The Cheat Sheet: Filings and Fentanyl

[00:00:00] Content Warning. This episode contains discussion of murder, including the murder of children. It also contains discussion of drug abuse and sexual violence.

[00:00:11] Today on The Cheat Sheet, we're going to be covering a number of different cases. We'll be book-ending this episode with two Indiana cases, one that we've covered quite extensively. I'll bet you'll guess what that one is, and one that we haven't covered at all yet.

[00:00:27] We'll cover a few cases that we have touched upon before, and some new ones. We'll go to Missouri as well as Alaska. Some of these cases have similar themes, and we'll try to unpack those as we talk through them. My name is Ania Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:00:46] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. 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. Filings and Fentanyl.

[00:01:03] So let's begin as we so often do in Delphi, particularly with the case of Richard Allen. Can you tell us what's been going on in that case lately?

[00:01:58] Absolutely. We have a few updates that we didn't really feel were enough for their own episode, but we wanted to mention here just to give you an indication of what's going on.

[00:02:07] And what I feel like these latest filings do is provide a glimpse of what we might expect in the next scheduled hearing in the case, which of course is on March 18th, 2024.

[00:02:18] To give you a little background, previously the prosecution filed essentially contempt filings against Bradley Rosie and Andrew Baldwin, the defense attorneys for Richard Allen alleging a number of things. And the defense asked for that to be continued.

[00:02:39] And Judge Gull did grant that. We sort of expected that because it would make sense to grant a continuance to give them time to prepare.

[00:02:48] Since then, Rosie and Baldwin have seemingly taken on two attorneys. David Hennessey, of course previously represented Baldwin and also Michael Osberg, who we also interviewed on our program not too long ago. They will be representing them and defending them from these contempt charges.

[00:03:05] Just want to note that this is all very unusual to have like defense attorneys defending defense attorneys in a murder case. Like this is not normal.

[00:03:12] We I don't want people to walk away from this thinking, well, that happens a lot. No, it doesn't. This is all very weird.

[00:03:19] It is very weird. And some of the defense attorneys for the defense attorneys note that and even tried to suggest that the contempt of hearing should take place separately with a different case number than the murder case.

[00:03:37] So it's all very complicated and involved. So the first question you might have is what exactly did the defense attorneys do that is alleged to be contemptuous? And that's the question that David Hennessey himself asked in his motion before the court, didn't he?

[00:03:58] Yes, he filed a motion on February 12th and he he says that they still don't have sufficient notice about what's going to happen.

[00:04:10] And they don't even know what they did was contemptuous. What exactly is the state charging? Here's what he takes it as what the state was referencing as contemptuous.

[00:04:20] Hennessey's own list. He and obviously with some editorializing by Hennessey, which I will include. So he notes that one item is the fact that a press release went out from the defense, but he notes that it came out before the official gag order went down.

[00:04:36] I know that in the prosecutions filing, they noted that there was an in chambers conversation that indicated that things would not be tried in the press.

[00:04:47] And so that's it. That's, but you know, as Hennessey rightfully notes, there is no official gag order at the time that that goes out. So he's kind of indicating why would you penalize people for things that weren't against the rules technically at the time?

[00:05:01] The second item on Hennessey's list is the fact that Andrew Baldwin failed to promptly notify the court that he had accidentally sent some discovery product to a gentleman named Brandon Woodhouse.

[00:05:15] Hennessey does not deny that this happened, but he says where is it explicitly said that Baldwin or any attorney in that situation has some sort of duty to obligation. Has some sort of duty or obligation to make such notice.

[00:05:34] The third item is the Frank's memorandum. Hennessey is saying that he's noting that there were graphic descriptions contained therein, but he's asking how is that contemptuous?

[00:05:45] I guess his argument is that if the defense attorneys felt that it was necessary to their defense of their client to make points involving graphic descriptions, they should be allowed to do so.

