American Justice: A Mother Accused & a Murder Case Mishandled — Full Episode Marathon — A&E

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Kathy Bush, at one time, regarded as perhaps the most caring mother in America. [00:00:06] Kathy Bush: If you had a child like Jennifer, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to see that your child's needs were met? [00:00:13] Speaker 1: Until authorities accused her of a stunning crime. [00:00:17] Speaker 3: How are they going to believe that a woman is purposely hurting her child just for a little attention? [00:00:23] Speaker 4: She was very cold, she was calculating, she was manipulative, as she tormented and tortured her own child. [00:00:30] Speaker 1: In the mid-1990s, Kathy Bush, a wife and mother of three, earned the nation's sympathy caring for her seriously ill child, Jennifer. While doctors across the country searched for a cure, politicians, pundits, even Major League Baseball players were pulling for the little girl. Then, in 1996, Kathy Bush was arrested, then charged with child abuse. It was a shocking twist, one that left many to wonder how a woman renowned for her motherly concern could end up accused of trying to keep her child deathly ill. May 21st, 2002, a warm spring day in Peachtree City, Georgia. 44-year-old Kathy Bush spends the morning with her husband, Craig, and their two sons, Jason and Matt. It looks like any other happy family scene, but a cloud hangs over the house. In less than three weeks, Kathy will be taken to Gadsden Correctional Institute, where she will begin serving a five-year sentence for child abuse. Back in the fall of 1999, a jury concluded that she had systematically kept her daughter, Jennifer, ill for more than eight years. Yet Kathy Bush claims she did nothing wrong, and she, her family, and her supporters believe she will be vindicated. [00:02:18] Kathy Bush: I am still praying for a miracle. My family depends on me. I'm just a mom, and I'm afraid for my family. I just can't imagine my life not being a part of their life every day. [00:02:33] Speaker 1: To many, however, Kathy Bush is a deceptive and dangerous woman, a mother who, in time, would have killed her daughter had the state not stepped in. [00:02:43] Speaker 4: This child has suffered through numerous unnecessary surgical procedures and pain and suffering, unlike anything I've ever seen in my 14 years as a prosecutor. [00:02:55] Speaker 1: Even today, after more than a decade of questions and controversy, the debate still rages. Was it the daughter who was sick, or was it the mother? In 1985, Craig and Kathy Bush moved with their two sons from Atlanta to this house in the affluent Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs. Craig was a car salesman. Kathy? A manager at a credit card collection company. The couple had been married for nine years. Our dreams was to have a long life together, raise a family. On May 22nd, 1987, Kathy gave birth to a third child, a girl they named Jennifer. [00:03:40] Kathy Bush: She was a dream come true. From the time I was a child, I dreamed of having a little girl that I would name Jennifer. And she was everything I could ever hope and dream of. [00:03:52] Speaker 1: At first, Jennifer was a happy, healthy baby. But her mother soon began reporting that she suffered from severe respiratory and ear infections, and chronic diarrhea. Doctors determined the cause to be a rare immune deficiency disorder. When Jennifer was still an infant, a semi-permanent IV line was implanted in her chest, because her veins couldn't withstand shots that doctors had to give her. [00:04:21] Kathy Bush: And that's where we began, you know, following the advice of the physicians that this is what had to be done to keep Jennifer alive. [00:04:31] Speaker 1: With Jennifer constantly ill, Kathy immersed herself in the language and procedures of her daughter's care. In the process, she grew close to Jennifer's pediatrician, and in 1988, quit her job to become his office manager. As Kathy might have predicted, the switch cost her daughter's health insurance. Because Jennifer had a pre-existing condition, she did not qualify for new coverage. But it also gave Kathy remarkable access to Jennifer's medical care. [00:05:03] Kathy Bush: I had access to Jennifer's records as I did every patient that was seen in that office. My interests lie in medicine and keeping my daughter alive and being an informed parent. [00:05:16] Speaker 1: Over the next two years, Jennifer's health only seemed to get worse. Kathy reported to doctors that Jennifer was experiencing seizures, severe abdominal pain, and problems keeping food done. In 1990, as a last resort, doctors decided to implant a pair of feeding tubes into her intestines. She would now receive most of her nutrition through these tubes. [00:05:44] Kathy Bush: Jennifer never complained. She was very accepting that this is what she had to deal with, and she handled it like a trooper. [00:05:53] Speaker 5: She's probably the most outgoing little girl that I knew of, you know, despite all of her problems and stuff. She was always either dancing or playing with friends, or she loved to fish and ride her little bike or her Barbie Jeep. [00:06:05] Speaker 6: Jennifer never complained about going off in the mall or dancing with her apparatuses or a backpack or tubes showing through her bathing suit. She just said she was just a gift from God, and this is what she has to deal with. [00:06:21] Speaker 1: But as Jennifer's problems mounted, so did the cost of taking care of her. The Bushes made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, yet their two incomes were nowhere near enough to pay the bills, which by the early 90s totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hearing of their plight, a local charity formed Friends of Jennifer to raise money for her treatment and enlisted the media to help in the cause. Spirited and sweet, Jennifer was the perfect symbol, the innocent victim of a heartless healthcare system. [00:07:00] Speaker 7: She became a celebrity. She became known locally. There were stories in the newspaper saying, "Here's this poor little girl, and she's very sick, and her family needs money for care." [00:07:11] Speaker 1: Through it all, Jennifer's mother was by her side, the super mom, willing to make any sacrifice for the sake of her daughter. But at Coral Springs Medical Center, where Jennifer was a patient, there were already those who saw things very differently. In the spring of 1991, hospital administrators quietly began investigating allegations that Kathy Bush was deliberately making her daughter ill. Dr. Eli Neuberger, a pediatrician and expert on child abuse at Harvard Medical School, was brought in to review Jennifer's files. [00:07:51] Speaker 8: As I looked at this record early on, there were smoking guns all over the place. Intravenous pumps that were tampered with. Misrepresentations made about seizures, about fevers, about laboratory findings, about physician's diagnoses. Mothers constantly asking for more tests and more intrusive treatments that she could be involved with herself. [00:08:15] Speaker 1: But later that summer, the Bush family turned around and sued the hospital. By January of 1992, the investigation was closed and no further action was taken. During the next few years, Jennifer's condition fluctuated constantly. By her seventh birthday, she had been hospitalized over 150 times and had undergone more than 30 operations, including the removal of her gallbladder, appendix, and parts of her intestines. She and her mother had, by this time, grown accustomed to the media spotlight. And Kathy had become a vocal advocate for health care reform. [00:08:59] Kathy Bush: Four years ago, our family's insurance company dropped Jennifer from their roles. [00:09:03] Speaker 1: In the summer of 1994, mother and daughter traveled to a rally in Washington, D.C. where Jennifer read a poignant letter to First Lady Hillary Clinton. [00:09:14] Speaker 9: I am giving you also this T-shirt so when you go jogging, you can wear it. [00:09:25] Kathy Bush: When Jennifer actually went to Washington, she was very excited. She felt as though she was helping other people. She felt that she was pretty important and pretty special. [00:09:34] Speaker 1: Less than a year later, Jennifer again made headlines. This time, it was the Florida Marlins who got a letter from her, pleading with them to settle that year's baseball strike so that Jennifer could watch her favorite player, left fielder Jeff Conine. Conine responded by promising the girl he would hit a home run for her on opening day. He delivered in dramatic fashion, slamming an eighth-inning blast over the left field wall. [00:10:04] Kathy Bush: Jeff Conine hit a home run for Jennifer and gave her the ball back. She was as happy as can be. [00:10:11] Speaker 1: By the spring of 1995, the poignant saga of the sick little girl and her heroic mother had become familiar to millions around the country. But that April, an anonymous tip led Florida authorities to revisit the troubling allegations of four years before. Their investigation would cast Kathy Bush's public persona in a horrific new light. [00:10:37] Speaker 3: The first doctor's statement I took, that doctor said to me, if that child stays in the household, the child will die. [00:10:47] Speaker 1: By the beginning of 1995, 37-year-old Kathy Bush of Coral Springs, Florida, had gained a national