Latest / NO FILTER / Episode 6_ Pillow Talk(M4A_128K)

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Episode 6_ Pillow Talk(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:15
Speaker 1: So one thing I was really excited to get down
0:17
Speaker 1: the Floyd County for was to finally find out what
0:21
Speaker 1: the jurors believed in this case, Like what was it
0:23
Speaker 1: that made the jurors convict Lean King? And I wanted
0:27
Speaker 1: to know how the jurors looked at this evidence and
0:30
Speaker 1: what they did interpret it, putting together and piece together
0:33
Speaker 1: our story and it convinced them the Hoanes Moll doubt,
0:35
Speaker 1: I am now a little concerned. I'm never going to
0:37
Speaker 1: get answer to that question. The jurors in this case,
0:42
Speaker 1: by and large did not have difficulty in reaching a
0:44
Speaker 1: guilty verdict, but as one juror told us, trying to
0:48
Speaker 1: entangle exactly why they reached that verdict might not be possible.
0:52
Speaker 1: He told us, so, like it can get really crazy
0:54
Speaker 1: in the jury room when a trial happens. You can
0:56
Speaker 1: just he said, throw out the attorneys, throw out the judge.
1:00
Speaker 1: None of that matters, because you got twelve people in
1:03
Speaker 1: a de liberation room who don't know what they're doing
1:05
Speaker 1: and going by their gut, and you'll never know what's
1:07
Speaker 1: going to happen.
1:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, definitely by the gut, not by the law.
1:12
Speaker 1: And that whatever just happened in that courtroom. God knows
1:14
Speaker 1: what the jury is going to do with it when
1:16
Speaker 1: they get alone. The jurors we spoke to varied and
1:20
Speaker 1: how much they were called about this case. Some remember
1:23
Speaker 1: quite a bit, o there's almost nothing. One of the
1:26
Speaker 1: jurors we spoke to allowed us to record, and others
1:29
Speaker 1: agreed to talk to us but didn't want to be recorded.
1:32
Speaker 3: My answer came to myself very early on when we
1:37
Speaker 3: were asked to deliberate. I knew early on what my
1:41
Speaker 3: decision was going to be, you know, saying that they
1:46
Speaker 3: were guilty.
1:48
Speaker 2: One you're an older man who didn't deliberate, came into
1:52
Speaker 2: the room and said, let's fry him literally, let's lock them.
1:55
Speaker 1: Up and fry him switch you know, flip the switch
1:57
Speaker 1: club with a switch, and called the day. For all
2:01
Speaker 1: of the jurors that we spoke to, though, what seems
2:04
Speaker 1: to stand out most clearly in their memory is the
2:06
Speaker 1: case of forensic evidence, the evidence that showed how Brian
2:09
Speaker 1: had been shot and why the jurors thought it made
2:13
Speaker 1: it impossible for Handu shot himself.
2:15
Speaker 3: There was an expert witness who talked about close range
2:20
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, but I don't really remember anything
2:22
Speaker 3: about it. You know, I just remember seeing the pictures.
2:27
Speaker 3: I had never seen pictures so graphic, and they were
2:31
Speaker 3: pretty graphic. And hearing, you know, some of the things that.
2:36
Speaker 1: We heard, he could tell that it was not a
2:39
Speaker 1: game of Russian Roulette, because people play Russian Roulette put
2:42
Speaker 1: the gun in their mouth, they don't put it to
2:44
Speaker 1: the side of their head. I don't know what to
2:46
Speaker 1: say about that. Hi. My name is Susan Simpson. I'm
2:57
Speaker 1: an attorney and podcaster and previously I hosted Undisclosed podcast.
3:02
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm just in to Davis, and I'm a true
3:04
Speaker 2: crime TV producer. Last year, Susan and I decided to
3:09
Speaker 2: team up and reinvestigate the murder of Brian Bowling. Along
3:12
Speaker 2: with Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of Red Marble Media, we decided
3:16
Speaker 2: to launch Proof. You can listen to Proof like you
3:19
Speaker 2: would any podcast, and you can follow us everywhere with
3:23
Speaker 2: the handle at proofcrime pod and on our website proofcrimepod
3:27
Speaker 2: dot com. Thanks for listening and welcome to Proof. Before
3:38
Speaker 2: we get into the physical evidence in this case and
3:41
Speaker 2: what it does and does not show about how Brian
3:43
Speaker 2: was killed, let's take a step back for a moment.
3:46
Speaker 2: Let's look at what the investigators believe happened on the
3:49
Speaker 2: night that Brian Bowling was shot. The state's theory looks
3:53
Speaker 2: something like this. Around nine point thirty on October eighteenth,
3:59
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, Lee and Kin get word from Caprice
4:02
Speaker 2: through a special beeper code that Brian is home. The
4:05
Speaker 2: two teenagers then head over to the Bowling's trailer. Cain
4:09
Speaker 2: enters through the front door and heads back to Brian's room.
4:13
Speaker 2: Lee meanwhile sneaks around the back of the trailer to
4:16
Speaker 2: Brian's bedroom window. Brian is sitting on his bed talking
4:20
Speaker 2: on the phone with Caprice. It is her job to
4:23
Speaker 2: keep Brian so distracted that he doesn't notice Lee opening
4:26
Speaker 2: the window behind him. Using a cushion from the Bowling's
4:31
Speaker 2: living room sofa as a silencer, Lee shoots Brian through
4:35
Speaker 2: the now open bedroom window. Brian falls to the floor,
4:39
Speaker 2: the cordless phone still clutched in his right hand. Lee
4:43
Speaker 2: tosses the pillow and revolver inside to Cain, who hides
4:46
Speaker 2: the pillow, which now has Brian's blood on it, in
4:49
Speaker 2: a hole in the wall behind a dresser. Cain also
4:53
Speaker 2: drops the revolver underneath Brian's body as Brian's family rushes
4:58
Speaker 2: into the bedroom. Cain beginans shout, he shot himself. I
5:02
Speaker 2: didn't mean to kill him. Meanwhile, Lee runs around to
5:06
Speaker 2: the front of the trailer and off into the night.
5:09
Speaker 2: But that night, Charlie Childers, a family friend of the Bowlings,
5:12
Speaker 2: had been watching TV in the living room with the
5:15
Speaker 2: rest of Brian's family. Charlie is deaf. He did not
5:19
Speaker 2: hear the gunshot, so he didn't rush to Brian's bedroom
5:22
Speaker 2: with everyone else. He was still sitting in the living
5:25
Speaker 2: room staring out the window, which is why he saw
5:28
Speaker 2: Lee Clark as he ran across the Bowling's well lit
5:31
Speaker 2: front yard.
5:35
Speaker 1: This is the gist of the state's case, though some
5:37
Speaker 1: of the details are flexible. For instance, investigators seem to
5:41
Speaker 1: believe that Lee Clark was the actual shooter, but they
5:45
Speaker 1: remained open to the idea that Cain could have been
5:48
Speaker 1: the shooter instead, and that Lee was merely outside the
5:51
Speaker 1: bedroom window to supervise events. So how does the physical
5:56
Speaker 1: evidence in this case stack up against the investigator's theory. Well,
6:00
Speaker 1: to begin with, it should be noted that there's almost
6:02
Speaker 1: no physical evidence in this case. As Brian's uncle Michael
6:06
Speaker 1: Baker recalls most of the basic investigative steps that you'd
6:09
Speaker 1: expect didn't happen.
6:11
Speaker 4: Like I said to me, they didn't do a very
6:13
Speaker 4: good job on the investigation period, honestly. I mean we
6:16
Speaker 4: were having them tell them who to talk to you,
6:18
Speaker 4: you know, and things like that. So yeah, but they
6:21
Speaker 4: just never would follow lover.
