Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Doyle Wheeler Pt. One

Transcript

Doyle Wheeler Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Welcome back to the Pathwin Chili, I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm
0:35
Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. April nineteenth, nineteen eighty
0:40
eight, Suncrest, Washington, thirty six year old Doyle Wheeler, a former
0:46
police officer from the San Diego Police Department, is attacked inside his home by
0:51
a group of armed intruders. They forced Wheeler to write a suicide note.
0:55
At gunpoint, Hog tie him and fire a shot which grazes the side of
0:59
his head, but he winds up surviving the attack. Evidence seems to link
1:03
the intruders to another San Diego police officer named Donovan Jacobs, whom Wheeler had
1:07
testified against in a previous murder trial. While Wheeler suspects Jacobs of orchestrating the
1:14
attempt on his life, Jacobs believes the incident never even happened and accuses Wheeler
1:19
of fabricating the entire story in order to set him up, but the truth
1:23
about what actually happened remains unknown. After that, the Path went Chiley,
1:30
So today we're going to be doing something a little different from the norm,
1:33
as instead of exploring an unsolved murder or missing persons case. We are going
1:37
to explore an attempted murder in which the victims survived the attack, or,
1:41
depending on who you ask, an elaborate hoax which was orchestrated by the alleged
1:46
victim to set up his rival. The story involves a retired San Diego police
1:51
officer named Doyle Wheeler who had moved with his family to Washington State before he
1:55
was attacked in his home by a group of unidentified intruders who seemingly made affe
2:00
failed attempt to murder him. Wheeler immediately suspected that the incident was an elaborate
2:04
revenge scheme masterminded by another San Diego police officer named Donovan Jacobs. To say
2:09
the least, the two men did not like each other, as Wheeler had
2:14
previously taken the stand and said some not so flattering things about Jacobs during a
2:19
controversial trial. The case was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which
2:23
aired three decades ago, and was one of the more complex segments they ever
2:27
produced. It was a very multi layered story with connections to two of the
2:30
biggest criminal cases which took place in California during the nineteen eighties. The Sanya
2:36
Seedrome McDonald's massacre and the murder trial of Segon Penn. If you're looking for
2:42
the Unsolved Mystery segment on Amazon Prime or YouTube, you will not find it
2:46
because it actually only aired on television once and will be discussing the rumored reasons
2:51
for this in our next episode. For his part, Donovan Jacobs has always
2:54
maintained that he had no involvement in the attack on Doyle Wheeler, and has
2:59
even gone so far as to accuse Wheeler of staging the incident in order to
3:02
frame him. So on this series of episodes, we're going to look at
3:06
both sides of the story and also explore the possibility that the truth might actually
3:10
lie somewhere in the middle. Oh, this is fascinating. It's a he
3:15
said, he said kind of case. Clarify this for me when we talk
3:19
about Donovan and Doyle, was Doyle actually testifying against Donovan as a criminal or
3:28
was Donovan on the stand as a law enforcement officer recounting what he had done
3:31
in a criminal investigation And then you have his counterpart Wheelers up there accusing him
3:38
of things, and then that's the kind of riff is is Donovan already an
3:45
accused criminal or is he an officer who is questioned on his police duties.
3:51
It wasn't Jacobs himself going on trial. This trial will go into more detail
3:54
about later on. Was about a very controversial murder in which Jacobs was one
3:59
of the and Wheeler said some very unflattering things about them which kind of pointed
4:04
towards the defendant and painted him in a positive life because, as we're going
4:09
to talk about, the defendant would accuse Jacobs of escalating the situation which led
4:13
to the murder. And Wheeler was the only officer who broke the quote unquote
4:16
code of silence in order to say bad things about a fellow police officer.
4:21
Okay, okay, that makes a lot of sense. So I mean,
4:24
either way, I would have been kind of a red flag. But here
4:29
you have Wheeler who comes forward and speaks against an action of a fellow police
4:34
officer. We've seen these in major cases like George Floyd, you know,
4:39
and people are going there was one officer who said stop and no one listened,
4:44
and now he's the villain in the case from all law enforcement officers and
4:46
things like this. But it's just as strong as like a blood o's with
4:51
a gang, or the loyalty you have to a fellow military officer. When
4:57
you're in the military, it's I'm willing to put my life life on the
5:00
line for you, and that means the code of blue and the code of
5:03
silence above everything else. And so they take that very seriously. And unless
5:10
you were trained and raised by very ethical officers, it becomes so easy to
5:16
support and kind of boost up each other's immoral behaviors within an institution like that.
5:21
And so the fact that Wheeler comes forward and says like things might not
5:25
have been handled appropriately, and he comes out against Donovan Jacobs and says these
5:30
things were not done in a professional manner, not only would Donovan Jacobs be
5:33
against Wheeler, but you'd have a group of officers who also would be so
5:39
furious with him because he quote turned on a brother in uniform when really I
5:45
need to know more about it, but it sounds like Wheeler was doing the
5:47
right thing and saying it didn't go according to plan, it didn't go in
5:51
an ethical manner, and so very complicated scenario just to start this out,
5:58
and it does start to lay a groundwork of what type of revenge, how
6:01
much of a vendetta did Donovan Jacobs have with Wheeler? So tell me more.