[00:05:58] You cannot like it or be annoyed by it as a judge, but does arise to contempt. That's sort of what he's I think getting out there.

[00:06:07] The next item on the list is probably the one that's gotten the most attention, namely the fact that Mitch Westerman took some photographs of crime scene images that were on Andy Baldwin's conference room table and distributed them to members of the public or any other

[00:06:28] member of the public. And he says, how was that Baldwin and Rosie's fault? What's interesting to me and we'll get to this point in the next bullet which also deals with Westerman. But there's sort of a, you know, how can Westerman's role in this be characterized?

[00:06:48] And I think that will be very important for understanding what will happen going forward. And so to get to that in bullet point five, he notes Baldwin and Westerman's contact about the memorandum.

[00:07:01] You know, that's being described as contemptuous, but he says that Gull okayed behind the scenes brainstorming with I assume trusted advisors, trusted confidants. Again, there's been a lot of talk about Andrew Baldwin sharing defense strategy with people who are not members of the defense team.

[00:07:19] That's basically what this is alluding to. And Hennessy is saying that Judge Gull basically gave Baldwin an explicit okay to do so.

[00:07:30] I will be very curious to know what specifically was said in that in chambers meeting was there's some sort of outline given about what's okay, what's not okay. Is this a vague statement?

[00:07:41] Because I think that will be important to understanding, you know, was was he working within just a reasonable guideline set by Judge Gull and betrayed by a friend? Or was he pushing it? I don't I just don't know because we don't know what was said.

[00:07:56] But that will be very interesting. Also, it's like where does the attorney's responsibility end when when you're bringing in somebody who does this? Because Westerman's not an employee. He's a friend, a former employee, but a friend.

[00:08:16] So and I'm asking this, I legitimately do not know where does the lawyer's responsibility end? Where does the other person's responsibility begin? Is it sort of like if you if you bring in someone as some sort of unofficial teammate is that on you? Is it on them?

[00:08:32] I mean, does it raise questions about your judgment but perhaps not rise the level of you did something explicitly wrong? I don't know. I can tell you in my experience, it's not unusual for lawyers to discuss strategy with other lawyers or trusted friends or associates.

[00:08:53] I've been with other lawyers who have described cases or such they're working on. So what if I try this? What what if I try this? What what do you think would happen? That makes sense. Makes sense that it would be a collaborative thing.

[00:09:06] I'm not asking about that, though. I'm asking about what what's the responsibility then if something goes wrong at that point where where does the blame fall?

[00:09:18] And in another in the final bullet point from Hennessey, he's saying that the state indicates that Rosie and Baldwin have a history of just not being honest according to the state and you know kind of describes that as a trend.

[00:09:32] But he I think you know he's saying there needs to be something more specific about that. So then also as I mentioned earlier, Hennessey believes that they're basically trying to hit Rosie and Baldwin with indirect criminal contempt charges.

[00:09:47] And he believes this should be in a separate case and separate filing and should not be part of the murder trial of Richard Allen. Now subsequent to this on December 14th on Valentine's Day, Nick McLean the prosecutor in the case made a filing in the case himself.

[00:10:06] He indicated that he's planning on calling witnesses at this upcoming hearing and offering exhibits. And he has indicated that he has shared all of that with the defense. So I think it's very interesting that at this hearing, we are going to have live testimony from witnesses.

[00:10:26] So the implication obviously is we're going to be learning more details about those allegations, including perhaps the leak of the crime scene photos than we've heard before. Yes. I'll be very curious.

[00:10:42] It will be a very interesting hearing as you can imagine very heated or maybe not heated but certainly tense.

[00:10:48] And I imagine in addition to that, McLean has said that the court ought to order the defense turn over all its evidence by 5pm on March 7th so that the prosecution knows what to expect going into this and that they can prepare.

[00:11:03] So they're basically saying here's what we're going to do. You tell us what you're going to do. It's going to be very interesting and I wonder what additional details are going to come out from all of this.

