48 Hours - Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

48 Hours Correspondent Erin Moriarty and Producer Stephanie Slifer discuss the death of 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan and the questionable conviction of Melissa Calusinki. They talk about the anonymous phone call that revealed a surprising discovery years after the trial, the hours-long police interrogation that led to Melissa's confession, and what's next in the case.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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with iGaming Ontario. ["Post Mortem"] Welcome back to Post Mortem. I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green. And today we're looking at the case of Melissa Kajuzinski. She was a daycare worker who was convicted of murder in 2009 in the death of a 16-month-old baby boy, Benjamin Kingan. Now Melissa remains in prison and she's already served 16 of the 31-year sentence that she

received. But she's long insisted that she is innocent. So today joining me is 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty, who has been reporting on this case for more than a decade, and producer Stephanie Slifer, who also worked on this case with us. Welcome ladies. We love being here. This is one of those very complicated cases.

So an opportunity to talk more about it. I'm in. Yes. Thank you so much for having us. And Stephanie, I want to thank you because I know you're feeling a little under the weather and you still made it in for this podcast. So I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, it's an important case. So we definitely wanted to be here to talk about it. And remember, if you haven't listened to this episode of 48 Hours yet, you can go find it.

You can find the full audio just below this episode in your podcast feed. So go take a listen and then come on back so we can talk about this case. All right. So Erin, 48 Hours first began reporting on Melissa's case in 2014. That's about five years after Benjamin's death, and almost three years after Melissa was actually convicted of his murder. When you first interviewed Melissa,

was there anything that stood out to you about her? What were your impressions of her? Well, I'm gonna tell you, Anne-Marie, that I encountered something with this case I had never encountered before. Right away I saw issues. I started asking Melissa questions and I realized she wasn't quite understanding what I was asking. Now, I had known that she had cognitive issues that came up during the trial and later, more recently, she had actually been diagnosed with borderline

intellectual functioning. And so knowing that and seeing her in this interview with me, I kept thinking, oh my gosh, if she's having trouble understanding me, what went on in that interrogation room? Did she really understand what was at stake, what they were asking, what she needed to tell them? That's what came to my mind after interviewing her. So in fact, in the hour,

we see a portion of this very long, intense police interrogation. Melissa repeatedly claims, and we're talking about more than 60 times, that she did not hurt Benjamin. But then after nine hours, she admits to throwing him forcefully on the floor. So I want to play an extended clip of that interrogation. We all know what's going to happen when someone gets with a baby. They get frustrated. Happens to everybody. Yeah. What's going to happen when someone gets with a baby? They get frustrated happens to everybody.

We think in this situation, the other babies are screaming, crying, whatever. You're taking care of them by yourself. You have been in your hands. He starts acting up and you get mad at him and you throw him on the floor. And you throw him on the floor. Yeah, and tear them apart too. You throw them on the floor? Yeah. Where did his head hit on the floor?

Right in the center. Please? I know. His head hit right between the tile and the carpet actually. Okay. Really hard. Really hard. Yeah. You know what? I've got to point out here that much of what she says first came from the detectives. The detectives are the ones who first say throw on the floor. And they say to Melissa, we're hearing from

the pathologist that there's a skull fracture. So these detectives are trying, at least it appears from this interrogation, to get her to come up with a scenario, which they come up with on their own. You can hear them come up with it that would explain a skull fracture. But then the problem with that is now we know all these years later that Ben Kingan may not have sustained a skull fracture because these clear X-rays were found years after the trial and the defense hired a pediatric neuroradiologist who looked at those clear X-rays and said, there is no skull fracture here. And if a skull fracture existed, I would see it in these clear x-rays. Aaron interviewed a false confession expert, Dr. Saul Kassin, and he pointed out to us that if in fact Ben didn't sustain a

skull fracture, that's what he refers to as a false fact that could have tainted this entire confession. When Melissa tried to give other explanations, Nate won't accept what she's saying. They want her to say what they believe happened. You know, an expert also said that because of her low IQ, both Saul Kasson and other experts who looked at this said that she may not have even understood really what was going on in that room, starting from the beginning when they read her rights. When you watch them read her the rights, she just says, sure, yes. Did she understand them? We don't know.

Right, because recently the defense hired a psychologist and psychiatrist from Yale who evaluated Melissa and she scored at a 4.8 grade level in sentence comprehension. So that really raises questions as to whether she even knew what was going on or that she had the right to leave or to ask for an attorney. Well, so let me ask you about the attorney. And I once again was hearing Erin's voice in my head. She always says, no matter what, ask for an attorney, innocent or otherwise, always ask for an attorney first.

And it seems like, you know, Melissa's parents clearly are very, very invested and were very involved. At this point, do you know if anyone intervened? What we understand is her parents were looking for her. But remember, Melissa was an adult. And Melissa thought she was helping police, or at least that's what she told us. Because I did ask her, why did you talk to them? She said that she loved Ben Kingan and was devastated by his death and she wanted to help.

