A Brother's Love |Justice for Jacob Landin

In this episode, Eric shares updates in his brother’s case, including a heated meeting with the prosecutor. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
On April ninth, nineteen eighty seven, at around seven pm, a man
rushed into a grocery store looking forhis girlfriend. He was frantic, and
he was coming to tell her thatsomething truly awful had happened. Her baby
was unconscious and being driven to thehospital in an ambulance. Baby Jacob Londine
would die while in surgery in theearly morning hours of April tenth, nineteen

(00:22):
eighty seven. Was it a terribleaccident or was Jacob a victim of abuse?
I'm Eric Carter Landine and I'm CharlieWarrel, and this is crime lines
and Consequences, and today we getpersonal. Charlie, you're getting personal.

(00:48):
Well, I think our audience hasheard us reference your role as a family
advocate for your own brother's case andfor other cases as well, And I'm
not I'm not sure that everyone reallyunderstands what that means. Not so much
what it means like your story andyour brother's story, but what that means

(01:10):
to advocate. Yeah, I don'tthink anybody knows what it means until you're
forced to do it. And eventhen, there really isn't a handbook or
a guidebook on how to do it. So you're kind of left to your
own devices. I think we willwe will give a little bit of a
recap in the case, just forpeople that may have not heard it yet.

(01:32):
We have a lot of ground tocover things people haven't heard before.
Yeah, a lot. And I'mjust going to trigger Warren everybody. So
we are talking about child abuse.We are talking about the death of an
infant. So if that's something thatyou emotionally cannot handle, we understand,
take care of yourself. But sharethe episode if you're leaving, so that

(01:53):
we can get more ears on Jacob'sstory. All right, So Charlie,
I think I'm going to ask youto help guide me through this conversation because
I am extremely angry and I tendto bounce all over the place whenever I'm
in that frame of mind. Right, So, if you want details on

(02:13):
the case, Eric has covered iton True Consequences with a very heartfelt conversation
with his mom. There's also youknow, crime lines style coverage over on
Crime Lines where I got into thecase file thanks to Eric providing it to
me, and we got into someof the details of what happened and what

(02:34):
was said, but just the highlevel story here is that Jacob was alone
with his stepfather, something happened,he was rushed to the hospital where he
later died. That's high level enough, I mean, yeah, it is.

(02:54):
I think some things to know.I think that might be important for
people who aren't familiar with the case. So, my mom's boyfriend was the
person who was alone with Jacob atthat time. This man was not a
stranger, and so I know thatthere are often situations where, you know,

(03:15):
abuse happens, and sometimes I thinkpeople want to believe that it is
a stranger. Oftentimes, the majorityof the time, whenever people are being
abused, it is by somebody theyknow. So my mom knew this person
our whole life. They grew uptogether, they went to church together,
his dad was a pastor. Hisdad married my parents. His aunt is

(03:38):
my godmother. His sister married mymom's brother. So like our families were
all very connected to each other.We all knew each other. And my
mom had no reason to believe thatthis man was capable of what we believe
he did. Wasn't a boyfriend whoshe had just met, didn't know very

(04:03):
well obviously, had known him veryvery deeply, and he had other children.
Yeah, and they seemed fine,you know, so there were reasons
for her to trust him. Yeah, And so when Jacob started to have
injuries as they were dating and hestarted to blame me, it was easy

(04:26):
for her to believe that that waspossible because I did have some jealousy towards
Jacob as somebody who was an onlychild. I don't remember being jealous to
the point that I wanted to hurthim, and I have pretty decent memory
of that time in my life.I remember being jealous of his name.
I remember thinking that his name wascooler than mine. I think I said

(04:48):
prettier than mine, such a littlekid way of thinking. It really is,
it really is. And my grandmothertold me that my name meant princely.
So then I was like, oh, well, I'm good then,
you know. So like that's that'swhat I remember about being jealous. And
the reason I'm talking about this partof the case right now is because this

(05:10):
whole conversation kind of comes up lateras we go into what's going on with
Jacob's case and what has happened withJacob's case. So I don't recall like
physically hurting Jacob, but I thinkit's possible that that happened. One of
the first injuries that Jacob got wasa fracturer on his skull that led to
a hematoma needing to be lanced anddrained. And from that point on,

(05:33):
he was really starting to be fussy. He wasn't feeling good. He started
to have a lot of uh likeear infections and sinus infections and things like
that, and then he had anallergic reaction to some medicine. So all
of this is happening, my momdecides to send me to California to live
with my dad, and while I'maway, within I think three weeks,

(05:57):
Jacob was dead. And so Ithink it's really important to know that because
even though there was some doubt andsome question about whether or not I was
jealous or whether or not I washurting Jacob when I was removed, the
injuries didn't stop. I feel likethat's going to come up later. Let
me try to think about what otherpieces of information. So an important thing

(06:20):
to note about this suspect, whois somebody I have not named yet,
not naming him today, but youcan anticipate that that'll probably come out in
the future. He changed his storyat least four times. I think it
was maybe five, I don't rememberthe exact number. But these weren't like

(06:40):
small changes. These were pretty drasticchanges. Like one was Jacob was sitting
on the couch and fell off andhit his head on the coffee table on
accident. There was a weird onewhere he said he put his beard between
Jacob's legs to tickle him and feltJacob losing his balance, and so as
Jacob was falling, he lifted hishead up and knocked Jacob even further,

(07:03):
and Jacob went flipping and hit anarmchair. So there's just a bunch of
different stories here. I don't understandwhy his credibility isn't a problem, but
my family's credibility is. But that'sokay, we can get into that later,
Charlie, is there anything else ofnote that you feel like I need

(07:23):
to bring up in this kind ofrecap moment. The only thing the thing
that I harp on sometimes in casesI hyper fixate on one aspect, and
one here is that in the casefile they schedule a polygraph and he is
going to be polygraphed, and thenit says polygraph canceled because he confessed.

