Episode Seven: Part Two - Your Cousin’s Friend’s Girlfriend
Host: Should we do Lionel Richie for real this time we insulted him last week. Hello? No-
Lawyer: Is it me you’re looking for?
Host: That was wrong. I did Adele again.
Lawyer: Damn. What did I do?
Host: You did him.
Lawyer: Oh, see, I got it.
Host: How are?-
Lawyer: They must have played that song in a Peloton workout that I do.
Host: Yeah?
Lawyer: Because it's in the back of my brain every time that someone-
Host: That's not super hype for working out.
Lawyer: Oh, but I do a lot of stretching and stuff too.
Host: Oh, okay. That makes more sense.
Lawyer: I do a lot of really chill bike rides. That's some of my favorite stuff. Okay. When we're just like vibing and just kind of letting our legs, you know, flush out and stuff like that. So like a chill bike ride.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: Sometimes I bike in my pajamas for real.
Host: That's nice.
Lawyer: Those are some of my favorites for sure.
Host: So how are you feeling this week? You're here.
Lawyer: No, I'm not actually, I forgot what we were scheduled to talk about this week.
Host: Are you a holograph?
Lawyer: Oh yeah. I'm going to head out. Good to check in with you. But if we're doing babies and cages, I'm out. I think that's what you wanted to talk about. So I'm not here for it.
Host: We might be past a lot of that. We might just be talking about-
Lawyer: Punishment. I can do punishment.
Host: Legalese stuff that I'm probably going to mess up and you're going to have to correct me the whole time. I blame it on the internet.
Lawyer: I'm telling you the things that people think about the criminal justice system are like, 9 times out of 10 incorrect and it's almost like their perceptions are so ingrained… Even when you correct their perception. It's like, I love you, but it's like, you. You're like, oh, you're the victim's attorney? I'm like, no, we've talked about this 14 times.
Host: No, I know we have, but I think it would be kind of like, it's not, it would be the same way. You don't know that much about like my job, you know what I mean?
Lawyer: No, no, no. That's what I mean. It's just, when you get that perception of how something works, then then that's how it works. I mean, I'm pretty sure you play with turtles all day. So the fuck you actually do I ain't got no idea.
Host: That sounds so nice.
Lawyer: That's what you do. So I don't, I don't know what you're talking about.
Host: I'm trying, I mean, I'm trying to learn more about like what the legal system actually looks like, which is, you know, part of the idea of doing this. Just kind of explaining it in a more approachable engaging way.
Lawyer: It's funny, because I met, it's not funny, but it's ironic, because I met with one of my newest victims.
I hate when I say it like that. When I say my victims to my colleagues, everybody understands what I mean.
Host: Right.
Lawyer: Then when I ever I'm in a conversation like this and I say something like my victims, it sounds like I'm out here committing crimes against people and then calling them my victims.
ANYWAYSSSS that's obviously not what I mean, but I met with this lovely young girl, in a new case I have where she may be testifying about some, some horrible things that happened to her. And at the end of the meeting, one of my friends was like, it's funny, because you're such a kid, but you have such an expanded vocabulary that you still almost can't bring that down to a kid's level.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: So I had said something. I was explaining to her what I did and what a judge did and how the criminal justice system functioned. And I said something like, “I'm the attorney that takes, you know, the evidence or the proof or the pictures or the, you know, the videos. I take them to the judge. And I say, judge, look at all this stuff. I need you to hold that person accountable for what they did.” I was like, I'm feeling pretty good about that explanation. She's nodding,
Host: I think that’s a great explanation!
Lawyer: She's nodding. She's like, yeah, I get that. I get that. That's the problem with 11 year olds though, when they have no idea what you're talking about they're still going to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Host: Mm-hmm
Lawyer: So my victim witness case manager looks down at me for a second and she gives me this look and I'm like, I pause and I look at her and I'm like, “yes?” And she turns towards the 11 year old and she goes, “honey, do you know what accountable means?”
And she, the 11 year old doesn't skip a beat, bright and sunny. She goes, “no”. I was like damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit.
Host: Yeah. I mean, I actually have the same experience at work because I do education. I mean, it's a secondary part of my job, but I do education with adults, kids. You know, elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, high schoolers.
And you have to be able to, and I struggle with that a lot. I feel like I'm breaking something down as simply as I possibly can. So I’m like, “does anybody know what salinity is?” And everyone's like “how much salt in the water!” And I'm like, okay, great. “Does anybody know what pH is?” And they're like, “no.”
So I'll explain it's like how acidic or basic the water is. Do you think a turtle could swim in like orange juice? Do you think a turtle could swim and bleach? Because that would be what it would be like if they were swimming in something really acidic or really basic. And I'm still like, I don't they got ittttttt. Their little faces are just like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Lawyer: I wish somebody would, what the fuck me? My kids are like, yeah, this makes total sense. They have no idea what I'm talking about the whole time.
Host: Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to figure out how to talk to like all different audiences like that, for sure. And every time you think you did a pretty good job someone's like, yeah, that was too complicated for an eight year old. I'm like, I don't know what an eight year old is. So I don’t
Lawyer: At this point that I've been in the justice system for longer than some of these kids have been alive. So this is like a second language for me.