[00:11:15] And I'm especially interested if more details come out about, again, the leak of the graphic crime scene images. And I'm also interested in the issue you highlighted earlier about the sharing of trial strategy with Mitch Westerman.

[00:11:31] A lot of people have a lot of heated opinions about this whole leak situation on both sides. Regardless of what side you're on, I think it would be good to just get more information out there about what happened so that people can assess it for themselves.

[00:11:49] Yeah, I think that's very important. I think I can't underscore how important that is. We are likely from the sounds of this we're going to get new information about all of this in court on March 18th.

[00:12:03] And I imagine that this means whatever information the prosecution or the defense chooses to offer on those matters, the other side is going to cross-examine and pick at it. So whatever we get on that day will give us a fuller picture than perhaps what we have now. Absolutely.

[00:12:22] So the only remaining thing in Delphi, it was out on February 15th, 2024, Hennessy filed once again saying, can I bring my laptop and phone to court? I promise I won't use my phone outside of the well of the court. I need my laptop to show things. All right.

[00:12:40] Well, I would imagine that would be granted. I would imagine so too. I think that certainly has a history of wanting to restrict use of cell phones in her court. Now let's go down to Missouri.

[00:12:56] So we talked in a previous cheat sheet episode about the mysterious deaths of three Kansas City men, David Harrington, Clayton McGee, and Ricky Johnson. Their bodies were found on January 9th of this past year in the backyard of the home of their friend, Jordan Willis.

[00:13:13] They had gathered a few days earlier to watch the Kansas City Chiefs football game. And those men never came home. One of their fiancé's ended up having to break into the backyard and unfortunately discovered all of their bodies.

[00:13:28] I imagine that was incredibly traumatic and just my heart goes out to the families of these men. But there's been a lot of kind of speculation about this case in the press. It's highly unusual for three men to just die like this.

[00:13:44] Willis himself was very unresponsive when it came to dealing with the families in the days before the bodies were discovered. And more information has come out about this. Actually, Willis himself is, you know, checked into rehab dealing with addiction issues.

[00:14:06] And now there's also media reports about the toxicology report. And the media is seemingly getting a lot of this through the families of the men who died. And what is being said is that the men, their bodies tested positive for drugs, namely fentanyl, cocaine, and some THC.

[00:14:29] So that seems to shed more light on their deaths. There's been a lot of speculation that it must be murder. I think it's important to note that like murder is a very specific thing.

[00:14:48] Like, you know, it requires a level of, I believe, intentionality or recklessness at least or committing another felony at the same time. And there can be levels of culpability, regardless without something being a homicide or without something being a murder per se.

[00:15:08] I don't know what the case is here. The presence of drugs though does again possibly go towards some questions about how this could have happened. Obviously, when you have cold temperatures, people outside and drug use, that's a potentially high risk situation.

[00:15:32] And of course, sometimes drug, of course, sometimes you do see cases get brought in circumstances like this against the dealer who supplied the drugs. Yeah. Fentanyl is very dangerous, is my understanding.

[00:15:48] And if drugs are being cut or like that's being used, I think that can kind of throw... There's been jurisdictions where there's been attempts to really hold people accountable. Refresh my memory. Wasn't there a recent case where something like that happened? I believe in Texas?

[00:16:06] Yes, one of our good friends sent us an article from the Austin American statesman and that got into the case of Juan Ignacio Soria-Guemez. And he was linked to the death of 19-year-old Tucker Rowe.

[00:16:23] He had sold him drugs laced with fentanyl and he was sentenced to 13 years on the charge of distribution of a controlled substance that led to the death of someone.

[00:16:41] So, he was... I'm sure he didn't intend for the young man to die, but when you're selling someone like a fentanyl laced pill, I think in that situation, the law determined that that was going to be punishable. Is it almost like a felony murder situation?

