Latest / PNW Haunts & Homicides / Deborah "Debe" Atrops: If Anything Happens to Me | Beaverton, Oregon

Transcript

Deborah "Debe" Atrops: If Anything Happens to Me | Beaverton, Oregon · PNW Haunts & Homicides

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On December first, nineteen eighty eight, at approximately nine am,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a city public works employee called Beaverton Police to report
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a suspicious abandoned vehicle at the dead end of Southwest
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Murray Road near Cholsbury Road.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It's spooky to think of like a missings person car
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: being found on a dead end.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: It's just like it. Don't like that vibe.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I don't like it either. It's not giving good anything vibes.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's giving very dead end vie.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Very dead yeah, very that. Yeah, I'll like it. A
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: little on the nose, you might say, Hi, Cassie, Hi Caitlin,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Hi creepy people. Oh hellou we. I was like, I'm
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: actively forcing my hand down to the table. I'm not waving.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: I'm waving.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I am still looking at the camera.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: The non existent we'll get back to it.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: If you guys have been missing the videos, it's Cassie's
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: fault and we will get back to it.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: We're getting there. We're getting there, Okay. This is PNW
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Hans and Homicides where we chat about true crime, the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: para normal and usually a little bit about my dogs.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know, whatever's on our mind.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Anything and everything. We feel like talking about.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: But usually we do have a subject that yeah, truecriber, spooky,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it's not totally free form. Just to be fair, we
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: do a little tarro reading at the end of every
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: episode as well for deeper insight into our topic. Inside
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: do we get Indeed, this is a really long one,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: so I think I'm gonna just jump into it. This
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is like the longest set of notes that I've had
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: in a while, and I feel like there are a
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: lot of spots where there's I feel a discussion coming on. Okay,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I should say, okay, yeah, what if I just have
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: nothing to say, I'm just blankly staring at you the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: entire time. Honestly, I would be blown away, and that's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: truly wild behavior. Okay, but okay, also sorry, if you
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: guys hear my headphones, I'm creaking.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're very Uh we're talking about getting new ones.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so join the Patreon, right so we can get
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: non creaky headphones. I know, I feel like we really
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: liked these at a certain point, but.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we mean they're better. I think there do we
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: used to have another set?
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Right? I think we did? Yeah, and they were just
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: really hot. Was I feel like my biggest complaint they're
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: better than the ones. You know, upgrades need to happen.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It's been a while since we've done anything now, I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: think because once we got these mike arms for the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: desks and then we got the road caster, I feel
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: like we were kind of like, we don't really know anything.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: It's stup a whole studio, man's and everything. We did
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of upgrades, but it's been a minute.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: It's been a minute. And I think headphones on the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: scale of like new computer or roadcast or whatever, to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: like something super small, like a wireless mouse or whatever.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: It's kind of in the middle. It's not like I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: don't think we'll probably spend one thousand dollars on headphones,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: but I hope not. Yeah, I know we easily could.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I have looked at headphones in recent memory, and definitely
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: there are people using headphones that are quite expensive.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So two thousand of you join our Patreon at a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: dollar tier because we have a dollar tier. There you go,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: you get ad free episode, to get a welcome card
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: with a little mini terror reading in it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And we can afford one thousand dollars headphones each. I mean,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: that's perfect. That's a it's a worthy goal.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, that's a it's a
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: like logical purchase, right, absolutely.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I love that for us and for all of you. Okay,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: remember when I said we were starting just gonna jump
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: right into it, and then something happened.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: It was me again, It's my fault, all right.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Deborah Lee A. Trops was born in June of nineteen
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: fifty eight in Florence, Oregon. She went by Debbie according
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to those closest to her. I feel like everybody named
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Deborah goes by Debbie or deb Yeah. Yeah, is your
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: name Deborah? Do you go by Debbie? Let us know?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, if you do go by Debbie, how
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: do you spell it? Because all of my source material
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: shows that, like her nickname, Debbie was spelled d e
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: b e. Oh. That's cute. Yeah, I like that.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: That's different.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I would just assume the normal D e bb y
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: yeah or I E yeah.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I've seen it spelled I guess more ways than I remembered. Well,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that's cute. I like that. I kind of want it
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to be like the accent e, so it's like debbe
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: like babe babe. Yeah. She was described by her stepfather
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Ed Holland and her close friend Darlene Lufkin as warm, ambitious,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and full of desire for a better life. She was
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the kind of person who made people feel seen, and
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: that was something that I felt like was really touching
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: about interviews that I saw with her friend Darlene, because
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: she was a fairly young single mother in the eighties,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and you know, she described feeling like it was hard
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: for me to maintain like adult friendships because not a
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: lot of people want to come and hang out with
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you and your kids. Yeah, and Debbie just you know,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: loved my kids, loved spending time together, and that was like,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: she reminds me of me. Yeah, right, you come and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: hang out with me and my kids all the time. True,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: I hang out with everyone's kids kidless.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But you know, I'm a nanny too, so obviously.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I have to have love for children.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think sometimes too, when you don't have your
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: own kids, you have maybe some bandwidth that like if
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I were a parent and had my own kids, I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: don't know that I would want to go over to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: somebody else's house and hang out with her, right, I
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: don't know. Debbie had married Robert Bob Atrops on June sixth,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven. Just days after her twenty ninth birthday.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: In March of nineteen eighty eight, the couple had adopted
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a beautiful baby girl named Rihanna. Oh, I know, and
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we're living in Sherwood, Oregon.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I know where that is where.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I know everything that I was reading and I watched
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: a couple of different I think forty eight Hours or
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and or Dateline. There's like an episode that they talk
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: about the case and I kept being like, oh, I
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: know where that is. Or I'm like, yeah, no shit,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: your lack you picked the case in the PNW in
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the state living weird. Yeah, I know, never been more
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: nerd coded than.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I wasn't sure if I knew where Florence was, but
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: I've heard of it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Florence is located on the central Oregon coast,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and I think of the coast, even though like my
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: memories of driving through or spending time in Florence aren't
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: actually really like of the coast itself. It's more like
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: sand dunes, like a lot of people take like ATVs
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and like dirt bikes and stuff like that. Yeah, okay,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it's between Newport and Cuse Bay.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: That makes sense. Why, I've yeah, definitely heard of it. Yeah.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In late spring of nineteen eighty, Debbie came to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: work crying. She told a coworker that Bob had been
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: physically violent toward her. She just rough timing Bobby, Bobby.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: By the time Rihanna was three months old, the marriage
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: was falling apart, the couple separating in June of nineteen
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: eighty eight. If you're keeping track, they got married in
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: June of nineteen eighty seven. Okay, So I was trying
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: to think back.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I was like, what date did she say?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's sad, that's.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: A very short marriage.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And then you just have like a few months old baby.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: They literally just adopted a child. Oh good, Bobby, come on, man,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it's not great timing, I'm gonna say. Debbie and Rihanna
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: moved into an apartment in Salem, while Bob stayed in
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: the couple's home on Southwest Consulman Road in Sherwood. Oh.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Sure, make the mom and baby go to an apartment, right.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I think some of her family kind of lived down
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: south in like the Salem area. That's good. Yeah, she
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: had she seemed to have like more ties to further
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: south in Oregon. Okay, so it seemed like that made sense.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like, oh, okay, so you just hang
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: out in the house and they'll just move in. Yeah
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it boom, I mean boo for so many reasons. Boo
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: bob boo, boo bob boo. Debbie confided in at least
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: one friend that shortly before she moved out, Bob had
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: choked her. The two were preparing for divorce. After the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: separation was official, Debbie began a romantic relationship with a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: co worker named John Pearson, whom she had met at
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a company picnic in August of nineteen eighty eight. Pearson
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: was also separated from his wife. Debbie told friends she
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: was worried. She feared Bob had found out about Pearson,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and that if he had, he might harm her.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: That's so it's fucking scary, Like you can't even just
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: live your life. You're not together anymore.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they did have a child together. Yeah,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: so that's kind of a complicating factor. On the evening
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of November twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight, Debbie A. Drops
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: had two things on her schedule. First, a hair appointment
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: at a salon called res much else Ooo In Tiger
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: to Oregon, second a stop at Bob's home in Sherwood
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: to pick up baby Rihanna, who had previously been picked
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: up from a babysitter in Newburgh by Bob while Debbie
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: was at her appointment. Debbie was expected to arrive at
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Bob's house between seven point thirty and eight pm, but
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Debbie never arrived at Bob's house. No. At nine forty pm,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Bob called the Tiger Police Department. His words recorded by
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the call with the dispatcher, my wife is running about
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: three hours overdue from a hair appointment. I was getting
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a little concerned. He gave Debbie's name, told the dispatcher
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: she had been driving a black Honda Accord, and said
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: he was calling from Sherwood. This was the first of
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: four phone calls that Bob plays the law enforcement regarding
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Debbie that evening. Oh wow, that's a lot of it's
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of calls. Yeah, yeah, and pretty quick too.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I would say that was something that really drew a
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: lot of interest how quickly he got in touch with