Host: Yep.
Lawyer: And it's very hard for me to realize I'm even doing it. So I'll, you know, I'll plow down an explanation on the processes and procedures - 14 minutes later, nobody has any earthly idea what I'm talking about, but that's…
I appeared in front of this judge one day and I don't remember what the motion was at all. I have no idea. I have none. All I remember is in the ruling on the motion, the judge starts talking about the Magna Carter and I was like, is this what people think, is this how people feel when I'm talking? Because I don't know what the fuck the Magna Carter is and what that has to do with anything and how we got here.
Host: Are you calling it the Magna Carter?
Lawyer: What's the Magna Carter?
Host: It's the Magna Carta! Isn't it?
Lawyer: Bitch. I dunno. That's- take this segment out. Take this out. I'm going to get slayed by my colleagues. The Magna Carter, Magna Carta? It is probably a Carta. Definitely what that is. I couldn't tell you. You don't deal with that a lot in the criminal-
Are you Googling it?
Host: It was issued- So I feel like it's okay for you to not know what this is. It was issued in June 1215, and was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law. That sounds good.
Lawyer: Mm, shoulda asked mom. She would've known what the Magna Carta was
Host: Call her right now. She can tell us. We're going to have her on here. Because some of the people upcoming are people that she knew. Yeah, I think we should have a little, little guest.
Lawyer: Alright. So you're gonna have to take out the whole segment on me not knowing what the Magna Carta is.
Host: I'm not, I won't and you can't make me.
And also anyway, time for the task at hand - back into part two of our case from last week. So here we go. Where were we?
Lawyer: Let's dive into, let's get into it, dive into the bullshit
Host: So kind of in the aftermath and the trial and all of that stuff… The couple was arrested after that unrelated search of their home in 2011.
Lawyer: See I'd be curious to know what that was about.
Host: I would too. I know I looked forever and I couldn't find anything. Even in like the court website, where you can look up people's charges. I couldn't find any details. Cause I guess they, I guess ultimately, they weren't charged with it is all I can think.
So you can't really find any details. It probably got, even if they did do something, it probably got lost in all of this. I mean…
Lawyer: Right they're like, what were we here for? Somebody robbed you? Oh, you robbed somebody? Oh, it doesn't matter anymore. We don't care. We're on a different page now we're over here.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: We're here. Circles of hell number 307. So come on down.
Host: Yeah. So since, at this time, the father hadn't cracked yet they didn't know about the middle son. So the couple was arrested first and faced charges first for the abuse and neglect of their daughter who was six at the time.
Lawyer: Right.
Host: So in December of 2011 the mother was charged with attempted capital murder of someone less than 14 by someone greater than 21. Which is, and you can correct me on any of this obviously you would know better. This is all from the internet and that court website you told me about which said that this is a class two felony.
But the case was dismissed in March because no indictment was presented to the grand jury. Does that mean anything to you?
Lawyer: That could mean two very different things. No indictment being presented by the grand jury and no indictment being presented to the grand jury or two very different things.
A grand jury is a group of six people that meet to receive evidence on a case, usually just from law enforcement, it's not a trial. It's just usually an officer going and reading from their report about what their investigation has shown.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: And if, if the grand jury finds probable cause, which is again, not a very high standard, they issue what's called a true bill of indictment, which functions the same as an arrest warrant.
It's a charging document. It formally charges an individual with an offense
Host: Uh-huh.
Lawyer: So no indictment being presented to the grand jury would make me think almost that like an officer didn't present the case.
Host: Like they didn't show up?
Lawyer: Yeah. They decided not to present the charges for some reason.
Host: Huh.
Lawyer: But no, no indictment being presented by the grand jury would mean that the grand jury received evidence and did not find probable cause, which honestly is pretty rare.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: Grand juries almost always indict. because it's, there's, it's just one side of the story. It's just an officer reading their police report, what they saw or what they believe through their investigation.
Host: And so she wouldn't have been able to say, she wouldn't have even had a lawyer or anything? Or she wouldn't have been able to speak?
Lawyer: She wouldn't even have been there. It's the grand jury of six by themselves in a room and officers walk in and present. That's it.
Nobody else is- It's not a trial. It's not against the accused yet because it's almost it's, it's the functional equivalent of going to a magistrate and getting a warrant. When, when law enforcement goes to a magistrate and gets a warrant, the accused doesn't get to be there. Their lawyer doesn't get to be there. So it's not, it sounds unusual. I think because people expect a grand jury to be a trial, but it's not, it just doesn't function that way.
Host: Is a grand jury always a precursor to an actual trial?
Lawyer: Yes, either an indictment or an arrest warrant has to proceed a trial.
Host: That's interesting.
Lawyer: Those are the, those are the two ways that a charge can be formally issued in our jurisdictions.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: Either through an arrest warrant issued by a magistrate or an indictment issued by a grand jury.
Host: Interesting.
Lawyer: So it's good stuff, man. It doesn't really make a lot of, a lot of common sense or practical sense. Sometimes it's honestly the opposite of what you'd expect.
Host: It's so complicated and it never ceases to amaze me how different it is from what you see- not that TV or movies are real life, but it's always interesting to me how different it is than what you see in the media.
