The Delphi Murders: First Person: Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland: Part Two

[00:00:00] Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of murder including the murder of two children. In the trial of Richard Allen, Nicholas McLeland led the prosecution. As Carroll County Prosecutor, his role was to speak for the murder victims, to secure justice for them and for their community, and finally to convince the jury to convict based on the evidence.

[00:00:23] After an impressive showing, he accomplished all of that, aided by his deputy prosecutors Stacy Diener and James Luttrell. In this episode, we will discuss a variety of topics with Prosecutor McLeland, including the wait for the verdict, the sentencing of Richard Allen, and also Prosecutor McLeland's approach to witnesses and how he put together his heartbreaking closing argument.

[00:00:47] Now that the gag order is lifted, Prosecutor McLeland and others are free to speak about their experiences with the Delphi case. This will be the second of two episodes featuring our interview with the elected prosecutor of Carroll County. They will be released on the same day, so check out the first part as well. These episodes are part of our First Person Interview series. We will seek to interview as many of the individuals with first-hand experience in the Delphi case as possible in the coming weeks and months.

[00:01:14] If you had a direct role in the case and are open to talking with us, email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com. This is part of our ongoing efforts to report on the Delphi murders. For many years, we have not gotten the chance to hear directly from some of the principal figures in the case. That all changes now. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:01:44] We are the murder sheet. And this is The Delphi Murders, First Person, Prosecutor Nicholas McClelland, Part 2.

[00:01:52] How would you describe your style generally as a trial lawyer?

[00:02:39] I have no idea. It's probably a better question for another defense attorney. I don't know. I try to be very straightforward and I try to use common sense and explanations. I try to just, again, present the most common sense answer of what the evidence tells you.

[00:03:03] I think that's, I'm very, very, very adamant about how the evidence is organized. I want to make sure it comes out in a very common sense way that's easy to understand. And so I make sure that I always look at that and say the order of witnesses, the order of evidence we're going to present. Does it make sense? Does it tell, I hate to use the word story, but does it tell a story about what happened that day or night or whatever the case may be? So I guess I would say just very common sense and straightforward approach.

[00:03:33] Talking about telling a story, really the first time you get the opportunity to tell a story is in the opening statement. Sure. How important is the opening statement? How do you prepare for it? I do not like openings. That was the one thing I miss about being a defense attorney. You didn't have to give an opening. And I don't know that I ever gave an opening when I was a defense attorney. I'm required to now that I'm worked for the state and I don't like them. I just am not a fan of them. There are people that like them. There are people that think they're hugely important.

[00:04:02] I'm required to do it. And so I do it. I try to make it powerful, but I try to also not, you know, I don't want to outkick my coverage. I don't want to say something in the opening that I know I can't, I'm not going to present at trial. Or if I'm iffy about whether or not it's going to come in, cause there's some legal argument. You're always scared to mention an opening because you don't want the jury to say, well, you said you were going to show us this. Where's that at? So I don't, I'm not a huge fan of openings. Some people believe they're powerful and maybe they are, but I think every jury is different too.

[00:04:32] I like to close them. One thing about this case is, you know, building up, you mentioned like kind of organizing everything. So it really flows well. What sort of thoughts went into this particular case as you're sort of building up that foundation and then kind of getting into all the evidence? And so we struggled. Just to make sure that it's easy to understand because you do have a lot of different witnesses and a lot of different moving parts.

[00:04:56] And so our big thing was we want to put it or organize it in a way that's easy to understand and that makes sense. And that, of course, we thought the totality of the circumstance, totality of the evidence pointed towards Richard Allen. That's what we believe. We wanted to make sure that we explained that in a way that pointed to Richard Allen. And so we struggled a lot with order of witnesses. Do you take it from the time the girls were found? Do you take it from, you know, when they're alive going to the park?

[00:05:25] I mean, there's a, there's a lot of different ways you can do it. And so we talked a lot about that. And at the end of the day, the way we decided is just to try to tell it as chronologically as we could. Another big moment in the trial was the testimony of Brad Weber. Can you discuss that? Obviously we thought it was going to be powerful information to the jury. It confirmed what Richard Allen said to Dr. Waller. And so we thought it was going to be powerful testimony. And I, I don't know if it was or not.

[00:05:54] I haven't talked to all the jurors. I know you guys have talked to one of the jurors and whether or not she thought that was powerful. But we thought it was important. It confirmed what Richard Allen was saying. You had a lot of the law enforcement witnesses. They were subjected to some pretty strong attacks by the defense. So how, how do you go about cleaning that up and protecting them? You just do the best you can with redirect. We knew that they were going to be under attack.

[00:06:22] We knew that was going to happen. It became evident pretty early on in the depositions that that is what the defense were going to do. They attacked him in the depositions. And so law enforcement also is used to that. They're used to defense attorneys attacking their integrity and the way they did an investigation and the evidence they collected it and the way they collected it. That's just one of the strategies that defense attorneys uses. And it's not bad. I've done it. It's just a strategy. So they knew that.