[00:17:07] It feels like maybe it's a little bit applicable to that where it's like you're... You don't have to intend for some terrible outcome to happen for you to be responsible. So, there's kind of that mechanism going on.

[00:17:20] And in addition to that, there's even civil situations that can occur. So, November of 2021, a teenager from Santa Cruz, California, 16-year-old Emma Lace Price, she died in the home of the parents of a man named Michael Russell. He was 24.

[00:17:42] And now he was charged with selling drugs, you know, fentanyl laced drugs to Price and another teenage girl. He was sentenced to 10 years for that and also for having sex with her statutory rape.

[00:18:02] And in addition to that, that wasn't the end of the legal fallout though because the Price's sued Russell's parents because he was in their home when all this happened and they've settled for an undisclosed amount.

[00:18:16] But obviously the parents in that situation weren't selling her drugs or doing any of that, but it's an attempt to hold them accountable essentially. It's like an attempt to link them to being culpable for what happened because it occurred in their residence.

[00:18:31] So, if there's situations like that where people are trying to hold others accountable even when they're less directly linked to the actual incident, you can imagine that we could see something in this case I imagine.

[00:18:44] I don't think it's a definite, but I think the families of these men have certainly expressed a lot of understandable consternation over everything that happened. I'm getting the sense that they're frustrated and they want accountability

[00:18:57] and that can sometimes mean if there's no foul play or there's no criminal charges to be brought against someone like Willis that there might be a lawsuit in the future. It would be very difficult if you lose someone that you love and there's no criminal charges bought

[00:19:16] but you still feel that someone needs to be held responsible. I think that would be something very difficult to walk away from. And of course, it's also important in a situation like this to remember that a civil suit in a matter like this can attract attention

[00:19:34] and maybe that can change the behavior of other people in similar situations who would look at this news of a successful suit and say, oh, maybe I need to be more careful about what happens in my home or what have you

[00:19:48] and then perhaps lives get saved in the future. Right. So you can understand that, but you could also understand like I think people in general beyond the families of people who've died tend to want to hold someone accountable

[00:19:59] or even I would say punish somebody and that can be a helpful instinct sometimes and it can also be an instinct that leads everyone to say this must be a purposeful homicide murder and people should be arrested and like that's not always... Sometimes it's more complicated than that.

[00:20:18] So I will be very curious to see what happens legally speaking going forward with this. I don't necessarily think it's the last we've heard of it, but certainly the presence of drugs does shed some more light on this.

[00:20:32] I'm sure most people will not be surprised to hear that Ania and I are not big football fans but just the same we could not help but notice another piece of tragic news that came out recently involving the Kansas City Chiefs.

[00:20:48] Yeah, this is awful. So there was a parade on February 14th to celebrate the team's big Super Bowl win. That makes sense. The city's proud of the win and you know, want to go celebrate like we should be allowed to do in this country.

[00:21:02] But unfortunately, there was a mass shooting. One person was killed, 30 people were injured, including children. The woman killed was a radio DJ for KKFI 90.1 Lisa Lopez Galvan, her family confirmed that she was killed.

[00:21:26] And there's not a lot of details out there. We understand that about 10 people were detained for questioning. All but three of them have been released. Those three people, there's no real talk of a specific motive yet, although police have indicated to the media

[00:21:43] that this was likely a personal dispute rather than an attempt to attack the parade. It's so infuriating to me. I'm going to want to state my opinion on this. People should be allowed to go to a parade and celebrate their football team winning.

[00:22:01] I hope everyone agrees with that. It upsets me. I don't, I'm not saying I have the answers on any of this, but it upsets me that we live in a country where individuals who are so stupid, careless and

[00:22:17] dare I say just morally bankrupt that they would open fire in a crowded parade setting to settle a personal dispute and that they can access firearms.

