Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Lauren Whitener Part 2: Room 113

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The Murder of Lauren Whitener Part 2: Room 113 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. As Rodney Eric Maxwell sat in
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the Wise County jail charged with the murder of thirty
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: two year old Lauren Ann Whitner, his attorney, Barry Green,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: was working hard to get him out and to clear
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: his name. Green had a lot to work with. The
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: warrant to arrest Maxwell was based on half truths and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: some downright misleading information in the affidavit. Items collected at
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Maxwell's house that were said to test positive for possible
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: blood were in areas that, in the normal course of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a household's day, could have been contaminated with any number
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of substances that often show false positives for blood when
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: sprayed with luminol and luminol based chemicals like blue star,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the substance used in both his and Lauren's homes, items
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: like bleach and other cleaning agents, not to mention saliva, urine,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and any number of metal compounds that might transfer by touch.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The case against thirty nine year old Maxwell hinged on
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: a single blade of grass, a piece of evidence that
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: contained Lauren's blood and DNA. It was taken from an
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: area that had been trampled through by firefighters and deputies
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: who had come out to the backyard after being inside
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: at the crime scene, which was bloody, but it was
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: hardly the only piece of evidence authorities had. There was
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: another suspect. The Wise County Sheriff's office and Texas Ranger
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: James Holland were investigating as well, a fact that seemed
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to imply uncertainty in their choice to arrest and to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: charge Maxwell in the first place. And there may have
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: been another, a man who at the time wasn't yet
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: known to area law enforcement in the capacity he is now.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The year before Lauren's murder, in twenty eighteen, a man
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: named Jason Allen Thornburg was arrested in Wise County and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: charged with evading arrest. His court date came a few
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: months later, and Thornburg was sentenced to two years in prison.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: When it was all said and done, he served about
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a year and was released in May of twenty nineteen.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Although he was released on Pearl sixty miles to the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: southeast to Terrant County, won previous crime and crimes he
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: would go on to commit begs questions that have yet
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to be answered. It's unclear why Thornburg was in Wise
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: County in the first place, or where he was staying.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: A much more important question, however, is whether he came
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: back to Wise County after his May twenty nineteen release
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and committed a crime that is similar to his others.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: More than two years after the murder of Lauren Whitner.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: At six seventeen am on Wednesday, September twenty second, twenty
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: twenty one, the Fort Worth Fire Department was dispatched to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: thirty one twenty Bonnie Drive in the city's far west.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: A dumpster there, the caller said, was on fire. The
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: area is zoned for both business and residential, and among
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the several warehouses surrounding the address is a small row
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of houses. Firefighters arrived and quickly extinguished the blaze. When
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: they looked inside the dumpster, they were horrified to find
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: human remains that had been dismembered, and it was clear
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: there was more than one body. They called in the police.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: After assessing the scene, Patrol officers notified Detective Matthew Barron,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the on call homicide detective, on due Several other detectives
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: swarmed the scene shortly thereafter, and a digital forensics unit
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was called for assistance in locating surveillance footage. Medical investigators
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Steve White and Amy Renfro processed the scene, with Renfro
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: climbing in the steel container and lifting out body parts
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: for nearly three hours. She stood in water that came
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to her mid calf, handing them off to White, who
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: stood outside the dumpster. They determined there were three bodies.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: The only way to tell for sure at that point
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: was by counting the heads. Little else was found inside.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: The bodies were sent to the Arrant County Medical Examiner's office. There,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: it was discovered that the remains belonged to an adult male,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: an adult or teenaged female, and what they thought was
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a child whose sex they could not determine. Three complete
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: bodies could not be accounted for. The best clue they
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: had as to the identities of the victims or the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: letters U E r as tattooed on the adult male's back,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Detectives took to Facebook, where they used the partial name
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to locate a man named David Luerz, whose account had
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a photo of a tattoo of his last name across
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: his back, one that matched their victims tattoo exactly. Police
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: were having trouble identifying the other victims. Digital Forensics meanwhile
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: obtained surveillance footage taken across the street from the dumpster.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: On the video, a dark colored SUV can be seen
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: pulling up and parking next to the dumpster at about
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: ten fifty the night before. The driver, the vehicle's only occupant,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: is then seen exiting the vehicle from the trunk. The man,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: dressed in a Hasmat type bodysuit, took out several large