[00:06:49] And so you just tell all law enforcement, just, you know, be honest, say what happened and do that. I have two kind of experiential questions, if that's okay. One's really stupid. So I apologize. And I didn't want to ask this, but I did. What are you, what are you guys doing on computers when you're like in the trial and someone else like, what, like, what do you like? Everyone seemed to always be like working on something. I'm just like, what are you doing? Either I'm getting prepared for my next witness or I'm taking notes of what we were doing.

[00:07:19] We were doing a lot of the times I can type faster than I can hand, I print. And so I can type way faster than I can write. And when I first started, I thought I'm going to write it out. They came out of it pretty quick that we were going fast. And so a lot of times we're taking notes for the other. So like if Stacy was doing a witness, I'd be taking notes from her about what the witness, what they responded to, to see if it was different. And then the cross-examination questions and their answers and kind of taking notes because really you're taking notes for closing.

[00:07:47] And what points do you want to bring up at closing? And so a lot of times that's what we were doing. Some of the times we're preparing for our witness, like, okay, this witness is coming up and you know, you'd be modifying stuff up until the night before they were going to test it. Like, I want to add this question in, or I, based on what happened the day before, you may add a question. You may take questions out, but a lot of it for me was note taking to say, okay, I want to keep track of what they say and exactly what they say. Because if they say something important that I want to use for closing, I want to make sure that I have it down accurately.

[00:08:17] How do you block out everything else to focus on this? This is obviously a very long trial. A lot of days, Saturdays, half a day. Like, how did you maintain that focus throughout this? I don't know how you just do. I think you keep your eye on the ball that you've got to, you've worked all this time to be here at trial and you've just got to focus. And I don't know how you block it out. You just compartmentalize it and just keep your eye on the ball and focus. I mean, that's, yeah, I don't have really a good explanation for that.

[00:08:47] You just, you learn that over time and experience and you know, just to how to focus on what's going on in trial and not let that outside noise affect it. How did you feel when you, um, finish your case in chief and then hand it over to the defense? I felt the same that I oftentimes feel. Was that enough for the jury? Is there something we didn't do? For me, I always have those feelings. It's enough in my mind. Is it enough in their mind? And what else could we have done?

[00:09:17] What else should we have done? And so I had that feeling. And then you're kind of, okay, what are they going to put on? So, you know, there's always a, you know, that little bit. And, and we're always wondering whether or not Richard Allen's actually going to testify. That was a big curiosity of mine after we're done in chief. Okay. What are they going to do? How are they going to respond? Is Richard Allen going to testify? Did you have a guess on that? I didn't. We were prepared either way. Obviously there's more preparation if he does testify as opposed to if he doesn't.

[00:09:46] But I didn't know. It's, it's a hard position to be in as a defense attorney. That was always the hardest position for me to be in. Do you have your client testify? You want your client to be able to get up there and say, advocate for himself. I didn't do it. It's not his burden, but you want that. But you also open up your client to hard cross-examination questions and oftentimes hard topics to talk about if you do that. So it's always, it's difficult. So you had cross-examination questions written and ready to go for Richard Allen? I was prepared for that. Yes.

[00:10:16] That would have been interesting. Yeah. God. The defense didn't do that. They presented an incident. They had a lot of witnesses who were at the crime scene well after the crime occurred. And I frankly found the defense underwhelming. I don't know if there's anything you can say for that. I do have a question though. Brad Rosey had a very interesting closing statement.

[00:10:44] At one point he starts showing pictures of torture devices, starts talking about the government as a big snake. One question I've heard from some attorneys I've spoken with is they've wondered, why didn't you object to any of that? I think a lot of attorneys have asked me that. And I, I, I know Jim and Stacy, Jim was yelling at me during the time. And I don't, I can't remember if Stacy hit my arm or not, but they, everybody at our table wanted me to object.

[00:11:10] Uh, it's just a decision in the moment I made not to, I, I, I think had I object, it would have been sustained. Cause I think it was wholly inappropriate to do that. I just don't think that was right, but I didn't because I thought, I thought he was going to lose the jury. I thought he went too far and it was going to lose the jury. And so I decided not to object. I decided to let him go and just see what happened.

[00:11:33] That is definitely a moment I could have regretted my entire life, but I, I just, in the moment I thought this is too much. I just think he's going to lose the jury. And I just decided not to object and let him see how far he'd go. You took a different strategy with your own closing statement. No snakes. Yeah. It was frankly a, a beautifully written and wonderfully delivered closing statement. How did you prepare it?

[00:11:59] I think that's where, for me, I like closing because I am, I hate being behind a desk doing paperwork. I'm more the trial guy, the face guy. I like being up in front of the jury. I like, and that's where all the emotion comes in for me. A lot of this stuff during the trial may be very dry, but I think that's where all the emotion for an attorney should go. And that's where the evidence is coming to play because you're summarizing the evidence as you see it. And this is your last chance to give your best pitch to the jury.

[00:12:24] And so when you're sitting down writing that you, first of all, you've got to make sure and check the box that you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, all the elements of each offense. That's first and foremost. There's a couple of trials early on that I didn't do that and I got beat for that, but so you got to do that first and foremost. And then you want to hit on what are the, what are the pillars of your case? What are the high points of your case? And you want to hit on that. And for me, the way I do closing is you always want to leave the jury. I don't know.

