The Cheat Sheet: Recusals and Reprisals

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[00:02:34] any other offer or combo meal. Content warning, this episode includes discussion of domestic

[00:02:42] violence, murder, suicide, and sexual crimes against children. Today on the cheat sheet we'll

[00:02:50] be taking you through six different cases. We're going to be going to Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma,

[00:02:58] Missouri, Wisconsin, and our own home state of Indiana. We'll be talking about several coal cases,

[00:03:05] some cases that have not yet been solved, and more than one murder conspiracy case.

[00:03:11] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:03:16] And this is the murder sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting,

[00:03:21] interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the murder sheet. And this is the cheat

[00:03:27] sheet recusals and reprisals. Let's start with a case from down in Georgia. And this one has

[00:04:22] several sources that we used, including NBC News, the Daily Mail, 11 Alive, WBRC, WSFA,

[00:04:34] as well as a press release from the Clayton County Sheriff. You went all out on this one. Yes.

[00:04:44] And it's a very sad case. And it begins all the way back in 2013, or more specifically on January

[00:04:54] 13, 2013, when the bodies of Cheryl Colquitt Thompson, Quinonez King, and Rodney Cottrell

[00:05:05] were all found in Clayton County, Georgia. More specifically, they were found inside a 2010

[00:05:13] Dodge Charger that looked like it had been abandoned. And when police investigated,

[00:05:22] it became pretty clear that these people not only had been murdered, but they'd actually been

[00:05:29] tortured before they were murdered. A couple of the victims, it's come out they were beaten

[00:05:37] and then were smothered and strangled. That's horrible. Geez. That's a really brutal death.

[00:05:43] Really brutal death for these three people. In any circumstances, that would be very difficult

[00:05:50] for their families. But in this circumstance, it's always harder when you don't have closure,

[00:05:57] if closure is even possible. But they didn't know who did it. And it was only very, very recently,

[00:06:03] within the last week or so, that some arrests were made in this case. The police kept on

[00:06:10] pursuing it. And the Clayton County Sheriff's Department and Police Department kept on

[00:06:17] investigating. And they were able to make some arrests. And the people they arrested for this

[00:06:25] crime were Kenneth Thompson, Kevin Harris, Darrell Harris, and a man named Keontae Harris.

[00:06:34] And what is interesting about this detail that's caused this to get some interest nationally

[00:06:43] is that Keontae Harris, one of the people arrested for this triple murder,

[00:06:50] is actually now an assistant principal at a middle school in Alabama.

[00:06:56] Oh, no.

[00:07:00] Why do you tell me?

[00:07:01] I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's a little bit early. It's always possible that people are

[00:07:07] wrongfully accused or wrongfully convicted. So I don't want to put the cart before the horse here

[00:07:11] and say that this must be a bad man working with children. It's always possible that police get it

[00:07:16] wrong. But if they are accurate and there is a good case against this man, then that's disturbing

[00:07:22] that he's been working with children for the time, you know, after doing something so horrible.

[00:07:29] Yeah. I think I've mentioned it on the show before. I'm a comic book guy, comic strip guy.

[00:07:35] And one of the great crime comic strips out there is Dick Tracy. And the bad guys in Dick

[00:07:42] Tracy always look bad. They always look monstrous. They have some sort of something wrong with them

[00:07:51] that you can look at them and tell this is a bad guy. And obviously, real life doesn't work that way.

[00:07:58] And all of us have within us the potential to be very good or very bad. And perhaps this man was

[00:08:08] doing some good work with these kids. Yeah. Don't know. But that doesn't change the fact that if he

[00:08:14] is as guilty as charged, he did something horrible that he needs to pay the price for.

[00:08:18] Yeah. I think actually sometimes people want there to be it to be always just a good or evil issue.

[00:08:25] And I think that oftentimes people can do really evil things and then go on and

[00:08:30] maybe live an OK life. And that's I think that a lot of people have a hard time sitting with

[00:08:35] that. Everyone has to either be a serial killer or not a serial killer. But I think sometimes

[00:08:40] you can do that. But that doesn't mean that you should be free from repercussions,

[00:08:44] even if you're living a decent life afterwards. And I have a hard time dealing with that sometimes

[00:08:50] because the implication of it is, is that you could be living next door to someone who you think

[00:08:57] is just a normal, law abiding person and who can pass as a normal, decent person, perhaps even do

[00:09:03] some good works. But in their past, perhaps something horrible has happened. I mean, I think

[00:09:08] when you look into situations like genocide or kind of historical evils like that, the Holocaust,

[00:09:15] World War Two, you know, most of the people who perpetuated that were not necessarily sitting

[00:09:20] around, you know, scheming evil schemes. They perpetuated it because, you know, they were part

[00:09:26] of that society and they just did it. And that doesn't make it less evil, but it does make it

[00:09:30] more disturbing because it becomes it becomes clear that like anybody when faced with a choice

[00:09:36] can make a very evil choice that wrecks other people's lives, kills other people.