Lawyer: I've had so many conversations with mom about whatever. Where she's like trying to convince me that this is the way it works in the criminal justice system. And I'm like, mom, no, I promise that's not how it works. Just because you saw it on Law and Order special Victims Unit-
Host: That's not why she knows it because she knows everything. It doesn't have anything to do with Law and Order Special Victims Unit.
Lawyer: All the things.
Host: So I did say a couple minutes ago, the case was dismissed in March because of the no indictment thing. So that, that same month in March 2012, her trial started. Obviously there might be some steps missing there.
Lawyer: Yeah, a few, a few, a few
Host: In the district court her charge had been changed to the class two felony of malicious assault resulting in injury of the victim. The motions continued over the next year until March 2013 when the mother entered an Alford plea. So my understanding of an Alford plea is that you're still maintaining your innocence, but you're admitting that the court has enough evidence to find you guilty?
But there was a note that her case was concluded by a guilty plea. You think that was a typo or?
Lawyer: where did you read that she pled Alford?
Host: On that same website
Lawyer: And then where did it say that it was guilty?
Host: Then it says like-
Lawyer: Now Alford is a, it's plea of guilty by Alford. So it is technically a guilty plea.
Host: Gotcha.
Lawyer: But it is, you're maintaining your innocence. You're saying I did not do this, but I believe the state can prove that I did. And so I'm just not- because to plead guilty, you actually have to say, yes, I did this.
Host: Mm-hmm
Lawyer: I am guilty. I did the bad thing. The court goes through the whole, it's called a colloquy. The court goes through this whole question and answer thing where you have to say. Who you are, how old you are. Do you speak English? Do you understand this conversation? Are you on any drugs? Do you understand what you know, you're pleading guilty to? Do you understand the elements? Have you explored the elements in any defenses with your attorney on and on and on. So if, if you're saying, I didn't do this, then you can't actually plead guilty.
Host: Mm-hmm
Lawyer: So they crafted this exception to that where you can basically maintain your innocence but still plead guilty for, for whatever, whatever reason that may be.
Maybe you want to accept a plea agreement, but you're not willing to say I'm guilty. Maybe you want to be able to argue for leniency because at least you've given the victims or whoever may, may otherwise be involved, some closure and finalized the case and pleaded guilty technically.
So, I mean, it's another little, interesting weird legal concept.
Host: Yeah, that is interesting.
Lawyer: But yeah, she couldn't have gone to trial in the district court on a mal wounding. District courts don't have jurisdiction over felonies, so that must have been in circuit. It looks like she was convicted of a couple counts of child abuse and neglect, which. I think under the code section, they would've proceeded under is a class four felony.
So like most code sections, there's kind of two different versions of child abuse and neglect there's child abuse and neglect with a serious injury, which is a class four felony. And then there's child abuse and neglect that doesn't result in an injury.
Host: So interesting.
Lawyer: In this it would've been, not to sound horrible, but just, what the injury would've been, because I wonder if the malnourishment- I, I haven't done something to this level, obviously, but I think they would've been proceeding under the theory that the malnourishment alone is a serious injury.
Host: And I think the emotional- they talked about a lot about the developmental delays caused by the neglect. I don't think I mentioned yet that at the time when they found her and she was evaluated, she had the brain capacity of a 3-year-old child which, they hypothesized was around the time that the abuse probably began. Although they stated it could have begun as early as when she was 1. So yeah, I think that was their, the angle. They were approaching it from like, that this child will never be able to live a completely normal life.
Lawyer: Well, I think I told you, we have different list serves in my profession where you can reach out to, you know, statewide and say, “Hey, I've got this type of weird situation - has anybody ever dealt with this?”. And somebody posted and said, “I have a severe malnourishment case. I'm trying to prosecute a child abuse and neglect. Can anyone assist me? Has anyone had a case like this?”. And I didn't say anything because obviously I wasn't professionally involved in this.
Host: Right.
Lawyer: But someone responded and mentioned this case in our county.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: And said, yeah, there's there was the such and such case down in such and such county a couple of years ago, you should get in touch with the prosecutor down there. And I was like, uhhhhhhh what a thing to be known for- To be the prosecutor-
Host: -who defended these people?
Lawyer: No prosecutor means-
Host: Prosecutor is the people who represented the girl.
Lawyer: Technically, no, they represent the…
Host: State!
Lawyer: …Commonwealth
Host: They represent the state. Yes. Always have a hard time with all of this.
Lawyer: Everyone has a hard time. When I sit down, it's very confusing. When I sit down with my victims and I'm like, I'm not your lawyer.
They're like, I'm sorry, what do you mean? Who's my lawyer then? Who are you? And I'm like uuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhghghh…
But I don't know. It's more pressure. Having one client was easier because you did whatever your client wanted. It didn't really mat- well, you know what maybe if they did, they were asking you to do something you weren't comfortable with, then obviously that wouldn’t-
Host: Something unethical.
Lawyer: But you know, now that I, I don't technically have a client it's almost harder. I've gotta balance all the scales.
Host: So yeah. Alford plea. Eventually in June of 2013 she was sentenced to 20 years in the state penitentiary. And then at the same time, she was also charged with a class four felony abuse or neglect of a child causing serious injury, which is what you were talking about a minute, a minute ago.
