Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Cold case heats up! Who killed federal prosecutor Tom Wales?

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Cold case heats up! Who killed federal prosecutor Tom Wales? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: any name to get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
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Speaker 1: on sirius XM Triumph Channel one thirty two. Investigators say
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Speaker 1: they're closer to solving the mystery of who murdered a
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Speaker 1: federal prosecutor more than sixteen years ago. On a chilly
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Speaker 1: Uptober night in two thousand one, Tom Wales was home
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Speaker 1: sitting in his basement office when a gunman shot multiple
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Speaker 1: rounds through the window. Officials believe there are people who
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Speaker 1: know critical information that could help solve the case. Tom
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Speaker 1: Wales was targeted, some say because of his job, and
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Speaker 1: if that is true, he would be the first and
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Speaker 1: only U. S. Attorney killed in the line of duty.
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Speaker 1: The killer is still at large, and the case was
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Speaker 1: recently the subject of a five part podcast. They say
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Speaker 1: it was the perfect murder, but I'm not buying it.
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Speaker 1: Investigators aren't buying it either. Why is a state's prosecutor
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Speaker 1: a U S attorney no less in the same sentence
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Speaker 1: with murder? What does anything have to do with the
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Speaker 1: firing of that U S. Attorney? He wasn't even supposed
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Speaker 1: to be home that night? Why why does he end
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Speaker 1: up dead? I'm Nancy Grays. This is Crime Stories. Thank
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Speaker 1: you for being with us with an urgent report and
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Speaker 1: an urgent story with me. Two very special guests, David
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Speaker 1: Payne and Jodie Gottlieb here to help us as we
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Speaker 1: try and solve this mystery. They also have their own
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Speaker 1: podcast delving into the murder of a well respected prosecutor,
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Speaker 1: a federal prosecutor Tom Wells. Also with me forensics expert
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Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University,
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Speaker 1: and of course Allen the Duke Duke joining me in
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Speaker 1: l A first to my longtime colleagues David Payne and
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Speaker 1: Jodie Gottli. First of you, Jody, explain to me why
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Speaker 1: you are drawn to the murderer of a federal prosecutor. Um.
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Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons is I have a
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Speaker 1: history of producing content that bus bat actors engaging in
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Speaker 1: bad behavior. And so I really couldn't believe after sixteen
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Speaker 1: years that this case had not been solved. Uh. It's
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Speaker 1: one of the highest profile cases in the d o J.
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Speaker 1: Department of Justice, and uh, you know, it's been sixteen
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Speaker 1: plus years and I still today remained baffled that this
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Speaker 1: case has not been solved. You know, this is a
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Speaker 1: guy who was not afraid of putting in long, long
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Speaker 1: hours in the pursuit of justice. And man, I know
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Speaker 1: how that feels. David Paine, I remember as a prosecutor,
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Speaker 1: I would beat the street all week and I remember
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Speaker 1: I could not afford a good coat, and a lot
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Speaker 1: of times I would be out in my little ninety
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Speaker 1: nine dollar coat that I got I don't know where J. C. Pennies,
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Speaker 1: I don't know, and uh, working cases, trying to find witnesses,
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Speaker 1: and all weekends I would hold up in the law
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Speaker 1: library at the courthouse, and I remember looking out the
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Speaker 1: window over the city of Atlanta and thinking, the defense
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Speaker 1: attorneys kicked back somewhere right now having a beer, are
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Speaker 1: watching a football game. I'm gonna get it over on him.
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Speaker 1: And that would give me the strength to just keep
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Speaker 1: researching and keep researching the law, to make my legal
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Speaker 1: arguments to win in order to get evidence in at
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Speaker 1: trial for the jury. It's always one percent inspiration perspiration
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Speaker 1: when you win a case. This guy would often work
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Speaker 1: late at night pursuing just a as I'm talking about
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Speaker 1: a murdered prosecutor, Tom Wells, David Paine, my also longtime colleague, David,
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Speaker 1: what drew you to the murder of this stand up guy? Well,
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Speaker 1: I saw in him a lot of what I see
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Speaker 1: in myself. I mean, he was I was a former
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Speaker 1: federal prosecutor as well, to share that same pedigree with you,
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Speaker 1: and um he was forty nine years old. As you mentioned,
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Speaker 1: he was sitting at home at ten forty at night
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Speaker 1: in his house on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. He
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Speaker 1: was doing emails and somebody walked up to his window
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Speaker 1: shot him through the daylight basement window. And that case
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Speaker 1: remains unsolved. So when when you looked at it. Uh,
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Speaker 1: And when Jody and I started looking to find a
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Speaker 1: cold case out here in Seattle, this was an obvious
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Speaker 1: one for both of us to gravitate towards. You know,
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Speaker 1: we don't really hear a lot about who Tom was
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Speaker 1: as a person. They used to drive me crazy, David
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Speaker 1: that the jury will kind of get to know the
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Speaker 1: defendants sitting there in court, he look all pitiful, and
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Speaker 1: he'd be well groomed and looking sharp, sitting with a
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Speaker 1: fleet of defense lawyers. When I knew he's a thug,
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Speaker 1: a killer, a dope dealer, or whatever he was. The
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Speaker 1: jury would never know that. But I could never bring
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Speaker 1: in a photo or recollections of the murdered victim. They
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Speaker 1: could never get to know the victim because that would
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Speaker 1: be inadmissible in a court of law because has no
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Speaker 1: bearing on the murder. So they never get to know
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Speaker 1: the victim. But in this case, tell me about Tom, David,
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Speaker 1: who who was Tom Wales? Well, like everybody, he's a
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Speaker 1: complicated human being. And uh, when we started looking into
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Speaker 1: this case for our podcast, and we did a ten
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Speaker 1: month investigation on this particularly and I love the name
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Speaker 1: of your podcast. Somebody somewhere man, that's an awesome name
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Speaker 1: because we always say that somebody somewhere knows who did this.
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Speaker 1: That is an awesome name. So go ahead. So Tom Wales,
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Speaker 1: by all accounts, was as you said, kind of a
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Speaker 1: stand up guy, stand up prosecutor. He was a father
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Speaker 1: of two kids. He was divorced, but very recently divorced,
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Speaker 1: and by all accounts it was an amical divorce from
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Speaker 1: his wife. His wife had come out of the closet
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Speaker 1: a couple of years before. They shared the home that
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Speaker 1: he lived in, the one that he was killed in
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Speaker 1: on that faithful night in two thousand and one. Uh,
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Speaker 1: he was somebody who was a little bit of an
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Speaker 1: Atticus Finch in the community. There was a local um
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Speaker 1: high school. Oh right, now, you're really speaking of my heart.
