Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Stranger stabs professor mom to death while she bathes her children

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Stranger stabs professor mom to death while she bathes her children · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Imagine this scene. A beautiful
0:15
Speaker 1: brunette English professor at a local college found dead by
0:21
Speaker 1: who else, her husband. He tells police he left the
0:25
Speaker 1: house for a really quick trip, just running to Walmart
0:28
Speaker 1: and back. But he says when he got home, his
0:33
Speaker 1: gorgeous wife, Emily Mason, is dead and she didn't go easily.
0:40
Speaker 1: There was a war between the gods. She put up
0:44
Speaker 1: a fight. She was home with her two small daughters.
0:50
Speaker 1: What a coinkie ink. Hubby leaves just for a short
0:54
Speaker 1: while and comes back, and all of this happens in
0:57
Speaker 1: the short moments he's gone. I'm Nancy Grace. This is
1:02
Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. What happened
1:05
Speaker 1: to this beautiful young professor out of Swainsborough? Joining me
1:10
Speaker 1: an all star panel. Karen Smith, forensics expert out of
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Speaker 1: the Florida jurisdiction. Ashley Wilcot judge, lawyer anchor. You can
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Speaker 1: find her at Ashley Wilcot dot com, well known reporter,
1:21
Speaker 1: wt OC reporter dal Kennedy Karen Stark psychologist joining us
1:27
Speaker 1: from Manhattan. You can find her at Karen Stark dot
1:29
Speaker 1: com and Crime Online dot com. Investigative reporter author of
1:33
Speaker 1: Beautiful Life to see USI behind the Casey Anthony trial.
1:37
Speaker 1: Robin will Nski straight to dal Kennedy with wt OC DW.
1:41
Speaker 1: I want to start with the timeline and the crime scene.
1:45
Speaker 1: First of all, let's hear everything you know about the
1:49
Speaker 1: crime the Let's hear everything you know about the crime scene.
1:52
Speaker 1: You're talking about a small house in Swainsborough, Um Swainsborough.
2:03
Speaker 1: Let's set the scene. Okay. I'm split my time, as
2:07
Speaker 1: everybody knows, between New York and Atlanta, and when I
2:10
Speaker 1: drive south from Macon, if I have to go beyond that,
2:14
Speaker 1: you go through Emmanuel County, and it is beautiful. If
2:20
Speaker 1: you like wide open spaces, you're not gonna find high
2:24
Speaker 1: rises or congested streets and honking horns. It is out
2:29
Speaker 1: in the country and it's beautiful. I'm not sure how
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Speaker 1: many exits does Swainsboro have Emmanuel County on the interstate
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Speaker 1: now three or one? Probably probably three, A couple of
2:42
Speaker 1: places where you would go through an even smaller town
2:44
Speaker 1: to get to Swainsboro, and then the ones that are
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Speaker 1: that are more direct. Smaller town is there beside Swainsborough
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Speaker 1: and lu Hey. That's where I'm coming from. I say,
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Speaker 1: I'm from Macon. We didn't even live in the city.
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Speaker 1: We lived in rural, unincorporated bib County on a red
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Speaker 1: dirt road with tree in the middle of it in
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Speaker 1: front of our driveway. And my grandfather Doug our well okay,
3:06
Speaker 1: and built the house. So believe me. I'm all about
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Speaker 1: small towns. But what town is smaller than Swainsborough that
3:13
Speaker 1: you have an exit? Was? What is it? You would
3:16
Speaker 1: have Oak Park, which you pass by on the interstate
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Speaker 1: and if you you know, if you blink, you've missed it.
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Speaker 1: I have been to oak Park. I have had dinner
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Speaker 1: in someone's home in oak Park and it's lovely. And
3:27
Speaker 1: so there's the oak Park exit. That's Emmanuel County, not Swainsborough,
3:32
Speaker 1: but still in the county. What's the other you claim
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Speaker 1: there are three exits. I'm not sure I believe you. Well,
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Speaker 1: I think if you if you got off the soaper
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Speaker 1: to and exit, you could take a roundabout way to Swainsborough. Now,
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Speaker 1: wait a minute, it's Soaperton an Emmanuel County. Oh that's
3:44
Speaker 1: Truthlin County. But you know you you'd go a roundabout
3:47
Speaker 1: way to get there. I knew it. I knew it.
3:49
Speaker 1: I caught you in an inconsistency. And here's my point.
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Speaker 1: I'm not just doing it for the fun of it,
3:54
Speaker 1: Ashley Willcote to torture dal Kennedy. My point is you've
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Speaker 1: got a town which I think I have identified as
4:01
Speaker 1: having one exit on the interstate. Okay, who else is
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Speaker 1: going to get into the area, unknown, unseen? And in
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Speaker 1: that small slice of time, break in to Emily Mason's home,
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Speaker 1: murder her, with her children home, and then the husband
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Speaker 1: comes home miraculously from Walmart, right exactly. So that's the point.
