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Transcript

Typical Tuesday: Midnight Robbery...Four Knuckleheads...One Fatal Decision; When Nine Inches Isn't Enough · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: My name is Aaron, I'm your host and you guys are in for a typical Tuesday kind of episode.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: But before I get on to tonight's show, I want to talk a little bit about last week's episode.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Did you guys catch it?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Jay Dobbins, retired ATF agent who infiltrated the Hells Angels, spent two years deep undercover with the Hells Angels, ultimately prosecuting 55 people out of the Phoenix chapter.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: If you didn't get a chance to listen to it, go back and listen to it.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Jay Dobbins, ATF, infiltrated the Hells Angels.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: This is something that has not happened much in American history.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It's happened a couple of times and I was so lucky to get the guy on the podcast.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: He's also been involved in many other major incidents like Waco, texas, the Columbine shooting, all kinds of stuff.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: He tells all the stories.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Go check it out.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Now I want to take you to tonight's episode.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: This is actually a Monday evening.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: It's a Monday evening, june 19th of 2017.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You see, over that weekend, on the Saturday and Sunday that weekend, these four kids were hanging out.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And I say kids, they're between 17 and 21 years old.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: They're four kids hanging out over on my side of town.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It's summertime, they're down by the lake, they're out partying, they're having a good time.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: They're just being kids.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: These four kids consist of three dudes and a chick.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The girl is one of the guy's girlfriends.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: You know, these are not your average kids.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: One of them have had a little bit of running with.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: They smoke a little dope, they party a little bit Probably never worked a hard day in their life.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: These four people come together and they decide that they are going to well, they need some more weed, and none of them have money for the weed.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So they decide that they're going to call up their drug dealer and they're going to steal the weed.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: So that is the plan that goes into place.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And as they're talking about this and they're concocting their idea as to how they're going to do it, now this is a longtime drug dealer of theirs.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: This guy's been selling them weed for a long time.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: But this isn't the kind of drug dealer that's going to front them the marijuana.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: He's going to want payment, which they don't have.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So they decide that collectively that they are going to hit a lick.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: They're going to steal the weed from the drug dealer.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So, as the day goes on, they go out.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: They're out to steal the weed from the drug dealer.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So, as the day goes on, they go out, they're out rafting in the river.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: These conversations are happening over, you know, sunday, monday type of thing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: They go out, they float the river.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: They can't get a ride back.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: They got to call a mom to come pick them up.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: The mom drives them back to the house.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: In the meantime they're all messaging back and forth and talking about hitting this lick and they're going to do it that night, on Monday night.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So they send out a message to the drug dealer and his name's Alex.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: They send a message out to Alex and they say hey, dude, you know we want a quarter pound of weed and we want to hook up with you.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Can you meet us tonight?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: We want to hook up with you, can you meet us tonight?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: At that time Alex responds back and yep, sure, I can do it.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And then the next thing, you know, nighttime has come.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Well, what happened between nighttime coming and their initial thought of doing this robbery?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Well, one of them said we should get a gun, because that's what you do when you commit robberies.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So where are they going to get this gun from?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Well, that's where the girlfriend comes in.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: The girlfriend, amber, will call her.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Amber says you know what?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I can get a gun from my parents' house.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So I'll get the gun and we'll go from there.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So Amber gets the gun and brings the gun to these other three knuckleheads who are deciding that they're going to go out and hit this lick.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: So now you've got four of the shallowest thinking individuals that I've ever met in my life.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Like there's not a complete thought that connects inside of the brains of any of these people, much less when you get them together.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: You know, the IQ actually decreases when you add these four people together.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: So they put the call into Alex.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Alex says yeah, sure, I can hook you up.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Here's what we know, and then I'll tell you what we found out after the fact.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So here's what we know, and then I'll tell you what we found out after the fact.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So the night comes and they go to a local elementary school, elementary school located in the north part of our town.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: It's got a basketball court kind of the way the area is set up, you know the school's in the middle there's a perimeter fence with an opening to the east and the west side of the school, and then inside the fenced-in area is a basketball court and football field and all that other stuff.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Right, we've all seen those elementary schools.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So as they're out there chilling and hanging out, nothing better to do on a June evening except hang out and rob somebody for dope at an elementary school.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Isn't it illegal to even have weed at an elementary school?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so that's what they're going to do.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: In comes these other three guys, or these two guys and a girl, and they're going to play some basketball.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Completely unrelated, they come in.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Two of them are actually Gonzaga basketball players.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: They come in and they start playing some basketball.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It's about nine, ten o'clock at night, it's a beautiful summer evening.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So these two dudes are playing basketball.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: The chickie poo that's with them is sitting down, kind of hanging out watching.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So now you've got four knuckleheads and three basketball folks.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: The seven of them are kind of intermixing with each other and as they're intermixing, the three knuckleheads say hey, you want us to let you in on a little secret.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Basketball player says sure, what do you got?
