Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Zone 7: When True Crime Gets Too Close to the Case | With Joshua Schiffer

Transcript

Zone 7: When True Crime Gets Too Close to the Case | With Joshua Schiffer · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Y'all, welcome to the party. Our boy is back. It's
0:14
Speaker 1: so good, Cheryl! What?
0:16
Speaker 2: It's so good!
0:17
Speaker 1: Listen, you had to go on an epic road trip.
0:21
Speaker 1: Then you had to retire. Now you're out in the
0:24
Speaker 1: woods growing a beard. But I have seen you occasionally
0:27
Speaker 1: on other shows. And I'm like, have we broken up?
0:30
Speaker 1: Why is he talking to that tramp behind my back?
0:33
Speaker 2: You know you're my favorite. You know you're my number one.
0:36
Speaker 1: I'm just so glad you're home. I'm glad you're back
0:39
Speaker 1: on Zone 7. Lord have mercy. I've got a topic
0:43
Speaker 1: for you. I cannot wait to get your take on
0:47
Speaker 1: this because it's something I'm seeing that I think is
0:50
Speaker 1: taking us down a road that is crazy town. So
0:55
Speaker 1: I'm just going to throw it out. And you're not
0:56
Speaker 1: prepared for anything, but I'm going to throw some things out.
1:00
Speaker 1: And then Joshua Schiffer, you just take it. But here's
1:03
Speaker 1: where we are. I am seeing cases, major cases, where
1:08
Speaker 1: before the police can do anything, the victim has already
1:11
Speaker 1: got a lawyer. The defendant has started a GoFundMe. Jurors
1:17
Speaker 1: are being intimidated by people off the street that ain't
1:21
Speaker 1: got no skin in the game.
1:23
Speaker 3: Fundamental dynamic. For certain cases, and it's certain cases, this
1:29
Speaker 3: is not your traffic ticket, this is not your slap
1:32
Speaker 3: and tickle bar fight, but for certain cases, it is
1:36
Speaker 3: unbelievably apparent that getting active early, immediately, before the investigation
1:43
Speaker 3: has barely started, let alone concluded, is dramatically shifting the
1:49
Speaker 3: way criminal justice works in America.
1:52
Speaker 1: Dramatically. We've got death threats. We've got people losing their jobs.
1:56
Speaker 1: We've got people protesting. We have civilians testing evidence before
2:02
Speaker 1: the police gets their hands on the piece of evidence
2:05
Speaker 1: in the first place.
2:06
Speaker 2: And our courts are not prepared.
2:10
Speaker 3: For this new universe of 24-hour media, of the blogosphere,
2:17
Speaker 3: of fans of people, of true crime, of the community
2:22
Speaker 3: having the ability to immediately get intimately involved. Not, I
2:27
Speaker 3: read a newspaper story about the crime that occurred last week, no.
2:31
Speaker 3: I'm talking about moms and dads, teachers and doctors, lawyers
2:35
Speaker 3: and students getting together in their personal homes and being
2:38
Speaker 3: able to look at cases in ways we never did
2:42
Speaker 3: before and then what that output becomes. Because now I've
2:47
Speaker 3: got people in grocery stores asking me about police reports.
2:51
Speaker 3: I've got people that have jumped online and through just
2:55
Speaker 3: pure interest used their brain to learn more than ever
2:59
Speaker 3: before about some really complicated and important issues.
3:04
Speaker 1: Joshua, when I started in this business formally in 1982,
3:12
Speaker 1: I was taught, you keep your cards close to your vest.
3:17
Speaker 1: Don't you tell that defense attorney what all you got.
3:19
Speaker 1: Don't tell him who all you got and where you
3:22
Speaker 1: got it from. We want some surprises. We're going to
3:25
Speaker 1: hold it till we have to give it. The defense, same.
3:30
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell y'all where I'm going with it.
3:32
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell y'all the surprise witness. Let's
3:35
Speaker 1: do this thing. And nobody knew until it came out
3:40
Speaker 1: in trial. Well, that ain't the case anymore. I'm telling you,
3:45
Speaker 1: it is stunning to me that you've got somebody, because
3:49
Speaker 1: it used to be if you were accused of something
3:51
Speaker 1: really heinous, you kept your mouth shut. You went in
3:53
Speaker 1: the cave and tried to get it gone.
3:56
Speaker 3: You wouldn't even have a lawyer say no comment. They'd
3:59
Speaker 3: just walk away.
4:01
Speaker 2: Walk away.
4:02
Speaker 1: Now you've got people, go ahead, I'm going to go
4:04
Speaker 1: ahead and do a documentary about it.
4:06
Speaker 3: Oh, and the latest this morning, Elizabeth Holmes, remember Theranos?
4:12
Speaker 3: Apparently there's a documentary to end all documentaries that's just
4:16
Speaker 3: dropping on us all. But it's not just that case.
4:19
Speaker 3: It's so many cases and it's changed the fundamental dynamic
4:23
Speaker 3: of how communities interact with crime and law enforcement. And,
4:29
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a big fan of democracy. I'm a
4:31
Speaker 3: big fan of the more educated people. a populace is,
4:35
Speaker 3: the better results we have when we get together and
4:38
Speaker 3: vote on things and control our community. That's the heart
4:41
Speaker 3: of a democracy is a knowing constituency that's involved in votes.
4:46
Speaker 3: But are we definitely or are we seeing some downsides?
4:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
4:52
Speaker 3: We're seeing now if you have the appropriate knowledge and
4:56
Speaker 3: resources and are accused of a substantive crime, Your first
5:01
Speaker 3: call isn't just to a defense attorney, but it's a
5:04
Speaker 3: defense attorney who's gonna put out a whole bunch of
5:08
Speaker 3: other resources to magnify the difficulties.
5:11
Speaker 2: That are inherent in the state's position.
5:13
Speaker 3: The reason the state has that requirement of secrecy and
5:18
Speaker 3: why they wouldn't share anything, that's how you preserved your
5:22
Speaker 3: edge in zealously prosecuting people as an arm of the
5:26
Speaker 3: state required to use all of your legal skills to
5:30
Speaker 3: go obtain convictions on behalf of the state. And that's
5:33
Speaker 3: a different universe now that we have people see and
5:36
Speaker 3: understand how effective an ultra-aggressive defense can be from literally
5:43
Speaker 3: the moment after an alleged crime happened. And it's getting
5:47
Speaker 3: out of this world with who's getting brought in and
5:50
Speaker 3: what kind of strategies are involved.
5:52
Speaker 1: And Joshua, let's get real. Somebody comes into your office
5:55
Speaker 1: to meet with you and they say, hey, I'm going
5:58
Speaker 1: to be accused of this crime, crime X. And the
6:02
Speaker 1: victim's already suing me. And they've already got to go
6:05
Speaker 1: fund me to hire a private attorney to come after you.
6:09
Speaker 1: And they've got some minions that are going to protest
6:12
Speaker 1: out in front of your law firm and call your
6:14
Speaker 1: office every five minutes so no legitimate client can get through.
6:19
Speaker 1: And then they're going to come after you online. And
6:21
Speaker 1: then they may or may not threaten you and your
6:24
Speaker 1: loved ones.
6:25
Speaker 2: What does that do?
6:26
Speaker 3: You know, I can boohoo all I want about private
6:29
Speaker 3: lawyer's I've got plenty of nice resources to take care
6:33
Speaker 3: of myself. Public defenders don't. Prosecutors don't. Law enforcement officials don't.
6:39
Speaker 3: We can't send protective units out and protective patrols to
6:45
Speaker 3: every single.
6:46
Speaker 2: Beat cop on the force.
6:48
Speaker 3: We don't have the ability to take line prosecutors who
6:53
Speaker 3: got up trying to do a job, go be a
6:55
Speaker 3: good successful lawyer, punch the clock, do the work. We
7:00
Speaker 3: don't expect them all to cower in fear from a
7:04
Speaker 3: mob the size of the internet. And that's literally what
7:08
Speaker 3: we are seeing with some of these prosecutions. I don't
7:11
Speaker 3: know the two women that prosecuted Clancy.
7:14
Speaker 2: I don't know them at all.
7:15
Speaker 3: I got some comments as to their effectiveness, but guess what?
7:18
Speaker 3: They got up and did the job. They, I wouldn't
7:22
Speaker 3: trade shoes with them for anything in the world. Those women,
7:27
Speaker 3: those prosecutors who for all we know are just the best,
7:30
Speaker 3: hardest working, quality people, our wives and our daughters, they
7:34
Speaker 3: are basically stained for life and will have a challenging
7:39
Speaker 3: universe forever, especially in that community with the wackadoodles of
7:45
Speaker 3: the world out there hurling insults and Lord knows what
7:48
Speaker 3: more after something as scorchingly hot as the Clancy case
7:54
Speaker 3: has been.
7:55
Speaker 1: And listen, their job's hard enough to have to walk
7:58
Speaker 1: past protesters and then go into a building where, frankly,
8:03
Speaker 1: your coworkers may be split. Everybody's coming at the Clancy
8:08
Speaker 1: case based on their experience. Well, I'm going to tell you,
8:13
Speaker 1: think about it. You've got somebody that suffered badly with postpartum.
8:18
Speaker 1: You've got somebody with four kids that didn't have a
8:20
Speaker 1: lick of it. Well, they may say this case completely different.
8:24
Speaker 3: It's the separation between your job and duties as a
8:27
Speaker 3: professional and what happens to you personally now that we
8:32
Speaker 3: have this whole universe paying more attention than ever to
8:37
Speaker 3: something that they have some idea about. And I love
8:40
Speaker 3: the power of true crime educating communities. But at the
8:43
Speaker 3: same time, the fringes are more frightening and scary than ever.
8:49
Speaker 3: The Clancy case makes anything that happened with Karen Reed
8:52
Speaker 3: look amateur. There are people out there literally trying to
8:57
Speaker 3: argue that it was the husband And I'm like, all right, people,
9:02
Speaker 3: you cannot like the fact that after this horrible thing happened,
9:05
Speaker 3: he married an exact doppelganger for his ex-wife and is
9:09
Speaker 3: having more kids. But listen, go walk a mile in
9:12
Speaker 3: that fella's shoes. He didn't have one thing to do
9:14
Speaker 3: with the death of his children, certainly isn't legally responsible.
9:17
Speaker 3: And for people to come out there and literally accuse
9:20
Speaker 3: him of murdering babies, that, come on, y'all, that's just
9:25
Speaker 3: taking this 10 steps too much.
9:28
Speaker 1: And that's another thing I'm seeing for the first time, Joshua,
9:32
Speaker 1: that somebody that's been wrongly accused is now suing people.
9:37
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
9:38
Speaker 3: We're going to see, I believe, more civil remedies applied
9:43
Speaker 3: to the kind of extracurriculars getting attracted to these big
9:47
Speaker 3: prosecutions because, bluntly, people are committing civil torts and arguably crimes.
