ♫

♫ j, j, j ♫

Teresa: You don´t risk your life
for your daughter.

You don´t put her
needs above yours

over and over and over
and over and over,

and then turn around
and k*ll her.

Th-Th-- It doesn´t fit
the picture of who Tina is.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

Operator: Hello. This is a free
call from...

Boyer: Christina Boyer.

Operator: ...an incarcerated
individual

at Pulaski State Prison.

Boyer: I felt just lost.
I don´t know what else to do.

Like, where do I fit in?
Where do I belong?

I knew that this is not
a safe environment for Amber.

I was like, "I´m out of here."

September 1991,
she decides to run off.

The only safe place far away
enough from Columbus, Ohio,

that she could think of
was where Bill Roll

and Jeannie Lagle
are living -- Carrollton.

Boyer: So at 2:00 in the
morning, I packed everything

that I could carry of Amber´s

and I got on the bus
and headed for Georgia.

Carrollton,
it´s like a small town,

and I´m from a city.

I moved to a rural area
and I was scared

because this place
was so different from Columbus.

Here are her books,
her children´s books.

Oh, I´m sure this one
is -- "Ghostly Fun."

Those are Amber´s books.

She came down here
to be with people

that she felt she could trust
and that loved her.

Tina had this history of

paranormal events
and experiments.

And that´s why
she came to Carrollton,

to be around the psychologists
that had helped her

and would be able
to help her begin a new life.

Boyer: Okay, You can open the
door if you want to.

I was living in a low-income
housing.

Say hi.

I don´t want her to grow up
in foster care

thinking that
they didn´t want me.

Amber was mine,
and I had to raise her.

All I could think of
is I´m not going back.

I kept telling myself,

things get better.
You know, things change.

They get better.

♫♫

♫♫

We would just come down here
to the creek from the house

and get in the creek and sit.

And Amber, of course, loved it.
Tina loved it.

It was a moment
in not very many

that she was completely
exhilarated and completely free.

That´s how I remember her.

That´s how I remember
both of them.

She really wanted to provide
for Amber

and she wanted to be able
to do it on her own.

Announcer: This is your
Atlanta Journal station

WSB in Atlanta, Georgia.

Boyer: Things were starting
to look up.

I began to be hopeful.

But Bill was doing stuff
behind our back.

This case erupted in 1984
and it´s the last genuine

or convincing case
I was involved with.

Boyer: People would end up
contacting me for permission

to use my name or permission
to use this story,

and I would have no idea

what the hell
they were talking about.

Lagle:
He promised her that he would

give her a cut of the book.

But that´s not what happened.
Nobody ever saw a penny.

So Tina and I
started a book, our book.

Tina typed this.

She was typing all this stuff.

That was the job
that she had immediately,

and I paid her for that.

This is my title.

"A Greyhound pulls into
the bus stop

in a small Georgia town.

After a tearful union,
she says, ´It´s back, Jeannie.

I need your help.´

The woman smiles and hugs her.

´You can tell me all about it.´"

Boyer: My hope was that
we could come up

with something good enough

that somebody would pay us
to write a book about this

and that I could have the money
to pay a babysitter,

to get training,
to get a better job,

a jump-start into
being self-sufficient.

Lagle: She was showing signs
of coming into her own,

so to speak, and feeling stable
and so confident

that that teenager
just wasn´t there.

She was in a place that she felt
like she had a future.

Boyer: I was trying to be
a good mom to Amber.

The way that I looked at it
is anybody that I dated

would have to be somebody

that I considered a potential
father figure for her.

That´s when I met David.

Lagle: She had met a man
that had a child.

David was local.
He came from a very good family.

I could tell by his physique
that he worked hard.

You know, he had a nice,
muscular body.

Boyer: He was really straitlaced
and mild-mannered

and so completely different.

And so I really did think that

things were starting to
look up.

Things looked better than
they had been

looking for a long time.

Until the 10th of April 1992.

Lagle: Christina called on
a Friday and mentioned

that when David was babysitting,

Amber had fallen
and hit her head.

Boyer:
I was like, "Well, what the
hell happened to her head?"

