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This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. Oh my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. Okay. Oh God. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.
In a scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a weird religious rite, five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband, screen director Roman Poliansky. But what if we were to turn back the hands of time and relive these events as they unfolded? Follow along each week as we take a fresh look at crimes from the past. Back in Crime is available now.
Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.
Today, I'm bringing you the story of four-year-old Rillia Wilson. In the year 2000, Rillia was living with her sister and foster parents in the Miami, Florida area. During this time, all documentation indicates that her caseworker was checking on her regularly and making visits to the home, specifically notating that all was well with her care.
But by April 2002, the Florida Department of Children and Families assigned a new caseworker to oversee Rilia's care. And when they went to go do a home visit, they discovered that no one had seen Rilia in nearly two years. Her case has since sparked legislation that has changed the Florida foster care system forever. But nearly 25 years later, Rilia's whereabouts are still unknown. This is the disappearance of Rilia Wilson.
Remember, I love you always. This is the phrase turned acronym that inspired Rilia's name. On September 29th, 1996, Rilia was born into a challenging life. Her mom, Gloria, suffered from substance use disorder and used during her pregnancy. Gloria knew that she was struggling and couldn't provide the care that Rilia needed, so she arranged for a woman named Pamela Kendrick to care for her.
Pamela Kendrick is the daughter-in-law of one of Gloria's close family friends, so she took Rilia to her home in Brownsville, Florida and cared for her for the first three years of her life.
Throughout these three years, a caseworker would come by and check on Rillia. And by most accounts, she had a pretty good life with Pamela Kendrick. She dressed her in frilly Easter dresses, took her to church, and had a birthday party for her every single year at Chuck E. Cheese. I mean, Rillia called Pamela Kendrick mom. And their neighbor said that Rillia seemed happy and well taken care of while with Kendrick. They remember her as sweet and well-mannered.
However, Pamela Kendrick was investigated by the Florida Department of Children and Families, or DCF. This happened in 1998, after it was reported that her older, biological daughter showed up to camp with bruises and burn marks on her body. In the end, the caseworker found that there was some indication that she had sustained those bruises at home. But neither Rilia or the other child were removed from Kendrick's care.
Now, Rillia was not Gloria's only child. She has an older sister named Randy, who was cared for by a local pastor and his wife. And she had a younger sister named Roderica. She was born in the late 90s, and she was placed in the care of two local Miami-area women, Gerilyn and Pamela Graham, who claimed to be sisters.
In a custody hearing for Roderiga, the Grams learn that the baby had an older sister, Rilia, so they get in touch with Pamela Kendrick and set up a time for Rilia to meet her baby sister. Pamela Kendrick has no problem with this. She even let them take Rilia out with Roderiga to spend some time together. She says that when they dropped Rilia off, she and Gerilyn Graham chatted about the girls getting together again soon.
But when the Grams went home, they called DCF and filed a report against Pamela Kendrick, saying her house was filthy and unfit for a child. Gerilyn told the caseworker that when she walked into the house, Relia was sitting on the floor next to a pile of human feces, trying to eat a piece of bread. They described it as subhuman conditions.
So, DCF looks through Rillia's file and finds that on multiple visits, her caseworker, Deborah Muskelley, had noted that her house was in disarray. But she didn't report anything like the conditions that Gerald and Graham reported. Nevertheless, DCF did remove Rillia from the home and placed her in the care of Pamela Graham. Now, it was apparently only Pamela Graham who was appointed as her legal caregiver.
because Pamela cared for Gerilyn, who reportedly suffered from numerous health issues after a car accident in the late 90s. Gerilyn also claimed that her son Keith was both Rilia and Roderika's biological father. But Rilia's true paternity has never been proven.
In April 2000, when the Grams took Rillia in, Gloria Wilson's parental rights were formally terminated in court. Those documents listed a man named Manuel Cash as Rillia's prospective biological father. In 2002, Cash was in jail, but claimed he was Rillia's father, and prior to his arrest, he had visited her at Pamela Kendrick's home. Either way, we don't know for sure.
But for two years, DCF thought that both Rilia and Roderica were in a safe, loving home with the Grams. They had no reason to believe otherwise, because the girls' caseworker, Deborah Muskelley, always gave positive reports after checking in on the girls. However, early in 2002, Muskelley's credibility was questioned when the department made a shocking discovery. She'd been falsifying records for years.