(07:46):
Yeah, the confession, Eric,what's the confession? Say? Do we
know, Charlie, I wish Idid know. I wish I did the
confession. The reference to it isin the case file. The actual confession
is is nowhere, nowhere to befound. That's correct. It is missing.
And I did speak with the investigatorwho took the confession, and he

(08:09):
confirmed for me that he in factrecorded it, He in fact wrote it
down and had it signed as anaffidavit, and it doesn't exist. Nobody
knows where it is, so wedon't know what he confessed to. We
don't know, and we just knowthat there was a confession. And actually
I looked at the documents again andthere were actually two confessions. There was

(08:30):
one to Patrick Oppadacca and one tothe assistant chief Johnny Trujillo. So he
had confessed not once, but twice, and for sure the first one was
memorialized. I'm guessing the second onewould have been two. However, neither
of them exist, which is frustrating. And I know I don't seem very

(08:54):
sad today. I think it's becauseI'm so angry that like I'm sure i'll
at some point during this conversation,but like I'm so angry right now that
I'm not sad. I'm very,very angry, and I definitely want to
get into that. That's probably thefirst thing I want to talk about.
I do want to just so thatour listeners are aware, you and your

(09:18):
mother did not learn about these confessionsuntil you got the case file literally decades
later. That's correct, Charlie,Yeah, I just I want that to
be clear. I don't want peopleto think your mom knew he confessed because
of what comes next. Yeah,she didn't know that he confessed, and
she also didn't know that the polygraphthat he was given that he failed it.

(09:39):
Neither of us he passed. Correct. Yeah. We were waiting outside
in the car while he was doingthat in Santa Fe and he walked out.
He was in a great mood.My mom asked him how it went.
He said, it's great, Ipassed and we believed them because he
walked out of the State Police building. But decades later we found out that,
in fact, he failed that poYeah, and I think it's I

(10:01):
think that moment speaks to how muchyour mom did trust him, and she
had no reason at that point notto absolutely. But you know, I've
covered this case on Crime Lines,and at the time you were you were
still working to get this case reopened. Yeah. So what has happened since

(10:22):
then? Yeah? So, youknow, a lot of people that have
listened to me on True Consequences probablyknow this. Maybe some of the Crime
Line's listeners, if they don't listen, may not know this. So I
started True Consequences not necessarily to startadvocating for Jacob's case. In fact,
when I started True Consequences, Ireally was under the impression that there was

(10:45):
nothing that could be done with Jacob'scase. That's what I had been told.
Because we had the case reopened intwo thousand and five by the State
Police Cold Case Unit and Sergeant ThomasChristian. He did probably the best investigation
out of any of the investigations thathave been done on this case. It
was the most thorough, It wasthe most compassionate, conscientious investigation that had

(11:11):
ever been done. Unfortunately, though, despite all of his work, and
despite his hypothesis or his belief,I should say that my mom's boyfriend was
responsible because at the time there wasa statute of limitations on manslaughter negligently caused,

(11:35):
as well as I believe second degree, and I think it was fifteen
years so at that point the statuteof limitations had passed for that particular charge.
And it makes sense because when youlook at all of the evidence and
you look at everything, it's notlikely that they would be able to bring
forth a charge of first degree murder. There's just too many questions, there's

(11:56):
too many things that aren't clear,and then the fact that the evidence is
missing also makes things a lot moredifficult. So we had that investigation done.
That's when all that information was discoveredabout the confession, about the light
detector tests, about all of that. So when I started the show,

(12:18):
I was talking to families. Ireally was just trying to give back to
my community and also just to helpother families not feel like they're so alone.
This is probably one of the loneliestthings that we've ever done, and
it continues to be that way.And I know we have like thousands of
people that have heard Jacob's story,and there's people that are sharing on social

(12:39):
media, and I'm not trying todiscount that, but as it pertains to
like having someone to call and saysomething about talk about what's going on in
the case, you know, likeI could talk to you about it,
Charlie, but you're not really inthat place like you don't. It's not
the same. Not the same,isn't because I can say, wow,

(13:03):
that that sounds like that'd be awful, because it does sound awful, But
I don't know what that feels like. I can imagine what it feels like,
but I don't know. And it'sand it's that lack of depth of
understanding that is the problem where it'shard to speak to people about experiences we've
had, particularly traumatic ones, whenthey've not been there. And in this

(13:24):
case, there are a lot ofvery unique aspects that I feel also make
it more difficult for you, evenwithin the space of true crime. With
other families, a lot of times, you know, the other families did
not then experience abuse at the handsof the person who likely killed your brother.

(13:46):
They don't have that ongoing issue.They don't have that person in their
life very long. For those whodo, like Sarah Turney allegedly and in
my opinion, only had her sister'skiller in her life for many years afterwards.
It's just it's such a unique experiencethat I think maybe Sarah Attorney's the

(14:09):
only person I can think of whowould understand that dynamic. Yeah, and
I do lean heavily on Sarah,But when I started the show, I
didn't know Sarah, right, Ididn't know anybody really that had been through
what I've been through. So Istarted helping families, and at some point
I realized like I needed to tellJacob's story, not because I thought it

(14:33):
was going to bring justice or changeanything. I had no inkling that that
was going to happen, But Ijust thought it was important for me.
If I was expecting other people tounburden until the worst day of their life
on my show, then I didn'twant to be a hypocrite, you know.
I had said to Amanda Romero,her son Colin Romero and his best

(14:58):
friend Ahmed Latif were were left todie in the desert outside of Albuquerque,
and I was interviewing her, andI said something along the lines of what
you ignore, you permit, andif you stay silent, you can't expect
things to change. And I'm reallygood at saying things, but I'm also
really good at holding the mirror upto myself when I say those things and

