Speaker 1: In October of two thousand five, nineteen year old Brandon
Speaker 1: Woodruffe was home from college visiting his parents. They had
Speaker 1: just moved to a new home in Royce City, Texas.
Speaker 1: Brandon helped them around the house and then the family
Speaker 1: sat down to a pizza dinner. In almost every way,
Speaker 1: it was a normal Sunday night for the Woodruffs. Everything
Speaker 1: just seemed to be ordinary. I mean, if I you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody were to tell me, well it was there
Speaker 1: one thing that was strange, was there one thing that
Speaker 1: was odd? And I can't pinpoint anything. It was just
Speaker 1: a normal weekend. None of this what ended up happening
Speaker 1: was even I mean I couldn't even have thought that
Speaker 1: would have happened. Two days later, Brandon's parents were found
Speaker 1: brutally murdered. In the days that followed, Brandon was doing
Speaker 1: his best to try and help investigators find out who
Speaker 1: had killed them, and then they just flipped the whole
Speaker 1: table and they were like, well we really think that
Speaker 1: you murdered your parents. My name is Brendon Dell Woodruff.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty six years old from rock Wall, Texas, and
Speaker 1: I've been wrongly convicted for seventeen years from love of
Speaker 1: for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today.
Speaker 1: Brandon Woodruff Brendan Woodruff was born September six in Rockwall, Texas,
Speaker 1: to Dennis and Normal Woodruff. Brendan and his sister, Charliae
Speaker 1: are eighteen months apart. Because he was a baby of
Speaker 1: the family. This is Brendan's grandma, Bonnie. Brandon was always
Speaker 1: a happy child. He just he loved everyone. He was
Speaker 1: always happy singing when he was a little boy. Smiling,
Speaker 1: Brandon describes life growing up as idyllic. We had two
Speaker 1: wonderful parents. Uh, they kind of spoiled us a whole lot,
Speaker 1: he says. The family was always on the go and
Speaker 1: participating in community events. Charlie was a dancer and had
Speaker 1: recitals and shows, and Brandon embraced the country life. The
Speaker 1: wood Droffs lived on a farm in the town of Heath,
Speaker 1: just a few miles south of Rockwall. Kind of a
Speaker 1: small town. It's really like close knit, and Brandon was
Speaker 1: involved in the youth agricultural organizations for Age and Future
Speaker 1: Farmers of America. My mom gave me this passion for horses,
Speaker 1: and so my mom was really there to you know,
Speaker 1: kind of inspire me and teach me things with the horses,
Speaker 1: with the cattle. Like she was a blue jeans kind
Speaker 1: of woman. Most moms like cook. Well, my dad cooked,
Speaker 1: and my mom was out there hall and hay like
Speaker 1: a hard working guy. And you know she would go
Speaker 1: out there with a post hole digger and go dig
Speaker 1: to put a post to build a fans. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was definitely like one of the strongest woman I've known.
Speaker 1: Brendon says he and his mom raised livestock to show
Speaker 1: and sell at markets in the surrounding cities. We would
Speaker 1: basically get a young count and you basically raise them
Speaker 1: up since maybe you halter train on which can be hectic.
Speaker 1: And then I didn't really want to do the market
Speaker 1: steers because then you would have to sell them to
Speaker 1: butcher and I really don't want to butcher my animals.
Speaker 1: So Brendon would show them instead, traveling to fairs all
Speaker 1: over Texas. So it's a lot of hours and three
Speaker 1: o'clock morning drive times to Wago, Texas and Abilene and
Speaker 1: four stock show and all different types of rodeo and fairs.
Speaker 1: So that is a life I know, not but it
Speaker 1: sounds pretty cool. Brandon loved this life, especially being around horses. Really,
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to be a horse trainer, Like
Speaker 1: I really have this huge horse bug. My mom volunteered
Speaker 1: at a therapeutic rotting center called equest Is for like
Speaker 1: disabled kids and kids would like autism and stuff, and
Speaker 1: so she used to take me out there to volunteer.
Speaker 1: You know, it kind of opened my eyes to the
Speaker 1: world is a little bit different than in your perfect
Speaker 1: little neighborhoods. Brandon was also really close with his father.
Speaker 1: He says his dad was really funny, like he was
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassingly funny, like he was a class crown
Speaker 1: like I was kind of. He would just make everybody laugh,
Speaker 1: and I would have friends come over, and he had
Speaker 1: blared Tina Turner's Proud Mary, like at eight o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. He would go get donuts, and I would
Speaker 1: come out and he would be in the room dancing
Speaker 1: to Proud Mary, and I've got my friends over, and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, Dad, are you crazy. One time, Brandon
Speaker 1: remembers he broke both his legs falling off a horse.
