September 16, 2025 • 38 mins
A missed call, a prison transfer, a well-meaning barrister. Jodi heads to London to follow the trail of breadcrumbs—religion, regret, and red flags—but none of it seems to add up.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:18):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
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Speaker 1 (00:40):
Previously on Wisecrack.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The twenty second of July twenty fifteen, between eleven and
twelve o'clock at night, the twenty three year old man
named Ryan Godard, my school bully, had killed his family.
He stabbed his mother forty two times, his stepfather fifty six,
(01:08):
using seven different blunt knives from the kitchen, and then
he came to my house and while I'm out, I'll
tell you the third lie, just so you're aware, is
that I've changed the names and the places and the
people's names just out of respect for the dead.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
That's what I was right, I.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Think to do.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
That was probably the first time I told anyone the
name of Brett, even people who saw the show.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I've been talking on the phone with Ed, trying to
learn as much as I can about him and his
childhood bully real name Brett Rogers. But the truth is
I knew Brett was dead long before Ed told me.
Once Ed disclosed his name that night in Edinburgh, it
didn't take much research to find the horrifying fact that
(02:09):
Brett met his end only two months before Ed took
the stage.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
I never told people the name. I would give them
enough that they could find the name if they were industrious,
but I never wanted to invite people to the village.
I never wanted to invite people into the personal lives.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
We've been chatting for a few months now because I've
decided to go to England. It's the only way to
uncover what really happened that night by retracing every one
of Ed and Brett's steps. I finished my preliminary research
and set up most of my interviews. But one question
sticks in the back of my mind. Why me Ed
(02:48):
has been gatekeeping Brett's name from everyone who's ever seen
his show, but he was willing to let me in.
What made him trust me?
Speaker 7 (02:56):
So? What did I give you it?
Speaker 6 (02:58):
And you were persistent? But you are a questions that
were different to anyone else's questions.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He opened the door for me, not because I asked louder,
but because the same troubling questions that were swirling around
in my head had been weighing on his heart for years.
Why would Brett murder his own mom, why would he
break down Ed's door that same night? And just how
did Brett Rogers end up dead in one of England's
(03:24):
most secure prisons only twenty three months later. I'm Jody
Tovey and this is wisecrack Soon episode three.
Speaker 8 (04:07):
Hello, Hello, Hell, I'm great.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I landed at Heathrow to find Ed waiting outside the airport.
This is the first time I'd seen him in seven years,
and it was both awkward and strangely familiar. At twenty nine,
he seemed sharper, more self aware than the boyish comedian
I remembered. His bouncy curls were replaced by short hair
and stubble.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Ah I play.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'm here to investigate who Brett Rogers really was, but
in truth, I'm also piecing together who Ed is too.
Up until the night of the murders, these two lives
were inextricable. After that night, I'm left to wonder about
two pretty unexplainable things. What caused one young man to
snap and go on a murderous rampage and the other
(04:57):
to write and perform comedy about it. So, along with
the police officers and other witnesses, I've been reaching out
to Ed's old friends in London, an ex girlfriend or two,
and other comedians that he came up with. Ed told
me he learned of Brett's death a few months after
Edinburgh through his brother. That seemed like a perfect place
to start.
Speaker 9 (05:19):
I am a thirty six year old dad seven o'clock high,
unto anything that I didn't know that was what that
sentence was going.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Ed wasn't the only one keen to leave his hometown
of Stanstead. Both of his brothers moved out of the village,
and this brother is Sam Hedges.
Speaker 9 (05:38):
As soon does he leave that thing there gets turned
on and I'm going to sink into the world of
Diablo four until three am.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Before we got to Sam's Ed explains that his brother
is very opinionated and not interested in others points of view,
especially if you're a woman or a person of color,
So two strikes against me. But of the three Hedges brothers,
Sam was the closest to Brett. He probably knew the
most of who he really was. As we settled into
(06:08):
Sam's tiny living room, I wanted to know what he
recalled about the boy next door.
Speaker 9 (06:14):
There's two opinions I think with things like that, And
the first opinion would be, when you've got someone who
sees them rarely see someone really and they just see
that part of them, They're gonna sit there and think
that guy's a dick. Every time I see him, he
says got a negative thing to say about me, or
he just tries to bully me, or he hits me
or whatever. But if you see that person every day
(06:37):
and you see one hundred people that he interacts with
that he doesn't do that too, and then one person
that he does because he just, I don't know, self
esteem thing, may need to make himself feel like he
was bigger, honest to God. I've given this a lot
of thought, and if the monster was in there, it
was buried deep. He wasn't the guy that he was
(07:00):
in the end when he was younger. But the guy
I knew if he went back to me on my
last day of seeing him, even on the days where
he was being a proper douche, that guy was not
capable of killing his mother.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I glanced at Ed as Sam casually floats this provocative take. Ed,
who received the brunt of Brett's bullying, says nothing. He
shifts in his chair and stares at his feet, fighting
the urge to respond.
Speaker 9 (07:26):
He had obviously a case of ADHD. I think we
all knew that, and he was this hyperactive, was just
bouncing off the walls. But I could point one hundred people.
That doesn't mean they're going to become axe murderers. There
was obviously something that triggered it, or maybe there was
this hall man in balance that he could have been
one hundred things.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Sam wasn't the only Hedges brother who was close to Brett. Jack,
the middle of Ed's brothers, was friends with him too,
And like most brothers, Jack had an entirely different reaction
to the murders.
Speaker 8 (07:55):
So when I found out you know what happened, it
wasn't so much a case of oh my god, this
is out of the blue. It was more, holy shit,
he did it. There are five families in that neighborhood
with kids that we would all socialize and so we
would all play together, play football, it'd mess around and yeah,
(08:19):
just generally hang around and do what kids do. The
problem that we had when we were younger is that
Brett was trying to make himself bigger, make himself more important.
He would try with me. He had no success. He
had to go smaller. He had to go for Ed.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Unlike Jack, Sam refuses to acknowledge that Brett mercilessly Bullieded.
So I decided to ask Sam about a pivotal moment
when Brett's violence was undeniable. A domestic dispute three years
prior to the murders. Brett, who was living with his dad,
Pete Rogers at the time, returned home one day and unprovoked,
severely beat his father.
Speaker 9 (09:02):
Sure, me and my dad have had fights before in
the bass, so you know the first sentencing where he
went away the first time.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
I can get that.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
You can have an argument, that things can get heated,
someone can swing a few fists. You're both big men. Now,
That's how men in England resolve their conflict.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Understand that this was not the usual father son squabble.
Brett hit so hard that he dislodged his own dad's eyeball.
The injury is so grave that Brett was convicted of
gross bodily harm and served thirty two months behind bars.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
In most cases, they swing their fists around. Yes, a plausible,
it's believable. You've had a fight, but you don't kill
your mum. And yeah, just it baffled me. I don't
understand what happened to trigger that guy because it was hyperactive.
But it wasn't a killer, not a killer at all.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
According to Jack, Brett was a powdered with a lit fuse.
It was only a matter of time before he heard someone.
But according to Sam, Brett was quote not a killer
at all. Sam still can't reconcile the boy he knew
with the man who committed the murders. And I get it,
that gap, that disbelief. I see where both Jack and
(10:19):
Sam are coming from. So I went looking for something concrete.