9:56
Speaker 3: against some of these individuals. We have seen a couple
9:59
Speaker 3: of big hits against these wannabe influencer true crime folks
10:04
Speaker 3: saying patently outrageous, harmful stuff for clicks. Finally, a couple
10:10
Speaker 3: of them got popped, which we do need to make
10:13
Speaker 3: sure that we are policing them. the people's speech appropriately.
10:17
Speaker 3: We have freedom of speech. I'm a beloved first amendment guy,
10:20
Speaker 3: but there are limits for good reasons. These aren't willy
10:25
Speaker 3: nilly limits. These were limits that were placed into, that
10:29
Speaker 3: were put into place specifically for extraordinary circumstances, far beyond
10:33
Speaker 3: the pale of what our community will accept. And we've
10:37
Speaker 3: got to make sure that we support the truth and
10:40
Speaker 3: fidelity to our court system and our system of laws.
10:43
Speaker 3: And that system of laws is getting beat up left, right,
10:46
Speaker 3: and center these days. It's tough to swallow some of
10:50
Speaker 3: what we're seeing. And as this continues to filter through
10:53
Speaker 3: the criminal justice universe, I know you've seen it. We're
10:57
Speaker 3: having a harder and harder time attracting and retaining quality prosecutors.
11:03
Speaker 3: Prosecuting offices are becoming more polarized than ever. There's really
11:07
Speaker 3: tough politics going on and you've got to have a
11:10
Speaker 3: certain appetite now to get into public prosecution.
11:14
Speaker 2: That's bad.
11:15
Speaker 3: We need the best and the brightest among us to
11:18
Speaker 3: go take these prosecution jobs because the defense Man, I
11:22
Speaker 3: can't win a case if the prosecution does their job 100% right.
11:27
Speaker 1: It is impossible.
11:28
Speaker 3: If the state does their job perfectly, it doesn't matter
11:31
Speaker 3: what I say, what evidence I come up. I can't
11:34
Speaker 3: beat their burden. They carried it. Man, system works. That's
11:39
Speaker 3: the system. If I can disrupt them, if I can
11:43
Speaker 3: show a lack of preparation, inability to fully manage everything,
11:47
Speaker 3: all the other things, the bricks and wrenches I get
11:49
Speaker 3: to throw with them, that's me doing my job. If
11:53
Speaker 3: they can stand up and withstand it, they deserve the win.
11:56
Speaker 3: The Constitution promises them the win. Society needs that win,
12:01
Speaker 3: but we can't get it when we can't attract and
12:04
Speaker 3: retain quality prosecutors, especially early in their career.
12:12
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about one situation with you.
12:14
Speaker 1: There has been death threats. There has been evidence that
12:20
Speaker 1: has not been turned over. There's already been a secondary
12:24
Speaker 1: expert look at a case. There's been nonprofits that have
12:28
Speaker 1: looked at the case. There's been outside people that call
12:32
Speaker 1: themselves experts that have already done some things with evidence,
12:36
Speaker 1: maybe manipulated, maybe not. There's people turning in photos to
12:42
Speaker 1: private people, not law enforcement. There's witnesses that have come
12:46
Speaker 1: forward and made statements that have never talked to law enforcement.
12:49
Speaker 1: There are people that have talked to law enforcement that
12:51
Speaker 1: have also now gone on podcasts. There are people that
12:54
Speaker 1: have lost jobs. There are people that have now been arrested.
12:57
Speaker 1: And we don't even have a criminal case. And that's
13:01
Speaker 1: Nolan Wells. When you look at what has happened in
13:06
Speaker 1: that situation... We do not have a criminal case as
13:12
Speaker 1: of today. That could change all, but we already have
13:16
Speaker 1: a secondary autopsy that we've been able to all look
13:19
Speaker 1: at and go through with a fine tooth comb. We've
13:21
Speaker 1: already had people lose jobs. We've had people arrested for
13:25
Speaker 1: making death threats. We've had people that say, well, the
13:28
Speaker 1: family won't turn the phone over. We've had the family say, Hey,
13:31
Speaker 1: we're going to turn the phone over. But only if
13:33
Speaker 1: a secondary expert again can be on it. I mean,
13:37
Speaker 1: What detective has to wait for evidence? What detective has
13:42
Speaker 1: to say, I can't make a statement because they won't
13:45
Speaker 1: let me, but I do have the results from the
13:47
Speaker 1: first autopsy. I just can't talk about them because we're
13:49
Speaker 1: waiting for the grand jury. And the reason they're going
13:51
Speaker 1: to go to the grand jury and not just come
13:53
Speaker 1: out and say, hey, y'all, this child drowned or this
13:57
Speaker 1: child was killed. They don't want to be the one
13:59
Speaker 1: to do that. For the very reason you're saying, because
14:02
Speaker 1: people are going to show up at their house and
14:04
Speaker 1: So they're going to let the grand jury do their
14:06
Speaker 1: dirty work, just like they're going to let the secondary
14:09
Speaker 1: autopsy medical examiner do their dirty work. They're going to
14:12
Speaker 1: let the FBI do their dirty work. They don't want
14:14
Speaker 1: to do it.
14:15
Speaker 3: And there are so many interconnected levers getting pulled on
14:22
Speaker 3: that case from all parties and parties that weren't even
14:25
Speaker 3: parties to this. It is going to be extraordinarily difficult
14:30
Speaker 3: for any justice to occur.