[00:09:42] And if you're just in an environment that kind of leads to something like that,

[00:09:47] you know, one would hope that you would make the ethical, moral and good choice. But

[00:09:53] but that's not always necessarily the case. I think most you have killers and famous killers

[00:09:59] who are, you know, have something psychological with them or there's something like where they

[00:10:04] just are compelled to kill again and again. But in many murder situations, it's more of some sort

[00:10:10] of practical thing. Maybe it's a drug deal, maybe it's a romantic rival or someone you have

[00:10:16] a complicated romantic relationship with. There's a practical side to it. And, you know, I think

[00:10:23] a lot more people could end up finding themselves in a situation where they can justify something

[00:10:28] to themselves then than we like to think about. Yeah, I agree completely. So that's what I found

[00:10:35] most chilling about this is a reminder that a person can do great evil and still have

[00:10:42] the potential for something else in them and do decent work with kids or with others.

[00:10:50] So that's that I find that chilling. I also want to note that the school,

[00:10:56] schools where he worked, a spokesman for that school system, Jefferson County School

[00:11:00] Superintendent put out a statement basically saying, well, we know he's been arrested.

[00:11:06] Far as we can tell, it had nothing to do with his employment here.

[00:11:10] I would hope not. So, yeah, businesses and schools, they always like to put out

[00:11:15] statements covering. We weren't also directly involved in the murders. Yeah.

[00:11:19] I mean, I understand that. I'm sure as a lawyer, I understand that. Yeah, I'm sure parents there

[00:11:24] are freaking out. And again, like again, I don't I'm not going to condemn somebody before there's

[00:11:29] a trial. There could be there could be more information or this could turn out to be a mistake,

[00:11:33] misunderstanding. But if it's not, I very much understand the community there being upset by that.

[00:11:41] And if we take hypothetically that these people are guilty as charged, I'm glad that the families

[00:11:48] of these victims 13 years later are finally getting some answers for what happened to their loved ones

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[00:14:48] another case where a family was left waiting for a number of years. Questions still remain, but

[00:14:54] there seems to be at least some sort of official view of what happened in this case. I'm talking

[00:15:01] about the Missouri case of John Paul Parton. What was your source for that? My source for this one

[00:15:08] was KSDK. They did some good coverage of it, so check them out and I would say follow them for

[00:15:16] updates because I'm sure there's going to be updates in this case. So John Paul Parton was

[00:15:20] a 19-year-old. He was in a lot of trouble three years ago. He told his family that he and some

[00:15:26] friends had burglarized a business and then he and his friends were fighting about how to divide up

[00:15:30] that stolen money. That's not a good situation to be in, but things got worse. That was the last time

[00:15:35] his family ever heard from him. So he goes missing. He's been missing since. He is still

[00:15:41] missing. They do not have a body, but police now have brought charges against one Thomas E. Gamble,

[00:15:48] who's also known as Teddo. He's a 21-year-old. Police believe that he shot and killed Parton

[00:15:56] on May 18, 2021. They recently arrested him in Louisiana and charged him.

[00:16:05] So they basically were able to piece a lot of this together through interviews with witnesses.

[00:16:11] They believe that Gamble and Parton were both part of this dispute over this money for this

[00:16:17] burglary and that Gamble shot Parton when they were driving together on Highway 67 in a Toyota

[00:16:24] Camry. Gamble's sitting in the back, Parton's in the front passenger seat. His body is removed

[00:16:30] and burned in a bathtub. A number of witnesses came forward to talk about either they saw that

[00:16:36] or they helped him clean up the blood afterwards, but essentially his remains were burned and

[00:16:43] destroyed. So I imagine that's a very agonizing situation for Mr. Parton's family to be in,

[00:16:50] but there at least is maybe some hope for answers if this case ends up leading to a conviction or

[00:16:57] guilty plea. And it goes to show you, I think sometimes there's this idea that like cases where

[00:17:05] there is no body are impossible to try. And it really depends on the case, I would say. I mean,

[00:17:14] if you have a lot of evidence otherwise, then I don't think that's as big of a deal.

[00:17:18] Yeah, I looked at this some last year when we were discussing another case. I don't even know

[00:17:25] if we ended up covering that particular case on the program, but it's a complicated thing.