They discovered that she had a second job as a substitute teacher, and she frequently billed time to the state for casework when she was actually teaching at nearby elementary schools. To make up for all that lost time, Muskelly falsified documents, claiming she had conducted in-home visits with multiple children when she had not. It's an awful situation.
Deborah Muskelley and her supervisor, Willie Harris, both resigned from DCF before they could be terminated. But the agency still had a big mess to clean up. They now had to check on all of the children formally assigned to Muskelley and all the other caseworkers that Harris supervised. And this did include Willia and Roderika Wilson.
So a caseworker sent to the Grams' home for a visit. Rodrigo was home, but when the counselor asked about Rilia, Gerilyn asked, Are you bringing her back?
And the caseworker is understandably confused. They're like, what do you mean? Relia's not here. Where is she? And Graham told them that on January 18th, 2001, a caseworker from DCF picked Relia up and took her for a mental health evaluation. And she said no one ever returned her.
But DCF had no record of Rillia being removed from the home, and now the women who were responsible for her care had not seen her in 16 months.
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Muskelly's progress notes for Rillia ended in January 2001.
But in August of 2001, a court-ordered review of Rilia and Roderiga's care found that both children were living happily with the Grams. In the review, Muskelly wrote, "'Custodians are addressing children's needs. They are providing the support these girls need. The current caretakers are planning to adopt the children at this time. This is the best placement. Since last hearing, there has not been any educational disruptions.'"
So, Muskelley lied. Now the state was faced with a lying employee and a missing child, who they were 16 months behind in searching for.
Of course, their first question was which DCF employee took Rillia from the Graham home. She was described as a black female who spoke with an accent that could be African. The woman was familiar with details of Rillia's case and that Muskelley was aware of her visit and Rillia's removal for evaluations.
Gerilyn claims that Rillia suffered from behavioral problems. She says that in February 2001, another DCF employee came to the house to collect some of Rillia's clothing and toys so that she'd be more comfortable in her new surroundings. But she did not tell her where Rillia went.
The grams were shown a photo directory of every DCF employee, but couldn't identify any of them as the person who took Rillia, or the employees who came in February to get the toys and clothes. Gerilyn is defending herself. She's saying that all these people are coming to the house, that her caseworker knew that Rillia was gone, and she says that she repeatedly called DCF to check on Rillia's status for over a year and was denied any answers.
Pretty soon, the news was out. The state of Florida had completely lost track of a child in their custody for over a year. And of course, like Gerilyn, DCF was quick to defend themselves. The organization's secretary and top official, Kathleen Kearney, released a statement calling what happened to Rillia an isolated incident. She puts all the blame on Muskelley, saying that she lied and was deceptive in her reporting.
The organization was scrambling, but there was hope that Rillia had simply been lost within the system. After days of agency officials placing blame on each other, Gerilyn told the Miami Herald, quote, I'm getting a little frustrated. Instead of trying to find where the baby is, it seems people are trying to point fingers. The child is somewhere, end quote.
But the word was out and the tips started coming in. A foster mom in Pasco County came forward, saying her foster daughter matched Rilia's description. But this child was quickly ruled out as being Rilia. Probably the most promising lead in this case was a Jane Doe that was found in Kansas City, Missouri. I actually spoke about this same Doe last week in the episode about Tika Lewis.
On April 28, 2001, a three-year-old girl was found deceased in a wooded area outside of Kansas City. She was given the name Precious Doe. However, as we know, she was later identified as Erica Michelle Maria Green. Her mother and stepfather were later charged and convicted of her murder. It's not really a, but no one knows that just yet.
Of course, investigators also look into Gloria Wilson, but she was not suspected to be involved. She was living in Cleveland at the time and had no contact with her kids. Gloria was heavily criticized in the media, but she spoke out. She says that no matter what happened in her past, the state was at fault for losing Rilia.
This feels like a tale as old as time at this point. DCF was under extreme scrutiny again, and many people felt like they really just wanted to cover their tracks. One columnist for the Miami Herald, Fred Grimm, wrote that Kansas City cared more for a faceless, nameless child than the entire state of Florida did about Rillia Wilson. He said, quote, "...the missing child was shrugged off in South Florida."
No memorial service. No outraged demonstrations. Just another embarrassed news conference by a DCF official trying to explain how a child under the state's supervision could be lost, and maybe murdered. End quote.