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Speaker 1: It's a very small community, and it's you know, everybody
4:25
Speaker 1: knows everybody kind of community. And not only that, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: oh I just ran to the store. How often have
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Speaker 1: we heard that before? You know? When it reminds me
4:33
Speaker 1: of dal Kennedy, it reminds me of my rural area,
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Speaker 1: Rutland in Bibb County. I don't know if you're familiar
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Speaker 1: with that. You may be. It's off of the Harleybridge
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Speaker 1: Road exit south of Macon. And I go to a
4:47
Speaker 1: little United Methodist church, Liberty United Methodist Church when I'm
4:51
Speaker 1: in Macon, and there was a guy there, a lawyer
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Speaker 1: who his family had gone to the church in the past,
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Speaker 1: but he ended up dead apparently from slipping and falling.
5:06
Speaker 1: Everybody was like, mmmmm, she did it. Long story short
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Speaker 1: in this case where everybody is Ashley Wilcott just said,
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Speaker 1: knows each other. Then suddenly she ends up dead. I
5:21
Speaker 1: keep asking you about the scene because I want Karen Smith,
5:24
Speaker 1: our forensics expert, to weigh in. Robin, tell me about
5:27
Speaker 1: the murder of Emily Mason. What happened to her? Because
5:30
Speaker 1: this is significant and I'm going to have our psychologists
5:33
Speaker 1: weigh in on the significance of the mode of murder. Well,
5:36
Speaker 1: here's the deal. She was bathing her children in a
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Speaker 1: bathtub and then suddenly somebody breaks into the house and apparently,
5:46
Speaker 1: according to the medical examiner, she had knife wounds in
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Speaker 1: her neck. Nancy, somebody stabbed her with a knife three
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Speaker 1: times with a steak knife. Interesting, it was a stake
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Speaker 1: knife from the home. You know that's significant. Karen Starr
6:00
Speaker 1: a psychologist. You can find her at Karen Stark dot com.
6:02
Speaker 1: Joining us today out of Manhattan, Karen, Strangulation and stabbing
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Speaker 1: deaths are I have called in the past sweetheart murders.
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Speaker 1: Not that your sweetheart did it, but the fact that
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Speaker 1: you are so intimately connected with the victim you have.
6:18
Speaker 1: It's not like shooting them at fifty paces. You have
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Speaker 1: to get up close to them. They're looking in your eyes.
6:22
Speaker 1: Often is if you are strangling them when you stab them.
6:26
Speaker 1: Unless you do it from behind, they see you, they
6:29
Speaker 1: know you're stabbing them, and you're very close proximity to them.
6:34
Speaker 1: It's an intimate murder. So here we've got the state
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Speaker 1: knife from the home, which suggests to me was this
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Speaker 1: planned or no? Because the perp used the state knife
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Speaker 1: from the home. Karen, I mean, I've been in your apartment,
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Speaker 1: your Luck's pad, and Manhattan with all of your many
6:51
Speaker 1: many dogs that love to bark at the same time
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Speaker 1: people have a set of State knives. It's very easily
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Speaker 1: identifiable if it comes out of your kitchen. Not only that, Nancy, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I want to go back to what you just said
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Speaker 1: about a sweetheart murder, because that intimacy makes all the difference.
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Speaker 1: It means that the person who's committing this crime has
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Speaker 1: no problem letting that other person that they're killing know
7:13
Speaker 1: that they are doing this. So they have so much
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Speaker 1: rage and anger that they actually want the person to know.
7:22
Speaker 1: There's tremendous build up there, and it's very very different
7:27
Speaker 1: than walking away, not being closed, letting somebody think I
7:32
Speaker 1: don't know who it is. Right before they die. They're
7:34
Speaker 1: enjoying this killing and the stabbing in the net. I mean,
7:40
Speaker 1: that's clearly to kill that. You know that's going to
7:43
Speaker 1: be a mortal wound. I mean, the phrase go for
7:46
Speaker 1: the juggular could not be any more true than it
7:48
Speaker 1: is in this case. And Karen Smith, forensics expert. Guys,
7:51
Speaker 1: Karen Smith, listen to this. We've done a lot of
7:54
Speaker 1: experiment recreations together. She's fantastic. Karen Smith, let me talk
8:00
Speaker 1: to you about this for just one moment. It's a
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Speaker 1: steak knife out of the family home. That's highly significant.
8:08
Speaker 1: You know what I like about steak knives. They're a
8:10
Speaker 1: great way to get the perps DNA because if they
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Speaker 1: have a wooden handle, that DNA gets down in the
8:16
Speaker 1: grooves of the wood. You don't always get that with
8:18
Speaker 1: a plastic hand. All we might get a good fingerprint,
8:20
Speaker 1: but you don't get that DNA down in the handle.
