The Fugitive Husband, AI Lies in Court, and a Failed Fleet Attempt to Italy

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,
and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,
it's affiliates or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcomes True Crime Tonight and iHeartRadio. We'll retalk true crime
all the time. It's Wednesday, May sixth, and we have
a stack knight of headlines. The man hunt for Craig Berry.
He's a veteran accused of shooting his wife. Well that
has come to a really surprising end. Also, a murder
conviction may face a retrial after motions by the prosecution

(00:42):
we're found to include AI hallucinations. We're also going to
be unpacking the high risk, high reward strategy of taking
the stand in your own defense at trial. That's something
we've talked about before. And finally, there's an American man
who's been charged with murder while he broke off his
ankle monitor and fled to Italy.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
We're going to see if extradition is on the table.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
But right now we're really excited to be joined by
former Family Court judge Michelle Locke. Michelle has spent years
overseeing domestic violence, custody and high conflict family cases, and
we really love when Michelle does join us because she
brings such a unique behind the scenes perspective from her
time on the bench.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
So hello, Michelle, Hello, thank you for having me back.
I love seeing you, ladies.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Zing you and you look so great.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Occasionally I clean up occasionally.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
No, Michelle did not get the note that it's pajama Wednesday,
which result of that club.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
But yeah, Michelle looks all good, too good for radio.
So Michelle, I'm so glad you're here. This is a
perfect case to talk with you about tonight. So let
me just do a little setup of this case. All right.
Lee Gilly, all right, he's thirty nine years old, he's
from Houston, and he's facing capital charges for the October
twenty twenty four death of his pregnant wife, Christina Gilly.

(02:08):
And after being released on a one million dollar bond,
Lee Gilly fled the country just weeks before his scheduled trial.
The trial was originally set to begin on May twenty ninth,
and later it got changed to June fifth. Well, now
it's uncertain because Lee Gilly fled to Italy and he

(02:30):
remains there pending the extradition process. Judge, Michelle, You've overseen
a lot of cases. Have you ever been like the
judge or even involved or practiced or seen a case
where somebody were involved the death penalty number one and
number two one where they fled criminal jurisdiction.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
So yes, Reuss, I have both been in the courtroom,
which I'm in Texas, right. Texas is like Florida. We
have a a quick line to the senalty, right. I mean,
that's just what it is known for. But I've been
in the courtroom and the death sentence has been handed
down on several cases. I've also represented someone before that
was previously charged with capital murder. We ended up pleading

(03:13):
it down to a life sentence. But I've been involved
in it on the litigation side. Never is the judge side,
Thank goodness. I had enough of my plate with family
law and SPRA and juvenile cases. But I've seen it,
and I've seen people try to flee the courtroom when
a verdict was handed down. This guy thought he was
gonna be convicted of murder. He ended up being not
convicted of aggravated robbery, but he'd fled the courtroom and

(03:35):
he jumped into the jury box tried to go out
the back door where the judges come in from. And
there was a prosecutor from the back of the courtroom
that came over the bench, over the public and the
then the lawyer benches, and then into the jury box
to tackle arm tackle this defendant. So I've I've definitely
seen it in Texas.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
And I would imagine it's a very like high stress
moment for the defendant, right and even lawyers. You know,
it's a lot like this is your life on the line.
It is. It's very high stress.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
It's high stress, and it's also high stress for everyone
that's in that courtroom, including the jury, because in Texas,
the only people that can assess the death penalty is
the jury. Judge can't do it. It has to be
a death sentence handed down by the jury, and so
you have twelve people that make a life or death
decision for an individual. So when that sentence is read

(04:27):
in a courtroom, the emotions are oppressive, like you can
literally hear a pin drop.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
It is.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
It is such a huge impactful moment for everyone that's
involved in that process.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
I can imagine. So let me go over the escape
really quick, okay, and then we're going to get into
some of the legalities of what the issues are with
his fleeing to Italy. All right, So on the night
of Friday, May first, he cut off his court ordered
GPS ankle monitor, and then he fled to Toronto, Canada,

(05:02):
before boarding an Air Canada flight to Italy. On May third,
he was detained in Italy at the Milan Airport. Lee
Gilly initially presented a forge Belgian passport under the alias
Jean luc alvert I. Hope I did that justice, by
the way. After Italian police flagged his documents as fake,

(05:23):
Lee Gilly confessed his true identity and he admitted that
he was you know, had depending a murder charge in
Texas and he claimed asylum. He remains an Italian custody
and prosecutors filed paperwork revealing that lee Gilly previously considered
a plan to cut off his monitors fleet to Mexico
or elsewhere and used marriage to secure a new identity.

(05:46):
So this guy had a whole plan and he caught
off his ankle monitor. How is that even possible? Isn't
it supposed to alert somebody?

Speaker 4 (05:55):
It's supposed to, But you know, Google and chat GBT
I suspect.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
What an interesting search history on his phone?

Speaker 4 (06:02):
Find out what he searched to get it off, because
there are ways for those that are in the system
to utilize to make it less detectable that they somehow
put off their monitor.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Wow, Courney, that's something that you're gonna always dig into
for the new podcast, right, absolutely, So what do you
make Michelle of the escape itself? Does that tell you anything?

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Or it tells me a couple of things about the defendant?
And this is regardless of whether he did the crime
or not, right because he's not been convicted. But the
lengths that he went to this was a premeditated, well
thought out plan because he had to obtain fake documents
to travel. Those you just can't whip up on your own.

(06:48):
Not likely, although I guess with AI and everything else, right,
you can do. Who knows what he at least the
Italian authorities found them to be not valid document But
he had some forethought into this, and not only forethought,
because he didn't fly from Texas to Italy because you
could catch a flight out of Houston and go straight

(07:09):
into Rome a direct flight. He didn't do that. He
went to Canada first and then Canada to Italy. So
it tells me he researched and probably figured out the
easiest way to get out of the country without getting flagged,
and well, everyone's nice in Canada. So you know, well, I.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Think and you know, I believe Italy was a choice
on purpose, because Italy generally refuses to extradate individuals facing
the death penalty. The US authorities they might need to
waive that sentencing option to secure his return, right.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Well, so this is a really big sticking point. It
is a big sticking point because here's why it is.
The district attorney in that particular county is the one
that gets to decide whether to seek the death penalty
or not. It's not a federal issue. It is a
state issue, and district attorneys are elected in Texas. And
so that's the other issue that whatever county that's in,

(08:05):
whether that is a pro death penalty county or a
not pro death penalty county, which may affect it as well.
And so then the other problem you have is you
he killed his pregnant wife, right that, or sorry, alleged
to have killed his pregnant life. And so there are
multiple issues with that, and the public perception of what
do you do if I mean actually is convicted, I

(08:26):
mean do you proceed with the death penalty sentence or
seek it? Now, the option the prosecutor could do is
just to what we call capital life in Texas. On
a capital murder case, you have the choice of seeking
the death sentence or doing a capital life sentence. And
so the other alternative is really to do a capital
life sentence. And he may have well thought this out

(08:47):
when he went to Italy. So I'm gonna claim asylum
because if you look at industrialized nations and the well
developed countries and how many of them still have the
death penalty versus Texas, it's an interesting number to look
it is.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
I bet if anyone is just joining us, this is
true crime tonight. And we are joined by former judge
Michelle Locke excuse me, and we are talking about Lee Gilly.
He's the thirty nine year old Houston man. He's facing
capital murder charges and has fled to Italy. So what

(09:21):
happens with the bond in these cases? So we know
that the accused, the judge immediately revoked the bond and
is considering forfeiting the million dollars. But the defense is
arguing that this would cause a lot of financial hardship
to his family.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
What are your thoughts.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Let's talk about bonds for a second, everyone, and when
you are accused of a crime in this country, you
are presumed innocent, which means you are entitled to bail. Now,
the purpose of bail is twofold. It's two to one
ensure that it is sufficient that you appear in court
for all your court hearings, and that the second prong

(10:01):
of bonds and bails is to ensure the public safety.
So it's a twofold analysis that the courts will typically
look at when they're determining what is an adequate bond
for a case, because you have to ensure the public
is safe and you have to ensure that person's going
to show up for trot. So a million dollar bond
if he did a corporate shorty, which means he went
to the one of those bonding companies that you all

(10:22):
see on the corners next to the jail, which says
open twenty four hours. If you do that corporate shorty,
you're going to post ten percent of that bond. And
so in this partake case, it would have been one
hundred thousand dollars plus some fees, or you can do
a cash bond, which is you put up the entirety
of the amount. I don't know which in this case
he particularly did, But if the defense attorney is saying

(10:43):
that it's going to cause financial hardship to his family,
I would strongly suspect that some property has been put
up as collateral to secure his bond.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
I mean, can you imagine his family, they put up
this bond and he flees. He's put them at a
lot of risk, and really that but the guy has
to have some means. He was able to secure fake documents,
which I'm sure are probably expensive, and then he gets
on a flight to Italy. I mean that's expensive, and
then what's he going to do when he gets there.

(11:14):
He's going to need money to live on, So he's
got to have some kind of means.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Right, There's got to be there's more to this story
that I suspect I think come out as this case develops.
I really would be curious as what's going to be
on his phone. You know, that's always a treasure trove
of information when you start looking at people's Google search
history or chat GPT history. I'd be willing to bet
there's a whole treasure trove of information on his devices.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
So I definitely agree that I wanted to ask you, judge,
how damaging is is it to the defendant if this
goes to trial, if he gets extradited and this goes
to trial, how damaging is it when the prosecutors can
tell a jury that the defendant fled the country. Is
that damaging to him?