Obviously, with so much time being lost in this case, the search for Rillia just looked really different than we see in traditional missing children cases. Dogs did search on and around the Gramps' property for traces of Rillia, but they came up short. They checked local hospitals and preschools for her, but they just couldn't find anything.
Meanwhile, then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush continued to defend Kathleen Kearney and DCF as an organization, saying more needed to be done to hold caseworkers responsible. He began working on legislation to criminalize social workers falsifying documents. Gerilyn Graham continued to blame DCF for neglecting Rillia.
She said that she told Muskelley that due to Rillia's so-called behavioral problems, she believed she'd been mistreated in her previous home with Pamela Kendrick. But she says Muskelley told her that that couldn't be proven, and that she needed to drop it. Gerilyn says that Rillia's behavior got progressively worse, and that she would do things to harm herself, like banging her head against the wall.
She says that she reported this to Muskelly in November 2000, saying something had to be done or else Rillia would seriously hurt herself or her younger sister. And she says Muskelly told her to not rock the boat, or the adoption process might be delayed. She says that when this person came to take Rillia for testing, she thought that she was finally getting the help that she needed, but then she just never came back.
Gerilyn reiterates that through those 16 months, she spoke to Muskelley multiple times, asking her when Rillia was coming back. And apparently, Muskelley just kept saying that they were working on it. So basically, Gerilyn Graham is saying that they've been trying to find Rillia this entire time. But the state wasn't taking Gerilyn at her word. Then, in late April, Roderika was removed from the Graham home.
They fought back against this, saying that the state had already lost one of their children and shouldn't be able to take the other one. Meanwhile, more information about Gerilyn was coming out in the press. A doctor came forward and said that she was suffering from a psychiatric condition similar to schizophrenia that was supposedly the result of a bad car crash she had in 1996. After the crash, she suffered severe memory loss.
However, her lawyer said that she was cured of these conditions by 2002.
Gerilyn was also known for using aliases, and a lot of them. She served some time in a Tennessee state prison in the 80s, using the name Gerilyn Savage, with Gerilyn spelled a different way. On a 1986 disability application, she admitted to using the names Geraldine Thomas, Geraldine Williams, Gerianne Eskridge, Gerianne Johnson, Gerilyn A. Savage, and Gerianne Jackson.
And her lawyer again combats this and says that all of this was to hide her from an abusive boyfriend. Gerilyn also admitted to accepting payments from the state for Rillia's care even after she was removed. Like Rillia being removed, though, she says she told DCF about this, that she was still getting this money when she shouldn't be, and they told her to just keep it.
So we've got a lot of information that puts Gerilyn Graham's character in question. But none of these things prove that she was violent or capable of doing something terrible to Rillia.
Both Gerilyn and Pamela Graham were given polygraph tests, and the results came back as inconclusive. The Miami-Dade police chief, Carl Alvarez, said that both women showed deception, and he did not believe that either was being completely truthful about what happened to Rilia.
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It also sparked new legislation. The law criminalizing falsification of documents by caseworkers was soon passed.
Now, of course, Muskelly was not off the hook. She was charged with 41 counts of misconduct related to her role at DCF, and one charge of grand theft for double-billing the state for social work and substitute teaching at the same time. She pled guilty to exactly one charge of official misconduct. Every other charge was dropped.
It came out that Muskelly had been demoted and reprimanded by the agency multiple times before she was caught falsifying documents. But of course, people wanted to know how she was able to get away with so much before she resigned. And they were in no way satisfied in blaming just Muskelly for DCF's failures.
People demanded change and answers for what happened to Rilia, saying that her case was unraveling decades of problems in the state's system. In 2000, a runaway specialist with DCF, Ruben Bentacourt, studied DCF's handling of runaway cases and found that DCF did not follow protocol in 73% of the 129 cases he studied. 73%.
He wrote, quote, This reporting is not being done. End quote. At this time, of the 374 children DCF could not locate, all of which they said were runaways, only 143 of them were in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's database. It took DCF six days to officially report Rillia missing after they knew that she was gone.
And there are policies around this. They are required to notify the Missing Children Information Clearinghouse of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children within three business days of not being able to find a child. This, of course, did not happen for Aurelia Wilson.