[00:12:53] You want to leave them with something they're going to remember. It doesn't have to be emotional. It doesn't have to be anything, but it's got to be something that's going to ring true with them. Tie all the evidence together and put it in a, give it to them in a way that they can associate with that evidence and associate with the case. And that's just, that's how I do it. How did you feel about how Judge Gould did kind of overseeing this trial? I think she did a great job.

[00:13:17] I mean, it's, it's a huge task to have a judge be under all that scrutiny and stay on the case, even a case that's not hers per se, because it wasn't, she's not a judge in this county. She agreed to take that on as a special judge and to stick through that and stay on it through all that, that, you know, public, I guess, I don't know what the word I want to use, but this through all that, I thought it was good. I thought she was fair. I know a lot of people think she was unfair. I thought she was fair throughout the whole case, throughout the trial, and I thought she did a good job.

[00:13:47] How did you feel Stacey Diener and James Lettrell performed at trial? Amazing. I couldn't have done it without them. Really, there's no way I could have done all the, handled all the ballistics and the crime scene like Jim Lettrell did. There's no way I could have done all the stuff with Dr. Wall like Stacey Diener did. I just, there's no way I could have done all that. I think we complimented each other well. I think Stacey gave a softer touch to a lot of the witnesses, especially the trail people, and that's something I probably would not have done well.

[00:14:16] I'm more of just matter of fact kind of guy, and I thought she did really well with that. I thought Jim Lettrell, you know, he's kind of the folly figure of our group, and I thought he did a good job with the very sensitive, emotional stuff. I'm like the crime scene. I don't know if I could have been that non-emotional about that just because I relate back to my kids. And, yeah, so I think they just did an amazing job. The hard question is, how do you think you did?

[00:14:45] I think there's things I could have done better. I mean, I think there were some good moments. I think there were some moments I felt good about. I was really upset about the technology part. I wanted to throw that TV off the highest building I could find. We bought that TV about two weeks before we started trial, and that was my biggest fear with getting it is that we've never used this. I do not want to do the test run during this trial, but we did.

[00:15:10] And so I should have practiced on that dang thing way more before we started trial. I should have worked up the kinks in that. I thought that I could have, you know, probably rehabilitated some of the law enforcement better, but I always think I could have done better. And you always think of things afterwards like, oh, I should have done that. I should have asked that, you know. And so I don't know. I think I always have room for improvement. I think I did some good things, but I think I have a lot of room for improvement. What are you proud of, Don? Yeah.

[00:15:41] I don't know. I mean, you know, I didn't think the cross-examination of Perlmutter was as powerful as you guys did, but I'm glad that you did. That obviously is a good feeling when you say those kind of things. It's a good feeling. I mean, I thought the closing, my closing was powerful, my rebuttal. I really thought that I had a good kind of statements to make to the jury. And I thought that was very good. I wanted to keep it short, especially the rebuttal.

[00:16:08] And so I think I did a good job of kind of getting everything we needed out there in that short amount of time. And so I thought that was, that was good. But the technology part, very frustrating. I was wondering if you followed it at all, which I imagine you may have not had time to. How did you feel the media in general handled the trial coverage? Was it accurate? Not always.

[00:16:29] That kind of, that kind of goes back to when you'd, the six o'clock news would come on and the TV be on in the background at the house and be feeding the kids or, you know, doing their homework, whatever it'd be on the. And it would just be amazing how some reports would say, you know, X, Y, and Z came out today. And you would kind of catch your ear and say, what trial were you in? Like, I don't understand how different it was from people that were sitting right next to each other. I mean, we could see who was sitting in the media, in the gallery.

[00:16:58] You guys know it's not a very big courtroom. It's kind of hard to hide in there. And so it was just very amazing. Now, obviously you have very defense friendly podcasters and YouTubers and media, and you have, I don't know how many prosecutor friendly we had. But I would say you had defense friendly and then maybe neutral. And that's about it. I mean, I don't want to play the, you know, the wounded sheep here, but I don't feel like we had a lot of support in the mainstream media or podcasters or YouTubers.

[00:17:24] It was either very pro defense and everybody's corrupt and Delphi is a corrupt and, you know, all this, or it was neutral. And so it was just very different. I guess I don't understand how you sat in the courtroom all day, you take notes and then you go out and your, your report is something completely opposite to happen. I understand if you want to say, oh, I didn't find that witness believable that I understand, but just reporting on what the witness would say. And I suppose it's like the telephone game, right?

[00:17:52] You get, and you guys, I know are taking notes as feverishly as you can, why the testimony is going. So, but yeah. Yes. For you, what was the most memorable moment at the trial that like sticks in your head the most? I don't know. I don't know that there's one moment that sticks out in my mind. I don't know that there is one moment. I think just the whole trial, I'm trying to think of if there's a specific witness that sticks out in my mind.

[00:18:20] Obviously, I think there's a lot of witnesses that added stuff, you know, Dr. Walla's confessions that she got into here. Her Brad Weber's testimony, the law enforcement, Kathy Chang's testimony about putting together kind of the timeline, the witnesses that were there. So I don't know that there's one witness that says, oh, this is it. You know, the ballistic stuff was very powerful to me. I don't know if it was powerful to all the jurors or not, but it was very powerful to me. So that is a big, is a big moment when that testimony comes out.

