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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Victor Collins · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:13
Speaker 2: On the night of Saturday, November twenty first, twenty fifteen,
0:17
Speaker 2: Victor Collins, a forty seven year old former police officer
0:20
Speaker 2: who worked at Walmart, was hanging out with some friends,
0:24
Speaker 2: Owen MacDonald, Sean Henry, and thirty one year old James Bates.
0:29
Speaker 2: The four friends went back to James's house in Bentonville, Arkansas,
0:32
Speaker 2: to watch a Razorbacks football game.
0:35
Speaker 1: This was a big game.
0:36
Speaker 2: The Arkansas Razorbacks were playing Mississippi State, so this was
0:40
Speaker 2: an all day event. Now, and this is according to
0:43
Speaker 2: court documents, these four guys were drinking. They started out
0:47
Speaker 2: with beers and also had some vodka shots. They hung
0:50
Speaker 2: out and talked and kept drinking after the game ended.
0:54
Speaker 2: At some point, according to court documents, the guys went
0:57
Speaker 2: out to the back patio to have some more beers
1:00
Speaker 2: in the hot tub. At around eleven PM, Sean and
1:03
Speaker 2: James got out of the hot tub, leaving Victor and
1:06
Speaker 2: Owen hanging out there. The night seemed to be kind
1:10
Speaker 2: of winding down at that point. Sean left first, then
1:13
Speaker 2: Owen sometime shortly after midnight, leaving Victor and James alone
1:18
Speaker 2: at the house. Now, James claimed that after that at
1:21
Speaker 2: around one am, he went to bed to crash.
1:24
Speaker 1: He said, he left Victor in the hot tub.
1:26
Speaker 2: In the morning, he found Victor there floating face down. Now,
1:32
Speaker 2: what really happened that night and what happened next depended
1:36
Speaker 2: on who you asked.
1:38
Speaker 1: But one thing is for sure.
1:39
Speaker 2: This simple Saturday afternoon that started out with four friends
1:42
Speaker 2: drinking began a multi year investigation, an ordeal that involved
1:48
Speaker 2: allegations of murder, police corruption, and sparked a national debate
1:53
Speaker 2: about what devices in our houses are listening when we
1:57
Speaker 2: think we're alone. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
2:01
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone, I
2:05
Speaker 2: have learned there is no such thing as a small
2:07
Speaker 2: town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of
2:11
Speaker 2: messages from people all around the country asking for help
2:15
Speaker 2: with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and
2:18
Speaker 2: their communities. If you have a case you'd like me
2:21
Speaker 2: and my team to look into, you can reach out
2:23
Speaker 2: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
2:26
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's
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Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
2:34
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
3:23
Speaker 1: James called nine to one one.
3:24
Speaker 2: At nine thirty five am, paramedics and police got to
3:28
Speaker 2: his house and tried to put together what happened the
3:30
Speaker 2: night before. Now again, James claimed that he had gone
3:34
Speaker 2: to bed at around one am. He said he woke
3:36
Speaker 2: up shortly after nine am on November twenty second and
3:39
Speaker 2: found Victor dead in the hot tab.
3:42
Speaker 1: James said he was asleep the whole time.
3:44
Speaker 2: He had no idea what happened to Victor, but from
3:47
Speaker 2: the time that police got there, it did seem like.
3:50
Speaker 2: Detectives were questioning certain elements of James's story. They found
3:55
Speaker 2: some facial injuries on Victor, a black and swollen eye.
3:59
Speaker 2: They started to suspect that maybe James wasn't telling them
4:03
Speaker 2: the full truth. They wondered if the two men it
4:05
Speaker 2: had some kind of fight, and that maybe James had
4:08
Speaker 2: tried to cover it up. Detectives also noticed blood in
4:11
Speaker 2: the water, which, according to an arrest affidavit, was tinted
4:15
Speaker 2: red and appeared to contain bodily fluids and blood. There
4:19
Speaker 2: was also blood coming from Victor's nose in his mouth,
4:22
Speaker 2: both were swollen. He also had a cut on his eyelid. Detectives'
4:28
Speaker 2: suspicions were raised further, according to the affidavit, when they
4:32
Speaker 2: began to believe that the patio and the hot tub
4:35
Speaker 2: had been sprayed down with a water hose. They saw
4:38
Speaker 2: a hot tub cushion lying on the ground with blood
4:40
Speaker 2: spots on it. They also saw an area of blood
4:43
Speaker 2: spatter on the hot tub cover, blood that, according to
4:46
Speaker 2: the affidavit, was matched to Victor Collins. They thought that
4:50
Speaker 2: this was strange because, first of all, they were wondering
4:53
Speaker 2: if the hot tub area was sprayed down, who did it,
4:57
Speaker 2: Because who would spray down a hot tub in the
5:00
Speaker 2: middle of the night before calling the police. And also,
5:04
Speaker 2: it was very cold that night, so they thought using
5:06
Speaker 2: a hose at all was kind of odd. Things got
5:09
Speaker 2: even more complicated once Victor's body was sent for an autopsy.
