February 13, 2024 • 34 mins
“What the heck is a private investigator?” Meet Lee Denney, a private investigator hired by the Griggs family to further dive into the death of their son Christian. Lee, an NRA instructor and firearms expert, begins to dig into what happened that day in October - and further questions the Chisenhall’s version of events.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi guys, it's Hillary here. Just a quick note. This
series does deal with a lot of tough subject matter
that may be difficult for some listeners, so please keep
this in mind when and where you choose to listen
to these episodes. Lee Denny, a private investigator hired by
(00:21):
the Griggs family, sits in a small bureaucratic room. He
thumbs through various documents, trying to piece together what happened
the day Christian was shot and whether Pat Chisenhol's claim
of self defense rings true. Last episode, we discussed what
happened the day after Christian was shot, as well as
(00:44):
the medical examiner's findings, and on this episode, we will
meet Lee Denny, a gun expert and private investigator who
further questions the narrative of what happened that day in October.
I'm Hillary Morgan and this is true crime story. It
couldn't happen here. Hey, everyone, we have our team assembled.
(01:17):
It is Andrew Dunn, Dan Flaherty, Paul Cutcheons, and myself,
Hillary Burton Morgan. So, approximately six months after Christian Griggs's death,
his family realizes they're not getting any help from law enforcement,
and they reach out to a private investigator named Lee Denny,
and he comes in. He's got a background in the
military police. He is a firearms expert. He has a
(01:42):
relationship with law enforcement and he teaches firearm safety for
concealed weapons. He trains people to be able to protect
their own homes.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
He believes in the use of a firearm as deadly
forced to stop an intruder. He is actually a believer
in self defense use of firearms.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
He's that guy who would support the concept of a
castle doctrine.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
He's the official instructor for the NRA, so yeah, he's
definitely a gun expert as well as being a private investigator.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And so for the Griggs family, Lee Denny is allowed
to go and dig up documents.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So now they have a liaison who has a great
deal of comfort with police and is an expert in
ballistics and guns. So that must be an incredible relief
to them.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Lee Denny was our second interview of the day and
we were running late because we were finishing up with
Robbie Jessup, the Griggs attorney, and so it was a
really big day and we had a ton to cover.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's a massive undertaking to get these things done and
done right. You can't just be like, oh, you got
two hours. You just can't.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
No, this was a hard day.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yeah, I mean, and you were getting a lot of
important information from Robbie Jessup and we needed to get that.
It's an hour drive from Jessup's place to Lee Denny's place,
and so we were calling Lee Denny saying we're going
to be a little late, and he's like, mmm, I'm
not happy that we were going to be late. And
so by the time we pulled up, he was definitely
(03:10):
not feeling happy. But he's a good guy and he's like, Okay,
I said I would do it, and I'll do it.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is a great favor, and it is amazingly generous
that people give us their time, that they sit there,
that they're patient with us, that they put themselves in
that position on the spot, and we are so grateful.
And there is an attitude that none of us agree
with that is prevalent and getting more prevalent out there,
where somehow they owe us, not we owe them. And
(03:38):
so being late is not just a little thing.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
No, it's embarrassing to be late.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And you can throw your whole thing, you can lose
your interview, somebody can get fed up and say screw you,
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Doing it, and people like Lee, they're doing this as
a service to the Greggs family.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
He's not personally getting anything out of this, so he
is doing it for the truth. He's doing it for
the Greggs family. He could have just said, you know what,
I got somewhere else, say to be and I'm not
doing this interview today.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, but he forever.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, he warmed up in a way that meant a
lot to me because Lee Denny reminds me of family
members that I have. I come from military family, and
so was able to quickly connect with him based on that.
We talked about USO tours and military bases that I'd
been to, specifically in North Carolina, and that really seemed
(04:23):
to be a nice place to connect. And so then
he looked at my arms while we were still setting
up the shot, and he saw that I had tattoos,
and he pulls out his phone and he's like, you know,
my son's a tattoo artist, and he pulls up his
son's Instagram and gives me his son's Instagram handle, and
it's like, if you ever need another tattoo, you should
go see my son, and so I'd gone from this
(04:44):
place of being like, very embarrassed that we relate kind
of flustered because there was a lot of information we
needed to go through with him, and he was able
to pivot in a way that made it really easy
for me to do my job. And I think perhaps
that's why I like Lee Denny so much, because you
saw the humanity in this person who's had to deal
with some really gross stuff.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Lee.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
He's funny because his face is very expressionless when you're
talking to him, and then you're just not sure what
he's thinking. You're not getting a read off of his face,
and eventually when he smiles, you're like, you did win
him over pretty quickly. It was Yeah, it was impressive.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I was sweaty. Andrew had to make me go back
out to my car and get makeup because he's like, Hillary,
you're so sweaty right now. Because I really was nervous
about not gaining his approval. I wanted Lee Denny's approval.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And Andrew always knows how to make the girls feel
real pretty. He's always like, you're really shiny.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
We were all very sweaty, but we were basically in
a very low ceiling. Basically the attic was his office,
which is hot, which is hot, and it was wood paneling,
and you know, there was.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Such a macho's face, animal.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Heads and guns and stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Animal heads, taxidermied heads, deer, et cetera. But also we
were jammed in pretty close. It was knee to knee.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were very comfortable in there. Andrew,
so Dan, why did the grig start working with Lee?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
They hired him to basically take a look through all
of the evidence that they had, which wasn't much. I
mean Lee actually had to go and ask for the evidence,
the investigation files, all of this stuff. He had to
go and meet with the Sheriff's department, meet with the
DA and say we need to have access to these files.
And that's what they brought him on for, is to
(06:33):
basically reinvestigate and look through whatever investigation had been done.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
What the heck is a private investigator? That's always like
the big one. I'm a private investigator. We see it
in the movies so often, and it's like, what did
they do?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Have you guys spent much time with them in the
genre that we worked in.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
A lot a lot. I just was with two two
weeks ago, like hanging out. And there are a wide
range of types. I mean many of them are law enforcement,
but I don't know. Yeah, you've got to have this
puzzle solving kind of dig it in and they've seen everything.
I mean, their bread and butter is often just like
cheating wives and cheating husbands and things like that, but
(07:12):
they get deep in. I mean, the one I was
just with is still doing work on a twenty year
old case that he's not full time on because it
always bothered him.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But what are private investigators really allowed to do?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I mean they have to have a license, so you know,
some of them will carry a gun because they have
a license for it. And they can access some kinds
of documents and stuff through legal documents in ways that
are easy and it's more facilitated for them. But they're
not law enforcement officers.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So if a private investigator comes up and says, mister Dunn,
we'd like to speak to you about this situation. I'm
a private investigator. Do I have to talk to him?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
No? I mean you do not have to talk to
police a police officer either.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So but why does anybody talk to a private investigator?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, they have to do a little bit of what
we do, which is kind of finesse make a case
a that they're not there to do harm to this person,
also that it's the right thing to do. They're just
looking for information. I mean a lot of times what
they're doing is they're finding people.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So is Lee Denny as a private investigator. He's maybe
going to the eme's office, to the sheriff's office and saying,
you know, I represent the Griggs family, can I have
more information please?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
And they usually work in conjunction with the legal team.
