Accused

Sheila is a loving wife and mother.

[laughter] She was also a devoted daughter. She loved mother. They had the best relationship. So everyone was shocked when she was charged and convicted

of an unthinkable crime, murdering her own mother. We think it's ridiculous. Anybody who knows my mother knows she's not capable of anything like that. But the prosecution says the evidence proves that Sheila Bride set that car old-fire with her mama inside the car.

Now, Sheila may have one last chance to prove she is innocent.

“I really believe that a woman had been convicted without any real evidence.”

This expert says it was an accident. I found the real cause. Can he save her from life in prison? Between him and God, we're part of it. Susan Spencer investigates.

Did you have anything to do with intentionally starting that fire? No, it's my mother. A 48-hour's mystery of cues. [music]

My focus has always been my family.

I enjoy doing stuff with my children, with my children, and for my children. [laughter] And for my husband. This is the question that goes, "How do I take your home?" Not long ago, Sheila Bride was a typical American mom, living with her husband

in Omega, Georgia, happily raising her $2. I'm a mom. And proud of the mom. But in 1996, her life began to unravel. First, she lost her 82-year-old mother.

You were close to her. She always been there. Then, she says to her total shock, she was charged with her mother's murder. This is my room on A-Haw, room 16 at Pleski-Sight Prison. Charge, tried, and convicted.

This is my bed. Sheila insists she is completely innocent. It's hard to comprehend somebody would even suggest that I did that. And her family and friends find the charges impossible to even consider. We've known her since she was about three years old.

To know Sheila is the lover, and she loved her mother. They had the best of relationship. She couldn't do what they could start doing. Thank you. It's ridiculous.

This woman didn't kill her mother. But the state of Georgia says, "Justice was served."

“About the only thing that everyone can agree on is that 82-year-old free-to-weeks and”

her daughter, Sheila, went for a drive on a hot August day in 1996. And before that day was over, what was left of Sheila's burned-out car was at the bottom of that embankment, and free-to-weeks was dead. We just went riding around for a little bit, you know, just reminiscing. And what we've done that for years.

Sheila says that she approached this bridge. I don't know what happened. She momentarily became distracted. She lost control. All of a sudden, I was just off the road.

When her car finally settled at the bottom of the embankment, she says her mother was very

still. She didn't respond to me. I was scared. And Sheila found she couldn't turn the car off and I couldn't get the car off and I couldn't get the car on.

I finally got it and I snatched the keys out and they dropped. She got out, but couldn't get to her mother.

“The doors had somehow locked, and that's what I'm really painting.”

She climbed the steep embankment, desperate for help. Then, turning, says she saw a horrifying sight. I saw a trickle of smoke, and about that time, the car come around the curve. So you're coming down this road? She was screaming, crying, shaking her head.

She said that her mum was in the car. Danny Weeks jumped out of his car and sent his wife to call the fire department. So I went down there and seeing the car as a smoke was coming up over to the front means he'll. He ran to get a bucket of water.

And I just throw the water over the top of the car. But by then, the fire was raging. It didn't have no bear in all of it. And where was Sheila during all this? I remember having me. She was just shaken and crying.

It sounds like by the time you got here at least too late. I think it was. I performed the funeral service. We thought everything was just following order. The family would go home and grieve.

Sheila says she was completely unprepared for what happened next. Sheila told me they're going to exume my mother's body. We were contacted about 10 days after the actual incident. George of Bureau of Investigation Agent John Heinen was looking into the death. The accident was certainly suspicious.

The medical examiner said free to weeks probably died of heart failure and possibly before the fire began. But Heinen says other circumstances surrounding the case were very peculiar.

No personal items in the car. The gas cap of the car was missing. The fuel door was open. Most incriminating of all, though, was the report from the state fire investigators. Their conclusion.

It was arson. Though fire destroys everything in its path, investigators say it leaves its own clues. By sifting through what remains of Sheila's car, they can determine how the fire burned, how it grew, and how it began.

