YOU DO HAVE THE RIGHT TO CABLE T.V.!

(Paul Davenport, Associated Press, Phoenix New Times, Frazer Chronicle)

 

This is a story of probable misconduct by a member of the Phoenix, Arizona law enforcement community, resulting in the incarceration of a 25 year old Debra Jean Milke, a convicted co-conspirator in the brutal shooting death of her 4 year old son, Christopher. The motive, $5,000 in insurance money that Death Row Debby Milke had on her son.

 

Is this a classic case of injustice, of law enforcement going terribly wrong, of an investigating officer disregarding common police procedure in order to get a conviction? All of these questions and the terrible, terrible toll that the verdict has taken on Debra Jean Milke need to come out…..into the light of day.

 

Debra Jean (Sadeik) Milke was born March 10, 1964 in Berlin, West Germany to a military family who moved to the United States where Debra Jean attended high school and college. She married Mark Milke in 1984 at the age of 20. Christopher Conan Milke was born in 1985.

 

The young Christopher would not know many happy times with his father and mother as Debra Jean divorced Mark Milke in 1988. In August of 1989, probably do to the cash restraints of being an unwed mother, Debby Milke moved into an apartment with Jim Styers, a man she knew through her sister.

 

On December 2, 1989, Jim Styers took 4 year old Christopher to the Metrocenter mall in Phoenix. That afternoon Styers called Debby who was doing laundry at their apartment, and told her that her son was missing. Styers alerted mall security, while Milke dialed 911. A missing person investigation was launched, and the next day Roger Scott, a longtime friend of Styers was arrested, and after 14 hours of intensive interrogation he admitted he knew where the boy was, and that he was dead.

 

Styers, who initially helped in the search for the boy was arrested and interviewed by police after being implicated by Scott. Debra Milke went to the Pinal County hospital where she waited in a dispensary room. Phoenix police were told via radio not to speak to Debra, However when detective Armando Saldate arrived by helicopter, he had Milke taken to the Pinal County police station where Saldate initially interrogated the Milke women.

 

Throughout the interview Saldate had either witnesses or a tape recorder to transcribe the narrative that went on in the room. Also Milke never signed a copy of her confession that Detective Saldate said she had made to him.

 

Milke was charged with conspiring to commit first degree murder, child abuse and first degree murder. In October 1990, Milke was convicted of all charges and sentenced to death. Styers and Scott were charged with first degree murder in separate trials, convicted and also sentenced to death.

 

SHORT, SWEET AND SIMPLE!

Its how police work is supposed to happen, catch the bad guys, get a confession, there’s a trial, there’s a conviction, and a verdict…..everybody is congratulated, and there’s high fives all around. More bad guys, and in this case, girl, off the street and where they belong, waiting what they deserve.

 

 

 

It’s a classic First 48 case on the Discovery Channel, in case you haven’t watched the show, there is a case, usually murder, where the first 48 hours are supposed to be the most important part of the investigation and the hour is devoted to what the cops on the case do with their investigative savvy. Most cases are solved, but there a few who stump the detectives.

 

What always strikes me as strange is how these police offers approach a case, for them it seems that everything is black or white, no middle ground. They bring witnesses in, depose them and either eliminate them, or say that they are persons of interest.

 

Tidbits like they look guilty, or they act guilty are used when discussing potential perpetrators of a crime, and by far the best observation, their story doesn’t make a sense. You know what; if I was hauled into a cop shop I’d be nervous as hell, might look guilty, act guilty or tell a fragmented story.

 

Injustice happens every day in our society, usually to middle class people like me, and it’s committed by law enforcement that doesn’t do its job. When a person is brought into a police station, it’s not for cookies and milk and a round of 500 Rummy. Its serious business and cops always and forever want to be in charge of a situation…..so there is a factor of intimidation unlike any other a law-abiding citizen is used to.

 

UNRECORDED CONFESSION AND OBSERVATIONS

Saldate upon arrival at the Pinal County sheriff’s office was directed to an interview room where Milke and her aunt were sitting. Saldate told the aunt to leave the room and talk to another police official while he, Saldate interviewed Debby.

 

According to Saldate, Milke wanted to know who Saldate was, and what he wanted, the detective responded that he was investigating the son’s disappearance. After several minutes, Saldate explained that Ms. Milke’s son had been found dead, shot to death in the desert.

 

At this point Milke began to scream and cry uncontrollably…..without the presence of tears, and at this point, according to Saldate,  instructed the Milke Women that he would not tolerate her crying and that in fact she was under arrest for her son’s death.

 

During the course of the interview Saldate continued not to tolerate crying without tears, and learned, according to Saldate, that the Milke women had said that her son would probably “be better off dead.” She continued that she felt that Christopher would “grow up just like his father,” a drug user and alcohol abuser.

 

During this time she also lamented that she and her ex-husband’s sex life was difficult at best because she felt that the act was a dirty thing to do. She in addition talked about the kinky stuff her husband liked and that he was heavily into pornographic material.

 

There was much more in the interview…..according to detective Saldate, but he neither recorded it, had a witness, nor any notes to show either the prosecutor or Milke’s defense. It had taken Detective Saldate just 3 hours and 5 minutes to wrap up the shooting death of Christopher Milke, masterminded by his 25 year old mother and her two murdering henchmen.

 

I’ll be waiting for this case to hit the First 48 on the Discovery Channel, of course there just a few disgusting loose ends that lagged loose and blowing in the wind for more than 24 years, as Death-Row Debby awaited her lethal injection that would send her to her final resting place, that hottest of all resort spots.

SOME DAMMING EVIDENCE OR LACK THEREOF

Ignored at Debby’s trial was why Saldate’s word should have been taken over Milke’s, and the fact that neither Styers or Scott would testify against Milke at her trial, did they think that one or both might get lucky with the 25 year old by not testifying?

 

Of course there’s the Miranda card, you know, that thing about not incriminating yourself, and wanting an attorney, it’s a simple matter…..right, it’s the part that tells you about the fact that anything that you say may be used in a court of law…..that card was never signed by Debra Jean Milke.

 

The prosecution never placed Debra Jean Milke at the scene of the crime, she was never accused by either of her co-defendants, and there was absolutely no credible evidence that she actually admitted to police that she was part of the horrible murder.

 

Yet she was convicted, sentenced to death, and became known as Death-Row-Debby, and has spent more than half her life behind bars. That however all changed when on March 14, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Milke’s imprisonment was unconstitutional as her conviction had been secured in violation of the Fifth Amendment…..the abuse of government authority, in this case, detective Saldate and his questionable history of misconduct. By not giving the defense all of this information it tended to cast doubt on Milke’s case.

 

This kind of injustice goes on every day in the United States…..how many times have you heard a prosecutor admit that he was wrong…..how many times do you hear a police officer, or a detective admit that there had been a wrong decision made in a high profile trial?

 

For Debra Jean Milke, her verdict being overturned came some 20 years too late, for all intents and purposes her life is over, she didn’t see her son grow up, never got a chance to try marriage again, and probably wasn’t present at her parents funerals.

 

She missed 27 Thanksgiving’s, 27 Christmas’s, 27 New Year’s eves, and 27 birthdays, will her release be a  victory of right over wrong…..absolutely not, because nobody will be brought to task for the injustice. The biggest crime committed probably was Debra Jean Milke’s belief in the jurisprudence process we have here in the United States.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!