Speaker 1: For the first two months of recovery, he was bedridden
Speaker 1: and his dad was totally there for him, and so
Speaker 1: I had a toilet next to my bed, and I
Speaker 1: remember when I had to use the toilet, it was
Speaker 1: so embarrassing for me. You know, I'm already a teenager
Speaker 1: and I'm having to scoot onto this plastic toilet to
Speaker 1: use the bathroom. And my dad literally took off work
Speaker 1: so he could be there so any time that, like
Speaker 1: I needed him, I could just say hey, Dad, you know,
Speaker 1: and he would come in there and he would claim
Speaker 1: the whole toilet, like, no questions asked, no embarrassment, no belittlement.
Speaker 1: Brandon says there was a lot of love in the
Speaker 1: Woodrofe household, but internally he was struggling. It started around
Speaker 1: his high school years in the early two thousand's. I
Speaker 1: basically started like maybe exploring my sexuality. He had a girlfriend, Morgan,
Speaker 1: who he really loved, but he also had thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings about boys. Coming from a close knit town, there
Speaker 1: wasn't too many quote unquote gay kids at school. I
Speaker 1: think we maybe had like one or two. And you know,
Speaker 1: as embarrassed I am to say it now, you know,
Speaker 1: I was kind of along with the group that kind
Speaker 1: of made fun of them. So in his world of Rockwall, Texas,
Speaker 1: Brandon kept his attraction to boys to himself, you know,
Speaker 1: to my friends that I showed cattle and horses with.
Speaker 1: I knew that they would probably not understand, and especially
Speaker 1: the reaction to gay people in my small town. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they would just kind of like ostracized a
Speaker 1: little bit. Like I said, there was maybe only two
Speaker 1: in my public high school, and I think both of
Speaker 1: them went to alternative school by the end of their
Speaker 1: senior year because it just got too much. I mean,
Speaker 1: the people calling them names, um, stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: really didn't see any like of the LGBT community in
Speaker 1: my neighborhood. You know, we definitely didn't have no Pride month.
Speaker 1: We definitely have no pride parades. We didn't have none
Speaker 1: of that. So I would actually have to drive into Dallas,
Speaker 1: which was about thirty five minutes away to go experience
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. What I would do is I
Speaker 1: would kind of go out on the weekends, visit like
Speaker 1: a gay club. I visited a couple of gay bars
Speaker 1: for didn't would also go online and chat rooms and
Speaker 1: my Space groups for gay men. He says, life went
Speaker 1: on like that for a while. I thought my private
Speaker 1: world was gonna be my private world. Um, probably like
Speaker 1: mid late senior year in two thousand and five, I
Speaker 1: really started getting to where I really kind of just
Speaker 1: dinak care um. It wasn't like I was advertising my sexuality.
Speaker 1: I wasn't jumping up and down with a rainbow flag.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't hiding it at so much because I
Speaker 1: was going in public places. I was having you know, boyfriends.
Speaker 1: Then one night, when Brandon was on his way out,
Speaker 1: his dad asked him the name of the club he
Speaker 1: was going to. I really didn't want to tell him
Speaker 1: that it was a gay club, so I just said
Speaker 1: a club's name on the radio that we had heard,
Speaker 1: you know, like repeated over the years. And uh, the
Speaker 1: next day he said, you know, that club he went
Speaker 1: to last night was a gay club. And inadvertently I
Speaker 1: had given him a gay club's name anyway, And so
Speaker 1: I actually had a kind of telling well, okay, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I just told him I didn't know yet
Speaker 1: at that time, which was the truth. Brandian was still
Speaker 1: trying to find himself and figure it all out. And
Speaker 1: he told me, you know, would be safe, be careful,
Speaker 1: and he said, when you find out, let me know.
Speaker 1: Denis would be the type of person that would accept that,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, here's Brendan's grandma Bonnie again. He
Speaker 1: was accepting the people because he loved people, just like Brandon,
Speaker 1: didn't matter who that was because he had a friend
Speaker 1: that was also gay. I've told my dad a lot worse.