“What did the fire investigators evidence actually show?”

It was intentionally said incendiary fires. District Attorney David Miller's theory of what happened that day was far different from Sheila. Sheila Brian drove that car down the side of that embankment and set that car on fire with her mama inside the car. The whole situation was so ludicrous that at first it was just like, you know, you got to

be kidding. And then as it progressed, it became, these people are really serious.

In 1998, two years after that fatal drive, Sheila Brian, a homemaker who'd never been

accused of any crime, stood trial for arson and murder. I would have loved for the woman to have been not guilty. It's not something that we wanted to do. Songia Willett, her husband, Aaron, and Monica Funderberg all sat on the jury and all agreed. That's a tremendous fire.

This fire did not start itself. The fact showed to me that the fire was set by her hand.

“Did you think up to the last second that you would be found not guilty?”

Yes, I sure did. After eight hours of deliberation, the jury voted to convict. Do you think that you recall your innocent, that things won't go wrong? You're mistaken. And Sheila Brian was sentenced to life, plus 20 years.

One minute, Sheila Brian, normal, mother, mother, housewife. The next minute you're in prison for the rest of your life. Yeah. You just went numb. Sheila's husband, Carlisce, a house painter, was suddenly left to raise their daughters

on his own. I had resigned to the fact that I left together with the four or five hours, once a week at the prison.

But Sheila's friends never have given up.

She's innocent. We were about to taste all our strength, all our heart, all our minds, and all that of that. And now, after nearly a year in prison, Sheila make it a second chance. When 48 hours continues.

10-year-old Carrie Brian and her sister, Carlisce, remember when they could visit their grandmother every day, just by walking out the back door to her house. Every day, we used to take a walk up here. And we had a little path where the grass had worn out because we'd walked it so much. And we had little witty tape parties with the little cups and little saucers and little

crumpets and things. But when 82-year-old Frida Weeks died, the girls lost their grandmother, and then they lost their mother, too. It has been traumatic at times to not be able to hold them. Sheila Brian was sentenced to life in prison for a murder, or setting fire to her car with

her mother inside.

“Did you have anything to do with intentionally starting that fire?”

No. That was my mother.

And she could see in a heart who knows that I could never do anything to harm her.

And yet the state found that you did. The state was mistaken. Actually, it's taken. But now, after serving nearly a year in prison, Sheila has new hope. The Georgia Supreme Court has overturned her conviction.

Why? Sheila's alleged motive. With broad strokes, prosecutors began painting Sheila Brian as a woman who murdered her mother for her insurance money. The court said the state had misled the jury.

By suggesting that the liability insurance on the Brian's car was somehow the motive. Erroneously implying that Sheila Brian had a lot to gain from her mother's death. So when her friends post bond, we're here because Sheila is coming home from prison. Sheila is coming home. We're just ready for it to come home.

I have her back at the house with us. At least for a while. I'm expecting go home. That was her. And it's dug by young ins and carless.

And dealt with my arms.

This has been the longest time that he's carried me.

I thank your richness as a measure by the friend that you have. I feel pretty well, sir. Let's go home. Okay. Home, Sheila home.

But for all the people who believe in Sheila's innocence, others believe that a murderer has just been set free. The District Attorney David Miller is taking her to court again. I couldn't sleep at night if we didn't try it. Though a tossed out her conviction, the Supreme Court did not throw out the state's

“key evidence, testimony of its fire experts.”

The experts told the jury the fire was started with a highly flammable liquid. Though two labs found no trace of it in all the materials they took from Sheila's car, the experts said definitely liquid was used. Their evidence, the tell tale burn pattern, it left behind. What we were shown showed a definite flame pattern.

The fire was hotter in certain areas than others. The jury found that very convincing. It was like a straight line, it was like a trail. And there was no testimony that this could have been caused in any other way. No other way.

