Debra Milke  Debra Jean Milke (née Sadeik; born March 10, 1964) is a German-American woman who spent over 25 years in prison in the state of Arizona. She was one of three people sentenced to death for the December 2, 1989 shooting death of her four-year-old son, Christopher Conan Milke. Her alleged conspirators were her roommate James Lynn Styers and his friend Roger Mark Scott. Neither testified against her and both agreed that she was not present at the shooting. Scott implicated Milke as the mastermind while Styers said she had no involvement whatsoever. They implicated each other as the actual shooter. Who that was remains a subject of speculation. With the passage of time Milke's conviction became increasingly polarizing, largely due to the conduct and testimony of Phoenix police detective Armando Saldate Jr. Saldate testified that Milke confessed to him. The alleged confession was uncorroborated, however, and Milke is adamant it did not occur. Saldate was later accused of perjury. Questions about whether a confession was made and whether Milke had voluntarily waived her "Miranda" rights, Saldate's long history of misconduct, and prosecuting attorney Noel Levy withholding Saldate's personnel record from the defense, became central issues of Milke's appeals. In March, 2013, a three-judge panel of the United States Ninth Circuit Court unanimously overturned Debra Milke's conviction. In their ruling, the judges excoriated the conviction. Milke was released on $250,000 bond that September by Judge Rosa P. Mroz of the Maricopa County Superior Court. County prosecutor Bill Montgomery unsuccessfully appealed the decision to the state supreme court, which blocked a proposed retrial. On March 23, 2015, all charges against Debra Milke were formally dismissed with prejudice by Judge Mroz. Milke has filed a civil wrongful conviction lawsuit. It names the city of Phoenix, Maricopa County, Bill Montgomery, and Armando Saldate, among others, as defendants. Debra Milke (Sadeik) was born in West Berlin, West Germany, to a U.S. Air Force father and a German mother. In 1965 the Sadeik family moved to the U.S., where Milke attended high school and college. She married Mark Milke in 1984 and gave birth to one son, Christopher Conan Milke, in 1985. Debra and Mark divorced in 1988. In August 1989, Debra Milke and her son Christopher Milke moved into an apartment with Jim Styers, a man she knew through her sister.