In early May, Kearney issued a mandate that all DCF supervisors in the Miami district visit the home of every child in foster care or in the care of a non-custodial relative. She mandated that caregivers, and in some instances, older children, sign a form when a caseworker visits them. This was actually already being done in Tampa, but this was put into effect immediately in Miami.
Some Florida state lawmakers began advocating for an expansion to the DCF Guardian program. They wanted to appoint lawyers as advocates or guardians for some of these kids in the foster care system who had been deemed to be neglected. Now, this was not a new idea that was sparked by Rilia's case. This is something that had been previously put forward and struck down after Kearney lobbied against it. She said that she didn't want lawyers looking over her shoulder.
Then, on May 11th, DNA tests confirmed that Precious Doe was not Rillia Wilson. While of course everyone wanted Rillia to be found alive, this was really the one and only credible lead generated in the investigation so far. It was all they had at this point, and now they were back at square one.
On May 15th, a judge ruled that Roderica was neglected of the medical care that she needed by the Grams. The judge ruled that the Grams could not regain custody of her, and she was placed with another family who eventually adopted her. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children did produce an age-progressed photo of Aurelia. This was put in Walmart stores across the country.
By mid-May, the Miami-Dade police asked officials in the Bahamas to help search for her, because the Grams claimed that she was born there, though there doesn't appear to be any evidence to back this up. But either way, it really can't hurt. Relia's photo was distributed to schools in the Bahamas, printed in newspapers, and shown in an ad. No leads came from it.
And then, finally, investigators get a lead that they can actually work with. And it completely shakes Gerilyn Graham's timeline. They claim that in February 2001, they saw her go to a doctor's appointment with Gerilyn and Roderika.
But right now, this kind of just sits. In the meantime, the Blue Ribbon Panel came back with their suggestions for improving DCF. This included enforcing monthly visits, setting up a hotline for foster parents to call when they don't receive those monthly visits, and requiring background checks on all prospective foster parents.
They also gave a September 1st deadline for DCF to update their web database for children, including fingerprints, birth certificates, and updated photos. They also recommended purchasing fingerprint scanners by August 1st. They said that they would get the results in 48 hours instead of two months, which was apparently considered the norm at the time.
In the least shocking news in this entire episode, the panel did not find Kearney at fault for what happened to Rillia. Meanwhile, she was establishing new policies of her own. After a woman reported that two men claiming to be DCF employees came to her house and tried to take her child away…
Kearney implemented a new policy that a uniformed police officer has to accompany a DCF worker when a child is removed from the home, and that all employees would now be required to carry photo identification when making any visits. By early June, DCF announced that they'd completed their headcount of every child in state care, and that Rillia was the only one unaccounted for. However…
This headcount included 401 runaways, 135 victims of kidnapping by a non-custodial parent or relative, and 421 children living out of state.
So, one could argue that many children were not accounted for, since they literally could not locate them. But this seems to be more of a technicality of putting a label on missing children related to circumstances versus actually accounting for their whereabouts. Soon after, a longtime employee of DCF who supervised those responsible for Aurelia's care is fired.
Then, wouldn't you know it, in July 2002, tragedy struck again. Alfredo Montes, a one-year-old foster child in DCF care, was beaten to death and left on the side of the road in Tampa. He was allegedly killed by a babysitter who was angry at him for soiling his diaper.
And here's the thing. His caseworker lied about visiting him on the same day he was murdered. So again, these new rules are not working, or at least are not being enforced. In August, Kathleen Kearney resigned, followed quickly by Charles Oslander, the DCF director for the Miami-Dade region.
But Relia is still missing, and the police continue to suspect that the Grahams knew more than what they were saying. They just didn't have enough to charge them with anything related to her disappearance. But that doesn't mean that they escaped other charges. On October 3rd, Gerilyn, Pamela, and two of their relatives were arrested on fraud charges.
Gerilyn was charged with seven counts of public assistance fraud, one count of forgery, driver's license fraud, title fraud, and making a false affidavit. Pamela was charged with six counts of aiding and abetting public assistance fraud, five counts of welfare fraud, and one count of grand theft.
They were both accused of stealing over $14,000 in nutrition assistance and welfare funds, including payments for Rilia's care that they knowingly accepted after her disappearance. Police were hoping that while they were in custody, they would get more answers about Rilia.