[00:17:29] That maybe when you don't have a body, it's a bit more difficult to actually bring charges,

[00:17:34] but when you do bring charges, you have a higher chance of getting a conviction because if you

[00:17:39] actually bring charges without a body, the odds are you have such strong circumstantial evidence

[00:17:45] that you're able to get the conviction because you don't take the step of bringing charges unless

[00:17:50] you're like really, really sure you've got a strong case. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah,

[00:17:54] you don't do that willy-nilly when you don't even have a body. Yeah. That makes sense. So

[00:18:00] now we've covered so far two murder conspiracies because I believe the first one is certainly

[00:18:06] a murder conspiracy where multiple men were involved in this heinous crime. And then at the

[00:18:10] very least, Gamble had a lot of help in covering this up and seems to have been a conflict amongst

[00:18:15] a group. But now we have yet another murder conspiracy, but this one is a little bit

[00:18:21] different in terms of how it all went down and has an unusual ending. And I'm going to say,

[00:18:28] I find myself when I see certain headlines about crimes, I'm a human being. I get mad sometimes.

[00:18:35] How did this happen? And this is one of those cases where it's really always important to get

[00:18:41] the context because otherwise you just get mad and maybe your anger is understandable, but maybe

[00:18:49] when you look into it, you're like, oh, I understand why this happened in this way now.

[00:18:53] So that's my caveat here. Okay. Don't get mad. I mean, you can get mad, but just look into it

[00:19:00] before you start commenting. So my sources for this are News on Six and the Tulsa World,

[00:19:07] which I accessed via newspapers.com, a wonderful resource. News on Six gave me the anger,

[00:19:12] Tulsa World gave me the context, but both did a great job, so you should check them out.

[00:19:18] So a man named Neil Sweeney was a beloved businessman and a popular former University

[00:19:24] of Tulsa football player. He was very well respected in his community and he worked at a

[00:19:32] place called Retail Fuels Marketing. That was his business, selling fuel to places like gas stations,

[00:19:38] convenience stores. He was 63 years old on September 4th, 2008, went to work as normal.

[00:19:44] He's working at his office in an office complex on 108th Street, East Avenue. I'm sorry,

[00:19:52] 108th East Avenue in Tulsa. Around 930, a young man comes up, seems to be in his late teens,

[00:20:03] early twenties. Witnesses see him. He's driving a white van and he goes into the office and shoots

[00:20:10] Neil Sweeney in the head. He dies in the hospital the next day. And a lot of people come to his

[00:20:17] funeral. Again, this is a very popular man. This is a well-respected man, very beloved.

[00:20:23] One man who came to his funeral was a man named Muhammad Aziz on the surface. He's a successful

[00:20:31] businessman. He's got two convenience stores in Tulsa, one in Collinsville. He's a native

[00:20:35] of Pakistan, comes to this country, is doing a good job, founds a business where he's opening

[00:20:41] multiple locations. But Aziz was not like the other mourners because he's the one who actually

[00:20:49] set all this into motion. It turned out that Aziz was having a lot of financial problems.

[00:20:55] So he stopped paying his fuel bills to Sweeney's company. In response, they stopped delivering gas

[00:21:02] to his convenience stores. That seems pretty reasonable. In addition, on May 21st, 2008,

[00:21:08] Sweeney's business got a over $200,000 in a default judgment against Aziz. So he's getting

[00:21:15] more money from him or at least he gets that judgment. So in 2008, Aziz, after this default

[00:21:21] judgment, he asks another man named Alan Shields to find a hitman to kill Sweeney.

[00:21:27] So Alan Shields and his brother Fred Jr. were involved in drug trafficking.

[00:21:33] And Aziz agreed to pay $10,000 to them to do this, ended up paying over $11,000.

[00:21:41] But Fred Jr., in response to Alan's request, recruits a man named Tariqo Bethel.

[00:21:48] And they also get a man named Alonzo Johnson, whose job is basically to move the van around.

[00:21:53] So this is a murder conspiracy. You have a disgruntled businessman who's mad because he

[00:21:58] is bad at his business and I guess is taking it out on this guy who reasonably wants his money back.

[00:22:04] And he sets this in motion and basically it all unravels. So in 2009, Bethel gets hit with

[00:22:14] murder charges. In 2010, Aziz and Alonzo Johnson are charged. And in June of 2010,

[00:22:26] the Shields brothers are charged. So it kind of gets into a matter of culpability.

[00:22:33] Who's the worst person in this situation? The middleman who kind of arranged everything and

[00:22:39] ensure it's going to happen for sure? Is it the trigger man who does the actual killing?

[00:22:44] Is it the man who wanted Sweeney dead? In 2011, Alan Shields, he's bonded out the previous year.

[00:22:54] He's at home and he dies by suicide. And then in 2012, Aziz pleads guilty.