(15:18):
saying, hey, you're being ahypocrite, right, So I called my
mom and I said, let's talkabout this, and she agreed. And
so what you hear in that episode, besides really bad audio quality, is
the first time that my mom andI ever talked about Jacob's case together,
because after Jacob died, my grandmotherwas very clear that we couldn't talk about

(15:43):
Jacob, we couldn't say his name, and so we kind of shut it
all inside of ourselves and kept itto ourselves, which was really, really
tough. But as we started tohave this conversation, my friends that we're
listening to the show said, Hey, I need you to talk to this
prosecutor former prosecutor. So I hada conversation with a former prosecutor about the

(16:07):
case, and that pissed me off, I think because she was looking at
it from a prosecutor's perspective, andI'm starting to realize that I don't really
appreciate the perspective of a lot ofprosecutors, which is wild, but that's
where we are. And she pointedout a lot of the challenges that she

(16:30):
would face if she was going tobring this to trial, which are a
lot of the same things that we'rehearing as we're kind of going through this
process, right. But anyway,I found out later that the Statute of
Limitations had been repealed, okay,and that it was made retroactive for cases
prior to it being repealed. Sothat's when I talked to my mom and

(16:56):
I said, Hey, I thinkwe have a chance to maybe see if
we can get this case reopened again. What do you think about or how
do you feel if I start goingto all these other podcasts trying to tell
Jacob's story, trying to get peoplebehind us so that, you know,
kind of taking a page out ofSara Attorney's book which she found herself in
because the police couldn't get anywhere elseand told her to do it. In

(17:19):
my case, I was like,this person's doing it, They're getting a
lot of attention. Maybe that's whatI need to do. So we started
doing that, and then in Aprilof twenty twenty or twenty twenty, yeah,
twenty twenty, I think we hadten days of Jacob campaign. And
what we did was from April firstto April tenth, we asked people to

(17:41):
call, email, write letters,do whatever they could to get a hold
of the District attorney and Succoro NewMexico, which is where this happened,
and tell him to reopen the casebecause the statute of limitations was gone.
He lasted two days out of theten days of Jacob, which felt really
really good to me. Yeah,and he turned it over to Hector Balderas,

(18:04):
who was the attorney general at thetime, and really that was the
only way that we could have gottenthis case reopened because he was not going
to do it. And so thatmoment for us was like a huge deal.
We were so excited finally got somebodyto pay attention to us. Hector
Balderdas he met with us with histeam. He said, you know,

(18:25):
I can't promise you anything, butI can promise you that we're going to
look into this and we're going toinvestigate this case and we're going to see
if we can find any evidence.And he apologized. He apologized on behalf
of the state of New Mexico becausethey did not do their investigation the right
way, mostly because the suspect wasfriends with the police that were in charge
of that investigation. And I dohave now confirmation from one of the detectives

(18:52):
who was investigating the case that theywere colluding to cover it up. I
wasn't in the past comfortable saying that, but now that we've confirmed that,
I am so. Yeah. Sothat kind of led us to the case
being reopened, the case being investigated, and us having a tremendous amount of
hope that we were heading in apositive direction. So how long did they

(19:17):
have the case? They had itfor about three years. Yeah, about
three years before they they decided theywere done. That sounds like a long
time to do an investigation. SoI imagine that you felt like when the
AG took the case, there's anew renewed hope because you know Sikora is

(19:40):
not going to do anything, andyou knew that this entire time. So
now it is out of their hands. It is someone new, someone who
does not have connections to the smalltown, somebody who's brother's sister, whatever,
is not married to this guy's bestfriend. You know, you're free
of all of that. Yeah.What does that do when you're a family
who's had like no answers and suddenlyyou have hope. It's amazing, it's

(20:06):
amazing. It's the best feeling inthe world. It changes everything for me.
It felt like from the time Jacobdied until that moment, we were
like under this gray cloud of itwas like a heavy burden where we just
felt hopeless. We felt like therewas no chance that everything that this person

(20:27):
did, not only to Jacob butto me and to my mom and other
family members was gonna go unpunished forever. And not just that, but the
heavier weight is the knowledge that thisperson, how many people could this person
have hurt in thirty seven years.That's what actually bothers me the most.

(20:49):
You know, like, no matterwhat happens, Jacob's never coming back.
We're never gonna get Jacob ever again, and it sucks, it's the worst.
But beyond that, the thought ofthis person continuing to hurt others for
three almost four decades is the stuffof nightmares for me. And you and

(21:11):
your mom were among those people hewas hurting when after he confessed two times
and he was free to go andfailed to polygraph, he was free to
go, and you and your momwere his next victims. That's right,
that's right. Yeah. He manipulatedmy mom into marrying him by telling her

(21:33):
that he had put her on hisinsurance at work as his wife, and
that if they didn't get married,he was going to be arrested and taken
to prison, which I don't knowanything about insurance fraud laws or how that
worked back then. It could betrue, but my mom really didn't know,
and so she believed him. Andwe a no internet. We had

(21:56):
no internet to look up insurance lawwill I get you know, the first
thing if Lara said that to me, I'd be like googling it, but
that that didn't exist, and howmuch do you know about insurance fraud?
Zero zero? Yeah, it's true, and so she you know. And
also because he passed passed the polygraphin quotes, it was like, okay,

(22:18):
maybe maybe this was an accident.Maybe you know. So that manipulation,
though, you start to see itas you look back, right,
there were so many manipulative tactics thathe used to control us and to put
us into the mindset where he couldcontrol us. And it's definitely something that
I recommend people educate themselves on.Look into things like love bombing and coercive

(22:44):
control and financial control. All ofthose things are are really really important,
and there are red flags that areassociated with those types of behaviors that if
you're paying attention, you can catchthem ahead of time before before things get
too far. But yes, sowe had tons of hope. We thought
maybe there was a chance that theywere going to actually investigate, and we

