Speaker 1: If you're going to place your left hand on the
Speaker 1: Bible and raise your right hand, and please repeat after
Speaker 1: me and I do solemnly swear, then titled action find
Speaker 1: the defendant guilty of the prime. It makes no sense,
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit.
Speaker 1: We all took the same of office. We're all bound
Speaker 1: by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution,
Speaker 1: to bear true faith in allegiance to the same that
Speaker 1: you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you
Speaker 1: solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about
Speaker 1: to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
Speaker 1: nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to you see me. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: very guarded about the whole situation. First of all, you
Speaker 1: have to remember, for so many years, like I couldn't
Speaker 1: even talk about it and not even have my child,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to just kind of keep everything
Speaker 1: so internalized that to some degree it's really hard to
Speaker 1: talk about it. She feels like I should because I
Speaker 1: don't think people realize that this could happen to them,
Speaker 1: you know, because if you talk to people, they're just
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, well they must have done something,
Speaker 1: you know, because that doesn't happen to normal people, Like
Speaker 1: that would never happen to me. Sometimes it doesn't even
Speaker 1: feel like it happened to us. It's like in another
Speaker 1: dimension or something like you can't even like retreat it
Speaker 1: as an actual like thing. And it's like I don't
Speaker 1: know about for her, but for me after that night,
Speaker 1: my whole life before then, it feels like a dream,
Speaker 1: Like I can't even access the person that I was, feelings,
Speaker 1: I had, the thoughts I have about really anything. It's
Speaker 1: like it walked behind like do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe it anymore than that,
Speaker 1: you know, something horrible happening and I'm a phone call
Speaker 1: for help and I didn't receive help. Hi everyone, my
Speaker 1: name is Christina and I'm the lead producer on this
Speaker 1: season of Sworn. This episode is the first in a
Speaker 1: three part series, a sort of culminating case study for
Speaker 1: the topics we've covered so far this season of Sworn.
Speaker 1: We divided most of the episodes into topics instead of cases,
Speaker 1: and looked at some of the problems and technicalities and
Speaker 1: the legal system, many of which come into play in
Speaker 1: this case. I really encourage you to take a listen
Speaker 1: through the first part of this season to learn more
Speaker 1: about the factors that we'll get into in these next
Speaker 1: three episodes. The reason you're hearing my voice right now
Speaker 1: instead of Phil's is that Phil is actually one of
Speaker 1: our subjects in this case. In two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: Phil took on a case that would turn into one
Speaker 1: of the biggest and most impactful in his career as
Speaker 1: a defense attorney. When we were planning this season, talking
Speaker 1: about problems with the justice system, he recommended we covered
Speaker 1: this case right away. But since he was so close
Speaker 1: to it being her defense attorney, we decided I would
Speaker 1: take the lead and see what I could find out
Speaker 1: about how the case impacted her, her family, and Phil himself.
Speaker 1: So for the next three episodes, we're going to dive
Speaker 1: into the details of that case, showing you what happened
Speaker 1: from start to finish. The woman feel defended graciously agreed
Speaker 1: to share her story with us, but for the sake
Speaker 1: of her privacy and her children's privacy, we've changed her
Speaker 1: voice and removed any identifying information that was her at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the episode, and she talked about making
Speaker 1: a call to get help the night of the incident.
Speaker 1: She called one and things started to spiral from there.
Speaker 1: I'd like to play you some of that nine one
Speaker 1: one call now. We've edited it for clarity and privacy,
Speaker 1: but I want to warn you it's pretty graphic. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of hard to listen to. I haven't argue with
Speaker 1: my husband. We were in my stepson's room and he
Speaker 1: was listening to me. He was like, we're doing there,
Speaker 1: and we were arguing, how are you coining his gun
Speaker 1: at me? I tried to push it away from him,
Speaker 1: and he said, you don't want to do that. And
Speaker 1: the next thing I know, then did you hear it
Speaker 1: go off? What did you hear the gun go off? Husband?
