The Delphi Murders: Richard Allen on Trial: Day Sixteen: The Bullet

[00:00:00] Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of the brutal murder of two girls, as well as topics in mental health like suicide.

[00:00:09] So today we will continue our coverage of the trial of Richard Allen and we will be discussing what happened in trial this morning and a little bit about this afternoon, but we'll explain that in just a moment.

[00:00:23] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:00:26] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:00:28] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:00:31] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:00:37] We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:00:39] And this is The Delphi Murders. Richard Allen on Trial. Day Fifteen. The Bullet.

[00:01:32] Let's start as we have in recent days by doing a bit of housekeeping, particularly by that I mean that homage must be paid

[00:01:43] to our lifesavers. Anya, please.

[00:01:46] Anya Kane- Okay.

[00:01:47] So thank you.

[00:01:48] Give them their due.

[00:01:49] Anya Kane- I will. Thank you so much to Sierra Bowman and Kay Heidenreich. I'm really sorry if I said both of your last names wrong or your first names. Things are quickly devolving here. But we really appreciate both of you for doing this. And they're both two-timers now.

[00:02:05] So they're in the two-timers wing of the Lifesavers Club.

[00:02:09] Yes. And we just appreciate them so much. We couldn't do it.

[00:02:11] Anya, what is this Lifesavers Club you speak of?

[00:02:15] What is this, like an infomercial? So yes, the Lifesavers are our wonderful line sitters who help us get in every day. Without them, we would be very sleep deprived and probably not getting in as much as we are.

[00:02:26] Without them, we literally would not be able to do the show because in order to get in to Tuesday's session, you need to line up starting before Monday's session ends.

[00:02:37] Yes.

[00:02:38] So there would literally be no time to record at all.

[00:02:41] Yes.

[00:02:42] And then you would all be deprived of our valuable plathering.

[00:02:46] Valuable plathering. And I just want to say the other day, I just used first names because I was rushing. But the other lifesaver was Julie Wood. And I want to thank her too.

[00:02:54] I felt bad. I was haunted by that. I'm like, I keep saying everyone's last name. And then I kind of flunked out on that one. So sorry about that, everybody. But here we go.

[00:03:03] Especially to Julie.

[00:03:04] Especially to Julie. But we appreciate all of you guys.

[00:03:07] Homage must be paid.

[00:03:09] Okay. We're paying the homage. And yeah. So I guess we can go into.

[00:03:17] Well, so there's some more housekeeping. As I alluded very mysteriously in what we call in the business, the cold open.

[00:03:25] What is this? Law and order? Jeez.

[00:03:27] Well, as I alluded, we did not make it into the morning. Pardon me. We did not make it into the afternoon session today.

[00:03:36] It's a crazy situation. Rules are changing constantly.

[00:03:41] Some rules. We thought we definitely had an in to get in all day.

[00:03:46] And the rules changed about in the middle of the morning session.

[00:03:50] And suddenly we didn't have that method.

[00:03:53] And we didn't have time to come up with something else.

[00:03:55] Behind the scenes, the rules are changing constantly.

[00:03:57] I feel like next we're going to like Judge Gull is going to make it so that no one can come in unless they're wearing a very silly hat.

[00:04:03] Like it's getting to the point or no one can come in unless they plan an elaborate heist in order to get into the building and the first 10 teams get in.

[00:04:10] So the rules are changing constantly.

[00:04:13] And behind the scenes, even though we have stopped talking about it so much, we are actually expending a great deal of time and effort and mental energy to try to continue navigating all those rules changes so we can continue to get in.

[00:04:26] But the rules changed so abruptly today that that didn't happen and we did not make it in this afternoon.

[00:04:34] Optimistic for tomorrow, but who knows?

[00:04:36] Yeah, I'm not.

[00:04:38] I mean, like I am, but like at this point, I don't know.

[00:04:41] Who knows?

[00:04:42] One thing that is different now is that there are groups of people who are rabidly pro-defense and they have made the decision that they want to block from the courtroom.

[00:04:57] Anyone who is not themselves rabidly defense.

[00:05:00] And so what they would do is they would get a lot of seats.

[00:05:04] They would get in line early and get lots and lots of seats.

[00:05:08] And then as soon as the court starts its session, many of them will leave.

[00:05:13] These are public access warriors.

[00:05:15] They want to deprive the public access even more than Judge Gall on that level.

[00:05:19] So it's now a situation where they would then leave and go downstairs and get in line for the afternoon session, which means that there are no seats available for the afternoon session unless you choose to skip the morning session.

[00:05:32] And to me, this reminds me of a bit of I think we all know instances where a person, for whatever reason, they have a grudge against a particular company.

[00:05:44] So they say, oh, I know what I'll do.

[00:05:46] I'll buy one of that company's products and then set it on fire.

[00:05:51] And the fact is, by doing that, you've still given that company your money.

[00:05:55] And attention.

[00:05:56] And so you've kind of shot yourself in the foot.

[00:05:59] And when they do this sort of thing, they're basically keeping people out of the courtroom and keeping those people from hearing the defense message, which they ostensibly believe is a good one.

[00:06:11] And I would think if I thought if I believe rapidly in the defense and I thought they had a great message, I'd want the world to hear it.

[00:06:21] They seem to want to keep the world out, which to me signifies that perhaps even the most rabid fans of this defense team ultimately don't have much confidence in what this defense team is putting forward.

[00:06:35] Yeah, they're like it's like trying to like shield your elderly relative from the scrutiny of the world as they like stumble down the stairs or something.

[00:06:43] And it's bizarre behavior.

[00:06:46] And I mean, it's not really that surprising to either of us because we've been doing this for a while.

[00:06:50] So we've sort of seen some of the mentality behind some of this bizarre behavior.

[00:06:54] But I want to apologize because in some way I feel and I think Anya feels, too, that we've let you down by not being able to get in this afternoon.

[00:07:05] Yeah, we did.

[00:07:06] I mean, we did because we I mean, like there's no prettying that up.

[00:07:10] No offense.

[00:07:10] Like I don't feel anything anymore because I'm just like dead inside at this point.

[00:07:14] But like I'm like if we don't get in and if nobody with like any sort of rational perspective gets in, I feel like a lot gets lost.

[00:07:23] It's really been striking to me.

[00:07:25] I haven't I've not spent much time looking at other coverage of the trial.

[00:07:29] But when I have looked at other coverage of the trial, it is striking to me how much that is reported that just is completely different from what I'm seeing in that court.

[00:07:41] It just didn't happen.

[00:07:42] People are getting stuff wrong left and right.

[00:07:44] I don't think most of it is malicious.

[00:07:46] Some of it is, but I don't think most of it is.

[00:07:49] It's just people do not know what they're talking about.

[00:07:52] Even even this morning, something happened in court that for whatever reason, maybe people got confused.

[00:08:02] You may have heard this, that there was there was stories going around that this morning in court, the prosecution was objecting to a defense witness who was trying to answer.

[00:08:14] And supposedly in frustration, a male juror cried out, let him answer.

[00:08:20] And that didn't happen.

[00:08:23] No, that would have been a huge deal.

[00:08:25] And when you hear a story about that, you should ask yourself, well, if this is real, if it did happen, what would we have expected to happen next?

[00:08:34] And I think if a juror had an outburst like that, at the very least, Judge Gold would make a big deal about it and they would no longer be on the jury.

[00:08:43] Yeah, it would be a huge deal.

[00:08:44] You can't do that on a jury.

[00:08:46] There was – remember, can I talk about the one that happened yesterday?

[00:08:49] Well, before that, let's continue talking about this and explain what really did happen.

[00:08:53] Yes.

[00:08:54] So there really was a defense witness on the stand and the prosecution really was making many objections and we will get to that in a bit.

[00:09:03] And at one point, as the prosecutor, the very able prosecutor, you know the name?

[00:09:11] Luttrell.

[00:09:12] Yes.

[00:09:13] As he was making his objections, someone did cry out, let him finish.

[00:09:18] But the person who cried that out was defense attorney Brad Rosie.

[00:09:22] Yeah.

[00:09:23] So I think what happened is that someone heard Rosie's voice saying that and then for whatever reason leapt to the conclusion the person saying that was actually a juror.

[00:09:36] And that didn't happen.

[00:09:37] And so my concern is if we continue to miss sessions, more and more things will get out there that just aren't true.

[00:09:46] Do you want to talk about it yesterday?

[00:09:47] Yeah.

[00:09:47] The other day it was reported – I don't even know where – but it was reported that Brittany Allen when she was – rather, I'm sorry, Brittany Zapanta, Richard Allen's daughter, when she was on the stand, that when she was questioned about whether she loved her father, she said no.

[00:10:01] And it was reported that the person doing the questioning was Andrew Baldwin.

[00:10:04] Yes.

[00:10:04] So, first of all, I mean, the Andrew Baldwin thing may not feel like a big deal, but Jennifer Auger was doing the direct examination.

[00:10:11] First of all, she deserves credit for the work she's doing.

[00:10:14] And second of all, like that's a basic – it's not – you can't – like you're not going to confuse.

[00:10:19] Ask yourself this.

[00:10:21] Would the defense have put Brittany Zapata on the stand to say that she didn't love her father?

[00:10:26] Obviously, they would not.

[00:10:28] Brittany Zapata on the stand said she loved her father.

[00:10:32] If she had said, I don't love my father, the oxygen would have gone out of the room and that would have been like the headline for everyone of the day because that would have been a huge deal.

[00:10:41] And a shocker because you would have been like, why did they put her on?

[00:10:44] And I think the very least we owe the people in this case, whether they are associated with the prosecution or the defense –

[00:10:53] Or whoever.

[00:10:54] Or the families of the victim.

[00:10:55] The very least we owe them is to take care, to accurately report things they actually say and do.

[00:11:02] And now, like I am sympathetic because I do feel like there's a bit of a fog of war situation going on here.

[00:11:07] I think this is where we were concerned about public access issues.

[00:11:11] It's not just self-serving, although, heck, it would have been nice to get a media pass.

[00:11:14] But at the end of the day, some of the lack of access and maybe some of the inflexibility around things like overflow rooms and whatnot have just, I think, led to a lot more inaccurate sloppiness than we would have seen otherwise.

[00:11:29] I think there's something to be said for an overflow room where at least members of the press can get together and say, hey, did she say that?

[00:11:36] No?

[00:11:36] Oh, okay.

[00:11:37] I wrote that down wrong.

[00:11:39] That's not really happening as much as you would want it to, although I'm sure it's happening outside to a certain degree.

[00:11:44] But it's just – it's very troubling to see because these are real people.

[00:11:48] And listen, everyone's capable of getting it wrong.

