UPDATES
As of december 2022, Christina Boyer has been denied parole 10 times. SHE WILL BE RECONSIDERED IN DECEMBER 2023.
AUGUST 2023
“Demons and Saviors,” an ABC News Studios and Latchkey Films Production, was released on Hulu.
SUMMER 2023
Christina graduated with her Associate’s degree. She is a few classes away from completing her Bachelor’s.
June 2022
Two members of the Georgetown team traveled to Georgia for their second investigation, conducting more interviews that they were unable to complete during their first investigative trip:
Dr. Carol A. Terry, Gwinnett County Medical Examiner who conducted a comprehensive investigation into the existing medical reports about the potential causes of Amber Bennett’s death.
Mr. Pete Skandalakis, former District Attorney of Coweta County Judicial Circuit who was the lead prosecutor in the case against Christina.
Mr. John Herbert Cranford, Jr. (“Herb”): District Attorney of the Coweta Judicial Circuit. Spoke with members of Team Christina about potential avenues for Christina’s release.
LATE 2020
Christina agreed to participate in a documentary series, later titled “Demons and Saviors,” produced by Latchkey Films and ABC News.
FEBRUARY 2020
Lauren Markham’s article “Deliverance,” a long-form piece about Christina’s life and the efforts to free her, was published in The Atavist magazine.
JANUARY 2020
After much investigation and research, Jan Banning and other members of Team Tina located Christina’s birth sister, Michele Parker. Michele was their mother’s second daughter, and had always known that their mother had given up her first daughter—Christina—up for adoption in Ohio. Christina and Michele were able to meet in person once Michele confirmed with the prison that they were siblings, and have become very close in the years since. Christina has also connected with Michele’s daughter and granddaughter.
APRIL 2019
As part of Making an Exoneree’s initial investigation into Christina’s case, we wrote to Franklin County Child Services in Ohio (FCCS) and the Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFACS) in Georgia. We hoped to verify or disprove the police’s allegations that Christina abused Amber throughout her life.
Georgia DFACS declined to provide any information, citing confidentiality laws. In April 2019, however, we received a letter from the FCCS Legal Department.
As Christina had given us permission to view her records, FCCS could tell us that, in total, three reports had been filed against Christina during her time in Ohio. All three were investigated and deemed “unsubstantiated.” This meant that the assessor visited Christina’s home and found no evidence of child abuse or neglect.
We knew that Christina’s first husband, James Bennett, made many false allegations against Christina in Ohio, as part of an ongoing campaign of harassment after she left him. We also knew that hospital staff called FCCS after an infant Amber contracted a bad staph infection, which was erroneously reported by a nurse as a burn. However, this was later corrected in hospital and FCCS records. Hospital staff noted that Christina was “appropriately concerned” for Amber’s health and seemed capable of caring for Amber’s infection given the correct medicine.
But the letter from FCCS was the first concrete, new evidence that we found that the State and police had exaggerated the evidence against Christina. That there were only three reports—as opposed to the 20+ allegations from Ohio DA Skandalakis claimed to have during plea negotiations—diminished the credibility of the State’s case against her.
Franklin County told us that the details of the allegations against Christina—and the identity of the person who made them—were to remain confidential. But Christina and her representatives have always been entitled to know the number and outcomes of any reports. Jimmy Berry could have obtained the same letter from FCCS in the 1990s, but never did. Christina’s post-conviction attorneys also never investigated these reports.
March 2019
The Georgetown team traveled to Georgia for the first time to reinvestigate Christina’s case. We obtained records at the courthouse. We interviewed both detectives originally assigned to the case, hospital staff, local press, and friends of both David Herrin and Christina Boyer. David Herrin and Christina’s defense attorney, Jimmy Berry, both declined to talk to us.