Speaker 1: He's making wise, he's making noise. Yes, I think it's
Speaker 1: been more off this flood everywhere. He was trained to
Speaker 1: shoot me and I was fighting with the gun and
Speaker 1: he said, you didn't want to do that, and then
Speaker 1: the gun went off and the next thing I know,
Speaker 1: my husband has covered its blood. So hurry, Okay. Do
Speaker 1: you think this was accidentally? Do you think he essentially
Speaker 1: shot himself? I don't know. I note that she was
Speaker 1: angry trump the door. Oh my kissing. We were both
Speaker 1: drinking and we were talking, and I was talking on
Speaker 1: the phone with my friend and he was in this
Speaker 1: room and he was listening. Did YouTube puns it? And
Speaker 1: I can't he planing from his head, which is sleep. Hurry,
Speaker 1: and they're on the way. I just need to let
Speaker 1: them know what's going on. Okay. The important thing is
Speaker 1: just to keep perfect. It's everywhere. And my my eleven
Speaker 1: year old daughter came to the door and she said,
Speaker 1: as everything okay, and I closed the door unfured with sleep. Hurry,
Speaker 1: okay's on the scene right now, okay, okay. Oh do
Speaker 1: you hear the ambulance coming. The ambulance is coming, bye,
Speaker 1: good bye, to bye. Class. I sat down with Phil's
Speaker 1: client and two of her children in Phil's office to
Speaker 1: hear about this horrific experience. You might hear some people
Speaker 1: walking around in the background. One last note on privacy.
Speaker 1: We've beaped out her husband's name, the man who died.
Speaker 1: Is there something from the night of the incident that
Speaker 1: stands out the most? Yes, was I don't know the word.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say. Calm but he was very agreeable.
Speaker 1: He was very just whatever, just kind of agreeable. Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, I had to go to the library to
Speaker 1: get their summer reading because I hadn't finished getting them
Speaker 1: their summer reading and school wasn't getting ready to start,
Speaker 1: and I had to go to the grocery store. So
Speaker 1: I had all this stuff I had to do, and
Speaker 1: I had to go and pick up my paycheck, and
Speaker 1: so I was leaving the house with the kids to
Speaker 1: go pick up her and stuff. And I was sitting
Speaker 1: on the living room floor with the Monopoly board game out,
Speaker 1: and he was making the kids complain monopoly with them,
Speaker 1: which wasn't unusual except for the fact that he was
Speaker 1: adamant that night one of the kids won, or more
Speaker 1: likely her husband let them win. Nobody ever beat Monopoly,
Speaker 1: like it was like unheard of because he cheated terribly,
Speaker 1: Like he just he didn't beat your dad of Monopoly,
Speaker 1: like he'd find a way to win. And so I
Speaker 1: was laughing, and it was like everything was kind of cool,
Speaker 1: you know, But he was just there was like a
Speaker 1: just like an okay, nous, like he wasn't agitated. There
Speaker 1: was like nothing weird, which was almost a little bit abnormal,
Speaker 1: you know, not that he was you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a jerk or anything, but he just wasn't very chill.
Speaker 1: And then um, he came to the back door and
Speaker 1: he said, can you drive me to the quick trip?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I had a glass of wine,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to drive, and he's said, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: and he closed the door. So then I saw the
Speaker 1: headlights moving out of the driveway, which made me mad
Speaker 1: because I used to repeatedly hide car keys from him
Speaker 1: so that he wouldn't drink and drive because he went
Speaker 1: did tend to be somewhat self destructive. And then he
Speaker 1: was in the room and the door was locked because
Speaker 1: it locked him in there, and I knocked on the
Speaker 1: door and I said, do you want to come and
Speaker 1: sit with me because I'm gonna go to bed soon
Speaker 1: and he was like yeah, I'll be right out, and
Speaker 1: I was like okay, and I went and I checked
Speaker 1: my email, knocked on the door again. He unlocked the
Speaker 1: door and I walked in and he was listening to
Speaker 1: music and I saw the gun on the on the
Speaker 1: desk and it wasn't supposed to be in the house.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is that doing in the house.
Speaker 1: I think I even made a joke because the reason
Speaker 1: I went over to the computer was that if he
Speaker 1: didn't hurry up and come outside, that I was going
Speaker 1: to post songs on his YouTube that he hate it,
Speaker 1: like joking around, you know. I saw the gun and
Speaker 1: then he picked it up and he did point it
Speaker 1: at me. I tried to get it away from him,
Speaker 1: and he said, you don't want to do that now.