[00:22:33] And that's just normal. People who are so irresponsible and so heinous, frankly, can have the same level of access to a deadly weapon that could destroy lives, kill people, change the lives of families, just ruin everything along with people who could be responsible gun owners.

[00:23:00] And that's just seems so fundamentally broken to me. And it's like, I just, I just don't even know. I mean, it's like, it, I don't, it's just baffling to me.

[00:23:13] I mean, a personal dispute, not that it would be correct or right to settle a personal dispute with firearms in, you know, even if you're out in an abandoned field in the middle of nowhere,

[00:23:23] obviously that's not okay. But the fact that you're in a crowded parade ground, and that's what you're doing. That's the United States today in 2024. You know, you go to a parade with your family and it gets shot up.

[00:23:36] Well, with that said, let's move to the next case you found this is a very interesting case out of Alaska. So this particular case involves a man named Brian Steven Smith, who happens to be originally

[00:23:53] from South Africa and now become relevant in a moment. He had an encounter with a sex worker named Valerie Castler. Miss Castler got into Smith's truck. And at some point during the intervening moments, she reaches into the center

[00:24:14] console of the truck and steals a memory card that Smith has there. And then, subsequently, that at some point she takes a look to see what's on the memory card. And what does she see?

[00:24:29] Horrifying images in video of the abuse, torture of a Alaskan native woman who turned out to be named Kathleen Henry. She was 30. And on the video, a unseen on the video, the killer in a strong South African accent is taunting her singing

[00:24:57] lines from songs talking about how she's not going to escape alive. Just really, really horrific stuff. And this is all occurring at a Marriott hotel. Castler takes the memory card to police. Initially, she lies and says, I just found this on the street.

[00:25:21] Then, in a subsequent interview, she comes clean indicates that she stole it. And please figure out pretty, please figure out pretty quickly who the memory card belongs to because as I mentioned, Smith is from South Africa. So he has a very distinctive South African accent and voice.

[00:25:43] And they were seemingly looking into him for something else for another investigation so that he was on their radar already for something. And they're like, oh, okay. This, so this leads them to interview him in 2019.

[00:25:59] And he during that interview, he takes a bathroom break and admits to yet another murder to them. This is the case of Veronica Abhuchak, another Alaska native woman. She was 52 in 2019 when her family reported her missing.

[00:26:17] Smith gives them information about shooting her in the head and gives him the location of her body and they find her remains off the old Glen Highway. This is odd because she had previously been misidentified as a different body because for whatever reason, her identification was found on that body.

[00:26:40] But they were able to correct that to go back to the footage of Henry's murder. So that occurred at a town place sweets, which is a Marriott chain located in Anchorage.

[00:26:52] Henry was staying there from September 2 to September 4 and the video footage shows her dead on September 4. Her body was also seen in the images being loaded into the back of a black pickup and she was dumped along Seward Highway.

[00:27:09] This case obviously touches upon some pretty intense issues with the phenomenon of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States as well as Canada.

[00:27:25] That has been something that has gotten a lot of discussion, rightfully so, in true crime spaces. Both of these women were Alaska natives both struggled with homelessness and they were also both from small villages in western Alaska.

[00:27:41] So this is looking like a case of a man targeting vulnerable women from Indigenous communities, which again continues to be a pervasive problem beyond this case.

[00:27:57] But of course as we noted this all occurred back in 2019. The trial is just ongoing now so it took a number of years for this to come to trial as can happen.

[00:28:06] Do you want to get into some of the legal issues that have come up as you can imagine with evidence procured in such an odd way?

[00:28:14] Yeah, the defense had some problems with the materials from the memory card because they said how can we be sure this is accurate? She lied about how she got this. Doesn't this call everything into question and... You gotta try. You gotta try. The judge didn't buy that argument.

[00:28:34] You have to try when your client is on video taunting a woman that he is strangling and beating. And then he also tried to throw some doubt on the confession saying he'd just gotten off a long flight, maybe he wasn't in his right frame of mind.