6:08
We've never talked about a case where the person survived, and now we
6:11
need to know who done it. Our story begins in nineteen eighty eight in
6:16
Suncrest, Washington, a suburb which is located in Stevens County, nearly ten
6:23
miles northwest of Spokane. Our central figure is thirty six year old Doyle Wheeler,
6:29
who lives in a rural home with his wife, Bobby, and their
6:30
two children. Doyle is a former police officer with the San Diego Police Department
6:36
who's been retired from the force for the past two and a half years on
6:41
a stress related disability, which we'll be discussing in more detail in a little
6:45
while. On the afternoon of April nineteenth, Doyle was home alone fixing the
6:49
icemaker and his refrigerator when two men suddenly burst inside the kitchen. At the
6:55
time, the garage door was unlocked, so the intruders presumably used it to
6:59
end the house. Doyle would later describe both men as being in their late
7:03
twenties and having mustaches, with one of them being blonde and the other sporting
7:08
dark hair. One of the intruders pulled a twenty two caliber handgun on Doyle
7:13
while the other wrapped a rope around his neck, and they forced him into
7:15
a nearby office. While he was in there, Doyle claimed he could hear
7:19
the sound of someone else roundsacking the master bedroom upstairs, though he never got
7:25
a look at the third intruder. The two assailants told Doyle that they were
7:29
going to make him write a suicide note, but when he refused, they
7:32
started punching and kicking him. Doyle continued to resist, so they used cigarettes
7:38
to burn him on his chest and his back. Things finally reached a point
7:41
where the intruders told Doyle that if he did not do what they said,
7:45
they would wait for his children to arrive home and kill them. This threat
7:47
was enough to convince Doyle to cooperate, so the assailants grabbed a pen and
7:51
notepad and told Doyle what to write it read quote to the San Diego police,
7:58
I lied at the trial about Donovan Jacobs and the police department. I'm
8:03
sorry. I make this statement of my own free will. Doyle F.
8:05
Wheeler end quote. Holy cow, this is not just a home intrusion.
8:11
This is like a torture festival where they're saying, write this letter about specifically
8:18
to the police department, specifically about Donovan Jacobs. And you're telling me this
8:22
has nothing to do with the Donovan Jacobs situation. Bizarre. And then but
8:26
they're also holding this poor man hostage in his home and saying, you don't
8:31
do what we say, wait till your family comes home. We'll attack them
8:33
too. And they're already sitting there, putting a rope around his neck,
8:37
burning him, beating him wild. This is crazy, But they made him
8:43
write to the San Diego police I lied at the trial about Donovan Jacobs.
8:48
I'm sorry. What else could this possibly be about? How many people would
8:54
know this about Doyle? And that's what's so bizarre about this whole situation that
8:58
did anyone really think that they would buy this as a suicide note that this
9:03
guy is going to kill himself and write a note where he never mentions his
9:05
wife and kids. He mentions this one incident about a trial that took place
9:09
a few years ago, and just says that I make this statement of my
9:13
own free will, which sounds like a statement you would make when you don't
9:16
have any free will, when you're being coerced against your will. So that's
9:20
what's strange about it is that when you see this, it seems obvious that
9:24
Donovan Jacobs might have been the one who masterminded this, but it just seems
9:26
a little too easy. So the two men and took Doyle down into the
9:31
basement, hogtied him and leaned him over a couch face down. After the
9:37
dark haired man went upstairs, presumably to talk to the third intruder, he
9:41
returned the basement and walked into the adjacent laundry room, where he picked up
9:45
the phone in there to make a call. This prompted the blonde man to
9:48
switch on a nearby TV set and turn the volume up really loud so Doyle
9:52
cannot hear the phone call. When the dark haired man returned, he pulled
9:56
out one of Doyle's old San Diego police badges and pinned it to his He
10:00
then told Doyle that they were going to make his death look like a quote
10:03
unquote drug rip, before placing a pillow over the back of Doyle's head and
10:07
firing a shot down at him. Dole was pretty certain that this was the
10:11
end, but at the precise moment the gunshot was fired through the pillow,
10:15
he managed to jerk his head to the right. As a result, the
10:18
bullet only wound up grazing the left side of Doyle's head and piercing his ear.
10:22
Doyle then proceeded to play dead and lay still while the intruders exited the
10:26
basement. When he heard the sound of a vehicle driving away outside, Doyle
10:31
finally started moving again and made his way to the laundry room. While he
10:33
was still hogtied, He then knocked the phone off the table by tugging at
10:37
the cord with his foot, and proceeded to use his tongue to dial nine
10:41
one one and call for help. Okay, so tell me this. Are
10:45
these guys in masks? I mean, he knows their hair color? How
10:48
does he know their hair color? They're not in masks? No, Like
10:52
they actually showed their faces, and on Unsolved Mysteries they even released composite sketches
10:56
of these two men based on Doyle's description. And I should mention that the
11:01
actors who play these guys in the Unsolved Mysteries re enactments have some killer mullets.
11:05
So that's how you can tell this is the nineteen eighties. Fantastic and
11:09
rotary pune. No, I'm kidding, but okay, So then they came
11:13
there with the intent to kill. There was no other intent because if not,
11:16
if they were just gonna rob him and scare him, they would have
11:20
definitely covered their faces. Now, what's crazy to me and how blessed he
11:24
is? They only fired one shot. If I came there to hog tie
11:28
you to get you to write this confession, to try to, you know,
11:33
make this look like someone had come to kill you for drugs, I
11:37
would have shot you multiple times to make sure you were dead, especially if
11:41
we're related to the police department, so that you couldn't speak. Ever.
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Again, there's some tie whether it's actually Donovan driven or not, there's some
11:50
tie back to the police department. And they just shot him once, and
11:54
by the grace of God, he's just smart enough to move his head slightly
11:58
or by chance, moved his head slightly and lives through this event that was
12:03
designed with his death in mind. But they did write the suicide note correct,
12:07
Robin Well, it's kind of a weird thing where they asked Doyle to
12:11
write it out, but they didn't find the note itself. They only found
12:13
a legal pad with the outline of what Doyle hadrit written. So it's almost
12:18
like they came up with an idea to make him write this suicide note,
12:20
then maybe changed their mind and then got rid of the note itself, but
12:24
they were able to still make it out on the notepad. So I don't
12:28
know what they were trying to accomplish here, because they couldn't have done multiple
12:31
shots if they were going to leave the suicide note. But if you're going
12:33
to take the suicide note, you'd think you do like two to the chest,
12:37
one to the head, if you've abandoned this whole idea of trying to
12:41
fabricate a suicide. But I could see how if they'd already shot once and
12:46
they were leaving that there, and they'd go, oh, well, I
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guess we can't keep shooting. It can only be one shot. It's all
12:52
very confusing, But he's hogtied, like how was he going to shoot himself?