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Knucklehead number one says well, we got a dude that's about to deliver a quarter pound of weed and we're going to steal it from him.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And the basketball player's like man, that doesn't seem like a very nice thing to do.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: But knucklehead number two is like guess what, we got a gun too.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And he pulls a gun out of his waistband and he shows it to basketball player.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Basketball player handles the gun, the gun's loaded.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Basketball player hands the gun back to knucklehead number two.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Basketball player says man, are you guys going to shoot him during the robbery?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: One of the knuckleheads says I don't know, kind of thinking about it, haven't decided yet.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Ah, interesting.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So basketball players this time decide there's something going on here that we don't necessarily want to be a part of.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So the two basketball players continue playing a little basketball until they can exit stage left gracefully without fear of getting shot, or now that they know the plan.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: You know they've all seen TV snitches get stitches kind of a thing.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: So they don't really know for sure what they're thinking.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: But that little chicky-poo that's sitting down there hanging out with the basketball players, she's on her phone and she just snaps a picture of the basketball players.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That picture is going to come in important here in just a few minutes.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So she snaps a picture of the basketball players.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: In that picture you see knucklehead one, two, three and four.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: You see them kind of in the background of the picture, but the picture is very, very dark.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: It's nighttime, there's no flash.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: This is a very dimly lit picture, but it's of a basketball court, a couple basketball players, four knuckleheads.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: The message has been given that we're about to commit a robbery.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: The guy's on his way, the three good folks are like how can we get out of here?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And they're trying to make their way out of the area.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And that's the scene that we've got folks, they decide they're going to leave and they walk away.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Well, they the girl actually lives right across the parking lot.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: From the school and from the girl's backyard you can look across the backyard and see the parking lot on the West side of the school.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: That is the parking lot where a lot of these conversations took place, where these kids were drinking beer and hanging out.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: That's where they were congregating.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It was on the west side and, as luck would have it, from the backyard of this girl's house you can see that parking lot.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Time passes and it's about 11 o'clock at this point 1130, something like that, 1120 pm, 30, something like that, 11, 20 PM, and there's email or there's text messages going back and forth from the group of four knuckleheads to the drug dealer and ultimately the basketball players are sitting in the backyard of the house and they're looking out across the parking lot and they see a car pull up.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And that car pulls up in the west side of the parking lot.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: The basketball players report seeing three guys, or three people, walk up to the car and then a gunshot happens.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: A gunshot absolutely breaks the silence of the night, echoes through the neighborhood and at that time, almost instantaneously, the car backs up at a high rate of speed and crashes into the west side of the grade school.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: The three people take off running.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: They take off running off into the woods.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: They go that is what is reported by the basketball people.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: They call 911.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: They say, hey, we saw these people.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: They said they're going to commit a robbery.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: We see a guard pull up, a gunshot happened, a car backed into the wall, three folks there was four of them, but three of them run off into the woods and that's what we know.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So with a call like that, you're going to get a police response.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: The police responded in from all areas and we get multiple agencies responding to this.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: We happen to have a canine on duty that night.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So a police response looks like this we're going to get enough cars into the area to set up a perimeter.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: A perimeter is just that it's a perimeter around a geographical area and our goal is to run lights and sirens, be an active presence so we can put the people that are running to ground.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: We make them lay down, we make them find a place to hide and then we're going to come in and find them.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: That is what a perimeter is supposed to do.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Those police officers who were on the perimeter are looking for anybody escaping the perimeter and they'll say hey citizen trying to escape the perimeter at a high rate of speed, why don't you come talk to me?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: And that person may or may not be involved, and if they're not involved, they get sent on their way.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: If they are involved, they get detained and they get questioned, right?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is pretty simple stuff.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: This is how a perimeter works.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: So units are coming in, perimeter is getting set up.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: A lot of police responses come into this area.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: It's likely we're going to find somebody dead or injured at the scene.