Debra Milke - One Unrecorded 30-Min Interrogation — Transcript

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1. 0:05You're tuned in to true crime stories.
2. 0:13The interrogation that sent Debra Milke
3. 0:16to Arizona's death row lasted about 30
4. 0:18minutes.
5. 0:20It was not recorded.
6. 0:22There were no witnesses.
7. 0:24There was no signed statement.
8. 0:27There was no second officer in the room.
9. 0:30When it ended,
10. 0:31the detective walked out and wrote a
11. 0:33report saying she had confessed to
12. 0:35arranging the death of her 4-year-old
13. 0:37son.
14. 0:39That report, one man's account of what
15. 0:42one woman said behind a closed door,
16. 0:44would be the entire case against her.
17. 0:48It would hold for 22 years.
18. 0:52Debra Milke was 25 in 1989. [music]
19. 0:56She had divorced her husband the year
20. 0:58before and was raising their son,
21. 1:01Christopher Conan Milke, [music]
22. 1:02on her own in Phoenix, Arizona.
23. 1:06She worked at an insurance agency and
24. 1:08shared an apartment with a family
25. 1:09acquaintance named [music] James Styers.
26. 1:12On the morning of December 2nd, 1989,
27. 1:16Styers offered to take Christopher to
28. 1:18the Metro Center Mall to see Santa
29. 1:20Claus.
30. 1:21Christopher [music] put on his favorite
31. 1:22outfit.
32. 1:24He left with Styers. He never came home.
33. 1:26[music]
34. 1:27Styers returned hours later claiming
35. 1:29Christopher had wandered off in the food
36. 1:31court.
37. 1:32Police and volunteers searched.
38. 1:35Debra Milke filed a missing child report
39. 1:37[music] and went on local television
40. 1:39asking for help.
41. 1:41Within 72 [music]
42. 1:42hours, investigators had built a
43. 1:45different theory.
44. 1:47Styers and a friend named Roger Scott
45. 1:49had been together [music] that day.
46. 1:52Scott was interviewed for more than 14
47. 1:54hours.
48. 1:55>> [music]
49. 1:55>> He eventually led detectives to a wash
50. 1:58north of the city
51. 1:59where Christopher was found.
52. 2:02The child had suffered three fatal
53. 2:03wounds to the head.
54. 2:06That should have been the end of the
55. 2:07story for Debra Milke.
56. 2:09She was not at the scene.
57. 2:12Both men later agreed she was not
58. 2:14physically present.
59. 2:16But Scott, in his lengthy interrogation,
60. 2:19told detectives that Styers had said
61. 2:21Milke wanted it done.
62. 2:24That was the entire link.
63. 2:26A statement by one suspect about
64. 2:29something a second suspect had
65. 2:30supposedly said about what a third
66. 2:33person,
67. 2:34Debra,
68. 2:35had supposedly wanted.
69. 2:38It was enough to bring her in.
70. 2:41She was driven to the Pinal County
71. 2:43Sheriff's Office.
72. 2:45The detective assigned to interview her
73. 2:46was a Phoenix homicide investigator
74. 2:48named Armando Saldate, [music] Jr.
75. 2:53She was placed in a small room with him.
76. 2:56The door closed. [music]
77. 2:58The recorder was not turned on.
78. 3:02Saldate emerged from that room and, 3
79. 3:05days later,
80. 3:06filed a written report describing a full
81. 3:08confession.
82. 3:11He wrote that Milke had admitted
83. 3:12ordering Christopher's death
84. 3:14>> [music]
85. 3:14>> because she did not want to raise him
86. 3:16and did not want him to live with his
87. 3:18father.
88. 3:20>> [music]
89. 3:20>> The state would later argue she had also
90. 3:22wanted to collect on a small life
91. 3:24insurance policy.
92. 3:27There was nothing else.
93. 3:28No recording.
94. 3:30No notes [music] signed by Milke.
95. 3:33No witness in the room.
96. 3:35No corroborating statement from either
97. 3:37of the two men actually charged with
98. 3:39carrying out the act,
99. 3:41both of whom declined to testify against
100. 3:43[music] her.
101. 3:44At trial in October 1990, Milke took the
102. 3:48stand and [music] said she had never
103. 3:49confessed.
104. 3:51Saldate took the stand and said she had.
105. 3:55The jury believed the detective.
106. 3:57Milke was convicted [music] and in
107. 3:59January 1991
108. 4:02sentenced to die.
109. 4:04Styers and Scott were tried separately
110. 4:07and also sent to death row.
111. 4:10To this day, the two men have implicated
112. 4:12each other as the person who actually
113. 4:14pulled the trigger.
114. 4:16Milke went to Perryville prison.
115. 4:18>> [music]
116. 4:19>> For 18 years, her appeals went nowhere.
117. 4:22The Arizona courts treated Saldate's
118. 4:24account as settled fact.
119. 4:28And then, slowly,
120. 4:30something began to surface that the
121. 4:32original jury had never been told.
122. 4:35Armando Saldate had a file.
123. 4:38A long one.
124. 4:41In 1973, [music]
125. 4:42he had been suspended after pulling over
126. 4:44a female motorist and, in the language
127. 4:47of the department's own findings,
128. 4:48[music]
129. 4:49taking liberties with her.
130. 4:51Then arranging to meet her later.