(23:08):
really believed Hector when he told usthat, you know, he was going
to do everything in his power todo that. So I have to ask
because Hector's not the name of theguy I'm cursing out on social media.
So let's talk about that. Wow, elections. We don't want to think
that an election has such a hugerole in our justice system, but I

(23:30):
can go on and on and pointout so many elections that changed the outcome
of cases every and I mean atthe most extreme level. The death penalty
is a major one. Yeah,we saw that with the federal death penalty
kind of making a resurgence all ofa sudden. But as far as the
elections in New Mexico, was ittwenty twenty two, Yeah, that's when

(23:55):
the election happened. Okay, andhow did that did you do you see
a change in the investigation and thecommunication. Well, so a couple of
things before we get into that pieceof it is that I decided consciously to
stop talking about Jacob's case once theAG took over. It because I wanted

(24:18):
to give them the space to dothe investigation without me muddying the waters,
without me, you know, sayingthings that could potentially jeopardize what they were
doing. And I just kind ofbacked off a little bit, and maybe
I backed off too much. Iasked for an update in twenty twenty one.

(24:38):
The update was like, we're stillworking on it. We're still trying
to find evidence, you know,We're doing what we can. And then
I knew that Hector's term was comingup, so I proactively reached out to
the candidates for AG and asked themto come on my show on True Consequences.
It was mostly selfish, like Iwanted to I wanted to meet them,

(25:00):
I wanted to sit across from them. I wanted to tell them Jacob's
story. I wanted to show themJacob's picture, and I wanted to let
them know that, like, weare counting on the Attorney General's Office to
do their investigation and to hopefully makean arrest. There were three candidates.
Two of them agreed to talk tome. One of them was amazing,

(25:22):
like as soon as you walked in, he was like, hey, Eric,
you know I've heard all about Jacob'scase. I listened to your episode
with your mom. My heart isbroken for you. You know, I
can't promise you that I'm going tobe able to fix this, but I
can promise you that I'm going todo everything I can. And I was
like, wow, cool. Ihope this guy went you know, and
I know that politicians will say things, but I truly believe this person and

(25:45):
I believe that they had their bestintentions when they were looking at this office.
The second person that I interviewed wasRoald Taurus, who did win the
election, and that experience was completelydifferent. He showed up late. We
originally were going to do a faceto face last minute, his team was

(26:07):
like, sorry, he can't,We'll just do it like online. So
we did a stream yard and hewas very how do I say this?
He didn't seem very concerned. Iintroduced myself. I said, hey,
I'm Eric. I'm not sure ifyou've heard of me, or my brother's
case, Jacob Blondine, or myshow True Consequences. He's like, no,

(26:29):
I never heard of it. Iwas like, okay, well,
let me tell you a little bitabout Jacob and like the whole time I'm
talking was like looking around, doinga bunch of other things, not really
listening. Gave me an interview,lasted about twenty minutes, and then was
just kind of dismissive and moved onwith his life. Unfortunately, he did
win, and I did not havea good opinion of him after that conversation,

(26:52):
but also after learning a lot ofthings that have happened under his administration
because he was district Attorney for BernoloCounty before he was the Attorney General.
There's there's a lot of cases thathave gone through when he was the DA
that did not I don't believe werehandled properly. One particular case was a

(27:14):
rape that was caught on video andhe refused to prosecute. So how much
more evidence do you need? Wow? So my kind of heart, my
heart kind of sank when he won. But I know enough about him to
know that he cares about being elected. So in my mind, I was

(27:37):
like, this, this can work. I can work. Like if we
get to a point where I feellike this person isn't the right person to
be working on this case or thisadministration, I could apply pressure from the
media and from social media to gethim to do the right thing. Because
it will affect his electability, verysimilar to John Palmer, who we had

(28:02):
as a guest, who wanted tomake Katie's case a political issue so that
these politicians would care exactly. Butthat was in my back pocket. You
know. The thing about advocating Charlieis like it's like the worst game of
chess you've ever played, Like themost complicated, confusing, difficult game of

(28:25):
chess you've ever played, and youknow, the risks are very very high
and the rewards are few and farbetween. So I just kind of put
that in my back pocket. I'mgonna save that for later, just in
case I need it. So,yeah, the change in tone was definitely
apparent, and the lack of communication, you know, was apparent. But

(28:52):
I was still holding on to hopethat maybe there were prosecutors that were held
over from the previous administration that we'reworking on it. You know, I
still had the same family advocate,family advocate in quotes, I still the
same family advocate. But yeah,it was all for for not. Yeah,
so you recently had a meeting withthe Attorney General. You and your

(29:15):
mom were both in attendance. Wehad gotten the group text to go in
fire it up, it's the meeting'scoming up. They want it in person
meeting. It wasn't just a letteror phone call. And this was going
to be a big deal, andunfortunately it was a big deal in the
in the wrong direction. So Iwant to hear more about the what happened,

(29:38):
because we haven't really talked a tonabout like what actually happened in the
meeting, and like what was saidto you and what you said back?
Said it in an elevated tone,yeah, said loudly. Yeah. So
there's there's two interactions with with this, a few interactions. The first one

(30:00):
was this one on January eleventh,and they asked me and my mom to
come into the office. And forme, that's not an easy feat because
my mom, you know, she'sdisabled, she's on a fixed income.
Her car needed some mechanical work,and so I went and picked her up,
which is seventy five miles away,and then I drove seventy five miles

(30:22):
back to Albuquerque for the meeting,seventy five miles back to drop her off,
and then seventy five miles back home. So our hopes were high because
they knew that this was happening.So we were like, there's no way
that they would make us go throughall of this just to tell us no,
we were wrong. So the advocatessitting there kind of next to me,

(30:44):
My mom's next to me, andthen there's two prosecutors and an investigator
across. And I really wish Iwould have recorded this conversation. Kicking myself
now because I didn't think about it, but it's okay, I'll just recite
it from memory. It started withthis really long preamble of well, you
know, this is a really oldcase and there's a lot of problems with
it, and there's a lot ofevidence that's missing, and we just,

(31:07):
you know, we hoped really hardthat we could overcome some of these medical
issues that we have in the case, and unfortunately we weren't able to,
so we're not going to be prosecuting. In that moment, my mom and
I just started yelling at them atthe same time. It was like thirty

(31:30):
seven years of rage that we suppressedjust came out. And I'll give them
credit. They sat there and theylistened to it. They took it.
They took it. I'll give themcredit for that. The advocate had her
arm on my shoulder, the wholetime, and that was just making me
mad because I'm like, I don'tknow you like that. For you to

(31:52):
be like touching me or trying tocomfort me right now like this is it
was. It was weird. Mymom was even noticing, like it wasn't
even like in a consoling manner.It was almost just like a dead hand
on your shoulder. If that makesany sense, I would I would assume
in our space, we know,like when I met Tara Newell, who

(32:16):
was known for the Dirty John case, when I met her at TCPF,
I asked her if she wanted tohug or not, because I would like
to hug her, but I'm notgoing to go up and be like,
oh, hey to someone who hassuffered trauma, physical trauma. Yeah,

(32:36):
And so to think of a victimadvocate who is like touching someone who suffered
physical trauma at the hands of theperson you're talking about, like, I
just let's do some more training,Like I don't know what. I don't
even know what to say, becauseI mean, maybe that is something you
have to teach, but then wehave to be teaching it well. And
I feel like if you're going togive somebody that title. You should equip

(33:00):
them with the skills and the knowledgethat they need to be successful, and
being trauma informed is a huge partof that that I feel is severely lacking.
And it's not probably fair to herbecause I think she's like twenty five
and probably just out of college andjust trying to do what she can.

(33:21):
But I do blame those that areare running that administration for that. So
the last thing I told them,you know, we said a lot of
things to them. The last thingI told them was that the state of
New Mexico was complicit in any abusethat occurred after Jacob died, including what

(33:42):
happened to me and my mom.And then I said, the State's a
joke, and I'm gonna cuss likeI do cuss a lot, so just
fair warning, I don't cuss thatmuch on this show, but I do
cuss a lot. One of theprosecutors said, you know, oh,
yeah, I know, I knowthis sucks, and I said, no,
it fucking sucks. Fucking sucks.It sucked then it sucks even more

(34:07):
now, and I think we leftit at that. They told us that
they are not the type of prosecutionteam that is scared of hard cases.
They don't shy away from difficult cases, but that this case is essentially impossible
in their eyes, and they ledus to believe that a thorough investigation was

(34:30):
conducted, but I learned later thatthat's not true, which we can get
into in a moment. One morething I want to talk about. As
we're leaving this office after being giventhe worst possible news that we could have
been given, the advocate tells mymom and I as we're walking out,

(34:51):
She's like, just so you know, we have this sculpture here in the
lobby. It's a tree, andwhat we're doing is we're getting family member
victims to make their handprints and towrite their loved ones name on it and
put it on the tree so thatwe can show everybody that we're here for
the community. And like, didshe listen at all at that meeting?

(35:13):
That's a follow up email. That'sa follow up email. Yeah. Oh,
by the way, we also havethis thing right. It was.
It was like salt in the wound. It really was, because you're telling
me that you care about the communitywith the symbolic sculpture that you have in
your office after you just told methat you didn't give a shit about my

(35:34):
baby brother or me or my mom, you know, And I think they
would argue that that's not what theysaid, But that's what they said to
me. I was. I wasso angry at even just being asked that
why would I want my brother's namein that office? That's the last thing
I want. Who So they maynot have said they didn't care about Jacob

(36:00):
in that meeting in those words,but when you found out more details of
the investigation, should we do ourair quotes again on investigation the reinvestigation they
did in three almost four years atthat point, like, what did you
find out that they did? They? I mean, I don't know that

(36:21):
your stepfather's talking. Has he invokeda lawyer? Did they even try?
Let's talk about that. So afterwe left, my mom and I were
very upset, as you can imagine. I think we wanted to give them
the benefit of the doubt. Butas I drove back to SoCoRo to take
my mom home, as we talkedabout it, and then as I came

(36:45):
home and then called my mom onthe way back home to talk some more
about it, started to question likewhat they were saying, And so I
decided as soon as I got homethat I was going to put in a
called IPRA, but it's a FOIArequest freedom of information Act. It's called
Inspection of Public Records Act here inNew Mexico, and it's a very strict

(37:08):
law. There's not much that theycan hold back legally. There's some stuff
like if it's an active investigation.But in my mind, I'm like,
this is closed, right They saidthey're not going to do it. I
literally yeah. So I'm like,I'm surely I can get all of the
information because in my mind, I'malready like I need to do my own

(37:30):
investigation. So I put in therequest and I get the standard this is
going to take fourteen days, andthen like four days later, I get
a reply to the request that says, here's all the responsive records we have
related to this case. We've redactedit because of whatever law, whatever code,

(37:50):
we are considering this matter closed.If you disagree, please let us
know. What they sent me wasmy case file that I gave them.
I was going to say, didn'tyou have to give them the case file
because I didn't have it because I'mbuilding burned down or something. A couple
of buildings burned down. Actually Yeah, so my case file, along with

(38:13):
I think three other documents that camefrom the University of New Mexico hospital that
didn't tell me anything I didn't alreadyknow. And so I wrote back and
I said, it's not closed asfar as I'm concerned, because you didn't
even come close to giving me whatI asked for. So let me make

(38:34):
it very clear for you. Iwant to know who you talked to,
when you talk to them, andwhat they said. Yeah, that's it.
A couple of weeks go by andit's radio silent, and my really
good friendly So she works in publicrecords for the city at Las Crusis and
she I was talking to her thewhole time. I'm like, can you

