Latest / Two Ts In A Pod with Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge / Legally Brunette: The Yogurt Shop Murders

Transcript

Legally Brunette: The Yogurt Shop Murders · Two Ts In A Pod with Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi guys, Welcome to another episode of Legally Brunette. I
0:04
Speaker 1: will be your host today, Emily Simpson with Shane Shane Simpson.
0:10
Speaker 1: First of all, again just a reminder, we are now
0:13
Speaker 1: on our own feed, so if you could, if you
0:16
Speaker 1: love listening to us, you can go over to our
0:19
Speaker 1: feed called Legally Brunette. It's so much easier to find
0:22
Speaker 1: now click follow, so make sure you're following us and
0:25
Speaker 1: all of our episodes are now populated there so you
0:27
Speaker 1: don't have to kind of go through two Teas to
0:29
Speaker 1: locate them. Also, just a big shout out and thank
0:32
Speaker 1: you to Two Teas. That was definitely a huge help
0:35
Speaker 1: for us to launch this podcast. It allowed us to
0:39
Speaker 1: have an audience that could come and listen and really
0:42
Speaker 1: enjoy us. So a big thank you to them for
0:44
Speaker 1: allowing us to get our start.
0:45
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you.
0:46
Speaker 1: So today, let's do just a little bit of updates.
0:49
Speaker 1: There were a couple of things in the news that
0:50
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about because we've been following Menandez
0:53
Speaker 1: through all of this, so there were some new things
0:56
Speaker 1: that came up, so let's just go through those. First
0:58
Speaker 1: of all, if you remember we talked about in earlier episodes.
1:01
Speaker 1: If you want to go back and listen to any
1:03
Speaker 1: of our earlier Menindez episodes, there was a habeas petition
1:07
Speaker 1: before Judge Ryan and that was basically asking for a
1:10
Speaker 1: new trial based on new evidence. So recently the judge,
1:15
Speaker 1: Judge Ryan denies the Menindez brothers petition for a new
1:18
Speaker 1: trial and their latest setback that was an ABC News article.
1:22
Speaker 1: So last Tuesday, had Judge denied the Menindez brothers Habeas
1:25
Speaker 1: corpus petition which they had submitted back in twenty twenty three.
1:29
Speaker 1: That was to throw out their old conviction and receive
1:32
Speaker 1: a new trial based on recently discovered evidence. And if
1:36
Speaker 1: you do remember the two new pieces of evidence, do
1:38
Speaker 1: you remember what they were? The two new pieces of
1:40
Speaker 1: evidence was.
1:41
Speaker 2: A letter from a childhood or a longtime friend or cousin, Yeah,
1:47
Speaker 2: that claimed abuse. So it kind of corroborated the stories
1:50
Speaker 2: that the father was abuse, right.
1:51
Speaker 1: It was a letter that Eric Menindez had written to
1:55
Speaker 1: his cousin Andy basically alluding to the sexual abuse by
1:59
Speaker 1: his father Jose. So that was included in the habeas
2:03
Speaker 1: And the second piece of new evidence, do you remember
2:06
Speaker 1: the second one? The fingerprints on the knife no, no,
2:10
Speaker 1: there was no knife in case Ron case it was.
2:14
Speaker 1: There was a documentary that came out about the Menudo.
2:17
Speaker 1: A member of the Menudo, remember the band.
2:19
Speaker 2: Was another witness testimony, right.
2:21
Speaker 1: Roy Roussello, that's his name. I watched it. He also
2:25
Speaker 1: came forward and said that when he was a member
2:28
Speaker 1: of Menudo and he was very young, that he was
2:30
Speaker 1: also abused by Jose. And so those were the two
2:37
Speaker 1: pieces of corroborating evidence. However, the judge said that the
2:42
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight letter from Andy Cano, who was the cousin,
2:45
Speaker 1: about alleged abuse, was not very strong, even saying it
2:48
Speaker 1: contradicted the brother's attempts at a new trial. The judge said,
2:52
Speaker 1: neither piece of newly discovered evidence is particularly strong. The
2:56
Speaker 1: Cano letter contradicts in part the testimony of Eric and
3:00
Speaker 1: Andy Canno, who testified in the original trials. It also
3:04
Speaker 1: only corroborates what was already discussed at length by both witnesses.
3:07
Speaker 1: The two did discuss Jose's abuse. At best, it does
3:11
Speaker 1: not additionally inform the jury of petitioner's alleged fear at
3:13
Speaker 1: the time of the murders, and at worst, it puts
3:15
Speaker 1: a crack and the credibility of both witnesses. I'm not
3:18
Speaker 1: sure exactly what he means by the credibility of both witnesses,
3:21
Speaker 1: but I do understand where he's saying. The main issue
3:23
Speaker 1: is whether they were justified in killing their parents that
3:28
Speaker 1: night because they were fearful of their life, and that's
3:31
Speaker 1: why they claim that they got the shotguns and they
3:33
Speaker 1: shot their parents because they were afraid their parents were
3:35
Speaker 1: going to kill them. And he's saying, this letter corroborates
3:38
Speaker 1: the abuse, but it doesn't help.
3:40
Speaker 2: With the women at fear the eminent fear exactly.
3:44
Speaker 1: The judge also disputed the relevance of testimony from Roy Rosello,
3:48
Speaker 1: who is the member of Menudo. As for the Rosello
3:51
Speaker 1: declaration that corroborates the general allegation that Jose was sexually
3:54
Speaker 1: abusive of boys and young men, but it is not
3:56
Speaker 1: relevant to the petitioner's state of mind at the time
3:58
Speaker 1: of murders. It's the same thing. It's saying, Yeah, again,
4:02
Speaker 1: this corroborates that he was sexually abusive. However, again it doesn't.
4:06
Speaker 2: It just stops there. Yeah, Okay, we're not fine. There's abuse,
4:10
Speaker 2: but there's more needed in order to have a better
4:13
Speaker 2: defense exactly.
4:14
Speaker 1: So, speaking at a news conference on Tuesday after the
4:16
Speaker 1: judge's decision, La County District Attorney Nathan Hakman told reporters
4:20
Speaker 1: that the judge's decision amounted to a full cabash on
4:23
Speaker 1: the brothers habeas petition. And he's right now that the
4:27
Speaker 1: judge made a decision on the habeas petition. There's there's
4:29
Speaker 1: no other road that's done. There's nothing else to do,
4:34
Speaker 1: so that road is blocked. They still have the possibility
4:38
Speaker 1: of getting out on parole, which we spoke about previously
4:41
Speaker 1: when we did an episode on that's.
4:44
Speaker 2: Not for three years.
4:46
Speaker 1: Well, it said remember we were, it said eighteen months
4:49
Speaker 1: they would be eligible. I think they they in eighteen
4:52
Speaker 1: months they can start petitioning for parole and probably start.
4:57
Speaker 2: But if all goes well, it wouldn't be sooner than.
4:59
Speaker 1: Three to be sooner than three years. So anyway, that
5:02
Speaker 1: is their other option. And then there's always the option
5:04
Speaker 1: that Governor Newsome decides to uh.
5:08
Speaker 2: He actually wakes up and he wakes up attention.
5:11
Speaker 1: He's like, what he could commute them and you know,
5:15
Speaker 1: maybe getting people's.
5:16
Speaker 2: Good greases exactly, and the Menudo brothers and they're like, no, sir,
5:19
Speaker 2: Menendez brothers. We've gone over this before.
5:22
Speaker 1: It's Menendez, all right. So that is an update on Menendez.
5:25
Speaker 1: We'll keep following that and see what happens. I don't
5:28
Speaker 1: know what do you think the likelihood of them ever?
5:29
Speaker 1: Do you think they'll be paroled at some point? No, no,
5:32
Speaker 1: you don't.
5:33
Speaker 2: I have no reason to think they would in three
5:35
Speaker 2: years versus right now. All that's happened. Well, I don't
5:37
Speaker 2: know what could happen in the next three years. I
5:40
Speaker 2: guess they would have to use any different because then't
5:42
Speaker 2: they have like cell phone use. So they were.
5:44
Speaker 1: Right, they had some infractions and they had cell phone use.
5:46
Speaker 1: So I guess if they were just had a clean
5:48
Speaker 1: record for the next three years and they didn't have
5:50
Speaker 1: any maybe then you know, I think it's a possibility,
5:54
Speaker 1: but maybe again, we'll see. We'll continue to follow it.
