Death Row Debbie Milke Could Soon Be Free

[DonViejo]

by Terry Greene Sterling May 26, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

After more than two decades in prison for killing her son, a notorious Arizona woman wins her appeal

For more than 22 years, Debbie Milke has sat on Arizona’s death row, convicted of killing her only child. Known locally as Death Row Milke, Milke and her lawyers have argued for years that she was the victim of a crooked cop with a history of lying under oath. Finally, the courts took notice. And Death Row Debbie could be free in a matter of days.

Milke’s story began on Dec. 2, 1989 when her four-year-old boy, Christopher, said goodbye to his mother and climbed into the car with their roommate, a head-injured, PTSD-haunted Vietnam veteran named James Styers. Milke had told Christopher that Styers would drive him to a local mall to visit Santa Claus.

Debbie and Christopher Milke had moved in with Styers some months before, when the 25-year-old divorced mother and insurance-company secretary had no place else to go. She'd fought with her family and ex-in-laws, and was virtually homeless.

She frequently entrusted Christopher to Styers, but he was hardly an ideal babysitter. His PTSD stemmed in large part from an incident during the war when he shot and killed a young Vietnamese boy who had climbed onto a truck transporting Styers and other Marines in Vietnam, according to court documents. In his 1985 personal journal, now part of court records, Styers wrote: "Losing sleep because of dreams in Viet-Nam [sic] Seeing kids including my own and wondering if I'm going to do something to hurt them, and remembering the ones I had to kill."

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/26/death-row-debbie-milke-could-soon-be-free.html

[Turbineguy]

1. I wonder how the family

whose solution seems to be worse than the problem feels now?

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. .