I mean, basically they're finding information, they're gathering data, talking
to people, looking for documents which is going to support
their legal case.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So here's what I've kind of discovered in the cases
that we have gone to visit is that the legal
team does not have the time, or the bandwidth or
the resources to sit down with the family and explain
what the game plan is, explain all the information they've found.
And the PI feels more like advocacy. It's like, I
(08:58):
understand how the system works. I'm going to hold your
hand and help you navigate it, and then I'm going
to give you the information that I find.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's not totally usual. I mean the lawyers they're hired
by and they're connected with the family and they're supposed
to break it down. It can happen the way you
just said, but that's not really their role. Their role
is to go out and pound the pavement and dig
up and do investigative stuff. That's what they do, and
they have more expertise because a lot of them come
from law enforcement or from other types of you know,
(09:25):
real investigation.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
But is the lawyer paying them or is the family.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Right the family? I mean they're working in conjunction with
the lawyers. I mean the lawyers are going to be
arguing this case in court, but the private investigator is
gathering all the information and they go hand in hand,
and you want to have if there is information out
there that is damaging to your client, that client needs
to know that as well to mount a proper legal case.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I mean, you've seen it in the movies, but it's true.
If the lawyer is sideswiped by a complete unknown fact,
they're screwed. Their case can fall apart because they didn't
prepare for it.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
So like Perry Mason's investigator found the murder weapon and
turned it over to Perry.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And it was very it was a whole scandal.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
All of it comes from Perry Mason West.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
A great tool, Old Perry Mason.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Sometimes I think the family can hire both the PI
and the attorneys separately, but most often the attorneys who
hires the PI specifically.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And they're working for that attorney who's working who's working
for the family. That's how it usually works usually, and
especially in these kinds of cases.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, we've said so many times it's kind of one
of the loglines of our show that until you're thrust
into the judicial system, most people don't know how it works.
Most people don't know like, oh, I've actually got to
find out what that person was doing that day, or
I need to know how to deal with law enforcement,
deal with district attorneys, deal with the sheriff, how to
put pressure on law enforcement, all these different things that
(10:49):
we don't know how to do. And so your legal
team and your pride investigator seem like guides in a way,
like Okay, you just grieve, we're going to go do
like the functional work.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But it's something that usually in this particular case, the
state doesn't finance this. The Griggs have to pay out
a pocket.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Which is overwhelming. I mean, there's been a death, you know,
but the county said that this is a closed case.
So what does a family without resources do exactly?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Probably nothing. Usually that's how a cycle goes. You know,
you don't have resources to hire your own attorneys and
your own private investigators, and what can you do?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I mean, I don't want to throw public attorneys under
the bus. Some of the best attorneys that are out there, yeah,
I mean, number one, their case leads are so high
it's very hard for them to actually give the attention
to the case. But you can also end up with
a bum private attorney too.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Lee Denny comes aboard, and I have to imagine that
was a comfort for the Griggs family. And so what
does he go in search of? What documents does he
dig up to try to put this puzzle together?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I think he first looks at the medical examiner's
report in addition to the police reports and the crime
scene photographs, and he gets really disturbed by what he finds.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah, you remember the Griggs had conversation with the district
attorney and they were challenging him, questioning how could this be?
How could somebody shoot somebody in the back and it
be self defense? How can this be? And you know,
Tony says, the DA said, you know, I'm not going
to fuss with you anymore, and so he was dismissed
by Tony's account is that he was dismissed by the DA.
So Lee he's like, okay, well, I'm going to go
(12:26):
in and get this information, right. So he sets up
a meeting with the district attorney and says, I need
access to all of this documentation, if the crime scene reports,
the photos, the emmys. I need this for my client
and they're entitled to it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Lee presents a very different character. He is a white man.
He is obviously Southern and part of gun culture, and
is someone who would probably be more comfortable in a
police station like the chisen Halls, and so when he
goes in, it's not necessarily as threatening or confrontational or
(13:13):
loaded as when the Griggs family goes in and wants answers.
The first person that Lee Denny met with was the
medical examiner, and he scheduled a meeting with her to
go over her findings, and they had like a physical
sit down meeting, and so he asked what she could
tell him and she went through the photographs and pretty
much gave her assessment of the case, which she put
(13:36):
in her report. So we have this woman in the
South in a position of power, and she's very clear
about what she thinks happened at this scene.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And it contradicts what is being told publicly by law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Because Lee Danny tells us about the meeting with the
medical examiner, and after Lee meets with her and then
goes to meet with the DA, they send lawlaw enforcement
to go see her. Let's just hear from Lee in
this moment.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
After also looking then at the scene at the house,
I scheduled a meeting with the medical examiner, doctor Scott,
to review her findings and go over her findings with her,
and that meeting was held. During the meeting, I asked
(14:25):
her what she could tell me. She went over her
autopsy and photographs she showed me, and the autopsy showed
it as well that Christian Griggs had been shot and
hit by six bullets, one in the shoulder, one in
the side, and four in the back. She told me
(14:47):
that the one in the shoulder and the one on
the side weren't what she would call fatal. Doctor Scott
seemed to be very interested at the time I left
her office concerning this case. As it turns out, then
later I did go back and talk to her again,
(15:08):
and this was after the meeting at the DA's office
that I had with one of her legal team, and
by then the Sheriff's department had sent officers to her
office to look at the body and her report again,
(15:30):
and at that time they told her he was coming
through a window, as I recall, when he was shot,
and she disagreed with that. She agreed that two of
the shots, and the shoulder and the one on the
side could have been done that way, but not the
shots in the back. So when I talked to her again,
(15:51):
this time she knew what law enforcement was saying, she
knew what I was proposing to her, and she agreed
with my theory that mister Griggs was facing away from
the shooter and was either laying on the ground or
on his hands and knees, probably laying on his stomach
(16:13):
when he was shot.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So what we have here is kind of a back
and forth. You know, we have Lee Denny going to
talk to the medical examiner first, her giving him the
information he needs to then go and have this awkward
meeting with the district attorney.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
They reluctantly give him a meeting the basis saying, we're
not going to hand over these documents too. You're not
going to take them out of the room. We're not
going to make copies for you. You could come in
and you can look at them. And so he meets
with the DA, and I believe law enforcement as well.
