The Cheat Sheet: Lithium and Liars

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[00:02:54] So today on the cheat sheet, we're going to be covering a couple of different cases. Some are pretty high profile, others less so, but still important. Cases we're going to be covering come out of Maryland, Oklahoma, Hawaii, and California. So let's get to it, I guess. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:19] 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. Lithium and Liars.

[00:04:16] So my source for this first story is WBAL-TV out of Baltimore. And this is a case that some of you may have heard of. It is the case of the murder of Haman Lee, which occurred in 1999 in Maryland. And the man convicted for that was Adnan Syed, her former boyfriend.

[00:04:40] This, of course, is a pretty famous case in the United States because it sort of, in some ways, it led to a podcast called Serial that really ushered in the modern day true crime podcasting boom. So we're all living in the aftershocks of Serial in some ways. And on the one hand, I mean, obviously, we're doing a true crime podcast, you know, happy that that exploded because I think it could be a really good vehicle for discussions around true crime.

[00:05:09] But on the other hand, I think Serial kind of gave us a lot of the original sin of true crime podcasting. Basically, it takes what is a very simple domestic violence style murder between two young people and turns it into this kind of like let's all follow from home mystery because we don't know how crime works, you know, sort of thing. And so, unfortunately, that's just led to, you know, kind of what I believe is, you know, very clear cut case of just innocent fraud, innocence fraud over the years.

[00:05:38] I think this guy is guilty as charged. And there's been developments in his case in recent times that have, I think, just been disgraceful in the way that they've been handled as far as inflicting harm on Haman Lee's family. And to be to be clear, and we'll get into this, Adnan Sayed was a very young man, you know, underage when he committed this crime. So I think there are discussions should be discussions about how do we sentence juveniles who have done something awful?

[00:06:08] But, you know, do they still pose a risk to the community? Is there an effort to rehabilitate? I think all of those are worthwhile discussions, but we'll get more into that later. So the way things are right now, in September of 2022, Marilyn Mosby, who was then the Baltimore City State Attorney's attorney, rather, she asked a judge to overturn Sayed's conviction.

[00:06:37] Now, she claimed she did this because she felt that was the right thing to do. It should not be lost on anyone that she was facing some controversies, some indictments of her own around her time in office. And we don't need to get into that too much. But in my view, this is just my opinion, I think throwing this kind of high-profile case back into the headlines was a very cynical political move.

[00:07:07] I don't think it was anything other than that. It's just kind of your classic, you know, deflection. Well, that's just my take. Anyway, so that happens. Then Haman Lee's family gets involved. They protest this. They say, basically, the way this was done was completely improper, which it was. Because the conviction is reinstated.

[00:07:30] And then in August, the Maryland Supreme Court basically affirmed and upheld a lower court decision where now they're going to have a new hearing about vacating the conviction. And in addition to that, more recently, in December 2024, Sayed's legal team, you know, he's out of prison at this point, to be clear. They file a motion asking for a sentence reduction. And the basis for that would be the Juvenile Restoration Act. That's a pretty new law out of Maryland.

[00:08:00] And basically what it means is after 20 years behind bars, if you're a person who is serving, has served a long sentence for something you did when you were a minor, you can seek some reduction in your sentence based on that, based on contributing to the community in prison or outside of prison. And it's just an effort to, again, focus maybe more on rehabilitation in these juvenile cases.

[00:08:32] So, well, I mean, at some point, the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office was supporting all of this in terms of vacating the judgment, the Juvenile Restoration Act, all of it. But just recently, they actually went back on one of those things. They withdrew their motion to vacate the judgment. They are still supporting Sayed's Juvenile Resentencing Act situation. So they're like they're OK with him being resentenced.

[00:08:57] But as far as just vacating the judgment and let's hear from Ivan Bates himself. This is the Baltimore City State's attorney, and he's going to explain why he went back on that, what his what his predecessor, Mosby, had done.

[00:09:15] So, quote, after a thorough review of the motion to vacate judgment filed by the previous administration in the case of Adnan Sayed, my office has determined that it contains false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process. As prosecutors, our duty is to seek justice and ensure that all legal proceedings are conducted transparently, accurately and fairly. While I did not ask for this task, it was remanded to my office by the Supreme Court of Maryland.

[00:09:42] Thus, we have a duty as Maryland barred attorneys, prosecutors tasked with pursuing justice and officers of the court to address false and misleading statements in the state's legal filings, a duty that we take extremely seriously. As such, we cannot adopt the falsehoods and misleading statements in the motion to vacate judgment, nor fail to bring them to the court's attention. For these reasons, I formally withdrew the motion to vacate judgment.

[00:10:06] I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system. My administration remains fully committed to reviewing cases where wrongful convictions or miscarriages of justice may have occurred. However, we will do so with the highest standards of integrity and a commitment to truth. I recognize the complexity and sensitivity of this case. I hope this comprehensive review and my ultimate decision bring closure to all parties involved. End quote.

[00:10:33] So, Syed's attorney, Erica Suter, who is a public defender and directs the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore Law School, has protested this and said, oh, he suffered so long for a crime he didn't commit, blah, blah, blah. Just, you know, what? Typical stuff. Your typical thing. Again, this man is a guilty man. I'm sorry.

[00:10:59] I think this – but beyond that, beyond that, I think the way that this whole thing happened under Mosby's tenure was absolutely appalling from the perspective of Lee's family. It was just wrong. That's not how you do this sort of thing. So, I think it's – from looking at all this and the fact that they're not protesting sort of juvenile resentencing, he's very likely going to stay out of prison.

[00:11:24] But I'm glad that at least they're kind of correcting the record as far as this goes because, you know, basically using this case as a political, you know, poker chip is completely unacceptable. Yeah, the family of the victim deserves more than that. These are real people, real lives left behind. It's not just a way to further someone's career.

[00:11:47] I mean, what do you make of this statement, this filing, this move from Bates? Like, what is he essentially – like, just reading between the lines, what is he basically saying about what Mosby did? It was no good. I applaud him for doing the ethical and responsible thing.

