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Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil. I'm Rossia Faccerrero.
Speaker 3: And I'm Evet gente Lay. This week we are talking
Speaker 3: about the murder of Karen Not and this case is
Speaker 3: it's a very surreal and creepy one because it's one
Speaker 3: of those where you say, this could totally happen to
Speaker 3: any one of us. It's when the person you trust
Speaker 3: in to protect you ends up being the person you
Speaker 3: should be the most afraid of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sadly, you're so, writ Evet. And of course, for
Speaker 2: those of you who have been with us from episode
Speaker 2: number one, this case, at least for Yvetni, reminds us
Speaker 2: of our very first case from our hometown and Honolulu, Javaii,
Speaker 2: the cold case of Lisa Ao. And it's sad this
Speaker 2: was only four years later after the case of Lisa
Speaker 2: Ao happened Lisa Ao is still a cold case. She
Speaker 2: was murdered on the side of the road in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two and this happened in nineteen eighty six. But
Speaker 2: there's differences in this one. And we get to talk
Speaker 2: to an amazing expert who's going to walk us through
Speaker 2: the entire case. And his name is Jim Treinam. He
Speaker 2: is an expert in forensic evidence and criminal procedure and
Speaker 2: he's going to talk to us about everything, and so
Speaker 2: thankful he's such an open book and an open heart.
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's going to be an amazing conversation. But
Speaker 3: now our Trevor is going to walk us through today's case.
Speaker 3: A twenty year old San Diego State student was murdered
Speaker 3: by an on duty CHP officer in the North County.
Speaker 4: The main unanswered question is is how she was able
Speaker 4: to be either duped or or con in. Who's stopping
Speaker 4: and we don't know why. It was two and a
Speaker 4: half weeks after the murder that homicide detectives went to
Speaker 4: pyrs Powway home and led him away in handcuffs. Every
Speaker 4: day of the trial has been like attending Kara's funeral,
Speaker 4: over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Karen Nott was a twenty year old woman who was
Speaker 1: mysteriously found dead in nineteen eighty six in a ravine
Speaker 1: near San Diego, California. Nott was a student at San
Speaker 1: Diego State University. She had plans to get her doctorate
Speaker 1: and become a teacher. On the night of December twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, she was visiting her boyfriend in Escondido
Speaker 1: who was sick with the flu. Who knew Kara said
Speaker 1: she was very considerate and often overly cautious. For example,
Speaker 1: she always locked her doors and never picked up hitchhikers.
Speaker 1: Just before eight pm that night, she called her parents,
Speaker 1: who lived forty five minutes away, to let them know
Speaker 1: she was coming home, but she never arrived. Kara Nott's
Speaker 1: family set out to find her that very night. Around
Speaker 1: five point thirty in the morning, they found her car
Speaker 1: parked off of the Mercy Road off ramp. Three hours later,
Speaker 1: police found her body strangled and thrown from a bridge,
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of sexual assault or robbery.
Speaker 1: The passenger door was locked, but the driver's side window
Speaker 1: was partially rolled down. Earlier that night, a witness saw
Speaker 1: a police officer pull over a car at the Mercy
Speaker 1: Road off ramp. They described it as a VW light blue.
Speaker 1: Kara drove a white VW and just before ten pm
Speaker 1: that night, two women said they saw a police officer
Speaker 1: named Craig Pyre at a nearby gas station. He had
Speaker 1: blood and scratches all over his face, and according to them,
Speaker 1: he was acting incredibly nervous. When he returned to the
Speaker 1: police station a half hour later, his co workers say
Speaker 1: he was quote bloody and disheveled. He told them he
Speaker 1: had slipped and fallen into a chain link fence while
Speaker 1: getting gas. Pyre had been with the California Highway Patrol
Speaker 1: for thirteen years, and by all accounts, his career was
Speaker 1: the most important thing to him. Pyre's fellow officers called
Speaker 1: him quote hot pencil. This was because he gave out
Speaker 1: more traffic tickets than anyone else, about two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: per month. He would often rant to his colleagues about
Speaker 1: highway safety and keeping the public safe. Soon, though, it
Speaker 1: was revealed that there were two sides to Officer Pyre.
Speaker 1: There was devoted police officer and something else, something more nefarious.
Speaker 1: The California Highway Patrol was getting reports from young women
Speaker 1: that he pulled over, saying he was engaging in off
Speaker 1: putting behavior. After pulling them over, he would sometimes order
Speaker 1: them to his favorite spot off the I fifteen Freeway.
Speaker 1: At that point he would ask them about their love lives,
Speaker 1: or sometimes get into their cars and take them on
Speaker 1: rides deeper down a vacant lane called Mercy Road. Two
Speaker 1: days after her murder, Officer Pyre appeared on a TV
Speaker 1: news special giving tips on how to stay safe as
Speaker 1: a driver at night. Scratches were still visible on his
Speaker 1: face as he talked, and on January fifteenth, nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Craig Pyre was charged and arrested for Karenat's murder. After
Speaker 1: two trials, he was convicted and sentenced to twenty five
Speaker 1: years to life. But to this day, Pyre, his family,
Speaker 1: and his friends all claim he would never commit such
Speaker 1: a violent act. However, others claim differently. And so what
Speaker 1: happened to Karen Not? Was Officer Craig Pyre actually guilty?