Speaker 1: I think the police tried to turn that into like
Speaker 1: a threatening thing, but it was more like a you
Speaker 1: don't want to piss me off kind of a tone
Speaker 1: to it, and I let go. I sat down on
Speaker 1: what I remember to be a table like, and I
Speaker 1: remember sitting down and I remember covering my face because
Speaker 1: I was like, oh God, he's going to kill me,
Speaker 1: because I thought I had set him off to that point.
Speaker 1: I heard a clicking noise and I moved my hands
Speaker 1: and he had the gun pointed to his head. So
Speaker 1: I jumped up and I tried to pull it away
Speaker 1: from him, and I heard a pop. I didn't even
Speaker 1: realize what had happened at first. I tried to pick
Speaker 1: him up and he didn't move, and then I was
Speaker 1: pulling on his arm and there was blood, and apparently
Speaker 1: my screaming is what woke up some if not all
Speaker 1: of them, I don't really know. And I remember running
Speaker 1: around the house trying to find a phone and I
Speaker 1: called nine one. She she came in at some point
Speaker 1: and I told her to go away and everybody to
Speaker 1: stay out because they didn't want them to see their father.
Speaker 1: They told me they were going to take me to
Speaker 1: the hospital. They took him. Finally they came. I felt
Speaker 1: like an eternity, and they told me that they were
Speaker 1: going to take me to the hospital. Then they took
Speaker 1: me in a police car and they took me to
Speaker 1: the station, which I didn't understand that. They told me
Speaker 1: they would take me the hospital after and then they
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to me, and um It had some
Speaker 1: issues with the law throughout his life, and he always
Speaker 1: told me never to talk to the police, and so honestly,
Speaker 1: I was afraid that he was going to get in trouble.
Speaker 1: So when they asked me what happened, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna want me to talk to them, you know.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what kind of questions the police ask you.
Speaker 1: I don't remember a lot of questions. I remember asking
Speaker 1: them questions more. I remember asking them where was when
Speaker 1: they were going to take me, but I don't really
Speaker 1: remember a lot of questions. But I also told them
Speaker 1: I didn't want to answer any questions because in that
Speaker 1: light of that situation, what could I tell the police
Speaker 1: that could harm my husband? Because for all I knew
Speaker 1: he was coming home in a wheelchair. I have no
Speaker 1: idea at this point the extent of how my husband is.
Speaker 1: I know nothing, And so I was like, I really
Speaker 1: feel like I shouldn't talk to you, and I think
Speaker 1: I may have said without a lawyer or something like that,
Speaker 1: and really what I wanted to talk to was my
Speaker 1: father in law. That made them angry. And then they left,
Speaker 1: and then they came back and they told me that
Speaker 1: it was gone, and then they told me that they
Speaker 1: were going to arrest me, and they well, they took
Speaker 1: a bunch of naked pictures of me first, which was bizarre,
Speaker 1: which I can't even remember if that was first or after,
Speaker 1: but they did take pictures of me, and I didn't understand.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand like I thought I was supposed to
Speaker 1: go to the hospital. Everything just kind of happened, and
Speaker 1: then they took me into this room, and I just
Speaker 1: don't even like the whole thing feels like a dream state.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what time of day it was,
Speaker 1: Like the whole day is just like bizarre fog. I
Speaker 1: just feel like I was in shock, Like I don't
Speaker 1: even feel like like you don't feel your legs. You're
Speaker 1: walking and you're just like in sounds feel like they're
Speaker 1: in another world, like it's not real, Like you can't
Speaker 1: even wrap your brain around what's happening. I think they
Speaker 1: said something like you're under arrest, and I think I
Speaker 1: said for what, and they said murder. I mean, when
Speaker 1: they came and said that they were charging me like
Speaker 1: that was so shocking to me because I had been
Speaker 1: trying to save him for the minute. I tried to
Speaker 1: take the gun from him. From years before, I have
Speaker 1: hit the gun from him, I hit car keys from him.