I went to the courthouse and I asked for the
transcripts of Brett Rogers trial, day by day, word for word,
And what I found there, well, it was more baffling
than black and white.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
Have you had at least a relaxing weekends, and I
felt come in on a Sunday well out of the
timing was perfect because I was due to be an
a show yesterday and stay again night anyway, okay, good,
So just coming through Central.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
London, ED left me in London to drive up to
his parents' house. He thought it might be helpful to
brief them on Wyam and Stanstead before I arrived for
our interview. I'm grateful for a few days out of
earshot from Ed. I knew some details of the trial
would be tough for him to hear. I met with
Simon Spence, a barrister and King's Council at Red Lion Chambers.
(11:20):
Unlike attorneys in the US, barristers can choose whether to
argue prosecution or defense.
Speaker 10 (11:27):
I think it's very important to do both. I do
both that I do about fifty percent of each, and
it makes it much easier to see the other side
of the case.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
In Brett Rodgers' case, Spence was brought on as lead prosecutor.
The trial began nearly a year after the murders May third,
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
On Camp one.
Speaker 11 (11:46):
He is charged with murder and the particulars of the
offense are that on the twenty second day of July
twenty fifteen, he murdered Jillian K. Phillips.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
We have had voice actors recreate the proceedings.
Speaker 11 (11:58):
Third day of July, he murdered David John Oakes. To
this indictment, he has pleaded not guilty, and it is
your charge to say, having heard the evidence, whether he
is guilty or not.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
But the trial started off with the twist. Simon's team
assumed Brad would plead guilty the evidence was overwhelming, but
just weeks before the trial he.
Speaker 10 (12:21):
Pleaded not guilty. I think the first thing the defense did,
although obviously I wasn't privy to what was going on
in the defense camp, was probably to obtain a psychiatric
report to see if he'd got any mental health defense
available to him. And that's very normal in murder cases,
whether they accept responsibility for the killing or not. If
(12:42):
you're defending a murder, you'll always get a psychiatric report
to see whether diminished responsibility can come into play. That
there are two different aspects to mental health defenses in
this country. There's insanity, which is very rare, which actually
you get a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
I've only had one in thirty six years. Far more
(13:04):
common is diminished responsibility, which reduced his murder to manslaughter.
So that's what they would have been looking for. But
there has to be a causal link between any mental
health problem and the killing.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But the doctors that examined Brett couldn't find that link.
Thus Brett had to stand trial as a mentally competent man.
Speaker 10 (13:23):
We never saw the psychiatric report they got, so it
clearly wasn't favorable.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Brett's defense was looking to blame the murders on someone,
anyone else, so in his opening argument, Simon painted Brett
as the only person in the vicinity with the capacity
to do something this cruel to his own mom. He
then immediately informed the jury of the brutal beat down
Brett had given his father years before.
Speaker 12 (13:48):
The jury should know that the defendant was a license
at the time and required to live at his mother's address.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
After his fight with his father, Brett was forbidden by
the court to ever live with him again, so Brett's mom, Jillian,
invited her son to move back in with her, just
steps away from the Hedges house. Brett was on parole,
which meant that he had to constantly meet with court
officers and social workers to show evidence of his improving behavior.
(14:15):
One misstep and the door would slam all over again.
Framing the trial from this angle, Spence was shaping a
narrative casting Brett as a violent young man a full
mental capacity. Mental health was not to be considered that.
Speaker 10 (14:31):
The whole way the defense presented their case was that
he got on well with his mum, didn't get on
very well with his dad, and of course he got
a previous for grieves bodily harm with intent on his father.
And the defense did quite a neat job actually of saying, well,
he had no reason to attack his mother, and he's
not somebody prone to mindless violence. It's just violence if
(14:52):
something triggers it.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
There was no opening argument from the defense, therefore Spence
took his time laying out the facts. Spence then he
turned to the jury and asked appointed question the.
Speaker 12 (15:03):
Issues for you in this case, members of the jury,
and whether you're sure that the killer of the two
people was this defendant, and whether you're sure of that
or may it have been an unknown third party. And
the other issue for you is if you're sure it
was the defendant, then what was his intention at the
time of the killings, because no other issue arises about
(15:25):
the defendant's mental state of the time.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
As a reminder, on the night of July twenty second,
twenty fifteen, Ed Hedges returned to his childhood village of
Stanstead Mountfitchett for the first time in four years to
perform a charity comedy show. For all intents and purposes,
he was the local kid who made good. After a
few pints with friends, Ed walked back to his childhood
home and crawled into bed. That same night, just a
(15:52):
few yards away, Brett Rodgers murdered his mother, Jillian Phillips
and her friend David Oakes. Stabbed them repeatedly with multiple knives.
But out of the blue, Brett's defense presented an entirely
new story.
Speaker 10 (16:08):
All of a sudden, we got this defense statement saying
Brett Rodgers had gone out to the shop fifteen minutes
and came back past this man with a knife, leaving
where my mum lived and walked into the scene of carnage.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
In either version, Brett then made a call to the police.
Speaker 12 (16:29):
Essex Police received a nine to nine to nine call
at their call center from an anonymous mail calling from
a mobile phone number saying there had been a murder
at twenty Benfield Gardens. When asked how he knew, the
caller said this, well, I'd come in and there's been
a murder.
Speaker 10 (16:45):
I think the mobile phone signal wasn't great and the
first call probably cut off before he was able to
say anything meaningful.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Brett also called the police a second time.
Speaker 10 (16:57):
The second call did get through and he reported that
his mother and her friend had been killed.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
If he was the killer, why would he call the
police himself.
Speaker 10 (17:09):
One of the peculiarities about it is he'd left the
house and was standing on a sort of little village
green thing to make the phone call, and from recollection,
I think a passer by actually saw him making the
phone call and they themselves made a.
Speaker 12 (17:23):
Call to the police.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
It was an odd feature of the case and one
that we never really got a true explanation for the
unusually long period of time between the two calls. Clearly
we used and the police had this theory that he'd
gone back to the house to do something before leaving
again to make the call. The problem with that is
we had no evidence that is what he did, but
(17:45):
it was a longer period of time than one would
have expected, particularly given the urgency of it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Could this be when Brett went to Ed's house covered
in his own mother's blood. Even the investigators were unable
to confirm his whereabouts during this forty five minute window.
Not long after the police arrived to find Brett between
his house and the Hedges home.
Speaker 12 (18:08):
He was described by one of the police officers as
looking vacant and he had something in his hand. According
to PC Nice, he was laughing. His hands were covered
in blood. He was asked by PC Scott's where the
blood had come from, and he pointed and nodded towards
number twenty and said in there.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Brett Rogers was arrested on the spot.
Speaker 12 (18:30):
The police officers who entered the house were met with
a scene that can only be described as horrific. Gillian
Phillips was sprawled across a sofa in the living room.
She was already dead and was covered in congeal blood.
David Oakes was lying face down on the floor, his
face and neck covered in blood, although at that time
(18:51):
he was still breathing.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
David Oaks survived into the early hours of the twenty third,
and then he too passed.
