The Cheat Sheet: Angels and Acquittals

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[00:02:46] That's quince.com slash msheet to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash msheet. Content warning. This episode contains discussion of murder and sexual abuse, including the murder and sexual abuse of children. So today on the cheat sheet, we're going to be doing a few more cases than normal. We're going to our backyard of Indiana.

[00:03:15] We're going to Washington and Colorado out west. We're going south to Louisiana. We're going to go to our neighbors in Ohio and Michigan. And we're even going to go to Portugal. Is it our backyard? Because we live there. Isn't it like our front yard? Our backyard is in. It's our backyard. It's our front yard. It's our everything. I don't know. I'm just talking here. You're like a great tourist. I'm very tired. Indiana is my everything. Indiana is my everything. What am I, chopped liver?

[00:03:42] Well, you're part of the whole Indiana package, right? Aren't you why I'm here? I thought you wanted people to come to Indiana. I'm part of the Indiana package. You have to hang out with Kevin all day if you come to Indiana. Sorry, tourists. No, it's a treat. It's your privilege to hang out with this man. So. I digress. Well, there. And let's do this. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:04:07] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And this is The Cheat Sheet. Angels and acquittals.

[00:05:04] Well, I think I'll start out with the Indiana case. And I believe this is one of those cases that we did cover either on a cheat sheet or in some capacity in the past. And it's a pretty surprising story out of Kokomo, Indiana, which is a city to our north. We're in the Indianapolis area. So Kokomo is a city.

[00:05:26] And it's the big case that was happening up there was the murder of Karina McClurkin. She was an 18-year-old young lady who was killed in 2016. And my source for this news is the Kokomo Tribune. It has this article by Tyler Dranovich. The Koch has a ton of excellent details. And I'm going to include a link in our show notes.

[00:05:56] I ask you, please go give them a click. Support local journalism. Places like the Kokomo Tribune are really precious and important for understanding what's going on on the ground. So I don't want to just cannibalize this article. I'm just going to give you an overview. And then you can check them out and get even more details. But in the McClurkin case, a man named Flint Farmer was charged with her murder. He was arrested. This went to trial and he was just acquitted. You don't always really see that, really.

[00:06:25] I mean, oftentimes prosecutors' offices, in this case the Howard County Prosecutor's Office, oftentimes they're bringing those really strong cases to the jury, especially in a murder trial. He was acquitted after seven hours of deliberation across two days. So it doesn't even sound like they took that long to do this. Yeah, it's really interesting. I know a lot of people seem to be surprised by it. I admit I didn't follow this case particularly closely.

[00:06:53] It's always surprising because most criminal trials, frankly, end in conviction. And there's no sinister or conspiratorial reason for that. It's because prosecutors get to pick the cases they file. And if they think, oh, this isn't a case I can prove. This is a weak case. This is a 50-50 case or what have you. They're probably not going to file it. So the reason why prosecutors win most of their cases is they're filing their strongest cases.

[00:07:21] And so it's surprising when they file something in such a high-profile case and then it goes this way. I'm not super familiar with the evidence in this case, so I can't make any more informed comment than that. Well, I mean, it's interesting. His daughter testified that he told her that he killed McClurkin after some sort of dispute over a theft. And when she tried to get him to say that while recording it, he would not.

[00:07:50] But the fact that his own daughter testified against him is interesting. But the jury thought differently. They did not think that this was enough evidence. And they – yeah, I'm not an expert on this case either, so I'm not going to really weigh in on what the jury's decision was. At the end of the day, we kind of respect jurors. We respect jurors. That's the way our system works. So I accept the verdict.

[00:08:15] When you talk about him supposedly making a confession to his daughter, my mind always goes back in instances like this to something that Bill Dalton of the Indiana State Police, I once heard him say. He said that if you have a confession in a case but you don't have any evidence to back it up, then it's just a story.

[00:08:36] Yeah, I think there was at least one witness who also testified that Farmer was requesting help burying the body and that they did so together. It seemed like there's at least a couple of different people who are coming forward saying we had these interactions. This is what happened. But at the end of the day, I don't know how this was presented. I don't know what the defense said. So it's very interesting. But I imagine that the McClurkin family and their loved ones are devastated over this decision.

[00:09:06] And I can imagine that. And it's just an interesting, interesting development. But I know he is facing obstruction of justice charges now because he essentially instructed people in his life to hinder the investigation. So, you know, there might be something else coming up for Flint Farmer, but certainly not murder charges. And he cannot be charged again. Obviously, double jeopardy sets in. He was acquitted. They could find him on videotape doing it now. He will not be charged again for the murder.

[00:09:34] Yeah, it's a principle of double jeopardy. You can't be charged with the same crime if you've been acquitted of it. We don't want to have a situation where the government can have a lot of trial runs. Trial runs for trials, I guess. You don't want them to just keep on putting a person on trial until they get the verdict they want. No. That's not the way the system works. There are so many advantages that the state has when they put someone on trial that we really try to make an effort to level the playing field to some extent.

[00:10:04] And that's one of the ways they do it. Absolutely. So, yeah, check out this Kokomo Tribune article. Lots of great details. Lots of interesting details. Some quotes from the victim's family. And that's kind of the Kokomo case I wanted to talk about at the acquittal. So, I think now we're going abroad to Portugal. Going abroad to Portugal. And my source for this was the New York Post. There is a tragic story that has been around for nearly 20 years, I think, at this point.