5:58
Speaker 1: Another update, just a brief update on Lively in Baldoni.
6:01
Speaker 1: We took a step back from that because I was
6:03
Speaker 1: tired of talking about Blake Lively. But I think there's
6:09
Speaker 1: some interesting things that have come up in the trial recently,
6:11
Speaker 1: or not the trial, but the case. They're going to
6:13
Speaker 1: go to trial next spring at least that's on the calendar.
6:18
Speaker 1: We'll see what continues to happen. But Justin Baldoni has
6:21
Speaker 1: hired Alexandra's Shapiro to join his legal team amid his
6:24
Speaker 1: ongoing case with Blake Lively. If you don't remember the
6:27
Speaker 1: name of Alexandra Shapiro, she was part of Ditty's defense team.
6:32
Speaker 1: The addition of Shapiro to Baldoni's team comes as he
6:35
Speaker 1: is facing further scrutiny as another individual has come forward
6:39
Speaker 1: with claims of harassment. This is according to a newly
6:42
Speaker 1: filed court document, which was obtained by The Daily Mail. Also,
6:46
Speaker 1: I do remember when we talked, when I read all
6:48
Speaker 1: the legal documents in the beginning, when it came to
6:49
Speaker 1: Blake Lively, her original CRT, I think that's what it
6:54
Speaker 1: was called. It was the civil rights violation. Remember, it
6:57
Speaker 1: wasn't an actual This is.
6:59
Speaker 2: The form the allegations.
7:04
Speaker 1: And she alleged in that first initial complaint that there
7:08
Speaker 1: was someone else on this set that also had filed
7:12
Speaker 1: something against him for harassment, but she didn't name who
7:14
Speaker 1: it wasn't there wasn't any details and it was very vague,
7:17
Speaker 1: So I don't know if this is the same person.
7:23
Speaker 1: Or if this is someone different that they managed to find.
7:28
Speaker 1: In a sworn declaration filed by Blake Lively's lawyer, the
7:31
Speaker 1: individual whose name has been redacted alleged they endured repeated
7:35
Speaker 1: negative interactions with mister Baldoni and his associates, including verbal
7:39
Speaker 1: abuse by mister Baldoni. The unnamed person further claimed that
7:43
Speaker 1: Baldoni was not permitted on set during the majority of
7:46
Speaker 1: production as a result of those experiences. I don't know
7:50
Speaker 1: if this person is referring to it ends with us.
7:54
Speaker 1: We've already discussed the fact that he wasn't allowed on
7:56
Speaker 1: set because Blake Lively make sure.
8:01
Speaker 2: That he was.
8:02
Speaker 1: He was taken off of the movie, So I don't know. Also,
8:05
Speaker 1: it's very hard for me to find this man to
8:08
Speaker 1: be verbally abusive. After all of the research. I've done everything,
8:12
Speaker 1: I've read, all of his text messages, all of his
8:15
Speaker 1: communications with Blake Blake Lively. I don't find him to
8:18
Speaker 1: be a.
8:19
Speaker 2: Verbally find her to be more verbally abusive than him. Well,
8:22
Speaker 2: I find things you've read and seen.
8:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of interviews with
8:27
Speaker 1: her where she's very self righteous.
8:29
Speaker 2: But even the text messages.
8:31
Speaker 1: She is and so I don't know. It's hard for
8:33
Speaker 1: me to believe that there's any type of verbal abuse
8:38
Speaker 1: when it comes to this man, I don't know, I
8:40
Speaker 1: don't I don't find it. I don't know. We'll have
8:42
Speaker 1: to have more information to find it credible. But the
8:44
Speaker 1: individual also said they requested that Baldoni not be involved
8:48
Speaker 1: in marketing or public relations efforts, which I again, I
8:51
Speaker 1: believe that that was Blake Lively requesting that he not
8:55
Speaker 1: be involved in any of the marketing. And he was
8:56
Speaker 1: removed from a lot of the things, even a premiere day, right, Yeah,
9:00
Speaker 1: he was in the basement at premiere days. So I
9:02
Speaker 1: don't know who this other person is. This will be
9:05
Speaker 1: interesting once that comes out. A source told TMC that
9:08
Speaker 1: the individual is likely to testify against Justin and Lively's trial.
9:12
Speaker 1: The filing also references Baldoni's business partner, Wayfair co founder
9:16
Speaker 1: Steve Sorrowitz, noting that the accuser had been contacted by
9:20
Speaker 1: sorrowitz assistant to arrange a meeting, though no specific topic
9:24
Speaker 1: for the discussion was identified. The document was filed on
9:28
Speaker 1: September fourth of twenty twenty five and was submitted under
9:31
Speaker 1: penalty of perjury. Okay, I find this interesting because we'll
9:34
Speaker 1: continue to follow that because again, when we talked about
9:36
Speaker 1: this case earlier, Sorrowitz is kind of like a silent partner.
9:39
Speaker 1: But I do remember that she made allegations that he
9:43
Speaker 1: was on set when she was doing the birthing scene
9:46
Speaker 1: and that she was uncomfortable with him being there, and
9:49
Speaker 1: that I don't know. I just again, it just seems.
9:54
Speaker 2: Who would work with her? Again, I wouldn't.
9:57
Speaker 1: Well, when she reaches out to you and asks you
9:59
Speaker 1: to be in her next movie, you can.
10:01
Speaker 2: Tell her how I feel like I would. However, paying attention,
10:08
Speaker 2: my wife doesn't like you, no, allegedly alleged.
10:21
Speaker 1: We're gonna go on and move on to the bulk
10:23
Speaker 1: of what we're going to talk about today, which is
10:24
Speaker 1: the Yogurt Shot Murders. This is a four part HBO series.
10:29
Speaker 1: It was recently just came out on HBO, so if
10:31
Speaker 1: you have the opportunity to watch it, I think it
10:33
Speaker 1: was very very interesting. It was done well.
10:36
Speaker 2: So.
10:36
Speaker 1: The Yogurt Shop Murders refer to a nineteen ninety one
10:39
Speaker 1: unsolved quadruple homicide of four teenage girls at an Austin, Texas.
10:44
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's yogurt. Do you remember that? Do
10:47
Speaker 1: you remember those?
10:47
Speaker 2: No, I just remember I can't believe it's not butter. Oh, Margarine,
10:52
Speaker 2: I don't remember that.
10:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I do remember that. Yeah, I can't believe
10:56
Speaker 1: it's yogurt. They called it icbuy.
10:57
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure it was a play on that phrase. Yeah,
11:00
Speaker 2: either way, right, so this was yeah, okay, now I remember, Yeah,
11:03
Speaker 2: the acronym icby they were popular.
11:06
Speaker 1: Like now, it's yogurt land right here. I don't know
11:11
Speaker 1: in other places, but here in southern California, there's a
11:13
Speaker 1: ton of yogurt lands. But it's the same it's the
11:15
Speaker 1: same concept, but it was called I can't believe it's yogurt.
11:18
Speaker 1: It was a crime that shocked the community and left
11:20
Speaker 1: a lasting trauma. The victims were forced to the back
11:23
Speaker 1: of the shop. This is four young teenage girls, the
11:26
Speaker 1: four victims and the yogurt shop murders. Two of the girls,
11:29
Speaker 1: Eliza and Jennifer, who were both seventeen at the time,
11:32
Speaker 1: worked at the shop.
11:33
Speaker 2: So they're closing shops. It was like eleven o'clock at night.
11:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the end of the night. They're closing. There's
11:39
Speaker 1: two girls at work there. They're closing the shop. That's
11:41
Speaker 1: Eliza and Jennifer. They're seventeen. Sarah, who was fifteen, was
11:46
Speaker 1: Jennifer's younger sister, and then she was there with her
11:48
Speaker 1: best friend Amy, who was thirteen. So you have four
11:51
Speaker 1: teenage girls in a yogurt shop chatting, having a good
11:55
Speaker 1: time cleaning up, closing a shop. Someone comes in and
12:00
Speaker 1: forces them to the back of the shop, ties them up,
12:04
Speaker 1: gags them, and then shot all four girls to death
12:07
Speaker 1: before the shop was then set on fire. The case
12:10
Speaker 1: has remained a significant mystery for years, complicated by aggressive
12:13
Speaker 1: interrogation tactics which we're going to get into that led
12:17
Speaker 1: to false confessions and questionable evidence, before newer technology and
12:20
Speaker 1: investigations brought new focus to the case again. A docuseries
12:25
Speaker 1: titled The Yogurt Shop Murders chronicles the tragedy. It's on HBO. Also,
12:30
Speaker 1: what I thought was interesting about The Yogurt Shop Murders
12:32
Speaker 1: on HBO is the new director used a lot of
12:35
Speaker 1: old footage from I think Variety was going to do
12:40
Speaker 1: a docuseries on it, but for some reason it never happened,
12:43
Speaker 1: So they have all this footage.