[00:23:04] So that ended up ensuring that Aziz actually got the best sentence of all of them. He's the guy

[00:23:11] who started all this, but because he flipped on the others, he was able to get the deal.

[00:23:18] And it's interesting. Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris at the time in the newspapers

[00:23:24] talked about how making a deal with Aziz made his skin crawl and he literally called it a deal with

[00:23:30] the devil. But in his mind, it was worth it because it opened up the entire conspiracy.

[00:23:37] So they were able to get all of these guys rather than just piecemeal. We know that murder conspiracy

[00:23:45] cases can be very complicated because you have to link this person to that person. We've covered

[00:23:52] those on the case. They take a long time. That doesn't mean the police are lazy or the prosecutor

[00:23:56] is not doing a good job. It's just that it's meticulous work. And if one conviction doesn't

[00:24:03] go through, then the whole thing could fall apart. So Aziz pleads guilty in January of 2012.

[00:24:11] So his charges were solicitation of murder and in exchange, the prosecutors dismissed the murder

[00:24:17] and conspiracy charges. The deal called for him to get prison sentence between 25 and 35 years.

[00:24:24] District Judge Tom Gillert accepted the recommendation and agreed to give Aziz credit

[00:24:31] for one year. Basically set up a pretty sweet credit deal in terms of like, if you serve this

[00:24:38] much and you do these classes, you can get out early. And I mean, he apparently his Aziz's

[00:24:47] family was too ashamed to even come support him in the courtroom at that time, according to his

[00:24:51] attorney, Ken Sue Dorfel. So very recently, Aziz actually got out. Now, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic

[00:25:02] Regalado, he he was one of the detectives on the case. He was he was in the news talking about how

[00:25:07] ridiculous it was and how awful it was for the family, because like according to him, Aziz

[00:25:12] never even showed remorse about this. And he only ended up serving 11 years of a 32 year sentence.

[00:25:18] So I very much understand why he feels that way and why the family would feel that way. This is a

[00:25:22] guy who actually started all of this and ensured I mean, Sweeney would be alive if not for this guy

[00:25:29] deciding that, you know, his problems were Sweeney's fault. So he's going to take care of it.

[00:25:35] But at the same time, I would be I would never blame the prosecutor or the judge for this because

[00:25:41] it sounds like they needed him to get at the wider conspiracy. And I think that was probably

[00:25:46] important to do at some point. So I'm curious, what do you think about this? What do you think

[00:25:51] about a complicated case like this where it almost feels unsatisfying because like the most

[00:25:56] the guy who had the evil intent gets away with it more so than the others. But at the same time,

[00:26:00] you can kind of understand it. Yeah, it's really complicated. It's really hard to weigh all of

[00:26:05] these things. And it's frustrating because at the end of the day, it's like really difficult to say

[00:26:12] with certainty, oh yeah, absolute justice was done here. Because in the justice system,

[00:26:17] as in any other endeavor in human life, you have to make compromises. To me,

[00:26:24] from the prosecutor's standpoint, he's not only doing this for Neil Sweeney and Neil Sweeney's

[00:26:30] family, but the community. And if you have a group of guys who successfully start running a

[00:26:35] murder for hire club or start doing this for other people, you're going to have a wider problem.

[00:26:41] And when you're dealing with people who are so cold that they're willing to like, I don't have

[00:26:46] a beef in this situation, but I'll take your money and I'll make it happen. They need to not be out

[00:26:53] here with the rest of us. That's not safe. And so I think I can understand it, even though it does

[00:27:00] gall me to see headlines like the murder. The guy at the center of the murder conspiracy gets the

[00:27:05] easiest deal, but he was the one who was willing to roll. I guess the others weren't. They didn't

[00:27:10] make that call and they didn't benefit from it. And, you know, I mean, they all of them got way

[00:27:17] worse sentences than Aziz. So there, I mean, I wonder if they regret that. Like, I wonder if

[00:27:26] that was something they were offering to everyone and he's just the first one to go for it.

[00:27:30] That could very well be the case.

[00:27:31] But I would never, you know, I would totally understand why Sweeney's family would be

[00:27:35] infuriated by this. I hope that they were prepared for this and kind of indicated how

[00:27:41] early he could get out. Eleven out of 32 is pretty early.

[00:27:46] That's really, really early.

[00:27:47] Yeah. You know, but if a person is motivated to behave themselves in prison and there are,

[00:27:54] there's that's the way the deal is set up, then it can happen. But anyway, so that's what happened

[00:28:00] in Oklahoma.

[00:28:01] Well, now we're going to go back to Indiana and get ready for this one. I found this one on Fox

[00:28:08] 19, which is actually a Cincinnati affiliate. And so for a minute, I thought this was an Ohio case.