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Speaker 1: Because as a little girl, my my sister would bring
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Speaker 1: home or school books. She's almost four years older than me,
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Speaker 1: and I would finish my work, I would grab her
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Speaker 1: stuff and run off with it. Well, particularly not her
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Speaker 1: mathwork or science, forget about that. I take her books.
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Speaker 1: And when she was assigned to kill a mockingbird by
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Speaker 1: Harper Lee, as soon as she put it down, I
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Speaker 1: ran off with it. So I guess say, maybe in
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Speaker 1: the third or fourth grade, I read to Kill a
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Speaker 1: mocking Bird and Atticus Finch became my hero. And then
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Speaker 1: many years later, when after my fiance was murdered, I
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Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. I couldn't be a school
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Speaker 1: teacher anymore. I had to do something, and he really
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Speaker 1: inspired me to go into the law. So you're saying
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Speaker 1: Tom Wells was an Atticus Finch type person, what do
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Speaker 1: you mean by that he was? He was a very
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Speaker 1: by all accounts, a very righteous person with a strong
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Speaker 1: sense of justice, almost to a fault, And we talked
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Speaker 1: about that in the podcast. UM. But one example of
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Speaker 1: that is that after there was a local high school shooting,
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Speaker 1: he took up the mantle of gun control here in Seattle.
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Speaker 1: He became the president of a group called Washington Ceasfar
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Speaker 1: and that's one of the places that investigators looked to
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Speaker 1: see whether there was a motive for killing Tom was
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Speaker 1: because of his work on gun control. So this is
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Speaker 1: way before you know the era that we're in right now.
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Speaker 1: He was someone who was really out front and outspoken
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Speaker 1: on that issue. UM. And in a in an area
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Speaker 1: where you know, you get a lot of death, a
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Speaker 1: lot of death threats, a lot of blowback from people.
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Speaker 1: You know. Just hearing that is is scary. I remember
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Speaker 1: during certain prosecutions that I handled, I would have to
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Speaker 1: move out of my house. I remember having my door
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Speaker 1: back door kicked in, my mailbox destroyed every single day
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Speaker 1: of a particular trial that lasted a long time. I
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Speaker 1: get the box back up and then coming hit not
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Speaker 1: get down again, be followed to my car heckled, blah blah,
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Speaker 1: having my car windows beating the in while I was
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Speaker 1: in court. Just a lot happens that people never know about. Guys.
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Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to this good
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Speaker 1: afternoon everyone. I want to welcome you all into the
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Speaker 1: Tom Wales conference room here at the U. S. Attorney's Office.
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Speaker 1: I also want to specially welcome the Deputy Attorney General
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Speaker 1: of the United States, Rod Rosenstein here. To see, attack
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Speaker 1: on a law enforcement officer is an attack on our
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Speaker 1: entire justice system. I want to assure you that this
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Speaker 1: murder investigation is very active. The main investigation includes over
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Speaker 1: subfiles for specific investigative areas of interest and has generated
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Speaker 1: over fifty one thousand documents, three times larger than the
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Speaker 1: size of the end Rod investigation of the early two thousand's.
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Speaker 1: Do you think this case will ever gets sold? I
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Speaker 1: hope so. But this is not like a white collar
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Speaker 1: crime piecing the documents together case. This is a murder,
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Speaker 1: and murders tend to be solved very quickly or not
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Speaker 1: at all, and the fact that there has been no
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Speaker 1: arrest for sixteen years suggests that it won't ever be solved.
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Speaker 1: The two thousand one murder of Assistant United States Attorney
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Speaker 1: Tom Wales is both the most complex and simple affair
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Speaker 1: we have ever known. The simple part is this someone
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Speaker 1: walked up to his window, shot him twice, and sped
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Speaker 1: away off Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. But tens of
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Speaker 1: thousands of leads and tens of thousands of man hours later,
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Speaker 1: we have a case file three times the size of
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Speaker 1: one of the largest financial fraud cases in history, and
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Speaker 1: no official answer to the question that started this podcast,
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Speaker 1: who killed Tom Wales? And why haven't they been brought
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Speaker 1: to justice after all these years. Wow, that's a tiny
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Speaker 1: taste of somebody somewhere investigating the order of a stand
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Speaker 1: up guy, A federal prosecutor. Tom Wells murdered as he
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Speaker 1: sits working for you, for the people with me. Two
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Speaker 1: very special guests David Payne and Jodi Gottlieb, who created
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Speaker 1: this podcast. Somebody Somewhere, Let's go to Jody. That night,
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Speaker 1: October eleven, he gets home around seven pm. What happens
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Speaker 1: just before he's murdered. He is working in his he
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Speaker 1: had an office in his basement, and he was sitting
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Speaker 1: at his desk, typing emails that he as he had
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Speaker 1: done almost every night. And he was corresponding with his
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Speaker 1: then girlfriend and about it. Who whoa whoa whoa whoa
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Speaker 1: whoa whoa? Who? Who's she? Who's the girlfriend? Marlist de Young?
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Speaker 1: She was a court reporter UM, and they worked together
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Speaker 1: and they had just started dating. He was newly divorced amicably,
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Speaker 1: and he was typing an email and someone snuck into
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Speaker 1: his backyard and shot him through a daily basement window
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Speaker 1: somewhere around ten thirty to ten fifty uh and then
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Speaker 1: he uh the perpetrator navigated off through a back alley
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Speaker 1: and um on foot and headed down uh the Queen
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Speaker 1: Anne Hill. Interesting joining me forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan,
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Speaker 1: Professor of Forensics at Jacksona State University. Joe Scott, thank
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Speaker 1: you for being with us. What Forensics can we glean
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Speaker 1: from this kind of shooting? I mean, the perp didn't
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Speaker 1: even come in the home to leave fingerprints or fibers
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Speaker 1: or footprints or soil samples we could get to match
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Speaker 1: up to maybe his driveway or do anything. So what
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Speaker 1: do we do to catch the killer that had the
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Speaker 1: goal to gun down a federal prosecutor. He's sitting there
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Speaker 1: at his computer working. Yeah, Well, the first thing that
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Speaker 1: we would look at nancy at the scene. Our considerations.