Right. Stephanie, you brought up the X-rays because that was the other, oh my gosh, kind of component to this hour. Big part of the case, these X-rays that were given to Melissa's original defense attorney, Paul DeLuca, before the start of the trial. In 2015, and we're talking about four years after the conviction, Melissa's father says that he got a mysterious anonymous phone call telling him that there were clearer X-rays and that these X-rays were actually at the coroner's office and that they were never turned over to the defense. Then in 2016, Dr. Robert Zimmerman, who is a pediatric neuro-radiologist, testifies at

an evidentiary hearing that those X-rays show no skull fracture at all. This is a bombshell revelation. I am curious, has the person who is behind that anonymous phone call, has that person ever been identified? Can I just first tell you why those x-rays matter so much? As Stephanie had mentioned, whether there was a skull fracture or not is really, really crucial to this case. And at trial, according to the prosecution, only x-rays they have were dark, they hindered over the defense. Those x-rays were taken during autopsy, but that pathologist at trial testified that

he couldn't read them, that they were readable. So none of the experts, neither the defense or the state, say that they saw clear X-rays. And as Stephanie mentioned, we now know that at least one well-regarded expert says that if there was a skull fracture, it would be on that clear X-ray and they're not seeing it on that X-ray. So imagine that that was not at trial and didn't come out until this anonymous phone call. The assistant coroner's name is Paul Foreman. He's the one that actually took the x-rays and he says that they were clear when he took them. So there's some speculation that maybe he's the one that made the anonymous

call. We don't know for sure. So Aaron, you asked Paul Foreman whether or not he was the one. Let's play that sound. Are you the one who made that anonymous phone call? No, I did not. I mean, will you swear to me you weren't the caller? A lot of people might think I made that call. I mean, obviously somebody let Paul Kaluzinski know those X-rays existed. The bottom line is clear X-rays did exist on the coroner's computer. I just wanna say it's interesting the fact that this information came to light through

an anonymous call to begin with, because that means somebody knew that these X-rays had been withheld. Now, the prosecutors have questioned whether Paul Kaluzinski, Melissa's father, really did receive an anonymous call. They tried to look into his phone records. They said they couldn't find proof of it. But Paul Kaluzinski maintains today that he got that anonymous call. And that's how all of this came to light. I mean, knowing everything that we know, right, that there were actually clear X-rays, can you feel confident in the verdict from this trial? Well, this is when you're talking about what are the rules of the court system

and what your heart says. So the state still stands by the idea that there's a skull fracture, although there are a lot of individuals who, including the pediatric neuroradiologist, Dr. Zimmerman, who says if there was a skull fracture, you'd be able to see it on those x-rays and they're not there. So that's still a big, important issue. And, you know, frankly, whether there can still be confidence in the verdict from trial is a question for, you know, the Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, to think about, as well

as the Lake County State's attorney, Eric Reinhart. You'll remember from our broadcast that Reinhart recommended to Melissa's defense attorney to hire these forensic computer experts to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the x-rays. And these experts found that the x-rays were manipulated using a software tool used to view x-rays. And their analysis showed that this manipulation was done on the coroner's office computer. Therefore, they put in a report that they believe the state was responsible for manipulating the x-rays. The state meaning either somebody from the prosecutor's office or somebody from the coroner's office.

You had to be in the coroner's office to get access to this, according to those experts. So we know that those experts presented these findings to Eric Reinhart in a meeting. And what has happened since then? We don't know everything that's gone on behind the scenes, but we do know that after that, Eric Reinhart wrote a letter to the governor's prisoner review board opposing Melissa's clemency.

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police interviews with Melissa's coworkers. One of those daycare workers told police that months prior to Benjamin's death, she heard that he had thrown his head back in a crib while Brenda was putting him down. And then the next day, Brenda quit. The defense could not track her down, but incredibly 48 hours did. Your team did. How did you- Stephanie did. Stephanie, how did you find Brenda and how did you convince her to sit down? Well, it's a crazy story, Anne-Marie.

I think it started with me just going down a rabbit hole one day trying to find this Brenda. And I found a couple of different Brendas with that same last name. I started calling. I think I called the wrong Brenda multiple times. This woman was like, please stop. It's not me. But finally, I thought I found the right one. But she was not calling me back. And I decided to run her name through the criminal court case lookup in the county where I knew she lived. And it came up that she was supposed to appear for a

traffic ticket hearing. And the traffic ticket hearing happened to be during the week that we were scheduled to go there already. We were going to conduct other interviews on the case. So it was kind of like the stars were aligning and we decided we're going to just try to go to the traffic ticket hearing. I mean, we were obviously catching her totally off guard there, but she ended up talking to us. I went up to her and I asked her to speak with us and she did not want to initially, but I said, sit down, we'll just shoot you from behind.

