November 21, 2023 • 40 mins
Hilarie, Po, Dan and Andrew discuss the lead up to Brandon’s trial, and the surprising discovery found in the Woodruff’s barn.
For more information about this and other cases we've covered, follow @ICHHstories on Instagram
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
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. The old barn at dennis enormous house
in Heath is filled to the brim. Think old clothes, sheets,
(00:23):
and Christmas decorations like a particleboard, Christmas tree and a
snowman tipping its hat. Dennis's sister Kathy is there going
through these various artifacts of life when she makes a
startling discovery an ornate, medieval looking dagger found in the
depths of the barn wrapped in plastic. Concerned, she calls
law enforcement to investigate. Last episode, we heard about Brandon's
(00:48):
former friend Mike Gatherington's conversation with law enforcement. We also
heard clips of Brandon's sister Charlis's second interview, where she
provided the logline in the case against Brandon. If you
can lie about the small thing, you can lie about
the big thing, like killing your parents, and we discussed
the various motives law enforcement beliefs could have driven Brandon
(01:09):
to murder his parents in their home in Royce City, Texas. Now,
on this episode, we are diving into the lead up
to Brandon's first scheduled trial and the various twists and
turns that takes. I'm Hillary Burton Morgan and this is
true crime story It Couldn't Happen Here. Welcome to another
(01:40):
episode of It Couldn't Happen Here. I'm Hillary Burton Morgan
and I'm joined by the members of our team. We
have Poe Hutcheons, Dan Flaherty, and Andrew Dunn. So, you guys,
let's just get right into it. Brandon's murder trial is
scheduled for September fifth, two thousand and seven, which is
pretty much like two years after his parents' bodies have
been found, and Brandon has been in prison awaiting trial
(02:03):
this entire time. So he's got a team of lawyers
working on his behalf. And now before the trial begins,
a process known as discovery takes place. Discovery is when
the prosecution is required to hand over all relevant materials
to the defense attorneys. Now, what happens in this case
is that when the prosecution hands over their material, Brandon's
(02:27):
lawyers find something that's super shocking.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
They find that during Brandon's defense attorney's phone calls with Brandon.
Some of the conversations were recorded and listened to by
Ranger Collins and the prosecutor, which is a major violation
of the sixth Amendment of the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Dan, can you tell us what the sixth Amendment actually says.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
The sixth Amendment guarantees your right to effective counsel, and
part of that is that you have a right to
confer with your legal counsel in private and to not
have those coversations listened to by the prosecution. And in
this case, it's interesting the way it was discovered. Brandon's
defense attorney asked the prosecutor, Hey, turn over this evidence,
and he gets these tapes and there are recordings of
(03:12):
Brandon imprison and Brandon's defense attorney here's his own voice.
He said, Oh my god, these are my conversations with
my client, and he like freaks out. And this is huge, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Every cop show you've ever watched, you know that you
get to confer with your lawyer without any prying eyes
to protect your sixth Amendment, right.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I mean, it's one of the biggest building blocks of
being able to have freedom here. You know, any violation
of that is basically stripping you of any individual rights.
This is a shocker that his rights were violated in
this way at all.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Right, and now, the jailhouse calls are always recorded, right,
so the jail where he is would record these calls.
But that doesn't mean that the prosecution should have access
to them and be able to listen to them.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I was under the impression that they were supposed to
stop recording when they knew that's what it was.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
The stopping of recording probably doesn't always happen, but when
somebody from the prosecution knows it's a privileged call, when
they begin to speak, they have to stop listening.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That's the thing. It's like the second you hear the
lawyer say, hey, Brandon, it's your lawyer. How are you doing?
You know you hit stop. They did not.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Ranger Collins and the prosecutor likely knew exactly what they
were doing. There is no way that they didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
There's no way it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
When they hear Brandon's lawyer talking to Brandon that that's
not a violation of the six Amendment. Because every lawyer
and every investigator knows that.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
The DA took pages and pages and pages of notes.
I mean, what that's crazy? Forty three pages of notes?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
On these phone calls? So they had so there was
something in there. And Brandon's defense team says, hey, guys, mistrial,
you can need to throw this out.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Absolutely, I mean, okay, let's just talk about what protocol
should be in that situation. Someone's sixth Amendment right is violated.
What is supposed to happen?
Speaker 4 (05:08):
I mean, technically anything that the prosecution would have gathered
from those conversations is disallowed in court.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I mean, if they went to trial, this would be
an automatic throwing it out, mistrial, throwing out the verdict
because anything they used is a total violation.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I mean, at that point, do you take it out
of this county and send it to a different venue.
You should with brand new eyeballs, a brand new judge,
a brand new prosecutor, all of that. Absolutely, does that
happen in this situation?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
What does the judge say here?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
There's a lengthy legal back and forth on this, and
the defense is you should just toss this completely, and
they're like, no, we're not going.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
To toss it, meaning toss the case, toss.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
The case exactly, and they said, no, we're not going
to toss it. And the prosecution says, well, we really
didn't learn anything useful from it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Forty something of notes and you learn nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, and that's you who just broke the constitutional law.
Are telling us that you didn't learn anything. So it's
okay exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And so the defense is like, well, wait, I think
he probably did learn something, and can we interview you
and find out what you learned from these calls and
see the notes that you took. But the judge ruled
against the defense and did not allow them to interview
the prosecution or have access to any of those notes.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Brandon's lawyers say, okay, the sixth Amendment violation is not
necessarily our forte. We're going to call in another lawyer
we know. And that is where we're introduced to Catherine Ferguson.
And you, guys, I have to say it. I love Catherine.
I love her. She is such a big personality.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Okay, I'm a masterpiece theater and Yunkie.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Interviewed Take one come Marcosoft six.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, they said they would, Parliament would adjourn to watch it.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Well, I got everyone in the private norm where I
was living in law school. I got everyone on that
floor watching because the first they were like, we don't
want to watch this. One's like, no, it's masterpiece, it'll
be really good. And then next week, because for four
weeks we just all came back at Sunday night at
eight o'clock, I'll watch it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So no, it's very he's very diabolical.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
It's like, you know, well, the closest I can think
of it is if you've seen Laurence Olivier's Richard the Third,
because his Olivia's Richard the Third breaks the fourth wall,
talks to the camera and is very seductive with his
humor and everything, and you you kind of find yourself
against your will, going.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
What's he gonna do next?
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Come on, Richard, let's go. And Francis Urkett was the
same way.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
That's why Yago is more interesting than a fellow.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, Dan, she has been one of my favorite interviews
that we have done on the show because she is
ferocious and lovely and funny and accomplished, and I actually
had a lot in common with her. She's a great storyteller.
She's a remarkable storyteller. Tell our listeners who Catherine Ferguson.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Is Catherine Ferguson is a lawyer in Greenville, Texas. In
Greenville is the county seat of Hunt County, where Roy
City is located. And she grew up there, local small
town lawyer, so she knows rural Texas and she knows
the law. So Brandon's defense attorneys, yeah, contacted Catherine and
then she stayed and was co counsel for Brandon through
(08:30):
his trial. But she's just awesome, right, she just Andrew.