I think somebody from the Sheriff's office maybe been in
that meeting as well. Now he's digging in looking through
this and they're you know, he said it was tense.
He said it wasn't very friendly meeting.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
You know, they're babysitting them basically.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And we'll get more into that tenseness later, but for now,
was Lee allowed to take pictures of the documents or
like make copies or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I think that they weren't necessarily entitled to take the
stuff with them. And later on the Griggs team received
copies of all these documents, but at the time they're
still investigating it. But you'd have Lee taking a look
at these photos. And I think the crime scene photos
were super important to Lee with his expertise as a
gun guy. You know.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
He goes and he takes a look at the documents
that they have under intense supervision, and then law enforcement
pays a visit to the medical examiner and it's like, no, no,
you're wrong. Christian Griggs was coming through a window and
this medical examiner is not letting up right. She's like, no,
I'm good at my job. There's no way that trajectory works.
(17:45):
And so meanwhile, Lee Denny is getting a picture of
there being something kind of messy in Harnett County. Where
do we go from there?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
That's his expertise, not the memes about how when you
fire a bullet what else happens around it? What are
the results of that firing a bullet on the room
and on the clothing and on everything around it. And
he looks at it and says, so a guy under
stress shooting from the same position six times, leaving a side,
(18:16):
whether or not it's even possible to hit all the
different spots he hit on the body. He says to you,
I believe when you ask impossible for him to shoot
six times without shrapnel and pieces of bullets and hitting
his target every single time in six specific places from
a distance under stressed leaving no other kinds of signs
(18:36):
of that shooting on the walls, on the moldings, on
the furniture, on the shades, through wind, the blinds, through
the window, the blind's, the curtains. And he has great
concern over the cluster of three casings, saying there is
no way in a closed room to shoot six times
and only leave three casings. There are missing casings.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, and those missing casings were a big red flag
for Lee. You know, they were found as kind of
tucked behind a recliner.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
So mister Chisenhall said that he was standing behind the
sofa shooting a twenty two caliber semi automatic rifle. We
know that six bullets hit mister Griggs, So I would
expect in doing a crime scene search, I'm going to
find a minimum of six cartridges that have been fired.
(19:30):
This picture shows three. We should expect at least six
showcasings there. So these pictures tell me that there's something missing,
and that's hard physical evidence. Those showcasings should be somewhere
in this residence. The doors are closed, they're bouncing off
of walls. They could be in a chair, or in
(19:52):
a piece of furniture, or under a piece of furniture. However,
the sheriff's deputies state that they never found the other three,
which then makes me conclude that perhaps the shooting did
not occur inside but happened outside. Because we have missing
evidence here on the inside of the house, and looking
(20:14):
at the pictures of the three showcasings that were found
and taking where mister Chisenhol said he was doing his shooting,
I get the feeling or appearance that these showcasings were
placed in this location here normally with a semiautomatic firearm
(20:35):
like this twenty two rifle used here. The showcasings are
ejected very fast and hard, and when they hit a
hard surface like your sheet rock wall, a wooden door,
or a china cabinet or buffet or whatever might be here,
They're going to bounce all over the place. They're not
just going to fall out and land in an area
(20:55):
of say a foot or so in diameter. They're going
to come out and go peking around. And so I
would expect to find them scattered a lot more than
the three that are depicted in the picture here, and
I would expect that you would have to essentially tear
apart the front room and shake out everything open up
(21:18):
the sofas, take the cushions out, and doing your search
to look for those showcasings.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So, having shot a gun many many times, and those
who are here have shot a gun knows it takes
some precisions. So if you have a lot of adrenaline
running through you, if there's a lot of fear to
be accurate that quickly, that rapidly six times and not
miss once, Yeah, it's kind of extraordinary. You know, none
(21:46):
of us know what it's like to be in that
situation unless you are in that situation. I mean, police
train for that every day, but none of us train
for that, And I certainly doubt that Pat Chisenhal trained
for that scenario.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
We also see all the time police trained for that.
But do they hit six times under stress exactly on target,
and in addition, do three of their shell casings go missing?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Well, I mean, and it's a moving target too. I
mean Pat's account is correct. He was actively trying to
come into Like his head comes in, his shoulders come in,
He's trying to get in, and then is he turning
somehow he's getting the back shots. I mean, he's obviously
a moving target.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Lee Denny noticed something about that narrative as well. If
the story is correct that Christian Griggs came through the
window and then was shot in the back because he
was going back out through the window, where is any
trace of Christian Griggs on the sofa that was pushed
right up against the windows. There's no there's no blood,
(22:48):
there's nothing. We were talking about Lee Denny, this meeting
that he had where he was allowed to look at
what law enforcement had, and so when he sees the
pictures of the crime scene, we've established there's no bullet
(23:10):
holes in the blinds, none of the drapes, none of
the walls. There are six bullets in Christian Griggs, and
the magazine that that gun held could hold how many ten? Ten?
When the gun is retrieved, there are three bullets still
left in the clip and so is it a clipper
magazine on the setne.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
They called a magazine, Yeah, it's a tube magazine.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So there's three bullets left, which means that max seven
bullets were fired eight if there was one in the chamber,
and six of them went through Christian Griggs. So we're
talking about an accuracy here under stress that raises a
red flag with Lee Denny.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Also, if six are in him. There's at least seven,
at least seven shots, so there's a missing bullet.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Possibly, possibly he could have shot a score a couple
days before. There's an accuracy. He could not have shot
more than seven or eight bullets, and so six of
them we know are accounted for, the other two could
have been shot on other days, which makes it look
worse because if every shot fired entered into Christian griggs
(24:19):
body from across a living room through a hole in
the window, with a moving target, with a shoving target.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Under dress and stress, I.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Struggle with that, having grown up in a gun house.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well and lead Denny being a professional who actually might
possibly be able to do that, he.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Said he wouldn't be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, he finds it inconceivable.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Now according to patches and whole story, he fired all
six shots from the same location.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
But he couldn't have shot through the gap in the
window from right straight on like that. He would have
had to be firing from the side.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
So then we go to right. He did say again
and again, I think I was here. I think I was.
He's very clearly saying said this. Pat In his reenactment video.
He keeps saying I think I was here, and the
police keeps saying, well, what side are you shooting? Because
they see that that window is covered by blinds and
partially a shade, and there's only one gap where the
(25:15):
bullets wouldn't go through those things, and there are no
signs of bullet through the shades and the blinds.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Only three casinges are found, and they're found very close together,
which Lee Denny also struggles with because unless Pat Chisenhall's
racing all over that living room and shooting shells all
over the place, why are only three recovered.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Well, if he fires six shots, there's six shots that
enter Christians, so we know he fired at least six.