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Speaker 1: For instance, Uh, we're here that he was shot through
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Speaker 1: a window, and it's never been actually stated as to
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Speaker 1: whether the window was up or down. If the window
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Speaker 1: was closed, Uh, then we would assume that there would
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Speaker 1: be glass fragments. We would look for that, and also
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Speaker 1: outside of the home in the uh, in the area
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Speaker 1: immediately adjacent to this window, we'll be looking for footprints
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Speaker 1: in uh, in the dirt, as well as any kind
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Speaker 1: of other debris that the individual may have left behind. Uh.
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Speaker 1: We're we're assuming that this is a semi automatic weapon.
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Speaker 1: It's been stated that it was a three eight mockeroff. UH.
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Speaker 1: That means that it would have ejected shell casings. Those
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Speaker 1: would be outside of the window more than likely. And
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Speaker 1: then of course, that brings us UH to the rounds
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Speaker 1: that entered his remains, which would have been recovered at
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Speaker 1: autopsy or at the scene if they passed through his body,
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Speaker 1: and those are going to have unique identifiers to them.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Unique identifiers? Come on, speak,
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Speaker 1: regular people talk, Joe Scott. Well, we'll be looking for
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Speaker 1: a ballistic fingerprint on the surfaces of these weapons, what
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Speaker 1: we normally refer to as rifling, Nancy. That's the twist
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Speaker 1: that are left behind, the markings from the barrel that
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Speaker 1: are transferred to the soft lead of the bullet that
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Speaker 1: enters the body. Those things are unique to individual weapons, Nancy.
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Speaker 1: What's fascinating about this case is that the FBI has
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Speaker 1: indeed reported that the gun used was a macrof. And
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Speaker 1: what's interesting about the rifling characteristics that a macrof leads
14:29
Speaker 1: is is that they are typically what it's called four right,
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Speaker 1: so four lands and grooves with a right handed twist.
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Speaker 1: And in this particular case, the rounds that were found
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Speaker 1: both inside the house UH and in the body were
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Speaker 1: six left and so to explain that discrepancy, UH, the
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Speaker 1: FBI concluded that a aftermarket replacement barrel was put on
14:57
Speaker 1: that Macrof. Um, we have some barious doubts about the
15:01
Speaker 1: analysis that was done. Uh. And there are a range
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Speaker 1: of weapons that could have been used in this case.
15:09
Speaker 1: You know, every we're throwing around the term of macrov.
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Speaker 1: It's a pistol. It is a Russian semi automatic and
15:17
Speaker 1: it's named is named Macarroff because of Nikolai Makaroff, and
15:22
Speaker 1: it is the Soviet Union standard military police side arm.
15:27
Speaker 1: Now you often here nine Uh you hear a Winchester here,
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Speaker 1: rug or you don't really hear Macarroff that much? Would
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Speaker 1: you agree with that? David? Absolutely, It's a very odd
15:39
Speaker 1: choice uh for a murder weapon. Uh. And if in
15:43
Speaker 1: fact it was shooting a three eight caliber UM and
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Speaker 1: that macrof replacement barrel was a nine millimeter replacement barrel,
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Speaker 1: which is the typical issue. You're shooting an undersized bullet
15:56
Speaker 1: inside that weapon, which is going to make it less
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Speaker 1: power ful. So you have an odd choice of caliber,
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Speaker 1: you have an odd choice of weapon. Uh. You'll run
16:05
Speaker 1: into reliability issues with that combination. Um. So the whole
16:11
Speaker 1: configuration just begs a lot of questions. Well, you know,
16:15
Speaker 1: when you hear macrof to me, that that's a very
16:17
Speaker 1: significant clue because I've prosecuted a lot of cases, thousands
16:23
Speaker 1: literally thousands and thousands, and I can't really remember the
16:27
Speaker 1: time I saw macrof being used. You know, the interesting
16:30
Speaker 1: And I don't want to get too much in gun
16:31
Speaker 1: lore because uh, I don't want my twins around guns.
16:36
Speaker 1: I don't want them growing up around guns. But uh,
16:39
Speaker 1: guns are out there, and that's the reality of our lives.
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Speaker 1: The macroof was actually result of a contest because the
16:45
Speaker 1: jour the Russians were replacing their standard issue gun, and
16:49
Speaker 1: they actually held a contest to get a new gun.
16:53
Speaker 1: And it turned out that's how the macrof was created.
16:57
Speaker 1: That that's a story behind that. Now interest Also, you
17:00
Speaker 1: were saying something about four to the side. Are you
17:03
Speaker 1: telling me that when a bullet travels down the barrel
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Speaker 1: of a macroff, it creates a striation or a mark
17:11
Speaker 1: on the bullet that definitely proves it was a macrof. Well,
17:15
Speaker 1: that is the open one of the open questions in
17:17
Speaker 1: this case, because a macrof will produce markings that are
17:21
Speaker 1: four four right, and in this case the markings were
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Speaker 1: six left, meaning six counterclockwise instead of four clockwise more, Well,
17:31
Speaker 1: then why are we saying macrof because that's what the
17:34
Speaker 1: FBI is saying, and that is it that is at
17:36
Speaker 1: the heart of the issue here, because at some point
17:40
Speaker 1: in this investigation, the FBI learns that the person they
17:44
Speaker 1: believe did it has a MACROF. And really, the question,
17:48
Speaker 1: one of the biggest questions that we push on and
17:51
Speaker 1: press on in this case is when did the FBI
17:53
Speaker 1: learn their suspect pad a macroff. It doesn't sound like
17:57
Speaker 1: it matches the bullets. I mean, am I missing something? No?
18:00
Speaker 1: So there is one can There is one aftermarket barrel
18:04
Speaker 1: that you can put on a macrof that will leave
18:06
Speaker 1: six left. Now, now you're talking okay, because just then
18:11
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm sure I don't know more than FBI
18:15
Speaker 1: ballistics experts. So I was trying to reconcile in my
18:18
Speaker 1: mind how and hey, they're getting a macroof. Yeah, the
18:21
Speaker 1: FBI figured out that there is a way you can
18:25
Speaker 1: retrofit a standard macroof with a replacement barrel from a
18:28
Speaker 1: company called Federal Arms. It was a Minnesota company and
18:32
Speaker 1: that company produced only about thirty five hundred of those barrels.
18:37
Speaker 1: So the FBI has literally spent almost sixteen years now
18:42
Speaker 1: trying to track down every one of those aftermarket barrels
18:47
Speaker 1: across the country, which we find fascinating for a number
18:51
Speaker 1: of reasons. But that's the only way they can get
18:53
Speaker 1: the get to the conclusion. Can I ask you something? Um? Okay?