5:13
Speaker 2: The medical examiner, doctor Charles Cocus, said that in his opinion,
5:18
Speaker 2: Victor died from strangulation, with drowning as a secondary contributing factor.
5:24
Speaker 2: James told police that this was absolutely not true. He
5:28
Speaker 2: completely denied strangling his friend. He said he had nothing
5:31
Speaker 2: to do with Victor's death. It was obviously an accident.
5:35
Speaker 2: He said he wasn't there at all, He'd been in
5:37
Speaker 2: bed by the way. To this day, James completely denies
5:40
Speaker 2: he had anything to do with Victor's death.
5:43
Speaker 1: Victor was from Georgia.
5:45
Speaker 2: He had been a police officer, first with the Cherokee
5:47
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Office, later with the Canton Police Department. He
5:51
Speaker 2: left that job and in twenty ten moved to Arkansas
5:54
Speaker 2: with his wife, Christine, and their family.
5:57
Speaker 1: He took the job at Walmart.
5:59
Speaker 2: Friends and families said he and Christine had been very
6:02
Speaker 2: happily married for eighteen years and they had five children.
6:06
Speaker 2: So for this loving marriage to end with hot tub
6:11
Speaker 2: homicide headlines must have been so incredibly sad and shocking.
6:17
Speaker 2: The irony is terrible too, because I can imagine I
6:20
Speaker 2: don't know for sure, but I can imagine that one
6:22
Speaker 2: of the reasons why Victor probably chose to leave law
6:25
Speaker 2: enforcement in the first place and move into something like
6:27
Speaker 2: loss prevention was so he'd be in a safer place,
6:31
Speaker 2: so that he would not have to worry about getting
6:33
Speaker 2: killed on the job. The fact that he died at
6:35
Speaker 2: a friend's house while having a few beers and watching
6:38
Speaker 2: a football game is so sad and tragic. But police wondered,
6:44
Speaker 2: was this just a tragic accident, or did something happen
6:48
Speaker 2: after hours? What really happened in that hot tub. James
6:54
Speaker 2: continued to insist Victor's death had been an accident. He
6:58
Speaker 2: and later through his attorney in a lawsuit, pointed out Victor.
7:01
Speaker 1: Was a big guy, six foot five.
7:03
Speaker 2: And three hundred and fifteen pounds, and they were drinking.
7:08
Speaker 2: Victor's blood alcohol level at the time had been a
7:10
Speaker 2: point three to one eight, around four times the legal
7:13
Speaker 2: limit to drive in the state of Arkansas. There were
7:15
Speaker 2: no other illegal drugs found in Victor's system, though the
7:18
Speaker 2: autopsy did fund traces of the antidepressant prozac and methyl fenidae,
7:25
Speaker 2: which is used to treat narcolepsy and is found in
7:28
Speaker 2: the brand name Riddlin. Later, through his lawyer Jason Bates,
7:33
Speaker 2: also pointed out there were no marks on Victor's neck,
7:36
Speaker 2: no evidence that there had been anything wrapped around his neck,
7:39
Speaker 2: no ligature marks, and no evidence of damage to Victor's throat.
7:44
Speaker 2: But police seemed to be convinced that James was guilty.
7:48
Speaker 2: They executed a search warrant, looked through his phone records
7:51
Speaker 2: and found evidence that he had been texting a woman
7:53
Speaker 2: that night. Later, according to police, James called his father
7:58
Speaker 2: and some friends, but apparently every single one of the
8:02
Speaker 2: calls were canceled before they had a chance to go through. Now,
8:06
Speaker 2: James told police those must have been butt dials and
8:08
Speaker 2: those definitely happened, especially after drinking.