Speaker 1: I could tell my dad anything. I could literally talk
Speaker 1: to my dad about the bad grades I was making. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes I would try to hide them too, but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, my Dad's gonna be there
Speaker 1: for me no matter what. So we're the bad grades
Speaker 1: worse than being gay? Is that one of the worst
Speaker 1: things you told him? I mean, I really think that
Speaker 1: the back grades would have been a little bit worse
Speaker 1: than being gay. Like my parents were like so hands
Speaker 1: on loving that that's the last thing that they would
Speaker 1: have really even cared about. Brandon graduated from Rockwall High
Speaker 1: School in two thousand five and went on to Abilene
Speaker 1: Christian University, about three and a half hours away. He
Speaker 1: found himself struggling in his first semester. He was put
Speaker 1: on academic probation and was on the verge of failing
Speaker 1: out of college. His parents told him they could no
Speaker 1: longer support him financially if that happened, and that he'd
Speaker 1: have to come back home, but Brandon wasn't worried about money.
Speaker 1: He would wear designer clothes, go on shopping sprees, and
Speaker 1: eat out often, which led his college friends to believe
Speaker 1: he came from a wealthy family, but the reality was
Speaker 1: Brandon was acting in pornographic movies to make money. Though
Speaker 1: he told his friends he had taken up modeling, most
Speaker 1: of his money was coming from making porn, but with
Speaker 1: his spending habits, he was racking up credit card debt.
Speaker 1: In October if that first semester in college, Brandon came
Speaker 1: home for a few days to see his parents and
Speaker 1: help him out. His parents had just bought a trailer
Speaker 1: home in Royce City, about fourteen miles north. They still
Speaker 1: had some things at their place in Heath and needed
Speaker 1: help moving. I guess it was like a foreclosed property.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of stuff that my mom
Speaker 1: wanted to do to get the horses out there eventually,
Speaker 1: and so I was just tom, you know, to help
Speaker 1: her and help my dad a little bit. On the
Speaker 1: evening of October sixte the Woodroft family sat down for
Speaker 1: a pizza dinner in their new place. Everything just seemed
Speaker 1: to be ordinary, I mean, if I you know, if
Speaker 1: somebody were to tell me, well, it was there one
Speaker 1: thing that was strange? Was there one thing that was odd?
Speaker 1: And I can't pinpoint anything. It was just a normal weekend.
Speaker 1: After the dinner, Brandon headed out for the evening. He
Speaker 1: plans on coming back to Royce City in a few
Speaker 1: days to take Father's Day pictures with his sister Charla,
Speaker 1: who would also be home from school, and so really
Speaker 1: I was expecting to see them, you know, in four days.
Speaker 1: So what ended up happening was even I mean, I
Speaker 1: couldn't even have thought that would have happened. Shortly after
Speaker 1: seven pm on October sixte Brandon left his parents home
Speaker 1: to go out with friends, first stopping by their old
Speaker 1: home in Heath, about twenty four minutes away. A bit
Speaker 1: after ten that night, a neighbor saw Brandon in the
Speaker 1: driveway of the Heath house. Then Brandon picked up some
Speaker 1: friends around ten forty pm and went to Dallas to
Speaker 1: party with them and his boyfriend, Alex. Brandon drove back
Speaker 1: to school in Abilene in the early hours the following morning.
Speaker 1: Later that day, on the people started becoming concerned about
Speaker 1: Dennis and Norma Woodruff. They didn't show up to work,
Speaker 1: which was unusual for them, and no one had seen
Speaker 1: or spoken to them since nine pm the night before,
Speaker 1: when Norma talked with her mother on the phone. Charla
Speaker 1: had called her parents from school at eleven pm on
Speaker 1: Sunday night and had not heard back, so she contacted
Speaker 1: her aunt Linda on two days after they were last
Speaker 1: heard from. Linda reached out to a family friend to
Speaker 1: go over to the Woodruff's new home to check on them.
Speaker 1: A couple of friends showed up, knocked and got an
Speaker 1: no response, so they opened a window with a pride
Speaker 1: bar to see what was going on. Once inside, they
Speaker 1: found a horrific scene. Dennis and Norma's dead bodies were
Speaker 1: seated on their couch. They've each been shot and stabbed
Speaker 1: several times. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed
Speaker 1: to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference
Speaker 1: in the lives of its employees and in the communities
Speaker 1: where they work and live. In light of the compelling
Speaker 1: need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of
Speaker 1: a i g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the ai G pro bono program provides free legal services
Speaker 1: and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. When investigators
Speaker 1: from the Hunt County Sheriff's Office arrived at the Woodrofts
Speaker 1: trailer home, they found a crime scene covered in blood,
Speaker 1: yet they failed to wear protective foot coverings. And what's
Speaker 1: even more bizarre, they began investigating in the dark. They think, well,
Speaker 1: this is how the murderers would have seen the house.
