Andrew Baldwin for the Defense: The Case of Alison K. Davis

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[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So what if we told you that Attorney Andrew Baldwin was representing a client in a murder case

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: in front of Allen County Indiana Judge Francis Gull? And what if we said that he tried to get her

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: removed from that case because of unflattering things she said about him in court filings?

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And what if we added that this was not the Richard Allen case?

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: My name is Ania Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reported,

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And this is Andrew Baldwin

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: for the defense, the case of Allison K. Davis. Today we are going to tell you about the other

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: murder case Andrew Baldwin is defending in Judge Gull's courtroom. It is the story of 33 year

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: old Allison K. Davis and the death of her 40 year old husband Kevin Ray Davis. The couple

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_01]: lived in New Haven, Indiana, which is a small town in Allen County, Indiana, just to the east of

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Fort Wayne. It is a case where one side will likely argue that no murder even occurred. And it is a

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: story that may remind some of you of the murder trial of Michael Peterson, whose case was chronicled

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: in the notorious true crime documentary The Staircase. But before we get into all of that,

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_02]: let's take a moment to make an important point. Indiana is not a huge state, and its legal community

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_02]: is not abnormally large. So it is not the least bit unusual for an attorney to end up in the

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: same judge's courtroom from multiple cases. This is just normal. In fact, it is also common

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_02]: for an attorney to work side by side with another attorney on one case, and then be an

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_02]: opposite size in challenging each other on a different case. And a judge who rules against

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_02]: you in one case may rule for you in another one. The fact that you have to work with the same people

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: in many different cases is one of the many reasons why attorneys and judges strive to

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01]: always be collegial and professional with one another. The relationships they form and

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the communities they build are ultimately more important than any one case. And of course,

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: if they have good relations with one another, that ultimately helps whatever clients they're

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: working for at the moment. All of this is to underscore how unusual it is for the relations

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: between attorneys and a judge to deteriorate as much as they have in the Richard Allen case.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll see a bit later just how that came up again in this case. But before we get to

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: that, we need to explore the circumstances surrounding the death of Kevin Davis.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: To try to figure out exactly what happened to him, we have to go back to August 12th, 2023.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: At 4.38 that morning, Kevin's wife Allison called dispatch for help. She told them her

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: husband had fallen down the steps. There was blood everywhere and he wasn't responsive.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: EMS and the police rushed over, arriving within minutes. Corporal Cade Hettrick and Officer

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Garrett Shanebrook of the New Haven Police got there first. Allison was outside waiting for them.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Allison told Corporal Hettrick that she had been asleep in the lower level of the house

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and was awakened by a loud noise. Her husband had fallen down the steps.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: She took them inside where they found Kevin.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Clad in his underwear, he lay at the bottom of a steep carpeted staircase in a pool of blood.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: His breathing was gasping and labored, agonal. This is often a sign of poor oxygen supply

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and can mean that death is near. When the EMS got there, they did what they could to

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_02]: stabilize Kevin. During all of this, Allison did not seem to be all that worried about him.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: At one point, she was even laughing with the medics about something.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: To Corporal Hettrick, Kevin's condition did not seem to be consistent with someone who had taken

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_01]: a tumble down the steps. This, coupled with Allison's odd behavior, made him suspicious.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: At 4.55 am, less than 20 minutes after Allison's initial call,

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Hettrick contacted Jay Krueger, the on-duty police detective, and told him he should

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: come and investigate. Krueger got to the Davis residence about half an hour later.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_02]: By that time, Kevin had been taken to the hospital but Allison was still at the scene.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Krueger met her outside and asked her what had happened, and this time she gave a few more details.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_02]: She said she and Kevin had been out drinking at a bar. After they got home around 1 am,

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_02]: they'd had some more beers. At some point after that, the two of them got into a fight.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And that is why she was sleeping on the couch downstairs, while Kevin was alone in their upstairs

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: bedroom. At some point in the early morning hours, Allison was awakened by a loud noise.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: She soon spotted Kevin lying face down at the bottom of the steps.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I honestly thought, she said, he was just drunk and fell down the stairs.