12:45
Speaker 2: You're saying a docuseries was initiated, was initiated, Maybe they
12:48
Speaker 2: went through they did a significant amount of it, and
12:51
Speaker 2: then they dropped it.
12:52
Speaker 1: And then they dropped it. I don't know why it.
12:53
Speaker 2: Was dropped, picked up where it left off and added
12:57
Speaker 2: to it.
12:57
Speaker 1: And now now this is recent just it just came
13:01
Speaker 1: out in twenty twenty five, in August, So they've used
13:03
Speaker 1: a lot of that older footage, but they've also added
13:06
Speaker 1: in a lot of new interviews with the family. Also,
13:09
Speaker 1: what's different about the Yogurt shot murders. It's true crime,
13:11
Speaker 1: but I think the director she didn't focus on true crime.
13:15
Speaker 1: She focused on the impact that grief has on the family. Oh,
13:19
Speaker 1: the family, the community and the families, but specifically the families,
13:23
Speaker 1: how it's been thirty years, how where they are, how
13:27
Speaker 1: they've processed through it. I mean you have to think
13:29
Speaker 1: about the one mother lost two daughters. Yeah, nice, and
13:33
Speaker 1: they interview her and.
13:36
Speaker 2: In that horrific manner too. I mean, those are the
13:38
Speaker 2: only thoughts that are going through your head when you're right,
13:40
Speaker 2: child was killed like that?
13:42
Speaker 1: Right. The director was named Margaret Brown, and I read
13:44
Speaker 1: an interview with her and she told Variety, this is
13:46
Speaker 1: in August of twenty twenty five, right after this docu
13:49
Speaker 1: series came out that her team or her it's called
13:54
Speaker 1: A twenty four, that's her production company covered some of
13:57
Speaker 1: her team's therapy costs because they were photos of the
14:01
Speaker 1: actual crime scene and that it was really hard on
14:03
Speaker 1: their system. Now, in the docuseries, they don't show actual
14:07
Speaker 1: photos of the crime scene, obviously for respect to the
14:10
Speaker 1: victims and the families. They show crime scene photos of
14:15
Speaker 1: fire and evidence and things like that, but they don't
14:17
Speaker 1: actually show bodies bodies, right, So let's just go through
14:22
Speaker 1: a timeline of the events and then get to where
14:26
Speaker 1: we at today with this. So, on December sixth, nineteen
14:29
Speaker 1: ninety one, around midnight, all SOMEO firefighters respond to a
14:32
Speaker 1: fire at the camp I can't believe it's yogurt shop
14:34
Speaker 1: on Anderson Lane. Inside they find the bodies of Jennifer, Sarah, Eliza,
14:38
Speaker 1: and Amy, all teenagers that were bound, gagged, shot in
14:43
Speaker 1: the back of the head execution style, and the store
14:45
Speaker 1: had then been set on fire. I mean clearly the
14:48
Speaker 1: fire was set as a way to.
14:52
Speaker 2: Destroy the evidence exactly.
14:53
Speaker 1: So nine days later, this is December fifteenth, and nineteen
14:58
Speaker 1: ninety one, the police stop this young kid named Maurice Pierce,
15:03
Speaker 1: he's sixteen at the time, at the North Cross Mall.
15:06
Speaker 1: He has a twenty two caliber pistol tucked into his waistband.
15:09
Speaker 2: And that's the same type of gun that was used
15:11
Speaker 2: in the murders. Yes, same caliber anyway, so the twenty two.
15:14
Speaker 1: Was considered a possible match for the murder weapon. They
15:17
Speaker 1: bring Maurice in for an interview and he's interviewed by
15:20
Speaker 1: police Sergeant Hector Polanco, and the interview starts at midnight. Now,
15:24
Speaker 1: this is interesting. This kid is sixteen. He gets brought
15:29
Speaker 1: into the police station. He's sixteen years old. He doesn't
15:32
Speaker 1: have a parent with him. I believe.
15:34
Speaker 2: That's my question is like, if we had a sixteen
15:39
Speaker 2: year old and they don't come home, we'd want to
15:42
Speaker 2: know where they were. And if the police called and said, oh,
15:45
Speaker 2: he's in our interrogation room, you would drive down. I
15:48
Speaker 2: would think, like, okay, where. So I don't know, maybe
15:52
Speaker 2: you do. I don't know what's going on, But a
15:54
Speaker 2: sixteen year old in a police station at midnight is
15:56
Speaker 2: already posing some concerning questions exactly.
16:00
Speaker 1: And there's other boys that become involved and will go
16:02
Speaker 1: through that. But according to the docu series. And I
16:06
Speaker 1: think this is interesting is that these boys come from
16:10
Speaker 1: broken families. And I think that this kid, this kid,
16:15
Speaker 1: Maurice Pearce, was known as like a bad kid, right.
16:18
Speaker 1: He was like the kind of like punk kid in town.
16:21
Speaker 1: He takes a gun to the mall. He's just he's
16:24
Speaker 1: known to be a troublemaker. Also, the fact that he
16:28
Speaker 1: starts getting interviewed at midnight. Who gets interviewed at midnight?
16:31
Speaker 1: Why are they interviewing a teenager at midnight?
16:34
Speaker 2: That's why I'm wondering, this is already off to a
16:36
Speaker 2: bad start.
16:37
Speaker 1: Right. Also, this Hector Polanco who interviews him, I just
16:41
Speaker 1: want to read a little quote about him, because they
16:43
Speaker 1: focus on a lot of problems with Hector. Hector polonco
16:48
Speaker 1: new interrogation. This is what Detective John Jones says, who's
16:51
Speaker 1: the main the main investigator on this case and they
16:53
Speaker 1: interview him in this series. He says, you know, he
16:56
Speaker 1: was a cobra. He had the reputation and homicide for
17:00
Speaker 1: solving the tough cases. Now, when he said that, I
17:03
Speaker 1: thought solving the tough cases or getting people to admit
17:09
Speaker 1: to things that maybe they didn't possibly do. So they
17:15
Speaker 1: also interview in this docuseries Detective Mike Huckabee, who worked
17:19
Speaker 1: on the case. He also speaks to Polanco in the docuseries,
17:23
Speaker 1: and this is what he says about him. The sad
17:25
Speaker 1: thing about it is Hector really is a good investigator.
17:28
Speaker 1: He's a very good investigator, but he don't use it right.
17:31
Speaker 1: Hakkabee says, I've seen him get confessions from somebody that
17:35
Speaker 1: did not have a thing to do with it. But
17:37
Speaker 1: Hector can scare the shit out of you and make
17:39
Speaker 1: you confess. He can. He's okay with it. As long
17:42
Speaker 1: as he gets a confession, he's okay. So this is
17:45
Speaker 1: the man who was interviewing a sixteen year old at midnight.
17:49
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to give those kind of background
17:52
Speaker 1: information on what people say about Hector and think about Hector.
17:57
Speaker 1: So he interviews Maurice. I'm not sure exactly how long
18:01
Speaker 1: the interview goes, but it starts at midnight and the
18:05
Speaker 1: and he actually gets some type of confession from him.
18:07
Speaker 1: I don't think Maurice says that he's actually involved himself,
18:11
Speaker 1: but he names other people and he does give some
18:14
Speaker 1: type of confession as to what happened that night. Then
18:18
Speaker 1: after Polonko's done with him. I'm sure he interviews him
18:21
Speaker 1: all night long. Then the lead investigator, John Jones comes
18:25
Speaker 1: in the next morning and he's like, hey, I need
18:27
Speaker 1: you to take a written statement. He just confessed. So
18:32
Speaker 1: John Jones then takes a written statement. The written statement
18:36
Speaker 1: is almost completely different than the oral interview that he
18:38
Speaker 1: gave just earlier over the night.
18:41
Speaker 2: Is like factually different, yeah.
18:42
Speaker 1: Factually different. Like it's just you know whatever he was
18:45
Speaker 1: telling you know this this Cobra Polonko in this overnight interview. Listen,
18:52
Speaker 1: I go to bed at nine o'clock. If the police
18:54
Speaker 1: call me in to an interview at.
