(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
(LINE DIALING)
(LINE RINGING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
It's terrible.
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
-(SIRENS WAILING) -HEATHER GUERRA: I woke up,
they asked me if I knew where I was.
I couldn't tell them anything.
Not even my name.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
They're saying you killed your son.
No way.
DIANA SIMS: If they can prove that you were speeding
or running a red light,
you could face 20 years in prison.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
It's unbearable to even think of your mother going to jail.
I'm terrified that my daughter is going to go to prison.
I know in my heart I did not do this.
(GASPS)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
My name is Diana Sims.
I'm a criminal defense attorney in Houston, Texas.
I've been practicing in Harris County now
for 24 years.
I am currently representing Heather Guerra.
On July 8th, 2020,
Heather decided she was going to go to the beach.
Heather was driving.
She was with her boyfriend and her five-year-old son, Julian.
On her way,
she comes up to a light
at the intersection.
All of a sudden,
she gets involved in a serious traffic accident.
Heather's white SUV
collided with another person in a pickup truck.
One of them ran a red light.
They hit like this.
Both cars were shredded.
Pieces of their cars
ended up landing on other vehicles.
There were six cars involved,
and as a result of that accident,
Heather, her boyfriend and her five-year-old son, Julian,
were transported by life flight
to the medical center for treatment.
Heather was severely injured in that accident.
She's suffering from brain damage,
she's suffering from broken bones,
terrible injuries that had put her in a coma.
Tragically, they lost little five-year-old Julian in the accident,
He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Not only did she lose her child,
she woke up
with a handcuff to the bed
and an officer telling her
she is charged with killing her son.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
I can't imagine how Heather felt.
The state believes that Heather was speeding
and she ran a red light,
killing her five-year-old son, Julian,
and that is resulting in a manslaughter charge.
She's also accused of causing injury
to the other driver in the pickup truck.
That resulted in an aggravated assault charge on Heather
for his injuries.
Two felonies against her
that could potentially land her in prison
for up to 20 years.
It's horrific.
I feel for her as a woman, as a mother,
and I want justice for her.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
GUERRA: What I remember,
I woke up in the hospital.
They asked me if I remember my name.
If I knew where I was,
if I knew why I was there.
At that time I couldn't tell them anything.
Not even my name.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
The officer is the one that told me.
He told me that I was in a car accident...
and my son died.
And obviously, I fought to be alive,
which, that was not even my intentions of doing
because I would've traded places with him in a heartbeat.
It hit so hard.
I stopped eating.
I go to sleep in tears,
I wake up and I'm like,
"Okay, God, you woke me up again.
"Now what?"
My family have been there for me from day one.
But I don't know what's going to happen.
Living in fear of going to prison,
I just feel at a standstill.
I never got to grieve the loss of my son.
There is no way that you can do that
and fight for your freedom,
because that's what I'm doing.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: We are gonna meet with Heather
and find out what she remembers about the accident.
-Hey, Heather. -Hey.
-Good to see you. Come on in. -Good to see you.
Heather,
you've been through the wringer with this situation,
it just breaks my heart
that you've had to go through all of this.
Is that trach related to the accident?
Yes.
-Uh... -Tell me about that.
After I was in a coma,
I couldn't move and talk at the same time
without running out of breath.
So, they put the trach
so that way it opened it up to where I could breathe.
Now, the next step is to put the stent in.
-Okay. -You know...
So it'll open up your airway?
-Yes. -Okay.
Let's talk about
July 8th, 2020.
I don't have much memory
of the actual accident
because of the brain injury that I had in the accident.
Okay.
But I have memories of that morning.
SIMS: Okay.
Me and my boyfriend had plans to go to the beach.
I bathed Julian, got him dressed,
and then we got in the car.
I know we stopped at the corner store.
We got something to drink.
Got him some juice to put in his sippy cup.
(SMACKS LIPS) And after that, I...
I don't remember anything else. I don't remember...
SIMS: That's the last thing you remember?
That's the last that I remember.
SIMS: Okay.
I don't want you to be scared,
but I need you to have a full understanding of the charges.
For you to be guilty of this,
you would have had to have been speeding,
to have a completely red light,
going through that red light,
knowing it's full-blown red,
and the other cars are starting to go.
If it was my fault,
I would not want to fight this.
Because it would have been
because of me that my son is not here,
and I would need to be punished.
But with my baby in the car,
there is no way,
no way I would speed,
I would go through a yellow light,
much less a red light.
Mmm-hmm.
Would not happen.
I know in my heart I did not do this.
That's good.
You know, Heather,
I feel for you.
It is a nightmare.
I'm going to do everything I can
to get you exonerated.
Period.
This is just
a bad nightmare.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: This case is very challenging.
Heather has no memory of what happened
during the accident.