reputation as a model mom. She was portrayed as a tireless advocate for health care reform, and a tenacious fighter for the care of her critically ill seven-year-old daughter, Jennifer. [00:11:08] Kathy Bush: If you had a child, like Jennifer, who lost her health insurance, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to do everything humanly possible to see that your child's needs were met? [00:11:20] Speaker 1: But that spring, a chain of events was set in motion that would turn Kathy Bush's public profile upside down and lead many to believe that the model mom might really be a monster. It all began in April, after a nurse at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, where Jennifer Bush was a patient, contacted the state's child abuse hotline. The nurse alleged that Kathy Bush was deliberately injuring Jennifer by tampering with her IV and feeding lines. Kurt Navarro, a detective with the Hollywood Police Department, was dispatched to the hospital to investigate. The first physician he spoke with flatly stated that if the police didn't step in, Jennifer Bush would die. [00:12:13] Speaker 3: From that first doctor who gave me that statement, from the nurse who called me from the hospital, from the other nurses, there was no doubt in my mind, Kathy Bush had purposely injured her child. [00:12:23] Speaker 1: Several weeks later, Navarro presented his findings at a meeting with officials from the Florida Department of Children and Families and Assistant Broward County State's Attorney, Dennis Niswander. [00:12:35] Speaker 4: My first impression was there's no way this case is going anywhere. We can't prove this in a million years. [00:12:40] Speaker 1: But as Niswander dug deeper into the case file, already thousands of pages thick, he began to change his mind. He learned that back in 1991, nurses at Coral Springs Medical Center had lodged a similar complaint against Kathy Bush. [00:12:56] Speaker 4: They noticed very distinctive patterns where Jennifer would be happy and laughing and playful and acting like a normal healthy child. And then when Kathy Bush would come in to visit Jennifer, Jennifer would all of a sudden become sluggish, pale, listless. She would vomit. And they said it was almost like clockwork. [00:13:19] Speaker 1: Now the same pattern was allegedly repeating itself at a different hospital. [00:13:25] Speaker 4: When this investigation began in 1995, she was in critical condition in the intensive care unit with 104, 105 degree fever. I just figured something had to be done, no matter how long it took. [00:13:38] Speaker 1: From the beginning, the investigators knew that at the heart of the case was one disturbing question. Why would a loving mother try to make her daughter ill? The answer, it seemed, was already in the files. Back in '91, officials at Coral Springs Medical Center had asked Eli Neuberger and Authority on Child Abuse to review the case. [00:14:04] Speaker 8: In my view, this kid had normal child illnesses, which were treated appropriately early on. But all of the serious illnesses that this girl had derived from the mother's actions. [00:14:22] Speaker 1: Kathy Bush, he concluded, suffered from Mutchhausen Syndrome by proxy, a rare psychological disorder in which a parent deliberately makes a child ill because the parent craves attention. [00:14:35] Speaker 8: Mutchhausen Syndrome by proxy is hard to get your head around. But in a certain number of these cases, and this has got to be one of them, it's not rocket science to put two and two together. [00:14:50] Speaker 1: After reporting his findings in 1991, Neuberger assumed that action would be taken against Kathy Bush and put the case out of his mind. Five years later, he got a call from Dennis Neiswander. [00:15:04] Speaker 8: I was stunned to hear when the prosecutor called that by then there had been 39 surgeries, some 200 hospitalizations, because back in 1991, it was so apparent. [00:15:19] Speaker 1: Neuberger's alarm was echoed by other experts the investigators contacted. Now convinced that Jennifer was in imminent danger, they sought the go-ahead to remove her from the house, just as they would do in a typical child abuse case. But this was not a typical case, and Kathy Bush was no ordinary mom. The investigators were told that they were not to intervene unless their case was strong enough to put the well-connected mother behind bars. [00:15:50] Speaker 4: I mean, we have to understand that Kathy Bush knew a lot of politicians, senators, because of the health care crusade she was on. You know, you don't want to take a swing at the big bully on the block unless you're sure he's going to stay down. [00:16:04] Speaker 1: Over the course of the next year, the investigators painstakingly pieced together the puzzle of Jennifer Bush's medical history. What emerged, they believe, was a compelling portrait of child abuse, [00:16:18] Speaker 4: masked as maternal care. We're talking about numerous obscure medical conditions, coupled with mysterious feeding pump malfunctions, switched urine samples, levels of drugs in the system that physically could not have been there without tampering. We were looking at so many unusual factors converging at this one point, and they were always converging to Kathy Bush. [00:16:44] Speaker 1: To Kathy Bush and her family, however, the state's inquiry seemed more like a witch hunt than an investigation. [00:16:52] Kathy Bush: They made a commitment, and their goal was to punish me. Their goal was never to protect Jennifer. [00:16:59] Speaker 1: At first, the family cooperated fully, giving authorities complete access to Jennifer's records. But over time, they grew more and more convinced that the state was out to get them, and that Kathy had been targeted simply for being a concerned and outspoken mother. In March 1996, Kathy testified at a Florida Senate hearing on family rights, criticizing state agencies as intrusive and overzealous. [00:17:28] Speaker 10: We are totally disgusted and outraged with the Department of HRS and their failure to recognize what has been the appropriate level of care for Jennifer. [00:17:38] Kathy Bush: When I went and testified against them in front of the media, in front of the Senate subcommittee, for them that was the last straw. It was, we're going to shut this woman up one way or another. And they knew the best way to get to me was to get to Jennifer. [00:17:55] Speaker 1: A month later, around 10:30 a.m., Kathy Bush got a call at work. Jennifer, she was told, had been taken from her second-grade classroom that morning and was now in state custody. [00:18:09] Speaker 6: I rushed over to the school to see if she was still there. To see if it was true, and she was already gone. [00:18:18] Speaker 1: Three hours later, Kathy appeared with her husband at the Broward County Courthouse, where she was arrested for child abuse. Kathy Bush was released on bond the next morning, but was not permitted contact with her daughter. Jennifer, meanwhile, was sent to a hospital in Cincinnati, where she made a remarkably swift recovery. To Kathy Bush and her lawyers, this only showed that recent medical procedures had paid off. To prosecutors, however, Jennifer's recovery was proof that this was a Munchausen by proxy case. But whether this disturbing theory would be heard by a jury was another story. On April 15, 1996, 38-year-old Kathy Bush was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and charged with child abuse. After a year-long investigation, authorities had concluded that the woman long portrayed as a model mom had in fact been deliberately keeping her daughter Jennifer ill for years. [00:19:21] Speaker 4: To the rest of the world, she probably is one of the nicest, sweetest ladies you would ever want to meet. But inside that exterior was this cold and calculated woman that had some sort of deep-seated need that could only be met by harming her child. [00:19:37] Speaker 1: That afternoon, prosecutor Dennis Neiswander revealed to the press for the first time the state's theory that Kathy Bush had a rare psychological disorder known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. [00:19:50] Speaker 4: Others in general that have this disorder are frequently able to dupe entire medical communities, including some of the top medical minds in the country. [00:20:00] Speaker 1: The allegations were stunning and to some justified the state's dramatic action. [00:20:07] Speaker 7: All of a sudden, they swooped in at school while Jennifer was in her class, picked her up, took her into state custody. And I think people's perception is the government doesn't just go in and take people's children. [00:20:19] Speaker 1: Others rallied around Kathy Bush, who vehemently protested her innocence. [00:20:24] Kathy Bush: I never, ever abused Jennifer in any way, shape or form, physically, medically, or emotionally. [00:20:33] Speaker 7: I think a lot of people want to give Kathy Bush the benefit of the doubt. How many parents have brought their child to the emergency room with something bizarre that the doctor can't get to the bottom of? Are they all going to get charged with child abuse? [00:20:45] Speaker 1: It would take a full three years for Kathy Bush to come to trial. During that time, she remained out on bond, living at home with her husband Craig and their two sons. She was allowed only brief contact with Jennifer, who had made a complete recovery almost immediately after being