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It's likely that a robbery was taking place during the commission of this murder, which makes it a felony murder case, meaning that whether you pulled the trigger or not, if you were involved, then you can be charged with the crime of murder as well.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So that is what's in the minds of these police officers.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: That canine that's on duty responds directly to the scene.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Now, I was a canine handler.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Here's how the canine handler works.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: The canine handler wants to get there first and they want to get on the track of the people that ran away.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: They want to follow them.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Typically, the canine handler will run with a support team of officers that are going to be their lethal and non-lethal cover in case they happen to encounter somebody in the woods or on the track and the dog goes and the dog will lead where the dog leads.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Now, the dog is not sniffing scent or clothes or anything like you see on TV, at least not our dogs.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Our dogs are tracking ground disturbance.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: So as somebody runs away and they step down and they make, you know, crushing motion with their feet or a twisting motion, they're crushing tiny bits of dirt on the ground or particles or grass or whatever maybe the substrate is.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: That is what the dog is chasing.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Well, not chasing, but tracking.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So the dog is tracking that ground disturbance.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: The canine officer is on scene almost immediately, within a minute or two.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: The canine officer deploys his dog and his dog takes off on a good track in the same direction that it's reported that the suspects fled Within seven minutes.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: A couple of things happen.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: One one of those perimeter officers finds somebody running through the perimeter and says Holt, citizen, why are you running at midnight after a gunshot and a murder at the local school?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So that person was detained.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: The K-9 officer tracks right by those people the citizen, which ends up being one of the knuckleheads and the cop and tracks right to a house, the side door of the house.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Now it happens to be that knucklehead caught on the perimeter is associated with the house that the dog tracked to.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: How could that be?
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Well, after knocking on the door, here comes three other knuckleheads.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So now you got four knuckleheads door.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Here comes three other knuckleheads, so now you got four knuckleheads.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: That all kind of match the general description given by the eyewitness that watched the shooting from across the parking lot.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Now let's pause for a minute and go back to that picture that little chicky-poo took of the basketball court.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: We were able to take that picture and enhance the photograph with some lighting and we were able to see a clear image of the four knuckleheads.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: In that clear image.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: We were able to identify who they were by the shoes they were wearing, the clothes they were wearing, the sweatshirt they were wearing, and some of them, when the cops knocked on the door, were wearing the same exact clothes.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And when the cops knocked on the door, we're wearing the same exact clothes.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Not only were we able to identify them, we were able to put a timestamp on when that picture was taken in relationship to the murder.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So now we knew we were looking at the right group of knuckleheads and it looks like maybe the dog tracked to that location, maybe these are the people involved in this murder.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: So four people are detained, put into police cars and brought down to the police department.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: The house is secured.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: The house is secured, meaning that we seize the house, we take it, we kick everybody out the parents, whoever else was there and that becomes our house.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: We're going to write a search warrant.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: We're looking for the gun, we're looking for evidence, we're looking for weed, we're looking for that type of stuff.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: At this point the detectives get called and that's where I get this case and I become the lead detective on this case.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Now, what am I looking at?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at a crime scene at the school.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at a crime scene at the house.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at a crime scene on the trail between the school and the house.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I've got numerous eyewitnesses.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I've got four suspects in custody.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: We've got video surveillance that we need to be pulling.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: We've got a dead guy in the front seat of a Chevy passenger car.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: We've got a dead guy in the front seat of a Chevy passenger car.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: We've got a robbery that occurred and we've got a lot of investigation to do, starting at midnight on a Monday evening.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: So when I get the call, I go ahead and I alert our major crimes team, which means that I get a lot of resources.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of people come in and help me other detectives.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Then I got to figure out who I'm putting where.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I assign a team of detectives to the crime scene.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I assign a team of detectives to do interviews.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I assign a team of detectives at the house.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I have somebody that's writing all the warrants for me so I can tell them what we need.