‘The judge told me he knew I was innocent’

When homeschooling mum and youth minister Hannah Overton adopted her fourth child, Andrew, she never dreamed she would face his sudden death, stand trial falsely accused of his murder and endure seven years incarcerated. Hannah’s Texan case (2007-2014) is a terrifying example of the gaps that can occur in the criminal court system, and a powerful picture of how God can use great suffering and injustice for good.

Tragedy unfolds

Hannah and her husband adopted a little boy, Andrew, from their church on Mother’s Day 2006. They already had four children, and Hannah was pregnant with her fifth. Tragically, just five and a half months later, Andrew became unwell with flu-like symptoms. When he started to have breathing issues, they took him straight to the ER. He stopped breathing on the way to the hospital, and despite many attempts to resuscitate (one successful), four-year-old Andrew passed away 30 hours later. 

The Overtons had no time to grieve because, due to Andrew’s appearance after all the resuscitation attempts (bumps and bruises), they became suspects for physical abuse. Their other children were taken into emergency custody, and interrogations began. 

Even amid such traumatic events, Hannah saw God’s miraculous hand at work. “Usually in a situation like this, children would be in emergency care for at least 21 days before getting a court hearing, but God opened the doors miraculously, and we were able to get a hearing the next morning and get our kids into my mom’s custody immediately, just one day later.”

Hannah was interrogated for hours, a suspect for murder, before finally being allowed to join her family at her mum’s house. For a few weeks, the family endured the agony of simultaneously trying to process the sudden death of their son while battling the uncertainty of the accusations. 

Ongoing ordeal

“Then the real nightmare began. I was five months pregnant, and my husband and I were arrested with nine cop cars, 18 police officers and three news media vehicles turning up at the house. It was all over the news. It was completely crazy.”

Because Andrew’s sodium levels were high, and his actual cause of death was hypernatremia, the prosecutor’s theory was that Hannah must have force-fed him lots of salt. (No salt could be found in her home, and, due to childhood trauma, Andrew had an insatiable appetite, and would tend to overeat and hunt for food.) Hannah’s church stood by her through the ordeal, raising the money for her bail, and she was released 24 hours later.

After a gruelling trial period that lasted a year, Hannah was sentenced for capital murder and life in prison without parole. Hannah’s conviction was a horribly unexpected shock, but she trusted God to change the situation. “At the time, I completely trusted in God and also in the justice system. I was raised as a missionary kid, and I had seen God do miracle after miracle, so I expected God to do a miracle in my timeline.” 

Hannah was allowed to breastfeed her seven-month-old baby daughter for the last time in the judge’s chambers before she went to prison, and he said to her that she would be a rich woman someday because he knew she was innocent! 

A few weeks later, Hannah’s defence tried to get a motion for a new trial. They wanted the judge to step in, but fear and political pressure meant he did not defend Hannah, who had been completely vilified in the media and made out to be a monster. 

Hannah was now behind bars, the realisation dawning on her that this wasn’t going to be over quickly. “My attorney and his wife were Christians, and I thank God for them. They visited me and prayed with me, and I just cried and cried. My church held a candlelight worship vigil outside of the jail every week, so I knew I was not alone; God was with me.”

Life inside

Hannah describes prison as a terrifying experience. She saw a woman beat up another inmate (who was also her girlfriend and partner) on her first day. This woman ended up in the bunk next to Hannah! A few weeks later, the same woman stole some Francine Rivers’ Christian novels from Hannah. “God told me to ask her about the books. I was so scared, so I argued with God about it, but I did it. She totally broke down and told me that she had never learned to read. She had a life story full of pain. So, I taught her to read, and she ended up getting her GED (an alternative to a high school diploma) and going to college after she was released!”

Prison is a dangerous place, full of violence from inmates and abuse from officers, but Hannah experienced God’s protection in amazing ways. Hannah looked so scared, her roommate didn’t think she would live if somebody didn’t take care of her so she became her bodyguard, and a group of women then got together to protect Hannah and take care of her. 

“I wasn’t eating, I was depressed, I wasn’t sleeping and I had PTSD from physical and sexual abuse by the officers. These five women took care of me. They fed me. They protected me from other inmates. One girl would beat up anyone who even looked at me the wrong way! I would chase her, saying: ‘Don’t do that!’”

