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now to a 48 Hours investigation this is about a woman who was in prison for killing a toddler she's now asking the
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governor of Illinois to Grant her clemency Melisa calusinski is her name she's a former daycare worker she'
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served half of her 31-year prison sentence for murdering little Benjamin kingan a 16-month-old who was in her
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care kosinski's defense team argues she was coerced into confessing and key evidence was manipulated 48 Hours
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correspondent Aaron morard has been covering this case for more than a decade now Melissa kazinski has been
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behind bars since 2009 when at the age of 22 she was arrested for murdering 16-month-old Benjamin kingan at a
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suburban Chicago daycare center I'm going to continue to fight no matter what cuz I did not do this but Melissa
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was the last one with Ben before his death and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy said the child suffered
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extensive bleeding in his head and a skull fracture on the day he died the interrogation was grueling more than 60
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times Melissa told police she didn't do it I never my but after nine long hours she confessed show us how hard you threw
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him on the ground went like that Melissa insists she was pressured into confessing they broke me down and her
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defense says that clear x-rays found after Melissa's conviction proved the child did not have a skull fracture and
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that the images the defense was given at trial have been manipulated Andrew Garrett and Brian
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Bowman are computer forensics experts hired by the defense so if I take these sliders here you can manipulate this
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photo so somebody went in and they altered the contrast to make it look like that on
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screen somebody took x-rays that were completely clear and turned them into unreadable images yes I can't think of
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an innocent explanation defense experts believe it was an old injury that contributed to Ben's death over the
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years prosecutors have stood by their case and Melissa's appeals have failed but now Melissa is turning to Illinois
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governor JB pritsker and pleading that he release her just please look at my case I didn't do this
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well happy to say Aon Mor already joins us at the table so many questions here number one I didn't know you could
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manipulate x-rays but at the end of the day a little boy has died now she says she didn't do it so how does her defense
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team explain well the defense points to that earlier injury I just quickly mentioned it but that child received an
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injury three months before enough that the parents were told about it the defense takes a look at his medical
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evidence and shows that they say that his brain was swelling two days before he died he had projectile vomiting was
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lethargic but the state says well kids get sick and that injury that 3 months earlier was in significant it's really a
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battle between experts and the state has the ability to really find out what happened to this baby if they wanted to
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bring in experts take a look at now this evidence look at these x-rays well we do
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want to know but she but she confessed Ain after 9 hours and she has a low IQ she has difficulty I mean that is uh
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verified by an expert that she has verbal comprehension issues they knew that I I knew it when I interviewed her
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I still can't believe that the detectives didn't say there's something wrong here right wow Erin thank you very
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much you can watch Erin's 48 Hours report is called unraveling the case against Melissa kusinski that's tomorrow
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night at 10 o'clock right here on CBS and then streaming on Paramount Plus