6:22
Speaker 1: Really, there's a lot of evidence that we just don't have,
6:26
Speaker 1: like the nine to one to one call made by
6:28
Speaker 1: Brian's family, or the records of the phone calls made
6:31
Speaker 1: between Caprice and Brian, or any alleged calls are beeper
6:34
Speaker 1: messages sent between Caprice and Lee and Kin.
6:38
Speaker 2: In fact, there are a grand total of three pieces
6:41
Speaker 2: of evidence collected in this case, a GSR test done
6:45
Speaker 2: on Kaine's hands, a thirty eight revolver, and a bloody pillow.
6:51
Speaker 2: The GSR test on Kaine's hands turned out to be negative,
6:55
Speaker 2: indicating that it wasn't Kin who fired the gun that
6:58
Speaker 2: killed Brian, and that means if this was a murder,
7:02
Speaker 2: there must have been someone else present to pull the trigger.
7:06
Speaker 2: Then there's the thirty eight revolver. Brian's family remembers seeing
7:10
Speaker 2: it when they rushed into his bedroom after hearing a
7:13
Speaker 2: loud thud.
7:18
Speaker 5: Did you look for the gun or did you I've
7:20
Speaker 5: seen the gun? Okay, and the gun was that is
7:22
Speaker 5: and between his fate and between the fate.
7:26
Speaker 2: The revolver belonged to Kine's father, and Kin says this
7:30
Speaker 2: is the gun Brian shot himself with. But since no
7:34
Speaker 2: testing was ever done on it, and since the bullet
7:36
Speaker 2: that shot Brian was never found, this was never actually confirmed.
7:41
Speaker 2: We also don't have a documented record of how the
7:44
Speaker 2: revolver was loaded, or if it was even loaded when
7:47
Speaker 2: it was found. But in his opening statement at Lee's
7:51
Speaker 2: in Kine's trial, prosecutor Steve Cox told the jury, you will.
7:55
Speaker 6: Hear testimony that the gun when it was recovered had
7:59
Speaker 6: one live round remaining in it and one spent shell.
8:03
Speaker 6: But you will hear testimony that the police very quickly,
8:06
Speaker 6: very quickly determined that this was not a self inflicted
8:09
Speaker 6: wound because Brian was right handed, he had the phone
8:12
Speaker 6: clutched in his right hand, the bullet angle or whatever
8:15
Speaker 6: was very inconsistent with a self inflicted wound.
8:19
Speaker 2: If what Steve Cox said about the revolver being loaded
8:23
Speaker 2: with a live round is true, then this would be
8:26
Speaker 2: damning evidence. It would strongly suggest that Brian had not
8:30
Speaker 2: been playing Russian Roulette when he was shot. As we
8:33
Speaker 2: mentioned in episode four, Sergeant Dallas Battle testified that while
8:37
Speaker 2: at the Bowlings trailer, someone handed him a live round.
8:42
Speaker 2: He wasn't sure who, and he didn't know where they'd
8:45
Speaker 2: gotten the round from. He'd also collected a single spent
8:49
Speaker 2: casing from the revolver, but as Sergeant Battle testified at trial,
8:53
Speaker 2: he doesn't know what happened to the live round or
8:56
Speaker 2: the spent casing after that.
9:00
Speaker 1: Now, what did you do with that casing in that
9:02
Speaker 1: live round?
9:04
Speaker 6: I took them back to the station with me. I
9:06
Speaker 6: put them with the gun, and I don't know where
9:09
Speaker 6: the rounds are, and.
9:11
Speaker 1: You did not log them into evidence along with the pistol.
9:14
Speaker 6: When we first got back to the station. I did
9:16
Speaker 6: not put them in a vault or anything. Later on
9:20
Speaker 6: that night, after we got done talking to Kane and
9:23
Speaker 6: went to the hospital, then I put the weapon, logged
9:25
Speaker 6: it into evidence, and the rounds were not there at that.
9:28
Speaker 1: Time, and you have no idea where they are today, no, sir.
9:39
Speaker 2: So, based on the case file, it's at least possible
9:42
Speaker 2: then that the live round had been loaded in the
9:45
Speaker 2: thirty eight revolver, like the prosecutor said, there had been
9:49
Speaker 2: a live round collected from somewhere at the bowlings trailer.
9:53
Speaker 2: It was only by accident that during the trial the
9:56
Speaker 2: true origin of the live round was discovered. During questioning
10:01
Speaker 2: of Brian's brother in law, Kenneth Floyd. Steve Cox had
10:05
Speaker 2: asked him how came Joshua's story had been acting that night.
10:09
Speaker 2: Kenneth responded, I asked him what Brian had been shot with,
10:13
Speaker 2: and he handed me a live round that had still
10:15
Speaker 2: been in his pocket. Kenneth's answer seems to have caught
10:20
Speaker 2: the prosecutor off guard, as he immediately ended his questioning there.
10:26
Speaker 2: But if Kenneth hadn't inadvertently testified about where the live
10:30
Speaker 2: round had actually come from, the jury might have been
10:33
Speaker 2: left with just the prosecutor's mistaken claims that the revolver
10:36
Speaker 2: had two rounds in it when it had been fired.
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12:20
Speaker 1: In addition to the three pieces of physical evidence, we
12:23
Speaker 1: also have a small collection of snapshots taken of Brian's
12:25
Speaker 1: bedroom that night. These photos are the only documented evidence
12:29
Speaker 1: we have about the condition of another important piece of
12:31
Speaker 1: this case, Brian's bedroom window, because if Lee Clark shot
12:36
Speaker 1: Brian through this bedroom window, then that window should have
12:39
Speaker 1: been open, or rather, the piece of plywood that covered
12:42
Speaker 1: Brian's bedroom window should have been moved aside in his.
12:46
Speaker 7: Bedroom the glass I get hate knocked it out, or
12:49
Speaker 7: maybe him a cane did when they were down there.
12:51
Speaker 7: I don't know when I got knocked out, but the
12:53
Speaker 7: glass in his window is his bedroom would miss it
12:57
Speaker 7: and what she did, and then it's just a middle
12:59
Speaker 7: of the mock and everybody knows that for Northwest Georgia,
13:04
Speaker 7: in the middle of October at night it gets cold. Well,
13:08
Speaker 7: he's sitting in there in his window, but his window
13:10
Speaker 7: didn't have no glass in it, and she had took
13:13
Speaker 7: and gave him a blanket to hang on, cool nails
13:16
Speaker 7: and a face apply would to stick up in the window,
13:19
Speaker 7: calling herself keeping the I guess that that supposed to
13:22
Speaker 7: keep the wind out or whatever. I mean. I don't
13:26
Speaker 7: get that right there. I mean your son bedroom windows missing.
13:29
Speaker 7: This's October. Spend the money and get him in. You
13:30
Speaker 7: win him.
13:32
Speaker 1: Brian's mother, Deborah Bowling, did not like Lee Clark. She
13:36
Speaker 1: had made it clear she did not want Lee coming
13:38
Speaker 1: around the trailer, and Lee says this was in large
13:41
Speaker 1: part due to comments he'd made to her about Brian's
13:44
Speaker 1: living conditions.
13:46
Speaker 7: And I made the comment to her about the way
13:47
Speaker 7: she was raising Brian and stuff, the way she treated him.
13:50
Speaker 7: He stuff, and she definitely didn't want we know royd.
13:52
Speaker 1: The more after that, So what comments did you make
13:54
Speaker 1: about that?
13:55
Speaker 7: I just told her, I said, uh, the way you
13:58
Speaker 7: treat your son, it's not right of mean, you let
13:59
Speaker 7: him live in there in a bedroom with stove. He's
14:01
Speaker 7: gotten that dess and no ship all over the floor.
14:04
Speaker 7: You let him live in there like he said, okay,
14:06
Speaker 7: he ain't got no sheets on his bed and every
14:08
Speaker 7: think I said, what kind of party does that? And
14:10
Speaker 7: she just got mad with me. So after that she
14:16
Speaker 7: wanted to nowhere around her house.