And he told me
that he opened the back door

and that she jumped
out of the car

and took off down the street.
And when he hollered after her,

she looked back and fell
and hit her head.

When I got her home, basically,
she just said the same thing,

that she fell down
on the sidewalk.

And I said, "Okay."

Lagle:
The next day, David reported

that Amber fell down the steps

and she landed face-first
in the gravel.

Boyer:
He told me that he had gone to
sleep in the living room.

He obviously didn´t think
about locking the screen door.

And she got out
and fell down the stairs.

She also called
her adopted mother, Joan.

Boyer:
I asked her, is this something
that I should be worried about?

And basically her attitude was
I must just want attention

and that why do I always look
for something to be wrong

when there´s nothing wrong?
Blah, blah, blah.

Made me feel like I was stupid.

I did see a goose egg --
what we call a goose egg --

knot on her forehead.

I was concerned, of course.

And I know that
the only thing you can do

is to just observe them.

And I saw Amber coloring.

I thought that was
a very good sign

that she wasn´t
showing any effects.

I consider that Amber
was on my watch,

and I have gone over and over
and over what happened.

♫♫

Boyer: Amber and I,
we get up late,

and yet David has the day off.

Supposedly he has the day off.

I planned to leave
right about noon or 1:00

to go to Jeannie´s to work.

And when I asked her
about going with me,

she had grabbed a book
and climbed up in David´s lap.

♫♫

♫♫

She worked not full days,
but four to six hours, say.

So we did our work,
and Christina had finished

what I had asked her
to do for that day.

So she walked out of the door...

...and in a few minutes,
the phone rang and it was David.

He was asking
if Tina was still at my house

because he was having trouble
rousing Amber.

He said, "Should I call 911
and get an ambulance?"

And I said, "No, wait, Christina
will be there in a minute."

Boyer:
On the way back to David´s,

I stopped at the store,

picked up a bottle of soda pop
and some cigarettes.

And when I pulled up
to the house,

David was standing
at the top of the stairs.

He was saying that
he couldn´t get Amber up.

I was like, "If you let
her sleep all of this time..."

And he was like,
"No, I can´t get her up."

And when he said that,
I just threw all the files,

ran into the house.

She was in bed,
and I just scooped her up

and I started running
for the car.

And I was screaming at him
to come on

and drive me to the hospital.

I remember just yelling at him
to keep going faster,

go faster, go faster.

I was trying to listen
for a heartbeat.

Kept thinking the most
important thing for me to do

is just keep getting air
in her.

So when we get to the hospital,

before he could even
stop the car,

I´m out of the car
with Amber in my arms,

and I´m running through
the emergency room

screaming at top of my lungs

that I have a child
that is not breathing.

♫♫

Boyer: Somebody came
and took her from me.

♫♫

Jeannie shows up at some point.

David´s there,
and he´s hunched down

with his head in his hands.

The nurse comes in,
and they´re asking

all these questions about her,

and they keep asking me
what happened to her.

And I´m like, "I don´t know.
I wasn´t home.

I have no idea
what happened to her, David."

But he´s not answering.

Lagle: A man in scrubs came in
and said

that they had been able
to get a heartbeat,

but that they were not able
to detect any brain activity.

Boyer: And I´m asking David,
"What the f*ck happened?

What the f*ck happened?
Why does she look like that?"

And all he keeps saying
is he´s sorry, he´s sorry.

Sorry for what?

Lagle: After some time,

the physician came back
in the room.

Boyer:
They come back and they tell me

that her heart stopped beating

and that she...was dead.

♫♫

♫♫

Lagle: It was only a matter
of minutes

after the physician left

that two detectives
came in the room.

Well, how it
started out was

it was a dispatch
call to the hospital.

He said, "We just -- we have
a child-abuse case."

And then he called me back
a few minutes later and said,

"Well, you can make that
a homicide."

When you looked at her,

with all the bruising,
it was kind of obvious

this child´s been severely
physically abused.

Boyer: They came in
and snatched David

and slammed him up against
the wall and arrested him.