Speaker 1: And what does the debate surrounding his guilt tell us
Speaker 1: about the reliability of evidence versus witness testimony?
Speaker 2: So the murder of Karen Not brings up a ton
Speaker 2: of questions, questions about procedure, evidence. The list goes on
Speaker 2: and on, and today we have an expert with us
Speaker 2: on all of these things. His name is Jim Trainham
Speaker 2: and he's a retired homicide detective for Washington, d C's
Speaker 2: Metropolitan Police Department. But his resume goes far beyond that.
Speaker 2: He's written a book called How the Police Generate False
Speaker 2: Confessions and he is a recipient of the Ethics and
Speaker 2: Law Enforcement Award. Jim A. Komo may are welcome to
Speaker 2: Facing Evil.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: So I just told our listeners just a tiny bit
Speaker 2: about you, but I am hoping that you can tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit more about your career and how
Speaker 2: you got started and how you got into doing all
Speaker 2: of this today.
Speaker 4: Well, I spent over half of my twenty seven years
Speaker 4: with PC as a police department in the homicide branch,
Speaker 4: and what happened early in my homicide career actually shaped
Speaker 4: the rest of my life, really and that was in
Speaker 4: a very high profile case, one of the first cases
Speaker 4: I had, I obtained a false confession from a totally
Speaker 4: innocent person, and I did so using the standard interrogation
Speaker 4: techniques that we were taught, and that would pass muster
Speaker 4: in any courtroom in this country. And I wanted to
Speaker 4: find out not only how did I convince this person
Speaker 4: to confess to a crime that they didn't commit, but
Speaker 4: also how did they know all the details about the
Speaker 4: crime that, as we love to say, only the true
Speaker 4: perpetrator would have known. And so that kind of started
Speaker 4: me into looking into how things like confirmation bias and
Speaker 4: other factors can adversely influence the way that we do investigations.
Speaker 4: And so I began teaching other law enforcement officers how
Speaker 4: to avoid the same mistakes that I made, and I
Speaker 4: began working on other alleged wrongful conviction cases doing case
Speaker 4: reviews in general, and yeah, I was just finding out
Speaker 4: there is so much that when it comes to how
Speaker 4: we analyze evidence, so oftentimes we make mistakes and the
Speaker 4: way because of the way that we think and the
Speaker 4: way that we process, and and also other pressures like
Speaker 4: the pressure to close the case quickly and things along
Speaker 4: that line. So since I retired in twenty ten, I
Speaker 4: began to use what I learned in reviewing cases not
Speaker 4: only active murder cases cold cases, but also cases that
Speaker 4: were alleged wrongful convictions. Testified in several of those cases.
Speaker 4: That's all around the country, and I continue to teach
Speaker 4: and learn as well. I'm still taking classes. In fact,
Speaker 4: I'm taking more coming up very soon from the UK
Speaker 4: on basically how to think like a detective.
Speaker 2: Something we wow even though it's something you already know,
Speaker 2: but you can always evolve and already learn.
Speaker 4: Right, there's so much out there that, like I said,
Speaker 4: we're basically taught the mechanics of how to do our job,
Speaker 4: but there's so much lacking in how to think about
Speaker 4: how to do our job. And that's one thing that
Speaker 4: they excel in and over there, and so I'm hoping
Speaker 4: to use that in order to help create more training
Speaker 4: programs and help improve long coork practices here in the US.
Speaker 3: Beautiful. I love that, Jim. That's so powerful that you
Speaker 3: said that, because you know you're retired, but yet you're
Speaker 3: still evolving and still learning. And I just do have
Speaker 3: one question. When you were talking about the technique. I
Speaker 3: was listening to you on a podcast and it was
Speaker 3: called the Trust and Justice podcast, and you were talking
Speaker 3: about that particular technique, which was the read technique, And
Speaker 3: is that what you were taught early on? You know,
Speaker 3: in the very beginning when you got that false confession.
Speaker 4: Yes, I was taught not only the read technique. But
Speaker 4: you know, the thing is, there's a lot of different
Speaker 4: interrogation schools out there, but the majority of them teach
Speaker 4: a variation of it, and it's an accusatory approach, and unfortunately,
Speaker 4: the way that it's designed, they promote it as a
Speaker 4: way of getting to the truth, but unfortunately, the way
Speaker 4: it's set up, you're trying to get to the truth
Speaker 4: that you believed it to be, and so what you're
Speaker 4: looking for so much is not information but confirmation. And
Speaker 4: if you happen to have the wrong person to begin with,
Speaker 4: then you know, that just sends you further down the
Speaker 4: wrong path.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: There's been this movement within the criminal justice system that
Speaker 4: they're trying to set up what they call the sentinel
Speaker 4: event reviews. It's like, if there is a failure of
Speaker 4: some sort, either maybe a case goes unsolved or a
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction, rather than look at the individual causes like
Speaker 4: we're so good at and blaming individual people, we're trying
Speaker 4: to look at the big picture because let's say, like
Speaker 4: in my case, you know, yes I got a false confession,
Speaker 4: but you know, let's also look at all the other
Speaker 4: things that influenced my decision. At the time, there was
Speaker 4: some faulty forensics or supervision pressure to close the case.