14:17
Speaker 1: So the crime scene photos confirmed Lee's description of Brian's bedroom.
14:25
Speaker 1: It's cluttered and in many of the photos, it's hard
14:27
Speaker 1: to tell what you're looking at. And at Lee's and
14:31
Speaker 1: Kane's trial, these photos made an impression on the jury.
14:36
Speaker 1: Do you the pictures of the boys bedroom?
14:40
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I do well that it had a mattress,
14:43
Speaker 3: but no, no, it didn't have any sheets or pillow
14:46
Speaker 3: cases or you know, bedspread or it was just really nothing.
14:52
Speaker 3: It was just it was just a room with a
14:55
Speaker 3: with a mattress, just with a bunch of junk around.
14:58
Speaker 1: You know, with two boys, you remember them well, you
15:03
Speaker 1: know sometimes children are.
15:07
Speaker 3: Their environment has so much to do with, you know,
15:11
Speaker 3: their behavior. And I felt like their family situation was
15:18
Speaker 3: pretty rough. They didn't come from, you know, a family
15:22
Speaker 3: that made sure they went to school or you know,
15:26
Speaker 3: I just remembered that about them.
15:28
Speaker 8: You know.
15:33
Speaker 1: When these photos were taken, Brian's bedroom window having covered up.
15:37
Speaker 1: The plywood board is in place and two blankets are
15:40
Speaker 1: hung up over it. But according to Kenneth, that's not
15:44
Speaker 1: how things had been when they'd rushed into Brian's bedroom
15:46
Speaker 1: after hearing the shot. Tell me about the window in
15:51
Speaker 1: Brian's room.
15:52
Speaker 8: All it was was a board and it just was.
15:55
Speaker 8: It was down. The board was down at that.
15:58
Speaker 1: Time when you went out.
16:00
Speaker 8: Mm hm that what was the board like what was
16:02
Speaker 8: laying on the bed.
16:04
Speaker 1: In the crime spen photos, it shows that the board
16:06
Speaker 1: is like still up against.
16:08
Speaker 2: The wall, you know, or the window.
16:10
Speaker 8: It probably got moved or somebody moved it.
16:13
Speaker 1: Or something did that When you saw that? Did it
16:16
Speaker 1: register to you at the time, But it was significant.
16:21
Speaker 9: I didn't bin nothing about it because only lay it
16:23
Speaker 9: was up down all the time, Yeah, the two.
16:27
Speaker 8: It was either help or down.
16:29
Speaker 1: So in the moment, it didn't know.
16:31
Speaker 8: I didn't bink nothing of it.
16:37
Speaker 2: No one in Brian's family remembers replacing the plywood board
16:40
Speaker 2: over the window or hanging up the blanket again, and
16:44
Speaker 2: there's no record of the police or anyone else doing
16:46
Speaker 2: so either. And none of the witnesses were interviewed immediately
16:50
Speaker 2: after the shooting. The only recorded interview from anyone in
16:54
Speaker 2: Brian's family was an interview with his mother from seven
16:57
Speaker 2: months later, and she doesn't mention anything about the window
17:01
Speaker 2: being open. So we're left with a conflict between photos
17:05
Speaker 2: and witness memories that we have no conclusive way to resolve.
17:10
Speaker 2: But what does seem certain is that if the plywood
17:13
Speaker 2: had been over the window to begin with, there's no
17:16
Speaker 2: way Lee could have removed it without Brian becoming aware
17:19
Speaker 2: of his presence. Brian's sister Amanda showed us the window
17:23
Speaker 2: at the back of the trailer.
17:25
Speaker 10: Yeah, you just raked in and just pushed that board
17:28
Speaker 10: down on damn.
17:30
Speaker 1: So it'd be hard to sneak in though. So if
17:32
Speaker 1: Brian's in the bathroom.
17:34
Speaker 10: He would have known somebody. Yeah, that's why I think
17:38
Speaker 10: Hey might have known Ley was there, you know, because
17:43
Speaker 10: he would have had to gotten on the bed to
17:45
Speaker 10: get in in the.
17:46
Speaker 1: High Yeah, because that window opens bread, Yeah it did,
17:50
Speaker 1: So you're not really gonna be like sneakily.
17:53
Speaker 3: Uh uh.
17:53
Speaker 2: Now, Lee's brother Jamie agrees with Amanda. He also took
17:58
Speaker 2: us to Brian's back window and showed us how Brian's
18:01
Speaker 2: friends had used a cement block to climb in and
18:03
Speaker 2: out of the window.
18:05
Speaker 11: We used to climb out that back window because that's
18:08
Speaker 11: the board we used back the board down climb out
18:11
Speaker 11: the back window.
18:12
Speaker 1: But like with someone in the room, notice in the bedroom,
18:15
Speaker 1: we Oh yeah, So if Brian was sitting on the bed,
18:18
Speaker 1: could you have snuck in the window without him noticing?
18:20
Speaker 11: Oh no, not at all.
18:23
Speaker 2: There is no way that Brian could have been ambushed
18:25
Speaker 2: through this window because he would have had time to react.
18:30
Speaker 2: And while out at the Bowling's old trailer with Jamie,
18:33
Speaker 2: we realized another problem with the investigator's theory that we
18:37
Speaker 2: hadn't quite realized before seeing the place. The only evidence
18:42
Speaker 2: that directly places Lee Clark at the Bowling's trailer that
18:45
Speaker 2: night is Charlie Childers, family friend, who, according to Sergeant
18:50
Speaker 2: Dalla's battle, saw Lee Clark run across the front yard
18:53
Speaker 2: after the gun went off.
18:55
Speaker 1: So the living room is right there to step in
18:58
Speaker 1: that door. So why on earth would Lee have run
19:01
Speaker 1: by that window? Po he would have been going.
19:05
Speaker 9: Out that way.
19:06
Speaker 11: Why if he's gonna be rounding.
19:09
Speaker 1: So Charlie Childers was sitting in there watching TV. He
19:12
Speaker 1: looks out that double window and supposedly sees there only Clark.
19:18
Speaker 1: Where's he running though?
19:19
Speaker 11: Why would you run from the back of the house
19:22
Speaker 11: into the front of the house. And if he was
19:25
Speaker 11: trying to get anywhere, it'd be up there to Caynes
19:28
Speaker 11: fifty three that way.
19:30
Speaker 1: I think I just assumed it made sense that Lee
19:32
Speaker 1: would have run past the window, but it doesn't make
19:34
Speaker 1: any sense. There's no there's no reason for him ever
19:37
Speaker 1: trying to pass that window.
19:44
Speaker 2: Charlie Childers was in the living room looking out of
19:47
Speaker 2: a double window onto the Bowling's front yard. Brian's bedroom
19:51
Speaker 2: is in the back of the trailer, facing the cemetery
19:54
Speaker 2: in the hill across from it, where Caine's trailer was.
19:58
Speaker 2: After leaving Brian's bedroom window, it would have been a
20:01
Speaker 2: straight shot through the dark cemetery and up the hill
20:04
Speaker 2: to Kane's house.
20:06
Speaker 11: Kane's house is up up there, okay, I mean if
20:10
Speaker 11: you take you'd go right around this road right here.
20:13
Speaker 11: Kane's house is up at the top of the heel.
20:15
Speaker 1: And there's nothing that way that Lee would have been going.
20:19
Speaker 1: If assuming we was here that night, assuming Lee went
20:23
Speaker 1: to Brian's window, and he's been running away, what would
20:27
Speaker 1: have could have possibly have compelled him to go where
20:31
Speaker 1: he could have been seen? I mean, you wouldn't if
20:35
Speaker 1: Lee is at the window of Brian's house, there's no
20:38
Speaker 1: universe where he's going past that window.
