Criminal - The Lake

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

Amanda Hamm and her boyfriend Maurice LaGrone drove to Clinton Lake one night in 2003. The next day, DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey told a local newspaper, “We don’t want to blow this up into something that it’s not. But on the other side, we’ve got three children who are dead. None of us know exactly what happened.” If you’d like to learn more about the case, Edith Brady Lunny has written a book, along with Steve Vogel, called The Unforgiven. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. This episode may not be suitable for everyone. Please use discretion. Nobody was there to witness the car going into the water. There was no surveillance video there at the lake. There was a boater who came upon the accident before the first responders arrived. He tried to call 911 on his cell phone from his boat, but he's probably the closest person there was to an eyewitness to what happened. On September 2nd, 2003, a 911 call was placed from a payphone at Clinton Lake in Clinton, Illinois. We're hearing about it from Edith Brady Lunney, courts reporter for the Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington, Illinois. I went to the hospital, which is right there in the center of Clinton. And we really didn't know at that point exactly what had happened.

We knew that three children had drowned. But it was not clear what the circumstances were surrounding the drownings. A 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass had been recovered from the lake. The driver was 28-year-old Maurice Legron. In the passenger seat was his girlfriend, 27-year-old Amanda Hamm. They survived. In the back seat, Amanda Hamm's three children, ages 6, 3, and 23 months, did not. According to Maurice Legron and Amanda Hamm, they'd gone out to dinner and then gone to the lake.

Maurice parked close to the edge of the water on a sloped boat ramp, with the nose of the car facing the water. So he parked just a matter of a few feet from the water on the boat ramp. The kids and the two adults got out and played for a while. After they were done playing, they all got back in the car. And instead of backing the car up the boat ramp, It went into the water and sank. The next day, DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey told a local newspaper, we don't want to blow this up into something that it's not. But on the other side, we've got three children who are dead. None of us know exactly what happened. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Maurice Legron and Amanda Hamm said that it was a horrible accident. Maurice Legron told

police that when he put the car in reverse to back out and took his foot off the brake, the car rolled forward more than he had expected. He said that when he put his foot on the gas pedal, the tires began to spin. The car moved into the

water and began to float. When the police pulled the car out of the water, it was indeed in reverse. But once it was in the water, it went out about 30 feet into the water, took a nosedive, with the hood of the car in about 8 feet of water, the rear bumper in about 4 feet of water.

Here's Maurice Legrone at the scene of the drownings, in about eight feet of water, the rear bumper in about four feet of water. Here's Maurice Legrone at the scene of the drownings three days later, doing a walkthrough of the scene with county investigators. Okay, Maurice, I'd like to point out something real quick. You're standing on the same ramp today. You notice that the condition of the ramp is very dry, is it not? Yes, sir. Is it slippery at all, Maurice?

Yes, sir, it is. Okay. What takes place inside the car? Do you recall if Amanda said anything? No, she said the car was going in the water. Something to that effect, I'm not sure exactly. You said you went for the window. Yes, sir.

Can you explain that to me? I went to roll down the window. Because I knew if the car was submerged, the chances of me getting out the door to help get them out would have been slim. So I figured with that window rolled down, you know, I would have had a better chance to save the kids. Okay, so you rolled down? Yes, sir.

I was just trying to figure out the best way to deal with this situation as possible, you know, because like I said, I was panicking. I was terrified. Maurice Legrone later testified that he was able to open his driver's side door and get out of the car. He testified that Amanda Hamm appeared behind him in the water. He said he was unable to open the back door or reach the children through the car window. According to the owner's manual for the make and model of the car,

the doors lock automatically when the ignition switch is on and the car is in reverse. Amanda Hamm got out of the water and called 911 from a nearby payphone. On the 911 recording, she's hysterical. The operator can't understand her. And then Maurice Legrone appears on the recording and gives the operator their location. He asks repeatedly what other information the 911

operator needs in order to find out where they are. You can hear that he's agitated, but he seems to be trying to remain calm. At one point, he yells at the 911 operator because he doesn't seem to think she's responding fast enough. And within about four minutes, the first responders were there, and they were able to pull the children out of the car within just a couple of minutes. But the kids were in bad shape when they got to the hospital. The two boys, who were ages six and three, died at the hospital. Their little sister, who was just a little shy of her second birthday, died the next day at another hospital. One of the doctors at the hospital asked Amanda Hamm what happened at the lake. The doctor later testified that Amanda Hamm said,

we were getting ready to leave, and he got confused on which way. He put it in the wrong gear and hit the gas, and we sped into the lake. He got mixed up. In the days and months that followed, Amanda Hamm was interviewed by the police seven times, without a lawyer present. Most of the interviews were recorded. When an investigator asked Amanda

why she did not save her children, she said that she was trying to, but, quote, the water was coming in so fast, the best thing I could think of to do was call 911. And that's what I went and did. At times, investigators are shouting at her. They asked Amanda Hamm when Maurice Legrone first suggested that life would be easier without the children. He never has, she said. He's never said anything like that to me.