Speaker 4: It is a high profile case, things along that line.
Speaker 4: And so when you look at the big picture and
Speaker 4: understand all the contributing factors and you're transparent about it,
Speaker 4: then not only can you work to correct all of
Speaker 4: those things that contribute it to the problem, but you
Speaker 4: also gain more trust from the pals the cards. You're
Speaker 4: willing to admit that, yes, we made a mistake, here's
Speaker 4: a mistake, and this is what we're going to do
Speaker 4: to fix it. I believe that's the way in the
Speaker 4: future to go towards helping to resolve the trust issue
Speaker 4: that we have.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so let's just jump right into it. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about Karen Not How familiar were you with this case?
Speaker 3: You know, for us, like when we first started researching
Speaker 3: this case, immediately you think the CHP officer he had
Speaker 3: to have done it. Was that your first reaction as well?
Speaker 4: Well, it's never my first reaction. I reviewed all of
Speaker 4: the public information that's out there as much as possible.
Speaker 4: I've dug into it as much as I can, and
Speaker 4: so I haven't been privy to a lot of the
Speaker 4: internal reports and things like that that oftentimes offer really
Speaker 4: important nuggets. But when I start looking at a case,
Speaker 4: I don't really have any preconceived notions as to whether
Speaker 4: or not it's him. I'm going to look at the
Speaker 4: evidence and see, first off, the evidence, was it obtained
Speaker 4: reliably and was it analyzed properly because that's where you
Speaker 4: tend to have your failures, and so going into it, Yes,
Speaker 4: he was convicted and all of that, But I've worked
Speaker 4: a lot of cases where it looks like a slam
Speaker 4: dunk at the beginning, but once you get into the
Speaker 4: nitty gritty of it, the evidence kind of starts to
Speaker 4: not be as clear as people try to make it
Speaker 4: out to be.
Speaker 2: So Jim, with all of that being said, full transparency,
Speaker 2: I am married to a retired police officer. You know,
Speaker 2: She's asked me not to say what cities she worked for,
Speaker 2: but she did work in the state of California. But
Speaker 2: I was talking to her about this case and I
Speaker 2: told her we were interviewing you, and I was like, Babe, like,
Speaker 2: what do you think, Like do you think like one?
Speaker 2: Like why would the DCHP officer you know, pull Kara
Speaker 2: not over and like, why would he be driven to
Speaker 2: do this and then go if he did do it right,
Speaker 2: and then go right back to the rest of his shift.
Speaker 2: And she told me, she said, you know, I feel
Speaker 2: like it's more common than we'd like to think because
Speaker 2: it's about power. And I was like, really, like it
Speaker 2: just for me, my mind doesn't think that way. So
Speaker 2: do you think that it is about power?
Speaker 4: Looking at it at first, I try not to go
Speaker 4: in there with that perception. That doesn't mean that I
Speaker 4: haven't formed.
Speaker 2: An opinion, right, you're a human, yes.
Speaker 4: And the sports actually you know, have convicted him. Now,
Speaker 4: this is a very circumstantial case. I mean, this is
Speaker 4: old school they saw at the old school way. They
Speaker 4: didn't have cell phone tracking stuff. You don't have surveillance videos,
Speaker 4: you don't have you know, the DNA, all the stuff
Speaker 4: that we rely on so heavily dissolved cases today, And
Speaker 4: it is very circumstantial. However, it is a very strong
Speaker 4: circumstantial case. Even if you want to discredit some of
Speaker 4: the evidence that would no longer even be considered in
Speaker 4: a court today, such as the evidence about the rope.
Speaker 4: Forensic Dennis said that he was able to match the
Speaker 4: rope that was found in the car to the marks
Speaker 4: on her neck, and there were identical links and things
Speaker 4: like that. All that stuff has pretty much been discredited.
Speaker 4: I see, it's not you know, accepted as you know,
Speaker 4: scientific evidence anymore. Fiber evidence is highly questionable, and there's
Speaker 4: been a lot of abuse of finding about fiber evidence
Speaker 4: in the pasting court. But even taking all that away,
Speaker 4: my first thought is that, you know, this is probably
Speaker 4: the first time he ever killed anybody. This is you know,
Speaker 4: but we know, based on the evidence that he did
Speaker 4: lure or did take several women down there, And if
Speaker 4: I was a betting person, I would bet that at
Speaker 4: some point in his career, you know, before all of this,
Speaker 4: he actually engaged in sexual encounters down there, that this
Speaker 4: was something that I mean, why would you keep doing it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's the point.
Speaker 4: If you failed, you know, each and every time, why
Speaker 4: would you keep trying this? And in this case, something
Speaker 4: just went wrong. Even though he was a patrol officer,
Speaker 4: you know, he probably didn't have any comprehension about how
Speaker 4: homicides are investigated about you know, what kind of clues
Speaker 4: he could have left behind because he wasn't trained, He
Speaker 4: didn't have any experience in that, and so I mean
Speaker 4: he just panicked and he did his best to cover up.
Speaker 4: But he didn't have any other option but go back
Speaker 4: to work.
Speaker 2: Right, to continue on like normal.