[00:11:50] We're not trying to, like, call anything or, like, oh, my God, these are the worst mistakes.

[00:11:55] It's just been more of, like, this is an ongoing issue that keeps happening.

[00:11:59] And as the listening public, you should be aware of it because, you know, I mean, even if you're hearing something just from us and, like, we're the outlier, then, like, pay attention to what the outlier is because this is how rumors start.

[00:12:14] And it's just – again, like, I liken it – like, this is a case we've been so involved in for so long.

[00:12:21] Sometimes when I see all this stuff swirling around and there's so much of it, it feels like, you know, like the raiders have come into my village and they're burning it down.

[00:12:29] And I'm helpless to stop it because we're just one podcast.

[00:12:33] We're not perfect.

[00:12:34] And we're just trying our best to get in.

[00:12:36] Doing our best.

[00:12:36] And, like, I don't even know what the heck we're saying half of the time.

[00:12:39] So maybe, like, you know, like, it's like, oh, man.

[00:12:42] Like, I just – we can't stop it.

[00:12:44] But we just – we're powerless.

[00:12:45] It's very – I used to think, oh, if we put out the truth, then people will like that and they will want to know more about it and everything will be nice and rational.

[00:12:55] And, like, damn, how naive was I?

[00:12:57] I was so naive.

[00:12:59] In fairness, all the good people listening now care about the truth.

[00:13:02] They do.

[00:13:03] But, like –

[00:13:03] We have a great audience.

[00:13:05] We have the best audience in the biz.

[00:13:06] I know.

[00:13:07] We really do.

[00:13:07] I love you guys and just – like, just you're wonderful and we just appreciate you listening.

[00:13:12] But it's like – but we're in a bubble with you guys.

[00:13:16] And I feel sometimes the wider world doesn't care.

[00:13:21] And I feel – I feel I've said this before, but I'm not – like, people are like, don't feel bad on you.

[00:13:26] No, I do because we're not – we're choosing to be here.

[00:13:30] And in order to justify us even being here, we need to be doing a good job clearing up stuff and making it so factual accuracy is carrying the day.

[00:13:41] And I don't feel like that's been happening.

[00:13:43] I feel like we're, like, letting people down.

[00:13:45] And it bothers me because it's like this – the people associated with this case on all sides of it have been through a lot.

[00:13:52] And it's just – it's not – it's not fair.

[00:13:55] And it's like, what are we doing?

[00:13:57] We owe them all the truth.

[00:14:00] Certainly, there are some people on YouTube who part of the way they make their money is by basically, frankly, to be blunt, lying about the case.

[00:14:11] Yes, that's so true.

[00:14:11] So there is that, but there's also a lot of mainstream coverage of this trial that is giving people completely the wrong impression about what is actually happening.

[00:14:24] And personally, if I felt that there were other venues doing a great job covering this case, I think I'd say, I mean, let's just go home.

[00:14:34] It's all very inconsistent in touch and go.

[00:14:38] And again, we're not calling out other reporters.

[00:14:40] It's like, again, it's a fog of war situation.

[00:14:42] We're all kind of running around.

[00:14:44] But I don't – I've been really surprised by the amount of errors I've seen.

[00:14:50] Just, like, basic things.

[00:14:51] Like, people confusing, like, a YouTuber who's friends with the Allen family for Janice Allen, Richard Allen's mother.

[00:14:59] They're not the same person.

[00:15:01] Assumptions.

[00:15:01] Assumptions are just being made.

[00:15:03] There was – we talked about a male YouTuber there.

[00:15:05] There's also a female YouTuber who sits with the Allens.

[00:15:08] I don't think she actually puts out an awful lot of content.

[00:15:10] No, no.

[00:15:11] But she's basically a friend.

[00:15:12] My understanding is –

[00:15:13] Yeah, like a family friend at this point.

[00:15:15] She is a friend of the Allen family.

[00:15:19] She is there to support them.

[00:15:21] The other day, after some of the videos that were shown, she got up to leave.

[00:15:27] And it was reported that that was Richard Allen's mother leaving.

[00:15:30] And she wasn't his mother.

[00:15:31] She's just a friend of the family.

[00:15:32] Yeah.

[00:15:32] It's like – and it's like, again, it seems minor.

[00:15:34] Like, we're not trying to – but, like, when you have – like, if that happened once, it's one thing.

[00:15:40] But there's just, like, this, like, death by a thousand cuts going on where it's like – I'm reading stuff and it's like, none of this happened.

[00:15:47] Or, like – or people are putting some spin on it because they don't understand how the legal system works.

[00:15:51] And it's like, oh, my gosh.

[00:15:54] It's like – it is – to quote Dr. Polly Westcott from last – it's like being in a funhouse.

[00:15:59] You know?

[00:16:00] Like, I don't know which way is – like, I mean, like –

[00:16:03] Only with no fun.

[00:16:04] There's no fun.

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[00:17:30] But anyways, that's enough ranting.

[00:17:32] We just wanted to apologize and let you know.

[00:17:35] I feel bad.

[00:17:36] I feel like we let all of you down.

[00:17:39] We did.

[00:17:40] We did.

[00:17:41] We did.

[00:17:42] I love to talk my way around it, but we did.

[00:17:47] We've been doing our best.

[00:17:49] We've had pretty good luck so far.

[00:17:51] Thanks to a lot of help from a lot of wonderful people.

[00:17:54] Yes, we could not do this alone.

[00:17:55] We are eternally grateful to everybody who has helped.

[00:18:00] And we are sorry that we blew it this afternoon.

[00:18:03] Yeah.

[00:18:03] But hopefully we can get back on the horse and just kind of figure it out.

[00:18:08] And our understanding is this case is very near to ending.

[00:18:13] It feels like it's on its last legs to me.

[00:18:16] But, you know, I'm always very reluctant to get my hopes up because I do, on some personal level, would just want this to be done because it's rough.

[00:18:25] It's been over seven years.

[00:18:26] It's rough.

[00:18:27] It's rough on us, but it's like these families have been waiting for this for years.

[00:18:31] Over seven years.

[00:18:32] People often say that Ani and I started covering this case from the beginning.

[00:18:36] We didn't even know each other in 2017.

[00:18:38] I did not even know Anya Keane in 2017.

[00:18:41] But the families have been waiting for a decision in this case for seven and a half years.

[00:18:47] And I think I expect this trial to reach the jury within the next few days.

[00:18:55] I agree.

[00:18:56] At this rate, yes.

[00:18:57] And I just, you know, so like it's hopefully we'll be able to see that all happen.

[00:19:03] But we'll see.

[00:19:04] Very much want that.

[00:19:05] So let's talk about what happened this morning that we did see.

[00:19:09] Yeah, we saw all this.

[00:19:10] So.

[00:19:12] So 845 AM, Richard Allen walked into the courtroom accompanied by guards as always.

[00:19:18] He looked around and he said loud enough to be heard from the back of the room.

[00:19:23] He comes in.

[00:19:24] He's in the front of the room.

[00:19:25] We are all the way in the back.

[00:19:27] And he says loud enough to be heard in the back of the room.

[00:19:29] Wow.

[00:19:30] Yeah, he did.

[00:19:31] I wonder what he was talking about.

[00:19:32] I have no idea.

[00:19:33] It wasn't like a horrified or anything.

[00:19:36] It was just like, wow.

[00:19:37] Was that kind of basically it?

[00:19:39] Yeah.

[00:19:39] I will say that I saw that his at some point in the morning, I saw his sister, Jamie Jones,

[00:19:46] his mother, Janice Allen, and his stepfather, Marvin Allen, and his wife, Kathy Allen.

[00:19:51] It was a kind of a not quite a full turnout from the Allens, but certainly a robust turnout from the Allens today.

[00:20:01] Brittany Zapanta, his daughter, was not there.

[00:20:04] But other than that, you know, that's having all of them there.

[00:20:08] And again, we mentioned his mother, Janice.

[00:20:10] We had heard sort of through courtroom talk that she may have had a fall, unfortunately, on one of the stairs at one point.

[00:20:18] And what I've heard is that she may have broken her nose.

[00:20:21] Yeah, injured her nose, broken her nose in some way.

[00:20:23] So she had not been there for a while, but it seemed like there was certainly a good reason for that.

[00:20:28] And I will say those stairs are, you know, they're marble, they're beautiful, but they can be a bit scary to be on.

[00:20:35] So I think that would be reasonable to assume.

[00:20:38] But she was back today.

[00:20:39] So having not been there for a while.

[00:20:46] Anyways, let's see.

[00:20:47] So there was a bit of talk before we actually got to witnesses concerning a filing which Anya and I had not seen.

[00:20:58] So I was a little confused.

[00:21:01] You were like, motions in lemonade, what?

[00:21:04] And they did not really talk about it in court at that time in a way that made it easy to understand.

[00:21:11] And I don't know, maybe some of you have had the experience where you're like having a heated discussion with a spouse or a friend and you're in front of other people.

[00:21:21] You don't necessarily want them to understand everything.

[00:21:23] So you kind of talk in a code language.

[00:21:25] And I felt they were initially talking in a code language, at least for those of us who hadn't read the filing.

[00:21:30] And I'll tell you now what it was about.

[00:21:35] Not the first witness of the day, but the second witness was a doctor, Dr. Grassian.

[00:21:40] Dr. Stuart Grassian.

[00:21:41] And he was going to testify about how being in solitary confinement can affect a person.

[00:21:49] And the prosecution was concerned that he would say, well, a person in solitary confinement might lose his mind and say things that aren't true, just like Richard Allen said things that aren't true.

[00:22:00] So in essence, they did not want him to be able to testify about the falsity or the alleged falsity of Richard Allen's confessions.

[00:22:11] They did go ahead and talk about solitary confinement till you're blue in the face.

[00:22:16] Just don't try to reach any conclusions about the credibility or lack thereof of other witnesses or other statements.

[00:22:25] Why would it why would they be allowed to do that?

[00:22:27] Like, why shouldn't he just come to a conclusion?

[00:22:29] Is that is there anything with like he's not qualified to or like what what's the issue there?

[00:22:34] Well, the thing is the thing to remember is the ultimate trier of fact are the jury members.

[00:22:39] And by that, I mean it is up to the jury to decide who is credible or not.

[00:22:45] This guy is not on the jury.

[00:22:46] It's not up to him to come up and say, well, here's here's who we're telling you.

[00:22:50] Here's here's who's telling the truth, folks.

[00:22:53] And here's who is not telling the truth.

[00:22:55] That's not his that's not his role.

[00:22:58] Certainly at the end, you know, the defense can try to make that argument.

[00:23:01] That's not what a witness is there to do.

[00:23:03] Does that make sense?

[00:23:04] It makes a lot of sense.