Speaker 10 (19:00):
The forensic scientists took a huge number of photographs, not
all of which we showed to the jury. Some of
them were just too horrific to do so. The thing
that struck me most about it was the sheer quantity
of bloodshed. It literally was a blood bath. It was
literally as if someone had gone in and just chucked
(19:20):
red paint all over the place. It was up the stairs,
it was in the kitchen, it was on the landing upstairs,
in virtually every room in the house. The pathologist's findings
was that the two deceased remained downstairs at all time,
and that the distribution of blood up the stairs and
onto the landing upstairs was all secondary transfer from Brett himself,
(19:45):
and that made it a very unusual crime scene for me.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Bro It was taken to the station, where three mental
health professionals assessed him in the early hours of the morning.
He offered them nothing, not a word. He also refused
a urine test, which could have possibly lessened his sentence
if it had proven that illegal substances may have contributed
to his actions. Later at the hospital, a doctor treated
(20:09):
a deep cut on his hand for I was silent,
unwilling to explain. By the afternoon of July twenty third,
detectives were ready to hear his story, but when the
questions came, Brett gave them exactly what he'd given everyone else, silence.
Speaker 10 (20:26):
He did come across as rather arrogant and very little remorse, which,
again from memory, is something I commented on in my
closing speech to the jury and said, well, if you
would come on this scene, and if you're close to
your mother, as he was professing to be, what one
would have expected to see a bit more emotional reaction.
(20:50):
He was quite cold.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
The trial lasted two weeks. Police officers and forensic experts
took the stand through it all. Brett Rogers never a
word except in one moment, and there was.
Speaker 10 (21:03):
One particular instance where Brett Rodgers kicked off in court,
although the jury were told they had to ignore it.
It's impossible to expect him to do that, and I
think that was a large part of their decision to
convict him.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
On day three of the trial, as a forensic scientist
presented evidence of the crime scene, Brett stood up and shouted,
will you shut up?
Speaker 11 (21:29):
You give me my heady.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
He turned toward the glass stock door and tried to
make a run for it. When he realized it was locked,
he spun back around and lunged, slamming into the two
dock officers. One was knocked to the floor, the other
took a hit square to the face from the gallery.
His family shouted, his father, pleading Brett to stop. Then
the clerk hit the panic button. Do you remember what
(21:54):
might have been said that caused.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
That reaction from Brett.
Speaker 10 (21:59):
I don't think it was particularly he just suddenly started saying,
stop it, stop it, this is doing my head in.
And I think it was simply the expert saying, well,
there was a pattern of a trainer in this pool
of blood, and it had compared it to the trainers
that the defendant was wearing, and they matched, so he
must have put that footmark there. I was really quite
(22:23):
surprised that it triggered the reaction that it did, but
it perhaps just does demonstrate that actually there was something
about Brett Rodgers that he just couldn't control his temper.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
January eighth, twenty seventeen, the jury deliberated for less than
a day. Brett Rodgers was sentenced, and before he was
taken away, the judge left him with the message.
Speaker 11 (22:46):
The only surprise in this case was that you would
not admit that it was you who'd killed your mother
and mister Oaks. The consequence of your lies is that
no one apart from you knows exactly what happened at
your mother's house that evening. For murder, there is only
one sentence which is prescribed by law, and that is
(23:06):
imprisonment for life.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
She continued unpacking his past, tracing the long line of pain.
Speaker 11 (23:14):
And here lies the real tragedy of this case. You
are a man who attacks the people who loved you most.
Your father and your mother are the two people who
have loved you, looked after you, been with you, who
know you, and who wanted the best for you. But
look what you've done to them. Look how you have
(23:35):
repaid their kindness to you by your actions. You have
ruined your family and you have ruined your life.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Brett murdered brutally. There was no question he belonged behind bars.
But the truth is from the moment of his arrest,
Brett had already started to disappear. Even after it was
all over, he never offered a reason, never asked for forgiveness.
According to BBC Essex. He sat expressionless as the verdict
(24:07):
was read, mute, still drifting away. The idea of spending
the rest of his life behind bars must have been
terrifying for the twenty three year old, but what awaited
him in prison was far worse than lifelong incarceration. Six
(24:37):
months after his trial, Brett Rogers was deteriorating. Though he
had been convicted as a violent man with all of
his mental faculties, his psychological health had begun to fall apart.
Brett had become almost entirely mute, finding himself shuffled between
many prisons for behavioral issues. On January twenty seventh, he
was transferred to Her Majesty's Prison Long Larten, a high
(25:00):
security prison tucked away in the countryside to the outside world.
Long Lartin looks like any other British prison, red brick walls,
razor wire guards and crisp uniforms, but inside it holds
a rare distinction, a specialized mental health wing. And that's
where Brett was placed, not out of mercy, out of necessity.
(25:20):
We know this because of a report on Brett's entire
stay in progress was made public by the nonprofit hundred families.
It claims he was medicated antipsychotics daily, done so until
he became quote compliant, and slowly the reports changed. Eventually,
Brett was deemed well enough to join the general population.
Still high security, still violent offenders, but in theory, a
(25:44):
step closer to rehabilitation. There were no cellmates. Each prisoner
got his own room. Brett's stays became structured a violence
Reduction Plan, a daily program that helps prisoners understand the
origins of their rage and control their angry im pulses
before they act on them. As well as he was
assigned cleaning duties. According to his nurse, he responded well,
(26:07):
He followed instructions, he kept himself. In March twenty seventeen,
he was reassigned to the Perier Blue Wing, a quieter
block with only forty two cells. On the surface, it
seemed like progress, but it was here he came face
to face with his end. One month earlier, another prisoner
had arrived, Gary Lindley. He was serving life for his
(26:30):
role in a burglory gone wrong, an accessory to murder.
Gary wasn't considered violent anymore. He was religious, spiritual, a
practicing Muslim. He prayed often and he took a liking
to Brett. Their relationship, if it can be called that,
had the shape of a big brother little brother dynamic.
Gary even vouched for him to other prisoners. By the spring,
(26:53):
Brett's records painted a picture of calm. He was eating well,
sleeping regularly. His violence reduction program was under review to
be removed entirely. His personal officer noted a change the
quote quiet and difficult to talk to end quote. Prisoner
was beginning to speak more with inmates and with staff.
(27:15):
Whatever demons had ruled him before, it seemed for a
moment they'd quieted until June seventh. That afternoon, around two
thirty pm, a guard noticed Brett had forgotten his work boots.
He sent him back to his cell to change. Nothing unusual.
What happened next would take hours to uncover. At three
(27:38):
fifteen pm, another prisoner who will call Ellis, spotted Gary
Linley and another inmate, Billy White, inside of brett cell.
The two were seated casually on the heating pipes that
ran across the back wall. Ellis noted that Gary was
rolling a joint. By four to ten, Ellis saw the
two men again, this time in the kitchen. He asked
(28:00):
where Brett was. Gary replied, quote, He's asleep in his cell.
Dinner was called medication rounds began. Brett didn't show. Ellis
walked to a cell and knocked. No answer. Ellis testified
that he peered through the narrow window in the cell door,
but it was too dark to see anything, so he left.
(28:23):
A few minutes later, another officer was sent to find Brett.
He opened the cell door, called his name, no response. However,
he spots Brett lying in bed, the covers pulled neatly
over his head, still wearing his work boots. That was
the first sign something wasn't right. Protocol kicked in. A
(28:45):
second officer was called in and they entered together. As
the pair approached Brett, they noticed he was pale, unresponsive,
and motionless. They issued a code blue. CPR began immediately.