Speaker 1: So we're going to turn off the lights in the house,
Speaker 1: and that's how we're going to to walk around and
Speaker 1: make our crime scene video. And during the course of
Speaker 1: doing that, you know, they're knocking stuff off, They're destroying
Speaker 1: all kinds of potential evidence of the sea and it's
Speaker 1: it's they literally investigated the crime in the dark. This
Speaker 1: is Alison Clayton. She's the deputy director of the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project of Texas and the adjunct professor of the Innocence
Speaker 1: Clinic at Texas Tech University School of Law. Allison says
Speaker 1: that inside the trailer it's unclear what had been disturbed
Speaker 1: by the crime or by the investigators stumbling around in
Speaker 1: the dark, But what seems clear is that there were
Speaker 1: strange items found laying around the house. Flavored condom packets
Speaker 1: were strewn about, along with an extensive pornography collection and
Speaker 1: an air mattress completely inflated. On top of the mattress
Speaker 1: were two pairs of women's capri pants that were way
Speaker 1: too big to fit Norma. Brandon says none of this
Speaker 1: was there when he left on that Sunday night. Joel
Speaker 1: Gibson was the lead investigator on the case along with
Speaker 1: Texas Ranger Jeff Collins, and Brandon was their lead suspect.
Speaker 1: He was the last person known to have seen his parents,
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, we really think that you
Speaker 1: murdered your parents. And I just I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to think. You know, I wasn't raised to cuss at
Speaker 1: a law enforcement officer or anything, and I just I
Speaker 1: just kind of lost it because I thought, you do
Speaker 1: not know what you're talking about, Like, you don't know
Speaker 1: who these people are. These are my parents, these like
Speaker 1: are the people who raised me. Brandon was devastated. His
Speaker 1: parents had been violently murdered and here he was being
Speaker 1: accused of killing them. And what stung even more his sister,
Speaker 1: Charla turned on him. She told police she thought that
Speaker 1: Brandon could have done it. I think my sister's uh
Speaker 1: sentence that has been repeated over and over, Well, if
Speaker 1: you could lie about being gay, then he could lie
Speaker 1: by killing my parents. On November two, Brendon was indicted
Speaker 1: for capital murder. His grandma Bonnie was horrified. I knew
Speaker 1: Brandon couldn't have couldn't have done anything to his parents.
Speaker 1: He leved both his parents. He said he's dead. Was
Speaker 1: his best friend. So I know, you know, I'm even
Speaker 1: more convinced today. I know what type of person he
Speaker 1: is and what love he has for people and for God.
Speaker 1: So I know Brandon Wood. As for the investigators, I
Speaker 1: just think they they were a small town and they
Speaker 1: were they were a little bit lazy. They just wanted
Speaker 1: to wrap the case because it makes the neighborhood feel
Speaker 1: better and say they knew that Brandon was the last
Speaker 1: person to see them alive, because you know, they knew
Speaker 1: that he had gone and gotten the pizza. This is
Speaker 1: Alison Clayton again, and that's the fact that there was
Speaker 1: no forced entry into the house, so they thought that
Speaker 1: that indicated that it was somebody that the would have SNeW.
Speaker 1: Allison says that investigators quickly homed in on Brandon not
Speaker 1: only for those reasons, but also because the police had
Speaker 1: discovered his secret life. So then that was a large
Speaker 1: part of their motive. That Brandon was leading this double life,
Speaker 1: that he was coming home and helping his parents move
Speaker 1: on the weekend and then going out and partying gay
Speaker 1: night clubs, and you know, participating in all these activities,
Speaker 1: and that they were about to find out. And his
Speaker 1: grades were bad and he had credit card Debton, so
Speaker 1: you know, they were about to cut him off, and
Speaker 1: so he was just terrified that he was going to
Speaker 1: get cut off, and so in an act of indescribable violence,
Speaker 1: the way these people were murdered was very, very violent.
Speaker 1: You know, he just decides to murder his parents. Brandon's
Speaker 1: trial started on March six nine in front of the
Speaker 1: Honorable Judge Richard Beacom Jr. The current Governor of Texas.
Speaker 1: Greg Abbott was the state's attorney general at the time,
Speaker 1: and he was appointed as a special prosecutor on the case.