Police asked me if I would
come to the police station

and give them statements.

And so I went with them.

Such a dumbass.

Lagle: I could understand them
wanting David

to answer questions,

and it would all be understood
that this was an accident.

But the hostility
I didn´t understand.

David was, you know --
it´s a no-brainer

that you start with the person
who was with her last.

Yeah, everything made him
the top suspect.

This is a mannequin
that was used to help indicate

where Amber Bennett´s injuries
were discovered at autopsy.

The blue circles are placed
to indicate

where some of the bruising is.

The red are placed to show
where the skin´s been broken.

This is a classic representation

for a case of fatal child abuse.

And the diagnosis of homicide

was not particularly
problematic.

Boyer: They wanted me to say
that David

had been beating me,
beating her,

that I was the mother,
this is my child.

How could I cover up for
the person that m*rder*d her?

Unless, of course,
I m*rder*d her.

And I was like, "What?"

And I tell him I want to leave.
I want to go home now.

I don´t want
to stay here anymore.

And there were like,
"Just a few more questions."

And I was like,
"Do I need a lawyer?"

I waited ten hours at the police
department for them to come out,

and I realized that
that was not happening.

So I went home, expecting
to get a phone call from Tina,

and that´s what happened.

And she was sobbing and saying
that she had been arrested

and that she heard David had
also been arrested for m*rder.

Reporter: David Herrin
and the girl´s mother,


Christina Elena Boyer,

are in the Carroll County jail
without bond.

She said she understands
that she´s being charged

with m*rder and cruelty
to her daughter.

Mrs. Boyer did tell
Channel 2 News exclusively...

I didn´t m*rder
my daughter.

Amber was at the home
of Mrs. Boyer´s boyfriend,

David Herrin, when she died.

Lagle: On the day of the funeral
when Amber was buried,

Christina was not allowed
to be there at the graveside.

I remember Amber´s fresh grave

and how surreal
the whole thing was,

and especially how surreal
it was

because it became a circus.

Thomas: You should have seen
the turnout at her funeral

from people here
in Carrollton

that didn´t know her
but just came.

My chief assistant and I
went to Amber´s funeral.

It was one of those cases that
just tore at your heartstrings.

Reporter: Coroner has posted
plans to dispose of the body.

The city, the county,
and businesses are chipping in

for the funeral
and are accepting donations.

And I think it stirred
the community.

It stirred a feeling
in the community.

There was great publicity
about the m*rder of a child.

Everyone wants to know,

how did it happen?
What´s going on?

It was daily news.
I mean, it´s m*rder.

It´s a child.

But because she wasn´t
from here,

I think that they quickly
arrived at a opinion of her,

and it wasn´t good.

Horn: Carroll County is located
west of Atlanta

and borders Alabama.

It´s a good place.

But in 1992, ´93, ´94,

it was a tough place
for Christina Boyer.

This is the Bible Belt.

Get your mind off the works
of the devil and his way!

Trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ.

She doesn´t have family here,
unmarried, has a child.

Boyer: These people are die-hard
burn-in-hell kind of people.

So the fact
that I was a single mother

and past supernatural issues,
none of that helped me.

Christina´s background came up
very early in our investigation.

There were a number of people
who believed that her house

had been visited by poltergeist.

She had these telekinetic powers
that when Christina

loses control,
could be expl*sive.

And, of course,
we didn´t buy any of that.

But it did prove
the manipulative side

of Christina Boyer,
that she was able

to manipulate good people
into believing

that something she had
was powerful.

I told the police,
"If she has a psychotic break,

I can´t guarantee you

that there will not be
some kind of destruction."

I told Jeannie Lagle if she can
move objects with her mind,

she can just open the jail door
with her mind and walk out.

Yeah.

It´s bullshit, and I´m not gonna
waste my time on bullshit.

It was so stupid,
I wasn´t gonna entertain it.

The paranormal things
or whatever it was

were perceived
as something of the devil.

So the image that she had
in that community

was not all too positive.

On the front page
of a newspaper,

it says not only
"child m*rder*r,"

but "psychic child m*rder*r."