Police were not shy in talking about how they felt about the Grams. At a press conference, Doyle Jordan, the regional director of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said, quote, We think the people arrested today are the people who know where Relia Wilson is. End quote. Now, because Gerilyn had all these aliases, she was actually charged as Jane Doe. Authorities said that they didn't know her real legal name.
Her bond was originally set at $600,000, but both women's bonds were soon reduced, and Pamela was able to bail out, and the reward for information leading to Rilia skyrocketed to $100,000. In December, Gerilyn was convicted of fraud for using a friend's social security card and driver's license to buy a car. She got three years in prison.
In 2003, Pamela pleaded guilty to fraud and grand theft. She was ordered to pay fines and sentenced to two years probation.
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. While the Grams were not budging on any information about Relyea, more witnesses began coming forward, and pretty much everything starts to come out.
One former friend said that they used to lock Rillia in a dog cage, and investigators confirmed that they removed a dog cage large enough to hold a small child from the Grahams' home. Eventually, Gerilyn admits to hitting Rillia with a switch, causing welts on her legs. On August 19th, 2004, Gerilyn Graham was charged with aggravated child abuse and kidnapping, after three witnesses, including Pamela Graham, testified against her.
Now, you might be wondering about the kidnapping charge. I was too. But this apparently came about because she was keeping Rillia from Pamela, who by law was her caregiver. Now, before I go into everything else, I want to warn you that the accusations against Gerilyn are horrific.
In addition to locking Rillia in a dog cage, she's accused of tying her and handcuffing her to her bed, and locking her in a pitch-black dark laundry room, sometimes for days at a time. I will remind you that Rillia was four when she went missing. Now, Pamela was also charged with lesser counts of child abuse and neglect for failing to stop Gerilyn's abuse of Rillia.
But in exchange for turning on Jerilyn, Pamela only ended up serving 364 days and getting five years probation. And then it comes out. In a sworn statement to police, Pamela finally admits that no one from DCF ever came to pick Rilia up.
She says that one day she came home from work in December of 2000 to find that Rillia was gone. She said that she begged Gerilyn to tell her where she went, and feared she may have accidentally killed her and disposed of her body. She says Gerilyn told her that Rillia was okay, and that she didn't hurt her, but that she would not be staying with them anymore.
Pamela says Gerilyn told her to stick to the story about DCF taking her away. Pamela also signed a statement saying that she had neglected and abused Rilia, but caused no additional harm. And more witnesses just start coming out.
Someone comes forward to say that Gerilyn told them that she gave Rilia to a Spanish lady. Over a year later, when she read that Rilia was missing, she asked Gerilyn what happened, and she said that the Spanish lady took her, then gave her back to DCF.
Pamela kinda confirms this Spanish lady story, saying that her last name is either Gomez or Gonzalez, and says that she also thought that Gerilyn may have given Rilia to her when she disappeared. They apparently didn't know this woman well, but had met her at a park. Pamela also adds that Gerilyn was always telling people that they could have Rilia.
After all these details come out, Gerilyn decides to give the Miami Herald an exclusive jail interview. In it, she says that Relia is still alive out there somewhere. She specifically told reporter Lisa Arthur, quote, Relia's old enough to read now. One day she's going to read or see something. And she's going to show up. Relia's going to show up. And I wasted my life sitting in here for something I didn't do. End quote.
And Gerilyn finally admits that she and Pamela were not sisters, but were instead in a decade-long loving relationship that she describes as romantic but not sexual. Of course, none of that really changes really his case, but I do think that it shows her propensity to lie. Things just keep heating up for Gerilyn Graham as all these lies begin to unfold. Then in March 2005, she is officially charged with first-degree murder.
Now, this was apparently sparked by a jailhouse informant. They called police in April 2004 to tell them that Gerilyn had confessed to her that she killed Relyea. This informant was publicly identified as 42-year-old Robin Lunsford. She shared a floor with Gerilyn at a Florida detention center. Lunsford was facing armed robbery charges at the time. She said that she flirted with Gerilyn to earn her trust.
And eventually she told her that she killed Rillia by smothering her with a pillowcase. And over time, Gerilyn kind of adds to her story. She says that at one point, she even tried to return Rillia to Pamela Kendrick's home, but couldn't because the conditions were too poor. She alleged that while there, she was neglected and even possibly molested. Gerilyn also admitted that she thought Rillia had mental problems, was evil,
and had demons. Allegedly, she said that her last straw was at Halloween in 2000. She wanted Rillia to dress up as an angel, but Rillia wanted to dress as Cleopatra. Lunsford said, Her words were that she knew at one point that there was no help for the baby, and she knew what she had to do. And that's it. That was the end of it. She said the baby was suffering, and she couldn't let it grow up to suffer like that.