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: containers and dumped the contents of each one in the dumpster.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: He placed the containers back in the suv and can
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: be seen pulling away. A couple hours later, at twelve
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: fifty am, the man returned and again dumped out the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: contents of several containers. Then he started the fire before
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: fleeing the scene. After determining the SUV was a black
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: two thousand and five to twenty ten Jeep Grand Cherokee,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: by examining the several surveillance videos they were able to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: track down in the area, detectives compiled a list of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: all such vehicles registered in Tarrant County. When they came
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: across a two thousand and eight model with similar chrome rims,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the vehicle was registered to forty one year old Jason
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: allen Thornberg, a man the fort Worth Police had previously
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: investigated when his roommate died in a suspicious house fire
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: caused by a gas explosion four months earlier. At around
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: ten am on Monday May twenty first, twenty twenty one,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: firefighters arrived at the scene of an intense blaze at
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a residence on the forty five hundred block of Valentine Street.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: After extinguishing the fire, responders were horrified to find a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: body within the home, identified a short time later as
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: one of the two men who lived there, sixty one
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: year old Mark Jewel. Because of the explosion and fire,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: it was impossible for the medical examiner to determine exactly
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: how Mark died. Sometime before his death, Mark met Jason
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: allen Thornberg through a mutual friend and through faith, a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: bond was created. The two became fast friends. They went
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to church together and studied the Bible outside of services.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Mark Jewell, in fact, is said to have known the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Good Book like the back of his hand. He had
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: developed to a deep understanding of Christianity while serving time
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: for a heinous crime. He wasn't proud of one he
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: was looking to put behind him and even make up
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: for if possible. At some point, Mark and Thornburg decided
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they could be mutually beneficial to one another. Though Mark
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: had a girlfriend, she was a long distance one, so
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: it made sense for him and Thornburg, a bachelor, to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: move in together. Things seemed to have gone well before
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the explosion and fire. At Mark's funeral, a small crowd
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: listened intently as Thornberg described him as a good friend,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: one with whom he studied the Bible often. Fast forward
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: back to September twenty twenty one, and detectives tracked down
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Thornberg's jeep. They viewed it in person and determined it
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: was the suv scene in the surveillance videos dumping the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: bodies in the dumpster. Now it was timed to find
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: out where he lived. Detectives quickly discovered that Jason Allen
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Thornberg lived at the Mid City Inn in Uless, a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: pay by the Weak motel, about twenty five miles northeast
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of where the dumpster fire occurred. Surveillance footage from there
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: showed the man making several trips to his vehicle carrying
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: large containers while dressed in a hazmat suit. The times
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: coincided with the man seen dumping the containers in a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: West fort Worth dumpster before setting it on fire. It
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: was obvious to detectives that they had their guy, but
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: there was more work to be done before making an arrest.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: After interviewing several folks who lived or worked at the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Mid City n a picture of Thornburg began forming. It
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: was isn't necessarily what detectives expected. Thornburg often preached the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Word of God to residence and handed out church flyers.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: His knowledge of scripture was vast, and sometimes he'd even
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: stand on street corners with a microphone and deliver sermons
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to passers by. But when they really got to know Thornburg,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: who the man really was, the truth of what he'd
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: done in Room one thirteen at the Mid City End
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: was appalling. At about six pm on Monday, September twenty seventh,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, detectives visited their suspect in Arlington, where
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: he was doing electrical work. Thornburg agreed to accompany them
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to the Police Homicide Division. Once he was there, everything
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: poured out of Thornburg, who spoke like he'd done nothing wrong.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: He was being called by God to make sacrifices. He
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: told detectives Thomas O'Brien and Matthew barn he had a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: sense of purpose, a sense of destiny that must be achieved.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: He didn't provide detectives with detailed accounts of his crimes
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: at this time. Most of the following details emerged later
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in court. Five days before he discarded the dismembered bodies
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: in the West fort Worth dumpster, forty two year old
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: David Luerz, who stayed with Thornburg in Room one thirteen
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of the Mid City Inn, came home David. Thornberg says
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: he believed needed to be sacrificed. He slit David's throat
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: using a Milwaukee brand straight blade knife. Thoughts bombarded the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: killer's brain after his depraved act. I can't use my
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: chainsaw because it would be too loud, he thought to himself.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: He finally decided on using a knife to dismember David's