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: law enforcement.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I feel like he'd been worried she might have been
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: in a car accident or something like that. I would
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: probably be worried about I kind of have been like
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: three hours, right.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And obviously this is well before it was commonplace for
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: anybody to have his cell phone, right.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So in the next call, at ten twenty five pm,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: he told the dispatcher that he had driven the route
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Debbie would have taken and did not locate her vehicle. Wow,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: what searching? The dispatcher tells him, why don't we give
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it another hour and if you haven't heard anything, give
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: me a call back. Okay, we're not doing video this time,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: so explain your face just now. It's just I.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Get it, because it's like the whole you know, twenty
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: four hours missing thing.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: It's only been a few hours.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Not even again you at this point, it's like ten
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: twenty five. Yeah, she was supposed to be showing up
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: roughly or like seven thirty eight o'clock, so it's been
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: like a couple of hours. I get it. But then again,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it's like what if something, yeah, did happen, and then
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: you're like, give it another hour.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: She could be you know, anywhere by then, right, what if.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: She is lying in a ditch, literally on the verge
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of bleeding to death. It is hard because yeah, she's
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: an adult. She can, But I think the love of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: concern to me kind of makes sense, because what is
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: keeping a mother for two and a half three hours
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: just unexpectedly inexplicably not picking up her infant daughter.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is weird.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: That's unusual to me. That's it gives not good vibes.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: His next two calls were placed at eleven twenty nine
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and eleven thirty four pm.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, off the hook.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well Bet. In the third call, at eleven twenty
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: nine pm, he states, Hey, this is Bob A drops again.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Have you heard anything or The dispatcher confirms officers have
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: checked around, and in turn asks if Bob checked for
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: her at the salon Rasmataz. Bob confirms he drove there
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: but obviously had not located Debbie or her car, and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the dispatcher asks about friends she might have visited. Bob
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: says no, checked called everyone I can think of. Bob
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: didn't inform law enforcement that Debbie was currently living in
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Salem until the following day, and he reportedly never called
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: her apartment, so she lives in Salem. He doesn't make
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a point of telling law enforcement, By the way, she
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: doesn't live here in Sherwood with me she actually lives
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: in Salem because we're separated, right, doesn't come up and
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: you think you'd call the apartment. She's not supposed to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: be there at that point in time.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: But it's logical if you can't find her, like you
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: call her.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, couldn't hurt, right, So on the surface that
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: seems a bit odd, But she wasn't supposed to be there,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and her stepfather ed Holland had reportedly said he'd been
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: by her apartment already and she wasn't there. Okay, given
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that added context, I'm not sure that those detail ees
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: feel that significant. Yeah, you know specifically that like, Okay, well,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: why would a call her apartment? I mean, I guess
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: it never hurts to just check again, honestly, I still would. Yeah,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: but you know, you never know, like what you're going
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to do, yea, in kind of a it's a stressful situation, right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: He thought, is you know who? He probably didn't call?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Who? Her new lever ooh Jony boy.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, I can remember his name, Yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: but I bet he didn't call him.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: You know, No, No, from what I understand, he did not.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: On the morning of November thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight, the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Washington County Sheriff's Office took an official missing person report.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Debbie's car, a nineteen eighty eight black Honda Accord, was
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: entered into law enforcement databases. So they're, you know, keeping
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: their eyes peeled for that bad boy that's all brand
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: new car back in. Oh yeah, she's sweet. I had
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a eighty eight Hondo Cord. Oh nice? Yeah?
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: What color?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It was like chocolate brown? You actually it was a
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: really pretty like shimmery brown. Okay, but unfortunately, uh, the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: chocolate brown leather interior was an unfortunate choice for a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: vehicle that did not have air conditioning. Brown. Yeah, bella
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Swan's favorite color. If you get that reference comment below.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And you know what, every time, every time I was
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: driving around, especially like I remember driving down to Salem ironically,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you know we're talking about, oh yeah, driving back and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: forth from Salem in Hillsboro in that car in the summer,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: it felt like I was in war torn Phoenix.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: On December first, nineteen eighty eight, at a approximately nine am,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: a city public works employee called Beaverton Police to report
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: a suspicious abandoned vehicle at the dead end of Southwest
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Murray Road near Scholesbury Road.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Is it still a dead end?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Uh?
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: No, I feel like I don't.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I don't see there being dead ends on those roads,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: not so specifically. They're very built up these days. And
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: it's kind of the spot, the very specific spot where
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: they found her car. It's like kind of on the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: backside of an apartment complex that was like brand new
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: at the time. So crazy, Yeah, crazy because I've lived
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: like right in that little stretch of like Tigered and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Beaverton multiple times over the years. But that was unsettling.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: It's spooky to think of like a missings person car
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: being found on a dead end.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: It just like it. Don't like that vibe.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I don't like it either. It's not giving good anything vibes. No,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: it's giving very dead end vibe. Very dead Yeah, very yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Oh like it a little on the nose, you might say.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: It was parked at the edge of woods near a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: construction site. The car had no license plates, the driver's
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: window was rolled down, and the keys were on the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: driver's seat.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Hmmm.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Frost covered the windows, suggesting it had been there overnight
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: or longer. Witnesses later confirmed it had been parked there
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: since early November thirtieth, approximately five miles from Bob's Sherwood home,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and no one took it. I mean it was like
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: basically overnight at some point to like roughly nine am.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Still, I don't know.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely in a spot where there wouldn't
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: have been a lot of passers by. And you have
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to remember too that in nineteen eighty eight, that like
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: particular part of like right there on the border of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: essentially Beaverton and Tigered, it was nowhere near as densely
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: populated as it is now.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: That is true, very farmland y.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. When officers looked in the trunk, they found
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: deb A Trops, sadly deceased. No no, no, no, well, god,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: good thing.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: No one took it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that'd be a little upsetting. You steal a car,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you get a lot more than new bargain for. I
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: don't know why that. I was not expecting her to
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: be in the trunk. Trunk, like, I feel like.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: That's kind of where a lot of people are found,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: but for some reason I wasn't expecting that with this one.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Well that or sometimes you know, they're just finding this
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: person who's missing, they're just locating their abandoned vehicle and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: they're not with the vehicle, and then it's like, shit,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: where is this person? That's where I thought it was going. Yeah, yeah,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: very okay, yeah, dead end. I thought it would be
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: kind of you.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: You did foreshadow it, and it didn't. I didn't wasn't
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: pick up.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not picking up what you're putting down at
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: a tool. Her blue coat and black heels were covered
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in mud. Based on the positioning of her body, investigators
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: believe she had died elsewhere and then then placed face
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: down in the trunk after her death that I don't
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: know why, but something about being put in the trunk,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: specifically face down, really bothers me. I think it just
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: feels so disrespectful to place this person face down. Yeah,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: like you're kind of just yea throw her in there, yeah,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: like wherever. It just feels I don't know, it just
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: feels disrespectful. I just can you not mess up? Don't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: mess up my face or my hair. I may be deceased,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: but like this is how I don't. I don't know,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: she just got her hair done. I know. Her autopsy
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: later confirmed Debbie's cause of death as manual strangulation following
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a physical assault, though there did not appear to be
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: any signs of a sexual assault.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, thank goodness, but still she's dead and
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: was assaulted.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Investigators noticed something else at the scene. It looked as
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: though someone had tried to wipe down the hood of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the car. There were broad cloth swipes. It looked like
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: across the surface like somebody had, you know, like with
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: their coat sleeve or whatever.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: But didn't do a good, good enough job to like
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I gut.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it just was obvious because it probably
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: started like condensation was forming and oils or any number
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of like other substances that may have been present on
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: whatever material that they used to it. Like, I don't know,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: it just is. It's weird. It's a weird thing. I
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: think they were trying to remove like fingerprints or something.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I think that's yeah, And literally, law enforcement said, it
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: literally just looked as if someone had been maybe trying
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to destroy fingerprints. Detective O'Connell and his partner went to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Bob's home to tell him they had found his wife's body.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: A witness who observed Bob after that notification later said
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that Bob was very calm, much calmer than I would expect.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I think it bears repeating to always say you never
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: know how you're going to react. People react in a
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: myriad of ways. There's no one normal way to react.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Some people do go into like a very quiet calm,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: what appears calm from the outside, it's kind of more
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of like a shock response. Yeah, I get that. If
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: people don't react the way you maybe would, it seems odd.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: M I'm just putting that out there. There's no one
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: correct response. Also, keep in mind, at this point they
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: had been separated for several months, right nearly, she'd been