The casings would eject to the right of the weapon,
so they would be generally on the same side of
the room. But they're going to bounce, they're going to hit,
he's going to be moving. They're not going to be
clustered that close together. The three that were found that
were super close together, they would have bounced all over.
(25:58):
They wouldn't be that close to.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Believes that they would be more randomly.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Right, Well, it's a huge coincidence that the three would
end up that close together, and there's no sign, there's
no nicks, there's no other sign of them, of anything having.
I mean, even though it's a mess the crime scene,
it's still not the kind of mess you would imagine
with six bullets and a man breaking in.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, what we have already established about Pat Chisenhall is
that he is a meticulous man. He's dressed meticulously, his
home is kept meticulously. So they're not looking for shell
casings in a hoarder house. They're not looking for shell
casings in a house that is in disarray. They're looking
for shell casings in a living room that is very
well kept. It's very tidy.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's only sixteen foot by twenty foot living room. It's
a small there's no way that you could lose three
casings in that space. And you know, if you just
look at the crime scene photos, there's no place for
those casings to disappear. The extra three casings. Where are
those extra three casings? Why didn't they find them? If
they were in that room? Well, I mean, yeah, could
go in the cushions of the couch or the chair, right,
(27:02):
which is easy to find, which is easy to find.
You pull the cushions out and you look it does
it matter? I guess this is where things always get
confusing for us with the program. It's like which aspect
or which point are we going to concentrate on? So
does it really matter whether Patchisenhall is correct and saying
he was shooting from the six o'clock position or the
eight o'clock position.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Here's what matters. The defense the patches and Hall has
is that he's using the castle doctrine and Christian was
coming in. So what matters is that no one has
found evidence in that living room that Christian Griggs was
inside that house, like, not one part of him. There's
no blood on any of that broken glass. If his
(27:44):
hands are coming through and he's using that to propel
himself through the window, there's glass, there's fingerprints that we
could be dusting for, there's DNA evidence we could be collecting,
and we have nothing. We have no physical proof of
the Chisenhall's narrative.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And the ballistics are even more so. There's three missing
shell casings. I mean that in itself is enough for
reasonable cause to believe that the story is untrue.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean we could get to the possible conclusions
from that, but I think that one of the things
we all did from the very beginning of this case
when we first started researching it was try to figure
out how Pat's narrative could be true? Right, always do that, Yeah,
And we all sat there like, okay, So if he
(28:27):
was coming through the window, could he have gotten his
full body through the window, So therefore Pat could have
been shooting more straight on and hitting Christian who was
actually fully in the living room at that point. So
we all were acting it out. We all stood up
and every single one of us, every single one of us, repeatedly,
and we're still doing it now.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We did it taping.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Yeah, And it's funny because we try to can it
be possible? What circumstances would it be? So if Christian
were coming all the way in through this gap, and
that's a big if, because Dolly and Tony say that
that gap was not opened that far, there was no
way that there was enough room for somebody to be
climbing through that window.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
So Christian could have been shot in that manner, come
out of the window and retreated and then you know,
press charges. But everyone's alive. However, these four shots in
the back, it's an impossibility that Christian Griggs took the
first two shots while his body was in the house,
(29:25):
and then spun completely around to get shot in the
back at the trajectory that our medical examiner has illustrated
for us. So Lee Denny sees all of that. The
other thing we talked about last week is that the
medical examiner pointed out the Christian was paralyzed by the
shots in the back. So could Christian have army crawled
(29:47):
with his arms to a safe location? You know, do
we really realistically believe that because there's no blood and
there's no glass outside the front.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Porch, there's no glass on him.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, I think that blood on the porch might be
I'm certain that there would have been blood at a
certain point.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
There is no blood on the windowsill, around the window,
or on the porch. The only blood is under him
in the far corner of the porch, away from the doorway.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
It's the opposite direction from where if he were coming
through the window on the right side of the window.
If you're looking from the porch, then how does he
he fell backwards? He would go to the left right,
and that's the direction he would fall. If he were falling.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Whatever direction you would fall, he would have to if
he's falling backwards through the window, then he'd fall on
his back, not his stomach. And how does he get
to this corner with no blood anywhere except underneath him
when they pick him up.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So this is why we argue and have to look
at it carefully from our point of view, is you know,
we're basically trying to either recreate the scenario, try to
decide what we're going to present in the show how
to present it, and we're all kind of acting it
out in some crazy way because we can't figure it out.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
We can't, and it was important for us to just
ask Lee Denny, like, what do you think happened?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Okay, So my conclusion would be that mister Griggs was
shot outside. He was probably shot in the shoulder and
in the side first, which put him down on the
decking of the front porch, and then he was shot
four more times from behind while down, either on his
hands and knees or probably laying face down, because the
(31:34):
moment those two hit his spine, he was immobilized and
that's how he was found. Then the two bullets that
severed his spine, if he was already in with his
legs would have immobilized him, So he should have then
wound up kind of hanging out the window being immobilized
(31:57):
or paralyzed, or if he fell back out, he wouldn't
be in the position that we understand he was found,
which was kind of parallel to the side of the house.
He'd be facing out towards the yard if he fell
back out that way. So this tells me that what
mister Chisenhall said concerning the shooting wasn't accurate. And the
(32:21):
lack of the showcasings being found in the house that
fire army jects out to the right would indicate to
me that mister Chisenhall was outside the house and shooting,
and those shots, those casings went out into the front yard,
would have cleared off the front porch and gone out.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
So is that justifiable homicide?
Speaker 5 (32:43):
No, it would not be, not under North Carolina law.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
That's it for this week's episode of True Crime Story.
It couldn't happen here, But be sure to join us
next week as we dive deeper into the Christian Griggs case.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
I can't believe that the law and order man Lee
Denny is afraid to drive away of his own free will,
and that he might be arrested falsely or accused of
something falsely by law enforcement in Harnett County. You know,
it's kind of crazy to think that that guy is afraid.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Join us next week as we continue to roll up
our sleeves and dig in. Thank you so much for
joining us. If you haven't watched Sundance TV's True Crime
Story It Couldn't Happen Here, you can catch all of
our episodes streaming on AMC Plus. For more information about
this and other cases we've covered, follow at ice HH
(33:40):
stories on Instagram. True Crime Story It Couldn't Happen Here
was produced by Mischief Farm in association with Bungalow Media
and Entertainment, Authentic Management Productions, and Figdonia in partnership with
Sundance TV. Executive producers are me Hillary Burton, Morgan, Liz Accessory,
(34:01):
Robert Friedman, Mike Powers, and Meg Mortimer. Producers are Maggie
Robinson Katz and Libby Siegel. Our audio engineer is Brendan Dalton,
with original music by Philip Radiotis. We want to say
a special thank you to everyone who participated, but especially
the family's impacted by our cases.
