WEBVTT - Brett 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:04.120 Wisecrack is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free, 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.040 but if you want to hear the whole season right now, 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:11.119 it's available ad free on Tenderfoot Plus. For more information, 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:15.240 check out the show notes enjoy the episode. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.280 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.239 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.400 and do not represent those of iHeartRadio, Tenderfoot TV, or 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:33.400 their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter which may 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.000 not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:42.960 Previously on Wisecrack. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.839 The twenty second of July twenty fifteen, between eleven and 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.960 twelve o'clock at night, the twenty three year old man 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:59.960 named Ryan Godard, my school bully, had killed his family. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:07.720 He stabbed his mother forty two times, his stepfather fifty six, 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:14.559 using seven different blunt knives from the kitchen, and then 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.840 he came to my house and while I'm out, I'll 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.280 tell you the third lie, just so you're aware, is 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:24.520 that I've changed the names and the places and the 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.559 people's names just out of respect for the dead. 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:28.399 That's what I was right, I. 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:28.640 Think to do. 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.280 That was probably the first time I told anyone the 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:46.480 name of Brett, even people who saw the show. 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.320 I've been talking on the phone with Ed, trying to 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.160 learn as much as I can about him and his 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:57.840 childhood bully real name Brett Rogers. But the truth is 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.200 I knew Brett was dead long before Ed told me. 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.720 Once Ed disclosed his name that night in Edinburgh, it 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.280 didn't take much research to find the horrifying fact that 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.639 Brett met his end only two months before Ed took 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:13.280 the stage. 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.440 I never told people the name. I would give them 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.680 enough that they could find the name if they were industrious, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.400 but I never wanted to invite people to the village. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.600 I never wanted to invite people into the personal lives. 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.560 We've been chatting for a few months now because I've 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.040 decided to go to England. It's the only way to 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.799 uncover what really happened that night by retracing every one 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.880 of Ed and Brett's steps. I finished my preliminary research 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.960 and set up most of my interviews. But one question 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.160 sticks in the back of my mind. Why me Ed 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.240 has been gatekeeping Brett's name from everyone who's ever seen 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.440 his show, but he was willing to let me in. 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:55.440 What made him trust me? 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:57.280 So? What did I give you it? 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.680 And you were persistent? But you are a questions that 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.280 were different to anyone else's questions. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.560 He opened the door for me, not because I asked louder, 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.240 but because the same troubling questions that were swirling around 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.480 in my head had been weighing on his heart for years. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.640 Why would Brett murder his own mom, why would he 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.600 break down Ed's door that same night? And just how 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.720 did Brett Rogers end up dead in one of England's 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:38.400 most secure prisons only twenty three months later. I'm Jody 0:03:38.480 --> 0:04:06.160 Tovey and this is wisecrack Soon episode three. 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.400 Hello, Hello, Hell, I'm great. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.440 I landed at Heathrow to find Ed waiting outside the airport. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.480 This is the first time I'd seen him in seven years, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:22.240 and it was both awkward and strangely familiar. At twenty nine, 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.479 he seemed sharper, more self aware than the boyish comedian 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.920 I remembered. His bouncy curls were replaced by short hair 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:29.520 and stubble. 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:33.200 Ah I play. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.680 I'm here to investigate who Brett Rogers really was, but 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.680 in truth, I'm also piecing together who Ed is too. 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.760 Up until the night of the murders, these two lives 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.880 were inextricable. After that night, I'm left to wonder about 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.240 two pretty unexplainable things. What caused one young man to 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.600 snap and go on a murderous rampage and the other 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.279 to write and perform comedy about it. So, along with 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.640 the police officers and other witnesses, I've been reaching out 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.839 to Ed's old friends in London, an ex girlfriend or two, 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.440 and other comedians that he came up with. Ed told 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.719 me he learned of Brett's death a few months after 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.479 Edinburgh through his brother. That seemed like a perfect place 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:18.000 to start. 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.120 I am a thirty six year old dad seven o'clock high, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.760 unto anything that I didn't know that was what that 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:28.560 sentence was going. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.600 Ed wasn't the only one keen to leave his hometown 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.640 of Stanstead. Both of his brothers moved out of the village, 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:37.760 and this brother is Sam Hedges. 