You should talk a little bit about her office.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, tell him about her office. She's so playful and cool.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Her office.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The squirrels.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yes, what you don't see is her office is full
of taxidermy squirrels, like dozens and dozens of them, and
various poses of action and motion costumes. Costumes. Yes, they're
wearing costumes.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
It is crazy, very funny to look for filming. It's
I want to film it. But the question is is
it distracting or not?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Well, that's it. It's like you, as a camera operator
are just like, this is the best shot ever.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I mean, we all are yah as the imagery. But
does it take away from the story?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You know, what's interesting to me is that she is
such an accomplished professional woman. And what the taxidermy indicates
is that she also has a sense of humor. She's
not a stick in the mud. She's not a boring
lady that's just all about her work. This is someone
who I connected with because we have a mutual love
of Barbara streisand she has the same frame pictures of
(09:39):
Barbara streisand in her office that I have in my office.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
There's a squirrel addressed as Barbara streisand.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
In the movie Funny Girl, and so here Catherine and
I are freaking out in her office that we have
all these things in common and we love all the
same things, and.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Well, you have a little bit of taxidermy in your house.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I have been collecting taxi terms since I was a
young person, and so I appreciated that layer to Catherine.
You know, we meet a lot of lawyers and it's
just like this is a suit and Catherine's not a suit.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
She is a colorful personality.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, she's a colorful, like warm, inviting person. She divided
us into that since she definitely cares, she cares about
her clients.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
She cares about this case. She was so engaging, and
she was so present. Yeah, she wasn't just reciting stuff.
And as a filmmaker, when you have somebody that can
articulate themselves, not just the facts, but also imbue it
with the layers of nuance that actually tell a bigger
picture story, that's what we're trying to do, and she
(10:45):
is allowing us to do it.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So Catherine, this veteran local attorney, is brought into help
and she tells us what happens after she comes on board,
and they try to make their complaint regarding the six
amounted violation.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
So I understanding that they said that we didn't really
find anything useful. Hidn't that? But they got pages of notes.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Right, they said they didn't find anything useful. And the
phone calls themselves were somewhat innocuous. I mean, there was
never any discussion where Brandon said I did it and
I hid the gun here, nothing like that. But he
would say things to his attorney or the staff like, well,
you know, there was this guy that was working on
(11:25):
the pole barn, and you might want to track down
and see if he knew anything or saw anything, or
go talk to this person or talk to that person.
And the argument was it was pointing directions to our strategy,
which the state has no right to know any of.
But the Attorney General was able to protect it, and
(11:45):
it was deemed a DA's office worked product and we
couldn't get it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Had that been something that this DA's office had ever
gotten in trouble with before, No, okay, so this was
the first time they were doing that.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
I don't know if this is the first time they
were caught. And it was the first time I think
in Texas that any DA's office had been actually found
to violate the sixth Amendment. Because when this happened, I
started reaching out to other defense lawyers in Dallas and
(12:20):
Colin County and Houston and everything that has anybody ever
encountered this, and a lot of those lawyers would write
back and say, well, we know the DA's office here
does it all the time. We just don't talk to
our clients on the phone. And they'd never challenged it.
And so I think this case was the first case
to successfully challenge and get that kind of a finding
(12:43):
against the District Attorney's office in Texas. Even the most
guilty human being on earth has a right to confer
in confidence with their attorney and not have the state
hovering over and listening.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
In on it.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
So Catherine said something that I think is pretty imporant
to reiterate. She said that she never got to see
the notes that were taken during the calls between Brandon
and his lawyer, and the judge's reason was because they
were a district attorney's work product, like a record of
the attorney's mental thoughts, ideas, and strategies, even though those
notes were taken during what should have been protected phone calls,
(13:19):
which is just crazy, Dan.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Ultimately, what is the end result of this?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
The end result of this six amendment of violation was
that the Hunt County DA voluntarily recused themselves from Brandon's case.
The Texas State Attorney General took over prosecuting the case.
But yeah, as you can imagine, this whole affair took
a lot of time to sort through.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It also means that this new prosecutor is privy to
the information verbally, at least that Ranger Collins listened to.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Ranger Collins is the lead investigator on the case. So
why could this still be problematic?
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
The prosecutor is off the case, but Ranger Collins was
still a witness.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
It's Pandora's pot bucks. Once that information is out, once
that phone call has been listened to, there's no unhearing it. Right,
So the trial that was supposed to start September fifth,
two thousand and seven, is pushed off. And this push
is going to end up being the downfall of Brandon's case.
(14:22):
It is the most unlucky push that I have ever
seen for a defendant. Brandon knows that he has people
working on his behalf, he has his defense team, he
has Catherine Ferguson at this point, but he is still
sitting every single day in jail, and the years are
passing by. This isn't weeks, this isn't months, This is
(14:42):
years are passing by. Had the trial happened in September,
we know that we had really circumstantial evidence, right, We
had Mike Gatherington, who you can't really put on the
stand because because.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
He's already shown himself to be an unreliable witness.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, you have a timeline where Brandon does everything he
said he did that night. It's just the times are fuzzy.
But no forensic evidence had ever linked Brandon to the
crime scene. They never found blood on his shoes, in
his clothes, there was never any gunpowder residue, nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And you don't have either murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
And that is a huge thing that is about to change.
Brandon's trial should have been September two thousand and seven,
(15:45):
as we know, it gets pushed due to the six
Amendment violation. Now during that delay, less than a year later,
in June of two thousand and eight, while Brandon's sitting
in jail, his aunt Kathy goes to clean out the
barn behind the old heath house and she uncover something.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Dan.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
What does Kathy find?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So, Yeah, this heath house has been sitting there and
there's a barn and there's tons of stuff from their
previous house that they lived in. There's just tons of stuff.
So they're finally digging through. Kathy's going through all these
boxes and way back in the back of this barn
she finds a medieval dagger. This thing is wrapped in
(16:24):
some plastic I believe, with some other knives.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And this is important because when Norma and Dennis were killed,
they weren't just shot, they were stabbed. Right now, the
medieval dagger stood out to law enforcement because earlier when
they were investigating Brandon, they interviewed is college roommate Eric,
and Eric tells Ranger Collins that Brandon had a medieval dagger,
(16:48):
but now it's missing. Let's listen to that clip.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, has he did, Brandon?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Have you ever seen him with any knives or anything?
Speaker 6 (16:56):
He had this dagger, kind of a medieval looking dagger,
and he brought that a to school and had it
in the closet. And from the limited looking at the
closet I've done, I haven't seen the dagger in there.
And I thought probably the police took it when they
came when a month or two ago. Probably how big
was the dagger? Probably six the blade six inch probably
(17:22):
probably six seven inches, and then the handle four or five, so.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It was almost a foot.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Yeah, it was like a medieval looking thing. And I
thought it was fake at first time touched and it
was real.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
What do you said?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
What about the width on it?
Speaker 6 (17:36):
You know, maybe maybe an inch and a half and
half blade on the at the thickest part at the
blade and then down to a point.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Okay, and but you'all could have nice here, I guess right.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Well, I don't know that he was supposed to have.
I think there's a rule on the length of the blade,
but yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
That was over If that's six inches, that's right. You're
a lot of care enough like this. But you hadn't
seen that dagger in a while.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
No, I hadn't seen it in a while.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Eric said. The last place he'd seen it was Brandon's
closet about a month or two prior. But he knew
it was no longer in the dorm room anymore because
he checked for it after the search warrant was executed,
and it was also not listed as being taken into evidence.
So we've got this missing dagger. And when we explored
the dagger that Brandon actually did own, we found out
(18:30):
that Brandon had gone to Medieval Times and gotten a
dagger there. And sure enough, when we landed in Dallas,
that Medieval Times is like huge, and it's right on
the highway leading from the airport. Did you stop? We
tried to get Andrew to stop and get footage.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
I really wanted to stop. I mean, Medieval's Times is great.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, And for the person at home that doesn't know,
can you please explain to them what it is?