[00:23:05] What I thought was funny was some of the back and forth on this.

[00:23:08] Tell us about it.

[00:23:09] So Stacey Diener was the one doing cross on that.

[00:23:12] And Brad Rosie was doing direct.

[00:23:15] And so they're kind of going back and forth.

[00:23:18] And at one point, you know, Judge Gull ultimately sort of sided with Rosie.

[00:23:23] But there was a caveat.

[00:23:24] So she was like, well, you know, the motion in Lemonade says this.

[00:23:28] But according to these this trial rule, this guy is not supposed to kind of he's supposed to stay in his lane in that sense.

[00:23:35] He's supposed to do what the motion in Lemonade is asking for.

[00:23:38] Is that basically what she said?

[00:23:39] Yeah, that's like saying I need to have I need to file a motion in Lemonade for Anya not to steal cereal.

[00:23:45] In theory, she shouldn't need to have a legal motion in order to stop her from doing that.

[00:23:51] Right.

[00:23:51] And so what what she's saying is like, you don't really I don't need to grant this motion because this is what the defense is supposed to do.

[00:23:58] And, you know, and then she kind of looks at Rosie and is like, I basically I trust that you've had this conversation with your witness that he has to do this.

[00:24:06] And she said, by the way, if he does start doing this, then we're going to have to have a conversation that won't be so pleasant out of the hearing of the jury.

[00:24:15] And Rosie said, well, you know, just as a matter of courtesy, professional courtesy, I think I'm going to go out there and have another conversation with this witness.

[00:24:22] I don't feel like I don't feel like that conversation ended up really sticking based on what we saw today.

[00:24:29] But yeah, so, you know, he goes running out at some point and I guess had that conversation with him.

[00:24:35] But I just thought that was funny.

[00:24:37] There's some tension, but she ended up not granting that.

[00:24:40] And I guess we'll talk about the first witness of the day.

[00:24:44] The first witness of the day was actually someone we'd seen earlier in the trial.

[00:24:48] It was Elizabeth Betsy Blair.

[00:24:51] And she was done direct examination by Andrew Baldwin.

[00:24:55] Remind us, if you will, dear Anya.

[00:24:58] Why?

[00:24:59] What did she testify to before?

[00:25:00] Um, Betsy Blair is a woman who was walking on the trails that day and she had a pretty important witness sighting.

[00:25:09] So she would do loops of the trail for exercise.

[00:25:13] And she reported, um, doing two loops and then coming back and reaching the Monon High Bridge.

[00:25:21] Uh, no, sorry, doing two loops, uh, going to the restroom at the Delphi Library, coming back for the third loop.

[00:25:27] That's for her kind of final loop.

[00:25:29] And comes up to the Monon High Bridge and finds, um, Bridge Guy standing on the first platform of the bridge.

[00:25:38] He seems to be expecting someone.

[00:25:40] He turns and looks at her.

[00:25:43] And then she moves along.

[00:25:45] And she was one of the, a source for the younger guy sketch that was released second.

[00:25:51] Although it was drawn first.

[00:25:52] And although she's since said that he could have been older and she may have been mistaking his poofy red, reddish brown hair for a hat.

[00:26:00] So, or rather, she, vice versa, switch those two things.

[00:26:03] The hat for the, uh, she, basically, she may have seen a hat instead of hair.

[00:26:08] And that's very important because a key part of Richard Allen's original story to law enforcement was that he was also on the first platform of the bridge, um, standing and watching the fish below.

[00:26:20] So, this is yet another time when people are seeing Bridge Guy.

[00:26:25] And again, she very clearly identified Bridge Guy.

[00:26:27] She said, the guy in Libby's video is the guy I saw.

[00:26:32] So, people are seeing Bridge Guy.

[00:26:33] And then Richard Allen is putting himself in Bridge Guy's shoes in the place Bridge Guy was standing.

[00:26:40] So, she's an important witness for the prosecution.

[00:26:43] And what the defense wanted, though, was for her to be an important witness for them, too.

[00:26:47] Because they said, well, that's not all she saw.

[00:26:50] What else did she see?

[00:26:51] Well, I'll give the defense some credit here.

[00:26:54] We've been disapproving of a lot of their witnesses, which I have, again, we've rather colorfully likened to a hot Reddit post from 2019 that would have gotten everyone on the Delphi subs pretty excited.

[00:27:05] But now is just kind of useless because, like, if Cheyenne Mill and her friends are hanging out at 3 p.m. and the girls are dead at 2.32 or thereabouts, then who cares?

[00:27:19] It's too late.

[00:27:20] And even by the defense's own theory, if they're being transported in a vehicle, they're gone.

[00:27:25] So, who cares what happens later in the day?

[00:27:28] All it tells us is data is, like, nothing was going on.

[00:27:31] But we already kind of figured out from the data that's been kind of put forward so far.

[00:27:36] But I will say this.

[00:27:37] At least with Blair today, the defense was a little bit more, like, this was a little bit more relevant.

[00:27:44] It's not really – you had a different feeling about it where it's not quite as relevant.

[00:27:48] But, like, I felt like I kind of got this more.

[00:27:50] So, I was like, okay, let's hear them out on this.

[00:27:52] What Blair told police was that she saw a car at the old CPS building and that it basically didn't fit the description of Alan's Ford Focus.

[00:28:10] And the car was parked near the CPS building, as Anya mentioned, which is empty.

[00:28:16] And it was parked, they said, in reverse.

[00:28:19] Essentially, it was backed into the parking place.

[00:28:22] And Baldwin said yes, as if someone wanted to make a quick getaway.

[00:28:27] Yes.

[00:28:28] And Blair said the overall shape of the vehicle stood out.

[00:28:33] It had sharp angles.

[00:28:34] Reminder of her car her father had had.

[00:28:37] She did not recall the color of the car, but she said it was not bright.

[00:28:42] She said – I believe her dad had a 1965 Ford Comet.

[00:28:47] It was not bright.

[00:28:48] It was not red or yellow.

[00:28:49] And then Baldwin said, you know, basically, you said it wasn't black.

[00:28:53] And, of course, I believe Alan's car was black.

[00:28:55] And she said – I don't recall saying that, but then he brought up her deposition from April 2nd, 2019.

[00:29:01] And in that, she indicated she didn't think it was black.

[00:29:04] It wasn't black.

[00:29:05] So she said it was a nondescript color.

[00:29:10] And –

[00:29:11] Why don't you –

[00:29:12] Also, she sketched it.

[00:29:13] She sketched it for police.

[00:29:15] She drew it, just kind of like an outline of it.

[00:29:18] And she said it looked like a – did not look like a hatchback.

[00:29:20] It looked like a four-door sedan.

[00:29:23] What were you going to say, Boo?

[00:29:24] I was like, why don't you go ahead and go through the cross, and then I will explain my feelings about the ultimate value or lack thereof of today's testimony.

[00:29:34] Yes, sir.

[00:29:35] So Stacey Diener handled cross-examination.

[00:29:38] She also – now, this is something where, you know, everyone keeps on – you know, it's always like, well, you said this later.

[00:29:45] But then, like, the day after the murders that you were saying, like, everyone – it's kind of like an arms race to see who can get the best statement earliest.

[00:29:53] Because I think we all – if you ask me what happened today, tomorrow, I could probably give you a good summary.

[00:30:00] But, like, a year from now, it might be a struggle to recall all the details.

[00:30:04] So it turned out – so we mentioned the 2019 deposition had some more of those details.

[00:30:12] But February 17, 2017, Blair gave a statement to investigators.

[00:30:18] And that included the following information.

[00:30:21] She noticed a car closer to the building and found it odd just where it was parked because it wasn't parked where people usually park there.

[00:30:30] And it was not shiny.

[00:30:32] It was not new.

[00:30:33] It was a nondescript color.

[00:30:37] And, you know, maybe an older model vehicle.

[00:30:40] And where I kind of got where Diener was going with this is we heard from another defense witness, Brad Heath, who said he saw kind of an older-looking car in that area.

[00:30:51] Is that fair?

[00:30:51] Yes.

[00:30:54] And Diener said that basically, like – no, I didn't get this, so feel free to, like, fill in for me.

[00:31:00] But had Diener deposed Blair recently or had they talked?

[00:31:05] I wasn't clear on that.

[00:31:06] It was not clear.

[00:31:07] But there was some kind of thing where it changed Blair's recollection.

[00:31:12] And she said, quote, you know, talking about – I believe talking about the type of car that Heath described, which he said was not parked at the CPS but very nearby.

[00:31:21] Right.

[00:31:22] She said, quote, I feel certain that that's the shape of the car at this time, end quote.

[00:31:29] And Diener also asked about her eyesight.

[00:31:31] She indicated that she wears contact lenses and has them on all the time.

[00:31:36] Baldwin did not do any follow-ups.

[00:31:40] And –

[00:31:41] Do you want to do the juror questions and I'll say my piece?

[00:31:43] Sure.

[00:31:43] But, I mean, like –

[00:31:47] So what – is my analysis of that what you took away from it?

[00:31:51] That's what I took away from it.

[00:31:53] Basically, Diener pushed it into being the Brad Heath car, which was already shown to not really be at CPS.

[00:31:59] Right.

[00:31:59] So it made it sound like Blair may have made – may have made a mistake.

[00:32:05] But an understandable one because, I mean, it's a minor detail.

[00:32:08] And she indicated very strongly in 2017.

[00:32:11] I didn't get a lot of details on this.

[00:32:13] I think this witness was pushed and pushed and pushed over time to like, hey, do you remember this?

[00:32:17] Hey, do you remember this?

[00:32:18] And I think, like, that's a risky thing.

[00:32:21] And I can understand why law enforcement was desperate to have those details.

[00:32:24] But it almost sounds like maybe that wasn't, you know, the best thing because maybe sometimes if someone just doesn't remember, they just don't remember.

[00:32:33] And so the jury questions seemed to reflect some kind of misunderstanding about the CPS building.

[00:32:41] One was, is it possible the car belonged to an employee at the CPS?

[00:32:45] And what Blair indicated was correctly at the time the building was abandoned.

[00:32:48] And also the second question was, has anyone checked to see if it was an employee's?

[00:32:52] And again, no, because the building was abandoned.

[00:32:53] There were no employees.

[00:32:54] So here was my reaction to this.

[00:32:58] And we can go back and forth about it.

[00:33:01] I don't know if you entirely agree with my reaction or not.

[00:33:04] So the inherent premise of the defense's questioning is that the state has claimed that the car parked at the CPS lot was the car of Bridge Guy, the car of the person who kidnapped and brutally murdered Abby and Libby.

[00:33:23] But the thing is, the other day when Lieutenant Jerry Holman of the United States Police testified, he clearly said, we don't have a theory about where he parked.