After those newspaper headlines
came out,

I don´t believe there was
anybody left in town

that didn´t believe she did it
because she was the witch,

she was the paranormal.

Boyer: The inmates
in the county jail were like,

"Do you see ghosts?
Can you read my mind?

What am I thinking?"
Like, I was a baby k*ller

and I shouldn´t be
allowed to live.

They took me
to the mental hospital,

and they kept increasing
my medications.

I can´t tell you
exactly what I was on.

I guess a tranquilizer
of some kind.

My mind just gone mush.

I slept all the time.

I don´t know how long
I stayed like that.

I just remember that all I
wanted to do was have a trial.

I really believed
that if I get to go to court,

they´re gonna find out
that I´m not guilty,

that this was a mistake.

Skandalakis: The complexity
of this case has evolved

with the fact
that neither witness

is accepting responsibility
of what happened.

Both parties who had access
to this child

are both claiming they´re not
really sure how this happened.

Both people are saying,
"Yes, we noticed bruises.

Yes, we noticed a split lip."

But Christina´s saying,
"I never saw him do it."

And David Herrin´s saying,
"I never saw her do it."

The decision to charge
both of them

because you can´t really tell
who did it

is something that I think
is very shocking.

If you combine that with the
idea of only convicting people

if there´s no reasonable doubt,
how does that work?

The advantage to this case was
that it was being worked

by Mike Thomas and Mike Bradley.

I think they knew when they got
a case from either one of us

that we would fight
for what we believed in.

It was quite obvious
that she didn´t receive

all those bruises and cuts
and all that that day.

If he was the primary ab*ser,
well, then it´s a no-brainer

that the mother
should have stepped up

and done something
about it.

We charged her with one count
of malice m*rder --

a malice m*rder
is that you intended

to cause the death
of another human being --

a felony m*rder,
cruelty to children,

and then we charged her
with aggravated battery.

Every charge levied
had sufficient evidence

to prove guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt.

The crime was so vicious,
so heinous,

that it fit the standards
to seek the death penalty in.

Boyer: When I first heard
that Skandalakis

was seeking the death penalty,
I was stunned.

I figured it was
only a matter of time for me

before I was dead.

She had just lost her daughter.

And now she´s being threatened
with death by electrocution.

So they needed to find a lawyer
who had experience

in defending
death penalty cases.

So I´ll call on Mr. Jimmy Berry,
attorney at law.

Boyer: Berry was supposed
to be some jam-up lawyer,

and he´s handled
death penalty cases.

So I was very excited
and thought that,

okay, I got a good lawyer.

Berry:
I got involved in the case

because of my knowledge
of death penalty cases.

I´ve been involved in more than


Jimmy Berry became
the court-appointed attorney.

And Jimmy Berry´s record

for all the m*rder cases
he had done

was zero had received
the death penalty.

Zero of his clients had received
the death penalty,

which is a good thing.

But in this case,
it is my opinion that

if you´re going in
with 100% batting average,

you don´t want to mess it up.

When I looked at the evidence,
I was very concerned.

You know that old saying about

you can´t make a silk purse
out of a sow´s ear?

That´s what this case was.
I mean, it was not pretty.

Boyer: His whole attitude was
that I was gonna get

the electric chair
and they were gonna k*ll me

and that I needed
to sign a plea bargain.

She was saying, "I´m not gonna
say I k*lled my daughter.

I didn´t do that."

It´s about two days
before the trial.

You know, you always try to make
that one last-ditch effort.

And so I want to talk
to Pete about it.

I don´t remember
if I broached the subject

or Mr. Berry broached
the subject, but was, you know,

"Can we get the death penalty
off the table?"

And the answer was,
"Yes, of course."

Pete´s a really nice guy.
I´ve known him for a long time.

Was Christina Boyer lucky
to get Jimmy Berry?

Absolutely.

Always tries
to do the right thing,

puts his heart into his work.

Pete´s a smart guy,
and he graciously decided

that he would allow us
to enter the plea

and not seek the death penalty.

Boyer: I kept stressing that
I´m maintaining my innocence

and I´m not pleading guilty.