Speaker 3: But the fact is, though there were witnesses that actually
Speaker 3: saw him. You know, there were people at the convenience
Speaker 3: store of the gas station that saw him in there,
Speaker 3: and they visibly saw scratches on his face. And there
Speaker 3: was another witness that saw him take her down, you
Speaker 3: know that Mercy Road or saw the car there. I mean,
Speaker 3: doesn't that say like a whole lot right there? You know,
Speaker 3: And then he goes on television and you know, gives
Speaker 3: this statement with the scratches on his face. After he's
Speaker 3: done this.
Speaker 4: He probably didn't have much of an option. I mean,
Speaker 4: the scratches are there, and so he had explain them somehow.
Speaker 4: I mean, he can't avoid that whatsoever. I mean, he
Speaker 4: tried to cover his tracks. He tried to modify his
Speaker 4: logs and things along that line in order to make
Speaker 4: it look like he was somewhere else. He did what
Speaker 4: he could. He did what he could to let's create
Speaker 4: an alibi. However, some things he just could not hide. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But like the TV thing. I mean, that was the
Speaker 4: area that he patrolled. And so I suspect that his
Speaker 4: supervisors just put him up and say, look, we want
Speaker 4: you to do this. It's not like he volunteered for it,
Speaker 4: and so he just had to put on a brave
Speaker 4: face and go about it. And if he had refused
Speaker 4: to do it, I think that would have caused more
Speaker 4: immediate suspicion at the time.
Speaker 2: Right. For sure. I do want to ask you, Jim,
Speaker 2: and I know you were telling us about you know,
Speaker 2: the fibers. Not that forensic evidence not necessarily holding up
Speaker 2: in court today, but the other thing that I'm curious about,
Speaker 2: so like would it be considered part of again, like
Speaker 2: is this circumstantial evidence or is this actual forensic evidence?
Speaker 2: The fact that Pire's blood type is a rare blood
Speaker 2: type and is type AB and that was on Karra,
Speaker 2: that's not just a coincidence.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, there's also circumstantial evidence, because it's not like
Speaker 4: DNA today where you can say, like the odds of
Speaker 4: it being anybody else is one in however many trillion
Speaker 4: quad grillion or whatever along that line. You know that
Speaker 4: blood type is about eighteen percent of the population. Uh,
Speaker 4: And so that's that's a lot of people that it
Speaker 4: could be. However, the defense attorney fallacy they call it,
Speaker 4: is when you look at an isolated piece of evidence
Speaker 4: and you try to discredit it, like they did by saying, look,
Speaker 4: I s eighteen percent of the population. There could have
Speaker 4: been thousands of people who could have left, or millions
Speaker 4: of people who could have left that. But yeah, but
Speaker 4: there weren't millions of people who were taking women down
Speaker 4: into that area, who were acting inappropriately with them, who
Speaker 4: were there that night, who did a B and C.
Speaker 4: So all of that combined makes a very tight case, like.
Speaker 2: The perfect storm. As one of our former guests told us, Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting to me. You know, I just want
Speaker 3: to talk about the fibers, like, because you know, we
Speaker 3: do know that from his little badge, you know, on
Speaker 3: his uniform, that yellow fiber was actually found on karra.
Speaker 3: Why can't they use fibers?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: What is the argument against it? I guess I should say.
Speaker 4: The main argument is that one, it's kind of subjective,
Speaker 4: it's based on a visual examination. That material could potentially
Speaker 4: come from thousands of different sources and all of that.
Speaker 4: But the problem has been is that examiners have overstepped
Speaker 4: their bounds when they're testifying. Now, in this case, from
Speaker 4: what I read, its pairs like, they didn't do that.
Speaker 4: They said that they were visually similar. However, in the past,
Speaker 4: other examiners have said, no, it's an exact match, or
Speaker 4: I've never seen anything you know like this, right, and
Speaker 4: so that's why, you know, fiber evidence what has led
Speaker 4: to exonerations of the past, primarily because the examiners have
Speaker 4: overstepped their balance, got it. However, in this case, from
Speaker 4: my understanding, there was also the addition of the dye
Speaker 4: in the fiber itself. The color die after matched up
Speaker 4: right there. So not knowing anything about the die part,
Speaker 4: you know, I would say that that that's a very
Speaker 4: interesting piece of evidence right there, and so I'm not
Speaker 4: really sure how admissible that would be today. But even
Speaker 4: without that evidence, take the fiber evidence, throw it away,
Speaker 4: you still have a yes, yes, I mean, I think
Speaker 4: the behavioral evidence is one of the the strongest pieces
Speaker 4: of circumstantial evidence. I mean, in looking at a diagram
Speaker 4: of how the road was laid out and all of that,
Speaker 4: him going down there on a regular basis, and really
Speaker 4: there was no need for him to do that. I
Speaker 4: would find fault with the supervisor at that point if
Speaker 4: they had complaints, which they did, women down to that
Speaker 4: isolated area. Well, first off, I mean for officers safety,
Speaker 4: I don't know whether their policy is you're during that
Speaker 4: time period. I was working as a uniform patrol officer
Speaker 4: during that time period. If you had a traffic stop,
Speaker 4: you called it in.
Speaker 2: Right, That's what my wife was saying, Yeah.