8:12
Speaker 1: But police were.
8:13
Speaker 2: Suspicious and a lot of these calls, according to detectives,
8:17
Speaker 2: were placed after one am, So it seems like the
8:20
Speaker 2: detectives saw it as further potential evidence that maybe James
8:23
Speaker 2: had not gone to bed when he said he did.
8:27
Speaker 2: They did confirm other elements of his story. They talked
8:29
Speaker 2: to a neighbor who saw Owen walking home shortly after midnight.
8:33
Speaker 2: Owen was intoxicated, and this neighbor gave Owen a ride home.
8:38
Speaker 2: Owen's wife confirmed that Owen got home at twelve thirty am.
8:41
Speaker 2: Owen told police that when he left everything was fine.
8:45
Speaker 2: Victor was alive and well, and the neighbor who gave
8:48
Speaker 2: Owen a lift said that other than being pretty intoxicated,
8:52
Speaker 2: he saw no sign that there had been any kind
8:53
Speaker 2: of a struggle. So now the timeframe was narrowing. It
8:57
Speaker 2: seemed like whatever had happened in that house happened after
9:00
Speaker 2: Owen left. Detectives drained the hot tub, and at the
9:03
Speaker 2: bottom they found Victor's glass that were broken. They also
9:07
Speaker 2: found a broken shot glass and Victor's wedding ring. When
9:11
Speaker 2: I first read that, I thought that was a little
9:14
Speaker 2: bit odd because wedding rings don't normally slip off like that.
9:19
Speaker 2: But today I learned a lot of people take rings
9:21
Speaker 2: off because over time, chlorine and chemicals in hot tubs
9:25
Speaker 2: can corrode the metal. This was true, by the way,
9:28
Speaker 2: even though James had a saltwater hot tub. I actually,
9:32
Speaker 2: because I get obsessed with these details, did some research
9:34
Speaker 2: on saltwater hot tubs and also found out that they
9:37
Speaker 2: do use chlorine generators, so technically they're not chlorine free.
9:42
Speaker 2: There is still chlorine in a saltwater hot tub. Police
9:46
Speaker 2: also got a search warrant for James's body. They took
9:50
Speaker 2: pictures of him and during that photo session they documented
9:53
Speaker 2: James had several scratches on him on his abdomen, back,
9:57
Speaker 2: in arms. They also stated he had a large bruise. Again,
10:02
Speaker 2: this is not confirmation of anything, because yes, this could
10:06
Speaker 2: have been caused from a fight. But also, these guys
10:09
Speaker 2: were drunk. They were stumbling around, climbing in and out
10:11
Speaker 2: of a hot tub. I can see how they could
10:14
Speaker 2: have had marks on them. There was no definitive physical
10:18
Speaker 2: evidence linking James to Victor's body, but detectives just did
10:23
Speaker 2: not believe that he had butt dialed that many times
10:26
Speaker 2: and canceled the calls, especially since they said his cell
10:29
Speaker 2: phone was locked again. This is all according to the
10:33
Speaker 2: affidavit of probable cause. They asked him about the scratches
10:37
Speaker 2: and some small cuts they said he had on his hands.
10:39
Speaker 2: James claimed they were from CrossFit classes or that they
10:43
Speaker 2: might have been scratches from his cat. Eventually, they arrested
10:48
Speaker 2: James and he was charged with first degree murder and
10:51
Speaker 2: tampering with evidence. The judge set the bail at three
10:54
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He bonded out and waited
10:58
Speaker 2: for the trial to start. James was facing serious prison
11:01
Speaker 2: time ten to forty years in prison plus six years
11:05
Speaker 2: if he was found guilty of the tampering charges. So
11:08
Speaker 2: now the police had a problem because they thought something
11:11
Speaker 2: might have happened between James and Victor.
11:14
Speaker 1: But actually it was just a he said. He said.