[00:10:33] That's the story of Madeline McCann. I always say McCann. She went missing back, I believe, in 2007. She was three years old. I think that was probably before your time, Anya, following true crime cases. I remember following the case online at the time. And it was a different true crime world back then. Very different from what we have now.

[00:10:59] I remember one of my primary sources for true crime news back then was a blog by a guy named Steve Huff. And he always covered crime stories like this very, very well. I missed that blog. But in any case... For the record, I followed this case when I was young because it was really... I remember it was all over the tabloids. It was all over everything. And it gripped me because, I mean, it was just a very sad story and this cute little three-year-old girl on all these pictures.

[00:11:28] And you're just like, what happened to her? And there's, you know, just different schools of thought. Different schools of thought. There have been some developments recently reported. A person who's been identified as the prime suspect in the case is a man named Christian Bruckner. And now we are learning that police found a computer hard drive. I guess it is.

[00:11:55] And there is evidence on that computer hard drive which makes them believe that Port Madeline has passed away. And they haven't really given any details or elaborated beyond that. And due to the sensitivity of the subject, I'm also inclined not to speculate.

[00:12:19] But when you think about evidence that could be on a hard drive that would lead a person to make a conclusion that someone is dead, I'm sure our minds go in certain directions. This is very sad news. They also found on the hard drive him chatting, Mr. Bruckner chatting with other pedophiles.

[00:12:42] And apparently at one point he wrote that he, quote, wanted to capture something small and use it for days. So this is a monstrous individual. Yeah. Yeah. I have pedophiles who are, yeah, just, I mean, no part in society. I don't. I like to think of myself as a civilized person when it comes to people who hurt kids like that. Like, not so much. But I won't.

[00:13:13] I won't indulge the rage on you today. It makes me sick. Is, I mean, like. Have murder charges. I mean, like, I don't think there's been, like, a lot of. I know there's been developments with him, but I don't feel like there's been a lot of, like, okay, we're going to put him on trial for murdering her now. I mean, what's the status of this? He's been named as a suspect, but he has not been formally charged. Whatever they have cannot be that explosive. I'm sorry, because I think if.

[00:13:43] I'm not saying it's not suggestive or interesting or important, but I'm saying that, like, it can't be as explosive as something. Because then I would imagine there would be charges. Right? Right. If there's conclusive, concrete proof of something, I would imagine charges. So I imagine whatever this is, is something that's either corroborating something or is just suggestive.

[00:14:05] A lot of speculation in that case about Kate and Jerry McCann, who were Madeline's parents, sort of leaving her in this Portuguese hotel room and sort of things like that while on vacation. And people saying they're the suspects and they lied. And I know there's been, like, a lot of back and forth. Because I don't feel it's been so long since this is a case I looked at that I don't feel well-versed in any of that. But obviously, I mean, this kind of nightmarish scenario, if that's what happened to her, then that's really horrible.

[00:14:33] I mean, no matter what happened, it's horrible. But that's a really scary thought. It's really a scary thought. All right. So moving on to Washington. Moving on. So going to Washington State is another case, unfortunately, involving a child. A source for this is KOMO News. And I also accessed Daily Herald of Everett, Washington, which was via newspapers.com.

[00:15:01] So April 30th, 1983, 13-year-old boy named Patrick Kress is walking to – he spent the night. He had a sleepover at a friend's house in Kirkland, Washington. And he's seen – although under what circumstances or whatnot, it's not clear to me – he's seen walking from that house down the road near 110th Place Northeast and Northeast 140th Street.

[00:15:31] And he's supposed to meet his parents at the local Safeway. Never gets there. Several days later, he is – and this is in – it's called the Juanita Furs Safeway near Kingsgate area where he lived. So he searched for May 18th, 1983. His body is found at a construction site near Northeast 132nd Street and 116th Way.

[00:15:59] And this is just a few hundred yards away from where he stayed the night before. He had been beaten to death. This was definitely a murder. What's interesting is that in an article from the Daily Herald, it's apparent – they interviewed one of the investigators on it, Mike Mellis, who was on it at least as of 2023. Apparently, teenagers in the areas had spread rumors about the killing before the body was even found. They talked about the beating. They talked about where it happened.

[00:16:30] And in 1983, they could not track down the sources of those rumors. But they said it was coming from around people who went to – I'm going to say this wrong – Kamiakin Junior High and Juanita High School. And these people are older now. I mean, this was in the 80s. These people are grown adults. They probably have kids of their own. I would really hope if anyone knows anything, now's the time to – you know, like, lives have changed since then.

[00:16:57] I would hope loyalties and, you know, people would have matured and whatnot. So, I mean, I hope if anyone's listening to this and they know someone in that area, maybe they spread the word. Maybe they shared this episode. Maybe they talk about this. And maybe we can get some memories jogging. Also, it doesn't even have to be someone knows something directly. They could have just seen something that seemed weird, but they didn't connect it at the time. So, you know, anyways.

