November 28, 2023 • 31 mins
Hilarie, Po, Dan and Andrew discuss Brandon’s two-week trial as well as the evidence the prosecution presents as proof that Brandon killed his parents.
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Episode Transcript
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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 jury is deliberating after hearing the
evidence the state has outlined in the case against Brandon Woodruff,
(00:23):
including the dagger with a drop of Dennis's DNA, Brandon's
timeline the night of the murders, and his so called
alternative lifestyle. Brandon holds his breath and he waits to
hear his verdict. Last episode, we explored the lead up
to the trial and all the various twists and turns
it took before opening statements on March fifth, two thousand
(00:45):
and nine. On this episode, we'll discuss Brandon's two week
trial as well as explored the evidence the prosecution presents
in order to prove to a jury that Brandon killed
his parents. I'm Hillary Burton Morgan and this is true
crime story. It couldn't happen here. Welcome back, everybody to
(01:15):
another episode of It Couldn't Happen Here. You know all
of our teammates by now, we have Poe and Dan
and Andrew. So you guys, let's just jump right into this.
It's March fifth, two thousand and nine. It is nearly
four years after the murder of Dennis and Norma Woodruff,
and with a jury selected, Brandon's trial is finally happening.
(01:36):
But before we get into that, I just want to
talk about our process in making a show like this
when we are presented with a case where the evidence
or how the investigation was conducted just doesn't feel right,
and deciding what makes it into an episode is incredibly difficult,
because one you're dealing with a case that's taken place
over years and having to consolidate it is hard, but
(02:00):
also from legal terms, what are certain things that we
can't touch in our show.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I mean, the biggest issues are the devil is in
the details. It's a funny expression and it's so apt,
and so that's often where the truth lies. And yet
there are legal restrictions, especially if somebody's already convicted and
in jail, to accuse others. We don't want to be
guilty of some of the same things about supposing things
(02:25):
and biases and impressions that then feel like fact, like
we have to make sure when we present things that
we're not tipping to one side or the other. We
have to be very careful to not do the same
thing that we don't want law enforcement to do, which
is get blinders on and point fingers.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So, in a case where we may be highlighting some
things that could lead to reasonable doubt or suggesting that
other people might be suspects, how do you go about
doing that without unfairly pointing fingers.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I think we approached this in a very serious way. Right.
When there's evidence that's presented that points to an alternate suspect,
we talk about those things, and if it's an innuendo
and a rumor and a supposition, then we have to
be super careful with that. We can't it looks like
this person might have done it, and then we sit
there and point the finger at the person as being
potentially guilty. I mean, then we're guilty of what we're
(03:18):
saying the prosecution is guilty of, right, And I think
in this case, we could talk about why the evidence
against Brandon isn't strong because the same evidence could apply
to other people, and that's indicating that the evidence against
Brandon is weak. We're not saying that the other person
could have done it, because I don't think in this
case we have anything that says another person could have
(03:38):
done it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
No, but we do have people calling into the police
with tips. We have people close to the crime and
close to the victims saying, I think you're looking at
the wrong person. I think you should look at these
people or this person. I think there's evidence where I'm
giving you some information that could provide evidence of an
alternative suspect, and it's important for us to be able
to put that forward even if it didn't make it
to trial.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I think it's important to remind listeners that Norma Etherington
called law enforcement before it was ever ruled a homicide.
So that kind of points to the small town nature
of this case, where people are whispering, they're speculating.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
But the difference is we've had other cases where somebody says, oh,
this person told me they did it, right, and that's
not the case here. We could talk about tips that
were called in, we could talk about things that seemed odd, right.
We definitely have other cases where somebody says, that person
told me he did it, But for sure, in this case,
we have people saying, hey, look at Brandon because he
seems suspicious. And then we have other people saying, hey,
(04:34):
look at this other person because they seem suspicious, right,
And we don't want to go down the same route
that law enforcement did in this case, right.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I mean, there were other people who were brought up
as possible alternative suspects, but we don't want to necessarily
dive into that right now. We're focused on our research
and it seemed like the evidence was lacking, so we
don't want to just go point fingers to point fingers.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
The main thing we want people to walk away with
is that we are not saying any of these other
people did it. We're just saying, when you look at
the actual evidence, it's very hard to twist yourself into
a pretzel that makes it possible for him to have
done it. And when you look at the investigation and
the evidence about the investigation, you say, why were similar
tips not followed up on? Why were other people not
(05:20):
vetted to find out what was behind that tip?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
This is the core of this one. I mean, why
did they look only at Brandon when they had similar
evidence that could apply to other.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
People Because he was gay and he was supposedly living
this double lifestyle and just like his sister went and
presented to them. If he could lie about that, then
he must be lying about bigger things.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
We never want to point the finger at anyone else,
but what we do want to point out is the
lack of consistency in the investigation. If you are going
to investigate one tip, investigate all tips.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And anytime we talk about any alternate suspect in any case,
this one, any of the other ones, we support it
with facts. We bring up the trial transcript, we bring
up the police reports, we quote that, we show them
on screen. You know, here's what is in the evidence, right.
We're super careful of everything we put out there for
that reason.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, so it's March fifth, it's two thousand and nine.
The prosecution has several things that they consider to be
strikes against Brandon's innocence, and I do want to dive
into each of those pieces of evidence, but let's start
with this biggest one. It's the dagger found by Brandon's
aunt in the barn of the heath house, and they
brought this out at trial. So I just pulled up
(06:30):
a picture of this so that we can walk you
through what this thing looks like. The blade starts at
a sharp point, and then the blade actually gets bigger
as you get closer to the hilt. What does that
look like to you, Andrew? About three inches wide?
