June 18, 2026 • 40 mins
On October 27, 2008, Jodi Lynne Torok was at her Crofton, MD home talking on the phone with her close friend, Blair Wolfe, when a man, purporting to be a salesman, knocked on her front door. Jodi ended the call to respond to the so-called salesman, but thereafter never called Ms. Wolfe back or answered any of Wolfe's subsequent telephone calls. Growing increasingly concerned, Ms. Wolfe telephoned the victim's roommate, and requested that she leave work and return home to make sure that the victim was safe. Upon arriving at the residence that she shared with the victim, Ms. Higgs found the front door unlocked and the victim lying on the foyer, unconscious and bleeding from a gunshot wound to her head. At the time, she was two months pregnant. As a result of the gunshot wound, the victim's pregnancy was terminated, and she suffered severe and disabling injuries.
The State developed a theory that, Charles Martin was in a relationship with the victim and upon learning of Torok’s refusal to obtain an abortion, solicited a friend to kill Torok and assisted Burks in the murder. The State charged Martin with solicitation of murder and accessory before the fact to attempted murder in the first degree. He was convicted and sentence to life in prison.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, everybody, it's senior producer Connor Hall with more case
updates and behind the scenes insights. And this week we're
talking about Charles Brandon Martin and the intersection of two
forces in the post conviction litigation world, Brady v. Maryland
and the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, otherwise
(00:25):
known as EDPUTT. The latter puts restrictions on post conviction proceedings,
most notably limiting the power of federal courts to disturb
state court rulings to only in cases where the rulings
are contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly decided
federal law, which can happen in the application of the
(00:47):
precedent set in Brady v. Maryland. The landmarks Supreme Court
ruling that forbids hiding exculpatory evidence from defendants, prosecutors favor
pastime am right anyway, So when a state appellate court
is deciding whether a Brady violation has occurred, two standards
must be met. Was the evidence of innocence not disclosed
to the defense before trial? And would it have made
(01:09):
a difference for the verdict? And disputes arise over the
subjectivity and human error that can creep into these decisions,
so when such disputes are first settled by a state court,
the matter can be raised again in federal court, at
which point the state court decision can be disturbed only
if that ruling is contrary to or an unreasonable application
(01:31):
of the standard set out by Brady v. Maryland That
no fair minded jurist could rule in the same way
in light of the previously undisclosed evidence. So it's an
incredibly high standard which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
felt was met in Brandon's case. To refresh you on
Brandon's case, without getting too deep into the weeds, we
have this gatoray bottle near the scene of an attempted murder,
(01:54):
and it's got a mix of duct and medical tapes
and opening at either end, some ashes, and some hares,
three DNA profiles, one of which was the victims, and
none of which were definitively Brandon's. And an investigator opined
that it might be a makeshift silencer, just like he
had seen in a Steven Segall movie. Not kidding, and
(02:18):
without any testing to prove that theory, the state relied
on witness testimony instead that Brandon had done an Internet
search to learn how to make such a silencer before
covering his tracks by getting rid of that computer. But
years later it's discovered that the state knew that wasn't
the case. They knew Brandon hadn't destroyed the evidence, how
(02:42):
because they had it and had done forensic analysis pre
trial and determined that no such Internet search had ever
occurred with not only that computer, but four others. Yet
they presented that false narrative through witness testimony that they
knew was a lie. Meanwhile, others have always said that
the gatorade bottle was used for smoking weed, So this
(03:04):
impedes the witness in question as well as undermine the
silencer theory and whether or not this gatorade bottle and
subsequent DNA testing had any meaning to the case at all.
All that is left in this case after that Brady
violation is a ballistics test that said the bullet fragments
at the scene could have been produced by firearms made
(03:25):
by one of sixteen manufacturers, one of sixteen manufacturers from
whom Brandon and who knows who else had purchased firearms.
And then there's the alleged motive, which was dispelled by
both the victim and Brandon's wife at trial. Lastly, there's
a witness who claims that he saw Brandon and a
would be co conspirator who got acquitted by the way.
(03:47):
This witness said that he saw them making something with
a gatorade bottle prior to the shooting, then admitted on
the stand that he was testifying this way to protect
his sister, who was likely involved. So first a steam
appellate court ruled that this was a material Brady violation.