Hi guys, it's Hillary here. Just a quick note. This
series does deal with a lot of tough subject matter
that may be difficult for some listeners, so please keep
this in mind when and where you choose to listen
to these episodes. Lee Denny, a private investigator hired by
(00:21):
the Griggs family, sits in a small bureaucratic room. He
thumbs through various documents, trying to piece together what happened
the day Christian was shot and whether Pat Chisenhol's claim
of self defense rings true. Last episode, we discussed what
happened the day after Christian was shot, as well as
(00:44):
the medical examiner's findings, and on this episode, we will
meet Lee Denny, a gun expert and private investigator who
further questions the narrative of what happened that day in October.
I'm Hillary Morgan and this is true crime story. It
couldn't happen here. Hey, everyone, we have our team assembled.
(01:17):
It is Andrew Dunn, Dan Flaherty, Paul Cutcheons, and myself,
Hillary Burton Morgan. So, approximately six months after Christian Griggs's death,
his family realizes they're not getting any help from law enforcement,
and they reach out to a private investigator named Lee Denny,
and he comes in. He's got a background in the
military police. He is a firearms expert. He has a
(01:42):
relationship with law enforcement and he teaches firearm safety for
concealed weapons. He trains people to be able to protect
their own homes.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
He believes in the use of a firearm as deadly
forced to stop an intruder. He is actually a believer
in self defense use of firearms.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
He's that guy who would support the concept of a
castle doctrine.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
He's the official instructor for the NRA, so yeah, he's
definitely a gun expert as well as being a private investigator.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And so for the Griggs family, Lee Denny is allowed
to go and dig up documents.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So now they have a liaison who has a great
deal of comfort with police and is an expert in
ballistics and guns. So that must be an incredible relief
to them.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Lee Denny was our second interview of the day and
we were running late because we were finishing up with
Robbie Jessup, the Griggs attorney, and so it was a
really big day and we had a ton to cover.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's a massive undertaking to get these things done and
done right. You can't just be like, oh, you got
two hours. You just can't.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
No, this was a hard day.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yeah, I mean, and you were getting a lot of
important information from Robbie Jessup and we needed to get that.
It's an hour drive from Jessup's place to Lee Denny's place,
and so we were calling Lee Denny saying we're going
to be a little late, and he's like, mmm, I'm
not happy that we were going to be late. And
so by the time we pulled up, he was definitely
(03:10):
not feeling happy. But he's a good guy and he's like, Okay,
I said I would do it, and I'll do it.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is a great favor, and it is amazingly generous
that people give us their time, that they sit there,
that they're patient with us, that they put themselves in
that position on the spot, and we are so grateful.
And there is an attitude that none of us agree
with that is prevalent and getting more prevalent out there,
where somehow they owe us, not we owe them. And
(03:38):
so being late is not just a little thing.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
No, it's embarrassing to be late.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And you can throw your whole thing, you can lose
your interview, somebody can get fed up and say screw you,
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Doing it, and people like Lee, they're doing this as
a service to the Greggs family.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
He's not personally getting anything out of this, so he
is doing it for the truth. He's doing it for
the Greggs family. He could have just said, you know what,
I got somewhere else, say to be and I'm not
doing this interview today.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, but he forever.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, he warmed up in a way that meant a
lot to me because Lee Denny reminds me of family
members that I have. I come from military family, and
so was able to quickly connect with him based on that.
We talked about USO tours and military bases that I'd
been to, specifically in North Carolina, and that really seemed
(04:23):
to be a nice place to connect. And so then
he looked at my arms while we were still setting
up the shot, and he saw that I had tattoos,
and he pulls out his phone and he's like, you know,
my son's a tattoo artist, and he pulls up his
son's Instagram and gives me his son's Instagram handle, and
it's like, if you ever need another tattoo, you should
go see my son, and so I'd gone from this
(04:44):
place of being like, very embarrassed that we relate kind
of flustered because there was a lot of information we
needed to go through with him, and he was able
to pivot in a way that made it really easy
for me to do my job. And I think perhaps
that's why I like Lee Denny so much, because you
saw the humanity in this person who's had to deal
with some really gross stuff.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Lee.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
He's funny because his face is very expressionless when you're
talking to him, and then you're just not sure what
he's thinking. You're not getting a read off of his face,
and eventually when he smiles, you're like, you did win
him over pretty quickly. It was Yeah, it was impressive.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I was sweaty. Andrew had to make me go back
out to my car and get makeup because he's like, Hillary,
you're so sweaty right now. Because I really was nervous
about not gaining his approval. I wanted Lee Denny's approval.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And Andrew always knows how to make the girls feel
real pretty. He's always like, you're really shiny.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
We were all very sweaty, but we were basically in
a very low ceiling. Basically the attic was his office,
which is hot, which is hot, and it was wood paneling,
and you know, there was.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Such a macho's face, animal.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Heads and guns and stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Animal heads, taxidermied heads, deer, et cetera. But also we
were jammed in pretty close. It was knee to knee.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were very comfortable in there. Andrew,
so Dan, why did the grig start working with Lee?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
They hired him to basically take a look through all
of the evidence that they had, which wasn't much. I
mean Lee actually had to go and ask for the evidence,
the investigation files, all of this stuff. He had to
go and meet with the Sheriff's department, meet with the
DA and say we need to have access to these files.
And that's what they brought him on for, is to
(06:33):
basically reinvestigate and look through whatever investigation had been done.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
What the heck is a private investigator? That's always like
the big one. I'm a private investigator. We see it
in the movies so often, and it's like, what did
they do?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Have you guys spent much time with them in the
genre that we worked in.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
A lot a lot. I just was with two two
weeks ago, like hanging out. And there are a wide
range of types. I mean many of them are law enforcement,
but I don't know. Yeah, you've got to have this
puzzle solving kind of dig it in and they've seen everything.
I mean, their bread and butter is often just like
cheating wives and cheating husbands and things like that, but
(07:12):
they get deep in. I mean, the one I was
just with is still doing work on a twenty year
old case that he's not full time on because it
always bothered him.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But what are private investigators really allowed to do?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I mean they have to have a license, so you know,
some of them will carry a gun because they have
a license for it. And they can access some kinds
of documents and stuff through legal documents in ways that
are easy and it's more facilitated for them. But they're
not law enforcement officers.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So if a private investigator comes up and says, mister Dunn,
we'd like to speak to you about this situation. I'm
a private investigator. Do I have to talk to him?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
No? I mean you do not have to talk to
police a police officer either.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So but why does anybody talk to a private investigator?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, they have to do a little bit of what
we do, which is kind of finesse make a case
a that they're not there to do harm to this person,
also that it's the right thing to do. They're just
looking for information. I mean a lot of times what
they're doing is they're finding people.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So is Lee Denny as a private investigator. He's maybe
going to the eme's office, to the sheriff's office and saying,
you know, I represent the Griggs family, can I have
more information please?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
And they usually work in conjunction with the legal team.