[00:12:13] And when you're in a position like that, you can't file or do things that support things that you believe were done incorrectly or outside the rules. So, he was ethically obligated to do this. I'm glad he did. And, you know, again, I think there should be conversations around juvenile resentencing. Can a person grow from, you know, past the teenager who did something awful and become a member of a community that's beneficial?

[00:12:42] Would that be better than someone just being punished endlessly? Those are all reasonable conversations that can be had in different cases. And I think, you know, it seems like this office is certainly committed to that. But I will note that Syed never – has never admitted to what he did.

[00:12:56] Like, so I guess for me, something like that, someone learning from their mistakes from when they were young, a lot of that goes further with me if they admit to wrongdoing and acknowledge that they snuffed out, you know, the very bright, lovely young woman that was Heyman Lee in this situation. And apologize for their horrible and selfish actions.

[00:13:18] I mean, I think serial set our whole genre on a bad path because what I remember was essentially like let's just focus on a lot of meaningless minutiae and frankly hard to believe people who are kind of associated with this whole situation instead of, you know, kind of what I think is a more important overall picture of the truth. It's set a bad tone in many ways. It was entertaining. I didn't really think so.

[00:13:48] But for some people it was entertaining. But I think we need a reset in this genre. And I don't think it was ill-intentioned on their part. I mean, they didn't realize they were starting a whole new thing in fairness. But I think when I think back to serial, I just am like, oh, there you go. That's our that's in the DNA of this whole kind of true crime podcast movement. And it's we need to evolve. Agreed.

[00:14:16] I think you have a high profile case that recently happened. Well, I think before we get to the high profile one. Oh, you're switching it up on the fly. Whoa. Well, I thought the order was we were going to go to California next. All right. Let's go to let's go hop in our little airplane, our little murder sheet express and go over there. This is a case. The sources I use were the L.A. Times and ABC7 dot com.

[00:14:44] This is a case involving a judge of all people named Jeffrey Ferguson. So this judge and his wife go out to dinner. And prior to the dinner, they got into an argument that the judge had a child from a previous marriage that his wife felt was not sufficiently grateful for the financial support.

[00:15:14] That child was getting from the judge. And so they were fighting about that. And this fight happened at the restaurant. And during this fight at the restaurant, the judge made with his hand kind of a gun symbol to his wife. He they then go home with a son they have together.

[00:15:38] They sit down to watch an episode of Breaking Bad and their disagreement continues. The wife apparently says something in the effect of why not point a real gun at me or something like that. And so the judge who had been drinking, he he carries a gun pretty much at all times in a holster around his ankle. After his wife says that, he pulls it out and shoots her dead.

[00:16:08] Oh, my God. His son gets the gun away from him. Authorities are called. He pretty quickly, the judge starts making the obvious incriminating statements. He even texts his staff says, I'm not coming in tomorrow because, you know, I lost it. I shot my wife in a police interview. He's he says something. I go, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, convict me. You know, I did it.

[00:16:33] Uh, but now he has changed his story a bit. He says that it was all an accident. And when before I even get to his story, I'm going to stress that he as you would hope if a person is carrying a gun in an ankle holster at all time.

[00:16:56] This this is an experienced user of guns who by the testimony of his son talked about gun safety. You know, don't point it unless you're going to shoot and things of that nature. So there's a man who knew about guns. And I'm also going to say, uh, Anya is a person who's been married and has been in situations with a spouse.

[00:17:20] I would be curious how you would, how you would, uh, evaluate certain aspects of his story. He says, for instance, yeah, we were fighting about financial support to my son who didn't send us a thank you card. And the fight was like getting out of hand to the restaurant. And so he says, I thought if I made this hand, this hand gesture of a gun to my wife, that would calm things down because it's because it's a sign I'm giving up the fight. Is that how you would interpret it?

[00:17:50] No. What person in their right mind would? Unless like that's Kevin and my private joke that like gun symbol equals surrender. Wouldn't a gun be an act of aggression? You're pointing a gun at someone. You're not like pointing in the air, pretending to wave a white flag or something. You're, you're, that's an aggressive gesture. So you're saying that would only work if like the couple had some sort of private language. Oh, that's a sign I'm giving up. Yes.

[00:18:18] There is certainly some evidence that that is not the case because she apparently stormed out of the restaurant shortly after that. And I believe the judge himself acknowledged that she seemed to be embarrassed by that. So she's, so he is just lying. This is judged by the, I don't know if I mentioned his name, Jeffrey Ferguson. His wife, the murder victim in this case was Cheryl Ferguson. He was 72 at the time of this incident. She was 65. My goodness.

[00:18:46] So that's one aspect of his story that you already seem to be a little bit dubious. That's not what that gesture means. If I, if I like flip you off and say, oh, that's just my private gesture of love, you know, and you storm out because you're mad at me. You know, it just, I don't know. That just seems borderline. I mean, that just seems like a lie. I mean, there's certain things where you're like, okay, I can kind of see going with that or whatever. But that, that's, I'm like, no, that let's live in reality.

[00:19:13] So now let's cut to a bit later. He, his wife and their son who's home from college. This is not the financial support son. This is a son that the two share together. That poor kid. So they're all sitting together. And it's been reported that the wife said, why don't you point a real gun at me? But he says, no, what he thought she said was, why don't you put that gun away from me?

[00:19:41] And so he thought, well, as a gesture of peace and goodwill, I have this gun on my, on my ankle. I'm going to unholster it to make things better, diffuse the situation and put it down on the table. But as he's doing that, somehow his hand slips or something. He tries to grab the gun and he accidentally fires and kills her. Do you think that, that story sounds credible? No.

[00:20:08] So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I, I'm also very dubious of this story and certainly him texting his staff and saying, I lost it. I don't think that's something a person would say if it was an accident. That's something you say if you do something when you're in a bad temper. Yeah, I lost it and yelled at somebody. Not, I lost it and accidentally crashed my car. So like, yeah.

[00:20:36] And, and, you know, yelling about ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Was he, was he drunk when he was making some of these statements? He was, he'd been drinking all night. He seems to have an issue with alcohol. I'm choosing my words carefully there. He also. That's a great mix with having a gun on you at all times. Yes. And I don't know if some of this is going to come out in cross examination, but he's on bail.