You know, with all of the flame retardant materials that are in cars these days, you know, they're put there to keep a car from catching on fire and burning as quickly as it did. If the facts in evidence has presented, show that she intentionally killed her mama this way, then this 82-year-old woman died a horrible death, and she should be held responsible

for her. But today, I keep growing foot. Sheila is trying to forget that a new trial looms. She's home, we're now, she's treasuring the present. Most people just take every little thing for green it, walking in the front door.

Stepping back into the lives of her daughter, she was able to hold your child. And of Carlos, her husband, up to 28 years, catching up. She will put him in a new floor. On what she missed. Where's the place?

Y'all buy the big economy size? Yeah. But she ain't through in space. I just know I missed a lot in their lives. She missed my first home coming.

Carlos 16th birthday. I'm curious. I can't have the birthday. Those are big birthdays. Oh yeah.

I'm sorry I missed you. Okay. You're right now.

“What do you now understand they were going through?”

They went through a lot of heartache and adjusting to not having a mother who had always been

there. Staying. We're scared. Alright, here. Come on.

She always did everything with the girls and father girls. Oh yeah. We don't need a phone. And a lot of things change when you go. It was your sister trying to be your mother and your sister.

I was the closest thing she had. It's just a lot of adjustment. You know the throttle. It's like shake. Come on.

Get your family back in. Lock it was. Mama. Oh my god. Roll it out.

Roll it out. And now we're fixing. We're going through it all over again. Now that we have it, we try to ease up all the time that we have together. Just in case.

Wait, you know, one day you'll just be so thankful that your hair has so much body. You've been telling me that if Sheila loses in court again, she will be taken away from her family forever. It just over the Williams every now and then. Hey.

Out of here. It's so her friends have stepped up their efforts to defend her. We've got to prepare for the next round. Appreciate it. Better be in here.

Raising money. We'll start out. Give you a treasures report of 5,636,71 cent in offering prayers. We're praying Father that the mind will have God will be accomplished here. Doing research.

Looking for anyway to refute the incriminating expert testimony, the new jury is bound to here.

We never doubted Sheila and we felt like we needed somebody who could show how the fire

started. And remarkably, they did find someone. Out of nowhere, Austin, Texas. Someone. Who might be the answer to their prayer?

“I really believe that a woman had been convicted without any real evidence.”

That's next.

Sheila Bryan's savers are newfound freedom.

Harry Day. Even at her part-time job, delivering meals to the elderly. You're out of tea. And unlikely job, perhaps, where someone once convicted of setting a car on fire with her 82-year-old mother trapped inside.

To me, that's the most horrendous thing that you could think of. I can't even comprehend it. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this meal. Her family is grateful for the six months she's been home from prison. It's not easy being 15, turn in 16 and doing everything home-bed.

But the new trial is only days away. I'm a little nervous, but that's just the way it's paid. I'd just hate to see my kids go back through this again.

This is not something 10-year-old means.

Sheila soon will face the same two witnesses who already have convinced one jury that she deliberately set the fire.

“I think both of the fire inspectors were very convincing to me.”

But this time, those experts will be challenged by Gerald Hurst, a scientist with a PhD in chemistry tracked down by Sheila's friend. The jurors were very impressed with the state's experts. The state's experts were good, good at presenting their case, but technically, I thought they were full of prose.

Hurst says there is no reason to label this fire, Arson. I really believed that a woman had been convicted without any real evidence. And that makes your man. Yeah, sure does. Between him and God, we'll prove it.

Now, two days before Sheila's new trial begins, he's going to be all in black, okay? He's flying in from Austin, Texas at his own expense to testify. Sorry, I'm fine, how are you? To, he hopes, shoot down the state's theory. I'm interested in cases that use junk science to persecute people, because I'm a scientist

and it really offends me.

“The state's experts said that only a fire started with a flammable liquid, an accelerant,”

could have blazed through Sheila's car as this one did. The jurors bought it. The hardest portion of fire was across the full board. And that meant what to you? That there was an accelerant of some sort.

Period. Yes. No doubt in my mind. So Sheila must have started it the jury reason, since cars certainly don't set themselves on fire.