The nurse arrived. Oxygen was administered, a defribillator was used,
but there was nothing left to revive. At six twenty
(29:10):
four pm, paramedics pronounced Brett Rogers dead. The cause compression
to the neck. He had been strangled, but there were
other details, ones that would disturb even the most seasoned investigators.
A Yin Yang symbol had been crudely drawn across Brett's
face in blue marker, and then there was a note.
(29:34):
It wasn't discovered during the search. It was handed over
by another prisoner who found it lying on the floor.
Scrawled across the paper.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Was a message, I was ordered by my God to
free Brett Rodgers. I know you will not see it
this way, but that is between you and God. I
am of sound mind. Can I speak to the governor?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
The handwriting match Gary Lindley's. With little questioning, Both he
and Billy White confessed. They claim that God had spoken
to them the week before that they were chosen together.
They'd made what they described as an inter denominational pact,
a shared spiritual mission to rid Brett of his demons,
a cleansing they believed, a spiritual execution. In November of
(30:24):
twenty seventeen, Gary Linley and Billy White were convicted of
Brett's murder. They are still serving that sentence. Brett Rogers
had committed an unforgivable act. He belonged behind bars, but
whatever he deserved, it probably wasn't this.
Speaker 6 (30:49):
It's exciting. Your news is exciting. American crime is exciting.
But it's so weird how we're fascinated by you because
we've got knife crime. We're like, it's terrible, and then
like they'll be like four people were shot today, were like, oh,
with a gun, like cowboys. It feels Hollywood. You've got
Hollywood crime. Why did you put it on TV? That's
(31:13):
my biggest question. I think it's like a game show.
I didn't know if they were going to convict the
dude or give them a dodge Ram. It's amazing.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
The train will depart in three minutes. Please mind the gap.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm on the train to Stanstead. Ed's going to pick
me up after the quick forty five minute trip. But
I'm starting to think at has a point the American
and British judicial systems are vastly different, and the black
and white answers I was looking for in the trial
transcripts they simply weren't there. I think, as I'm listening
(31:50):
back to the interviews, I'm struck by the fact that
despite all the vivid details of Brett Rodgers' last days,
I haven't been able to create a distinct profile him
or his motive for murder. If anything, I feel like
I've been told stories about three different brets.
Speaker 10 (32:08):
If you're defending a murder, you'll always get a psychiatric report.
We never saw report, so it clearly wasn't favorable.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
The first is hard to swallow. This Brett had no
diagnosable trial admissible psychoses, so the British judicial system determined
him fit to stand trial as a saying, albeit angry
man and yeah, just it baffled me.
Speaker 9 (32:29):
I don't understand what happened to trigger that guy, because
he was hyperactive, but.
Speaker 7 (32:34):
He wasn't a kuila.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
The second interpretation I heard from Sam, Brett was low
key cool. He loved a prank, was a constant cut
up in school, and was a really good guy who
would have likely outgrown these bad boy tendencies. Something big
must have tripped a circuit that night, almost like a
schizophrenic outburst. Because Brett Rogers was not a maniacal murderer.
Speaker 8 (32:57):
It wasn't so much a case of oh my god,
this is the blue. It was more holy shit, he
did it.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
The third version of Brett is that he was simply heartless,
a ticking time bomb, born with such demons in his
head that it was only a matter of time before
this happened. No reason or inciting incident was ever needed.
Just look at the way he almost killed his father
with his bare fists headed into Stanstead. I'm left to
(33:26):
choose from one sane, two insane, or three somewhere in between,
and none of them point to an obvious reason why
he ended up on the hedges doorstep.
Speaker 11 (33:39):
We are approaching our final stop, Stansted Mountvitchet.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
However, there are two other people in this story who
should have a clearer perception of Brett Ed's parents. Not
only did they help raise him along with the herd
of neighborhood boys who would come and go after school
and on the weekends, but they also survived that horrible
night along with their son. Thinking about them, my mind
kept going back to something Jack Hedges said to me
(34:06):
when we sat down.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
Can you give a little bit of explanation, because that
one boggled my mind.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Before I came to the UK, I rang Jack to
introduce myself and he said he was surprised I even
wanted to speak to him. When I explained I wanted
to ask about Brett knocking on his parents' door minutes
after murdering his own mom. He told me he didn't
know anything about it. No one had told.
Speaker 7 (34:29):
Him that this could happen to a family, and that
you would speak of the murders, but not speak of
the potential breaking and entering part. Why why didn't you
know about that? Because I would have reacted very badly
to that.
Speaker 8 (34:44):
If I'd known about that, then what I would have
done is gone round, changed up the locks, and looked
at all of the windows, and I would have gone
to him and said, here's like a five grand bill
to fix your house.
Speaker 7 (34:53):
Go do it.
Speaker 6 (34:55):
I believe that's why they didn't tell me.
Speaker 7 (34:58):
Did you follow up with your mom afterwards? Say? What
the hell?
Speaker 5 (35:01):
No?
Speaker 7 (35:01):
I didn't. There was no follow up. So this is
just me reconfirming that to you. Technically that conversation, it
still hasn't happened.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
How does something so big, like the fact that a
murderer showed up on your family's doorstep just slipped past you?
Was this just British stoicism, the famous stiff upper lip?
Or am I missing something that explains why no one
in this family ever spoke a word of it?
Speaker 7 (35:32):
Welcome, disgusted, please mind the gap?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And then I got the phone call from one of
Ed's earliest collaborators, the comedian who'd mentored ed in London
and the director of his Edinburgh show.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
So it do all came.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Crashing down around the same time when I started doubting
his story. I didn't find anything that backed up his
side of the story.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Next time on Wisecrack, all right, so we're walking right
outside of Fred's house.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Yeah, that's the bedroom window.
Speaker 13 (36:21):
Oh my god, there's something going on out there, and
I don't know what it is. I was petrified. I
thought we'd getting broken into. By that time, there was
helicopters and everything going out there. There was a lot
of place running up the alleyway, and that bit there
was like the apocalypse.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Wisecrack is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts
in association with Star Wit Productions. I'm your host Jody Tovey.
The show was written by Charles Forbes stand up comedy
written and performed by Edges, with additional writing contributions by
Charles Forbes. Executive producers for Tenderfoot TV are Donald Albright
(37:07):
and Payne Lindsay. Executive producers for Star White Productions are
Jody Tovey and Charles Forbes. Lead producer is Alex Vespestad.
With additional production by Stephen Perez, Joe Grizzle, ja Jah Muhammad,
Jamie Albright, and Jordan Foxworthy. Lead editor is Stephen Perez,
with additional editing by Dylan Harrington and Liam Luxon. Coordinating
(37:30):
producers are John Street and Tracy Kaplan. Research by Jim
Nally and Misty Showalter. Original music by Jay Ragsdale with
additional music by Makeup and Vanity Set, mixed by Cooper Skinner.
Artwork by Byron McCoy. Special thanks to Aorn Rosenbaum and
the team at Uta, Nate Ranson, Alexander Kaplan and the
(37:53):
Synergy Clubhouse, and the Nord Group. For more podcasts like wisecrack,
search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit
us at tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening. Episode four
will release next week, but you can binge the rest
of the season right now, completely add free by subscribing
(38:15):
to Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot com.