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: She said she tried to lift him, but wasn't strong enough to do so.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_02]: She also could not get him to wake up. And so that is when she decided to call 911.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Krueger asked if he could come into the house and look around.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Allison gave him written permission to search the house, saying, I want to comply. I just

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_02]: want to go see my husband. But we should note that the permission to search the house came

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: with a bit of an asterisk. Allison asked the detective not to go into the master bedroom.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: She said her dog was locked up in there, and so she didn't think it would be a good idea for

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: the detective to go in there and start looking around. Detective Krueger went inside. The base

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: of the stairway was only a few feet away from the front door. The place where Kevin had

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: lain before being taken to the hospital was red with blood stains. But that seemed to be

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the only sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. Krueger in other words, didn't notice

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: any damage or dents on the door or walls that a person might expect to see if someone had had

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02]: a violent fall down the steps. Krueger also looked around for a potential murder weapon,

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: some sort of a blunt force object that Allison or another person could have theoretically used

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_02]: to attack and critically injure Kevin. He did not find anything, but again he did not look in the

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_01]: bedroom. Kevin was taken to the Parkview Regional Medical Center where he was treated by Dr. Sheila

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Pittenger. She thought his injuries were unusual, and they certainly did not seem to be what she

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_01]: would expect to find in a man who had fallen down the steps. For one thing, all of his

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: injuries were in the area of his head. He actually had multiple skull fractures and

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: urbular fractures, but none of the other bumps or bruises you would see in a man who had tumbled

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: down the stairs. And there was something else. Kevin's body temperature was so low that he

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_01]: was actually hypothermic. On top of that, he had what the doctor described as a profound

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: anoxic brain injury. That means there was a lack of oxygen in his brain. Dr. Pittenger said she had

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: actually seen drowning victims who had more oxygen in their brains than Kevin had when he was

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: wheeled into the emergency room. Allison had said she called 911 for help not long after Kevin's

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_02]: fall. Emergency personnel of course arrived within minutes and promptly inserted a breathing

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: tube, which would of course have brought oxygen to Kevin's brain. He could not have suffered such a

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: catastrophic loss of oxygen to his brain in such a short time. In other words, according to Dr.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Pittenger, Allison's story simply did not hold water. Dr. Pittenger believed that Kevin had likely

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: been brain dead for hours before medical help was summoned. This of course raises the

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_02]: obvious question. Why had Allison waited so long to call 911? Kevin died later in the day.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: The autopsy would find that he had a depression in his head, which was caused by a blunt object

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and not from a fall down the steps. In fact, the Allen County Coroner's Office went as far

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: as to conclude that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and the manner

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_01]: of death was homicide. That is for all intents and purposes a formal finding that Allison Davis

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: had lied about the circumstances of her husband's death. The obvious question is why would she have

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_01]: done that? What's especially interesting is that Allison lied not just to medical and legal

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: personnel, but also to Kevin's family. She gave Kevin's mother a totally different account of

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01]: what happened that night. In this version, Kevin had not been drinking and presumably the couple had

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_01]: not had an argument. Instead, the two were sleeping upstairs when Kevin got out of bed to go get a

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: drink of water. Allison then heard the bang that was the sound of Kevin falling down the steps.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin's brother heard a slightly different version. In this one, Allison was lying in

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: bed with a family dog and Kevin was still up and moving about the house. Allison heard a

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: thought. The dog, she says, did not react, but Allison decided to investigate and found that Kevin

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_01]: had hit his head. She then called 911. Police investigated and could not find any evidence

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: that anyone other than Allison and Kevin were in the house at the time of the incident.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So in other words, there was no sign that Kevin had been attacked or injured by an intruder.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_01]: This meant, of course, that if Kevin's injuries were not caused by himself,