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.360 As soon does he leave that thing there gets turned 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:41.800 on and I'm going to sink into the world of 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:47.440 Diablo four until three am. 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.400 Before we got to Sam's Ed explains that his brother 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.880 is very opinionated and not interested in others points of view, 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.000 especially if you're a woman or a person of color, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.680 So two strikes against me. But of the three Hedges brothers, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.120 Sam was the closest to Brett. He probably knew the 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.320 most of who he really was. As we settled into 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.159 Sam's tiny living room, I wanted to know what he 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.000 recalled about the boy next door. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.080 There's two opinions I think with things like that, And 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.599 the first opinion would be, when you've got someone who 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.640 sees them rarely see someone really and they just see 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.320 that part of them, They're gonna sit there and think 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.240 that guy's a dick. Every time I see him, he 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:31.839 says got a negative thing to say about me, or 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:33.359 he just tries to bully me, or he hits me 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.440 or whatever. But if you see that person every day 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.599 and you see one hundred people that he interacts with 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.320 that he doesn't do that too, and then one person 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.760 that he does because he just, I don't know, self 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.920 esteem thing, may need to make himself feel like he 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.040 was bigger, honest to God. I've given this a lot 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.440 of thought, and if the monster was in there, it 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.920 was buried deep. He wasn't the guy that he was 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.240 in the end when he was younger. But the guy 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.359 I knew if he went back to me on my 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.760 last day of seeing him, even on the days where 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.520 he was being a proper douche, that guy was not 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:12.760 capable of killing his mother. 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.120 I glanced at Ed as Sam casually floats this provocative take. Ed, 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.560 who received the brunt of Brett's bullying, says nothing. He 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.640 shifts in his chair and stares at his feet, fighting 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:25.760 the urge to respond. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.680 He had obviously a case of ADHD. I think we 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.240 all knew that, and he was this hyperactive, was just 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.960 bouncing off the walls. But I could point one hundred people. 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.760 That doesn't mean they're going to become axe murderers. There 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:40.600 was obviously something that triggered it, or maybe there was 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.000 this hall man in balance that he could have been 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:42.920 one hundred things. 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.040 Sam wasn't the only Hedges brother who was close to Brett. Jack, 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:49.800 the middle of Ed's brothers, was friends with him too, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.040 And like most brothers, Jack had an entirely different reaction 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:55.320 to the murders. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.520 So when I found out you know what happened, it 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.240 wasn't so much a case of oh my god, this 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:07.040 is out of the blue. It was more, holy shit, 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.280 he did it. There are five families in that neighborhood 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.000 with kids that we would all socialize and so we 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:19.440 would all play together, play football, it'd mess around and yeah, 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:24.240 just generally hang around and do what kids do. The 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.160 problem that we had when we were younger is that 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:33.800 Brett was trying to make himself bigger, make himself more important. 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.720 He would try with me. He had no success. He 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.079 had to go smaller. He had to go for Ed. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.280 Unlike Jack, Sam refuses to acknowledge that Brett mercilessly Bullieded. 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.319 So I decided to ask Sam about a pivotal moment 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.360 when Brett's violence was undeniable. A domestic dispute three years 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.600 prior to the murders. Brett, who was living with his dad, 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.440 Pete Rogers at the time, returned home one day and unprovoked, 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.200 severely beat his father. 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:04.719 Sure, me and my dad have had fights before in 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.599 the bass, so you know the first sentencing where he 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:08.480 went away the first time. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:10.080 I can get that. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.080 You can have an argument, that things can get heated, 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.920 someone can swing a few fists. You're both big men. Now, 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.080 That's how men in England resolve their conflict. 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.079 Understand that this was not the usual father son squabble. 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.920 Brett hit so hard that he dislodged his own dad's eyeball. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.600 The injury is so grave that Brett was convicted of 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.800 gross bodily harm and served thirty two months behind bars. 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.000 In most cases, they swing their fists around. Yes, a plausible, 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:42.200 it's believable. You've had a fight, but you don't kill 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.440 your mum. And yeah, just it baffled me. I don't 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.800 understand what happened to trigger that guy because it was hyperactive. 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:57.640 But it wasn't a killer, not a killer at all. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.959 According to Jack, Brett was a powdered with a lit fuse. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.880 It was only a matter of time before he heard someone. 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.920 But according to Sam, Brett was quote not a killer 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.679 at all. Sam still can't reconcile the boy he knew 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.400 with the man who committed the murders. And I get it, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.720 that gap, that disbelief. I see where both Jack and 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.920 Sam are coming from. So I went looking for something concrete. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.760 I went to the courthouse and I asked for the 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.880 transcripts of Brett Rogers trial, day by day, word for word, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.400 And what I found there, well, it was more baffling 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.600 than black and white. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:45.960 Thank you so much. 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.760 Have you had at least a relaxing weekends, and I 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.360 felt come in on a Sunday well out of the 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.720 timing was perfect because I was due to be an 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.160 a show yesterday and stay again night anyway, okay, good, 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.000 So just coming through Central. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.360 London, ED left me in London to drive up to 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.600 his parents' house. He thought it might be helpful to 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.280 brief them on Wyam and Stanstead before I arrived for 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.480 our interview. I'm grateful for a few days out of 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.720 earshot from Ed. I knew some details of the trial 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.400 would be tough for him to hear. I met with 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:20.320 Simon Spence, a barrister and King's Council at Red Lion Chambers. 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.320 Unlike attorneys in the US, barristers can choose whether to 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.120 argue prosecution or defense. 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.360 I think it's very important to do both. I do 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.520 both that I do about fifty percent of each, and 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:34.880 it makes it much easier to see the other side 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:35.440 of the case. 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.840 In Brett Rodgers' case, Spence was brought on as lead prosecutor. 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.800 The trial began nearly a year after the murders May third, 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:44.720 twenty sixteen. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:46.480 On Camp one. 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.400 He is charged with murder and the particulars of the 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.920 offense are that on the twenty second day of July 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.680 twenty fifteen, he murdered Jillian K. Phillips. 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.760 We have had voice actors recreate the proceedings. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.560 Third day of July, he murdered David John Oakes. To 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.640 this indictment, he has pleaded not guilty, and it is 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.520 your charge to say, having heard the evidence, whether he 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:10.440 is guilty or not. 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.840 But the trial started off with the twist. Simon's team 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.920 assumed Brad would plead guilty the evidence was overwhelming, but 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.760 just weeks before the trial he. 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:26.360 Pleaded not guilty. I think the first thing the defense did, 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.840 although obviously I wasn't privy to what was going on 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.199 in the defense camp, was probably to obtain a psychiatric 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.160 report to see if he'd got any mental health defense 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.800 available to him. And that's very normal in murder cases, 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.959 whether they accept responsibility for the killing or not. If 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.680 you're defending a murder, you'll always get a psychiatric report 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:50.640 to see whether diminished responsibility can come into play. That 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.559 there are two different aspects to mental health defenses in 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:58.360 this country. There's insanity, which is very rare, which actually 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.440 you get a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.439 I've only had one in thirty six years. Far more 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.679 common is diminished responsibility, which reduced his murder to manslaughter. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.760 So that's what they would have been looking for. But 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.880 there has to be a causal link between any mental 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:14.880 health problem and the killing. 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.520 But the doctors that examined Brett couldn't find that link. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.600 Thus Brett had to stand trial as a mentally competent man. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.800 We never saw the psychiatric report they got, so it 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.079 clearly wasn't favorable. 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.080 Brett's defense was looking to blame the murders on someone, 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.800 anyone else, so in his opening argument, Simon painted Brett 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.920 as the only person in the vicinity with the capacity 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.680 to do something this cruel to his own mom. He 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.800 then immediately informed the jury of the brutal beat down 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.000 Brett had given his father years before. 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.319 The jury should know that the defendant was a license 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.440 at the time and required to live at his mother's address. 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.440 After his fight with his father, Brett was forbidden by 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.520 the court to ever live with him again, so Brett's mom, Jillian, 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.240 invited her son to move back in with her, just 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.160 steps away from the Hedges house. Brett was on parole, 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.600 which meant that he had to constantly meet with court 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.880 officers and social workers to show evidence of his improving behavior. 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.720 One misstep and the door would slam all over again. 