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Speaker 1: Another thing I love about knives, Karen Smith, is that
8:27
Speaker 1: when the purp stabs, very often their hand will go
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Speaker 1: down the knife past the little hilt and they can
8:36
Speaker 1: get sliced two when they stab that and gives their DNA. Right,
8:41
Speaker 1: you find it right there on the scene if you
8:44
Speaker 1: collect it properly. Karen Smith, that's absolutely right. A lot
8:48
Speaker 1: of times in short sharp force injuries with knives, they
8:52
Speaker 1: will slide down the hill, they'll go past that and
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Speaker 1: they'll cut their hand. A lot of times they'll cut
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Speaker 1: their forearm if it's a frenzy type killing, and that DNA,
9:02
Speaker 1: that mixture can be found, and just looking at the
9:04
Speaker 1: blood stains and looking at differences between the victim's blood
9:09
Speaker 1: and perhaps some passive dripping that may have been left
9:12
Speaker 1: at the scene on the way out of the crime
9:14
Speaker 1: scene through the front door threshold, down the sidewalk to
9:18
Speaker 1: an area where they may have had a transport like
9:20
Speaker 1: a car or ran away. You can follow that trail
9:23
Speaker 1: and if it's not the victims, you can sure bet
9:26
Speaker 1: it's the perpetrator. Oman. Let's keep Crime online dot Com
9:29
Speaker 1: investigative reporter where you can find this in all other
9:31
Speaker 1: breaking crime and justice Knees Robin, you said she was
9:35
Speaker 1: stabbed I think three times in the net. Was she
9:37
Speaker 1: in the tub or were her girls in the tub?
9:39
Speaker 1: And how old were the daughters. So the girls were
9:41
Speaker 1: in the tub, and I know that one of the
9:43
Speaker 1: daughters was four years old. Was she in the tub, Robin,
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Speaker 1: She was not in the tub. No, she was bathing,
9:49
Speaker 1: So she was bathing them. You know you kind of
9:52
Speaker 1: lean over the tubs and bathe your child with a
9:55
Speaker 1: washcloth or whatever. So she was not in the tub,
9:58
Speaker 1: but her child was in the tub. Oh my stars,
10:01
Speaker 1: because that used to be the special time I have
10:03
Speaker 1: with the twins. I would take each one into the
10:04
Speaker 1: bathroom one at a time and let somebody else play
10:08
Speaker 1: with the other twin and I would stay there for
10:11
Speaker 1: like an hour with each twin before I had to
10:13
Speaker 1: go to war. It would play in the water, would
10:14
Speaker 1: sing ABC's. I mean, it was a really wonderful time.
10:20
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about her and I mean I would
10:23
Speaker 1: be completely hunched over the tub talking to them, washing them,
10:27
Speaker 1: making sure they didn't slip underwater. Ashley, do you remember
10:31
Speaker 1: those days with your children. I can distinctly remember that.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was some of my favorite time because
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Speaker 1: they loved bath and I love bath. That was the
10:37
Speaker 1: end of the exhausting day and it was like, yeah,
10:39
Speaker 1: we get fun time in the bathtub, and then you
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Speaker 1: get all the remember all the different like, oh, what's
10:45
Speaker 1: the phone, the pink foam called mister bubbles? What does
10:47
Speaker 1: that stuff used to have? As kids, like, we love
10:50
Speaker 1: bathtime in our house when they were little, and I
10:53
Speaker 1: would read them books in there. I immediately started teaching
10:56
Speaker 1: them their ABC's when they were just you know, able
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Speaker 1: to sit up. And I well, for me, it wasn't
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Speaker 1: the end of the day because I would bathe them
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Speaker 1: and then I'd have to climb out the back window
11:06
Speaker 1: so in wet clothes from the bath so they would
11:08
Speaker 1: now I was going to chel Lynn to hop on
11:10
Speaker 1: the air or that have a big fit. But it
11:13
Speaker 1: was still one of my favorite times. And I'm trying
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Speaker 1: to imagine this mom, beautiful professor English professor, gorgeous long
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Speaker 1: brunette's shiny hair, bathing her children, her two little girls,
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Speaker 1: and being stabbed literally in the jugular. A gorgeous young
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Speaker 1: college professor in rural Georgia in her home bathing her
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Speaker 1: two little girls, one of them aged four, when someone
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Speaker 1: comes in stabs her in the neck brutally. What a
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Speaker 1: crime scene with the little girls watching as mommy is
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Speaker 1: stabbed dead. Coincidentally, it's when Daddy had left home just
11:57
Speaker 1: briefly to go to Walmart, comes home to a seen
12:01
Speaker 1: I mean, I see Grace, thank you for being with us.
12:03
Speaker 1: This is crime Stories. I want to go to dal Kennedy,
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Speaker 1: WTOC reporter. So tell me about the husband. What do
12:11
Speaker 1: we know about the husband? Walt Mason was also a
12:15
Speaker 1: professor at the same community college where his wife was
12:19
Speaker 1: a teacher. He taught physical education. The two of them
12:23
Speaker 1: had been on staff. They had met there and you know,
12:29
Speaker 1: they had they had gotten married and had two two children,
12:33
Speaker 1: and you know, they had been there in the community
12:36
Speaker 1: for a few years when this happened. So they both
12:39
Speaker 1: taught together. You know, Karen, start working together is very
12:43
Speaker 1: very difficult. Why Well, because it's just too much time
12:47
Speaker 1: spent together and too many differences that can come up.
12:51
Speaker 1: What if one person is doing much better than the other.
12:54
Speaker 1: There's a lot of competition, and so it's it's not
12:58
Speaker 1: the most ideal situation. I often work with couples that
13:03
Speaker 1: work together. I see them just to help them figure
13:06
Speaker 1: out how they can get along and make something like
13:09
Speaker 1: that turn out to be okay. It's very challenged. Robin
13:12
Speaker 1: Molinski Crime online dot Com investigative reporter Robin. You know,
13:15
Speaker 1: a murder like this doesn't just happen out of the blue.
13:19
Speaker 1: What was brewing within that home before Emily was murdered
13:23
Speaker 1: right in front of her children. Well, here's the problem.
13:25
Speaker 1: When this guy comes home and he finds his wife
13:29
Speaker 1: on the floor dead, with the blood and the kids,
13:32
Speaker 1: he's calling nine to one one. Nancy's screaming and shocked
13:37
Speaker 1: that he leaves for however long he's out, and he
13:40
Speaker 1: comes home and now my wife is dead. And here's
13:43
Speaker 1: how he gets jammed up in this is that when
13:46
Speaker 1: police ask him question number one, were you guys separating?
13:50
Speaker 1: Were you guys getting a divorce? Are there marital problems?
13:53
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a police officer's job. Police one
13:56
Speaker 1: on one I call it. And he says to the
13:59
Speaker 1: police office, who show up at the house on this
14:01
Speaker 1: nine one, responding to the nine one one, Paul, Oh, yeah,
14:04
Speaker 1: we had marital problems, so ding ding ding. Now they're thinking, oh, well,
14:10
Speaker 1: she hated him. He hated her, and I believe that's
14:13
Speaker 1: how he got jammed up in this situation. Well wait
14:16
Speaker 1: a minute, wait a minute, what do you mean. I
14:18
Speaker 1: don't know what you mean by jammed up. I mean
14:20
Speaker 1: his wife's dead on the floor while he had a
14:21
Speaker 1: convenient trip to Walmart. But what were the what was
14:24
Speaker 1: the marital problem? I mean they were fighting, they had arguments.
14:27
Speaker 1: As he put it, it it wasn't a perfect marriage, and
14:30
Speaker 1: people argue in their relationship. To Dal Kennedy, WTOC reporter
14:35
Speaker 1: who has cracked a lot of stories revolving around this case,
14:38
Speaker 1: Dal Kennedy, what was the problem. Why did he blurt
14:42
Speaker 1: out to police they had marital problems. One of the
14:44
Speaker 1: things that was brought up was that that she was
14:48
Speaker 1: perhaps maybe more assertive, and that he felt insecure, you know,
14:53
Speaker 1: from her success, from her academics, um, you know, one
14:57
Speaker 1: person teaches an academic subject and teaching physical education, that
15:02
Speaker 1: maybe there was some insecurity on his part his teaching
15:07
Speaker 1: compared to hers. UM. There were also, you know, witnesses
15:12
Speaker 1: that she was critical, openly critical of him towards other people,
15:16
Speaker 1: and you know he perhaps resented some of that. Oh
15:20
Speaker 1: my goodness. Ashley Willcott judge the lawyer anchor. You can
15:25
Speaker 1: find her Ashley Walcott dot com. My dad was so happy,
15:28
Speaker 1: My mom worked, h so proud of her achieving. She
15:31
Speaker 1: went from bank teller to the CFO of a company.
15:33
Speaker 1: For Pete's sake, I never heard him say a word,
15:36
Speaker 1: and he was right there, Ashley, and he and mother
15:40
Speaker 1: both would come to many of my trials. Could not
15:42
Speaker 1: have been prouder. And so when I hear stories like this,
15:46
Speaker 1: all I can do is compare it to my dad
15:48
Speaker 1: and my husband David. If I something good happens with me,
15:53
Speaker 1: he's thrilled and likewise, uh and bottom line, he taught
15:57
Speaker 1: pe she taught English literature. The paycheck was probably the same.
16:03
Speaker 1: So who cares? Well that shot should be in a
16:06
Speaker 1: perfect marriage, right, you should have a partner that supports
16:09
Speaker 1: you in your efforts, support you in your career, support
16:11
Speaker 1: you and all your successes. That's how it should be.
16:14
Speaker 1: But we all know that doesn't always happen. Egos get involved,
16:17
Speaker 1: and let's be honest. You know, Nancy, a lot of
16:20
Speaker 1: people have marital issues. So the fact he said, hey, yeah,
16:23
Speaker 1: we had merital issues, does that mean he committed this murder?
16:27
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe not, so as you will, Coot, you're the
16:29
Speaker 1: juvenile judge. The children had to see what happened, and
16:33
Speaker 1: there is a host of difficulties of putting children this
16:36
Speaker 1: young on the stand. For instance, they may be nonverbal,
16:41
Speaker 1: they may be so traumatized they can't relate what they saw.
16:45
Speaker 1: They may not want to get their dad in trouble.
16:47
Speaker 1: And I remember in the Josh Powell case, Remember he
16:51
Speaker 1: killed his wife, Susan Powell later on years later killed
16:54
Speaker 1: the two boys. When the two boys were asked what
16:56
Speaker 1: happened to night mommy disappeared, they drew a picture of
16:59
Speaker 1: them in the car with their dad and mommy in
17:01
Speaker 1: the car trunk. Okay, so they did not say what happened,
17:06
Speaker 1: but the picture showed at all. I worked with many,
17:08
Speaker 1: many child victims and a host of felonies, and you
17:12
Speaker 1: have to be able to spend time with them, not
17:14
Speaker 1: pressure them, get them to open up, and they speak
17:17
Speaker 1: their own language. Like in every indict when you have
17:20
Speaker 1: to give a general time period when the crime happened,
17:24
Speaker 1: I would say things like was the Christmas tree up
17:26
Speaker 1: when this happened? Would the Easter bunny come? Did you
17:30
Speaker 1: have as you already picked out your Halloween outfit? Things
17:34
Speaker 1: like that to get a time reference. So actually, there's
17:37
Speaker 1: a host of problems with putting children on the stand.