18:59
Speaker 1: So saying the fansaites a macro off with his attachment
19:03
Speaker 1: that will produce six triation marks. Guys, I know I'm
19:06
Speaker 1: getting the weeds on this, but it could be very,
19:08
Speaker 1: very integral to solving the case. So let me ask
19:12
Speaker 1: you the attachment that results in not four, but six
19:15
Speaker 1: triation markings on the bullet used in a macro off.
19:19
Speaker 1: What's the purpose of the attachment? What does it do?
19:21
Speaker 1: Why do I want the attachment on my gun? It's
19:24
Speaker 1: it's less an attachment than it is the barrel itself,
19:27
Speaker 1: so you essentially open up the gun and replace the tube.
19:31
Speaker 1: But why why do I want to do that? There's
19:33
Speaker 1: there's two reasons you would do it. One is if
19:36
Speaker 1: you got the type of aftermarket barrel that has a
19:40
Speaker 1: threaded end to it, if you wanted to put a
19:42
Speaker 1: silencer on it for instance, okay, silence or never mind
19:45
Speaker 1: st anymore, that's it. Wait, go await, But there was
19:48
Speaker 1: a witness that heard this rod that's right, so there
19:51
Speaker 1: wasn't a silence or so what that's right? So now
19:54
Speaker 1: your other theory would have to be that he replaced
19:56
Speaker 1: the barrel and the gun because it had become corroded,
20:00
Speaker 1: or he replaced the barrel in the gun because he
20:02
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to shoot three a D ammunition
20:04
Speaker 1: out of that, which is more common than the standard ambition.
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Speaker 1: truth finder dot com slash nancy and enter any name
21:33
Speaker 1: to get started. We're talking about the assassination, the execution
21:44
Speaker 1: and murder of a federal prosecutor, stand up guy with children,
21:49
Speaker 1: living life, sitting in his computer, minding his own business,
21:52
Speaker 1: when he's gunned down in his own home through the window. Now,
21:57
Speaker 1: I can just tell you right now, this was not
21:59
Speaker 1: a domestick dispute. It has no markings of a domestic dispute,
22:04
Speaker 1: and the recently divorced wife has an airtime ALBI. It
22:07
Speaker 1: was not her. What does it leave me to believe,
22:11
Speaker 1: based on what I know, that this was an execution,
22:14
Speaker 1: possibly for hire. Listen to this. There is something about
22:19
Speaker 1: this case that sticks in the craw of anybody who
22:21
Speaker 1: looks at it in any depth, and it seems like
22:24
Speaker 1: the only way to get it unstuck, at least if
22:26
Speaker 1: you're a journalist, is to see for yourself what it
22:30
Speaker 1: was about whales work as a prosecutor that may have
22:33
Speaker 1: gotten him killed. I've been going through every pleading that
22:39
Speaker 1: has the word Whales in it for the past couple
22:41
Speaker 1: of days. You mean in his works eighteen years? Oh
22:46
Speaker 1: my god, all the way back, all the way back,
22:48
Speaker 1: all the way back, and I'm still trying to find
22:51
Speaker 1: that nugget too. My review of Tom's caseload would take
22:55
Speaker 1: me about two weeks in total. It is my numbing
22:58
Speaker 1: and tedious, and I feel genuine empathy for the FBI
23:01
Speaker 1: investigators who surely traveled this road before me. I'm looking
23:06
Speaker 1: for evidence for how Tom comported himself, how he managed
23:09
Speaker 1: his caseload with please or trials, and how he represented himself.
23:14
Speaker 1: Was he capricious? Vindictive? Look, we've all known them, the
23:18
Speaker 1: arrogant lawyers? Was some modicum of power. I wanted to
23:22
Speaker 1: make sure I wasn't blaming the victim. Of My thinking
23:25
Speaker 1: was this, if Tom was killed in the line of duty,
23:28
Speaker 1: maybe he had done something unusual to instigate it, and
23:31
Speaker 1: that created a motive or had he simply poked the
23:35
Speaker 1: wrong bear. Coming through the government databasis, I learned a
23:39
Speaker 1: lot about Tom, at least about his job, his career,
23:42
Speaker 1: and choices. Frankly, I wasn't prepared for what I found.
23:47
Speaker 1: Did you get a sense of what and who the
23:49
Speaker 1: real Tom Wales was? Well? Yeah, I mean I had
23:52
Speaker 1: the sense of him as a fine person without enemies
23:56
Speaker 1: in his personal life. But he was also prickly and
24:01
Speaker 1: not a very successful prosecutor. He was someone who took
24:04
Speaker 1: way too long on cases, and was not very productive
24:09
Speaker 1: and not the easiest person in the world to get
24:11
Speaker 1: along with, all of which led me to conclude that
24:16
Speaker 1: he was a real human being with the kind of
24:19
Speaker 1: complexity that we all have. Straight out to Jody, Jodi
24:22
Speaker 1: Gottlie with me, with David Payne and Joe, Scott Morgan
24:26
Speaker 1: and Allen we're talking about an awesome podcast. It's called
24:30
Speaker 1: Somebody Somewhere, and we're trying to unravel the murder of
24:34
Speaker 1: a federal prosecutor that remains unsolved. I mean, who's gonna
24:38
Speaker 1: put the bad guys in jail if you risk being
24:42
Speaker 1: murdered yourself? And and they don't even find the killer.
24:46
Speaker 1: Let me ask you something, Jody, who who was that
24:48
Speaker 1: speaking that said this prosecutor was not productive? That was
24:52
Speaker 1: Jeffrey to See, an analyst and and New Yorker author
24:57
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Toby. I always find it interesting when when journalists
25:01
Speaker 1: make a legal attack on lawyers that are practicing law.
25:06
Speaker 1: I mean, we we don't know how when you say
25:09
Speaker 1: a federal prosecutor is quote not productive. Yeah, I think
25:13
Speaker 1: I'll jump in on that as a journalist and a
25:15
Speaker 1: former federal prosecutor, because I was very uncomfortable, uh, and
25:20
Speaker 1: the same kind of uncomfortable you have, until I started
25:23
Speaker 1: delving into the cases. And I felt um comfortable putting
25:29
Speaker 1: that interview into the podcast because it corroborated our own
25:33
Speaker 1: review of his cases. So let me give you some
25:35
Speaker 1: data points that I think we're really interesting. He was
25:38
Speaker 1: a federal prosecutor for eighteen years. He was managing only
25:44
Speaker 1: about eight to ten cases by the time he was finished,
25:48
Speaker 1: and in the cases that he took to resolution, less
25:51
Speaker 1: than one third of them actually resulted in jail time.