131. 4:55Across the years, judges in at least
132. 4:57four separate criminal cases had thrown
133. 5:00out confessions Saldate obtained because
134. 5:02he had violated [music] suspects'
135. 5:04constitutional rights during
136. 5:05questioning. In four additional cases,
137. 5:08courts had found that Saldate either
138. 5:10lied under oath or that the confessions
139. 5:12he produced could not be trusted. None
140. 5:15of this was ever turned over to Milke's
141. 5:17defense team. The jury that voted to
142. 5:19sentence [music] her to die had been
143. 5:21told they were hearing from a veteran
144. 5:23homicide detective.
145. 5:25>> [music]
146. 5:25>> They were not told they were hearing
147. 5:27from a witness with a documented history
148. 5:29of fabricating what suspects [music]
149. 5:31said.
150. 5:33In March of 2013,
151. 5:35a three-judge panel [music] of the US
152. 5:37Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
153. 5:39overturned Milke's conviction.
154. 5:42>> [music]
155. 5:42>> The opinion, written by Chief Judge Alex
156. 5:45Kozinski,
157. 5:47>> [music]
158. 5:47>> called the prosecution's failure to
159. 5:49disclose Saldate's record a severe
160. 5:52[music] stain on the Arizona justice
161. 5:54system.
162. 5:56It pointed out that Saldate's testimony
163. 5:58about the unrecorded confession was the
164. 6:01only direct evidence linking [music]
165. 6:03Milke to the crime.
166. 6:05Without it, there was no case.
167. 6:09The state did not give up.
168. 6:12The Arizona Attorney General's Office
169. 6:14announced it would retry her and seek
170. 6:16the death penalty again.
171. 6:19Milke was released on bond in September
172. 6:212013.
173. 6:23Then, in December of that year,
174. 6:27the courts ruled that Saldate could
175. 6:29invoke his Fifth Amendment right
176. 6:31>> [music]
177. 6:31>> and refuse to testify at any retrial.
178. 6:35Meaning the state's star [music] witness
179. 6:37would not take the stand a second time.
180. 6:40In December 2014,
181. 6:42an Arizona appeals court ordered the
182. 6:44charges dismissed,
183. 6:46ruling that retrying her would amount to
184. 6:48double [music] jeopardy given the
185. 6:50egregious prosecutorial misconduct
186. 6:54that produced the first conviction.
187. 6:56On March 23rd, 2015,
188. 6:5925 years, 3 months, and 14 days after
189. 7:03Christopher's death,
190. 7:05all charges were formally dropped.
191. 7:09The case is unusual, not for what was
192. 7:11hidden,
193. 7:12but for how little was ever there to
194. 7:13begin [music] with.
195. 7:16A 4-year-old child was taken into the
196. 7:18desert.
197. 7:18>> [music]
198. 7:19>> Two men were convicted of carrying it
199. 7:20out and remain on death row.
200. 7:24>> [music]
201. 7:24>> But the woman the state called the
202. 7:26mastermind was convicted on a single
203. 7:28piece of evidence.
204. 7:30One detective's memory of one unrecorded
205. 7:33conversation.
206. 7:35>> [music]
207. 7:35>> And that detective had a documented
208. 7:37history
209. 7:39sealed inside his own personnel [music]
210. 7:40file
211. 7:42of producing confessions that judges
212. 7:43refused to believe. [music]
213. 7:46The system that put Debra Milke on death
214. 7:48row did not lack rules.
215. 7:51It had Brady disclosure obligations. It
216. 7:54had appellate [music]
217. 7:55review.
218. 7:57What it lacked was anyone willing to
219. 7:58apply those [music] rules to a
220. 8:00confession that, on paper, looked clean.
221. 8:04>> [music]
222. 8:05>> Milke later sued the city of Phoenix.
223. 8:08That civil case was dismissed in 2020
224. 8:11after a federal judge ruled she had
225. 8:13destroyed too many of her own records
226. 8:15during litigation.
227. 8:17A ruling that ended her chance at
228. 8:19compensation,
229. 8:21but did not disturb the underlying
230. 8:22finding that her criminal conviction had
231. 8:25been unconstitutional. [music]
232. 8:28She has never received a dollar for the
233. 8:2922 years she spent on death row.
234. 8:33The two men convicted of carrying out
235. 8:35the act
236. 8:36>> [music]
237. 8:36>> remain incarcerated.
238. 8:39Detective Saldate retired.
239. 8:41He was never charged.
240. 8:44The question worth sitting with is this
241. 8:46one.
242. 8:48If a confession is the entire case,
243. 8:52and the confession was never recorded,
244. 8:54and the only person who heard it had a
245. 8:56file full of reasons not to be trusted,
246. 9:00how does that case ever reach a jury in
247. 9:02the first place? [music]
248. 9:04What does it tell you about the rest of
249. 9:06the cases that detective worked? The
250. 9:08ones that never got a ninth circuit
251. 9:10panel to look twice?
252. 9:13Leave a comment with what you think
253. 9:15should have stopped this case [music]
254. 9:16before it got to trial.
255. 9:19And if this is the kind of story you
256. 9:20want more of,
257. 9:22>> [music]
258. 9:22>> subscribe.
259. 9:24There are more like it than anyone is
260. 9:26comfortable [music] admitting.
261. 9:31>> [music]