[00:17:21] One of the weird things in this newspaper article, though, that I read, which was from 2008 and was written by Diana Hefley. This detective finds in the police file the following note. And no police report on it. They have no idea what this is referring to. They have no idea why it's in the police file. Quote,

[00:17:53] What? What? I mean, okay. Well, like, that's bizarre. So, anyways. These days, we're all vulnerable to surveillance and data breaches. Delete Me is a service that lets you remove your personal data online. And it's easy, quick, and safe. We all know that it's easier than ever to find someone's address, phone number, and close relatives online. That is not good when there's plenty of bad actors who want that information.

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[00:18:50] The thing is, when you run a true crime podcast and you talk about some of these cases, you just attract the attention of some people who are kind of unhinged. And seriously, that can be pretty scary. And we're not alone in this kind of situation. Identity theft, doxing, harassment, stalking, these things can happen to anyone. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me, now at a special discount for our listeners.

[00:19:16] Today, get 20% off your Delete Me plan by texting SHEET to 64000. The only way to get 20% off is to text SHEET to 64000. That's SHEET to 64000. Message and data rates may apply. Mellis said he does not think this was some stranger or some predator who randomly ran into this kid. He thinks this was an acquaintance.

[00:19:43] He thinks that I think the implication seems to be that kids in the neighborhood know something. Somebody, one of them may have been involved in this. And I'd be really curious to know, like, who saw him leave his friend's house the night before? And like, what was the deal with that sighting? Is it a credible sighting? Like, you know, the fact he was found so close.

[00:20:07] There's a $5,000 reward and you can go to the Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound. Unfortunately, one thing that I found was that this is King County. And apparently the King County Sheriff's Office used to have a cold case unit that was funded by federal dollars. But the funding went away so they don't have that anymore. I really think we need to be putting more money into cold cases as a society. I think it's really important. And I think that's something that shouldn't be controversial.

[00:20:35] But anyways, if you have any information about Patrick Kress's unsolved murder, please go to 1-800-222-TIPS or 8477. So 1-800-222-8477. That's Washington. Okay, we're just zipping along. The next case is in Colorado. My source for this is coloradocommunitymedia.com. And this case is maybe you'll understand why in a few minutes.

[00:21:05] This case made me think of reasonable doubt. And it occurs to me that maybe at some point we can even do a whole episode on reasonable doubt. Because I think it's something that is a lot of people don't really fully understand exactly what it means. And frankly, often lawyers haven't done a good job of articulating what it means to people. It's something that's very hard to explain and understand.

[00:21:35] And it's not like there's a thermometer that you can take and you can poke it in a folder full of evidence and have it tell you whether or not it reaches reasonable doubt or not. Well, also, frankly, when I see some of the discourse about reasonable doubt online, I think it kind of helps if you have reasonable people discussing it. Because some people seem to think that any random thought that pops into their head is reasonable. And most of those times those are pretty unreasonable people. Well, maybe we should do an episode on it.

[00:22:02] And while I'm saying that, if there's other things related to the law or something that you think would be useful to have us talk about, please let us know. So this case, this is a case, as I say, out of Colorado. I'm very tired. We're recording this on Thursday. We got up early for us to talk about the Karen Reed case. Yeah, on Court TV. So we're like totally, totally, like, yeah. I don't know. We're just, we're a mess.

[00:22:31] It's been quite a time lately. But let's go back to your case. This is a case involving the death of a man named Matthew Heyer, who it is agreed that Mr. Heyer was shot and killed by a man named Donald Harris. The question is, was this murder or was this something else?

[00:22:54] And according to Harris, the death of Heyer was an accident, a tragic accident. Harris, according to Harris, he was sitting in the bathroom of the RV belonging to Mr. Heyer. And Harris had his gun out and he was despondent and was preparing to kill himself. When Heyer picks that moment to interrupt him.

[00:23:26] And that's when the tragedy occurs. Harris says, you know, my gun was loaded. My finger was on the trigger. This guy wants to come into the bathroom. It's a small, tight bathroom. We're trying to move around each other. And then, oops, the gun goes off and it shoots and kills Mr. Heyer. At that point, Harris claims that he said, oh no, this is awful. He freaks out and he leaves.

[00:23:52] And he says his intent was to return and then possibly go ahead and kill himself. So it just occurs to me, it's worth pointing out that reasonable doubt doesn't mean that if you can concoct a wild story that implausibly explains everything, then that means, okay, you get a get out of jail free card.

[00:24:22] This, the story seems to me to be pretty implausible. So just based on what I've told you so far on it, do you agree? Do you disagree? Oh, I agree with you. This is ridiculous. I mean, this is like, that's stupid. I'm sorry. Like, like, no. Like, absolutely not. And there's more details. Somebody overheard Mr. Harris talking about, you know, potentially wanting to rip off Mr. Heyer.

[00:24:55] Yeah. It's just, they use drugs together. They, they, Mr. Heyer brought this RV and Mr. Harris was virtually homeless at the time. It is also unclear how long Mr. Heyer was deceased before his body was even discovered.

[00:25:20] It just doesn't sound like something that seems the least bit plausible. It's not plausible. I'm sorry. That's just not, I mean, like, I just don't. Yeah. I mean, people need to stop. Like, we need, like, we, we do need to define reasonable doubt because again, like, yeah, cobbling together some story that, you know, kind of fits everything, but just sounds like the most, you know, ridiculous lunacy and, you know, you've ever heard of is not, is not reasonable doubt.