(38:58):
believe this? Like this is allthey sent me. She's like, well,
either A they have a lot moreand they're not wanting to share it
with you, or B they don'thave anything and they're like talking to their
attorneys now to figure out what they'regoing to do, because they only sent
you back three things that you didn'talready have. Correct. Three and three

(39:19):
like medical documents, not investigative notinterviews, not alibi witness, none of
that. Correct. Okay, Yeah, So time goes by, and then
they replied to my request again andthey release additional documents. Oh sorry,
document I think it was four pageslong. The thing that maybe the most

(39:43):
like a lot of it may bemad, But the thing that really really
got under my skin was this narrativethat this investigator wrote out and he kept
referring to a mister Gordon, MisterGordon, mister Gordon. Well, mister
Gordon is missus Juanita Gordon, whowas the assistant district attorney or was an

(40:05):
investigator for the district attorney in SucoroCounty. This woman told my mom that
she had given an alibi to Jacob'skiller because my mom says, she didn't
think that Jacob or that her boyfriendwas capable of intentionally hurting Jacob. That's
a character witness, not in alibi. Correct. Do we need to get

(40:27):
a glossary? It's also a feeling. It's also a feeling, right,
it's not even free correct. So, but they were referring to mister Gordon.
Mister I'm like, okay, wow, didn't even bother to like look
into this, right, So that'smy first clue. Second clue is when
I get to I think page three, and I see the notes of a

(40:50):
conversation they had with the doctor whowas the supervisor for the medical investigator at
the time, Charlie. In threeyears, they talked to one doctor and
that's pretty much all they had.That's all they had. So they said,
again, we're going to consider thisclosed unless you have a different opinion.

(41:13):
So of course I had a differentopinion. Yeah, You're like,
surely there's more than this. SoI said, I'm having a really hard
time here, and I'm hoping thatyou can clarify this for me. It
appears to me, based on theinformation that you've provided that over the last
three years that you've had this case, your investigation consisted of reviewing what I

(41:36):
gave you and talking to one person. Do I understand that correctly? So
again, quiet for a while,and I get I'm just going to read
this because I think it it makessense to read this right now. So
I get this email back from themand they're explaining their position. It says

(42:01):
I conferred with the prosecutors to understandand relay the reasons for the decision not
to proceed. They reiterated that thestandard of proof they need to meet is
beyond a reasonable doubt. Our prosecutorsdo not feel that additional statements can overcome
the evidentiary discrepancies or weaknesses. Someof the factors that affected the decision,

(42:22):
as explained to you during the inperson meeting with our prosecutors, included Brenda
Crawford's initial alibi given the initial statementsthat some injuries were caused by someone else
aka me, the lack of aconfirmed timeline for the injuries, and the
inability of current medical professionals to verifydetails. With a lack of reliable evidence,

(42:45):
they do not think additional statements canchange the outcome or secure a conviction.
So with this communication, I amnow confirming that this matter has been
closed. And I wrote back tothem, and I'm happy to read that
just a moment here, I believeI sent that in the group chat,
I'm never going to find it.There. Let me go to my scent

(43:06):
messages. We chat a little bit, a little much in there, we
chat a lot. Yeah, Essentially, I said that I'm not going to
find it. I said that mymom could not alibi him, that it
was not possible because nobody was withhim when Jacob was injured. And then
I turned around and I said that, first of all, if they're calling

(43:30):
this a thorough investigation, that Istrongly object to it, and that I
asked them, why why would younot talk to the person who's already confessed
twice, right, Why would younot just try to put a little bit
of pressure on him to see ifhe's going to be like, hey,

(43:51):
you know what my guilt eating atme. I'll sign whatever paper you put
in front of me, give mea plea deal, let me go to
prison, Like I could see ascenario where that happens. They don't think
that additional statements would be of evidentiaryvalue. If you have questions about what
my mom said, why not talkto her. They didn't talk to her,

(44:13):
They didn't talk to me, Theydidn't talk to the killer, they
didn't talk to anybody. They talkedto one person. So uh yeah,
so I was I was very,very, very mad, and I started
posting on social media and I taggedthe Succoro Paper and they called me,

(44:37):
yeah, well you also tagged theScoro PD and they deleted their Twitter account,
like because you were, like,oh my gosh, they blocked me,
And I said, because I hadtweeted at them too, and I
said, they must have blocked metoo. And then I went and I
looked at in you know, anall to account that I mean, it's

(44:57):
it's in my name, but it'slike they wouldn't have known it was yeah,
yeah, And so I went andI looked and I said, no,
Eric, they deleted their entire account. They couldn't even take one tweet.
You've had to live with this forthree decades, yeah, almost four
four. Yeah, it's that mademe laugh, But it also I think
says a lot, right, Itsays a lot about what they're feeling about

(45:22):
this. So uh yeah, Sothey deleted their Twitter and I I requested
the alibi. I requested that's like, it's like, okay, if you're
leaning on this evidence, then Iwant to see it. I want to
see where she wrote this down.I want to see where she signed it,
because if it's an alibi, likeyou would have that doctor, right,

(45:42):
where's that statement? So then twodays ago or was it yesterday?
It was two days ago? Ithink yeah, it was Tuesday. My
mom had come to visit me andwe were strategizing, talking about how we're
going to move forward with the casebecause we're not giving up. In case
anybody's wonder, it's not going tohappen. If anything, we're going to
get louder and probably more obnoxious.I've already been more obnoxious. So this

(46:10):
call, Charlie's going to be reallyhard for me to go all the way
into it, but I'm going todo my best, and then you can
edit out because some of the stuffI said. If you guys, just
hear a beep, just know,just no, just know that that's coming.
So the phone rings and I getthis, like, Hi, this
is Eric. Hi, Eric,this is Maria Madrid with the New Mexico

(46:34):
Department of Justice, your family advocate, and I'm just calling to check in
and see how you're doing today.So I told her, and what I
didn't know is that Greer is hername. One of the attorneys involved in
the case was also sitting there,and so she jumped in as I started
to kind of tell Maria how Iwas doing today, and Greer to a