Here's a clip from a September 10, 2003 interview, one week after the deaths of her children. Amanda, when you walk out of this place, everybody from the local Clinton newspaper to CNN has been covering this case. Now, you're going to be here one way or the other. You're going to go out with, this was a cold, calculated, murderous fish that went out there with the intent to murder these three little kids

because they were excess baggage. Because they were, listen to me, Amanda, listen to me. Because they're excess baggage, okay? Cold, calculated, heartless, murderous bitch. That's one end of the spectrum we're looking at, alright? What we're talking about, maybe the other end of the spectrum, we've got a young mother. We've got a young mother in financial trouble.

We've got a young mother in financial trouble. We've got a young mother with a high amount of stress trying to raise three kids on her own. We've got a young mother with a live-in boyfriend, and this boyfriend is very possessive. He's very controlling, and these kids are an obstacle to him, and I think maybe took advantage of his mother and persuaded her to do something that she didn't want to do. And no matter how much financial situation I had, no matter how much baggage I've had for my past, I would never hurt these kids. In a subsequent interview,

Amanda Hamm told investigators that Maurice Legrone cheated on her, and that he would sometimes get frustrated with her children. She began to agree with police when they suggested that Maurice had wanted to drive into the water that night.

She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Police interviewed her at the hospital for seven hours. Doctors had administered three psychotropic medications. This interview was not recorded, but police testified that when they asked her if she knew Maurice planned to harm the children, she nodded yes. When Maurice Legron was interviewed by police, he maintained that it had been an accident. In December of 2003, Maurice Legron and Amanda Hamm were charged with nine counts of first-degree murder, and each held on $5 million bail. In announcing the charges, Sheriff Roger Massey said there were, quote, some similarities between this case and a case 10 years earlier in South Carolina.

In 1994, a woman named Susan Smith called 911 and said that a man had stolen her car and driven off with her two young sons. She was all over the news, pleading for the safe return of her children. But nine days later, she confessed that she'd driven to a lake, parked on the boat ramp, got out of the car, and released the brake while her two sons slept in the back seat. The prosecution's theory was that Amanda and Maurice wanted to eliminate her three children so that they could move to St. Louis, where she was going to go to school, and life would be much easier without these three pesky children around to take care of. The thing about that theory, though, that really didn't make sense to the defense and to a lot of people was this. Amanda and Maurice had an apartment that was subsidized with public funds because she had three children. Much of their support for their finances and their utilities and things like

rent and food came from the fact that she had three children. And their only vehicle that they had to go anywhere with was her car that was put into the lake. And you put that together with the evidence that she had applied for housing in St. Louis as part of her plan to go to school, and she was accepted into public housing, and that application included herself and the three children. Amanda Hamm and Maurice Legron were tried separately. Maurice Legron's trial happened first. During jury selection for Maurice Legron's trial, potential jurors were asked if they had any water traumas in their lives and how they felt about biracial relationships. The prosecution argued, this is not a whodunit, this is a how case. The prosecutors

told jurors that Amanda Hamm's children got in the way of Maurice Legron's life of, quote, smoking marijuana, having sex, not working, and living off his girlfriend. Maurice Legron's defense attorney told the jury, the guy who allegedly planned this incident is the same guy who got demoted because he could not operate a cash register and he couldn't count change. His ex-girlfriends testified that he'd been good with their children. One said he had the patience of 10,000 men. Amanda's mother testified that Maurice and the children had been close. Maurice testified. He admitted to slapping Amanda once.

The police were called. He admitted that he'd cheated on her often. He testified that he wasn't in love with her, but that he stayed because I didn't have anywhere else to go. He said he played pranks on Amanda's children. He once pretended to put one of them in the oven. The oven was off. He said that night at the lake,

I was playing around with the kids, acting as if I was going to drive into the water, and that's how I ended up on the boat ramp. Did you ever hit the brake as the car was going into the water, his lawyer asked. Maurice Legrone said he did not. I panicked, he said.

I can't tell you why. I didn't. I just didn't. The judge in that case would not allow the jury to consider involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense. So in other words, for that jury, they had one option, murder or nothing. So they convicted him of murder, and the judge immediately sentenced him to life in prison, because that's the law in Illinois. He had killed more than one person. So he is serving a life sentence. After the verdict, one of the jurors told reporters,

we didn't believe there was intent, but he was put in a situation that got out of hand and didn't save them. And what about Amanda? And then later that same year in 2006, she has her own murder trial in yet another county. But in that case, the judge allowed the jury to consider child endangerment charges, which is, of course, a far less serious criminal offense. The jury deliberated over about three days, and the jury took that option and convicted her of child endangerment,

and she was incarcerated about five years. Hello? Hi, this is Phoebe Judge calling. Is that an alias or a stage name, or are you really a Phoebe? And I'm really a Judge, too. My real name is Phoebe Judge. Okay.