[00:33:34] We don't really care where he parked.

[00:33:35] We don't need to prove that because we know he was there.

[00:33:39] By his own admission, he was there.

[00:33:42] So we don't need to prove where he parked.

[00:33:45] It would be as if I said, Anya, I promise you I did not go to Captain D's last night.

[00:33:51] And then somehow you are able to get a picture of the parking lot two blocks away where I always park, where I try to sneak in a visit to Captain D's and say, ah, Kevin, there's your car.

[00:34:02] You were there.

[00:34:03] It's not a situation like that.

[00:34:04] It is as if I said, Anya, I went to Captain D's last night.

[00:34:09] And you said, oh, yeah, here's a picture of your car there.

[00:34:12] Or here's a picture of another car there.

[00:34:14] Who cares?

[00:34:15] So you're basically saying you don't care where he parked.

[00:34:18] I don't think it matters.

[00:34:19] I don't think it matters if this was his car or not because we know by his own admission that he was there.

[00:34:27] And if we know that, why does it matter if this was his car or not?

[00:34:31] And the state in the form of Jerry Holman has explicitly said we don't have a theory about where he parked.

[00:34:37] Our theory covers what he did on that bridge and what he did immediately after.

[00:34:42] Yeah, I hear you.

[00:34:44] I understand the need for people to want to fill in all the details.

[00:34:47] And this kind of element of it has long been something that's been raised by the state is important.

[00:34:51] But at the same time, I think also just the fact that I think Betsy Blair did the right thing, came forward, tried to give what she knew.

[00:34:59] But I don't feel like this was like a solid, yes, I saw the car and I completely remember it.

[00:35:06] And here's exactly like this is vague.

[00:35:09] This is vague.

[00:35:10] And she's driving by noticing something going about her day, not thinking in, you know, this is going to be really important later.

[00:35:19] Just like any of us driving by a building would not necessarily think it was going to be really important later.

[00:35:24] So to me, it's like maybe she saw a different car.

[00:35:27] Maybe she and Brad Heath saw the same car that's totally unrelated.

[00:35:31] Maybe he was parked there.

[00:35:32] Maybe he wasn't.

[00:35:33] And I guess I just like this seemed like a little bit more of an elevated version of some of what we've gotten from the defense, because at least it kind of had some bearing on things.

[00:35:40] But I think you're right.

[00:35:42] I would just be more concerned about finding his car somewhere in the vicinity if I needed to prove that he was there.

[00:35:49] And we don't need to prove that he was there because he himself tells us I was there.

[00:35:55] Why?

[00:35:56] Like, yeah.

[00:35:57] And there's a lot of different places he could have parked.

[00:36:00] I want to know more about what he was doing that day.

[00:36:04] Like, I know we know that his like but like I don't know.

[00:36:07] How did the family breakfast go or whatever they were doing at his mom's house in the Peru, Mexico area?

[00:36:13] You know what I mean?

[00:36:14] Like I like that would like like was it a tense family get together?

[00:36:20] Was it normal?

[00:36:21] Was it like when did he see his wife that afternoon?

[00:36:24] Like did he seem normal afterwards?

[00:36:27] Like I know like they're not going to get into that most likely, but I would love to know.

[00:36:31] And that would for me, like if I were on a jury, I'd be really wondering more about their client at this point and less about some of this kind of what feels like almost marginalia or minutia.

[00:36:44] Yeah.

[00:36:44] What was Richard Allen like in February of 2017?

[00:36:48] 2017 and what exactly was he doing on the 13th?

[00:36:54] Try to create some reasonable doubt.

[00:36:56] Shall we move on to the next witness?

[00:36:58] Can I just say something about his alcoholism?

[00:37:00] Because I've been thinking this and I don't know if I said this yet on the show, but I apologize if I did.

[00:37:05] And just like.

[00:37:08] He talked about there like I forget when this came up in the neuropsych or whatnot, but it was talked about where he was an alcoholic twice in his life.

[00:37:15] And that's terminology that I find.

[00:37:18] Confusing and disturbing because.

[00:37:21] Someone in recovery will tell you, like, you don't you know, like I'm not like I haven't had a drink in years, but I'm not I'm still an alcoholic.

[00:37:30] I'm not like you don't it's you're not cured, you know, it's you accept that about yourself and you realize that you're powerless over alcohol.

[00:37:37] And that's it.

[00:37:38] You don't see you can be 20 years sober.

[00:37:41] You can be 40 years sober.

[00:37:42] You're still an alcoholic.

[00:37:44] And part of winning or not winning part of recovery is just knowing that that about yourself.

[00:37:50] So you don't you don't make, you know, relapse essentially.

[00:37:54] And so the fact that he talked about descending into alcoholism twice and and also the fact that he talks about then just kind of, you know, in his confession, possibly casually knocking out three beers and more later.

[00:38:06] It just seems like.

[00:38:08] I would have loved to have more discussion about how his alcoholism kind of.

[00:38:14] Came about or like what what how that manifested itself.

[00:38:19] Like, would he become very belligerent when drunk or would he become more subdued?

[00:38:23] You know, like, I mean, there's I mean, all kinds of different possibilities.

[00:38:27] No alcoholic is going to be the same.

[00:38:28] No person if you've ever, you know, even if you're not an alcoholic, a lot of people have different kind of modes of being drunk.

[00:38:35] Some people might get more aggressive.

[00:38:36] Others might get more withdrawn, morose, silly, affectionate.

[00:38:41] I mean, all sorts of things.

[00:38:42] So I just I don't know.

[00:38:44] That's something I've been really curious about for a while, but I don't think we're going to get any more information on that.

[00:38:48] I don't think we are.

[00:38:50] It was just it was just telling the way he said that that like.

[00:38:54] That doesn't really.

[00:38:56] It doesn't sound like he was in any sort of like.

[00:39:00] I don't know.

[00:39:00] I'd be curious if he did any sort of program, but if he did, I would not expect him to be like, yeah, I was an alcoholic.

[00:39:06] Then I beat it.

[00:39:06] Then I'm an alcoholic again.

[00:39:07] Now I'm not.

[00:39:08] It's like, no, that's not.

[00:39:09] That's really not how it's talked about.

[00:39:11] It's not how it works.

[00:39:12] No, not at all.

[00:39:15] So next we got to meet.

[00:39:18] Dr. Stuart Grasset, another witness for the defense.

[00:39:21] This witness was presented by lead counsel, Bradley Rosie.

[00:39:26] And, you know, this guy had a very impressive background, education at Harvard, Brandeis, NYU Medical.

[00:39:34] More Harvard.

[00:39:36] He has a J.D.

[00:39:36] He's like, you know, and one of my favorite books as a teenager was Dracula.

[00:39:42] And Van Helsing is I believe he's a lawyer.

[00:39:46] He's J.D. and a physician.

[00:39:48] So this guy is also he's a he's got his jurist doctor and he's got his medical school.

[00:39:54] He is a psychiatrist board certified.

[00:39:57] He's taught on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.

[00:40:00] He also does clinical work out of his house.

[00:40:03] But what he's important about what he's his importance to this trial is that he has become essentially an expert on the effects of solitary confinement.

[00:40:12] You mentioned he was board certified.

[00:40:14] Was this the witness where Rosie said, well, I assume when you talk about being certified by a board, that means like there's a board that certifies you.

[00:40:23] Did that happen in my imagination?

[00:40:25] No, that did happen.

[00:40:26] I heard you chuckle when he said that.

[00:40:29] Yeah.

[00:40:29] He's trying to be casual.

[00:40:31] I don't know.

[00:40:31] I think he's done a way better job, Rosie, on direct than he has on cross.

[00:40:36] He is much better on direct.

[00:40:37] He's way better on direct.

[00:40:38] Like I like he was terrible on cross examination to be totally blunt.

[00:40:43] Like for the most part, like there were good ideas in there that just got lost in the woods of like just nonsense.

[00:40:50] But on direct, I think he's he's he's much better.

[00:40:53] So got a hundred percent.

[00:40:54] Got to give him the credit on that.

[00:40:57] And he.

[00:40:59] Yeah.

[00:40:59] So there's the board.

[00:41:00] He's certified by the board.

[00:41:01] He completed his residency in 77.

[00:41:06] And he's he's testified and we looked him up.

[00:41:09] He's testified in a lot of important high profile cases.

[00:41:14] One that comes to mind is the Millennium Bomber.

[00:41:16] He mentioned that.

[00:41:17] Although I thought it was funny when Rosie tried to coax him to.

[00:41:22] One thing that's interesting is Rosie did not ask him about payment.

[00:41:27] Nobody did.

[00:41:27] So I don't know whether that means he's doing a pro bono or I think he would have said that probably they could have.

[00:41:32] I mean, that would have been a nice layup for the defense.

[00:41:35] But no one asked him how much he was getting paid to be here.

[00:41:37] But he talked about working with the federal defenders on the Millennium Bomber case.

[00:41:41] And that was in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigations Behavioral Analysis Unit, according to him, where the guy had been cooperating.

[00:41:49] But then he went into solitary confinement and he stopped cooperating and they wanted to get him back so he could cooperate more.

[00:41:53] So he was using that even though he was working with the defense is like, I'll be willing to work with law enforcement because in this case, like it was to get this guy better so he could give us more information.

[00:42:02] So, you know, I mean, I didn't think that was a great example because he was working with the defense.

[00:42:06] So, like, I saw what he was saying.

[00:42:10] And he talks about how he basically his job is with this to come in and talk about solitary confinement to jurors and talk about the psychological effects of it, psychiatric effects to kind of understand the mental illness and how that's affected.

[00:42:25] And he's done cases where money has been awarded to prisoners who I think were wrongfully, solitarily confined.

[00:42:33] And he got involved in this case because Brad Rosey reached out to him at some point and let him know that Richard Allen had made some incriminating statements while in solitary confinement.

[00:42:46] And so Rosey gave him a variety of reports, transcripts of interviews, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:42:53] I believe most, if not all of them were from November 22 to June of 23.

[00:42:59] And then Rosey said, well, what do you think about the incriminating statements he made?

[00:43:05] And the man began to say, well, it's no doubt that.

[00:43:07] And then Stacey Dino said, may we approach.

[00:43:11] The one thing he wasn't supposed to do.

[00:43:15] And I really wonder, did Brad Rosey really prep him at all other than maybe a short conversation in the hallway?

[00:43:21] Because at times it didn't seem like it or didn't seem like this guy was regarding it anyway.

[00:43:26] But he talked about how he looked at Dr. Westcott's report, medical records, videos.

[00:43:32] But it seemed like it sounded like the most problematic videos, frankly, audio interviews with other inmates, you know, blah, blah, blah.