Speaker 1: I poured five dollars worth of pharmaceuticals down my garbage disposal.
Speaker 1: I poured bottles of jim Beam off my patio. I mean,
Speaker 1: I spent years keeping this man alive. For that and
Speaker 1: for me, that's what I did. And then calling with
Speaker 1: an ambulance, I thought they were going to come and
Speaker 1: help him. I just doubted that I was there. I
Speaker 1: was there, and I wasn't going to leave him, didn't.
Speaker 1: They took him from me, dine alone. We died without
Speaker 1: me and I wasn't there, and just everything from them
Speaker 1: from the day I met him un till the day
Speaker 1: I lost him, I was keeping him alive. Like it
Speaker 1: was just like what, like are you insane? And like
Speaker 1: you can see in that situation when somebody says, what happened,
Speaker 1: like so many things happened, You're like, I can't really
Speaker 1: answer that question. I guess from what I understand from
Speaker 1: what Phil told me that I was giving conflicting answers
Speaker 1: and that I was standing and I was sitting where
Speaker 1: he was sitting or he was standing, and we were fighting,
Speaker 1: but we weren't fighting. Well, like all of those things
Speaker 1: are true. And then it was like somehow, and I
Speaker 1: know this is sound weird, but it's almost like didn't
Speaker 1: matter any more. It was more like a witch hunt
Speaker 1: for me. They took me and I think they were
Speaker 1: laughing at me that if I remember correctly, because they
Speaker 1: had me in like paper suits and stuff because they
Speaker 1: had taken all my clothes. But I'm just talking about
Speaker 1: the police station, like I said, it's like pretty voggy.
Speaker 1: I had no shoes, and I remember standing outside of
Speaker 1: the police car barefoot when they were bringing me to
Speaker 1: the jail. And then they took me in and then they,
Speaker 1: I guess what they called process me. They put me
Speaker 1: in a room and I think I called my father
Speaker 1: in law and I couldn't call my dad because he
Speaker 1: was a long distance. They took me to the infirmary
Speaker 1: and they put me in a room and it was flooded,
Speaker 1: because I guess that then, I'm guessing that the inmates
Speaker 1: do it, but I don't know. But they stuffed the
Speaker 1: toilets until they overflow, and then they give you a
Speaker 1: pad to sleep on, and they put you in a
Speaker 1: sort of straight jacket sort of thing. It's like a
Speaker 1: padded thing that you can wear. I was told later
Speaker 1: at some point it was suicide watch. I mean there
Speaker 1: was a girl in there that was singing to her baby.
Speaker 1: I mean it was what I would imagine a psych
Speaker 1: word when would be like. Then they took me out
Speaker 1: of there, and then they took me and they put
Speaker 1: me in the regular what they called general population. The
Speaker 1: girls were really nice to me in there. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, not never been to jail before. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what they were going to be like, and I
Speaker 1: pretty much just went in my cot They were just
Speaker 1: really they were really nice to me. They were I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't say anything. I guess I should say that
Speaker 1: the experience was horrifying. The experience of losing my family
Speaker 1: was horrifying. Jail was were They were nice women. A
Speaker 1: lot of them were broken women that had been through
Speaker 1: some I'm sure difficult trials in their life, you know,
Speaker 1: but they were they were trained to me. My dad
Speaker 1: came and asked me what to do, and I said
Speaker 1: to make sure that they were safe. And then he
Speaker 1: sent me a couple of lawyers, and I chose Phil.
Speaker 1: I think I understand that it was over twenty one
Speaker 1: days that I was in jail. I think that's what
Speaker 1: they told me. I can't I can't remember. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned, Phil was brought on as her defense
Speaker 1: attorney early on, while she was still in jail. In
Speaker 1: a series of interviews, I sat down with him and
Speaker 1: his staff to find out what her case looked like
Speaker 1: from the professionals point of view. We were all own
Speaker 1: problems and short on time, and we needed to go
Speaker 1: ahead and get her into court. We needed to get
Speaker 1: a hearing, uh an evidentury hearing. We needed to find
Speaker 1: out why the police we're saying that she was guilty
Speaker 1: of murder, so we needed to test their evidence, if
Speaker 1: you will. We needed to get our heads wrapped around
Speaker 1: what the hell is going over their case? Why did
Speaker 1: they charge her with murder so quickly? We had to
Speaker 1: file motions to get her into court. We also were
Speaker 1: interested in trying to get her out on bail, and
Speaker 1: we knew going into this that was a long shot.