[00:18:49] But I don't know. I don't know that there's one thing that says, oh, okay, this was the big moment in trial for me. I thought we had a very, I thought we had the case organized very well. And I thought we had everything prepared very well. And we presented it as efficiently as we can. We were never a lull to say, oh, we're waiting on this or we're doing this. And I thought it was just all, I guess my biggest thing was surprise that it all fell into place of that many moving parts besides the technology. Besides that, I thought that we did a very good job.

[00:19:19] So there wasn't one moment I was just, I think my surprise is, oh my gosh, that went pretty smoothly. We didn't have any hiccups. You know, we didn't have a witness that didn't make it there for some reason or another. The technology is what sticks out in my mind because I had so many issues with it. Even my opening, I had, I think you've got to be a little bit theatrical and dramatic with opening and closing to catch the jurors attention.

[00:19:43] And so even with opening, you know, the first thing the jury is going to hear from me besides jury selection is me looking at this TV, waiting what felt like an eternity for this video to come on to play in the background while I'm giving my opening. What was in the video? I'm just, I was, I was curious. The video, it came into evidence. Oh, right. Eventually it was the drone footage of the trail. So that, that was when, um, Kelsey was. Yes. I thought it would be helpful for them to see the trail as I'm explaining the timeline.

[00:20:11] I thought it would be, it would have been a good opening, but so that sticks out in my mind. Cause it was the most, one of the most uncomfortable moments I've ever had up there. Um, by the time we got to closing, I got it working right and it was fine. But, uh, I don't think there's a, there one moment. I think the whole thing kind of just stays with you. How did you bounce back from that? Cause you didn't really seem nervous. I was like, I think he's probably screaming internally, but like, how do you not show that? I don't know.

[00:20:39] You just, you know, I've done enough trials where you've got to prepare for the best or hope for the best or pray for the worst. And I knew that TV was going to be a problem because we had not worked with them very much. And so at one point I just told Steve Mullen, I said, just forget it. Sit down. I'm going to go through this and I'm going to just give my spiel, um, without it. It was, thank God I didn't rely on that. You know, I didn't have notes on there or something like that. It was just kind of a background that I thought would be powerful to the jury to see the trail

[00:21:09] as I'm explaining what happened on the trail. And so, but it's not easy. The first words that come out of your mouth, you know, after that it's, it sucks. I mean, it's like, you know, this is the very first thing they're getting to see from you in the TV malfunctions. We can't get it to work. And then you're staying up there like a fool, you know, with your back to the jury, trying to think, okay, how long do I let him work on this before I just say heck with it and go forward. And so it was first couple sentences were tough, but then once you get, you've done it and I have mapped out what I'm going to say, I'm that type of person.

[00:21:39] I kind of have to write it out and then make it in shorthand and kind of know what I'm going to say ahead of time. After the defense rests and it's sort of, um, all over, you know, waiting for the verdict, uh, waiting to hear from the jury. What is, what is, what are you doing while that's happening? And how does that feel? The waiting for me, I mean, I think it's a Tom Petty song, the waiting. Um, it's not fun. The days that were here. So I think we got done on a Thursday.

[00:22:07] If I'm correct, I may be wrong. And they, the jury didn't stay long on the first day. I think it was a Thursday, but I may be wrong. Then they came back on a Friday and we're here and they came back on a Saturday. They were gone Sunday. The verdict came in Monday. So the days you're here for me, it was okay. Cause Jim is here. Stacy's here. Tony Leggett's here. Jerry Holman's here. We're all in a room talking about the case and kind of going over the facts of the case and the facts that are presented and say, okay, you know, what are they thinking about? What do we miss?

[00:22:36] Let's go over what we talked about and just kind of generally keeping each other company. So it's not bad. And we're all in this room, either this room or another room over there where you're in. And so Thursday's fine. Then you go home and you say, you know, the first day you're thinking, okay, it's fine. You knew when they weren't going to come back with a decision in five minutes. Fine. Go on Thursday. Uh, you relax a little bit, come back Friday. Fine. You're all here. It's a day. It's a long trial, a lot of evidence. Saturday, they want to relook at the video. So you start to question it.

[00:23:03] And then, you know, you kind of, when they're watching the video, you're kind of watching them to see what they're focused on. And so that's fine. They watch the video Saturday. Sunday for me was the hardest day because I didn't have to come to work. Didn't have the people around me. And so you just sit at home and wonder what, what's, what's the holdup? Why, why haven't they made a decision? What are, you know, what's going to happen? Uh, and then we got the decision pretty early Monday.

[00:23:29] And still, even when you get the decision in this type of case, we have a verdict in, but it takes, I think it took two hours or something for us to get back into the courtroom. Once we got the call, there was a verdict. It wasn't normally in normal trials. We have a verdict. You go right upstairs and it's five minutes. You know, it's, it's really, really quick. This one, there was a heck of a long, I felt like a long wait time between the time I got the call. Hey, get everybody together. We have a verdict.