Then a higher state court reversed that decision. Brandon's team
(04:08):
then filed a federal habeas petition, which received two rulings
in their favor before reaching the justices of the United
States Supreme Court or maybe one of their lackeys from
the Federalist Society, and they ruled that the federal courts
misapplied EDBA and that a fair minded jurist could have
still come to the same verdict based on the remaining evidence.
(04:31):
And I'd like you all to listen to our coverage
and decide for yourselves if you think they got it right.
That instead of getting a new trial or dismissing his
charges altogether, that the state never had to answer for
fabricating a false narrative, a false narrative that was even
raised during jury instruction. How destruction of evidence can constitute
(04:53):
a consciousness of guilt? Does this ruling set a precedent
that allows such tactics? It wasn't our system already permissive
enough to prosecutors. While we're free to ponder the nature
of this system, Brandon and so many others like him
are living through it. I recently had a chance to
speak with him. I mean, god, he was only free
(05:15):
for like ten months. First time I spoke to him
in early twenty twenty five, he was still in prison.
Shortly after that he was released, awaiting a new trial
or maybe even dismissal of charges. Until this ruling, Brandon's
next move is filing for parole. Perhaps someone on the
board is listening right now, Maybe they can answer these questions.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
On October twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, a pregnant
woman named Jody Lynn Torek answered a knot at her
front door and survived a gunshot, but tragically, her pregnancy
was terminated and police found what they believed to be
a makeshift silencer in her home. Then theorized that one
(06:00):
of the potential bothers. A married man named Charles Brandon
Martin had constructed the alleged silencer and arranged the attack,
despite a bunch of holes in this theory, including that
this alleged silencer may have actually been a bomb. One
alleged witness claimed that Brandon had searched the Internet for
ways to construct the silencer before disposing of the computer,
(06:22):
sending him away for life. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
back to wrongful conviction, where we're going to go to Maryland,
just outside of DC, where a pregnant woman survived a
(06:45):
gunshot wound that ended her pregnancy, and then a tangled
web of lovers, law enforcement and various ulterior motives led
to the prosecution of not one but two innocent men,
while other compelling suspect were ignored, and one of the
two men caught up in that miserable web joins us
from a Maryland correction facility, Charles Brandon Martin, but he
(07:09):
just goes by Brandon, So Brandon, welcome to ronfel conviction.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
And joining him to help tell this harrowing story. His attorney,
Elizabeth Frianzoso, who goes by Beth and will represent him
along with Donna Ferriman at a new trial if the
state ever stops delaying it. So Beth, welcome, thank you
for having us. And while this case is really more
of a Maryland story, Brandon's story began in DC and
(07:36):
it revolved heavily around basketball.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I grew up in the DC area. I went to Tomatha
High School, finished up the Saint Stephen Saint AGAs High
School in Alexandria. Before college, i've studied social science and
ath apology and sociology. The University of Pittsburgh unished Johnstown
and I started coaching and in basketball, and actually when
I was in college, started coaching at the high school
(07:59):
at ten in the summers. Then I had got a
job at Alleghany College in Pittsburgh. So I actually didn't
move to Maryland until two thousand and four with my
ex wife, who was my girlfriend at the times when
I had the head coaching job at the college and
Southern Maryland. Right after my first son was born.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
The two young parents moved back to be closer to
their support systems understandably, and then they got married and
it wasn't long before their second child was born, and
it appears that Brandon enjoyed fatherhood.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
With the job I had and everything, I was able
to make my schedule around the kids, and so I
was basically the primary caregiver for our kids while I
was there. I mean, I spent more hours for day
with the kids than anybody, from the second they woke
up all the way through the night time. But that's
the most important thing to me with those kids. I mean,
that's the hardest part for me right now, is being
away from the kids.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
As time went by, the marital arrangement changed and Brandon
moved out, but they both remained committed to amicably co parenting.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
He and his wife had separated, Pad Moore of just
a co parenting roommate type thing. His wife was aware
that he'd had relationships with other women, go somewhere else
in the evening, and he'd come home, go to the
kids sports games, and participate with the kids. He was
always a really active dad to.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Try to keep everything the same for the kids since
they were still young. I would get back to the
house in the morning before they woke up so that
they didn't notice anything different, which explained me and my
ex wife. We knew what the situation was.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
And while living within this new arrangement, Brandon had three
more kids, including another son with his wife, but staying
single it was just a better fit for him setting
a casual expectation with any of his intimate partners, which
included three women at the time of this incident, Sherry Carter,
Maggie McFadden, and the victim in this case, Jody Lynn Torrick.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
They tried to make it sound like I was in
committed relationships with all these people, and you know, with Jody,
we probably had only been around each other probably eight times.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
She was actually dating someone else by the name of Emmanuel,
and they were actually more boyfriend girlfriend. Jody became pregnant.