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: We have an initial meeting at the office where we talk about what we know and we continue to update those meetings, send people out to do their tasks, bring them all back, update brief debrief, send them back out, and this is the way this process goes for days on end.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: At the scene of the shooting we have this passenger car.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: The car smells like weed.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: We've got a 24-year-old white male sitting in the front driver's seat who is stretched out between the front driver's seat and the back passenger seat, so he's kind of at a diagonal across the car.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: He probably got thrown there through inertia when his car hit the side of the building and came to a sudden stop.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: He's got some gunshot wounds in him and, uniquely enough, he's wearing a t-shirt.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: It's a black t-shirt, picture this With like a crime scene tape across the front, and on the crime scene tape is a bunch of images of bullet holes.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: You know, you've seen like you stick them on a car.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what his shirt was.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: His shirt was a big piece of crime scene tape that went across the chest with these fake gunshot wounds all throughout his chest.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And it was ironic that he's laying there dead with a gunshot wound because he tried to sell drugs at elementary school and got robbed.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Now him getting killed is no fault of his own, but it was kind of a peculiar situation.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So we go back to the office having all these detectives out there holding different crime scenes.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: We go back to the office and we start the interview on these four knuckleheads.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: We have them all separated, they haven't had a chance to get their story straight and we spend the next six hours interviewing them.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: In short, we learn the night of that all four of them took part in conversations to commit a robbery.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: All four of them knew a gun was present.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: All four of them were actively involved in the planning to some extent.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: All four of them returned back to one of the knuckleheads' house where they were found with the police.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: The weed was there, the gun is there.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: The gun had been hidden in the house.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: We were told where the gun was and one of the gentlemen, austin.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: He admitted to pulling the trigger that ultimately killed Alex, our victim.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It was six hours worth of interviews to collect all of that information.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Now these people don't come right out and tell you the truth.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: They have different reasons for posturing or lying or being deceptive or deflecting their responsibility or maybe, in one of these guys' cases, bolstering his involvement because he wanted to be one of the guys.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Either way.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: This is the bullshit that came out during these six hours worth of interviews.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: They told us where they were standing, where they were at during the shooting, when they heard the gunshot, the route that they fled, and after that night we felt that we had enough probable cause to arrest all four of them for murder.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: So that's what we did.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: We sent all four of them off to jail for murder and I wrote a report.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: It's called an affidavit and it's a shorthand affidavit, meaning there's about I don't know total nine inches and sometimes that seems like a lot, I know, but nine inches of line for me to write my narrative on in order to get these people held.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: So I wrote my narrative and I said so-and-so said this, so-and-so said that they all agreed to do this.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: There was a gun present, gun got, went off.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So-and-so pulled the trigger.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Dude died.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Hold them in jail until we can get more information.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And I sent that off to jail with them.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: They all go to jail and that's when the investigation truly begins.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: By this time it's six hours later, it's about seven in the morning.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: We're notifying the victim's family that he's been killed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: We are still processing crime scenes killed.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: We are still processing crime scenes.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: We've got the medical examiner's office picking up the body.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: We've got the search team and the warrants are going through the judge to get approved so we can go out and search the house where we know the weed and the gun and all that stuff is to collect that evidence.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of moving pieces in this puzzle and, as you can imagine, when this call comes out at midnight not everybody is like freshly slept and like man.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to go out on a murder.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They're all ending their days, they're just getting into bed and the phone rings.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: So that is where we're at and it's now 7 am.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I tell you the tiredness and I tell you the story about the affidavit, because that's going to come back here in a few minutes.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So there we are.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: We end up processing the crime scene of the house.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: We find the weed, we find the gun, we find the clothes, we find the 100 H-U-N-N-I-D sweatshirt that one of the dudes was wearing, as described by the eyewitness, and about 24 hours into this, all the activity and the crime scenes are shut down.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But now we're back at the office continuing this investigation and continuing to dig deep.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: You know who is the victimology?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Who's our victim?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: What's our suspectology look like, what kind of background do these people have?