taken into state custody and was now living in foster care. Meanwhile, as the trial approached, Judge Victor Tobin held a series of hearings to determine whether or not prosecutors could present evidence of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. From the start, the state had viewed Kathy Bush as a textbook case of the rare disorder. Only through this lens, they believed, could a skeptical jury understand how a mother's love could warp so horribly. [00:21:36] Speaker 3: It's difficult. How are they going to believe that a woman is purposely hurting her child just for a little attention? [00:21:43] Speaker 4: You've got to convince a jury that a wonderful person could be capable of such a monstrous act. [00:21:49] Speaker 1: Prosecutors argued that the cold facts of Jennifer Bush's medical history told only part of the story, that the abuse she suffered could not be separated from her mother's twisted psyche. [00:22:02] Speaker 4: We were simply saying that we wanted to give the jury a motive, and we think all of her bizarre behavior was relevant to that motive. [00:22:11] Speaker 1: The state painted a picture of a mother who thrived on her daughter's illnesses in ways consistent with a diagnosis of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. First, there was the attention she seemed to crave from doctors and nurses. [00:22:26] Speaker 8: There is a kind of eager interest to insinuate yourself into the medical community, to befriend doctors, to speak their language, to get involved in the excitement of giving care. [00:22:38] Speaker 4: They said she almost seemed euphoric in time of crisis, that when Jennifer was at her peak of critical illness and getting ready to be admitted to intensive care, Kathy Bush was beaming. [00:22:51] Speaker 1: Then there were the unusual problems with Jennifer's care, which prosecutors said consistently seemed to occur the day before she was scheduled to be discharged. Finally, prosecutors contended that Kathy Bush fed her need for attention by playing to the media, another behavior consistent with Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. In a deposition, one nurse described Kathy as treating her daughter like a prop for the press. [00:23:19] Speaker 4: Someone said, "Oh, Kathy, there's a news crew coming up to do a story on Jennifer." And Kathy said, "Tell them not to come up yet. Hold them off." She grabs Jennifer, throws her in her bed, takes her shirt off, hooks up all the tubes, and makes her look as sick as humanly possible, and then says, "Okay, now you can come in." [00:23:38] Speaker 1: In response, Kathy Bush's lawyers argued that the case for Munchausen Syndrome by proxy was anything but clear. [00:23:47] Speaker 11: Munchausen Syndrome by proxy means so many different things to different people and the way it can be interpreted. [00:23:55] Speaker 1: The disorder had only been recognized in the psychiatric literature for 20 years. Its symptoms are controversial. Its causes a mystery, as even the state's experts acknowledge. [00:24:08] Speaker 8: We really don't know what it is that motivates parents to do these things to children. We do know that there's no single personality type. [00:24:21] Speaker 1: The defense pointed out that Kathy Bush had never been formally diagnosed with the disorder. [00:24:27] Kathy Bush: I don't believe Munchausen Syndrome by proxy exists. I believe mothers harm their children. Fathers harm their children. I believe nurses harm children. But I don't believe because you're a loving parent who advocates for your child that you should be labeled or branded. [00:24:45] Speaker 4: I agree with Kathy Bush's opinion that they shouldn't pick on me because I'm too concerned with my child. But, you know, unfortunately some of her behavior transcended the treatment of her child. [00:24:58] Speaker 1: In the end, Judge Tobin ruled that Kathy Bush's public behavior was irrelevant to the case. And that the state could only use the facts of Jennifer's medical history to prove her mother abused her. The judge's decision was a blow to the prosecution. In effect, it meant that the story they had now spent five years constructing, the sickening spiral of a Munchausen by proxy mom, would never reach a jury. The challenge prosecutors now faced was to convince a jury without eyewitnesses or a motive that Jennifer's illnesses were caused by a woman who appeared to be a loving mother. On July 20, 1999, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the trial of Kathy Bush finally began, three years after she was arrested for child abuse. The press dubbed it the case of the Munchausen syndrome by proxy mom. But the jury would hear a much less sensational story. Judge Victor Tobin had ruled that the state could not use the rare and controversial disorder to explain Kathy Bush's behavior. [00:26:12] Speaker 7: He wanted, I think, for people to be very clear on what they had to prove. But I think he felt that the charge was child abuse and they had to prove child abuse, not Munchausen syndrome by proxy. [00:26:25] Speaker 12: Okay, doctor directly forward, sir. [00:26:27] Speaker 1: Prosecutors began with the testimony of nurses and doctors who had treated Jennifer, a dozen in all. They described a pattern of bizarre circumstances that seemed to coincide with Kathy Bush's presence. Equipment that mysteriously malfunctioned. Tubes that were tampered with. Symptoms that only the mother saw. [00:26:50] Speaker 7: She did seem to be the only constant factor. Craig was at work at times when things happened. The boys were at school. There were different nurses on duty. There were different doctors responsible for the case. But Kathy always was around. [00:27:04] Speaker 1: According to nurse Jackie Edwards, in the words, these incidents seemed to occur just before Jennifer was set to be discharged. [00:27:13] Speaker 13: Mrs. Bush would come out and say she can't go home. She's just had a seizure. She just had a seizure in the room. And so we did observe the seizure. But then we'd also have to report it to the physician, which then the discharges would be canceled. [00:27:29] Speaker 1: Prosecutors then focused on what they considered to be the most egregious of Jennifer's episodes. In 1990, when she was just three, a doctor at Coral Springs Medical Center put her on a potent anti-seizure medication called Tegretol, which at extremely high doses, has been known to cause the seizures it's intended to prevent. Soon after, the doctor noticed that the levels of the drug in Jennifer's blood had inexplicably begun to spike upward. [00:28:02] Speaker 4: So the doctor put a hold on the Tegretol, and the significance of that is when the doctor put a hold on Tegretol, not only did that mean the nurses aren't allowed to give it anymore, but it wasn't even being sent up from the pharmacy. [00:28:16] Speaker 1: Yet Kathy still had access to the medication through Jennifer's home care. [00:28:21] Speaker 7: There were nurses who worked in the home who said there were bottles and bottles and bottles of Tegretol stored up in the house. [00:28:29] Speaker 1: For three weeks after the hold, Jennifer's Tegretol levels continued to surge into the toxic range. [00:28:36] Speaker 4: And that only left us with two possible scenarios to consider. And that was either one, Kathy Bush was giving that medication, or two, a nurse was intentionally over administering the medication to the child. And the only one that had motive to do that was Kathy Bush. [00:28:55] Speaker 1: The defense argued that on a few occasions, Jennifer's Tegretol levels went up even when Kathy wasn't around. But they couldn't explain why the drug was even in the girl's system at all. [00:29:08] Speaker 7: I think the issue with Tegretol was very big in the trial. I think a lot of the jurors found this to be very suspicious. [00:29:14] Speaker 1: To describe another harrowing chapter in Jennifer's medical history, prosecutors called Dr. Alfredo Marciano, an infectious disease specialist at Hollywood Memorial Hospital. When the girl was seven, Marciano diagnosed her with an extremely rare bacterial infection called polymicrobial sepsis, an infection so rare that he believed it had to have been introduced from an outside source. [00:29:40] Speaker 14: How she survived an infection with a supposed deficient immune system, an infection of this magnitude, I have no scientific or logical explanation. [00:29:53] Speaker 4: Some of the experts we consulted with say they've gone their whole career and maybe have seen one or two infections of that sort treating thousands of children in their career, yet Jennifer had numerous herself. [00:30:06] Speaker 1: The state's star witness was the Harvard child abuse expert who had been consulted during both investigations, Dr. Eli Neuberger. Neuberger led the jury step by step through Jennifer's medical history. [00:30:20] Speaker 8: I've talked about the laboratory values and the various procedures and what suggested that these were assaults, not incidents of illness. [00:30:29] Speaker 15: In my opinion, all this illness was induced or caused. It all was done to this girl. [00:30:41] Speaker 7: I think that Eli Neuberger was probably one of the most compelling witnesses because he was the one who tied everything together for the state. [00:30:49] Speaker 1: But perhaps the state's most persuasive testimony came from Dr. Colin Rudolph, the specialist from Cincinnati, who treated Jennifer