[00:21:05] And one condition of bail was that he should not be consuming alcohol, but he violated that, that prohibition. And then he lied to the judge about it. He said, oh yeah, the ankle monitor says that I drank alcohol, but that's just because I used cortisol cream. And that's a lie. And he lied to the judge about it. And so that is something that could potentially come up on cross examination because it affects his credibility.

[00:21:34] I mean, when you see people in the system, whether that's law enforcement or officers of the court or a judge or, or whoever, when you see them do stuff like this and then kind of pull these penny antics essentially where like they're just lying and getting caught immediately. It just like, it really makes you wonder.

[00:21:57] Although, you know, if he's, if he, if he's devolved into alcoholism, you know, that oftentimes that involves lying to people in your life about what you're doing. So you kind of just start lying about everything to kind of, you're not really thinking strategically. You're just staying one step ahead. So it's like, oh, well, I blew the monitor or whatever. Well, a cortisol cream. Well, that's not true. Well, you know, you just, that's just sort of, that's what it strikes me as. That doesn't excuse it at all, at all. I'm just like observing this. This just seems to be a mess.

[00:22:27] It does seem to be a mess. I feel so bad for this woman. I mean, it, and I feel, I feel, I feel so bad for the son who saw this. I mean, what a horrible thing to do to your kid and your wife. I mean, I don't, I don't even understand this. Uh, he says that his relationship with his son has improved. I don't know if that's true. His son was a witness.

[00:22:52] One thing that doesn't really bear on innocence or guilt, but it seems like an odd detail. And sometimes at least for me, odd details can reveal something about the nature of the character of the people involved. So he shoots her, the bullet goes through the chair she is sitting in and ends up in a wall. But now you have a chair where she was murdered in or that she was shot and killed in.

[00:23:21] And that chair has a bullet hole and he still has that chair in his house. Yikes. That seems odd, doesn't it? I'd be curious about what his like record was like as a judge. Was like, was he at one time pretty respected or was he known as a loose cannon even in the courtroom? It could be either one. People don't always, people kind of have this idea or, you know, I think it's, all of us can be guilty of this. You want the bad people.

[00:23:51] You want people who are capable of doing really horrible things like this to be just kind of mustache twirling villains who are going around and, oh, I'm so evil. But, you know, I think all of us are capable of extreme evil. And, you know, I think sometimes people can be pretty competent professionally and have and be a complete mess personally. Yeah. So it's an upsetting case. That trial is ongoing out in California.

[00:24:19] We will keep an eye on that. We're actually recording this on Wednesday. So I don't know if there'll be a verdict before we release it on Friday. Probably not. But we're going to keep an eye on it. So now I think there was a case that got national headlines that and as it has for some time and has been, you know, kind of a focus within the true crime space, at least a little bit early people talking about it. So I think you wanted to talk about that one. Yeah, let's talk about this.

[00:24:47] This is the case of the Glossop case that was recently ruled on by the Supreme Court of the United States. It's kind of complicated. I'm going to go through the arguments and let's see where. Can you tell us what the Glossop case is, though, for people who have no idea what you're talking about? Yeah, I'm going to go through the arguments, but it is part of that. I'll go through the facts and we see what we think and where we end up on it.

[00:25:15] It involves a case in out in Oklahoma where a person named Justin Sneed beat to death a person named Barry Vantrese with a baseball bat. This happened at a hotel that Vantrese owned, and it was run by Richard Glossop.

[00:25:36] And Glossop ultimately was found to have solicited the murder, to have arranged for Sneed to kill his boss, basically. And he was convicted of that crime and sentenced to death. There were then some technical issues involving ineffective counsel. So he was tried again and convicted again.

[00:26:03] And this happened, as I said, back in the late 90s, early 2000s. And since the second trial and conviction, he has been maintaining his innocence and trying to get a new trial. And the other day, the Supreme Court said, yeah, he gets he gets the new trial. And so let's talk about that. Let's talk about the primary argument. So.

[00:26:30] There there is an earlier case called the NAPU case. This is a case from the late 50s, which sets out the principle that if a prosecutor knowingly solicits or allows wrongful testimony in a trial, he has to correct it. And if he doesn't correct it and if it's a material issue, then the defendant gets a new trial.

[00:26:58] And we can all understand that none of us wants prosecutors to go around putting fake evidence in trials. But where it gets complicated is how do we know if the prosecutor knew it was false? And how do we decide what's a material issue and what's not a material issue? Does that make sense? Yeah.

[00:27:27] So in this case, there's a variety of circumstantial evidence that ties Sneed or whether there's a variety of circumstantial evidence that ties Glossop to this crime. I think in all likelihood, he he is guilty of it. We don't need to come to any conclusions in this discussion as to whether he is guilty or innocent.

[00:27:54] What matters here is whether or not he got a fair trial, because even if he is guilty, he deserves a fair trial. Because if you violate a person's rights one day, that means maybe your rights get violated the next day. So let's set aside our feelings about his guilt or innocence and focus on whether or not he got a fair trial.

[00:28:19] The key witness against Glossop was this man named Justin Sneed, who actually committed the murder. And so at one point, while he is testifying in the second trial, Sneed acknowledges that there was a point where he was prescribed lithium. And he says, I was prescribed this to treat like a cold or dental pain. And that's not true.

[00:28:49] He was actually prescribed it to treat a mood disorder, you know. Bipolar disorder, right? Yes. And so he, he lied. And so the question is, did the prosecutor know he lied? And also, is this a material issue?

[00:29:11] And so first of all, as to whether or not the prosecutor knew he lied, there is a page of notes that the prosecutor took at a meeting. He's saying, I have a lot of words. And there is a book about the truth. There is a movie that he lied about.

[00:29:42] And there is a movie that was not true. And there is a movie that he lied about. that during that meeting, Snead told the prosecutor, I was on lithium and it was prescribed by this doctor. And the only way, the only reason to prescribe lithium is for a disorder, not for teeth pain.