14:33
Speaker 1: For any Correct. And that's what people don't get. You're
14:38
Speaker 1: actually damaging the case by, quote, helping. And I'll give
14:42
Speaker 1: you an example. I think the United Cajun Navy is
14:47
Speaker 1: one of the greatest nonprofits that have come along in
14:50
Speaker 1: the last decade.
14:51
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Volunteers everywhere.
14:54
Speaker 3: Thousands of hours, if not hundreds, millions of dollars in
15:00
Speaker 3: resources dedicated for free by people trying to do the
15:04
Speaker 3: right thing.
15:05
Speaker 2: It's as great an American thing as Americans do.
15:08
Speaker 1: Amen. They should have never published a report and put
15:13
Speaker 1: it out for God and country before law enforcement. has
15:16
Speaker 1: done their job, in my opinion.
15:19
Speaker 3: And I'm going to say on the same vein, I'm
15:21
Speaker 3: a big fan of America's civil rights bar because the
15:24
Speaker 3: American civil rights bar has moved our country forward and
15:27
Speaker 3: in great ways countless times since before you and I
15:31
Speaker 3: were even born. But by involving some of these prominent names,
15:38
Speaker 3: even by just coming in and saying something's wrong, we
15:42
Speaker 3: need more, let alone casting out some outrageous allegations that
15:48
Speaker 3: are baseless, that are offensive, they know, and that's why
15:53
Speaker 3: we've seen them disappear and draw back a little bit,
15:55
Speaker 3: they know they harmed the best interest of any of
16:00
Speaker 3: these young people getting justice.
16:02
Speaker 1: That's right.
16:02
Speaker 3: Not just the young African-American man that when you look
16:05
Speaker 3: at this situation, you can inject race into just about
16:08
Speaker 3: every part of America, and sometimes it's for the absolute
16:10
Speaker 3: right reasons. Sometimes though, that injection isn't right. And when
16:14
Speaker 3: you make that injection, you hijack the conversation. And it
16:18
Speaker 3: stops being a conversation about police accountability, youth behavior, and
16:23
Speaker 3: suddenly gets hijacked, wrestled to the ground and becomes this
16:27
Speaker 3: brutally inefficient and inaccurate race case that now has swept
16:32
Speaker 3: up so many people. There's not somebody involved with law
16:35
Speaker 3: enforcement in 500 miles that is not gonna get tarred
16:39
Speaker 3: by some of these allegations. And I'm not saying the
16:42
Speaker 3: allegations are true or false.
16:43
Speaker 2: I'm not. That's not what I'm weighing in on. I'm
16:45
Speaker 2: weighing in on the idea that.
16:47
Speaker 3: It is impossible to have a legitimate investigation seeking the
16:52
Speaker 3: truth of what actually happened when there are so many
16:57
Speaker 3: outside factors coming in and pulling on the levers, pulling the.
17:02
Speaker 2: Ropes, rattling the sabers.
17:04
Speaker 3: You just cannot get an honest investigation when it's charged
17:09
Speaker 3: that highly.
17:11
Speaker 1: And here's the reality. Let's say you are completely innocent
17:16
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden Hollywood and athletes and the
17:20
Speaker 1: music industry, some of the biggest names are coming out
17:24
Speaker 1: against you.
17:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:26
Speaker 1: They're giving money to the person that's accusing you. I
17:30
Speaker 1: don't know how you fight that.
17:31
Speaker 2: Crush it.
17:32
Speaker 3: And you know, because you've been involved and you've seen
17:35
Speaker 3: the press and listen, I love the media. It is
17:39
Speaker 3: one of the most important functions in the United States
17:41
Speaker 3: is to have a media.
17:42
Speaker 1: Correct.
17:42
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled at how the media is expanding. its role,
17:46
Speaker 3: how we're getting away from some of these staid establishment
17:50
Speaker 3: medias and we're getting into bigger and that process is ugly.
17:54
Speaker 3: This is part of that ugly process because what the
17:58
Speaker 3: media has done to a case like Nolan Wells is
18:02
Speaker 3: crippled and hobbled everyone trying to do the right thing
18:06
Speaker 3: from their perspective. The moment it got blown out and
18:10
Speaker 3: some famous people stepped in, made comments that were unbased,
18:14
Speaker 3: or based on rumor, there's a huge part of the
18:17
Speaker 3: world just grabs them and runs with them. Cause that's
18:19
Speaker 3: what we like doing. My person said this, I'm gonna
18:22
Speaker 3: believe him cause I like that person that divides me
18:25
Speaker 3: into the camp I need to be in because I
18:28
Speaker 3: like being in this camp.
18:29
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna.
18:29
Speaker 3: Believe this, having never actually sat back and used critical
18:35
Speaker 3: thinking skills, having never reviewed what's actually out there. And
18:40
Speaker 3: unfortunately with this incident, There aren't some records that we
18:45
Speaker 3: would have loved to seen. You know me, every single
18:47
Speaker 3: time I'm going to beat on police procedure and how
18:50
Speaker 3: it's the thing that saves and makes cases. Because if
18:52
Speaker 3: you do your procedure right and it's thorough and it's
18:54
Speaker 3: by the book, man.
18:55
Speaker 2: It's bulletproof.
18:57
Speaker 3: I can't shake you off of it. You start cutting corners,
19:00
Speaker 3: skipping steps, passing the buck. I'm going to eat you
19:03
Speaker 3: alive as a defense attorney because I'm going to make
19:06
Speaker 3: you literally say from the bench or from the.
19:09
Speaker 2: Stand, yeah.