immediately after she was removed from her family. Rudolph testified that Jennifer showed no signs of the illnesses that had plagued her almost her entire life. [00:31:09] Speaker 16: Jennifer was totally well while she was in our hospital. She had no evidence of gastrointestinal disorders. She had no seizures, she had no asthma, she had no significant problems. [00:31:23] Speaker 4: So that's the child's entire medical history and all the horrible suffering she was doing. It was merely coincidence that she decided to get better, go from death's bed to a healthy child in basically 24 hours. [00:31:40] Speaker 1: Six weeks into the trial, attorney Robert Buschel began presenting the defense's case. Buschel claimed that Jennifer's illnesses were genuine. It was the allegations of abuse, he said, that were manufactured, the product of rumor, speculation, and lies. [00:31:58] Speaker 11: The fault with the prosecutor's case is that it stamped scientific approval to gossip. [00:32:04] Speaker 7: The defense's strategy was to go in saying, this is hocus pocus. You don't have a single person to see her do anything. You don't have a single person who can say she was definitely abusing the child. [00:32:17] Speaker 1: Buschel argued that nurses from two different hospitals had conspired with state authorities to frame his client. [00:32:25] Speaker 11: Kathy Bushel was an advocate for health care for children, and she undertook that cause. [00:32:34] Speaker 4: And her thanks was this criminal charge. In order to believe that theory, you're going to have to believe they're willing to risk Jennifer Bush's life just to get back at Kathy Bush. [00:32:45] Speaker 1: Throughout the trial, Buschel had hammered away at the state's witnesses, especially the nurses, who had often failed to properly document what they saw, out of fear, they said, of Kathy Bush's powerful connections. [00:32:59] Speaker 11: Ma'am, you testified, tell me if I'm correct, on May 25, 1990, was the day you saw Mrs. Bush inject something into Jennifer Bush's mouth? [00:33:08] Speaker 17: Yes. [00:33:09] Speaker 11: Did you chart it? Yes or no? [00:33:11] Speaker 17: I did not chart that I observed Kathy giving something or doing something orally to Jenny. [00:33:20] Speaker 1: Now, Buschel called his own witnesses, doctors and nurses who had treated Jennifer and seen no signs of abuse. [00:33:27] Speaker 11: So your testimony is that Jennifer Bush was eating solid foods in 1995 while she was living with the Bush family, correct? Yes. [00:33:35] Speaker 1: They testified that Kathy Bush was a devoted mom who was only trying to get the best possible care for her gravely ill daughter. Kathy's oldest son, 20-year-old Jason, then took the stand and offered an unequivocal defense of his mother. [00:33:54] Speaker 11: Describe your relationship that your mother had with Jennifer. [00:33:58] Speaker 5: Well, they were best friends. They did anything and everything together. [00:34:03] Speaker 11: Is there anyone that you would allow to hurt your sister? [00:34:08] Speaker 18: Never. [00:34:10] Speaker 11: Do you have any evidence that your mother intentionally hurt Jennifer Bush? [00:34:14] Speaker 5: None whatsoever. [00:34:16] Speaker 1: The defense was now left with a final decision to make. At one time, Kathy Bush had been an effective public advocate for her daughter. Could she now be an advocate in her own defense? [00:34:29] Speaker 11: Kathy Bush certainly has a way about her persuasiveness. In fact, the state was saying that's why she got away with it for so long is because she's just charming and persuasive. [00:34:41] Speaker 1: Yet, Buchel knew if she took the stand, it would open the door for the state to raise the specter of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. [00:34:50] Speaker 11: It was going so well in our opinion. And the whole explanation of things that we successfully were able to keep out would have come in through the questioning process. [00:35:06] Speaker 1: In the end, the defense decided it was not worth the risk. The case went to the jury without Kathy Bush's voice ever being heard. October 7th, 1999. At the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 42-year-old Kathy Bush waited as a jury decided her fate. It had taken her story a decade to reach this point. But throughout, the question had always been the same. Did Kathy Bush intentionally make her daughter Jennifer ill? After deliberating for less than seven hours, the jury decided the answer was yes. They found Kathy Bush guilty of aggravated child abuse. The verdict left Bush and her family in tears. [00:35:53] Speaker 11: When that guilty verdict came down, it was the destruction in full of the family. [00:36:01] Speaker 6: Don't touch the camera. They've broken up a beautiful family. I haven't seen my daughter since May. May of this year, I haven't seen my daughter. [00:36:11] Speaker 7: I talked to some of the jurors afterwards, and what they said was that they really felt that although there was no hard, fast, physical evidence, there was a lot of circumstantial stuff. And they described it as, you know, push brick on brick, and it adds up to a wall. [00:36:26] Speaker 1: At her sentencing hearing three months later, Kathy Bush stood before Judge Victor Tobin and declared her innocence. [00:36:33] Kathy Bush: I never harmed my daughter physically, emotionally, psychologically, or medically. I love Jennifer with all my heart and all my soul. [00:36:44] Speaker 1: But the judge was not swayed. He sentenced Bush to five years in prison and five years probation. [00:36:52] Speaker 19: In my mind, the crime here was horrendous, but for the grace of modern medicine, I don't believe Jennifer Bush would be here today. [00:37:01] Speaker 1: Bush's defense team immediately began preparing her appeal. Free on a pallet bond, she spent time at home with her husband Craig and their two sons. In October 2001, she relinquished her parental rights to Jennifer, rather than face another drawn-out legal battle. The deal she struck with the state barred her from any contact with her daughter. But it did allow Craig and the boys supervised visits with Jennifer twice a year. [00:37:31] Kathy Bush: Voluntarily, terminating my parental rights to Jennifer was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But because I love her so much, and I want her to be able to go on with her life, and I want her to have a meaningful relationship with her dad and her brothers, I agreed to do it. [00:37:53] Speaker 7: I think Kathy Bush's decision to give up her rights was probably based on a very practical sense that she was going to lose them anyway, and also trying to do the best thing for the rest of her family. [00:38:07] Speaker 1: Kathy Bush's appeal was denied in the spring of 2002. She was ordered to appear at the Broward County Courthouse no later than June 7th for a final hearing. Less than three weeks before that deadline, she told American Justice it was her family's future, not her own, that worried her. [00:38:27] Kathy Bush: I'm not scared for myself. I know that I can handle whatever comes my way. I'm just afraid for my family. [00:38:36] Speaker 1: A family she insisted that the state had conspired to destroy. [00:38:41] Kathy Bush: They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. The state attorney's office, the attorney general office, the Department of Children and Families pulled all of their resources together to get this conviction. They know darn well I never harmed Jennifer. [00:38:58] Speaker 11: She accepts the consequences of the guilty verdict, but she will never, ever admit that she hurt Jennifer. She would do life in prison before she would admit that. [00:39:10] Speaker 1: But at the hearing on June 7th, Kathy's denials were dramatically contradicted. Before a hushed courtroom, a caseworker from the Florida Department of Children and Families read a statement on Jennifer Bush's behalf, in which the teenager publicly expressed her views for the first time. [00:39:29] Speaker 20: Your Honor, I would like to share some thoughts about my experiences over the past 15 years of my life. The first thought I would like to share with you is the treatment from my mother, Kathy Bush. When I think of my mom these days, I get very angry inside. I think back to the times when I was little, sick in the hospital, not knowing what to do. When I first got taken away, when I was eight years old, I thought it was something I did wrong, not knowing it was something worse. I thought I was the one being punished instead of my mother. It's almost been seven years, and I've been having to live a whole bunch of grief, and she's pretty much having a normal life. [00:40:06] Speaker 7: very little forgiveness for her mother. She clearly believes that her mother did this to her, and perhaps that's the most compelling thing when it comes down to it, that the daughter feels that the mother did this. [00:40:16] Speaker 1: The judge agreed and ordered Kathy Bush to begin serving her sentence immediately. The 44-year-old mom was handcuffed, fingerprinted, and led away from the courthouse. Kathy Bush was sent to the Gadsden Correctional Facility in Quincy, Florida. In a series of letters, she told American Justice that she was staying busy, leading Bible study classes, teaching literacy, and even working an off-site job as a secretary. But she added, quote, "When you're innocent and sent to prison, there's