[00:23:55] And the time we actually got to court and they read the verdict, but it is not fun waiting. What were you doing on Sunday that day that you were struggling? Anything I could to take my mind off of it. Go to the gym, uh, do any, you know, just do anything. I can't remember what I did that day. I know I watched a couple movies. I mean, I know I went to the gym that day. I spent some time with my, I had my kids that day. So I spent time with them and we would do, you know, artwork, pro whatever you can do to not think about it.

[00:24:22] But it was a toughest day because I wasn't in here with everybody else on the team. It was tough a day for me. And then, um, you know, you hear that there is a verdict, there's a delay in hearing what said verdict is. What do you, what, how does that feel? What are you thinking at that point? I don't know. I, you're not, you're, it's the whole mix of emotions because like I assume it was for the defense.

[00:24:44] I mean, it's a huge chunk of my life that I've put into this, you know, not just preparation for the trial, but the five years ahead of that, uh, you know, every day doing something on the investigation, whether it was a search warrant or talking to Jerry Holman or whatever it was. And so it's, it's nerve wracking to go up there and just wait, have to wait for them to read the verdict. And you got butter, at least for me, I have butterflies. I don't know what to think.

[00:25:10] You try to, when the jury walks in, you try to read what they're, I mean, you use these weird, oh, they're doing this. So it must mean this. It doesn't mean any of that. You just, you, it, you know, you do that in your mind to calm yourself. And so it's, it's not fun. It's just like waiting for them to come to a verdict. It just, your anxiety for me, my anxiety works up, you know, until she reads the judge reads the verdict. Did you, did you feel like it was probably guilty or were you just like not even letting yourself think that?

[00:25:38] We, I always felt that we had enough to convict, convict beyond a reasonable doubt. And so I felt that we presented it in a way that it was going to come back with that verdict. But I think for me, I always, that doubt always creeps in a little bit. What if we didn't do that? What did we, what did we miss? So I trying to stay positive, but my mind, I'm an overthinker. And so I think I was always thinking, okay, did we miss something?

[00:26:05] And, um, you know, you hear guilty on all counts. What happens then? How are you feeling? Uh, huge relief. I think, I think I grabbed Stacy's arm at one point or I can't remember what I did, but it was just, it's, it's this huge weight. I mean, it's, it's, it's an amazing feeling. That's what I'll say. I don't know how to describe it, but it's an amazing feeling that, you know, now you can put everything to bed. You've got justice for Abby and Libby.

[00:26:34] Um, you know, the family's behind you and, and just, it's an amazing feeling. Um, what did you do afterwards? I know that it was a Monday afternoon, right? I think it was still daylight out at that point. Um, we talked with the family, of course, a lot of hugs and, you know, thank yous and stuff. And so we talked with the family and explained to them what's going to happen next. Cause we're not done.

[00:26:54] We still have a sentencing and this is where the sentencing to me is very important from the family's point of view, because it's an opportunity that they get to say what they've been holding in for at that point for them eight years, seven years for me. And so, you know, we talked to them and say, okay, this is what's going to, the sentencing is going to look like. This is an opportunity for you to say whatever you want. And we talked about that for the majority of the afternoon, came down here, packed up. We all went home.

[00:27:23] Uh, I went and picked my kids up and, you know, spent some well-deserved time with them. And I don't think I slept much Monday night cause you're just still, you're amped up from trial being in trial six days a week. And so I didn't sleep much that night, but you try to relax and try to, I can't remember Tuesday that very next day.

[00:27:44] I know that Stacy had a full docket in superior court plus some 120 or maybe 200 traffic tickets that afternoon. Let's talk about being a small town attorney where you do a murder and the next day have to do traffic. So I know one of the things we had to figure out is like, who's going to cover these things? Are we going to come in and do it? Um, we were lucky enough to have another prosecutor come in and do it for us. So we'd have to jump right back into that.

[00:28:07] But then after that, you know, after that Tuesday, it's okay, let's start digging out of the hole that we're in because we've been out of, we've not been charging people or not been doing anything in our office for the past month. And we've got all these cases and filings that came in and we got to start to dig out of the hole. So it's kind of back right back to work. I mean, I think we, we may have taken a couple of days off. I didn't take much time off. Um, I took a little time off, off Christmas, like I told you guys, but I didn't take a whole lot of time off when we first came back. Cause it was just, we were so far behind.

[00:28:37] How are you doing now? Still catching up better. Um, but we're still catching up. And so doing that, but we see a light at the end of the tunnel, I guess, if you will. And so it's a huge relief to have this portion of it done. I realize the appeals is still probably coming and I realize we're going to have to go through that process, but to get this initial part done, uh, huge step and huge relief. There's been all sorts of reports about people who are connected to this case being threatened by the online community.

[00:29:08] What, what do you think makes people behave in that way? I, Kevin, I wish I knew. I wish I knew what went through the minds of people to think that, Hey, I'm going to threaten this person. And that's going to be advantageous to me for some reason. And I think it's just people who are bullies and for some reason behind a keyboard, they're empowered. I may, because they're anonymous. A lot of times I don't know, or go by a different name online.