Speaker 1: The state presented the theory that Brandon was living in
Speaker 1: double life, having money troubles and failing out of school,
Speaker 1: all of which he wanted to keep secret from his parents.
Speaker 1: But mainly really the state's only motive that Brandon would
Speaker 1: have had to do this is that he was gay.
Speaker 1: That's it. He's gay. His parents are going to find
Speaker 1: out about it, and so he just has to kill
Speaker 1: them right now. And remember again, this is a small
Speaker 1: town Texas early two thousand's uber uber conservative, so the
Speaker 1: mention of oh, well, he was gay would have been
Speaker 1: plenty to start raising eyebrows like, oh my goodness, he
Speaker 1: was gay. What a shame? Like That's what would have
Speaker 1: been the senti mentality coming someone coming from small town
Speaker 1: Texas in the early two thousands. The state offered no
Speaker 1: real hard evidence against Brandon. It was mostly speculation. I
Speaker 1: think they got caught up in this whole story of
Speaker 1: well he had a double live. He was wearing boots
Speaker 1: and jeans, and then he was wearing city clothes, and
Speaker 1: he was, you know, like they felt like he was
Speaker 1: a lot more sinister, when really it was just me
Speaker 1: being myself. I mean, I would wear boots and jeans
Speaker 1: when I was around the horses and stuff, and then
Speaker 1: I would wear you know, what they would call like
Speaker 1: city clothes. I guess to you know, the bars and
Speaker 1: clubs and stuff. But your clothing doesn't make you who
Speaker 1: you are, and your clothing doesn't make you a killer.
Speaker 1: And you ligging guys and girls or just guys or
Speaker 1: just girls, they doesn't make you a killer either. But
Speaker 1: there was one thing. Brandon's girlfriend, Morgan's parents noticed that
Speaker 1: a Western style revolver was missing from their home. They
Speaker 1: didn't know how long it had been missing, but they
Speaker 1: remembered that the night before the murder, Brandon had showered
Speaker 1: at their house and so would have been able to
Speaker 1: take the revolver, And so police were thinking that that
Speaker 1: you know, had corroborated their suspicions of Brandon because he
Speaker 1: would have had the opportunity to still the gun. They
Speaker 1: viewed that as inculploratory evidence that he had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to get what they thought would be the murder weapon.
Speaker 1: The gun used in the murders was never recovered, but
Speaker 1: the state offered expert testimony that the gun missing from
Speaker 1: Morgan's home could have theoretically been the one used to
Speaker 1: commit the murders. One of the main things the state
Speaker 1: focused on during trial was Brandon's cell phone records to
Speaker 1: try and disprove Brandon's alibi that he was driving around
Speaker 1: picking up friends and heading to a club. However, because
Speaker 1: of a merger between cell phone companies, many of Brandon's
Speaker 1: calls during the crucial Sunday night time period we're missing,
Speaker 1: and that didn't bode well for the defense. After both
Speaker 1: sides presented, the jury deliberated for five hours, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was just the whole time, I kept telling myself, well, Okay,
Speaker 1: everything's gonna be. Okay, everything is gonna be. I never
Speaker 1: would have thought they were going to return a guilty
Speaker 1: verdict ever, Like I really felt like I was going
Speaker 1: home that day, but he didn't. Brandon was convicted by
Speaker 1: a jury of murdering his parents on March Line. So
Speaker 1: they said guilty, and I was like, like, I really
Speaker 1: just wanted to sit down, Like I wanted to sit down.
Speaker 1: I wanted to like just breathe. I was really kind
Speaker 1: of freaking out. But Brandon was told to remain standing
Speaker 1: while his sister, Charlotte gave a victim impact statement where
Speaker 1: my sister got up there and basically just told me
Speaker 1: how I ruined her whole life and told me how
Speaker 1: you know, because of my actions. And that was the
Speaker 1: hardest thing to hear because I'm sitting here thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: I did not do this, and I just had to
Speaker 1: stand there and be quiet and accepted. And I think
Speaker 1: that was the hardest thing in my entire life. And
Speaker 1: I will never forget that you had to sit there
Speaker 1: and listen to your sister not believe you, Like what
Speaker 1: is that? Like? Like this is a person you grew
Speaker 1: up with. She's supposed to be better than anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I you know, it makes so many questions come up,
Speaker 1: like why, like why are you doing this? Like I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's really hard to just grab. I mean,
Speaker 1: even to this day, it's hard to grasp. At two
Speaker 1: years old, Brendan was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Speaker 1: Even though his relationship with Charlie was strained, Brendan's grandma
Speaker 1: Bonnie never let him down. About every three months we've
Speaker 1: traveled down to see I mean, we'd spend the night
Speaker 1: and go early the next morning and we'd get to
Speaker 1: stay four hours with him and stead across the table
Speaker 1: from him. He never gave up, and he always claimed
Speaker 1: his inn assess and I knew he was innocent, and
Speaker 1: he he lives me up. He's the type of person
Speaker 1: that lifts you up and makes you feel better about
Speaker 1: true so if he's not a person that's day on
Speaker 1: all the time. She's like my angel, She's like my rock.