She pled guilty to that charge. So I don't know what the, the charge she got 20 years for was,
Lawyer: Mal wounding. You already said that.
Host: Oh, did I?
Lawyer: I think you said it earlier. Yeah, I see that. It was, it looks like it was mal… yeah, mal wounding was 20 years. Wait, is that mal wounding? 51.2, I thought 51.6 was mal wounding…
Host: Yeah. It says here that it was 10 years for the child abuse convictions and 20 years for the aggravated malicious wounding.
Lawyer: Oh, it was ag mal? Oh, that's the highest level of - that's like the highest level of wounding other than murder. If that makes sense. I don't really know how to describe it.
Host: Is that, some level of aggression, like they were punishing her? Or is that not what aggravated means legally?
Lawyer: No, that's not what aggravated means. Aggravated is the injury. Again, to go from malicious wounding to aggravated malicious wounding. You have to have a permanent and significant physical impairment.
So aggravated, characterizes how she, I hate to say suffered… The injury that she suffered, but malicious, you have to have malice. And malice at law definitely doesn't mean you were being kind, it wasn't an accident. That's what malice means that it was purposeful.
Host: There was some kind of intent?
Lawyer: There was an intent, there was a malicious intention.
Yeah, absolutely. So how the, I think, honestly though, I think we've talked about this before, but one of. One of the things we talk about a lot in the law is a person intends the natural and probable consequences of their actions. So you can prove malice because they put the baby in a cage and the natural and probable consequences of putting a baby in a cage is that the baby would be hurt.
So they may not have done anything that showed directly that they, you know, hated her and wanted her to be hurt and all those things, but just, just the things that you've said in and of themselves, they could have argued, showed malice at law. Yeah. Because I'm feeling like that's definitely, malice.
Host: Yeah. I feel that way- for a lot of people had a lot of personal feelings. Let me say a couple of, of other things that I wanted to talk about and then we'll get into how people felt.
So for the treatment of her daughter she received 30 years in prison at the trial addressing the treatment of the daughter, the judge compared the conditions and the treatment of the child to places like Auschwitz and Dachau.
He had up on the, is it a podium?
Lawyer: I don't know, maybe?
Host: Where the judge sits?
Lawyer: No, that's called the bench,
Host: The bench. He had up at the bench, a picture of the little girl when she was three. And at the time she was still a healthy, normal child which kind of, leans more toward the theory of the abuse starting after her brother died. And then he also had a picture of the day she was found.
Lawyer: Oh God.
Host: Yeah. So he also shared that the long term prognosis for the child was pretty grim stating that she currently had the mind of a three year old and while she would physically grow, it was unlikely her mind would develop further than that of a child.
He stated that she struggled with the huge emotional burden of when she went through every single day. One of the examples he gave was that she struggled not to pick up food that she found on the ground or take food out of the trash can because she hadn't had a regular source of food for so long. That she just would go immediately back into survival mode when she saw food.
Her doctors set up regular developmental tasks for her to accomplish - and this child is six - and those tasks were things like performing one, jumping jack, standing on one foot, or coloring a picture inside the lines,
Lawyer: You know what just made me so angry I can barely see straight?
Host: Hmm.
Lawyer: So my girlfriend just adopted a dog who was abused and neglected and not fed and he has the same survival technique. He's constantly searching for food. The day I met him, he snuggled me for maybe 30 seconds, and then he was off around the house food frantically searching. He would jump up on this counter and then that counter and then that counter and then that counter over there… You did that to a child? Well, setting aside whoever did that to the dog, because they have a special spot in hell reserved for them.
Host: Right.
Lawyer: You did that to a child, a child, your child?
Host: Yes.
Lawyer: Your child.
Host: Yes. I mean, it's almost un- it's unbearable to think about someone doing that to a little puppy. Let alone a child, which is so much worse to the point that, I can't even express how bad it is.
Lawyer: Sunday fun day is ruined.
Host: As far as the mother at the trial, her attorney said that she had become severely depressed after the death of her son and the abuse started from there. And the mother herself stated that there was no excuse for the abuse and that even though she failed her daughter miserably, that she loves her with all of her heart.
So, of course, in terms of the community, people thought that her sentence was too light and that the judge should be fired. And even more ridiculous things like that, the mother should be starved in a cage and tortured and fed one pop tart a day like her daughter was. And I mean, I'm not even saying I disagree or how I feel about it one way or another, but what does that actually look legally?
I mean could they have charged her with something more serious. And I know we only have like a little bit of the picture of what happened but is that the most serious thing they could have charged her with? She got the max sentence for both - it was 20 years max and 10 years max, for both of the things that she was charged with.
Lawyer: I don't know. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and second guess how they proceeded with their prosecution. I mean, she also pled guilty from what I understand, so maybe there was a higher count of something that they forwent in terms of a plea agreement. But I think what people don't understand, is that trials are a gamble a hundred times out of a hundred times.