Speaker 4: You call it in because you want backup. Is for
Speaker 4: your safety so that if something happens, they know who
Speaker 4: you're stopping and where you are.
Speaker 2: And he didn't do that in this case, if I recall, right, I.
Speaker 4: Don't think he did it in a lot of the cases. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because you're not going to spend you know, thirty minutes
Speaker 4: talking to somebody like you did with a lot of
Speaker 4: these women and all of that, because your supervisor is
Speaker 4: going to call you out. So that should have been
Speaker 4: a red flag if he got complaints from at least
Speaker 4: two women that I know of, that he was taking
Speaker 4: them down to that. Look, Plus, you don't want to
Speaker 4: get yourself in an isolated spot, you know, where it's dark.
Speaker 4: That just increases the danger to you. Right outside of
Speaker 4: everything else, that should have been a huge red flag
Speaker 4: for them to go, wait a minute, you know, why
Speaker 4: are you doing.
Speaker 3: This doing our research? There was even like a you know,
Speaker 3: a joke with other officers, you know, other CHP officers that, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, how many people did you pull over today?
Speaker 2: He had a high rate, didn'ty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was known for pulling over and especially women.
Speaker 4: Well, that was also a different time.
Speaker 2: Back then, true, it was the eighties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean people would make jokes. Remember during that
Speaker 4: time period or maybe maybe before, there was a dj
Speaker 4: in DC that would do these a skit where it
Speaker 4: would involve officers actually know, in certain terms, committing rape
Speaker 4: during traffic stops. Yeah, they were making jokes about it, right,
Speaker 4: And so I mean, as horrible as that was, that
Speaker 4: that was kind of like, you know, something that people
Speaker 4: really didn't take seriously. They make kind of made fun
Speaker 4: of it, right, and that kind of makes like I said,
Speaker 4: it makes me believe that he was at least successful
Speaker 4: in having some kind of sexual conquest in the past,
Speaker 4: and that's why he continued to follow this pattern. Right,
Speaker 4: So it was basically a shotgun effect, you know, he
Speaker 4: would just try it and it worked at work.
Speaker 3: So Jim, you know, one of our first episodes that
Speaker 3: we did was a case in Hawaii about a young
Speaker 3: woman by the name of Lisa Ao. And this was
Speaker 3: in eighty two, and this is still an open case.
Speaker 3: It had to do with supposedly a police officer or
Speaker 3: somebody impersonating a police officer, where this young woman got
Speaker 3: killed and she was left in the hills of Tantalus
Speaker 3: and she was there for approximately about ten days. But
Speaker 3: this goes to the question of forensics, right, there are
Speaker 3: so many things that they did wrong in that case,
Speaker 3: and now we're in eighty six with the Karenat case.
Speaker 3: Right in that timeframe, would the forensics like had it
Speaker 3: advanced at all in those four years, not all that much.
Speaker 4: I think the disadvantage that you had in eighty two
Speaker 4: was the fact that the body wasn't found for quite
Speaker 4: some time.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, ten days is a long time.
Speaker 3: And it was in the rain, and yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, but you also had that gap between you know,
Speaker 4: when she went missing and when she was found. And
Speaker 4: here you didn't have much of a.
Speaker 3: Gap at all, No, because her family went out searching
Speaker 3: for her asaph.
Speaker 4: And they had a lot of good luck. Yes, the
Speaker 4: fact that she stopped at the gas station so they
Speaker 4: were able to put up a timeline. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean we were still I mean, stuff really had advanced
Speaker 4: all that much during that time period. And also remember
Speaker 4: different agencies had different provincic capabilities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's JUNO, LUPD or CHP very different.
Speaker 4: I'd say, Yeah, we really don't have any kind of
Speaker 4: standards across the country in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is it still that way now, Jim?
Speaker 4: It is still that way now. I mean it's not
Speaker 4: like the UK, where they can come up with a
Speaker 4: single set of operating procedures and best practices in all
Speaker 4: of that. Here you've had eighteen thousand different kingdoms across
Speaker 4: the country with different levels of capabilities, training and everything else,
Speaker 4: and so sometimes it's just a look of a draw.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so true. Though you have to think about that,
Speaker 2: like they did have so much luck. I mean, of
Speaker 2: course you don't want to think about it's lucky to find,
Speaker 2: you know, a beautiful young human dead. But at least
Speaker 2: they were able to find Kara and seemingly get closure
Speaker 2: because you know, Officer Pyre was convicted. But all of
Speaker 2: that put aside, I am curious, Jim. I mean, you've
Speaker 2: alluded to the fact of course we think that, you know,
Speaker 2: Pire may have sexually assaulted other people, but for all
Speaker 2: intents and purposes, he wasn't convicted of anything prior to this.
Speaker 2: What do we think would make a seemingly I know,
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as normal, but a seemingly normal
Speaker 2: CHP officer be capable of this.
Speaker 3: That's a hard question.
Speaker 4: It's not really a hard question. You know. Uh, one
Speaker 4: is power. Yeah, power, It's possible. Like one of the
Speaker 4: first encounters was one that was consensual, and I mean
Speaker 4: that is possible. And so he just got this idea
Speaker 4: in his mind that you know, hey, there are women
Speaker 4: out there who are turned on by this, by coops
Speaker 4: and all that sort of stuff, and there are women
Speaker 4: who are attracted to male police officers and also vice versa.