Speaker 1: I tell people that all the time. I'm like, that's
Speaker 1: my angel right there. I Mean she's never once even
Speaker 1: like faltered from the truth. She's been like, there's no way, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'll believe in you. Um. She doesn't care who she
Speaker 1: has to stand up and tell that to, including the investigators.
Speaker 1: She's like, you know, show me proof, Like quit telling me,
Speaker 1: you'll have proof, shown me something. With Bonnie by his side,
Speaker 1: Brendan spent years in prison appealing his decision to no avail.
Speaker 1: But while he stayed up beat in front of his grandmother,
Speaker 1: inside his emotions were a different story. Prison is a
Speaker 1: hard place for anyone, especially a young man finding himself.
Speaker 1: You gotta have walls put up anyway, you've got to
Speaker 1: be like a different person in here. You can't be,
Speaker 1: you know, to cry your weak or to be gay
Speaker 1: you're a little bit weaker or so you always have
Speaker 1: to kind of like prove yourself. So I just stay
Speaker 1: out of really everybody's away. I don't really even talk
Speaker 1: to too many people here. Brendon spends much of his
Speaker 1: time in prison, taking classes or working in the craft shop.
Speaker 1: Are you wearing a wedding ring? Actually I made this
Speaker 1: in the crash. Yeah, I started working with like metal
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. We're allowed like a few, um
Speaker 1: what they call in prison free world items. So you
Speaker 1: can have a wedding band, a watch, and then you
Speaker 1: can have like a cross necklace and it can only
Speaker 1: be a wedding ring. Yeah, you cannot have any other
Speaker 1: rings or jewelry or that's considered contraband. There are certain
Speaker 1: red flags that we look for in every single case.
Speaker 1: Brandon exhibits a lot of them. In two thousand twenty one,
Speaker 1: Alison Clayton from the Innocence Project of Texas took on
Speaker 1: Brandon's case. First red flag, you don't know anything about
Speaker 1: the victims. That is a good investigation. Will oyster out with,
Speaker 1: who are these victims? Why did they meet this horrific end? Right?
Speaker 1: A good investigation that's bent on figuring out what happened
Speaker 1: to these people and not bent on painting a bullseye
Speaker 1: around someone like you've already chosen who did it? A
Speaker 1: good investigation starts with the victims. So who were Norma
Speaker 1: and Dennis? They weren't judgmental they weren't. You know, my
Speaker 1: mom volunteered for for adults and children that really a
Speaker 1: lot of the world wouldn't have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: them because they can't come sit at a dinner table,
Speaker 1: you know, normally and functionally. And um, I mean my
Speaker 1: dad used to go to these drag shows for guys
Speaker 1: that would dress up like Dolly Parton and Tina Turner,
Speaker 1: like the Five five, you know, and so like, I
Speaker 1: feel really really bad that the jury didn't get to
Speaker 1: learn about who my parents were, like. They did not
Speaker 1: humanize my parents because they would know that my dad's
Speaker 1: best friend from high school and college is openly gay.
Speaker 1: They're basically not only accusing me of killing my parents
Speaker 1: because I was gay and had a lifestyle, but they're
Speaker 1: also accusing my parents of being so judgmental that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have loved their son if he was gay. You're
Speaker 1: telling me that my parents are basically like hateful people.
Speaker 1: In fact, at trial, Brandon's lawyers presented that Brandon's dad
Speaker 1: did know about Brandon's sexuality. It wasn't a secret from him.
Speaker 1: On the evening of the sixteenth, the night the wood
Speaker 1: Druffs were presumably murdered, Dennis spoke on the phone with
Speaker 1: his sister Kathy. During that phone call, is whenever Dennis
Speaker 1: told his sister, you know, Brandon told me that he
Speaker 1: likes boys, and he told his sister, you know, he
Speaker 1: was okay with it that he loved Brandon. He's he's
Speaker 1: fine with it. It's just he was worried about Brandon
Speaker 1: because that can be a dangerous lifestyle. So this entire
Speaker 1: idea that his parents would have rejected him because of
Speaker 1: his sexuality, there is no basis in fact for that.