20:40
Speaker 6: Charlie hadn't been able to see in the Brian's windows
20:42
Speaker 6: on the other.
20:43
Speaker 2: Side of the house.
20:44
Speaker 11: I mean that you say there's only that light right there.
20:47
Speaker 7: Uh.
20:48
Speaker 8: As far as light.
20:50
Speaker 2: As Amanda confirmed, the only working light would have been
20:54
Speaker 2: the one above the Bowling's front porch. It lit up
20:57
Speaker 2: the front yard, but everything else was dark. Susan and Dan,
21:02
Speaker 2: the cameraman who joined us in Rome on this trip,
21:05
Speaker 2: tried to explain why if Lee was there that night,
21:08
Speaker 2: he would have run across the lit side of the trailer.
21:11
Speaker 12: It does seem crazy that he would decide to go
21:14
Speaker 12: on the lit side of the house after supposedly committing
21:17
Speaker 12: this crime versus the dark side of the house where
21:20
Speaker 12: he obviously initially approached the approach from. Because where everyone
21:25
Speaker 12: was in the living room, everyone would have seen someone
21:27
Speaker 12: walking lit up in the front yard. The only reason
21:30
Speaker 12: it was only Charlie at the end was because supposedly
21:33
Speaker 12: the commotion was happening, and Charlie at that point was
21:35
Speaker 12: the only one who's just like chilling and didn't know
21:38
Speaker 12: what was happening.
21:39
Speaker 2: We really need to find out from Charlie himself what
21:42
Speaker 2: he saw that night at the Bowling's jailer. But to
21:45
Speaker 2: do that we have to find him first.
21:49
Speaker 1: You still haven't found Charlie.
21:52
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean it just it seems weird.
21:54
Speaker 2: I think we need to just like sit there across
21:57
Speaker 2: the street waiting for him to come.
21:59
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22:01
Speaker 1: I must sit there play ding ding all day and
22:03
Speaker 1: tail Childer shows up.
22:05
Speaker 14: Its kind of play ding ding all day.
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23:55
Speaker 2: That brings us to the third, final and most important
23:58
Speaker 2: piece of physical evidence in this case, the pillow. According
24:03
Speaker 2: to investigators, when either Cain or Lee shot Brian, they
24:08
Speaker 2: used a couch cushion from the Bowling's living room as
24:11
Speaker 2: a silencer. They hid the pillow in a hole in
24:14
Speaker 2: Brian's bedroom wall to try to cover up their crime,
24:18
Speaker 2: but the pillow was discovered a few days later. Kenneth
24:22
Speaker 2: testified that he decided to do a search of Brian's
24:25
Speaker 2: room and noticed some clothing that was stuffed into a
24:28
Speaker 2: hole in the wall behind the dresser. When Kenneth removed
24:32
Speaker 2: the clothes, he found a bloody pillow lying underneath. As
24:36
Speaker 2: Susan explained to Dan, the pillow was later sent to
24:39
Speaker 2: the crime lab run by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
24:44
Speaker 1: He sent to the GBI asked the test for a
24:47
Speaker 1: gunshot residue and blood and they confirmed, yes, there is
24:51
Speaker 1: blood consuming blood spattered on it, but there's no gunshot residue.
24:55
Speaker 1: And also there's no bullet holes in it.
24:57
Speaker 12: There's no bullet hole on it now, so they was
25:00
Speaker 12: no gone actually fired through it.
25:02
Speaker 1: Used it as silencer right now, there's no ue.
25:04
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's in the police record.
25:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that this whole concept of the.
25:08
Speaker 12: Pillow being used as like a pseudo silencer is just
25:14
Speaker 12: not true.
25:15
Speaker 8: It was just like a rumor that was started.
25:19
Speaker 1: Four months had passed since Brian's death before investigator sent
25:22
Speaker 1: this pillow to the GBI for testing. The delay was
25:25
Speaker 1: due to the fact that after getting the pillow from
25:27
Speaker 1: the Bowlings trailer, the police had lost it. It just
25:31
Speaker 1: kind of vanished. Then one day in February of nineteen
25:34
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Floyd County Police Captain Tommy Shifflett found a
25:37
Speaker 1: bag in the trunk of his car. He opened it
25:40
Speaker 1: up and there inside was a bloodstained pillow. A trial prosecutor,
25:44
Speaker 1: Steve Cox, asked Captain Shiflett about what he'd found in
25:47
Speaker 1: his trunk. Answer. I was unaware or didn't recall Sergeant
25:52
Speaker 1: Carney placing it in my trunk, and then when I
25:54
Speaker 1: found it that day four months later, I took it
25:57
Speaker 1: straight to Sergeant Maynard, I believe the seventeenth February and
26:00
Speaker 1: holding the pillow that had been talked about was in
26:02
Speaker 1: the trunk of my car and gave it to Perry
26:04
Speaker 1: Maynard to carry to the crime lab. So they've been
26:06
Speaker 1: talking about this pillow and they can't find it. Freda.
26:09
Speaker 1: This is why they do nothing for four months, because
26:11
Speaker 1: they literally just lose the pillow and cannot locate it
26:14
Speaker 1: until Tommy Shiflet's like, oh, guess.
26:16
Speaker 2: What, and then they're like a shit, there's no hole
26:20
Speaker 2: in this pillow. We've been wanting this pillow and it
26:22
Speaker 2: does nothing. But by now the rumors are all over
26:25
Speaker 2: town the pillow was used.
26:27
Speaker 1: Oh they never. They couldn't actually check and confirm. So
26:30
Speaker 1: they're told that there's a hole in the pillow, and
26:32
Speaker 1: they assume it's like a hole all the way through,
26:36
Speaker 1: but they've actually lost the pillow, so they can't they
26:38
Speaker 1: actually can tell, so they just think it's a pillow
26:42
Speaker 1: with a hole through it from a bullet. That's how
26:44
Speaker 1: they confuse this pillow for a pillow being using the
26:46
Speaker 1: silencer because they don't actually have the pillow to compare
26:48
Speaker 1: it against.
26:50
Speaker 2: When Captain Shifflett finally did find the pillow in the
26:53
Speaker 2: back of his car, he filled out an evidence inventory
26:56
Speaker 2: form to record that had been taken into evidence, But
27:00
Speaker 2: on the evidence form he wrote down that he had
27:02
Speaker 2: collected the pillow on October eighteenth, at six pm, three
27:07
Speaker 2: hours before Brian was shot. At trial, defense attorney Rex
27:11
Speaker 2: Abernathy questioned Captain Schifflett about this discrepancy between the eighteenth
27:17
Speaker 2: and the twenty second the pillow is at Brian Bowen's house.
27:21
Speaker 1: Question, Now, let me ask you this date on this
27:23
Speaker 1: pillow that was signed in ten eighteen, and you picked
27:26
Speaker 1: up on ten twenty two this sheet that's your name
27:29
Speaker 1: on there, isn't it? Answer? Yes, sir, question, Well that
27:32
Speaker 1: isn't really the date, is it? Answer? That was the date?
27:36
Speaker 1: I thought it may have been gotten when I found
27:38
Speaker 1: it in my car. I just wrote it on there. Yes, sir,
27:42
Speaker 1: so abernav that k's asking about this date thing. And
27:45
Speaker 1: Tommy Shiflett says, you're asking me about a date I
27:48
Speaker 1: wrote on the thing. I made a mistake on that.
27:51
Speaker 1: I wrote the wrong date on that. I did because
27:53
Speaker 1: when I found the pillow I didn't really know how
27:55
Speaker 1: it got there or when. This backdated evidence form is
27:59
Speaker 1: the only record of the pillow made by the Floyd
28:01
Speaker 1: County Police. They didn't take any pictures of it or
28:05
Speaker 1: describe its appearance anywhere, so everything we know about it
28:08
Speaker 1: comes from the State lab who examined it for the
28:11
Speaker 1: presence of gunshot residue and found none. The GBI's notes
28:15
Speaker 1: describe it as a blue pillow with red bloodstains. The
28:19
Speaker 1: report says pillow found in victim's home where victim was shot.