25:56
Speaker 1: So think about that over an eighteen year career. So
25:58
Speaker 1: the cases he was prosecut huting, the majority of them
26:02
Speaker 1: were bank teller embezzlement cases involving less than ten thousand dollars,
26:08
Speaker 1: you are very minor cases, and so that issue of productivity,
26:14
Speaker 1: what was he doing? Why did it take so long?
26:17
Speaker 1: I think we're fair things to to bring to the surface,
26:21
Speaker 1: because we wanted to understand if somebody killed Tom Wales
26:25
Speaker 1: because of his work, what work was it that instigated that?
26:30
Speaker 1: And that's what leads you really to the prime suspect
26:34
Speaker 1: in the case. It is somebody that he prosecuted. It
26:37
Speaker 1: is a probably his largest case, and it was being
26:42
Speaker 1: litigated in a post conviction type of way at the
26:46
Speaker 1: time of his murder. So that's why we looked at
26:48
Speaker 1: the cases. Um, yeah, I agree with you. It's very
26:52
Speaker 1: hard and it was a very hard thing to do
26:54
Speaker 1: based on what we had learned about him as a person,
26:58
Speaker 1: to have that kind of critical analysis of his work.
27:01
Speaker 1: Especially have a problem with people that have tried very
27:05
Speaker 1: few cases, especially journalists that like to sit back and
27:09
Speaker 1: throw stones at other people about claiming a murder victim
27:12
Speaker 1: was quote not productive. I really have a problem with that. Yeah,
27:16
Speaker 1: I think, um, he tried only Tom Wales tried only
27:21
Speaker 1: one case in eighteen years. I always question how many
27:25
Speaker 1: cases the stone throwers have tried. I'm always curious about that.
27:30
Speaker 1: But that's a whole another can of worms. We're spending
27:34
Speaker 1: time now, for some reason delving into the murder victims
27:39
Speaker 1: trial record, how many cases he handled, how many he
27:43
Speaker 1: got jail time on? Uh, you know, just this? Does
27:47
Speaker 1: that somehow make him less important? Should do it? Really?
27:51
Speaker 1: Deserve bullets to the head. How do I know what
27:55
Speaker 1: one of his investigations may have touched on? What, uh
28:00
Speaker 1: Columbia drug lord was connected to? A white collar I mean,
28:03
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what he was doing,
28:06
Speaker 1: but I know this. He's a federal prosecutor that ends
28:08
Speaker 1: up dead. And for other people to sit back and
28:11
Speaker 1: say he was unproductive in their opinion, I don't like
28:14
Speaker 1: that very much. Yeah, it's a fair point. I think
28:18
Speaker 1: the only reason we look at his cases is to
28:20
Speaker 1: try to find the motive, and in so doing, instead
28:23
Speaker 1: of taking pot shots at a dead guy, what if
28:26
Speaker 1: anything was learned about his cases that could be connected
28:30
Speaker 1: to his murder. So he had one big case and
28:35
Speaker 1: it had just been resolved right prior to his murder.
28:38
Speaker 1: In the summer before his murder, which was in the
28:40
Speaker 1: fall of two thousand and one, and it was this
28:43
Speaker 1: really odd case regarding the retrofitting of military helicopters. And
28:50
Speaker 1: this is where you really start getting into the weeds. Um.
28:54
Speaker 1: Both Tom Wales and his fellow prosecutor, a guy named
28:57
Speaker 1: Bob Westinghouse, spent three years in investigating and indicting UH
29:02
Speaker 1: four men and their two companies over the retrofitting of
29:07
Speaker 1: two helicopters, basically taking military Huey helicopters, bolting on civilian
29:16
Speaker 1: parts and then getting airworthiness certificates for those so they
29:21
Speaker 1: could be used to service government contracts so for firefighting,
29:25
Speaker 1: UH and things of that nature. That was the case,
29:28
Speaker 1: and it's even odd trying to explain it, and can
29:31
Speaker 1: you imagine, you know, spending three years on it. So
29:34
Speaker 1: this is where the FBI believes their prime suspect, They
29:39
Speaker 1: believe the motive for the murder lies within this case.
29:43
Speaker 1: And in fact, they have spent sixteen years trying to
29:47
Speaker 1: indict and arrest one of the defendants in that helicopter case.
29:53
Speaker 1: The FEDS come under a lot of fire for the
29:55
Speaker 1: way that the investigation into Tom Wills's murderer was handled.
29:59
Speaker 1: Listen to this, Why now, what what's different? What's change
30:03
Speaker 1: Why I have I know? Uh. Well, the answer is,
30:08
Speaker 1: this is not something we're doing just today. This is
30:10
Speaker 1: a persistent effort. We've come together today to talk about
30:13
Speaker 1: this publicly. Uh in part because of the efforts of
30:17
Speaker 1: the National Association of Former U S Attorneys. Uh and
30:20
Speaker 1: uh it's just yet another opportunity for us to alert
30:24
Speaker 1: the public and to encourage people to come forward with
30:26
Speaker 1: any leads. Is there anything else to be talking about this?
30:29
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the podcast about this case that's beenets attention.
30:34
Speaker 1: Um No, there's nothing else about the timing, and I
30:39
Speaker 1: didn't learn about that podcast yesterday, but that had nothing
30:41
Speaker 1: to do with the timing of this event. So Alan,
30:44
Speaker 1: do you It always just it's so unfair when a
30:49
Speaker 1: prosecutor is targeted. Uh, I really I recall this way
30:55
Speaker 1: in Allen Well. The thing that strikes me about this
30:59
Speaker 1: is the implication that for sixteen years, this is unsolved
31:04
Speaker 1: and will it ever be solved? Is there any evidence
31:08
Speaker 1: out there? This podcast, like others that we've dealt with,
31:13
Speaker 1: have uncovered new evidence, and like with Tara Grinstead, that
31:18
Speaker 1: is a good example. The hope is that this podcast
31:20
Speaker 1: could lead to a resolution of this case. I would
31:23
Speaker 1: like to ask David and Jody if they have any
31:25
Speaker 1: hope or expectation that your podcast is going to make
31:29
Speaker 1: a difference like that. That's a great question, Allen and Um.
31:34
Speaker 1: We during the course of the podcast, and I don't
31:36
Speaker 1: want to give any spoilers away, but through our eight
31:39
Speaker 1: ten month investigation, we did uncover some new evidence UM,
31:45
Speaker 1: and we explored our goal was to explore alternative theories.