Speaker 1: Allison goes on to outline a key part of Brandon's
Speaker 1: defense at trial, his alibi. We know Brandon was out
Speaker 1: of his parents house a bit after seven pm, because
Speaker 1: cell phone records show he called them at seven thirty
Speaker 1: six pm, indicating he had already left the house. But
Speaker 1: after that, Brandon wasn't really with anybody after the time
Speaker 1: he left his parents house until much later that night
Speaker 1: when he met up with his friend back in Dallas.
Speaker 1: So it's not we have somebody who can say, yes,
Speaker 1: he was with me, this is what we were doing.
Speaker 1: So in those instances, normally we would go back to
Speaker 1: the cell phone records, but remember there were missing records
Speaker 1: during the crucial time because of the cell phone company merger,
Speaker 1: so Brandon's team relied on piecing together other people's records,
Speaker 1: people who he said he was on the phone with.
Speaker 1: Allison says this timeline is the most important part of
Speaker 1: the case. The first time in Brandon's phone records that
Speaker 1: we have really anything is whenever we have that paying
Speaker 1: um at ten forty six, where he's around I thirty
Speaker 1: and six thirty five. This intersection is about twenty minutes
Speaker 1: away from both of Brandon's parents homes. A neighbor had
Speaker 1: seen Brandon down at the heath House just after ten
Speaker 1: p m. He would have been about twenty minutes away
Speaker 1: from them at ten, which means he would have left
Speaker 1: from either Royce City or Heath around ten six that night.
Speaker 1: And Norma spoke to her mother on the phone that
Speaker 1: night as well. If the last time that anyone spoke
Speaker 1: to the Woodruffs was that call between Norma and her
Speaker 1: mom from nine, then you look at everything else. In
Speaker 1: my analysis, I look at everything from nine twenty that
Speaker 1: evening until ten six, leaving Brandon with just an hour
Speaker 1: where he could have killed his parents. But timeline shrinks
Speaker 1: even more during that time You've got the call from
Speaker 1: Brandon to Alex, to Morgan with Morgan, nine with um,
Speaker 1: you know, the roommate he was taking back ten, ten
Speaker 1: to Morgan, and then that's that. So you've got five
Speaker 1: phone calls during that hour, and between those phone calls.
Speaker 1: I'm terrible with math, but it's looking to me like,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's about maybe ten minutes, ten eleven minutes
Speaker 1: tops that you have in between any of these phone calls.
Speaker 1: Allison says that in such a short amount of time,
Speaker 1: it's unrealistic, if not impossible, that Brandon would have been
Speaker 1: able to pull all of this off shoot and stab
Speaker 1: both of his parents, shower, change his clothes and shoes,
Speaker 1: hide his clothes and shoes, clean the bathroom, clean the
Speaker 1: knife and gun, ditch the gun, and hide the knife.
Speaker 1: A man who has zero history of violence. So either
Speaker 1: he is i mean, just committing a vicious crime against
Speaker 1: his parents and really really efficient style, which I've never
Speaker 1: seen anyone inflict the number of wounds that these people
Speaker 1: had on them in ten minutes time, or you're assuming
Speaker 1: that he's in the course of murdering his parents, he
Speaker 1: gets a phone call from Morgan and you know, hey, Morgan,
Speaker 1: how's it going? Everything is fine over here? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? Or you know, you hang up and you
Speaker 1: go back to murdering your parents, and then your boyfriend
Speaker 1: calls you like, oh hey, Alex, yep, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be there later on this evening. Yeah, I've just got
Speaker 1: to finish up here and we're gonna go and we're
Speaker 1: gonna party in Dallas all night long. And then you
Speaker 1: hang up and you keep on murdering your parents. Neither
Speaker 1: one of those scenarios makes sense to me. So Alison
Speaker 1: has a different theory. It wasn't Brandon, and she says
Speaker 1: the crime scene points to that. Remember the air mattress,
Speaker 1: the women's pants, the porn and the condoms. I don't
Speaker 1: know for a fact that my dad has a bisect
Speaker 1: to me, because he's actually told that on multiple occasions.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know, he had told me so much
Speaker 1: it became a joke. And so I tell myself, like,
Speaker 1: why would you need a condom if you had in
Speaker 1: my sectomy? And then the pornography collection, why why would
Speaker 1: you have a pornography collection out There's it's just there
Speaker 1: feels there are some very overtly sexual elements that are
Speaker 1: part of the crime scenes. I think there's definitely something
Speaker 1: going on there. Not only that, but Norma was found
Speaker 1: with long blonde hairs in her hands and those hairs
Speaker 1: were never tested for the original trial. They did not
Speaker 1: test the hair in the dead woman's hand, um, which
Speaker 1: is just befuddling to me. You know, if you're truly investigating,
Speaker 1: truly trying to find out who did this that, what