Speaker 1: Quite frankly, I was not expecting to ever get her out,
Speaker 1: at least not on bond, but we did. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: they charged her so quickly because they misinterpreted the evidence
Speaker 1: that they found at the scene. You have two people
Speaker 1: and there's some type of an altercation and there's a
Speaker 1: gun involved. One person gets shot and dies. Police sometimes
Speaker 1: jump to conclusions and they get tunnel vision, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what they did here. They looked at this
Speaker 1: and they said, well, you know there was a gun,
Speaker 1: somebody's dead, and you know she's alive. Well, she must
Speaker 1: have killed him. This happened in close quarters, right, and
Speaker 1: she's not who you might expect would prevail in a
Speaker 1: physical altercation against him, and they I think misinterpreted the
Speaker 1: crime scene a little bit and felt like they were
Speaker 1: not close enough together when this altercation took place, that
Speaker 1: maybe she had to be sort of across the room.
Speaker 1: But there was an initial police and e m S
Speaker 1: response that came in pretty quickly and changed some things around.
Speaker 1: By the time investigators got there to really try to
Speaker 1: truly process the scene, the gun that was involved had
Speaker 1: been moved, of course, there was nobody. He had gone
Speaker 1: off to the hospital for emergency room treatment, and so
Speaker 1: the scene had been manipulated, not not in any malicious way,
Speaker 1: but it had been changed. It was not the way
Speaker 1: that it existed, you know, when it was just her there,
Speaker 1: when she's on the phone with nine one one. It
Speaker 1: was changed. So I think they misinterpreted things. They jumped
Speaker 1: to some conclusions, I think, and then they built their
Speaker 1: case around their misperceptions. I think that's the most charitable
Speaker 1: way I could put it. They had a victim and
Speaker 1: there was a gunshot entry wound on his left palm.
Speaker 1: There was an exit wound out the back of his
Speaker 1: left hand, something you should ask Chris Robinson about. You
Speaker 1: might remember Chris Robinson from our earlier episode this season
Speaker 1: on bite marks and forensic science. In that episode, he
Speaker 1: went into the details of his work as a forensic consultant,
Speaker 1: including analyzing ballistics and gunshot residue, both of which come
Speaker 1: up in this case. So when Phil started assembling the defense,
Speaker 1: he brought Chris on to evaluate the crime scene and
Speaker 1: help determine whether or not his client's story of struggle
Speaker 1: and self defense was likely or even possible. I believe
Speaker 1: the question was the way that the individual was shot,
Speaker 1: how close the range of fire was, the angle of
Speaker 1: trajectory through the body of the bullet. I believe it
Speaker 1: went through his hand and then into his face. So
Speaker 1: as it went through his hand, there was stippling on
Speaker 1: the hand a little bit, which is the bruising of
Speaker 1: the skin about the unburned gunpowder particles, and then he
Speaker 1: went through the hand and as it fragmented, that was
Speaker 1: stippling all over his face. Some of that was pseudo
Speaker 1: stippling from the bones that went through the hand. Some
Speaker 1: of that could have been powder because it was very
Speaker 1: close to his face at the time, but the pictures
Speaker 1: he was right there. It was eviden I said that
Speaker 1: the gun is is up against the handles as you
Speaker 1: see it right through the hand, and and Philip was
Speaker 1: He's looked at me and he's like, are you serious,
Speaker 1: it's right there. Look, it's just still a tear. Stell
Speaker 1: eight is the star shaped pattern. It's just a star
Speaker 1: shaped pattern from the contact type of gunshot wing that's
Speaker 1: caused by gas pressure. Bullets don't rip bullets punched holes.
Speaker 1: When you see stella tearing, that's an indication that most
Speaker 1: likely it was a contact shot, which means the muzzle
Speaker 1: of the gun was directly up against the hand the skin.