End quote. Lunsford said that Gerilyn buried Rillia near a pond where Pamela Graham used to take her to play, saying that she chose that spot because water represents peace and she wanted to give the baby a proper burial. She also says that Gerilyn referred to Rillia as it and said, I killed it. Now, law enforcement does back Lunsford up. They say that she gave information that only someone close to the investigation would know.
And apparently, Gerilyn was talking all over the place, because in April, another former cellmate of hers comes forward to say that in 2003, Gerilyn told her that she killed a baby. I think by now, we are well aware that the justice system moves extremely slowly. And that is especially true in Rilia's case.
This trial wouldn't start until December 2012, over seven years since Gerilyn was originally charged with murder, and nearly 12 years since Pamela Graham last saw Rillia. After all these years, Rillia still hadn't been found, not even at the location that Lunsford said that Graham told her she was at, and there were virtually no updates on her case.
But of course, the trial does eventually begin. The prosecution calls up a number of witnesses, including Gerilyn's former friend who testified that Gerilyn asked her to borrow her dog cage specifically to keep Rillia in it. Deborah Muskelley, the caseworker who lied about visiting Rillia, admitted that she failed her and apologized for what she did, but still insisted that Gerilyn misled her into thinking that Rillia was okay for over a year.
Pamela Graham testified that Gerilyn did originally want Rilia, and at first it was all love. But within a few weeks, Gerilyn became distressed by Rilia's behavior. She admitted that Gerilyn would confine her to the laundry room for days at a time. And in one instance, Rilia came out with a terrible burn on her face. Gerilyn said it was from the hot water heater.
She also testified that Gerilyn would restrain Rilia to the bed at night so that she wouldn't climb on the furniture. Pamela admitted that while she would tell Rilia goodbye every day before she left for work, she did not remove those restraints. It's obviously extremely clear that Rilia was horribly abused. Pamela goes on to say that as punishment for wetting the bed, Gerilyn dipped Rilia in scalding hot bath water.
and that Gerilyn refused to get her medical help after she ingested bleach. So why didn't Pamela stop any of this? Well, she says that she was scared of Gerilyn. She said on that first night that she realized that Rillia was gone, she did threaten to call the police, and Gerilyn threatened to kill her with a hammer. Three inmates also testified against Gerilyn.
The first being Robin Lunsford, who maintained her story that Gerilyn smothered Rillia and buried her near water. She admitted that she had previously been reluctant to testify because she had been labeled as a snitch in prison and was abused by other inmates. She said that she would never say anything if someone had committed robbery, but nothing got under her skin like crimes against children.
Another inmate, Maggie Carr, testified that Gerilyn had asked her how they could prosecute a murder without a body, saying it had been destroyed by the elements and critters and would not be found. The last inmate, Ramona Tavia, testified that when she first met Gerilyn, she maintained her innocence, stating that a white man from DCF had taken Rilia, but after a while, she changed her story to say that she'd killed Rilia to protect Pamela.
She said, quote, she said she was doing it for Pam. She had to protect Pam. She's sick. She's weak. So she killed the baby for Pam, end quote. Now, the defense does what defense teams do and work to mostly discredit the state's witnesses. They argue that Robin Lunsford was an informant for other cases as well, basically that she'd do anything to get time taken off her sentence.
And they said something similar about Pamela Graham, that she would say anything to avoid taking responsibility as Relia's true legal guardian. But in the end, the prosecution had the jurors convinced that Gerilyn had murdered Relia. Well, all but one of them. In a deadlock 11-1 vote, the jury was unable to convict Gerilyn Graham of first-degree murder.
They did, however, unanimously convict her of child abuse and kidnapping. She was given 55 years. She will spend the rest of her life in prison. After the verdict was read, Prosecutor Joshua Weintraub said, "...there are many ways to achieve justice, and the fact that they didn't come back on a murder charge doesn't mean that justice was not done for Rillia Wilson."