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_01]: then the only other person who could be responsible for them was Allison.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So she was arrested and charged with his murder in December 2023.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Shortly thereafter, a group of five attorneys from the criminal defense team entered an

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: appearance in the case for Allison. That is, of course, Andrew Baldwin's firm. And in fact,

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Baldwin was listed at that time as the lead attorney.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_02]: The complicating factor in all of this was that by some coincidence,

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Allison's case happens to be in the courtroom of Judge Fran Gull.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Judge Gull is also the judge in the murder case of Baldwin's client Richard Allen.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Listeners to this program are well aware of the contentious relationship

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: that has developed between Gull and Allen's counsel.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Gull tried to remove Baldwin and co-counsel Brad Rosie from that case,

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and they have repeatedly made finales asking her to recuse herself from it instead.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So it probably shouldn't have been much of a surprise when the first motion the defense

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: filed after entering the case was a request for a change of judge.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: The reason Baldwin made that filing was not because he alleged Gull had done anything

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: improper or wrong in the Davis case. At this point, Gull hadn't really had an

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: opportunity to do much in the case, good or bad. The grounds he cited were that he and Gull

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: were embroiled in the Allen case and that there was presumably a theoretical chance that Gull

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: might allow some of her alleged enmity for Baldwin's actions in the Allen case to prejudice her case

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_02]: against him and his client in this new case. In addition to his motion, Baldwin filed with

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: the court a copy of the transcript of an in-chambers meeting in the Allen case,

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_02]: a copy of the brief Gull's own attorney had filed with the Indiana Supreme Court,

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_02]: a selection of media accounts of the conflict between him and Gull, and a personal affidavit.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Baldwin began his affidavit by noting what a skilled attorney he is.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Affiant was sworn in as an attorney in Indiana on October 31st 1994. Affiant has dedicated his

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_02]: professional career to criminal defense and is one of only five board certified criminal

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: trial specialists in the state of Indiana as dean by the National Board of Trial Advocacy

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: and is Indiana's longest tenured board certified criminal trial specialist in the state.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Affiant has never been the subject of professional discipline and has never been

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: determined to have provided ineffective assistance of counsel. Over the past 29 plus years,

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Affiant has taken cases to jury trial all over the state of Indiana for those accused of murder,

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: rape, armed robbery and other serious criminal allegations. Baldwin then offers another recap

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01]: of the issues that arose concerning his handling of the Allen case, especially highlighting that

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Gull had suggested he had been incompetent and negligent. He then concludes,

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_02]: The accused, Allison Davis should not be penalized as the result of any potential bias or

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_02]: prejudice Judge Gull has against Baldwin and she should not have to worry about the appearance

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: of bias or prejudice from Judge Gull against Baldwin, especially on such a serious allegation.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Now one problem with this is that Baldwin never specified anything Gull had done in

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: the Davis case that might illustrate a bias. He merely cited things from another case

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and seemed to suggest yet a hunch she might harbor a grudge against him

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_01]: that might cause her to not be neutral. That is not the sort of argument a judge is likely to

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: find terribly compelling and so, not surprisingly, Gull denied the motion.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Her reply was brief and to the point.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Defendant's motion for change of judge reviewed and denied without hearing as an

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_01]: adverse ruling in an unrelated case is not grounds for a change of judge in this case.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_02]: That is pretty clear and direct. Gull would not remove herself from this case because of Baldwin

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: expressing fears that she might be upset with him over his actions in the Richard Allen case.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_01]: After that, Baldwin's name all but disappeared from the filings in the case.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_01]: He is still listed of course as a member of the team, but he seems less prominent than

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: he did before. Most of the defense filings in the case seem to be signed by Maxwell Wiley,

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: another one of the members of the criminal defense team. And although Baldwin was listed as

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: lead attorney for the defense when he entered the case, the entry on my case now identifies

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Jadonna Bambry, a young attorney who also works at the criminal defense team with Baldwin and

