Determined mother went to law school to try to save her son from death row and prove his innocence

Donna and son Keith

Donna peered out through the hospital doors, leaning on her crutches as her eyes scanned impatiently for her son Keith. He’d just nipped out to bring the car round, so that she wouldn’t have to walk too far on her recently operated knee. But he’d been gone for what seemed like an age, and a strange worry had begun to creep over her.

"I’ll go and see where he’s got to," Donna said over her shoulder to her elderly mother-in-law, who was also starting to fret. As she hopped towards the exit, she saw a sight that would shatter her life forever – Keith was pinned to the floor of the car park,
surrounded by FBI officers, as a police helicopter circled overhead.

Moving as quickly as her crutches would allow, Donna made her way over to where her son lay, face down on the concrete.

"I just kept asking, 'What’s happening? Why are you doing this to
my son?' But no-one would tell me anything. I watched as he was shoved into the back of the police car and driven away."

Frantic with worry, Donna waited several agonising hours with no idea what Keith had been accused of. It wasn’t until she turned on the news that she found out just how serious the situation was: Keith had been charged with the murder of two women – 30-year-old Inez Espinoza and 27-year-old Peggy Tucker, who both worked as prostitutes.

Living in fear

"There was no doubt in my mind that the police had caught the wrong man, and that he’d be freed as soon as they realised," says Donna.

"I went into rescue mode and panic mode. I grabbed my calendar and worked out a timeline of when these murders had taken place, and I don’t believe that Keith had even had the opportunity to be in that area at that time."

Before Keith’s arrest, the family led an ordinary life. Keith, 22, was a long-distance truck driver who still lived at home with Donna and her husband Charlie. Keith was close to Charlie, calling him Dad, and had a tight bond with his older sister Shana.

"We were just living our happy lives and suddenly boom – it ended. Keith has always been a very gentle guy," says Donna.

"He loved animals – we had a bird rescue for years, and a rabbit and a dog. All these creatures he’d care for – he’d make little beds for them and would protect them. As a teenager and adult, he’d always been really kind to his girlfriends. So, when I found out he was accused of these things, I knew he couldn’t have done them."

After several hours of interrogation, Keith used his one phone call to ring his mother, telling her, ‘It’s true, that’s what I’ve been arrested for – but I didn’t do it, Mom.’

But it wasn’t long before Keith had another charge brought against him: four new counts of attempted murder against four more women, who’d been shot and left for dead in the local area.

Keith was linked to the crimes by ballistics evidence, and each of the surviving victims positively identified him as their attacker.

As Keith waited for trial, Donna was sick with worry.

"He’d never even been arrested before and he was very stressed," says Donna.

"There was one episode where some other prisoners tried to throw him over a rail, but Keith was very strong at that time and he managed to save himself. But I lived in constant fear of something happening to him in jail. He hardly slept at first,
because he was too afraid – I was and still am terrified."

When the trial came around, it became increasingly clear that Rudy Petilla, the attorney appointed to defend Keith, was incompetent.

"One day he just didn’t show up to court. No-one could find him. But we discovered he’d been up all night gambling, and that he was pocketing money from the case because he was in so much gambling debt. The bankruptcy court told him not to practise law until his case was over," says Donna.

"We told the judge this, but he just overlooked it. Three times we tried to get rid of this attorney, but the judge just wouldn’t
allow it. It felt like a set-up. When you look back through the case, it’s hard not to believe in conspiracy."

The lawyer has now been disbarred after allegations of misconduct in another case. Court officials later found that Rudy had promised to spend £42,500 of his £57,000 fee on investigators and experts, but instead he’d pocketed over £50,000 to pay off his gambling debts.

But there was evidence against Keith: he was linked to the crime scenes by shell casings and tyre impressions that were similar to the tread on his truck tyres. Donna began to realise that, without a decent lawyer, her son might be found guilty. She felt her whole life rushing towards an outcome that she couldn’t control, but she didn’t for a moment believe that Keith was guilty.

"I was labelled the mother from hell, because I was fighting so hard for my son," Donna remembers sadly.

"On the day he was sentenced, I could tell it was coming. I was shaking and shaking. I can’t explain in words how much pain I felt, it was a nightmare. Thank God I had family and friends around me that day, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to cope."

When Keith was found guilty and sentenced to death, Donna’s whole world collapsed. It was a few days before she was able to see Keith again, and when she did, she felt a heartbreaking mix of emotions.

"I was so glad to see he was OK physically, but I was devastated to see him on death row," says Donna.

"I made a promise to him right there that I would never give up the fight."

Donna had been off work recovering from her knee operation, and when it was time to go back, she was told she no longer had a job. She’d been teaching special high-school classes for students who wanted to study medicine.

"I loved my job with all my heart and I loved my students. It was heartbreaking," she explains. "That’s when my whole focus changed: I signed up for law school so that I could fight the broken justice system and free Keith."

For two years, Donna worked hard at her studies, searching desperately for any cases that she could use to help her son. She became a paralegal, pushing the courts to speed up Keith’s appeal cases and campaigning endlessly against the death penalty.

Now, 23 years later, Keith is still on death row. This isn’t unusual in California, where prisoners can be on death row for up to 35 years. Donna has never given up hope of freeing her son, investigating the case endlessly and following any new leads she comes across.

Life hasn’t been kind to Donna. In 2010, her husband Charlie collapsed in front of her and died of a brain aneurysm, and their beloved black Labrador lay on his body and died of a stroke.

"I still can’t believe these things have happened," she says.

"I’m still mad at Charlie for dying and leaving me, and I’m sad he won’t be there to see Keith freed."

For years, Donna saw Keith every weekend, sitting with him in the visitors’ room and buying him treats from the vending machine. But financial difficulties meant that she took the decision to move in with her daughter, a four-hour drive from the prison.

"I see Keith every three or four weeks now, and it’s hard not to see him more. Sometimes I visit on a Saturday, sleep over at a hostel and then see him on the Sunday, too."

Donna plans to continue to campaign to prove Keith’s innocence.

"Before I’d even unpacked my own things at my new home, I set Keith’s bedroom up ready for him. His clothes are washed,
his bed is made," she says.

"It’s time for him to come home. At some point I believe he’ll be freed. I don’t know if I’ll be alive to see it, but he will be a free man one day."

20 Years on Death Row, a four-part documentary investigating Keith’s case, starts on Really 19th April at 10pm

The facts - Death row in California

● More than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since 1978, but only 13 have been executed.

● It’s been nine years since the last execution, and during that time, 49 inmates have died of natural causes, overdoses or suicide.

● 20 women await death at Central California Women’s Facility.

● Executions in California were halted in 2006, after a court ruled against its three-drug lethal-injection method. Authorities have so far failed to agree on an alternative.

● 32 US states still have the death penalty.

● Texas is the most prolific death penalty state, with more than 160 executions in the last 12 years.

● America’s second-largest death row is in Florida, with 400 inmates.