As far as our reporter Brooke could find, the state of Florida considers Rillia's case to be closed. But of course, Rillia's legacy is so much more than this. Since the news of Rillia being missing broke, there's one lawmaker who has fought tooth and nail for change on Rillia's behalf, Frederica Wilson, who, despite her name, is of no relation to Rillia.
Wilson served the Florida State Senate, representing the Miami area in the 2000s, and since 2013 has served as a U.S. Congresswoman for Florida in Washington, D.C. In 2003, Wilson sponsored a bill that would require children in state protective services from birth to school age to attend early education or child care programs. It was dubbed the Rillia-Wilson Act.
If a child is repeatedly absent or suddenly pulled from a program, DCF would be notified and have to investigate. Wilson believes that if Rillia had been in daycare and stopped showing up, her disappearance would have been noticed much sooner. Governor Jeb Bush signed this bill into law in May 2003, and the Rillia-Wilson Act is still in place in Florida today.
And that's basically where Rillia's case is today. While it seems so clear that we know who's responsible for Rillia being gone, she's still never been found. Which brings me right to our call to action.
Rillia does still have family out there. While we know that her siblings didn't really get a chance to grow up with her, I still have to imagine that they would like to see Rillia laid to rest properly. So I will ask you to share her case and her picture in hopes that someday she will be recovered.
I also want to ask you to share this for every single child in the foster care system. If you're a long-time listener of Voices for Justice, you know that Rilia is far from the first child who has gone missing or been killed while under the care of the state.
Raising awareness about this issue is vital. These kids interact with so many adults. Doctors, teachers, caregivers, parents of friends, extended family, counselors. The list goes on. You could be one of those people.
We know that caseworkers in these systems are overloaded. The system does not function as it should. And unfortunately, it doesn't seem that major reform correcting the issue of literally losing children is coming anytime soon. So we have to keep talking about these cases. Harmony Montgomery, Anaya Walker, Oakley Carlson, Rillia Wilson.
Please share their cases. Hopefully, if we keep screaming about these issues and continue to shine a bright light on these agencies, we'll someday see that reform that is greatly needed. As a reminder, while the exact date that Relia Wilson went missing is unknown, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists her missing date as January 18th, 2001. She was four years old when she went missing.
and if she's alive today, she would be 27. She is black, with black hair and brown eyes. Her ears are pierced, and she was described as having a scar from a puncture wound about 5 inches below her navel. If you have any information about Rilia, please contact the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at 850-410-8161.
And if you know of a child in Florida that's being abused, you can contact the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-96-ABUSE. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.
Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research assistance by Brooke Haynes. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. Welcome to The Secret After Show. The door is open, our emotional support puppies are in the room, and we're here to help you.
Let's talk about Rillia's case. Now, a lot of what I want to talk about, I think, stems from my own experience working with kids in foster care. If you guys have listened to the show for a good amount of time, you've probably heard me talking about it. Granted, this was like the mid-2010s now, so it's been almost a decade since I've been in the industry, but some of these things that I was reading were just really, really shocking. Like,
Jeb Bush's panel, the four or the blue ribbon panel coming back and their suggestions for improvement included enforcing the monthly visits and background checks for all prospective foster parents. Why those things weren't being done before, like enforcing a policy policy?
and doing a background check for someone who's going to care for a child, that kind of blew me away that those things weren't being done already. That just like, it's so sad, to be honest. When I'm going through it, I'm like, this is their plan. They're going to enforce policy and run background checks. Whenever I do these cases, the...
The reforms, if you can even call it that, that they present are just so lackluster. And it feels like case after case that I cover in all different states, because, you know, different organizations in different states do operate differently. There's just no progress. There's no progress. You cannot tell me that enforcing your own policy is what you're going to do. That's insane to me. So I just wanted to call that out.
Um, another thing I wanted to talk about as it relates to the foster care system is runaways in foster care and reporting. Um, we talked about this a little bit in the episode in terms of numbers and they were like, every child's accounted for. These many ran away. And it's like, you don't know that. You actually don't know that. Um,
It drives me insane. And I just wanted to give some insight from, again, my experience. I don't know how all organizations work, but at the organization that I worked for, when a child would go missing, the house manager or the person above that, the program manager, would be instructed to not.
Report, basically. I think, you know, they would report it to the social worker and that was about it. There was to be no media on it. That was actually specifically spoken about in the organization that any media about kids going missing from the organization was bad. And we were to not engage in it. We were. Yeah, it was.