11:16
Speaker 2: Because there were only two people there, Victor and James,
11:19
Speaker 2: they had no real physical evidence. There was nothing on
11:22
Speaker 2: James linking him to Victor. No one, none of the
11:25
Speaker 2: other friends who were there that night had any idea
11:28
Speaker 2: about any bad blood between James and Victor. They said
11:31
Speaker 2: they were all having fun. And also, it's really hard
11:34
Speaker 2: in general when someone is killed at a friend's house
11:37
Speaker 2: sometimes to determine exactly what went down. It's not like
11:41
Speaker 2: DNA would necessarily be that decisive, because all of these
11:45
Speaker 2: men's DNA was all over that house. They began searching
11:49
Speaker 2: for electronic devices. There weren't any cameras in the house,
11:52
Speaker 2: but there was something else. Victor had an Amazon Echo
11:57
Speaker 2: device with an Alexa Virtual Assistant and they were playing
12:02
Speaker 2: music through the Echo with Alexa that night. So police
12:07
Speaker 2: served multiple search warrants. They went in and took James's
12:10
Speaker 2: electronics on December second, twenty fifteen.
12:13
Speaker 1: They searched his vehicle. They searched through every.
12:17
Speaker 2: Electronic device he had at his house, and there were
12:19
Speaker 2: quite a few, including an iPhone, a MacBook Pro, several
12:23
Speaker 2: iPads and tablets, a Mac Minie, and a PS four,
12:27
Speaker 2: plus some airport time capsules. Ever since I learned about
12:30
Speaker 2: this case, it has absolutely fascinated me because I think
12:34
Speaker 2: it really goes into an area that I think is
12:36
Speaker 2: going to be hugely important in investigating cases going forward,
12:39
Speaker 2: which is the role of technology and especially how technology
12:43
Speaker 2: is moving way faster than the law and how it's applied.
12:47
Speaker 2: This was really the first case I read about where
12:49
Speaker 2: an Alexa might have potentially been a witness and a
12:52
Speaker 2: murder case, and being from Arkansas, so I say this
12:55
Speaker 2: with love. It's weird to think of Arkansas as something
12:58
Speaker 2: that's cutting edge on anything, but in some areas it is.
13:01
Speaker 2: This was the first case I ever heard of involving
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Speaker 2: an Echo. The prosecutor on this case was thinking outside
13:09
Speaker 2: the box. I learned something new every day at this job,
13:11
Speaker 2: and one of the things I learned was the device
13:13
Speaker 2: itself is called an Amazon Echo. Alexa is not the
13:16
Speaker 2: name of the device, it's just the name of the
13:18
Speaker 2: actual virtual assistant. In practice, we use Echo and Alexa
13:21
Speaker 2: pretty much interchangeably, So I'm just going to refer to
13:24
Speaker 2: the device as Alexa. So as we all know now,
13:27
Speaker 2: the way that Alexa works is you say a wake word,
13:30
Speaker 2: which is normally the name Alexa or Amazon, but you
13:34
Speaker 2: can change the name to other things. So, for example,
13:36
Speaker 2: if your name is Alexa, you won't be constantly annoyed.
13:38
Speaker 2: Once it's triggered, Once the device here's the wake word,
13:42
Speaker 2: it starts recording. You see a little blue circle around
13:47
Speaker 2: the top. But sometimes it's triggered by accidents. Sometimes you
13:51
Speaker 2: say a word that sounds kind of close to alexa
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Speaker 2: and the device will start recording.
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Speaker 1: This happens to me all the time.
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Speaker 2: By the way, Amazon has transcripts of those conversations that
14:01
Speaker 2: you're having with this device, and to be honest, it's
14:04
Speaker 2: not clear exactly what the company does with those.
14:06
Speaker 1: And if they're ever deleted.
14:09
Speaker 2: Amazon has said that quote the recordings are streamed and
14:12
Speaker 2: stored remotely and can be reviewed or deleted over.
14:15
Speaker 1: Time end quote.
14:17
Speaker 2: Honestly, that's not super reassuring. So police served a search
14:22
Speaker 2: warrant on Amazon for the content in Alexa, and it
14:27
Speaker 2: seems like their theory was the device was on and
14:31
Speaker 2: was recording, and maybe they were hoping somebody said something
14:34
Speaker 2: that sounded like the wake word and they might have
14:36
Speaker 2: gotten some inadvertent audio from that night.
14:40
Speaker 1: How ethical is it for police to do this?