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: missing for you know, a couple of days.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like you kind of run through the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: horrible scenarios in your head to like kind of prepare,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: I think for the news because it's.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Very much how I am.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm very.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Calm in situations, like when I got called that my
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: dog was dying, like I kind of just showed up
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: and was like, Okay, where is she, Let's get her
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: in the car. Let's got like it's very calm. Like
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: a fire started in my friend's oven one time, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, guys, there's a fire in the oven.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Like just like.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Some people reacted in like very pragmatic ways. So and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's really unfair to judge too much
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: based on just their initial reaction. Sometimes people need a
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: little bit of time to process.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: So don't judge me.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think horrible half a fire thing
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit, just a little bit. From the beginning,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: investigators had no shortage of potential suspects. Debbie's estranged husband,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Bob was one name on a list that also included
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: John Pearson, the coworker slash new boyfriend she had recently
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: begun singing along with another ex boyfriend. I'm not really
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: sure why they seemed to even go to him as
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: like a potential. I wish there was a little bit
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: more to tell me, like how they connected dots to like, oh,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: we should also look at he's maybe a possibility because
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like, girl, he's like three Kevin Bacon's back right.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe he had some sort of a record or something.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: And I didn't believes it interesting that third former flame
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was Jeff Friedberg, who had loaned Debbie eight thousand dollars
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to buy her car. I don't know it just even
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that it just doesn't make sense, and I just anyways.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe he's like they're thinking he's coming to collect a debt,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: so that.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: That is exactly like, that's one of the avenues that
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: they explored, which felt kind of ridiculous to me, to
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: be honest. But he was apparently a fairly wealthy man
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: living in Salem, so I guess they both lived in Salem.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: He was living in the Salem area, And there was
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: no evidence of any discord related to finances because apparently
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: he was pretty wealthy. Like I said, so.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to kill someone for eight thousand dollars.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: No, that he loaned her because he cared about her.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, he told investigators that he had been
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: home all night except to get dinner. And it doesn't
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: seem like he faced a super high level of scrutiny
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: by law enforcement. And if he did, and maybe that
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: just wasn't made clear to me through my research, it
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: certainly didn't last because they started looking elsewhere. Can't imagine where. Yeah. Meanwhile,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: by comparison, Bob didn't have an alibi that could be corroborated.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Uh oh. His phone records confirmed no outgoing calls were
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: placed from his phone. His home phone, a landline is
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: literally connected to your wall, remember that on that night,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and we know that he placed calls to several of
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: her family members and friends. Obviously he made multiple calls
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to nine one one, so a lot of questions. I'm
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: going to explain to you what I can. Okay, that's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the best way for me to put that, I think
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: at this point. One theory says Bob was placing the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: phone calls while he was elsewhere, possibly killing Debbie and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: disposing of evidence, while another theory, perhaps more generous to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the defense, would say that he placed the calls at payphones,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: which obviously were super readily available in nineteen eighty eight. Ultimately,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: we know he placed several calls to law enforcement as
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: well as Debbie's family and friends, but we can't confirm
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: his whereabouts when those calls were placed. For certain, that
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: is very weird, very weird, and there is something else.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: We'll pull it that threat a little bit more later.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I feel like, based on the information that I have found,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm not an expert on really anything, but it's
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: certainly not on like nineteen eighties phone technology, I feel
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: like nobody really can say they one hundred percent know
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: exactly what happened in that specific instance, there's some weird
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: stuff with the calls, for sure, some possibilities, I should say.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: At the time, he was working for Allied Building Products,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a wholesale distributor of various construction materials, including roofing materials
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to projects under construction. Practically just a stones throw away
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: from where her car was found. Oh shit, meaning he
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: knew the location, he was familiar with it. It would
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: also come to light that Debbie had feared him. According
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: two close friends of hers, he choked her. Oh I
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: don't like that.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: You said it. In the beginning. I kind of forgot that.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: You had said that that he choked her. He choked her, Yeah,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and then she was strangled. I don't I don't like that.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I don't like that. I don't like that. Well, and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of statistics that have come out over
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the years that basically like, oh my god, and I'm
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: totally gonna botch it. I don't remember the exact sat.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I want to say that in a domestic violent situation,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: your partner has choked you, you are like seventy two
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: percent more likely to be killed by that individual. Oh
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: my god. And it makes sense because that is violent
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and it is personal I hate that.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I just don't like.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It's really upsetting.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I don't I never liked anyone like touching my throat
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: or anything like.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: No, would you. It's not a normal thing to do
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: touch me.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: I don't like it.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Probably don't touch me at all, but definitely don't do that.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, under the right circumstances. But you know, WHI
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: should be comfortable. Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: It would also come to light that Debbie had feared him,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: specifically stating if anything happens to me, Bob did it,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: a hunting statement. In hindsight, the underscored domestic violence attested
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to by Debbie's closest confidants.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: That's not the first time we've heard that either.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Now, No, it's alarming the number of cases that I
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: can think back to a very specific moment in time
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: where the victim has said, if anything happens to me,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: this person did it. Bob hired a lawyer a week
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: after Debbie's body was found and declined to take a polygraph.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: WHI that's a little weird.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It is a little bit weird, But honestly, if you're
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the ex husband and they find your estranged wife's body
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: five miles down the road from your house, and knowing
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: what we know now about polygraphs, like, you shouldn't agree
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to take one. Nothing really good comes out of it,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: because even if you come out looking like you passed,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it's not admissible in court typically, So what do you
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: stand to gain that for? Yeah, yeah, it's all part
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of at this point in time, it's all part of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a psychological game that they're playing with you. Back then
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: that was pretty readily used in courtrooms. So it's just
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: interesting that, Yeah, back then you would decline to take one.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, like I feel like declining anything. But maybe
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: that was from his lawyer's advice.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: that very well could be because he got a lawyer
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: right away.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: I mean I definitely don't think that's weird. I feel
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: like that's yeah, you probably need to do that.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I think back then that stuff was probably more unusual
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: than it maybe would be by today's standards. Who's just
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: ahead of his time perhaps. And I want to say,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: we're going to come back to John Pearson, her boyfriend
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: at the time, Johnny p just kind of put a
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: pin in him for now, because we are going to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: talk about him somemorew but we're going to go on different.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Nurriction, pinning him up on the wall right now.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Law enforcement investigated for months, but limitations of available DNA
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: testing in nineteen eighty eight meant investigators could not connect
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Bob or another specific suspect physically to the scene or
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: to Debby's body. By the fall of nineteen ninety, no
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: charges had been filed, and the case went cold. In
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the years that followed, Bob remarried. He raised Rihanna, the
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: infant daughter he had shared with Debbie. He built a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: life in Newburg, Oregon. Though the case was reviewed by
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: several detectives over the years, it remained cold, so Debbie's
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: family and friends waited. In May twenty twenty one, the
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Washington County District Attorney's Office Cold Case Unit, formed in
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty partnered with the Washington County Sheriff's Office to
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: reopen the investigation into Debbie's murder. The investigation was led
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: by Detective Kevin Winfield. Bob's last interview prior to the
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: cold case reopening had been in nineteen ninety. Wow, that
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: would be crazy. When investigators spoke with him again in
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, his story had changed. He now said
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: he had used an MCI card supplied by his employer
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: at the time, out light building products. Okay, so this
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is something that's different about history. I'm gonna explain it
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: as best as I possibly can as someone who's not
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: really used this thing. Okay, A detail that had not
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: appeared in thirty two years of prior statements. Okay, so
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: this is pretty significant that all of a sudden thirty
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: two years later. He If your story is changing thirty
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: two years later, maybe you know your memory is different.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I can make a case for both
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: sides of what that means. What it should do instead
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: is tell you, uh more about it. In nineteen eighty eight,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: using an MCI calling card required inputting approximately sixteen digits
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: of a card number followed by another six to eight
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: digit code. So that was used for essentially making like
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: long distance calls. And remember a lot of were long distance,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Like we don't think about that as much anymore, like
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: other than international calling. Like you can call pretty much
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: anybody anywhere here in the country now and no big deal.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: That is true.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do remember that because I had a friend
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: in like Vancouver, yeah, and I got to call her
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: and it was long distance, long distance from Hillsboro.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: From the Hillsboro, that's insane, right, Yeah, you don't even
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: think about that anymore. But that's like in our lifetime.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I forgot about that. Yep. Remember when you could dial
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: a phone number and there was no such thing as
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: an area.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, I do remember that. And then it's like we
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: got to add three extra dishes. Weize three extra dishes?