19:10
Speaker 3: The moment we start breaking the rules, the integrity of
19:13
Speaker 3: the investigation falls apart. That's why we have rules, because
19:17
Speaker 3: when the rules are.
19:18
Speaker 2: Followed, I can't beat you. You stand up and.
19:21
Speaker 3: Go, nope, did it by the book. Nope, did it
19:23
Speaker 3: by the book. Nope, that's the way it's done. That's consistency.
19:27
Speaker 3: That's the way it's been tested. Man, I can't get
19:30
Speaker 3: around that. It goes all the way down to field
19:32
Speaker 3: sobriety evaluations at DUI. I get you misidentify or misinstructing someone.
19:38
Speaker 2: I just ate your lunch. Now put that on a
19:41
Speaker 2: murder case.
19:42
Speaker 3: Put that on a missing child case with difficult physical evidence.
19:48
Speaker 2: We are on an island.
19:50
Speaker 3: In the middle of the water at night with bunches
19:53
Speaker 3: of kids, with mixed up electronics, with missing electronics, with
19:58
Speaker 3: non-contemporaneous interviews. Then we got everybody using their constitutional rights
20:02
Speaker 3: to shut up. Then you got some rich parents that
20:05
Speaker 3: went out there, got a fancy ass lawyer like me,
20:07
Speaker 3: who screamed so loud you could hear him in the
20:09
Speaker 3: next zip code.
20:10
Speaker 2: Shut up. Don't say a damn thing. Don't share anything.
20:15
Speaker 2: Buckle up.
20:16
Speaker 3: Get behind the wall and let me do the talking.
20:19
Speaker 3: And by the way, there ain't going to be a
20:20
Speaker 3: lot of talking. That's what every lawyer is going to
20:22
Speaker 3: tell these families to do. But then the media grabs
20:24
Speaker 3: that and goes, hold on. These families don't really want
20:27
Speaker 3: the truth. These families hate this child. These families are
20:30
Speaker 3: all trying to be this, that, and the other. No,
20:32
Speaker 3: these families are doing the same thing anybody that had
20:35
Speaker 3: $ 10 to go retain a lawyer would have done.
20:37
Speaker 2: Stop beating them up for all this stuff. You don't
20:40
Speaker 2: have space to do that.
20:41
Speaker 3: And what you're doing by casting stones at these families
20:44
Speaker 3: who are just protect themselves the way any other family
20:47
Speaker 3: would do is you're disrespecting the sanctity of our system
20:50
Speaker 3: and the protection it gives actual citizens like you when
20:54
Speaker 3: the time is yours. And that's upsetting for me because
20:58
Speaker 3: it spoils every potential juror in the world. Whenever we
21:02
Speaker 3: talk about how remaining silent isn't an admission, you're allowed
21:07
Speaker 3: to jump and get into some presumptions, but that's not
21:10
Speaker 3: an admission. And it just drives me nuts.
21:13
Speaker 1: And you know the crazy thing? It is illegal to
21:16
Speaker 1: run a red light. It is not illegal to stop
21:19
Speaker 1: on green. There are things that are being done. They're
21:22
Speaker 1: not illegal.
21:24
Speaker 2: But it's wrong. It feels weird.
21:27
Speaker 1: It's off. And it flips everything upside down. With Nolan Wells,
21:31
Speaker 1: I don't know if things were deleted or not. But
21:34
Speaker 1: I know only an expert can tell us. His mama
21:37
Speaker 1: can't tell us that. So I look at her. And Josh,
21:43
Speaker 1: she is suffering. She is suffering so bad.
21:46
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
21:47
Speaker 1: And I don't blame her. I would go to the
21:50
Speaker 1: devil for answers. And she has reached out. Other people
21:54
Speaker 1: have reached out to her. I think she's asked, begged,
21:59
Speaker 1: who can help me? I want everybody to help me.
22:01
Speaker 1: I want everybody to, you know, try to figure out
22:05
Speaker 1: what happened. And if you've got a picture or a
22:07
Speaker 1: video or an audio, anything, you know, let me know.
22:11
Speaker 1: But I think at the same time, she got swept
22:16
Speaker 1: up in being told this is how we're going to
22:19
Speaker 1: handle it. And I don't think it's going to pan out.
22:23
Speaker 1: the way she believed it was going to. I just don't. Again,
22:27
Speaker 1: that second autopsy, there's no blunt force trauma. His hands
22:31
Speaker 1: aren't beat up from fighting anybody. His knees aren't scraped up.
22:34
Speaker 1: He doesn't have any injury that would indicate that he
22:38
Speaker 1: was murdered from their own second autopsy. But so what
22:43
Speaker 1: do they do? They freak people out by saying his
22:46
Speaker 1: throat was missing. Come on now.
22:49
Speaker 2: Just breaks my heart because.
22:52
Speaker 3: You're a parent, and the universal worst thing that can
22:57
Speaker 3: happen to a parent, period, happened. There's not a second
23:00
Speaker 3: place worst thing for a parent. Your child dying before
23:05
Speaker 3: you is a curse that just there's nothing I've never
23:09
Speaker 3: been there I've seen people I can't understand the level
23:13
Speaker 3: of loss and heartbreak and sorrow.
23:15
Speaker 2: It has I hate it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
23:18
Speaker 3: Just think about it and to think about that happening
23:22
Speaker 3: while your love child is with other people you raised
23:26
Speaker 3: your child with who you know these families you are
23:29
Speaker 3: part of this community and this community it's kind of
23:32
Speaker 3: tight These kids played together.