Speaker 1: It was an interesting case. The end of the day.
Speaker 1: Bill's question was, do you think it could have been
Speaker 1: an accident? Well, absolutely, if you're strugging over the weapon.
Speaker 1: You see, we showed that his hand was was right
Speaker 1: on the gun, very close to the gun, and that
Speaker 1: there could have definitely been a struggle over the gun.
Speaker 1: We ran through it several dozen times. But he said,
Speaker 1: show me how how does the hand get in front
Speaker 1: of his face like it was? How does all this happens? It? Well,
Speaker 1: it broke the bombs as it went through and then
Speaker 1: the it went into the face and the face had
Speaker 1: he was severe trauma. But she could tell all these things,
Speaker 1: and the more went over it, Philip was like, totally,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can totally see where it was a
Speaker 1: self defense kind of issue. The medical examiner told prosecutors
Speaker 1: that Phil's client had to have been far away and
Speaker 1: shot her husband from across the room. But what Chris
Speaker 1: found was the exact opposite the stippling pattern, meaning how
Speaker 1: the gunshot residue hit his body, as well as the
Speaker 1: star shaped bullet entry wound proved that it was a
Speaker 1: shot where the gun was pressed against the skin. This
Speaker 1: describes what Phil's client told police and the nine one
Speaker 1: one operator. She and her husband struggled up close before
Speaker 1: the gun went off. The bottom line is that there
Speaker 1: was a struggle for control of a gun. So she
Speaker 1: walks in the room where he was and there's this gun,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's not a gun person, doesn't like gun.
Speaker 1: In fact, took a long time for me to be
Speaker 1: able to even try to reconstruct this using an unloaded weapon,
Speaker 1: and we did that eventually. We we talked about it
Speaker 1: with Chris, and Chris and I were able to piece
Speaker 1: it all together. Once we got some photographs and some
Speaker 1: other evidence from the prosecutors, we were able to try
Speaker 1: to go in and test what she said on the
Speaker 1: nine one one call. Could these things have actually happened?
Speaker 1: If he's right handed and he's holding a gun and
Speaker 1: they're fighting over control of it, Is it possible for
Speaker 1: what she said to the nine one one operator you know,
Speaker 1: to have happened, and lo and behold it was in fact,
Speaker 1: if if you're holding this particular gun and it was
Speaker 1: a glaw and you've got your finger on the trigger
Speaker 1: and the person that you're pointing it at reaches out,
Speaker 1: which would be the natural thing to do is to
Speaker 1: reach out and sort of push it back or whatever.
Speaker 1: I remember back in my days in the police academy,
Speaker 1: we actually trained for how do you what do you
Speaker 1: do as somebody's close to you and they in a
Speaker 1: gun at you. Well, one of the first things that
Speaker 1: you can do, if it's your revolver, you just take
Speaker 1: your your hand and you clamp down over the top
Speaker 1: of the gun and you grab the cylinder of the
Speaker 1: revolver and they can't pull the trigger and it won't fire.
Speaker 1: So that's what you do with the revolver. But with
Speaker 1: an automatic weapon or in this case, a semi automatic handgun,
Speaker 1: the best thing to do defensively is to grab the
Speaker 1: end of the weapon, the barrel, the business in and
Speaker 1: point it in another direction so that if they do
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, it's not coming right at you. That's
Speaker 1: sort of the instinctual thing that somebody's going to do.
Speaker 1: They're gonna grab the end of that weapon and they're
Speaker 1: gonna try to push one way or the other. And
Speaker 1: if the person who's holding that gun, if their finger
Speaker 1: is on the trigger, unless they move their finger out
Speaker 1: of the trigger, if you rotate the business into that
Speaker 1: gun just a few degrees either side, left or right,
Speaker 1: the finger is going to contract and your hand is
Speaker 1: gonna cause your your trigger, your trigger finger basically to
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, even though it's an involuntary movement. Chris
Speaker 1: and I went through this, and we we tested this scenario,
Speaker 1: and we never practiced this with a live round, of course,
Speaker 1: but using an unloaded glock, you can do it. I've
Speaker 1: got one here, and you can hear the click if
Speaker 1: you want to hear it, so you can hear it's
Speaker 1: it's a real gun. It's unloaded, there's nothing in the chamber.