31:49
Speaker 1: You know, very early on the FBI had honed in
31:53
Speaker 1: on their their key suspect, and we felt that maybe
31:57
Speaker 1: at the expense of UM exploring of are alternative theories.
32:01
Speaker 1: So we really went into this to explore what those
32:04
Speaker 1: theories look like. And we believe during the course of
32:07
Speaker 1: our investigation that we have some information that will help
32:12
Speaker 1: create an alternative theory that UM we'd like explored. I
32:18
Speaker 1: wonder how his children feel about the fact that their
32:20
Speaker 1: father's murder has never been solved. You know, Joe Scott Morgan,
32:25
Speaker 1: you and I have been involved in a lot a
32:27
Speaker 1: lot of cases, and I always hate using jailhouse snitches
32:32
Speaker 1: or confidential informants. They can wreck a case, Joe Scott, Yeah, yeah,
32:36
Speaker 1: they can. Nancy and UH, and you have to be
32:40
Speaker 1: very careful uh in what steps you take moving forward. Uh.
32:45
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you something that's very troubling to me
32:49
Speaker 1: about this, about this case in general, is how muted
32:54
Speaker 1: uh the Seattle p D is in this whole thing.
32:57
Speaker 1: I am uh shaw cocked on one level as a
33:03
Speaker 1: you know, as a former investigator in New Orleans and
33:06
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, UM that they don't take a big role
33:12
Speaker 1: in a local homicide. And I know that we can
33:15
Speaker 1: hang all the trappings in the world that we want
33:17
Speaker 1: to and say, well, he was a Fed. Yeah, he
33:19
Speaker 1: was a Fed, but he was a citizen of that town.
33:22
Speaker 1: And UH, that to me is very disturbing. UH. Here
33:26
Speaker 1: we have uh you know, UH what they'd like to
33:30
Speaker 1: say is the goal standard for uh criminal investigation organization worldwide.
33:35
Speaker 1: And they've had this case for sixteen years and uh
33:39
Speaker 1: met with very little success. I'm just very curious as
33:43
Speaker 1: to why it would seem that the Seattle police would
33:46
Speaker 1: back off of this so very quickly. And you know,
33:49
Speaker 1: you can just look at the articles and see that
33:52
Speaker 1: that all of the information everything from autopsy reports to
33:56
Speaker 1: ballistic reports to this curious thing about the mock rov
34:00
Speaker 1: and uh and all all the stuff is coming to
34:03
Speaker 1: a second hand from someone by the you know, the
34:07
Speaker 1: likes of Tuban. Uh. And it's a real head scratcher
34:11
Speaker 1: to me. Uh, you know, just throwing that out there,
34:14
Speaker 1: I agree. And to make matters even more confusing, uh,
34:18
Speaker 1: the fact that the FBI used a confidential informant who
34:23
Speaker 1: himself has come under fire. Listen to this. I have
34:30
Speaker 1: a three paid calls from Innate in a Colorado correctional facility.
34:39
Speaker 1: He was telling me that somebody had wanted the whales
34:41
Speaker 1: stead and they had hired History Game to do the job,
34:46
Speaker 1: and the indicated that he was involved in it and
34:49
Speaker 1: explained that they stick him out and shot him through
34:51
Speaker 1: a window of his house, then pulled us out of
34:54
Speaker 1: town and through the gun into a river that flows
34:58
Speaker 1: underneath bigh five. Just another Wednesday on the phone talking
35:04
Speaker 1: with a serial killer about what he told the FBI
35:06
Speaker 1: about Tom Will's murder. Yes, it's that Scott Lee Kimball
35:10
Speaker 1: episode three. But before we put this whole saga behind us,
35:14
Speaker 1: we couldn't, of course leave without asking the biggest open
35:17
Speaker 1: question of all. I guess they should ask you were
35:20
Speaker 1: you in Seattle in October of two thousand and one? Um?
35:25
Speaker 1: I was a Seattle was correct. There was a suggestion
35:28
Speaker 1: that you may have had something to do with the
35:30
Speaker 1: whales murder, since you were in Seattle at the time.
35:33
Speaker 1: What's your reaction to that. I had heard that before,
35:37
Speaker 1: but of course I wasn't involved in it, and of
35:40
Speaker 1: course we didn't really expect a different answer. Although it
35:43
Speaker 1: Scott Lee Kimble, it's probably hard to ever know what
35:46
Speaker 1: is true. But on one topic, Kimball did make a
35:50
Speaker 1: point that gave us pause. The FBI is like a
35:54
Speaker 1: dog with a bone. Once she gets that idea of
35:57
Speaker 1: that bone in his mouth, you can't get him to
35:59
Speaker 1: look you. He can't get him the roll over. He's
36:01
Speaker 1: taking him to fits because he's convinced that that phone.
36:04
Speaker 1: They get something in their minds and they don't want
36:07
Speaker 1: to be wrong. Nobody wants to admit a mistake. That
36:10
Speaker 1: I mean, they got me out of prison to help them,
36:12
Speaker 1: and I killed full of people. Had never said that
36:14
Speaker 1: was a mistake underpart, Okay, you heard it from the
36:18
Speaker 1: horse's mouth. This confidential informant that the FBI is has
36:21
Speaker 1: used to solve the case, or try to solve it,
36:24
Speaker 1: committed four murders. Hello, we're talking about a serial killer
36:30
Speaker 1: Scott Lee Kimbel Okay that but as I've always said
36:35
Speaker 1: many many times, Jody Gottlieb with me is Jodie Gottlieb
36:39
Speaker 1: and David Payne who have created an awesome podcast named
36:44
Speaker 1: Somebody Somewhere. Jody, I mean, sometimes you gotta go to
36:48
Speaker 1: hell to get the devil, to get the witnesses to
36:51
Speaker 1: put the devil in jail. That's the reality of jail
36:54
Speaker 1: house snitches. That's what you have to do to prove
36:56
Speaker 1: the case. Sometimes it is and Nancy, we you know,
37:00
Speaker 1: we reached out to him in knowing um that he's
37:05
Speaker 1: a con man. He has a he's a convicted felone
37:09
Speaker 1: with a long list of crimes, white collar crimes, and
37:13
Speaker 1: while he was out on you know, out of prison,
37:17
Speaker 1: he went on to kill at least four people that
37:20
Speaker 1: we know of, there could be many, many more. He's
37:24
Speaker 1: one of the most notorious serial killers and Colorado's history,
37:28
Speaker 1: and we felt it was important that we explore all
37:31
Speaker 1: the options. You know, as we set out to produce
37:33
Speaker 1: this podcast, it was really about following the evidence that
37:37
Speaker 1: we had. It's a federal open, uh cold case, and
37:41
Speaker 1: so you know, this was the evidence we had, and
37:44
Speaker 1: we spoke to him while he's incarcerated in Colorado. You know,
37:48
Speaker 1: David Paine, it's easy to sit back and take pot
37:51
Speaker 1: shots on why did the Feds let him out? He
37:54
Speaker 1: killed four people? Yeah, that's true. What, if anything, did
37:58
Speaker 1: he add to the investigation in Tom Wells's murder. It's
38:04
Speaker 1: a great question. They worked him very hard. They worked
38:07
Speaker 1: him for a significant period of time. They they flew
38:10
Speaker 1: him from Denver where he was being held to work
38:14
Speaker 1: the case in Seattle. He worked with the lead case investigator.