[00:25:48] And also if there's other things that are pointing, like maybe this guy had a reason, like, you know what I mean? Like if it's, there might be certain scenarios where somebody is suicidal, unfortunately, and is, and something happens that's bad. And maybe there's some buildup to that or some lead up or it's in their own home and someone comes and tries to interrupt and something happens. And this is a situation, it just doesn't add up and he's, he's taken stuff from him. It doesn't add up.

[00:26:17] I'm going to kill myself. Oh, I accidentally killed someone else. But now I'm going to go out for a walk or something. I'm going to leave. I'm going to flee about, come back later and kill myself. But when they arrested him, Mr. Harris had, uh, hires Jeep. He had higher cell phone. He had higher his bank cards. Oh, he sees a reason to live now. All this new cool stuff. I mean, like, come on. Like, it's just like a ploy for sympathy too. That's what makes it gross to me. It's like, I was so sad, but now it all worked out for me because I got this guy's Jeep.

[00:26:46] I mean, like, I don't know. It's just, it's just, I mean, there, I mean, what, what it banks on, what it banks on is someone on the jury being, um, not super good at critical thinking, I guess, which is not always a bad bet, frankly. I mean, that can happen, but I don't think it gets you to an acquittal most of the time. Most of the time it doesn't. Uh, the jury is currently deliberating in this case. So hopefully I haven't jumped the gun by saying when I think about it, but, uh. May 8th.

[00:27:16] Right now it's May 8th. So they've just started deliberating. Yeah. And, uh, you know, we'll see. I don't know. I mean, listen, I try not to be too hard on a crazy story because sometimes those are true. And sometimes the evidence backs up something that's wild. Let's look at our, our, um, our previous guests, Denise and Aaron, who were on the American Nightmare docuseries. This is a couple who goes to, you know, uh, she's missing.

[00:27:44] Aaron goes to police and says, uh, we were terrorized by these abductors and they took my girlfriend and they told me they were watching me on a camera. That sounds nuts, right? I mean, you're like, okay, that guy killed. No, but he didn't. And the evidence showed that. And the evidence had the police really scrutinized it would have backed up what he was saying. And they didn't listen to him because it sounded so wild. I don't think you can be dismissive of something. I think you have to be curious. You have to at least acknowledge, okay, is this possible? And then go with the evidence.

[00:28:13] But when we're seeing stuff like a guy burglarizes somebody's RV and is this whole implausible story, you know, unless he's producing some pretty good evidence to back up what he's saying, then I'm, I think we're okay to dismiss that. If I'm overheard saying, oh, I want to rip Mr. X off. And then later, Mr. X is found dead. And I found a distance away from Mr. X.

[00:28:38] I have with me Mr. X's vehicle next to X's phone, Mr. X's bank card. I think I ripped him off. I think I murdered him. To use a less dramatic and disturbing example, like if I, if I run out of the store with a bunch of cornflake boxes that I'm stealing, and then I come and say, when the police catch may I say, oh, well, I thought I heard the manager say, Anya, grab those boxes and run.

[00:29:08] You got to save them from that other guy back there who's going to steal them. I was just trying to help. And I was putting them in my car because I thought that was the safest thing. And I was driving off real fast because I thought this guy was chasing me. And I was just trying to follow the manager's instructions to get them away to safety. And I was going to bring them back later, obviously. I mean, no one would believe that. Could that be technically true? Maybe. Maybe. Anything can happen. But like, did that happen? No. That's stupid. It's ridiculous. We have a smart audience.

[00:29:37] So I think you can trust yourself sometimes. I think sometimes people feel like they, in order to be open minded, they have to just buy anything. You don't. If your gut is like, this is stupid and this is not backed up by evidence, stick to your guns, I say. I just, I don't. I think, yeah, it's preposterous. And I think if a story like this is true, if you accidentally killed someone while you

[00:30:07] were about to kill yourself, if accidentally killing him wasn't enough to then motivate you to immediately go ahead and shoot yourself, I would think you would take pains to notify someone of this as soon as possible. The behavior afterwards doesn't doesn't fly with with someone who feels remorseful and oh, my gosh, I didn't mean to do this. This is a tragic mistake. So, yeah, it's sort of like when people claim self-defense, but like they've hidden the body

[00:30:36] or something and it's like how like you wouldn't think you'd be doing that if it was really a self-defense case. Right. Self-defense case, you'd think, OK, I was in the right. Let me call the police. Exactly. Yeah. So is that Colorado? That's Colorado. So then my next case is in Louisiana. I picked two cases right now because they're kind of, I don't know, they just struck me as a little bit similar, like kind of interesting.

[00:31:03] Um, and I will say this for the Washington case I covered, I do want to thank the listener who recommended that. He's great. He's awesome. He's recommended so many cases. So thank you to him for recommending that one. Um, here's another case in Louisiana that was recommended by a listener. Thank you so much to her. Really appreciate it. And, you know, appreciate any guys let us know about some cases that you'd like to hear about. So a couple of sources for this one, including The Guardian, WBRZ and The Advocate.