28:23
Speaker 1: Officers think that the pillow was used to muffle the shot.
28:27
Speaker 1: The report notes small hole and pillow just one side.
28:32
Speaker 1: It's never explained what just one side means in this context.
28:36
Speaker 1: It's not clear if the hole goes only part way
28:38
Speaker 1: through the pillow, as in it starts on one side
28:41
Speaker 1: but doesn't exit through the other, or if it means
28:43
Speaker 1: the hole is on the edge of the pillow. Maybe
28:46
Speaker 1: what we do know is that whatever this hole is,
28:48
Speaker 1: the GBI concluded it was not a bullet hole. To
28:52
Speaker 1: understand more about the GBI's test results, we spoke to
28:55
Speaker 1: ballistics expert Ronald Scott. He's now based out of Arizona,
28:59
Speaker 1: but that he spent twenty five years as a police
29:02
Speaker 1: officer in Massachusetts.
29:04
Speaker 13: I did her homicide investigations for a while, investigated other
29:09
Speaker 13: types of crimes. I eventually ended up in the crime lab.
29:13
Speaker 13: That's when my forensic part of.
29:16
Speaker 14: My career started. I spent thirteen years in the crime lab.
29:24
Speaker 1: We sent Ronald Scott the thin file of records that
29:26
Speaker 1: we have about the evidence in this case, as well
29:29
Speaker 1: as the testimony about how that evidence had been handled.
29:33
Speaker 13: You lose a pillow, you lose a pillow, you lose
29:35
Speaker 13: a cottage case. This is.
29:43
Speaker 14: I'm kind of shocked. That's why when I.
29:44
Speaker 13: Was reading this, when you're sending for a cent the
29:48
Speaker 13: email to me, I said, this is just.
29:50
Speaker 14: Shocking to me.
29:52
Speaker 1: Ronald Scott said it was inexcusable that detectives had not
29:55
Speaker 1: taken even the most basic of investigative steps, like swabbing
29:59
Speaker 1: Brian's hand to test for gunshot residue.
30:02
Speaker 13: The detectives in this case here should have simply told
30:05
Speaker 13: the hospital, we want you to take.
30:08
Speaker 14: A sample of the skin.
30:09
Speaker 13: I mean, you're going to present this case in court
30:13
Speaker 13: and testify about it. And from what I've read, I mean,
30:16
Speaker 13: if I was on this case, I would have made
30:19
Speaker 13: mince meat out of all the witnesses, at least the
30:22
Speaker 13: trendscripts that I've read of everything they did not do
30:25
Speaker 13: right or what they did not collect that has made
30:29
Speaker 13: this problematic.
30:30
Speaker 1: At this point, he could have gotten the autopsy, he
30:32
Speaker 1: chose not to. The lead detective chose to go along
30:35
Speaker 1: with the corner and I.
30:36
Speaker 13: Would have spoken up and said no, we're going to
30:38
Speaker 13: do it this way.
30:40
Speaker 14: You just got to do that as the investigator.
30:44
Speaker 1: He also did no interviews. There's no record of any
30:46
Speaker 1: interviews from the night of this happened.
30:49
Speaker 14: That's incredible.
30:58
Speaker 1: One of the few things investigators did do was to
31:01
Speaker 1: have the blue pillow tested for gunshot residue. No the
31:05
Speaker 1: results of that testing aside. Ronald Scott was surprised that
31:08
Speaker 1: the pillow was admitted into evidence at all. He goes
31:12
Speaker 1: to his trunk, opens a bag, sees a buddy and
31:14
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, we should probably put some evidence right
31:17
Speaker 1: That's where the pillow. Then get sent off to the GBI,
31:20
Speaker 1: and we're pretty sure it's the same pillow, but we
31:23
Speaker 1: don't write.
31:25
Speaker 7: Yeah.
31:26
Speaker 13: Now, this is probably more of a legal issue, but
31:30
Speaker 13: seems there's just a lot going on here. This judge
31:33
Speaker 13: allowed in that at least where I come from, this
31:36
Speaker 13: testimony would have never it would have never even reached
31:39
Speaker 13: the court room. The pillow would have never reached the
31:42
Speaker 13: court room. I mean, there's just a lot that this
31:45
Speaker 13: judge led it met if he almost he was pretty
31:48
Speaker 13: lenient with the prosecution.
31:51
Speaker 14: He was shocking. Yeah, just in what I read.
31:56
Speaker 1: The pillow was allowed into evidence, though, and the GBI
31:59
Speaker 1: analyst who tests that it was brought in to testify
32:01
Speaker 1: about the results of her examination.
32:03
Speaker 13: The firearms examiner stated that visual examination of the pillow
32:10
Speaker 13: fails to reveal the presence of gunpowder that would.
32:15
Speaker 14: Eliminate the pillow.
32:16
Speaker 13: If you've got a pillow and you put this against
32:20
Speaker 13: the pillow and you fire it, you're going to get
32:23
Speaker 13: a tremendous amount of black soot.
32:26
Speaker 14: You know, they're going to get soot. You're going to
32:28
Speaker 14: get gunpowder that'll go into the pillow.
32:31
Speaker 13: And when a thirty eight caliber like this is fired,
32:35
Speaker 13: the heat it's about fifteen hundred.
32:39
Speaker 14: Degrees close to the muzzle.
32:41
Speaker 13: No, it spreads out very quickly, So there would have
32:45
Speaker 13: been soot, burnt gunpowder, unburned gunpowder, and there would have
32:51
Speaker 13: been thermal damage to the fabric of the pillow, including
32:56
Speaker 13: inside of the pillow. So when I look at this report,
33:00
Speaker 13: shows fails to reveal the presidents of gunpower.
33:04
Speaker 14: I mean to me, that would eliminate the pillow as
33:07
Speaker 14: being even close to this guy.
33:10
Speaker 1: The GBI analyst who testified at Les and Kane's trial
33:13
Speaker 1: reached the same conclusion that Ronald Scott did that there
33:17
Speaker 1: is no possible way this pillow was used as a silencer.
33:20
Speaker 1: The pillow scenario is kind of off the table. Sounds
33:23
Speaker 1: like it's.
33:23
Speaker 14: Off the table, I mean, I mean from it from
33:26
Speaker 14: my viewpoint.
33:27
Speaker 13: Given the scientific gatterer of the GBI report, it's off
33:31
Speaker 13: the table.
33:34
Speaker 1: Scientifically, the pillow is off the table. But what isn't
33:37
Speaker 1: clear to me is why the pillow was ever on
33:40
Speaker 1: the metaphorical table in the first place, because we still
33:43
Speaker 1: don't know where this pillow even came from. At trial,
33:47
Speaker 1: Kenneth testified that he was the one who found the pillow.
33:50
Speaker 1: Amanda recalls thinks that way too, but Brian's mother told
33:55
Speaker 1: investigators that her brother Michael had been involved in finding
33:58
Speaker 1: the pillow. She said that shortly before Brian's funeral, Michael
34:01
Speaker 1: had volunteered to clean the bedroom for her so she
34:04
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to see the blood there. Deborah Bowling told
34:07
Speaker 1: investigators that while there, he had caught Kin standing on
34:10
Speaker 1: the front porch with the garbage bag trying to sneak
34:12
Speaker 1: into the trailer. Michael had told her, Deborah, there's something
34:16
Speaker 1: in the trailer that Kin keeps trying to get back
34:19
Speaker 1: into the house to get. That's when they searched Brian's
34:21
Speaker 1: bedroom and found a pillow in a hole in the
34:23
Speaker 1: wall behind a dresser. Deborah Bowling said they'd notified police immediately,
34:27
Speaker 1: but the investigators hadn't come for the pillow right away.