18:56
Speaker 2: Midnight, like Shane's in the interrogation room at midnight, and
18:59
Speaker 2: you'd be like, okay, me in the morning.
19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I'm saying, but if I'm saying, if I'm
19:03
Speaker 1: getting interviewed a midnight, yes, I'm like, I might. I
19:07
Speaker 1: don't know what I would agree.
19:08
Speaker 2: The difference is you would know a little bit more
19:10
Speaker 2: of your rights and you would be like, I'm not
19:12
Speaker 2: gonna you know, I need an attorney or if you're
19:14
Speaker 2: not holding me against my will, then I'm going to
19:16
Speaker 2: go home. But his sixteen year old right a six
19:19
Speaker 2: year old is going to be intimate, especially if they're
19:20
Speaker 2: carrying a gun. And if he didn't do anything wrong,
19:23
Speaker 2: he's just playing and he has a gun, which I
19:25
Speaker 2: don't approve of. But he has a gun and he's
19:27
Speaker 2: just being playful, or he thinks he's cool and he
19:29
Speaker 2: has a gun and then this happens, He's gonna be scared, right.
19:33
Speaker 1: So again, Maurice never actually confesses to the murders himself,
19:37
Speaker 1: but he does claim his friend Forrest Welborn took his
19:40
Speaker 1: pistol and told him that he shot the girls and
19:42
Speaker 1: that he liked watching them burn. So he's not admitting
19:46
Speaker 1: that he himself was involved, but he's naming other people
19:49
Speaker 1: that were involved. Police wire Maurice to get a confession
19:52
Speaker 1: from Forrest, but the confession never comes. He actually like
19:56
Speaker 1: gets wired and goes and talks to his friend Forrest
19:59
Speaker 1: about it, and friend Forrest never he never admits to
20:03
Speaker 1: anything or says that he was involved.
20:04
Speaker 2: In any way because he wasn't involved.
20:07
Speaker 1: Forrest insists that it was just a joke and that
20:09
Speaker 1: he had nothing to do with the murders. He was
20:11
Speaker 1: with Maurice the whole night. Then eight years later, so
20:14
Speaker 1: that goes nowhere, right right, They don't really get much
20:18
Speaker 1: of a confession. They try to get Forrest, you know,
20:21
Speaker 1: on wiretaps saying that he was involved, he doesn't admit
20:24
Speaker 1: to doing anything there. Also, there's no physical evidence taken
20:28
Speaker 1: from this crime scene because of the fires. Then when
20:32
Speaker 1: the fire department arrives and they hose everything down, everything
20:34
Speaker 1: gets wet, so then you can't get fingerprints. They don't
20:37
Speaker 1: have They have very very small amounts of DNA, but
20:41
Speaker 1: again this is nineteen ninety one, so they can't.
20:43
Speaker 2: Really run it.
20:45
Speaker 1: It's not testable at that time in nineteen ninety one.
20:47
Speaker 1: You have to have large amounts of liquid to be
20:49
Speaker 1: able to test it back then, so they don't have anything.
20:53
Speaker 2: Well, and with the fire, probably whatever other DNA was
20:56
Speaker 2: available that it might have been testable at the time
20:58
Speaker 2: is now destroyed.
21:00
Speaker 1: So then eight years later we get to nineteen ninety eight,
21:02
Speaker 1: So nothing happens with this case until nineteen ninety eight.
21:05
Speaker 1: Police revisit Maurice's involvement in this case and ask why
21:09
Speaker 1: he gave conflicting statements, So they bring him back in
21:12
Speaker 1: to the police station. And you know this is interesting too,
21:15
Speaker 1: because I was talking about this with Jasmine who works
21:17
Speaker 1: with the Innocence Project with me, and she was saying,
21:21
Speaker 1: what's so sad about this? In these interrogations. She told
21:24
Speaker 1: me she has a hard time watching the interrogations. Is
21:26
Speaker 1: what she said is that when people go down to
21:29
Speaker 1: the police station, they're going because they think they're helping, right,
21:34
Speaker 1: they're showing it up.
21:35
Speaker 2: Like the guy that says I was on that bridge. Yeah,
21:37
Speaker 2: last week he said I was on that bridge, right, Like,
21:40
Speaker 2: let me know if you have any.
21:41
Speaker 1: Questions, right exactly in this case, that's interesting you brought
21:44
Speaker 1: it up. That's Richard Allen from the Delphi murders. I
21:47
Speaker 1: find this case to be very similar to Richard Allen
21:50
Speaker 1: and the Delphi murders. And we can talk about.
21:52
Speaker 2: That a little bit. They have a suspect and so
21:54
Speaker 2: they make it fit the crime.
21:55
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, you're talking about teenage girls that
21:58
Speaker 1: are that are murdered and horrific ways. You're talking about
22:02
Speaker 1: no DNA evidence, no fingerprints, no physical evidence left behind
22:06
Speaker 1: in either one. There's a large time lapse that goes
22:09
Speaker 1: by where they don't have a suspect. Then they're bringing
22:12
Speaker 1: people in and they're basically coercing them into confessions and
22:16
Speaker 1: telling them that they were there. It just the Delphi murders.
22:20
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to that, we did that podcast
22:22
Speaker 1: last week. It's very there's a lot of similarities between
22:26
Speaker 1: these two cases. So they bring Maurice back in. This
22:29
Speaker 1: is in nineteen ninety eight, this is eight years later,
22:31
Speaker 1: and they ask why he gave conflicting statements. Maurice can't
22:34
Speaker 1: remember anything, and he never actually confesses, but he does
22:38
Speaker 1: point fingers at the three boys he was with that night.
22:41
Speaker 1: So again he never confesses himself that he was involved,
22:44
Speaker 1: but he does say that there were three other guys
22:46
Speaker 1: that he was with that night that were involved in
22:48
Speaker 1: the case. So then this is September of nineteen ninety nine.
22:52
Speaker 1: First they bring in Forrest Welborn. He's the one that
22:55
Speaker 1: they originally tried to get on a wiretap, admitting that
22:58
Speaker 1: he was involved. Bring him back in. He shows up again.
23:02
Speaker 1: This is the other thing. They just keep going to
23:05
Speaker 1: the police station alone with no no one with them,
23:10
Speaker 1: no attorney, president, they don't ask for an attorney, and
23:13
Speaker 1: they go in and they sit there and I don't know.
23:18
Speaker 2: It's free. Yeah, well this is okay, isn't didn't you
23:23
Speaker 2: tell me something about their legislation to try to make
23:25
Speaker 2: it if you're under age, an attorney has to be
23:27
Speaker 2: afforded to you without you like expressing your need for
23:30
Speaker 2: an insue.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that actually came out of the Terrell Swift
23:33
Speaker 1: case that if you watch Housewives, I I did a
23:36
Speaker 1: scene with Tourell. Remember he was convicted when he was
23:38
Speaker 1: very young, and then he find he signed a false
23:41
Speaker 1: he was he was under age.
23:43
Speaker 2: He was overly interrogated by the police to the point of.
23:47
Speaker 1: Confession false confession. He spent twenty years in prison. He
23:51
Speaker 1: was exonerated by DNA evidence that came out later and
23:55
Speaker 1: then recently, I don't know the name of the bill,
23:57
Speaker 1: but there was a recent California bill that was passed
23:59
Speaker 1: because of his case that he advocated for. That has
24:02
Speaker 1: to do with not being able to interrogate a minor
24:04
Speaker 1: without an attorney. This is present.
24:06
Speaker 2: This is a state thing is yes, this is California.
24:09
Speaker 2: This is a no other states that have that as well, right,
24:11
Speaker 2: I mean it.
24:11
Speaker 1: Should be federal, but it's not. But there's no way
24:15
Speaker 1: that you should ever be able to interrogate child.
24:18
Speaker 2: You want our kids' friends, come on. I feel bad
24:20
Speaker 2: like if I'm going to, like, you know, talk to them,
24:22
Speaker 2: and oh.
24:23
Speaker 1: You get nervous talking to them.
24:25
Speaker 2: Parents.
24:27
Speaker 1: That's Shane, He's weird. He's taller in person, all right.
24:41
Speaker 1: So then Maurice Pierce names Michael Scott. They bring him
24:45
Speaker 1: into interrogate him. Let' 's talk about Michael Scott's interrogation.
24:49
Speaker 1: They interrogate him for over twenty hours, and again he's
24:52
Speaker 1: backed into a corner. He's got two investigators in his face.