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yeah, it's about three inches wide. That blade is as
long as your forearm. Absolutely, that's long. That's not a
little six inch dagger.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
But the handle is also pointy. There is a very
specific pattern that handle would have put onto someone if
it was run all the way into them.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
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 (07:14):
That's significant, Andrew, because that's exactly what happened. Law enforcement
showed a photo of the dagger found at the Barnet
Heath to one of Brandon's roommates and they ask him,
is this the dagger that you saw in Brandon's room
And he says, yes, that looks like it. And as
a reminder, the investigators don't have a murder weapon, so
finding this dagger was a huge win for them. And
now when Brandon's roommate is on the stand, the defense
(07:37):
brings out the actual dagger and ask him is this
the same dagger Brandon had in his dorm room. And
at this point he's already seen the photo, so he's like, yeah,
it is, but it's bigger than I remember.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So even in the moment, even years later, even after
they've and we know about witness testimony, which has been
shown to be so flawed that people remember or the
face they were shown in a photograph more than they
remember the actual person they saw. In many instances, he's
been shown a picture years later of something that's the
same size, and then when he sees that it's bigger,
(08:11):
he says, it looks like it, but it's bigger. So
even in this moment that many years later, he still
has the wherewithal to say that seems bigger.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It's bigger. And here's the other thing. As you sit
and you look at this thing that they're calling a dagger,
I can't call it a dagger because to me, it
looks like a sword. It's a sword, it's not small,
and the blade is big. It is going to leave
like a very big specific hole in a body.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It's a double edged blade.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, it's a double edge.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And the defense brings forward an expert to talk about
this this blade that they found is a double edge blade, right,
And the defense expert looks at photos of the wounds,
because at this point it's years later and looks like
most of those wounds were caused by a single.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Edge blade like a kitchen knife, proudly like.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
A hitchie, and it was much more similar to a
kitchen knife, sharp on one side, flat on the top. Right.
The depth of the wounds, I think the deepest one
is maybe five inches four and a half five inches,
so certainly nothing deeper than that. And one of the things,
if you're stabbing your parents in a fury of rage, right,
you're not going to just go poke at them and
(09:20):
get only four inches. If your blade is twelve inches,
you're going to push it all the way through, right,
So all these.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, you can't have a crime of passion that is
done with hesitance.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Also the fact that expert is also showing that the
blade went up to the hilt. There's remarks on the
bodies in the front where it entered that show the
hilt hit the body and stopped the blade from going
further exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So the defense expert was like, this is not the
weapon that was used.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I also want to talk about the handle, because it's
also going to leave a very specific puncture wound if
it's run all the way up. But when you look
at the handle that Brandon would I had to hold
onto to do this crime, it's not smooth. You know.
This thing is full of ridges and Etchens And it's
just like a DNA magnet. To hold onto this thing,
(10:22):
especially if it's slippery and covered in blood, and so
you're gonna leave so much forensic evidence in all these
little nooks and crannies.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It would be very hard to hold. I couldn't hold
that with one hand and step I would have to
hold it with two hands, and it would be very unwieldy,
and even the trajectory of where the wounds would be
with this knife feel very different than what I saw
on the bodies.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Norma had just one four inch wound across her neck right.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So if he were holding this with both hands, this big, heavy,
very sharp, very unwieldy weapon and stab, he would have
to step down into her neck to be holding it
with both hands, and that it would only go four
inches into her neck seems almost impossible with the weight
of that and the trajectory it would have to be
going for you to hold onto it and maneuver it.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
He's got a gun in one hand and a sword
in the other.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And the two biggest, most unwieldy murder weapons in history.
You know, neither thing is a manageable thing for a novice.
This isn't someone who was doing you know, sword classes.
He wasn't on the fencing team. He didn't have experience
with this. He also didn't have a lot of experience
with guns, certainly not with handguns. And those are the
(11:38):
two murder weapons in question. There's the gun, which is
likely a CULT forty four or forty five, and then
something that caused the stab wounds. And so he would
have had to sneak these two huge weapons into the house,
hide them just in case he decided to get in
a fight with his parents later, and then come back
and expertly wield them so that zero forends evidence gets
(12:01):
left behind. So all of this feels like the dagger
that law enforcement found in the barn. It's just such
a big stretch to be the murder weapon. But let's
move on and let's talk about the next piece of evidence. Now,
Brandon's timeline the night in question, law enforcement is convinced
that Brandon was not being truthful about his whereabouts that night,
(12:22):
and so that must mean he killed his parents. Catherine
Brandon's attorney, we've met her previously. She disputes the state's
timeline and his ability to do all of the things
that they said he was doing during that timeframe. So
let's hear what she has to say.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
At nine twenty seven, Brandon is calling one of his friends,
Alex Ruley, to make plans to go to this nightclub
in Dallas. Okay. Five minutes later he's calling Morgan Lee
and that's his girlfriend. At has correct nine, he gets
(13:03):
a call back from Morgan. Okay, So now they're on
the phone from nine to forty one to about nine
forty five, all right. At nine forty nine, Robert Martinez
calls Brandon and they agree they're gonna meet up where
they're going to meet up. Ten minutes after ten, Morgan
calls Brandon and they're on the phone talking. Now. Shortly
(13:28):
after ten pm is when the neighbor of the woodruffs
at the house in Heath. Mister Luntz says he hears
a vehicle at the house next door, gets up and
looks and sees Brandon.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So Brandon is visually seen at the house in Heath.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Some shortly after ten pm, at approximately eleven o'clock Brandon,
and this is of course shortly after ten pm. This
is Brandon arriving at the house in Heath. Okay, so
he had to do whatever he had to do there,
(14:08):
and then at eleven o'clock it was going to take
time for him to drive from Heath to this Denny's
parking lot to pick up his friend. And that was
I think that was at least a twenty minute drive.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
You know, between and then at eleven he shows up
to pick up his friends.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Brandon is definitely seen at the house in Heath around
ten pm. That house is twenty minutes away from the
house in Royce City. Yes, his parents are definitely alive
at nine to twenty correct, And so the amount of
time in which Brandon could have committed this crime is
(14:55):
shrunk down to about forty minutes correct. And within that
forty minutes he's on a telephone. And that telephone never
ever test positive for blood or gunshot or any kind
of evidence.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Correct. And so if you buy the state's timeline that
they were dead by about eleven when Charlie's trying to
call and she can't reach them. If you take that
(15:29):
leap from the state that that they had to be
