Thanks to work done by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit committed to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals, Minnesotan Thomas Rhodes is a free man after spending 25 years in jail.
Hayley Drozdowski-Poxleitner, from the Innocence Project, joined News Talk 830 WCCO’s Jordana Green and Adam Carter to discuss Rhodes' case and his exoneration.
In 1998, Rhodes was convicted of first- and second-degree murder in the death of his wife, Jana Rhodes. His 36-year-old wife drowned after falling overboard during a boat ride at night on Green Lake in Spicer, Minnesota, in 1996.
According to a release from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, the murder conviction hinged on the testimony of Dr. Michael McGee. During the trial, the doctor said that injuries found on Jana Rhodes' body proved Rhodes grabbed his wife by the neck before throwing her into the lake and running her over several times.
While speaking with investigators, Rhodes claimed that his wife had fallen out of the boat on her own and that he frantically searched for her in the dark but could not find her.
Now, thanks to an investigation from the Conviction Review Unit in the Attorney General’s Office, inconsistencies brought forward by the Innocence Project have proven Rhodes' depiction of what happened.
“With the benefit of a thorough review of all the evidence and circumstances, the CRU found that the medical evidence used in Mr. Rhodes’ conviction was flawed,” the statement from the office said.
Drozdowski-Poxleitner shared that her organization found out about the case through an application that Rhodes filled out, explaining his conviction and what he believes went wrong. The organization then went through what was provided, and determined that there was credible, convincing evidence supporting him. From there, they choose to represent Rhodes in his case.
“In Thomas’ case, we took on his case in 2013, so it's been nearly 10 years, and it has been, truly, an uphill battle of attempting to gain his release through the courts,” Drozdowski-Poxleitner said.
Thanks to the Minnesota post-conviction statute, Drozdowski-Poxleitner says he was time-barred from bringing his evidence of innocence into the courts, so the Innocence Project brought his case to the Minnesota CRU in 2020 instead.
Drozdowski-Poxleitner touched on Jana Rhodes’ death, saying that after she fell into the lake, she suffered a single blow to the head before being dragged along the bottom of the lake, causing more injuries.
Where McGee’s testimony doesn’t line up with evidence was his claim that she had suffered multiple blows to the head, implying there was intent by her husband to murder her using the boat.
“However, [there was] erroneous and false medical evidence… we found after we had nine independent forensic pathologists review Dr. McGee’s analysis of her autopsy,” Drozdowski-Poxleitner said. “None of those nine independent forensic pathologists would have called her death a murder. What they found, and what they all consistently agreed on, was that there was a single blow to the head likely from her initial fall out of the boat.”
Additionally, Drozdowski-Poxleitner said the pathologists noted that the other injuries on her body were consistent with that of other drowning victims.
After that evidence was provided to the CRU, another independent medical examiner was brought in by the unit, and Drozdowski-Poxleitner said that they agreed with the other nine’s findings.
Other discrepancies the nonprofit found involved the lake's temperature and how it would have impacted where the body wound up.
While one witness during the trial claimed the lake was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, which would have meant Rhodes was being untruthful about where his wife went overboard, the Minnesota DNR found it was closer to 70 degrees on that day, Drozdowski-Poxleitner said. This lined up with Rhodes' depiction of what happened.
“So again, that implication that Mr. Rhodes misled law enforcement as to where Mrs. Rhodes went overboard was just false,” Drozdowski-Poxleitner said.
Rhodes, who is now 63-year-olds, has two sons who have always maintained his innocence, and now after being freed, he will be able to spend time with them and his six grandchildren that he now has.
Drozdowski-Poxleitner shared that his family and the entire staff that worked on his case were with him when he was released.
“It was a truly incredible moment, I mean, watching someone walk out of prison, especially after being released for something that they were not guilty of ultimately, is an experience that no words do justice,” Drozdowski-Poxleitner said.
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