Well, I'll treat you with deference and respect then. Well, I'll do the same to you. Could we just start with you introducing yourself? My name is Steve Skelton. I'm an attorney in Bloomington, Illinois, who has specialized in criminal defense for roughly 40 years at this point in time. And I represented Amanda Hamm at a murder trial that took place several years ago here in central Illinois. We were not able to reach the lead prosecutor, but Steve Skelton remembers that the prosecution emphasized

how Amanda Hamm reacted after learning her children were dead. The 600-pound gorilla in the room was, we've got three dead children, and even though my client was profoundly affected by it, she, according to the state, did not react in the way that one, quote-unquote, should react when confronted with the stark reality of the fact that her three kids were dead. What's she like? She's a nice person. She's not overly bright.

She's not well-educated. There's nothing outstanding about her. I mean, she is about a million miles from being an evil person. I mean, she's just a regular run-of-the-mill, someone who doesn't have a great employment history. I mean, she works hard in trying to make the best of her situation. Amanda Hamm declined to speak with us for this story. Do I think she bears any culpability, either morally or legally, for the deaths of her children.

No, absolutely not. 300%. Why was Maurice convicted and the background of a defendant comes into play, but based on my knowledge of his trial and the equivalency of the evidence that was presented at both of the trials, I have to draw the conclusion that the fact that he was an underemployed or unemployed young black man who was dating a white woman and living with her three white children played at least to some degree a role in the process that led to his conviction of murder. What was your defense strategy? To try to explain the totality of the circumstances leading up to her children's deaths in a reasonable and informed way, rather than just jumping to the conclusion that since three young children were dead, that somebody necessarily has to be criminally responsible for that. In both trials, there was a lot of confusion about whether Maurice and Amanda's clothes were wet or dry when the first responders arrived at the lake. Witnesses testified to both.

A doctor at the hospital testified that Amanda's hair was dry. A first responder testified that Amanda's sweatpants were so wet that they were falling down. Someone else testified that Amanda was wearing a skirt. In his closing argument, prosecutor Roger Simpson told the jury that they could learn about Amanda's priorities in life just by looking at her first name. He said, the first four letters of her name are a man. At her sentencing hearing, she read a statement. I regret that I formed a relationship with Maurice Legron,

not because he was an evil person, but because he was immature, selfish, and unwilling to be a responsible partner. And she pledged not to make similar mistakes in future relationships. After serving nearly five years for child endangerment, Amanda Hamm was released from prison on September 9, 2008. She moved to Chicago. And she wanted to start her life over there. She got married to a man named Leo Ware,

and they decided to have more children. She changed her name to Amanda Ware. She has said, what happened in 2003 is something I'll never get over, but I have to try to move forward, and having a home, a husband, and a family is the biggest part of that. She and Leo Ware had a daughter and two years later, a second daughter. On February 28, 2014, she went to Present St. Joseph Hospital to deliver her third child, a son. The hospital staff comes in and approaches her and says,

are you Amanda Hamm? She tells them, yes, she is. They then place a hotline call to child welfare people and tell them Amanda Hamm is in the hospital and she has children. The next day, members of the Illinois DCFS, Department of Children and Family Services, appeared at the hospital and began to ask questions about the 2003 drowning. And while they're having that conversation, that very same day, another staff person is going to the Ware's home, and Leo is there with one of

the girls. The other girl is out with her maternal grandmother at an outing, and when they return to the home, that's when the girls are taken. So their baby brother is just one day old when the girls are taken. Amanda isn't allowed to see the baby for several days after that because DCFS also takes custody of the baby. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman

as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions, what should Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions.

What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. The basis for taking the children was the 2003 drowning case. When Amanda was convicted of child endangerment, it's called anticipatory neglect.