34:31
Speaker 1: Brian's mother said that Captain Tommy Shifflett had not wanted
34:33
Speaker 1: to upset the family any more than necessary. She told
34:36
Speaker 1: investigators that the police quote had enough dignity to wait
34:40
Speaker 1: until after my son was buried before they came out
34:42
Speaker 1: and asked us to pull out something that would greatly
34:44
Speaker 1: greatly upset us.
34:47
Speaker 2: When we spoke to Deborah Bowling's brother, Michael, he did
34:50
Speaker 2: not remember catching Kin trying to sneak back into the
34:53
Speaker 2: trailer with a garbage bag, and he did not remember
34:56
Speaker 2: pillow being found in Brian's bedroom wall. He did the
35:00
Speaker 2: pillow though he'd seen it himself in Brian's bedroom on
35:04
Speaker 2: the night Brain had been shot. His sister had been
35:07
Speaker 2: using it to prop up Brian's head.
35:09
Speaker 4: To my mile, she had his head light laying on
35:11
Speaker 4: that pillow. It was a blue pillow, like a couch's pillow,
35:14
Speaker 4: while a bed pillow.
35:16
Speaker 2: Michael told us he hadn't been the one to find
35:18
Speaker 2: the pillow later on, though he had been present when
35:22
Speaker 2: it was collected. It happened a day or two after
35:25
Speaker 2: Brian's death, when investigators let Brian's family know that they
35:28
Speaker 2: needed to search his bedroom.
35:31
Speaker 4: I mean, they went through every single thing he had
35:34
Speaker 4: and they were drawer, they were clothes. I don't know
35:37
Speaker 4: what they were looking for, but you know they were
35:40
Speaker 4: kind of cut up because they found like pictures of
35:41
Speaker 4: girls half nude and stuff like that.
35:43
Speaker 13: You know.
35:45
Speaker 4: They did find a pillow up under the bed, which,
35:47
Speaker 4: like I told us, the blue pillow that was saturated
35:50
Speaker 4: in blood and I was seen it's where when they
35:53
Speaker 4: took him out of the room that one of the
35:55
Speaker 4: fire run er E'm telling me have kicked it or
35:56
Speaker 4: whatever and pushed it up under the bed.
36:02
Speaker 2: The jury, though, never got to hear from Michael. He
36:04
Speaker 2: wasn't called to testify at trial. In fact, the police
36:08
Speaker 2: never even interviewed him.
36:11
Speaker 4: They pillow, but there was no hole through it like
36:15
Speaker 4: somebody was holding it to muffle. There was nothing like that.
36:19
Speaker 1: Do you remember what the issue with the pillow was or.
36:21
Speaker 8: What I have?
36:22
Speaker 4: No, that's what I said. I don't know what the
36:24
Speaker 4: big deal about the pillow was.
36:26
Speaker 7: Ever.
36:27
Speaker 4: That's kind of because like I said, you know, when
36:30
Speaker 4: I went in there and she was trying to resuscitate her,
36:32
Speaker 4: she had his head on a pillow.
36:36
Speaker 2: Michael does not believe that a pillow was used in
36:38
Speaker 2: connection with brian shooting, and he's never understood why people
36:42
Speaker 2: spent so much time talking about it at trial.
36:46
Speaker 1: Also, thank you Michael Baker for asking the question I'm
36:50
Speaker 1: asking this whole time, which is why does the pillow matter? Yeah,
36:55
Speaker 1: he's like, there was no hole in the pillow.
36:57
Speaker 12: Yeah, that was I figured about that.
36:58
Speaker 2: He was quite in front of him, and he seemed
37:02
Speaker 2: very much like Kenneth didn't find the pillow.
37:13
Speaker 1: To say that the record about the pillow is a
37:15
Speaker 1: mess would be an understatement. You've got Kenneth saying that
37:19
Speaker 1: he found the pillow in the wall on October twenty second,
37:22
Speaker 1: and that they called the police to pick it up
37:23
Speaker 1: a few days later. You've got Michael saying the police
37:26
Speaker 1: found the pillow under Brian's bed on October nineteenth and
37:29
Speaker 1: that they took it with him that day. You've got
37:32
Speaker 1: Brian's mother saying that Michael and Kenneth found the pillow
37:35
Speaker 1: together on October twentieth, but the Captain Shiflett hadn't want
37:38
Speaker 1: to disturb the family before the funeral, so he'd come
37:40
Speaker 1: by a later unknown date to get it. And then
37:44
Speaker 1: you've got Captain Shiflett saying that he picked the pillow
37:46
Speaker 1: up on the day of the funeral, except he didn't
37:49
Speaker 1: know he'd picked it up because someone else stuck it
37:51
Speaker 1: in the trunk of his car and didn't tell him
37:54
Speaker 1: then in February when he happened to find the pillow
37:57
Speaker 1: in his trunk. He recorded finding the pillow on October eighteenth,
38:00
Speaker 1: before Brian had even been shot, because he'd had no
38:03
Speaker 1: idea what else to write on the evidence form, and
38:05
Speaker 1: that it seemed to be as good a dave as any.
38:09
Speaker 2: To try and find out how the evidence in this
38:11
Speaker 2: case could have been so badly mishandled. Susan and I
38:15
Speaker 2: went to speak to Captain Tommy Schifflett. Afterwards, we updated
38:19
Speaker 2: Dan about our conversation. He did not want to be recorded.
38:29
Speaker 2: He does not do TV, but he did talk to
38:31
Speaker 2: us for a long time.
38:33
Speaker 8: I mean, he talked to you for a while.
38:36
Speaker 2: He says he does not remember anything.
38:39
Speaker 1: About this case, and he was kind of convincing about it.
38:42
Speaker 2: Doesn't remember the pillow, doesn't know how a pillow would
38:46
Speaker 2: have ended up in his trunk.
38:48
Speaker 1: But he had all the same questions that I had
38:50
Speaker 1: about it. He's like, if there was a bloody pillow
38:53
Speaker 1: in my car for four months? How to not find it?
38:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, I would have opened my trunk on
38:56
Speaker 2: a daily basis or every other day. I think he said, yeah,
39:00
Speaker 2: like sounds like I did not have seen a bloody pillow.
39:02
Speaker 1: Who would have put it there? He's like, was there
39:04
Speaker 1: any paperwork? Like they should have been paperwork for it.
39:06
Speaker 1: Like he had as many questions about it as we do.
39:09
Speaker 1: He had like literally the same questions. Does that sound
39:11
Speaker 1: right to you? How could that be right?
39:12
Speaker 2: You know, like just seems like there's a problem there,
39:15
Speaker 2: doesn't it. Although he was kind of making fun.
39:17
Speaker 1: Of us, Yeah, but the way he reacted did it
39:20
Speaker 1: seem REALI that like he was pointing out all the
39:22
Speaker 1: reasons it's absurd that they didn't have that the pillow
39:25
Speaker 1: was found in his trunk four months later, which I don't.
39:28
Speaker 1: He wouldn't trying to cover up the fact that it
39:29
Speaker 1: was absurd excuses. He was like, that doesn't make any sense,
39:32
Speaker 1: Like it shouldn't have been that way, and he thinks
39:34
Speaker 1: it sounds really weird and that doesn't understand how it
39:36
Speaker 1: could have happened.
39:36
Speaker 2: Again, he may have been like teasing us in his
39:40
Speaker 2: like I am a veteran detective, and I know what
39:42
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, and you guys are just to be
39:44
Speaker 2: people like, you know, how do you know that was
39:47
Speaker 2: even the right pillow?
39:48
Speaker 1: How do you know is the pillow related to the case.
