Stolen Life: The Debra Milke Story

A STOLEN LIFE:

The Debra Milke Story

Debra Milke

THE SET UP

A day after seeing Santa Claus at a mall on December 1st, 1989, young Christopher Milke asked his mom if he could go back.

Debra Milke’s roommate James took the boy – but instead of a trip back to the mall, he and a friend took young Christopher out to the desert & shot him 3 times in the back of the head. After being taken in for questioning, Milke allegedly confessed her role in the murder to Phoenix PD Detective Armando Saldate. She was convicted based on Detective Saldate’s word alone.

CASE CLOSED...

Everyone thought Debra Milke ended up exactly where she belonged – the only woman in Arizona on death row. She stayed there for 24 years – half her life – until 2013, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals shocked everyone by throwing out her conviction & death sentence.

There were only 2 conclusions to be drawn from this unbelievable turn of events – either those federal judges were ignorant, knuckle

headed idiots…or Debra Milke had been wrongly convicted.

For an investigative journalist, this situation was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Jana Bommersbach is a legendary Phoenix journalist and author – she’s even been honored with 2 lifetime achievement awards as an “inspiration to the state’s media community.”

Her investigation into the Milke case led to the book A Stolen Life: The Debra Milke Story. As the narrator of our show, she takes viewers inside one of the country’s most fascinating & infuriating criminal cases – inside the evidence, inside the breakdown of justice, inside the prison walls & finally, inside the mind of Debra Milke.

For 25 years, I thought Debra Milke was a child murdering bitch and I was joined by 100% of Arizona ~ Jana Bommersbach

Debra Milke

Armando Saldate

PART I:

In August 1989, Debra Milke and her son Christopher Milke moved into an apartment with Jim Styers, a man she knew through her sister.

On December 2, 1989, Styers took 4yr old Christopher to the Metrocenter mall in Phoenix. That afternoon he called Milke, and told her that the boy had disappeared from the mall. Styers alerted mall security, while Milke dialed 911. A missing person investigation was launched.

Chris Milke

The next day Phoenix police arrested Roger Scott, a long-time friend of Styers.

After more than fourteen hours of interrogation, Scott admitted that he knew where Christopher was and that the boy was dead. He directed the police to a desert area north of Phoenix, where Christopher’s body was discovered.

James L. Styers

Roger M. Scott

THE CASE Christopher had been shot three times in the head. According to the lead case detective Armando Saldate Jr., Scott claimed that Styers had committed the murder and that Styers had told him Milke had "wanted it done." However, Scott would not testify against Milke at her trial.

for testifying against Milke and Styers. He wanted to take the deal but his lawyer rejected it.

Styers, who had helped in the initial search for Christopher, was arrested and interviewed by police after being implicated by Scott.

Milke voluntarily went to the Pinal County sheriff's office where she was interrogated

by Saldate.

At trial, prosecutors relied on the alleged confession and pointed to a possible motive: Milke had taken out a $5,000 life insurance policy on her son. Milke, however, who worked at an insurance agency, had not purposefully negotiated the policy, but obtained it as a part of her regular employee benefits package. She had discussed the policy with Styers.

The interrogation was not recorded or witnessed by anyone other than Detective Saldate. Three days later, in a written report of the interrogation, Saldate indicated Milke had confessed to arranging the murder of her son Christopher.

Scott was offered a plea-bargain, 21 years in prison for second degree murder, in return

Milke was charged with conspiracy to commit first degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse, and first-degree murder.

In October 1990, she was convicted of all charges and sentenced to death. Styers and Scott were charged and tried separately.

Both were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death.

PART II: A civil lawsuit filed by Deborah Milke’s attorney’s claim she spent nearly 23 years on death row for the murder of her four-year-old son Christopher in 1989 all based on a fabricated, unwitnessed, unrecorded interrogation to coerce a confession by Phoenix police detective Armando Saldate. The suit says detective Saldate had a long history of lying under oath.