14:42
Speaker 2: Tom Doton wrote an article for the Information that was
14:45
Speaker 2: very interesting and in depth talked about how the technology
14:48
Speaker 2: works and the implications for law, and I highly recommend
14:51
Speaker 2: reading it if you're interested in this case. Basically, the
14:55
Speaker 2: Bentonville Police Department wanted Amazon to give them audio recordings
14:59
Speaker 2: and transcripts that came from James Bates Echo device for
15:03
Speaker 2: a forty eight hour period of time that would the
15:05
Speaker 2: night when the alleged murder happened. They also wanted a
15:08
Speaker 2: subscriber and account information. Amazon did give the subscriber information
15:13
Speaker 2: to police, which is fairly standard, but it fought to
15:16
Speaker 2: keep those recordings private. The company refused to hand them
15:20
Speaker 2: over because they felt that demand was overly brought. This
15:24
Speaker 2: blew up into a national story and an argument over
15:27
Speaker 2: First Amendment rights. Amazon refused to hand over the recordings.
15:30
Speaker 2: They fought in court for months. According to court documents,
15:34
Speaker 2: they made the claim that data stored on the Echo
15:37
Speaker 2: device is protected by the First Amendment and privacy rights
15:41
Speaker 2: for customers. They made a really interesting argument actually, According
15:45
Speaker 2: to the Jolt Digest, which is produced by Harvard Law School,
15:48
Speaker 2: they said that quote users communications to Alexa, which include
15:52
Speaker 2: requests for expressive materials such as music, podcasts and audiobooks,
15:56
Speaker 2: should be subject to heightened First Amendment protection, similar to
16:00
Speaker 2: the treatment of physical purchase records kept by bookstores end quote.
16:04
Speaker 2: They also argued Alexa's responses to what users say should
16:08
Speaker 2: be covered under free speech law. I was really interested
16:13
Speaker 2: in seeing how this case played out. And here's where
16:17
Speaker 2: it gets even more interesting because the Alexa was not
16:20
Speaker 2: the only piece of tech that James had at home.
16:23
Speaker 2: He also had a smart water meter, and that smart
16:27
Speaker 2: water meter would lead later to one of the biggest
16:29
Speaker 2: twists in this case, one that no one saw coming.
16:33
Speaker 2: Detectives went to the Bentonville Utilities department. They asked the
16:37
Speaker 2: department to give them James Bates water usage for the
16:41
Speaker 2: times after one am, after James said he went to bed.
16:44
Speaker 1: According to the.
16:45
Speaker 2: Affidavit, the data showed that fifty gallons of water flowed
16:49
Speaker 2: out between one and two am on November twenty second,
16:52
Speaker 2: and then ninety gallons of water went out between two
16:55
Speaker 2: and three am, so that was extremely high water usage.
16:59
Speaker 2: According to police, that residence had never used that much
17:02
Speaker 2: water since October of twenty thirteen.
17:05
Speaker 1: Detectives believed that extra water.
17:07
Speaker 2: Usage between one and three am happened because someone sprayed
17:12
Speaker 2: the patio down. The fight between Amazon and the Bentonville
17:16
Speaker 2: Police went on The Bentonville Police served another warrant and
17:22
Speaker 2: Amazon doubled down. According to court documents, Amazon said, quote,
17:26
Speaker 2: given the important First Amendment and privacy implications at state,
17:30
Speaker 2: the warrant should be quashed unless the court finds the
17:32
Speaker 2: state has met its heightened burden for compelled production of
17:35
Speaker 2: such materials end quote. They also said, as a matter
17:39
Speaker 2: of course, they objected to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands.
17:44
Speaker 2: They doubled down and told the police department to see
17:47
Speaker 2: them in court. Meanwhile, national media, including Weis, was covering
17:51
Speaker 2: the story. They were talking about Alexa being put on
17:54
Speaker 2: the witness stand and making graphics of Alexa in a courtroom.
17:59
Speaker 2: Nathan Smith, the prosecutor, was doing interviews. The case seemed
18:05
Speaker 2: to be headed to trial, but then right before it
18:07
Speaker 2: was due to go to trial, something kind of melodramatic happened.
18:11
Speaker 1: James Bates gave his.
18:12
Speaker 2: Consent to Amazon to have the recordings released. Apparently he
18:17
Speaker 2: and his attorney felt they would help exonerate him, and
18:20
Speaker 2: according to media reports, he was right, because the prosecutor
18:23
Speaker 2: and his team did not find anything useful in those recordings.