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Are they hardened criminals or are they shit bag kids that made a really bad choice?
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, which direction are we going with this?
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: So we, we figure this all thing out and we talk to everybody and then it kind of slows down right After a couple, after a week or so, that initial investigation slows down and now it's up to me, my co-lead and the DA's office to really dig into the details.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And an admission can be one thing, but now we have to prove it right.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So an admission without any kind of cooperating evidence really isn't good.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: It won't, it won't stand on its own two feet.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So we have to start digging in and finding some evidence.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: We start looking through the cameras and we can see a couple of guys on the camera.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: We can't see the third one.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: We don't see the chick on the camera anywhere.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: That third one is the one who was really bolstering and saying what.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: You know how involved he was.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Um, we start looking at cell phone records and text messages.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: We see the text messages going back and forth between Alex and the four knuckleheads.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: We see that Alex is a little bit leery.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: He's like you guys have never asked for this much before.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Why do you want this much?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: You know you better not be trying to set me up.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Alex had some reservations about what was going on.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: The kids are like nah, dude, we're good, bet, you know, just bring us the weed.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: We got the dough.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: You know I got so-and-so here and he's never met you before.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: But he's got lots of money and you know money talks.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: So Alex is like, all right, I'll bring it.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So we see these things going back and forth, but we can tell that conversational tone is that Alex is a little bit leery and he's not a hundred percent sure that he's not getting set up for some kind of robbery.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: It almost seemed too good to be true to him but instead of listening to his gut instinct, he rolled up there to do the drug deal and ultimately was met with gunfire.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: So we see this.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: The other thing we do is we take a look at the cell phone data and the triangulation based off of towers and that kind of type of data stuff I don't want to go into with, you know, everyday listeners, but basically we're able to say hey, based on the electronic data of the cell phones and the video cameras and everything else that we've that we're looking at.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: It is impossible for knucklehead number three and the chick to be at the shooting scene.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: You know, that's the, the, the.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: At least he, the guy, told us I'm, I'm there.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: We've got witnesses that say they saw three people run away.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: So that corroborates that.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But based on scientific data there's no way that this kid could have been where he said he was.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: So maybe he's not culpable in this murder.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: So with that information we have to go back and do some digging and say dude, you know, there's no reason you should be in jail for something that you didn't do or take an active part in.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: You know, or maybe at least your charges are less.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So we go back, we do that interview and we got a lion's sack on our hands.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: If his lips are moving, he's lying.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So we go through this back and forth with him.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: We show him the evidence in and out.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I get confrontational with him.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: His lawyer doesn't like me, which is fine, because his lawyer's a pansy ass wearing a bow tie and a suit that's way too short and no socks, with his little penny loafers on.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: So I could care less if he likes me or not.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Uh, so this happens.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, this knucklehead number three, who was bolstering all of his involvement he's like you know.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: In short, all right, I wasn't right there, I was actually here he shows us on a diagram where he was Well, from his position, where he was when the gunshot went off, he couldn't have seen, or he was a long ways away.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: There was literally a building between him and where the murder occurred.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So now he's not as culpable as he was when he originally told us, but by this time he's been in jail six months, five months, whatever it is.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: With this information we need to be like look DA, this is not right, he's not as culpable and he needs to be released from jail because that is the ethical thing to do.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: We had ethics in this case.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: That pansy ass attorney did not.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So ultimately we get the charges dismissed on knucklehead number three and he gets out of jail and he goes away and he thanks us for getting him out of jail and doing the right thing, and that's the way that works.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: So we ultimately go on with the other three guys that are in jail, or two dudes and a chick and we ultimately bring them to trial and two of them got charged with manslaughter.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: They were charged with aggravated murder because of the aggravating factors of the robbery, but they ultimately pled guilty to manslaughter and as a result, got 15 years and 20 years in jail.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Now the chickie-poo who provided the gun she's 17 years old.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Who provided the gun?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: She's 17 years old.