12:58
Anyway, they've gotten to the point where they beat him. They're like,
13:01
heng didn't they put a rope around his neck and all kinds of stuff
13:03
they did? Yeah, So it's like, how did they expect people to
13:07
buy it was a suicide when he's hogtied and has a wound to the back
13:09
of the head. So it's almost like they didn't think this through. Jules,
13:13
You're right. It's like it's like they go right to suicide, know,
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and then they look around, They're like, where's Fobby Malick when you
13:20
need him? Right? Oh exactly. I mean if Fabby was working there,
13:24
he would have ruled for sure. It wasn't long before the paramedics and
13:31
the Stevens County Sheriff's Department arrived to the scene, and Doyle was rushed to
13:35
the hospital for medical treatment. Ultimately, the gunshot, which grazed the side
13:39
of Doyle's head, only caused a minor wound, and he recovered quickly.
13:43
When police searched the Wheeler home, they discovered that the master bedroom had been
13:48
ransacked. Since Doyle's collection of badges from his time with the San Diego Police
13:52
Department was lying out in the open, it was theorized that the intruders had
13:56
been searching for a badge to pin do his checks. It turned out that
14:01
a Toyota Troussel station wagon, which belonged to Doyle's wife, was missing,
14:05
after presumably being stolen by the intruders. The following day, the station wagon
14:11
would be discovered twelve miles away in the parking lot of the Five Mile Shopping
14:16
Center in North Spokane. The Stephens County Sheriff's Department would also find a notepad
14:22
where Doyle had been forced to write a suicide note. When they saw the
14:24
words San Diego Police and Donovan Jacobs, investigators decided to contact the San Diego
14:31
Police Department, and they would make some surprising discoveries. They learned Donovan Jacobs
14:37
was a San Diego Police officer who was currently assigned to death duty after suffering
14:41
a serious injury in the line of duty. Incredibly, it would turn out
14:46
that the phone call made from Doyle's laundry room by the dark haired intruder had
14:50
been made to the department's narcotics division. Since they automatically recorded all incoming calls,
14:56
a recording could be found of a male caller asking for Donovan Jacobs.
15:01
When a secretary told him just a moment, the caller immediately hung up.
15:07
So why are we talking about this case? Doesn't it seem crazy that this
15:13
wouldn't be connected to Donovan Jacobs. There's literally a fight to get a suicide
15:20
note written excusing Donovan Jacobs from whatever claims Wheeler had made against him. They're
15:24
making phone calls from this guy's house to the narcotics department asking for Donovan Jacobs.
15:31
This is wild. It's also very dumb. If any of these individuals
15:35
are actually associated with the police department, have they never worked a criminal case
15:39
before? And that's what's so unique about this case, because thinking that Donovan
15:43
Jacobs did this almost seems too easy. And as we're going to talk about
15:48
later on, Jacobs would claim that whoever did this was trying to frame him
15:52
and set them up. And when he says, would I really be too
15:54
stupid to like hire guys and have them phone me from the victim's house,
15:58
you kind of you say, that's a valid point. I mean, it
16:00
just seems like if if Jacobs really did hire these guys and this is the
16:03
stupidest murder plot ever, unless you hired these guys and they do these things,
16:08
and you're like, you guys are dumbbos and you say that too,
16:11
So I mean it could go either way, but but you're right, Robin,
16:15
it does make you the insta back and go, what does someone have
16:18
that much against this? Donovan Jacobs guy that they'd be willing to bring not
16:22
just Wheeler into it, but then they'd also be willing to bring down Jacobs
16:26
too. This is very, very bizarre, Like they'd kill someone to get
16:30
back at Donovan Jacobs instead of just going after him. And like what if
16:34
he used two criminals that he met along the way and their level of sophistication
16:40
or forensic countermeasures Given this was the eighties, maybe wasn't that great. So
16:45
the idea that the phone call could be traced, maybe they were unaware of
16:49
that. It just it does seem a little too on the nose, especially
16:53
since if you are going to call and ask for Donovan Jacobs, why not
16:59
wait for him to get on the phone. The damage has then been done,
17:02
so it does seem odd to hang up. But I mean, who
17:04
knows. They could just be that stupid and it could be Donovan Jacobs.
17:08
But I mean you could see it from either side for sure. Well,
17:14
it turned out that there was no love loss between Doyle Wheeler and Donovan Jacobs.
17:18
But before I talk more about Jacobs, I have to shar some more
17:21
backstory about Wheeler's eleven year career with the San Diego PD Prior to joining the
17:26
department, Wheeler had served in Vietnam and the Army Airborn Rangers, earned three
17:30
Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star, and several other medals. The big turning
17:34
point of Wheeler's police career occurred on July the eighteenth, nineteen eighty four,
17:40
when an armed gunman named James Huberty entered a McDonald's restaurant in the Sanya Siedro
17:44
neighborhood of San Diego. Over the course of the next seventy seven minutes,
17:48
Huberty would proceed to murder twenty one people and move nineteen others before a sniper
17:52
from the swat team fired a fatal shot into him. At that time,
17:56
this was the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. Anyway,
18:00
Doyle Wheeler was the first police lieutenant who arrived at the scene and would
18:04
eventually give an order for the sniper to take Huberty out, but for whatever
18:08
reason, there would be a twenty six minute delay before the swat team carried
18:12
out the order, and it's believed that Huberty killed his last four victims during
18:17
that twenty six minute window. While the delay was not Doyle's fault. He
18:21
felt a personal responsibility over the loss of those four lives and became overwhelmed with
18:25
guilt. The trauma of seeing all the dead victims at the scene of the
18:29
McDonald's massacres seemed to set something off in him, forcing him to take a
18:33
leave of absence from the force. I think this is incredible on Doyle's account.
18:37
I mean, he has this amazing legacy in the military and in the
18:41
police department, and you know, here he's faced with this unthinkable mass murder.
18:48
It's actually the this case is what inspired Bloody Wednesday, the horror movie.
18:53
But what what you think about here? This is back in the eighties
18:57
when police officers didn't really receive any kind of psychological support. They didn't have
19:03
any kind of counseling mandatory ability to decompress after a violent interaction. And this
19:11
is not just a bad scene. He is engaged in a mass murder where
19:17
things don't go the way they would ideally go, and he feels a personal
19:21
responsibility God bless him, even though it has nothing to do with him,
19:25
for people's lives being lost. And so the fact that he says that's enough.