[00:30:12] Well, I have a question. Can I ask? Yes. Does it require knowing that the prosecutor knew that? Or if the prosecutor doesn't know anything about mental health or lithium or why that would be prescribed and they didn't follow up, I guess is there a due diligence requirement here? You should check why that is as opposed to – because it's like if basically a prosecutor says, oh, lithium for tooth pain, makes sense, does not realize that that's fishy.

[00:30:42] I don't know. That's a good thing. I'm no expert on medications. I wouldn't know why lithium is prescribed. I wouldn't either. I'm not going to lie. But the claim is it was in these notes. Had to know, had to know this was the only reason it could be prescribed. It definitely raises that it was on – that lithium in general was on the radar. And it sort of, I think, points to Glossop's point. I'm just curious about how narrow this has to be.

[00:31:10] And so the argument would then be this is material, not because that whether or not this person was on lithium goes to the actual facts of the crime, but because it goes to the person's credibility. The argument is this person is misstating why they got a prescription. They're basically lying on the stand, perhaps in an effort to hide their diagnosis of a mental disorder,

[00:31:37] and therefore that shows they're capable of lying, and that would harm their credibility on a key point. Therefore, since the jury did not get the information that the witness's testimony was perhaps not as credible as you would like, maybe if they had that information, then they would have found a different verdict, and therefore the person deserves a new trial. So that is the argument.

[00:32:07] What do you think of that so far? First of all, am I making sense? I think you're making sense. I always wonder if I'm making sense or not. Oh, I think you make a lot of sense. I think I can definitely see where Glossop's team is going with this. Again, what I raised was, you know, lawyers are not experts in mental health. If you kind of just write stuff down, does that mean that you're aware that that doesn't add up, or you're trying to follow up on it, or you did follow up on it?

[00:32:37] It might be helpful if they got a hold of that doctor who might be able to sign an affidavit on, oh, well, yeah, he was asking about his bipolar disorder. Okay, well, then you know the prosecutor knew. So, whereas if there was no call, and of course it's been a long time, that guy might be dead for all we know or may not remember. But I guess I'm just like, I see where Glossop is going here. I don't feel comfortable being like, oh, yeah, this means the prosecutor definitely lied.

[00:33:05] But it's ambiguous enough that it raises questions. It does raise questions. And Glossop was sentenced to death. I don't want someone being executed if there are any doubts about whether or not they got a fair trial. I think that's a good point. The death penalty really raises the stakes here. The death penalty being on the table raises the stakes and makes it... I think this is why some prosecutors actually avoid the death penalty at this point,

[00:33:34] even in pretty heinous crimes, is because it just... Everything is so scrutinized, rightfully so, because you're taking away somebody's life. The state is taking away somebody's life. So when you have things like this, I mean, it just... There's going to be a point where if Glossop is executed or if he had been executed, then there'd be no more appeals, there'd be no more attempts to fight it. If he's just in prison for life, then some of that kind of immediacy is taken off the table,

[00:34:04] although I'm sure still people would want to have that advocacy going on. Does that make sense? That makes sense. So my source for this, by the way, is the actual Supreme Court opinion, which is readily available online and elsewhere. So the first issue is, let's try to figure out, do we feel the prosecutor did know? And really the evidence is these notes,

[00:34:32] which in a page of notes largely about something else, in a corner there's the word lithium and Dr. Trumpet. That's really, really ambiguous. One person on the court said, you know, there's other possibilities for what that could mean. For instance, perhaps the prosecutor didn't under... They're talking about lithium and Dr. Trumpet. And so they're writing a note on the side, maybe I should question this and ask about it later,

[00:35:02] then just never got around to it again. That's kind of what I feel too. I mean, I don't know when I'm interviewing someone, if I'm taking notes, sometimes it's just like, to do later, ask for clarification, maybe you don't get around to it. I, I, I don't think this is proof that he knew. I do think it raises some ambiguities and raises some questions though, so I can understand where they're coming from. I don't think it's unreasonable for his defense team to be hitting that and to have, or for his team, his legal team to have hit that hard. Obviously it worked, but yeah, I,

[00:35:32] I think it's very ambiguous. It wouldn't make me conclude that the prosecutor's lying. another person you could talk to about what the notes mean is the prosecutor. Uh, the prosecutor offered her interpretation of what the notes meant. I should also say there, by the, the words lithium question mark, Dr. Trumpet question mark, there is the, there's a two followed by an X. And she says, well,

[00:35:58] what happened is that during the interview, Snead said that Glossop's defense team had asked him about whether or not he had used lithium and about a Dr. Trumpet. And so because of that, she just made a note. She has a two X, which means two interviews. And those words followed by question marks were just meant to indicate that those topics were raised by the defense team in interviews. And it wasn't,

[00:36:28] uh, Snead affirming to her any details about his use of lithium. Okay. So that, that's plausible. At the very least, this feels really, like an unresolved point to me. at best, at best for Glossop's team. Yeah. Uh, the, the dissent, uh, also makes the point that they argue that it's important that the, uh,

[00:36:56] emission be material. And they say, this is not material because the fact that this person may have used lithium, had been prescribed lithium at one point. Well, after the crime does not pertain to the crime itself. And if you get to a situation where you say, Oh, if a person misstates, even a minor point that doesn't relate to the crime during testimony, and it's not corrected. Well,

[00:37:27] that goes to materiality because maybe the jury would use that to judge their credibility. Well, I'll say this, and this is kind of where it kind of gets a bit, I don't know, tricky. It gets tricky because if he's, if he says accurately on the stand, yes, I took lithium. Yes. I took it for my bipolar disorder. You know, unfortunately, mental health, mental health issues, mood disorders, um, have a lot of stigma with them.