[00:28:15] You thought it was their problem?

[00:28:16] Yes. But actually, if this is out of Franklin County, Indiana in Franklin County is actually

[00:28:22] very, very close to Ohio. And the prosecutor in Franklin County will be talking about it

[00:28:31] a bit here is Chris Hurekamp. And the judge in this case is Judge J. Stephen Cox of the Franklin

[00:28:36] County Circuit Court. And the judge is going to kind of be the major player here. And I wanted

[00:28:45] to talk about this case. It's not even a murder case. You know, usually we try to focus on murder

[00:28:51] cases because of our name.

[00:28:53] We kind of box ourselves in there.

[00:28:56] This is actually an attempted murder case. But the reason I wanted to discuss it is because

[00:29:02] in connection with the Delphi case, there's always a lot of questions like,

[00:29:06] oh, is the judge doing something wrong? How can we get rid of the judge? Or is the judge

[00:29:09] is doing something great? We don't need to get rid of her. There's all this discussion about

[00:29:13] the judge and the judge's conduct. And in this case, as I will explain in a moment,

[00:29:20] the prosecutor is actually asked for the judge to be removed from the case.

[00:29:27] As I say, my main source for this was initially an article on Fox 19. But then I went since it

[00:29:34] was an Indiana case, and we have access to Indiana legal documents. I went and I got a bunch of

[00:29:39] court documents on this case, which also provided a lot of additional information.

[00:29:45] So this case involves a man named Gregory Guilfoyle. Back on December 22nd of 2022,

[00:29:54] he allegedly shot his wife at their home. And then afterwards, he ran outside with his 23

[00:30:04] month old daughter, very cold temperatures. And he shot at a sheriff's deputy who was wearing

[00:30:13] bodily armor. The sheriff's deputy fires back and wounds Guilfoyle to the point that he is now a

[00:30:24] paraplegic and has limited use of one of his arms. And the mental state of Guilfoyle is a crucial

[00:30:36] issue. Was he mentally ill or what have you? Okay, so take all of that in mind.

[00:30:44] This was set for trial earlier this year. And shortly before the trial, the defense attorneys

[00:30:54] provided the prosecution with just a huge list of mental health experts that they wanted to call to

[00:31:01] discuss the mental state of Mr. Guilfoyle. They did this at the last minute. And so the prosecutor,

[00:31:12] Mr. Hurekamp, wanted there to be a continuance in the case so that he could have the time to

[00:31:20] figure out what all these witnesses had to say and to prepare to deal with them.

[00:31:24] And the judge, Judge Cox, firmly refused. Absolutely not. No delays. And so Prosecutor Hurekamp

[00:31:35] then files to dismiss the charges against Mr. Guilfoyle, explaining, I'm only dismissing these

[00:31:43] because I'm not ready for the case because of all these additional witnesses. As soon as I prepare

[00:31:49] to deal with these witnesses, I will refile the case. Okay. So it's interesting that the judge

[00:31:58] wouldn't grant that continuance and made the prosecutor jump through that procedural hoop,

[00:32:04] but he did. And so now just within the last few days, the charges against Mr. Guilfoyle have been

[00:32:14] refiled. And along the way, the prosecutor is also asking for the judge to be recused.

[00:32:22] And his basis for that is interesting. As I've noted, the mental state of the defendant

[00:32:34] is crucial. It turns out that at different points, the judge, for whatever reason,

[00:32:42] took it upon himself to go visit the defendant at the home of his parents.

[00:32:47] No, no! What?

[00:32:47] And have interactions with him and then base some of his ideas and impressions of the man's mental

[00:32:59] state upon those interactions. And so judging by your reaction, you realize that's not good.

[00:33:06] What? Why?

[00:33:07] Unclear why. But let's talk about...

[00:33:10] Is he friends with his parents?

[00:33:12] Doesn't seem to be.

[00:33:13] Just casually, oh my God. Okay. That's not what I expected at all.

[00:33:20] And so that's the problem. We always talk about how you don't want jurors to go into a situation

[00:33:27] where they're making a decision or rendering a verdict based on information they've heard

[00:33:34] outside of the courtroom. And there's a lot of reasons for that. One is that you want the

[00:33:39] decision they reach to be informed. You want it to be based on evidence that is legally sound and

[00:33:47] should be introduced in court. And another reason, of course, is that you don't want a verdict

[00:33:54] against you to be based upon evidence you haven't had a chance to rebut.

[00:33:59] Yeah.

[00:34:01] So the same general principles apply to judges. When the judge makes decisions based upon...

[00:34:11] Your parents have a charming home and I was very entertained this evening.

[00:34:15] Yeah, he should be making his conclusions about the mental state of the defendant

[00:34:19] based on what's introduced in court.