38:17
Speaker 1: They put him up in hotels and they tried to
38:20
Speaker 1: get him to solicit information from a cell mate of
38:25
Speaker 1: his that he had in Alaska, a guy named Jeremiah.
38:29
Speaker 1: And they never could get a confession out of this Jeremiah,
38:35
Speaker 1: even though they wired up the rooms and and took
38:39
Speaker 1: all this time and effort with this particular case. But
38:41
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, they could never get
38:44
Speaker 1: any evidence, and ultimately they washed him out and they
38:48
Speaker 1: thought he was not you know, there was nothing fruitful here.
38:51
Speaker 1: So David paying Jodie Gottlieb with me, Jody, where does
38:56
Speaker 1: a pilot from a commercial airline fit into this scenario? Well,
39:01
Speaker 1: very early on, Nancy the FBI had identified uh this
39:05
Speaker 1: the Pilot as their key suspect in the case. UM
39:10
Speaker 1: and we he's in our podcast we mentioned him, UM
39:15
Speaker 1: and he had UH. He was characterized as being an
39:19
Speaker 1: odd character and had made threats against UH, local journalists
39:24
Speaker 1: and various people. UM and felt the FBI feel strongly
39:30
Speaker 1: that he is indeed their guy. Why does that solve
39:33
Speaker 1: it by saying that, No, And I think the the
39:37
Speaker 1: way I would characterize it is he was somebody that
39:40
Speaker 1: they logically had to look at. He had made threats
39:43
Speaker 1: against Tom. Tom had prosecuted him right before his murder. Uh.
39:48
Speaker 1: He had this pilot had filed a malicious prosecution case
39:52
Speaker 1: against Tom Wales. He was that angry about him. So
39:56
Speaker 1: he was a logical person for the FEDS to look at.
40:00
Speaker 1: And they have spent now sixteen years trying to put
40:03
Speaker 1: this one guy in the box, I think, to the
40:05
Speaker 1: exclusion of almost everything else. They conducted searches of his house,
40:11
Speaker 1: They've done DNA analysis, handwriting analysis, UM, They've they have
40:17
Speaker 1: set up sting operations on this particular person. UH. And
40:22
Speaker 1: they can't close the deal, which which of course begs
40:25
Speaker 1: the question of whether or not they have the right guy. Yeah,
40:29
Speaker 1: you're right about that. Take a listen to this. Looking
40:32
Speaker 1: at this case with the hindsight of time, it is
40:34
Speaker 1: in fact easy to see how suspicion first came upon
40:37
Speaker 1: and stuck to the pilot. Everyone around Tom knew about
40:41
Speaker 1: this helicopter case, which was so outside the norm of
40:43
Speaker 1: his prior cases, as well as the pilot's public outrage
40:47
Speaker 1: over his prosecution, and Tom was an nerved about it.
40:51
Speaker 1: Here's his friend, Ralph Fascitelli. Tell me about the last
40:56
Speaker 1: time you saw Tom. A couple of weeks after nine eleven,
41:01
Speaker 1: Tom and I decided to hike a mountain in the
41:04
Speaker 1: Cascades here called Mount Dickaming. I remember Tom talking about
41:08
Speaker 1: the case he was prosecuting involving the pilot, and Tom
41:12
Speaker 1: was fearless, almost to her fault, But I remember he
41:15
Speaker 1: I don't think i'd call it fear, but rerepudation and
41:19
Speaker 1: grudging respect that the individual had conviction that what he
41:23
Speaker 1: was doing was right and wouldn't let go. I think
41:27
Speaker 1: Tom really didn't know what to make of this guy.
41:29
Speaker 1: He was intelligent, he was dogged, but maybe even a
41:32
Speaker 1: little bit crazy, and I could tell there was something
41:35
Speaker 1: in his voice about it, the way you just described
41:38
Speaker 1: him as somebody not willing to let go. Is almost
41:42
Speaker 1: the same way you described Tom. Yeah, I think they
41:45
Speaker 1: were very similar. I mean, you can imagine, you know,
41:48
Speaker 1: two bulldogs on the other side. Did you talk about
41:51
Speaker 1: the case or did he talk about the person? He
41:53
Speaker 1: talked about the person more than anything else. The guy
41:56
Speaker 1: was smart. The guy was willing to put it all
41:58
Speaker 1: on the line for his leave. But I also think
42:02
Speaker 1: he thought the guy was capable of doing almost anything.
42:07
Speaker 1: I did sense a certain weariness and trepidation, and he
42:11
Speaker 1: didn't know what to make of the pilot. On the
42:13
Speaker 1: evening of October eleven, Tom Wills sitting at his computer
42:17
Speaker 1: at home and his home office in his basement. But
42:21
Speaker 1: that basement had daylight windows. Okay, so it wasn't subterranean.
42:26
Speaker 1: A gunman manages to somehow avoid the security lights in
42:31
Speaker 1: Wills's backyard, Okay, so obviously the place had been cased
42:36
Speaker 1: before the shooting. Gets in the backyard, avoids the security
42:40
Speaker 1: lights and shoots Tom and the neck through a window
42:46
Speaker 1: with a handgun. Now, the only thing that makes me
42:50
Speaker 1: think it was not so professional was the kidder leaves
42:53
Speaker 1: behind shell casings and the shots were heard by a
42:58
Speaker 1: neighbor who called I one one. Now, the fact that
43:01
Speaker 1: a neighbor heard it shows there was not a silencer.