I mean, basically they're finding information, they're gathering data, talking
to people, looking for documents which is going to support
their legal case.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So here's what I've kind of discovered in the cases
that we have gone to visit is that the legal
team does not have the time, or the bandwidth or
the resources to sit down with the family and explain
what the game plan is, explain all the information they've found.
And the PI feels more like advocacy. It's like, I
(08:58):
understand how the system works. I'm going to hold your
hand and help you navigate it, and then I'm going
to give you the information that I find.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's not totally usual. I mean the lawyers they're hired
by and they're connected with the family and they're supposed
to break it down. It can happen the way you
just said, but that's not really their role. Their role
is to go out and pound the pavement and dig
up and do investigative stuff. That's what they do, and
they have more expertise because a lot of them come
from law enforcement or from other types of you know,
(09:25):
real investigation.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
But is the lawyer paying them or is the family.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Right the family? I mean they're working in conjunction with
the lawyers. I mean the lawyers are going to be
arguing this case in court, but the private investigator is
gathering all the information and they go hand in hand,
and you want to have if there is information out
there that is damaging to your client, that client needs
to know that as well to mount a proper legal case.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I mean, you've seen it in the movies, but it's true.
If the lawyer is sideswiped by a complete unknown fact,
they're screwed. Their case can fall apart because they didn't
prepare for it.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
So like Perry Mason's investigator found the murder weapon and
turned it over to Perry.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And it was very it was a whole scandal.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
All of it comes from Perry Mason West.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
A great tool, Old Perry Mason.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Sometimes I think the family can hire both the PI
and the attorneys separately, but most often the attorneys who
hires the PI specifically.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And they're working for that attorney who's working who's working
for the family. That's how it usually works usually, and
especially in these kinds of cases.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, we've said so many times it's kind of one
of the loglines of our show that until you're thrust
into the judicial system, most people don't know how it works.
Most people don't know like, oh, I've actually got to
find out what that person was doing that day, or
I need to know how to deal with law enforcement,
deal with district attorneys, deal with the sheriff, how to
put pressure on law enforcement, all these different things that
(10:49):
we don't know how to do. And so your legal
team and your pride investigator seem like guides in a way,
like Okay, you just grieve, we're going to go do
like the functional work.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But it's something that usually in this particular case, the
state doesn't finance this. The Griggs have to pay out
a pocket.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Which is overwhelming. I mean, there's been a death, you know,
but the county said that this is a closed case.
So what does a family without resources do exactly?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Probably nothing. Usually that's how a cycle goes. You know,
you don't have resources to hire your own attorneys and
your own private investigators, and what can you do?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I mean, I don't want to throw public attorneys under
the bus. Some of the best attorneys that are out there, yeah,
I mean, number one, their case leads are so high
it's very hard for them to actually give the attention
to the case. But you can also end up with
a bum private attorney too.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Lee Denny comes aboard, and I have to imagine that
was a comfort for the Griggs family. And so what
does he go in search of? What documents does he
dig up to try to put this puzzle together?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I think he first looks at the medical examiner's
report in addition to the police reports and the crime
scene photographs, and he gets really disturbed by what he finds.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah, you remember the Griggs had conversation with the district
attorney and they were challenging him, questioning how could this be?
How could somebody shoot somebody in the back and it
be self defense? How can this be? And you know,
Tony says, the DA said, you know, I'm not going
to fuss with you anymore, and so he was dismissed
by Tony's account is that he was dismissed by the DA.
So Lee he's like, okay, well, I'm going to go
(12:26):
in and get this information, right. So he sets up
a meeting with the district attorney and says, I need
access to all of this documentation, if the crime scene reports,
the photos, the emmys. I need this for my client
and they're entitled to it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Lee presents a very different character. He is a white man.
He is obviously Southern and part of gun culture, and
is someone who would probably be more comfortable in a
police station like the chisen Halls, and so when he
goes in, it's not necessarily as threatening or confrontational or
(13:13):
loaded as when the Griggs family goes in and wants answers.
The first person that Lee Denny met with was the
medical examiner, and he scheduled a meeting with her to
go over her findings, and they had like a physical
sit down meeting, and so he asked what she could
tell him and she went through the photographs and pretty
much gave her assessment of the case, which she put
(13:36):
in her report. So we have this woman in the
South in a position of power, and she's very clear
about what she thinks happened at this scene.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And it contradicts what is being told publicly by law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Because Lee Danny tells us about the meeting with the
medical examiner, and after Lee meets with her and then
goes to meet with the DA, they send lawlaw enforcement
to go see her. Let's just hear from Lee in
this moment.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
After also looking then at the scene at the house,
I scheduled a meeting with the medical examiner, doctor Scott,
to review her findings and go over her findings with her,
and that meeting was held. During the meeting, I asked
(14:25):
her what she could tell me. She went over her
autopsy and photographs she showed me, and the autopsy showed
it as well that Christian Griggs had been shot and
hit by six bullets, one in the shoulder, one in
the side, and four in the back. She told me
(14:47):
that the one in the shoulder and the one on
the side weren't what she would call fatal. Doctor Scott
seemed to be very interested at the time I left
her office concerning this case. As it turns out, then
later I did go back and talk to her again,
(15:08):
and this was after the meeting at the DA's office
that I had with one of her legal team, and
by then the Sheriff's department had sent officers to her
office to look at the body and her report again,
(15:30):
and at that time they told her he was coming
through a window, as I recall, when he was shot,
and she disagreed with that. She agreed that two of
the shots, and the shoulder and the one on the
side could have been done that way, but not the
shots in the back. So when I talked to her again,
(15:51):
this time she knew what law enforcement was saying, she
knew what I was proposing to her, and she agreed
with my theory that mister Griggs was facing away from
the shooter and was either laying on the ground or
on his hands and knees, probably laying on his stomach
(16:13):
when he was shot.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So what we have here is kind of a back
and forth. You know, we have Lee Denny going to
talk to the medical examiner first, her giving him the
information he needs to then go and have this awkward
meeting with the district attorney.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
They reluctantly give him a meeting the basis saying, we're
not going to hand over these documents too. You're not
going to take them out of the room. We're not
going to make copies for you. You could come in
and you can look at them. And so he meets
with the DA, and I believe law enforcement as well.
I think somebody from the Sheriff's office maybe been in
that meeting as well. Now he's digging in looking through
this and they're you know, he said it was tense.