[00:31:31] This is a very tragic case. And it kind of came up in the news again because of all things American Idol. I don't know about you, Kevin, but I remember when I was, when I was a young one, that was a really big deal. I think it was kind of more of starting out. And I remember watching a couple seasons and it was very, very intense. It was on like right before 24. So I'd often watch the end credits of it. Yes. Before then watching The Adventures of Jack Bauer. So you were kind of getting the job. Oh, 24.

[00:32:01] That's so funny. Wow. This is all very early 2000s coded a little bit too much for my comfort. But, you know, this is a this is a very sad situation. So recently, John Foster, a contestant on American Idol, he performed a song and wrote a song called Tell That Angel I Love Her. And this wasn't just a song that he, you know, pulled out of thin air. This was actually written about a good friend of his, Maggie Dunn, who's passed away.

[00:32:29] So what happened to Maggie, who was 17 and Caroline Gill, who was 16. Then this occurred on January 1st. I'm sorry, December 31st, 2022, New Year's Eve. What happened was there was a there was a police chase. And one thing, you know, we always see in the movies, the police chases and it's all wild and stuff, but like they can be dangerous. You know, it's a high speed situation.

[00:32:55] People are going very fast in their cars and it can end badly. And unfortunately, this one did with a fatality. So what happened was 42 year old David, I'm saying this name wrong, probably, but Cothron, who was a police officer in the Addis Police Department in Louisiana. He was chasing along with, I believe, Baton Rouge police.

[00:33:21] He was chasing a suspect who had stolen a car. And obviously, that's something, you know, you do want to like deal with that. That's that could be a problem and a safety issue. But in this case, the suspect, Tyquel Zanders, was, you know, it seems like he stole his dad's car and it seemed like it, you know, it wasn't necessarily it wasn't necessarily like, oh, my gosh, he, you know, has a gun and is shooting like it.

[00:33:50] Like, so kind of there's some questions about, like, should this have necessitated such an intense police chase? But anyway, so he goes, he so he go that guy goes from Baton Rouge in the stolen car into West Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana. They have parishes, not counties. And unfortunately, Cothron runs a red light, hits these two girls and they are killed. One of their brothers is badly injured.

[00:34:21] And it's just it's just really it's really sad. They were both from the from I think Brule is how you pronounce this kind of Louisiana town. They were cheerleaders. They were good friends. And, you know, it kind of raised some questions about police pursuits and how do we do this safely? Obviously, you want the police to be able to get fugitives from justice. You don't want to just be like, OK, just go in the community and rampage.

[00:34:46] No, but you also want people being safe when they're driving because, you know, if you're killing civilians to to get a bad guy, even if it's by accident, that's, you know, that's not that's not acceptable. And so what happened with Catherine is he he definitely, you know, like he was. He was prosecuted for this and he was actually sentenced to 32 years in prison, 22 years suspended.

[00:35:15] And when he's released, he's supposed to go to schools and talk to different law enforcement agencies about, you know, what what not to do with this, what not to do with police chases. Prosecutors noted that he was driving like close to 90 miles an hour, never hitting the brakes, you know, just going at what they said was reckless. You know, this is this is not safe. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:35:42] Yeah, I agree with you that it's important to protect the safety of civilians. And I've seen too many stories over the years of innocent people being injured or killed in situations where there's a police chase and it's a it's a tragedy. And so it's important to weigh do a cost benefit analysis. Is it worth doing this?

[00:36:10] Even though it may put people in danger. And in some cases, if it's someone who's actively dangerous and shooting people or what have you. Yeah. Other cases, no. And I think that the other thing and I totally agree with what you just said. The other thing that we need to remember is, you know, we have to be looking at when you're in the middle of a police chase, you know, what decisions are are OK to kind of further that and keep that going and what things are not.

[00:36:38] And in this situation, you know, running a red light, going high speed like this in this situation when other cars are coming. That led to a disaster. So there have to be maybe some. Yes, we can go on the chase, but no, we're not going to do this, this and that, because that would just be too risky and really, you know. Harm. Harm everything. I know as of 2024.

[00:37:07] You know, yeah. So, I mean, like, it's just sad because I don't know. It's like, it's like, obviously, this police officer probably, you know, didn't think he was going to kill two teenage girls that day. It just sat all around that this kind of situation just led to a tragedy. But it's it's a reminder that, you know, we need to definitely some of those conversations, I imagine, are happening whenever there's a fatality in a police chase. I mean, as as it should.

[00:37:31] Um, my next case also involves law enforcement in this case as as the victim. This is a very twisty kind of disturbing series of events. And my sources for this are Fox 19, um, as well as, uh, WCPO and, um, actually a YouTube video from one of the other local channels.

[00:38:01] Let me check which one it is because I forgot it off the top of my head. Um, uh, local 12. And this is a story out of Cincinnati, Ohio. You and I have been there many a time. I love Cincinnati. I don't know. It's just a city that I'm like. Got good vibes, you know, but it does. I mean, I'm sorry. It just does. I mean, I would hope you would agree. What are you like the beach boys over there? What? Oh, good vibrations. No, I'm not. I don't know. I just like Cincinnati.

[00:38:31] They, they invented the, uh, Filet-O-Fish. But, um, so anyways. That's supposed to be my line. Well, I wrote an article on it. The names got mixed up on our script this week. Sully, you're talking about fish sandwiches? We, they just picked a new pope, so I'm in, like, Catholic mode. Um, it's Catholic history. But, uh, so yeah, Cincinnati, um, but this is unfortunately a very tragic situation all around.