It was uncertain who the father was, and Brandon was
very respectful of her making whatever decision that she wanted to,
which could include either having an abortion or keeping the baby,
and he agreed that if the baby was his, he
(10:17):
would support the baby. I think Emmanuel was not thrilled
that she was pregnant and didn't know who the father was,
so the state tried to paint this out to Brandon
being angry that she was pregnant and wanting to kill
her so that way he wouldn't have to pay child support,
but it simply wasn't true not to mention that there
was a whole host of other people that did have
(10:37):
some type of motive.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
And this appears to have included one of Brandon's other
intimate partners, Maggie McFadden, who had allegedly threatened other women
with gun violence, including Sharry Carter, which brings us to
October twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, when Jody Lyn
Torrik was at home talking to a friend on the phone.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
She was two months pregnant at the time. Talking on
the phone to her friend around three o'clock in the afternoon,
and someone knocked on her front door saying they were
a salesman, and then she ended the call. Blair tried
to call her back a few times, Jody never picked
up the phone, so she got worried and she called
Jody's roommate, Jessica. Jody also worked for Jessica. Blair requested
(11:19):
that Jessica leave work and check on Jody. So Jessica
finds Jody lying there unconscious with a gunshot wound, and
she calls nine to one one. The police come to
the scene. At that point, Jody's lying in the doorway,
She's still breathing, and she was hospitalized for quite some
time for serious injuries.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
A three eighty caliber bullet and casing were collected from
where she was found, and then across the living room
from there police found a curious looking Gatorie bottle. The
mouth was wrapped in layers of duct tape and medical
tape which formed a rectangular opening, and then on the
bottom there was a hole covered an ash and soot,
(12:01):
and the lead detective from ann Arundel County, Richard Allman,
thought that that was a makeshift silencer.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
There was no expert testimony whatsoever about gatorade bottles or
other bottles being made into silencers. Detective Richard Alvin testified
it reminded him of a makeshift silencer he'd seen in
a steven Sagall movie.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
But rather than ordering chemical analysis to prove that theory,
it just became an accepted fact, and there were a
few hairs stuck in the tape and the contraption was
saved for DNA testing and hair microscopy. Meanwhile, they spoke
with Jody's roommate, Jessica Higgs.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
During the interview, Jessica used the very crass racist language.
She used the N word and stated she did not
like black people, that she didn't like that Jody had
black men in and out of the house, and that
she didn't like or didn't trust Brandon because he's black.