[00:28:51] We will see if those arguments end up carrying lunch weight with the jury. In addition there's actually been some wrangling with the Alaska Department of Correction that reminds me somewhat of a similar situation in Delphi.

[00:29:06] In the Delphi case, in Richard Allen's case, of course he was recorded on a phone line talking to his wife and mother and seemingly making incriminating statements in the case. We don't know what exactly was said.

[00:29:18] And in addition to that, the two sets of defense attorneys who have represented Richard Allen have complained that they weren't given enough privacy or that correctional officers were filming them and talking about how in the prison setting they were not given enough privacy with their client and it violated his confidentiality.

[00:29:39] And in this case the defense has also accused the Alaska counterpart there in terms of the Department of Correction. They say they've been listening in on conversations between them and their client and reading letters between them and Smith as well as between Smith and his wife.

[00:29:56] So it's just interesting to kind of see some of those issues pop up in a different case in a totally different part of the country.

[00:30:02] And in one of the newsreels about this, there's you can hear the defense attorney, you know, Smith starts rambling and then they say, don't say anything substantive like we're on a recorded line basically. So it's interesting to kind of hear that.

[00:30:21] And you know, Timothy Ayer who is Smith's attorney is just noting, you know, don't trust the video. I think when you have video in a case like that, it's going to be hard for the jury to not see that.

[00:30:35] Now, in an effort to, you know, avoid re victimizing the two victims in this case to a certain extent, you the judge did order that the jury alone should watch the video and hear the audio. I imagine it's just incredibly disturbing footage.

[00:30:53] Should we move on to the next case which is back to Indiana, I believe? Yeah, we're going back to Indiana. Yeah, we're going back to Indiana book ending our episode. Interestingly, this kind of sounded to me in some ways a little bit similar to the Alaska case.

[00:31:07] You have two women who are murdered, certainly less, less dramatic of a situation than a stolen memory card.

[00:31:18] And I just want to also say just before we conclude that one, I mean, I understand that she had issues with the law in the past and maybe had some trouble in her background.

[00:31:26] But I think that's great that Valerie Castler came forward like she did, even knowing that she did something bad to get the memory card and she could get in trouble but still kind of taking that chance and coming clean about it. That's great.

[00:31:43] And it's great to see a woman kind of seeing something horrible happen to other women and taking it stand even when it does not benefit her to do so. And she apparently on the stand has been very, very feisty with the defense attorney in the Alaska case.

[00:31:57] So I know Court TV noted that. Anyway, so back to Indiana. So this case takes place in Indianapolis which is our capital and it's a case of David Heiner. So this took place on the east side of the city.

[00:32:15] Indianapolis is the north side, the south side, the west side and the east side. I talk a lot about the west side because that's where the Burger Chef murders happened. It happened in Speedway which is not Indianapolis but that kind of is on the west side.

[00:32:28] The east side, I would say as an outsider having moved here is often in my regard, regarded by people who live here as maybe the most struggling economically. I would say that I don't think that's always true and I certainly don't want to stereotype it.

[00:32:45] There's great stuff on the east side and there's nothing wrong with that and if there's issues going on with it then that's troubling and should be corrected. It shouldn't be maligned but it is worth noting, I think, for people who may not be familiar with Indianapolis.

[00:33:03] You lived on the east side for a while, didn't you? Very briefly. Very briefly. There you go. Two women were found murdered on the east side very close together. I'm basing all this information on an affidavit from Detective Ryan J. Clark with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

[00:33:21] He and his affidavit noted that on January 27th at 9.23 a.m., an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer named Kay Morse went to a residence on Midhoffer Road on the east side and they found a white woman, a white female who was lying face down.

[00:33:45] Her pants were pulled to her knees and there was severe trauma to her neck. She was dead. She had been left outside a cluster of little businesses, a family dentist, a tax business. Being businesses and being businesses of that nature these places are deserted at night.