19:32
I got to step away from this for a while, I have to
19:33
take a leave of absence. I have so much respect for him and so
19:37
much appreciation for the sacrifices he may not just that day, but throughout his
19:41
career. It's a big deal. He's a man in the eighties saying I
19:48
can't emotionally, I need to step away, and I have so just so
19:52
much admiration for that really hurts my heart. Like when you think of all
19:56
of the first responders that have to deal with situation like that, Like more
20:00
recently, you know that Veggas one where there was what like fifty people or
20:04
something like that died, and I kind of imagine the emotional toll and the
20:10
trauma that it inflicts upon people who are there and just trying to help.
20:15
So I really feel for Doyle here because, like you said, Ash,
20:18
I just don't think that they would have had maybe the infrastructure set up with
20:22
regards to having like a psychologist there and having that psychologist speak to all of
20:27
the people who were involved in seeing and treating an individual or treating the individuals
20:33
at the scene, because it has such a deep impact and some people are
20:40
going to feel that more than others will. And I think one of the
20:44
saddest lines I just said was at that time, this was the deadliest mass
20:48
shooting in the history of the United States. Because sadly, there have been
20:51
like so many more mass shootings since then, many of which are worse than
20:55
this one. But back in nineteen eighty four, the mass shootings were just
20:57
not as common. So it really overwhelmed Doyle to like lose twenty one innocent
21:03
lives and see nineteen other people get killed on his watch. And during his
21:07
Unsolved Mysteries interview, he says that in retrospect, I know that I was
21:11
not responsible for any of those deaths James Huberty, and James Huberty alone was
21:15
responsible for these deaths, But at the time you just don't think that way.
21:18
You just to find a way to blame yourself and think that I could
21:21
have done more to save some more of their lives, And it just took
21:23
an enormous toil on him. Doyle had always struggled with the idea of having
21:29
killed during combat in Vietnam and during the line of duty as a police officer.
21:33
He would tell a psychiatrist quote, the other police officers treat you like
21:37
a big hero after you shoot someonet but it bothered me. I didn't become
21:41
a police officer to kill people. I wanted to save lives. End quote.
21:47
Well, I stund corrected. He did talk to a psychiatrist here,
21:49
so at least we have this. But when Doyle returned from his leave,
21:53
he soon found out that he was being investigated for a sexual harassment complaint filed
21:59
by a form female police officer. Doyle always maintained that the officer was lying,
22:04
as she had been fired for incompetence years earlier. Following the McDonald's massacre.
22:10
Doyle had never hesitated to express his disagreement with how the situation was handled,
22:15
and his superiors told him he would be fired if he aired his feelings
22:18
publicly. He suspected that the sexual harassment complaint was fabricated in order to discredit
22:25
him, but he still wound up receiving a five day suspension for it on
22:29
March first, nineteen eighty five. While serving his suspension, Doyle reached his
22:33
breaking point when he learned that a movie was going to be made about the
22:37
McDonald's massacre. Is that the one that you just mentioned, Dash, Yeah,
22:41
it's bloody Wednesday is a movie that came out about that horrific event,
22:45
and there's also other movies that have made like a riff on that event,
22:51
but The Bloody Wednesday was directly or about that mass killing. The mental anguish
22:57
became so overwhelming that he attempted suicide by taking an overdose of xanax. Thankfully,
23:03
Doyle wound up surviving, but he knew he could no longer function at
23:07
his highest capacity as a police officer. After being diagnosed as suffering from major
23:12
depression and work related post traumatic stress disorder, he opted to retire from the
23:18
force on stress related disability. That's so sad. There's you know, you
23:22
think about your community and how an event like that impacts you. I know.
23:27
There was a documentary made years later about the massacre as well, and
23:33
there were cable networks over in California that refused to air it because they said
23:37
there were too many families impacted by that sences out of violence, and they
23:41
said, like, we can't. We're not going to expose them and show
23:45
them. You know, if you want to get it, you got to
23:48
get a different way. They blocked out the showing of some of those documentary
23:52
films even about the shooting. So it was a major major heartbreak in that
23:57
community. And then, like you said, Jewels, it's not just this
24:00
event. I mean, we have first responders every day who show up and
24:04
have to respond to the unthinkable school shootings of children, you know, spouses
24:11
begging for their loved one to live. And I mean, I cannot imagine
24:15
the secondary trauma that comes from that. I don't know, just the vicarious
24:19
vicarious trauma, not secondary vicarious trauma that comes from that. And here he
24:25
has not just this event that he responds to. He was in Vietnam.
24:26
Again, there was not the correct treatment given to our veterans when they return
24:32
from Vietnam. You were told to keep your mouth shut. Vietnam vets will
24:36
tell you. You know, World War One and World War Two guys didn't
24:38
struggle. Neither do I. Yeah, they all struggled, but they didn't
24:42
get the services. They weren't allowed to struggle vocally. And what I love
24:47
here is you have Doyle who is learning, hopefully from the help of that
24:51
psychiatrist, to vocalize how he feels, and he's being very upfront about what
24:57
he's going through, right, and he's saying, I'm struggling, this is
25:00
not okay. I won't tolerate injustice. He's becoming a very vocal individual.
25:06
I have a feeling that doesn't go over very well in the police department.
25:08
And then he gets to a point, I'm sure with the help of his
25:11
family, where he says, enough's enough, I've got to walk away.
25:14
That's got to be heartbreaking for someone who did take a pledge an oath to
25:18
serve and protect other people. And then he says, at got to a
25:22
point where that's not really what I was doing. I was doing things that
25:26
made me feel sick. Oh yeah, we'll go into more detail about this
25:30
later on, but the San Diego Police Department sounded like a pretty toxic place
25:34
to work during the nineteen eighties, and I can understand Doyle receiving a backlash
25:38
just for daring to experience PTSD or daring to experience trauma or feeling suicidal or
25:45
wanting to seek therapy, because I think they just had that toxic masculinity mindset
25:51
back then that you just don't you don't deal with your problems like that,
25:53
You just suck it up and move on. And I don't think they appreciated
25:56
Doyle like not being able to handle this situation. So I think that's why
26:00
he decided I have to retire and go on disability. So in April of
26:06
nineteen eighty six, six months following his retirement, Dolly received a subpoena to
26:10
testify as a defense witness and what had become and what had become a heated
26:15
and controversial murder trial for a young African American defendant named Sagon Penn. And
26:19
here's where Donovan Jacobs enters the picture. On March the thirty first, nineteen
26:23
eighty five, Jacobs pulled over Sagon Penn's pickup truck in San Diego's and Canton
26:29
neighborhood. He was backed up by another officer named Thomas Riggs, who pulled
26:33
up behind him in his separate patrol car. A woman named Sarah Pina Ruiz
26:37
also happened to be in Riggs's car as part of a civilian ride along program.