Host: Mm-hmm
Lawyer: There are so many… I was going to say ridiculous, but that's not fair. It feels like that sometimes from my seat. But there are so many loops that the government has to jump through in proving a case. There's just so many things that can be that can - you know, a witness doesn't show up a, a chain of custody witness doesn't show up, somebody forgot to sign the evidence bag. I mean, and so plea agreements are a necessary reality. And you know, should she be in a cage and given a pop tart once a day? Like you said, I don't… I'm not religious, but I think all of America supposedly believes only God can judge you. So isn't that for him to say?
Host: Yeah, I guess that's true if that’s what you believe in.
Lawyer: But justice - it can't really all be about an eye for an eye. It's got to be about more than that. But I get it. I mean, that visceral gut reaction is, I think everybody feels it in a case like this.
Host: Right.
Lawyer: Everybody wants that vengeance. Everybody wants to feel like they got their just rewards.
Host: Yeah. It's just interesting. Cause the like judge seems to bear a lot of the, anger from the public, but the judge doesn't even really do that much in a lot of trials. Do they?
Lawyer: You said that, I mean, you said that the judge gave the max sentence on both offenses. I'd have to double check that I'm taking your word for it, but then yeah, the judge really did all that the judge could do. The judge doesn't, I mean, the judge can reject the plea agreement, but that's a whole nother… I mean, Judicial discretion, prosecutorial discretion. I mean, there's just so many layers.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: And we're all, we're all. I hope everybody in those positions are making the best decisions that they believe are the most right under the circumstances that they're presented.
Host: So the last thing I had here in terms of the mom is just in 2015, she then faced charges about the death of the seven months old and she initially received another 10 years, but in this case, all but three were suspended.
So over to… daddy dearest. He was also charged initially with attempted capital murder. And then in 2012, the charges changed to the class four felony abuse just like his wife which he pled guilty to and malicious assault for which he entered in Alford. He also received the maximum sentence for those two charges of 30 years in the state penitentiary for actions taken against his six-year-old daughter over at least three years of her life.
At the trial, he stated he owes “apologies to a great many people” and said that there was “no justifiable reason or excuse” for his actions. And he said that “to all involved I'm truly sorry that any of this happened”, he finished by saying he was glad it was all brought to an end.
Initially they actually tried to charge him with murder of the seven month old who was born in 2007, since both he and Shannon explicitly told the investigators that she last saw the son alive and Brian was the one that found the baby in bad shape and didn't intervene.
Lawyer: I don't know, from what I can tell, it looks like they charged them both with murder, but that's a jump. I mean, for murder, you have to prove so much, you have to prove premeditation. So how could you prove that when his, again, a reasonable doubt, his version of events is reasonable.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: If he took the stand and said that- And even if he didn't take the stand and say that, they could get his statements in through law enforcement. So I mean, that's the difficult part. Can we all sit here and suspect that they're full of shit? Sure, but suspicion alone is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Host: Yeah.
So I also had here, the baby was found in 2014. So I guess it took a while-
Lawyer: To finally admit it. Wow.
Host: -for him to finally admit that they had a middle child.
Lawyer: Wow.
Host: After the baby was found in 2014, he was in and out of court. And after a five-day trial in May 2015 with a judge and a witness, Brian was found not guilty of felony homicide. The judge stated there was not enough evidence to be sure that Brian intentionally harmed the child. And I think I said this earlier that I did think it was interesting that the forensic anthropologist, I did say this earlier, noted that the child was chronically malnourished.
Which again, we can't, we obviously, they felt, they couldn't really say one way or another. You know, if the parents weren't just doing their best and their best wasn't good enough.
So also in 2015, like his wife, they charged him with the class four felony instead of the felony homicide. And he had all but five years and three months suspended. And then he has to have five months of prob probation upon his release, which could be in 2048.
Lawyer: Mmmmmm.
Host: So at the 2015 hearing in the case of their seven month old son, I have some quotes from parties involved. The mother, she said “I would like to express remorse for my son. If I knew, then what I know now I would have done things differently”.
Lawyer: Wonder what that means
Host: “There's never a day in my life. I don't miss you.”. And she was apparently very emotional and crying, pretty much the entire trial for both of the, the children.
And I don't know what that means. I don't know. I maybe she just means she was young and didn't know any better and was worried about things like being embarrassed that she had kids out of wedlock and ultimately it doesn't matter. That's just me making stuff up, but I feel like it could be something like that.
Lawyer: I get it. I mean, I think to a certain extent, I just, the part for me is like, “if I knew then what I knew now”, like what? That you were going to get in trouble? It's hard sometimes not to see the negative.
Host: Yeah.
The father said, “I truly wish I had acted differently”. And he was reading from a pre-written statement as opposed to the mom. She was just kind of - it was improv. He said “I didn't do right by my son. I pray one day; God will allow me to rejoin him. And I pray for his forgiveness”.
Lawyer: Mm.
Host: Their attorneys also gave statements on the sentencing. And this was the sentencing specifically in the case of the seven-month-old son.
The woman's attorney said in regard to the three years that she ultimately got for that crime that he thought the judge's sentence was very reasonable and fair. But he still took issue with the finding of guilt as opposed to her being found innocent. But he said he thinks the outcome was beneficial to her.
Lawyer: Mm.