[00:38:58] So, what happened was, where do you even begin here? So, there was a situation, again, involving a, um, stolen car. Group of, you know, young men who were associated with the stolen car and kind of, uh, were kind of fleeing police. One of them was, um, Ryan Hinton. He was 18 years old. Cincinnati Police Department officers are kind of chasing them and whatnot.

[00:39:28] And, um, one of the officers believed he was pointing a gun at them. And, uh, he's shot. They shoot him. He's killed. Now, the body camera footage is apparently pretty unclear here. It's not, it's not clearly capturing exactly what happened.

[00:39:53] So, Ryan Hinton's family views this body cam footage. And, uh, you know, is able to kind of see it. Very emotional situation for them, understandably. They, you know, watching their child, their son, their nephew, their cousin, um, be killed. And then his father, Rodney Hinton Jr., who is 38, uh, leaves.

[00:40:18] And from there, I mean, he seems to be in a really bad emotional state, according to the people with him. So, he leaves the, the office, um, you know, where they viewed this video at 1030 a.m. Uh, 1240, he gets his car, a black Ford Focus. And then he drives towards the University of Cincinnati, which was having, I believe, their, uh, graduation ceremony.

[00:40:46] Meanwhile, you have this, um, you know, this, this special deputy, Henderson, who was, um, essentially just, I mean, this guy has been described, you know, super positively by those who worked with him. Um, he really kind of did it all. So, he was a Hamilton County Sheriff's deputy, Larry Henderson. He was, like, a leader on their dive team. He had been on an FBI task force.

[00:41:15] Um, he had been on the bomb squad. Very helpful, very attentive, very beloved by his colleagues and friends. And he had retired in December. But, you know, he was still doing special deputy stuff. So, he's helping with the graduation. He's in his, you know, like, I think there's some kind of neon vest or something that they're wearing to do. Do road work and road traffic. I mean, traffic work, I guess. And, unfortunately, um, Hinton strikes and kills him with this vehicle, seemingly on purpose.

[00:41:44] And what has been alleged here is that he was targeting him because he was law enforcement. And what the narrative is being set up by the state is, essentially, it's like a revenge killing. His son was shot by police. He's going to kill this law enforcement officer. Now, so far, there's been a hearing that totally descended into chaos to the point where bailiffs had to usher, um, Hinton away. You know, because seemingly a man who was saying that he was Hinton's brother was, like, yelling.

[00:42:14] And, you know, people, they kind of cleared the courtroom. It was just a mess. Um, obviously a very charged situation. But, um, you know, at this point, it's like, yeah, I mean, what you have is, on the one hand, this kind of narrative revenge. What I'm hearing from the defense so far is that they're saying that Hinton is mentally unstable and having mental issues.

[00:42:40] And perhaps his son's death and seeing that body cam footage was a trigger. So we're kind of seeing, I don't know, just the two kind of sides kind of gearing up with what perhaps they're going to go with. And we'll just have to see where it develops. But obviously just a horrible situation. Um, I mean, Deputy Henderson obviously had nothing to do with the shooting of this guy's son. And if he was targeted just because he was doing his job, then that's really horrible. Yeah, I agree. What do you think?

[00:43:09] I agree completely. Yeah. Sad, sad situation in Ohio. It's very sad. Uh, let's move on to some, uh, combination of corrections and clarifications. We talked last week about a ruling from the Michigan Supreme Court that said people under a certain age could not be, uh, automatically sentenced to life without. And we got a lot of questions and comments about that.

[00:43:38] Uh, first of all, I think we misspoke and said that the, uh, the judges in Michigan are appointed. They're actually elected. And then we should, uh, make it as clear as we can that the ruling says these people of a certain age are not, cannot automatically be sentenced to life without parole. There needs to be some sort of a process in place.

[00:44:05] And so now a lot of prosecutors have to go back because the ruling is retroactive. So a lot of prosecutors in Michigan are now being swamped with a bunch of extra work because now they have to go back and re-examine all of their old cases for people of a certain age getting that sentence. So they can make a determination.

[00:44:28] Do we want to try to make it so that this old sentence that was given in the past still applies or do we want them to be eligible for parole? And so that is what is happening in Michigan. If the prosecutors don't act, it's not a situation where, oh, the next day the people get out. But certainly, uh, I've, I've seen news coverage of prosecutors in Michigan, uh, like going to their town councils and saying, we need more staff.

[00:44:58] We need more manpower because we have to go and suddenly review all these cases. And, uh, finally, I want to know, uh, a number of people have wrote us about the science that, uh, when a person is a certain age, maybe their brains or brain chemistry are not as fully developed as they were, would be when they were a little bit older and more mature. Uh, certainly, uh, you're, you're correct me if I'm rolling on you.

[00:45:26] Uh, we didn't really mean to disregard the science. The point, uh, I was trying to make perhaps clumsily was that I felt that if you're going to make this sort of a massive change in how things are done in Michigan, I think it would make more sense to go through the state legislature and have more openness and debate about it. Yeah, no, I agree with that.