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's actually one single company and there are several locations
in several different cities, and it's basically an equine theater
show where you sit there and you eat in an
arena that's dirt, and you hear a play about something
about Elizabethan times and the fight for power with knights,
and you watch basically knights go back and forth stabbing
(19:17):
each other with what do they.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Call it, talking about a joust?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
A joust, Yes, a jout.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So it's a theme park version of a Renaissance fair. Yeah,
I wouldn't call it that.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
It's it's real good horsemanship work with the Renaissance fair.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
No, I love. It reminds me of like those like
shows on ice and things like that. It's an arena
show where we all get to sit around and eat
while someone else is doing all the hard work and so.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, but it's yeah, it's impressive.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It is impressive. And Brandon, who is this award winning
horseman and who really just loves working with animals, he
goes to this medieval time show and he got to
witness all of these people who are at their peak
working with horses doing extraordinary t that naturally he wanted
to learn how to do. And so he told us
(20:05):
that he learned from a trainer in the show that
in the tournament, when you see some of the horses
bowing or laying down or falling down in the joust
with the viewer sees is the horse in battle. But
to a trainer's eyes, those horses are trained to lay down.
They are trained to do all of these tricks. And
so basically the way they do this is you have
this medieval dagger and you would tap it on points
(20:28):
on the horse's body, basically giving it cues. And that's
how you get the horse to bow. It's how you
get the horse to lay down. So Brandon owned a
replica of this dagger, and that is the knife his
roommate was describing. Law enforcement never found this knife.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
It's a decorative item, I believe. I don't believe it's
a It's like a letter opener.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, I mean not that it couldn't be used dangerously,
but its purpose isn't to kill.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It's a dagger, but it's not sharp. I mean Brandon
described it as not sharp because you're using it around horses,
You're not going to risk cutting a horse.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So we know that Brandon did, in fact own a
dagger and his roommate has told law enforcement that dagger
appears to be missing, and now Kathy has found a
dagger buried in the depths of the heath barn.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
So she calls law enforcement. She's like, look, here's something
that I think might be important, and she calls the
law enforcement to come out and collect this dagger.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
This barn is worth noting it had already been searched
right after the murder. So this is a search that's
happened years later.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Nearly three years later, and it's a barn that hasn't
been locked up, it's.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Not secure, it's open, people can get in and out
of it, and it was already searched by law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
My understanding was that it was filled with stuff from
their previous move and so they didn't search it thoroughly.
They didn't take everything out and search every inch of it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It was a big barn like place with boxes filled
with bags, filled with just the detrius of decades of
life of many people.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
So I think law enforcement the times, there's just so
much stuff here, and if there's anything of evidentiary value,
it's certainly not going to be way in the back,
buried underneath everything else. Right, So they kind of just
called off the search initially, until Kathy finds this stagger.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Amongst other knives wrapped in plastic in the back.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
It's not an item that's been tossed somewhere, hurled into
the abyss the barn.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Or buried somewhere quickly in a frenzy, in a panic.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
It's been purposefully stored.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I mean, for a community that's never experienced a murder,
you've got a grizzly double murder. Search the bar find
the murder weapon.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, I mean, it's not the house where the murder happened.
But if they are really leading with Brandon must have
done it, or somebody close to them must have done it,
then indeed it is a strange thing not to search.
As daunting as it is.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
The finding of this means what to law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Well, they take it and they say, well, this seem
is a medieval looking dagger, and we knew that Brandon
had a medieval looking dagger that went missing, so let's
take a look at this and let's test it. So
they send it to a lab and they look for
DNA on this dagger and they find on the hilt
there's a skull ornament and behind that skull ornament there
is some DNA evidence that they recover, and it belongs
(23:26):
to Dennis.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
From what I remember, it's a tiny speck high up
above the blade on the hilt. It's a speck of
Dennis's DNA from his blood.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Potentially, do they find any of Brandon's DNA on this knife?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
The only thing I saw in the report is Dennis's blood.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So that's interesting because for it to make sense for
law enforcement, it would mean that Brandon stab stabs dab
both parents was able to not only remove his own
DNA from holding it tightly from the weapon, but also
remove all of his mother's DNA and all but one
(24:09):
drop of his father's DNA. Why the blood wouldn't be
mixed together.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Why would he store it?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Why would he store it? Why hasn't it been factored
into the timeline if he did such a thorough cleanup
job on it. But he was also able to get
to the Denny's by eleven o'clock at night and pick
up all his buddies and do all this in the
dark and bury that thing in the dark. He hasn't
had a minute by himself at that barn since his parents'
bodies were discovered.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, I mean that's what's always bugged me about this case. Like,
if this is the murder weapon, how the hell would
he have had time to hide it? I mean, take it,
wrap it up with other stuff and put it all
the way the back behind a bunch of other things.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
And why store the knife and throw away the gun?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Andrew That's a great question, And in Catherine's interview you
asked her exactly that.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
So there's also one other logical piece to this.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Why would.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Why would Brandon take i mean may arner a weapon
and bury it like one of the properties.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Like it's like, well, the argument that I got from
just for us talking the one of the investigators said, well,
you know, yeah, he threw the gun in a lake
or something and got rid of it because the gun
didn't mean anything to him. But this was his dagger,
so it was his trophy, so that's why he kept it. Yeah,
(25:38):
you know, does that make much sense? But why would
he keep one murder weapon and throw away the other?
And they say, well, because this was.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
His So now law enforcement have this dagger that they
believe is Brandon's with a drop of Dennis's DNA and
Dan when they show a picture of the dagger to
Brandon's college room. Eric, what does he say?
Speaker 3 (26:02):
His roommate said, Yes, that's the dagger that Brandon had
in his dorm room. And so for the prosecution, this
is a score, right. This is like we had total
circumstantial evidence. We didn't have any physical thing that we
could tie to Brandon that to tie to the murder.
This for them, did that right. It has Dennis's blood
on it, so it ties it to Dennis victim, to
the murder to the victim, and it is identified as
(26:25):
belonging to Brandon, so it ties Brandon. This is the
thing that the prosecution needed, right in order to really
really pursue this case.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
So I mean they pursued it.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
He's been in jail for three years, right, But had
he gone to trial, had he gone to trial in September,
this would have never been found. But they have gotten
their white whale. They have found something on his family's
property that they say they can tie to him. And
the trial proceeds.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's a smoking dagger.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
On March fourth, two thousand and nine, jury selection begins.
So just as a reminder, this is about a year
and a half from when Brandon's trial was originally scheduled
for September of two thousand and seven, and it's just
about nine months after Aunt Cathy finds the dagger in
the barn at Heath. This is a hellacious process, especially
(27:27):
for Brandon. Normally, when you're doing jury selection, what do
both sides get to do? You get to ask all
sorts of questions.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
When someone's called to jury duty, they have to fill
out a jurk questionnaire and that's the vetting process for
both the defense and the prosecutors. It allows them to
have ample information about the juror the jurors experience to
make sure that they aren't going to over identify with
one side or the other, with the accused, or with
(27:56):
the police, or with an aspect of the case, because
they may have experience something similarly and that would cause
them to be biased.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I hate all men, right, All men are guilty, All.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Cops are bad, while people of a certain race are bad.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
If somebody is a card carrying member of an organization
that states something that is going to be detrimental to
your client or to your case as a prosecutor, you
have right. But there's only you know obviously that could
go on forever. So each lawyer from each side they
get to vet these perspective jurors. They get this information
that they've filled out, and they get a certain amount
(28:32):
of dismissals. And in Brandon's case, Texas law says each
side can only dismiss ten potential jurors, which is not
a big amount. I mean, I've investigated cases with many, many,
many more potentials to dismiss bias, dur or a jur
that they don't think would be would work for them.