But I was emotionally
and mentally just drained,

and so I was very afraid.

They want to put me
in the electric chair.

She says, "I didn´t do it.
I don´t want to take a plea."

Well, how about an Alford plea?

An Alford plea, you are saying,
"I maintain my innocence,

but I recognize
that the evidence

that´s against me
is overwhelming,

and most likely
I will be found guilty."

Jimmy Berry said
that they were ready

to do whatever
needed to be done next.

So I drove quickly

so I could be in the courthouse
when Jimmy Berry arrived.

Boyer: Jeannie was out
in the courtroom,

and Jimmy Berry was like,
"Nobody´s here."

I was like, "But they´re
supposed to be here."

I´m running all over
the courthouse.

I wanted to find her
so that she would have

somebody there in her defense.

Boyer: They had me
sitting in this room,

and Berry came in and he had --

I think it was McDonald´s
or something.

And he said
that nobody was there,

and just answer the questions.

When they ask you, "Are you
signing the plea bargain?"

tell them yes.

Lagle: I was literally going
around opening every door

that I came upon to find her.

Boyer: He said,
"This is what you have to do.

This is what you need to do
to save your own life."

Christina claims she didn´t know
what she was doing.

And there´s a plea transcript.
She was quite lucid.

She understood very well
what she was doing,

and Jimmy would not allow
one of his clients

to plea without
an understanding.

Horn: Somehow she takes it
because, in her own words,

she said,
"I didn´t want to die."

Lagle:
I looked everywhere for her

and could not see Tina anywhere.

I was desperate to find her
because I heard what Jimmy Berry

had planned for her
to take a plea.

Boyer: The D.A. and the judge
kept saying,

"Are you pleading guilty?"

And I said,
"Yes, but I didn´t do this."

I signed the paper,
but I´m innocent.

She agrees to it,
and he sentences her

to life in prison plus 20 years.

Boyer: I couldn´t believe
that I didn´t just have

a life sentence,
but that I had life plus 20.

Berry: I never forced her
to do anything.

I didn´t twist her arm.
I didn´t beat her over the head.

I didn´t do anything.
I told her what the facts were.

She knew what she did
or didn´t do,

and she agreed to do this plea.

You know, what else can you do?

That was her decision, not mine.

When she entered a guilty plea,

obviously, we changed
our attention to David Herrin.

Horn: David Herrin´s attorneys
understand

that Christina´s already taken
an Alford plea.

We´re going to trial.

The jury will find out
that someone else

is already serving time
for the m*rder of Amber Bennett.

Skandalakis: David Herrin´s
lawyer used the defense

which I call "Not my child."

He asked almost every witness,
"Whose child was this?"

They would say, "Well, it was
Christina´s child."

He argued to the jury
that it was Christina,

the mother of the child,
that had the responsibility

to seek medical attention
for this child.

Boyer: When David testified,
he came up with

all of these things
that he said

that he´d seen me do to Amber.

And I´m like, "Why would you
lie about all this?

I haven´t lied."

Lagle: She was supposed to
testify against him,

but when the prosecutor
asked her,

had she ever seen
David hit Amber,

she said no,
´cause she never had.

Boyer: When I testified
at David´s trial,

I refused to lie.

The D.A. and detectives
were like,

"Even if he goes scot-free?"

I´m not gonna lie.

I´m not gonna lie.

The jury acquitted him
on everything but the cruelty.

And to be totally honest
with you,

I don´t think
we could have proved --

and obviously they didn´t --

that he caused
any of these major injuries.

Boyer: They crucified me
at David´s trial.

So now, at this point,
I´m starting to beat myself up

because guilty people lie.

And I think that my testimony

helped him
to get away with m*rder.

♫♫

Ronquillo:
We have a lot of walk-ins here.

You know, we have to be quick.

Oh, yeah, that was a big thing
for me when I got out.

I was used to working so fast
so I didn´t get caught.

And my boss,
he sits right there,

and he´s like, "Slow down."

My name is Amethyst, or "Bam,"
for that matter.

I was locked up
in 2014 through 2019.