God had a much bigger plan than Hannah could have ever imagined. Not only did he preserve her life in prison with these women, but, in the end, they ended up being her real family in Christ! 

“I had a hope that these ladies around me did not have. There were people with five-year sentences, and I had life without parole, but I had my hope in Christ. Even though they’d get out, they had nothing to look forward to. They needed Jesus. So I started a Bible study in the prison called ‘Healed and Set Free’.

Because of a prison rule of no more than four people meeting in a group at a time (which is considered inciting a riot), the groups grew and multiplied when they reached four people, with the women learning the word of God and passing it on. Many women came to faith in Christ – today, the woman who beat people up is now a missionary in Mexico!

The fight for justice

Meanwhile, Hannah’s legal team was fighting to get an evidential hearing to prove Hannah’s innocence. In 2012, it finally happened. Hannah knew that Andrew had vomited in the hospital and that if tested, it would prove that she had not force-fed him any salt. It came to light that the prosecuting attorney had excluded this evidence by hiding it, and, sure enough, when the vomit was finally tested, it showed low sodium confirming that Andrew must have consumed the salt when he snuck into a kitchen cupboard earlier in the day day. Hannah had recalled this incident during the trial, but she stated she didn’t know what he had taken or whether he had in fact consumed anything from the cupboard.

Hannah was allowed to breastfeed her seven-month-old baby daughter for the last time in the judge’s chambers

One of the big lies the media spun about the case was that Andrew was dead in the Overton house for hours before they took him to the hospital. The jury foreman said: “If she had gone to the hospital the first time he threw up, maybe something would have been different.”

The top nephrologist in the world was supposed to speak at Hannah’s trial, and the prosecution attorney kept delaying his appearance by manipulating the schedule so he couldn’t testify. (The doctor was Jewish, so he had to leave for the Sabbath.) A previously recorded testimony by the doctor was also held back that, when reviewed, uncovered details such as that symptoms from salt poisoning would take at least an hour to show, which substantiated Hannah’s claim she responded to Andrews unwellness without delay. Finally, the doctor was able to testify there was no coming back from this hypernatremia – even if Hannah had taken him early, it would not have made a difference. At the end of 2014, when the case was finally overturned, she was released.

Continuing bonds with women in prison

“Being away from my children during my incarceration was excruciatingly hard. All of my children have pain from the years missed. My youngest and I are still working through some of the trauma caused by missing those crucial years.”

Despite being overjoyed to be home with her family, it was hard for Hannah to leave the women in prison. She felt like she was deserting them, and they wept, thinking she would forget them.

“When I got out, I started telling stories of what God was doing behind prison doors. I had so much support from family and church, but I still suffered from PTSD. I thought I wouldn’t ‘smell like smoke’ after being through the furnace like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3. It was my counsellor who pointed out that I had been the aroma of Christ in the prison.”

My church held a candlelight worship vigil outside of the jail every week, so I knew I was not alone

Leaving prison was also practically overwhelming for Hannah because so much had changed in the outside world in the last seven years – even automatic toilet flushing! “I thought: How could women with no support network possibly stand a chance of recovery and establishing a new life when leaving incarceration?”

One year later, Hannah started Syndeo Ministries. Based on Hebrews 13:3: “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body” (KJV). Syndeo is Greek for the phrase “bound with them”.

Syndeo Ministries helps women in and coming out of prison by being a demonstration of God’s love. There is a transition home for women upon release, opportunities to process trauma in discipleship schools, as well as prison outreaches in the summer with cooling towels and toiletries, and at Christmas with cards and gifts reaching 10,000 women at a time in Texas alone. The ministry also offers an invitation to women to join Bible studies in prison, with around 1,000 women participating at a time. 

Hannah went through the flames of suffering in an unthinkable way, but she takes comfort in knowing God had a bigger plan, and the fact that all the women who protected her in prison found faith in Jesus through the times of discipleship and Bible study over the years.

Hannah’s story has been covered more fully in the film, Until Proven Innocent, which can be bought on the Syndeo Ministries website: syndeoministries.com

Words by Becky Hunter-Kelm