He said it wasn't very friendly meeting.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
You know, they're babysitting them basically.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And we'll get more into that tenseness later, but for now,
was Lee allowed to take pictures of the documents or
like make copies or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I think that they weren't necessarily entitled to take the
stuff with them. And later on the Griggs team received
copies of all these documents, but at the time they're
still investigating it. But you'd have Lee taking a look
at these photos. And I think the crime scene photos
were super important to Lee with his expertise as a
gun guy. You know.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
He goes and he takes a look at the documents
that they have under intense supervision, and then law enforcement
pays a visit to the medical examiner and it's like, no, no,
you're wrong. Christian Griggs was coming through a window and
this medical examiner is not letting up right. She's like, no,
I'm good at my job. There's no way that trajectory works.
(17:45):
And so meanwhile, Lee Denny is getting a picture of
there being something kind of messy in Harnett County. Where
do we go from there?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
That's his expertise, not the memes about how when you
fire a bullet what else happens around it? What are
the results of that firing a bullet on the room
and on the clothing and on everything around it. And
he looks at it and says, so a guy under
stress shooting from the same position six times, leaving a side,
(18:16):
whether or not it's even possible to hit all the
different spots he hit on the body. He says to you,
I believe when you ask impossible for him to shoot
six times without shrapnel and pieces of bullets and hitting
his target every single time in six specific places from
a distance under stressed leaving no other kinds of signs
(18:36):
of that shooting on the walls, on the moldings, on
the furniture, on the shades, through wind, the blinds, through
the window, the blind's, the curtains. And he has great
concern over the cluster of three casings, saying there is
no way in a closed room to shoot six times
and only leave three casings. There are missing casings.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, and those missing casings were a big red flag
for Lee. You know, they were found as kind of
tucked behind a recliner.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
So mister Chisenhall said that he was standing behind the
sofa shooting a twenty two caliber semi automatic rifle. We
know that six bullets hit mister Griggs, So I would
expect in doing a crime scene search, I'm going to
find a minimum of six cartridges that have been fired.
(19:30):
This picture shows three. We should expect at least six
showcasings there. So these pictures tell me that there's something missing,
and that's hard physical evidence. Those showcasings should be somewhere
in this residence. The doors are closed, they're bouncing off
of walls. They could be in a chair, or in
(19:52):
a piece of furniture, or under a piece of furniture. However,
the sheriff's deputies state that they never found the other three,
which then makes me conclude that perhaps the shooting did
not occur inside but happened outside. Because we have missing
evidence here on the inside of the house, and looking
(20:14):
at the pictures of the three showcasings that were found
and taking where mister Chisenhol said he was doing his shooting,
I get the feeling or appearance that these showcasings were
placed in this location here normally with a semiautomatic firearm
(20:35):
like this twenty two rifle used here. The showcasings are
ejected very fast and hard, and when they hit a
hard surface like your sheet rock wall, a wooden door,
or a china cabinet or buffet or whatever might be here,
They're going to bounce all over the place. They're not
just going to fall out and land in an area
(20:55):
of say a foot or so in diameter. They're going
to come out and go peking around. And so I
would expect to find them scattered a lot more than
the three that are depicted in the picture here, and
I would expect that you would have to essentially tear
apart the front room and shake out everything open up
(21:18):
the sofas, take the cushions out, and doing your search
to look for those showcasings.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So, having shot a gun many many times, and those
who are here have shot a gun knows it takes
some precisions. So if you have a lot of adrenaline
running through you, if there's a lot of fear to
be accurate that quickly, that rapidly six times and not
miss once, Yeah, it's kind of extraordinary. You know, none
(21:46):
of us know what it's like to be in that
situation unless you are in that situation. I mean, police
train for that every day, but none of us train
for that, And I certainly doubt that Pat Chisenhal trained
for that scenario.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
We also see all the time police trained for that.
But do they hit six times under stress exactly on target,
and in addition, do three of their shell casings go missing?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Well, I mean, and it's a moving target too. I
mean Pat's account is correct. He was actively trying to
come into Like his head comes in, his shoulders come in,
He's trying to get in, and then is he turning
somehow he's getting the back shots. I mean, he's obviously
a moving target.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Lee Denny noticed something about that narrative as well. If
the story is correct that Christian Griggs came through the
window and then was shot in the back because he
was going back out through the window, where is any
trace of Christian Griggs on the sofa that was pushed
right up against the windows. There's no there's no blood,
(22:48):
there's nothing. We were talking about Lee Denny, this meeting
that he had where he was allowed to look at
what law enforcement had, and so when he sees the
pictures of the crime scene, we've established there's no bullet
(23:10):
holes in the blinds, none of the drapes, none of
the walls. There are six bullets in Christian Griggs, and
the magazine that that gun held could hold how many ten? Ten?
When the gun is retrieved, there are three bullets still
left in the clip and so is it a clipper
magazine on the setne.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
They called a magazine, Yeah, it's a tube magazine.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So there's three bullets left, which means that max seven
bullets were fired eight if there was one in the chamber,
and six of them went through Christian Griggs. So we're
talking about an accuracy here under stress that raises a
red flag with Lee Denny.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Also, if six are in him. There's at least seven,
at least seven shots, so there's a missing bullet.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Possibly, possibly he could have shot a score a couple
days before. There's an accuracy. He could not have shot
more than seven or eight bullets, and so six of
them we know are accounted for, the other two could
have been shot on other days, which makes it look
worse because if every shot fired entered into Christian griggs
(24:19):
body from across a living room through a hole in
the window, with a moving target, with a shoving target.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Under dress and stress, I.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Struggle with that, having grown up in a gun house.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well and lead Denny being a professional who actually might
possibly be able to do that, he.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Said he wouldn't be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, he finds it inconceivable.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Now according to patches and whole story, he fired all
six shots from the same location.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
But he couldn't have shot through the gap in the
window from right straight on like that. He would have
had to be firing from the side.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
So then we go to right. He did say again
and again, I think I was here. I think I was.
He's very clearly saying said this. Pat In his reenactment video.
He keeps saying I think I was here, and the
police keeps saying, well, what side are you shooting? Because
they see that that window is covered by blinds and
partially a shade, and there's only one gap where the
(25:15):
bullets wouldn't go through those things, and there are no
signs of bullet through the shades and the blinds.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Only three casinges are found, and they're found very close together,
which Lee Denny also struggles with because unless Pat Chisenhall's
racing all over that living room and shooting shells all
over the place, why are only three recovered.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Well, if he fires six shots, there's six shots that
enter Christians, so we know he fired at least six.
