By FloridaBulldog.org, for SouthFloridaReporter.com, July 21, 2015 – Maybe Debra Jean Milke masterminded the murder of her tow-haired son Christopher in Phoenix just before Christmas 1989 to collect the 4-year-old’s $5,000 life insurance policy.
Or maybe – as Milke has insisted all along – she was just the innocent victim of a corrupt cop with a proven pattern of lying who was out to win a conviction.
Whichever is true, Milke, 51, is a free woman now after spending 23 years on death row, convicted of conspiring with two men to kill Christopher.
She was released from prison because prosecutors withheld evidence of misconduct by then-Phoenix Police Detective Armando Saldate Jr., who testified Milke confessed to him.
Editor’s note: This story by Nancy West was sponsored by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and hosted by Vermont’s VTDigger. West founded the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, which will launch its news website NHinDepth on Sept. 1.