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Wiley. Bambry is just starting his career having been admitted to the bar in October 2023.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know what meaning if any to draw from Baldwin's apparent decreased role in the

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: case. Perhaps he came on as the lead attorney only for the strategic reason of allowing the team to

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_02]: file against Gull and step back from the case once that gambit failed. Perhaps he genuinely

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: believes that Gull may be biased against him and now has a smaller role in the case because he

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_02]: believes that is what is best for his client. Perhaps he simply as a matter of routine leaves

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_01]: much of the pretrial work to others. In any case, the work of the defense went on.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: They began scheduling depositions, many of which appear to be with first responders who are either

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_01]: present at the Davis home on the night Kevin died or who treated him at the hospital before he died.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They also asked for the trial to be continued, a request Judge Gull granted. Originally scheduled

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01]: for June 4th to June 7th 2024. The trial is now in pushback to August 27th to August 30th 2024.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: If Baldwin and the other members of the defense team do not feel that four days is long enough for

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_02]: a trial, one would hope they will let Judge Gull know that sooner rather than later.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously at this point we don't even know if the trial will go on as scheduled,

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: let alone what role Andrew Baldwin in particular will play in the proceedings.

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_01]: With that in mind, let's speculate a bit about what we might see both in the trial

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and the lead up to it. More specifically, let's take a quick look at some of the

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_02]: arguments we might expect both sides to make in this case. Generally speaking, there are two

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: types of defenses that can be offered in a criminal case. The first is I did not do this. The second

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_01]: is I did this but I had a really really good reason. Let's begin with the I didn't do this

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: defense. If this is the way they go, the defense will likely try to dispute the opinions of the

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: experts in this case. The state you remember has experts who say that Kevin's death definitely

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_02]: did not happen because of a fall down the steps and that the incident occurred hours before

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Allison called 911 for help. Both of these conclusions are absolutely devastating for Allison.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: If he died in the fall down the steps after all, no crime happened. It is the conclusion that this

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01]: was not an accident which is the whole reason Allison was ever charged in the first place.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: The finding that Allison waited hours before calling for help is damaging in a different way.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It may not create legal liability. Like most states, Indiana generally does not require

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_01]: people to come to the aid of people after an accident but it is still a problem. It

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_01]: creates a rather negative image of Allison in people's minds and it raises obvious questions.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't she do something to try to help her husband as he laid dying on the floor?

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Did she want him to die? We imagine the defense would therefore do

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_02]: everything they possibly can to dispute those claims. We would expect them to

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: thoroughly analyze how the experts reach those conclusions and try anything they can

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to poke holes in those claims. We also would not be surprised if they try to find

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02]: experts of their own who might offer different conclusions.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And they also may try to highlight the various unknowns in the case. For instance,

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: if Kevin's injuries were not caused by the fall then what exactly did cause them?

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Is there any solid proof Kevin's injuries were caused by a weapon brandished by Allison or

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: anyone else? Is there any evidence the state can produce to indicate such a weapon was ever

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: found or that it even exists? We would also expect the defense to insist upon getting

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: a solid scenario for how the state believes this murder occurred. Allison is said to be too weak

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_02]: to be able to have moved Kevin's unconscious body. Is she therefore alleged to have attacked him as he

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: happened to stand at the bottom of the steps? Are there any signs he fought back? Was there a

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_02]: single blow or multiple blows? And what would her motive have been? I also imagine that the

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: defense would try to caution a jury not to read too much into Allison's demeanor at the scene.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_01]: You'll remember that she supposedly did not seem terribly concerned about her fatally injured husband

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and was even said to be laughing with the medics. The defense will likely say that

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: different people process and handle stress and grief and trauma in different ways,

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and that nothing she said or did at the scene should be interpreted as showing any sort of guilt.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Now of course there is another route that Allison's attorneys can take.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_02]: We mentioned this a moment ago. This is the I did it, but I had a really really good reason defense.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_02]: If they go in this direction, they can concede that Allison did in fact hit Kevin with an object