23:35
Speaker 2: They knew each other. They grew up together.
23:37
Speaker 3: To have that happen in a community with no answers
23:42
Speaker 3: and then no handbook, no guidance, unbelievable. Just the trauma
23:48
Speaker 3: and the fear and the frustration of where are my answers?
23:52
Speaker 3: Why can't anybody tell me what happened to my child?
23:57
Speaker 3: Why are the police treating me this way when I
24:00
Speaker 3: didn't have anything to do with this? And I'm just
24:02
Speaker 3: trying to be a mom and I'm just trying to
24:04
Speaker 3: get in. Why are all the people in my support crew,
24:08
Speaker 3: all the people in my community, my canoe, why are
24:12
Speaker 3: they drawing back? Because the rest of the universe is
24:15
Speaker 3: leaning on them. Why, when it happened to my child,
24:19
Speaker 3: was the entire national spotlight placed on a home that
24:25
Speaker 3: had a happy son in it a week ago?
24:29
Speaker 2: And how does that look? What happens when.
24:31
Speaker 3: You give up your truth to the rapacious nature of
24:37
Speaker 3: media when it comes to the narrative? And suddenly your
24:42
Speaker 3: son by people that never have even seen a picture of,
24:46
Speaker 3: heard his name, are calling him thug, are calling him race,
24:52
Speaker 3: are calling him all these horrific things. And then to
24:55
Speaker 3: be the other kids involved, the kids that were just there,
25:00
Speaker 3: the kids that we don't know what happened because we
25:03
Speaker 3: don't know. These kids and their names are being drug
25:07
Speaker 3: through a field of mud that is endlessly deep. And
25:11
Speaker 3: one of my big problems with the universe of media
25:14
Speaker 3: right now is you have no right afterwards to The
25:19
Speaker 3: damage being done to these kids doesn't have a compensation
25:24
Speaker 3: or a reunification at the end. No, the case is
25:30
Speaker 3: going to end one day. There's going to be arrests
25:32
Speaker 3: and convictions. There aren't going to be arrests and convictions.
25:34
Speaker 3: There are going to be lawsuits. There aren't going to
25:36
Speaker 3: be lawsuits. But in 10 years, these kids have lives.
25:41
Speaker 3: And to carry some of these issues in the way
25:44
Speaker 3: they're going to be forced to, I feel, is fundamentally
25:48
Speaker 3: unfair to anybody involved in some of these high-profile issues,
25:52
Speaker 3: especially when it relates to young people.
25:58
Speaker 1: You know, I've worked cold cases for 30 years. And
26:02
Speaker 1: when I work a cold case, I start with photographs.
26:06
Speaker 1: And then, if possible, I go to the scene. I
26:09
Speaker 1: want to understand it visually before I go anywhere else.
26:14
Speaker 1: The reason I do that, I feel like witnesses can lie,
26:17
Speaker 1: so witness statements can wait. Police reports can have things
26:21
Speaker 1: left out, not on purpose, just because everybody don't write
26:25
Speaker 1: as well as everybody else. But the picture can't lie. Well,
26:32
Speaker 1: if you look at all the pictures that you could
26:34
Speaker 1: possibly find of Nolan Welles That child was loved. Yeah.
26:40
Speaker 1: Not just by his mama, but those boys loved him.
26:45
Speaker 1: He's typically in the center. They got their arms around him.
26:49
Speaker 1: They're all smiling. They're all happy. They're all doing things together,
26:53
Speaker 1: whether it's prom or swimming or fishing or whatever they're doing.
26:57
Speaker 1: They are a tight group of friends. And I just
27:01
Speaker 1: hate to see that turned into something that possibly it
27:06
Speaker 1: was not. If they did not kill him, to me,
27:10
Speaker 1: that's been the most horrific ending of these accusations.
27:17
Speaker 3: Literally, your friend dies and the world's response was you
27:23
Speaker 3: killed him.
27:23
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
27:26
Speaker 2: Sink that in.
27:27
Speaker 1: And what do you do with it? Because now you're
27:30
Speaker 1: in a small town. There's people that are always going
27:33
Speaker 1: to believe it. You've already gotten death threats. So have
27:36
Speaker 1: your family. People have driven by your house. There's been
27:38
Speaker 1: a few podcasters that put your address out there.
27:42
Speaker 2: The doxing is just out of this world.
27:45
Speaker 1: And I want to say again, ain't no case. Nobody
27:51
Speaker 1: has turned over anything. And before anybody sends me an
27:54
Speaker 1: email or an instant message when y'all hear this and
27:57
Speaker 1: y'all want me to talk about the tow call, I'm
28:00
Speaker 1: going to talk about it. I don't believe it. I
28:02
Speaker 1: didn't believe that it came out. I don't believe it now.
28:04
Speaker 1: I think it's false. I think it was manufactured. And
28:07
Speaker 1: here's the reason. When you give me something, And let's
28:12
Speaker 1: say it's one of those Warshaw tests, right? And you go,
28:16
Speaker 1: don't you see the horse? I don't see no horse.
28:19
Speaker 2: I don't see it.
28:21
Speaker 1: You asked me. Not you, Josh. I'm talking about you, Josh. Oh,
28:24
Speaker 1: I know.
28:24
Speaker 2: I know you're talking.
28:26
Speaker 1: Don't you hear them say, Nolan, is he dead? I
28:29
Speaker 1: don't hear that. I don't hear it. And I don't
28:32
Speaker 1: know how an engineer who got a copy of the
28:36
Speaker 1: call could hear it. I don't care what she isolated.