Ten each is not very much. And now remember this
(28:56):
has been a huge case in a small area in
a small county, and it's been in the news for
a long time, and they haven't changed the venue, so
it is doubtful that many people that are even called
for jury duty haven't heard of the case somehow.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, during jury selection, Catherine has the opportunity to question
potential jurors and ask them their biases and their thoughts
and see if they are going to be a problem
or if they could be an impartial jury. Several questions
are really interesting, but one of the main ones in
this case was Catherine asked them if they had an
issue with homosexuality, and asked them if they could be unbiased,
(29:35):
and several of them felt that homosexuality was immoral.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So by the time they seated the jury, out of
the ones that they were able to keep after they'd
run out of their ability to dismiss jurors, she said
around six.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
No, out of the twelve jurors and two alternates selected,
eight of them feel or believe that being homosexual or
gay is orally wrong.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So even if they say, but I can put that
aside and I'm not biased. If that's your belief, and
it's being brought up about somebody as a motive and
as proof of them lying, and why they might have
killed their parents and why their parents might have been
angry at them, that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
But you can see here the conflict that the defense
is in because they have to accept those jurors because
they had other prospective jurors when advised that the death
penalty was off the table, say that they would not
be able to serve because, quote, it seems like the
(30:40):
state has already tied the hands of the jury and
decided what the outcome will be. And if all we
have to do is decide guilt or innocence, then I'm
going to have a hard time taking an oath for that.
So this guy was so upset that he couldn't vote
for the death penalty that he wanted to be removed
from the jury.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Which show that he'd already made a full on opinion
of guilt or innocence, and he just wanted to be
able to convict for death.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So if you have to choose between the nuts guy
that just wants to put someone to death and someone
that says I think homosexuality is morally wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yet, hey, I could still be fair.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
You're picking between what's the lesser of the two evilsides.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
I mean, this is our system, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, No, you're supposed to have a change of venue
if there's a good reason for it, and you're also
supposed to be able to dismiss more jurors. To have
ten doesn't leave you with a lot of choices.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the gravity
of this case. You have a grizzly double homicide in
a town that has not seen a murder in forever. So,
given that the sixth Amendment was violated, and given that
we have a potentially tainted jury pool, that has expressed
a bias against the defendant. Why did this case stay
(31:57):
in Hunt County? You know, I mean at the time,
they were less than one hundred thousand people living there.
Why didn't it, for instance, like go to Dallas County.
It's like right next door with a population of more
than two million people.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It's a damn good question to argue that they have
a bias against they feel that homosexuality is immoral, but
all of them would question so they could set that
aside when they were deciding whether to vote guilty or innocence.
Now is that possible to set that kind of thing aside?
I don't know, but certainly they all gave lip service
(32:30):
to the idea that they could be impartial when deciding
guilt or innocia.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Sure, but if you're a defense if you're a defense
attorney choosing to seat a jury, you would really rather
get rid of somebody who already is walking in with
a bias against your client, especially when that is a
huge reason that people are saying that he's guilty.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
I'm not sure when Catherine made a motion to dismiss
anything about his lifestyle sexual orientation regarding the case, whether
she I mean do you remember if she made a
motion to dismiss it and somehow I recall that there
is some issue. By actually including it on the form,
it allows the prosecution to actually use it and you
(33:10):
can't raise an objection to it.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
The defense team is put in an unwinnable situation. You
either have to ask upfront, do you have a problem
with homosexuality so that you can try to get a
jury that isn't prejudiced.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
But then you invite the prosecution to be able to
use that in trial, which is going to bias people
against your client, or is a potential bias against your client?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
So does it get brought up before or after? You know, like,
there's no win for the defense here.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Right, and so the defense attorney is exactly between a
rock and a hard place. Either way they do it,
it invites a problem.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, we've learned about the discovery process, which worked against
Brandon when his original trial was set. We've now learned
about jury selection, and in this case, we already know
that there's a within the jury. So there's a lot
that Brandon's up against Dan. What else happens even before
any opening statements are made in this trial?
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Catherine tells us a little bit of going into trial
is that the state files with the court a notice
of extraneous offenses.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
The state has certain pleadings that they are required to
file notice of extraneous offenses. So if they're going to
try to use any offenses that would tend to show
that you know you're guilty, or that they would want
to introduce in the punishment phase to argue that you know,
(34:41):
you've also done all these other bad things, so jack
up the punishment a lot higher. So they filed this
and they included really stupid things. One of the things
that they put in that pleading was that Brandon had
been engaging in hardcore gay pornography. Now, regardless of how
(35:07):
you feel about that, morally, nothing that Brandon did there
was illegal. That was not an offense in any stretch
of the imagination. He wasn't having sex with underage people.
He wasn't underage at the time, so that there's no
reason to put that in a public filing in this
(35:30):
case except to get out to the public in general
the word that number one, he's gay and number two,
he's doing porn movies, to basically assassinate his character before
he ever gets to trial, so.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
They put that out basically thinking that that'll make him
look bad. Is that, I mean, what's the purpose of
saying he's doing this?
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Generally, notice of extraneous offenses are used in the punishment
phase of a trial to argue for increasing the level
of punishment. Well, Brandon's case was already a what we
call a mini cap, which is the state had waived
the death penalty. Punishment's fixed, so it doesn't matter what
(36:20):
horrible things he may have done. His punishment if he's
found guilty is life without parole, period. So there really
was no purpose in filing that and putting that statement
in there that Brandon engaged in hardcore gay pornography except
to assassinate his character, to make him look bad. He's bad. Generally, ooh,
(36:44):
look he's gay and he engages in pornography.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
And was this put forth in trial?