[00:37:56] So what the defense might be thinking is, well, if people had known he had bipolar disorder, maybe they would have discounted him more. And I don't think that's fair or reasonable because you can have bipolar disorder and be telling the truth. You can have any sort of mental issue or whatnot, or emotional issue or anything and be telling the truth. But, but I guess if you're looking back in, in 19, in the 1990s, when this is happening,

[00:38:22] maybe that influences the jury's outcome that they're not made aware of that. Just beyond the lying. What, what you're saying is interesting. But what you say was if the juror, you said, if the defense team knew about the mental disorder, bipolar disorder, then maybe X, Y, or Z. Interestingly enough, the defense did know. Right. Because they were asking about it in the interview. So we, why didn't they bring that up? They did know that there's no doubt that they knew about it and chose not to

[00:38:50] use that information in the trial. And you could argue that there is a strategic reason for that. Why? Well, for instance, the prosecution was saying, Oh, Sneed was, uh, was manipulated by gloss up. And so maybe if you're saying, Oh, Sneed has a mental condition that could make the jurors think, Oh, that makes him, maybe he was more easily manipulated. Perhaps. But here's a question. Why didn't they use this to impeach Sneed?

[00:39:21] That's a, that's a great question. Because even if you're saying, I don't want to make him look like a vulnerable man with an issue who is manipulated by gloss up. Okay. Fair. But if he straight up lies, cause I don't, I, how do you mistake? Oh yeah. The lithium. Oh, that was for a toothache. Like, how do you mistake that for like your medication for your bipolar disorder? That doesn't make any sense to me. here's, here's another point about that. This happened in the retrial, which was many years later.

[00:39:48] And he had been on lithium for a very short time. So a question could be, is there a possibility that he just simply forgot? And then was an innocent omission because it happened years earlier. But you could also argue that it was a recent prescription. You'd think you'd remember that a little bit better. Like five or six years earlier. Well, I, I, I, you said he was on it for a short amount of time. He was on it for a short amount of time,

[00:40:17] years earlier by the time of his testimony in the second trial. Okay. That, that confused me. So he was, he, he'd already been taking the lithium for a while at that point. He was taking lithium for a very short amount of time, years earlier. Okay. So is it plausible to think that he perhaps just forgot the reason why or didn't fully understand the reason why, because it happened years earlier? I guess I'd want to know, like, I mean,

[00:40:46] does he have any other issues that would make him not understand what he was taking? That seems kind of hard for me to believe. Okay. That's fair. Um, you know, I don't know why the defense didn't use that to impeach him, but that certainly seems more like a failing on their part. Uh, another point that the dissent makes is because, as I indicated, this was a retrial. This was happening years after the events.

[00:41:15] They point out that there were a number of times in the transcripts where witnesses made basic mistakes of fact, and were, were corrected for it. And that did not necessarily cause the witnesses who were being corrected to have their credibility suffer in front of the jury. It was just viewed by one and all is, it's been a few years. And so, uh, the dissent argues that even if he had been corrected on a minor point,

[00:41:46] that would not necessarily have made the jury disbelieve him. Okay. What do you think of that? That's fair. Yeah, it wouldn't, it wouldn't. Oh, whoops. I mean, I meant that. I mean, it wouldn't have necessarily thrown everything out, but, um, I'm not super familiar with all the evidence in the case. So I don't, I don't know how much it would have weighed. I think it's possible. It wouldn't have been a big deal. I think it's also possible if they came out and impeached him and kind of made him look bad,

[00:42:14] that could have been kind of a bit of a big deal. So I guess it, it's hard to know. A lot of this stuff seems a bit marginal to me. That's just my instinct as a non non lawyer. I think there was an opinion in the case that agreed with some aspects and disagreed with others and their main disagreement with the case.

[00:42:39] The majority view was what should have been done is not order a new trial, but try to spend more time on ascertaining the facts of what these notes mean and what the prosecutor knew. And I think that's where I come down. What do you think? So who, so who would have been responsible for doing that hypothetical move?

[00:43:06] Like terms of ascertaining that. Well, in theory, the court can order those proceedings by the attorney general or whoever to investigate. Okay. Yeah, that, that, that's fair. Again, I'm, you know, with the death penalty, it's, it's so, it's so high stakes that, you know, I mean, I can understand it. They were like, let's just do the most dramatic thing. But I mean, I'm not going to lie. Like when I see, when I see like there's,

[00:43:35] I'm very skeptical sometimes with some of these high profile innocence claims that seem to be being boosted all around, to be honest. But I also think that just because, just because someone may be guilty or someone is likely guilty doesn't mean that it should be, you know, just rushed or that they shouldn't get a fair trial or that if things go wrong, it shouldn't be retried. So that's kind of, I mean, I kind of feel ambivalent. Right. Yeah. It's, it's not an easy case.

[00:44:03] Not something where I think it's even behooves any of us to take a strong side. Cause if someone brought up things that were like, you know, I mean, these things, again, I think they're kind of ambiguous. I think they're kind of marginal, but I can understand why, you know, why it's happening this way. Yeah. So it's not something. Yeah. It's just, it's complicated and ambiguous. Do you think the Supreme court made the right call? Well, as I said, I think I ended up,

[00:44:33] there was a concurring opinion, which said, instead of ordering a new trial, they should have done more fact. They should have ordered more fact-finding to be done. And I think that's where I fall. I guess I fall in just having heard all of this from you. I, I don't think this is evidence that the prosecutor lied. I just don't. I think her explanation makes sense. Um, as for whether or not it should have come out and whatnot. Yeah. That's where I can kind of understand more. Yeah. Shall we move on? Yes. Let's.

[00:45:03] Okay. So in the next case is in Hawaii. Um, this is from, uh, well, I read about it in the civil beat, but the reporting was done by association. Uh, specifically Jennifer Cinco Kelleher. And this is the, Oh, and I also did, uh, some research on newspapers.com specifically from the Hawaii Tribune, Herald and the Honolulu star advertiser. This is a case of a, uh,

[00:45:28] what was described as a wrongful conviction of Gordon Cordero and actually a familiar name in this one, Kenneth Lawson, the co-director of the Hawaii innocence project. He's been a guest on this program. He has indeed. So he was involved in this. The Hawaii innocence project was on Cordero's case. I hope I'm saying that name right. If not, I sincerely apologize. Um, so Cordero was recently, um, his, uh,

[00:45:55] his case was essentially overturned and he was, um, he was released after serving 30 years in prison. He is a man from, um, the island of Maui in Hawaii. And, uh, he was, a judge ordered, rather, a judge ordered his release today is as Kevin said, Wednesday, Wednesday. So, um, I don't know if there'll be developments before this comes out on Friday, but he's always maintained his innocence in this murder case that I'll talk about in a minute.