She basically came up with this unfounded, baseless theory that
(12:59):
all it must have been Brandon because he was in
some way pissed off that she was pregnant and didn't
want to have an abortion.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
The police theorized that this married man wanted Jody dead
to hide his infidelity and potential extramarital child. So Anne
Arundel County police coordinated with Charles County to pay a
visit to Brandon and his wife.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Oh yeah, the next day they were accusing me when
I was at home with the kids and I see
a shruck parked in front of my driveway, like blocking
my driveway, tended windows, and I actually ended up calling
the police because I'm afraid I'm at home with the
kids and I'm thinking somebody wants to try to rob
me something. They said they were going to send someone over,
which clearly they didn't because they knew who it was
(13:43):
and so the original interaction with them was when I
found out that she had actually been shot.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Without knowing the time of the shooting, Brandon told them
where he was the day before, at Maggie macfadden's house
speaking with her brother Frank Bradley about rehab from about
one point thirty to four point thirty PM, thereby making
him unavailable for him to have shot Jody.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
And then in the meantime, the police were actually speaking
to my wife at the time, and they made her
meet them at like a mattress warehouse or something like
that on the way home from her job. So they
had her basically alone talking to her, and so I'm
trying to call her and can't reach her. They wouldn't
let her pick the phone up when I'm calling now.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Unaware of the marital arrangement that upended their theory, they
may have hoped to upset her with the news of
an extra marital affair and child, perhaps gaining the state's witness,
but to no avail. They were told about Brandon's other
intimate partners, which brought them to Sherry Carter, as well
as Maggie McFadden and her brothers Frank, Dennis and Michael Bradley,
all of whom corroborated Brandon's alibi. But instead of rethinking
(15:05):
their theory in the face of this new evidence, they
persisted with Brandon while trying to again aggravate his wife.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
When they had originally asked about searching the house and
searching the car and all that stuff, we didn't have
any issue with that. That was fine, But instead of
going on the schedule that we had agreed upon, they
waited until they knew I was going to be gone
from the work, and they came over the house when
she was there with the kids, and so just trying
to upset her, messing the house up, slashing bags open
that could have just been unzipped, and just making a
(15:34):
mess of the place, doing the best they could to
try to upset her in any way, hoping that I
had done something and she was going to fell on me,
but there was nothing to do.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
In addition to information, they may have been looking for
a three eighty caliber pistol or some other incriminating evidence,
but all they turned up was a text exchange between
Brandon and Jodie.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
If you look at the text messages, it just says
what time do you work? To which she responded, I'm off.
Brandon said hello at five level, which was two hours
after the shooting. He sent another message, I got some
stuff with the kids to about seven o'clock, so any
time later, how much did you need, suggesting that they
had talked over the phone or something, So why they
(16:13):
suggested that was in some way nefarious or him trying
to ascertain if she was home alone. In fact, it
suggests one that they were just having a normal conversation
about him providing her something that she needed and scheduling it.
And the fact that he was completely clueless as to
the fact that she'd been shot because he's texting her
(16:33):
two hours after.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yet inexplicably, this was later present at as evidence of guilt. Meanwhile,
a month out from the shooting, Jody regained consciousness, but
she had no memory of the shooting, and she couldn't
identify the shooter.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
She could remember I think what happened up to the
day of the shooting in her life generally, and she
gained her memory for future events, but did not remember
anything about being shot.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Well, they interviewed Jody when she first got home. He
let them know that I've never asked her to get
a hors. I think she said he never told me
to do anything associated with it. Then they come the
trial still saying that was going on when she actually
told them that before.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So they chose to ignore the victim and Brandon's wife
about the motive or lack thereof, as well as his
corroborated alibi, and they obtained a warrant to collect strands
of Brandon's hair for comparison to the gatorade bottle. Again,
no testing was done to determine if this crazy Stephen
Sigall movie silence or theory held any water. I mean,
my first thought was that this contraption was found outside
(17:37):
of the immediate crime scene, and it sounds like a
let's face, it sounds like a homemade bomb.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I think he might be pretty spot on there.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And that also, I guess what would explain why there
may have been some burnt residue in it. That's what
happens to marijuana when you smoke it. Also, whither it
would have been a little bit of a tape around it,
and there was a multiple DNA profile not ruling out
out either Jody or Brandon. And I think the fact
that Jody's and Brandon's and who knows who else is
(18:06):
might have been on it because it was a mixed
profile would be consistent with that being what this gatorade
bottle was used for. And so essentially that there's nothing
about the DNA that would suggest that he did anything
nefarious with this gatorade bottle. But yet, because Detective Albin
had seen this interesting steven Sagall movie, he decided to
make that the theory of the state's case that it was
(18:28):
a silencer.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
So with Jessica Biggs theory which had been debunked by
Jody and Brandon's wife, followed by an innocuous text exchange,
and then Brandon's hair found on what was probably a
bond considering Jody wasn't excluded either. I mean, how many
shooting victims handle the silencer that's used on them. Nevertheless,
(18:52):
they arrested Brandon.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
It was a surprise. I was actually on my way
taking the kids to practice when we would hit into
the car, getting the kids in the car, and they
pull up with all the police and all this stuff
in arrestment.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
He was arrested on March thirtieth, two thousand and nine,
then bonded out, which started a fight over pre trialed
attention that tied up his lawyers and had Brandon in
and out of jail while they worked to build support
for the silencer theory, starting with Sharry Carter.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Brandon had a computer because he was a coach at
the College of Southern Maryland, so he had his work
laptop at home, and she got upset with him and
made up a story that he was searching all these
things on the computer about making silencers out of bottles,
and then she testified the computer had been destroyed, and
(19:39):
the police testimony was such that they did not have
the computer.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
But we later found out that they definitely fucking did,
and that a forensic search of this particular computer and
others belonging to Brandon had disproved Scherry's story. And in
light of that tidbit, do we believe that other potentially
exculpatory evidence was just simply somehow lost.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
They lost street camera footage that would have showed if
Brandon had driven towards Jodie's house that day, or for
that matter, specifically who drove toward the house that day.