not a lot of rehabilitation to be done." Meanwhile, her husband and two sons remain unwavering in their support. [00:41:02] Speaker 5: She never did anything to hurt me. When her firstborn never did anything to hurt my brother, being the second, she surely wouldn't do anything to hurt my sister. And I just, I'll believe my mom until the day I die. [00:41:17] Speaker 1: For those who worked to put Kathy Bush behind bars, questions still linger. How did she fool the doctors? Did her husband know it was happening? And most chillingly, what could drive a loving mother to do what she did? But in the end, they remained convinced of two things. Kathy Bush had to be stopped. And her daughter's life hung in the balance. [00:41:41] Speaker 4: In this case, we actually had a chance to save someone's life. You know, instead of just picking up pieces later, there's actually a life to be saved in the process. And that gave it a whole new motivating force. [00:41:54] Speaker 3: I believe that Kathy Bush, deep in her heart, does love her daughter. But what she was doing was not the way you show the love. [00:42:02] Speaker 21: The crime itself was truly an ugly crime. A young woman brutally murdered. [00:42:10] Speaker 1: But the case was troubled from the beginning. [00:42:13] Speaker 12: I determined that the police department and the prosecutor's office had done a very poor job of investigation. [00:42:20] Speaker 22: If they can't prove it, he can't be convicted. [00:42:24] Speaker 23: And he wasn't. The case was over, done, we didn't even get a chance to give our verdicts. [00:42:30] Speaker 24: But the crime of justice was not served because they didn't get the killer. [00:42:58] Speaker 1: Akron, Ohio. Once called the rubber capital of the world for the companies like Goodyear and Firestone that have made it their home. Tough times have scarred the city and hit some parts of town especially hard. In May 1999, 18-year-old Hannah Hill was living with her parents on Akron's depressed southwest side. Jennifer Edwards was her best friend. [00:43:26] Speaker 25: Hannah was very, very happy about graduating high school and getting out on her own. And she couldn't wait to start college, you know, make a life for herself. [00:43:36] Speaker 1: Hannah was the only daughter of a truck driver and a housewife. Once crowned winter queen by high school classmates, she was now working as a secretary and had just bought herself a new car. Like any teenager, she spent a lot of time with friends. [00:43:53] Speaker 25: She would just come over to my house and we'd sit there and watch movies, play on the computer, talk. But on the weekends we went out a lot. [00:44:01] Speaker 1: Hill also had a boyfriend, 19-year-old Brad Oborn, with whom she had lived briefly before moving back in with her parents. Friends said they had a troubled relationship and that Oborn was at times physically abusive. Early in the evening of Wednesday, May 19, Hill came home from work and changed into her pajamas. She planned to stay in for the night. [00:44:33] Speaker 25: Hannah called me about 9:00. I said, well, what are you going to do tonight? And she said, well, I'm just going to stay home and go to sleep. [00:44:39] Speaker 1: But Hannah did not stay in. Instead, she made a few phone calls and got dressed again. She told her mother, Kimberly, that she was going out. It was about 10:30 p.m. Veteran reporter Keith McKnight covered the Hill story for the Akron Beacon Journal and co-authored an eight-part series on the case. [00:45:03] Speaker 24: Her mother said that Hannah appeared to be disturbed, she appeared to be bothered. She left the house and said she would see her later. [00:45:13] Speaker 1: When Hannah didn't come home the following morning, her parents thought she might have spent the night with a friend. But then they found out she hadn't shown up for work. [00:45:25] Speaker 25: I knew something was wrong then. When nobody heard from her, Hannah just wasn't the type of person to ditch a job. [00:45:37] Speaker 1: That evening, May 20th, Kimberly Hill filed a missing persons report with the Akron Police Department. The report included a description of Hannah's car, a 1996 geo-prism. The police took no immediate action on the Hill report for reasons that remain unclear. The department declined to comment on the case for American justice. Police would later point out that people Hannah's age often left home for a few days, so they had no reason to suspect foul play. Jennifer Edwards, however, did not believe her friend would run away without telling anyone. [00:46:21] Speaker 25: They probably had a pager like 20 times within the two days, you know, leaving voicemails saying something's wrong or something happened, you know, and you need help, come home and we'll help you. [00:46:33] Speaker 1: Concerned, Edwards spoke with several people to find out if they had seen Hill, including Hill's boyfriend, Brad O'Bourne. [00:46:42] Speaker 25: She was like, Burke, can she be, do you know anything? Did she say anything to you? Said no. [00:46:49] Speaker 1: Edwards also called a mutual friend, 20-year-old Denny Ross. [00:46:55] Speaker 25: I said, Denny, Hannah's missing. Nobody can find her. Nobody knows where she is. Have you seen her? He said, no, I haven't seen her. [00:47:07] Speaker 1: Two days after Hill's disappearance, police received a call about an abandoned geo-prism parked on Kane Road, nine miles from where Hannah lived. An Akron police officer was dispatched and gave the car a parking ticket. Because Hill's missing persons report had not been entered into the police computer system, he did not know that it was Hannah Hill's car. [00:47:36] Speaker 24: So he wasn't particularly alerted to the fact that this was the car of a missing person. It was simply a car that was parked illegally. The next day, Brad O'Bourne visited the police. Apparently, Brad went to the police department, trying to get them to find his missing girlfriend. And they saw at that point that he had scratch marks on him. [00:48:02] Speaker 1: Brad O'Bourne said that Hannah had scratched him during an argument they had shortly before she disappeared. Police were suspicious, but without any evidence, they weren't able to detain him. Soon after, they released information on the case to local media, seeking leads. Responding to the news coverage, a number of people called the police to report that Hannah Hill's car was parked on Kane Road. At least two were told to call back the next day. Even though they told police they were certain it was the missing girl's car. Officers were finally dispatched the following morning, May 26th, a full week after Hannah's disappearance. At about 7:30 a.m., the officers arrived at Kane Road. When they were finally able to get the car's trunk open, they made a gruesome discovery. The body of Hannah Hill. [00:49:04] Speaker 26: Hannah Hill was naked from the waist down, with her sweater and her bra pulled up over her breasts. She had bruises on her back, bruises on her face, you know, abrasions and contusions all about her nose. And it looks like she really got beat up pretty good. [00:49:20] Speaker 1: Jennifer Edwards found out what happened to her friend a few hours later. [00:49:24] Speaker 25: On the news, it said it might possibly be her body. You know, but when they said that, you know, I knew, I mean, who else's body is going to be in the trunk of Hannah's car. I just broke down. I mean, I was hysterical. I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it whatsoever. [00:49:41] Speaker 1: Akron residents were shocked that police had allowed Hill's body to go undiscovered for so long. [00:49:48] Speaker 27: Somebody was dragging their feet. Days later, they come out here and finally check it out, find her in the trunk. [00:49:55] Speaker 28: Somebody could have been here last week and had this taken care of, and maybe she wasn't dead. I don't know. That's what's so sad. [00:50:03] Speaker 1: Anxious to see this case closed, the Akron police assigned all available officers to the investigation. [00:50:11] Speaker 24: They are under a bit of pressure here because of the public relations aspect of this case. They want to find who did this and they want to prosecute him and they want to get him now. No delays. [00:50:32] Speaker 1: On May 26th, 1999, one week after she disappeared, 18-year-old Hannah Hill was found dead in the trunk of her car in Akron, Ohio. The case had become an embarrassment for Akron police, who had ignored repeated calls to check on the vehicle. [00:50:51] Speaker 24: When they found the body, of course, there was a great controversy because she had been there on the street for about a week. [00:50:58] Speaker 1: An autopsy conducted hours after Hill's body was discovered revealed that she had been strangled. A white residue was found on her lip and what appeared to be a bite mark found on her arm. According to the coroner's report, she had had sex shortly before her death. To the prosecutors, the beating she had received and the fact she had been posed, with her legs spread open and her blouse pulled up over her breasts, indicated that she had been raped. [00:51:38] Speaker 26: We had a girl who was badly beat up, who was bruised in the back and bruised in the face. So if you have sex and you have a beating that eventually leads to a death, that is how you get the rape. [00:51:51] Speaker 1: At first, police had one suspect, Hill's boyfriend, 19-year-old Brad Oborn. And his friends told police that Oborn had physically abused her. [00:52:04] Speaker 26: You know, early on, if there's ever a case where a female is killed, the first suspect is always the husband, the boyfriend, you know, the fiancee, whoever. [00:52:13] Speaker 1: Though police have never made public the details of the interviews they reportedly conducted with Brad Oborn the day Hill's body was found, one thing is certain: he quickly ceased to be their prime suspect. Instead, for reasons that still remain unclear, police turned their attention elsewhere. By that evening, detectives had another suspect. A young man Hill had called the night she disappeared. 