[00:46:24] And what happened was that the judge, uh, Kristen, Kirsten Hammond ruled that new evidence around DNA test results would probably have changed the results of yet another trial against him. So just release him. She vacated his convictions. She vacated his life sentence. So he's out. Um, so what, what exactly happened? Well,

[00:46:51] one game I like to play is when I find a case that is being touted as a, of an exoneration or wrongful conviction, I like to look and dig into it and look at it as best I can. In this case, I was only able to go through media accounts, which is pretty limiting to be honest, but I like to look at it and see, do I still think that by the end of this? Because sometimes you have cases where you look into it and you're like, no, this guy is definitely guilty,

[00:47:21] but there was some procedural or technical errors and he's getting off on a technicality. You know, to be blunt, that's often the case. And then there are other cases where you're like, this is definitely a wrongful conviction. And this guy was innocent and it was a horrible miscarriage of justice. So I was just curious where I was going to come down on this one. So let's see if we can figure that out together. So on August 11th, 1994, a young man named Timothy B. Blaisdell was murdered.

[00:47:48] He was found murdered in Maui. And what happened was a group of teenage boys were driving near the lower Kula Highway and they saw blood in the road. They went over to this gulch that was used as a trash dump and they found Blaisdell's body covered in trash face down. He'd been shot in the head. And in October of that year, a young man, Gordon Cordero was arrested and charged.

[00:48:18] Some places have him being from Makawao and then others from Pukalani, but he was a mechanic. And it turned out Blaisdell worked at, I believe maybe even owned his own auto body shop. So they kind of worked in the same place. There were some discussions of possibly some kind of falling out over a car part, but it's not really clear if that's even true. So Cordero is charged with kidnapping, murder, first degree robbery and such.

[00:48:48] And he had also been charged with robbery, burglary and firearms charges in November for an incident in November of 1993. So he's facing a lot of things. Um, May, 1995, the trial begins and it comes out where exactly a lot of the evidence against, uh, Cordero is coming from. And that's a man named Michael Fritas. Again, sorry if I'm saying that wrong. He's the star witness. So who is this guy Fritas? Well, he,

[00:49:16] he basically is saying that he was, he was sighted with Blaisdell the night of his, his death. They're driving around. They're seen together. And what he says happened is that they go out to this lonely stretch for Blaisdell to buy marijuana from Cordero. That Blaisdell walks up to the truck that pulls up or the car or whatever and gets shot. And that Cordero comes out, uh, guns blazing,

[00:49:46] points it at Fritas and forces him to drag, uh, Blaisdell's body to this gulch. So basically he, this is some kind of drug deal gone wrong. But I mean, as you can tell, there's some odd, there's, there's some odd things about that. Because Michael Fritas didn't come forward for several months. He claims he only came forward after, um, his car was shot at. So he's saying Cordero continued to threaten him and threaten his family.

[00:50:14] So eventually he came forward. But what, uh, the original defense attorney, John Parton said was that, um, Fritas also looks like a pretty good suspect here. I mean, what do you think about that? He's the last guy seen with them. He admits to moving and handling the body. His story doesn't really quite make a lot of sense. Yeah. He sounds like a suspect. Sounds like a suspect. And what, what, what comes out is that he may have come forward because he knew police were looking at him because he was sighted. So he's coming forward and saying, uh, don't look at me. Look at this guy.

[00:50:44] And what happened was apparently he believed Cordero, who was a former friend, snitched on him in some sort of drug situation earlier. So he has bad blood with the guy he's accusing. So there's some problems here, obviously. So they, they go to trial anyways. Um, and the, the, uh, jury starts delivering on a Wednesday Friday. They're deadlocked. What the defense claims later, although I don't,

[00:51:11] this is just from the defense is that the original jury was 11 to 12 to a quit. So then, uh, Maui prosecutor at the time, Larry, uh, uh, but trick, sorry if I said that wrong, says that they're going to do a second trial. And, uh, you know, judge Boyd Mossman declared that first one, a mistrial and, uh, Parton leaves cause he moves to the mainland. So they get a new, um, new defense attorney. So,

[00:51:40] yeah, this is, so some, some additional things about Freetis. He, he says he didn't know why the shooting happened. He just saw Blaisdell walk up and then just get shot. Um, his palm print again was on the trash around Blaisdell's body. And, um, and Blaisdell was also partially enclosed, oddly enough. So, there were a bunch of discrepancies from what Freetis said. So here are a couple. First, he said that Blaisdell opened the truck door, but later on,

[00:52:09] he had him just reaching toward the handle. He hadn't opened it yet. He told a grand jury that the shooting was around 440 PM. Later in trial, he said it was 540 PM. So he's moving it back. He tells, he told police originally that Cordero, um, followed him into the gully where he dumped Blaisdell's body. And then in trial said he kind of came about halfway and then stopped. And, um, he, uh, he told police or he said that basically,

[00:52:38] I think he has said in trial that Blaisdell's body was left face up. And then when shown crime scene photos at trial of this man lying face down dead, he says, that's not how he was left. And yeah, but suddenly Freetis is not the only one accusing Cordero. There are, um, jail inmates coming forward. So one is Kevin Duncan. He claims that Cordero confessed to him. Duncan at that point was serving three cases of, uh,

[00:53:06] serving a time for three cases of theft and credit card fraud. So those are crimes involving lying and theft and dishonesty. So not a good sign. He had pled no contents, no contest to those and was sentenced after, um, kind of passing on this confession to police. So again, not a good sign. And here's what's crazy. At the jail, Duncan got some of Cordero's case documents by accident on October 16th. Two days later, he goes to police and says,

[00:53:36] oh, here's the timeline of everything that happened after he saw all this case filings. What do you think about that? Yeah. This, I have grave concerns. Yes. So let's go to, uh, 1996. Things get worse for Cordero. He's charged with now attempted murder. So what happens? Well, it's alleged by the prosecution that he solicited several different inmates to kill Fritas.