Speaker 4: But so yeah, I mean they're attracted to the power
Speaker 4: thing and all of that. But for him to have
Speaker 4: killed her, like I said, I think that something just
Speaker 4: went totally wrong. He had no plans. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 4: indication that he got any plans to do this whatsoever,
Speaker 4: or that he would have done have done this again
Speaker 4: in the future unless he got kind of caught up
Speaker 4: in this situation. I just think whatever happened. He panicked
Speaker 4: and he did what he did, and he just did
Speaker 4: not know how to cope with it afterwards. You can
Speaker 4: really get away with murder, I mean if you really
Speaker 4: think about it. I mean, a stranger on stranger cases,
Speaker 4: no connection with them, make sure nobody finds the body,
Speaker 4: you know, that sort of stuff. But he didn't have
Speaker 4: time to do all that now, so he had to
Speaker 4: do something because he was also an nerve conference raint.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Another thing that is really interesting is his family. You know,
Speaker 3: his family really believed that he was innocent because they
Speaker 3: truly believed that the evidence wasn't strong enough. What do
Speaker 3: you think. I mean, I think we are all in
Speaker 3: unison and of what we believe. But his family still
Speaker 3: believes that he didn't do it because again, like you
Speaker 3: said earlier, right, it was all circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 4: Before I went to homicide, I work burglary cases, and
Speaker 4: I loved working burglary cases because there are a lot
Speaker 4: like serial killers, oh, because there's no witnesses. You know,
Speaker 4: because a burglary makes it's careful. They don't have to
Speaker 4: commit the burglary, and so they do it in such
Speaker 4: a way that if there's a witness there go back
Speaker 4: off or whatever. And so typically what you do is
Speaker 4: you rely on forensics, and you rely on patterns and
Speaker 4: things along that line, circumstantial evidence if you tie them
Speaker 4: to the stolen property because they sold it, stuff along
Speaker 4: that line. And so people think circumstantial evidence is a
Speaker 4: dirty word. It really isn't. You don't need to have
Speaker 4: an eyewitness. You don't have an eyewitness, and a lot
Speaker 4: of murder cases true, true, So that's the best you
Speaker 4: can do. But of course you know they believe them,
Speaker 4: just like the confirmation. But the confirmation bias just just
Speaker 4: a clarifying case that people don't understand. What it is
Speaker 4: is when you get a belief and then you begin
Speaker 4: to search for evidence that confirms that belief rather than
Speaker 4: search for evidence that you know impartially and so you're
Speaker 4: very selective. And so a lot of times you'll see
Speaker 4: family members on both sides whatever they will kind of
Speaker 4: cherry pick, you know, what they.
Speaker 3: Want to hear and what they don't want.
Speaker 4: To cherry pick, you know, or kind of well she
Speaker 4: said this this time and this that time. Well it
Speaker 4: might not be relevant, it might not make any difference.
Speaker 4: But because they come up with a little indistress, a
Speaker 4: little discrepancy. They think that wipes away, you know, all
Speaker 4: of the evidence right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which of course it does not does not.
Speaker 4: But I feel for them. I understand you know, uh,
Speaker 4: what they're saying. And so they're victims too well of.
Speaker 2: Course, of course, of course, yes, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2: With all the cases that we cover on facing evil,
Speaker 2: we know that there's not only one victim. Ever, it
Speaker 2: always affects all of the families involved, whether guilty or not.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it can be heartbreaking at times, it absolutely is.
Speaker 3: It is because it changes lives on both.
Speaker 4: Ends, everybody's. But like in wrawful conviction cases and exonerations,
Speaker 4: a lot of times you have the family members who
Speaker 4: are just devastating. Yeah, because they have put so much
Speaker 4: faith in the prosecution and in the police officers and justice.
Speaker 4: The potential for exonerations first comes up. That's who they
Speaker 4: turned to. And so a lot of times the cops
Speaker 4: in a prosecutor wo say no, this is BS, it
Speaker 4: is trying to pull some shady stuff. There's actually organizations
Speaker 4: out there now that work with family members who are
Speaker 4: going through this just to kind of help them through
Speaker 4: the process, which is a good thing because that's isolated,
Speaker 4: and everybody was concentrating on the person getting exonerated, but
Speaker 4: nobody was thinking about the victim and the victims.
Speaker 2: Stanley, Yes, that's beautiful. I love the more support there
Speaker 2: is out there for people going through anything. This especially,
Speaker 2: I think is beautiful. Jim, I would like to ask,
Speaker 2: with all of your expertise, can you tell us did
Speaker 2: you agree with the final verdict.
Speaker 4: Based on the evidence that I've seen. I do agree
Speaker 4: with the verdict that you know there is that beyond
Speaker 4: a reasonable doubt that he is guilty.
Speaker 2: Certainly.
Speaker 3: That's such an interesting question that Rasha ask And then
Speaker 3: when you put that in there, because the fact is
Speaker 3: that the jurors weren't they like seven to five the
Speaker 3: first go around with him.
Speaker 4: So funny because I've actually had cases where it was
Speaker 4: eleven to one jury for a conviction and then the
Speaker 4: second time around it was a straight up acquittal. Really wow,
Speaker 4: I think is a lot of times people will ask
Speaker 4: me during a trial, what is the jury thinking? What
Speaker 4: do you think about? I have no clue.