[00:29:36] Um, but I can't, I will never understand that. I mean, I think everybody involved in the case got threats and I thought I heard the defense even got threats. I don't understand what goal you hope that is going to accomplish. You know, do they think if they're going to threaten me, then I'm just going to dismiss the charges. I mean, do they think if they threaten the defense, they're just going to have their guy plead guilty. I mean, I don't understand, you know, if I send this for some reason, it makes them feel good inside to send that threat.

[00:30:03] I will never understand why it makes some people feel good to be hateful towards others. I will, I do not understand that. Was your office involved in helping the family prepare their victim impact statements? No, we gave them parameters. You know, uh, don't, um, I forget exactly what we told them, but no, I, I typically don't get too involved with that. I typically just say, look, this is your opportunity. Your, I am not in your shoes and I can't imagine what it's like to be in your shoes.

[00:30:34] Say what has been weighing on you. Say, you know, something from the heart. This is your opportunity to talk to the judge. This is your opportunity to talk to Richard Allen. And so I don't really give them a lot of parameters. I, the parameters I give them are, hey, I need them, you know, 10 days in advance so I can give them to the defense. We've got to get them the probation officer who's doing the precinct investigation. You know, I try to just give them those kinds of procedural parameters, but nothing else. Like that's their time. And that's, they've, for as much as they've been through, they've earned the right to say whatever they want.

[00:31:04] I'm curious, you know, what was it like for you to hear those victim impact statements, like one after the other? It's heartbreaking. It's hard to keep it together. I mean, we, as attorneys and Kevin will tell you this, we're supposed to be emotionless. You know, that's, it's because as an attorney, you take the emotion out of it. So you're able to see clearly the emotion is typically what clouds your judgment, but in those instances where you're not arguing and you're not, you know, and you hear those statements, you know, from Abby's grandpa about losing an arm that you're never getting it back.

[00:31:33] And Becky Patty about, you know, how it's affected her. Those are hard to hear. It's just hard. And back to back to back to back about how heartbreaking it's been for the whole family. I mean, it's just, they're hard. I mean, how was it for, as an audience member to listen to those things? Um, it was, it was really rough. Um, just, they, they haven't really been speaking for a while, obviously, they've abided by the gag order. They've respected the court's orders and that.

[00:32:00] And then to kind of hear that and, um, hear what this has meant to them and hear some of the anger and the sadness, but also just underscoring, you know, people talk about closure and things like that. And I just don't really believe that that's possible. No one can be made whole from something like this. Um, I really respected and admired how eloquently they put their pain. And then I just, um, yeah, I feel like I was crying at every hearing. So I feel like that's not that unusual for me to be crying at that one, but it was, it was.

[00:32:29] No, I think everything you said is correct though. I mean, they did a great job at expressing how they felt during the trial and before. And I just thought they all did a very good job. I mean, and you know, even some of the younger relation were able to get up there and I imagine it's going to be nerve wracking for them to speak in front of people in court and a full audience. And I thought they all did a good job. Absolutely. When the sentence came down, you know, uh, how, what was that like for you? That's kind of almost feels like to a certain extent, kind of the end of it obviously appeals.

[00:32:58] I'm not discounting that, but, um, yeah. Well, the range of penalties was 45 to 65. We knew two of the counts would merge with two of the other counts. I mean, that's pretty straightforward law when you have four counts like that and those type of offenses, two of them are going to merge. And so we knew we were dealing with two counts. The range is 45 to 65. The 45 is minimum non-suspendable. She could have, the judge could have run them concurrent or consecutive to one another, but didn't really expect it to run concurrent, meaning together with one another.

[00:33:26] So we really thought the minimum was 90 that we were looking at. And I was satisfied with 90, uh, given the fact that he's 53 years of age or 54. I think that the sentence reflected the gravity of the crime, the nature and the circumstances of the crime, and also took consideration the mitigating and aggravating factors and all the statements from the family. So, yeah. I suspect I know what the answer to this is going to be probably a no comment.

[00:33:51] But after the hearing, there was an interesting exchange between you and one of the defense attorneys, Ms. OJ. What can you tell us about that? I think I'll say what I said at the press conferences, keep that between Ms. OJ and I. Uh, she was unhappy about some things that had happened and we'll just leave it at that. You know, looking at this now that, um, you're done with the trial, uh, what do you think is the biggest misconception from the public, um, out there about this case?

[00:34:18] I think that depends on which public community you talk to. Mm-hmm. If you talk to pro defense and pro Richard Allen community public, I think that they believe that everybody in Carroll County and everybody in law enforcement is corrupt. And I think that's the farthest from the truth out there. It doesn't really bug me if they don't like me or call me corrupt or whatever. I think that comes with the job, but the fact that they're calling law enforcement corrupt

[00:34:44] and that we lied and that, you know, all these different kind of bad things they said, I think that's a huge misconception. I don't really know, you know, that's the noise that we hear now just from that pro defense pro Richard Allen. You know, what we hear from the other community is just support and good job and all those things. I don't know if there's a big misconception besides that kind of YouTubers podcast that we're all corrupt and that we somehow lied and cheated and steal and that the judge is

[00:35:14] corrupt and everybody's corrupt. That to me is the biggest misconception, but that's only a certain part of the community. That's nowhere near all the community. And so. Um, how has this case, um, emotionally affected you and the other prosecutors and investigators? I don't know about the other prosecutors investigators. I don't like one of my big things is, I think I said this during closing or opening even, I don't like to tell people how they think or feel. That's up for them to decide.