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: body in the bathtub. As he cut off his limbs,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Thornburg off David's penis and took a bite of his heart.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Loud music could be heard coming from the room as
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: he did Church Hymn's one witness suggested. When he was finished,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Thornberg placed David's remains in a black trash bag and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: stuffed them under the bed. He kneaded his jeep out
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of the shop. He reasoned with himself large rubber maid
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: type storage containers would be the best way to store
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and dispose of the body. Two days later, Thornburg, armed
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: with his weapon of choice, Bible scripture, lord a thirty
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: three year old woman named Mary Cruz Mathis into his room.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: She was small, certainly no match for Thornberg's strength and psychopathy.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Once again, using his straight blade, he sliced Mary Cruz's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: throat and then dismembered her before placing her remains in
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a black trash bag. Thornberg placed the trash bag under
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the bed alongside David's body. After two more days had passed,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Thornberg talked to thirty four year old Laura and Phillips
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: into entering Room one thirteen. He tried stabbing her, but
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: ultimately strangled her to death. Like the others, Thornburg dismembered
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Laura in the bathtub. According to news reports, Thornburg sexually
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: abused Laura's torso before putting her body parts in a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: trash bag and storing them under the bed. I need
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to go buy some bins and load them up in
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: my car, the killer thought to himself, almost as if
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the thought was as mundane as making a list of
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: household chores. I need to dump these bodies in a
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: dumpster thirty miles away to distance myself from the crime.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I need to light the bodies on fire, and that's
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: exactly what he did. He later cleaned out the plastic
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: containers he used to carry the body parts and return
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: turned them to the store where he bought them. Finally,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: detectives Baron and O'Brien asked Thornburg about his previous roommate,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Mark Jewel. He had sacrificed Mark, Thornburgh said, by slashing
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: his throat. Then he uncapped the gas line and lit
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a candle before leaving. An explosion occurred within moments, followed
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: by a fire. The detectives wondered if there were any others,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and Thornburg told them there was. In Tahachi, New Mexico,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: on March third, twenty seventeen, thirty six year old Tanya
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Baget left her aunt's house after stopping on her way
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to her parents' house in Gallop. Tanya was coming from
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: her home in Loop, Arizona. The trip took place over
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: mostly Navajo land, and there's no reason it should have
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: taken more than a couple hours, but Tanya Begay made it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Tanya wasn't alone when she left her aunt's place. She
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: was with her boyfriend, Jason Allen Thornburg, whose domestic violence
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: toward Tanya was well known to her family, domestic violence
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that had then recently escalated and landed Thornburg in trouble
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: with the law. While speaking with detectives, Thornburg admitted to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: killing Tanya and burning her remains or cremating her, as
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: he put it. Though the Dodge Neon she was driving
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: was later found abandoned near White Cone, Arizona, Tanya's remains
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: have never been recovered. After his confession, Thornburg was arrested
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and charged with the murders of David Luerz, Mary Cruz Mathis,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: and Laura Phillips. Later, at trial, his attorneys attempted an
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: insanity defense, citing the voices in his head telling him
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: to commit the sacrifices in the name of God, but
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: by his own admissions Thornburg had methodically and coherently attempted
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to clean up after his crimes. A jury of Thornberg's peers, anyway,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: didn't buy the insanitied defense. In December of twenty twenty four,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: he was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to death.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Jason Allen Thornburg confessed to five murders, freely and seemingly
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: without hesitation, four of which are known to have been
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: committed using a knife at all, five of which he
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: used fire to cleanse the crime scene of evidence. Lauren
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Whitener's July twenty nineteen murder shares these similarities again. The
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: year before Lauren's murder, in twenty eighteen, Thornburg was arrested
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in Wise County and charged with evading arrest. His court
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: date came a few months later, and Thornburg was sentenced
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to two years in prison. When it was all said
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: and done, he served about a year and was released
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: in May of twenty nineteen, just two months before Lauren
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: was slain in her home. It's unclear why Thornburg was
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in Wise County in the first place, and it's unclear
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: where he was staying. Although he was released on parole,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to Terrant County. He could have easily come back to
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Wise County after his release. If Thornburg is responsible for
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: other murders, it's unclear why he chose not to confess.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: What is clear is that the charges against the Wise
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office prime suspect in the murder of Lauren
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Whitener didn't stick, and for a good reason. On Thursday
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: February twenty seventh, twenty twenty, District Judge Brock Smith reduced
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Rodney Eric Maxwell's bond from eight hundred and fifty five