Speaker 1: would you do? Like, you don't have to be an investigator,
Speaker 1: don't have to have FBI training or anything advanced. What
Speaker 1: do you do? You test the hair in the dead
Speaker 1: woman's hands. But they didn't do that, So to this day,
Speaker 1: we don't know who that hair belongs to. Since Allison
Speaker 1: and the Innocence Project of Texas have taken Brandon's case,
Speaker 1: they have actively fought for DNA testing of the hair
Speaker 1: and any other items that exist from the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Is that evidence still available for us to go look at.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We've filed requests with you know, law enforcement,
Speaker 1: with the d a's office. We're trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, where's the hair, what about everything else? I
Speaker 1: don't know where those things are at. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they have been maintained. They should have been, but
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, it's Texas. Just because it should
Speaker 1: have doesn't mean it happened. While Brandon waits, he concentrates
Speaker 1: on the future he'll have when he's out. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: growing up, I've always want to adopt a kid, like
Speaker 1: I've even told you know, my girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you know, if we ever had kids,
Speaker 1: like I would rather have like one on my own
Speaker 1: and adopt one. Um in college was a part of
Speaker 1: the Big Brother Little Brother program, and so that really
Speaker 1: opened my eyes too. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: kids and you know, a lot less fortunate places and situations.
Speaker 1: Now I look, you know, looking at myself now, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're thirty six. You might be thirty seven or thirty
Speaker 1: eight before something, you know, goes on with your case.
Speaker 1: And then at least for a couple of years, I
Speaker 1: want to just hang out and spend time with the
Speaker 1: people who took care of me, especially his grandma Bannie.
Speaker 1: My grandmother is like a very avid traveler, and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, meet me. Look one day when I come home,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna sit down. Like I don't want to
Speaker 1: be idle. I've been idol for too long now. But
Speaker 1: in thinking about all the people who were there for him,
Speaker 1: Brendon can't help but think about the people who weren't,
Speaker 1: Like his sister Charla. You know, it's been over ten
Speaker 1: years and I can still remember some of the things
Speaker 1: she said, and yet I still love my sister. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really, you know, a torn, torn feeling right there.
Speaker 1: Brandon says that although his parents are gone, they're always
Speaker 1: with him, and that inspires him to keep going. It's
Speaker 1: a lot more personal than what a lot of people think.
Speaker 1: People are thinking, oh, well, you know, the truth is
Speaker 1: gonna come out one day, and but there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's not justice for me right now, but there's also
Speaker 1: not justice for my parents either, And so I told myself,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna make this count. Like my parents need,
Speaker 1: you know, justice, but they also need, you know, some
Speaker 1: change in Texas. Something good can come from this, and
Speaker 1: maybe that can be like my parents legacy is to
Speaker 1: help what needs to be fixed in the justice system.
Speaker 1: I don't want this to just be like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: he's innocent, he's free, and we're gonna let this go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there needs to be at least
Speaker 1: some change, because they should never, ever, ever have happened
Speaker 1: to me, and it definitely shouldn't happen in the future.
Speaker 1: To learn more about Brandon's case and show your support,
Speaker 1: visit free Brandon dot org and you can sign a
Speaker 1: petition for his exoneration at change dot org. Next time,
Speaker 1: un Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling, Deb Nichols. You could
Speaker 1: see the emergency lights since we were coming up the
Speaker 1: street and I got out, the current started rounding around
Speaker 1: the corner and it was my house and it was
Speaker 1: on fire. I was literally terrified, and my brain was like,
Speaker 1: I just I need to get to the back and
Speaker 1: make sure the kids are okay. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence
Speaker 1: organizations and go to the links in our bio to
Speaker 1: see how you can help. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wurtis, as well as
Speaker 1: our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lila Robinson, and story
Speaker 1: editor Sonja Paul. The show is edited and mixed by
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall.
Speaker 1: The music in this production is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one