Speaker 2: If you can understand every single human on the face
Speaker 2: of the planet, then maybe you'll have a clue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably not even then, but so much of it
Speaker 4: depends on their own personal experiences. You know, their own
Speaker 4: you know, biases and things along that line, you know,
Speaker 4: their own life stuff. But also oftentimes, and I hate
Speaker 4: to say it, you know, the way the evidence is presented.
Speaker 4: I know that they switched attorneys, and so all of
Speaker 4: that comes into play. That's why the system is so imperfect.
Speaker 4: It's also one of the reasons why you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not a believer in the death penalty, because there's so
Speaker 4: many variable that go into a jury's verdict. As much
Speaker 4: as they're told you're only supposed to consider the evidence,
Speaker 4: each person considers differently, you know, based off their life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, their own experiences.
Speaker 3: We know that pire. He's been up for parole a
Speaker 3: few times, right, and he's been given an opportunity to
Speaker 3: present DNA to the Innocence Project. And I'll let you
Speaker 3: speak to that, because I know you said you you've
Speaker 3: worked with this particular nonprofit. But he has denied to
Speaker 3: take it. Doesn't that say that I'm guilty?
Speaker 4: Well, not only has he he refused to take it,
Speaker 4: but he also refuses to give an explanation as to why,
Speaker 4: Oh he hasn't said why it's a clarifisse. I think
Speaker 4: there's not just one innocence project. There are multiple ones
Speaker 4: around the country, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Okay, okay, And I can.
Speaker 4: See why, like, on the surface, they may want to
Speaker 4: look at this case, especially when they start seeing things
Speaker 4: like you know, the evidence about the marks on the
Speaker 4: neck in the fiber stuff, they might want to consider it.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to DNA stuff, I mean, that's
Speaker 4: the low hanging fruit for them. And you wouldn't believe
Speaker 4: the number of cases that I've worked where there is
Speaker 4: DNA evidence that could be tested, but the prosecutor fought
Speaker 4: it too thin nail, mainly because we have this belief
Speaker 4: in this country that verdicts should be final, that the
Speaker 4: family shouldn't have to go through this stuff once it's
Speaker 4: done gone. So that's something that you always have to
Speaker 4: fight against. So if he's being offered a chance to
Speaker 4: do something that could really potentially clear him one hundred
Speaker 4: percent and he's refusing, I think that's good circumstantial evidence
Speaker 4: in and of itself, But like I said, he's not
Speaker 4: giving a reason. And you know, the other thing going
Speaker 4: against him is all of these people who have been exonerated,
Speaker 4: who've been up for multiple parole hearings. One of the
Speaker 4: reasons that they oftentimes were refused parole was that they
Speaker 4: kept saying, no, but I didn't do it. They want
Speaker 4: them to accept the responsibility, but they won't do it.
Speaker 4: In his case, he still says that he won't do it,
Speaker 4: but he doesn't take the chance that's offered to him.
Speaker 2: To exonerate himself or to explain.
Speaker 4: I say that, but it might come back inclusive just
Speaker 4: because of the way the evidence was kept, or all
Speaker 4: kinds of things that might not allow testing of the evidence.
Speaker 2: You know, we always like to look for the light,
Speaker 2: of course, on facing evil, and there have been a
Speaker 2: few positive developments that came out of Kara's case. So
Speaker 2: Sam Not, who was Kara's father, he lobbied to pass
Speaker 2: a bill which at the time would have allowed women
Speaker 2: motorists to stop at places that they felt more comfortable
Speaker 2: or more safe being pulled over. Now, sadly, although it
Speaker 2: didn't pass, I think it started the conversation. At least,
Speaker 2: what do you think.
Speaker 4: I know that a lot of places, if you're pulled
Speaker 4: over by an unmarked unit, that you're able to go
Speaker 4: to a place that's well lit, that's safe. You know
Speaker 4: that sort of thing, just because in the past they've
Speaker 4: had people posing as police officers yep, who have the
Speaker 4: lights and all that kind of stuff. Now, yeah, the car,
Speaker 4: but the car isn't visibly marked. The problem is is
Speaker 4: that you have a rogue coppier. So typically if you
Speaker 4: have a unit that is highly marked as you know,
Speaker 4: as a police officer, that sort of thing. But even
Speaker 4: these days, you have the extra advantage of if you
Speaker 4: are pulled over, you can get on your cell phone.
Speaker 2: We did not have that in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 4: You did not have that. See one of the things
Speaker 4: you can do. Okay, you're pulled over by the California
Speaker 4: Highway Patrol, you can down nine one one saying I'm
Speaker 4: being pulled over? Is this is this legit?
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: I believe we can absolutely and you correct me if
Speaker 3: I'm wrong. Give credit to Kara's father, Sam not again,
Speaker 3: because he he fought for this. You know this eighty
Speaker 3: three million dollar communication system that enforcement agencies now have
Speaker 3: and emergency agencies have to help coordinate where you know
Speaker 3: something may be going wrong. Unfortunately, you know, Karen didn't
Speaker 3: have that back then.