(47:00):
very condescending tone with me, She'slike, well, as I've explained to
you and your mom on January eleventh, there are a lot of problems with
this investigation, with this case thatI can't overcome. I said, oh,
you can't overcome it, Greer.Really, I wonder if it's only
because if it's because you only talkto one person in three years. Do

(47:21):
you think maybe that had anything todo with the fact that you can't overcome
this evidence issue. She's like,well, I just we we never said
anything about reinvestigating. We said wewould review the case, and I did.
I said, and it took youthree years to do that. Huh
why before my podcast episode? Youmust be really proud of yourself for all

(47:42):
the hard work you put in reviewingthe case for three years and coming up
empty handed. And I said,you know what, at least Hector had
the balls to meet my mom andI where was Raoul? Well, I
don't think that you're being very fair. I said, that's funny because there's
a lot of that going around rightnow Greer. And she's like, well,
you know your mom's alibi. I'mlike, yeah, let's talk about

(48:04):
the alibi. How's how's that publicrecords inspection coming along? ALBI is exactly
what I want to talk about.I'd really like to see that. She's
like, well, that's what Iwas going to tell you, is like
I feel like you're very confused bythis. I'm like, I am confused.
I'm confused how the word alibi cameout of your mouth in reference to
my mom and this person, becausethere has never been an alibi, and

(48:27):
if you are a good lawyer,you would know that that's true. Nobody
could alibi him he was alone.She's like, oh, well, what
I was talking about was when there'sall this doubt about you being involved in
this, and then we're in anotherstate. I said, okay, well,
first of all, yeah, Iwas in California when Jacob died.
She's like, well, we can'tprove if the first injury or the second

(48:50):
injury is what caused his death.And I was like, okay, but
that's still not an alibi. Well, she's like, at any rate,
I can't overcome that, and Isaid okay. I said, well,
answer me this question, Greer.As a prosecutor, don't you think that
it makes sense to talk to thisperson after he confessed twice already? Like,

(49:13):
did you even get across your mindthat you could try to put the
tiniest amount of pressure on him tosee if he cracks. And she's like,
I've been a prosecutor for so manyyears, and I know all about
these cases, and I know,and I said, you know what,
I'm sick of prosecutors trying cases intheir mind. You have no idea what
you're talking about. You're guessing.Said, yes, you have experience.

(49:34):
I said, but you didn't evenbother to try with this case, and
don't try to tell me that youdid. She's like, well, it's
just really unfortunate that we couldn't cometo a different conclusion. I said,
yeah, you know what else isunfortunate, Greer getting molested. And she
says, oh, well, that'shorrific. I said, yeah, too
bad. Nobody cares. And Isaid that's fine, though, don't worry
about it, Greer. I'm goingto hire a private investigator and they're going

(49:58):
to do an investigation, an actualinvestigation, and then hopefully the only time
I ever talked to you again iswhen I'm coming to your office to bring
you the evidence on a silver platter, and hopefully in that moment you'll decide
to do your fucking job. Sothat's what happened. I'm gonna say that
when they chose, and it wasa choice to blame the issues with the

(50:24):
case on you and your mom,and not on the fact that they lost
two confessions, not on the factthat they let him walk away with a
failed polygraph, not on the factthat this case was clearly he was given
he was given a past, hewas a uh, he lost his time,
I must have lost his temper.Well, let's give him the benefit

(50:45):
of the debt like they did allthat. That's not the reason. It's
because you and your mom. Thefact that they just will not take accountability
and say the early investigation screwed thisso badly that I don't know how we're
going to recover from that. Instead, they're blaming you guys, which is
absolutely ridiculous. I think I couldaccept that because I agree, you know,

(51:07):
I agree that that investigation was garbage, But to not even try to
investigate this was a slap in theface. Yeah, abolutely. See.
What that says to me is likethey were hoping that they could just quietly
do this and we would slink awayinto the dark and the memory of Jacob
would be forgotten and nobody would everknow. Well, they've got another thing

(51:30):
coming. It absolutely is shocking tome that I've listened to any number of
podcasts on Jacob's case, and theyall did more research, they all know
the gender of who's who's involved.Kendall Ray did more of an investigation on
this. I'm like, how howis that possible that this is what we

(51:52):
have? And and I know foryou it's it's not even just about your
family, it's that you know thatbehind Jacob are all these other families that
haven't found their voice or have justlost their voice over the years, where
you know, thankfully, I mean, one of the greatest things about independent
podcasting is that it's giving people theirvoices. But you know, there's so

(52:16):
many other families, and it's amatter of like the whole system needs to
be on trial, not just yourstepfather. Yeah. New Mexico has always
failed at protecting its most vulnerable citizens. Jacob happened thirty seven years ago,
but it didn't stop with him,and it didn't start with him. It's

(52:36):
been going on ever since. Andevery time a kid dies at the hands
of an abuser, everybody throws theirhands up, they gnash their teeth,
they cry, they make public statementson the news, the legislators talk,
they have special days for Victoria Martin'sand you know, none of that does
anything if we're not willing to makethe hard decision and protect these kids from

(53:01):
people like the guy who killed mybrother. I've decided that, and my
mom has decided that we are goingto expose all of this nationally, internationally
to whoever will listen to us.We are going to make sure that everybody
knows how New Mexico has failed,not just Jacob, not just me,

(53:24):
not just my mom, but countlesspeople who are still waiting for justice,
and if it continues the way it'sbeen going, that justice may never come.
The only way to stop injustice fromhappening again is to hold those accountable
who inflicted it in the first place. And so if there's some accountability,

(53:47):
if investigators worry about those cases thatcome back to haunt them later, maybe
they'll do a better job investigating thefirst time. I hope, So,
I really do. And look,I am not a hater of law enforcement,
but my experience with law enforcement hasn'tbeen great, and every time they