24:55
Speaker 1: The real question is do you feel free to leave? Right?
24:58
Speaker 1: That's the legal standard.
25:00
Speaker 2: Well, yes, that is a legal standard. Does anyone ever
25:03
Speaker 2: feel free to leave when you have a police officer
25:05
Speaker 2: standing there and talking to you and then questioning you
25:08
Speaker 2: about something. No one ever feels free to leave.
25:10
Speaker 1: Not when you're at the farthest point of the room
25:13
Speaker 1: from the door, and you have two investigators ten inches
25:17
Speaker 1: from your face leaning forward into you, talking about and
25:21
Speaker 1: asking you about a crime. I don't think anyone would feel.
25:25
Speaker 2: No one free to leave, and I can't blame them
25:27
Speaker 2: for not feeling free to leave. But the courts say that,
25:30
Speaker 2: They say, a reasonable person you just jumped.
25:33
Speaker 1: Up and walked out. Sorry, guys, right, No one does
25:41
Speaker 1: that anyway? Also in Michael's interrogation, they actually pull out
25:48
Speaker 1: a gun at a point because they're re enacting the
25:51
Speaker 1: crime scene, right, and they're saying, Michael, this is what
25:54
Speaker 1: you did. You were there, here's the gun. You know,
25:56
Speaker 1: you went up behind her and you put the gun
25:58
Speaker 1: behind her. And they have an actual gun and they're
26:00
Speaker 1: brandishing it in face, start putting.
26:02
Speaker 2: It to the back of his head, even if it's
26:04
Speaker 2: not loaded. Pointing a gun at someone.
26:05
Speaker 1: That's scary, right, Well, again, a reasonable person standard, do
26:10
Speaker 1: you feel free to leave?
26:12
Speaker 2: Wouldn't feel threatened?
26:14
Speaker 1: Another tactic that they use in these interrogations that was
26:17
Speaker 1: just so clear to me that this is just psychological
26:21
Speaker 1: warfare at this point, right is they're saying, Michael, you
26:25
Speaker 1: know what happened you you tied the girls up? How
26:28
Speaker 1: did you do it? You know how you did it?
26:29
Speaker 1: And the first thing he says is shoelaces, And that's
26:32
Speaker 1: not right, right, it wasn't shoelaces. So they're like, no, Michael,
26:36
Speaker 1: you're not remembering it right. You got to think harder, Michael, Right, Michael,
26:40
Speaker 1: it wasn't shoelaces.
26:41
Speaker 2: What was it?
26:42
Speaker 1: And then he's like electrical cords and they're like, no, Michael,
26:45
Speaker 1: it's not electrical chords. Think harder. I think he even
26:47
Speaker 1: goes on to say napkins. I'm sure this guy's trying
26:50
Speaker 1: to think of everything possible he could think of. And
26:53
Speaker 1: then finally he's like clothes and they're like, yes, that's it, Michael,
26:58
Speaker 1: because they were bound by their clothing. And so, I mean,
27:02
Speaker 1: after four attempts, he finally gets it right and they're like, see, Michael,
27:06
Speaker 1: now you remember, now you remember what you did that night.
27:09
Speaker 2: Goodness. It reminds me of when I worked at Target
27:13
Speaker 2: as an investigator for internal external theft, and anytime we
27:17
Speaker 2: would catch someone internal right, someone on the inside stealing,
27:20
Speaker 2: which was more valuable. It was a really a big deal.
27:22
Speaker 2: If you can catch someone on the inside, because there
27:23
Speaker 2: were more of a liability, you would interrogate them. So
27:26
Speaker 2: you already have all the evidence. You already have the videos,
27:29
Speaker 2: you have the receipts, you have everything. Now you just
27:31
Speaker 2: want a confession for added you know kicks right, So
27:35
Speaker 2: you go and you get them confessed. But you they
27:37
Speaker 2: had rules. Target had rules. You could not be between
27:40
Speaker 2: them and the door. Nothing could be between them and
27:43
Speaker 2: the door, and the door had to be cracked open,
27:45
Speaker 2: so they felt free to leave, and it was really important.
27:48
Speaker 2: And one of the tactics I use, which cops use,
27:51
Speaker 2: which is I don't believe you're a bad person.
27:53
Speaker 1: You just made a bad choice, right you use that?
27:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well no, What I would say is Target's
28:00
Speaker 2: a billion dollar company. They don't care about socks and
28:03
Speaker 2: underwhere right, it's a big deal. Is they want to
28:05
Speaker 2: straighten it out and get their money back. So just
28:07
Speaker 2: you're right down everything you stole and the value. Let's
28:10
Speaker 2: let's get it squared away, let's be done.
28:12
Speaker 1: So you were doing that thing, or you're building rapport,
28:14
Speaker 1: you're being their friend.
28:16
Speaker 2: Which cops do, which is yes, and which is true
28:19
Speaker 2: because I was saying, let's clear it up, write everything down,
28:21
Speaker 2: because you're gonna have to pay them back. I didn't
28:24
Speaker 2: let them know that I already called the sheriff and
28:25
Speaker 2: they're coming to arrest them afterwards once they make apussion. No, no, no,
28:31
Speaker 2: I was truthful.
28:32
Speaker 1: You just omitted things.
28:33
Speaker 2: I just didn't.
28:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, omission exactly right.
28:36
Speaker 2: Anyway. The point is cops can be crookedly and shady.
28:40
Speaker 1: Yes. Also, I think the point of your story is
28:43
Speaker 1: I feel like Target has stricter.
28:45
Speaker 2: Uh oh yeah, way strict, way stricter. Liability. Cops have immunity, right,
28:50
Speaker 2: Can they see the cop and say you assaulted me
28:52
Speaker 2: by putting the gun? Now not really, I mean the
28:54
Speaker 2: police department maybe, and it gets buried. But private organizations bam,
28:59
Speaker 2: big loss, deep pockets. Right.
29:02
Speaker 1: Lastly, they interrogate Robert Springsteen. Robert claims that he went
29:06
Speaker 1: to a Rocky horror picture show that night. When they
29:08
Speaker 1: bring him in for the interrogation, he's very adamant and
29:10
Speaker 1: he's believable. He's like, I had nothing to do with this.
29:12
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. Again, those four guys were kind of troublemakers,
29:16
Speaker 1: and they were all together that night. But they're all
29:18
Speaker 1: pointing fingers at each other.
29:20
Speaker 2: They don't know what's going on.
29:21
Speaker 1: No, and none of their none of their stories really
29:24
Speaker 1: add up. He claims that he does remember that he
29:27
Speaker 1: was at a rocky horror picture show that night. The
29:29
Speaker 1: police then lie to him and tell him that there
29:31
Speaker 1: wasn't even a showing that night. And you can tell
29:33
Speaker 1: during the interrogation when they say to him, hey, we'll
29:37
Speaker 1: just tell you that there wasn't even a showing that night,
29:39
Speaker 1: that he's dumbfounded. He's like, but I but I remember
29:42
Speaker 1: being there. I remember going And then when they lie
29:44
Speaker 1: to him and say there wasn't a showing, then you
29:46
Speaker 1: can tell that he's That's when they start to get
29:49
Speaker 1: him and they start to get him to confess because
29:51
Speaker 1: he's very confused about what's going on, and you're talking
29:55
Speaker 1: about these are guys in their twenties. They're not. I don't,
29:59
Speaker 1: I don't I think any of them are highly educated.
30:01
Speaker 1: They can't find anyone in.
30:03
Speaker 2: Their early twenties is inexperienced to deal with even someone
30:06
Speaker 2: in their forties might be inexperienced to deal with all this.
30:10
Speaker 1: He does remain adamant that he wasn't at the yogurt shop,
30:12
Speaker 1: and he asked to take a light detector test. This
30:14
Speaker 1: is in the beginning of the interrogation, but after hours
30:16
Speaker 1: of interrogating, he eventually confesses to being there, just like
30:22
Speaker 1: Michael Scott does. And then they start talking about things
30:27
Speaker 1: and obviously this again, how would they know details of
30:30
Speaker 1: this case. This case was very huge and there was
30:33
Speaker 1: a lot going on in the media. They also had
30:35
Speaker 1: claimed that they bought a paper the next day when
30:37
Speaker 1: they were in the stolen vehicle. And went to San
30:39
Speaker 1: Antonio that they bought a paper and read about the murder.
30:42
Speaker 1: So whatever these memories are that are coming up.
30:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have some familiarity with.
30:47
Speaker 1: Murder, having exactly exactly a lot of this issue with
30:51
Speaker 1: the false confessions, which they actually go into in the docuseriies,
30:55
Speaker 1: and I was kind of glad that they did. That.
30:57
Speaker 1: Is they say that the police use a nine step
30:59
Speaker 1: interrogation process, and it's widely known as the Read technique.
31:03
Speaker 1: It's been heavily criticized for increasing the risk of false
31:06
Speaker 1: confessions and for being psychologically manipulative and coercive. Tactics used
31:11
Speaker 1: in the Read technique, like psychological pressure, deception, moral justification,
31:17
Speaker 1: can be very effective at eliciting confessions from both guilty
31:20
Speaker 1: and innocent people. And I don't to me, that's what
31:23
Speaker 1: it seems like. I mean, did these boys really have
31:26
Speaker 1: anything to do with this murder that night? My takeaway
31:30
Speaker 1: is no.
31:32
Speaker 2: At least not. The evidence doesn't show that the evidence
31:35
Speaker 2: is weak, right at.
31:36
Speaker 1: Best, they end up being tried. First of all, Force
31:43
Speaker 1: ends up we talked about earlier. Force ends up getting
31:45
Speaker 1: off because he supposedly wasn't involved in it. They'd say
31:49
Speaker 1: that he was like the getaway driver or something. They
31:51
Speaker 1: don't have any physical evidence. The judge let's out on bail.
31:54
Speaker 1: He that's the End's good to them. Yeah. Robert Springsteen
31:59
Speaker 1: is tried convicted of capital murder, largely based on just
32:03
Speaker 1: his confession because again they have no physical evidence capital murder.
32:06
Speaker 1: Day on that evidence, Yes, he gets sentenced to death.
32:10
Speaker 1: This is in May of two thousand and one. Michael
32:13
Speaker 1: Scott goes to trial.
32:15
Speaker 2: Wait, so he is sentenced.
32:16
Speaker 1: Yes, Robert Springsteen is tried in front.
32:20
Speaker 2: Of it jury and is sentencing is death.
32:23
Speaker 1: He has found guilty of capital murder and it's all
32:26
Speaker 1: based on his confession or the other people's confession, them
32:32
Speaker 1: naming him, and he is sentenced to death. Again, there
32:35
Speaker 1: is no DNA evidence, there is no fingerprint, there is
32:38
Speaker 1: no physical evidence that ties other witnesses.
32:40
Speaker 2: There's nothing.
32:41
Speaker 1: Well, the four guys naming each other in their interrogations.
32:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:48
Speaker 1: Michael Scott then goes to trial. His confession is used
32:52
Speaker 1: as the main evidence. Again, there's no fingerprint, DNA, there's
32:55
Speaker 1: nothing that ties him to the crime. He's convicted of
32:58
Speaker 1: capital murder and he receives the life in prison. Maurice
33:03
Speaker 1: Pierce who was the original kid that was brought in
33:06
Speaker 1: for interrogation because he's the one that went to the
33:08
Speaker 1: mall with the gun and the twenty two caliber. He
33:10
Speaker 1: spends some time in jail awaiting trial, but prosecutors eventually
33:14
Speaker 1: drop the charges due to having no physical evidence against him,
33:17
Speaker 1: and he would never actually confess. So he's the only
33:21
Speaker 1: one that never actually confessed to being there and being
33:24
Speaker 1: part of this crime. So the DA drops a case
33:28
Speaker 1: against him. However, they make it very clear that he's
33:30
Speaker 1: still a suspect in their eyes.
33:32
Speaker 2: Sot there.
33:34
Speaker 1: Well, you've got the two gods. So there are four
33:36
Speaker 1: that are all naming each other and they're all being interrogated.
33:39
Speaker 1: You've got two that are convicted, and then you've got Maurice,
33:43
Speaker 1: who actually is The charges are dropped against him because
33:47
Speaker 1: because he never said that he was actually there. He
33:50
Speaker 1: named other people, but he didn't say he was there. Okay,
33:53
Speaker 1: now they go to prison. They spend about ten years
33:57
Speaker 1: in prison, and then they both get there convictions overturned
34:01
Speaker 1: because there are blatant constitutional errors. They So we're talking
34:05
Speaker 1: about Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott. They both have separate trials. However,
34:09
Speaker 1: both pleaded the fifth and did not testify on their
34:12
Speaker 1: own behalf. Also, during their trials, and you'll understand this
34:16
Speaker 1: because this is a sixth Amendment issue, they used confessions.
34:20
Speaker 1: So in Robert's trial, they use confessions from Michael Scotts.
34:25
Speaker 2: A made a confession and pointed to B. B made
34:28
Speaker 2: a confession and pointed A. A pleads the fifth. Therefore he
34:32
Speaker 2: can't be put on the stand. B pleads the fifth.
34:35
Speaker 2: Therefore he can't be put on the stand. Therefore A
34:38
Speaker 2: cannot question B and confront his witness or the accuser,
34:43
Speaker 2: and B cannot question A and confront his accuser. And
34:47
Speaker 2: therefore the confession is inadmissible because you're allowed to. You
34:52
Speaker 2: have a constitutional right to address your accusers exactly.
34:57
Speaker 1: So, just to simplify that, you have the these.
35:00
Speaker 2: Guys are simple, Well it was.
35:02
Speaker 1: There's a lot of a's and b's in there. But
35:04
Speaker 1: basically what happened is these guys are accusing each other
35:07
Speaker 1: during these interrogations, and then they have these written confessions. Correct.
35:10
Speaker 1: They take the written statements and they bring it in
35:13
Speaker 1: and show it to a jury as evidence. However, you
35:16
Speaker 1: can't have Michael Scott's confession during an interrogation against Robert
35:21
Speaker 1: without being able to then cross examin Michael Scott. And
35:26
Speaker 1: Michael Scott didn't testify, so there was no way to
35:29
Speaker 1: cross examine him. So again there were blatant Six Amendment violations.
35:35
Speaker 1: So in June of two thousand and six, the Texas
35:37
Speaker 1: Court of Criminal Appeals overturns Robert Springsteen's conviction, ruling his
35:41
Speaker 1: rights were violated because he did not cross examine Scott,
35:44
Speaker 1: whose confession implicated him. And then in September of two
35:48
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturns
35:51
Speaker 1: Michael Scott's conviction because he could not cross examine Robert Springsteen.
35:58
Speaker 1: So then they end up getting out of prison. Now
36:02
Speaker 1: this is interesting because they do a whole thing in
36:05
Speaker 1: the DA you know, does a press conference and speaks
36:08
Speaker 1: and everything. So now we're in the early two thousands.
36:12
Speaker 1: This murder happened in nineteen ninety one, and again we
36:14
Speaker 1: talked about DNA evidence. They had small traces, but in
36:17
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one it couldn't be tested. However, now we're
36:20
Speaker 1: into like, you know, what are we in like two
36:22
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Now, so now
36:24
Speaker 1: they have this thing called ystr DNA testing, so they
36:28
Speaker 1: could use the small amounts of DNA that they found
36:31
Speaker 1: during a vaginal swab. So they got some DNA from that,
36:35
Speaker 1: but it was a very small amount. But now they
36:37
Speaker 1: can test it. So I know they tested it thinking
36:41
Speaker 1: that that DNA was gonna what match.
36:43
Speaker 2: Back to who one of the guys that they coursed
36:46
Speaker 2: into confessing.
36:47
Speaker 1: Exactly, they think, okay, now we can we can do
36:50
Speaker 1: this high tech new DNA testing.
36:52
Speaker 2: Well they should be testing exactly.
36:54
Speaker 1: They've got this small amount of DNA from a vaginal swab.
36:58
Speaker 1: The full DNA pro file comes back and does not
37:02
Speaker 1: match any of those four boys. So now you've got
37:05
Speaker 1: a full DNA profile of someone else that's not any
37:10
Speaker 1: of those.
37:10
Speaker 2: Four yep, so to clear them. Yeah, yeah, So far
37:14
Speaker 2: there were sentenced to One was sentenced to death. Imagine
37:17
Speaker 2: had that been carried out exactly. That's why the death
37:19
Speaker 2: all these a tough one to do because it's irreversible.
37:24
Speaker 2: You can let people out of jail, right, but you
37:26
Speaker 2: can't bring him back to life.