Speaker 4 (12:00):
I would say that if I was him, I wouldn't
want that to go in front of a jury. But
I argue that, well, I guess that depends on the judge.
If I was the defense attorney, and I think Dick
de Garins's defense attorney, if I was his defense attorney,
I would say, Judge, that is not relevant to the
underlying charges, and those and those particular allegations are more
prejudicial than probative, so it shouldn't go before the jury.

(12:23):
And so there is a chance that a judge would say,
I agree, we're not going to let that information from
the jury. So I don't know that a jury would
necessarily hear that information because I do think that it
would taint their guilt innocence argument because it's a, well,
why else would you flee? But you're guilty, right, And
so if I was a judge that, if I was

(12:43):
a judgement over that particular case, I think I would
have a difficult time and probably would err on the
side of keeping him fleeing out from in front of
the jury. Now on punishment, because in Texas that it's
broken unto two trials, it's the guilt innocence portion and
then the punishment portion.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
We just seen that with a the Athenas drand trial correct.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yes, and so I yeah, so I believe that the
judge would let him the fleeing. The jurisdics are on
the punishment side, don't think on the guilt in essence,
but on the punishment side, I think would. I think
would absolutely interesting.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
And it's the defense attorney actually, he seems to be
getting ahead of it already because they've claimed that the
accused fled because he was quote scared, and the attorney's
now advising him to waive extradition, and he's also saying
that maybe the prosecutors will use that flight as evidence
of consciousness of guilt.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
Dick de Garon is well known criminal defense attorney.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
He knows what he's doing, So maybe he does have
some means.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Right, your guests as good as mine, Attorney.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
I guess this is as good as mine.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Now.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
The ankle monitor is very interesting. It registered a strap
tamper alert on Friday night, but the Harris County pre
Trial Services did not notify the court until Monday.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
Well, oh really, I hate you know. I don't live
in Harris County, but I can tell you this. County employees,
and a pre trial diversion officer is going to be.
A county employee are usually underpaid and overwork, and they

(14:23):
usually have a huge amount of defendants assigned to them
to manage. And I would be willing to bet that
he is not the only defendant that had some kind
of ankle alert that particular weekend. Basically, a number of
defendants are probably out of Harris County, so I don't
know that I would fault them yet. I can tell

(14:43):
you there will be an investigation, I'm sure, and there
will absolutely be some finger pointing about how this happened,
and I'm sure they'll be policies created afterwards to prevent
it from happening.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
You're I think you're spot on, because crime Stoppers representatives
are criticizing the policy of waiting that full business day
we report those violations in high risk capital murder cases,
and they're calling for an immediate redesign of the notification protocols.
So stay tuned. We will definitely keep everybody informed on

(15:13):
what's going to happen with this case. And coming up next,
former Family Court Judge Michelle Locke, she's going to be
sticking around to discuss the Hannah Pain case where prosecutors
are admitted using flawed AI generated legal findings in a
murder case. Keep it right here, True Crime Tonight. I'm

(15:41):
Buddy Movin. Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio,
where we talk true crime all the time. I'm here
with Courtney Armstrong and Judge Michelle. That is her name.
Now for me, Judge Michelle. Judge Michelle is with us.
Later in the show, we're going to be talking about
the man hunt for Craig Berry. He's the veteran acused
of shoot his wife. Well, that has come to a

(16:02):
very shocking end. But now a convicted murderer is going
to get a new trial, maybe because of an AI flaw. Courtney,
can you what's going on here, I am so intrigued
by this case.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
So the Georgia Supreme Court has paused convicted murderer Hannah
Pain's request for a new trial. This happened due to
a major ethical blunder by the prosecution. So while the
convicted Hannah Pines twenty twenty three murder convictions still stands,
the legal process has been disrupted because the prosecutor used

(16:38):
AI to write legal documents, resulting in completely flawed information.
There were cases cited that didn't exist.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
It was it was bad.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, and the trial court must now re examine Hannah
Pain's motion for a new trial, even though it was
previously denied because you know, this prosecutor had a do
their homework. So if you're not familiar with Hannah Pain,
back in twenty nineteen, she followed and blocked a guy
named Kenneth Herring's vehicle after she witnessed Kenneth Herring allegedly

(17:15):
commit a hit and run and she was kind of
going vigilante according to the prosecution, and so she used
her car to try and corner him. Ultimately, things escalated
and the now convicted Hannah Pain faily shot him to death.
So that's the crime she's appealing it and the prosecutors

(17:37):
in some hot water. So, Judge Michelle, can you explain
first how the appeal process works and clarifies sort of
various motions that brought the case all the way up
to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
So, typically, after a trial is completed and done and
there's a sentence rendered, you have to most criminal defendants
on like this kind of case where it's a life
sentence plus, they will appeal right. And so in order
to perfect what we call perfect an appeal, which means
get it ready to meet all the legal requirements to
go up to the next court, which is the whatever
the Court of Appeals is next, you have to perfect

(18:12):
that appeal. Usually that requires a motion for new trial
to be filed. It's one of the we have to
do it in Texas voul motion for new trial, and
then the court can granted or deny it. Typically it's denied,
and then from there you've perfected your appeal and go
on up to the next higher level of court to
have them hear your case. And so that's what they
did in this particular case. But what was even more
concerning about what this prosecutor did was not only did

(18:35):
she use AI in the motion for the response to
the motion for new trial, the defense attorney, which the
judge relied on in denying the motion for new trial.
So that's the kicker, right, Yeah, so the judge actually
relied on the incorrectly cited law from AI in denying

(18:56):
the motion for new trial. That is where the court,
or George Rame Court said, wait a minute, Wait a minute, court,
you got to reconsider this because not only that she
apparently used AI and used inappropriate cases that weren't applicable
or fictitious in the appeal.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Like, are they going to go through all this prosecutors
cases now and look for this? I bet all the
cases she's tried.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
I'd be willing to bet there's going to be some
additional investigation into other cases that she has tried. It's prosecutors.
And I think this is important for people to understand.
A prosecutor is not supposed to pursue convictions. A prosecutor's
job is to pursue justice, and those are two very

(19:42):
different things. And I think quite often younger attorneys, younger
prosecutors in particular, because you know, with age comes experience,
are more concerned about the convictions as opposed to whether
justice is being done, on whether it's being done the
correct way. I know when I try cases now, I
ensure that I'm following the law because I want that

(20:05):
record protected for purposes of the appeal, because I don't
want the case coming back so we have to reach,
so we have to retry and spend more money. So
if you are a experienced trial attorney, you are looking
at all the grounds for appeal. You're making sure your
record is clean, You're making sure the case law is
accurate before you actually finished that trial, because you don't

(20:25):
want to have to try it again. Right.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
And you were a judge for many, many many years, yes, right,
And so when you would you would get these motions.
I would imagine in cases that you were handling or overseeing,
and they would cite case law. Isn't it your responsibility
to make sure that case law is actually accurate? And
in so how much responsibility is going to fallow a judge?

Speaker 4 (20:48):
So I'm not going to blame the judge in this one.
And here's why. Oh okay, well, I'm just not as
an attorney. You are an officer of the court. You
are sworn to have hander and honesty with the courts.
The court is supposed to be able to rely on
the statements that you make as an attorney and as
an officer of that court to believe. And so I

(21:12):
don't fault the judge. I really don't. Now, maybe it's
some other issues that came up. I don't know, it
wasn't there, But I got to tell you I felt
the attorney that didn't fall rule number one that you
learn in law school, which is verified and that even
comes from we have books, y'all. Lawyers have like legal
books that give us the summaries of the law. Here

(21:33):
are the cases that are applicable, and we use it
all the time to start our drafting. That you have
to make sure is the attorney that you're verifying that
those things actually stand for what they say. I do
it in my practice on cases that I know are
well sided cases. I also go back to that case
to make sure, okay, or make sure that I still
match the elements and what I'm saying is accurate. And
I got to tell you, if you misrepresent something to

(21:55):
the court, it is your duty to fix that immediate.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Well, well, that was something that was absolutely not done
by assistant District Attorney Deborah Leslie. She is the one
who has since admitted that she used AI to draft
these legal briefs without checking them for accuracy. And this
whole thing, the false precedents, they were first discovered back
in March during oral arguments before the Georgia Supreme Courts.

(22:22):
So it was the middle of oral arguments when one
of the chiefs said that, while reviewing the court's ordered
to deny a new trial, there were five cents.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Excuse me, Oh no, Courtney, are you okay? So there
were five citations that didn't exist at all.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Well, and it created problems for the Court of Appeals
because the Court of Appeals actually commented that they had
to spend time deciphering what was accurate law or not
for just purposes of the appeal. And so it caused
more work for the Court of Appeals to do, which
I know probably made the Court of Appeals particularly crank.
But guys, this is someone's what concerns me about this

(23:05):
prosecutor in particular, this is someone's life. Yes, this is
also the victim's life. And you have an op well,
I don't know if you have a legal obligation, but
you're supposed to do your job with hair and compassion
and correctly, and that applies to all the ones that
are involved in this litigation.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
And so she did a disservice to everyone, right, that's true.
That's true because now her reputation is tainted. The court
called this a systemic failure and a breach of professional ethics,
and I think, I think, and that sounds very sanitized,
but this is like a serious problem. Sorry, is she

(23:46):
going to be like admonished in some way?