They lost part of a recording of a police interview
in which Maggie's brother Michael Bradley basically endorsed brandon sallibi,
which directly conflicted with Michael Bradley's trial testimony.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
During his initial interview, Michael Bradley corroborated Brandon's alibi statement
that he was at their house on the afternoon of
the shooting, but in November two thousand and nine, in
exchange for immunity and other favors, Michael Bradley changed that story,
adding in a new name, Jerry Burks.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Bradley testified that it was him, Frank, Jerry Burks, Brandon.
They were smoking marijuana in the house. He was intoxicated,
that he saw Frank take medical tape to the kitchen.
He saw Brandon and Frank go up to Maggie McFadden's room,
Frank coming down and retrieving a gatorade bottle, and then
Brandon and Jerry Burkes left the house.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Bradley said they left around two pm, and then the
pair allegedly returned and asked Frank to discard of a bag.
But where did this Jerry Burke's guy come from.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
He was a friend of Maggie's brother, and I believe
a friend of Maggie, and just my feeling of it
is that he sort of was in the same situation
as me where they're alleged he did something that he
probably didn't actually do.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
I think that they were hoping in some way that
Jerry would turn on Brandon, but he didn't.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And we'll get into Michael Bradley's reasons for throwing Jerry
Burkes under the bus in a bit. But they used
his statement and Jerry Carter's lives to bring Jerry Burkes
into the fold. But Burkes called their bluff refusing to
give a statement about how Brandon allegedly hired him to
shoot Jody using this alleged silencer.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
He maintained his innocence, he was trying by a jury,
he was acquitted, And it really does seem that after
Jerry was found not guilty, they really ramped up the
prosecution of Brandon. The judge didn't even allow the fact
that Jerry was acquitted to be heard by the jury
in Brandon's case.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
By this time, Brandon had been re arrested on a
false assault allegation, and even that same judge didn't find
the charge credible.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
They had a witness basically lie and say that I
had assaulted them. Now it came up doing a hearing
that it was a false statement, and the judge explained
that even though I don't believe that it occurred, I'm
going to hold you because trial is two weeks away.