Host: The husband's attorney on the other hand thought that the five year, three month sentence was much too harsh. He said, “we toss around five years like, it's nothing - it's a long time. He's already got to serve 30 years”. But likeeeeee, I don't know.
Lawyer: Yeah, no comment on that.
Host: Anyway.
The judge concluded the trials by saying, “your conduct remains baffling to me. I understand it no better now than when we started, why you would choose subject your child to abuse is unknown, but subject him. You did”.
Lawyer: Hm.
Host: So their little daughter who is now 16- it's a million
Lawyer: That’s the million-dollar damn question.
Host: How is she?
Lawyer: No, just, just-
Host: Oh, why they did it?
Lawyer: Right? What the hell?
Host: Mm. It is definitely the million-dollar question.
Lawyer: But the other million other million-dollar question is yeah, their daughter. Where is she in the world now?
Host: So she was placed with a foster family who eventually adopted her, I believe.
Lawyer: Aww.
Host: She's now 16.
An interesting note about her is when she was 8 at the time of their first trial in 2013, the one about the treatment of her, she actually appeared to the courtroom on TV.
So at first the judge was like, absolutely not. We're not having this child in the courtroom. She's already gone through enough, but eventually I guess he agreed. And apparently, they had her in a different room. She was with an attorney. The attorney was asking her questions so she could just see the attorney, but then it was on CCTV into the courtroom. So they tried to make it as, un-traumatizing as they possibly could.
Lawyer: Right.
Host: The mom's defense attorney was actually the one that made the request to have the girl appear in court because he wanted to disprove the state's case of malicious wounding.
He actually said that she's fine now. She has recovered completely and has gained a lot of weight and is actually overweight. That's what he said...
Lawyer: That's real cute.
Host: Yeah. So he's sounds like a cool guy,
Lawyer: You know, I get it. They've got jobs to do. I'm not here to say anything negative about defense attorneys. That's a job that I've done before.
And, you know, they had to prove for the aggravated malicious wounding, at least that there was a permanent and severe physical impairment. And so that was one of the things he had to argue that there wasn't, and it's, it's easy to sit here and say, fuck you, buddy. I mean, that's…
I had a friend of mine who just left the office to work as a public defender. And we were talking about how is he going to represent people who have done, you know, these kind of what I would call, you know, unforgivable things.
Host: Right.
Lawyer: And you know, every, his response is, and the response I've heard from many of my defense attorney friends is “well, everybody's entitled to a defense and everybody has rights and that's the beauty of America”.
Host: It's hard to see it aaaaaas
Lawyer: A beauty?
Host: A beauty. Yeah.
Lawyer: That's true but if you were ever wrongfully accused of a crime, you’d probably see it as a beauty.
Host: You're right. And I mean, unfortunately it does happen.
Lawyer: Yep.
Host: I mean, you read those horrifying cases of people released after 50 years in prison because we finally have DNA now, and I just can't imagine. Or people who were on actually executed on death row and then, is it exonerated? Based off of DNA evidence?
Lawyer: Yeah.
Host: It's too late. So yeah, I get that. I get that. It's just hard to see in cases like this, where it's so clear and obvious that. I don't know, I shouldn't say clear and obvious that they're the bad guys, but clear and obvious that they did something wrong. It's hard to see like those people as deserving, a defense.
Lawyer: Heard that.
Host: And also it's hard for me to side with this guy who said, obviously she doesn't have any severe lasting injuries because she gained weight. The child was chronically deprived of food for three years. I'm sure she fucking gained weight when someone actually allowed her to eat. So that just didn't-
Lawyer: Yeah.
Host: I wasn't a fan.
Lawyer: That's a little bit of a difficult argument to follow.
Host: And then I had one other thing, because I like to always have these random little things that didn't really fit anywhere in the story. But I thought were interesting.
I thought it was really interesting that in 2012 before being sentenced, the mother actually took an appeal to the appeals court in attempt to gain parental rights back in the case of her two surviving children. That's pretty wild. Don't you think?
Lawyer: I'm just not sure how she thought she was going to exercise her parental rights from prison. But I don't know. As I mentioned, everyone has rights. So exercising, your appeal rights is one of those.
Host: She didn't want the children placed in foster care.
Which like I get, I'm not saying she didn't love her kids. I'm not, I don- I don't want to comment on that. And she didn't think that being in foster care was the safest thing for them. So I read through the entire, what is this thing called? I don't know if it's called anything, but it's this whole nine-page document from the court of appeals - Memorandum Opinion Per Curium?
I don't know if that's what it is, but it's basically the whole hearing of she's saying, this is why the kids shouldn't be in foster care and they were trying to - from everything I was reading, they were really trying to work with her. They were like, can they be placed with your parents? Can they be placed with your husband's parents? Can they be placed with this, that, and the other family member? And she was like, no, none of these people are capable of caring for my children. So like you said, what was her expectation? Did she want them to like, be in jail with her?
Lawyer: Yeah. That… mind boggling.
Host: So, yeah, that was just my interesting side note from this story.
Lawyer: But when I say things like case law, that's what I mean, that's what I'm looking at. Those sorts of written opinions from the court that talk about what everybody argued and what the court decided. Those are, they happen in almost every, you know, circuit court, court of appeals, Supreme court case. They don't always do written orders, but they usually do well that written orders and opinions.
Host: Well, the court of appeal denied the appeal
Lawyer: Shock.
Host: For parental rights.
Lawyer: Shock.
Host: I don't know what they were thinking…
Lawyer: Yeah. Anyways, so
Host: That was all I have.
Lawyer: This was our worst segment so far, so I'm super checked out and fucking depressed.
Host: It's pretty awful. It is really, truly, truly awful. And I just think. I just think that it, yeah, we know these people and yeah we're into true crime and yeah, it can be kind of interesting to talk about these stories, but I think more importantly, it can be interesting to kind of shed light on…
Lawyer: If you see something, say something.
Host: Yeah. At any point in time, if someone had intervened, if anyone was like, it's really weird that they're taking their young niece around with them all over the, I mean, I don't know, like I said, we don't know, we weren't there. I don't want to say that it was anyone's fault for not doing something, but I just think that digging a little bit more into the series of events that unfolded to allow something like this to happen… So few murders are someone just snapped and killed a bunch of strangers. Like we've talked about it before. A lot of them are like these, you know, kind of slow burn, slow build up to this eventual, horrible outcome. And I think just investigating those things and bringing them to light… Maybe eventually, not that we can do this, on our podcast, but just changing the way we think about these kinds of things a little bit and the way we react to them…
Lawyer: And also, that whole theory that it ain't going to happen to you.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: It could, this could absolutely happen to you.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: And hopefully not to you. Hopefully you won't snap and put your child in a cage, but there were so many opportunities for this to have ended up differently. Like you said, I mean maybe if some, maybe if they felt more supported maybe if maybe, maybe, maybe.
Host: Yeah. Cause I was reading about the father - he didn't have a very good, you know, and I mean, who has a great, perfect, shiny childhood, but his parents fought constantly until they got divorced. And then the mom moved him completely across the country. He didn't have any sort of relationship, out of, out of spite-
Basically she like pretty much, according to neighbors that the investigators talked to, she pretty much didn't want him to have any sort of relationship with his dad. And those kinds of decisions can have huge ripple effect. And again, not blaming any one thing or person or decision, but just this series of events, like I said, eventually led to this horrible, horrible outcome.
Lawyer: So we're going to have to do a segment on, I was just watching bunny donuts.
Host: What??
Lawyer: We're going to have to take like a hard left and do something completely different. Cause I feel like my soul has dropped out of my body.
Host: Okay. So next week we're going to talk about bunny donuts. What is - I need to find out what this is first.
Lawyer: Hold on. I just saw it got to light in the mood.
Host: It sounds cute.
Lawyer: Bunny donuts.
Host: Ooooooooooooooooooooh. I mean, I don't know if this has anything to do with what you are talking about, but I just see a bunch of pictures of bunny donuts on the internet. And they're so cute.
Lawyer: Yeah. That's pretty much it just bunnies and donuts.
That's what we're doing next week. So whoever murdered who, is going to have to wait until the week after that, after bunny donuts, I'm just kidding. Y'all aren't going to stick around for bunny donuts, but man, I'm tired.
Host: We might need a, we might all need a break. Next week we were gonna talk about, I think this was, this is another, twist on it?
I think this was a friend of yours in high school. Who's a victim of violent crime. That's right. Isn't it? I think it's a county up from where we lived. And I think it was a girl that you were friends with in high school who is a victim?
Lawyer: No, I knew the guy that did it.
Host: Oh, okay. So you knew the assailant. So it's not a twist. Untwist.
Lawyer: Yeah, I actually didn't know the girl at all.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: I think my cousin did.
Host: I don't know why I got that confused in my brain,
Lawyer: I didn't know the girl at all. I knew the guy. I knew him and his brothers.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: I mean, we weren't thick as thieves, but I used to go out there a lot. I had a big group of friends. It was this big group of cousins and brothers and sisters. And we all hung out together all the time. And drank too damn much.
Host: Small towns.
Lawyer: He was just the nicest, you know, all of 'em. They were just fun, loving, and easygoing and cracking jokes and always a smile. And this shit hit me like a ton of bricks. I was shocked.
I was like, there's no way. He didn't do that. That didn't happen. But it did.
Host: Mm. So sad.
Lawyer: And his life is over. Yeah. As is that girls.
Host: So submit your votes-
Lawyer: Bunny donuts, or more murder up to you. I'm voting for bunny donuts so you better hope somebody else votes.
Host: Your vote's in, your vote's in. I'm going to keep, I'm going to hold my vote. I'm going to think about it. But in the meantime, submit your votes online. We'll put it up somewhere maybe on a Facebook poll. So everyone can vote for next week.
And in the meantime, you can email us at murdereryouknow@gmail.com, you can check us out on Instagram: Murderer You Know Podcast, and on Facebook @MYKpod.
As always, do you have anything to add?
*Long silence*
Host: Are you alive?
Lawyer: No. I'm not even kidding. I've literally, my soul has left my body.
Host: I'm going to send you a box of bunny donuts when we get off.
Lawyer: That, honestly, may be what I need to pull me back because I'm hanging on the precipice
Host: Or Chick-fil-A.
Oh, my girlfriend just bought a new house and she moved to an area she's not familiar with. So she called me Friday night. I hadn't heard from her like all day. So, she calls me Friday night at 7:00 and she's like, I thought you'd appreciate my first item of business is finding out how close the nearest Chick-fil-A is to my new house. I was like, bitchhhh, I love you bitch, this is why you, my people, bitch.
Host: We didn't even talk about how excited you were to discover that law enforcement officials get 50% off. Is that right?
Lawyer: It happened.
Host: Yeah. At Chick-fil-A. Have you tried it?
Lawyer: Yeah.
Host: Did it work?
Lawyer: Yeah, we went in me and my two coworkers. We went in on a Monday and we were, we all had our badges and we were all wearing suits. And I flip my badge and I'm like, do you guys do the law enforcement discount? And they're like, yeah. So they gimme the 50% off. I'm like dope.
So I go and wait for my food cause I don't, it sounds dramatic but there's not a whole lot of perks to this gig. It feels like sometimes. We got good government benefits, but like-
Host: Listen, as a fellow government employee. Those benefits are not what they used to be.
Lawyer: Hmm.
Host: The least you can get is 50%, 50% off. That's a significant discount.
Lawyer: So my coworker, my male coworker comes up behind me and asks for the discount and the, he had a different cashier than me and the cashier's like, “I'm sorry, are you in uniform or no?” the cashier goes, “are you on duty right now?”
And my friend is really well dressed. He's like in a three piece suit and he, he kind of looks at the cashier for a minute and he's like, this is my uniform . And it was just so funny because the cashier could not comprehend that.
Host: He thought that you guys would be wearing-
Lawyer: Yea, cop uniforms
Host: -police outfits.
Lawyer: Yeah, of course. But I mean think about not even all cops - I don't know if people know this, but detectives don't have those kind of uniforms. They don't have that. They don't wear that. There's patrol and there's detectives and a detective would've walked it in a suit too.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: But anyways, it was so damn funny. And now I'm like, do you know how much money I've wasted over the past - three and a half years of my life? I've been paying full price for Chick-fil-A. Can you believe, do you know how many times I go to Chick-fil-A?
Host: Well, it's a significant amount of money, because I know what you just told me what you spend a month on fast food.
Lawyer: It's a problem. I could’ve been getting twice as much Chick-fil-A or saving some damn money. Come on. I need an intervention.
Host: Okay. Maybe that's what we can do next week.
Ooh, intervention.
Host: We can get like a hypnotist to hypnotize you.
Lawyer: Sounds good. I don't think it's going to work, but we can try.
Host: My dad always my dad told me that, so his mom was a chain smoker. And she had half of one lungs removed and she still kept smoking. So after that, her doctor's like, look, you really need to stop smoking. You only have one and a half lungs. So she got hypnotized. And I mean, supposedly, I mean, I wasn't there, but this is the story I was told, and it worked. So I'm, I think it'll work for the Chick-fil-A. You think you're more addicted to Chick-fil-A than someone who had half of a lung removed and kept smoking?
Lawyer: I'm going to move right past that question and I'm gonna point out, I don't want to stop eating Chick-fil-A. So if your little hypnotism bullshit actually works, I'm going to be mad. So I don't think this is a good plan.
Host: What if we can just program you to just eat Chick-fil-A like once a once a week?
Lawyer: Once would be good. If I could cut it to one, that would be good.
Host: Or you only get to eat Chick-fil-A if like your husband says like a certain word to you. So if he really wants to treat you, he can say, whatever that word is and you'll snap out of it and wanna eat Chick-fil-A.
Lawyer: That would be, that would be really funny.
Well, now I'm like, I got him. Did I tell you that I found, I figured out what to get for our anniversary that's literally in three days and I had gotten nothing.
Host: No.
Lawyer: So I couldn't figure out what to get for – this doesn't have to be in the show obviously, but I had not known what to get him for our anniversary for weeks. I just couldn't figure out what to do. And so I had found this little organic snack box that you could get a subscription service for. And I was all proud of myself, but my girlfriend was like, “bitch, you are not getting him a snack box for your three year wedding anniversary. I will cut you”. And I was like, well, I don't know what to do now. I was all excited about my snack box.
So then I finally found, I got him a - it's the leather anniversary is three years.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: So…
Host: Are you, are you scared to say?
Lawyer: I'm just, yeah, I'm trying to make sure he's not like listening to me. I got him this little whittling kit.
Host: Uh-huh.
Lawyer: It's a leather pouch with all these different knives in it.
Host: Oh cute.
Lawyer: Cause he had mentioned to me wanting to try that before.
Host: I like how we're both whispering.
Lawyer: I know it's a secret. So anyways then today his damn PlayStation broke and I'm like-
Host: You could have gotten him a PlayStation.
Lawyer: It's too late now.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: You better tape it back together. I don't know what's wrong. It's only like nine years old. I mean he's had it our entire relationship.
Host: Well that unfortunately might be a good run for a PlayStation…
Lawyer: Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo dooooooooooo
Alright, I’m out bitch. It's been like three hours I've been down here in this basement with you. Have a good day.
Host: See you later.
Lawyer: Bye. See you later.
Host: Byeeeeeee.