Speaker 5 (36:53):
That pleading was not put forth in trial. What happened
is the state files certain pleadings pre trial. These are
not under seal, so the newspaper can go run down
and look at the filings in the district clerk's office
and write a news story and say, the State of
Texas has filed a pleading that says Brandon Woodruff engaged
(37:17):
in hardcore gay pornography. That was the in my opinion,
that was the purpose of filing. That was just to
assassinate his character because it wasn't filed under seal. There
was no need for it because if he's found guilty,
you can't increase it from life without parole. They've abandoned
the death penalty as an option, so the only choice
(37:38):
is life without parole, and the jury doesn't pick it,
it's automatic by statute. So that was designed to assassinate
his character.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So Brandon, I mean, he hasn't even come out completely
when his parents are murdered, but by the time this
trial happens, his sister has seemingly outed him in her
second interview with and now there's this notice of extraneous
offenses filed in public record, and it says that Brandon
(38:07):
has participated in gay porn, which, by the way, not
a crime, but it is like a second outing. And
so of course this is what Brandon is up against,
even before the opening statements of the trial, as well
as the fact that a majority of the people selected
to sit on his jury have a bias against homosexuality
(38:29):
and gay people.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
And we know that the prosecution can bring it up
in trial and has already been using it to build
their case.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
And the trial is exactly what we will get into
next time. 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
Brandon Woodriff case.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
This is the problem with the photos. Every time I
look at this photo, this could be a small dagger,
But when you tell me the size of it and
I imagine it, it's huge.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
That's significant, Andrew, because that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
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 I se
(39:32):
HH 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 Deecessor, Robert Friedman, Mike Powers and Meg Mortimer. Producers
(39:57):
are Maggie Robinson, Katz and Libby c our Audio engineer
is Brendan Dalton, with original music by Philip Radiotes. 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. The old barn at dennis enormous house
in Heath is filled to the brim. Think old clothes, sheets,
(00:23):
and Christmas decorations like a particleboard, Christmas tree and a
snowman tipping its hat. Dennis's sister Kathy is there going
through these various artifacts of life when she makes a
startling discovery an ornate, medieval looking dagger found in the
depths of the barn wrapped in plastic. Concerned, she calls
law enforcement to investigate. Last episode, we heard about Brandon's
(00:48):
former friend Mike Gatherington's conversation with law enforcement. We also
heard clips of Brandon's sister Charlis's second interview, where she
provided the logline in the case against Brandon. If you
can lie about the small thing, you can lie about
the big thing, like killing your parents, and we discussed
the various motives law enforcement beliefs could have driven Brandon
(01:09):
to murder his parents in their home in Royce City, Texas. Now,
on this episode, we are diving into the lead up
to Brandon's first scheduled trial and the various twists and
turns that takes. I'm Hillary Burton Morgan and this is
true crime story It Couldn't Happen Here. Welcome to another
(01:40):
episode of It Couldn't Happen Here. I'm Hillary Burton Morgan
and I'm joined by the members of our team. We
have Poe Hutcheons, Dan Flaherty, and Andrew Dunn. So, you guys,
let's just get right into it. Brandon's murder trial is
scheduled for September fifth, two thousand and seven, which is
pretty much like two years after his parents' bodies have
been found, and Brandon has been in prison awaiting trial
(02:03):
this entire time. So he's got a team of lawyers
working on his behalf. And now before the trial begins,
a process known as discovery takes place. Discovery is when
the prosecution is required to hand over all relevant materials
to the defense attorneys. Now, what happens in this case
is that when the prosecution hands over their material, Brandon's
(02:27):
lawyers find something that's super shocking.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
They find that during Brandon's defense attorney's phone calls with Brandon.
Some of the conversations were recorded and listened to by
Ranger Collins and the prosecutor, which is a major violation
of the sixth Amendment of the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Dan, can you tell us what the sixth Amendment actually says.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
The sixth Amendment guarantees your right to effective counsel, and
part of that is that you have a right to
confer with your legal counsel in private and to not
have those coversations listened to by the prosecution. And in
this case, it's interesting the way it was discovered. Brandon's
defense attorney asked the prosecutor, Hey, turn over this evidence,
and he gets these tapes and there are recordings of
(03:12):
Brandon imprison and Brandon's defense attorney here's his own voice.
He said, Oh my god, these are my conversations with
my client, and he like freaks out. And this is huge, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Every cop show you've ever watched, you know that you
get to confer with your lawyer without any prying eyes
to protect your sixth Amendment, right.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I mean, it's one of the biggest building blocks of
being able to have freedom here. You know, any violation
of that is basically stripping you of any individual rights.
This is a shocker that his rights were violated in
this way at all.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Right, and now, the jailhouse calls are always recorded, right,
so the jail where he is would record these calls.
But that doesn't mean that the prosecution should have access
to them and be able to listen to them.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I was under the impression that they were supposed to
stop recording when they knew that's what it was.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
The stopping of recording probably doesn't always happen, but when
somebody from the prosecution knows it's a privileged call, when
they begin to speak, they have to stop listening.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That's the thing. It's like the second you hear the
lawyer say, hey, Brandon, it's your lawyer. How are you doing?
You know you hit stop. They did not.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Ranger Collins and the prosecutor likely knew exactly what they
were doing. There is no way that they didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
There's no way it was an accident.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
When they hear Brandon's lawyer talking to Brandon that that's
not a violation of the six Amendment. Because every lawyer
and every investigator knows that.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
The DA took pages and pages and pages of notes.
I mean, what that's crazy? Forty three pages of notes?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
On these phone calls? So they had so there was
something in there. And Brandon's defense team says, hey, guys, mistrial,
you can need to throw this out.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Absolutely, I mean, okay, let's just talk about what protocol
should be in that situation. Someone's sixth Amendment right is violated.
What is supposed to happen?
Speaker 4 (05:08):
I mean, technically anything that the prosecution would have gathered
from those conversations is disallowed in court.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I mean, if they went to trial, this would be
an automatic throwing it out, mistrial, throwing out the verdict
because anything they used is a total violation.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I mean, at that point, do you take it out
of this county and send it to a different venue.
You should with brand new eyeballs, a brand new judge,
a brand new prosecutor, all of that. Absolutely, does that
happen in this situation?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
What does the judge say here?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
There's a lengthy legal back and forth on this, and
the defense is you should just toss this completely, and
they're like, no, we're not going.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
To toss it, meaning toss the case, toss.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
The case exactly, and they said, no, we're not going
to toss it. And the prosecution says, well, we really
didn't learn anything useful from it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Forty something of notes and you learn nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, and that's you who just broke the constitutional law.
Are telling us that you didn't learn anything. So it's
okay exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And so the defense is like, well, wait, I think
he probably did learn something, and can we interview you
and find out what you learned from these calls and
see the notes that you took. But the judge ruled
against the defense and did not allow them to interview
the prosecution or have access to any of those notes.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Brandon's lawyers say, okay, the sixth Amendment violation is not
necessarily our forte. We're going to call in another lawyer
we know. And that is where we're introduced to Catherine Ferguson.
And you, guys, I have to say it. I love Catherine.
I love her. She is such a big personality.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Okay, I'm a masterpiece theater and Yunkie.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Interviewed Take one come Marcosoft six.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, they said they would, Parliament would adjourn to watch it.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Well, I got everyone in the private norm where I
was living in law school. I got everyone on that
floor watching because the first they were like, we don't
want to watch this. One's like, no, it's masterpiece, it'll
be really good. And then next week, because for four
weeks we just all came back at Sunday night at
eight o'clock, I'll watch it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So no, it's very he's very diabolical.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
It's like, you know, well, the closest I can think
of it is if you've seen Laurence Olivier's Richard the Third,
because his Olivia's Richard the Third breaks the fourth wall,
talks to the camera and is very seductive with his
humor and everything, and you you kind of find yourself
against your will, going.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
What's he gonna do next?
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Come on, Richard, let's go. And Francis Urkett was the
same way.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
That's why Yago is more interesting than a fellow.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, Dan, she has been one of my favorite interviews
that we have done on the show because she is
ferocious and lovely and funny and accomplished, and I actually
had a lot in common with her. She's a great storyteller.
She's a remarkable storyteller. Tell our listeners who Catherine Ferguson.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Is Catherine Ferguson is a lawyer in Greenville, Texas. In
Greenville is the county seat of Hunt County, where Roy
City is located. And she grew up there, local small
town lawyer, so she knows rural Texas and she knows
the law. So Brandon's defense attorneys, yeah, contacted Catherine and
then she stayed and was co counsel for Brandon through
(08:30):
his trial. But she's just awesome, right, she just Andrew.
You should talk a little bit about her office.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, tell him about her office. She's so playful and cool.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Her office.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The squirrels.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yes, what you don't see is her office is full
of taxidermy squirrels, like dozens and dozens of them, and
various poses of action and motion costumes. Costumes. Yes, they're
wearing costumes.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
It is crazy, very funny to look for filming. It's
I want to film it. But the question is is
it distracting or not?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Well, that's it. It's like you, as a camera operator
are just like, this is the best shot ever.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I mean, we all are yah as the imagery. But
does it take away from the story?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You know, what's interesting to me is that she is
such an accomplished professional woman. And what the taxidermy indicates
is that she also has a sense of humor. She's
not a stick in the mud. She's not a boring
lady that's just all about her work. This is someone
who I connected with because we have a mutual love
of Barbara streisand she has the same frame pictures of
(09:39):
Barbara streisand in her office that I have in my office.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
There's a squirrel addressed as Barbara streisand.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
In the movie Funny Girl, and so here Catherine and
I are freaking out in her office that we have
all these things in common and we love all the
same things, and.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Well, you have a little bit of taxidermy in your house.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I have been collecting taxi terms since I was a
young person, and so I appreciated that layer to Catherine.