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_02]: that caused his death, but they could make the argument that she did so in self-defense,

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that she needed to protect herself because she believed Kevin posed some sort of potentially

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_01]: deadly threat to her. We saw Andrew Baldwin use this strategy in the case of Randy Small.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_01]: In that case, Small approached a vehicle in which his neighbor,

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Bob Adair was sitting. Small shot Adair in the head, killing him and then went home.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_01]: He did not report the incident. Baldwin argued at trial that Small had killed his neighbor in

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01]: an act of self-defense. The jury did not agree and convicted Small of murder. He was sentenced

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_01]: to 60 years in prison. We will include links in our show notes to the episodes we did covering

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: that trial. In this case, the defense could try to argue that Kevin was going to beat or

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_02]: attack Allison and she was therefore forced to defend herself. Now please, please keep in mind

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02]: that we have absolutely no idea if the attorneys plan to make such a claim nor do we know if they

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_02]: have any evidence to support such a claim and we in no way mean to impugn the reputation of

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_01]: a murdered man. We just wanted to be thorough and mention this is a possible strategy the defense

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_01]: might use, especially since we saw Baldwin use it in the Small trial last year. Before we get into

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_02]: what points we believe the prosecution might make, we should mention that both sides will

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_02]: likely be very interested in hearing from people at the bar on the night of Kevin's death.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You will remember that Allison said that the couple was out drinking until 1am.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Did people at the bar notice them? Did the couple seem normal and loving to one another

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: or is there any signs of tension? Was there in short any indication whatsoever that Allison was

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: contemplating going home and murdering her husband? We should mention that the prosecutor

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_01]: in this case is Chief Counsel Tessa Helge. She has quite a bit of experience working on

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_01]: murder trials. In fact, she is one of two attorneys in the Allen County Prosecutor's

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Office who regularly gets assigned to work on murder cases. In an interview she gave to 21

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Alive, she spoke highly of the healthy relationship the Allen County Prosecutor's Office has with

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_01]: local police. According to Helge, this allows prosecutors to get involved with cases early

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_01]: on to get insights into what led to the crime and to let police know what sort of evidence

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_01]: they need to acquire before an arrest can be made. In this case, as we have said,

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_02]: the defense will probably try to shine the spotlight on what we don't know.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: The prosecution on the other hand will likely try to focus on the facts we do know.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone agrees that Allison and Kevin were alone in the house. They had been drinking.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_02]: By Allison's own account, they got into some sort of argument.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin ended up dead at the bottom of the family staircase. The first responding officers on the

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_02]: scene were immediately suspicious of Allison and her story. Doctors who later examined Kevin made

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_02]: clear that there was no way his injuries could have happened the way Allison said they did.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The coroner's office concluded that he had to have been hit by a blunt force object.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_02]: The Kevin died as a result of a homicide. And there was no one but Allison in that house

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_02]: who could have possibly committed that homicide. They would also likely argue that not finding

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: a murder weapon is not very significant. The experts indicate that Kevin was very likely brain

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: dead for hours before Allison called 911. This would have given her plenty of time to dispose

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: of a weapon. It also could have theoretically been hidden in her bedroom where she did not

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: allow police to search. We would expect the prosecutors to really hone in on something

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02]: we just mentioned there. That Kevin was probably brain dead for hours and that his body was so cold

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: is to be hypothermic. This would seem to mean that at the very least, Allison made the calculated

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_02]: decision not to get help from him. Just to stand idly by as she allowed her husband

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: to slowly die on the floor in front of her. We intend to continue to cover this case.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: If you have a tip for us about this case, please send it to murdersheet at gmail.com.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Our sources for this episode include court documents, the Facebook page of the criminal

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: defense team and 21 Alive News. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_02]: If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime,

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02]: please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon,

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[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee,

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