[00:43:41] And this is this is all informing where he is.

[00:43:46] There's the sidebar.

[00:43:50] White noise machine goes on.

[00:43:52] Then they get back.

[00:43:53] So Brad Rosey starts out.

[00:43:55] Let's talk about solitary confinement.

[00:43:56] What does that phrase mean clinically?

[00:43:58] And he talked about how.

[00:44:04] What this can like basically individual confinement, usually in a small space, limited opportunities for different kinds of stimulation.

[00:44:12] Quote, it's an enormously lonely, helpless environment.

[00:44:15] End quote.

[00:44:16] That he also described as toxic for mental health.

[00:44:19] And.

[00:44:23] Yeah.

[00:44:26] I guess they one thing that I think Diener asked a couple of.

[00:44:34] Foundational questions here.

[00:44:35] Yes.

[00:44:36] And one of them was like, did you ever visit the WCU?

[00:44:40] Did you ever visit Alan there?

[00:44:41] And he did not.

[00:44:43] No.

[00:44:46] And one thing that I want to I want to be clear, I thought Dr.

[00:44:50] Grassian was very impressive.

[00:44:52] His credentials are very impressive.

[00:44:53] He's worked on a lot of important cases and obviously feels very passionately about the fact that, you know, he believes that solitary confinement is always wrong.

[00:45:02] Even in instances, perhaps when it's done for safekeeping, like in Richard Allen's case, it's just too mentally toxic.

[00:45:09] And like, I mean, again, I found him very credible in that sense.

[00:45:12] But.

[00:45:14] One thing with academic witnesses in particular is I think.

[00:45:19] Here we go.

[00:45:20] Well, no, it's not even really a criticism.

[00:45:22] It's more of just like a reality that you see.

[00:45:26] They can be very, very well informed and factual and or, you know, just passionate, perhaps.

[00:45:31] And.

[00:45:32] But the problem is sometimes they can be a little bit like.

[00:45:35] Here we go.

[00:45:36] I don't know how to say it.

[00:45:37] Like he would ramble a lot.

[00:45:40] You kind of go off.

[00:45:41] He was kind of very professorial.

[00:45:42] And when you're in a lecture hall or like kind of listening to someone like that, that might be exciting of like, oh, yes, it reminds me of a study I did.

[00:45:50] But.

[00:45:51] But what the attorneys want is a lot narrower.

[00:45:55] Well, let's think.

[00:45:56] Let's think of it like this.

[00:45:57] If I have a car, if I have problems with my car and you said, Kevin, what's wrong with your car?

[00:46:02] I'd say, oh, it won't start.

[00:46:04] But if I am a car mechanic and you ask me what's wrong with my car, I'll go into a lot more detail about what exactly is wrong with the car that is making it unable to start.

[00:46:15] And I don't even know what that would be.

[00:46:17] You can't even cite an example.

[00:46:19] I can't.

[00:46:19] So he was more like that.

[00:46:21] He was giving a lot of unnecessary detail.

[00:46:23] They just wanted to.

[00:46:24] Oh, the car doesn't start.

[00:46:25] And so and especially when there are constraints on this, because he's not supposed to be getting up there and saying Richard Allen was lying when he confessed to murder.

[00:46:31] And he didn't seem to really get that at times because he kept on like walking up to the third rail.

[00:46:36] And at times, I remember there were times where the judge, Rosie and Dean are all like, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:46:42] Like, stop.

[00:46:43] You know what I mean?

[00:46:43] Like, sir, wait a minute.

[00:46:45] You know, and I don't know whether that was because he wasn't prepped appropriately or because perhaps he just wasn't used to that.

[00:46:50] But, you know, again, like he's he's informative.

[00:46:53] He's credible.

[00:46:54] It's not really a criticism.

[00:46:55] It's just more of an observation where you can have this kind of thing happen.

[00:46:58] Then I think where someone it's almost like they have a hard time turning it off.

[00:47:06] I mean, like I get like that with Jamestown and the Lincoln assassination.

[00:47:10] Like, if you get me started, run like you don't want to be there all day.

[00:47:14] You don't want to be dealing with this all day.

[00:47:15] But like, you know, like if you put me up on the stand, I'm sure everyone would be screaming at me by the end.

[00:47:21] The jurors would be throwing their notes at me to get me to stop.

[00:47:23] But like this guy was no matter what you were tested, no matter what they know enough.

[00:47:27] But this guy wasn't wasn't that bad.

[00:47:29] Not at all.

[00:47:30] But there was a little bit of it.

[00:47:33] It would just kind of like he was talking over Diener.

[00:47:36] She's trying to interject with an objection.

[00:47:39] Rosie's saying, wait, like it just would get a little chaotic at times.

[00:47:42] Not not too bad, but just a just a little bit of that.

[00:47:45] Is that fair to say?

[00:47:46] That's fair to say.

[00:47:47] But I mean, he had some really interesting points to make.

[00:47:49] And I thought his his I mean, I think there's I think when it comes to these topics, I think issues like how we treat people who may or may not be mental ill, mentally ill in prison.

[00:48:01] What does what should safekeeping look like?

[00:48:04] You know, is solitary confinement even in the context of safekeeping, like solitary confinement for punishment is something different, obviously, than like doing it when you're trying to make sure the other prisoners don't, you know, shank your, you know, the defendant.

[00:48:18] But at the same time, like, how do we deal with all this?

[00:48:21] These are all kind of big picture, interesting questions.

[00:48:24] I don't think they really bear that much on the gills or innocence of Richard Allen, frankly, but I can understand why the defense is raising them.

[00:48:31] But yeah, I guess it's just kind of.

[00:48:34] Did you want to talk about the delirium stuff?

[00:48:36] Yeah, sure.

[00:48:37] Go ahead.

[00:48:37] Go ahead.

[00:48:38] Well, you you you queued it up where you do it.

[00:48:41] I was queuing it up for you to take care of.

[00:48:43] Oh, my God.

[00:48:44] Thank you.

[00:48:44] No problem.

[00:48:45] Teeing me up.

[00:48:48] So I'm looking delirium quote.

[00:48:50] Delirium is the inability to maintain an adequate state of awareness.

[00:48:54] End quote.

[00:48:55] It can be due to things like sepsis, respiratory failure, heart failure.

[00:49:02] Or then.

[00:49:03] OK, then somehow we went.

[00:49:05] OK.

[00:49:05] When he was saying that he felt he listened to some of Richard Allen's phone calls to his wife and he felt that Richard Allen was exhibiting symptoms that were consistent with a state of delirium.

[00:49:17] Now is when you want to get into the false memories.

[00:49:19] No, I want to get into the eye patch.

[00:49:21] Where did that come out of?

[00:49:23] Suddenly he's talking about eye patches and iron lungs.

[00:49:26] Am I delirious?

[00:49:28] Did I imagine that?

[00:49:30] What?

[00:49:30] I remember the iron lung part.

[00:49:32] Yeah.

[00:49:32] He was like sometimes people I think it was like sometimes people come delirious and kind of unique situations almost like someone with.

[00:49:38] Well, if you're an iron lung, you're pretty isolated.

[00:49:41] You're isolated.

[00:49:41] But there's something there was something about an eye patch.

[00:49:44] OK, well, maybe there wasn't.

[00:49:46] I don't know.

[00:49:46] See, this is what we're talking about.

[00:49:48] See it like I have the eye patch.

[00:49:50] No one else does.

[00:49:51] Maybe don't listen to me.

[00:49:52] It's a good example of what we're talking about.

[00:49:55] There was something about an eye.

[00:49:56] Like I wrote what does it say?

[00:49:57] You know, it just says eye patch and it has a bunch of question marks next to it.

[00:50:01] And I circled it like you circled it.

[00:50:03] Well, thanks, Anya of the past for taking great notes there because now I'll never know.

[00:50:08] But OK, so I'm sure it was my fault.

[00:50:12] I'm sure your notes are completely accurate.

[00:50:13] I do not have eye patch in my notes.

[00:50:15] He seemed like he seemed.

[00:50:16] But again, he's kind of the professorial type.

[00:50:18] So we kind of did ramble a bit.

[00:50:19] But even the iron lung thing, like I get what he was saying, but it was like could be a little bit narrower.

[00:50:26] And what happened next?

[00:50:28] Well, Rosie started talking about false memories.

[00:50:31] Sometimes people in some of these states start remembering things that didn't happen.

[00:50:36] Otherwise, in other words, they have false memories.

[00:50:38] And so when Stacey Diener took over for the cross exam, that's what she wanted to focus on.

[00:50:47] In essence, his testimony is only relevant to the case if he is arguing that Richard Allen had false memories when he made the confessions.

[00:50:56] So she wanted to talk about that.

[00:50:59] And she asked him some questions.

[00:51:01] But for some reason, he interpreted her questions as wanting to hear about false memories in child sexual abuse cases.

[00:51:07] Oh, like because he almost did she think he referenced a study or he referenced some kind of study and then he was indicating, no, I was actually talking about a different study that I did.

[00:51:17] She's like, no, tell me about the other.

[00:51:19] Like there was this went on for a while.

[00:51:22] And but and then she tried to hone in and she wanted him to talk about if you have.

[00:51:29] Would a false memory be detailed and logical because Richard Allen's confessions, especially his confessions to Dr.

[00:51:38] Walla was very detailed and logical, had cause and effect.

[00:51:42] And she wanted to know, would a false memory be like that?

[00:51:47] I think he kind of hemmed and hawed.

[00:51:48] He basically said, like, quote, that's not an intrinsic trait or no.

[00:51:53] I'm sorry, quote, that's not intrinsic to it, end quote.

[00:51:57] And she asked, like, would real memories include like how it made you feel or like would that be a true memory?

[00:52:02] And he said, I'm really confused by your question.

[00:52:05] And then then she asked about, like, are there critical factors when you're like looking like at safekeeping and having someone in a one man cell versus like solitary confinement for punishment?

[00:52:16] And he basically indicated, like, no matter what the reason, the effects are, you know, that's what he's focused on.

[00:52:24] Yeah, I believe she was trying to highlight the fact that Richard Allen was in a cell by himself, but it wasn't to punish him.

[00:52:31] It was rather to protect him from the other inmates.

[00:52:35] And Rosie doubled down on that in his redirect saying, you know, where he got him to say basically the conditions of confinement are the defining factor.

[00:52:43] So the reason isn't, you know, the intent isn't what matters.

[00:52:47] It's what it what is what is the person experiencing?

[00:52:50] Yes.

[00:52:50] So jury questions.

[00:52:54] Do you believe psychotic behavior could go away after the end of solitary confinement?

[00:53:01] And he said, yes.