18:27
Speaker 2: So in November of twenty seventeen, the judge in the
18:30
Speaker 2: case dismissed the charges against James Bates. He was free,
18:35
Speaker 2: but some of Victor's friends and family were not satisfied
18:39
Speaker 2: with this. They believed they did not get justice. They
18:41
Speaker 2: believed Victor had been murdered. Victor's widow, Christine, made it
18:45
Speaker 2: very clear she did not agree with this decision. She
18:48
Speaker 2: felt prosecutors should have gone forward with the evidence they had,
18:51
Speaker 2: and she told CNN quote, I had to go home
18:54
Speaker 2: last night, sit down with my children and explain to
18:57
Speaker 2: them that the person who killed their father, who prevents
19:00
Speaker 2: them from Father's Days and Christmases and a regular life,
19:04
Speaker 2: is going to continue to enjoyed those things with his
19:06
Speaker 2: family without any recourse whatsoever for what he has done
19:10
Speaker 2: to mind end quote. But the prosecutors said they really
19:15
Speaker 2: had nothing definitive. They just did not feel that they
19:18
Speaker 2: could prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.
19:21
Speaker 1: By the way, the police and the prosecutor, Nathan Smith,
19:24
Speaker 1: were not in agreement on this. Actually.
19:26
Speaker 2: A spokesperson for the Bentonville Police Department told the Northwest
19:30
Speaker 2: Arkansas Democrat Gazette that the police believed they had enough
19:34
Speaker 2: evidence to go to trial and they were not happy
19:36
Speaker 2: with what the prosecutor's office was doing. The tension between
19:40
Speaker 2: James Bates, Victor Collins's widow, and the police department was
19:45
Speaker 2: about to get a lot worse. Several months later, Victor's widow, Christine,
19:50
Speaker 2: filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against James in Benton
19:53
Speaker 2: County Circuit Court. In her lawsuit, which she started on
19:58
Speaker 2: behalf of Victor's estate, she claimed that James was at
20:02
Speaker 2: fault for his death. She said he provided the alcohol
20:04
Speaker 2: that Victor drank. She said at some point James drove
20:07
Speaker 2: Victor to the store and James bought more alcohol. The
20:11
Speaker 2: crux of her argument was she claimed that James had
20:15
Speaker 2: allowed Victor to consume to the point of extreme and
20:19
Speaker 2: obvious intoxication. She stated in her lawsuit that she believed
20:23
Speaker 2: that Victor and James had fought and it ended in
20:25
Speaker 2: Victor's death. She also stated she thought James was negligent
20:29
Speaker 2: to leave Victor, who was extremely intoxicated in a hot
20:32
Speaker 2: tub alone. But James hit back. He claimed that not
20:37
Speaker 2: only was Christine's lawsuit. According to his lawyer Kathleen Zelner, who,
20:41
Speaker 2: by the way, side note made headlines for taking famous cases,
20:44
Speaker 2: including Stephen Avery's, which was documented on the Netflix series
20:48
Speaker 2: Making a Murder. Kathleen Zelner said that Christine's complaint had
20:52
Speaker 2: been frivolous and completely without merit. In his lawsuit, James
20:57
Speaker 2: claimed the police department the Bentonville Police, were trying to
21:00
Speaker 2: frame him. He said that even when they realized he
21:03
Speaker 2: was not guilty, they tried to him up for murder anyway.
21:07
Speaker 2: In that lawsuit, James alleged that Bentenville police officers concealed
21:13
Speaker 2: relevant audio recordings and destroyed his phone to prevent him
21:17
Speaker 2: from obtaining information from it. Stepping back from all this
21:20
Speaker 2: legal stuff for a minute, I think that this case
21:23
Speaker 2: is very interesting for another reason besides the tech, because
21:26
Speaker 2: it really speaks to another phenomenon that I see a
21:29
Speaker 2: lot in cases like this. Again, we don't know exactly
21:32
Speaker 2: what happened. Only two people know for sure, and unfortunately
21:36
Speaker 2: one of them is dead. I will say I do
21:40
Speaker 2: find some of James's claims credible. I don't know if
21:42
Speaker 2: the police were maliciously prosecuting him, but it's true. There
21:46
Speaker 2: is this fine line sometimes between having an investigative theory
21:50
Speaker 2: and having tunnel vision, being closed minded, refusing to look
21:53
Speaker 2: at evidence that doesn't support your theory of what happens.