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.040 Framing the trial from this angle, Spence was shaping a 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.200 narrative casting Brett as a violent young man a full 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:31.320 mental capacity. Mental health was not to be considered that. 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.080 The whole way the defense presented their case was that 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.360 he got on well with his mum, didn't get on 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:38.960 very well with his dad, and of course he got 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.360 a previous for grieves bodily harm with intent on his father. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.120 And the defense did quite a neat job actually of saying, well, 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.120 he had no reason to attack his mother, and he's 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.040 not somebody prone to mindless violence. It's just violence if 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:52.920 something triggers it. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.920 There was no opening argument from the defense, therefore Spence 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.040 took his time laying out the facts. Spence then he 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.800 turned to the jury and asked appointed question the. 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.440 Issues for you in this case, members of the jury, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.040 and whether you're sure that the killer of the two 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.080 people was this defendant, and whether you're sure of that 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.560 or may it have been an unknown third party. And 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.240 the other issue for you is if you're sure it 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.520 was the defendant, then what was his intention at the 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:25.240 time of the killings, because no other issue arises about 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.080 the defendant's mental state of the time. 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.760 As a reminder, on the night of July twenty second, 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.520 twenty fifteen, Ed Hedges returned to his childhood village of 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.760 Stanstead Mountfitchett for the first time in four years to 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.800 perform a charity comedy show. For all intents and purposes, 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.000 he was the local kid who made good. After a 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.520 few pints with friends, Ed walked back to his childhood 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.480 home and crawled into bed. That same night, just a 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.960 few yards away, Brett Rodgers murdered his mother, Jillian Phillips 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:02.600 and her friend David Oakes. Stabbed them repeatedly with multiple knives. 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.040 But out of the blue, Brett's defense presented an entirely 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:07.840 new story. 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.640 All of a sudden, we got this defense statement saying 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.440 Brett Rodgers had gone out to the shop fifteen minutes 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.280 and came back past this man with a knife, leaving 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:25.440 where my mum lived and walked into the scene of carnage. 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.320 In either version, Brett then made a call to the police. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.560 Essex Police received a nine to nine to nine call 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.840 at their call center from an anonymous mail calling from 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.440 a mobile phone number saying there had been a murder 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.760 at twenty Benfield Gardens. When asked how he knew, the 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.360 caller said this, well, I'd come in and there's been 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:44.880 a murder. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.800 I think the mobile phone signal wasn't great and the 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.600 first call probably cut off before he was able to 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:53.640 say anything meaningful. 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.680 Brett also called the police a second time. 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.360 The second call did get through and he reported that 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.840 his mother and her friend had been killed. 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.119 If he was the killer, why would he call the 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:09.080 police himself. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.119 One of the peculiarities about it is he'd left the 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.040 house and was standing on a sort of little village 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.960 green thing to make the phone call, and from recollection, 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.000 I think a passer by actually saw him making the 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.800 phone call and they themselves made a. 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:24.480 Call to the police. 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.280 It was an odd feature of the case and one 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:32.040 that we never really got a true explanation for the 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.080 unusually long period of time between the two calls. Clearly 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.600 we used and the police had this theory that he'd 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:39.840 gone back to the house to do something before leaving 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.080 again to make the call. The problem with that is 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.479 we had no evidence that is what he did, but 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:47.480 it was a longer period of time than one would 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.920 have expected, particularly given the urgency of it. 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.159 Could this be when Brett went to Ed's house covered 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.080 in his own mother's blood. Even the investigators were unable 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.119 to confirm his whereabouts during this forty five minute window. 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.240 Not long after the police arrived to find Brett between 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:07.800 his house and the Hedges home. 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.160 He was described by one of the police officers as 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.200 looking vacant and he had something in his hand. According 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.679 to PC Nice, he was laughing. His hands were covered 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.840 in blood. He was asked by PC Scott's where the 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.680 blood had come from, and he pointed and nodded towards 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.080 number twenty and said in there. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:29.919 Brett Rogers was arrested on the spot. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.760 The police officers who entered the house were met with 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.679 a scene that can only be described as horrific. Gillian 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.399 Phillips was sprawled across a sofa in the living room. 