The suit also alleges the Phoenix Police Department manipulated the evidence to fit the fabricated confession. Milke’s attorney saying she never confessed to Detective Saldate and that no other evidence directly implicated her in the crime.

Debra Milke sued for compensation for 24 years of wrongful imprisonment.

The case was heard before Federal Judge Roslyn Silver, who’d been appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton.

THE AFTERMATH In 2020, Judge Silver ruled that Arizona didn’t owe Debra Milke a dime for being railroaded onto death row for 24 years— and dismissed her lawsuit seeking compensation.

To be more specific about what Judge Silver did — she never got within earshot of the merits of Debra’s lawsuit, where the central claim was that Saldate fabricated her confession.

It was never about deciding if the Phoenix Police Department and the Maricopa County Attorney’s office not only knew Saldate was a dirty cop but protected him and covered up for him for years. Mind you, that had ALREADY been decided by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Remember the “egregious prosecutorial misconduct?” Remember the “stain” on Arizona’s justice system?

Remember how the Arizona Supreme Court let that language stand?

So, there’s no longer any argument that this was a dirty, filthy case, and everyone on the inside — the police and prosecutors knew it.

Judge Silver dismissed the case because she ruled Debra Milke had “destroyed boxes of documents during her time in prison” and that she’d destroyed more boxes in her deceased mother’s storage cabinet in Switzerland and she’d delayed proceedings.

Also she hadn’t been responsive to discovery requests, and that she should have been more organized to turn over every scrap of paper she’d accumulated in 24 years on death row.

And because of that — ignoring all the evidence that proved Debra Milke deserved millions from the state of Arizona — because of that, the cash register was closed.

PART III: For a quarter century, I thought Debra Milke was a baby-killer.

I thought she got her boyfriend and his pal to kill her 4-year-old son Christopher on his way to see Santa.

Mostly, I thought she’d confessed to Phoenix Police Detective Armando Saldate. That was the only evidence they had against her, but it was good enough for me.

I thought Debra Milke had her 4-year-old son killed. After a three-year investigation, I have never been so wrong.

From what I read in the newspapers and saw on television, she deserved being the only woman on Arizona’s death row.

It wasn’t until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stunned us by throwing out her conviction and death sentence that I even considered giving her a 2nd look.

I read their opinion online with my mouth agape. It was the most scathing smack down of a state’s judicial incompetence and blindness that I’d ever read.

THE REPORTER I immediately contacted her attorneys and soon was at Perryville Prison visiting her through a plexiglass partition. That was the start of a three-year investigation that astonished me. I found that everything we know about Debra Milke is wrong.

I found that many believed her innocent from the start, including the jail psychiatrist who spent 15 months with her before her trial, and the prison counselor who begged an attorney to help free her. I interviewed her a dozen times.

a new day care center for her son, new clothes for them both, and one of his Christmas presents already hidden away.

Jim Styers, on death row along with Roger Scott for killing Christopher, wasn’t Debra’s boyfriend. He was a trusted family friend who took them in when they fled from Mark Milke. Those who knew him, neighbors, family, friends, his church where he ushered, never believed he was the trigger man.

I reconstructed her life up to Christopher’s death on Dec. 2, 1989. Did I find a horrible mother who hated her child? No, I found a 24-year-old single mother and son on their way to a better life.

And Milke’s confession? The “confession” wasn’t taped, it wasn’t witnessed, there was no verification. Only Saldate’s word—more authoritarian than Debra’s insistence that she never confessed and he twisted her words. Several experts in interrogation have concluded the “confession” is a lie.

Debra had recently gotten full custody of Christopher to keep him away from his father, Mark Milke. She had a new job that promised a career, a new apartment in Tempe where they’d move after Christmas,

It took years for Debra’s attorney to discover Saldate was a “dirty cop” with a long history of lying. I found that by the time Debra went on trial, Arizona courts had problems with Saldate’s veracity for seven years.