[00:34:22] Not like vibes at home.

[00:34:25] Yes. Not on anything else other than what's in court. So the prosecutor said,

[00:34:30] this isn't right. You need to recuse yourself. And so...

[00:34:35] Let me guess. He did not.

[00:34:38] Well, you're absolutely right. But you're also absolutely wrong.

[00:34:45] The judge issued a ruling saying, you know what? If you had a problem with me doing this,

[00:34:53] you should have told me a long time ago.

[00:34:55] Before I made all those appointments with them. My social calendar is very booked.

[00:35:02] The argument he tries to make is that previously, before you dismissed the first case,

[00:35:08] you knew about all that stuff and you should have complained about it much, much earlier.

[00:35:13] So because of that...

[00:35:14] Because you were frozen in horror.

[00:35:17] Because of that, I'm not going to recuse myself. But then like immediately afterwards...

[00:35:24] Oh God.

[00:35:26] He issues another motion where he says, well, I'm going to recuse myself,

[00:35:31] just myself based upon what I think is right. Not on anyone else's.

[00:35:35] Gilfoyle's parents told me it was cool. So I'm going to just go ahead and do that.

[00:35:39] And what he said there is, after the case was dismissed, some members of the public

[00:35:46] asked me about the rule and why a case would be dismissed. And I answered those questions in what

[00:35:51] I thought was a neutral way, but you know, maybe some of those people got the wrong

[00:35:55] impression from what I said.

[00:35:56] I did invite them to Gilfoyle's parents' house, so maybe that's why.

[00:36:01] So because of that, I'm going to appoint someone else to do the case instead of me.

[00:36:07] So he wants to... He's agreeing to remove himself from the case,

[00:36:13] but basically he's not doing it for the reason the prosecutor says, and he's doing it on his own

[00:36:18] and he's rejecting the prosecutor's reasoning.

[00:36:21] It just seems like a desperate face-saving attempt.

[00:36:24] Yeah, I think that's fair. And I'm very, very curious about what the heck is going

[00:36:28] on in the legal community in Franklin County, Indiana. And if anybody is listening...

[00:36:33] If you know the Franklin County T, please spill it. Send it to our murdersheet at gmail.com.

[00:36:39] We want to know what the heck...

[00:36:42] See, here's the thing too. Prosecutor Hurekamp, if he's the county prosecutor,

[00:36:47] he has to regularly practice in front of this judge.

[00:36:50] That's what I was going to say!

[00:36:52] So for him to be willing... For him to be so upset that he is willing to ask the judge

[00:36:58] to recuse himself, you must be really, really upset.

[00:37:01] Um, okay. Just from what I've heard, unless there's some factors in this that we're just

[00:37:05] not considering and that we're just not aware of, Hurekamp's totally in the right.

[00:37:10] This guy shouldn't be doing this. This is ridiculous.

[00:37:12] Also, he's a... I mean, I'm assuming if he's a judge, he should know that.

[00:37:17] You don't... It's... I don't even understand...

[00:37:21] I've never heard of a judge making house calls before like this.

[00:37:25] That's just bizarre. I would be very concerned. And as you said, he lit this bridge on fire.

[00:37:31] And that is something... Listen, when we talk about the Delphi case, we're talking about

[00:37:37] attorneys Bradley, Rosie, who's based in the Logan sport area, which is not far from Delphi,

[00:37:43] and Andrew Baldwin, who's based in Franklin, Indiana, which is quite far from Delphi.

[00:37:48] And neither of them practice in front of Judge Gull regularly.

[00:37:51] So if they really tick her off and they all leave hating each other, that doesn't matter

[00:37:55] because they're not going to... They're not Fort Wayne attorneys. They're not going to see her

[00:37:58] again unless... Unless I don't know. Unless unforeseen circumstances intervene.

[00:38:04] So when they push her, it kind of is like they can get away with that to a certain extent.

[00:38:10] But you can't... If we were talking about the relationship between former Circuit County

[00:38:16] Court Judge Ben Diener and Nicholas McClellan, the prosecutor in Carroll County, those are people

[00:38:21] who have to get along because they're going to be... He's going to be trying a lot of cases

[00:38:24] in front of Diener. So you don't want to just say kick Diener off the case in a situation like this

[00:38:29] unless you're really prepared to go to war later on. Or I don't know. I don't understand this, Kevin.

[00:38:40] There's lots of colorful details in this motion from the prosecutor. I'll read you a little bit

[00:38:47] of it here. Please do.