There was a lot of people
that I met, a lot of people

that I still communicate with
till this day.

And there was, like,
that one person

that stuck out to me --
Christina.

I was two months old
when she got locked up.

I´m 30.
She´s been gone for 30 years.

Every time she would talk about
Amber, she would light up

and then U-turn to straight
into the ground,

and I´m like, "There´s no way.

There´s a lot of murderers
in here, and that ain´t one."

I hugged her and I was like,

"I understand
Amber went out bad,

but now it´s time to push
and keep going."

Boyer: I started reaching out
to anybody,

and in prison, I met Jan.

He has literally
put his life on hold

to do something about
me being incarcerated.

My contact with Christina
was a result

of this law-and-order project
about criminal justice,

and wanted to portray
these people

as I would portray anyone else.

And I became fascinated
by Christina´s story,

but also I became fascinated
by this person.

She´s struggling,
but she has strength.

And she was uncompromising,
honest.

Instead of just
documenting injustices,

I now wanted
to change something.

I think she should be
out of prison.

And an editor of a magazine
pointed out

that Marc Howard
and Marty Tankleff

were running this
Making an Exoneree class.

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My name is Marty Tankleff,
and I was wrongfully convicted

and sentenced
to 50 years to life.

I remember vividly
September 7th, 1988.

It was the first day of
our senior year in high school.

It should have been a great day,

but I woke up and I discovered

that my father was bleeding
and clinging to life.

And after that,
I went looking for my mother,

and I discovered my mother dead
in my parents´ bedroom.

It never for a second
occurred to us that Marty

could somehow be involved,
that he could be a suspect.

Tankleff: I was arrested
for the m*rder of my mother,

the attempted m*rder
of my father.

I was incarcerated immediately.

There wasn´t a single day
during the trial

where I thought
I was gonna get convicted.

Man: ...as the defendant,
Martin Tankleff,

as to count two,
m*rder second-degree?

It didn´t make sense to me
that anyone in their right mind,

if they really cared
about the truth,

could say that Marty was guilty.

Being innocent and being
in prison is a living hell,

because you know
you´re not supposed to be there.

You know the system failed you.

And you don´t know how
to figure it out.

And I started
to visit him in person.

And on one of those visits,

I remember
in the prison visiting room,

I made him a promise,
and I said,

"I will do everything I can
to help get you out of prison."

Tankleff: Marc became
my outside researcher,

and he´s always been there

ever since he made
that commitment to me.

We would always say,
"It´s not whether, it´s when.

It´s a matter of time."

Unfortunately,
it took almost two decades,

but it did eventually come out.

Reporter: Tankleff was tricked
into making a confession,

sentenced to 50 years in prison.

But in 2007,
the courts found key evidence

at his trial was overlooked,

and Tankleff was finally free.

I was released
on December 27th, 2007,

after serving 6,338 days,

about 17 1/2 years, in prison.

I´ve gone on to

get my undergraduate degree,
a law degree.

Reporter #2:
Now with his certificate
of good standing in hand,

Tankleff becomes one of
just a few exonerees

to practice law
in New York State.

Tankleff:
Marc pitched the idea of me

becoming an adjunct professor
at Georgetown University,

teaching a class together

where we utilized
undergraduate students

to reinvestigate potentially
wrongful-conviction cases

using kind of the same concept,

because who better
than somebody like Marc and I?

We always say, "Marc went
to Yale, Marty went to jail,"

because it´s true.

Howard:
We take the hard cases.

We take the cases that have
a lot of complications,

that have been turned down
by others.

And we do the deep digging.
But obviously, it´s hard.

It´s really, really hard.

Christina´s case has
all of the hallmarks

of a wrongful conviction.

She has maintained her innocence
from day one.

She had a terrible
public defender.

She had a prosecution that was
hell-bent on convicting her,

that was doing something
that´s completely immoral,

which is threatening her
with the death penalty

in order to take a plea
for life in prison.

Tankleff: Wrongful incarceration
can destroy somebody,

but it can also make them
much stronger,

especially when you have people
fighting for you.