26:42
Anyway, because this is a very controversial incident which had numerous eye witnesses,
26:47
there are different versions of what actually happened here depending on which source you
26:51
read. Jacobs would claim that he pulled over Penn for making an illegal U
26:56
turn, but since Penn had his brother and other passengers in the truck at
26:59
the time, it's been alleged that they were being racially profiled as potential gang
27:03
members. An altercation ensued, which seemed to escalate when Jacobs asked Pen for
27:07
his license and became angry when Penn didn't remove the license from his wallet like
27:11
he was told. This soon led to a violent struggle in which Jacobs beat
27:15
Pen with his baton until Penn wound up grabbing Jacobs's gun and firing off six
27:21
shots. Penn fired one shot into Jacobs's neck before turning and firing three shots
27:26
into Rakes. He also fired two more shots through the windshield of Riggs's patrol
27:30
car, which wounded Sarah Pina Ruiz. Penn then climbed into Jacobs's patrol car
27:36
and attempted to flee the scene, and wound up running over Jacobs in the
27:40
process. About a half hour later, Jacobs drove to a police station and
27:44
surrendered, while Riggs died from his wounds. Jacobs and Pina Ruiz both survived,
27:48
though Jacobs suffered serious nerve damage which left him with permanent paralysis in his
27:53
left arm. The following year, Penn would go on trial on numerous charges,
27:59
including first to murder in the shooting of Rigs and attempted murder in the
28:03
shootings of Jacob's in Pina Ruiz. However, Penn's defense team would argue that
28:07
Jacobs had no cause to pull Penn over in the first place, since the
28:11
street was too narrow for him to have done an illegal u turn. They
28:15
claimed that Jacobs had used racial slurs against Penn before beating them with his baton,
28:18
so Penn's decision to steal Jacobs's gun and fire off some shots was an
28:22
act of self defense which saved his life. In fact, Penwick claimed that
28:27
he had no intention of firing the gun and only pointed it at Jacobs to
28:30
get him to stop, but when Jacobs struck him in the arm with the
28:33
baton, the gun went off accidentally. Wow. Okay, there's so much
28:40
to unpack in that, and it's almost impossible to unpack it because it's going
28:44
to be a you know, I don't I'm assuming there was no video evidence
28:48
and there weren't a whole lot of people watching this case, coright, I
28:52
mean, this is everyone who's involved here is Jacob's, Pina Ruiz, and
28:59
Penn. So what you have as you have a he said. He said
29:03
case again where people are saying, okay, what was the intent of the
29:08
initial reason to pull Pin over? That does matter. We have a traditionally
29:15
historic problem of you know, quote driving while black, that black individuals are
29:19
targeted for non instigated reasons to be pulled over. And so here he said,
29:25
well he did an illegal U turn. Well, diddy or didn'ty How
29:27
could we go back and prove that the racial slurs would need to be by
29:32
eyewitness and for information as well with someone saying this is exactly what I heard,
29:36
this is what I saw. You know, Jacobs isn't going to say
29:38
that he did that. Pin is using that as his defense, so he's
29:41
going to say that. I'd love to know what Pina Ruiz says happened during
29:47
the event, because she's less likely to have as biased as a story to
29:52
go with. But Pin does fire six times after that initial accidental firing.
29:57
If that's the true story, I guess you could say by the time that
30:00
goes off, he panics and he starts just shooting and unloading that magazine.
30:04
But my god, without video evidence and without multiple people sitting there telling the
30:11
story and having it make sense with it, multiple stories are kind of lining
30:15
up. How would you ever dissect this and know what really happened? Yeah,
30:18
you're correct, Like this is ninet eight five before there was bodycam footage,
30:22
So this really is a he said she said to Oh sorry, he
30:26
said, he said type of thing. And because, like I said,
30:29
if you go to a different source, you're going to read different accounts of
30:32
this case, because different people have different interpretations of what happened. I mean,
30:36
I think Serapino Ruiz was too far to really hear, like how what
30:40
if Jacobs used racial slurs and how he did the confrontation was. But Penn
30:44
did have other witnesses inside his truck, like his brother and some other passengers
30:48
who did back up his story that Jacobs provoked everything and used racial slurs.
30:53
But of course you could also argue that Penn still got carried away because even
30:57
though he did fire a shot of self defense into Jacobs, he did fire
31:00
like a couple shots into Thomas Riggs and killed him, even though by all
31:04
accounts, Riggs really didn't do anything wrong. So even though this happened like
31:08
thirty eight years ago, there are still devisive opinions on whether his shooting was
31:12
justified. Well. Like we mentioned earlier, Doyle Wheeler would be called upon
31:18
to testify for the defense at Penn's trial and further their argument that Jacobs had
31:25
racially profiled Penn. Indeed, Wheeler had been one of Jacob's supervisors, and
31:30
he testified that Jacobs had a history of troubling incidents with minorities, particularly African
31:36
American suspects, and did not hesitates to describe him as being a racist hothead.
31:41
Wheeler recounted one incident where he reprimanded Jacobs for slamming a handcuff black suspect's
31:47
head against a wall out of police headquarters without provocation. Wheeler claimed that he'd
31:52
tried to warn his superiors about Jacob's bigoted behavior, but nothing was ever done
31:57
to stop him. Dealer's testimony would compel some other former San Diego police officers
32:04
to come forward and share their own experiences where they witnessed Jacob's exhibit racist attitudes.