So, we have to put together a case
almost without her.
And so we need to gather information
to find out how that accident happened.
This is going to be one of the most
challenging cases I've ever done.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: This is a really hard case for me to deal with.
My client, Heather,
is being accused of killing her child.
And as a result of Heather's injuries,
she has no memory of what happened.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
My job as a defense attorney
is to try to put together the puzzle,
to figure out how this accident really happened.
(LINE DIALING)
(LINE RINGING)
SIMS: A 911 call can be a wealth of information.
Potentially, they're witnesses to our case.
(LINE DIALING)
SIMS: You know, what we're dealing with
is a very chaotic scene.
People are calling in,
but at this point, nobody has established
who was at fault in the accident.
(LINE RINGING)
SIMS: That is not good.
This caller says that Heather ran a red light
and hit the other driver
who was driving a gray truck.
SIMS: She says that Heather was at fault.
She is a damning witness for my case.
I'm going to keep listening to these calls.
(LINE DIALING)
SIMS: That's good.
This caller,
she said that the truck hit the SUV,
so that could be really big for us.
There were eight total calls,
but there are conflicting stories,
so I am going to
give this information to my investigator
so that he can track down all the 911 callers
and see which ones are useful
and which ones are not.
I hope that this is going to be a good result for Heather.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
GUERRA: Come on. Show Mama you can do it.
My son was very, very special.
He could say his full ABCs at three years old.
-Yay, Julian. -JULIAN: Hey!
He was very loving.
(BOTH LAUGH)
He was very active.
He was on the go all the time.
Since the accident,
I've lost a lot of my memory.
My family, thank God,
are my rock and foundation.
Hey, girlie.
-How are you doing? -GUERRA: How are you?
Um, waiting on y'all.
-Well, we're here now. -All right.
Hi, pudding.
-I love you. -I love you, too.
HERNANDEZ: You just about ready.
I am ready.
My memories aren't what they used to be,
so this just refreshes it.
HERNANDEZ: That was his first school picture.
-GUERRA: He was so handsome. -(HERNANDEZ LAUGHS)
And there, with all his wild hair
-like his mama. -Yeah.
GUERRA: Definitely had my hair.
(HERNANDEZ LAUGHS)
My baby.
ADEN: I love that one.
HERNANDEZ: Oh, and his favorite time.
The beach.
The memories are so precious,
so precious.
HERNANDEZ: This right here?
GUERRA: I don't remember.
Think back on where he was at when that picture was taken.
GUERRA: I just don't remember.
And that's why these are so important,
because they help fill up that hole.
-(GUERRA SOBS) -I knew it was gonna be hard
for you to look at that.
GUERRA: I'm gonna go clean my face.
Okay, go clean your face.
We've been through so many roller coasters
in the past three years.
And I want my daughter to have peace.
I want her to find joy.
And I know that she'll never find complete joy
because we don't have him.
But at least this will be over.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: In a case involving a high speed crash
and a fatality,
they're going to want to see if the defendant
was under the influence of any alcohol
or controlled substance
at the time of the incident.
So the blood warrant says
that marijuana fell out of Heather's pocket...
...when she was life flighted.
Also,
the officer says he observed Heather to have an alcoholic
smell to her breath.
The officer formed the opinion
that the defendant was under the influence
of a controlled substance
at the time of the incident.
It's not going to look good
to a jury.
That could potentially break my case.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: They found a bag of weed on Heather.
Sometimes when the police go to a hospital,
they're going to talk to the nurse about
whether there was any alcohol or drugs
in somebody's system.
So here we have Heather in the hospital,
she's not conscious.
The police officer is trying to find out
if Heather was intoxicated.
So we've learned that Heather had no alcohol in her system,
um, which is very important for us.
SIMS: She wasn't under the influence
of any drug or alcohol,
but you get a sense
that the basis of her case
came about
when they found that bag of weed in her pocket.
They started to focus in on Heather.
So, I'm gonna make that an issue in trial
that it's all one-sided against Heather.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
GUERRA: Hey.
HERNANDEZ: Hey, girl.
Hello.
Hi, everybody.
Hey!
My brother.
JAMES WOLFE: Hey.
GUERRA: How are you?
ADEN: Hey.
GUERRA: We've always been close,
but this has brought us closer
with lots of emotions.
WOLFE: It's been hard.
It's my nephew,
he's plastered over everybody's cars
in memory.
But it just...
It's crap. It really is.
And not only lost my nephew,
I'm losing my sister in the meantime.
I've never been to prison.
Never done any of that.
My sister hasn't either.
So, why is this all of a sudden
we're going to jail?
Lord, we're gathered here today
to celebrate life,
unity and family.
RAYMUNDO ANTUNES: It's kind of unbearable
to even think of your mother going to jail
for your brother's death.
It doesn't really make sense to me.
My life feels like it just completely flipped upside down,
you know?
But my mom's not the same mom that we had.
I remember her when she got out of the hospital.
The doctors would tell us
that she wasn't going to be able to walk, talk.
Bringing her home, taking care of her,
seeing her, like, progress every day,
that was such a blessing.
HERNANDEZ: This has been a trial for the whole family,
not just for Heather,
but the whole family.
But I'm not going to lose faith
that my daughter is going to walk away from this.
My daughter didn't kill her child.
No.
GUERRA: Come here, babies.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: Looking at these photos,
you can really tell it was a high impact crash.
I have one photo here
that has Heather's speedometer
clocked at around 93 miles an hour.
If Heather was going 93 miles an hour,
the state could prove that she was recklessly driving,
proving manslaughter.
That is not good for me.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: Heather's speedometer
after the crash was
set at 93 miles an hour.
It doesn't look good for Heather.
So, we are headed
back to the scene of the accident.
We are meeting with Bryan Corb,
who is my accident expert.
Hey, Bryan.
BRYAN CORB: Hey.
SIMS: Looking at the scene,
it's a very busy intersection.
You can still see the tire marks from Heather's car.
We've got to figure out how that accident happened.
CORB: Yes.
(CAMERA CLICKS)
(HORN BLARING)
CORB: From reading the offense report,
the Chevrolet is obviously coming
down on Baker Road,
coming under the overpass,
approaching the light,
and Heather's coming down Decker.
Both vehicles then impact at the intersection.
SIMS: So, Bryan, we know
-her speedometer stopped at 93 miles an hour. -Right.
SIMS: And I don't know how that impacts our case,
if that's going to be something problematic for me.
Okay. So,
a couple of things that we want to look at
from the very start.
Can she get up to a high rate of speed
based on distance from the railroad tracks
-to the area of impact? -SIMS: Okay.
CORB: Because I know there's railroad tracks
probably about a half a mile down.
The other thing we want to look at is
I would look at the speedometer
to see what kind of motor the speedometer had in it.
SIMS: But you know they didn't save the vehicle.
Well, see, that's a problem.
Because what that does then is that takes out evidence
that we could have looked at,
that unfortunately we're not going to be able to.
-Okay. -The only thing we can do
is pull up prior research
that has been done on speedometers...
-Okay. -...okay, based on previous research
and technical papers.
-Right. -Okay?
The other factor is,
did the officers attempt to obtain data
of the other vehicle
before everything was destroyed or gotten rid of?
Did they attempt to obtain data and not get it?
So it's gonna be crucial for you
to gather information from the scene,
gather information from the crash data
and tell me what that means.
Correct. Yes.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: When the accident happened,
there were eight total 911 calls.
So, there are several witnesses
that we need to shore up
before trial.
So, we have a total of
four potential witnesses.
Two witnesses for the state,
maintaining that Heather was either speeding
or ran a red light.
That's problematic for me.
However,
here we have two witnesses
that says that Heather did not run the red light.
This woman saw the other driver
run the red light,
so she is going to be an excellent witness.
I've also got another statement
from the boyfriend, the passenger in Heather's vehicle,
who will also testify that she did not run a red light.
So, basically, I have two witnesses,
the state has two witnesses,
and they're conflicting.
Which one is correct?
Well, for me, the conflict
creates reasonable doubt,
and so I don't think a jury
will be able to pick sides
as to who was accurate and who was not.
So, that's a huge win for me.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
-Hey, Bryan, how are you? -Good. How are you doing?
-Good to see you. -Good to see you,
thanks for coming.
What do you got for me?
The speedometer showed it was locked
at 93 miles per hour.
The needle showed to be frozen at 93.
So, let's look at research
that was done on speedometers freezing.
They did several tests on various vehicles.
This one conclusion,
it says, "Needles of instruments
"can easily be moved
"in the event of lateral forces
"experienced in a collision.
"So any frozen readings are likely to be unreliable."
Okay.
-Makes sense? Okay. -Mmm-hmm. Makes sense.
So,
let's look at
what the officers did with the 3D scanner.
It takes thousands of photographs,
stitched together to make it go all the way around your scene.
-Interesting. -Okay. So...
we can see Heather's vehicle.
-So, first impact being with the pickup truck. -SIMS: Mmm-hmm.
CORB: You can imagine that kind of force...
-Mmm-hmm. -...once it hits,
the damage that was done.
But then, you can kind of see
where she impacts with the curb.
That's going to be your second impact.
SIMS: Okay.
Then, of course, your third impact is back over here.
So there's possibly three impacts.
So, how can you say
that the impact didn't affect the speedometer?
Okay. Awesome.
CORB: The other factor is,
could she have built up to the 93
that the speedometer's pegged?
So what I did is I just took a measurement
-from the railroad tracks being right here... -SIMS: Mmm-hmm.
...all the way down to the area of impact.
You're looking at about 1,500 feet.
-Okay. -All right. So,
what I've done is a time calculation.
It's basic physics.
-Okay. -Okay?
So, taking that 1,500 feet,
using a normal acceleration rate,
you're looking at a speed of 41 miles per hour.
Okay.
Or, worst case,
rapid acceleration, which would be,
I'm going to go just accelerate as quick as I can,
a speed of 68 miles per hour.
Again,
nowhere close to our 93 that the speedometer's pegged.
SIMS: Right.
So we have knocked out the argument
that she was going 93 miles an hour?
CORB: I believe so, yes.
Okay.
Very good news.
We know from the airbag control module download
that the pickup truck was accelerating,
starts at 21 miles per hour
with a 61% throttle,
gets up to 42 miles per hour.
-Okay? Which... -Mmm-hmm.
What's the speed limit on that road?
-Forty. -Forty.
So now, it's already over the speed limit.
-Mmm-hmm. -And increasing.
And increasing?
All the little factors seem to fit together
to support our conclusion she was not reckless and...
And, um, committing manslaughter.
Agreed.
-That's going to have a huge impact on our case. -Right.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: My meeting with Bryan went extremely well.
He maintains that it was impossible for Heather
to be going 93 miles an hour.
He also explained that the complainant was accelerating.
And then I think he's a crucial element
to me being able to get my case dismissed.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
I've worked many months to get this case ready for trial.
I have been through all of the evidence
and put together the pieces of the puzzle,
and in my opinion,
they have persecuted Heather wrongfully,
and I want a dismissal.
I desperately want to bring closure to this for Heather.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
So I'm here downtown at the courthouse,
and I'm going to meet with the district attorney.
We're going to go in
and see if we can get it dismissed.
We had the meeting,
they are open to reviewing Bryan's report.
They're going to evaluate it and make a decision
on whether or not to dismiss or go to trial.
If they don't dismiss this case,
we will go to trial.
So, today we're going to visit Heather
and discuss the trial.
I need to discuss with Heather
her potential testimony,
and I need to gauge whether or not
Heather's in a position to talk.
Hey, Heather. How are you, sweetie?
-(HOARSELY) I'm good. -Good to see you.
SIMS: Now, I know
you've just had surgery,
your voice is not all the way back,
but I wanted to talk to you about
getting ready for trial.
When are you expected to get your voice back?
(SPEAKING IN HOARSE VOICE)
Oh.
Okay.
I still want you to testify.
In my opinion,
the jury needs to connect to you directly.
You know, as a mother who lost her child,
I want you to talk about Julian on the stand.
I... I totally get it.
And... And it should be.
You know, this is your future on the line.
I know.
No.
You are innocent.
(CRYING)
It's not just a "not guilty."
You are innocent.
I can't tell you what's going to happen yet,
but I want you to be strong.
You've been strong for three years.
You are a very strong woman.
SIMS: I know.
And you will make it through this
if we have to go to trial.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
SIMS: We are set for trial in a few days.
The DA has a report
from my accident reconstruction expert,
and he's evaluating it now
and he's going to make a decision,
if he's going to dismiss this case
or go forward to trial,
and we are just in a waiting game right now.
I'm hoping for a dismissal,
but I've got to prepare for trial
just in case we go.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
I really feel for Heather right now,
because she has to mentally prepare herself
for going through a trial
where she could potentially face 20 years in prison.
The stakes are extremely high.
This is one of the most important cases I've ever had.
I want justice for her.
(GUERRA SPEAKING)
HERNANDEZ: It overtakes you.
Yes.
It makes you feel just totally wiped out.
(GUERRA SPEAKING)
HERNANDEZ: I have such a sick stomach.
I am so anxious.
(CRYING) Oh, my God...
Oh, they did it.
My baby's free.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
Oh.
(SOBS)
Oh, my God. Here she is, Mom. (LAUGHS)
Oh.
(SOBS)
It's over.
SIMS: You're welcome. You deserve it.
HERNANDEZ: You're free, sweetheart.
Now it's over.
Oh, my gosh!
Okay.
-I think I hollered in the courtroom. -GUERRA: Yes.
I did? (LAUGHS)
The expert report
by my accident reconstructionist,
that was instrumental.
When we approached and he said dismissed,
it was just overwhelming.
I'm so happy.
SIMS: It's been a long road to get here.
A long road, and I feel very relieved
and I'm very happy we don't have to go to trial.
She's a free person now.
And for me, as an attorney, to be able to give that back to her
is the greatest feeling in the world.
(MUSIC PLAYING)