[00:35:40] And I think that's important for each person to tell you how it affected them. Cause I probably did affected everybody differently. Me. For me, I find myself, hopefully nobody noticed it, but I found myself getting really, really, really choked up during some of the questioning when it involves the girls. And then definitely during the closing where it was hard for me to get the words out.

[00:36:12] Were you thinking of your own girls? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's not lost on us that you have two girls. Yeah. It's just hard. And then it's hard. We made a decision. I apologize. Uh, we made a decision to prepare the family as best we could for the day the crime scene photos came out. And so we decided to show them the exhibits we planned to admit the night before.

[00:36:41] We thought that was the best thing to do. We didn't want them to see those on the big screen for the first time in that situation. Um, whether they liked it or not, I don't know, but that was an emotional evening for everybody to go through, you know, I forget how many photos we had. I want to say probably 40 of the crime scene and then the autopsy. And that was an emotional evening. That was very, very difficult.

[00:37:12] Um, we did it down here. We did that in that office out there. We had a little more room, but we had to, you know, we had the whole family in there. And so it was very, very, very tough. So that was emotional. And then just, I got way more emotional during closing. Then I usually I can put it all aside and even in child molest or, you know, uh, cases where children are victims of battery and they're severely beat up or shaking baby syndrome cases, you know, I'm able to kind of separate that.

[00:37:40] But I think that with this case, you pour so much into it over such a long time. It was hard. It was very hard. Most difficult thing I've had to do for sure. You did it very well. Thanks. Um, uh, what, what is it like to immerse yourself in a truly horrifying situation on a daily basis for all these years? It's hard. I mean, it's, it takes an emotional toll on you. There's times I'm sure that, you know, even some of the big burly investigators, there's times where they cried and we all cried.

[00:38:10] And, you know, sometimes we cry together. It just, it, it, it, it gets to you after a point. And a lot of times it would get to me when you're talking to the family because it humanizes everything that you see. So it's tough. It's, it still gets me choked up. So what, what do the investigators and other prosecutors mean to you now that you've all been through this, frankly, um, disturbing and insane situation together? Sure. I think we're all closer. I mean, I think that I'll probably, you know, call Jim.

[00:38:40] I mean, Stacy's working for me now. So I see her every day and we talk about it quite a bit. Um, but I think I'll still call Jim, you know, every Christmas and holiday and tell him Merry Christmas and, you know, happy holidays. Cause we're just all very close. It's kind of hard not to, when you spend that much time together, it's, you know, we spent hours and hours and hours in a room together. And it's, I still talk to Jerry Holman about every day. I talked to Steve Mullen every day, but he's my investigator. And, you know, I, I just, we're just all became very, very, very close.

[00:39:09] And you just have that. I guess I would equate it to having a life changing experience with a group of people. And how do you feel about that group of people afterwards? Whether it's a traumatic experience, like being deployed, whether it's a good experience, like the birth of a child or, you know, whatever it is, you have that connection with those people that you're with. And that's what we have. I mean, you know, we had to go through a lot of work and heartache and pain, but at the end of the day, we got the conviction and that's what we wanted.

[00:39:39] What do, um, the families of Lippy and Abby mean to you? Um, now that, now that this is over. Yeah. They're, they're just amazing. You, both of you had told me earlier, they would, and I had heard this before that they were giving people food in line, I think banana bread or whatever it may be. And some of the people they were giving food to and maybe coffee and offering different things were the very people that would go out that night and talk bad about them.

[00:40:08] And to, you know, and in the middle of this trial, do all that for the people waiting in line to get to report on this case, to sensationalize it even more in the public, which puts them under closer scrutiny. You know, I've heard the defense say, you know, talk about being human. That's human. And so, and, and through all of this abide by the gag order when they could have said, Nope, I'm not doing it.

[00:40:32] And to hear all the rhetoric that was out there from pro defense and still not say anything. I don't know if I could have been as strong as they were. So, I mean, just huge heroes in my heart that they did all that and were that compassionate and stuck through it all. I mean, really. And then what do the memories of Libyan Abbey themselves mean to you? I think the memories carry on.

[00:40:59] I think the, the Memorial Park is a great thing for that to show something good in the community, something they both love softball and those kind of events that are out there. And, you know, I think that the memory, again, I don't, I'm not much of a different person in court than I am in person. And so what I say in closing is what I believe that I think the memory from them should be as heroes. I mean, I think they're really the ones that helped us solve this case.

[00:41:26] I mean, I believe that that's not just fluff that I say, I think that's true. I think that Libby had the wherewithal to make the recording. Had we not had that, I mean, there's a wealth of information within that recording. And then for Abbey to hide the phone, again, that solidifies the timeline and it just, it's huge. And so I think they should be remembered as heroes, the ones that helped us solve their own murders. And then, you know, I think they should be remembered by the pictures that are out there. Just two lighthearted young kids who are trying to go out and enjoy themselves that day.