Wisecrack is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free,
but if you want to hear the whole season right now,
it's available ad free on Tenderfoot Plus. For more information,
check out the show notes enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not represent those of iHeartRadio, Tenderfoot TV, or
their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter which may
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Previously on Wisecrack.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The twenty second of July twenty fifteen, between eleven and
twelve o'clock at night, the twenty three year old man
named Ryan Godard, my school bully, had killed his family.
He stabbed his mother forty two times, his stepfather fifty six,
(01:08):
using seven different blunt knives from the kitchen, and then
he came to my house and while I'm out, I'll
tell you the third lie, just so you're aware, is
that I've changed the names and the places and the
people's names just out of respect for the dead.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
That's what I was right, I.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Think to do.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
That was probably the first time I told anyone the
name of Brett, even people who saw the show.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I've been talking on the phone with Ed, trying to
learn as much as I can about him and his
childhood bully real name Brett Rogers. But the truth is
I knew Brett was dead long before Ed told me.
Once Ed disclosed his name that night in Edinburgh, it
didn't take much research to find the horrifying fact that
(02:09):
Brett met his end only two months before Ed took
the stage.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
I never told people the name. I would give them
enough that they could find the name if they were industrious,
but I never wanted to invite people to the village.
I never wanted to invite people into the personal lives.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
We've been chatting for a few months now because I've
decided to go to England. It's the only way to
uncover what really happened that night by retracing every one
of Ed and Brett's steps. I finished my preliminary research
and set up most of my interviews. But one question
sticks in the back of my mind. Why me Ed
(02:48):
has been gatekeeping Brett's name from everyone who's ever seen
his show, but he was willing to let me in.
What made him trust me?
Speaker 7 (02:56):
So? What did I give you it?
Speaker 6 (02:58):
And you were persistent? But you are a questions that
were different to anyone else's questions.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He opened the door for me, not because I asked louder,
but because the same troubling questions that were swirling around
in my head had been weighing on his heart for years.
Why would Brett murder his own mom, why would he
break down Ed's door that same night? And just how
did Brett Rogers end up dead in one of England's
(03:24):
most secure prisons only twenty three months later. I'm Jody
Tovey and this is wisecrack Soon episode three.
Speaker 8 (04:07):
Hello, Hello, Hell, I'm great.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I landed at Heathrow to find Ed waiting outside the airport.
This is the first time I'd seen him in seven years,
and it was both awkward and strangely familiar. At twenty nine,
he seemed sharper, more self aware than the boyish comedian
I remembered. His bouncy curls were replaced by short hair
and stubble.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Ah I play.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'm here to investigate who Brett Rogers really was, but
in truth, I'm also piecing together who Ed is too.
Up until the night of the murders, these two lives
were inextricable. After that night, I'm left to wonder about
two pretty unexplainable things. What caused one young man to
snap and go on a murderous rampage and the other
(04:57):
to write and perform comedy about it. So, along with
the police officers and other witnesses, I've been reaching out
to Ed's old friends in London, an ex girlfriend or two,
and other comedians that he came up with. Ed told
me he learned of Brett's death a few months after
Edinburgh through his brother. That seemed like a perfect place
to start.
Speaker 9 (05:19):
I am a thirty six year old dad seven o'clock high,
unto anything that I didn't know that was what that
sentence was going.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Ed wasn't the only one keen to leave his hometown
of Stanstead. Both of his brothers moved out of the village,
and this brother is Sam Hedges.
Speaker 9 (05:38):
As soon does he leave that thing there gets turned
on and I'm going to sink into the world of
Diablo four until three am.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Before we got to Sam's Ed explains that his brother
is very opinionated and not interested in others points of view,
especially if you're a woman or a person of color,
So two strikes against me. But of the three Hedges brothers,
Sam was the closest to Brett. He probably knew the
most of who he really was. As we settled into
(06:08):
Sam's tiny living room, I wanted to know what he
recalled about the boy next door.
Speaker 9 (06:14):
There's two opinions I think with things like that, And
the first opinion would be, when you've got someone who
sees them rarely see someone really and they just see
that part of them, They're gonna sit there and think
that guy's a dick. Every time I see him, he
says got a negative thing to say about me, or
he just tries to bully me, or he hits me
or whatever. But if you see that person every day
(06:37):
and you see one hundred people that he interacts with
that he doesn't do that too, and then one person
that he does because he just, I don't know, self
esteem thing, may need to make himself feel like he
was bigger, honest to God. I've given this a lot
of thought, and if the monster was in there, it
was buried deep. He wasn't the guy that he was
(07:00):
in the end when he was younger. But the guy
I knew if he went back to me on my
last day of seeing him, even on the days where
he was being a proper douche, that guy was not
capable of killing his mother.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I glanced at Ed as Sam casually floats this provocative take. Ed,
who received the brunt of Brett's bullying, says nothing. He
shifts in his chair and stares at his feet, fighting
the urge to respond.
Speaker 9 (07:26):
He had obviously a case of ADHD. I think we
all knew that, and he was this hyperactive, was just
bouncing off the walls. But I could point one hundred people.
That doesn't mean they're going to become axe murderers. There
was obviously something that triggered it, or maybe there was
this hall man in balance that he could have been
one hundred things.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Sam wasn't the only Hedges brother who was close to Brett. Jack,
the middle of Ed's brothers, was friends with him too,
And like most brothers, Jack had an entirely different reaction
to the murders.
Speaker 8 (07:55):
So when I found out you know what happened, it
wasn't so much a case of oh my god, this
is out of the blue. It was more, holy shit,
he did it. There are five families in that neighborhood
with kids that we would all socialize and so we
would all play together, play football, it'd mess around and yeah,
(08:19):
just generally hang around and do what kids do. The
problem that we had when we were younger is that
Brett was trying to make himself bigger, make himself more important.
He would try with me. He had no success. He
had to go smaller. He had to go for Ed.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Unlike Jack, Sam refuses to acknowledge that Brett mercilessly Bullieded.
So I decided to ask Sam about a pivotal moment
when Brett's violence was undeniable. A domestic dispute three years
prior to the murders. Brett, who was living with his dad,
Pete Rogers at the time, returned home one day and unprovoked,
severely beat his father.
Speaker 9 (09:02):
Sure, me and my dad have had fights before in
the bass, so you know the first sentencing where he
went away the first time.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
I can get that.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
You can have an argument, that things can get heated,
someone can swing a few fists. You're both big men. Now,
That's how men in England resolve their conflict.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Understand that this was not the usual father son squabble.
Brett hit so hard that he dislodged his own dad's eyeball.
The injury is so grave that Brett was convicted of
gross bodily harm and served thirty two months behind bars.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
In most cases, they swing their fists around. Yes, a plausible,
it's believable. You've had a fight, but you don't kill
your mum. And yeah, just it baffled me. I don't
understand what happened to trigger that guy because it was hyperactive.
But it wasn't a killer, not a killer at all.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
According to Jack, Brett was a powdered with a lit fuse.
It was only a matter of time before he heard someone.
But according to Sam, Brett was quote not a killer
at all. Sam still can't reconcile the boy he knew
with the man who committed the murders. And I get it,
that gap, that disbelief. I see where both Jack and
(10:19):
Sam are coming from. So I went looking for something concrete.