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars. The following day,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the man suspected of the murder of Lauren Whitner posted
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: bond and was released from the Wise County jail. He'd
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: been there for almost six months, not able to make
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the original bail. The money to get him out was
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: almost all, if not all, of his father's life savings.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Maxwell's defense attorney Barry Green said Green had already questioned
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the single blade of grass with blood found around the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: halfway point between Maxwell and Lauren's homes. Though the grass
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: contained Lauren's DNA, it also contained the DNA profile of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: someone else, but the DNA sample of the second contributor
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: was insufficient to create a profile. A couple weeks after
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: his release, on Wednesday, March eleventh, Green filed a motion
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: to have the DNA collected in Lauren's case reanalyzed. After
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a successful motion for discovery, Green had found an email
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: dated December nineteenth, twenty nineteen, to Lieutenant Heinrich Downs of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the Wise County Sheriff's Office from Pure Gold Labs in California.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: After the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Science in Dallas sent
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a microscope smear created by swabs taken from the Lauren
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Weiitner case, pure Gold determined it to be positive for sperm.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: The findings indicated these possibilities. One that the victim had
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: anal intercourse within a twenty four to thirty six hour
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: time period before the evidence was tested at the Southwestern
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Institute of Forensic Science. Two more recent sexual intercourse with
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: partial internal partial external EDGEIA vaculation leading to a lower
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: than normal number of sperm cells. Or three more recent
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: anal intercourse with a male who does not produce the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: typical number of sperm cells slash ejaculate. Because the first
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: possibilities time constraints closely coincided with Lauren's murder, it can
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: be easily presumed it is the correct possibility Lauren either
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: had sex with someone just before she was killed, was raped,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: or her body sexually abused after Ultimately, a judge ordered
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that this swab be sent from the Southwestern Institute of
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Forensic Science to Pure Gold for further testing, meaning to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: attempt to obtain a full DNA profile. Since they only
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: had a partial, a partial that did not match Rodney
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Eric Maxwell, but instead belonged to an unknown male, Green
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: was pushing to have a full profile entered into COTIS.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: The defense attorney also pointed out that the bottle of
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: lighter fluid described as testing positive for the presumption of
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: blood in the arrest warrant Affidaephitt actually tested negative, a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: false pretense for Maxwell's arrest. Months later, on Thursday, September tenth,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty, after some evidence was retested, capital murder and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: other charges against Maxwell were dropped. The news came more
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: than a year after his arrest. The charges were based
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: on guesswork, speculation, and flat out fantasy. Barry Green wrote
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: in a statement regarding the charges against his client being dismissed.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: The Wise County Sheriff's office had known about the unknown
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: male DNA since September nineteenth, twenty nineteen, just a couple
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: weeks after Maxwell's arrest, yet they continued to hold him
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: even though the report apparently listed Maxwell as excluded from
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: being a DNA contributor, it also excluded the publicly unknown
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: person of interest. It should be noted detectives either could
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: not interpret the results of the tests, even emphatically stated results,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: or they chose not to read it. District Attorney Greg Lowry,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: who backed the case against Maxwell, of course, told the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Wise County Messenger it was necessary to find out who
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the unknown mail is and see if they could eliminate
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: him as a suspect, but he was sure to point
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: out the new realizations do not clear Maxwell. The unknown
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: male DNA profile was uploaded into codis but matched no
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: one in the system. Without acknowledging they'd made a mistake
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and prematurely arrested and charged Maxwell with Lauren's murder. The
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Wise County Sheriff's office insisted he was still a suspect.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Sheriff and former Texas ranger Lane Aiken said, we at
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this moment do not believe there was anyone else involved
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: in the murder of Lauren Whitener. We agreed to dismiss
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and take the case back to the grand jury in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the not too distant future. We had five possible suspects
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and we narrowed that down to one, and we are
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: competent in that. To say we are ignoring potential suspects
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: is wrong because that is not the way we do
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: our business. The evidence still indicates that Maxwell is the suspect.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Though we reached out to folks we thought might know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: we were unable to determine whether Jason Allen Thornberg's DNA
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: has been entered into state and national DNA databases. His
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: capital murder conviction requires this to be done, but in
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: many cases it takes months and sometimes years after a conviction.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: If you have any information about the murder of Lauren
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Ann Whitner, please contact the Wise County Sheriff's Office at
• 24:12
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