[00:41:56] And then try to carry on their memory with the things they love, like playing sports and doing those kinds of things. We talked earlier about how some people had doubts because you were a young attorney. Sure. You are a young attorney. Sure. What is the future hold for you? Um, I don't know. I'd like to be prosecutor as long as the public would have me. I think the natural progression, um, is to be judge one day.

[00:42:20] I mean, I think that's kind of defense attorney prosecutor seems to be the natural progression and I would love the opportunity to be judge someday. You know, I had the opportunity to step up as judge twice during this case and I passed it up to try this case because I was dedicated. You know, when I came in office, I I'm going to solve this case. We're going to try it and we're going to see it through. And so I think eventually I'd like to become judge. I think that's the next step. But for now, I'd like to be as prosecutor as long as the public will have me.

[00:42:48] Is there anything we didn't ask you about that you think it's important to me? I get that question. It's always our last question. I know. Uh, not, I mean, what's important to me may not be important to you or your listeners. And so I, I don't know. I don't really, you know, we've talked about. What's important to you is probably going to be very, I would say go for it. I mean, I'm just proud of my team. I'm proud of the investigators.

[00:43:12] I'm just proud of everything that we did throughout the trial that we, you know, organized the trial so well, presented the evidence in an effective way. I just think everybody did a good job. I think the one thing I want everybody to remember is I didn't do this by myself. It's not my name was on all the pleadings, but I promise you there wasn't a pleading when Stacy and Jim came on. There wasn't a pleading that we all didn't talk about. I just thought it was easier to put my name on it.

[00:43:38] I also did it because I wanted to get all the heat and not put the heat on Stacy and Jim, you know, all the criticism and all that. I just thought it was important to let them focus on what they were working on. But I could not have done this without superintendent, Doug Carter, you know, Jerry Holman, Steve Mullen, Rich Davies, Kathy Shank. Holy cow. You need to put a big emphasis on her. You know, I did an interview a couple of days ago. She to me is Superman. I mean, had she not found that tip, we wouldn't be here. And so she's very shy. She hates to take credit for it, but she is.

[00:44:08] I mean, we would not be here had she not had the wherewithal to say, hey, look, this is important. Take it to Tony Liggett. Tony Liggett for having the wherewithal to say, this is the guy. I got to call Nick. This is the guy. We got to follow up on this. I mean, it was just such a collaboration of everybody working together in no way was just me or just Jerry Holman or just Tony Liggett. It was everybody. And that's the important thing for me that everybody knows that it was it was everybody working together.

[00:44:35] And we just had a solid team and we did it together. Thank you so much. Sure. I really appreciate talking to you and you giving us the chance to talk with you. Sure. Not a problem. Awesome. You guys covered a lot of stuff. Thanks very much to Prosecutor McClellan for taking the time to talk with us. We so appreciate it. And the care he took with putting together this case. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet.

[00:45:04] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, 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.

[00:45:32] If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support. 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.

[00:45:55] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Can we talk a little bit before we go about Quintz, a great new sponsor for us?

[00:46:25] 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. 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.

[00:46:54] You have a really cool suede jacket. And I really like the way I look in my sweaters. 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, like I'm one of those people, my skin is very like, you know, like I kind of sensitive. So when it comes to wearing sweaters, like, you know, sometimes it's something's too scratchy. Like it really bothers me. These are so soft. They're just like very delicate and soft and make it.

[00:47:24] They're wearing them is lovely because they're super comfortable. You're not you're not. It's not one of those things where you're like you buy it and it looks great, but it doesn't feel that great. They look great. They feel great. Yeah, I really love them. And you got, you know, your cool jacket. I mean, that's a little bit of a you're the guy who like 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.

[00:47:54] I longer 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, but I think you really like it and it looks good. Thank you. Great products. Incredible prices. Absolutely. Quince.com. There you go. So you can go to quince.com slash M sheet. And right now they're offering 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. So it's quince.com slash M sheet. That's Q U I N C E. Dot com slash M S H E E T.

[00:48:24] Before we go, we just wanted to say another few words about via. 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.

[00:48:50] Some Zen can really just kind of help me get more into that state where I can relax and fall asleep pretty easily. And they're just they've been such a wonderful support to us. They're a longtime sponsor. We really love working with them and they really make the show possible. I'm going to say this, like you may not realize this, but when you support our sponsors, you're supporting us. And it kind of makes us it possible for us to do the show. So if you or one of your loved ones is interested in trying some of this stuff, you're going to get a great deal. It's very high, high quality, high value.

[00:49:19] Anya, if I want to get this discount you speak of, what do I do? OK, if you're 21 and older, head to via hemp dot com and use the code M sheet to receive 15% off. And if you're new to via get a free gift of your choice. That's V I I a hemp dot com and use code M sheet at checkout. Spell the code M S H E E T. And after you purchase, they're going to ask you, hey, where did you hear about us?

[00:49:44] Say the murder sheet because then it lets them know that our ads are effective and it really helps us out. 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.

[00:50:11] It's the perfect thing for somebody who wants to get started with their personal finance journey. That can seem daunting. It is daunting. 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.

[00:50:36] 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. 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.

[00:50:57] 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. Tier one compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor.

[00:51:25] You important disclosures at acorns.com slash msheet.