[00:53:04] And do you believe a normal person can become psychotic after just six to 12 months in solitary confinement?

[00:53:11] He said, yes, absolutely.

[00:53:13] Was that it?

[00:53:14] That was it.

[00:53:16] Now we are going to move on to a very important witness.

[00:53:21] Yes.

[00:53:21] Actually, the title of the episode is The Bullet, I believe.

[00:53:24] The Bullet.

[00:53:25] The Bullet, I believe.

[00:53:26] I really shouldn't have called it that because it's a cartridge.

[00:53:29] So apologies to all the forensic exams.

[00:53:31] So you should have called it cartilage.

[00:53:33] Oh.

[00:53:33] So the witness was presented by Brad Rose and it was Eric Warren.

[00:53:37] So the bullet, of course, this is the bullet that was discovered at the crime scene near the bodies of the girls.

[00:53:44] And this bullet, according to the Indiana State Police, can be ballistically linked to a gun that was found in Richard Allen's home.

[00:53:54] A gun that Richard Allen told police no one but him had access to.

[00:53:58] So if a bullet from his gun ends up near the bodies of two deceased girls, that's obviously bad for him.

[00:54:07] And so it's important for the defense to say, hey, that's not necessarily his bullet, folks.

[00:54:12] And so they called this gentleman, Eric Warren, in to try to raise doubts about the validity of the testing that got that result about the bullet.

[00:54:22] Yeah, and it's interesting.

[00:54:23] You mentioned Rosie asking some of the witnesses their age the other day, but he didn't ask, I believe, Gratian or Warren that.

[00:54:31] So maybe, I don't know.

[00:54:32] So maybe I had a point.

[00:54:34] Maybe you did.

[00:54:34] I don't know.

[00:54:35] You're just a gentleman.

[00:54:36] What a shock.

[00:54:37] He only asked the women their age.

[00:54:40] I'm sure it was just an oversight.

[00:54:42] I don't know.

[00:54:43] But so Warren is from near Memphis, Tennessee, and he's now with his own company, SEP Forensic Consultants.

[00:54:51] He previously worked, I believe, for six years with the – yeah, I remember that.

[00:54:58] We'll talk about it.

[00:54:58] We'll talk about that in a minute.

[00:55:00] With the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

[00:55:02] Six years is going to become important later.

[00:55:04] And he went to Vanderbilt.

[00:55:06] He got his doctorate in biochemistry.

[00:55:09] He had a BA in molecular biology.

[00:55:13] And he was a special agent of forensic science, working specifically on forensic firearm.

[00:55:20] He's also a board member of AFTI, right?

[00:55:25] I'm going to look up what that stands for because they said it, but, you know, it's hard to write everything down.

[00:55:30] Isn't it like firearms and tool mark examination?

[00:55:33] Yeah, but I don't want to guess, you know.

[00:55:35] Let's see.

[00:55:36] AFTI.

[00:55:38] Let's see.

[00:55:39] Yeah.

[00:55:39] No, that's not that one.

[00:55:41] It's ironic.

[00:55:42] This is totally unplanned.

[00:55:44] But in the middle of an episode, Anya is doing research via a Google search.

[00:55:49] So put a pin in that, and we will discuss something later in the episode that happened after we were no longer in court, but we heard about from a couple of people who were there.

[00:55:59] I like that a lot.

[00:56:00] And I think I said it wrong.

[00:56:02] It's the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners.

[00:56:06] So it's A-F-T-E, not I.

[00:56:09] I wrote down I for some reason because, I don't know.

[00:56:12] I wasn't thinking about it.

[00:56:14] All right.

[00:56:15] So what's next?

[00:56:16] So Brad Rosey asked him, asked Dr. Warren to, Dr. Warren, Brad Rosey asked Warren to invest.

[00:56:24] He was a doctor.

[00:56:25] Was a doctor.

[00:56:25] He's a doctor.

[00:56:26] So Brad Rosey asked Dr. Warren to review the work product done by Melissa Oberg, who was the analyst for the United States Police, who did the work that tied the bullet to the gun.

[00:56:38] He wanted her to examine her work product and look at what she documented and determine if he felt that her result was sufficiently documented by the pictures and stuff that she took.

[00:56:50] And Warren indicated, well, I feel that the defense lawyers gave me all the data I needed in order to do this.

[00:57:00] It will be important later.

[00:57:02] And the documentation they gave him included lots of pictures.

[00:57:09] Lots of pictures.

[00:57:10] Now, if you recall some things we may have reported, I normally remember, in our episode about Oberg, the picture aspect is going to become important later.

[00:57:21] We're doing a lot of foreshadowing here, I think.

[00:57:24] Yes.

[00:57:25] About like whether you can actually determine and sort of check another examiner's work based on photographs alone.

[00:57:34] Right?

[00:57:40] So, yeah, this is important to stress.

[00:57:42] He did not do his own analysis on the bullet itself or the gun.

[00:57:48] He was just looking at pictures.

[00:57:51] Yes.

[00:57:52] And Melissa Oberg's reports.

[00:57:55] And her reports.

[00:57:56] Right.

[00:57:57] And he, I mean, cut to the chase.

[00:58:00] He indicated he had doubts whether or not the results were justified by the documentation.

[00:58:07] Yes.

[00:58:07] He felt it was underdocumented.

[00:58:09] He raised issues around subclass characteristics.

[00:58:13] And these are sort of to break down the different types of classes.

[00:58:17] There's classical, which is characteristic of like lots of guns.

[00:58:22] Like it's hard.

[00:58:23] That's the broadest group.

[00:58:25] Individuals, the narrowest group where you're like unique to a specific firearm.

[00:58:29] And subclass are more like you can narrow it down more, but it's not going to tell you what gun did it.

[00:58:36] Just maybe more like what type of gun or like kind of like it'll get you closer, but it's not quite.

[00:58:43] You can't identify a gun based on that.

[00:58:45] Right.

[00:58:46] Is that did I do that right?

[00:58:47] To my understanding.

[00:58:49] There's a lot of he did mention in the beginning that like when you're looking at.

[00:58:53] So the pictures are from a microscope.

[00:58:56] Right.

[00:58:57] So the.

[00:58:59] The pictures are from like when they're looking under a microscope.

[00:59:02] And what he said is like that is a very thin slice.

[00:59:05] And microscopes have like very narrow depth of depth, essentially fields.

[00:59:15] And like you kind of like you can't necessarily capture what you're seeing with a photograph.

[00:59:20] In other words, what Ober compared it to is like a movie.

[00:59:23] If you if you freeze a movie and you get a frame, you're not getting the same experience as the movie.

[00:59:29] It's just a part of a movie.

[00:59:31] Yes.

[00:59:32] She said, for instance, you could have me how take a frame from E.T.

[00:59:36] And maybe it's just a guy on a bike that doesn't really give you the flavor of the entire film of E.T.

[00:59:42] The extraterrestrial.

[00:59:42] Yeah.

[00:59:43] It's not like a movie about a cyclist.

[00:59:45] So, yeah, let's see.

[00:59:50] Talk to some talk about cycled rounds.

[00:59:52] He mentioned that that would be from a semi-automatic firearm, which had the capability of extracting from the chamber and ejecting the cart.

[01:00:04] The cartridges.

[01:00:08] And then he talked about like extraction and ejection.

[01:00:12] Those are the kind of pieces that kind of get get rid of that.

[01:00:16] Gosh.

[01:00:18] Should we move on to the cross?

[01:00:19] Well, I just want to make sure we're not missing anything.

[01:00:22] I think, again, Rosie.

[01:00:23] Rosie is doing a good job.

[01:00:24] You know, I feel like he's doing a good job with his directs.

[01:00:28] Just just in terms of lawyering.

[01:00:32] And there was discussion about like he said that you don't want to.

[01:00:39] So it was discussion of Oberg basically did the experiment with like a fired round.

[01:00:45] Yeah.

[01:00:45] Right.

[01:00:46] Because that mark showed up better on that than the unfired round.

[01:00:51] And what Warren said is that typically you want to have apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

[01:00:56] So he would have done it differently.

[01:00:58] He would have just not fired the round.

[01:01:04] Because, quote, you want to make sure you get the closest end quote to whatever was the original situation.

[01:01:13] Was there anything else?

[01:01:15] Oh, they're talking about like ISP protocols.

[01:01:20] Error rates.

[01:01:21] We went into that.

[01:01:22] You know.

[01:01:24] I remember at some point during all this, you're talking about ISP protocols.

[01:01:27] At some point, Rosie and this witness wanted to talk about, hey, folks, you know, there's a ballistics lab in Rhode Island that sure had some problems.

[01:01:35] Oh, yeah.

[01:01:36] I remember that.

[01:01:37] And the prosecution was saying what relevance is.

[01:01:40] Luttrel.

[01:01:41] Yeah.

[01:01:41] You got it.

[01:01:42] Luttrel.

[01:01:43] You nailed it.

[01:01:45] Well, prosecutor Luttrel.

[01:01:47] You don't have to apologize to that man in his family anymore.

[01:01:49] He was saying what possible relevance does a lab in Rhode Island have to this case?

[01:01:57] And that was a very fair point.

[01:01:59] Should we move on to.

[01:02:00] I think at one point Gull was like, but the ISP lab hasn't been disgraced nationally.

[01:02:05] She didn't say it like that, but it was like she was.

[01:02:07] Unlike the Rhode Island lab, the ISP lab is just fine.

[01:02:11] Yeah.

[01:02:11] Should we move on to Luttrel's cross?

[01:02:14] Luttrel.

[01:02:15] These.

[01:02:16] Yeah.

[01:02:17] So also, like, I think he was raising a lot of it.

[01:02:19] Listen, I don't feel like I'm smart enough to understand a lot of the science.

[01:02:22] Let's move on to the cross.

[01:02:23] Yeah.

[01:02:24] So this cross examination is also important because if the jury is left, if Dr. Warren gives persuasive testimony that is believed by the jury,

[01:02:37] that could possibly be a problem for the prosecution.

[01:02:42] The bullet is by no means the only evidence against Richard Allen.

[01:02:47] It's one piece of many.

[01:02:48] But if it was knocked out, that would be a problem.

[01:02:52] Can I say one thing?

[01:02:54] Please do.

[01:02:55] CMS.

[01:02:55] Let's just define this before we get.

[01:02:57] A lot of the fireworks are about CMS.

[01:03:00] Okay.

[01:03:01] Before we get to it, go ahead.

[01:03:03] Interrupt with a CMS talk.

[01:03:04] CMS confused me because at my old job, the CMS was the system we put our stories online with.

[01:03:09] So I kept on being like, what?

[01:03:10] But CMS is consecutive matching striae.

[01:03:13] And it's essentially used by forensic.