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: She pled guilty to hindering prosecution because she hid the gun after they got back to the house.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Now you're thinking, aaron, they're all involved, throw the book at them, I get it.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: What you want to do and what our liberal ass county will let you do are two different things.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So we were unable to throw the book at anybody.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And for taking a man's life the most anybody got was 20 years.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: They came together over a two day period.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: They planned a robbery.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: They knew murder was a potential.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: They got a weapon with bullets, they lured him into his death and they robbed him.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: You know and here's one of the things that really pissed me off here it is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: So they go up to the car.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: The two dudes go up to the car, the girl and the third guy.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: They are around the edge of the building hiding in the shadows when victim rolls up.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: The one of the shooter and the other guy reach into the window and try to grab the bag of weed off the victim's lap.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: There's a struggle over the weed and ultimately the shooter, austin, pulls out a gun and shoots him point blank, kills him dead.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: They run away.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: They forget the weed in the car.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So one of these two turds runs back and grabs the bag of weed.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: They get halfway back to their house and they're like holy shit, dude, we can't even get high, bro man, we got to get high.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So we got to go back and get that shit.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: You go back and get it because you're a faster runner.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: All right, you wait here.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: You hold the gun, I'll go, I will go back, get the gun.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, I got to get the weed.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Get the weed, the saturated bag of weed full of victim's blood now, and then runs away.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: If that's not cold blooded dude, I don't know what is.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Then they ran to the house and then the police found them three or four minutes later.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So now we got a couple of people in jail.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: We've got a girl who's out on probation because she's 17, and one of the rules was she needed to get a job or go to school.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: No shit, that's just part of being a human being.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: But that was her fine and punishment.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: And then we got a dude who pretended that he was involved, to lie and convolute and be a part of the melee.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And then we proved through our ethical investigation that he couldn't have been involved and that he was lying.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And we proved that he was lying based on his admission.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: So here we are.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I get slapped with a lawsuit from knucklehead number three for false imprisonment.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: He says that because ultimately we dismissed the charges.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: We had no right to detain him.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So now he's been held in jail for X amount of months and it's our fault and we need to pay him.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And that same pansy ass, bow tie, wearing short pant, no sock, penny loafer individual that he calls a lawyer is now going to defend him in a civil case against me in the city trying to get money.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Now, this piece of shit.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: He has not worked a day in his life and he never will.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: He is a complete tool bag.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: You guys have probably ran into those people that are just stealing oxygen.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: That's what this guy does.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: But now he sees some dollar signs and he thinks he can sue me.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So he's going to try it and he files a lawsuit against my city with my name in bold at the top of the lawsuit paperwork.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Over the next year and a half or so we go back and forth on this lawsuit and the thing that kept coming up was that affidavit that I wrote.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes nine inches isn't enough, especially at the end of a long, hard day when you're exhausted and you're tired and you're not thinking straight.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I paraphrased on that.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I did not put quotes, I didn't quote anybody.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, we interviewed these people.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: This is what was said.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, the totality of those statements met the elements for murder.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: All of those interviews were recorded.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So during the lawsuit everybody went back and listened to them.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Collectively.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: The message was the same as what I wrote on that affidavit.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: However, knucklehead number three, the one suing me, remember him.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: You know he might have not said specifically we were going there to commit a murder.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: He may have said we were all talking about hitting a lick, there was a gun and we knew that somebody might get shot.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, the message is the same and all I needed was enough to hold them temporarily in jail until they could see a judge the following 24 hours later.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But that became a huge point of contention that I'm a liar, liar pants on fire.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And if you're known as a liar in the law enforcement community, you go on a list called the Brady list.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: The Brady list is for bad cops that lie and now it says their testimony can't be used in court or at least they have to be heavily scrutinized.