Things that make my skin crawl now. So I just want to kind of put that out there. If you see a kid that's missing from foster care and they're labeled as a runaway, and kids do run all the time, absolutely. The thing is, you can't assume that these kids running are
just stay runaways and that they've gone and, you know, created some amazing life for themselves. A lot of the times, you know, these kids do end up being trafficked. We would see it all the time. Kids would come back. They'd talk about their experiences. We had a lot of, you know, support groups and, and, uh,
Really, like awareness, why can't I think of the term? We would have these big presentations to talk about the dangers of really running from foster care. And some of the stories you heard were just...
terrifying and horrific, kids locked in cages under beds and just, I mean, the worst of the worst. So all that to go back and say, if you see a child that's deemed as a runaway from foster care, just maybe double check that, share it, and remember that these kids that are labeled as runaways, when they don't come back, you know, it's very possible that they're not just choosing to stay away.
My last note here is just being upset with Gerilyn and Pamela. How she testified about Pamela, I should say, testified that Gerilyn would restrain Rilia to the bed so that she wouldn't climb on the furniture. If you are considering fostering a child, caring for a child, having a child, um,
You have to be okay with that stuff. Kids make messes. They jump on furniture. They climb on furniture. They knock things over. They break things. They do all sorts of messy things as they explore the world and try to, you know, form their brain. And that just got to me. It wasn't for, you know, not, I mean, you should never restrain a child, you know, to a bed. That's absolutely insane. But, you know, just to prevent her from climbing on the furniture, she was four.
I don't know. I just had to put that out there. Like, if you can't handle children being children, please, please, please do not foster them.
And again, I just want to encourage you, when you see cases like this, please share them. I do think that reform will only come, and we've seen it in these episodes, right? At least, you know, some type of reform, enforcing policies, whatever. I really think the only thing that's going to move this needle is just shining these bright lights on these stories about how kids are lost in this system all the time. So please, please,
Please keep sharing. These kids don't have, you know, a lot of the time, anyone out there fighting for them, you know? So if you see a case, please share it. I would love that. These kids deserve so much better. On to what's going on with me. Nothing exciting. A lot of life.
My hot water heater broke and a tree branch and the tree in my front yard broke, like, all in the same day, so that was really fun. And, yeah, I am predictably boring again, and that's okay. I have done nothing true crime related that I can report to you. I'm very sorry about that. I'm just still working on all the same projects I've told you about before, and I'm really hoping to get this next season of media pressure out to you guys this year, so...
Take a look out for that. Of course, as we get closer, I will give you dates. I'm just like nose to the ground, just working over here. Very exciting stuff. And on to our segment of hope, which I teased last week. And you guys probably saw it. I mean, it's not like it's a secret. But this comes from July 8th, at least this article. This is from USA Today, written by Taylor Ardrey.
Um, and this is what I was talking about. So a missing 17 year old was located after he randomly popped up on a Twitch stream in Miami, um, months after his disappearance in Michigan. So, I mean, this is a minor and I don't want to spread too many more details. This is just one of those things where, um...
again, talking about all the ways that kids can be found or people can be found after they go missing. And this kid just pops up on somebody's Twitch stream and then they find him and recover him. Um, so it's just one of those things you never know. And I think it's just one more reason to always hold out hope for these cases. Short but sweet. Um, again, I, I know that, um,
There's not a lot of time between now and the event, but if you are in the Denver area, I will be at the True Crime Podcast Festival this weekend, the weekend that this podcast airs, July 12th through the 14th, I think is the weekend. I will be in Denver, Colorado, and I will have two speeches. I am giving the keynote speech, and then I'm presenting with Julie Murray about what it's like to be a family member in true crime. And
I walk you through a pretty crazy experience about this gentleman who made over 100 videos about Alyssa and then about me, you know, saying all sorts of crazy things, really. So I'm excited for that. It's always cool to talk about what it's like. And I try not to do that in these episodes. As you guys know, I try to make it very much...
separated, right? Like, here's the episode, here are the facts. And then if you want to opt into this secret after show, you can hear what I have to think. So it is nice to be able to talk about just my feelings about this industry and what I've been through. So if that is for some reason of any interest to you, and you are in the Denver area, please come by. You can learn more information, hotels, all that kind of stuff at truecrimepodcastfestival.com.
But as always, thank you. I love you. And I'll talk to you next time.