20-year-old Denny Ross. Hannah Hill wasn't a close friend of Ross's, but she had frequently been to parties at his apartment. [00:52:45] Speaker 25: Denny's house was the party house. Because there was no adults, he had his own place, and you could do anything you wanted. Seriously, you could do anything. It didn't matter. And Benny didn't care. [00:52:57] Speaker 1: Alan Ross, Denny's father, says his son was just like a lot of 20-year-olds. [00:53:02] Speaker 29: He was young, immature, having fun, and hadn't settled down yet. And not, you know, not thinking about the future, just thinking about the present. [00:53:14] Speaker 1: Ross was known for his sense of humor, and for being a ladies' man. Hannah Hill told Jennifer Edwards that she didn't entirely trust him. [00:53:24] Speaker 25: She told me that Denny was a real nice guy, but she told me to watch out for him, too. She said he's aggressive. Like, if he wants something, he'll try and go after it until he gets it. [00:53:35] Speaker 1: Ross was no stranger to the Akron Police Department. In February, he had sold $525 worth of cocaine to police informants. Just two days prior to Hill's disappearance, he pled guilty to cocaine trafficking and received two years probation. The evening of May 26th, police went to see Denny Ross at his second-story apartment. [00:54:07] Speaker 26: They simply went out there because they knew that they had talked on the night that she disappeared, and they were hoping he could, you know, help them out a little bit, provide them with some kind of answers or, you know, any kind of information. [00:54:18] Speaker 1: The officers noted that Ross' arm was in a cast. He said it had been broken in a fight. Contrary to what he had told friends during the week Hannah was missing, Ross informed investigators that Hill had come to his apartment at about 11 p.m. the night she disappeared. In this audio-taped interview, Ross told police that Hannah was upset about her relationship with her boyfriend, Brad O'Born. Then Ross told police that he and Hannah had, quote, "kissed and stuff." [00:55:04] Speaker 18: He said she left after midnight. [00:55:07] Speaker 1: The fact that Ross had not come forward with this information earlier made investigators suspicious. [00:55:17] Speaker 26: I guess the big concern is if everybody in the world is looking for this girl, and if this girl is a friend of yours, why have you never said anything to anyone? Why have you never called the police and said, "Well, that girl you're looking for, let me try to help you out." [00:55:33] Speaker 1: Late that night, police got a judge out of bed to secure an immediate search warrant for Ross' apartment. In the early morning hours of May 27th, at least 15 officers arrived for the search. As seen in this police videotape, detectives found what appeared to be spots of blood on the walls. [00:55:55] Speaker 26: It was just throughout the apartment, on the shades, on the walls, I want to say on his sheets, blood all over the place. [00:56:03] Speaker 1: Then, outside the building, underneath one of Ross' windows, an officer spotted a garbage bag lying in the bushes. [00:56:11] Speaker 26: One of the detectives actually went back, I think, to have a cigarette and saw what looked like the shape of a shoe that was sticking out. [00:56:20] Speaker 1: The garbage bag contained a pair of women's pants, covered in blood and feces. A purse, panties, and shoes were also found, and quickly identified as the clothes worn by Hannah Hill the night she disappeared. It was the break in the case that police had desperately hoped for. Less than 24 hours after the discovery of Hannah Hill's body, Denny Ross was arrested and charged with aggravated murder, rape, and other felonies. At a press conference, the Hill family praised the police for their work. [00:56:57] Speaker 27: I'm thankful that they found my daughter, and I'm thankful they have found who was responsible for it. [00:57:08] Speaker 1: Authorities were confident they had found the man who killed Hannah Hill. Reporter Phil Trexler covered this story for the Akron Beacon Journal. [00:57:19] Speaker 30: The police and the prosecutors beat their chests, saying that we may have screwed up in finding Hannah's body, but we're sure we have her killer. [00:57:31] Speaker 1: While authorities pursued their case, Alan Ross, Denny's father, prepared to fight for his son. [00:57:39] Speaker 29: You know, Denny has maintained his innocence from day one. Never once did I think that, you know, Denny did it. [00:57:48] Speaker 1: Ross quickly assembled a team of defense lawyers, led by attorney David Chesnoff. The defense team began examining the evidence that the state planned to present a trial. In addition to the bag of Hill's clothing, DNA tests confirmed that the semen found on Hill's underwear was that of Denny Ross. The white substance found on her mouth seemed to correspond to the cast Ross was wearing. And the mark on her arm appeared to match his teeth. But as the defense dug deeper into the state's case, they began to find holes they felt they could exploit. [00:58:37] Speaker 12: I determined that the police department and the prosecutor's office had done a very poor job, in my opinion, of investigation. [00:58:45] Speaker 1: As a result, the defense would build their case around what they claimed was a rush to judgment by the state. [00:58:52] Speaker 12: They believed that they were going to nail the guy who was last with her. And that was, that was the end of the story. [00:59:03] Speaker 1: In May 1999, in Akron, Ohio, 20-year-old Denny Ross was charged with the murder of Hannah Hill. Because prosecutors believed Ross had also raped Hill, they charged him with aggravated murder, a capital crime. Hill's best friend, Jennifer Edwards, was convinced of Ross's guilt. [00:59:26] Speaker 25: I believe that Denny Ross is responsible for Hannah's death. I don't know if he did it alone or he had help, but I believe Denny did kill Hannah. [00:59:37] Speaker 1: Ross's arrest had come just 24 hours after the discovery of Hannah Hill's body. The defense planned to argue that in their haste to arrest someone for Hill's murder, police and prosecutors failed to thoroughly investigate other suspects or consider alternate scenarios. [00:59:56] Speaker 21: They certainly settled on one suspect very early on in the investigation, to the exclusion of doing more thorough investigation of other potential suspects. [01:00:09] Speaker 1: They pointed out that just hours after Hill's body was found, the police dismissed the man who had been their prime suspect, Hill's 19-year-old boyfriend, Brad Oborn. According to prosecutor John Greven, however, the reason was simple. [01:00:26] Speaker 26: There was nothing, there was no evidence that pointed toward him. There's a lot of innuendo. Well, geez, you know, they had a rough relationship. Well, that's not really evidence. [01:00:38] Speaker 1: In addition, the prosecution would later report that Oborn had passed a polygraph test. For investigators, further indication that he was not involved. But the defense felt there were additional leads that investigators overlooked. [01:00:53] Speaker 24: Denny Ross's apartment was adjacent to an adult bookstore. And presumably, there could have been some mischief there as well. [01:01:02] Speaker 1: Also, fast food wrappers were found in Hill's car, but police never checked out local restaurants for leads. Even the evidence the state did have was proving to be flawed. Despite the large number of blood stains found in Ross's apartment, none of them could be traced back to Hannah Hill. [01:01:24] Speaker 30: Some of it was Denny Ross's, it was unknown. It's unclear as to why there was so much blood in that apartment, but none of it was Hannah's. [01:01:32] Speaker 1: Without blood evidence placing Hill in Ross's apartment, the state had no way to prove she had been killed there. They also had no physical evidence placing Denny Ross in the car where Hill's body had been found, and no hair or fiber evidence from Ross on Hill's corpse. To some observers, the state's case didn't seem logical. [01:02:02] Speaker 24: Now you have a man with a broken left hand living in a second floor apartment, who takes the corpse, drags it down the stairs, deposits it in this vehicle of hers, drove it a mile and a half away, and then, for God knows what reason, removed her brown corduroy pants and her panties, with feces on them, puts it in the bag, and takes it home with him, where he stores it for eight days. I have never heard a reasonable explanation of this. [01:02:36] Speaker 26: I think everybody involved knew that this was a tough one, because we really didn't have any direct evidence. What we had were pieces of circumstantial evidence, and