I went to the courthouse and I asked for the
transcripts of Brett Rogers trial, day by day, word for word,
And what I found there, well, it was more baffling
than black and white.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
Have you had at least a relaxing weekends, and I
felt come in on a Sunday well out of the
timing was perfect because I was due to be an
a show yesterday and stay again night anyway, okay, good,
So just coming through Central.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
London, ED left me in London to drive up to
his parents' house. He thought it might be helpful to
brief them on Wyam and Stanstead before I arrived for
our interview. I'm grateful for a few days out of
earshot from Ed. I knew some details of the trial
would be tough for him to hear. I met with
Simon Spence, a barrister and King's Council at Red Lion Chambers.
(11:20):
Unlike attorneys in the US, barristers can choose whether to
argue prosecution or defense.
Speaker 10 (11:27):
I think it's very important to do both. I do
both that I do about fifty percent of each, and
it makes it much easier to see the other side
of the case.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
In Brett Rodgers' case, Spence was brought on as lead prosecutor.
The trial began nearly a year after the murders May third,
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
On Camp one.
Speaker 11 (11:46):
He is charged with murder and the particulars of the
offense are that on the twenty second day of July
twenty fifteen, he murdered Jillian K. Phillips.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
We have had voice actors recreate the proceedings.
Speaker 11 (11:58):
Third day of July, he murdered David John Oakes. To
this indictment, he has pleaded not guilty, and it is
your charge to say, having heard the evidence, whether he
is guilty or not.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
But the trial started off with the twist. Simon's team
assumed Brad would plead guilty the evidence was overwhelming, but
just weeks before the trial he.
Speaker 10 (12:21):
Pleaded not guilty. I think the first thing the defense did,
although obviously I wasn't privy to what was going on
in the defense camp, was probably to obtain a psychiatric
report to see if he'd got any mental health defense
available to him. And that's very normal in murder cases,
whether they accept responsibility for the killing or not. If
(12:42):
you're defending a murder, you'll always get a psychiatric report
to see whether diminished responsibility can come into play. That
there are two different aspects to mental health defenses in
this country. There's insanity, which is very rare, which actually
you get a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
I've only had one in thirty six years. Far more
(13:04):
common is diminished responsibility, which reduced his murder to manslaughter.
So that's what they would have been looking for. But
there has to be a causal link between any mental
health problem and the killing.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But the doctors that examined Brett couldn't find that link.
Thus Brett had to stand trial as a mentally competent man.
Speaker 10 (13:23):
We never saw the psychiatric report they got, so it
clearly wasn't favorable.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Brett's defense was looking to blame the murders on someone,
anyone else, so in his opening argument, Simon painted Brett
as the only person in the vicinity with the capacity
to do something this cruel to his own mom. He
then immediately informed the jury of the brutal beat down
Brett had given his father years before.
Speaker 12 (13:48):
The jury should know that the defendant was a license
at the time and required to live at his mother's address.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
After his fight with his father, Brett was forbidden by
the court to ever live with him again, so Brett's mom, Jillian,
invited her son to move back in with her, just
steps away from the Hedges house. Brett was on parole,
which meant that he had to constantly meet with court
officers and social workers to show evidence of his improving behavior.
(14:15):
One misstep and the door would slam all over again.
Framing the trial from this angle, Spence was shaping a
narrative casting Brett as a violent young man a full
mental capacity. Mental health was not to be considered that.
Speaker 10 (14:31):
The whole way the defense presented their case was that
he got on well with his mum, didn't get on
very well with his dad, and of course he got
a previous for grieves bodily harm with intent on his father.
And the defense did quite a neat job actually of saying, well,
he had no reason to attack his mother, and he's
not somebody prone to mindless violence. It's just violence if
(14:52):
something triggers it.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
There was no opening argument from the defense, therefore Spence
took his time laying out the facts. Spence then he
turned to the jury and asked appointed question the.
Speaker 12 (15:03):
Issues for you in this case, members of the jury,
and whether you're sure that the killer of the two
people was this defendant, and whether you're sure of that
or may it have been an unknown third party. And
the other issue for you is if you're sure it
was the defendant, then what was his intention at the
time of the killings, because no other issue arises about
(15:25):
the defendant's mental state of the time.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
As a reminder, on the night of July twenty second,
twenty fifteen, Ed Hedges returned to his childhood village of
Stanstead Mountfitchett for the first time in four years to
perform a charity comedy show. For all intents and purposes,
he was the local kid who made good. After a
few pints with friends, Ed walked back to his childhood
home and crawled into bed. That same night, just a
(15:52):
few yards away, Brett Rodgers murdered his mother, Jillian Phillips
and her friend David Oakes. Stabbed them repeatedly with multiple knives.
But out of the blue, Brett's defense presented an entirely
new story.
Speaker 10 (16:08):
All of a sudden, we got this defense statement saying
Brett Rodgers had gone out to the shop fifteen minutes
and came back past this man with a knife, leaving
where my mum lived and walked into the scene of carnage.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
In either version, Brett then made a call to the police.
Speaker 12 (16:29):
Essex Police received a nine to nine to nine call
at their call center from an anonymous mail calling from
a mobile phone number saying there had been a murder
at twenty Benfield Gardens. When asked how he knew, the
caller said this, well, I'd come in and there's been
a murder.
Speaker 10 (16:45):
I think the mobile phone signal wasn't great and the
first call probably cut off before he was able to
say anything meaningful.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Brett also called the police a second time.
Speaker 10 (16:57):
The second call did get through and he reported that
his mother and her friend had been killed.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
If he was the killer, why would he call the
police himself.
Speaker 10 (17:09):
One of the peculiarities about it is he'd left the
house and was standing on a sort of little village
green thing to make the phone call, and from recollection,
I think a passer by actually saw him making the
phone call and they themselves made a.
Speaker 12 (17:23):
Call to the police.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
It was an odd feature of the case and one
that we never really got a true explanation for the
unusually long period of time between the two calls. Clearly
we used and the police had this theory that he'd
gone back to the house to do something before leaving
again to make the call. The problem with that is
we had no evidence that is what he did, but
(17:45):
it was a longer period of time than one would
have expected, particularly given the urgency of it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Could this be when Brett went to Ed's house covered
in his own mother's blood. Even the investigators were unable
to confirm his whereabouts during this forty five minute window.
Not long after the police arrived to find Brett between
his house and the Hedges home.
Speaker 12 (18:08):
He was described by one of the police officers as
looking vacant and he had something in his hand. According
to PC Nice, he was laughing. His hands were covered
in blood. He was asked by PC Scott's where the
blood had come from, and he pointed and nodded towards
number twenty and said in there.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Brett Rogers was arrested on the spot.
Speaker 12 (18:30):
The police officers who entered the house were met with
a scene that can only be described as horrific. Gillian
Phillips was sprawled across a sofa in the living room.
She was already dead and was covered in congeal blood.
David Oakes was lying face down on the floor, his
face and neck covered in blood, although at that time
(18:51):
he was still breathing.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
David Oaks survived into the early hours of the twenty third,
and then he too passed.