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Oh the upheopal just kidding. I've only heard about it
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: in legends from my elders.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: I told you we had one of those style.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Like oh, the rotary farah, Yeah, one of those for
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: a long time. Prosecutor Chris Luhman told a jury, if
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: you're frantically looking for your wife, why take the time
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: to do that and enter all those numbers. According to
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the defense, the long distance calls may not have shown
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: up in his home phone records due to faulty equipment
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: because of the MCI card. I mean that, which makes
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: sense if you have this calling card from your employer,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Like long distance calls were not cheap? Yeah, like yeah,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe initially he wasn't that frantic, so maybe
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: entering the digits so that he wasn't going to pay
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: a bunch of fees for long distance. Like maybe that
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: makes more sense than the prosecutor's statement would imply. He
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: also used it to call the police though, to like
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: report her missing. It's a great question because that wouldn't
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: have been a long distance call. Right, But that was
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: on his home phone record either, right, So where did
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: he place that call from? I don't know. The faulty
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: equipment thing is interesting. Not an expert in that arena,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, hm, But we know he placed all
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of those calls.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: The calls not coming from inside.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: That yeah, exactly or allegedly are not coming. Yeah, it's
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: hard to say. The cold case team also pursued two
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: significant new forensic avenues. Debbie's coat as well as soil
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: samples were sent off for additional testing.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: I love this part. Don't shake your head at me.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I'm so fucking angry about this. I could talk about
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: this case for like a week straight and like until
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: my eyes bleed. And the Oregon State Police Crime Lab
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: conducted testing of the coat while the FBI lab received
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and tested the soil samples. The FBI reportedly concluded that
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the mud on Debbie's tire did not match the mud
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: where her car was found, but that it was indistinguishable
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: from the mud on Bob's front lawn in color, composition,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and texture. Well, shit, okay, your reaction is exactly that's
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: exactly what you would expect to happen. Here's the thing.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: That word choice is deliberate and meaningful in forensic science.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: There's a crucial distinction between a match and indistinguishable. Oh,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: it is explicitly not a positive identification of common origin.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Well it sounds like one to me, I know, yep,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: uh huh.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: It means the analyst could not tell the two samples
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: apart using available methodology, which is a con considerably weaker
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: statement than saying they are a match. This is the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: same dirt they're saying they can't tell them apart, which
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: means they're a match, not necessarily. I know. We're going
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: to get into why that is so problematic in this case,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: because here's the thing. Bob's house five miles away from
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the crime scene. Remember this, okay, because and I'm going
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: to get into it. I'm gonna explain, because holy shit,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: this is why we can't have nice things. Okay, all right,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: The soil being indistinguishable has since been framed as evidence
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that Debbie had been to Bob's property that night, contradicting
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: his claim she hadn't been there in roughly ten days.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I think is what he has said that might be
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a reasonable argument to make, And admittedly I don't have
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: any expertise in forensic soil analysis, because as we've established,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I am not an expert in really anything, but forensically speaking,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: it seems to stop well short of proof that does
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: not prove that she was on his property. Samples were
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: never taken from any of Pearson or Friedberg's properties, nor
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: reportedly anywhere else for that matter, only from Bob's and
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the crime scene. Bob's home and where Debbie's vehicle was
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: discovered were only a handful of miles apart. Debbie's vehicle
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: had been on the property many times previously, as it
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: was her previous residence, so I'd argue without comparative samples
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: from other locations in the same geographic area, the finding
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: is essentially meaningless as proof of origin. You can't, or
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: maybe I should say, you shouldn't. You perhaps shouldn't establish
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: uniqueness without ruling out alternatives. It's like correlation versus causation.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: In my mind, it's scary. At some point a jury
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: will be presented that finding, along with the prosecution's interpretation
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: of it. We took two samples of dirt from five
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: miles away. These two places. They took the only samples
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: we have, and we're going to tell you that they're
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: indistinguishable from each other. Well, no shit, Sherlock. You took
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: two samples of dirt from essentially the same neighborhood.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that probably matches, like the neighbor's yard,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: and like, you know.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And that's kind of what you need a control.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: You need to go and take it a couple of
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: other samples from the area. I the dirt, take all
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: of the dirt, and it gets actually so much fucking worse.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: It's maddening.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited about the soil samples.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I know, ah dirt. The FBI didn't do anything wrong
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: in that instance. It's all about how this information is,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: how it's going to be used. Debbie's coat, stored in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: evidence since nineteen eighty eight, was submitted to the Oregon
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: State Crime Lab for DNA analysis using techniques unavailable in
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. The results were complex. The lab ran
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: three separate tests on the coat. The first two essentially
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: ruled Bob out as being a contributor to that DNA sample.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Debbie's other x's were excluded as well. The third test,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: after adjusting the analysis parameters, produced the likelihood ratio of
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: one thirty two, meaning it was one hundred and thirty
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: two times more likely that the DNA mixture found on
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the coat included Bob's contribution than that of a random person.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Is that a good number or a bad number?
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: That's a really good question, Cassie. I'm going to explain
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: that to you at length.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, good, I'm.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Going to actually explain it like a couple of different ways,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: because it is truly mind boggling, and I'm like going
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: to be shaken with rage the whole time. That number,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: according to the crime lab's own internal scale, is one
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of the weakest the lab could have gotten, notably just
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: slightly above an inconclusive result. Damn it, I was like,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty two. That sounds pretty dang good. No,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty two. No, it's definitely not that.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: The methodology and results of the test were contested by
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: the defense throughout the trial, and I keep alluding to
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: a trial or I'm going to explain. I think you
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: can probably guess whose trial it is.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Bobby Boy.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: If you're not sure, I'm gonna tell you. So that
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: was contested by the defense throughout the trial, but the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: judge allowed the jury to hear that DNA evidence that
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: barely better than an inconclusive result, DNA evidence that they
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: finally got after rerunning it for the third time after
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: adjusting the parameters. Interesting, how did they adjust the parameters? Like,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: aren't parameters parameters? How do you adjust them?
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Science? How Cassie's brain does not understand science?