You know, we meet a lot of lawyers and it's
just like this is a suit and Catherine's not a suit.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
She is a colorful personality.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, she's a colorful, like warm, inviting person. She divided
us into that since she definitely cares, she cares about
her clients.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
She cares about this case. She was so engaging, and
she was so present. Yeah, she wasn't just reciting stuff.
And as a filmmaker, when you have somebody that can
articulate themselves, not just the facts, but also imbue it
with the layers of nuance that actually tell a bigger
picture story, that's what we're trying to do, and she
(10:45):
is allowing us to do it.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So Catherine, this veteran local attorney, is brought into help
and she tells us what happens after she comes on board,
and they try to make their complaint regarding the six
amounted violation.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
So I understanding that they said that we didn't really
find anything useful. Hidn't that? But they got pages of notes.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Right, they said they didn't find anything useful. And the
phone calls themselves were somewhat innocuous. I mean, there was
never any discussion where Brandon said I did it and
I hid the gun here, nothing like that. But he
would say things to his attorney or the staff like, well,
you know, there was this guy that was working on
(11:25):
the pole barn, and you might want to track down
and see if he knew anything or saw anything, or
go talk to this person or talk to that person.
And the argument was it was pointing directions to our strategy,
which the state has no right to know any of.
But the Attorney General was able to protect it, and
(11:45):
it was deemed a DA's office worked product and we
couldn't get it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Had that been something that this DA's office had ever
gotten in trouble with before, No, okay, so this was
the first time they were doing that.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
I don't know if this is the first time they
were caught. And it was the first time I think
in Texas that any DA's office had been actually found
to violate the sixth Amendment. Because when this happened, I
started reaching out to other defense lawyers in Dallas and
(12:20):
Colin County and Houston and everything that has anybody ever
encountered this, and a lot of those lawyers would write
back and say, well, we know the DA's office here
does it all the time. We just don't talk to
our clients on the phone. And they'd never challenged it.
And so I think this case was the first case
to successfully challenge and get that kind of a finding
(12:43):
against the District Attorney's office in Texas. Even the most
guilty human being on earth has a right to confer
in confidence with their attorney and not have the state
hovering over and listening.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
In on it.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
So Catherine said something that I think is pretty imporant
to reiterate. She said that she never got to see
the notes that were taken during the calls between Brandon
and his lawyer, and the judge's reason was because they
were a district attorney's work product, like a record of
the attorney's mental thoughts, ideas, and strategies, even though those
notes were taken during what should have been protected phone calls,
(13:19):
which is just crazy, Dan.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Ultimately, what is the end result of this?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
The end result of this six amendment of violation was
that the Hunt County DA voluntarily recused themselves from Brandon's case.
The Texas State Attorney General took over prosecuting the case.
But yeah, as you can imagine, this whole affair took
a lot of time to sort through.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It also means that this new prosecutor is privy to
the information verbally, at least that Ranger Collins listened to.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Ranger Collins is the lead investigator on the case. So
why could this still be problematic?
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
The prosecutor is off the case, but Ranger Collins was
still a witness.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
It's Pandora's pot bucks. Once that information is out, once
that phone call has been listened to, there's no unhearing it. Right,
So the trial that was supposed to start September fifth,
two thousand and seven, is pushed off. And this push
is going to end up being the downfall of Brandon's case.
(14:22):
It is the most unlucky push that I have ever
seen for a defendant. Brandon knows that he has people
working on his behalf, he has his defense team, he
has Catherine Ferguson at this point, but he is still
sitting every single day in jail, and the years are
passing by. This isn't weeks, this isn't months, This is
(14:42):
years are passing by. Had the trial happened in September,
we know that we had really circumstantial evidence, right, We
had Mike Gatherington, who you can't really put on the
stand because because.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
He's already shown himself to be an unreliable witness.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, you have a timeline where Brandon does everything he
said he did that night. It's just the times are fuzzy.
But no forensic evidence had ever linked Brandon to the
crime scene. They never found blood on his shoes, in
his clothes, there was never any gunpowder residue, nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And you don't have either murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
And that is a huge thing that is about to change.
Brandon's trial should have been September two thousand and seven,
(15:45):
as we know, it gets pushed due to the six
Amendment violation. Now during that delay, less than a year later,
in June of two thousand and eight, while Brandon's sitting
in jail, his aunt Kathy goes to clean out the
barn behind the old heath house and she uncover something.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Dan.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
What does Kathy find?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So, Yeah, this heath house has been sitting there and
there's a barn and there's tons of stuff from their
previous house that they lived in. There's just tons of stuff.
So they're finally digging through. Kathy's going through all these
boxes and way back in the back of this barn
she finds a medieval dagger. This thing is wrapped in
(16:24):
some plastic I believe, with some other knives.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And this is important because when Norma and Dennis were killed,
they weren't just shot, they were stabbed. Right now, the
medieval dagger stood out to law enforcement because earlier when
they were investigating Brandon, they interviewed is college roommate Eric,
and Eric tells Ranger Collins that Brandon had a medieval dagger,
(16:48):
but now it's missing. Let's listen to that clip.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, has he did, Brandon?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Have you ever seen him with any knives or anything?
Speaker 6 (16:56):
He had this dagger, kind of a medieval looking dagger,
and he brought that a to school and had it
in the closet. And from the limited looking at the
closet I've done, I haven't seen the dagger in there.
And I thought probably the police took it when they
came when a month or two ago. Probably how big
was the dagger? Probably six the blade six inch probably
(17:22):
probably six seven inches, and then the handle four or five, so.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It was almost a foot.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Yeah, it was like a medieval looking thing. And I
thought it was fake at first time touched and it
was real.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
What do you said?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
What about the width on it?
Speaker 6 (17:36):
You know, maybe maybe an inch and a half and
half blade on the at the thickest part at the
blade and then down to a point.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Okay, and but you'all could have nice here, I guess right.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Well, I don't know that he was supposed to have.
I think there's a rule on the length of the blade,
but yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
That was over If that's six inches, that's right. You're
a lot of care enough like this. But you hadn't
seen that dagger in a while.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
No, I hadn't seen it in a while.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Eric said. The last place he'd seen it was Brandon's
closet about a month or two prior. But he knew
it was no longer in the dorm room anymore because
he checked for it after the search warrant was executed,
and it was also not listed as being taken into evidence.
So we've got this missing dagger. And when we explored
the dagger that Brandon actually did own, we found out
(18:30):
that Brandon had gone to Medieval Times and gotten a
dagger there. And sure enough, when we landed in Dallas,
that Medieval Times is like huge, and it's right on
the highway leading from the airport. Did you stop? We
tried to get Andrew to stop and get footage.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
I really wanted to stop. I mean, Medieval's Times is great.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, And for the person at home that doesn't know,
can you please explain to them what it is?