17:39
Speaker 1: And then of course the defense always claims their line absolutely.
17:42
Speaker 1: So two things Number one is, when you have children
17:44
Speaker 1: make any statements, it can be used and should be
17:46
Speaker 1: used for law enforcement to thoroughly investigate and try to
17:50
Speaker 1: find other evidence that links the crime to the actual
17:54
Speaker 1: defendant who's accused of murdering this person. Number two is, yes,
17:59
Speaker 1: they're a host of shoes, you know as well as
18:01
Speaker 1: I do. Though the defendants have the right to confront
18:03
Speaker 1: and so theoretically, yes, the children may need to testify.
18:06
Speaker 1: What's crucial then, is to do it in a child
18:08
Speaker 1: friendly manner as much as possible to lessen the trauma
18:12
Speaker 1: to that child if they have to testify. So Robert Willinsky,
18:16
Speaker 1: Crime online dot Com investigative reporter, the girls had to
18:19
Speaker 1: see mommy gets stabbed. She was bathing them. Yes, Nancy,
18:22
Speaker 1: the four year old definitely saw it happened that I
18:26
Speaker 1: know for sure. I'm looking at a photo of them.
18:28
Speaker 1: The four year old has a beautiful, long brunette shiny
18:31
Speaker 1: hair like her mom. And oh, they're so cute. Mommy's
18:34
Speaker 1: holding them sitting on a family's sofa, and the other
18:37
Speaker 1: one is really a taught I'm not totally sure she'd
18:40
Speaker 1: sit up on her own, but probably so. Dal Kennedy
18:44
Speaker 1: WTOC what can you tell me about what the girls
18:49
Speaker 1: maybe said about when mommy was stabbed in the neck
18:52
Speaker 1: during bathtime? She referred to it, and they never really
18:55
Speaker 1: understood what she meant. But she referred to the brown
18:59
Speaker 1: man or a man wearing brown being in the house
19:03
Speaker 1: and chasing mommy, you know, from the bathroom, back back
19:07
Speaker 1: past the bathroom, you know, in the other rooms, and
19:11
Speaker 1: they could hear, you know, they could hear commotion. Can
19:14
Speaker 1: you imagine this being the last memory of your mother,
19:17
Speaker 1: hearing her running from room to room screaming where the
19:23
Speaker 1: man in brown chased her? What a child will do
19:29
Speaker 1: to cover for their dad? Is that what happened? Hi?
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Speaker 1: find may astound you. Go to truthfinder dot com forward
20:37
Speaker 1: slash Nancy right away to start searching truthfinder dot com
20:42
Speaker 1: forward slash Nancy truthfinder dot com forward slash Nancy. Find
20:49
Speaker 1: the truth crime stories with Nancy Grace. Imagine as a
21:05
Speaker 1: child sitting in the bathtub, your mom bathing you, your
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Speaker 1: little sister there, and you hear your mom running from
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Speaker 1: room to room screaming. That's your last memory of mommy.
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Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened when young mom and college professor
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Speaker 1: Emily Mason was murdered in her own home at her
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Speaker 1: daughter's bathtime. She had been bathing the two little girls,
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Speaker 1: one an infant, one four years old, when she was
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Speaker 1: brutally stabbed in the neck multiple times. The dad had
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Speaker 1: conveniently gone to Walmart came home to find Emily dead.
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Speaker 1: For the longest time, the children couldn't speak until one
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Speaker 1: child said it was the man in brown or words
21:56
Speaker 1: to that effect. It wasn't long after when Emily's husband
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Speaker 1: was indicted, Walter C. Mason Junior. Is it true he
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Speaker 1: was indicted, was booked in two years, passed to dal
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Speaker 1: Kennedy WTSC. Yes. The whole community was waiting on Walt
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Speaker 1: Mason to face trial and for you know, the evidence
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Speaker 1: to come forward. So dal Kennedy w t OC. He's
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Speaker 1: charged with murder, a brutal murder. His children are taken
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Speaker 1: away from him. Of course he's on bond, he has
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Speaker 1: to wait two years. In fact, he actually had to
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Speaker 1: leave Emmanuel County. He was so shunned he left the county.
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Speaker 1: Of course, ashe Wilcott, judges will order no contact with
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Speaker 1: the children, only supervised contact, right, So he had no
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Speaker 1: way of knowing exactly what his children were saying, right Ash, Absolutely,
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Speaker 1: that's typical. Why is that, Well, it's because they don't
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Speaker 1: he's accused of the crime, right, somebody else had these children,
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Speaker 1: and they do not want him to be around the
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Speaker 1: children unsupervised because they're fearful. Probably rightfully, so, if somebody's
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Speaker 1: been charged that something's going to happen to those children,
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Speaker 1: that they're going to do something to the children. You're right,
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Speaker 1: their witnesses, their witnesses to mommy's brutal stabbing death. But
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Speaker 1: then everything changed because not long after that, somebody robbed
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Speaker 1: a coffee store employee at knife point. Somebody robbed a
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Speaker 1: coffee store employee at knife point, emphasis on knife point.
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Speaker 1: And the robber was not Emily's husband, Walter C. Mason Junior.
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Speaker 1: The robber was Philip Scott Kirby Senior, Dal Kennedy. Did
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Speaker 1: the coffee shot robbery occur in Swainsborough? It did. So
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Speaker 1: you've got in a very very small town, a rural area,
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Speaker 1: another knife related incident, a violent knife related incident. But
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Speaker 1: still it means nothing to Emily's murder. But the fact
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Speaker 1: that he robbed at knife point, Karen stark, typically in
24:13
Speaker 1: this day and age, robberies are done with a gun.
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Speaker 1: The fact that he used a knife, another knife related
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Speaker 1: incident in this small town, to me, is a red
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Speaker 1: flag right there. Karen starts, Yeah, especially because it's a
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Speaker 1: small town. They don't see that many incidents of people
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Speaker 1: being killed. And as we said before, this is somebody
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Speaker 1: who murders and enjoys it, so wants that contact and
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Speaker 1: intimacy that we talked about and that would make them wonder.
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Speaker 1: I always think about why you would want money so
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Speaker 1: badly you would hold someone at knife point or gunpoint
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Speaker 1: to get it. It's a whole other mentality. It's not
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Speaker 1: like you're going into Macie's and shoplifting. It's not like
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Speaker 1: you're picking up a five dollar bill off the ground
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Speaker 1: and not trying to find out who did it. You're
24:57
Speaker 1: willing to hold a knife to somebody's face to take
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Speaker 1: their money, and you mean it. They're so afraid they
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Speaker 1: give you what you want. It's that mentality. It's probably
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Speaker 1: something most of us can cannot relate to. So you've
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Speaker 1: got another knife incident in a very small town. Now
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Speaker 1: let me ask you this, Dal Kennedy w t OC.
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Speaker 1: What was Philip Scott Kirby Senior doing for a living
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Speaker 1: at the time Emily was murdered at bathtime? He was
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Speaker 1: a repairman. He was a repairman, what kind of repairman? What?
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Speaker 1: What did he do? Like? Refrigerators, heating, what heating, heating
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Speaker 1: and air conditioning. So this is the guy that did
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Speaker 1: water heaters, heating and air repairs in Swainsborough. Can I
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Speaker 1: ask you one question, Dal Kennedy? What color was his
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Speaker 1: uniform brown well brown shirt other than having a brown
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Speaker 1: shirt on. What else can you tell me, Dale Kennedy,
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Speaker 1: what can you tell me about a pair of sweatpants
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Speaker 1: at the scene of Emily's murder in that blood soaked scene,
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Speaker 1: and a wedding band. The hair was sort of a
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Speaker 1: mystery that they could not match it up to anything
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Speaker 1: until Philip Kirby is convicted, he's sent to prison and
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Speaker 1: his DNA is put into the state database. His DNA
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Speaker 1: matches up to fat hair. Wow, Now what he can argue.
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Speaker 1: Of course, what Philip Kirby can argue is that he
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Speaker 1: did repairs in the home and that was simply one
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Speaker 1: of his hairs. We know Kirby had worked in Emily's
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Speaker 1: home as a repairman. But what more can you tell me?
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Speaker 1: Because somebody's got to explain the way his wedding band,
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Speaker 1: Robin Willinsky, was that his wedding band? Yeah, it was
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Speaker 1: his wedding band. During the crime, he dropped his wedding band.
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Speaker 1: He didn't wear the wedding band on his finger like
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Speaker 1: a normal person. Because he's using his hands to fix
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Speaker 1: things in the house, the heat and the air conditioner.
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Speaker 1: His wedding band when he was wearing a chain. I've
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Speaker 1: seen women do this where you wear the wedding band
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Speaker 1: on a chain instead of on your finger. Well, as
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Speaker 1: a guy, he did the same thing because he's using
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Speaker 1: his hands, and in the context of the crime, when
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Speaker 1: he's running after her with the knife, running down the hallway,
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Speaker 1: stabbing her in the neck, the wedding band that's on
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Speaker 1: a chain around his neck falls off, and he's claiming
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Speaker 1: it's not his ring, but it is his ring. Here's
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Speaker 1: the reality though. He was just in the home the
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Speaker 1: day before making a repair. That's his defense. It was unusual, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: for a case to progress like it did and then
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Speaker 1: go in a completely different direction. Initially, the husband, Walt Mason,
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Speaker 1: was the prime suspect, was arrested, was even indicted. And
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Speaker 1: you know, from what you might consider circumstan angel evidence.
28:00
Speaker 1: When you know was a spouse or you know a
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Speaker 1: person is found murdered the you know, most of the
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Speaker 1: time the first suspect is the spouse, and his alibi
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Speaker 1: was I had gone to the store for a few minutes,
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Speaker 1: you know, just across town, in the small town of Swainsboro.
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Speaker 1: When I came back, my wife is brutally murdered, here
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Speaker 1: in the floor. The kids are in the other room.
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Speaker 1: You know, investigators had a hard time believing that a
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Speaker 1: beautiful young college professor, Emily Mason bathing her two infant
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Speaker 1: girls when she's stabbed brutally in the neck. Her husband
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Speaker 1: almost immediately under suspicion, arrested and indicted. He is so
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Speaker 1: shunned in the Swainsborough neighborhood, and why shouldn't he be?
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Speaker 1: The girls are taken away. It was so bad he
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Speaker 1: moved out of the county and then in a fluke
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Speaker 1: two years a later, another guy, Philip Kirby, robs a
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Speaker 1: coffee shop at knife point. He gets tested, he has
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Speaker 1: to submit to DNA and bam, the case breaks wide open.
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Speaker 1: His DNA matches hair at the scene of Emily's murder
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Speaker 1: years before, and a wedding ring is found. It's his
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Speaker 1: wedding ring. Then he explains, well, you know what, I
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Speaker 1: work on home repairs. I wear it on a chain
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Speaker 1: around my neck. It fell off. You can't frame me
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Speaker 1: for murder. But what about this Dall Kennedy WTOC reporter,
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Speaker 1: How can you explain that the night of Emily's murder
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Speaker 1: he has found covered in blood in a car near
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Speaker 1: the home. His claim was that he was in a
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Speaker 1: car wreck and that that was the explanation for his
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Speaker 1: wounds and for the blood. Darn. Oh, he's got an
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Speaker 1: answer for everything. But wait a minute, Robin Willinski, what
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Speaker 1: did he say about the wedding band? Did he say
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Speaker 1: he lost the wedding band during the car wreck? He
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Speaker 1: can't explain in away the wedding band. He yes, he
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Speaker 1: could say anything, that he lost it in the car wreck,
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Speaker 1: that he lost it here, he lost the there, it's
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Speaker 1: not his ring. He's got every excuse in the book.
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Speaker 1: But he stages Nancy this car accident. This car accident
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Speaker 1: is just two miles from the house, and he drives
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Speaker 1: his vehicle into a dick idiot, so he gets hurt.
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Speaker 1: What an idiot, Karen Stark, Why don't you have to
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Speaker 1: Why don't you just go home and clean up? Why
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Speaker 1: stage a car crash? Well, I don't know if he
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Speaker 1: was such an idiot, Nancy, because he was worried. I'm
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Speaker 1: guessing that if he went home, maybe that his wife
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Speaker 1: the wedding band he wore around his neck would notice
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Speaker 1: that there was all this blood. There must have been
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Speaker 1: that much blood that he felt he couldn't get away
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Speaker 1: with going home, and so he decided to crash his
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Speaker 1: car and make his look as though he had been
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Speaker 1: in this terrible accident. And that was theod Oh, what
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Speaker 1: a tangled web we weave when first we practice too
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Speaker 1: deceived Ashley Wilcote. Can you imagine him, Ashley in the
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Speaker 1: car leaving the murder, and then he touches his neck
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Speaker 1: and finds out the wedding band isn't there? Listen the
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Speaker 1: good news for us as criminals, they're not always what's smart.
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Speaker 1: They're not, and they panic and they make stupid decisions
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Speaker 1: and do stupid things, and quite frankly, wa wa wait.
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Speaker 1: Despite the DNA evidence matching up to the hair there,
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Speaker 1: prosecutors felt that's just not enough. He was just in
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Speaker 1: the home repairing the day before. Even though the little
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Speaker 1: girl says it was the man in brown, there were
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Speaker 1: arguments that she may have said the brown man versus
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Speaker 1: the man in brown. They still didn't feel they had
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Speaker 1: a case. And then Kirby was set to be released
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Speaker 1: on the coffee store robbery. Then evidence comes forward. The
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Speaker 1: state digs, They dig, and they dig, and they find
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Speaker 1: the receipt for that wedding band. It's the same exact
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Speaker 1: wedding band found in the home. Listen to this. The
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Speaker 1: unsolved murder of Emily Mason has kept tongues wagging in
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Speaker 1: Emmanuel County for more than a decade. Today, prosecutors made
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Speaker 1: their move, had arrested their suspect in this case. Just
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Speaker 1: as he was about to walk out of prison, a freeman,
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Speaker 1: Philip Kirby, traded one jumpsuit for another and walked into
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Speaker 1: Superior Court to hear the charge of felony murder against him.
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Speaker 1: Judge Cathy Palmer told him he's accused in the two
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Speaker 1: thousand and two murder of Emily Pastona Mason, a wife
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Speaker 1: and mother assaulted in her family's home. Had just recently
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Speaker 1: had decided to review older case files, and based on
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Speaker 1: the review of that case, Fowle, it was determined that
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Speaker 1: it was time to proceed forward with it. Wow, you're
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Speaker 1: hearing our friend dal Kennedy from WTOC who was with
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Speaker 1: us right now. You know, one thing always stuck in
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Speaker 1: my mind now the entire time when the husband, Walter
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Speaker 1: was being shunned, when his children were not really allowed
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Speaker 1: to see after his wife's murder, when everyone thought he
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Speaker 1: was guilty, her family stood by him, Her family, Emily
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Speaker 1: Mason's family and his family of course stood by him.
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Speaker 1: They never believed it, Dale, Is that true. It is
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Speaker 1: they were. They were extremely supportive. It was interesting the
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Speaker 1: time frame of that, because prosecutors announced Philip Kirby as
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Speaker 1: a person of interest as a suspect when they dropped
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Speaker 1: the charges against Walt Mason, and Philip Kirby went to
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Speaker 1: prison and served his full term. And that's why there was,
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Speaker 1: you know, more than a decade between him named as
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Speaker 1: a suspect before he ever went to trial. Is it true,
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Speaker 1: Dal Kennedy, did this guy, Phillip Scott Kirby Senior had
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Speaker 1: a prior rape charge. Yes, that is true. The prosecutors
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Speaker 1: actually brought a witness of a co worker that when
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Speaker 1: he had come back from the Mason house was talking
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Speaker 1: about her and said that he was going to go
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Speaker 1: back to see her sometime. Well, you know, I've been
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Speaker 1: wondering over and over and over in my mind, Robin,
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Speaker 1: what was the motive? And now we know he was
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Speaker 1: in the home the day before doing a hot water
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Speaker 1: heater repair and he sees her And it reminds me
34:25
Speaker 1: of the recent case of Jamie Class. The Purp in
34:29
Speaker 1: that case, is behind the school bus and he sees
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Speaker 1: Jamie class the little girl get off the school bus,
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Speaker 1: the red headed girl, and he says, I'm taking her.
34:39
Speaker 1: It's just like that. Can I tell you what happened
34:42
Speaker 1: to me? Karen Stark as a prosecutor, I was having
34:47
Speaker 1: I tried to paint the inside of my house, and
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Speaker 1: I was just running out of time, working, working, So
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Speaker 1: I finally hired some guy, a friend of a friend
34:56
Speaker 1: whatever recommended. I was getting ready to leave one morning
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Speaker 1: he came in to finish the painting. Do you know
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Speaker 1: this guy had to be six or five, grabbed me
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Speaker 1: and kissed me right on the mouth, right on the
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Speaker 1: Mouthcaren Stark, Well, that inspired a section in my new book,
35:12
Speaker 1: Don't Be a Victim. But when you invite let people
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Speaker 1: in your home, that's a very tricky situation. Karen. Can
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Speaker 1: you imagine this perv telling people at work, I saw
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Speaker 1: this beautiful mom, I want to go back and see her,
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Speaker 1: and not being aware of the fact that, I mean,
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Speaker 1: how ridiculous, Nancy, that he doesn't think well, somebody might
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Speaker 1: take notice of that, the fact that I'm saying I
35:38
Speaker 1: want to go back and check this woman out and
35:40
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that story about you. How awful
35:43
Speaker 1: people have to be very, very careful when there's a
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Speaker 1: stranger in your home that needs to really be pushed
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Speaker 1: into everybody's consciousness. I don't want to sound like I'm
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Speaker 1: blaming her, because I'm not. She didn't even know he
35:56
Speaker 1: was coming in the day that he came in and
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Speaker 1: murdered her. I mean, in her mind, this is just
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Speaker 1: a hot water heater repair guy, you know, Nancy, I
36:03
Speaker 1: agree with you on your point about Jamie Cloths and
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Speaker 1: the suspect who saw her and grabbed her from the
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Speaker 1: bus stop. This is the same thing. This crime was
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Speaker 1: one hundred percent premeditated, and that this repair guy saw
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Speaker 1: this beautiful woman, saw the two little girls, kept thinking
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Speaker 1: about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, and came
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Speaker 1: back and committed this horrendous crime. It was one hundred
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Speaker 1: percent premeditated. It's like an animal out in the wild
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Speaker 1: that sees another animal says I'm going to tear its
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Speaker 1: throat out, and that's what happened. He sees this beautiful
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Speaker 1: young mom. If you could see a picture of her
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Speaker 1: right now, which you can crime online, this beautiful or
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Speaker 1: skinlet's like porcelain long, beautiful, dark brown, shiny hair, chestnut colored, big,
36:57
Speaker 1: perfect smile, holding these bays bees. He sees that and
37:02
Speaker 1: instead of thinking, what a gorgeous mom, what a happy family,
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Speaker 1: his instinct is to stabber in the throat and try
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Speaker 1: to rape her. It's the difference and a regular person
37:14
Speaker 1: and a predator. Like you walk through the park or
37:17
Speaker 1: you go on a walk and you see a bunny
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Speaker 1: rabbit cross your path, is your instinct to chase it
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Speaker 1: down and tear its throat out? Probably not, but that's
37:27
Speaker 1: what a predator would do. And that's what this guy is.
37:30
Speaker 1: And these children grow up deep in their subconscious knowing
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Speaker 1: mommy was giving them a bath when she was brutally attacked.
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Speaker 1: Their last memory of mommy is her running from room
37:44
Speaker 1: to room screaming. And it was not daddy, it was
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Speaker 1: this guy. Philip Scott Kirby Senior, may he rot in Hell.
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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off goodbye friend,