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Science? Well, this truth be told, Like, this is very complex.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't fully understand at first why the term likelihood
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: ratio was being used in reference to the DNA test result.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to explain the methodology used as best
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: as I can.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm also like, isn't DNA DNA if it's USU,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: If it's not, it's not I don't understand.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: That's exactly how we have all come to understand DNA
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: evidence that is not this a sample or swab taken
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: from a piece of evidence or crime scene may contain
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: multiple DNA contributions, not just a victim and a suspect,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: but in some cases any number of individuals that came
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: into contact with the person, place, or thing in question. Okay,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that makes sense because you know you'd be shedding skin
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: cells constantly. Yes, yes, good girl, you're sciencing. You can
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I have a cookie. Yeah, I'm going to give you
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: a muffin. Actually, I don't want to brag, but I
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: took forensic science in high school.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of an expert. We watched a lot of
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: CSI in that class.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Oh no, No, it was mostly to point out what
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: they what they did wrong. Okay, cool, cool, cool cool? Okay,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I mean excellent ratings.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: And you know, one of the biggest funniest things I
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: think I learned is she was like, it makes no
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: sense for them to have the lights off and to
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: use flashlights to search for evidence.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: You want as much fucking light as possible. Anyway that
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: might take away from forensis Yes, I mean that's totally true.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Interpreting results trying to figure out what DNA belongs to
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: which of potentially numerous DNA contributors, can be incredibly difficult
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: for lab analysts. That's where probabilistic genotyping comes in. If
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: you already feel like technology might be ruining everything, consider
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: this your trigger warning.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Uh oh.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: For samples with multiple contributors, software programs use algorithms to
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: calculate the likelihood ratio that a random person's DNA was
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: in the sample mixture versus that of a potential suspect. Okay, so, Cassie.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: In this case, what that means is you, your sample, your
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: DNA is being compared to, like, what's the likelihood that
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it's someone else's literally just any Joshmo. Okay, so it's
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you versus random random dude or do debt? Got it?
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: The software then provides a number that the lab will
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: typically help law enforcement or the prosecutor to decipher. An
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: LR of one thirty two means there is roughly a
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: one in one hundred and thirty two chance that a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: completely random person's DNA would fit the mixture just as well. Okay,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I don't like those odds. Yeah. If the crime happened
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: in a large city, a one in one thirty two
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: statistic means thousands of other local residents could also match
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: that DNA sample by pure coincidence. But I thought DNA
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: was specific. I'm so confused. I know I briefly explained
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: that third result already, but it's complex, so I want
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: to try to spell it out like as clearly as possible.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: And I think you can kind of look at it
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: a couple of different ways. There's like different analogies, and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: reading all of the different examples and kind of explanations
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: really help me to make sense of it, because on
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the surface, none of us know offhand what the standards are,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and like when they're applied to a real world situation,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: what does that mean? Like how useful is this data? Essentially?
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: So what about a small town? How many people?
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same thing. So out of one
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty two people, right, an LR of one
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: thirty two means there is roughly a one in one
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: hundred thirty two chance that a completely random person's DNA
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: would fit the mixture just as well. So it could
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: be Bob, or it could be one in one hundred
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and thirty two somebody. So if you have a room
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: full of ten thousand people, yeah, but they would, but
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: they didn't, right, And that's not that's that doesn't help
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: their case, Damn it that's not good. Okay, here's the
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: other part that's really upsetting. According to the Defense the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: DNA that was found on Debbie's coat color was equivalent
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: to six to seven skin cells. Ever heard of transfer
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: DNA where you just touched something and your DNA is
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: on it? Pretty much? Okay, yeah, I mean it's pretty
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: much exactly what it sounds like, the skin cells. That's right.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I told you, smart girls.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: My DNA is all over this place.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: I better not ever kill you.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: It occurs during any number of perfectly normal, frequently non
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: violent types of physical contact, for example, shaking hands with someone.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: After shaking hands with John, Paul, Susie, or Jan, they
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: might touch something else that then leads to a faint
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: trace of your DNA being left behind.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: This is how I become like a germaphobe.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Is because I could be We're all cannibals. We're all
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: cannibals eating each other's skin cells constantly all day long.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: So a more advanced transfer evaluation might provide greater context
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: or clarify a result like this, But it would be
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: up to a defense team to hire an independent expert
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: to run such testing interpret the results and then hopefully
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: convincingly explain them. In twenty twenty two, Detective Winfield interviewed
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Bob Atrops and uncovered what seemed like significant discrepancies between
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: his current retelling of events and his nineteen eighty eight
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: to nineteen ninety statements to police. In February twenty twenty three,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the case was presented to a Washington County grand jury.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: The grand jury indicted Bob on one count of second
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: deary murder. Wow. On March I don't think there's enough
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: evidence for that. I'm really glad you're having that reaction,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: because I mean, I'm certainly it's not like I'm reading
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you a complete trial transcript, but I can have all
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: of the feelings in the world that maybe he did
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: or didn't do it, but did they prove it beyond
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt? I think that's suspect. Yeah, and you're
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: going to find out that we're in pretty good company.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: On March second, twenty twenty three, at five am, a
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: search warrant was served at Bob Atrop's Newburgh home. He
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: was arrested without incident. To her shock, his daughter Rihanna
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: now last name Stevens, received a phone call at that
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: same hour telling her what had happened. Holy shit, I
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: can't even imagine her yeah reaction to that. This is where,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: remember I said, put a pin in John. This is
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: where we're going to circle back to John Pearson, Johnny
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: P or alternative suspect as he's frequently been referred to.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: And if you thought that anything that we knew about
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Bob was damning, oh no, oh boy. One of the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: most legally significant elements of the trial was the defense's
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: argument that Debbie's boyfriend, John Pearson should have been considered
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: as an alternative suspect. Pearson had been separated from his
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: own wife at the time of his relationship with Debbie,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and the defense pointed to a detail from his nineteen
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: eighty eight police interview that they argued was suspicious. In
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: that nineteen eighty eight interview, Pearson gave what investigators described
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: as oddly specific and accurate details about the contents of
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Debbie's car and trunk on the day she was murdered,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: including the brand of fast food trash found in her vehicle.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, if they're spending time together.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Really good point that's gonna get brought up, that's gonna
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: get brought up. People are going to point to that. Okay,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: trunk's a little weird, Like you spend a lot of
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: time in the trunk?
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Do you do in that trunk?
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Yep, pretty much exactly. He also accurately described how Debbie's
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: body would have had to be positioned for it to
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: fit in the trunk, which I think maybe one could
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: argue that just based on the limitations of X size
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: space y sized woman perhaps like did they specifically ask
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: him these things or is he just it's It sounds
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: like he was very forthcoming about certain things that were
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: very weird, like.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: Why would you I could see if they're trying to
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: like trap him and ask him, like how do you
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: think her body would have fit?
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly?
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: And you have to answer because it's police. I could
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: see that.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: But if he's just saying it willy nilly, that's fucking weird,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: fucking weird. It sounds like it was definitely more in
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the fucking weird column. Okay. Defense attorneys argued in court documents,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: this is consistent with what police documented when her car
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: and body were located. So mister nostrodamis of the crime
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: scene prosecutors and original investigators rejected this framing. They noted
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: that Pearson worked with police to help track down details
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: about Debbie after her disappearance, and that his knowledge of
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: her car's contents was consistent with being her boyfriend. It's
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: a tough sell for me in police never seriously considered
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Pearson as suspect. I think that's debatable. Perhaps, But while
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: we're talking about John Pearson, let's revisit the topic of DNA.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Vaginal swabs taken during Debbie's autopsy returned a result that
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: forensic analysts said could not exclude John Pearson as a
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: contributor with a ninety four point six sextillion to one
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: likelihood ratio. That sounds a lot more than one thirty two.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: But they were boyfriend girlfriend, they've been doing it. My
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: next sentence, as her boyfriend, that wouldn't typically come as
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: a surprise, though right that forensic evidence is certainly far
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: more compelling and statistically significant. Here's the rub. He'd told
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: law enforcement he hadn't had sexual contact with Debbie in
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: the seventy two hours prior to her murder. It's important
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to note that this type of evidence is equally complex
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to annaly and interpret accurately, just like I would argue
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: any other type of forensic evidence, and I'm real sorry,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: is gun gel o graphic up in here for a second?