We may not have a complaint against you today, in other words, but because of what you've done in the past, we're going to anticipate and decide whether or not you might be a future danger to your children. I'm limited in what I can say, but yeah, that's what brought the case in. When Amanda and Leah Ware's children were taken into state custody in February of 2014, Carol Casey was appointed to be the children's attorney. She's the attorney supervisor at the Cook County Public Guardian's office. What does the Public Guardian's office do? We have a number of different divisions, but I'm in the juvenile division, and we function as attorney and guardian ad litem for all the children,

pretty much all the children, involved in child protection cases. We currently represent over 6,000 children. What are the conditions for the state to intervene in this anticipatory neglect scenario? If there's been a finding, generally if there's been a finding of abuse or neglect as to another child the concept is is that you don't have to wait for the second child to be hurt so sometimes you can have you know all the kids in the same environment one kid is hurt and the other kids aren't hurt generally you're gonna say well we're not going to take the risk with those other children, right? But then take it out to the next level, which is there is a child who is then born after the experience in that home. And so the question becomes is like, okay,

are the parents able to care for the kid safely? The issue was not the immediate health and well-being of the Weyer children, but rather, was Amanda herself a danger? Did the events of 2003 constitute grounds for anticipatory neglect? The one thing that I think really is important to remember in this case is, number one, there were no allegations of abuse or neglect regarding these three children who were born to Amanda and Leah Ware. The children were doing really, really thriving with their two parents in their apartment there.

The Ware children were placed in the care of Leo Ware's sister. In September 2015, Amanda and Leo Ware went to court to ask for their kids back. So the judge said initially, we just want to make sure that the children are safe and that you have, basically, that you have healed from that experience. That's what we're looking to do here. And that was the first sort of commentary that the judge had in this. But as the case moved forward, it was obvious the state was going to be very, very aggressive in this. And the first thing they did was order all of the court documents from the DeWitt County courthouse. Their plan was to try to show the judge that because she was convicted of the child endangerment, that she should not be allowed

to care for her three new children. Law enforcement involved in the 2003 drowning were brought to Chicago to testify. The Chicago Tribune reported that it was, quote, mostly a reprise of Hamm's 2006 murder trial as investigators, some long retired, recounted the horrific events of that day in September 2003. The state also presented Leah Ware's criminal record,

felony convictions in the 80s and 90s for delivery of a controlled substance and theft. They introduced Amanda Ware's history with drugs and alcohol and presented evidence that she had called the police in 2012 because Leo Weyer hit her. In 2013, she took out an order of protection against him. In a written statement,

she said, he's been abusive in the past and I know what he's capable of doing to me. She dropped the petition two weeks later. The assistant state's attorney said she has a pattern of choosing relationships that are abusive in different ways. Leah Ware told reporters, we raised my kids for three years before they decided it was a problem. We all make bad decisions in life. This is about

moving on. Amanda and Leah Ware were instructed by the judge to go to counseling, Amanda to drug and alcohol counseling, and Leo to domestic violence courses before the case was reviewed again. Leo and Amanda went back to court frequently to have the case reviewed. For the most part, they did complete the court's requirements, but there were slip-ups. Leo failed a drug test. But as time passed, it seemed that what mattered most to the judge

was what happened in 2003. The judge said that Amanda was, quote, dishonest with herself and cut off emotionally from the deaths of her children. He said that she had, quote, conned her therapist. The judge said in his order that he wanted most of all for Amanda to admit that she had played a role in the murder of her children. And that she was not willing to do because she claims her innocence of murder and she claims Maurice's innocence of murder.

The judge said Mrs. Ware has put on blinders to that event in order to survive her everyday life and go on. That may serve her well as an individual, but the court's focus is on the minors in this case, their well-being, their survival. This court will not put on blinders. Here's Carol Casey. My job isn't to think about the parents. This is a little Carol on life, but I think you have to recognize that dignity of everybody who comes into the court. Not simply being polite, but recognizing that they're human beings with their own challenges. And it's easy to disregard the people around you. To say, oh, that's just somebody whose kids ended up dead because of what they did. But that's my client's parent.

My clients look in the mirror and they see at some point, as you do, as I do, their parents. I still hear words that my father say coming out of my mouth. You can't disregard that person. The process falls to heck and it's just not good, and it's not healthy. That having been said, I think recognizing that you may be causing a person pain doesn't mean that you not do what you have to do for the benefit of my child client, but it's important to recognize that they have huge challenges and their life hasn't been easy, and this is hard. Edith Brady Lunney has been covering this case since that first night, nearly 16 years ago.

For her, what continues to be so interesting about this story is that Amanda Ware was essentially tried twice. Once in criminal court and once in a child welfare court. She wonders whether Leo and Amanda Ware's children are better off now than they were when they were living with their parents. These were not two perfect people, but, you know, what is our standard for allowing people to keep and to raise their children? In February of 2018, the Wehrs returned to court, and the judge ruled that Leah Wehr's sister would be the children's permanent legal guardian. Amanda and Leo Ware have separated.

They visit their children often. Leo has been granted unsupervised visits. But Amanda's visits must be supervised at all times. Thank you. Special thanks to Susanna Roberson. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show. If you'd like to learn more about the case, Edith Brady Lonnie has written a book along with Steve Vogel. It's called The Unforgiven. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX,

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