[00:38:50] On February 2nd, 2024, the undersigned and defense counsel participated in the deposition

[00:38:55] of the defendant's father, Thomas Guilfoyle. During the course of his deposition testimony,

[00:39:00] he described a personal and unannounced visit to his home by Judge Cox on a date that is believed

[00:39:07] to have occurred while the case was pending subsequent to the defendant's release on bond.

[00:39:12] Mr. Guilfoyle testified that Judge Cox arrived at the door, entered the home, and went into the

[00:39:17] room occupied by the defendant, approached the defendant's bed, and began to inquire as to the

[00:39:22] defendant's well-being. He was there for about 15 minutes. So this is bizarre.

[00:39:30] Okay, sometimes judges make mistakes or judges make decisions that might be considered baffling.

[00:39:37] But then when you look into it, you understand it. I was just talking about a case where it was like

[00:39:43] you could blame the judge, but then you look closely and the judge was doing based on what

[00:39:47] the prosecutor asked him to do and it was reasonable. But then there's cases like this

[00:39:51] where you look closer into it and you're like, I'm more confused now.

[00:39:57] Yeah, I'm very confused. I'm very interested about Franklin County,

[00:40:01] Indiana. Next time we go to Cincinnati, maybe we should stop in.

[00:40:05] Maybe we should swing by, see if we can get some invites. I find this troubling, Kevin.

[00:40:12] Kevin Kennedy

[00:40:14] And meanwhile, it's kind of overshadowing the original crime, which this man-

[00:40:20] Teresa Jones

[00:40:20] Which is pretty horrible in and of itself, frankly.

[00:40:22] Kevin Kennedy

[00:40:24] The victims deserve justice. And a lot of this stuff, it just seems-

[00:40:28] Teresa Jones

[00:40:28] And if this guy is mentally ill or there's some situation like that,

[00:40:32] then he should be getting some support there and figure it out. But like-

[00:40:36] Kevin Kennedy

[00:40:36] And the way to determine if Mr. Guilfoyle is mentally ill or not is to have him examined by

[00:40:43] skilled professionals who are well qualified to make such determinations

[00:40:48] and not have unannounced house calls from a judge.

[00:40:50] Teresa Jones

[00:40:50] I'm sure judges and lawyers do not like it when non-judges and lawyers just make

[00:40:56] kind of non-legally sound, stupor pronouncements based on their jobs. But I mean,

[00:41:01] I would hope that judges and lawyers would also widely recognize that other professions,

[00:41:05] i.e. mental health experts, feel the same way when they do it.

[00:41:08] Kevin Kennedy

[00:41:09] And I think you said you had another non-murder case.

[00:41:11] Teresa Jones

[00:41:12] Yeah, well, that's- yeah. Let's go to Wisconsin. Let's get the heck out of Franklin County, Indiana.

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[00:42:55] And we're going to go back to a case that we've covered before. We've gotten a consistent request

[00:43:02] from a listener to keep this in the public eye because there's a feeling that this is not being

[00:43:07] covered well in the area, in Wisconsin, for whatever reason. There can be a lot of... That's

[00:43:13] not to sound conspiratorial. Local news is struggling. So sometimes there's just not

[00:43:17] the resources to do what could have been done 20 years ago. Or maybe I should say 30 or 40

[00:43:23] years ago. But this has to do with Stephen James Weiss, a former IT employee for the

[00:43:30] Frader Hospital that is an affiliate for the Medical College of Wisconsin. It's a big employer.

[00:43:36] And he previously worked at the Frader West Bend Clinic that's since been torn down in West Bend,

[00:43:41] Wisconsin and the Frader West Bend Hospital. He'd done a lot of things, but he's basically

[00:43:49] accused of being a stalker and a sexual offender. And he's accused of putting cameras in women's

[00:43:55] bathrooms and recording women using the restroom and just really horrifying and disgusting crimes

[00:44:02] around that. So what recently happened in that case, the big update is he got hit with 15

[00:44:10] additional charges, all for possession of child pornography and all for an offense date of July

[00:44:15] 14th, 2023. And the state represented by Prosecuting Attorney Grant D. Scaife says

[00:44:23] the investigation is mostly done and they don't anticipate any new charges. But I mean,

[00:44:28] 15 new charges is quite a lot. And that will be all going forward. The next hearing is June 6th,

[00:44:36] 2024 at 1.30 PM. So that's the update on that one. Continues to develop, but

[00:44:42] just a very disturbing case all around. And now I think for the last case we're going to cover

[00:44:48] today, we're going to go to Florida and my sources for this one are Local10.com,

[00:44:57] 7 News Miami, The Miami Herald and Project Cold Case. This is a very upsetting set of cases

[00:45:06] set of cases for so many reasons. But I will tell you, I was like, I was like tearing up and

[00:45:13] crying reading about this because I just feel so bad for this family. This family has been through