Speaker 10 (19:00):
The forensic scientists took a huge number of photographs, not
all of which we showed to the jury. Some of
them were just too horrific to do so. The thing
that struck me most about it was the sheer quantity
of bloodshed. It literally was a blood bath. It was
literally as if someone had gone in and just chucked
(19:20):
red paint all over the place. It was up the stairs,
it was in the kitchen, it was on the landing upstairs,
in virtually every room in the house. The pathologist's findings
was that the two deceased remained downstairs at all time,
and that the distribution of blood up the stairs and
onto the landing upstairs was all secondary transfer from Brett himself,
(19:45):
and that made it a very unusual crime scene for me.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Bro It was taken to the station, where three mental
health professionals assessed him in the early hours of the morning.
He offered them nothing, not a word. He also refused
a urine test, which could have possibly lessened his sentence
if it had proven that illegal substances may have contributed
to his actions. Later at the hospital, a doctor treated
(20:09):
a deep cut on his hand for I was silent,
unwilling to explain. By the afternoon of July twenty third,
detectives were ready to hear his story, but when the
questions came, Brett gave them exactly what he'd given everyone else, silence.
Speaker 10 (20:26):
He did come across as rather arrogant and very little remorse, which,
again from memory, is something I commented on in my
closing speech to the jury and said, well, if you
would come on this scene, and if you're close to
your mother, as he was professing to be, what one
would have expected to see a bit more emotional reaction.
(20:50):
He was quite cold.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
The trial lasted two weeks. Police officers and forensic experts
took the stand through it all. Brett Rogers never a
word except in one moment, and there was.
Speaker 10 (21:03):
One particular instance where Brett Rodgers kicked off in court,
although the jury were told they had to ignore it.
It's impossible to expect him to do that, and I
think that was a large part of their decision to
convict him.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
On day three of the trial, as a forensic scientist
presented evidence of the crime scene, Brett stood up and shouted,
will you shut up?
Speaker 11 (21:29):
You give me my heady.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
He turned toward the glass stock door and tried to
make a run for it. When he realized it was locked,
he spun back around and lunged, slamming into the two
dock officers. One was knocked to the floor, the other
took a hit square to the face from the gallery.
His family shouted, his father, pleading Brett to stop. Then
the clerk hit the panic button. Do you remember what
(21:54):
might have been said that caused.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
That reaction from Brett.
Speaker 10 (21:59):
I don't think it was particularly he just suddenly started saying,
stop it, stop it, this is doing my head in.
And I think it was simply the expert saying, well,
there was a pattern of a trainer in this pool
of blood, and it had compared it to the trainers
that the defendant was wearing, and they matched, so he
must have put that footmark there. I was really quite
(22:23):
surprised that it triggered the reaction that it did, but
it perhaps just does demonstrate that actually there was something
about Brett Rodgers that he just couldn't control his temper.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
January eighth, twenty seventeen, the jury deliberated for less than
a day. Brett Rodgers was sentenced, and before he was
taken away, the judge left him with the message.
Speaker 11 (22:46):
The only surprise in this case was that you would
not admit that it was you who'd killed your mother
and mister Oaks. The consequence of your lies is that
no one apart from you knows exactly what happened at
your mother's house that evening. For murder, there is only
one sentence which is prescribed by law, and that is
(23:06):
imprisonment for life.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
She continued unpacking his past, tracing the long line of pain.
Speaker 11 (23:14):
And here lies the real tragedy of this case. You
are a man who attacks the people who loved you most.
Your father and your mother are the two people who
have loved you, looked after you, been with you, who
know you, and who wanted the best for you. But
look what you've done to them. Look how you have
(23:35):
repaid their kindness to you by your actions. You have
ruined your family and you have ruined your life.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Brett murdered brutally. There was no question he belonged behind bars.
But the truth is from the moment of his arrest,
Brett had already started to disappear. Even after it was
all over, he never offered a reason, never asked for forgiveness.
According to BBC Essex. He sat expressionless as the verdict
(24:07):
was read, mute, still drifting away. The idea of spending
the rest of his life behind bars must have been
terrifying for the twenty three year old, but what awaited
him in prison was far worse than lifelong incarceration. Six
(24:37):
months after his trial, Brett Rogers was deteriorating. Though he
had been convicted as a violent man with all of
his mental faculties, his psychological health had begun to fall apart.
Brett had become almost entirely mute, finding himself shuffled between
many prisons for behavioral issues. On January twenty seventh, he
was transferred to Her Majesty's Prison Long Larten, a high
(25:00):
security prison tucked away in the countryside to the outside world.
Long Lartin looks like any other British prison, red brick walls,
razor wire guards and crisp uniforms, but inside it holds
a rare distinction, a specialized mental health wing. And that's
where Brett was placed, not out of mercy, out of necessity.
(25:20):
We know this because of a report on Brett's entire
stay in progress was made public by the nonprofit hundred families.
It claims he was medicated antipsychotics daily, done so until
he became quote compliant, and slowly the reports changed. Eventually,
Brett was deemed well enough to join the general population.
Still high security, still violent offenders, but in theory, a
(25:44):
step closer to rehabilitation. There were no cellmates. Each prisoner
got his own room. Brett's stays became structured a violence
Reduction Plan, a daily program that helps prisoners understand the
origins of their rage and control their angry im pulses
before they act on them. As well as he was
assigned cleaning duties. According to his nurse, he responded well,
(26:07):
He followed instructions, he kept himself. In March twenty seventeen,
he was reassigned to the Perier Blue Wing, a quieter
block with only forty two cells. On the surface, it
seemed like progress, but it was here he came face
to face with his end. One month earlier, another prisoner
had arrived, Gary Lindley. He was serving life for his
(26:30):
role in a burglory gone wrong, an accessory to murder.
Gary wasn't considered violent anymore. He was religious, spiritual, a
practicing Muslim. He prayed often and he took a liking
to Brett. Their relationship, if it can be called that,
had the shape of a big brother little brother dynamic.
Gary even vouched for him to other prisoners. By the spring,
(26:53):
Brett's records painted a picture of calm. He was eating well,
sleeping regularly. His violence reduction program was under review to
be removed entirely. His personal officer noted a change the
quote quiet and difficult to talk to end quote. Prisoner
was beginning to speak more with inmates and with staff.
(27:15):
Whatever demons had ruled him before, it seemed for a
moment they'd quieted until June seventh. That afternoon, around two
thirty pm, a guard noticed Brett had forgotten his work boots.
He sent him back to his cell to change. Nothing unusual.
What happened next would take hours to uncover. At three
(27:38):
fifteen pm, another prisoner who will call Ellis, spotted Gary
Linley and another inmate, Billy White, inside of brett cell.
The two were seated casually on the heating pipes that
ran across the back wall. Ellis noted that Gary was
rolling a joint. By four to ten, Ellis saw the
two men again, this time in the kitchen. He asked
(28:00):
where Brett was. Gary replied, quote, He's asleep in his cell.
Dinner was called medication rounds began. Brett didn't show. Ellis
walked to a cell and knocked. No answer. Ellis testified
that he peered through the narrow window in the cell door,
but it was too dark to see anything, so he left.
(28:23):
A few minutes later, another officer was sent to find Brett.
He opened the cell door, called his name, no response. However,
he spots Brett lying in bed, the covers pulled neatly
over his head, still wearing his work boots. That was
the first sign something wasn't right. Protocol kicked in. A
(28:45):
second officer was called in and they entered together. As
the pair approached Brett, they noticed he was pale, unresponsive,
and motionless. They issued a code blue. CPR began immediately.
The nurse arrived. Oxygen was administered, a defribillator was used,
but there was nothing left to revive. At six twenty
(29:10):
four pm, paramedics pronounced Brett Rogers dead. The cause compression
to the neck. He had been strangled, but there were
other details, ones that would disturb even the most seasoned investigators.
A Yin Yang symbol had been crudely drawn across Brett's
face in blue marker, and then there was a note.
(29:34):
It wasn't discovered during the search. It was handed over
by another prisoner who found it lying on the floor.
Scrawled across the paper.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Was a message, I was ordered by my God to
free Brett Rodgers. I know you will not see it
this way, but that is between you and God. I
am of sound mind. Can I speak to the governor?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
The handwriting match Gary Lindley's. With little questioning, Both he
and Billy White confessed. They claim that God had spoken
to them the week before that they were chosen together.
They'd made what they described as an inter denominational pact,
a shared spiritual mission to rid Brett of his demons,
a cleansing they believed, a spiritual execution. In November of
(30:24):
twenty seventeen, Gary Linley and Billy White were convicted of
Brett's murder. They are still serving that sentence. Brett Rogers
had committed an unforgivable act. He belonged behind bars, but
whatever he deserved, it probably wasn't this.
Speaker 6 (30:49):
It's exciting. Your news is exciting. American crime is exciting.
But it's so weird how we're fascinated by you because
we've got knife crime. We're like, it's terrible, and then
like they'll be like four people were shot today, were like, oh,
with a gun, like cowboys. It feels Hollywood. You've got
Hollywood crime. Why did you put it on TV? That's
(31:13):
my biggest question. I think it's like a game show.
I didn't know if they were going to convict the
dude or give them a dodge Ram. It's amazing.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
The train will depart in three minutes. Please mind the gap.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm on the train to Stanstead. Ed's going to pick
me up after the quick forty five minute trip. But
I'm starting to think at has a point the American
and British judicial systems are vastly different, and the black
and white answers I was looking for in the trial
transcripts they simply weren't there. I think, as I'm listening
(31:50):
back to the interviews, I'm struck by the fact that
despite all the vivid details of Brett Rodgers' last days,
I haven't been able to create a distinct profile him
or his motive for murder. If anything, I feel like
I've been told stories about three different brets.
Speaker 10 (32:08):
If you're defending a murder, you'll always get a psychiatric report.
We never saw report, so it clearly wasn't favorable.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
The first is hard to swallow. This Brett had no
diagnosable trial admissible psychoses, so the British judicial system determined
him fit to stand trial as a saying, albeit angry
man and yeah, just it baffled me.
Speaker 9 (32:29):
I don't understand what happened to trigger that guy, because
he was hyperactive, but.
Speaker 7 (32:34):
He wasn't a kuila.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
The second interpretation I heard from Sam, Brett was low
key cool. He loved a prank, was a constant cut
up in school, and was a really good guy who
would have likely outgrown these bad boy tendencies. Something big
must have tripped a circuit that night, almost like a
schizophrenic outburst. Because Brett Rogers was not a maniacal murderer.
Speaker 8 (32:57):
It wasn't so much a case of oh my god,
this is the blue. It was more holy shit, he
did it.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
The third version of Brett is that he was simply heartless,
a ticking time bomb, born with such demons in his
head that it was only a matter of time before
this happened. No reason or inciting incident was ever needed.
Just look at the way he almost killed his father
with his bare fists headed into Stanstead. I'm left to
(33:26):
choose from one sane, two insane, or three somewhere in between,
and none of them point to an obvious reason why
he ended up on the hedges doorstep.
Speaker 11 (33:39):
We are approaching our final stop, Stansted Mountvitchet.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
However, there are two other people in this story who
should have a clearer perception of Brett Ed's parents. Not
only did they help raise him along with the herd
of neighborhood boys who would come and go after school
and on the weekends, but they also survived that horrible
night along with their son. Thinking about them, my mind
kept going back to something Jack Hedges said to me
(34:06):
when we sat down.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
Can you give a little bit of explanation, because that
one boggled my mind.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Before I came to the UK, I rang Jack to
introduce myself and he said he was surprised I even
wanted to speak to him. When I explained I wanted
to ask about Brett knocking on his parents' door minutes
after murdering his own mom. He told me he didn't
know anything about it. No one had told.
Speaker 7 (34:29):
Him that this could happen to a family, and that
you would speak of the murders, but not speak of
the potential breaking and entering part. Why why didn't you
know about that? Because I would have reacted very badly
to that.
Speaker 8 (34:44):
If I'd known about that, then what I would have
done is gone round, changed up the locks, and looked
at all of the windows, and I would have gone
to him and said, here's like a five grand bill
to fix your house.
Speaker 7 (34:53):
Go do it.
Speaker 6 (34:55):
I believe that's why they didn't tell me.
Speaker 7 (34:58):
Did you follow up with your mom afterwards? Say? What
the hell?
Speaker 5 (35:01):
No?
Speaker 7 (35:01):
I didn't. There was no follow up. So this is
just me reconfirming that to you. Technically that conversation, it
still hasn't happened.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
How does something so big, like the fact that a
murderer showed up on your family's doorstep just slipped past you?
Was this just British stoicism, the famous stiff upper lip?
Or am I missing something that explains why no one
in this family ever spoke a word of it?
Speaker 7 (35:32):
Welcome, disgusted, please mind the gap?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And then I got the phone call from one of
Ed's earliest collaborators, the comedian who'd mentored ed in London
and the director of his Edinburgh show.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
So it do all came.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Crashing down around the same time when I started doubting
his story. I didn't find anything that backed up his
side of the story.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Next time on Wisecrack, all right, so we're walking right
outside of Fred's house.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Yeah, that's the bedroom window.
Speaker 13 (36:21):
Oh my god, there's something going on out there, and
I don't know what it is. I was petrified. I
thought we'd getting broken into. By that time, there was
helicopters and everything going out there. There was a lot
of place running up the alleyway, and that bit there
was like the apocalypse.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Wisecrack is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts
in association with Star Wit Productions. I'm your host Jody Tovey.
The show was written by Charles Forbes stand up comedy
written and performed by Edges, with additional writing contributions by
Charles Forbes. Executive producers for Tenderfoot TV are Donald Albright
(37:07):
and Payne Lindsay. Executive producers for Star White Productions are
Jody Tovey and Charles Forbes. Lead producer is Alex Vespestad.
With additional production by Stephen Perez, Joe Grizzle, ja Jah Muhammad,
Jamie Albright, and Jordan Foxworthy. Lead editor is Stephen Perez,
with additional editing by Dylan Harrington and Liam Luxon. Coordinating
(37:30):
producers are John Street and Tracy Kaplan. Research by Jim
Nally and Misty Showalter. Original music by Jay Ragsdale with
additional music by Makeup and Vanity Set, mixed by Cooper Skinner.
Artwork by Byron McCoy. Special thanks to Aorn Rosenbaum and
the team at Uta, Nate Ranson, Alexander Kaplan and the
(37:53):
Synergy Clubhouse, and the Nord Group. For more podcasts like wisecrack,
search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit
us at tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening. Episode four
will release next week, but you can binge the rest
of the season right now, completely add free by subscribing
(38:15):
to Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot com.
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