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: So they're trying to put me on this Brady list.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Ultimately they didn't get me there.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: They got me heavily scrutinized and it's something we have to talk about now.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: At least we did in my last trial and we got to go through all this legalities and logistics of why nine inches isn't enough.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: We got to talk about all of that.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Ultimately it's just a bunch of noise.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: You know defense attorneys are paid to tell a good story and you cannot let the facts get in the way of a good story.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: So if the defense attorney can sink their teeth into turnage as a liar, liar pants on fire, then that completely deflects from the fact that their client is a child molester, a sex offender or a murderer, because now we're going to shift the focus to the cop that investigated the case.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And if the cop can't be trusted, then the case can't hold any merit.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: That is what they tried to do in the last murder, but it didn't work out for them.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: This whole affidavit went in front of a federal judge.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: The federal judge looked at it and said I don't see Turnage is lying, while none of these things are quoted by these people.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: The general message was the same and I'm still paraphrasing for any of you lawyers that are out there listening to this and know this case.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing this, you know.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: So.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: This was a mistake on Turnage's part, not an intentional act of deception.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, that's what happened there.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: This was a night that was supposed to just be a robbery for weed, or was it be a robbery for weed, or was it?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I think it was a night that ultimately, the four knuckleheads in the back of their mind, if they needed to kill this poor victim, Alex, in order to obtain his quarter pound of weed, they were prepared mentally and they had the means and opportunity to execute the victim for a quarter pound of marijuana.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly what happened.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, the lawsuit fell flat.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: The lawsuit didn't go anywhere.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: It was denied it wouldn't hold merit in court.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I did not lie.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I have never lied in the line of duty to further a case, to further criminal action, to further a charge.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I've never made shit up.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: I've made shit up a lot of shit up.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I've lied a lot during work.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I've lied a lot during interviews.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I mean that's happened, but I've never put it on paper, lying to stick it to somebody and make shit up about them.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: That is not the way I do business.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: This case was a case that I'll always remember.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: This case was a case that, uh, you know, it's one of the few times that I got sued and I got sued for trying to do the right thing.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: The guy that I got out of jail, that shook my hand, said thanks, man, for going the extra mile to prove me.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: He turned around and tried to get money from me and just goes to show you.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You know, there's that story about a scorpion and a frog, and a scorpion and the frog are out roaming the desert together and living in the same area, and the uh, you know, the, the frog is scared of the scorpion because the scorpion, well, has a stinger and will kill him.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: And one day, the the water starts.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: You know, you know how deserts do.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: The water starts and it starts flooding and before you know it, there's just this.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: There's just this river of water running through the desert and the scorpion and the frog find them both the self on the same side of this river of water running through the desert.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: And the scorpion and the frog find them both the self on the same side of the river of water.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: But the scorpion's got a bunch of baby scorpions right across the river and mama scorpion needs to get back to baby scorpions, to feed them and to take care of them.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: So the mama scorpion says to the frog hey, here's the deal you let me ride across on your back to get back to my babies and I won't sting you.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And the frog's like hold on a second, kind of like Alex did in this case, sounds too good to be true.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: And the scorpion's like no, I swear, I promise, I just need to get back to my kids.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: And the scorpion pulled on the frog's heartstrings and the frog's like okay, hop on.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: So scorpion gets on and then goes right across the river, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, get to the other side.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: The frog walks the scorpion up onto the beach and a scorpion says hey, thank you so much for the ride.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: And the guy stabs him and stings him and the frog is like hey, what are you doing?
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I thought you weren't going to sting me.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: The scorpion says sorry, man, it's just in my nature Once a scorpion, always a scorpion.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: The frog dies, scorpion goes back to his little ones.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: There are some scorpions in this call, in this case and in this investigation, and I think you can see who they are.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to this.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Listen into this typical Monday evening in the world that I used to do that I am so thankful and blessed by God that I am not involved with anymore.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, that is the Murders to Music podcast.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you.