43:05
Speaker 1: So how professional is that to you, Jody, Right? And
43:11
Speaker 1: we explored that and feel that it was not a
43:14
Speaker 1: professional who did it. Um. There were a number of
43:17
Speaker 1: case things that were left at the scene. Um and
43:21
Speaker 1: uh we explored all the ballistics the crime scene that
43:27
Speaker 1: we could. You know, it's an open federal case and so, uh,
43:30
Speaker 1: the information was limited. What we do know is that
43:34
Speaker 1: the crime scene had been contaminated and uh, the case
43:39
Speaker 1: had been bifurcated between the FBI and the Seattle Police Department,
43:44
Speaker 1: which adds a layer of complexity about who actually owned
43:47
Speaker 1: the crime scene and what it looked like and um,
43:50
Speaker 1: and so it added added a layer of complexity and
43:54
Speaker 1: difficulty to solve it based on the fact that the
43:57
Speaker 1: crime scene was in fact contaminated. Interesting that you think
44:01
Speaker 1: the crime scene was intent contaminated. But up to right now,
44:05
Speaker 1: in the last weeks, the FBI has actually stated that
44:10
Speaker 1: quote evidence strongly suggesting Wales was murdered by professional killer.
44:18
Speaker 1: Now they are just citing it's a professional killer. What what? What? David? Yeah,
44:23
Speaker 1: it's interesting, you say, that because that's all given on
44:26
Speaker 1: background and through leaks in the in the official presentation
44:32
Speaker 1: at the press conference that headlined Rod Rosenstein a couple
44:35
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, they did not provide that information. That
44:39
Speaker 1: information that you're referring to came from a quote law
44:43
Speaker 1: enforcement source, and they say, and they believe it was
44:48
Speaker 1: a conspiracy that was connected to the killing. And I
44:52
Speaker 1: don't think they believe. I think, to give them their
44:56
Speaker 1: fair statement, they believe someone may have been hired or
44:59
Speaker 1: worked at their prime suspect. Uh. Professional only in the
45:05
Speaker 1: sense of being paid, but not professional in its execution. Okay,
45:10
Speaker 1: professional in since they were paid, but not so professional
45:13
Speaker 1: in the way the guy was murdered. To Joseph Scott Morgan,
45:17
Speaker 1: truer words were never spoken. I mean, what pro is
45:20
Speaker 1: behind shell casings? Yeah? Not not too many? Uh, and
45:26
Speaker 1: it it uh you know it sounds I don't know.
45:29
Speaker 1: It's going back to what David had said. This bifurcation
45:34
Speaker 1: has taken place. I've worked on a number of cases
45:37
Speaker 1: involving federal investigators where their interests uh completely deviate from
45:43
Speaker 1: those of local authorities. And you know the old adage
45:46
Speaker 1: about too many UH cooks in the kitchen spoiled the soup, Uh,
45:51
Speaker 1: and the focus is lost. The focus here is simply,
45:57
Speaker 1: very very simply UM homicide that was committed in Seattle. UM.
46:03
Speaker 1: And it's very easy to get drawn in emotionally and
46:07
Speaker 1: and talk about, you know, what a crusader he was
46:09
Speaker 1: and all that sort of things. There are a lot
46:10
Speaker 1: of other people that die in Seattle as well. At
46:13
Speaker 1: the end of the day, this is a homicide that
46:16
Speaker 1: occurred in Seattle and it should be worked as such.
46:20
Speaker 1: Now it seems like they've got a convoluted mess on
46:24
Speaker 1: their hands. Yeah. I wanted to add also, you know,
46:28
Speaker 1: this case has has gone on for sixteen years and
46:31
Speaker 1: there's you know, huge amounts of of UM subfiles in
46:37
Speaker 1: this case and information that they've gathered. And I do
46:42
Speaker 1: wonder even if they were able to charge someone, whether
46:45
Speaker 1: they would be able to in fact get a conviction
46:47
Speaker 1: just based on the amount of evidence that they have.
46:50
Speaker 1: You can I ask, can I ask one quick question
46:54
Speaker 1: just clarity? Yeah, I'm very curious, UM, at what point
46:59
Speaker 1: in tom and how did the Feds go about justifying
47:04
Speaker 1: uh they're taking charge of the case. Is it simply
47:07
Speaker 1: based upon the fact that he is a federal employee,
47:10
Speaker 1: or did they put forth the premise that, oh, we
47:13
Speaker 1: think that this is an assassination, ergo, we're going to
47:17
Speaker 1: take over the case. I think that's that's where I
47:20
Speaker 1: need clarification. I think that probably a lot of people
47:23
Speaker 1: in the audience would like to know that as well. Yeah,
47:25
Speaker 1: you hit the nail on the head at the at
47:27
Speaker 1: the beginning of the case. Of course, nobody knows why
47:30
Speaker 1: he was killed. And if he was killed just because
47:33
Speaker 1: it was a random homicide or a personal thing or
47:36
Speaker 1: something related to his work on gun control, that would
47:39
Speaker 1: make it the purview of the Seattle police. Uh. The
47:42
Speaker 1: only theory under which the FEDS take it is if
47:45
Speaker 1: it was related to his casework. And so originally what
47:49
Speaker 1: they did nobody knew, and there was wrangling in the
47:52
Speaker 1: case from the very night of the crime and who
47:54
Speaker 1: managed the crime scene. What they eventually did within the
47:57
Speaker 1: first three months of the case was the side to
48:00
Speaker 1: create a task force that was led by the FBI
48:03
Speaker 1: and had a Seattle Police detective assigned. But I will
48:07
Speaker 1: tell you that from the Seattle Police Department's point of view, Uh,
48:12
Speaker 1: they feel like they were boxed out of that case. Guys,
48:15
Speaker 1: we're talking about the assassination, the murder of a federal prosecutor.
48:20
Speaker 1: It was huge and horrific news in Seattle, where Tom
48:27
Speaker 1: Wells was a very respected and very liked figure. I mean,
48:34
Speaker 1: this is the guy who graduates from law school and
48:37
Speaker 1: has the potential for a very lucrative career, making a
48:41
Speaker 1: lot of money with the New York law firm. But
48:43
Speaker 1: what does he do. He turns his back on that
48:46
Speaker 1: to become a federal prosecutor in the Seattle area. He
48:50
Speaker 1: gives his life to that and ends up dead at
48:54
Speaker 1: his home computer working the case still unsolved. We are
49:01
Speaker 1: following the podcast Somebody Somewhere because we want answers in
49:06
Speaker 1: the murder of Tom Wells. To David Payne and Jodi Gottlieb,
49:12
Speaker 1: who have created Somebody Somewhere, thank you so much for
49:15
Speaker 1: being with us. Thank you thanks for having us. Nancy
49:19
Speaker 1: Grace Crime Stories signing off, goodbye friend.