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.159 She was already dead and was covered in congeal blood. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.359 David Oakes was lying face down on the floor, his 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.760 face and neck covered in blood, although at that time 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:52.840 he was still breathing. 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.000 David Oaks survived into the early hours of the twenty third, 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.360 and then he too passed. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.840 The forensic scientists took a huge number of photographs, not 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.080 all of which we showed to the jury. Some of 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.080 them were just too horrific to do so. The thing 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.840 that struck me most about it was the sheer quantity 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:18.439 of bloodshed. It literally was a blood bath. It was 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:20.320 literally as if someone had gone in and just chucked 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.040 red paint all over the place. It was up the stairs, 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.320 it was in the kitchen, it was on the landing upstairs, 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:31.920 in virtually every room in the house. The pathologist's findings 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.400 was that the two deceased remained downstairs at all time, 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.399 and that the distribution of blood up the stairs and 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:44.240 onto the landing upstairs was all secondary transfer from Brett himself, 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.520 and that made it a very unusual crime scene for me. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.560 Bro It was taken to the station, where three mental 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.520 health professionals assessed him in the early hours of the morning. 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.080 He offered them nothing, not a word. He also refused 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.240 a urine test, which could have possibly lessened his sentence 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.920 if it had proven that illegal substances may have contributed 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.800 to his actions. Later at the hospital, a doctor treated 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.439 a deep cut on his hand for I was silent, 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.720 unwilling to explain. By the afternoon of July twenty third, 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.679 detectives were ready to hear his story, but when the 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:25.120 questions came, Brett gave them exactly what he'd given everyone else, silence. 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:33.720 He did come across as rather arrogant and very little remorse, which, 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.280 again from memory, is something I commented on in my 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.080 closing speech to the jury and said, well, if you 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.639 would come on this scene, and if you're close to 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.200 your mother, as he was professing to be, what one 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.280 would have expected to see a bit more emotional reaction. 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:51.920 He was quite cold. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.240 The trial lasted two weeks. Police officers and forensic experts 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.320 took the stand through it all. Brett Rogers never a 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.840 word except in one moment, and there was. 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:09.240 One particular instance where Brett Rodgers kicked off in court, 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.240 although the jury were told they had to ignore it. 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.679 It's impossible to expect him to do that, and I 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.840 think that was a large part of their decision to 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:19.760 convict him. 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.680 On day three of the trial, as a forensic scientist 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:27.080 presented evidence of the crime scene, Brett stood up and shouted, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:28.880 will you shut up? 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:31.680 You give me my heady. 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:33.680 He turned toward the glass stock door and tried to 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.359 make a run for it. When he realized it was locked, 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.760 he spun back around and lunged, slamming into the two 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.480 dock officers. One was knocked to the floor, the other 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.640 took a hit square to the face from the gallery. 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:51.080 His family shouted, his father, pleading Brett to stop. Then 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.960 the clerk hit the panic button. Do you remember what 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.360 might have been said that caused. 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:58.000 That reaction from Brett. 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.320 I don't think it was particularly he just suddenly started saying, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:04.879 stop it, stop it, this is doing my head in. 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:10.680 And I think it was simply the expert saying, well, 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.879 there was a pattern of a trainer in this pool 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.280 of blood, and it had compared it to the trainers 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:18.560 that the defendant was wearing, and they matched, so he 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:23.320 must have put that footmark there. I was really quite 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.560 surprised that it triggered the reaction that it did, but 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:31.840 it perhaps just does demonstrate that actually there was something 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.639 about Brett Rodgers that he just couldn't control his temper. 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.760 January eighth, twenty seventeen, the jury deliberated for less than 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.159 a day. Brett Rodgers was sentenced, and before he was 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:46.199 taken away, the judge left him with the message. 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.760 The only surprise in this case was that you would 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.320 not admit that it was you who'd killed your mother 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.879 and mister Oaks. The consequence of your lies is that 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.560 no one apart from you knows exactly what happened at 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.439 your mother's house that evening. For murder, there is only 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.679 one sentence which is prescribed by law, and that is 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:09.440 imprisonment for life. 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.800