[00:34:05] They found blood all over the place. They found drag marks and they also found what appeared to be the victim's shoulder bag and it didn't have anything seemingly missing. There was like all the stuff you would expect to be in there was in there.

[00:34:19] Fingerprints identified the woman as 58 year old Shannon Juanita Lassiere and she had last been seen by her son intoxicated and departing his residence, which was about a quarter mile from where she was found. Then unfortunately another body turned up. On February 1st, 2024 at 11.13 a.m.,

[00:34:43] IMPD went to the back of a Dollar General on Midhoffer Road and exactly like the first victim, this next victim was found face down. Her pants were pulled down to her knees. There was trauma to her face in addition to her neck, blood everywhere

[00:35:01] and Detective Ryan J. Clark who had taken on the first homicide claim and to be believed on this one as well because they're saying this looks very similar and it's in a very nearby location. The body was found near a kind of a jumble of crates, carts.

[00:35:23] Her feet were against the wall and there was a bloodstained blanket on her back. Now in this situation there was also a blood trail. It was found next to the alley. It was found in an alley nearby next to the highway stretched about 150 feet

[00:35:38] and it started near a residence behind a laundry and tanning business that was right near the dental parking lot where LaSire was discovered. So this is all happening in a very small location. So at the residence where the blood trail started there was a garbage bin

[00:35:54] and inside detectives found some clues namely covered in blood, a black balaclava hood and some stuffed animals. Those come into play a bit later. The victim was identified as 52 year old Mary Ann Wise and she was an unhoused person, she was dealing with homelessness.

[00:36:18] So the similarities were obvious as we mentioned, sharp trauma to the neck. Both victims were white women in their 50s. Their pants were down because they were actually dragged by their arms and it kind of pulled their pants down in that way

[00:36:32] and they were both left in sort of less trafficked areas. And Wise also had defensive wounds as determined by the coroner to her hand so she was trying to fend off the knife. Was all those businesses around? Were there any surveillance video?

[00:36:47] Yes, there was surveillance footage found of Wise going to a bar called Obie's Pub on the night of January 31st, 2024. And to give you sense, this pub is at a strip mall it's opposite the Dollar General where she was found.

[00:37:09] And she was seen in the outside front patio which is fenced in and at 7.43 she comes on the camera and is grabbing her stuff to go. You know, an unidentified black man is also seen on the footage. He's dressed in a black coat, tennis shoes, gray sweatshirt.

[00:37:28] He's holding some kind of pink tablet or box. And he's walking along the fence. And after interacting with some ladies that she was with, Wise follows him and leaves the camera's view. And so other businesses pick them up walking together and he's walking really weirdly.

[00:37:50] He's walking trying to keep his head down looking away from the businesses as if he's almost aware that there might be cameras there and he does not want to be seen. Were they able to use any images from this video to help them make an identification?

[00:38:03] They were, yeah. First they went to talk to the women who were with Wise at Obie's and they all remembered that a guy showed up and was not talking to anyone and seemed to kind of be looking down and not trying to make eye contact.

[00:38:20] They all felt that was weird and these women are being maintained as confidential anonymous sources in the affidavit and in the official documentation. But apparently Wise told these women he's okay, he's family. So she trusted him, although it made the other women concerned that she left with him.

[00:38:40] And in a really sad detail, I thought this was just heartbreaking, the women before Wise left asked her, she's carrying around a stuffed animal and they asked her why she was doing that and she said it made her feel safe because she was homeless.

[00:38:53] And so that kind of sheds new light on those stuffed animals that were found along with the mask in the garbage can that were covered in blood. So those were her little toys and I don't know, that just makes me really sad.