But Gerald Hurst thinks that may be exactly what this one did. In my mind, it was probably caused by the ignition switch. The US government looks into a potential fire hazard. For years, Ford was in the news, because ignition switches in some Ford and Mercury vehicles were causing them to burst into flames.

The suspects, which is were installed in more than 23 million Ford's from 1984 to 1993. Just months before Fred a week's died, Ford recalled about a third of those vehicles. Sheila's model was not included, because Ford says it's switch design is different. But critics say it poses the same potential fire hazard. This particular ignition switch has a history of starting fires like that.

And the fires that have been started by ignition switches look a lot like this fire looked. At Sheila's trial, state investigators said they eliminated all accidental causes, which of the experts at this trial did you find to be the most persuasive. Ralph Nuel was a prosecution expert who was originally brought in by the insurance company. They couldn't sway him.

He had an answer. Every question they presented him, he had a reasonable and believable answer.

Nuel was never asked about the ignition switch, something he knew a lot about.

Just a year before the fire, he was a consultant to Ford, heading its ignition switch, task force.

“Were you surprised that the whole ignition switch thing never came up in the first trial?”

I was flabbergasted, particularly when she said she had trouble turning the key mechanism off. That's a red flag. Gerald Hearst argues that the state's theory is simply wrong. If pouring over the liquid didn't cause this long irregular burn pattern, what did? Fall down.

Yeah, dripping, flaming plastic. That's more of that flammable plastic right there. Hearst says the plastic in foam in today's cars are chemical cousins of gasoline. Once ignited, nothing extras needed for a car to burn intensely. Well, here's your pour.

Your liquid pour, it's coming. Had to heat the plastic up. Andy says he can prove it, using materials from some 87 coolgers. The same model Sheila drove that fateful day. We got a piece of carpet and I've got a piece of the steering column shroud here.

Sheila and her supporters watch as Hearst experiment. I just want to see if I can set that carpet on fire and by letting plastic drip on it. Here we go. She's starting.

they're like little flaming meteors.

“You're watching the plastic, not self-extinguish when it hits the carpet.”

If you can get a fire, start it, you can burn a whole car out without an accelerant. No hard slatter. You just want to answer concrete stuff to be able to put your finger on to say, you know, this is what happened. At last, Sheila says she understands how this tragic fire may have started, but with

the trial about to begin, everyone is nervous. It's scary. It's really scary. Because we're so positive at the last trial. Even the experts, they're counting on.

I hope it'll help her.

Truth and justice don't always prevail at trial.

When we come back, there was nothing wrong with the ignition switch when I examined it. The battle begins. At trial. Hi, my name is Lloyd Lockridge, and I'm the host of a new podcast from Odyssey called "Family Lower."

In this podcast, I'm going to have people on to tell unusual and sometimes far-fetched stories about their families. "I've heard my whole life that she ended at the Margarita." And then, we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true. He gets a pattern one month before the ride by this, "Oh my God, please follow and

listen to "Family Lower," an Odyssey podcast available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

“175, come on, silly goose, come on, what are you smell good?”

She actually doesn't remember the trial before, so to help ease her mind as she wanted come. Sheila Bryan is letting her 10-year-old daughter carry, skip school today. This is the first day of the trial, and a jittery little scared. So she can be in court when Sheila stands trial.

"Family thinks the child's imagination, it can really go wild. She needed to be able to visualize what was going on." It's been three and a half years since her mother died in Sheila's car, and prosecutor Brad Sheila insists it was murder. Basically, this, so, Bryan took her mother in a car, drove the car off side to road, put

a notable fluid in there, and let it. If convicted again, Sheila will go to prison for life. "Just watch testimony about the given, the following criminal amounted to be the truth, the whole

two, some never but two, see how it began."

"All right, did you notice anything about the gas cap that gas flew out from the car?" "The gas cap was missing the filler cap was open." Sheila's new lawyer, Converse Bright, argues that there is nothing very suspicious about that. "If something occurs, you can either look at it as a sinister thing, or an innocent thing.