our feeling was that if we could put enough of those in there, and tie it together, that would be enough to convict them. [01:02:53] Speaker 1: Boss's trial began on October 17, 2000. You may proceed with opening. In prosecutor Brian Loprinzi's opening statement, he said that the state would use circumstantial evidence to prove that Denny Ross raped, beat, and strangled Hannah Hill to death. [01:03:11] Speaker 31: I'm sure you will agree that only one man put a sexually assaulted, beaten, and killed Hannah Hill. And that man is sitting right there, Denny Ross. [01:03:18] Speaker 23: What the opening statements of prosecution definitely looked like they had all this evidence all lined up that would point joking to Denny Ross. [01:03:30] Speaker 32: They did not have, they said, the smoking gun. But they did have circumstantial evidence, and it was going to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of those crimes. [01:03:41] Speaker 1: In his opening statements, defense attorney David Chesnoff claimed that investigators had ignored other suspects in their haste to make an arrest. He argued that the state simply would not be able to prove its case. [01:03:57] Speaker 18: The evidence can show that Denny Ross did not commit a rape, and if there's no rape, there's no motive, and if there's no motive, there's no murder. [01:04:08] Speaker 1: As one of their first witnesses, the state called Hannah Hill's best friend, Jennifer Edwards. He sat there and looked me straight in my eyes. [01:04:18] Speaker 25: I did not see any remorse, any sorry, anything in that boy's eyes at all. [01:04:25] Speaker 1: And during those times... Edwards testified that Ross had lied to her repeatedly during the week Hill was missing, denying that Hannah had been in his apartment the night she disappeared. [01:04:36] Speaker 30: It laid the groundwork, I think, for a good prosecution case. Here, we know Hannah Hill had gone to his house because he had later admitted it. So why would he be denying it to Hannah's friends repeatedly for five, six, seven days? [01:04:50] Speaker 1: Prosecutors then called several Akron police officers to testify about a key piece of evidence, the bag of Hill's clothes found outside Ross's apartment. The officers said they had heard a noise outside the building as they climbed the stairs to his second story apartment, and concluded that the noise must have been Ross throwing the bag out the window. [01:05:15] Speaker 26: There was testimony at the trial from one of the officers that he heard a thud behind the building. No one was in a position at the time to see the bag come down. It would have been great if they did, but we just didn't have that. [01:05:29] Speaker 1: On cross-examination, the defense emphasized how illogical it would have been for Ross to keep Hill's clothing eight days after her murder, but he knew he was under police scrutiny. They presented their own theory of how the bag had gotten there. [01:05:48] Speaker 12: The defense argument was they planted it. And where they found it, I don't know. Or who, it may not have been the police. It may have been the actual person who committed the murder that put it there, knowing that she had left there. [01:06:01] Speaker 1: The state then turned to the most difficult part of their case, proving that Denny Ross had raped Hannah Hill. The county coroner testified to circumstantial evidence that supported the charge of rape. Hill had had sexual intercourse shortly before her death. She had been beaten severely, and her body had been left in a sexually suggestive position in the car. Though there was no semen found inside her body, Denny Ross's semen was found on her underwear. [01:06:36] Speaker 26: What we had is we had some physical evidence to piece together all the different pieces of the circumstantial evidence that could lead to that conclusion. [01:06:45] Speaker 1: On cross-examination, the defense questioned whether Hannah Hill had even been raped, given that the autopsy report indicated there were no signs of vaginal tearing or other injury. The coroner could not offer a definitive medical opinion one way or the other. [01:07:05] Speaker 26: Well, a medical examiner never can. Rape is a legal term, not a medical term. You could have really a clear rape without any physical damage whatsoever. [01:07:18] Speaker 1: In a further effort to tie Ross to the murder, the state called a chemist from Goodyear, who testified that a white residue found on Hannah Hill's lip could have come from the cast on Ross's arm. [01:07:31] Speaker 26: Some of the fibers that were found on Hannah's face were identical to the types of fibers that that particular hospital used to make casts. That's the kind of thing that Denny would have been wearing. [01:07:42] Speaker 1: But on cross-examination, the defense got the chemist to admit that the residue could have come from other sources. [01:07:49] Speaker 21: That material is also found, for example, in the materials that they make the liners for car trunks. It's just a very, very common element that you find in many things. [01:08:04] Speaker 1: On October 25, 2000, after eight days of testimony, the prosecution rested its case. Jurors were prepared for the trial to continue. [01:08:14] Speaker 32: We went in there, we're ready, you know, we're gonna hear the defense's side. [01:08:20] Speaker 1: But then came a move that surprised everyone in the courtroom. The defense said it would not be calling any witnesses. [01:08:28] Speaker 30: Dave Chesnoff stood up and told the jury, based on the evidence, Denny Ross would rest. And I wrote that there was a gasp in the courtroom, and that was not an exaggeration. [01:08:38] Speaker 1: The defense was confident that their cross-examination of the state's witnesses had clearly established reasonable doubt. And that prosecutors had failed to prove their scenario of how the crime occurred. It was the right choice. [01:08:52] Speaker 12: It was absolutely the right choice. I had felt very, very, very good about the examinations of all their witnesses. And I wanted to leave it on that note. [01:09:07] Speaker 1: On October 26, 2000, after more than a week of testimony, an Akron, Ohio jury heard closing arguments in the capital murder trial of Denny Ross. Ross was accused of the rape and murder of 18-year-old Hannah Hill. [01:09:23] Speaker 31: I was going to remind you of the one person who meets all the criteria of the person who must have murdered Hannah Hill. And that's Denny Ross. [01:09:32] Speaker 22: Denny Ross had no responsibility to put on a single piece of evidence because they didn't prove their case. Beyond a reasonable doubt. [01:09:44] Speaker 1: The case went to the jury of five men and seven women. After instructions to the jury, Judge Jane Bond explained that they would have to find Ross guilty of raping Hannah Hill in order to convict him of either aggravated murder or the lesser charge of murder. If they did not believe he raped Hill, she told them, they did have the option of finding Ross guilty of manslaughter. The jury began their deliberations at 9:00 a.m. At first, they were divided. [01:10:21] Speaker 32: Going into deliberations, I felt that the prosecution had not proven their case and that there was reasonable doubt. [01:10:30] Speaker 33: I was pretty confident that they had enough evidence to prove that he was guilty of the murder. [01:10:35] Speaker 1: After an initial poll, the jury began to examine the evidence, starting with the garbage bag of Hill's clothes found under Ross' window. [01:10:44] Speaker 32: Some of the jurors felt very strongly that if those clothes were there, he was guilty. And in my opinion, kind of went in the other direction as to why would somebody keep a bag of clothes that would implicate him and throw them out the window as the police rushed in on him. [01:11:04] Speaker 23: The bag wasn't tied in any way. It was just crinkled at the top and dropped. Supposedly dropped. If this was dropped from the second-story window and it wasn't tied, how could it stay closed? [01:11:18] Speaker 1: The jury also discussed the evidence presented by the state concerning the rape charge. They felt that Aldo Ross' semen was found on Hill's underwear. The state had not proven rape. [01:11:32] Speaker 23: When the doctor first gave his testimony, he was saying that there was no evidence of rape at the time. [01:11:35] Speaker 33: They couldn't prove his sperm was inside her, that kind of thing. I just didn't feel there was enough evidence to prove that he actually raped her. [01:11:49] Speaker 1: After spending three hours going over their initial questions, the jury took their first break at around noon. During that break, juror Alicia Bittner was approached by one of the male jurors with a comment she found troubling. [01:12:07] Speaker 32: He came up to me and said, "I don't know what all the fuss is about because Denny's guilty because the boyfriend passed a polygraph test." [01:12:17] Speaker 1: The test the juror was referring to was the lie detector test that Hannah Hill's boyfriend Brad Oborn, an early suspect, had taken and reportedly passed. This information had been printed in the Akron Beacon Journal during the trial. Bittner knew that the juror had violated the judge's order to ignore all news coverage of the trial. She approached the foreman after the break. [01:12:44] Speaker 32: I did bring it to the foreman's attention that he had told me that. I