[00:39:09] On February 6th, 2024 there was a bit of a break in the case. Detective Sergeant Julian Wilkerson was on patrol between North Post Road and Midhoffer Road and saw a man matching the description of the guy who at that point, the detective had distributed stills

[00:39:27] from the video to people. Found the guy, he was wearing a similar coat to what was depicted in the video, had the similar hairstyle, same build, same complexion. And he went up to talk to him and the man identified himself as David Allen Heiner.

[00:39:42] He was with a man identified only as his initials CS and he also had a splint and a bandage ring finger. And he said he slipped and fell. Later on, he said he slipped and fell in an area very near to where the victims were found.

[00:39:58] And Heiner actually agreed to go with them to the police station. First he claimed not to know the women. He was interviewed by Clark and Detective Lieutenant Eli McAllister. He said he didn't know them. He saw it on the news. And then when he showed the video surveillance

[00:40:16] he admitted that that was him, but he denied he knew Weiss and said she wasn't really leaving with him. And said that while he didn't carry any knives he had them in his residence. So did that open things up for a search warrant for his residence?

[00:40:33] Yeah, that was served on February 7th, 2024 and it was for actually his mother's house. So she's identified as KF. They found some of his jeans soaked in a bleach bucket and another pair of jeans also had flecks of possible blood.

[00:40:48] And they also found his Nike Air Max shoes and those had dried blood on them. Those were sent to the Indianapolis, Marion County Forensic Services Agency and the blood had DNA and that was belonging to both Mary Ann Weiss and Shannon Lassiere.

[00:41:04] So he had blood from both victims on his shoes. More video then came up. So video from the Lake Marina apartment complex where he was it picks up Weiss and Heiner getting to the area around 748 on January 31st and his friend CS is also there.

[00:41:25] So at some point Heiner and Weiss break off they go toward the Dollar General and at 828 Heiner comes back alone and meets back up with CS. Now surveillance footage from January 26th also proved helpful because Heiner is milling about with CS

[00:41:43] and appears to be wearing the same Nike shoes that had Lassiere's blood on them. So that's what's happened so far. That's the probable cause after David. So he's been arrested and held without bond for two counts of murder? Yes. Cindy Herbert, a WTHR producer

[00:42:01] actually requested that the initial hearing be recorded and that was denied because it was not timely. I don't really get what that means but just to give you a sense that sometimes the media is trying to get stuff out there and it's just being denied.

[00:42:15] Does Heiner have a criminal history? Oh yeah. So he was born in 1993, he's been in trouble he lived previously in Michigan City, Indiana in LaPorte County. One offense occurred on April 29th, 2010 he was charged with robbery resulting in serious bodily injury and battery

[00:42:35] and he was sentenced on October 1st, 2012 one of the charges was dismissed but he was sentenced and ended up incarcerated seemingly at the Miami Correctional Facility at some point and that was on aggravated battery and battery resulting in moderate bodily injury on June 4th, 2019.

[00:42:56] That was technically dismissed on September 26th, 2023 because he changed his plea then to guilty and also there was something about pointing a firearm and resisting law enforcement on May 5th, 2010 that was dismissed on May 10th, 2010. So he's gone in a lot of trouble

[00:43:15] certainly nothing to the extent of murdering women. These seemingly weren't robberies because he wasn't taking anything so it's like he was going after vulnerable women in their 50s getting them alone and stabbing them to death. So pretty horrifying.

[00:43:34] I'm curious to see what his defense for any of this is going forward if it's a claim that they have the wrong guy. It seems like the stack of evidence against him is pretty bad if both victims' blood is on his shoes. Yeah, it's pretty compelling.

[00:43:50] And he's seen on all these videos with them that's pretty bad but I'm sure there'll be some attempt obviously he needs a defense anyways. And certainly we keep an eye on it. Yeah, and we'll keep you posted on this one

[00:44:08] but it's certainly sparked fears from a lot of women in the Indianapolis area that a budding serial killer was at work so certainly a very disturbing case. And that's it. That concludes our cheat sheet for today. Thanks so much for listening.

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