Then the trial gets postponed for a good deal of time,
and they still kept me in there.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Trial was postponed until April twenty ten. Meanwhile, the media
was regurgitating whatever the state fed them.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
They asked the possible jurors, who has read or seen
anything about this case on tvor in the newspapers, because
they're trying to out by every single person stands up,
you know, so right then you're like okay. And the
issue with that is that the way the media is
used by the police and the States is that they'll
go to the media and they'll say that this person
(23:13):
was the rest of goodness and this and so on
the news in the newspaper, they'll put your face in
there and said you allegedly did this, and no one's
listening to the allegedly, and no one is thinking about
the fact that it might not be true. And so
everybody stands up, and the next part of the vaivier
is asking them that they can still be fair and impartial,
(23:33):
so everybody sits back down.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
TROLD began on April twenty seven, twenty ten, with the victim,
Jody Lynn Toros.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
She testified that she did not remember anything as far
as what happened on that day, that she and Brandon
had a sexual relationship, and that she was pregnant, and
she also had a relationship with another man named Emmanuel,
and that she was uncertain who the father was, and
that she and Brandon had some discussions about abortion and
(24:01):
she told him that she wished to keep her baby,
and there was no testimony that he in any way
was threatening to her or anything of the like, but.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The state doesn't have to prove motive. And they also
presented the innocuous text thread with a straight base and
said that it was evidence of guilt. And then they
moved on to the alleged silencer, you know, the bong
silencer theory, and they put on medical experts that tied
Brandon's DNA to this gatorade bottle. The first one testified
(24:32):
that one hair was human, the other was from a cat,
and then an expert in mitochondrial DNA, doctor Terry Melton,
took the stand.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Doctor Terry Melton testified, what mitochondrial DNA could show that
someone is from the same maternal lineage, but it can
never say for sure that this hair absolutely for sure
came from this person. Doctor Melton testified she could rule
out ninety nine point ninety four percent of North Americans,
and during cross examination she acknowledged that left roughly one
(25:03):
hundred and eighty thousand Americans and thirty thousand people in
Maryland with that same mitochondrial DNA profile.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So in plain English, it's a big fat nothing burger.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And they called Sarah Chenoweth, the forensic chemist who testified
about DNA and said it included DNA from at least
three individuals, which also would be consistent with it being
a bong. It says at least one male and one female.
She did roll out three other people submitted for comparison,
didn't roll out Brandon, didn't rule out Jody. Plus, we're
(25:37):
not suggesting that his DNA necessarily wasn't on the bottle
that they all used as a bong. But even if
there was a hair that could have possibly been Brandon's, well,
when people pass around a bong, their hair might get
on it. So I don't think that's really neither here
nor there, So that was it. There was no expert
testimony about silencers, how they're constructed. They could have tested
(25:59):
it trying to figure what was that little bit of
ash in the bottom was at marijuana or was it gunshot?
Resident they didn't bother to do it because they didn't
seem to think it was important.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
The state hired three biological evidence experts to testify about
a contraption that they hadn't even proved was involved with
the shooting. Instead, they relied on Sherry Carter and Michael Bradley,
the latter of whom Michael told his news story about
Jerry Burks, but he kind of fell apart on cross examination.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
On cross examination, he was questioned about the fact that
he received immunity from prosecution from Jody Tourok's shooting in
exchange for his testimony, and that he also received a
benefit in his obstruction of justice charges in New Jersey,
and he admitted that those charges stemmed from him lying
to the police. So he's a person who's approven liar
(26:48):
to the point where he actually was charged with obstruction
because of it. And then he admitted he only testified
because Maggie McFadden asked him to because she was involved
in the attempted murder.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yes, Bradley testified that his sister directly asked him for
protection because she was involved. And then the state's other
star witness, Sherry Carter, also implicated Maggie McFadden.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Cherry testified that Maggie McFadden was threatening Sherry, among others,
on social media, was emailing her employer, and that Maggie
actually made a statement that she had someone shot and
the description of that statement sounded an awful lot like
she was talking about Jodi. She also had made comments
(27:34):
that she liked to fight and beat people up, and
she had shot people before. She was so volatile the
state decided not even to call her as a witness.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
The state then found themselves trying to throw the court
off of Maggie McFadden's scent.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
It was completely just twisted. It was backwards, basically saying
that the McFadden theory was far fetched because her aggressive
behavior would draw attention to her as a suspect, and
it was not logical that someone who's that flamboyantly aggressive
would have been responsible for trying to shoot someone mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, okay, but this wasn't Maggie McFadden's trial, and that's
not all that Sherry Carter said.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Cherry testified that she'd been in a relationship with Brandon