This is my video application
for the...

...Making an Exoneree course.

My name is Sarah Jackmauh.

-Grace Perret.
-Lizzie Porterfield.

Porterfield: We fought for
the cases that we wanted,

and from the start, I knew
I wanted Christina´s case.

I was really interested
in studying

a wrongful-conviction
death-penalty case

that involved a woman.

It was different
than the other cases

in that she didn´t have
a very clear-cut, like,

there´s ballistic evidence
or there´s DNA evidence.

It wasn´t going to be
kind of a CSI technical case.

It was going to be
a case of relationships

and "he said/she said."

Boyer: They throw up
so many smokescreens,

and it´s like, this is not --
the issue is,

did I or did I not
m*rder my child?

Our first introduction
to Team Christina was Jan.

-Hello!
-Hi.

How are you
this morning?

-No, true!
-It´s afternoon.

They asked for information.
I sent whatever I had.

I shared it with them.

We head to Georgetown´s library,
and we are instructed

to open up a Dropbox
with all the materials

we´ll need to get started
on Christina´s case.

We open the Dropbox,
and it is overwhelming.

I remember questioning
whether or not

I could take on this case.

Perret: It was going to be
a case of these lines

that we draw between
victims and offenders

and good people and bad people
and abusers and abused.

Like, all of those things
were quite blurred.

When we talked to her,
it became clear

that it was someone
we wanted to fight for.

We went to Georgia
in March of 2019.

We stood out with our backpacks
and our microphones

and our binders.

So we´re walking
into the county courthouse

to try to get records
from Christina´s pretrial.

The Mikes were definitely,
like, top of the list

that we wanted to speak to.

The approach the detectives
took in that case was,

I think they took a little bit
more sympathy towards David

than they did Christina.

-You got -- you recording?
-Hang on.

Here´s your phone.
Put it in your front.

We each had a phone in our
pocket so we were recording.

There is a definite
gendered aspect of judgment.

And I just remember, like,
inhaling

and being like, "Here we go."

It didn´t bother them
that they didn´t know

who actually k*lled Amber.

Yeah, none of us know that,

but it was your job
to investigate that

and determine who was telling
the truth and who was lying.

I think we need
to re-create, like,

an injury timeline.

In our investigation,

we reviewed David´s
trial transcripts,

and it´s most likely
that the injuries

that caused Amber´s death
occurred on David´s watch.

Banning:
Let´s go back to the facts.

April 14, 1992,
early in the morning,

David goes out
to the unemployment office

because he´s lost his job,

which apparently Christina
didn´t know about.

He comes back
between 10:30 and 11:00,

and Amber is sitting
in front of the TV,

according to David´s statement.

Around quarter to 1:00,
Christina takes David´s car

and drives off to work.

Around 6:30, Christine drives up
and David comes out

and he says,
"I can´t wake Amber up."

David´s explanations, basically,
the medical examiner said, like,

"Some of that is not true.
Something more happened."

Her cause of death
was her head trauma.

She had what is called
subdural hemorrhage.

In my opinion, it is unlikely

that Amber spent
three hours perfectly normal

and then began deteriorating to
the point of her eventual death.

Presuming that Amber was
in the sole custody

of one individual for six hours,

which ended with her
being rushed to the hospital,

and that she was perfectly fine

at the beginning
of those six hours,

her fatal injury happened
sometime during those six hours.

Banning: According to
all medical evidence,

combined with David statements,

Amber was k*lled
during Christina´s absence.

What happened is clear.
Christina was not there.

Amber suffered a fatal injury,
and the only witness

to the how and who
of Amber´s death

is David Herrin.

You know, when people talk
about Team Christina

and all these people
that go to bat for her,

I don´t know
if they´re misguided,

but they certainly haven´t
bothered to open their mind

to all the possibilities.

Horn:
I have no doubt at all.

Christina did not
k*ll her daughter.

Say hi.

Skandalakis: Christina looks
like this sweet, innocent

little person
that´s been railroaded.

But Christina has that ability
to come across one way

and then behave completely
differently in private.

There´s never just one side
to one person.

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