32:09
One of them even described Jacobs as quote the most prejudiced white person I've
32:14
ever known, and quote an ideal candidate for the ku Klux Klan. The
32:20
jury seemed to believe this testimony, and it added credence to Penn's claims that
32:23
the shooting was an act of self defense against a racist police officer. They
32:29
ultimately found Penn not guilty on the murder of Rigs and not guilty on the
32:34
attempted murder of Jacobs, though they deadlocked eleven to one in favor of acquittal
32:38
on the attempted murder charge of Peno Ruiz. But the District Attorney's office was
32:44
not going to let this go, so they filed all new charges against Penn,
32:47
this time charging him was involuntary manslaughter in the death of Riggs an attempted
32:52
voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of Jacobs. Penn went on trial for the second
32:58
time in July of nineteen eighty seven, and once again Wheeler would be called
33:01
upon to testify and SHARE's experiences about Jacob's alleged racist behavior. This time,
33:07
the jury found pen not guilty on the manslaughter charges as well as the original
33:13
attempted murder charge for the shooting of Pina Ruiz. The District Attorney's office elected
33:17
not to file any more charges against Penn, and he finally walked free.
33:22
Needless to say, the outcome of these trials did not make Doyle Wheeler the
33:27
most popular person with the San Diego Police Department. Jacobs always denied Wheeler's accusations
33:32
that he was a racist, and a number of people were angry that Wheeler
33:37
had broken the code of silence by testifying about that and playing a role in
33:40
Pen's acquittal. Following the first trial, Wheeler claimed that he started receiving death
33:45
threats, so he decided to escape the controversy by moving his family from San
33:51
Diego to send Crest, Washington, where they lived a quiet life until Wheeler
33:54
was attacked inside his home by a group of intruders. Okay, so I
34:00
there's a lot of problems going on here. Okay. You could have looked
34:02
up Jacob's record as a defense attorney. You could have asked for any claims
34:07
that have been made against him and any internal affairs reports, these kinds of
34:12
public complaints against him, and you would have seen, I'm likely racist offenses,
34:16
racist offenses, racist offenses, And you can also ask colleagues what was
34:22
his behavior? Well, he was incredibly racist, he was unethical, he
34:25
didn't behave correct. In fact, at event A, I saw him do
34:29
this. At event B, I saw him do this, which does lead
34:31
credence to then an event X, he likely could have operated in that behavior
34:38
as well, and he probably did. But it's really hard as an officer
34:45
to say, hey, come testify about his character and that's going to prove
34:50
exactly what happened in this this ninety fifth event, Right, you're asking someone,
34:54
tell me about this person. Well, you know when I when I
34:58
work with him, he does this and this, So it is likely that
35:01
he would have acted in this same manner in the event we're here about today.
35:07
But I wasn't there. I don't know. So you're really setting everybody
35:12
up. If they're going to be honest and they're going to be ethical,
35:15
you're setting them up to sit up there and say, hey, just tell
35:16
me about their character. And someone's character can't prove exactly what they did the
35:22
evening that you weren't there watching, So I don't know. It's it's problematic.
35:28
It's the best you can do by examining someone's character and previous behaviors.
35:31
But when they do that in cases, I don't know if I'm making any
35:35
sense, but when they do that in cases, it's really detrimental, Like,
35:37
oh, you bring these ex girlfriends up while there's repeated behavior which often
35:43
dictates future behavior. Are you proving that he treated his current girlfriend that way?
35:47
Right? Are you proving that not? Necessarily? Now you make total
35:52
sense because literally the greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So if
35:58
you're going to say that because of incidents ABC and D that he is indeed
36:05
a racist, he may not himself believe that he is a racist, because
36:08
oftentimes our perception of ourselves isn't the perception that other people have. So I
36:15
think that is possible, But I also think that it can be dangerous too,
36:20
So there is two sides to that. But I also think it's really
36:22
interesting that we see Doyle Wheeler and his family have to move from San Diego
36:29
to Suncrest. I wonder how tense it was or how much hate or pressure
36:34
he was getting because he wasn't working for the San Diego Police Department at this
36:37
time, so how much interaction would he have had with all of these individuals.
36:43
Was there this feeling of like this oppressive force or that he was in
36:46
danger and that dictated his choice to move states? And don't get me wrong,
36:53
like Jules, you're spot on there. It's like the whole thing is
36:58
problematic and flawed. Don't get me wrong. I'm ninety nine point nine nine
37:01
nine percent sure that Jacobs was part of a culture that said, oh,
37:07
we're we're elite, we're better than everyone. We've got this, you know,
37:10
the Badge of Honor and the Blue Code and all these other things,
37:15
and that there was a heavy emphasis on race and ses and these kinds of
37:22
things that like, look, if you're poor, if you're black. Back
37:24
in the eighties, they would do the thing where it's like a number for
37:27
a number. I don't care who goes to prison for what. If you're
37:30
a minority, I can lock you away and I can clear this case.
37:34
I mean, there was a lot of awful and they're still in twenty twenty
37:37
three. Are a lot of awfully discriminatory behaviors by an awful, rotten group
37:44
of law enforcement. Small rotten group. But it's very possible that was the
37:49
culture in the San Diego Police Department. And if Jacob's presented as a racist
37:52
jerk and had multiple complaints, I guarantee you that that probably was his character.
37:57
My problem is in this event, when they call up poor Wheeler and
38:00
say, hey, tell me about this guy, it's like, Okay,
38:06
I wasn't there at this event, like you just want to know about his
38:08
character, and it got he almost died because of it. I mean,
38:13
there's no way you could say this is not linked to this moment. He's
38:17
sitting at there doing the right thing and saying you want to know about his
38:20
character, I'll tell you it's not flattering. And then literally this guy gets
38:23
hogtied in his home and threatened that his whole family's going to die. Holy
38:28
heck. Well, Since Wheeler had been forced to write a suicide note apologizing
38:32
for his testimony at the trials, and one of his attackers had made a
38:36
phone call to the San Diego PD asking for Donovan Jacobs, Wheeler suspected that
38:40
Jacobs had hired the intruders to kill him as part of an elaborate revenge scheme.