Many people think that when you record a car and you have a gas tank open, it's going to explode."

“"Living the gas cap off is something that I do, and I think a lot of people do all the”

time." "What you got on the scene? What did you do?" "By the day's end." "She went down with a slave."

"All the Brian's are a little relieved." "I think I'm a real whale." "But the next day," "The experts who were key to Sheila's first conviction, again, testify. Ronnie Dobbins from the fire marshal's office and fire expert, Ralph Nuel." "It's my opinion as fire was incendiary in its origin."

Sheila is hoping her expert, Gerald Hurst, can convince the jury that a faulty ignitions switch, probably started this fire. "It's an exactly the right location for what they described as the point of origin of this fire." But Ralph Nuel flatly dismisses that theory.

"I consider it very seriously, and I fail no problems with it other than it being exposed to a fire."

And although it never came up at the first trial, Ronnie Dobbins says, "The switch

was long ago ruled out." "I didn't see any calls to call an engineer, anything into review it." Still, he seems a bit dawned by the details. "What is an ignition switch look like? Tell the jury what an ignition switch is?"

"It's just wires and some metal components, some of the steering column." "I'm big is it?" "It's range as long as it's six inches long as it's a foot long?" "I have no idea. I mean, I've never took one apart.

Did you look at the ignition switch on this mercury cube?" "I." "He couldn't tell you how long it was, how big it was, how it was, how it was shape, what color was." "Can you, or can you not describe it?"

"Nature." "Ralf Nuel, however, is not so easily rattled." "The lack of destruction above the switch, the burn patterns around the switch area, the

One of that indicated there was a switch problem."

“"He knows what he's talking about, he knows what an ignition switch looks like.”

He says it wasn't an ignition switch. I mean, that's pretty definitive evidence on that." "Shelly contends that all evidence shows that Sheila Bryan set the fire to murder her mother." "There was a burn pattern extended." "Both New England Dobbins testified that only a flammable liquid could cause the intense

irregular burn pattern they saw." "There's nothing other than that can produce that type of pattern." "That burn pattern is hard to see in the charred remains, but one small part of it clearly does stand out." "They were some burning along the threshold of the door."

"What does that indicate to you that the door was open at the time of the fire?" "Hard evidence," he says, "that someone shot that door after the fire began." "That's a protected area when this door is closed, there should be no fire damage whatsoever to this threshold."

"The first jury found that very telling."

"She maintains that she shut the door to go get for help, and if that was the case, then how did the burn patterns get on the run-in board." "And Newl insists the patterns he saw were not caused by dripping flaming plastic." "When I cleaned the carpet, I looked for the residue of burning plastic or any pattern created by burning plastic that might give me a false lead.

I did not find that."

“"I thought Newl did very well on the stand, I think he's a very personal felon.”

I think it's quite a bit of a deal with the jury." "I hate your work, that jury." "It's as well as protruding out the door." "It's just hanging there, but you can do it good." "She lies is worried, worried that this jury will be swayed as the first one was."

"It's just going to be whoever the jury believes." "And that's sad.

It's just going to go down to somebody's opinion."

"I'm still dressed in the Lord." "And she's also counting more than ever on Gerald Hurst, who says he can explain the state's most incriminating evidence." "And they said that could only have been caused by an accelerant being poured there. I found the real cause."

"When 48 hours continues." "It's a very loving, very normal mother-daughter relationship." "Did you ever see Sheila treat her mother violently?" "Yes, sir."

“"At trial, the state of Georgia insists that Sheila Bryan, in fact, did have reason to murder”

her mother." "Her mother would not be the same person that she had loved and cared for it all these years and that the stress of dealing with her got too much." "That motive makes no sense at all to Sheila's friends and family." "I'm a week's and Sheila had an in-viewable relationship."