28:40
Speaker 1: It ain't there. So again, now you have possibly somebody
28:46
Speaker 1: manufacturing just garbage to incite people. There's no other reason.
28:52
Speaker 1: But here's what you want me to believe, Josh, and
28:55
Speaker 1: this is where this case goes. It's not even a case.
28:58
Speaker 1: This is where this situation goes sideways for me. It
29:02
Speaker 1: is broad daylight. with thousands of people. They weren't the
29:07
Speaker 1: only boat leaving. They weren't the only boat coming. People
29:11
Speaker 1: are passing each other all the time. There is no
29:14
Speaker 1: way they murdered that child on the boat or off
29:19
Speaker 1: the boat, got him on the boat and tossed him
29:21
Speaker 1: in the water. Did not happen. Could not have happened.
29:25
Speaker 1: You're talking about a college football player. If they beat him,
29:30
Speaker 1: Do you know what his body would have looked like?
29:33
Speaker 1: Because he would have fought them literally to the death.
29:37
Speaker 3: I have a extraordinarily difficult time with everything that is
29:42
Speaker 3: out there that I can trust, believing that the death
29:45
Speaker 3: was violent at another hand or someone like that.
29:49
Speaker 1: Nope.
29:50
Speaker 2: I just don't see it. It's not there.
29:52
Speaker 3: For those exact reasons. Young men like this don't go
29:56
Speaker 3: down without a fight. If they are threatened, they will
29:59
Speaker 3: physiologically and involuntarily react to protect themselves, whether that's punch, kick, scratch, scrape,
30:06
Speaker 3: whatever it is.
30:07
Speaker 2: You don't go down and just go, all right, I'm
30:09
Speaker 2: dead now.
30:10
Speaker 3: No. So that, I got serious issues with the idea
30:16
Speaker 3: that he.
30:16
Speaker 2: Was attacked in a violent way. That does not get
30:20
Speaker 2: past the fact of accident. That does not get.
30:23
Speaker 3: Past the fact of non-intentional horseplay resulting in a death.
30:30
Speaker 2: One of the issues that until.
30:31
Speaker 3: You're really in law enforcement that's hard to understand is
30:35
Speaker 3: that there are completely innocent, explainable ways that awful things happen.
30:41
Speaker 3: But when you're looking for, when you're carrying a hammer,
30:45
Speaker 3: everything looks like a nail, And sometimes law enforcement's going
30:49
Speaker 3: to go, well, that happened. So someone had to do
30:52
Speaker 3: something because that satisfies the inquiry. And my heart of
30:57
Speaker 3: hearts believes that, yes, there was some sort of interaction.
31:02
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was ill intention or positive
31:05
Speaker 3: or worse player. But at some point, a horrible accident
31:11
Speaker 3: happened and people started to lie and cover up. And
31:15
Speaker 3: the next thing you know, lawyers got involved. People got distant.
31:19
Speaker 3: People stopped trusting each other. Everybody shuts up. And then
31:23
Speaker 3: you just sit back and see what the state can
31:25
Speaker 3: put together. But the state doesn't have the tools to
31:29
Speaker 3: put together an aggravated case such as murder or because
31:32
Speaker 3: it doesn't exist. Now, the state knows the young man
31:36
Speaker 3: is dead. He shouldn't be dead. Determining that cause of
31:40
Speaker 3: death more specifically, eliminating the violence. That's pretty straightforward, and
31:47
Speaker 3: I'll be very interested to see, compare, and contrast, because
31:50
Speaker 3: as far as I know, he wasn't covered in bruises.
31:52
Speaker 3: He didn't have someone's skin underneath his fingernails. He didn't
31:56
Speaker 3: have bloody knuckles. Now, I'll also say this. You can
32:00
Speaker 3: get injured in water settings easier than most any other place.
32:04
Speaker 3: I've seen people crack heads. I've seen people drown. I've
32:07
Speaker 3: seen people get caught in impellers. I've seen people just,
32:11
Speaker 3: you know, over-served, like there's so many.
32:15
Speaker 1: Josh, it could be as simple as he went out
32:17
Speaker 1: to the tip of that island to go to the
32:19
Speaker 1: bathroom and got caught in a riptide.
32:22
Speaker 2: Yep.
32:22
Speaker 3: My father, as a 50-something-year-old PhD scientist, was walking on
32:28
Speaker 3: the shelves in Maine, cut his foot something bad, fell
32:31
Speaker 3: into the water, and almost knocked himself out.
32:34
Speaker 2: No one was with him.
32:36
Speaker 3: We didn't notice him gone for five, seven minutes. And
32:38
Speaker 3: then someone was like, hey, where's Dan? And they went
32:41
Speaker 3: out and like, oh, look, he fell. And we went
32:43
Speaker 3: to the ER and got his.
32:44
Speaker 2: Toe sewn up. Flag better turn. Shit happened.
32:47
Speaker 1: Like. It happens. It's awful. This whole thing is awful.
32:52
Speaker 1: No matter what happened, it's awful. No matter what, it's awful.
32:56
Speaker 3: How much in criminal justice and civil justice do we
32:59
Speaker 3: see something go, man, you ain't never gonna believe it,
33:02
Speaker 3: but this is the one time it happened.
33:04
Speaker 2: It's Lindsay, it's Clancy.
33:07
Speaker 3: There are how many millions of births every year? We're
33:10
Speaker 3: not talking about every mom has postpartum to this kind
33:13
Speaker 3: of extreme, but guess what?
33:15
Speaker 2: It's measured. It does exist. Is this the one?