37:28
Speaker 1: So the state claims that possibly the DNA could have
37:32
Speaker 1: been contamination or a fifth person was involved. They do
37:36
Speaker 1: not rule out the boys. The state tests everyone, and
37:39
Speaker 1: then what the state does This is interesting too. First
37:42
Speaker 1: of all, I watched the docu series and an attorney speaks.
37:45
Speaker 1: He's a defense attorney for Michael Scott, and he says,
37:49
Speaker 1: there's no way that it can be contamination because that
37:51
Speaker 1: DNA sample is found in several other places. It's not
37:56
Speaker 1: just and how can you have contamination on a rape
37:58
Speaker 1: kit and the vaginal swuah, Like that's it's not like
38:02
Speaker 1: in the Amanda Knox trial where they take a bunch
38:04
Speaker 1: of knives and they'll throw them in a bag together.
38:05
Speaker 2: And that's what he's saying about the integrity of the department.
38:08
Speaker 2: That's you know, preserving the evidence in the you know,
38:12
Speaker 2: chaining command and all that, right.
38:13
Speaker 1: But what they did in order to rule out that
38:16
Speaker 1: there was any type of contamination. And when I talk
38:18
Speaker 1: about contamination, that means that someone, you know, someone in
38:23
Speaker 1: the scene accidentally got some their own DNA. So the
38:26
Speaker 1: state tests everyone that could have been present or near
38:29
Speaker 1: the bodies, which was over two hundred men, and not
38:32
Speaker 1: a single person matched. Right. So on June twenty fourth,
38:38
Speaker 1: the two thousand and nine prosecutors announced that they cannot
38:41
Speaker 1: retry Scott or Springsteen due to the new DNA evidence,
38:45
Speaker 1: both men are released from prison, and then in October
38:48
Speaker 1: twenty eighth to two thousand and nine, all charges against
38:51
Speaker 1: Scott and Springsteen are formally dismissed. You know what's interesting
38:56
Speaker 1: is the families, And this also reminds me of the
39:00
Speaker 1: Delphi murders. The families still continue to believe that these
39:03
Speaker 1: four boys are involved in some way. They do they do, yeah,
39:07
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about.
39:08
Speaker 2: It, and I don't want to say that they're not
39:11
Speaker 2: allowed to think that. And obviously they know more about
39:13
Speaker 2: the case than I do, and they're emotionally involved, but
39:17
Speaker 2: it's because they probably have nowhere else to kind of.
39:21
Speaker 1: Grief or yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it Also it
39:25
Speaker 1: reminds me of Delphi too, because to me, I could
39:29
Speaker 1: not find Richard Allen to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
39:33
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that he doesn't have the ability to
39:35
Speaker 1: be the one that committed the murders, but to me,
39:38
Speaker 1: not beyond a reasonable doubt. And I feel the same
39:40
Speaker 1: way about these four boys and this whole new DNA
39:42
Speaker 1: profile that doesn't match any of them, But the families
39:45
Speaker 1: still hold on to the fact that they think it's
39:46
Speaker 1: these four boys, and I think you're right in what
39:49
Speaker 1: you're saying. It's because they need something. Yeah, because I
39:53
Speaker 1: don't know what it's like to go through that kind
39:54
Speaker 1: of grief. No one does, and no one would judge that.
39:56
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with the Delphi murders, where
39:58
Speaker 1: the family is convinced that it's Richard Allen and they
40:00
Speaker 1: can't really It's like tunnel vision, they can't really see
40:02
Speaker 1: outside of that. And also it's because I do realize
40:06
Speaker 1: that these families have a bond with the police officers
40:10
Speaker 1: and the investigators.
40:11
Speaker 2: They they've been invested in in the accused for however
40:15
Speaker 2: many years, right to the trials.
40:18
Speaker 1: And these investigators are following up with them. And what
40:20
Speaker 1: are they saying, these guys did it, We know they
40:22
Speaker 1: did it. We're going to get him for you, you know.
40:24
Speaker 1: And so they don't. They don't have the capacity, I think,
40:27
Speaker 1: to look outside of that. This also is interesting. I
40:31
Speaker 1: did not know this about the case, but Maurice Pearce,
40:34
Speaker 1: who was the original ringleader, right, the one that took
40:37
Speaker 1: the gun to the mall, he ends up being killed
40:40
Speaker 1: in December of two thousand and nine in Austin. A
40:44
Speaker 1: police officer. They try to pull him over during just
40:46
Speaker 1: a routine traffic stop. I think he ran a stop
40:49
Speaker 1: sign and instead of pulling over, he takes off and
40:54
Speaker 1: he runs. They pursue him on foot and tackle him,
40:58
Speaker 1: and in this wrestling around, he grabs the knife from
41:02
Speaker 1: the officer's belt and he stabs the officer in the
41:05
Speaker 1: neck and the officer grabs his gun, shoots him and
41:08
Speaker 1: kills him.
41:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and did the officer survive?
41:12
Speaker 1: The officer survived. Maurice died. And you know what's sad.
41:16
Speaker 1: This is what his defense attorney talks and.
41:19
Speaker 2: Says, Can I guess yeah, as the position that he
41:24
Speaker 2: was fearful of police. Yeah, because he's had reason right
41:27
Speaker 2: for years to be fearful of being convicted of a
41:30
Speaker 2: crime he didn't commit.
41:31
Speaker 1: Right. And also, what they don't they never ended up
41:35
Speaker 1: telling these boys, or I think really even telling the public,
41:38
Speaker 1: which it came out in this docu series, was that
41:41
Speaker 1: original twenty two caliber gun that Maurice took didn't match.
41:44
Speaker 1: Didn't match.
41:46
Speaker 2: Wait, so I never matched. They knew that from the beginning. Yeah,
41:50
Speaker 2: And they were focused on the Rocky Horror Picture show.
41:52
Speaker 1: They were focused on those boys and getting confessions out
41:55
Speaker 1: of them.
41:56
Speaker 2: When it wasn't even the right guy.
41:58
Speaker 1: It wasn't the right gun. No, and that came out later.
42:00
Speaker 1: But this guy, you're right, he suffered from such severe PTSD,
42:06
Speaker 1: from being interrogated so many times, from being arrested, from
42:09
Speaker 1: being put in prison, from thinking that he was going
42:11
Speaker 1: to go on trial.
42:12
Speaker 2: He had no they're gonna get me after something else,
42:15
Speaker 2: They're going to put me back in that jake exactly.
42:17
Speaker 1: So when he can you imagine, I can just picture
42:19
Speaker 1: him in a car running a stop sign, which we've
42:22
Speaker 1: all rolled through at some point.
42:24
Speaker 2: Right, it's an infraction, an infraction.
42:27
Speaker 1: But then he ends up losing his life, which, by
42:30
Speaker 1: the way, he shouldn't run from police. He shouldn't have
42:31
Speaker 1: grabbed the knife. He shouldn't never understand what exactly I mean,
42:35
Speaker 1: they had every right to defend themselves, and.
42:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, police got stabbed in the neck exactly stop exactly.
42:41
Speaker 1: But but his reaction wasn't I'll just pull over and
42:46
Speaker 1: get a ticket, right, like a reasonable person would. His
42:49
Speaker 1: reaction was to flee.
42:51
Speaker 2: And he may not even know why he was pulled over.
42:53
Speaker 2: He saw police, saw flashing lights start there after me.
42:55
Speaker 1: Again exactly, so you know this case, to me is
42:59
Speaker 1: very sad. We were talking about this. It's a tragic case.
43:02
Speaker 1: First of all, it's tragic in the fact that there's
43:04
Speaker 1: four young girls that lost their life one night for
43:07
Speaker 1: for no reason at all, horrifically, horrifically lost their lives.
43:11
Speaker 1: Then you've got these four boys who were interrogated.
43:17
Speaker 2: They were set back in their life for years, probably
43:20
Speaker 2: I don't know what track they were on, you know,
43:22
Speaker 2: to adulthood, but they were set back.
43:25
Speaker 1: And then the two of them spent ten years in prison,
43:27
Speaker 1: one set back ten years, one on death row, one
43:31
Speaker 1: in for life. Yeah, and then you've got these families
43:36
Speaker 1: that are grief stricken, and it's just this investigation did
43:40
Speaker 1: nothing but cause more more tragedy, more tragedy, more loss
43:46
Speaker 1: of life, more grief, more pain. Maurice And you can
43:50
Speaker 1: honestly say, Maurice Pierce, even though he was a punk
43:52
Speaker 1: when he was a kid or whatever, and he brought
43:54
Speaker 1: a gun to the mall, if that kid never took
43:57
Speaker 1: a gun to a mall that day, he'd still be alive.