"They were not only mother and daughter, but they were friends." " Sheila had no skeletons in her closet." "They had the very best of relationship." "All that people who should have known something, sinister, came forward and testified for." "You'd be sad on that swear to God."

"But Carl actually testified." "Yeah." "They had a very good relationship. They were very close." "It's painful to see your child up there."

"Mom, I did everything she could for Grandma." "Though character witnesses may help her some." "Anybody can now use my mother." "Nose." "She's not capable of anything like that."

"It's the experts who probably will decide Sheila's fate." "And the state's experts once again convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that she set fire to her car." "At the fire, originated at the Ignition Switch." "Testifying for the prosecution, fire investigator Ralph Newell, who says he ruled out

all accidental causes, including the defense's favorite, the Ignition Switch." "I examine the components, there's no arcing, no problems with those, and no evidence of failure of that Ignition Switch." "But then, he has grilled about his ties to four." "And they fed you a hundred and fifty thousand, so last year."

"You have the numbers." "And his role in heading a task force, the company set up to investigate its Ignition Switches." "I was asking 1995 to go out in the field to determine if this was really a problem." "Of '95." "Of '95," and says, "Yep, you got a problem."

"You didn't make any reports about Ignition Switches then, did you?" "No written reports, no answer." "At their request, because that was their instructions." "And I do whatever counsel asked me to do." "For its recall in 1996, only went back to 1988, and didn't include 87 coogers like Sheila's,

because Ford says those older Ignition Switches have a different design. But critics' contents, which is in those models, have the same potential fire problem. "They can catch fire, it's a random event. But the possibility does exist that it will catch fire."

"The defense's first fire expert, Chris Bloom, says in this case,

"the Switch could have sparked the blaze." "All it can say is that fire damage is consistent with what I've seen." "Uper half years." "What I was concerned with was making sure the jury had all the facts. The first trial did not mention the Ford Ignition Switch at all."

"You saw him to swear that." "Finally Sheila's star witness takes the stand." "There we go, she's starting." Gerald Hearst describes his experiments. With the plastic stripped from 1987 coogers like Sheila's.

"It burns furiously, it's extremely impressive. Very hot. Very big flames, billowing smoke, it's a sight to behold." "Not only is that enough to fuel and intense fire," he says. "It produces, that's right, irregular burn pattern."

"It's no accelerer required." And Hearst challenges the state's most convincing evidence.

“Remember the burn that supposedly proved, Sheila's door was open when the fire began.”

Hearst found how there might be damage even with that door closed. "There is a break, a factory break, in the door seal there. And there is also some ancient damage to the metal bar that holds that seal. It has been bent out." "Because that seal was not airtight," he says, "melted plastic, flowed through it."

"You had a very hot car, and you had flaming melted plastic. And it behaved just like any other liquid. It simply flowed under the door through the break. And this massive plastic flowed into here down through this breach here. And subsequently spread a little to the right and a lot to the left."

"The state's experts would have seen that," he says, "had they not ignored a vital clue." "The obvious thing when I looked at it was there are two marks that look the same."

"A second mark for their back on the threshold."

"The similarity is remarkable. You look at the colors and the shapes of these things. You can say, well, they were obviously caused by the same phenomenon." "That second mark is nowhere near that burned trail in the front of the car." "Those two patterns there were not caused by an accelerant.

Those were caused by flowing plastic. And there is no doubt, my mind about that." "Which brings him back to the ignition switch, as the most likely culprit."

“"I believe that is by far the most probable cause."”

"But hers doesn't admit he cannot prove his theory." "You cannot definitely say that the final was called by the electrical short in the initial quits that the occurred came in." "I cannot definitely say that it was not caused by a meteorite. But if you look at it from a reasonable standpoint, this is probably an electrical fire."

"Could it have been an accident or was the fire deliberately set?" "Which experts, all of them highly experienced, will the jury believe?" "The closer it gets, the more anxious you get, when we come back." "And board, we just ask who they're trying to murder and not guilty." "She lives fate, not verdict."