39:50
Speaker 1: I like that is my question to lost evidence aside.
40:00
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a reasonable explanation here for why none of
40:03
Speaker 1: this sads up. Maybe no one agrees about where the
40:06
Speaker 1: pillow came from because people are talking about two different pillows.
40:10
Speaker 1: As just Sinda and I explained to Dan, this theory
40:13
Speaker 1: was floated at least indirectly at trial.
40:16
Speaker 2: And they're able to explain that on the way by
40:19
Speaker 2: having people like Kenneth say, no, there were two pillows.
40:21
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's so insane that they're basically trying to our report.
40:26
Speaker 15: This is a second pillow that no one knows where
40:29
Speaker 15: it is, and even the first pillow was forgotten in
40:32
Speaker 15: a trunk for four months, but there's a second pillow
40:35
Speaker 15: that no one really knows anything about.
40:44
Speaker 1: It makes sense that there would have been a second
40:45
Speaker 1: blue pillow in the bowlings trailer. It was a couch cushion,
40:49
Speaker 1: after all, and presumably there were others like it on
40:51
Speaker 1: the living room couch. But there is no evidence whatsoever
40:55
Speaker 1: that a second pillow was ever taken into evidence, nor
40:58
Speaker 1: is there any evidence that there was a second pillow
41:00
Speaker 1: that really was used as a silencer, or that investigators
41:04
Speaker 1: somehow sent the wrong pillow to the GBI for testing.
41:07
Speaker 1: Keene's story, for his part, told me that he doesn't
41:10
Speaker 1: recall whether there were any pillows in Brian's bedroom that night.
41:13
Speaker 7: Oh man, I can figure it's really using his killing
41:16
Speaker 7: them with the life of blood. I don't know, because
41:19
Speaker 7: I know I ran out of the rosaryom my god,
41:21
Speaker 7: my god. He shot his SLP in the head. He
41:22
Speaker 7: shot his silp in the head, and me and me
41:25
Speaker 7: and Kenneth Floyd actually meant in the door frame he
41:28
Speaker 7: was coming in out and going out.
41:30
Speaker 1: Ken says that there wouldn't have been enough time for
41:32
Speaker 1: him to have hidden a pillow in the wall, and
41:34
Speaker 1: there definitely wouldn't have been enough time for a Lee
41:36
Speaker 1: to have done so this.
41:38
Speaker 7: Whole conlord theory about Lee being out the land, up
41:41
Speaker 7: coming in and doing all this and I blinking and lie.
41:44
Speaker 7: It's like he used to joke with me, if to
41:46
Speaker 7: hell my name, my last name is Clara, but it
41:48
Speaker 7: ain't Clark Ken. Oh really. I mean, it's just crazy
41:51
Speaker 7: because they say that he did this and show make
41:54
Speaker 7: out the window player thing that like it was in
41:56
Speaker 7: a matter of three seconds.
41:57
Speaker 1: Even if you believe that it was Keen Slash Josh
42:00
Speaker 1: who shot Brian through a pillow, this theory doesn't really
42:03
Speaker 1: get any more plausible, as Amanda and Kenneth confirmed there
42:07
Speaker 1: was no way that he could have put the pillow
42:09
Speaker 1: there either, because they'd gotten into Brian's bedroom just a
42:12
Speaker 1: few seconds after the shot was fired. It seems like
42:16
Speaker 1: the idea that Josh put the pillow into the wall.
42:19
Speaker 14: Somebody did, But when would he have time to do that?
42:22
Speaker 8: He wouldn't have done it, And the lighter somebody would
42:25
Speaker 8: have done it lighter That not.
42:26
Speaker 1: Like thinking someone came back.
42:28
Speaker 8: Yep, but I don't know why they wouldn't have just
42:31
Speaker 8: got it.
42:31
Speaker 1: But because y'all got in there so quick, it's not
42:33
Speaker 1: like you could have moved the dry Yeah, no, no,
42:36
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42:44
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42:47
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42:53
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42:55
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44:14
Speaker 2: So to recap, we have no idea who found the pillow,
44:18
Speaker 2: where it was found, or when it was found. It
44:22
Speaker 2: is scientifically impossible for the pillow to have been used
44:25
Speaker 2: as a silencer, and there is no way Lee or
44:28
Speaker 2: kin had time to have hidden the pillow in the
44:31
Speaker 2: wall where Ken says he later found it. These are
44:35
Speaker 2: all pretty big problems for the theory that Lee or
44:37
Speaker 2: Kane used the pillow as a silencer and then hid
44:40
Speaker 2: it in the wall, but they're not the biggest problems.
44:45
Speaker 2: As Susan and I explained to Kevin, there is absolutely
44:48
Speaker 2: positively no way that Cain or Lee hid the pillow
44:51
Speaker 2: in the wall after shooting Brian, and the crime scene
44:55
Speaker 2: photos prove it.
45:00
Speaker 1: There are crime scene photos that were not initially disclosed
45:04
Speaker 1: the defense but later given to the defense that show
45:07
Speaker 1: a pillow that matches the description of the pillow on
45:11
Speaker 1: the floor not far from where Brian fell, with a
45:15
Speaker 1: little bit of blood on it, laying on the floor
45:17
Speaker 1: in the open.
45:18
Speaker 2: From that night, not hidden in the wall, like out
45:21
Speaker 2: in the open from an hour after who was shot.
45:23
Speaker 6: That's what I'm sort of trying to piece together in
45:25
Speaker 6: my head because I know there's that one pillow in
45:28
Speaker 6: the crime scene photos.
45:31
Speaker 2: In the crime scene photos, there on the floor of
45:33
Speaker 2: Brian's bedroom, not far from where his head would have
45:37
Speaker 2: been after he'd fallen, you can see a blue couch
45:40
Speaker 2: cushion stained with blood. We know this was the same
45:44
Speaker 2: pillow that Kenneth says he found hidden behind the wall
45:47
Speaker 2: in Brian's bedroom. At trial, he's asked to compare the
45:51
Speaker 2: photos with the pillow itself, and he confirms that the
45:54
Speaker 2: blood stained patterns are the same on both.
45:58
Speaker 9: But in the I think in more photo, I remember
46:01
Speaker 9: she in it was at court. I remember seeing the
46:06
Speaker 9: pillow in the picture same way.
46:11
Speaker 2: The photos were taken that night, shortly after Brian had
46:14
Speaker 2: been shot by an assistant at the local photo studio
46:17
Speaker 2: that photograph crime scenes in Floyd County. They proved that
46:22
Speaker 2: the pillow had not been hidden in the wall after
46:24
Speaker 2: the shooting. It was just lying there in the open
46:27
Speaker 2: on the bedroom floor. So why did the investigators believe
46:31
Speaker 2: that Kin and Lee had hidden the pillow in the
46:34
Speaker 2: wall when there are crime scene photos that conclusively proved
46:37
Speaker 2: that that didn't happen. Well, maybe the investigators didn't believe
46:42
Speaker 2: that the pillow had been hidden. Maybe they just didn't
46:45
Speaker 2: think Kin or Lee would ever find out about those photos.
46:53
Speaker 1: Several years ago, while working on the Joy Watkins case,
46:56
Speaker 1: I'd had a conversation with his defense attorney, Rex Abernathy,
47:00
Speaker 1: and he told me a story about another case that
47:02
Speaker 1: he'd tried, involving another teenage boy in a different murder
47:05
Speaker 1: in Floyd County. He told me that in this case,
47:08
Speaker 1: there had been a pillow that was a crucial piece
47:09
Speaker 1: of evidence, and that this pillow had supposedly been hidden
47:12
Speaker 1: after the crime. He'd been given crime scene photos by
47:15
Speaker 1: Clyde Collier, but these photos had not shown the pillow anywhere.