33:20
Speaker 3: That was the real question in that trial.
33:22
Speaker 2: Not does postpartum exist. Not does postpartum.
33:25
Speaker 3: Make some women do completely illogical, horrific, criminal, senseless things
33:30
Speaker 3: because of the power of postpartum depression.
33:33
Speaker 2: But was that present here?
33:35
Speaker 3: And court is so often where those, man, you wouldn't
33:38
Speaker 3: have believed it unless you've seen it, happens. Because guess what?
33:42
Speaker 3: No one else believes that's what happened. No one believes
33:45
Speaker 3: that the deer ran out into the road causing the
33:47
Speaker 3: wreck until you've known someone where the deer ran out
33:50
Speaker 3: into the road and caused the wreck.
33:51
Speaker 2: It's a whole lot more believable.
33:54
Speaker 1: We had a woman, her home was burglarized more than once,
33:58
Speaker 1: and people started to think she's doing it herself or
34:00
Speaker 1: she's crazy, right? But she would call, you know, my
34:04
Speaker 1: wedding ring is missing, then a bracelet was missing, then
34:07
Speaker 1: a necklace, then high school ring. I mean, it just
34:09
Speaker 1: went on and on. It was a wreck home.
34:12
Speaker 3: There are some crows out there that have nests that
34:14
Speaker 3: have Lord knows how much jewelry and diamonds and all kinds.
34:18
Speaker 2: You wouldn't believe these stories unless someone was like, man,
34:22
Speaker 2: let me tell you how crazy this is. But guess what?
34:24
Speaker 2: It's real.
34:26
Speaker 1: One more thing I want you to address, because this
34:28
Speaker 1: I see too, and it's been in multiple cases, but
34:32
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a case that I had. Mama believed
34:36
Speaker 1: a certain gang murdered her child. She wrote a book
34:41
Speaker 1: about it. A very detailed book. That's not who killed
34:45
Speaker 1: her child. They could not prosecute the person because Mama,
34:51
Speaker 1: page after page after page, introduced reasonable doubt.
34:56
Speaker 2: Oh.
34:57
Speaker 3: Girl, that's going to have to be for the next episode,
34:59
Speaker 3: which we're going to do here sooner rather than later
35:01
Speaker 3: because we're going to talk a lot about the impact
35:05
Speaker 3: of public statements on the ability for the state to
35:09
Speaker 3: bring a successful case.
35:10
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. And people don't get it.
35:13
Speaker 1: They don't understand.
35:14
Speaker 3: The more third-party stuff I can add to the pile,
35:20
Speaker 3: that pie is going to taste like crap by the
35:23
Speaker 3: time I've thrown everybody's two cents in. It's going to
35:26
Speaker 3: be a very expensive, dirty penny-filled pie that no one's
35:31
Speaker 3: going to be able to make sense of.
35:32
Speaker 2: And what have we seen?
35:33
Speaker 3: Time and time again in some of the biggest prosecutions
35:36
Speaker 3: going on right now, sufficiency. It sure as hell looked
35:40
Speaker 3: like it happened, but man, you didn't nail down this.
35:43
Speaker 3: This is another consideration that didn't take place. The defense
35:47
Speaker 3: created this other issue that you weren't able to address.
35:51
Speaker 3: It's not that it's not clear and convincing. or probable,
35:56
Speaker 3: or more likely than, no. The standard's beyond a reasonable doubt,
36:00
Speaker 3: and the more outside information that comes in, the harder
36:04
Speaker 3: it is for the state to get beyond a reasonable doubt.
36:07
Speaker 2: Period. End of story.
36:08
Speaker 1: When you do podcasts and you write books, even if
36:11
Speaker 1: it's a simple to you social media post, you could
36:16
Speaker 1: be introducing a reasonable doubt into your case.
36:19
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely.
36:22
Speaker 1: Well, honey, I've had such a great time talking to you.
36:26
Speaker 1: I don't know. I could just talk to you all
36:28
Speaker 1: night and have so much fun and learn so much.
36:31
Speaker 2: I missed you.
36:32
Speaker 1: I missed this. We're going to get back on the schedule.
36:35
Speaker 3: I'm coming back to the universe after a summer off.
36:38
Speaker 3: I had such a great summer. Did a huge road
36:40
Speaker 3: trip with my baby daughter. We just had the best time.
36:44
Speaker 3: I'm building the compound out in the woods where eventually
36:48
Speaker 3: you're going to come out and teach because Wait till
36:50
Speaker 3: you see some of these tiny homes that we're looking at.
36:53
Speaker 3: It is amazing what some of these tiny homes are
36:56
Speaker 3: looking like. And it's going to be 85 acres of
36:58
Speaker 3: fun time when we get there.
37:01
Speaker 1: I cannot wait for that.
37:01
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. You know how
37:04
Speaker 2: much I love you. You know how much I love
37:06
Speaker 2: your audience. This has been awesome.
37:08
Speaker 1: Well, they love you and you know I love you.
37:10
Speaker 1: So we're going to be back together again soon. Y'all
37:13
Speaker 1: just stand by. Thank you, honey. Y'all, I'm going to
37:16
Speaker 1: end Zone 7 the way that I always do with
37:19
Speaker 1: a quote. There is a place like no place on earth,
37:24
Speaker 1: a land full of wonder, mystery, and danger. Some say
37:29
Speaker 1: to survive it, you need to be as mad as
37:33
Speaker 1: a hatter, which luckily I am. The Mad Hatter. I'm
37:39
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone 7.