Speaker 4: I would not have been aware of any kind of
Speaker 4: system like that that existed. So you know, once you
Speaker 4: have a problem like this, and once you identify, just
Speaker 4: like I talked about before, you can then come up
Speaker 4: with solutions to the problem. And oftentimes, you know, law
Speaker 4: enforcement unfortunately is very slow to responding. You know, they
Speaker 4: kind of dig their heels in. They're going to blame
Speaker 4: it on the one individual rather than realize that this
Speaker 4: could be part of a larger problem, or if we
Speaker 4: did have the system in place, then this one individual
Speaker 4: couldn't have done this anyway. And so a lot of
Speaker 4: times it does take pressure from family members, from the media,
Speaker 4: from politicians, and all of them. Law enforcement. They hate
Speaker 4: two things basically the way things are and change is.
Speaker 2: That an oxymoron?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, So they're going to be you know, we don't
Speaker 4: have a problem because we fired them. Well, yeah you do,
Speaker 4: because anybody else could you know, do this similar you know,
Speaker 4: falling into this pattern of inappropriately pulling over women and
Speaker 4: engaging in inappropriate conversations with them. So there's a system
Speaker 4: to that not only protects the driver, but also protects
Speaker 4: the officer as well.
Speaker 2: I would love to know, because I see that that
Speaker 2: glimmer and hope in your eyes. I would love to
Speaker 2: know what light in the darkness of Care's story that
Speaker 2: you can take away or give to our listeners.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, one of the things that you had
Speaker 4: mentioned earlier is to mention that the family got closure. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately. I mean I work with a lot of families,
Speaker 4: especially in these unsolved bases and all that, and I
Speaker 4: would meet with them on a regular basis and talk
Speaker 4: to them. And one of the things I kind of
Speaker 4: cautioned them about is, you know, you're looking for closure,
Speaker 4: but it's not going to come because you know you're
Speaker 4: going to get a conviction. You know they're going to
Speaker 4: go to jail, and your loved when it is still dead. Still. However,
Speaker 4: I encourage them, just like with her father, to try to,
Speaker 4: you know, do something meaningful. Now. It doesn't have to
Speaker 4: be as big an event as what he did. But
Speaker 4: it's just like there's organizations out there to support organizations
Speaker 4: for other you know, crime victims and you know family
Speaker 4: members of homicide victims and things like that, and they
Speaker 4: can help you with your pain. But you can also
Speaker 4: turn around and share your experience with other people who
Speaker 4: are also in that similar situation, and you can turn
Speaker 4: this around and actually, you know, help somebody else and
Speaker 4: do good and make that part of your loved one's memory.
Speaker 4: I don't care what they were doing when they died.
Speaker 4: I don't care you know about any of that stuff.
Speaker 4: It's still a tragedy. And you can still improve somebody's
Speaker 4: life or improve the system. Yes, still going that extra mile.
Speaker 4: Body together and working as a group.
Speaker 3: So beautifully said, paying it forward and working together. Jim,
Speaker 3: It's been a true honor to have you on this show.
Speaker 3: Thank you for being here with us today.
Speaker 4: Well my pleasure and I hope that I did add
Speaker 4: something to this case and kind of explained a few things,
Speaker 4: and thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Today's EMA is dedicated to Kara's parents, Sam and Joyce,
Speaker 2: and the entire no Ohanna. After her death, Kara's father,
Speaker 2: Sam Knott, successfully lobbied for a bill that allowed women
Speaker 2: to stop at places they felt most comfortable when being
Speaker 2: pulled over. Instead, the state Senate voted in a bill
Speaker 2: that further punished drivers for not pulling over us directed sadly.
Speaker 3: But Sam Knott he persisted, and he convinced several local
Speaker 3: law enforcement agencies to change the way they handled nighttime
Speaker 3: stops for women.
Speaker 2: And because of Sam Knot's work, San Diego County now
Speaker 2: has an eighty three million dollar communication system that allows
Speaker 2: law enforcement to communicate with emergency services in a way
Speaker 2: that wasn't possible on the night.
Speaker 3: That Kara was killed. And the memorial nature preserve where
Speaker 3: he planted and raised oak trees from acorns is still there.
Speaker 3: It is called the Kara Nut and San Diego Crime
Speaker 3: Victim's Oak Garden.
Speaker 2: Today's final message of hope, and he goes out to
Speaker 2: the memory of Sam Knot as well as to Joyce
Speaker 2: Nott and the rest of the family who, in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of the worst tragedy of their lives, persisted for justice,
Speaker 2: persisted for hope, and persisted for humanity. Onward and upward. Emua, Emua. Well,
Speaker 2: that's our show for today. We'd love to hear what
Speaker 2: you thought about today's discussion and if there's a case
Speaker 2: you'd like for us to.
Speaker 3: Cover, find us on social media or email us at
Speaker 3: Facingevil pod at Tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 2: And one small request if you haven't already, please find
Speaker 2: us on iTunes and give us a good rating and
Speaker 2: a good review.
Speaker 3: If you like what we do.
Speaker 2: Your support is always cherished.
Speaker 3: Until next time Aloha.
Speaker 1: Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Russia Peccuerero and Avet Gentile.
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald
Speaker 1: albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmadge.
Speaker 1: Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on
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