"This is the end of the day." "I have the father of these have been trying days for Sheila." "And we come with humble hearts that we know that a lot of circumstances have been presented as charges against her. We pray that these might melt away in the minds of the jurors." Sheila Bryan is stealing herself for the jury's decision.

“Will she go home with her family or go back to prison for life?”

"Carries don't remember what we worried about. Last night, she was real upset." "I guess they just hit her." "She is crying, crying, crying." "The jurors take three hours to decide." "We the jury found that defended Sheila Bryan as to count one, not guilty."

"When he said the first count, not guilty, it was just like the people on the court

or I'm set out the air because everyone gaffs." "Count to guilty, not guilty." "It was just like, and then yes." "And so, three and a half long years after her ordeal began, Sheila Bryan is acquitted on all charges." "We said it was going to be a lie." "We're Sheila and the Lord, Bryan's." "It's a triumph of faith. God, good to glory, honey."

"They did not give us any evidence that she did do it. And we're supposed to convict her on their say so." "They're skeptical of the state's scenario." "She would have to have a can, or whatever, go down that ditch, fine." "That was a steep and dank man." "She would have to pour in the floor board and take a chance on, you know, it gets in her and hope that nobody came down that route." "They are unimpressed by the state's evident. They didn't prove to us that there was

an accelerant in that car." "And there was no motive." "And leery of state expert Ralph Newell."

“"For a piece of honor, Peter Thannell, do you honestly think he's going to come in here and say”

that it was an ignition pipe or it could have been an ignition pipe?" "To them, defense star witness Gerald Hearst made more sense." "He had more credibility with the jury." "They need by." "Thank you, Dr. Hearst." "I wouldn't have been able to do this if I hadn't gotten all that help down here. She's got best friends in the world." "That's trying to bring." "How much did you make off of this?" "I didn't make much in the way of money." "Thank you." "She let did make me a chicken casserole."

"That was it?" "I got very well fed for an entire week." "You did this provota?" "Oh yes." "What do you make of the fact that another jury not only convicted this woman but centered a prison for life?"

"With evidence that we had, I see no reason they could have done it." "Still some jurors from the first

trial." "There's no doubt in my mind." "Stand firm in their conviction." "In my heart, I still think she's guilty whether she's a free woman today or not. I still feel like she's guilty." "You have a woman, some to prison for life. The next trial." "You'll be." "She's acquitted. She's free." "I mean, what does this tell you?" "It tells me that there's an awful lot of randomness in our court system. It's remarkable. It's frightening actually." "But it was only a fluke that Sheila Bryan

“ever found these experts." District Attorney David Miller admits, had he known at the onset?”

"What he knows now, it's possible Sheila Bryan might never even have faced charges."

"So you now know all about the Ignition Switch Theory. Do you honestly believe that Sheila Bryan killed her mother?" "What's important is what? 12 jurors decided unanimously." "You're not going to say, are you?" "No, man." "It's bad enough that it was done to me, but it's worse that it was tend to my children." "That's wrong." "Somebody in suicide's something bad about your mom today. What they say." "This is a murder. People need to realize, you know, just how easily this could

have happened, even to them." "Hey, yeah." "Fractor, that's not true." "It's you." "It's you." "It's you." "It's you." "It's you." "It's you." "It's you." "Maybe it's

“however you think." "The girls know for certain now. Their mother will not be taken away again."”

"But none of us will never be quite exact this time."

Sheila says she is finally beginning to come to grips with losing her mother. Now she can rest. "Do you believe that she died before that firestorm?" "Yeah, I do." "And that helps me." "What helps even more," she says, "is remembering how free to weeks lived." "I always tried to be a strong person. My mother was a strong person." "Would she have had confidence that you would make it through this okay?" "Yeah." "Yeah, she would have."

When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferris went missing, his family looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying. "It's a homicide." "Absolutely." The blame game in this family went round and round. This is bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel. I would don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Binge the full series, bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel, on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast.