COLUMBUS, Ga. – Ashley and Albert Debelbot were sitting in the same courtroom where, more than a decade earlier, they were convicted of murdering their newborn daughter.
The district attorney walked over and apologized. That's when it sunk in for Ashley, 37, that they were free of the charges that lingered even after the Georgia Supreme Court overturned their convictions last year: “To have the DA walk over to me and reach out his hand and apologize, in that moment I was like, ‘This is happening.'” The Debelbots brought baby McKenzy home two days after her birth in May 2008.
Roughly 12 hours later, they've said, they awoke in the middle of the night, noticed a bump on her forehead and rushed back to the hospital.