21:56
Speaker 2: It can be so easy for officers, even very experienced detectives,
21:59
Speaker 2: to get this type of tunnel vision. I think it's
22:01
Speaker 2: really important to always remember that. I say that to
22:04
Speaker 2: myself too always every day. Try to remember to have
22:06
Speaker 2: an open mind. You can think you know everything about
22:09
Speaker 2: a case and it can turn on a dime. Another
22:12
Speaker 2: thing that's important to remember is that for family members,
22:15
Speaker 2: it is certainly understandable and natural to want to blame
22:18
Speaker 2: someone when a family member dies, especially if police have
22:21
Speaker 2: told you things. And sometimes I know people might want
22:25
Speaker 2: to hold onto these things. But the truth is, sometimes
22:28
Speaker 2: in life things happen. People have accidents, People do drown
22:31
Speaker 2: in hot tubs. Sometimes I watch a lot of true
22:34
Speaker 2: crime and it's like I find myself thinking everyone who
22:37
Speaker 2: drowns in a hot tub or a bathtub was maybe
22:40
Speaker 2: killed by a disgruntled spouse. But that's not really the reality.
22:44
Speaker 2: There are so many accidental drownings in the United States,
22:47
Speaker 2: especially as we talked about in an episode a couple
22:49
Speaker 2: of weeks ago, for young intoxicated men. James's suit was
22:53
Speaker 2: interesting for another reason because remember when I said, in
22:56
Speaker 2: addition to the Alexa, there were more pieces of tech
22:59
Speaker 2: in James's house.
23:00
Speaker 1: Remember that water meter.
23:02
Speaker 2: James claimed that police falsified those water memeats readings. He
23:06
Speaker 2: also claimed Christine wrote a letter to the prosecutor saying
23:10
Speaker 2: James was stalking her and her children in his car,
23:13
Speaker 2: but James claimed that he was able to prove he
23:16
Speaker 2: no longer owned that car during the time period of
23:19
Speaker 2: his alleged stocking. James also filed a lawsuit against the
23:23
Speaker 2: police department, and in that lawsuit, not only did he
23:26
Speaker 2: claim that they were trying to frame him for Victor's murder,
23:29
Speaker 2: he claimed that Christine had told police she was worried
23:33
Speaker 2: about collecting on Victor's life insurance, so he alleged in
23:37
Speaker 2: his lawsuit that Christine had conspired with the police to
23:41
Speaker 2: create a story about a fight so she could collect
23:43
Speaker 2: that insurance money. The lawsuit also alleged the detectives working
23:48
Speaker 2: the case gave the medical examiner, Charles Cocus, erroneous information. Basically,
23:54
Speaker 2: the lawsuit said, this is what motivated the medical examiner
23:57
Speaker 2: to say the manner of death was homicide. In October
24:00
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty, James dropped his lawsuit. The attorney for
24:05
Speaker 2: the police department told the Democrat Gazette that the police
24:09
Speaker 2: did not pay money or attempt to settle. He said
24:11
Speaker 2: they had been completely vindicated. James's attorney stated they had
24:16
Speaker 2: found negligence and incompetence, but they said that they concluded
24:19
Speaker 2: that that was not enough for them to win a lawsuit.
24:23
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, James and Christine reportedly reached a
24:27
Speaker 2: settlement in their lawsuit. The amount was not disclosed. James
24:31
Speaker 2: did speak out. He talked to Channel five News. He
24:34
Speaker 2: said his life had been destroyed after these charges. He said, quote,
24:38
Speaker 2: it destroys every aspect of your life to be accused
24:41
Speaker 2: of something like this. I mean, you're just everything spiritually, emotionally,
24:46
Speaker 2: financially end quote. He said that he respected the prosecutor,
24:51
Speaker 2: Nathan Smith, for doing the right thing. He said the
24:53
Speaker 2: prosecutor had integrity and that Nathan choosing to drop the
24:57
Speaker 2: charges was the correct move. He said he was speaking
25:01
Speaker 2: out because quote, I think the public needs to know
25:04
Speaker 2: that it happens, happened to you within the span of
25:07
Speaker 2: one night end quote.
25:09
Speaker 1: James said that.