Speaker 1: I'm not pointing it anybody, but I'm gonna hold it
Speaker 1: out with my arm extended like I'm pointing it at someone.
Speaker 1: And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: my left hand, you push this barrel. What you'll hear
Speaker 1: is and that's once I took the end of the
Speaker 1: weapon and I basically just pushed the barrel to to
Speaker 1: the to the side. It caused my trigger finger to click.
Speaker 1: So we knew that it was plausible, if not probable,
Speaker 1: that she was telling the truth. This is something that
Speaker 1: nobody ever really thought about. They just said, well, she
Speaker 1: said he was pointing at it himself. He was pointing
Speaker 1: in at her. He was waving around. You know, she
Speaker 1: she can't get make up her mind what the truth is,
Speaker 1: so she must be guilty. But the truth is all
Speaker 1: those things were probably happening. The medical examiner came up
Speaker 1: with some cookie theory that she must have been across
Speaker 1: the room because there was no stipling on his hand,
Speaker 1: and he totally ignored the fact that it was still
Speaker 1: eight entrance. When I knew the medical examiner's uh conclusions
Speaker 1: were bullshit, and I knew I was gonna have to
Speaker 1: prove it. But I was able to figure out that
Speaker 1: he had had some problems. He was actually sanctioned by
Speaker 1: the state his medical license. I don't think it was suspended,
Speaker 1: but it I think he went into a probationary status
Speaker 1: because he was disciplined for, you know, doing a bunch
Speaker 1: of sloppy autopsies a number of years before this, and
Speaker 1: he had entered into an agreement where they wouldn't suspend
Speaker 1: his medical license, but he had to do a bunch
Speaker 1: of autopsies under some kind of supervision and in a
Speaker 1: probationary sort of a status. So I knew that this
Speaker 1: guy had problems, and I knew that I'd known it
Speaker 1: about it for a long time. And when I saw
Speaker 1: his bizarre conclusions, I thought to myself, you know, he
Speaker 1: may very well be at it again, and and I
Speaker 1: need to get a sharp set of medical eyes on this.
Speaker 1: So we we reached out to a doctor who used
Speaker 1: to be the chief medical examiner for the state of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, he confirmed and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read part of his report. He says, a tighter
Speaker 1: press contact gunshot wound will produce the exact same skin
Speaker 1: findings and facial markings as seen in this case. The
Speaker 1: only means to prove or disprove a tight contact wound
Speaker 1: is a careful dissection of the deeper injuries in the
Speaker 1: wound track. This was not done. This death is considered
Speaker 1: by me to be an undetermined manner of death. I
Speaker 1: favor accident as the results of a struggle between the
Speaker 1: two people over control of the weapon. There is no
Speaker 1: proof of homicide. This told me that all along everything
Speaker 1: that I had thought and believed about this case, I
Speaker 1: felt vindicated personally, but that didn't do her a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot of good. She was still charged with murder.
Speaker 1: I knew we were on the right path, at least
Speaker 1: towards getting to the truth. Unfortunately, it took a long
Speaker 1: long time and a lot of money and some good
Speaker 1: help from from experts to to get to the truth.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be the ones having to prove this. The
Speaker 1: police should have gotten this riot, but they didn't. This
Speaker 1: is Caitlyn Phil's former are illegal. She worked with still
Speaker 1: on all aspects of this case. I was first paralegal
Speaker 1: for about four years. I have since moved to North
Speaker 1: Georgia and I am no longer working in law. I'm
Speaker 1: an optician now, but that probably doesn't matter, you know,
Speaker 1: with this being five years ago. My mind is not
Speaker 1: as crystal clear as when everything was happening, So I
Speaker 1: would also just like to stay you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to mislead and I don't want to missay anything,
Speaker 1: but you no, my my memories have might have changed
Speaker 1: just a little bit. So he took on her case
Speaker 1: a little bit before I got there, So it was
Speaker 1: probably nine months nine to twelve months underway when I
Speaker 1: joined Phil. You know, that was the biggest thing he
Speaker 1: had going at the time, so I immediately was brought
Speaker 1: to speed. It was very important. It carried a lot
Speaker 1: of weight and at least to me, it was clear
Speaker 1: that she did not need to be charged criminally for anything.