The casings would eject to the right of the weapon,
so they would be generally on the same side of
the room. But they're going to bounce, they're going to hit,
he's going to be moving. They're not going to be
clustered that close together. The three that were found that
were super close together, they would have bounced all over.
(25:58):
They wouldn't be that close to.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Believes that they would be more randomly.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Right, Well, it's a huge coincidence that the three would
end up that close together, and there's no sign, there's
no nicks, there's no other sign of them, of anything having.
I mean, even though it's a mess the crime scene,
it's still not the kind of mess you would imagine
with six bullets and a man breaking in.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, what we have already established about Pat Chisenhall is
that he is a meticulous man. He's dressed meticulously, his
home is kept meticulously. So they're not looking for shell
casings in a hoarder house. They're not looking for shell
casings in a house that is in disarray. They're looking
for shell casings in a living room that is very
well kept. It's very tidy.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's only sixteen foot by twenty foot living room. It's
a small there's no way that you could lose three
casings in that space. And you know, if you just
look at the crime scene photos, there's no place for
those casings to disappear. The extra three casings. Where are
those extra three casings? Why didn't they find them? If
they were in that room? Well, I mean, yeah, could
go in the cushions of the couch or the chair, right,
(27:02):
which is easy to find, which is easy to find.
You pull the cushions out and you look it does
it matter? I guess this is where things always get
confusing for us with the program. It's like which aspect
or which point are we going to concentrate on? So
does it really matter whether Patchisenhall is correct and saying
he was shooting from the six o'clock position or the
eight o'clock position.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Here's what matters. The defense the patches and Hall has
is that he's using the castle doctrine and Christian was
coming in. So what matters is that no one has
found evidence in that living room that Christian Griggs was
inside that house, like, not one part of him. There's
no blood on any of that broken glass. If his
(27:44):
hands are coming through and he's using that to propel
himself through the window, there's glass, there's fingerprints that we
could be dusting for, there's DNA evidence we could be collecting,
and we have nothing. We have no physical proof of
the Chisenhall's narrative.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And the ballistics are even more so. There's three missing
shell casings. I mean that in itself is enough for
reasonable cause to believe that the story is untrue.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean we could get to the possible conclusions
from that, but I think that one of the things
we all did from the very beginning of this case
when we first started researching it was try to figure
out how Pat's narrative could be true? Right, always do that, Yeah,
And we all sat there like, okay, So if he
(28:27):
was coming through the window, could he have gotten his
full body through the window, So therefore Pat could have
been shooting more straight on and hitting Christian who was
actually fully in the living room at that point. So
we all were acting it out. We all stood up
and every single one of us, every single one of us, repeatedly,
and we're still doing it now.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We did it taping.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Yeah, And it's funny because we try to can it
be possible? What circumstances would it be? So if Christian
were coming all the way in through this gap, and
that's a big if, because Dolly and Tony say that
that gap was not opened that far, there was no
way that there was enough room for somebody to be
climbing through that window.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
So Christian could have been shot in that manner, come
out of the window and retreated and then you know,
press charges. But everyone's alive. However, these four shots in
the back, it's an impossibility that Christian Griggs took the
first two shots while his body was in the house,
(29:25):
and then spun completely around to get shot in the
back at the trajectory that our medical examiner has illustrated
for us. So Lee Denny sees all of that. The
other thing we talked about last week is that the
medical examiner pointed out the Christian was paralyzed by the
shots in the back. So could Christian have army crawled
(29:47):
with his arms to a safe location? You know, do
we really realistically believe that because there's no blood and
there's no glass outside the front.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Porch, there's no glass on him.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, I think that blood on the porch might be
I'm certain that there would have been blood at a
certain point.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
There is no blood on the windowsill, around the window,
or on the porch. The only blood is under him
in the far corner of the porch, away from the doorway.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
It's the opposite direction from where if he were coming
through the window on the right side of the window.
If you're looking from the porch, then how does he
he fell backwards? He would go to the left right,
and that's the direction he would fall. If he were falling.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Whatever direction you would fall, he would have to if
he's falling backwards through the window, then he'd fall on
his back, not his stomach. And how does he get
to this corner with no blood anywhere except underneath him
when they pick him up.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So this is why we argue and have to look
at it carefully from our point of view, is you know,
we're basically trying to either recreate the scenario, try to
decide what we're going to present in the show how
to present it, and we're all kind of acting it
out in some crazy way because we can't figure it out.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
We can't, and it was important for us to just
ask Lee Denny, like, what do you think happened?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Okay, So my conclusion would be that mister Griggs was
shot outside. He was probably shot in the shoulder and
in the side first, which put him down on the
decking of the front porch, and then he was shot
four more times from behind while down, either on his
hands and knees or probably laying face down, because the
(31:34):
moment those two hit his spine, he was immobilized and
that's how he was found. Then the two bullets that
severed his spine, if he was already in with his
legs would have immobilized him, So he should have then
wound up kind of hanging out the window being immobilized
(31:57):
or paralyzed, or if he fell back out, he wouldn't
be in the position that we understand he was found,
which was kind of parallel to the side of the house.
He'd be facing out towards the yard if he fell
back out that way. So this tells me that what
mister Chisenhall said concerning the shooting wasn't accurate. And the
(32:21):
lack of the showcasings being found in the house that
fire army jects out to the right would indicate to
me that mister Chisenhall was outside the house and shooting,
and those shots, those casings went out into the front yard,
would have cleared off the front porch and gone out.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
So is that justifiable homicide?
Speaker 5 (32:43):
No, it would not be, not under North Carolina law.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
That's it for this week's episode of True Crime Story.
It couldn't happen here, But be sure to join us
next week as we dive deeper into the Christian Griggs case.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
I can't believe that the law and order man Lee
Denny is afraid to drive away of his own free will,
and that he might be arrested falsely or accused of
something falsely by law enforcement in Harnett County. You know,
it's kind of crazy to think that that guy is afraid.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Join us next week as we continue to roll up
our sleeves and dig in. Thank you so much for
joining us. If you haven't watched Sundance TV's True Crime
Story It Couldn't Happen Here, you can catch all of
our episodes streaming on AMC Plus. For more information about
this and other cases we've covered, follow at ice HH
(33:40):
stories on Instagram. True Crime Story It Couldn't Happen Here
was produced by Mischief Farm in association with Bungalow Media
and Entertainment, Authentic Management Productions, and Figdonia in partnership with
Sundance TV. Executive producers are me Hillary Burton, Morgan, Liz Accessory,
(34:01):
Robert Friedman, Mike Powers, and Meg Mortimer. Producers are Maggie
Robinson Katz and Libby Siegel. Our audio engineer is Brendan Dalton,
with original music by Philip Radiotis. We want to say
a special thank you to everyone who participated, but especially
the family's impacted by our cases.
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