38:45
In fact, while he could not recall the assailant's name, Wheeler believed
38:49
that he recognized the dark haired man who attacked him as an informant with the
38:52
Narcotics Division of the San Diego PD, where Jacobs was now working at desk
38:57
job. Wheeler even suspected that other members of the San Diego Pede might have
39:01
been involved, and that they came after him in order to send a message
39:05
to other potential whistle blowers and discouraged them from speaking out against police misconduct.
39:09
Well, when the Stevens County Sheriff's Department contacted Jacobs and the San Diego Police
39:15
Chief to follow up on this, not only did they deny any involvement in
39:17
the attack on Wheeler, but they presented a shocking alternate scenario, what if
39:22
Wheeler fabricated the entire attack himself. Jacobs expressed his belief that Wheeler was attempting
39:29
to frame him, as well as Garner's sympathy and attention. While the Stephens
39:32
County Sheriff's Department found no evidence that anyone from the San Diego Police Department had
39:37
orchestrated the attack, but they could not find any evidence that Wheeler staged the
39:42
whole thing either, But there was some evidence to support Wheeler's story for starters.
39:47
The medical personnel who first arrived on the scene and untied Wheeler claimed that
39:52
the ropes were bound so tightly that they did not believe he could have tied
39:55
himself up. A medical technician who examined the cigarette in the center of Wheeler's
40:00
back also thought it would have been nearly impossible for him to have reached those
40:05
spots on his own and burn himself. On the day of the attack,
40:08
one of Wheeler's neighbors claimed that he saw a blue Toyota parked across the street
40:13
from the Wheeler residence, which seemed at a place. Later that afternoon,
40:16
this same neighbor recalled hearing a loud bang which sounded like a gunshot while he
40:21
was working in the yard. Shortly thereafter, he saw Wheeler's Toyota to sell
40:25
station wagon speeding away down the street, and it was only a few minutes
40:29
later before the ambulance arrived at the scene following Wheeler's nine one one call.
40:34
Well earlier that same morning, a security guard at the Five Mile Shopping Center
40:38
recalled seeing four unidentified men talking outside of blue Toyota in the parking lot,
40:44
and as you might recall, Wheeler's abandoned station wagon would be discovered in that
40:47
exact same parking lot the following day. Yeah, this is the thing.
40:52
I mean, if you say he staged it, he had to say,
40:55
I'm willing to endure all of the following things. I'm willing to have this
41:00
come in. I'm going to have them burn me, beat me, tie
41:02
me up, made me write this note, threaten my family, shoot me.
41:07
So he was willing to die in this elaborate manner to set this guy
41:13
up like I didn't hate him. I was called to testify. It was
41:16
my legal duty to sit there and testify to what they were asking me.
41:21
I'm not gonna lie on the stand. I'm already having a middle breakdown.
41:23
I don't want to do this anymore. I'm fed up with this department.
41:27
It's stressing me out. So I'm going to tell him what they want to
41:30
know, and then I'm going to retire and live my life. What benefit
41:32
was it for him to stage this? He's not the one that is seeking
41:37
revenge against Donovan. And don't you both think that it's odd that if Doyle
41:42
Wheeler was going to do this, that he would be doing this when he's
41:46
in Seattle. Wouldn't you if you were so compelled to get this attention and
41:52
to frame him and you were so wrapped up in it, wouldn't you do
41:55
it while you're still in California. It just seems odd that if you felt
41:59
like you're like was in danger, that you would go all the way to
42:01
Seattle. Now you've got some space, you're far away. What is he
42:06
just sitting around board and decides that he's going to do this like after the
42:09
trials. I don't know. It just seems strange to me that I'm more
42:14
inclined to believe that this was done to him, especially when we factor in
42:17
the ropes being tied that tight, and you've got the gunshot and all of
42:21
these other things, like we never find the note, just the legal pad.
42:24
It just seems like great lengths to go to to try to frame somebody
42:30
who's already on trial and you've already given your testimony. I don't know.
42:34
I just don't understand what his motivation would be at that point when he's got
42:37
a family to protect, and that would only incense all of those other individuals
42:43
further exactly, Like that was the main reason he moved from California to Washington
42:47
State. Is that he seems like you wanted to get a fresh start with
42:51
his family and put this past with the San Diego PD completely behind him,
42:55
and here it is just going back into the spotlight because he alleged staged this
43:00
attack, and I ought to mention that it would have been physically impossible for
43:05
him to do it himself, Like there's no way he could tie himself up.
43:07
I mean, somebody had to drive his wife's station wag into this mall
43:10
twelve miles away, which means that if he staged the whole thing, he
43:15
would have had to hire people in order to beat him up and burn him
43:17
and tie him up and move his car. And where's he going to find
43:21
people who are willing to do that. It's not like he's a rich man.
43:23
It's not like he's going to have a lot of money to pay them
43:25
off. So it really seems like he would be going to a whole lot
43:29
of trouble without much benefit to himself. And it really sounds like the San
43:32
Diego bed were coming up with this stage theory in order to deflect attention away
43:37
from themselves. Convenient for them, right to point the finger at Wheeler,
43:43
Yeah, absolutely, Like how convenient. Right, this is all on him
43:45
because it all went awry. I think they went in there with this intent
43:49
that they were going to stage a suicide. That's why the note got written,
43:52
and then they look around, like you guys said earlier, where it's
43:54
like things aren't lining up for it to be a suicide. He's getting shot
43:59
in the back of the head. I'm assuming with the pillow being on his
44:02
head, he's also hog tied. None of this is really lining up.
44:07
He's getting burned, which he can't do on his own, so I think
44:12
it all goes to poop. They called the Narcotics Department and ask for the
44:16
man who helped them plan this big no no, and so now they're going
44:22
to sit there and say, oh uh, Wheeler did it right, Like
44:24
Wheeler staged all this. There's nothing again, there's nothing that would benefit him
44:30
to do that. He had gotten away from the toxic environment and was starting
44:34
to live a life that would help him heal from the trauma he had experienced.
44:38
I love your description of the plan saying that it went to poop.