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Well, my thinking is pretty graphic right now, Like how
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: long does it stay in there?
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Yep? And that's exactly where we're going. Okay, Yeah, we're
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: gonna get in atomical.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: I mean I'm curious.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah I was too. According to peer reviewed forensic biology research,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: sperm DNA survival timelines differ significantly depending on where exactly
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: a sample is collected. In vaginal swabs, sperm DNA is
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: typically detectable for up to seventy two hours, okay. In
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: cervical swabs, however, the picture is considerably different. Research has
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: documented sperm persistence in the cervix for up to ten
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: days after intercourse, in a notably better state of preservation
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: than in vaginal samples.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: They just get all up in there, don't they really do?
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: A practitioner resource widely used in forensic sexual assault examination,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: published by end Violence Against Women International, WHO goes further
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: noting that the commonly applied seventy two hour rule may
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: dramatically underestimate evidence persistence, and references cases involving homicide victims,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: specifically where persistence timelines were significantly extended. But you have
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: to admit, just on the surface, what most of us
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: as laymen think or believe we understand about this type
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: of evidence doesn't look good. So as morbid as it
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: is to ponder, and I don't raise this lightly, the
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: anatomical origin of that particular swab matters enormously a sentence.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: I never thought I'd say, a vaginal vault sample and
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: a cervical sample tell very different stories about when that
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: sexualual contact may have occurred. Oh, whether that distinction was
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: documented in nineteen eighty eight with the specificity modern forensic
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: protocol would require is a question that I can't fully answer.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: So I wouldn't say that that DNA evidence necessarily establishes guilt,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: specifically for John Pearson. What I will say is that's
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: a much more compelling result.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, sextillion sextillion, interesting number, I know, ironically from
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: the sexual contact Yeah huh.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: The trial of Robert Elmer A. Drops began on April first,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: April Fool's Day really, twenty twenty.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Five last year. Wait, yeah, last year.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: In Hillsboro, Oregon, at the Washington County Courthouse. It was
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: the first case to go before a jury since the
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: county formed its cold case unit in twenty twenty. Two.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Weeks of testimony followed, during which witnesses were asked to
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: recall events from more than thirty years earlier.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: That's hard yep, that's a rough one.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: The prosecution, led by senior Deputy district Attorneys Alison Brown
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: and Chris Luhman, built its case on four pillars. The
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: DNA evidence from the coat attractive, the mud allegedly matching
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Bob Sherwood's property boo indistinguishable.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: Not a match.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: The documented absence of phone records corroborating Bob's alibi honestly
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: the best evidence probably that they have of him, and
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: even that seems like there's some question about. And then
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Debbie's own documented fear that Bob would harm her if
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: he discovered her relationship with Pearson. Here's something that you
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: don't see discover a lot. And I get it because
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: in a way, it feels like sort of defaming the victim.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: A lot of people said that Debbie kind of told
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: tall tales, a lot of really dramatic stories that they
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: knew were not completely true. So people do that. I
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: think we should believe victims, and we should believe women.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: It does call some things about the alleged abuse into question.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: For me, okay, a little bit, a little bit, just
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: saying I wasn't there. The defense, led by attorneys Stephanie Pollen,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: April Yates, and Janie Piasol, challenged the DNA methodology as
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: they should, the timeline of events, and the absence of
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: any direct witness to the crime. They argued the DNA
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: evidence was unreliable given the number of tests run before
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: a positive result was obtained fair, and suggested that investigators
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: had been so focused on Bob from the beginning that
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: they had failed to adequately consider alternative suspects. Seems like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: it might also be fair they didn't not look at
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: anyone else. They just were like not really looking that
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: hard at anyone else, and didn't do a very good
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: job of some other stuff, which.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: Maybe explains why it went cold for so long.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, could be, could be. I mean, you know,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: limitations of like the technology is obviously like there's a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: you know, there's an allowance for that in some respect.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's not great. It's not great. It's not great.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: There is one final dimension of Pearson's relation to the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: case that I haven't addressed yet and it's pretty shocking. Oh.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: No, okay.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: In August of twenty twenty four, the Washington County Prosecutor
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: issued a subpoena to Pearson's home in Prineville, Oregon, indicating
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: his testimony at Bob's trial was required. He did not
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: respond to that or any of the other multiple attempts
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: made to contact him. Hmmm. A week before the trial's
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: original start date of October twenty second, twenty twenty four,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: law enforcement in Arizona attempted to serve Pearson with a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: material witness warrant, which would have compelled him to appear,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and with cross jurisdictional cooperation, effectively extradited Pearson from Arizona
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: to Oregon for the court proceedings. Okay, but John Pearson
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: never testified. Why. I'm so glad you asked? Was he
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: abducted by aliens? I don't know, Arizona man. Yeah, I mean,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: it's listen, anything goes at this point. Clearly it is
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: a kangaroo court. When the Majave County Sheriff's Office arrived
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: at an Arizona RV park to attempt to serve him.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Pearson reportedly peeked outside and told officers, I can see
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: you too, as officers announced themselves, what a creep Yes?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Is that not so creepy. He then pointed a gun
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: to his head and fired a single shot. What wait what?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: His death delayed the trial by several months, and the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: defense's alternative suspect argument went to trial without its most
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: significant witness.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: I mean that says a lot, though, should they did
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: they present that?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: As defense attorney Janice Parisol stated in so many words,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Pearson took his own life to avoid being taken into
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: custody to testify. That's crazy, not even for him to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: be brought to trial, like to be tried just to
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: testify that hit. That man's guilty definitely doesn't seem like
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: the actions of someone who doesn't have anything suspect to share,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: who kills themselves if they're innocent instead of going to
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: someone else's trial. Yeah, it's pretty wild stuff.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe he had mental health issues. I don't know,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: but it seems wild.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: That is a detail that only deepened the question surrounding him,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: though apparently not for everyone. The jury deliberated for less
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: than a day in Bob's case, which is pretty quick.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Oh No. On April seventeenth, twenty twenty five, Robert Elmer A.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Trops was found guilty of second degree murder on what
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: outside the courthouse, Defense attorney Stephanie Polland told OPB we
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: are disappointed by the verdict. Robert A. Trops is an
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: innocent man. We will be filing an appeal and we
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: will continue to fight until he's back home with his family.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: I feel like that evidence, the evidence is like.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: It feels generous to call some of the evidence to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: be honest.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow. I feel like that's a trial where like.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: They obviously there. You can't say they're guilty because there's
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: nothing actually there, but they can.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: On July eighth, twenty twenty five, Robert Elmer Atrops, seventy
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: years old and visibly emotional in court, was sentenced to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: life in prison, with the possibility of parole after twenty
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: five years. Holy shit. Prosecutor Alison Brown addressed the court
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: he was able to live his life to a degree
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: and experience many many things she never had the opportunity
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: to experience. Okay, which is true. He actually did it,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: though I'm not I don't know.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe he did, but like, yeah, there's evidence, Yeah, you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: have to prove it.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: Someone called Kim Kardashian get her on the case.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Oh god, please, honestly, like, I want that from him
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: because I know that's how shit gets done. Actually, right
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: he is. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's unfortunate. I
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: think it's important to note here that the Atrops's adopted daughter, Rihanna,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: does not believe that Bob is guilty. Obviously, she was
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: a literal infant, you know, little more than a fetus,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: one might say, when all of this happened. But she
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: grew up with him, she was raised by him. She
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: simply does not believe him capable of the heinous crime
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: for which he has now been convicted. I'm sure a
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: lot of daughters wouldn't want to believe something so awful
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: about the man that raised them. Some do, and yeah,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and there are many, you know, confirmed killers that their
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: families have grappled with that, and they say, you know, unfortunately,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: he super duper did that. Equally confident in the opposite
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: direction are many people that loved Debbie and fully believe
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: justice was done with his conviction. Rihanna Stevens, who was
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: only eight months old when Debbie was murdered, and who
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: was raised by the man just convicted of that murder,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: addressed the court directly. Her statement was one of the
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: most emotional moments in a case full of them. When
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: I was eight months old, someone robbed me of getting
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: to have a life with my mom there to support
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: my every milestone, my first birthday, kindergarten graduation, eighth grade promotion,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: high school graduation, my wedding, the birth of my own children.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: My mom wasn't there for any of that. Thirty six
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: years later, I'm being robbed of my father, the man
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: that was there for all of those milestones. Oh God.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: She described Bob as the parent who had been present
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: for everything. He was the one in the crowd when
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I looked up nervously from the volleyball court. He was
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the one holding my hand when I felt lost. As
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Rihanna spoke, Bob broke down in the courtroom. The defense
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: had sought a minimum of ten years before parole at eligibility,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: but the judge imposed twenty five. Wow.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: The judge who sees how much evidence come through his
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: courtroom constantly.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Wow. An appeal has been filed, and as of May
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six remains in its early stages, with no
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: decision expected, possibly for at least another year under normal
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Oregon appellate timelines. Damn, because this shit happens, roll slow,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: so slow. I stumbled upon something on the Washington County
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's website that got me thinking, maybe I need a
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: tenfoil hat. But hear me out. On their Cold Case
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: Investigations tab of the website, case number eighty eight DASH
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: one three six three zero Deborah A. Trops is still
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: listed under again their Cold Case Investigations tap.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: Now I don't disagree with that.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are details in the description of the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: case that appear to be inconsistent with the facts of
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: the case reported elsewhere. So we're talking about basic details
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: of the timeline. It's possible that the page hasn't been
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: updated since the arrest or they're just summarizing, you know,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: it was a cold case investigation. I don't know, maybe
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: they just haven't updated since the arrest or conviction. But
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: potential inaccuracies related to the case are a troubling possibility
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: in any scenario for there to be details that maybe
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: you are inconsistent or possibly inaccurate. That's upsetting that's official,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: like government law enforce website. It's just weird. It's just
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: weird that there's not a lot of information beyond like
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: the early stages of the case too. I don't like that.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: It just looks weird to me. Yeah, the agency that
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: investigated the case has not closed it out on their
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: own public facing website after a conviction, Like, yes, it
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: was a cold case investigation, but it just feels a
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: little bit out of place, like it's on the same
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: page as lonnie Kai's case. Lonnie Kai's case is definitely unsolved. Meanwhile,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: there's an active pending appeal. As opp's forensic reporter covering
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: the case suggested in print, the county may find itself
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: litigating again. Maybe they only want to update the website once.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: I don't disagree with that. I don't know. I'm just
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: saying it's weird. It doesn't imply necessarily that there. It
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: just it feels a little it's odd. It's like they
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: even think, like you, that they would take the chance
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: to be like we solved this one, right, but they
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: don't even think that they have.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: That's what it That's how it feels.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: I get that, like maybe that's a little extreme of
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: a viewpoint to take. Before we move on to our
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: terror reading, I want to share something else and it
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: comes directly from OPB's coverage, So I'm going to read
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: this basically verbatim. In the final argument jurors heard during
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: the trial's closed in April, prosecutors laid out their theory
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: about what that forensic evidence meant. We knew that this
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: DNA was found on her neck, on her collar, and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: other area of her coat. No one else's was right,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Senior Deputy District Attorney Alison Brown told jurors they didn't
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: actually swab that jacket until a couple of years ago,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: So after thirty five years, there's still the defendant's DNA
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: on her jacket. Brown goes on to state, we've got
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: evidence of actually having that physical contact with her that's
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: directly connected to her murder. How can you say that
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: that's a really good point. You have evidence that he
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: actually physically contacted the clothing that she was wearing at
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: the time that she was murdered. But it's an outer coat,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: it's like a winter coat. Yeah, this is someone that
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: she was married to, and if you believe the defense
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: or like the DNA experts interpretation of this. It's super inconclusive.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: It's a trace amount of DNA that contradicts what DNA
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: analysts from the Oregon State Police Crime Lab who worked
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: on the case with Brown testified to just days earlier,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: they told yours there's no way to know when the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: DNA got on the coat, and they said they couldn't
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: tell how it got there. Before Brown's closing, no one
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: from the lab said they tested Deborah's neck for DNA.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Seems kind of significant in a manual strangulation case. Yes.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: When opp asked Brown if she was concerned about her
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: statements being inconsistent with what analysts from the Oregon Crime
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: Lab testified, Brown demurred. The lab's job isn't to advocate
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: or to make any conclusion. She said, that's our job
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: to do our best to piece it together for the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: jury and make our arguments. One of a Trop's attorneys,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: Jenis Pirosol, said in a statement that DNA being misinterpreted
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: in court was what they were worried about all along.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: The state used unreliable DNA evidence. This isn't the DNA
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: you see on television. She said. The state just convicted
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: an innocent man. It is hard because like it's what
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you see. DNA is like a finger like that.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you, and it can't be anybody else because
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: it's your specific, unique DNA.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: Yep. Since the start, the DNA evidence and the A
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: trops case posed a challenge for both sides. According to
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: the Oregon Lab's own internal chart their own standards, the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: DNA results were relatively weak and the finding is based
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: on complex statistics, far from how DNA is depicted in
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: popular culture. It's the task of both prosecution and defense
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: to present a compelling story to the jury, a narrative
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: of events that draws on what was presented during the trial.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: Not lies, though bars. What Brown's closing remarks demonstrate is
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: that the final words jurors here can stretch the bounds
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: of what the evidence shows. And that's totally legal. By
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: the way. I hate that that, Uh, there's a different
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: threshold for accuracy because those statements aren't evidence, they're an argument.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: I don't like.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: That because they're these people are not experts. They're looking
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: to an expert to tell them what is going on,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: not to like make up stories.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Right, But their closing arguments can essentially make assertions that
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: aren't really backed up, and that's totally kosher. I never
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: really thought about that.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that everyone who is a juror needs
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: to take a class unlike what this shit actually means
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: and how much it.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: And even if you do, there's a lot that goes
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: into a jury trial. And I think, you know, I
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: understand why sometimes people elect for a bench trial. Makes sense.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Do you trust twelve dummies that live in the same
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: county as you, No, or a neighboring county, not at all.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: We grew up in Washington County. I have never been
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: more ashamed to say that that is crazy. Listen, I
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't there for the whole trial. I haven't seen every
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: piece of evidence that was laid out. I haven't heard
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: all of the testimony because I physically wasn't there for
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: the trial. But I will say, based on all of
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: the research that I've done and everything that I've read
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: and you know, pieced together, I don't think they proved anything.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: I think the most compelling person in this case is
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: John Pearson. I don't think he really.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: Killed himself so he wouldn't have to go to the trial.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Not his own trial again, not his own trial. Wanted
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: so badly not to be extradited to Oregon for somebody
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: else's trial. So that's a thing that happened in case,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: you know, everything else that's happening on the world stage
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't already upsetting enough.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: Right, You really got me though in the beginning with
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: the whole I know he choked her thing, and he
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: may have. Yeah, we don't know. It's a legend.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's very possible that it's possible he
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: killed her, but like, you have to prove it. You
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And we're
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: saying a reasonable doubt. We're not saying like you have
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: to be able to produce a photo of him killing her,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Like this is not reasonable to me at all. Doesn't
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: seem reasonable.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: Edge hole, and I took friends of five.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Oh dude, JR. I'm like, listen, it's entirely possible that
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm way off base here, but a lot of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: the coverage there's a reason that they give Rihanna such
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: a platform. Yeah, I feel so bad. When they first
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: introduced her in the piece that I watched, I was like, girl,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: of course you don't want to think your dad did it,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: and you didn't even really like know your mom, you
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: know of her, but like, and then the further we
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: got in, I was like, listen, girl, I'm sorry about
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: those things I said. You might have been right. Oh no.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: I think that's the problem is that it feels like
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you don't know, they don't know, and
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: now it's pretty far down the line and pretty far
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: fucked up for anybody to really be able to know.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes sometimes the case just gets too far
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: gone and then it's like, oh great, another great mystery
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: of our modern era. Oh boy, just something to think
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: about in case you were having a good day.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: I mean I kind of was, yeah.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I I you know, after this, we'll we'll go
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: get some strawberry muffins. Should we do some Terrastsyeah, let's
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: do some terror. Wow, I get a shuffle them. I
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: haven't been here to shove, I know. I was excited.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh damn, that'd be Rihanna, Bob. If
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: you're innocent, Okay, where do we feel Maybe just like
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: run your hands and see if anything like I feel
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: like hot? Yeah. This one was just really upsetting because
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: it's like we know that there are so many cases
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: where it's like, wow, that was really bullshit. But this
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: is just like such a recent example and it feels
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: personal because of you know, proximity and like that's where
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: we grew up. And then the fact that it's like, oh,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: this is the first so they start the cold case
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: unit in Washington County and then this is the first one.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: This is the first one that goes to trial. Not
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: a great start, Like we want them solved, not solve
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: them though, And if you can't, then you can't. Then
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: they're where they started. Yeah, some cases they're they're not
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: there yet. Maybe I don't know, just that dead end.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like my eyes keep going back to like here, Oh.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: That's interesting because that's where I was looking when your
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: hands were up and I was like middle finger, left hand, interesting, okay, oh,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: right hand, wow, hand it is for you right hand?