Speaker 4 (23:48):
My understanding is that she has received some kind of
six month sentence in a sense it is the wrong word,
but a suspension number license I think for six months.
Then she's got to go through some additional ethics training
as my understanding what the Georgia Supreme Court did or
her state bar organization. But it's a systemic failure and
we are seeing a lot more of these on the

(24:10):
on the lawyer side, these pop up like that She's
not the only one. Like, I don't want anyone to
think that, oh, this is the first time this has happened.
We have this is becoming much more common, and so
lawyers have specific research engines that are closed engines that
only include actual case law, and so some of these entities,

(24:33):
like we use West Law have AI, and I've used
the AI in West Law while I'm in court because
the judge will say, mislock, what's the answer to this
particular question. I'm like, I don't know, judge, because I'm
a lawyer, little I don't know everything. I got to
look some stuff up so I can judge if you
give me a minute. So I use the AI platform.
It gives me the quick answer, but then I click

(24:54):
on the cases that the AI has given me to
make sure it's correct before I tell the judge any
And I got to tell you all. When I've been
wrong or misspoken with the court and I realize it,
I immediately tell the court judge, I got it wrong.
I'm sorry, right, I mean, that's what you're supposed to.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
Do, right, Well, I have to admit it immediately. So
I was just curious, in terms of AI, what are
the current standards in the field that you've seen, and
what do you think we're way?

Speaker 6 (25:22):
Do you think the line should be drawn?

Speaker 4 (25:24):
So I think AI is a great tool, but it
is a tool. It is not the answer for everything.
And what we are seeing now is that we have
to file certificates on our bleetings that will verify whether
we've used AI in those pleetings or not. And if
we've used AI, that we've verified that citations are correct.
And so we have to do like basically a verification

(25:45):
of what we have done. Not all courts do that,
but you are starting to see a trend towards court
saying you've got to do You've got to tell us
whether you're using AI or I mean, go, I was
in court and I had a gentleman who was representing
himself on a traffic ticket jury trial, sitting in court
using chat GPT to give me his legal arguments.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Oh, that would be me.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
And then I ask asked. At some point, I was like,
let me know when you're done conferring with chat GPT
so we can continue.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Well, and now this is just a big mess. Right,
So the court has issued the following mandates back to
the case. Right, so now this convicted murderer, she has
an appeal right that was denied. Well, now the original
order denying that hand and pain in a new trial
has been thrown out and the trial court must now

(26:37):
issue a new decision apparently written by the trial judge
without input from either the prosecution or the defense. Yeah,
is that faired her? To the defendant?

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Well, I don't think it's unfair. Oh okay, I mean
she's already convicted. I mean, this is this true. This
is I've written apart from her conviction. I think was
also true about her conviction. The jury only took two
hours to convict her, and she testified her own behalf.
That's a whole other issue. But she was already convicted.
So what other court denied the motion for a new
trial or not?

Speaker 7 (27:09):
To me?

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Fair?

Speaker 4 (27:11):
Not fair? That defendant doesn't matter. It's a procedural mechanism.
But yeah, the court's going to have to the Court
of Appeals or Georgia Supreme Court said, trial court, you
are going to rehear this motion for new trial.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Wow, I just don't. I never thought we would get
here where lawyers were going to be using AI to
right there and pleading and then not check the citation.
So the citations that this that the lawyer used were
referencing real cases, but the case law didn't apply to
the appeal at all. As my understanding, well.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
Minus staying it was twofold, there were fictitious cases and
in addition to that, improperly citing cases her propositions they
did not stand for. So it was it was two issues.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
And it wasn't a handful.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
So the filings included nine errors that were flagged initially
about the court, and then another twelve that were identified
by the Assistant DA Deborah Leslie.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
That's twenty one errors. Oh my god, there were more.
Well yeah, wow, guys.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
You know you can run documents through certain search engines
for them to flag whether AI has been used or not,
like it'll start flagging.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
I do it all the time.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, yeah, because it's just what everyone's used.

Speaker 8 (28:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
I fall for AI sometimes, Like on TikTok There'll be
like a cute video and it's like a bunny jumping
on a trampoline, and I'm like, oh, that's so cute,
and then I'm like, oh my god, that day I
but I'm not the district attorney of a county. I
just find that very interesting. It makes me actually feel
a little bit better about myself, to be if I'm
being honest, that I fell for the bear jumping on

(28:48):
the trampoline.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Lesson, We've all falled for the bear on the trampoline.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Did you fall? For that?

Speaker 4 (28:54):
I have to double check myself. I'm like, wait, that
gotta be Ai. I'm like, there's nowhere that happened. But yeah, right,
we all for it's getting good. And it's not just
getting good, it's getting better, like it is becoming perfected
each and every day. But lawyers have still got it.
We got to use common sense. And again it is

(29:14):
a tool. It is not the answer.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
And in this case, it's almost like the assistant DA
was allowing AI to be the decision maker in what
was being presented to court because without double checking, it
was just, oh whatever, Ai, that case seems good enough.
So less of a tool and more of the entirety.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Well, she wanted to do her job. And sorry, that's
not why you went to law school.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well for now, Hannah Pine's original conviction for malice murder,
felony murder and false imprisonment remains in place, but the
trial court is now legally obligated to give her motion
for a new clean review. Yeah, and.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
I don't think it's an amount to anything.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
I don't think it is either.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
I think the court will just say denied and then
probably not provide much on the round why.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
But moving forward, I mean, I'm assuming this is probably
happening across the country that you know, attorneys are using
AI to write their their pleadings. I don't know how
often it happens, but moving forward, the system is going
to have to do a review of whatever policies and
procedures they have in place to check for these AAI
citations to make sure this doesn't happen again, because I mean,

(30:30):
we really are talking about life and death situations in
some cases, y'all.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
I will tell you this, I think it is happening
with much more frequency. I think of solo practitioners who
don't have paralegals, who don't have legal secretaries, who are
one person shops, and I'd be willing to bet they
are love and AI and using the heck out of it.
You just have to listen. Technology is great, but I

(30:56):
go back to the original terminator. You've got to use
it with some responsibility.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Absolutely, we are back with former Family Court judge Michelle Locke.
She spent years overseeing custody battles, domestic violence and CPS cases,
and so we are going to tap her wisdom to
help us break down the complicated dynamics at the center
of some of today's biggest headlines.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
So the David case, body, will you set the table. Yeah.
So there's a lot of attention on the case against
the singer David Burke. He's known professionally as David. He's
been charged with murdering fourteen year old Celeste Revas Hernandez
and prosecutor's allege that David knew Celestrevas Hernandez was underage
after police explicitly informed him of her age. They visited

(31:45):
his home, They told him she was a runaway. They
told him she was at the time I think thirteen
years old, and he continued contact with her anyway. In fact,
we know that he paid a He drove to Riverside
or Lake Elsmore and paid classmate eight thousand dollars to
give Celeste a burner phone after her parents confiscated her phone.

(32:06):
Right investigators say the relationship escalated over time before Celeste's death.
The case is now raising a lot of difficult questions
about power dynamics, grooming, coercion, and whether parts of this
relationship could legally or behaviorally fall under a domestic violence framework.

(32:27):
Right and one of the things. You know, we're so
lucky to have Judge Michelle here. And one of the
things I wanted to ask her was, once somebody is
clearly informed that a child is under age and it's
documented by law enforcement, how does that change David's legal
exposure with this.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
Well, it goes to and you know, one of the
fundamental elements of any crime is the intent to do
the crime. There are some crimes that don't involve intent,
or intent doesn't matter, but for the most part, involves
some kind of and to me, it absolutely goes to
his intent to continue to violate the law, regardless regardless

(33:05):
of what he was told. I mean, the minute he
was told she was fourteen, he should have my hands off.
There should have been no further communication from that point forward.
But that's not what happened, unfortunately. And so yeah, so
now we're here, here, we are.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Here, we are Can you this is something we've been debating.
Can coercive relationships involving minors? Does that overlap with domestic
violence patterns?

Speaker 4 (33:32):
I would tell you that I don't know how you
couldn't view it any other way quite honestly, right, I mean, really,
grooming is to me another form of abuse, because what
you're doing is getting using your power over a particular
individual to get them to do whatever it is you
want them to do, regardless of what their own free

(33:53):
will wants to do. Right, And so that's the particular problem,
and that's what it's to me. Grew doing is absolutely
form of abuse and shows I think is a warning
sign to domestic violence and typical like emotional abuse and
sexual abuse and financial abuse. But I think it's just
the starting point of it, because how do you get

(34:15):
someone to submit to you? You groom them over a
period of time to get them into a place where
they feel they have no escape.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Yeah, and you know this this is particularly heinous in
my opinion because not only you know, was Day, in
my opinion, David grooming Celeste, but he had this incredible
power dynamic over her. Not only was he older and wiser, right,
but he was also like kind of rich in becoming famous, right,
So he had this incredible power dynamic over Celeste. And

(34:47):
I think that's terrible. But from your experience, what warning
signs do courts often see in grooming type situations? So like,
are there warning signs they see?

Speaker 4 (34:56):
So I don't know about necessarily in grooming. But what
you see is a a power dynamic difference, Like you're
gonna have someone that's got all the power and someone
that has none of the power. You're gonna see someone
that has got most of the resources versus someone that
has none of the resources. You're going to look for
disparities in it would make someone more vulnerable to the
other person. Age difference is a big one when you've

(35:18):
got someone. I don't care what anyone says, the gray
hair factor matters. Like the older you get, the wiser
you get. The youth is truly waste on a youth
because you just don't know your prefrontal cortex. You're like
your CEO. Functions of your brain for men in particular,
aren't fully developed until twenty five. Girls a little bit younger,
but a fourteen year old girl, all she probably saw

(35:40):
were stars and the Cinderella fairy tale that she had
been sold her entire life.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Mm hm, of course, lest I think that's I think
that's exactly right. And Judge Michelle, do cases like these
do you often see failures by multiple adults around a child.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
Oh? You know, I feel sorry for her parents because
I think they probably did the best they could to
try and keep her sing. But if you've got someone
that's willing to come bribe another student for a one
thousand dollars allegedly right allegedly and give and get that

(36:23):
kid a burner phone, because at fourteen, think about it, y'all. Fourteen.
I know when I was workouts with the roller rink.
I think had my first kiss at fourteen, behind the
whole rink, right like, you want the love, you want
the rush, you want the excitement. And for Celeste, I
don't know her, but if she's a normal fourteen year
old kid, holy cow, this was exciting for her. Holy cow.

(36:44):
Not telling her parents about it. So I feel really
bad for her parents because I think they did the
best they probably could. And how do you beat someone
that was willing to bend all the rules to.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Get what they wanted and had all this money to
do it?

Speaker 7 (36:58):
Right?

Speaker 4 (36:58):
Correct year old kid? If she I mean, y'all, that's
what freshman year, eighth grade year?

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Yeah, yeah, baby, babe, she was a baby. One hundred
percent of baby.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
It's a baby.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
She was a child. This is true crime. Tonight, We're
on iHeartRadio. We're talking true crime all the time, I'm
body moving and I'm here with Courtney Armstrong and Judge
Michelle Locke. We were right just finishing up talking about
the David case, but we're going to roll right into
Anna Keepner. Courtney, what do you got?

Speaker 2 (37:26):
I got a lot of questions for Judge Michelle. Yes,
I wrote, So the Anna Kepner cruise ship murder case.
This also is one that raises tons of emotional questions
about family loyalty and the justice system, and this case
in particularly, everything is so intertwined. So both the father

(37:51):
and the stepmother of eighteen year old murder victim Anna Kepner, well,
they recently announced that they don't plan to attend the
trial of Anna Koepner's sixteen year old stepbrother, who is
accused of murdering her. So the suspect's mother has said,

(38:13):
I will not be going to court while my son
is being tried. This is kay sparked a lot of
conversations about what happens when families are torn between supporting
a child who's accused of something heinous and versus supporting
them because they're a minor. So, Michelle, how do you
see family support or lack thereof impact juvenile cases if

(38:37):
at all.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
Oh, so, I think juveniles have a better potential outcome
for them if they've got good parent involvement in their cases, right,
Like I think because sometimes you legitially get juveniles that
got down the wrong path, don't have the bad I mean,
there are bad apples or people that just screw up
for lack of a better word, And I don't think that.

(39:00):
I think family dynamics can absolutely change the outcomes. But
I also think, like in this particular case, can you
imagine being the mom of the suspect married to the
biological father of the victim. No, I will tell you family,
blended families are difficult enough to manage on a good day.

(39:22):
With a good family with good foundations, with no issues
you throw in this, I'm guessing they're trying to save
their marriage.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
H I don't know how you navigate.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
I I have one other question, just in general about
juvenile cases. Do family dynamics come into play in terms
of sentencing? So, for example, and you know, if a
judge knows that if this child is released, they are

(39:55):
not going to be going to a supportive place, does
that incline you know, maybe being held in custody or
does that enter a judge's mind.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
So I think it probably does enter judge's mind. But
I will tell you this, The problem is with the juvenile.
The law is so different on how you have to
handle juveniles that it's it's not a simple analysis of
where they're going to go. I mean that is part
of the factor, But the problem is is just the
laws on juveniles and how you have to detain them,

(40:26):
can't detain them where they have to go is just
it is a much more complicated system than you're a
normal like arrest and bond. It's just not the same.
And so family involvement is important, especially if you want
to ensure because we talk about apparents in court and
public safety, and so it becomes the parents responsibility to

(40:46):
ensure their child makes it to court and the community
stay is safe. And so is a court going to
analyze home life. Sure, I can't see how.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
They wouldn't even if even if he's being tried as
an adult.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
Well, that's the difference is how they're trying because if
I recall this case correctly, the only reason we knew
about this initially was because of the family court filings,
because it was a cruise. It's federal jurisdiction, and I
don't think the Feds and juvenile cases are sealed till
we couldn't get any access to the juvenile side, right
and so all the information we had the time about

(41:20):
this case had was from the family court system because
there was litigation then over the kids that remained. It's
a hot mess. Like the parents think about this, y'all.
They went on a family cruise. They went to go
celebrate family, being a blended family and create great family

(41:41):
memories even it's a blended family, and this is the result,
and it's horrific and it gives me chills because I
can assure you those two parents never could have imagined
this was a possible scenario. And so they've got one kid,
mom who loves her son, she may be concerned that
he'd did the act. And then you've got a father

(42:02):
mourning his daughter. How do you how do you? How
do you navigate that? There's no book on how you
navigate that. No anyone that criticizes them and their decision
not to go to court, go walk a mile on
their shoes before you make any call on what was
appropriate for that family or not good for them for
making the call.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
They she I heard the gavel come down to see. Yeah,
I have to say, I'm I'm with.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
It's hard because, like you said, how do you possibly
go forward? And then on the other hand, this isn't legal,
This is emotional. My heart breaks at the thought of
a sixteen year old who his mother has known since
he you know, was in her womb, and and my

(42:50):
heartbreaks for him too, even in the face of everything
he is being accused of.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
That brings me to an interesting question. So if his
if his mom is not in the courtroom, right, and
of course dad is not, the stepfather is not as well.
Anna Kepner's a biological father, is his stepdad and the
jury sees that, right, is that going to affect him?

(43:17):
You know?

Speaker 4 (43:17):
I don't know whether it affects the guiltiness insur if
he's being tried as an adult, because I guess he is.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I don't know that he is being tried as an adult. Ye.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
So here's I've raised three boys. I've raised my husband's
two girls when they were little. So I've raised five kids,
y'all sixteen year old boys.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
That's the worst rate.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
Like if aliens came to our planet and first ran
into a sixteen year old boy, they would lead because
their answer to be there's no intelligent life on this planet, right, right, right,
that's just the reality.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
I remember that time.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
Yeah, and so now he's innocent until proven guilty. But
of course he's not gonna have his mom in the
courtroom like he's still a kid.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
It's even if this makes it to trial.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah, this one should be probably right for some kind
of fleat deal. But you know, we're not there and
we're not the Feds, and the prosecuting attorney will make
that decision.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah, I mean because if he does, if he does klee,
at some point, there is a chance that he's going
to see daylight. He's only sixteen years old. Yeah, he
could get out at maybe fifty forty five fifty something
like that.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
Well, I don't know, I know ed you do most
of your time on the Fed side. State side is
different Federal time. So state time typically you get good days,
bad days, young good credit for time servi, etcetera. Two
days for day of work or whatever. Yes, no, ma'am.
So if you are doing most of your time, really,
the federal system is entirely different when it comes I

(44:47):
didn't wantish how long you stay in prison?

Speaker 3 (44:51):
I didn't know that. See this is so great while
she's here because she's educating everybody out. It is interesting. Okay,
what are people most understand about these really emotionally complicated
family cases.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
Do you think, Yeah, there's no black and white, and
these cases in particular are so facts specific.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
They really are.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
And I can just tell you that there's no black
and white. There's a lot of gray, and it's not
as simple as you and there are lots of moving
parts involved, there's lots of dynamics, there's lots of emotions involved,
and what is justice in one case may not be

(45:34):
the same justice for another case. And that's okay too,
because in this particular case, that justice is going to
be very difficult to walk because everyone's so related. And
I think part of that will be also the facts,
like the facts of the actual murder, because it may
not have been as horrific. I don't know the exact facts,

(45:56):
but it is going to be facts specific, and it's
going to be something that the victims fits. Prosecutors usually
talk to victims about what would you like the sentence
to be? And so you got wow, some dynamics involved
in that.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, absolutely, We'll stick around because coming up at the
top of the hour, former Family Court Judge Michelle Locke
is staying with us and we're gonna dig into one
of the biggest gambles you can make in any murder trial,
which is testifying in your own defense, the right call,
the wrong call.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Keep it here, True Crime Tonight. Welcome back to True
Crime Tonight. We're on iHeartRadio where we talk to crime
all the time. I'm Boddy Moven and I'm your producer
Courtney Armstrong. How you doing, Courtney. Stephanielyidecker is out tonight,

(46:52):
but she will be back very soon. Stephanie, we miss
you very much. We are so lucky to be joined
by former Family Court judge Michelle Locke, who spent years
on the bench. She oversaw domestic violence cases, custody cases,
and high conflict family cases, and tonight she's going to
stay with us to break down one of the riskiest
decisions any defendant can make inside of court room, whether

(47:16):
or not to testify in your own defense. How scary corney,
take it away? Okay, so this whole topic started.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
There was a recent CNN article out and it put
a real spotlight on defendants who choose to testify in
their own trials, and it raised the questions does it
help or destroy the case or you know, what's what's
the outcome. So the couple of cases are ones that
we certainly have discussed here. Number one the Hawaii anaesthesiologist

(47:46):
Gerhart Koenig.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
He's the one.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
He was accused of trying to kill his wife on
a cliff side hike, and the jurors heard dramatically different
versions of what happened between the prosecution and the defense,
and Gerhart Koning defends himself. I am going to say, well,
because the ultimate it was, it was a lower sentence

(48:11):
than he could have gotten. He got attempted manslaughter. Attempted manslaughter, yeah, versus.
There was another Brendan Banfield, and that was the case
where the guy was convicted of killing his wife and
another man, a stranger he had lured to his house.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
It was referred to as the all pair trial.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Well, Brenda Banfield took the stand to try and convince
jurors he was trying to defend his wife from a rapist.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
So he went up there and just had a flat
lie happening.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
So, Michelle, some legal experts say testifying they can humanize
the defendant versus the cost of opening the door to
cross examination or credibility. What do you what do you
think about how it can turn a child?

Speaker 4 (49:02):
Well, let's just say you have the right to remain silent.
But some of these defendants just don't have the ability
to do so. And I will tell you that works
against them the majority of the time. And here's where
I find that the ones that do take this one,
if they're innocent, I understand why they take the stand.

(49:23):
I don't know that that is more often the case
than not. I mean, I do think there's something innocent
and they take the stand and it goes away it's
supposed to go. But the majority of ones think they're
smarter than everyone else, and they're gonna get on the
stand and tell them their version of the story that
they think is going to convince someone that they didn't
do it. And usually the reality is that makes that

(49:45):
jury decide much quicker that, oh, by the way they
did it. I think it's generally a bad idea to
testify on your own defense. And here's why these defendants
that do so think they're extremely intelligent. They do. They
think got this. I'm innocent whatever. Facing a prosecutor that
has done this for a career, like, I don't care

(50:08):
if you are innocent. They're gonna be good enough to
make you look like you're a liar. They just are
guys we ask questions. A friend of mine always says
that he'll never get into it were a battle of
words with me because my tongue is sharper than a knight. Right,
And any good attorney that does this for a living

(50:29):
has the ability to flip about any story on its head.
So I know when I did criminal defense work, I
only had I think my client only testified one. I
had one trial that my client testified. I had the
court admonish him before outside the presence of the jury
to not testify. That It was against my legal advice

(50:49):
because that's always going to come back on appeals and
effective assistance to the counsel because you left them testify. I
was like, uh, uh, don't testify. He testified. He got convicted,
but his testimony probably helped a little bit because instead
of getting sentenced to twenty years, he got sentenced to three,
So maybe not as bad. So As a general, I

(51:11):
think it's a bad idea to testify. But you know,
sometimes defendants think they're smarter than us.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Well, I think most people who commit you know, especially murder,
but like abuse and murder and things like that, I
think there's a tendency to be, you know, somewhat godlike. Right,
they've taken a life, they're controlling a life, they're doing things,
and I think a lot of them have too much
hubris in them. Aren't even narcissism. And I think you're
exactly right. I think they think they're going to convince

(51:38):
someone in the courtroom who's going to be able to
be like, oh, he's telling the truth. What a good guy?
What is a guy? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (51:44):
So awesome. I wish I want to church to them
on Sundays.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Yeah, right, that's not happening. No, it's not so from
your experience, can jurors sometimes decide the case simply based
on how believable somebody feels while testifying.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
Well, absolutely, ability witnesses is what determines cases if you
That applies to judges, that applies to juries is you
have to be credible, which means you own your own stink.
So if you forget an ample and family law cases.
What about clients for alcoholics. I'm like, you're gonna go
own it. You're gonna go on that stand and tell

(52:19):
the court exactly what your issues are, exactly what you're
doing to get help so you don't lose your kids.
You gotta be credible, own your own stink, and be honest.
If you're not, you're gonna get crucified by someone that
does this for a living and asked questions for a living.
And a jury won't. A jury won't believe the stink.
They won't. They have a BS meter that they use,
just like all of us do. Like and we all

(52:41):
know we've heard stories, right, that's not what happened. Juries
do the same thing.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
I have a question about a defense attorney's Basically, are
our defense attorneys allowed to let their client go up
and tell things and say things that they know not
to be true.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
Oh, that's a great question. So attorneys are prohibited from
what we call suborning perjury, which means we can't ask
questions that we know is going to elicit a lie
from the person on the witness, Like that is a
big no no. And so if you've so that's why

(53:24):
you will find that criminal defense attorneys don't always ask
their clients what actually happened because they're gonna take the
stand and their their client has told them something different,
then they're going to a real hard time asking those questions.
And so it is a very interesting dynamic when when
you are the defense jurney to have to ask your
question your client questions and not suborn perjury. I mean,

(53:48):
it's it's a challenge.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Right because even in the case of Brendan Banfield, without
going too deep into the case, you know everything he testified,
it was in the absolute face of the evidence that
ultimately convicted him.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
So I'm like, it.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
Usually is, let's be because here's what happens. I can't
tell him what I'm to have seen. They have a
confession because law enforcement almost always gets them to confess, right,
and then the confession gets introduced into evidence, and then
they get on the stand and say, oh, no, the
entire confession that was done on or about the time
when I was covered in blood and in like just
been recently arrested in telling them the truth, Oh that's

(54:26):
not true. My story three years later, that's the one
you should believe.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Right, I mean, come on right. No, you're absolutely right.
This is your crime tonight. We're on iHeartRadio. We talk
true crime all the time. We were just talking about
what happens when defendants, you know, testify on their own behalf,
and we want to know what you think. Give us
a call one eight eight eight eight thirty one crime,
or download the iHeartRadio app and leave us a little

(54:54):
talk back and boom, you'll be on the show. In fact,
let's go to a talk about right.

Speaker 9 (54:58):
Now true crime. It's April and Texas. I heard that
prosecutors might call the daughters of Caleb mc flynn in
the American Idol singer case to testify against their dad.
And I've got a question for Judge Michelle. How difficult
is that for court to handle? And how do you

(55:19):
judges protect kids while in a murder case? Anyhow, love
you all bye.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
What a good question, he April, I'm so glad you
left that talk back.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Just to catch people up.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
What Apel's referring to is former American Idol contestant Caleb flynn.
So he's accused of shooting and murdering his wife, Ashley.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
And then staging the crime to look like a burglary.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Well, while this incident, alleged incident happened, the suspects two daughters,
ages nine and twelve, were home, and now there's a
question about whether or not the children should be called
to testify. And it's sickening to me because it's saying,

(56:06):
on the one hand, the prosecution is saying no, let's
protect the kids, but the defense the suspect is saying no, no,
bring them on. Basically, I'll look more sympathetic, or if
they're not, there'll I'll look unsympathetic. Michelle, what goes on
when children have to become witnesses for or against a parent.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
Well, it's a horrific place for the children to be.
But the kids have already gone through something horrific. Wow,
So kids can testify. There is nothing that prohibits children
from testifying in criminal cases. But the issue is you
have to what we call qualify them, and so the
older the child, that easier it is to qualify that

(56:49):
child as a witness testifying. What I mean my qualify
is you have to show that that child has the
ability to discern a truthful statement from a lie and
understand that there are consequences for telling a lie on
the stand, and so the younger the child is, the
less likely you're going be able to qualify. Like, good
luck qualifying a four year old or five year old.
The ages that these kids are twelve year old at

(57:10):
think twelve and eight correct ninety, they won't have a
problem qualifying those kids to testify. But I think Dad
wants a couple of things. Dad probably wants them there.
And I don't know the facts of that particular allegation,
but he probably wants his kids to see him so
they feel bad and tell a lie or tell a
different version of the story, right, Like if he can

(57:32):
intimidate his kids on the stand, like, no, they didn't
really see that, because when was the last time that
he probably saw those kids if he's in custom right,
And so they've gotten no parents, they're with someone else,
and now they see dad in a courtroom and it's, oh, no,
Daddy didn't do it. I mean, if I was just
defense trans probably what i'd want to do.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Well, I think the prosecution wants them to testify, I believe, Well,
I think it's the state medium wrong. I believe it's
the state that.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Wants taz in a double check because then maybe my
fury is misdirected because I absolutely thought, yeah, tah is
gonna double check on that.

Speaker 4 (58:09):
If it's the state, it would make sense because the
state may have to use them to make their case, right,
they may not have the evidence other than the kids
eyewitness testimony to what happened, and then in the state
is no choice.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
One of the charges he's facing is intimidation of a
witness as well, and back when you know this all happened,
we initially kind of thought maybe it was one of
the kids.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
Yeah, that would make sense. I cure's what the indictment shows, right,
because typically when you intimate a witness and that you're
formally charged with that, they usually put the witness's name
in the indictment because the person who is accused of
crime has the right to confront their accusers, right, So
if you're inccused of intimating a witness, that should probably
be in whatever the indictment, whatever that formal charging document is,

(58:52):
should actually tell who the person was that was intimated,
is a witness. I don't think it did well to see, well,
this is a good one to follow up on.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
It is absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and yeah go ahead to.

Speaker 5 (59:06):
Aha, I'm just seeing right now, it seems that it
appears the prosecution side is raising the possibility of having
the children testify.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
Yeah, I would tell you that's probably because they need
them to prove the elements of the offense. I would
say typically the prosecutor would avoid calling children to the
stand unless they have no other choice, Like as when
you're putting a case together, right, You've got so many
elements that you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
And so when you're proving these elements beyond a reasonal doubt,
you've got to figure out how you're going to prove

(59:36):
each and every element, and those kids may be necessary
for one of the elements, I assume.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
And that's scary if you think about that. That what
you just said, Judge, that's scary because that means the
kids either heard something or saw something.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Horrible, correct, that's horrible. Yeah. If they're relying on the
children's testimony to convict this guide because maybe they don't
have any other like maybe friends, except or even circumstantial
evidence that they can tidy to the murder of his wife,
they need those children to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Well. Yeah, and then you've gotten now kids, it said
daddy did it on the standard, that's what they're not
needed for. I mean, they've already lost a parent. Now
you'm going to put them through that trauma, but they
may not have a choice.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
And that brings up a really good point, what kind
of trauma? What impact can this testimony have long term
on these children?

Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
Oh? I think the better question would be what what?
What trauma? Wouldn't it cause that's true, I mean quite frankly,
I mean I don't I don't even think it's a
what kind of it's it's really what do you? How
do they walk away in any semblance of being okay
the rest of their lives?

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
This is a family destroyer, yep, right, this.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
Is a person destroyer, Like how did you twelve year old?
Nine year old may not remember as much twelve, y'all,
we all remember twelve. We remember sixth grade? Remember those
stupid stuff we did in sixth grade? Now imagine being
in twelve, But imagine being twelve and howing to testify
against your own parent and having your other parent deceased.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
As a dad, if he did it right, he's been
alleged if he did and he was caring about his kids.
He would do some kind of plea deal to not
put his kids through I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
What you think as a good parent, especially if they're
set to testify against him.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Right, why would you do that to your kids?

Speaker 10 (01:01:26):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Why did you murder their mom on.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
The right, right, right? I mean, we got a whole
bunch of air like bad errors.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Yeah, but disguise just a bad egg in my opinion.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
Well, there are bad eggs, allegedly bad eggs, but they're
really good and bad in this world.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Have you been have you dealt with Kate? We only
have a minute left, But have you seen cases where
kids were put in the middle? I'm assuming so since
your family courts.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
Happened back in Texas back in the day, you'd have
to testify against your parents for custody, back on the stand,
in front of your kids, in front of your parents.
Not anymore, thank goodness. But I have friends my age
remember testifying against their parents and core about who they
wanted to live with. So super tramat Michelle, Judge. Michelle,
thank you so much for joining us tonight. Your insight
is always valuable and add so much to these conversations,

(01:02:11):
and if listeners want to learn more and I'm sure
you do. They can visit your website at Michellelocke dot
com and please follow her our Instagram at Attorney Michelle
Locke and that's Michelle with one elf. Keep it right
here True Crime Tonight. We have a lot more film it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight and iHeartRadio. I'm Courtney Armstrong.
I'm so happy to be here with Crime Analyst. Body
move in and we have Taha in the house, and
we have Sam and Adam in the control room waiting
for your calls.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Eighty to eighty three one Crime.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
We always love to hear from you, So if you
have to weigh in, I mean, I think one question
that body had thrown out was if you were on trial,
would you testify in your own defense? Eight aed eight
three one crime pluses and minuses. Let's go to a talkback.

Speaker 10 (01:03:11):
Well, ladies, update new case alert. I was wondering if
you guys could go over what we know so far
in the Craig Berry case. It seems like he attempted
to murder his wife and now has escaped into the
woods of Tennessee and is highly trained in survival skills,
and there's a man hunt. So I would love any

(01:03:32):
updates if you guys could provide us with any thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
Yeah, there is an update. So the sixth day multi
agency manhunt for Craig Mark Berry. He's fifty three years old.
He's a retired Special Forces veteran. They concluded today Wednesday,
May sixth, after he was discovered dead from an apparent
self inflicted gunshot wounds a head. Craig Berry was wanted

(01:03:59):
for the attempted murder of his wife in Dover, Tennessee.
Craig Berry's wife survived the attack despite life threatening injuries,
and it is currently recovering. Blessings to her, while a
definitive motive is still under investigation. The sheriff, Frankie Gray,
noted that financial stressors may have been a primary contributing

(01:04:22):
factor in the initial dispute that led to all this.
How terrible, wow, how terrible it's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
It really is. I mean, when people are just feeling
here's the deal. When people are feeling desperation, Yeah, they
can go to desperate acts, desperate means, and just be
unable to see a way out of any situation.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
And how lucky that the wife survived this attack, right,
and she's about life threatening injuries and thank god, she's
currently recovering. And this all began on the thirtieth of
April at the couple home near the Old Paris Highway.
And this it started with a verbal argument and Craig
Barry reportedly beat his wife repeatedly and attempted to strangle her.

(01:05:13):
As his wife reached her car to flee to get
out of the you know, get out of there, Craig
Barry fired into the vehicle and he struck her in
the neck. Craig Barry then pursued his wife in his truck,
but he crashed and totaled the vehicle before even exiting
the driveway. I mean, he must have been in a state, right,

(01:05:35):
he's in the dry he crashed his vehicle the driveway.
I mean, so then he gets out of the vehicle
and he runs off into the woods. He runs off
and and because he's like a X Special Forces, you know,
for a while people thought he was going to be
he was going to get away with it. He was
going to like go live in the woods and build

(01:05:57):
them off, live off the land. But apparently that did
not happen. He took his own life. Ay. Yeah, it's
just it's so so sad. Authorities from the US Marshall Service,
the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation TBI, and the local deputies
faced a lot of significant hurdles due to, you know,

(01:06:19):
his specialized background. And listen, I don't know if you
guys have ever been to Tennessee, but the train is
like rugged. It is rugged there. It's it's hard. But
he had a really specialized background.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Right, I was gonna say, not only retired special Forces,
he was also he was an excellent swimmer and diver.
And I mean that's by military standards. He was retired
as a Green Beret. So you know, give him whatever
kind of terrain you want, that's the experetis.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
You'd need to face it exactly. And you know this
might have helped him. I mean I use that kind
of sillily because of course he ended up killing himself.
But you know, he was in such a state and
he crashed his car and then fled on foot. He
left behind his cell phone, all his electronic devices, which

(01:07:11):
really prevented any sort of like triangulation on his location.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Well, you know, there was probably no way to know,
but was he so in a state he quote forgot
them or did he just think I do not want
to be trapped, and so I'm not going to put
this person.

Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
Yeah, right, he probably thought that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Se see, I'm thinking he's going I'm thinking like he's
just insane at the moment, right, Like, I mean, he
crashed his own vehicle in the driveway. That makes me
think he just he crashed and just fled without even
thinking about Listen, I don't know if you. I mean,
I've been in arguments before where like you see red, right,

(01:07:56):
and you maybe you black out a little bit. I mean,
I've never been violent with any buddy, but you know,
arguing and whatnot. And that's all I'm imagining is that
he was just he's probably just went.

Speaker 6 (01:08:05):
Red and just lost.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
Yeah, but trail cameras caught images of him moving through
the woods in full camouflage, so maybe he wasn't really
in a state and he really kind of prepped for this.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
If he's dressed in camouflage, they feel like there was
a little prep and thought that went into it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Makes me feel that that way too. So maybe he
crashed and then went and change, or maybe he had
something in the truck.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
I don't know, right, but I mean that would It
does seem a lot more premeditated, even if it's you know, premeditated,
by the amount of time it takes change of clothes.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Sure, absolutely, that is enough time.

Speaker 6 (01:08:42):
That's enough time to kind of think it through. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:08:45):
This reminded me so much of that Travis Decker case
remember a while back with yeah, because he also.

Speaker 6 (01:08:50):
Had been trained.

Speaker 5 (01:08:52):
But I wonder if like marshals and the people involved
have to think with a whole different mindset with those
kind of people that have this kind of expertise, like
he knows.

Speaker 6 (01:09:02):
Sure, you know, it's a whole different world. But interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
Yeah. The search ended today when the Stuart County Sheriff's
Office swat team and TBI agents located Craig Barry's body
several miles from his home, and the evidence suggested that
he died shortly after entering the woods on you know,
the night of April thirtieth into May first. The official

(01:09:26):
statement from the US Marshall Service said, we can confirm
Craig Mark Berry is deceased and no longer a threat
to the public because you know they were they considered
him armed and dangerous during the man hunt.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Well, of course absolutely, I mean he almost very nearly
killed his wife.

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
Right, and he fled into the woods with a gun,
you know, very clearly, so they considered him armed and dangerous.
At the time of his death. He faced you know,
charges of attempted secondary murder, aggravated assault, domestic assault, and
leaving the scene of an accident, a lot of charges.

(01:10:07):
And I feel like we're seeing more and more and
more of this intimate partner violence. I feel like every case, Yeah,
I just feel like every case we've been covering lately
is somehow you know, domestic related in some in some capacity.

Speaker 6 (01:10:24):
I mean, well, just have the ones tonight. I mean
it's you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Know, absolutely, although is it now that we just have
language to put to it, because you know, go back
me thinking about how many people taking out murdering a
complete stranger. So take that out of the equation. Sure,
it's generally you know, true, the boyfriend did it is

(01:10:50):
the is the So it's.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Very rare that it's a stranger, right, unless it's like
a carjacking or a robbery or something like that. Right,
the Ryan Cobergers of the world are very like that
poll's kind of rare, right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Correct, So taking that out there, is that means there's
some connection, it's most likely going to be a romantic
or of course business situation. So I really do think
just like when we were talking to Judge Michelle Locke
earlier this evening and we were talking about grooming, that
also made me think, you know, she's like, it's gone

(01:11:25):
on since with the beginning of time, just call it
something now, So I'm I don't know, I'd be curious.
I'd be curious to look and see if statistics have
gone up in the violence or we're just calling just.

Speaker 11 (01:11:40):
Hearing about it more or I take it to the
language like you said, Yeah, I think the hearing about
it more is also a big part of it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
Like there are multiple news outlets now and multiple cases
that we follow, so I just feel as though we
hear about these a lot more than we used to
in the past. But that's just but I do agree
the lang which is part of it, especially with the grooming,
like there were terms that we used.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
I feel like this this year, this past twelve months,
there's been more man hunts than.

Speaker 6 (01:12:10):
I've recalled that an optic, Yeah, agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
I definitely agree with that. I feel like we've been
talking about the US Marshals a lot lately. I know
I should actually.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Have there's a reminder, I should have a friend of
mine on. He's a yeah, some really interesting story as
a former US commercial.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Oh hello, Yeah, I have him on. I love the
US Marshall stories because they're so interesting and I don't know,
I just love all that that stuff. But let's let's
cut another talkback right now.

Speaker 7 (01:12:41):
Yeah, Hey, guys, I just have a really quick question.
I am curious about the cruise. She's murdered on the cruise.
So would they have to dock the ship so that
the detectives and stuff could do their stuff, do what
they need to do and investigate the room or would
they just grab what they need from their room and
let the ship go on? Thanks guys, A great show.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
Oh that's a really really is it a really good question?

Speaker 6 (01:13:06):
Isn't it?

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
Absolutely is like what do you do? Do you weigh
the needs of the whole cruise ship.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Or in the case we watched it for we watched
it collectively. Yeah, that's right, that's you. Didn't they They
continued on with their cruise. Amy Bradley, she went missing
from a cruise ship. I mean this was back in
say eighty nine or ninety three, a long time ago.

(01:13:39):
But according to her family, no, they didn't. They didn't
change anything. They didn't even make an announcement, right, Yeah,
didn't want to sort of create alarm.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
But there was really no mind scene though, right, because
she went missing, right, so there was no generalized crime scene.
But if there is a crime scene, like with Anna Kettner, right,
the cruise ship will typically seal off that cabin and
immediately treat like a crime scene, and the security staff
will preserve evidence. They'll collect surveillance footage and separate witnesses

(01:14:16):
more possible suspects as best they can. In most cases, though,
the ship continues to the nearest port instead of stopping
mid voyage. They'll just go to the nearest port and
once docked, local police and federal agents or sometimes the
FBI will board the ship to investigate. And that's in

(01:14:37):
most cases right well.

Speaker 6 (01:14:38):
Which that makes sense because now you want those people
to come on board to take care of it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):
Of course, I've done multiple cruises and one of the
biggest cruises. I do love a cruise, but you have
a lot of passengers on there that have a final
destination that they're trying to get to that they've done
final flights out of so it is a challenge to
kind of re adjust the entire ship for the you know,
if you're going to stop elsewhere and shift the time frame.

Speaker 6 (01:15:06):
I felt like you were going to say something. What
were you about to say?

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
Oh, just not only what you said, which is totally
valid to bring up, but also the logistics so taking
I'm going to miss my flight out of it. Just
the logistics. I mean, the crews have specific roots that
they need to take and they may and also there
tend to be huge and can't dock everywhere, so there's

(01:15:30):
limited things. And you know, it would be like rerouting
an airplane. That's a really high level thing with traffic controllers.
So I understand because my knee jerk is stop, stop
the world and me too, right, right, especially if it's
a family member.

Speaker 6 (01:15:48):
But you have a lot of other people at play.

Speaker 5 (01:15:50):
But yeah, we've been talking about so many horrible things
with cruises, with people dying on them, and lately no
body you just mentioned this, this virus outbreak.

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
Have you have you heard about this?

Speaker 6 (01:16:02):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
It takes me out, Oh my god. Okay, So there's
a cruise ship right, it's in this rare like hantavirus
outbreak aboard it's a Dutch expedition cruise. It's called the
MV Hondius I think, and it's now been linked to
three deaths. Right. Health officials believe this outbreak involves the

(01:16:23):
Andy strain of the hantavirus, one of the few strains
that may spread from person to person. And it started
on the ship. And so now the ship is like
a virus center.

Speaker 6 (01:16:37):
And the people are stuck on it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
They're stuck on it.

Speaker 6 (01:16:39):
Some people do.

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
You remember the primes?

Speaker 5 (01:16:42):
Yeah, like the cruise like times one hundred, because now, yes,
you're stuck on this virus filled ship.

Speaker 6 (01:16:50):
You can't get off.

Speaker 5 (01:16:52):
And I just heard recently there was one one patient
that had contact with another. I think there was one
case in Sweden or somewhere in Europe where there's been
another outbreak. So it's got me frightened. Whenever he virus
is scared to get you know, triggered like a coronas.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
Or something aware me too, Oh my god, I can't
take another COVID situation and like a living, floating nightmare.
So I was on Instagram and you know, scrolling as
one does. And this person appeared and it was a
travel blogger and he's bawling, he's crying, he's stuck on
the cruise. No yeah, and he's telling the story. And

(01:17:32):
you know, the passengers are like confined to cabins. You know,
they can't leave their cabins because they're going to get
exposed to the handa virus. They're basically trapped. Oh and
hand to virus. That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
I was like, because I was not aware of this,
but it was ringing a bell. And that's for the
sad fact that the wife of Jeene Hackman let'sy Arakara
died from the rodent borne illness at her property.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
So we're right about that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
I'm going to go take ten showers during the commercial break,
but stick around because after that we have a lot
more to dig into, and I think we're going to
hear from Adam and Sam a little bit as well.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
Keep it here.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
True Crime Tonight, we are talking true crime all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
Welcome back to True crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Boddy Moving and I'm
here the producer Courtney Armstrong. Don't forget if you miss
any part of Tonight's show, No Sweat. You can always
catch the podcast. We also would love to hear from you.
Give us a call eighty eight thirty one Crime or
you know, slide into our dms on our socials at
True Crime Tonight Show on TikTok and Instagram and True

(01:18:52):
Crime Tonight on Facebook. All right, let's get right to it, Corney.
Let's get some some talkbox.

Speaker 12 (01:18:58):
Get it, hi, lady about the social media things. Before
I had my daughter, I had probably been off of
social media for like ten years, and it was great,
it was wonderful. And then once I had my daughter,
I had to get back on.

Speaker 13 (01:19:12):
To find homeschool co op groups and to keep up
with like the you know, activities and stuff for my daughter,
because it's just about impossible to find any of that
stuff without it these days.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
It's sad now she's right, Like even sports, right, like
in school, Like if you are maybe in a soccer
team in school and the parents maybe congregate on a
Facebook group, right, so you maybe you might be forcing
some situations to create social media.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
So I could just say how that this worked into
my life, and I had been talking about it. I
was like, oh, I'm wasting too much time online. And yes, comparatively,
I don't rank the top most people doing that, but
there are and it's basically, you know the difference if
you're doing something for your kid or something logistic like

(01:20:05):
I'll do buy nothing and then I go that doesn't
mean I then go scroll and see I'm a personal assistant.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
Here's what I do in a day. If you want
an insight into.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
What I get fed. Really that riveting, but I don't know.
Just in my head, I'm like, I am going on
for this purpose. I'm going to find out this information
what I'm the baseball game or where's the school co
op like you said, and then leave it at that.
So it was just a real mental division for me.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
And then that helps.

Speaker 6 (01:20:35):
That makes sense.

Speaker 5 (01:20:36):
Do you use it like what's happening with the latest
with friends and family? Like to use it as in
that way as well, because I find that part helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Pretty rarely, pretty rarely. I'm not on Instagram or I
have an account. I check it once everyone ever, but
I'm only on Facebook, which is you know, for dinosaurs
like me.

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
I'm not on TikTok, I'm not I'm not on X
So anyway, the algorithm is getting so good though, Like
it's it's crazy, Like you watch maybe one video about
the handa virus cruise, right and maybe you watch it
all the way through and then you give it a
little heart. That's all you get. Like it's it's getting

(01:21:24):
so crazy, and it knows, Yeah, it knows what you're
looking for. It knows what you like, because you know
if the video is four minutes long and you sit
there and you watch the whole thing, Like I watched
that travel blogger that's on the handa virus cruise right now,
and because the video was so long, it knew she

(01:21:44):
liked this video. She sat through it given more. It's
just getting it's getting scary.

Speaker 5 (01:21:50):
It's getting exactly yeah. I mean I use it in
so many different ways of TikTok. I've started to use
in a different way where now in the search, like
if I'm going to a restaurant, let's say I'll type
in that restaurant and now I have a firsthand view
from people who've been there what they ate, I don't know.
It becomes helpful in that way.

Speaker 3 (01:22:09):
And let me tell you that makes sense.

Speaker 6 (01:22:11):
Is so good.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
It's a great researchers, so good people really underestumate TikTok
it is. It's probably my favorite platform. If I'm being I.

Speaker 6 (01:22:20):
Think I'm kind of with you on that. Yeah, I
use it way more so.

Speaker 3 (01:22:24):
I use it, but I just don't like all the ads,
like buy this makeup bag I bought it. Seems like
every other video is somebody selling something and that's annoying.

Speaker 5 (01:22:32):
But man, it's good app But anyway, well, we went
down the rabbit hole of why we went on social media.

Speaker 6 (01:22:39):
So there we go. There's a right example. How about
another talk, I'll see it.

Speaker 14 (01:22:44):
Yes, I just wanted to say how much I love
you guys. I've been listening for almost a year now,
and I love learning about each of you individually, about
what you've done in the past, your successes, and I
would love to learn more.

Speaker 10 (01:22:59):
I know you gained a lot of.

Speaker 14 (01:23:00):
Listeners lately, including my friends Laura and Martha. Shout out
to them. We love to learn more about whose guys
are and maybe just a little bit more about you. Anyways,
take care by Julia like so like say less, actually.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
We love you, like like say less like here for I.

Speaker 5 (01:23:25):
Do love that We've been doing that with everyone, and
it's actually been such a fun way to get to
know everyone from AVA behind the scenes, and we've had,
you know, like every person. I want to do it
also with sometimes with Joseph and Jared and you know,
dig into other guests that we did.

Speaker 11 (01:23:42):
Do it with Joseph. Did we do jose Jared? Though
we did do jose Jared. Okay, so we might do
it with regulars. But I just heard a voice which
makes me think, was that you Sam? Because we haven't
done it with you or Adam?

Speaker 10 (01:23:55):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:23:56):
Sam, and Adam, would.

Speaker 5 (01:23:58):
You be open to I'm going to start with one
question for both of you, so please you know. I'm
going to start with outside of true crime, which I
know you must love because you work here, what's something
people would be surprised to learn you both are really into?

Speaker 15 (01:24:13):
Oh oh boy, Okay, I mean this is just like
off the cuff immediately in this moment. I've just been
watching the new season of Survivor season fifty. I'm a
huge Survivor fan.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
Are you really? I am?

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
I love it. I never would have guessed that about
you me either.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Good.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
Adam is so smart, you guys, and he is. He
reminds me kind of like a cool hipster but like
a cool one, not like, you know, an insane, not
a gross one. I keep my mustache trimmed down. He's
got really a hip like hairstyle and mustache, Like he's
just a hip guy. I never would have guessed that

(01:24:57):
you're into survivor. I love that.

Speaker 6 (01:25:01):
All right, Sam, you're up? What about you?

Speaker 8 (01:25:03):
I mean, and I guess this kind of counts as
a hobby, but I'm sort of into sewing.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
Like what yeah, wow.

Speaker 8 (01:25:11):
Like one of my projects during COVID is I sewed
a bunch of patches onto like a jacket I owned, so.

Speaker 3 (01:25:20):
No way.

Speaker 8 (01:25:24):
Something like that. So it's because I'm into rock metal.
I sewed a bunch of those, like band logos or
anything like that. So I just took a bunch of those,
so did it onto a jacket manually.

Speaker 3 (01:25:38):
And I love that. I absolutely love that. Yeah, Sam,
the sewer.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
That is so fun. So question for both of you
and Adam will just ping pong. How did you How
did you end up there behind the keyboard behind the mic?

Speaker 15 (01:25:56):
Yeah, I'll give a quick answer. I actually I majored
in radio in college. I spent the last two years
doing radio and that was in Chicago. I worked for
about six years at a classical radio station, WFMT in Chicago,
ninety eight point seven.

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
In Chicago. That's right.

Speaker 15 (01:26:18):
Yeah, there you go, classical classical radio. Yeah, and it
was great. And then I moved here to La and
out the gate got a job at an AM radio station.
It took me about four years of applying to jobs
and finally heard back from my heart and it was

(01:26:39):
Oscar and he was saying he was putting together this
true crime show and was looking for a boardop.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
So this is your first one, your first board up.

Speaker 15 (01:26:47):
No, I've worked, I've worked other boardop jobs, but this
job is great because it's very hands on and it
feels like a real team effort here.

Speaker 3 (01:26:56):
So yeah, it was like, we really like having you guys.
Your your contribution. You're not just like hitting the levers
and answering the phone and things.

Speaker 15 (01:27:04):
You're actually part of the Yeah. Yeah, and I'm a team.
I appreciate you guys for that for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
It's fun.

Speaker 8 (01:27:12):
I'm pretty similar. I majored in radio in college in
San Francisco.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
I went to San Francisco State.

Speaker 8 (01:27:20):
I interned for the classic rock radio station in San Francisco,
Casan one O seven seven the Bone.

Speaker 3 (01:27:28):
I love it.

Speaker 8 (01:27:30):
And then I was jumping back and forth between radio
jobs and there was like a period where I was
out of radio for five years and like I found
something a couple of years ago where that was kind
of like a risk because I was like right outside
of San Diego. And then I'm like, Okay, maybe I'll

(01:27:51):
go back into radio. And then that led me to
move to LA and then trying to find a second
job to me around in LA and then and same
thing with Adam where Oscar I interviewed for one of
the other news jobs and then they're like, hey, you
got this project Culture come tonight. Are you interested in
I'm like, yeah, sure, And then you know that's how

(01:28:13):
I got involved. And you know, you guys have been
super cool and I learned so much of this stuff
and I knew absolutely nothing about true crime before doing.

Speaker 15 (01:28:22):
That, right, And can I say too, it's been so
cool that we were brought on right at the inception
show too, So I mean I feel very invested in
it just because you know, we just all were doing
those first run throughs. It was really good, but no, yeah,

(01:28:45):
but has gotten so good and yeah, so it's cool
to be with it from the very beginning, and.

Speaker 3 (01:28:53):
Well, we love having you guys what to do? Buddy.
I was tempted to go back sometimes and listen to
like the episode, but then I I can't listen to myself.
I'm so bad. I cannot listen to myself. I won't
even like all my shows and stuff. I won't even
watch them, Like, I can't do it.

Speaker 15 (01:29:12):
You know, whenever I say anything on the air, it's
always just like, okay, whatever was said, I'm never going
to listen back to.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
I don't want to be reminded of what I said yesterday,
do you know what I mean? So scary.

Speaker 8 (01:29:24):
As soon as I listen to myself, I'm like, why
did I say that every time?

Speaker 6 (01:29:29):
Every single time?

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):
Yeah, I listened to it occasionally because well I have to,
because you have to things that we.

Speaker 6 (01:29:34):
Cover, and I cringe everything everything.

Speaker 3 (01:29:39):
I was thinking, Oh, sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 5 (01:29:41):
No, I was just going to say, into someone's point,
I listened to the earlier shows Night and Day. You
guys have changed so much because I had to go
back for a project to listen to the first couple
so different.

Speaker 3 (01:29:56):
I'm do we have any rapid fire questions that we
can ask these guys. Yeah, let's doe. Do you want
to ask Sam or Adam?

Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
You pick a Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna start and
I'm gonna go with.

Speaker 3 (01:30:12):
My cancer boy Adam. Okay, yeah, that is his sign.
Coffee or tea?

Speaker 6 (01:30:19):
Coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
I'd ask dog or cat, but we all know about rita.
It's morning or night night?

Speaker 3 (01:30:28):
Okay. Favorite travel destination, oh boy, you know what I do?
Not travel a whole lot. Boy. I go to Florida
with my family.

Speaker 15 (01:30:39):
I got my aunt lives in Florida and we always
have a great time out there.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
We got a domestic right. What's your most used emoji?
The fire emoji? Of course?

Speaker 15 (01:30:54):
Okay, day, so it's just fire emoji.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
Fireman. I love that question.

Speaker 4 (01:31:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):
And last, are you a planner or spontaneous? I'm a
plan I'm a planner. I can for some reason. You
can tell body?

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
All right, Sam in the hot seat?

Speaker 6 (01:31:18):
Coffee your teeth coffee?

Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
Oh I'll so, okay?

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
Since these Okay, what's your favorite pizza topping?

Speaker 3 (01:31:27):
There we go? Pineapple?

Speaker 4 (01:31:30):
Really we have to have a talk about yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):
There, if you could have any superpower, what would it.

Speaker 6 (01:31:42):
Be a little moortation? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
Oh, that's a side one love that I do too,
Like being me to Paris right now right and you
just stand.

Speaker 6 (01:31:55):
Up there coming home.

Speaker 3 (01:31:58):
I like it, although Sam's would be beat me backstage
out a tala concert.

Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
Of what's your most used EMOCHI.

Speaker 8 (01:32:11):
Probably metal horns, like the sign.

Speaker 3 (01:32:16):
It's the sign, yeah, so just for listeners that they
know it's the the pointer finger and then the pinky.

Speaker 6 (01:32:25):
Yes yeah, ah okay, interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:32:29):
So funny, that is sunny. What's your favorite season?

Speaker 8 (01:32:34):
Summer?

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
Okay, good to live in l a book or movie?

Speaker 8 (01:32:40):
Definitely movie.

Speaker 3 (01:32:41):
I do not read enough really okay, and yeah morning
or night night me too.

Speaker 6 (01:32:50):
Okay, I'm definitely a track all of us think are.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
Okay you guys you survived the hot seats.

Speaker 16 (01:32:59):
How amazing celebrity CRUSH's I mean we're doing the earliest
probably like.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
Lucy Lou Love sure, okay, Adam, she was all one
of my favorite shows, Allan McBeal.

Speaker 6 (01:33:17):
Oh I did love her on that Adam Europe.

Speaker 15 (01:33:21):
Okay, I mean begrudgingly, I'll answer this question, uh, and
we'll keep it in like you know, high school, growing
up realm I liked uh uh, Linda Cardellini or whatever,
from Freaks and Geeks.

Speaker 4 (01:33:33):
I was really into freaksing Geeks.

Speaker 3 (01:33:37):
Okay, she is.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
So good in D t F Saint Louis Is she
I have that sparks your fire emoji. She's excellent.

Speaker 3 (01:33:51):
Well, we got to know Sam and Adam and I
hope you guys all liked it as much as we did.
Good night, Thank you for joining us tomorrow. An alleged Jeffrey,
I've seen suicide notice surfacing years later, raising fresh questions.
See you guys tomorrow. Stay safe, Hey tonight

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