[00:45:53] I mean, I think I probably was more eye rolling about the, you know, idea that 19 and 20 year olds can't make decisions for themselves. I certainly understand that your brain is not done developing until, you know, 25. I mean, it's really a range. It's not, it's not like everyone's brain is like done on, you know, on your 25th birthday. It's just, it's, that's a pretty good approximation throughout your early 20s. It's still in the process is basically where we are.

[00:46:19] Or I kind of feel like when we're talking about, I mean, like the fact that we're talking about first degree murder though, that's, you know, when there's premeditation, that feels like maybe, maybe there could be impulsiveness involved in that. But I don't know. It's kind of a hard sell for me. I think it's one of those things where, I mean, we should certainly listen to the science.

[00:46:40] And if I guess for me, there's to overcome, I don't know, like that's good to have and that's good input to have. To me, I don't know if like that would make me think, well, 19 and 20 year olds can, you know, should not be responsible for their actions, which is kind of where I feel like some of this leads us.

[00:47:05] But at the same time, I think this is a situation where we kind of just read or in this case, you know, we kind of looked at the media reports on this ruling. Is that fair to say, Kevin? And, you know, kind of drew conclusions that were probably too hasty based on that, which is always a good lesson. Always read the actual ruling itself instead of going through and just kind of picking media reports.

[00:47:33] Because I feel like we were too hard on it. It could have been a better discussion from the perspective of like, well, maybe this could have been different. But, you know, I think we were just kind of looking at what the headlines were and then reading the articles and being like, whoa, this seems really extreme. And it's not as extreme as we thought it was. It's more in line with, you know, that kind of makes some sense. I do feel bad for prosecutors in Michigan who have to deal with this, though. Seems like either maybe a legislature or give them more time to deal with this.

[00:48:03] The fact that there's a fast approaching deadline is a little bit like, OK, is that super necessary? I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think that's what I tried to say last week. So, yeah. But I mean, again, I believe in the science. I just I don't know. I still also believe that when you're I think when you're 18, you're capable of like knowing not to murder people. And I don't know. I think I think it's just that's just my opinion.

[00:48:33] I think personal responsibility should come into play when you're at that age. I agree completely. But I also understand that you definitely are more impulsive than and you're definitely going to be making some significantly worse decisions. And, you know, I'm certainly OK with situations where we're taking that into account at least. And that's part of how we're looking at somebody.

[00:48:54] Because also, I believe maybe if you're making those bad decisions when you're 18, maybe you can be a productive member of society later on. Maybe, you know, you get caught up in some kind of bad lifestyle and then you kind of are able to mature and grow and be rehabilitated. I mean, maybe that's not someone who should be in prison for life. So, you know, I think that's a reasonable thing to look at on a case by case basis. Yeah, I think it's a worthy discussion to have. I'm just not sure this was the best way to implement it.

[00:49:25] Well, yeah, I agree. But I also understand from the judge's perspectives, they feel like this could be something that might benefit a lot of people. They're trying their best to make decisions that are going to be good for society. And this is what they feel that was. And we can we can nitpick it. But I also I feel like we should say, you know, they're they're they're trying. And that's this is just what they felt was the right thing and the right implementation of the science and the law.

[00:49:53] So do you think I was like more impulsive when I was younger? Yes, I think you're still more impulsive. You're just constantly getting more impulsive. That doesn't make any sense. I think I was less impulsive. When I was 18, I was real. I mean, I was like I was a square. You know, I was I was really about my studies. Now I'm just like what? Now I'm a podcaster. I mean, what's happened? Were you like a teenager in 1957? You were like square? Yeah. And you were a beatnik. No, I was kidding. For time travels.

[00:50:23] No, I don't know. I mean, I don't I guess I was pretty impulsive. I don't I don't think. I don't know. I definitely made a lot of bad decisions back then, but like not the kind of like crazy. Wow. Like just more of like nerdy, sad decisions. How about you? Were you a really impulsive teenager? I bought a lot of comic books. You're still doing that. Now you. Nothing's changed.

[00:50:53] Anyways, well, thank you all. And also, you know, like, yeah, we got we got people said who said, oh, you guys went went too far on the Michigan ruling. We appreciate when people reach out to us and say, hey, I totally disagree with you. Here's a bunch of stuff because I don't know. That helps us be better and see more sides of it. And usually if we're just kind of covering something briefly on cheat sheet, we could always get more information and do a better job.

[00:51:16] And so, like, I guess hopefully this makes people feel like you can reach out to us and say, hey, you should mention this, this or this or actually this is what's right. Or you're pronouncing that completely wrong. Stop. Yeah, certainly we always welcome feedback. But I'm not sure, Anya, if from a marketing perspective, if it's a good idea for you to say, oh, by the way, cheat sheet listeners, when you listen to cheat sheet, always remember that Kevin and I can do better when we do cheat sheet. I don't mean it like that. I mean, like. Don't you want people to come back next week?

[00:51:50] I didn't mean it like that. I meant it like we're trying to always self-improve and do a better job. And so we try our best on cheat sheet. I'm just saying when we're kind of, you know, we're usually kind of jumping into cases basing on media reports and kind of giving people kind of a chance to research for themselves by including our links and stuff. But I'm not. You can always do better. Oh, my gosh. You're silly. You're like slamming us over here. I'm not slamming us over here.