25:10
Speaker 2: He had lost his job as a result of all this,
25:12
Speaker 2: He lost custody of his son, and you know that
25:16
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people out there in the
25:17
Speaker 2: community who probably still think, even though the charges were dropped,
25:21
Speaker 2: that he had something to do with it, or that
25:23
Speaker 2: there was something sinister that.
25:24
Speaker 1: Happened that night.
25:25
Speaker 2: But he's trying his best to move forward and put
25:28
Speaker 2: it behind him. What really happened to Victor Collins we
25:32
Speaker 2: will never know for sure, but I do want to
25:35
Speaker 2: introduce another possibility. As I said before, I've been looking
25:39
Speaker 2: a lot into accidental drownings lately. It turns out when
25:42
Speaker 2: someone's intoxicated, they can and do become overheated much more easily.
25:47
Speaker 2: At Victor's height and weight and blood alcohol level, this
25:50
Speaker 2: was certainly a possibility. The one hundred and three degree water,
25:55
Speaker 2: if he sat in it for a long enough time,
25:57
Speaker 2: could have led to blood vessels dilating, His blood pressure
26:01
Speaker 2: might have dropped, and if he stood up suddenly, for example,
26:04
Speaker 2: that could have caused Victor to fame.
26:07
Speaker 1: He could have hit his head which led to him drowning.
26:11
Speaker 1: Side note.
26:11
Speaker 2: In my research, I found men are twice as likely
26:14
Speaker 2: to die in hot tubs as women, and about four
26:17
Speaker 2: times more likely in general to drown. Nearly eighty percent
26:20
Speaker 2: of people who drown or mail. This is according to
26:23
Speaker 2: the Cloward trial Lawyers, a law firm. They put a
26:25
Speaker 2: bunch of statistics up on their website. It reminds me
26:28
Speaker 2: a little bit of the recent case of Matthew Perry
26:31
Speaker 2: from Friends. He had ketamine in a system which he
26:34
Speaker 2: had apparently been using for a while, and he died
26:37
Speaker 2: of an accidental drowning in his hot tub. The debate
26:43
Speaker 2: over Alexa keeps coming up. In twenty twenty three, a
26:47
Speaker 2: man in Wales named Daniel White was convicted of killing
26:49
Speaker 2: his wife Angie, after the recordings on his echo were
26:52
Speaker 2: turned over to police. He kicked open the bedroom door
26:55
Speaker 2: and cut his wife's throat with a Stanley knife, and
26:59
Speaker 2: in the recordings they could hear him sounding out of
27:02
Speaker 2: breath running down.
27:03
Speaker 1: Police said to get his none life.
27:07
Speaker 2: Alexa's data continues to be requested from Amazon in murder cases.
27:11
Speaker 2: It happened in a double murder in New Hampshire, and
27:13
Speaker 2: it was part of a Florida case recently as well.
27:16
Speaker 2: It even came up again in the Chris Watts case.
27:19
Speaker 2: Chris Watts, of course, was the man who killed his
27:22
Speaker 2: pregnant wife, Shanan and their two children when that FBI
27:25
Speaker 2: interrogator was in the room with Chris, I remember him saying,
27:30
Speaker 2: we know you have an Alexa in your home that
27:32
Speaker 2: can record distress. Now, I know that law enforcement are
27:36
Speaker 2: legally allowed to light of suspects in America, so that
27:39
Speaker 2: might not have been true, but I do find myself
27:42
Speaker 2: wondering about that technology. Was that actually bs or could
27:47
Speaker 2: that be true? Are some of these devices programmed to
27:51
Speaker 2: record distress? And what implications does that have both for
27:55
Speaker 2: murder cases but also for our privacy. So now, when
27:59
Speaker 2: I accidentally triggered the Alexa app and I don't realize
28:02
Speaker 2: it until I see that little blue ring recording, I
28:05
Speaker 2: do find myself wondering what happens if it here's a murder.
28:11
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
28:22
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
28:24
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Katherine
28:27
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy
28:31
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance. Music contributed by Ben Sale.
28:35
Speaker 2: This episode was sound designed and mixed by Noah camer.
28:39
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
28:42
Speaker 1: Crowley.
28:43
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
28:46
Speaker 2: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. You can
28:49
Speaker 2: follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. If
28:52
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
28:54
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
28:56
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
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Speaker 2: four four six ' one four or five. That's six
29:01
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six one four or five.
29:13
Speaker 1: School of Humans