[00:54:05] The first one is, um, inmate William Cornelio. Cornelio says, I didn't do it. I didn't want it, but then I, I declined it or I declined to do it. And then this other guy, Anthony Kekona Jr. beat me up. So it's like, he's having like his hit men go after hit men. And, uh, the prosecution get the judge's permission though, to kind of add all those new charges to a single additional, uh, retrial. Um,

[00:54:34] Fritas claims to have been the target of a drive by that missed him. It's, it's just getting, it's just getting nuts. Uh, but, but meanwhile, uh, Kekona, who's the guy who beat up Cornelio, the would be hit men. He says he just was beating up Cornelio because Cornelio threatened to report him for a jail escape attempt. So anyways, um, in 1997, Michael, a man named Michael Fritas is named in the newspaper as, uh,

[00:55:01] being part of a gang of crystal methamphetamine manufacturing people and dealers and whatnot. And they're busted with, uh, 470 grams at a Kalihi apartment. So that's, I don't know if it's the same guy, but I, I believe it may be. Um, anyway, so these three additional charges, murder for hire, uh, go to trial along with the retrial for the murder. Um, meanwhile,

[00:55:27] Cordero has witnesses who say that at the time of the murder around 6 PM that night, he was either working on a car inside his parents' garage or he was building shelves. There's talk about him taking care of his dying mother. Um, you know, but, but the prosecution deputy Kevin Jenkins argues that an expert found residue inside Cordero's truck that could be consistent with a gun having been fired inside.

[00:55:54] I don't know what exactly that is or how reliable that is, but in the newspaper, at least it seemed somewhat carefully worded. It didn't seem like it was that smash smash, you know, that much of a smash piece of evidence. Um, but, uh, so there are ultimately three inmates who claim they were, you know, asked by this guy to kill Freitas. One of them says, Oh, here's a map he drew of where Freitas lived, but there were issues with that. One of them says, here's a contract.

[00:56:23] He drew up for me to give me $5,000 for this, you know, as, uh, as what's it? Cordero's, uh, defense attorney noted, you know, why would, why would you write that down? You know, like that Donald Wilkerson was his new defense attorney. So that, that kind of seemed odd. So anyway, this next trial does lead to, um, to a conviction for murder and one of the attempted murder for hire incidents. Uh, not, not all of them, but just,

[00:56:53] just one out of three. And, uh, he was sentenced to two life terms. Uh, in the news afterwards, Timothy Blaisdell's mother said she did not believe he acted alone and that she also believed Freitas was involved. turned out Blaisdell and Cordero were, um, high school classmates. She also noted that Blaisdell did tell her that Cordero severely abused crystal methamphetamine. So what I'm sensing is all these people are in the drug sort of community together, but,

[00:57:23] um, you know, I guess for me, when you have an abundance of jailhouse snitches and inmates coming forward with these stories, and frankly, dubious evidence backing that up, and when you have a guy who has every reason to lie, and is the last person spotted with the victim, and his palm print is there,

[00:57:51] and it just feels like it was one of those possible cases where you have someone who is, and, by the way, Freitas is dead. He died in 2020. But, and he has a reason to hate Cordero. I mean, I think this sounds like a wrongful conviction. Yeah, I think, I think so too. I agree with you. I believe that Cordero, from what I've read, and I, I'm open if, if there's documents and filings that really point the other way, I'd be happy to look at them.

[00:58:20] My, my, my feeling from just seeing what was outlined in the press, which is limited and sometimes wrong, I want to be clear. This doesn't, at the very least, this doesn't sound like a very solid conviction, and at worst, I think he may have been innocent of this crime, and spent decades of his life behind bars needlessly, because I, I sometimes feel there's almost like a, a genre of wrongful conviction, where it's like the,

[00:58:46] the real guilty party comes forward and engineers someone to take the fall for them, and the police go with it, mostly out of laziness, because it's like, okay, now we can at least have a witness, you know, and that explains the way the palm printing stuff, because he, his story fits that technically, and this other guy being guilty, but it's like, they feel like they don't have enough against the original party alone, because there's no witnesses. Is that, is that a nutty thing to say? No, not nutty at all. Well, this seems, I mean,

[00:59:16] it's, it's horrible, but I, I think, again, unless this stuff we don't know about, which there very well could be, I, I feel like it was the right call to let this guy out, and, um, it seems like Freitas got away with murder. That's just my opinion, frankly. But, uh, anyway, is that all for our cheat sheet cases? That, I think that concludes the body of this week's cheat sheet episode. Uh, so now we're going to get into the, uh, the other part of the episode.

[00:59:47] What other part? Should we, do you think we're trying too hard with the t-shirt ads? Should we be like the cool guy and just play it cool and say, hey, if you want a shirt, come and get it. Yeah. Just do that. Just do that. Come and get it. You know what to do. You know what to do. Don't worry about it. Yeah, we don't care. We don't care at all. Anya's weeping uncontrollably. We don't care. Uh, we, we, yeah, we don't care. And frankly, if you don't want one, fine, whatever.

[01:00:18] That just seems kind of, doesn't hurt our feelings at all. Seems kind of cold and abrupt. What a great way to end the show, Kevin. Thanks a lot. Anya often lays awake, weeping about all the people who don't have t-shirts. I'm a very, very compassionate person. Just worried about. Because you know how much it would make a difference in their lives. Oh my God. If they had an extra t-shirt. So self-aggrandizing. That's insane.

[01:00:47] You're the one that has that attitude. I didn't say, no, I, you just, you're like, this is, this is, this is like what you do. You make me sound ridiculous. Suddenly everyone thinks I'm stealing cereal. Everyone thinks I'm crying about the shirt. You woke me up last night weeping. That did not happen. What about the poor non t-shirt owning listeners? This is, this is not something. What sad lives they must lead, you said. Good Lord. This is not something that has happened ever. How many times I've, I've woke up to find you pacing the floor,

[01:01:17] worrying about them. Wouldn't that be so messed up if that were true? It is true. It's not true. You're lying. Just like you lied about the cereal stuff. You wrongfully convicted me in the court of public opinion about the cereal heist. I think everybody has a pretty good sense of what, who's telling the truth here. Is there a, should we say by the book or anything? Or, I mean, I think I don't want to play it cool with that one.