[00:45:20] more than any family should have to go through. So let's go back to May of 2003,

[00:45:30] Sunday, May 25th, 2003. It's Memorial Day weekend. A young 24 year old named Carmen Harris

[00:45:37] is out with friends going to South Beach, Florida. She had just recently graduated from Florida State

[00:45:44] University. She had a promising future. She got her bachelor's in criminal justice and she was

[00:45:48] thinking about law school. She was very, very dedicated to her three year old son, DeMarco

[00:45:54] Harris, and wanted to support him. And so it was thinking about what sort of future she would

[00:45:59] pursue in order to support him as a mother and to further her own career prospects. And

[00:46:07] she's dropped off at her house after this trip early in the morning, around 630 a.m., I've seen

[00:46:16] as one of the times reported. At 651 a.m., somebody at the house calls 911 and hangs up immediately.

[00:46:23] Another 911 call comes in three minutes later and this one connects. And Carmen tells the

[00:46:29] dispatcher that she'd been stabbed. She described the perpetrator as a Black man and said that she

[00:46:35] did not know this person. She was airlifted to the hospital where she died. So just a senseless

[00:46:42] murder. There's no sign of robbery in the house. There's no sign of sexual assault.

[00:46:47] Somebody just comes in, stabs her and leaves. This case is still unsolved. So her son,

[00:46:56] DeMarco Harris, grows up without his mom, but his grandmother and his aunts, Carmen's sisters,

[00:47:07] band together to raise him. He attends Miami Northwestern High School. He was one of the

[00:47:14] football players on the team and actually helped his team get to the state title

[00:47:18] in 2017. And then in the meantime, he's trying to pay off his car. He's a young man. He's also 24.

[00:47:24] So he starts working as an Uber driver, a rideshare driver in Miami. And so he was recently

[00:47:35] taking a break seemingly, resting very late at night or early in the morning, I should say,

[00:47:43] in the parking lot behind the Sylvester Cocktail Bar, which is across from the shops at Midtown

[00:47:47] Miami, if you know Miami. And somebody stole his 2020 gray Honda Accord and shot him to death.

[00:47:57] So he was murdered at the same age that his mother was murdered all those years ago. And now both

[00:48:06] cases are currently unsolved. And I don't even know what to say. I mean, what...

[00:48:12] That poor family.

[00:48:14] What a horrible, horrible, horrible situation. And both of these, no one ever deserves to get

[00:48:21] murdered, obviously. I don't care whether you're selling drugs or doing whatever, but

[00:48:25] he was just trying to earn some money to pay off a car doing rideshare. It terrifies me how

[00:48:31] it terrifies me how dangerous it seems like rideshare driving can be sometimes for people,

[00:48:36] especially people who are just considered contractors by the law and not even

[00:48:40] employees. I don't know what the answer is to protecting people in those environments,

[00:48:46] but it just seems like those folks are taking an awful amount of risk and it does not seem fair.

[00:48:53] And then his mother, just getting back from vacation, just, I don't know. It's just...

[00:48:59] They both seem like very special, nice people who are beloved by their families. And now the family

[00:49:04] is going through the same exact horrifying loss that they went through all those years ago. And

[00:49:10] it just made me really sad reading some of their quotes. They don't deserve this. It's just...

[00:49:15] I really hope that, I don't know, at least DeMarco's case gets solved quickly. If you

[00:49:23] know anything about it, call 305-471-8477. That's Crime Stoppers. It's a $5,000 reward for DeMarco's

[00:49:33] case. And I hope that there's also progress made on Carmen's case because just a double tragedy

[00:49:41] for this family and just how horrifying to experience that and then suddenly experience

[00:49:47] it again without... Yeah. You had two people in the prime of their lives.

[00:49:51] Yeah. Just horrible. So...

[00:49:52] Decades apart.

[00:49:53] They're very haunting and our hearts go out to the Harris family. I mean, this shouldn't have

[00:50:00] happened.

[00:50:03] We thank you for listening. But before we go, we did want to make one quick announcement.

[00:50:11] People have been asking us ever since the contempt hearing last month where David Hennessey was

[00:50:17] making comments about Murder Sheet people, people were asking us to basically sell t-shirts to say

[00:50:24] Murder Sheet people. So we have had such t-shirts created. They have the same artwork that you see

[00:50:32] on your podcast player.

[00:50:35] They look really cool.

[00:50:37] And so we are selling these shirts. And if you are interested, you can find said shirts at

[00:50:43] murdersheetshop.com. And we appreciate your interest.

[00:50:49] Thanks, everyone, so much for listening.

[00:50:54] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we

[00:50:59] cover, please email us at murdersheetatgmail.com. If you have actionable information about an

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