47:19
Speaker 1: It was only on the eve of trial that he'd
47:21
Speaker 1: somehow been tipped off about the existence of more crime
47:23
Speaker 1: scene photos, and when he got these additional photos, they
47:27
Speaker 1: revealed that the pillow had been sitting there in the
47:29
Speaker 1: open all along. It had not been hidden at all.
47:34
Speaker 1: At the time, I hadn't really understood what Rex Abernathy
47:37
Speaker 1: was talking about, But when I met Lee Clark and
47:40
Speaker 1: heard about his case, it began to make sense.
47:44
Speaker 2: For decades, police officers in Floyd County did not photograph
47:48
Speaker 2: their own crime scenes. Instead, a private photographer named Clyde
47:53
Speaker 2: Collier took the photos for them.
47:56
Speaker 1: We talked to Clyde.
47:57
Speaker 2: Collier's assistant, Dan Scott. He was the one who had
48:00
Speaker 2: actually taken the photos of Brian's bedroom that night, although
48:04
Speaker 2: he said he did not remember photographing this particular crime scene.
48:09
Speaker 2: We explained to Kevin what Dan Scott had been able
48:12
Speaker 2: to tell us.
48:17
Speaker 1: But he did open up about how the crime scene
48:21
Speaker 1: photos worked in Floyd County. And it's quite a convenient
48:24
Speaker 1: little racket. I might say, I don't understand it all,
48:27
Speaker 1: he explained it. So he and this man would take.
48:30
Speaker 2: The crime scene photos as a courtesy for the Floyd
48:35
Speaker 2: County Police Department.
48:37
Speaker 1: For accidents, murders, suicides, other crimes as a courtesy. Clime
48:41
Speaker 1: calliers also be.
48:42
Speaker 8: Called a public service, as a public.
48:45
Speaker 1: Well sort of and sort of.
48:46
Speaker 2: They weren't paid by the police department.
48:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're for free. So they they're called out to
48:50
Speaker 1: all the crime scenes and the responsible for taking all
48:52
Speaker 1: the crime scene photos or were back in the for free,
48:55
Speaker 1: for free, and they gave the photos to the police
48:58
Speaker 1: for free, but they charged APO's attorneys for them and prosecutors.
49:03
Speaker 1: But what I don't understand is why the detectives wouldn't have.
49:06
Speaker 8: To turn all of that over as.
49:08
Speaker 1: Part of discovery because they weren't public records because a
49:11
Speaker 1: private person took them. So do you still have to
49:14
Speaker 1: turn everything over?
49:15
Speaker 6: So this person basically owns the photography.
49:18
Speaker 1: They stamped in the back of their photo the crime
49:20
Speaker 1: scene photos copyright of cly Filier, which is the main
49:23
Speaker 1: photographer the dance got worked for.
49:26
Speaker 7: Wow.
49:27
Speaker 1: And also these guys aren't trained like forensic photographers, Like,
49:29
Speaker 1: why the hell you trust in the random photographer's office
49:32
Speaker 1: to take your murder sand photos?
49:34
Speaker 8: It's what are things? Dressing? Many letters?
49:44
Speaker 1: Although Lee Clock's attorney was not initially given the crime
49:47
Speaker 1: scene photos that show the pillow sitting on Brian's bedroom floor,
49:50
Speaker 1: he did end up getting them before trial. These photos
49:53
Speaker 1: were introduced into evidence, the jury saw them, and the
49:57
Speaker 1: jury heard from the GBI expert who concluded that this
50:00
Speaker 1: pillow was never used as a silencer. This should have
50:03
Speaker 1: been a big deal for Lee Clark's defense. As we
50:06
Speaker 1: explained to blistics expert Ronald Scott. This pillow was a
50:09
Speaker 1: cornerstone in the state's case against him.
50:12
Speaker 14: There was two boys charged in this right mm hm
50:15
Speaker 14: was it the one in the room.
50:17
Speaker 1: And seven months later they charged another boy and say
50:23
Speaker 1: that he actually was outside the window and fired the
50:25
Speaker 1: shot that night. Okay, but they didn't actually link him.
50:28
Speaker 1: There was no evidence at the time until seven months
50:31
Speaker 1: later that he was involved. Basically, a witness came forward
50:34
Speaker 1: in May says these boys confessed to a murder. They
50:39
Speaker 1: said they put the pillow over the victim's head and
50:41
Speaker 1: shot him through the pillow, and.
50:44
Speaker 14: It didn't happen. That didn't happen.
50:47
Speaker 1: The jurors we spoke to reached a different conclusion though, Well,
50:55
Speaker 1: he believed in the damn pillow, so he saw pictures
50:59
Speaker 1: of the pillow with blood on it. So somehow he
51:01
Speaker 1: took away from that trial that the defendants shot Brian
51:07
Speaker 1: Bowling through a pillow, which is exactly what the prosecutor
51:10
Speaker 1: was trying to tell him. I can't explain how the
51:13
Speaker 1: jury reached this conclusion. Maybe somehow in closing arguments, the
51:17
Speaker 1: prosecutor was able to convince them that this pillow mattered,
51:21
Speaker 1: even when it doesn't matter. At all. We haven't actually
51:24
Speaker 1: seen the closing arguments yet, but we recently won a
51:27
Speaker 1: court order granting us access to them, so maybe when
51:31
Speaker 1: we get those there'll be some answers there. But it
51:34
Speaker 1: may be that in the jurors minds the pillow seems
51:37
Speaker 1: so important because it was linked to another part of
51:39
Speaker 1: the state's case against Lia Kane, the evidence that, according
51:43
Speaker 1: to investigators, proved that Brian Bowling could not have shot himself.
51:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, we spoke to jury number twelve who had some details, remembered,
51:53
Speaker 2: some detailing the most so far, and it sounded like
51:57
Speaker 2: the pillow, the pillow.
51:58
Speaker 1: And the rod, literally the ill was the only thing
52:01
Speaker 1: this town remembers of the case.
52:02
Speaker 2: But he said something we have not heard from anyone
52:05
Speaker 2: and we have no records of, which is there was
52:07
Speaker 2: a picture of a pillow with a rod going through
52:12
Speaker 2: to illustrate the path the bullet took, and that it.
52:16
Speaker 1: Had to come from that side of the room, the
52:18
Speaker 1: window side of the room.
52:20
Speaker 14: Next week on proof, I think the r top she
52:27
Speaker 14: would have been just in the head, that would have
52:29
Speaker 14: been here, that would have answered the question.
52:34
Speaker 2: There's a photograph of Brian, who's already dead, laying on
52:37
Speaker 2: the table, and there's a rod going through the skull
52:40
Speaker 2: to show how the bullet passed through his brain, and
52:43
Speaker 2: that picture he remembers, Like the.
52:48
Speaker 1: Only piece of factual evidence in this case that I
52:50
Speaker 1: can't quite reconcile is the statements from the mom and
52:53
Speaker 1: the phone that was apparently like clinched tightly in Brian's
52:57
Speaker 1: right hand.
52:59
Speaker 7: If the phone is clenched and he's write gang, there's
53:01
Speaker 7: no lady gun shot right time?
53:06
Speaker 1: If it was or charring, how would that imply about
53:09
Speaker 1: how far the gun was?
53:10
Speaker 2: Well, if it's soot and sin jin, who would represent
53:14
Speaker 2: it being a contact wound? You've been listening to Proof
53:25
Speaker 2: a podcast by Red Marble Media. We'll be back next
53:28
Speaker 2: Monday for episode seven. Send us your questions at proofcrimepod
53:32
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. We'll respond during our bonus episodes
53:36
Speaker 2: Proof Sidebar on Thursdays. Kevin Fitzpatrick is our executive producer.
53:42
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53:45
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53:49
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54:00
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54:03
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54:06
Speaker 1: That's all for this week.
54:07
Speaker 8: Thanks for listening.