[01:01:47] Well, the book is going to be out in August, right? Yes, but you can pre-order it now and we'll include those links in our show notes. Uh, we don't, there'll probably be an audio version. Have no idea who's going to read it. Probably not us. Usually the podcasters don't read their own audio book in the few instances I'm aware of where podcasters publish books because I don't know why, but there must be a good reason. So it's not just they hate us. They just hate all podcasters. They just hate all podcasters. It's honestly, you know, fair enough.

[01:02:20] I think there's like people who like make a living, right? Just doing audio books. So they must be like very, very good at it. So why don't you go to a pro? Well, you know, I'm going to say this. I know that when, when my family and I were talking about this, they, if it was between Kevin and I, that Kevin should be the audio book reader. So I wasn't insulted. I was proud of you for getting that win. You got the, uh, you got the cane. I got the cane. I was the one that won there.

[01:02:49] Let's not name names. Oh my God. What are you going to do? Don't do anything crazy. But there is, an attorney in Indiana who did audio books as a sideline. And it was, it's very odd because in court you see this attorney being very solid and professional. And then, uh, there's like samples of the audio books he's read and he's talking like sex scenes and doing dialects and stuff. And it was very surreal.

[01:03:20] Maybe we can get him to do it. No, no. Oh man. Anyways, are we done? Wait, were you? Should we do a better ad? That was, just depressing. But, well you, you, you dug the hole here. You need to help us crawl back out of it. Give us another ad, sir. If someone is, gives a t-shirt and Anya sees them wearing it,

[01:03:50] should we give them a nod and a smile? That's it? Who cares about that? Do people crave that? I know. I'm desperate to get you to smile at me. Well, why don't you start wearing your shirt around the house? Just to get some approval. Yeah, I'm desperate for it. I crave it. Oh my God. Well, I, I, I'm, I'll do more than smile and nod at you. I'll probably just come up and say hi. If I'm wearing a shirt, you'll come up and say hello to me.

[01:04:19] I say hi to you every day. Okay. We live together. I'm talking about the listeners. Jeez. It's not all about you, Kevin. I can't remember the last time you said hello to me. Kevin, I greet you warmly every morning. You say, you say good morning. How did you sleep? But you don't say hello. You are so needy. We're trying to sell t-shirts to people and you're coming in and saying, well, what about me?

[01:04:48] I don't need to sell you a t-shirt because you're one of my fellow merchants. We're, we're the, we're, we're in business together, sir. Jeez. Jeez. This is what I have to deal with guys. Every day. And he's holding a gavel now and looking mischievous. I don't even know what's going on here. This has gone off the rails. This isn't our best work. Oh, really? Let's hit the button. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover,

[01:05:18] please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. 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,

[01:05:46] you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support. 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.

[01:06:14] 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. Thanks again for listening. Can we talk a little bit before we go about Quintz, a great new sponsor for us? I think in one of the ads that we've already done for them, we talked about the compliments I'm getting on my jacket.

[01:06:42] I know you're a very modest woman, but can we talk about the compliments you're getting on the Quintz products you wear? Yeah, I've got two of their Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're a brand that just does this sort of luxurious products, but without the crazy costs really well. They give you Italian leather handbags. They do like European linen sheets. You have a really cool suede jacket, and I really like the way I look in my sweaters.

[01:07:10] I like the way you look in your bomber jacket. It looks super cool. You've gotten a lot of compliments when you go out wearing these sweaters. I think I have, yeah. And deservedly so. Also, I'm one of those people, my skin is very sensitive. I'm kind of sensitive. So when it comes to wearing sweaters, sometimes something's too scratchy. It really bothers me. These are so soft. They're just very delicate and soft. Wearing them is lovely because they're super comfortable. It's not one of those things where you're like,

[01:07:40] you buy it and it looks great, but it doesn't feel that great. They look great. They feel great. But yeah, I really love them. And you got your cool jacket. I mean, that's a little bit of a – you're the guy who wears the same thing all the time. So this was a bit of a gamble for you, a bit of a risk. You got something a bit different. I do wash my clothes. I know you wash your clothes, but I mean – You're filthy. You just made me sound awful. So no, I wash my clothes. But you don't really – I launder them. You don't really experiment with fashion that much is what I'm saying. So this is a little bit out of the norm for you,

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[01:08:39] This is really a wonderful product. I think it's really helped both of us get a lot better rest. VIA is pretty much, I guess you'd say, the only lifestyle hemp brand out there. So what does that mean? It means that they're all about crafting different products to elicit different moods. Kevin and I really like their non-THC CBD products. Specifically, Zen really helps me fall asleep. Some Zen can really just kind of help me get more into that state where I can relax and fall asleep pretty easily.

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[01:10:02] Before we wrap up this episode, can we take just a moment to say a few more words about our great new sponsor, Acorns? Yeah, thanks so much to Acorns. Remember, when you support our sponsors, you're supporting us. And our sponsors make it possible for us to do this job. So we really appreciate them. We love our sponsors. Absolutely. Acorns is a terrific investing app. It's the perfect thing for somebody who wants to get started with their personal finance journey. That can seem daunting. It is daunting.

[01:10:31] I'm so not financially minded. For me, it's always really hard to get started with something like this where you're like, what am I doing? But Acorns sort of takes the guesswork out of that. It gets you started and it will essentially help you take control of your financial future. You can get set up pretty quickly and it allows you to start automatically saving and investing. That money can help you, your kids, if you have a family, your retirement. And you don't need to be rich. You don't need to be an expert to do this.

[01:11:01] It's very simple. And you can start with only $5 or whatever change you have. It's not like you need to put in some massive payment. So it's a great fit for people who are starting out, but they want to take the next step and improve themselves financially and make their money work for them more. So if you're interested, head to acorns.com slash msheet or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today. Paid non-client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns.

[01:11:30] Tier 1 compensation provided. Investing involved risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash msheet.