So viewers were not able to see her face. We agreed to that. And we also agreed to only call her by her first name Brenda But it was It was helpful. It really was helpful to know that there's still a lot of questions about what happened In that daycare center before Melissa even worked there. I hope people realize it's undisputed that Ben King and had some kind of Injury just could be a bump in the head

or it could be more serious than that. But that's not disputed at all. And it happened in the daycare center. It happened three months before he died and Melissa was not working there at the time. So that's why that's significant. And I guess we should remind everyone that Brenda, despite what the other coworkers had said,

that Brenda was never charged with other coworkers had said, that Brenda was never charged with anything. Yes, you're absolutely right that she's never been charged with harming Ben accidentally or intentionally. But we felt it was important to talk to her because it was a lingering question in the case. You know, we knew that her name had been brought up in connection to this prior injury that Ben sustained. The defense has long argued that that prior injury caused his death. So we just wanted to see what we could find out about it, see if Brenda remembered anything about Ben bumping his head in her

car. Right. And I think it was a good opportunity for her because her name is being bounced around at least by the coworkers to say, this is what I remember. And I don't remember anything happening. Yes. Right. The daycare where Melissa and Brenda worked was actually shut down by state authorities. This is shortly after Benjamin's death. I'm wondering, were there any further investigations, did anyone look into whether or not there had been other problems at this daycare? So there was several daycare workers that were interviewed by police in the wake of Ben's death.

And as part of our new report during the research phase, we were going through a lot of those police reports and there was something that stuck out. There was a daycare worker who told police that at one point she witnessed another child, not Ben, fall off a changing table at the daycare. And that the child's parents were lied to about the incident and told he fell over while seated on the floor. And the reason that stuck out is because, you know, in interviews with Erin, Melissa's defense attorney has suggested

that the daycare was not honest with Ben's parents about that old injury months before his death. So there's that. Do we know ultimately why it was shut down? It was largely due to Ben's death there, but there was a lot of issues that were identified at that daycare throughout the investigation. Wow. The latest hour is 48th, fourth installment on Melissa's case. And I know that your team

will continue to follow with all kinds of updates, but where are we now in this case? What are the next steps? I do want to point out why we stay on these stories. If you're going to properly report on it, legal cases like these, these complicated medical issues that involve possibly a coerced confession, that takes time. So if you're going to really report on these issues, you've got to stay on it. And so I know this probably won't be our last installment. We're waiting to see what the governor's office decides, what the governor decides. At this moment, there has been a confidential recommendation made by the prisoner review

board, but there's no deadline for the governor. And before Melissa filed for clemency, she had what's called a habeas corpus petition pending in federal court. Now that was filed in 2019. It sat there with no ruling for five years due to a backlog, we think, partly due to COVID possibly. So Melissa's defense attorney decided to withdraw that petition and go after clemency instead. Now, if the clemency does not work out, they'll have to go back and refile in federal court. But she'll have to start all over again. That breaks my heart. We see this over and over again. It just takes a long time. And I understand why Melissa's

defense attorney went this route, but this is a long shot too. But Anne-Marie, I should point out that at the hearing and we were all touched by it, Ben's parents, his mother specifically, but his dad was there as well, spoke. They believe he was murdered by Melissa. They spoke very movingly about how hard it's been for them. Ben was a twin and they mentioned how difficult it was for his surviving twin sister to deal with it. So that is an important issue that the governor will weigh as well and may also play a part

in where this case goes. I mean, that's what's so hard. There are the facts that sometimes are hard to get to, and then there are the emotions in these cases. Sometimes justice is somewhere in between. Absolutely. I thought it was really important to show Benjamin's family. This was devastating for everyone that loved him. And you also obviously talked to Melissa's parents, and they have worked tirelessly to free their daughter.

And they actually have her bedroom exactly the same way that it was. What was it like speaking to them and visiting that bedroom? Yeah. So Melissa's father has really been consumed by this case. He's really dedicated his entire life to trying to free his daughter. And Crystal, Melissa's sister, tells us in the episode how her parents had to sell a lot of their belongings. We know that her father had a bait and tackle shop. He sold that years ago in an effort to help Melissa. So it's just a sad case all around.

Well, remember, Melissa is their baby. And so they feel they've lost, even though they can visit her, they've lost a child too. They feel great pain. They never had a lot of financial resources to begin with. And so they have spent probably close to everything they have.

They live very, very modestly. They still have faith, which is astounding to me. They believe she will come home and that's why they're keeping her room the same. They want her to come back. They have her artwork. She's a wonderful artist. She really is. They have her artwork on the walls and they have not lost faith. That's hard because we see them and then we can leave,

but we know they're left with that heartbreak. All of them, you know, the Kingan family and the Kaluzinskaya family. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's a great hour and I know you guys are going to stay on this case. I'm curious to see how things continue to develop and unfold as this case moves forward. So Stephanie, Erin, thank you very much. Thank you. Honestly, thank you for letting us talk about this. Yeah, thank you so much. So once again, everyone, if you like this series Postmortem, please rate and review

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