didn't know at that point in time what the foreman was going to do with that information. [01:12:53] Speaker 1: The next morning, Saturday, October 28th, the jury began voting on the charges. [01:13:00] Speaker 23: Starting with the first charge, which was murder one, and the charge, it had said while committing rape. And we had all agreed that there was no rape. [01:13:11] Speaker 1: They filled out the official verdict forms acquitting Ross of the murder and rape charges. The not guilty votes were difficult for some jurors. Several felt that even though the state had not proven he raped Hannah Hill, Ross might still have had something to do with her death. [01:13:29] Speaker 32: A lot of people had a really hard time making that decision to say not guilty. But because of the way the charges were linked, that there was just no way that they were going to prove the rape. [01:13:42] Speaker 1: There was one option that remained open to the jurors. They could convict Ross of involuntary manslaughter. With the motions running high, the jury decided to break for lunch before deliberating the manslaughter charge. [01:13:56] Speaker 32: There was quite a few people who thought he had done it. So there was going to be a lot of deliberation and a lot of going over evidence when we came back. [01:14:09] Speaker 1: The jury returned from lunch at around 2 p.m., ready to begin considering the manslaughter charge. But before they could start, Judge Jane Bond ordered the jury to stop their deliberations. This was in response to a note the foreman had sent to the judge sometime during lunch. [01:14:28] Speaker 23: The bailiff came back in and said, "Don't talk about the case. Just drop it. Talk amongst yourselves. Play cards. Do whatever you have to do. Just don't talk about the case anymore." [01:14:38] Speaker 1: While the jury sat wondering what was happening, Judge Bond was meeting with lawyers from the defense and prosecution. Bond told the attorneys about the note from the foreman. It said that a juror had information about a polygraph test that was not presented at trial. The foreman wanted to know if the juror could be released so that they could have, quote, "an impartial and fair jury." Prosecutors believe that if the jury was in fact tainted, the judge should declare a mistrial. [01:15:13] Speaker 26: My feeling on this case is once that determination is made that the jury couldn't be fair and impartial or was tainted in any way, any decision that they rendered should be out. [01:15:22] Speaker 1: The defense, however, was confident that this jury would vote in Ross' favor and did not want him to face another trial. [01:15:31] Speaker 21: We felt there was one jury that was prejudiced. Well, that was just one juror and we felt the jury would still reach the right decision. [01:15:38] Speaker 1: After meeting with the lawyers in private, Judge Bond called Denny Ross into open court and questioned him as to whether he wanted a mistrial. [01:15:47] Speaker 21: He said no. The judge told him, you understand this note indicates that one juror very likely thinks you're guilty based on evidence that didn't come out during the course of the trial. He said, I understand. [01:16:00] Speaker 1: Then, about ten minutes later, with the jury still waiting in the deliberation room, Judge Bond announced her decision. [01:16:10] Speaker 34: Judge Bond defines that this jury cannot render a fair and impartial verdict in accordance with the law. Court therefore discharges the jury without prejudice to the prosecution and mistrial is declared. [01:16:23] Speaker 1: Courtroom observers were stunned at how quickly the judge had reached her decision. [01:16:28] Speaker 30: I mean, it was just, it was a matter of five, ten minutes that, yeah, it was not long. I mean, she didn't go in and deliberate or anything. [01:16:35] Speaker 1: Judge Bond then went into the deliberation room to speak with the jurors themselves. [01:16:40] Speaker 23: She walked in the room and in her robe and everything and said that there was a question that was raised and that she had ruled the case as a mistrial. [01:16:52] Speaker 33: I was totally stunned. I had no clue why. In fact, before I could say it, someone said, can we ask why? [01:17:00] Speaker 32: She said evidence had been brought in from the outside and it could sway people's decisions. And she felt it was in the best interest to declare a mistrial. [01:17:09] Speaker 23: I think there were, there were actually a couple of people that actually cried. I mean, they've gone through this tribulation for two weeks and then all of a sudden just gone. [01:17:22] Speaker 1: On October 28th, 2000, Judge Jane Bond stunned court observers and jurors in the Akron, Ohio murder trial of Denny Ross. She declared a mistrial because one juror, contrary to the judge's instructions, had apparently read a news report about the case. Alan Ross, Denny's father, was devastated to learn his son would have to stand trial again. [01:17:51] Speaker 29: The juror, whoever caused this problem, would have been honest with the judge. We wouldn't be having this discussion right now. [01:17:59] Speaker 1: Jennifer Edwards believed that the juror's misconduct had set her friend's killer free. [01:18:06] Speaker 25: I was shocked. It made me so angry because a stupid juror read the newspaper, you know. And I'm thinking, what a bubbling idiot would do this and jeopardize the whole thing. [01:18:20] Speaker 1: And there was an additional complication. The jury had already voted to acquit Ross of the rape and murder charges against him. [01:18:29] Speaker 32: When we signed those verdict forms and the 12th person put their signature on there, that was a binding document to us. [01:18:37] Speaker 1: Some jurors were angry to learn that their verdicts might not stand. And that they would not be able to deliberate the possibility that Ross was guilty of manslaughter. [01:18:47] Speaker 30: They were still considering the manslaughter charge when the mistrial was declared. And there's some debate. I mean, we've talked to some jurors who said that he was not necessarily going to walk away. [01:18:58] Speaker 1: As Denny Ross was taken back to jail, his defense team began preparing his appeal. They argued that because Judge Bond had not exhausted all of her options before declaring the mistrial, she hadn't met the Fifth Amendment standard for a mistrial, what's known as manifest necessity. [01:19:19] Speaker 21: That's the legal jargon. And what it basically means is you only declare a mistrial if that's the only thing left that you can do. [01:19:27] Speaker 1: The defense also argued that the not guilty verdicts on the murder and rape charges were legal and binding. If Denny Ross were to be tried again, they asserted, it would constitute double jeopardy. Prosecutor John Grebin responded that the verdicts were invalid because the jury had been tainted. [01:19:46] Speaker 26: The analogy I use is if you have a trial and you find out that three of the jurors have been bribed, well, right away, you're going to declare a mistrial and say, that's it. And then if all of a sudden you find out, well, even though they were tainted, you know, they still found a couple of verdicts, well, you're not going to accept that. [01:20:05] Speaker 1: In February 2002, an appellate judge ruled that Bond had not met the standards of manifest necessity and acted prematurely in declaring the mistrial. A second trial, the court said, would violate Ross's constitutional protection against double jeopardy. Ross could never be tried again for the murder of Hannah Hill. In the aftermath of Denny Ross's trial, critics of the case have been legion. Each step of the process, from the botched search for Hill to the juror misconduct that led to the mistrial, has come in for harsh scrutiny. [01:20:47] Speaker 24: If I were the prosecutor's office, I wouldn't be terribly impressed with the evidence the police gave me. On the other hand, if I was the member of the police force, I wouldn't be terribly impressed with the prosecutor's office the way they presented this case. [01:21:03] Speaker 1: Some have even argued that, based on the state's evidence, Betty Ross should never have been charged with murder in the first place. [01:21:11] Speaker 30: I've had people tell me that this is just a manslaughter case at best. There was no physical evidence that Hannah Hill was raped. So to charge him with aggravated murder and rape and seek a death penalty, yeah, it makes you wonder if there wasn't an over-indictment here. [01:21:27] Speaker 26: Would I have liked to have had more evidence? Sure, but you always would. I guess if you only indicted on things that you were absolutely 100% sure of, a lot of people would get away with a lot of stuff. [01:21:39] Speaker 1: In the end, what really happened to Hannah Hill may never be known for certain. [01:21:45] Speaker 25: You know, maybe we'll never find out the truth about everything. But Denny knows what happened and God and Hannah both know what happened. And the truth will come out sometime, I believe that. [01:21:54] Speaker 30: Ever since Hannah was killed, you know, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. And it continues to go wrong. And there's no justice for Hannah and her family. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. [01:22:05] Speaker ?: I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it. I don't know that we'll ever see it.