(54:08):
get involved in this case, theymake it worse. Yeah, So I'm
going private because you know, maybeif I'm paying some I mean not like
we're not paying these people right right, maybe if I'm like physically paying somebody.
Maybe they will, we'll do theright thing, but that I apologize,

(54:31):
like if I've gotten too angry andyou know, cross the line.
But I've been holding this in forthirty seven years and I'm done. I'm
done holding it in. Well,as you talked about the game of advocacy,
especially for a case that has suchhigh stakes for you personally, is

(54:54):
that you know, you try toplay nice, You try to go along
to get along, you try toattract more flies with honey, but then
at some point you just got tospill the vinegar everywhere because it's it didn't
work. Yeah, And so Ithink your your anger isn't new, it's

(55:15):
just you can express it publicly nowbecause they've what else are you going to
do? They've said they're not goingto do anything, So playing nice isn't
going to change the outcome. No, And you know, I don't feel
bad about talking to them the waythat I talk to them because I feel
like they need to hear it.They need to hear it. They need
to realize that these are real livesand real tragedy that has happened to people.

(55:40):
This is not something that you canjust disconnect yourself from. And treat
it like a traffic violation because it'snot. So where are we now?
As far as I know, you'vegot stuff in the works on your end.
I know you have your nonprofit goingand that's helping just broadly families in
New Mexico. But what could ourlisteners do now to help justice for Jacob?

(56:06):
Yeah? I say this a lot, but sharing Jacob's store goes a
long way. The thing about itis like it seems like such an insignificant
thing, but we're trying to buildmomentum and put pressure on the Attorney General
to do the right thing, todo an investigation on this case. And
so by the time you hear thisepisode, we'll have a new petition built

(56:31):
for the Attorney General. So signingthat, sharing that definitely goes a long
way. If you know personal attorneysthat work on things like this, and
somebody that you think might be anasset to this case, send them my
way, let me know, becausewe're looking for somebody to help represent us

(56:51):
and our interests as victims in thiscrime. You know, I'm working with
a PI right now. I'm hopingthat works out, but if it doesn't,
and you know a PI like Iwill always take a referral on that.
We might need a team of peopleto investigate this, and so I'm
open to that as well. Butsharing the story, signing the petition,
and then the next step, youknow, whether you know somebody in media

(57:14):
or you can just share the postand tag media. We're actively pursuing media
for this case. We want toshine a light on what's happened here.
We want to shine a light notjust on Jacob's case, but on all
the other forgotten children in New Mexico. It's an epidemic here. And the
only way that we're going to expectanything to change is if we start talking

(57:37):
about this and start making sure thatRoald Taurus knows that he has nowhere to
hide and if he plans on continuinga career in politics, then he needs
to do right by the citizens whoelected him to be in that office.
Another thing real quick, and thenI'll shut up, Charlie. I'm sorry,

(57:57):
I'm on a roll to keep going. This is the most talked I
know. Our listeners are going tobe like, oh, that's what he
sounds like, which Charlie's not talkingall the time. So the last thing
is in April I'm going to doanother ten Days of April campaign, this
one focused specifically on the Attorney General. So I'm sure we'll post details in
our social media here on comments andconsequences. But yeah, we would love

(58:22):
your help with that, in yourparticipation with that. The more people that
call and email and harass them,the better in my opinion. And in
the event someone who does know something, who knows this person, who's maybe
heard him say something over the years, decides to google Jacob's name, can
they reach out directly to you ifthey have information or if they were a

(58:46):
victim of abuse at the hands ofthis person. Yes, absolutely, let
me know because we're stronger in numbers. You know, the more the more
people that come forward, the strongerthe case will be. And I think
it'll create kind of that understanding ofa pattern that we know exists. So
if you know my mom Brenda Crawfordor me, I was Eric Londin back

(59:09):
then, not Eric Carter Londine.You know my grandmother's mere Linda Crawford,
you can if you're from SoCoRo,you can figure it out. They got
married in the church by a pastorthat's been there forever. It's not a
big town. You know who we'retalking about. It's not a big town.
It's not a big town. Soyeah, if if that's the case,
would love to talk to you andwould love to talk about how we

(59:31):
could all work together to get justice. All right, And if anyone has
any questions for Eric or just hasthoughts on the case, you can find
us on social media pretty much everywhere, and that's where we will keep advocacy
stuff up to date. You canalso follow True Consequences, which is Eric's

(59:51):
main podcast. I guess we'd callit if you follow him there, I
mean you'll you won't miss a thing, You'll get more information than you want.
Probably. Well, I'm always wantingmore information, but I don't always
want to bug you because I knowit can't get overwhelming when you're dealing with
things. So I'm glad you suggestedwe just record one big session of update.

(01:00:15):
Yeah, thank you for doing thiswith me, Charlie. Make easier.
I'm going to put this on myTrue Consequences feed too, so ye'll
keep everyone informed. And do youwant to give them an update on what
our next episode, our guest forour next episode is going to be.
That's a good, that's a goodidea. Yeah, So you are going
to hear a conversation between my momand I and we're going to be talking

(01:00:37):
through kind of what we were feelingas all of this was happening, but
also some of the things that we'veencountered as we've been advocating for Jacob's case,
and some of the things in truecrime that we've experienced that we'd like
to see changed. So it's goingto be a little bit more about the
advocacy journey and a lot more aboutkind of where we are as family members
who have been biting for justice.And from your mom is just invaluable because

(01:01:02):
I know she doesn't do as muchmedia as you do, but I mean
she was Jacob's mom and also avictim of this this individual, so adding
her perspective and you know, isgoing to really add to the conversation.
So I appreciate her her agreeing todo that for our show me Too.

(01:01:24):
And with that all it's on socialmedia, right, we already did that.
So with that, we'll talk toyou next time.