Speaker 1: I know. He was very heavily invested through work but
Speaker 1: also emotionally, and it was a very big time in
Speaker 1: both of our lives because he had this in front
Speaker 1: of him where she was potentially faced with a very
Speaker 1: I mean it was a very big charge. She could
Speaker 1: spend her life in prison, and he was just faced
Speaker 1: with making sure that didn't happen, because we knew that
Speaker 1: didn't need to happen. As far as I know, I
Speaker 1: had access to everything. If Phil had access to it,
Speaker 1: I had access to it. So I knew she wasn't
Speaker 1: criminally guilty because I knew about her past in her
Speaker 1: relationship with him. Um, and I knew the story, and
Speaker 1: I knew the evidence. You know, I learned so much
Speaker 1: about stifling and how bone fragments fracture when gunshots come
Speaker 1: in at certain angles. Every single piece of direct, circumstantial,
Speaker 1: any type of evidence just pointed to I mean, it
Speaker 1: wasn't her. She didn't she didn't do it. She was
Speaker 1: sending herself. I actually was going through discovery gathering, compiling
Speaker 1: things for Phil and stumbled upon the autopsy photos unexpectedly.
Speaker 1: Once it was shocking, But then once I saw it,
Speaker 1: you know, and took a second and realize, okay, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm looking at it, really it was intriguing.
Speaker 1: H I mean, just everything pointed to the fact that
Speaker 1: she was not criminally responsible for anything. I met her
Speaker 1: and her four children. Um, I met her parents also.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll never forget any of them. They're really
Speaker 1: great people there. She especially, It's just the type of
Speaker 1: person you don't forget. I say, I had friends, you know,
Speaker 1: I was newly out of college at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: her friends asked me, how can you defend criminals, and
Speaker 1: my mind always went to her. She isn't a criminal,
Speaker 1: but she's being charge like one. And the law can
Speaker 1: be very black and white sometimes, and you need criminal
Speaker 1: defense attorneys to protect people from being railroaded by the state.
Speaker 1: People need protecting from that, and she was a perfect
Speaker 1: example of someone who was not guilty, who could be
Speaker 1: charged with something, but it is not guilty of a crime.
Speaker 1: Next time on Sworn, there was a laundry list of
Speaker 1: churches did they offered the plea? And I think that
Speaker 1: it was volunteering manslaughter. At first I didn't want the plea.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not taking a police I
Speaker 1: was furious, dude that he told me about the Alfred plea.
Speaker 1: Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Our lead producer is Christina Dana. Executive producers are Payne
Speaker 1: Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV, Matt Frederick and
Speaker 1: Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and myself Philip Holloway.
Speaker 1: Additional production by Trevor Young, Mason Lindsay, Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright,
Speaker 1: and Halle Beadall. Original music and sound designed by Makeup
Speaker 1: and vanity set. Our theme song is Blood in the
Speaker 1: Water by Layup. Show art and design is by Trevor Eisler,
Speaker 1: editing by Christina Dana, mixing and mastering by Mike Rooney
Speaker 1: and Cooper Skinner. Special thanks to the team at I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio from u t a or In Rosenbaum and
Speaker 1: Grace Royer, Ryan Nord and Matthew Papa from the Nord Group,
Speaker 1: Back Media and Marketing, and Station sixteen. I'd also like
Speaker 1: to extend a very personal and special thanks to all
Speaker 1: of our contributors and guests who have helped to make
Speaker 1: all of these episodes possible. You can find Sworn on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Sworn podcast and follow me your host,
Speaker 1: Philip Halloway on Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q.
Speaker 1: Our website is sworn podcast dot com, and you can
Speaker 1: check out other Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot
Speaker 1: dot tv. If you have questions or comments, you can
Speaker 1: email us at Sworn at tenderfoot dot tv or leave
Speaker 1: us a voicemail at four zero four for one zero
Speaker 1: zero four one. As always, thanks for listening.