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's actually one single company and there are several locations
in several different cities, and it's basically an equine theater
show where you sit there and you eat in an
arena that's dirt, and you hear a play about something
about Elizabethan times and the fight for power with knights,
and you watch basically knights go back and forth stabbing
(19:17):
each other with what do they.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Call it, talking about a joust?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
A joust, Yes, a jout.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So it's a theme park version of a Renaissance fair. Yeah,
I wouldn't call it that.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
It's it's real good horsemanship work with the Renaissance fair.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
No, I love. It reminds me of like those like
shows on ice and things like that. It's an arena
show where we all get to sit around and eat
while someone else is doing all the hard work and so.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, but it's yeah, it's impressive.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It is impressive. And Brandon, who is this award winning
horseman and who really just loves working with animals, he
goes to this medieval time show and he got to
witness all of these people who are at their peak
working with horses doing extraordinary t that naturally he wanted
to learn how to do. And so he told us
(20:05):
that he learned from a trainer in the show that
in the tournament, when you see some of the horses
bowing or laying down or falling down in the joust
with the viewer sees is the horse in battle. But
to a trainer's eyes, those horses are trained to lay down.
They are trained to do all of these tricks. And
so basically the way they do this is you have
this medieval dagger and you would tap it on points
(20:28):
on the horse's body, basically giving it cues. And that's
how you get the horse to bow. It's how you
get the horse to lay down. So Brandon owned a
replica of this dagger, and that is the knife his
roommate was describing. Law enforcement never found this knife.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
It's a decorative item, I believe. I don't believe it's
a It's like a letter opener.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, I mean not that it couldn't be used dangerously,
but its purpose isn't to kill.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It's a dagger, but it's not sharp. I mean Brandon
described it as not sharp because you're using it around horses,
You're not going to risk cutting a horse.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So we know that Brandon did, in fact own a
dagger and his roommate has told law enforcement that dagger
appears to be missing, and now Kathy has found a
dagger buried in the depths of the heath barn.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
So she calls law enforcement. She's like, look, here's something
that I think might be important, and she calls the
law enforcement to come out and collect this dagger.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
This barn is worth noting it had already been searched
right after the murder. So this is a search that's
happened years later.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Nearly three years later, and it's a barn that hasn't
been locked up, it's.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Not secure, it's open, people can get in and out
of it, and it was already searched by law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
My understanding was that it was filled with stuff from
their previous move and so they didn't search it thoroughly.
They didn't take everything out and search every inch of it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It was a big barn like place with boxes filled
with bags, filled with just the detrius of decades of
life of many people.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
So I think law enforcement the times, there's just so
much stuff here, and if there's anything of evidentiary value,
it's certainly not going to be way in the back,
buried underneath everything else. Right, So they kind of just
called off the search initially, until Kathy finds this stagger.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Amongst other knives wrapped in plastic in the back.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
It's not an item that's been tossed somewhere, hurled into
the abyss the barn.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Or buried somewhere quickly in a frenzy, in a panic.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
It's been purposefully stored.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I mean, for a community that's never experienced a murder,
you've got a grizzly double murder. Search the bar find
the murder weapon.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, I mean, it's not the house where the murder happened.
But if they are really leading with Brandon must have
done it, or somebody close to them must have done it,
then indeed it is a strange thing not to search.
As daunting as it is.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
The finding of this means what to law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Well, they take it and they say, well, this seem
is a medieval looking dagger, and we knew that Brandon
had a medieval looking dagger that went missing, so let's
take a look at this and let's test it. So
they send it to a lab and they look for
DNA on this dagger and they find on the hilt
there's a skull ornament and behind that skull ornament there
is some DNA evidence that they recover, and it belongs
(23:26):
to Dennis.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
From what I remember, it's a tiny speck high up
above the blade on the hilt. It's a speck of
Dennis's DNA from his blood.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Potentially, do they find any of Brandon's DNA on this knife?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
The only thing I saw in the report is Dennis's blood.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So that's interesting because for it to make sense for
law enforcement, it would mean that Brandon stab stabs dab
both parents was able to not only remove his own
DNA from holding it tightly from the weapon, but also
remove all of his mother's DNA and all but one
(24:09):
drop of his father's DNA. Why the blood wouldn't be
mixed together.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Why would he store it?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Why would he store it? Why hasn't it been factored
into the timeline if he did such a thorough cleanup
job on it. But he was also able to get
to the Denny's by eleven o'clock at night and pick
up all his buddies and do all this in the
dark and bury that thing in the dark. He hasn't
had a minute by himself at that barn since his parents'
bodies were discovered.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, I mean that's what's always bugged me about this case. Like,
if this is the murder weapon, how the hell would
he have had time to hide it? I mean, take it,
wrap it up with other stuff and put it all
the way the back behind a bunch of other things.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
And why store the knife and throw away the gun?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Andrew That's a great question, And in Catherine's interview you
asked her exactly that.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
So there's also one other logical piece to this.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Why would.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Why would Brandon take i mean may arner a weapon
and bury it like one of the properties.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Like it's like, well, the argument that I got from
just for us talking the one of the investigators said, well,
you know, yeah, he threw the gun in a lake
or something and got rid of it because the gun
didn't mean anything to him. But this was his dagger,
so it was his trophy, so that's why he kept it. Yeah,
(25:38):
you know, does that make much sense? But why would
he keep one murder weapon and throw away the other?
And they say, well, because this was.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
His So now law enforcement have this dagger that they
believe is Brandon's with a drop of Dennis's DNA and
Dan when they show a picture of the dagger to
Brandon's college room. Eric, what does he say?
Speaker 3 (26:02):
His roommate said, Yes, that's the dagger that Brandon had
in his dorm room. And so for the prosecution, this
is a score, right. This is like we had total
circumstantial evidence. We didn't have any physical thing that we
could tie to Brandon that to tie to the murder.
This for them, did that right. It has Dennis's blood
on it, so it ties it to Dennis victim, to
the murder to the victim, and it is identified as
(26:25):
belonging to Brandon, so it ties Brandon. This is the
thing that the prosecution needed, right in order to really
really pursue this case.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
So I mean they pursued it.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
He's been in jail for three years, right, But had
he gone to trial, had he gone to trial in September,
this would have never been found. But they have gotten
their white whale. They have found something on his family's
property that they say they can tie to him. And
the trial proceeds.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's a smoking dagger.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
On March fourth, two thousand and nine, jury selection begins.
So just as a reminder, this is about a year
and a half from when Brandon's trial was originally scheduled
for September of two thousand and seven, and it's just
about nine months after Aunt Cathy finds the dagger in
the barn at Heath. This is a hellacious process, especially
(27:27):
for Brandon. Normally, when you're doing jury selection, what do
both sides get to do? You get to ask all
sorts of questions.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
When someone's called to jury duty, they have to fill
out a jurk questionnaire and that's the vetting process for
both the defense and the prosecutors. It allows them to
have ample information about the juror the jurors experience to
make sure that they aren't going to over identify with
one side or the other, with the accused, or with
(27:56):
the police, or with an aspect of the case, because
they may have experience something similarly and that would cause
them to be biased.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I hate all men, right, All men are guilty, All.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Cops are bad, while people of a certain race are bad.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
If somebody is a card carrying member of an organization
that states something that is going to be detrimental to
your client or to your case as a prosecutor, you
have right. But there's only you know obviously that could
go on forever. So each lawyer from each side they
get to vet these perspective jurors. They get this information
that they've filled out, and they get a certain amount
(28:32):
of dismissals. And in Brandon's case, Texas law says each
side can only dismiss ten potential jurors, which is not
a big amount. I mean, I've investigated cases with many, many,
many more potentials to dismiss bias, dur or a jur
that they don't think would be would work for them.
Ten each is not very much. And now remember this
(28:56):
has been a huge case in a small area in
a small county, and it's been in the news for
a long time, and they haven't changed the venue, so
it is doubtful that many people that are even called
for jury duty haven't heard of the case somehow.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, during jury selection, Catherine has the opportunity to question
potential jurors and ask them their biases and their thoughts
and see if they are going to be a problem
or if they could be an impartial jury. Several questions
are really interesting, but one of the main ones in
this case was Catherine asked them if they had an
issue with homosexuality, and asked them if they could be unbiased,
(29:35):
and several of them felt that homosexuality was immoral.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So by the time they seated the jury, out of
the ones that they were able to keep after they'd
run out of their ability to dismiss jurors, she said
around six.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
No, out of the twelve jurors and two alternates selected,
eight of them feel or believe that being homosexual or
gay is orally wrong.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So even if they say, but I can put that
aside and I'm not biased. If that's your belief, and
it's being brought up about somebody as a motive and
as proof of them lying, and why they might have
killed their parents and why their parents might have been
angry at them, that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
But you can see here the conflict that the defense
is in because they have to accept those jurors because
they had other prospective jurors when advised that the death
penalty was off the table, say that they would not
be able to serve because, quote, it seems like the
(30:40):
state has already tied the hands of the jury and
decided what the outcome will be. And if all we
have to do is decide guilt or innocence, then I'm
going to have a hard time taking an oath for that.
So this guy was so upset that he couldn't vote
for the death penalty that he wanted to be removed
from the jury.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Which show that he'd already made a full on opinion
of guilt or innocence, and he just wanted to be
able to convict for death.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So if you have to choose between the nuts guy
that just wants to put someone to death and someone
that says I think homosexuality is morally wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yet, hey, I could still be fair.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
You're picking between what's the lesser of the two evilsides.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
I mean, this is our system, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, No, you're supposed to have a change of venue
if there's a good reason for it, and you're also
supposed to be able to dismiss more jurors. To have
ten doesn't leave you with a lot of choices.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the gravity
of this case. You have a grizzly double homicide in
a town that has not seen a murder in forever. So,
given that the sixth Amendment was violated, and given that
we have a potentially tainted jury pool, that has expressed
a bias against the defendant. Why did this case stay
(31:57):
in Hunt County? You know, I mean at the time,
they were less than one hundred thousand people living there.
Why didn't it, for instance, like go to Dallas County.
It's like right next door with a population of more
than two million people.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It's a damn good question to argue that they have
a bias against they feel that homosexuality is immoral, but
all of them would question so they could set that
aside when they were deciding whether to vote guilty or innocence.
Now is that possible to set that kind of thing aside?
I don't know, but certainly they all gave lip service
(32:30):
to the idea that they could be impartial when deciding
guilt or innocia.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Sure, but if you're a defense if you're a defense
attorney choosing to seat a jury, you would really rather
get rid of somebody who already is walking in with
a bias against your client, especially when that is a
huge reason that people are saying that he's guilty.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
I'm not sure when Catherine made a motion to dismiss
anything about his lifestyle sexual orientation regarding the case, whether
she I mean do you remember if she made a
motion to dismiss it and somehow I recall that there
is some issue. By actually including it on the form,
it allows the prosecution to actually use it and you
(33:10):
can't raise an objection to it.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
The defense team is put in an unwinnable situation. You
either have to ask upfront, do you have a problem
with homosexuality so that you can try to get a
jury that isn't prejudiced.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
But then you invite the prosecution to be able to
use that in trial, which is going to bias people
against your client, or is a potential bias against your client?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
So does it get brought up before or after? You know, like,
there's no win for the defense here.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Right, and so the defense attorney is exactly between a
rock and a hard place. Either way they do it,
it invites a problem.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, we've learned about the discovery process, which worked against
Brandon when his original trial was set. We've now learned
about jury selection, and in this case, we already know
that there's a within the jury. So there's a lot
that Brandon's up against Dan. What else happens even before
any opening statements are made in this trial?
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Catherine tells us a little bit of going into trial
is that the state files with the court a notice
of extraneous offenses.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
The state has certain pleadings that they are required to
file notice of extraneous offenses. So if they're going to
try to use any offenses that would tend to show
that you know you're guilty, or that they would want
to introduce in the punishment phase to argue that you know,
(34:41):
you've also done all these other bad things, so jack
up the punishment a lot higher. So they filed this
and they included really stupid things. One of the things
that they put in that pleading was that Brandon had
been engaging in hardcore gay pornography. Now, regardless of how
(35:07):
you feel about that, morally, nothing that Brandon did there
was illegal. That was not an offense in any stretch
of the imagination. He wasn't having sex with underage people.
He wasn't underage at the time, so that there's no
reason to put that in a public filing in this
(35:30):
case except to get out to the public in general
the word that number one, he's gay and number two,
he's doing porn movies, to basically assassinate his character before
he ever gets to trial, so.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
They put that out basically thinking that that'll make him
look bad. Is that, I mean, what's the purpose of
saying he's doing this?
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Generally, notice of extraneous offenses are used in the punishment
phase of a trial to argue for increasing the level
of punishment. Well, Brandon's case was already a what we
call a mini cap, which is the state had waived
the death penalty. Punishment's fixed, so it doesn't matter what
(36:20):
horrible things he may have done. His punishment if he's
found guilty is life without parole, period. So there really
was no purpose in filing that and putting that statement
in there that Brandon engaged in hardcore gay pornography except
to assassinate his character, to make him look bad. He's bad. Generally, ooh,
(36:44):
look he's gay and he engages in pornography.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
And was this put forth in trial?
Speaker 5 (36:53):
That pleading was not put forth in trial. What happened
is the state files certain pleadings pre trial. These are
not under seal, so the newspaper can go run down
and look at the filings in the district clerk's office
and write a news story and say, the State of
Texas has filed a pleading that says Brandon Woodruff engaged
(37:17):
in hardcore gay pornography. That was the in my opinion,
that was the purpose of filing. That was just to
assassinate his character because it wasn't filed under seal. There
was no need for it because if he's found guilty,
you can't increase it from life without parole. They've abandoned
the death penalty as an option, so the only choice
(37:38):
is life without parole, and the jury doesn't pick it,
it's automatic by statute. So that was designed to assassinate
his character.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So Brandon, I mean, he hasn't even come out completely
when his parents are murdered, but by the time this
trial happens, his sister has seemingly outed him in her
second interview with and now there's this notice of extraneous
offenses filed in public record, and it says that Brandon
(38:07):
has participated in gay porn, which, by the way, not
a crime, but it is like a second outing. And
so of course this is what Brandon is up against,
even before the opening statements of the trial, as well
as the fact that a majority of the people selected
to sit on his jury have a bias against homosexuality
(38:29):
and gay people.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
And we know that the prosecution can bring it up
in trial and has already been using it to build
their case.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
And the trial is exactly what we will get into
next time. 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
Brandon Woodriff case.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
This is the problem with the photos. Every time I
look at this photo, this could be a small dagger,
But when you tell me the size of it and
I imagine it, it's huge.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
That's significant, Andrew, because that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
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 I se
(39:32):
HH 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 Deecessor, Robert Friedman, Mike Powers and Meg Mortimer. Producers
(39:57):
are Maggie Robinson, Katz and Libby c our Audio engineer
is Brendan Dalton, with original music by Philip Radiotes. We
want to say a special thank you to everyone who participated,
but especially the family's impacted by our cases.
Popular Podcasts
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!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.