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: Ooh okay, oh it's a tower. I mean that's accurate.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: My face. I'm going to give you the little book Chaos,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: everything falling apart.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna put you down, baby.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: Throw that on the floor. Throw on the ground, on
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: the ground.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: It didn't throw the dog on the ground. Don't you
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: guys worry.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: It's a Douglas fur oh crisis, destruction, ruined, chaos, collapse, trauma, devastation,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: sudden change.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: Well accurate.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: I mean sometimes it's the accuracy that gets me. Yeah.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: Do you want to read this?
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: It's pretty short, sure, okay? From our little interpretation book
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: for the PNW deck. Well, it's the Civic Northwest Herrot
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: the PNW. If you nask, a spark catches and the
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: tender dry forest flares up like a matchhead. A wave
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: of heat and fleeing wildlife precedes the spread. Nests, dens
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: and russ burn. Millions of homes are engulfed, Millions of lives,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: plant and animal are sacrificed in fire. Nothing will be
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: the same after the cataclysm, but destruction doesn't mean conclusion.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: I really like that because it gives me hope for Bob.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: And life returns after a fire in time and maybe
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of time. Yeah, And sometimes a towering giant
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: even survives the burn. They carry the scars and twist
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: around the damage, but they keep growing. I think this
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: is so accurate for like what's happening with I mean,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: he could hopefully he gets out.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: There were always these scars from this and burns and
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: nothing's going to change the trauma that has happened from
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: the murder and the conviction.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: Conviction, Okay. When this card appears, it usually means you've
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: ignored or denied something that's rotten and needs to be
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: blown apart.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: Oohoo, someone blew apart is rotten head, That's all I'm
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: gonna say.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: I mean. Or it could literally be talking about the
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: entirety of the justice. Yes, no, I agree with that,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: That's all I'm gonna say.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: So one more literal.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're probably surprised, but you shouldn't be. You knew
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: changes were necessary, but you refuse to take action. Then
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: something happens losing a job, the end of a relationship,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: an accident, a financial setback that forces you to face
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: a reality big time wrongful conviction. Your life is collapsing
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: around you, but that old, worn out structure had to go.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: The tower demands you free yourself from the self created fortress,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: which is really ironic for someone who is just convicted
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: in which you've imprisoned yourself. Oh shit. In the wake
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: of the chaos, a new order can grow. In a
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: reading about money, this card heralds a major change in
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: your finances. An unexpected loss or stepback may cause you
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: to reassess your attitudes about money when you have to
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: write a huge check for your three person defense team,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: oh shit, and perhaps free you from your attachment to wealth, status, possessions,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: and the related responsibilities. If the reading is about your work,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: the tower may represent a sudden job loss or change
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: in your workplace. Yes, you're shocked and field of rug's
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: been pulled out from under you, But this may be
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: exactly what you need to escape the walls that trapped you.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: In a reading about love, this card suggests you need
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: to overthrow false site ideas, old habit patterns, and outdated
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: ways of relating to a partner. A breakup or major
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: change in a relationship is necessary and eminent. With it
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: will come more freedom.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: Or like you know, the relationship between like a jury
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: and the person giving their clothes the closing statements.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: What are they just lawyers? I don't, Yeah, I mean
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: prosecutor prosecutor that's what I was thinking, Which I mean
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: they are lawyers. Yeah, that's like the more more specific, yes,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: exactly specific, like giving a specificity of the specification.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: It's like they're putting on a show, like it's just
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: like an act.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of showmanship involved in like presenting a
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: good legal argument, and I don't like that.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: I don't like that because I mean, the other person
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: is isn't it as good of an actor as you are, Like,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what the evidence is.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that is certainly a career
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: where you need to be a good public speaker, a
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: good orator, but performer that specific word that you used
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: or actor, that is where it turns in the wrong
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: direction for me, Like.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with the actual thing that's happening. Yeah,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: you're just good at talking out of your ass.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: And I think it's really important that the OPB reporter
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: who's followed the case, they ask some very good and
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: pointed questions. I will say, fucking shame on the rest
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: of the news organizations that like haven't really pointed out
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: how problematic this is in the same way. Oh wow,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: they haven't gone in depth. And you know, not all
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: stories are covered the same in all outlets. But it's
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: troubling to me that if you see coverage of this
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: in certain certain other media outlets, your interpretation of it
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: may be very different.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like and his DNA was found, he was feeling guilty.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: There you go, case's closed. Boomboo, exactly exactly.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: And it's not because obviously it's not because of just
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the simple fact of a differing viewpoint. It's because there's
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: just a lot that's missing if you don't have all
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: of the facts, and you don't have some of these
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: really important details about how evidence was processed, how it
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: was then subsequently presented to a jury. I mean, to me,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: this is just it's dicky, it's upsetting.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: They had to change the analysis parameters for them to
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: get anything like yes, that is insane to me.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Third times, the charms I said, parameters are parameters are parameters?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: Like what the fuck are you changing?
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and even adjusting the parameters that is such a
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: weak ass result. Yeah, one two. It's not good. It's
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: not getting one thirty two on a test No. One
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: two compared to And again this is not this doesn't
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: prove guilt of the other party, John Pearson. But one
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: thirty two versus ninety four point six sextillion, that's nuts.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: So anyways, in conclusion, I hate everything, and see you
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: guys next week.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: I guess well, we can actually say our outro together.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: Since we're together, we don't we don't cancel each other's
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: audio out over riverside.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: Oh my Gord, have a creepy ass day. We'll see
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: you next Thursday. I almost said Tuesday. Well you didn't
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: gets me or almost gets me? Every dame sixty percent
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: of the time, it worked every day.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I hope this is we get some good news
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: on this someday for Bob and Rihanna and Debbie. She
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: deserves to have it solved for real real. Yeah, that's
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: oh my god.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: There's so much to this that's like a part that
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: I like, hardly even touched on, is that it just
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: feels like some people are satisfied with it, but does
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: that It just doesn't feel like justice if you don't
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: feel like they got the guy and they got him
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: the right way, right and maybe he did it. I
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Bob his daughter does. Yeah,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't like it. Let's just
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: like not not subtle for this type of yes, trial conviction.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: It's not good enough. There's unreasonable doubt for reason right right.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: No, Settling is something that you do after you've tried
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: on too many pairs. Of g ES. I also said
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: unreasonable doubt. And I'm a reasonable, but it was unreasonable
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: in this case reasonable And on that note, the puppy's
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: bedding my feet, so that's a maybe, that's a wreck.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: Bye bye okay,