[00:52:20] I'm just telling people we don't mind getting respectful feedback. Are you typing something on Reddit now about us? Jesus. All these complaints about us on Reddit, now I know they come from you. The burger sheets couple is just evil. I love it when people call us the murder sheets. Honestly, I mean, that's I feel like people people call us all sorts of names. But that one that I think that's I think that's funny. And I think it's cute. And not everyone who uses that hates us.

[00:52:50] But yeah. So you're saying I'm I'm actually behind all the Reddit posts dunking on us. Maybe just the ones dunking on you. I don't know. Trying to build yourself up at my expense. For your impulsive ways. Anyways, well, I actually see I do see stuff where I think like I get there's a lot of I see a lot of things in the genre of, you know, Kevin is a gem of a man. Just a beautiful just like look at this man.

[00:53:19] And then but Anya is terrible and ruins it. So get him out of there. So I do see that. So maybe I do need to start being like Anya is pretty great. But this Kevin guy, I don't know. What's he talking about? Why does he buy so many books all the time and clutter up their house? Oh, I often see mentions help Kevin. Get him away from Anya. Help Kevin. Save Kevin. I come across really well on the show, obviously. No, you're a gem. No, I just stole my word.

[00:53:48] But no, I mean, yeah, it's just. But no, I mean, I don't I don't mean like I don't mean anything against the cheat sheet. I'm just more of like just saying in general, we love feedback and like don't yell and curse at us. But you can always be like, hey, guys, here's something that's more accurate than what you said. And we'll be like, oh, sorry. Thank you. So that's how it's going to go. But you don't want people to curse at you? I don't want people to curse at me. I don't want them to yell at me and say mean unkind things.

[00:54:18] We can be constructive. You want people to curse at you. Is that what you're saying? No, I want them to curse at you. No. Wow. What a good husband. Oh, my gosh. In a couple of days, we'll be seeing 50 of you in Columbus. And if you go to Columbus, Indiana, because we're doing a live event. And if you get to Columbus early. We're just going to sneak into their houses. Is that what you're saying? If you get there early. You know, there's lots of lovely buildings and things to see. Beautiful town.

[00:54:44] But if you get there early and if you get there like really, really early, because this closes at 2.30. There is a place in town called Ye Olde Fish House. Great fish sandwiches. Kevin is obsessed with them and they're quite good. So he's right. He's correct. If I still lived in Columbus or if it didn't close at 2.30, I'd be eating there every day. I know. It would be. You'd be very unhealthy. But it's very good. It's very good. And they're so nice in there. And it's just a classic Columbus staple.

[00:55:13] And yeah, he's right about the architecture. It's fascinating. There's a church that's like shaped like an oil can. It's wild. All these cool buildings. This is back in the era when rich people used to actually do something for their communities. And these rich people in Columbus donated a lot of really cool buildings. The way you're describing Columbus, because I also know it's like. And it's Indiana. It's Columbus, Indiana. And the way you're describing it is also I know it's out on the prairies. You almost make it sound like an Athens of the prairies.

[00:55:43] Yes. Okay. Want to explain what that was? No, no. Oh, you're just going to leave it. Everybody knows what an Athens of the prairies is. I thought Vincent Price said it wasn't really the Athens of the prairies. Why don't you just push the prairies? Oh, wait. Also, we have a book coming out. Pre-order it. We really appreciate that. Oh, and between now and next week's cheat sheet, author photos will be taken. Oh, God.

[00:56:10] And you can tell whether or not I won the argument in the coming week, whether or not you see Anya in a big hat. I'm not wearing a big hat for that. So I'll probably lose the argument. Anya's giving you a spoiler. Oh, the first time he's mentioning this. So that's fun. This is going to be a great photo session. We're definitely not going to get into an argument. I'm so excited. But if you see her, her author's photo has a huge hat. First of all, you say, wow, she looks great.

[00:56:40] She looks very intellectual. This looks like somebody who wrote a pretty good book. But if you see that, that means I won. And if you don't, or it could be like a little cap of an engineer's cap for the cake tray. Yeah, because I want to look. Jeez Louise. Oh, my God. And OK, so that like moving on from that. Yeah. Pre-order the book. There's going to be an audio book. We don't know when that's coming out.

[00:57:06] And for people in countries that are not the United States, people have asked us, how can I get the book? The thing that we're being told right now is international rights are complicated. But you can always ask your local bookseller to order it for you. And that's a great way to support your local booksellers because we love the local bookstores. And we've heard like a rumor about who might be reading it, but we're not sure yet. Oh. Oh, you want to break that scoop? Well, it's a pretty big name. Kind of a diva.

[00:57:37] Anyways, so we and then also we have shirts if you want to buy them. Murdersheetshop.com. You can check it out. Get the shirts. Get the book. We'll see some of you in Columbus. The whole experience. We'll see some of you in Columbus. I'm not wearing a big hat for anything involving this. I'm sorry, Kevin. That could be that could be some that we're we're just not doing that. But I appreciate I appreciate your efforts. So you're saying we can still discuss it. We can discuss it for other things, but not that. All right. Anyways. Bye, everyone.

[00:58:06] Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:58:26] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[00:58:51] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages.

[00:59:21] Thanks again for listening.