44:00
Speaker 1: The whole catalyst of this entire situation with these four.
44:03
Speaker 2: Boys, and this maybe a bit of a stretch, but
44:05
Speaker 2: they might have also had better luck with finding the
44:07
Speaker 2: actual criminals. Yeah, you're right, because if they were focused
44:11
Speaker 2: all their energy on these boys, these young men, and
44:15
Speaker 2: they're overlooking all other things, right, sort of like the
44:19
Speaker 2: bridge guy, they overlooked that post it note that had
44:21
Speaker 2: his phone number on it or whatever, because he was
44:23
Speaker 2: at the scene at the bridge last week, and the
44:25
Speaker 2: Delphi murders could very well be the same thing. Right.
44:28
Speaker 1: They get tunnel visions.
44:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, they overlook other there's a term for it. I
44:31
Speaker 2: forgot what it is, but where they overlook other suspects,
44:34
Speaker 2: they're focused on one, and.
44:36
Speaker 1: Then when they focus on that one, they do everything
44:38
Speaker 1: possible to try to make it fit.
44:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, like point a gun at their head, right like that.
44:42
Speaker 1: Twenty seventeen was the twenty fifth anniversary of the yogurt
44:45
Speaker 1: shop murders. The Awesome Police reaffirmed that the case remains
44:48
Speaker 1: open and active. The same DNA profile that was found
44:52
Speaker 1: from Amy ey Or she was the one that they
44:53
Speaker 1: got the vaginal DNA from, is found on other evidence,
44:58
Speaker 1: but by different laps. So that's another thing that they
45:01
Speaker 1: make clear that the investigator makes clear because they've had
45:04
Speaker 1: three different sets of investigators, right, this case has been
45:06
Speaker 1: going on for thirty years, so you had your original investigators,
45:09
Speaker 1: then you had a second investigative team. Now you have
45:12
Speaker 1: a new cold case investigative team on it. And they
45:15
Speaker 1: said that they clarified that this DNA sample could not
45:20
Speaker 1: be contaminated because they've also sent it to two different
45:23
Speaker 1: labs getting the same test results back, so they're adamant
45:29
Speaker 1: that it is a completely different and want sect. In
45:34
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, it was the thirtieth anniversary, authorities confirmed
45:38
Speaker 1: that the DNA profile is of an unidentified male, but
45:41
Speaker 1: it still does not match anyone in the national database. However,
45:45
Speaker 1: you know what, I read something, and this is interesting
45:47
Speaker 1: to me because I don't even really understand what this means.
45:49
Speaker 1: But in twenty twenty, new DNA testing matched evidence from
45:53
Speaker 1: the crime scene to an unidentified man. The Austin American
45:57
Speaker 1: Statesman reported. This was where I read it. Though the
46:00
Speaker 1: FBI allegedly has a matching sample, they have not handed
46:04
Speaker 1: it over to Austin investigators due to legal complications. Now
46:07
Speaker 1: what do you think that means? To me? That sounds
46:11
Speaker 1: like they they It says the FBI allegedly has a
46:13
Speaker 1: matching sample, but they haven't turned it over to the
46:17
Speaker 1: Austin investigators due to legal complications.
46:20
Speaker 2: So that's legal complications.
46:22
Speaker 1: That sounds to me like they that the FBI made
46:25
Speaker 1: some match, but.
46:27
Speaker 2: They're not going to give that the legal complications are.
46:29
Speaker 2: It's not the people we thought it was, That's what
46:33
Speaker 2: it is. It's not the suspects.
46:35
Speaker 1: I don't understand how you can say that there's a
46:37
Speaker 1: that they made some match, but they're not going to
46:39
Speaker 1: hand that information.
46:40
Speaker 2: They say it was a match, No, it says.
46:44
Speaker 1: It says allegedly that they have a matching sample, but
46:47
Speaker 1: they have not handed it over to Austin investigators due
46:50
Speaker 1: to legal complications. Present day, the case remains unsolved. The
46:55
Speaker 1: investigators continue to hope advance forensic technology will identify them
46:59
Speaker 1: as That's.
46:59
Speaker 2: How it is. It's the legal complications.
47:01
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. If I don't know,
47:03
Speaker 1: I don't.
47:04
Speaker 2: Oh, it's very very well be saw. I told you
47:07
Speaker 2: they swept stuff under the road, and then you brought
47:09
Speaker 2: that out.
47:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, I can't imagine that the FBI would have
47:13
Speaker 1: a match and then they don't want to turn that
47:16
Speaker 1: information over. I don't know, but I read that. I
47:19
Speaker 1: think I read that the.
47:20
Speaker 2: Legal complications, it's the chief of police. Yeah, that's legally.
47:24
Speaker 1: Complicated, right, Are there any signs that would point to
47:28
Speaker 1: anyone else? Like, how are we ever going to find this?
47:31
Speaker 1: The crime scene shows that the girls were in the
47:32
Speaker 1: middle of closing up the store when this happened. It's
47:35
Speaker 1: believed that two guys were the last in the shop.
47:37
Speaker 1: Police identified fifty three customers that came in between four
47:40
Speaker 1: thirty and eleven PM and a number of whom saw
47:43
Speaker 1: these two men. Are they the killers? Why were they
47:46
Speaker 1: never identified? Also, I do remember originally do you remember
47:50
Speaker 1: they also originally blamed or brought in those two Mexican
47:54
Speaker 1: There was a Mexican guy that was like a gang
47:55
Speaker 1: leader or something. Oh yeah, yeah, two two of them,
47:58
Speaker 1: I believe, and then they said that he did it.
48:01
Speaker 2: Well, then they were they were in they were they
48:03
Speaker 2: were in Mexico. There were since then, like whenever they surfaced,
48:07
Speaker 2: they were in Mexico. And then the authorities here wanted
48:11
Speaker 2: an extra item or whatever, and then they claimed that
48:15
Speaker 2: the Mexican government said no, we'll prosecute them, and then
48:17
Speaker 2: that's it. That's that's as far as I heard.
48:20
Speaker 1: Well, they were also they also said that their interrogations
48:23
Speaker 1: that they were slapped around and beaten, hit and to
48:25
Speaker 1: get their confessions, because allegedly they gave a confession as
48:29
Speaker 1: well and said.
48:29
Speaker 2: They did it, and the national practice they.
48:32
Speaker 1: Just recanted the following day and and said that you
48:35
Speaker 1: know that they were.
48:36
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know, this is terrible. Oh but
48:40
Speaker 2: didn't they match the composite too well?
48:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that comps you know, composite drawings bother me.
48:45
Speaker 1: It's like it looks like you drew it and then
48:48
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I mean, the they never.
48:51
Speaker 2: Look I don't know. Sometimes they're pretty good.
48:54
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just think back to the Delphi
48:56
Speaker 1: want to remember they had two different composites and like
48:58
Speaker 1: one's an older guy.
48:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not saying they're always dead on, but it
49:02
Speaker 2: is interesting if they look similar.
49:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's another theory possibly with this case. All four
49:08
Speaker 1: girls were members of the f FA, which is the
49:10
Speaker 1: Future Farmers of America, and could some guys have from
49:15
Speaker 1: the FFA have done it because they were also they
49:17
Speaker 1: were bound and gagged and you know when when they
49:21
Speaker 1: you know, when they rope animals and stuff, they bind
49:22
Speaker 1: them like the legs and stuff. And yeah, so I
49:25
Speaker 1: don't know. That's another theory that maybe could have been explored.
49:28
Speaker 1: I don't know, but anyway, I'm.
49:29
Speaker 2: Gonna go with the theory that the police sucked at
49:32
Speaker 2: the investigation.
49:33
Speaker 1: That's a good theory, yeah, allegedly. All right, guys, thank
49:37
Speaker 1: you so much for listening to Legally Brunette. We hope
49:39
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode. Also, just another reminder that we're
49:44
Speaker 1: on our own feed so please find us, follow us,
49:47
Speaker 1: leave a review. We'd love to hear what you guys
49:49
Speaker 1: have to say. And again, if you have any cases
49:51
Speaker 1: that you think are interesting that you would love for
49:53
Speaker 1: us to cover. I always love the feedback, So thanks
49:56
Speaker 1: for listening.
49:56
Speaker 2: Thank you.
50:00
Speaker 1: M