[01:03:16] It's supposed to kind of quantify.

[01:03:20] Like, we found this many, like, striae that matched.

[01:03:25] Like, you're supposed to find, like, a certain number.

[01:03:28] And then that, you know, is regarded in some circles as better or more accurate, it sounds like.

[01:03:33] Is that fair to say?

[01:03:34] Or at least that's how Warren sort of put it forward.

[01:03:37] That sounds great to me.

[01:03:38] Okay.

[01:03:38] Moving on.

[01:03:39] So as I was saying before that, this cross-examination, tremendously important because if this witness is accepted by the jury and is not discredited, that could possibly be an issue for the prosecution.

[01:03:54] It could possibly be a problem for the prosecution.

[01:03:57] So Latrell does this cross-examination.

[01:04:00] And I want to say it was a very well-done cross-examination.

[01:04:02] Spoilers.

[01:04:03] But it was interesting to me, first of all, he did do an extraordinary job.

[01:04:07] But he has a very different style in cross-examination than prosecutor Nick McClelland.

[01:04:14] We saw Nick McClelland do a very devastating cross-exam of Don Perlmutter back in the July and August hearings.

[01:04:23] And that cross-exam was like someone taking a giant cartoon mallet and slamming it into someone and just destroying them.

[01:04:33] Yeah.

[01:04:33] This cross-examination wasn't quite that inherently dramatic, but the end result, I think, was quite similar.

[01:04:42] This cross-exam was like imagine you're playing Jenga with someone.

[01:04:48] And this is what Latrell was doing.

[01:04:50] He would take away one piece here and one piece there very subtly.

[01:04:54] And you think, well, that doesn't really make much of a difference.

[01:04:57] And he keeps on picking away and taking out these pieces and pieces.

[01:05:00] And then all of a sudden the whole structure just falls.

[01:05:03] Yeah.

[01:05:04] It was brutal.

[01:05:05] It was a very impressive performance.

[01:05:09] And I'm sorry we missed this afternoon, but it was a treat to see this.

[01:05:13] I feel like I would rather see – because he went off on this witness.

[01:05:20] You're right.

[01:05:22] McClelland's was more fiery, but he got pretty fiery at a few points when he felt that this guy wasn't answering his questions.

[01:05:30] He has been, I would say, one of the more low-key attorneys in terms of his style.

[01:05:36] So it was kind of fun to see him kind of like – it was more explosive.

[01:05:42] I think like a couple of times I was just like – because again, I'm like, okay, it's a lot of talk about striations.

[01:05:47] And suddenly people are yelling, you know?

[01:05:49] I'm like, whoa.

[01:05:50] It was really great lawyering.

[01:05:52] It was good.

[01:05:52] Yeah.

[01:05:53] Congratulations to him and his family.

[01:05:54] Yeah, exactly.

[01:05:55] I'm like, no, seriously.

[01:05:56] Like he was really good.

[01:06:06] I think it got heated and it got very dramatic.

[01:06:09] And I think judging by the jury questions, he may have had a pretty big impact on how they perceived this witness.

[01:06:16] Latrell started by saying, oh, Melissa Olberg, who did this examination with the United States Police, she has many, many more years of experience than you.

[01:06:29] He would at times slightly sneeringly refer to this guy's six years of experience with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

[01:06:36] That's why we remembered it in the beginning.

[01:06:38] And he's like, would you be surprised to find out that she has much more experience than you?

[01:06:44] It was just like, oh, my God.

[01:06:48] There was a – what was the part when they started going – because I think Warren got heated back.

[01:06:54] And I think to his credit, like he started off like, you know, more conversational.

[01:06:59] But I think the intensity of the cross ultimately did get to him.

[01:07:04] Yes, it did.

[01:07:04] He seemed to get pretty frustrated.

[01:07:09] Yeah.

[01:07:10] And then there was a lot of like – he was like, so how many years did – like, you know – at first he was like, well, I worked there six to seven years.

[01:07:18] And then Luttrell pulls out his CV and it says, so you started in August 2009 and then went till October 2017.

[01:07:27] So he's like – like he's like kind of calling into question everything.

[01:07:32] Then they get into him not answering the question.

[01:07:35] So it was basically like, did Oberg indicate concerns about subclass characteristics on the ejector marks?

[01:07:46] Was that – was that – was that the dramatic question where things completely exploded?

[01:07:51] Not exactly the most like, you know, dramatic question in the world.

[01:07:56] But Warren kept on giving a long, complicated answer.

[01:08:01] And at one point, Luttrell's just yelling, you didn't answer my question.

[01:08:05] Yes.

[01:08:07] And then it was like, did she articulate any concern about subclass characteristics in the testing?

[01:08:13] And what he kept on – what Dr. Warren kept on saying was like, you can't tell because of the way she documented this.

[01:08:19] And then it's back and forth.

[01:08:21] Like they're just going at it.

[01:08:22] And then at some point, at some point, Luttrell accused him, quote, he's giving a speech to the jury.

[01:08:30] Like I'm not – the conflict.

[01:08:32] And then –

[01:08:35] Well, as we mentioned before, basically he did not do tests on this bullet.

[01:08:40] He just looked at pictures of the bullet and said, hey, here's what I think.

[01:08:43] And so Luttrell said, hey, do you remember when you once testified?

[01:08:48] You once testified that you cannot come to court and offer a conclusion or a result just by looking at pictures alone.

[01:08:56] You said in your testimony that you need to look at the exhibit yourself under a microscope.

[01:09:02] That was brutal.

[01:09:03] And Warren was like, I'm sure when I said that, I just made that one specific case.

[01:09:08] Yeah.

[01:09:09] Also, at some point, he said no, that Oberg did not see the subclass.

[01:09:13] Like it was like he was getting a lot of wins, I feel like.

[01:09:16] Luttrell?

[01:09:17] Yeah, over this guy.

[01:09:18] And then Luttrell says to him, well, you have your own lab, but it's not accredited.

[01:09:24] And Warren said, well, we meet the standards of accreditation.

[01:09:28] And Luttrell said, but isn't the whole point of accreditation that an outside body and not you makes the determination of whether or not you meet those standards?

[01:09:38] And he then gets – Luttrell then gets him to admit that Warren does not personally have a high opinion of accreditation in the first place.

[01:09:44] And he kept on then using like, oh, you can take or leave accreditation.

[01:09:47] So then he kept on using like, well, you could take or leave your microscope because at one point he asked Warren, what's the most important tool in your arsenal?

[01:09:57] And Dr. Warren said that my most important tool is myself.

[01:10:02] I get what he meant.

[01:10:03] I think he was saying like I need to be able to interpret it as a human being.

[01:10:09] Like that's an important aspect of what I do.

[01:10:11] So like I get what he was saying, but like –

[01:10:14] It didn't have the impact he wanted.

[01:10:16] No.

[01:10:17] No.

[01:10:19] There's a lot of fighting about microscopes.

[01:10:25] I – like at one point like I feel like – I feel like – I don't know whether this was during jury questions, but like I think like – like Luttrell almost started like laughing at one point or like he – like it was – it was – like I felt very tense during this part.

[01:10:42] Like I didn't expect the – and also like one thing that I think – because I kind of contrasted it because obviously Rosie and Luttrell are like the gun.

[01:10:53] People for their teams, their respective teams.

[01:10:56] And one thing – Rosie's was fiery.

[01:10:59] Rosie's got – you know, he was clashing and like – but I think one thing that made Luttrell's better was – first of all, he seemed to be getting under Warren's skin more.

[01:11:12] Again, to Warren's credit, I think he kind of held it off for a while, but he ultimately got frustrated.

[01:11:16] And I think when you do that, it lets the person doing the cross-examination kind of needle you more.

[01:11:22] And I also think that Rosie's just went on way too long, whereas this felt a lot shorter.

[01:11:32] I mean it certainly was a lot shorter.

[01:11:34] And it just felt like he was kind of knocking down all the pillars that he needed to do and like not – not being like, hey, how do you define sufficient?

[01:11:44] You know, like not bringing out like the online dictionary.

[01:11:48] Oh my gosh.

[01:11:49] Do you remember the part where he got him to say – he talked about like all these interviews he did and talked about CMS, which Warren says he now uses.

[01:11:58] He said, do you remember a case in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2021?

[01:12:03] You didn't use the CMS methodology.

[01:12:05] And in a quote he said – he said that Warren said, quote, it's a West Coast thing and end quote and not something that like he does in the Midwest.

[01:12:14] Like it's like some West Coast fad.

[01:12:19] Yeah.

[01:12:19] Yeah.

[01:12:19] So the big thing though I think that got this kind of going was the fact that Warren did not examine the bullet himself.

[01:12:29] And what Luttrell said was that he would have been able to – basically there would have been a court order.

[01:12:36] ISP Lab would have gotten it to him and he could have looked at it himself.

[01:12:42] And, you know, why that didn't happen.

[01:12:48] You know.

[01:12:50] Yeah.

[01:12:51] And I think didn't Warren say he didn't remember if he asked to do that or not?

[01:12:55] And also it came out that he didn't even prepare any kind of report.

[01:13:00] So he just looked at the images and came to a conclusion.

[01:13:03] I guess that was it.

[01:13:05] You want to get into these jury questions.

[01:13:07] At one point, Luttrell said, quote, you wouldn't have a take it or leave it approach to the comparison microscope if that – in that situation, would you?

[01:13:15] So, yeah.

[01:13:16] Let's get to the jury questions.

[01:13:18] These were also very brutal for the defense.

[01:13:21] This was an opportunity for them to really maybe turn things around with the bullets especially because I think there's been a lot of criticism of ballistics and firearms.

[01:13:29] And like so this was the time to shine.

[01:13:32] And I think the jury questions kind of speak for themselves.

[01:13:35] So, one was – I don't remember what the answer to this was like how would CMS be used.

[01:13:49] I think he just kind of explained what it was again.

[01:13:51] Yeah.

[01:13:53] Could a bullet change?

[01:13:55] Could like – could it – like the markings change if a gun was disassembled, cleaned?

[01:14:01] And he said not cleaned.

[01:14:02] Maybe if there was damage in the disassembly but otherwise no.

[01:14:06] Let me get to the brutal questions.

[01:14:09] Is there a reason you did not conduct your own analysis instead of just looking at pictures?

[01:14:16] And he said, well, I was just asked to look at the documents.

[01:14:18] You know, I wasn't asked to do anything else.

[01:14:20] And then the next question was, would your own analysis have been more conclusive?

[01:14:26] And he said, well, it's hard to say.

[01:14:28] You know, maybe if I'd done my own analysis, maybe I would have agreed with her.

[01:14:32] Or maybe I wouldn't.

[01:14:34] I don't know.

[01:14:35] Yeah.

[01:14:35] So, if you have your witness saying, well, after all, you know, on the second thought, maybe I would have agreed with her.

[01:14:41] That's not a compelling way for the witness to conclude his appearance on the stand.

[01:14:46] No.

[01:14:46] And they said, didn't you know that Oberg's results were verified by somebody else?

[01:14:53] Who agreed with her findings.

[01:14:55] Who agreed with her findings.

[01:14:56] And he tried to say, well, I don't really look too favorably on situations where it's just colleagues almost having a conversation and getting to that.

[01:15:04] And then Luttrell confronted him on that saying, well, you are very well aware if you read the report or something that her supervisor didn't know what her conclusions were when he made his findings.

[01:15:20] Right?

[01:15:21] Yeah.

[01:15:23] I felt, I don't really love conflict.

[01:15:27] I felt kind of bad for this guy by the end of it.

[01:15:30] Well, then why are you coming to trial?

[01:15:32] I don't know.

[01:15:32] I don't know why I'm here.

[01:15:34] I don't know why I'm here.

[01:15:35] It's always just conflict.

[01:15:35] What did you expect?

[01:15:37] Did you expect it to be like a tea party?

[01:15:38] It's fun sometimes, but it's like, oh, man.

[01:15:40] I'm just like watching people getting like ripped apart on the stand.

[01:15:46] Luttrell was very effective here.

[01:15:48] This was maybe one of the, I think, very, very good cross at this trial.

[01:15:53] Maybe one of the best.

[01:15:55] Because I think he was also an important one for the prosecution to kind of sink their teeth into.

[01:16:00] And they very much did.

[01:16:02] And I think your Jenga comparison was very good.

[01:16:04] It kind of started, started like, okay, here we go.

[01:16:07] And then suddenly it's like everything's collapsing.

[01:16:11] But yeah.

[01:16:13] Jeez.

[01:16:16] Okay.

[01:16:17] So then we're done.

[01:16:18] We were out of court.

[01:16:20] We didn't make it in for the afternoon.

[01:16:24] I'm loathe to rely too much on other accounts of what happened this afternoon because of some of the reasons we addressed at the top of the show.

[01:16:33] But we're capable of doing our own reporting and cultivating what we feel are good sources of information that we're not going to go into.

[01:16:42] Nice and mysterious.

[01:16:44] Very mysterious.

[01:16:45] I will say we could talk a little bit about something that happened in court.

[01:16:50] A defense witness named Stacy Eldridge, a former FBI forensic examiner.

[01:16:57] She offered testimony that the headphone jack to Libby German's phone apparently was manipulated a few minutes after the phone stopped moving.

[01:17:11] And then it was disconnected about five hours later.

[01:17:16] And so why is this significant?

[01:17:18] This is significant because the state's theory is that after the girls were taken, they were killed very soon after.

[01:17:27] And that the killer did not return to the crime scene and left the phone underneath the body of Abigail Williams.

[01:17:35] So if the phone is being manipulated hours later, that's a problem for the prosecution.

[01:17:44] And so this is what they were suggesting.

[01:17:47] There were there were some problems with this because even though they got this indication that something was plugged into the phone jack 10 minutes or so after it stopped moving, the phone itself didn't track any more movement.

[01:18:02] So that that was a problem.

[01:18:04] So.

[01:18:05] That's kind of interesting.

[01:18:07] But then it turned out that a bit later on, Christopher Cecil, who is the one of the Indiana State Police's phone experts, he indicated that.

[01:18:22] Give me a second here.

[01:18:24] That is I look at some of my notes.

[01:18:26] He indicated that he during a break, during a break, during a break in questioning, he went on to Google and basically Google.

[01:18:37] What could cause this to happen?

[01:18:40] Why would there be indication that the headphone jack could show that it had been manipulated in some way?

[01:18:48] And his Google search returned the result that that is something that could often appear to happen if the phone is either wet or dirty.

[01:19:00] Oh, gosh.

[01:19:01] And the thing is, obviously, the girls had just crossed the creek and they were the phone was lying in dirt.

[01:19:08] So it's it seems possible, if not likely, that what happened is this this phone was falsely reading that had been manipulated with simply because of water damage or damage from dirt.

[01:19:22] And the defense tried to reply to this by saying, oh, you're doing research on Google.

[01:19:27] What's what's wrong with you?

[01:19:28] Well, maybe your expert should have.

[01:19:30] Yeah, because.

[01:19:32] OK, so the defense's contention.

[01:19:34] And again, we're kind of piecing this together from hearing about it and from reading about it.

[01:19:38] But the defense's contention is that the phone was.

[01:19:44] I guess like something was plugged into it shortly after it stopped moving.

[01:19:50] And then.

[01:19:52] It's manipulated later on.

[01:19:54] So the killers at the scene doing all this.

[01:19:56] And apparently doing it without actually moving the phone.

[01:19:59] Right.

[01:19:59] So they're there somehow.

[01:20:02] I don't even.

[01:20:03] OK, I guess maybe that let's let's give them the better of the doubt, move the time of death of the girls.

[01:20:08] It's on the forest floor.

[01:20:09] They're plugging something into it, listening to it.

[01:20:13] OK.

[01:20:15] Or it gets dirty and wet.

[01:20:18] As the girls are being forced across the creek and up a bank.

[01:20:22] Right.

[01:20:22] Well, I know which one I think is more realistic, but, you know.

[01:20:26] And if I mean, what you said it was OJ was the one doing the direct on that one.

[01:20:32] Yes, my understanding.

[01:20:33] And McClellan was doing the cross.

[01:20:35] I believe so.

[01:20:36] But again, we were not there.

[01:20:39] But if Jennifer OJ's only comeback is, well, you just looked up on Google.

[01:20:43] Are you serious?

[01:20:43] Then, frankly, that's more of a criticism, I think, of her team than if people are just able to find that quickly.

[01:20:50] Like, this is when this happens.

[01:20:51] And we all know anyone who has a smartphone, I should say, knows that sometimes they're doing stuff and you're not really sure why.

[01:20:59] And then you look it up and you're like, oh, that's why.

[01:21:01] You know, there's a crack that I can't see and it's making it act weird in some way or it's making the screen dim.

[01:21:07] You know, and maybe those are things that the defense probably should have looked into or ruled out before they tried to piece it all together in a way that just fit their theory.

[01:21:16] Because if it's that easy to blow out of the water, so to speak, then that's not super good.

[01:21:22] So we missed their phone expert.

[01:21:25] What else?

[01:21:27] What was the phone expert's name again?

[01:21:30] Let me get back there.

[01:21:31] Yeah, I just want to be able to at least document it so people, if they're cross-referencing this with something else, they know what we're talking about, if that makes sense.

[01:21:38] I know they had two phone people that they were looking out, at least according to their budget.

[01:21:44] One was a gentleman.

[01:21:48] But it sounds like they ended up using the lady.

[01:21:52] Uh, the phone witness was Stacey Eldridge.

[01:21:57] They also recalled Christopher Cecil to the stand and they also called one of the crime scene investigators to the stand, Brunner.

[01:22:06] Brunner, okay.

[01:22:07] So that's what we missed?

[01:22:09] That's what we missed.

[01:22:10] Well, listen, I'm going to say I'm glad we missed that and not the morning's cross-examination.

[01:22:19] It's interesting because it feels like as time passes, the gap between the time when the defense makes an extraordinary groundbreaking claim and the time when that claim is debunked, the time between those things is getting shorter and shorter.

[01:22:37] The center cannot hold.

[01:22:39] I mean, at some point, yeah.

[01:22:42] I mean, I guess, listen, I mean, they, the goal seems to have always been to get a hung jury.

[01:22:49] So if they can convince one person on that jury that what they're saying is more plausible than what the prosecution is saying, I think they'll have succeeded at something.

[01:23:01] I think, um, barring that though, but you know, that's always possible.

[01:23:08] You never know.

[01:23:09] You never know.

[01:23:11] And again, our apologies for, uh, failing you and missing the afternoon sessions.

[01:23:16] Uh, hopefully we will do better.

[01:23:18] I don't know if we will, but we will certainly try because.

[01:23:21] We have some ideas.

[01:23:23] We have some ideas.

[01:23:24] We have some schemes.

[01:23:26] Yes.

[01:23:26] We're always scheming, as you know.

[01:23:28] No, I mean, not really, but I mean, we do have some ideas.

[01:23:30] So I think we'll be able to, to make something happen, but we don't know.

[01:23:34] And frankly, I don't know this.

[01:23:36] It's gotten so chaotic and people are just behaving so bizarrely that I don't know.

[01:23:40] Sometimes I'm, I'm for a while there, there was kind of a bit of a kumbaya vibe.

[01:23:44] I felt we're all like, kind of like in it together.

[01:23:46] And I think that changed over the weekend.

[01:23:48] That changed over the weekend.

[01:23:49] That really changed around the time the defense started its case.

[01:23:51] Cause I think a new group came in that are more interested in playing games than anything else.

[01:23:57] And so I think, you know, I don't know what's going to happen.

[01:24:02] I'm concerned, frankly, about like, if thing, I hope things don't get much crazier.

[01:24:07] Cause I don't like, we don't need, we don't need to be like brawls breaking out or anything like that.

[01:24:13] I mean, we've not seen that yet, but like, I'm just like, the vibe has gotten, we went from kumbaya to a little bit more like, okay, this might, this might get nasty.

[01:24:23] The good news, the good news is I don't think there is much time for things to get crazier.

[01:24:28] It doesn't take that long for things to get extra crazy, but we are very, very near the end of this process.

[01:24:37] I fully expect this to get to the jury this week.

[01:24:40] Yeah.

[01:24:42] I completely agree at this point.

[01:24:45] Feels like we're running on our, this is the last, I think this is the last leg.

[01:24:50] So, uh, well, I guess we'll kind of check in with you and see what happens tomorrow.

[01:24:55] And we're in our last legs ourself, but we would check in with you.

[01:24:58] Couldn't come soon enough.

[01:25:00] Thank you all so much for your patience with us.

[01:25:02] Thanks everyone.

[01:25:03] We really appreciate your patience and you sticking with us and just thank you very much.

[01:25:08] All right.

[01:25:08] Bye.

[01:25:08] Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet.

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[01:26:23] Thanks again for listening.

[01:26:24] Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this murder sheet episode.

[01:26:30] Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

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[01:27:40] Yes.

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[01:28:03] I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always – I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this.

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[01:28:09] Like I do quote him in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues.

[01:28:15] She quotes him to me all the time.

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[01:28:42] And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it.

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[01:29:01] But I also want to emphasize it's smart.

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[01:29:15] Yeah, and he's got a great community that he's building.

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