dead by eleven PM, Brandon to commit this murder, had
to be at the house at nine twenty when his
mother got off the phone with her mother. Had to
(15:50):
kill his father, shoot his father in the face, shoot
his mother, stab his father multiple times talking on the phone,
making a break to talk on the phone.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And not get anything on.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
The phone, and not get anything on the phone.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There's also another twenty five minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So if he's arriving there at ten ten, and we
said it was about twenty to twenty five minutes, even
if it's the shortest amount of time, that's nine point
fifty I.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Was going by leaving at ten getting there at ten twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Because okay, so let's say leaving at ten, so it's
between nine to twenty and ten at the house. He
would have to have been there at nine twenty, and
he would have had to have left by ten, So
that's a forty minute period. Like you said, to shoot, shoot, stab, stab,
clean up in talk on the phone a lot the
entire time. I mean some of them are voice messages
(16:42):
that people left or he left, but it's.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Still a handling of a device that came up with
no forensic evidence. And one of the things that's really
hard about our job is consolidating complicated information into palatable
sound bites for our audience. So even us just sitting
around being like, and then what happened, and then what happened,
and then what happened? You know, when we do our
(17:07):
TV show, we have to go through and bam bam, bam,
bam bam to make it clear to the audience. Based
on the state's timeline and theory, Brandon only had forty
minutes to commit this crime. We also said that when
his mother was on the phone, she gave no indication
that there was any kind of conflict with Brandon that evening.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Just before she would have been stabbed and shot to
death by Brandon. She's giving no She doesn't say he's there.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
She talks about him as if he left, Brandon was
here for dinner, he helped us today.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But she doesn't indicate that he's actually still there. And
then she doesn't indicate that there's any issue. And then
immediately or within minutes of her hanging up that phone,
she would have had to been under assault by gun
and by knife.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
There's no room for a family conflict to escalate to.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That, or a bunch of phone calls to be placed
in some of them to be had, the conversations to
be had, and for such an extensive cleanup. I mean,
this is the most damning thing of all is the timeline.
Like I said at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I can't even vacuum my living room in thirty minutes,
and like get all the dog hair up. How does
someone clean up that amount of blood off of their
own person, off of all of their belongings, off of
their shoes, all of that. They don't, that's it. They don't.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
They don't. And it's maybe somebody else who walked right
out into the night, never to be found, not Brandon.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So the last piece of evidence that I want to
walk through it feels like a bombshell. I mean, the
defense drops that there were pieces of evidence that were
not tested during the investigation. When Norma Woodruff was found,
she had blonde hairs grasped in both hands, and I
(19:16):
can see it when I'm looking at crime scene photos.
There's one hand behind her head and it looks like
perhaps her own hair is grasped in it, but the
other hand also has hairs, and just based on site,
law enforcement can't determine whose hairs those are, and they
don't know if they are Norma's or her perpetrators.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
You can see it. You can literally see the hair
in her hand, and then you can see the hair
on her head. It's a different color, it's a different texture.
Apparently her other hand was behind her head and there
was hairs caught up in her other hand. Rigor mortis,
I believe it's set in and there was hairs tangled
up in her hand behind her head, and so some
of her hairs got told out as well. And what
(19:59):
Catherine said was that the hairs got combined into one
bunch and then weren't tested.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Now, when Ranger Collins is called to the stand, he
testifies that Norma's fingernails were not scraped and that the
hairs found right there in her hand were not tested
for DNA. So we've got this avalanche of speculation. We've
got rumors about gay lifestyle and things like that, but
(20:26):
then we've got this very serious forensic evidence and our
lead investigator is telling us, sorry, no, we never tested it,
and So for you guys at home, Norma had one
hand behind her head grasping at her hair, but the
other hand was held in a defensive position that when
her body was found on the couch, investigators and subsequent
(20:48):
defense attorneys, everybody kind of agreed that that hand had
engaged with her attacker in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Now, those are two separate hands with two separate pieces
of evidence, ormultiple pieces of evidence, but they're separate. And
your fingers not getting scraped. I mean, that's a standard
thing in a violent attack, especially if you see a
defense pose in the victim. And then the hair is
it's wild to test the hair in the hand.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Of a victim, and so this is something that is
definitely worth noting. The hair that was found in Norma
Woodruff's hand is a light blonde hair. Brandon was born
with blonde hair. He left for college with blonde hair,
but the weekend that his parents dyed, Brandon's hair was
(21:39):
dyed black. He had been doing a project at school,
a theatrical project with a bunch of friends, and he
came home with dyed black hair. So not even Brandon
could have matched that hair in his mother's hand.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
It could have been her hair as well.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It looks different. It's possible. Without testing, you don't know
for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But I think there's a point to make that it
is possible was her hair right, It does look like
it's a different hair. But like you said, Poe, without testing,
how do we know.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I mean, they'd rather dismiss it right, not worry about it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
They know for certain it is not going to point
the finger at Brandon, so they make the executive decision
not to test it.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, I mean, we don't know if they're like, this
doesn't point it Brandon, so let's not test it. We
don't know who made that decision.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We don't know who made that decision. But can we
say someone made the executive decision that wasn't an important
thing to test.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
I mean at this point, with all the evidence collected,
it's been several years.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Or no, but I mean at the time you would
test the evidence. The thing is, what's told us is
that it was all bunched together, which her hands were
bagged separately. But then we were told that the hair
from both hands, the single or double strand in one
hand that seems to potentially have been the attacker, and
then the glomp of hair, which is a lot of
them that came from the hand that was clutched behind
(22:59):
her head. That was most likely her hair clutched in
rigor mortis. We don't know for sure if they were
all combined. We've been told that, but we don't have
a confirmation. We don't have documentations showing clearly that post autopsy,
or during the autopsy, or whenever the emmy was going
over the deceased bodies that they combined them. We've heard
that from multiple sources, but we haven't got proof of.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
That, right. But to be fair, these are also the
folks who videotaped a crime scene in the dark. And
it's worth noting for the person who is not able
to see this picture is that the hair just isn't
floating on top. This isn't something that landed on the
bodies because there's dust in the air and things like that.
The hair is mixed in with the blood in the hand,
(23:44):
in the defensive wound that Norma has.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean, it looks like it's part of her struggle,
That's what it looks like. I don't know, it could
not be. There's always possibilities that things land in weird ways.
But what it looks like, is that she's holding her
hand about to get a bullet through it. She's trying
to defend herself. She's touched this perpetrator, this killer, and
(24:08):
that hair is getting stuck as she's being shot. That's
what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
So we know that there is another problem with how
this crime scene was processed. The hair was not bagged correctly.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
We've been told that. I just don't see any documentation
that all these hairs are combined together, that's all.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
So, so what are you alleging that they only bagged
one hand?
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
No, what they bagged both hands. I just don't know
if it's clear that the hair that was in her
left hand is separate from the hair that was in
her right hand, or if they were all put together.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
So if they tested one hair, we don't know what
that hair is. Maybe that was the single hair in
her right hand. But that said, I mean, why is
Catherine telling us that that hair hasn't been tested.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
It wasn't tested At the time of the trial. It
was not tested. And I asked Catherine, like, could you
have tested the hair? She said, yeah, but it's not
my job to it's the prosecutions job. To argue that
he's guilty. Rights. It's not my job to find out
who the real killer is.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, but you do sometimes try to do that to
plant reasonable doubt. I mean, it's surprising that if there's
this hair that she's not but she.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Left the door open. Basically, now she can argue that
all the DNA wasn't tested in this case and the
door is open. Right, strategy, So it's good strategy. It's
a good strategy.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
This is such an abundance of information and the four
of us sitting around here talking about it, that's nothing right.
Think about having to bring in multiple witnesses, put multiple
people on the stand, multiple cross examinations. It's just such
an extensive process. In this case, with all of its complexity,
(25:42):
took what like two weeks. I think a lot of
people think that trials take place over a really long
period of time and really get into the minutia of
everything the way that we are here on this podcast.
You get down in the mud and you look at
every single little detail. In doing this show, I have
learned that that is absolutely not what happens in a trial.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Some cases do, but most don't.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Most do not, And so what we know about Brandon's
trial is that it only lasted two weeks. There have
been opportunities, over and over and over again for the
state to pump the brakes. When Brandon is first brought
in the arrest Mike Gatherington contradicting himself. We have this
(26:27):
sixth Amendment violation. The jury selected. We know that eight
out of the twelve have this bias against homosexual lifestyle.
So jury selection took place in one day for this
very complicated case. The state continues to move forward over
(26:48):
and over and over again because they are determined to
put Brandon in prison for this crime. So all the
problems and the huge red flags that we are seeing,
they're not experiencing that. In the jury deliberation room, the
only deliberated between five and six hours, which felt very
quick to me, but Catherine did not agree.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
I didn't consider it that quick, okay, But I mean
I didn't think they were going to stay out, you know,
twelve hours or two or three days on this. I
figured we'd have a verdict in about eight hours, and
(27:31):
so the fact that they came back in six wasn't
that big of a surprise.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The closing arguments happened on March twentieth, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
I felt fairly good after closing. As I said, I
think we were able to just continually punch holes in
the state's case and show it for what it was,
which was nothing more than innuendo and suspision, and adding
on top of that the hope that the jury would
(28:05):
be so prejudiced and blinded by disdain for Brandon and
his lifestyle that I mean, if the evidence that the
State of Texas presented in this case is truly sufficient
to put somebody away for the rest of their life
without parole, then we all need to be afraid, because
(28:31):
none of us are safe.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
I mean, that's probably the most poignant thing you can
say about this. I'm sure you could find stuff in
any of our garages that make us look bad.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Anybody's life examined under a microscope can be twisted and
turned too negative innu window. But I was just the
wind knocked out of me when they read the verdict.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
They find Brandon guilty, meaning he will automatically be sentenced
to life in prison. That's it for this week's episode
(29:32):
of True Crime Story. It couldn't happen here, but be
sure to join us next week, as we dive deeper
into the Brandon Woodruff case.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
There is always going to be some tension around the
hardest question that you're going to have to.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Ask, which is did you kill this person?
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, 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 Sun Dance teav
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
(30:13):
ice 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 Accessory, Robert Friedman, Mike Powers, and Meg Mortimer.
(30:38):
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 families 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 jury is deliberating after hearing the
evidence the state has outlined in the case against Brandon Woodruff,
(00:23):
including the dagger with a drop of Dennis's DNA, Brandon's
timeline the night of the murders, and his so called
alternative lifestyle. Brandon holds his breath and he waits to
hear his verdict. Last episode, we explored the lead up
to the trial and all the various twists and turns
it took before opening statements on March fifth, two thousand
(00:45):
and nine. On this episode, we'll discuss Brandon's two week
trial as well as explored the evidence the prosecution presents
in order to prove to a jury that Brandon killed
his parents. I'm Hillary Burton Morgan and this is true
crime story. It couldn't happen here. Welcome back, everybody to
(01:15):
another episode of It Couldn't Happen Here. You know all
of our teammates by now, we have Poe and Dan
and Andrew. So you guys, let's just jump right into this.
It's March fifth, two thousand and nine. It is nearly
four years after the murder of Dennis and Norma Woodruff,
and with a jury selected, Brandon's trial is finally happening.
(01:36):
But before we get into that, I just want to
talk about our process in making a show like this
when we are presented with a case where the evidence
or how the investigation was conducted just doesn't feel right,
and deciding what makes it into an episode is incredibly difficult,
because one you're dealing with a case that's taken place
over years and having to consolidate it is hard, but
(02:00):
also from legal terms, what are certain things that we
can't touch in our show.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I mean, the biggest issues are the devil is in
the details. It's a funny expression and it's so apt,
and so that's often where the truth lies. And yet
there are legal restrictions, especially if somebody's already convicted and
in jail, to accuse others. We don't want to be
guilty of some of the same things about supposing things
(02:25):
and biases and impressions that then feel like fact, like
we have to make sure when we present things that
we're not tipping to one side or the other. We
have to be very careful to not do the same
thing that we don't want law enforcement to do, which
is get blinders on and point fingers.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So, in a case where we may be highlighting some
things that could lead to reasonable doubt or suggesting that
other people might be suspects, how do you go about
doing that without unfairly pointing fingers.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I think we approached this in a very serious way. Right.
When there's evidence that's presented that points to an alternate suspect,
we talk about those things, and if it's an innuendo
and a rumor and a supposition, then we have to
be super careful with that. We can't it looks like
this person might have done it, and then we sit
there and point the finger at the person as being
potentially guilty. I mean, then we're guilty of what we're
(03:18):
saying the prosecution is guilty of, right, And I think
in this case, we could talk about why the evidence
against Brandon isn't strong because the same evidence could apply
to other people, and that's indicating that the evidence against
Brandon is weak. We're not saying that the other person
could have done it, because I don't think in this
case we have anything that says another person could have
(03:38):
done it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
No, but we do have people calling into the police
with tips. We have people close to the crime and
close to the victims saying, I think you're looking at
the wrong person. I think you should look at these
people or this person. I think there's evidence where I'm
giving you some information that could provide evidence of an
alternative suspect, and it's important for us to be able
to put that forward even if it didn't make it
to trial.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I think it's important to remind listeners that Norma Etherington
called law enforcement before it was ever ruled a homicide.
So that kind of points to the small town nature
of this case, where people are whispering, they're speculating.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
But the difference is we've had other cases where somebody says, oh,
this person told me they did it, right, and that's
not the case here. We could talk about tips that
were called in, we could talk about things that seemed odd, right.
We definitely have other cases where somebody says, that person
told me he did it, But for sure, in this case,
we have people saying, hey, look at Brandon because he
seems suspicious. And then we have other people saying, hey,
(04:34):
look at this other person because they seem suspicious, right,
And we don't want to go down the same route
that law enforcement did in this case, right.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I mean, there were other people who were brought up
as possible alternative suspects, but we don't want to necessarily
dive into that right now. We're focused on our research
and it seemed like the evidence was lacking, so we
don't want to just go point fingers to point fingers.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
The main thing we want people to walk away with
is that we are not saying any of these other
people did it. We're just saying, when you look at
the actual evidence, it's very hard to twist yourself into
a pretzel that makes it possible for him to have
done it. And when you look at the investigation and
the evidence about the investigation, you say, why were similar
tips not followed up on? Why were other people not
(05:20):
vetted to find out what was behind that tip?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
This is the core of this one. I mean, why
did they look only at Brandon when they had similar
evidence that could apply to other.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
People Because he was gay and he was supposedly living
this double lifestyle and just like his sister went and
presented to them. If he could lie about that, then
he must be lying about bigger things.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
We never want to point the finger at anyone else,
but what we do want to point out is the
lack of consistency in the investigation. If you are going
to investigate one tip, investigate all tips.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And anytime we talk about any alternate suspect in any case,
this one, any of the other ones, we support it
with facts. We bring up the trial transcript, we bring
up the police reports, we quote that, we show them
on screen. You know, here's what is in the evidence, right.
We're super careful of everything we put out there for
that reason.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, so it's March fifth, it's two thousand and nine.
The prosecution has several things that they consider to be
strikes against Brandon's innocence, and I do want to dive
into each of those pieces of evidence, but let's start
with this biggest one. It's the dagger found by Brandon's
aunt in the barn of the heath house, and they
brought this out at trial. So I just pulled up
(06:30):
a picture of this so that we can walk you
through what this thing looks like. The blade starts at
a sharp point, and then the blade actually gets bigger
as you get closer to the hilt. What does that
look like to you, Andrew? About three inches wide?
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yeah, it's about three inches wide. That blade is as
long as your forearm. Absolutely, that's long. That's not a
little six inch dagger.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
But the handle is also pointy. There is a very
specific pattern that handle would have put onto someone if
it was run all the way into them.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
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 (07:14):
That's significant, Andrew, because that's exactly what happened. Law enforcement
showed a photo of the dagger found at the Barnet
Heath to one of Brandon's roommates and they ask him,
is this the dagger that you saw in Brandon's room
And he says, yes, that looks like it. And as
a reminder, the investigators don't have a murder weapon, so
finding this dagger was a huge win for them. And
now when Brandon's roommate is on the stand, the defense
(07:37):
brings out the actual dagger and ask him is this
the same dagger Brandon had in his dorm room. And
at this point he's already seen the photo, so he's like, yeah,
it is, but it's bigger than I remember.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So even in the moment, even years later, even after
they've and we know about witness testimony, which has been
shown to be so flawed that people remember or the
face they were shown in a photograph more than they
remember the actual person they saw. In many instances, he's
been shown a picture years later of something that's the
same size, and then when he sees that it's bigger,
(08:11):
he says, it looks like it, but it's bigger. So
even in this moment that many years later, he still
has the wherewithal to say that seems bigger.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It's bigger. And here's the other thing. As you sit
and you look at this thing that they're calling a dagger,
I can't call it a dagger because to me, it
looks like a sword. It's a sword, it's not small,
and the blade is big. It is going to leave
like a very big specific hole in a body.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It's a double edged blade.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, it's a double edge.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And the defense brings forward an expert to talk about
this this blade that they found is a double edge blade, right,
And the defense expert looks at photos of the wounds,
because at this point it's years later and looks like
most of those wounds were caused by a single.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Edge blade like a kitchen knife, proudly like.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
A hitchie, and it was much more similar to a
kitchen knife, sharp on one side, flat on the top. Right.
The depth of the wounds, I think the deepest one
is maybe five inches four and a half five inches,
so certainly nothing deeper than that. And one of the things,
if you're stabbing your parents in a fury of rage, right,
you're not going to just go poke at them and
(09:20):
get only four inches. If your blade is twelve inches,
you're going to push it all the way through, right,
So all these.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, you can't have a crime of passion that is
done with hesitance.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Also the fact that expert is also showing that the
blade went up to the hilt. There's remarks on the
bodies in the front where it entered that show the
hilt hit the body and stopped the blade from going
further exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So the defense expert was like, this is not the
weapon that was used.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I also want to talk about the handle, because it's
also going to leave a very specific puncture wound if
it's run all the way up. But when you look
at the handle that Brandon would I had to hold
onto to do this crime, it's not smooth. You know.
This thing is full of ridges and Etchens And it's
just like a DNA magnet. To hold onto this thing,
(10:22):
especially if it's slippery and covered in blood, and so
you're gonna leave so much forensic evidence in all these
little nooks and crannies.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It would be very hard to hold. I couldn't hold
that with one hand and step I would have to
hold it with two hands, and it would be very unwieldy,
and even the trajectory of where the wounds would be
with this knife feel very different than what I saw
on the bodies.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Norma had just one four inch wound across her neck right.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So if he were holding this with both hands, this big, heavy,
very sharp, very unwieldy weapon and stab, he would have
to step down into her neck to be holding it
with both hands, and that it would only go four
inches into her neck seems almost impossible with the weight
of that and the trajectory it would have to be
going for you to hold onto it and maneuver it.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
He's got a gun in one hand and a sword
in the other.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And the two biggest, most unwieldy murder weapons in history.
You know, neither thing is a manageable thing for a novice.
This isn't someone who was doing you know, sword classes.
He wasn't on the fencing team. He didn't have experience
with this. He also didn't have a lot of experience
with guns, certainly not with handguns. And those are the
(11:38):
two murder weapons in question. There's the gun, which is
likely a CULT forty four or forty five, and then
something that caused the stab wounds. And so he would
have had to sneak these two huge weapons into the house,
hide them just in case he decided to get in
a fight with his parents later, and then come back
and expertly wield them so that zero forends evidence gets
(12:01):
left behind. So all of this feels like the dagger
that law enforcement found in the barn. It's just such
a big stretch to be the murder weapon. But let's
move on and let's talk about the next piece of evidence. Now,
Brandon's timeline the night in question, law enforcement is convinced
that Brandon was not being truthful about his whereabouts that night,
(12:22):
and so that must mean he killed his parents. Catherine
Brandon's attorney, we've met her previously. She disputes the state's
timeline and his ability to do all of the things
that they said he was doing during that timeframe. So
let's hear what she has to say.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
At nine twenty seven, Brandon is calling one of his friends,
Alex Ruley, to make plans to go to this nightclub
in Dallas. Okay. Five minutes later he's calling Morgan Lee
and that's his girlfriend. At has correct nine, he gets
(13:03):
a call back from Morgan. Okay, So now they're on
the phone from nine to forty one to about nine
forty five, all right. At nine forty nine, Robert Martinez
calls Brandon and they agree they're gonna meet up where
they're going to meet up. Ten minutes after ten, Morgan
calls Brandon and they're on the phone talking. Now. Shortly
(13:28):
after ten pm is when the neighbor of the woodruffs
at the house in Heath. Mister Luntz says he hears
a vehicle at the house next door, gets up and
looks and sees Brandon.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So Brandon is visually seen at the house in Heath.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Some shortly after ten pm, at approximately eleven o'clock Brandon,
and this is of course shortly after ten pm. This
is Brandon arriving at the house in Heath. Okay, so
he had to do whatever he had to do there,
(14:08):
and then at eleven o'clock it was going to take
time for him to drive from Heath to this Denny's
parking lot to pick up his friend. And that was
I think that was at least a twenty minute drive.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
You know, between and then at eleven he shows up
to pick up his friends.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Brandon is definitely seen at the house in Heath around
ten pm. That house is twenty minutes away from the
house in Royce City. Yes, his parents are definitely alive
at nine to twenty correct, And so the amount of
time in which Brandon could have committed this crime is
(14:55):
shrunk down to about forty minutes correct. And within that
forty minutes he's on a telephone. And that telephone never
ever test positive for blood or gunshot or any kind
of evidence.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Correct. And so if you buy the state's timeline that
they were dead by about eleven when Charlie's trying to
call and she can't reach them. If you take that
(15:29):
leap from the state that that they had to be
dead by eleven PM, Brandon to commit this murder, had
to be at the house at nine twenty when his
mother got off the phone with her mother. Had to
(15:50):
kill his father, shoot his father in the face, shoot
his mother, stab his father multiple times talking on the phone,
making a break to talk on the phone.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And not get anything on.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
The phone, and not get anything on the phone.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There's also another twenty five minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So if he's arriving there at ten ten, and we
said it was about twenty to twenty five minutes, even
if it's the shortest amount of time, that's nine point
fifty I.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Was going by leaving at ten getting there at ten twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Because okay, so let's say leaving at ten, so it's
between nine to twenty and ten at the house. He
would have to have been there at nine twenty, and
he would have had to have left by ten, So
that's a forty minute period. Like you said, to shoot, shoot, stab, stab,
clean up in talk on the phone a lot the
entire time. I mean some of them are voice messages
(16:42):
that people left or he left, but it's.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Still a handling of a device that came up with
no forensic evidence. And one of the things that's really
hard about our job is consolidating complicated information into palatable
sound bites for our audience. So even us just sitting
around being like, and then what happened, and then what happened,
and then what happened? You know, when we do our
(17:07):
TV show, we have to go through and bam bam, bam,
bam bam to make it clear to the audience. Based
on the state's timeline and theory, Brandon only had forty
minutes to commit this crime. We also said that when
his mother was on the phone, she gave no indication
that there was any kind of conflict with Brandon that evening.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Just before she would have been stabbed and shot to
death by Brandon. She's giving no She doesn't say he's there.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
She talks about him as if he left, Brandon was
here for dinner, he helped us today.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But she doesn't indicate that he's actually still there. And
then she doesn't indicate that there's any issue. And then
immediately or within minutes of her hanging up that phone,
she would have had to been under assault by gun
and by knife.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
There's no room for a family conflict to escalate to.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That, or a bunch of phone calls to be placed
in some of them to be had, the conversations to
be had, and for such an extensive cleanup. I mean,
this is the most damning thing of all is the timeline.
Like I said at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I can't even vacuum my living room in thirty minutes,
and like get all the dog hair up. How does
someone clean up that amount of blood off of their
own person, off of all of their belongings, off of
their shoes, all of that. They don't, that's it. They don't.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
They don't. And it's maybe somebody else who walked right
out into the night, never to be found, not Brandon.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So the last piece of evidence that I want to
walk through it feels like a bombshell. I mean, the
defense drops that there were pieces of evidence that were
not tested during the investigation. When Norma Woodruff was found,
she had blonde hairs grasped in both hands, and I
(19:16):
can see it when I'm looking at crime scene photos.
There's one hand behind her head and it looks like
perhaps her own hair is grasped in it, but the
other hand also has hairs, and just based on site,
law enforcement can't determine whose hairs those are, and they
don't know if they are Norma's or her perpetrators.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
You can see it. You can literally see the hair
in her hand, and then you can see the hair
on her head. It's a different color, it's a different texture.
Apparently her other hand was behind her head and there
was hairs caught up in her other hand. Rigor mortis,
I believe it's set in and there was hairs tangled
up in her hand behind her head, and so some
of her hairs got told out as well. And what
(19:59):
Catherine said was that the hairs got combined into one
bunch and then weren't tested.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Now, when Ranger Collins is called to the stand, he
testifies that Norma's fingernails were not scraped and that the
hairs found right there in her hand were not tested
for DNA. So we've got this avalanche of speculation. We've
got rumors about gay lifestyle and things like that, but
(20:26):
then we've got this very serious forensic evidence and our
lead investigator is telling us, sorry, no, we never tested it,
and So for you guys at home, Norma had one
hand behind her head grasping at her hair, but the
other hand was held in a defensive position that when
her body was found on the couch, investigators and subsequent
(20:48):
defense attorneys, everybody kind of agreed that that hand had
engaged with her attacker in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Now, those are two separate hands with two separate pieces
of evidence, ormultiple pieces of evidence, but they're separate. And
your fingers not getting scraped. I mean, that's a standard
thing in a violent attack, especially if you see a
defense pose in the victim. And then the hair is
it's wild to test the hair in the hand.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Of a victim, and so this is something that is
definitely worth noting. The hair that was found in Norma
Woodruff's hand is a light blonde hair. Brandon was born
with blonde hair. He left for college with blonde hair,
but the weekend that his parents dyed, Brandon's hair was
(21:39):
dyed black. He had been doing a project at school,
a theatrical project with a bunch of friends, and he
came home with dyed black hair. So not even Brandon
could have matched that hair in his mother's hand.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
It could have been her hair as well.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It looks different. It's possible. Without testing, you don't know
for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But I think there's a point to make that it
is possible was her hair right, It does look like
it's a different hair. But like you said, Poe, without testing,
how do we know.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I mean, they'd rather dismiss it right, not worry about it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
They know for certain it is not going to point
the finger at Brandon, so they make the executive decision
not to test it.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, I mean, we don't know if they're like, this
doesn't point it Brandon, so let's not test it. We
don't know who made that decision.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We don't know who made that decision. But can we
say someone made the executive decision that wasn't an important
thing to test.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
I mean at this point, with all the evidence collected,
it's been several years.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Or no, but I mean at the time you would
test the evidence. The thing is, what's told us is
that it was all bunched together, which her hands were
bagged separately. But then we were told that the hair
from both hands, the single or double strand in one
hand that seems to potentially have been the attacker, and
then the glomp of hair, which is a lot of
them that came from the hand that was clutched behind
(22:59):
her head. That was most likely her hair clutched in
rigor mortis. We don't know for sure if they were
all combined. We've been told that, but we don't have
a confirmation. We don't have documentations showing clearly that post autopsy,
or during the autopsy, or whenever the emmy was going
over the deceased bodies that they combined them. We've heard
that from multiple sources, but we haven't got proof of.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
That, right. But to be fair, these are also the
folks who videotaped a crime scene in the dark. And
it's worth noting for the person who is not able
to see this picture is that the hair just isn't
floating on top. This isn't something that landed on the
bodies because there's dust in the air and things like that.
The hair is mixed in with the blood in the hand,
(23:44):
in the defensive wound that Norma has.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean, it looks like it's part of her struggle,
That's what it looks like. I don't know, it could
not be. There's always possibilities that things land in weird ways.
But what it looks like, is that she's holding her
hand about to get a bullet through it. She's trying
to defend herself. She's touched this perpetrator, this killer, and
(24:08):
that hair is getting stuck as she's being shot. That's
what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
So we know that there is another problem with how
this crime scene was processed. The hair was not bagged correctly.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
We've been told that. I just don't see any documentation
that all these hairs are combined together, that's all.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
So, so what are you alleging that they only bagged
one hand?
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
No, what they bagged both hands. I just don't know
if it's clear that the hair that was in her
left hand is separate from the hair that was in
her right hand, or if they were all put together.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
So if they tested one hair, we don't know what
that hair is. Maybe that was the single hair in
her right hand. But that said, I mean, why is
Catherine telling us that that hair hasn't been tested.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
It wasn't tested At the time of the trial. It
was not tested. And I asked Catherine, like, could you
have tested the hair? She said, yeah, but it's not
my job to it's the prosecutions job. To argue that
he's guilty. Rights. It's not my job to find out
who the real killer is.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, but you do sometimes try to do that to
plant reasonable doubt. I mean, it's surprising that if there's
this hair that she's not but she.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Left the door open. Basically, now she can argue that
all the DNA wasn't tested in this case and the
door is open. Right, strategy, So it's good strategy. It's
a good strategy.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
This is such an abundance of information and the four
of us sitting around here talking about it, that's nothing right.
Think about having to bring in multiple witnesses, put multiple
people on the stand, multiple cross examinations. It's just such
an extensive process. In this case, with all of its complexity,
(25:42):
took what like two weeks. I think a lot of
people think that trials take place over a really long
period of time and really get into the minutia of
everything the way that we are here on this podcast.
You get down in the mud and you look at
every single little detail. In doing this show, I have
learned that that is absolutely not what happens in a trial.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Some cases do, but most don't.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Most do not, And so what we know about Brandon's
trial is that it only lasted two weeks. There have
been opportunities, over and over and over again for the
state to pump the brakes. When Brandon is first brought
in the arrest Mike Gatherington contradicting himself. We have this
(26:27):
sixth Amendment violation. The jury selected. We know that eight
out of the twelve have this bias against homosexual lifestyle.
So jury selection took place in one day for this
very complicated case. The state continues to move forward over
(26:48):
and over and over again because they are determined to
put Brandon in prison for this crime. So all the
problems and the huge red flags that we are seeing,
they're not experiencing that. In the jury deliberation room, the
only deliberated between five and six hours, which felt very
quick to me, but Catherine did not agree.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
I didn't consider it that quick, okay, But I mean
I didn't think they were going to stay out, you know,
twelve hours or two or three days on this. I
figured we'd have a verdict in about eight hours, and
(27:31):
so the fact that they came back in six wasn't
that big of a surprise.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The closing arguments happened on March twentieth, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
I felt fairly good after closing. As I said, I
think we were able to just continually punch holes in
the state's case and show it for what it was,
which was nothing more than innuendo and suspision, and adding
on top of that the hope that the jury would
(28:05):
be so prejudiced and blinded by disdain for Brandon and
his lifestyle that I mean, if the evidence that the
State of Texas presented in this case is truly sufficient
to put somebody away for the rest of their life
without parole, then we all need to be afraid, because
(28:31):
none of us are safe.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
I mean, that's probably the most poignant thing you can
say about this. I'm sure you could find stuff in
any of our garages that make us look bad.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Anybody's life examined under a microscope can be twisted and
turned too negative innu window. But I was just the
wind knocked out of me when they read the verdict.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
They find Brandon guilty, meaning he will automatically be sentenced
to life in prison. That's it for this week's episode
(29:32):
of True Crime Story. It couldn't happen here, but be
sure to join us next week, as we dive deeper
into the Brandon Woodruff case.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
There is always going to be some tension around the
hardest question that you're going to have to.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Ask, which is did you kill this person?
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, 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 Sun Dance teav
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
(30:13):
ice 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 Accessory, Robert Friedman, Mike Powers, and Meg Mortimer.
(30:38):
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 families impacted by our cases.
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