44:42
It went straight to poop. I love that too. Nevertheless, some people
44:47
still suspected that it was Wheeler who personally made the phone call to the San
44:52
Diego Police Department asking for Donovan Jacobs and attempted to disguise his voice. Since
44:58
he had been a lieutenant in the Kemmunit Duications Unit before he retired, Wheeler
45:01
would have known the direct private number for the Narcotics Division and been aware that
45:07
all incoming calls were automatically recorded. Officers from the San Diego Police Department were
45:12
asked to listen to the recording of the call, and while the audio quality
45:15
was not great, they did not believe it sounded like Doyle's voice, though
45:20
they could not rule him out with one hundred percent certainty. FBI voice experts
45:23
were asked to analyze the call and compared to a recording of Wheeler's voice,
45:29
but they said it would be difficult to make a positive voice match. The
45:32
caller only said nine words during the recording, and the experts said that they
45:37
would need at least twenty words in order to make an accurate comparison. Regardless,
45:42
they still did a voice comparison test and seemed to lean towards Wheeler not
45:46
being the caller anyway. The Stephen County Sheriff's Department asked Wheeler to take a
45:52
lie detector test, but he declined. He said he would be willing to
45:55
do it if they asked certain individuals from the San Diego PD to to take
46:00
a lie detector test as well, but they never made that request. The
46:04
California Attorney General's Office and a federal Grand jury would conduct a three month investigation
46:09
into the alleged attack on Wheeler, who failed to come to a conclusion about
46:14
what happened. Wheeler was shown photographs of several potential suspects, many of whom
46:20
resembled the composite sketches which were draught up based on his descriptions, but he
46:24
was unable to identify any of them as his attackers. The Attorney General's office
46:30
did ask Donovan Jacobs to take a polygraph, but on the advice of his
46:34
attorney, he declined to do so. Jacobs would soon retire from the San
46:37
Diego PD to enter law school, and he eventually opened up his own practice
46:43
and became an attorney who represented police officers in civil and administrative proceedings and defended
46:49
them against internal affairs investigations. In October nineteen eighty nine, the FBI investigated
46:54
a claim from an informant that he'd been offered fifteen hundred dollars by a police
47:00
sergeant to attack Doyle Wheeler because he was a quote bad thorn in the police
47:04
department's side end quote. The informant said the intention wasn't to commit murder,
47:09
just harm Wheeler enough to shut him up, but he decided to turn down
47:13
the job because it was too risky and he was not offered enough money.
47:17
However, this informant had also served time in prison for perjury, so he
47:22
was not the most credible witness, and as far as I can tell,
47:24
his claims were never substantiated. The following month, the case would be featured
47:30
on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and while both Wheeler and Jacobs would be
47:34
interviewed in the segment, the San Diego Police Department declined to participate, but
47:38
in the end it did not lead to any conclusive answers about what happened,
47:44
so the full truth about the attack on Doyle Wheeler remains unknown. So I
47:49
guess you could say the path went Chiley. Okay, this is wild.
47:53
I don't blame Jacobs at all for not taking a polygraph test. This is
47:58
a law enforcement agent. I know that I give polygraph tests to people,
48:00
and I wouldn't want to take them, right, So I don't really judge
48:06
anything about his denial of a polygraph test. I think his attorney was smart.
48:09
What's interesting, though, is that then he appears on Unsolved Mysteries,
48:14
and I guess you can't really turn down that opportunity. If you feel like
48:19
you are going to be the villain in the story and you want to proclaim
48:22
your innocence, how do you sit back and let them write a story without
48:25
your voice in it. So you've got to tell me, what was it
48:30
like? When Wheeler and Jacobs are both interviewed in the same episode, Are
48:35
they leaning towards blaming Jacobs and he's sitting there defending himself? Uh? Pretty
48:38
much? Yeah, Like both sides are addressing the allegations against them, with
48:43
Wheeler saying that the claims that he staged the whole attack are ridiculous and Jacobs
48:47
saying that the idea that he would send two men to kill Wheeler and that
48:52
they would be stupid enough to like phone the police department and speak directly with
48:55
him are ridiculous as well. And we're gonna save this till part two.
48:59
But there was be an after effect based on Jacobs's interview on Unsolved Mysteries because
49:04
surprise, surprise, he did not like the way he was portrayed and it
49:07
would cause some legal action on his behalf. Well, he's an attorney,
49:10
so of course of course it would. But okay, so is Wheeler,
49:16
is Jacob's the one in the unsolved mystery, saying that Wheeler staged it himself?
49:22
Or is he just simply defending his own actions and saying why would I
49:24
be that dumb? Oh? He directly accuses Wheeler of staging the whole thing,
49:29
and we'll talk about this in our next episode. But he says some
49:31
rather derogatory things about him and says that Doyle is like the bad kid in
49:35
school who likes attention all the time, and says some pretty offensive remarks about
49:39
Wheeler's attempted suicide many years ago. So regardless of whether you think Jacobs was
49:45
guilty or innocence of attempting to kill him, I think it's irrefutable that Donovan
49:50
Jacobs is a huge jackass. Based on his interview, well, it sounds
49:54
like it. And then here's Wheeler. He's like, that's all I was
49:57
saying, is he's just a jerk. You saw it for yourself. So
50:00
maybe that was enough justice in the moment, but this is wild. I
50:02
cannot wait to hear more information on our next episode because I'm sitting here and
50:07
I want to know more. It seems so clear what happened, But then
50:10
like you said, there's so many things that go well, is it that
50:15
simple? Yeah, I'm sorry we're going to have to leave you on a
50:16
cliffhanger, as I think this would now be a good time to bring an
50:20
end to part one. But join us next week as we present part two
50:22
of our series about the attack on Doyle Wheeler. Robin, do you want
50:28
to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes.
50:30
The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer
50:34
these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out
50:39
stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon
50:44
if you join our five dollars tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus
50:49
episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went
50:53
Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our
50:58
highest tier tier free, the ten dollar tier. One of the features we
51:01
offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you
51:07
can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on
51:12
Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
51:16
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
51:22
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over
51:25
was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary
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track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be
51:34
sure to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little
51:37
bit about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of
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The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are
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always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too
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short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so
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we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes.
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So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you
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have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate review is
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greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
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You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until next time,
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be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing
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music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy