August 13, 2020 • 13 mins
In this surprise lighthearted bonus episode, Karen recounts one of the more straightforward cases in which a perp discovers the hard way that she isn't as smart as Karen and her colleagues.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So feel well. What you find so well you can hold,
but it doesn't bed how you feel. This is the
(00:24):
new Real. This is the new Real. This is Shattered Souls.
I'm your host, Karen Smith. This podcast contains graphic language
and it is not suitable for children. This is the
New Real. Welcome back. Thank you all very much for
(00:51):
listening to season one and for all of your feedback.
I sure do appreciate it. I decided to go ahead
and do a couple of little one off episodes for
you since a lot of you have been asking me
on social media and messages you're ready for season two,
and you know what, I'm ready to give you season two.
And to give you a quick update, I am waiting
on some FOIA, some Freedom of Information Act requests that
(01:14):
I've put in a couple of months ago, and unfortunately
with COVID everything is backed up. So I'm a little
bit at the mercy of the folks that are working
really hard to get me those docs, and as soon
as they're available, I'm going to start writing. So just
be patient and it will be worth the way, I promise.
But let's move forward to one of the funnier cases
(01:35):
that I worked when I was in Jacksonville. It wasn't
always doom and gloom. And although I went to people's
homes and apartments and places of business when they were
having a pretty bad day, sometimes their predicaments lended a
lot of laughter for me, the other officers responding, and
sometimes the victims themselves. In this case, the laugh was
(01:56):
not on the victim or the perpetrator, but I got
a good chuckle because of the outcome. So I'm going
to detail this case for you. This is a case
that I talk about when I teach classes in person
to teach students about the importance of looking at the
small details when you work a forensic case. The small
details are usually the ones that will break a case open.
(02:16):
And I'm not talking about minute trace DNA or hairs
or fibers. I'm just talking about using your keen senses
and looking at the evidence that's presented to you that's visible,
and sometimes it can tell the entire story. And that's
exactly what happened in this case. It was two thousand
ten and I was dispatched to a house where an
(02:37):
apparent stabbing had taken place. When I arrived on the scene,
I met with the father of the victim who owned
the house. And the first thing that we have to
determine is whether or not we have a right to
enter that house. We can't just go willy nilly inside
without either a search, warrant, or some kind of consent.
So I spoke with the father and he gave me
(02:57):
consent to enter the house. Now, it had occurred in
the living room and one of the bedrooms. Well, funny
in Florida, if somebody occupies a bedroom and they pay
rent or they contribute somehow to the household, we can't
enter that bedroom because they do have a right of privacy.
So I asked the father who lived in the bedroom,
and were we able to make entry without a warrant
(03:19):
or consent of the person who lived there. He said
his son and his son's girlfriend had been staying with
him in the house. He said that they did not
pay rent. He said that they did not contribute to
the household. They were basically squatting, and he was ready
for them to leave. Well, that gave us permission to
go into that bedroom, because since they weren't contributing and
weren't paying rent, they had no right to privacy. So
(03:41):
we could go in collect evidence and look for anything
that might give us a hint about what happened. When
I arrived on scene, a woman was being detained by
a patrol officer in the back of his car. Another
patrol officer had gone to the hospital and spoken with
the man, the son, who had been stabbed in the back.
The patrol officer the hospital contacted me by phone and
(04:01):
he related the information that the Sun had given him.
The Sun said that he walked about a mile down
the sidewalk to a small gas station to buy cigarettes,
and the Sun said he was jumped by several unknown
males inside of this gas station and in the parking lot,
and he was stabbed in the back. The Sun said
that with the knife in his back, he walked the
(04:24):
mile back home. With the knife in his back, now
walked back home down that sidewalk, and when he came
into the living room, his girlfriend, the one being detained
in the patrol car, saw him panicked and pulled the
knife out of his back. As ridiculous as that story sounds,
we have to take it at face value and follow
(04:44):
the evidence to see if there's anything that lends credence
to what he's saying. He's the victim of this crime, right.
So I walked the entire sidewalk all the way down
to the small gas station, and guess what, I didn't
find one drop of blood either direct. We walked inside
the gas station and looked at the video surveillance. Zero
zib zilch. There was nothing. The gas station attendant said
(05:07):
that he didn't recall this man coming in to buy cigarettes.
There was absolutely no altercation in the store or in
the parking lot, and once we looked at the video,
we knew that his story was a lie. What we
didn't know was why he would lie. So we walked
along sidewalk back to the house, just making sure that
there was no blood in the grass or anywhere else,
and there wasn't. So once we got back to the house,
(05:30):
I went inside with the consent form signed by the father.
The living room was located right inside the front door,
and on the carpet there were a number of drip
stains next to a chair, and next to the chair
was a linear line of blood across the wall. If
you've listened to my podcast, you already know it's cast off. Okay,
if somebody pulled a knife out of someone's back, is
it possible that cast off could go across that wall.
(05:52):
Maybe maybe not. But while I was standing there, I
looked up. You always look up at a crime scene.
Seelings can tell a whole lot of information, and this
one was no different. And as I did, there was
a ceiling fan it wasn't on, it was still, and
there was one tiny blood drop on one of the
fan blades. If you have blood on a fan blade
(06:13):
eight feet in the air, something put it there. Well,
following the blood trail down the hallway all the way
to the bathroom, it was getting stronger and the blood
drops were getting larger. And in the bathroom, well, it
was just a disaster. There was blood all over the sink,
all over the toilet, all over the floor. So at
this point now I know that he was probably stabbed
(06:33):
in the living room and then made his way to
the bathroom, where the knife was probably removed based on
the large amount of blood all over the floor and
the toilet. But again, why and who would do this?
Was there an intruder? Was there some kind of weird
love triangle going on that nobody wanted to talk about,
or was it something else? Was it the father, was
it the girlfriend? At this point, we were still kind
(06:55):
of lost as to why this would happen and why
people would be covering up their tracks. Well, when you
of a victim telling a fib at the hospital, there's
definitely a reason for it. And I went to go
talk to the girlfriend, who was still in the back
of the patrol car. Well, I told the officer to
have her exit so that I could talk to her.
She had on beige shorts, flip flops, and a Jacksonville
(07:16):
Jaguars teal jersey. She was pouty faced, very very sad.
She wanted to sell me on this whole thing about
him being jumped at the gas station, and I told her,
we already know that that's a lie, so don't go there.
And I looked at her shorts and on her shorts
on the pocket were several small blood drops, and on
(07:36):
her jersey were several small blood drops. So I told
her to put her arms in the air. Now, she
was not handcuffed at this point, she was just being detained,
not arrested. So I told her to put her arms
in the air, and she did. She had tiny bloodstains
under her arms near her armpit. Now let's just put
this together for a minute. Again, in order for blood
to break up into droplets, there has to be a
(07:58):
force behind it, which tells me that she did a
whole lot more than just pull a knife out of
her boyfriend's back when he came home from a gas station.
Couple that with the cast off on the wall and
the small blood drop on the fan blade in the
living room, along with the blood trail all the way
back to the bathroom, and I knew that this crime
scene happened inside that living room and likely she's the
(08:21):
one that stabbed her boyfriend. So as she was standing
there in the grass outside of the patrol car, I
went over to the patrol officer and I whispered in
his ear play along with me. He said okay, So
he walked over and I said, listen, I'm gonna need
you to hold a scale for me next to the
blood stains on her clothing so that I can document everything.
And I said, Darling, I just need you to hold stale.
(08:41):
We're just going to take some photos. So as I'm
documenting her clothing and the blood stains on it, I'm
doing my little dissertation about how that blood got to
be on her clothes. And I said, officer, you're interested
in coming to the crimes unit, right and he said
oh absolutely. I said, okay, great, we're gonna do a
little training right now. Do you see these food stains
on this lady shorts and he said yeah. I said,
(09:02):
well these were caused by an outside force. See, this
isn't a transfer or something that you would get from
removing a knife from somebody's back. This is from an
active bleeding crime scene, but more important than these. And
I need you to put your hands above your head.
Can you just raise your hands for me? And she
did and I said, more importantly, up here on her jersey,
I said, you see up here, next to her armpit,
(09:23):
there's more of these really small bloodstains and he said yeah.
And I said, see that is an instance of more force.
So this actually puts her in proximity to Is that
her boyfriend? And he said yeah, it's her boyfriend. I said, okay,
so this puts her in proximity to her boyfriend. When
the knife actually went into his back instead of coming
(09:44):
out of his back, and the patrol officer went, oh,
that's interesting, I said, isn't it. It's really amazing, isn't it?
How that works. Meanwhile, the woman is looking at me
and her bottom lip starts to tremble, and I said, yeah,
and so basically, just put your arms down, turn around
for me. And she had more blood drop on the
back of her shirt on her shoulder, and I said it,
we'll see. This is absolutely irrefutable evidence that I know
(10:06):
this is the person that actually put the knife in
his back, because you see these blood drops on her back. Yeah,
that's indicative of really like bending over and being on
top of him while the knife is going into his
back instead of you know, yanking it out like a hero.
And I looked at her and the water work started.
She's boo hooing, she's crying, her little shoulders are shaking,
(10:28):
her chin is quivering. And I said, oh, my god, darling,
is there something that you wanted to talk to me about?
And she turned around and she goes, I didn't mean
to he, ma'am, ma'am. He was being a real asshole.
And I said, oh, he was being an asshole. What else?
He was being a real asshole? And uh, I came
(10:49):
home and and he was cheating because I saw his
cell phone and and he's talking to this woman told
him to stay away from her, and he wouldn't. So
I went to the kitchen and opened the drawer and
I pulled a knife out, and I told him that
you some bit, you're gonna leave her alone? And he said, no,
I'm not, and I said, yes you are. And I
took the knife and I plunged it in his back,
(11:10):
and then I pulled it out and I plunged it
in again. I said, okay, very interesting. Well, knife's not
inside the house, where is it. I went across the
street and knocked on their door, and I told him
I had to use their toilet because ours was backed up.
And I went in their house and I went in
their bathroom and I washed the knife out in the
(11:31):
sink and then I wrapped it up and told paper
and put it in there trash can. Thank you very much.
Wonderful story. So now we had the truth, we put
cuffs on her and put her in the back of
the patrol car. I went across the street knocked on
the door. Please, yeah, hey, I saw you guys out there.
Is everything okay? And I said, yeah, everything's great, except
(11:52):
that you have evidence of an aggravated battery possible attempted
murder in your bathroom trash can? Do you mind if
I come get it? What the young lady that came
to use your toilet? Yeah, she planted evidence in your
garbage can. Do you mind if I come in and
get it? Hell? No, come get that out of my house.
We'll do. So I went inside their house, went in
the bathroom. In the sink, there were some diluted blood stains,
(12:12):
so I took swabs of that. Sure enough, in the
garbage can there was the kitchen knife wrapped in toilet paper,
just like she said, that was collected taken downtown. She
was taken downtown, booked on aggravated battery. The boyfriend never
came off the story. He stuck to the fact that
he was jumped at the gas station, regardless of the
fact that no evidence supported it whatsoever. And we had
(12:33):
the confession, so the case didn't go to court. She
took a plea deal of I think it was a year,
which was fine with me, and case closed. So there's
just one way that forensics can really assist. Once you
look for the small evidence and you can put the
pieces together relatively quickly. Sometimes based on the dubious blood
evidence and people's frankly bullshit stories. So there's your shattered
(12:57):
Souls stories from behind the Yellow tabe for this week.
I'll keep trying to do a couple of these here
and there, maybe every couple of weeks, just to keep
you guys entertained. And please stay tuned for season two.
I think you're really going to enjoy it. Take care,
be well. This is the new reel
So feel well. What you find so well you can hold,
but it doesn't bed how you feel. This is the
(00:24):
new Real. This is the new Real. This is Shattered Souls.
I'm your host, Karen Smith. This podcast contains graphic language
and it is not suitable for children. This is the
New Real. Welcome back. Thank you all very much for
(00:51):
listening to season one and for all of your feedback.
I sure do appreciate it. I decided to go ahead
and do a couple of little one off episodes for
you since a lot of you have been asking me
on social media and messages you're ready for season two,
and you know what, I'm ready to give you season two.
And to give you a quick update, I am waiting
on some FOIA, some Freedom of Information Act requests that
(01:14):
I've put in a couple of months ago, and unfortunately
with COVID everything is backed up. So I'm a little
bit at the mercy of the folks that are working
really hard to get me those docs, and as soon
as they're available, I'm going to start writing. So just
be patient and it will be worth the way, I promise.
But let's move forward to one of the funnier cases
(01:35):
that I worked when I was in Jacksonville. It wasn't
always doom and gloom. And although I went to people's
homes and apartments and places of business when they were
having a pretty bad day, sometimes their predicaments lended a
lot of laughter for me, the other officers responding, and
sometimes the victims themselves. In this case, the laugh was
(01:56):
not on the victim or the perpetrator, but I got
a good chuckle because of the outcome. So I'm going
to detail this case for you. This is a case
that I talk about when I teach classes in person
to teach students about the importance of looking at the
small details when you work a forensic case. The small
details are usually the ones that will break a case open.
(02:16):
And I'm not talking about minute trace DNA or hairs
or fibers. I'm just talking about using your keen senses
and looking at the evidence that's presented to you that's visible,
and sometimes it can tell the entire story. And that's
exactly what happened in this case. It was two thousand
ten and I was dispatched to a house where an
(02:37):
apparent stabbing had taken place. When I arrived on the scene,
I met with the father of the victim who owned
the house. And the first thing that we have to
determine is whether or not we have a right to
enter that house. We can't just go willy nilly inside
without either a search, warrant, or some kind of consent.
So I spoke with the father and he gave me
(02:57):
consent to enter the house. Now, it had occurred in
the living room and one of the bedrooms. Well, funny
in Florida, if somebody occupies a bedroom and they pay
rent or they contribute somehow to the household, we can't
enter that bedroom because they do have a right of privacy.
So I asked the father who lived in the bedroom,
and were we able to make entry without a warrant
(03:19):
or consent of the person who lived there. He said
his son and his son's girlfriend had been staying with
him in the house. He said that they did not
pay rent. He said that they did not contribute to
the household. They were basically squatting, and he was ready
for them to leave. Well, that gave us permission to
go into that bedroom, because since they weren't contributing and
weren't paying rent, they had no right to privacy. So
(03:41):
we could go in collect evidence and look for anything
that might give us a hint about what happened. When
I arrived on scene, a woman was being detained by
a patrol officer in the back of his car. Another
patrol officer had gone to the hospital and spoken with
the man, the son, who had been stabbed in the back.
The patrol officer the hospital contacted me by phone and
(04:01):
he related the information that the Sun had given him.
The Sun said that he walked about a mile down
the sidewalk to a small gas station to buy cigarettes,
and the Sun said he was jumped by several unknown
males inside of this gas station and in the parking lot,
and he was stabbed in the back. The Sun said
that with the knife in his back, he walked the
(04:24):
mile back home. With the knife in his back, now
walked back home down that sidewalk, and when he came
into the living room, his girlfriend, the one being detained
in the patrol car, saw him panicked and pulled the
knife out of his back. As ridiculous as that story sounds,
we have to take it at face value and follow
(04:44):
the evidence to see if there's anything that lends credence
to what he's saying. He's the victim of this crime, right.
So I walked the entire sidewalk all the way down
to the small gas station, and guess what, I didn't
find one drop of blood either direct. We walked inside
the gas station and looked at the video surveillance. Zero
zib zilch. There was nothing. The gas station attendant said
(05:07):
that he didn't recall this man coming in to buy cigarettes.
There was absolutely no altercation in the store or in
the parking lot, and once we looked at the video,
we knew that his story was a lie. What we
didn't know was why he would lie. So we walked
along sidewalk back to the house, just making sure that
there was no blood in the grass or anywhere else,
and there wasn't. So once we got back to the house,
(05:30):
I went inside with the consent form signed by the father.
The living room was located right inside the front door,
and on the carpet there were a number of drip
stains next to a chair, and next to the chair
was a linear line of blood across the wall. If
you've listened to my podcast, you already know it's cast off. Okay,
if somebody pulled a knife out of someone's back, is
it possible that cast off could go across that wall.
(05:52):
Maybe maybe not. But while I was standing there, I
looked up. You always look up at a crime scene.
Seelings can tell a whole lot of information, and this
one was no different. And as I did, there was
a ceiling fan it wasn't on, it was still, and
there was one tiny blood drop on one of the
fan blades. If you have blood on a fan blade
(06:13):
eight feet in the air, something put it there. Well,
following the blood trail down the hallway all the way
to the bathroom, it was getting stronger and the blood
drops were getting larger. And in the bathroom, well, it
was just a disaster. There was blood all over the sink,
all over the toilet, all over the floor. So at
this point now I know that he was probably stabbed
(06:33):
in the living room and then made his way to
the bathroom, where the knife was probably removed based on
the large amount of blood all over the floor and
the toilet. But again, why and who would do this?
Was there an intruder? Was there some kind of weird
love triangle going on that nobody wanted to talk about,
or was it something else? Was it the father, was
it the girlfriend? At this point, we were still kind
(06:55):
of lost as to why this would happen and why
people would be covering up their tracks. Well, when you
of a victim telling a fib at the hospital, there's
definitely a reason for it. And I went to go
talk to the girlfriend, who was still in the back
of the patrol car. Well, I told the officer to
have her exit so that I could talk to her.
She had on beige shorts, flip flops, and a Jacksonville
(07:16):
Jaguars teal jersey. She was pouty faced, very very sad.
She wanted to sell me on this whole thing about
him being jumped at the gas station, and I told her,
we already know that that's a lie, so don't go there.
And I looked at her shorts and on her shorts
on the pocket were several small blood drops, and on
(07:36):
her jersey were several small blood drops. So I told
her to put her arms in the air. Now, she
was not handcuffed at this point, she was just being detained,
not arrested. So I told her to put her arms
in the air, and she did. She had tiny bloodstains
under her arms near her armpit. Now let's just put
this together for a minute. Again, in order for blood
to break up into droplets, there has to be a
(07:58):
force behind it, which tells me that she did a
whole lot more than just pull a knife out of
her boyfriend's back when he came home from a gas station.
Couple that with the cast off on the wall and
the small blood drop on the fan blade in the
living room, along with the blood trail all the way
back to the bathroom, and I knew that this crime
scene happened inside that living room and likely she's the
(08:21):
one that stabbed her boyfriend. So as she was standing
there in the grass outside of the patrol car, I
went over to the patrol officer and I whispered in
his ear play along with me. He said okay, So
he walked over and I said, listen, I'm gonna need
you to hold a scale for me next to the
blood stains on her clothing so that I can document everything.
And I said, Darling, I just need you to hold stale.
(08:41):
We're just going to take some photos. So as I'm
documenting her clothing and the blood stains on it, I'm
doing my little dissertation about how that blood got to
be on her clothes. And I said, officer, you're interested
in coming to the crimes unit, right and he said
oh absolutely. I said, okay, great, we're gonna do a
little training right now. Do you see these food stains
on this lady shorts and he said yeah. I said,
(09:02):
well these were caused by an outside force. See, this
isn't a transfer or something that you would get from
removing a knife from somebody's back. This is from an
active bleeding crime scene, but more important than these. And
I need you to put your hands above your head.
Can you just raise your hands for me? And she
did and I said, more importantly, up here on her jersey,
I said, you see up here, next to her armpit,
(09:23):
there's more of these really small bloodstains and he said yeah.
And I said, see that is an instance of more force.
So this actually puts her in proximity to Is that
her boyfriend? And he said yeah, it's her boyfriend. I said, okay,
so this puts her in proximity to her boyfriend. When
the knife actually went into his back instead of coming
(09:44):
out of his back, and the patrol officer went, oh,
that's interesting, I said, isn't it. It's really amazing, isn't it?
How that works. Meanwhile, the woman is looking at me
and her bottom lip starts to tremble, and I said, yeah,
and so basically, just put your arms down, turn around
for me. And she had more blood drop on the
back of her shirt on her shoulder, and I said it,
we'll see. This is absolutely irrefutable evidence that I know
(10:06):
this is the person that actually put the knife in
his back, because you see these blood drops on her back. Yeah,
that's indicative of really like bending over and being on
top of him while the knife is going into his
back instead of you know, yanking it out like a hero.
And I looked at her and the water work started.
She's boo hooing, she's crying, her little shoulders are shaking,
(10:28):
her chin is quivering. And I said, oh, my god, darling,
is there something that you wanted to talk to me about?
And she turned around and she goes, I didn't mean
to he, ma'am, ma'am. He was being a real asshole.
And I said, oh, he was being an asshole. What else?
He was being a real asshole? And uh, I came
(10:49):
home and and he was cheating because I saw his
cell phone and and he's talking to this woman told
him to stay away from her, and he wouldn't. So
I went to the kitchen and opened the drawer and
I pulled a knife out, and I told him that
you some bit, you're gonna leave her alone? And he said, no,
I'm not, and I said, yes you are. And I
took the knife and I plunged it in his back,
(11:10):
and then I pulled it out and I plunged it
in again. I said, okay, very interesting. Well, knife's not
inside the house, where is it. I went across the
street and knocked on their door, and I told him
I had to use their toilet because ours was backed up.
And I went in their house and I went in
their bathroom and I washed the knife out in the
(11:31):
sink and then I wrapped it up and told paper
and put it in there trash can. Thank you very much.
Wonderful story. So now we had the truth, we put
cuffs on her and put her in the back of
the patrol car. I went across the street knocked on
the door. Please, yeah, hey, I saw you guys out there.
Is everything okay? And I said, yeah, everything's great, except
(11:52):
that you have evidence of an aggravated battery possible attempted
murder in your bathroom trash can? Do you mind if
I come get it? What the young lady that came
to use your toilet? Yeah, she planted evidence in your
garbage can. Do you mind if I come in and
get it? Hell? No, come get that out of my house.
We'll do. So I went inside their house, went in
the bathroom. In the sink, there were some diluted blood stains,
(12:12):
so I took swabs of that. Sure enough, in the
garbage can there was the kitchen knife wrapped in toilet paper,
just like she said, that was collected taken downtown. She
was taken downtown, booked on aggravated battery. The boyfriend never
came off the story. He stuck to the fact that
he was jumped at the gas station, regardless of the
fact that no evidence supported it whatsoever. And we had
(12:33):
the confession, so the case didn't go to court. She
took a plea deal of I think it was a year,
which was fine with me, and case closed. So there's
just one way that forensics can really assist. Once you
look for the small evidence and you can put the
pieces together relatively quickly. Sometimes based on the dubious blood
evidence and people's frankly bullshit stories. So there's your shattered
(12:57):
Souls stories from behind the Yellow tabe for this week.
I'll keep trying to do a couple of these here
and there, maybe every couple of weeks, just to keep
you guys entertained. And please stay tuned for season two.
I think you're really going to enjoy it. Take care,
be well. This is the new reel
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!