for three years, that he had a computer at his house,
and that it was his work computer from the College
of Southern Maryland, and it had a lot of restrictive settings,
so he wouldn't be able to modify system files or
download software without an administrator password. And so she then
(28:36):
testifies that we did this, and he did that, and
he looked up silencers, and then he said he got
rid of the computer because they'd looked up so many
crazy things on the internet in her apartment that if
it got searched, he didn't want it found. So she
says that, and she said she'd seen Brandon with a
handgun in September and October, and her testimony was unimpeached.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And had Brandon's trial attorney known that this computer was
not only in the state's possession, but also that it
had been forensically analyzed and no such searches had been detected,
then he too would have known that Sharry Carter had
perjured herself and that the state knowingly had presented false evidence,
but without that knowledge well trial counsel they did the
(29:19):
best they could.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
A lot of the case was made on cross examination. Basically,
the argument was that the bottle was not a silencer,
but it was a boon that the DNA did not
indicate that he had any role in constructing a silencer
or anything like that, and that Jody's DNA was found
on it again that would corroborate the idea of it
being a boonk and that the state's theory about the
silencer failed to explain the presence of Jody's DNA. But
(29:43):
there was also a lot of references to who else
might have had a motive. Here you have Emmanuel Quarterly,
who's the other boyfriend of Jody. Then you have Maggie
McFadden who was all over the place threatening people, confessing
to shootings, alluding that it was Jody, and the fact
that she's directing her brothers what to do and how
(30:04):
to talk to the police. And then Maggie McFadden's friend
Steve Burnett, lied to the police about his whereabouts and
was never able to explain what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Plus, Brandon's wife testified about their arrangement and how she
knew that he had children with other women, So he
would not have been motivated to kill Jody for keeping
the baby.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Without this whole computer thing trying to tie him up
to this bong that they claim was a silencer, and
have no forensic evidence whatsoever. They really didn't have anything
of a case. The only couple witnesses they had were
really alternate suspects. Sherry Carter. This was, I would say,
the butt four witness. That was not for this witness,
he wouldn't have been convicted. And she testified the computer
(30:47):
had been destroyed. The jury instruction, I'll read it verbatim.
You have heard evidence that the defendant removed a computer
from the house of Sherry Carter. Concealment of evidence is
not enough by itself to establish guilt, but may be
considered as evidence of guilt. Concealment of evidence may be
motivated by a variety of factors, some of which are
fully consistent with innocence. You must first decide whether the
(31:10):
defendant concealed any evidence in this case. If you find
that the defendant concealed evidence in this case, then you
must decide whether that conduct shows a consciousness of guilt. Crucially,
this instruction allowed the jury to infer guilt from Brandon's
alleged decision to get rid of the laptop due to
search history, and the only basis for the instruction was
(31:32):
Sherry Carter's testimony. So essentially the instruction was that if
he concealed evidence that could be used as consciousness of guilt.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
You know, I don't have a criminal records. I've never
been through anything like this, and.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
So you still have some faith consystem that if you
didn't do something, you're not going to Even with all
the stuff that state was trying to make up going brown,
no one that took the thing actually.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Said I did. So I did still have hope. I
didn't think that it was going to end up the
way it did. So they simply at North France, which
(32:21):
is the highest security level prison in Maryland, which is
actually I believe it was the Ultra Max or something
like that. I think they have a superstructure show about
the prison, which this is like a one on once
they would call it twenty three and one when you're
in yourself about twenty three hours a day, and so yeah,
so I've been up here basically ever since the prison
(32:42):
being what it is, there's things that are normalized here
that should not be normal. I don't even remember the
amount of people that's been killed stuff in here anymore.
People being murdered in here is not even spoke about it.
It's like it's something that people say in passion now
because it happened so often, Like the man who was
murdered by the Russian authors that was caught on the
(33:03):
body camera recently, people and outrage about it, which they
should be, but that happens daily like that. It just
because it finally was gone video.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And of course he's talking about Robert Brooks, the man
who was murdered on video, brutally murdered by a group
of New York State Correction officers. Now, Robert, what can
we say? Rest in peace? And to his point, from
what we hear during these interviews, that kind of thing
(33:34):
is all too common behind the walls, and that makes
post conviction litigation all that more urgent because every day
is life and death. And Brandon tapped into his scholastic
background in the law library.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The only thing I really do is read the law,
read the Bible, and once I got confident in my
legal abilities, as far as filing briefs and things of
that nature. In the past seven years, I think I've
helped about twenty guys get positive results in cases with
all this that that's them going home, getting admitted in
the drug program, getting time cut, finding information similar to mine.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So let's get back to Brandon's case.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
I had filed a public information next, and once I
finally got the police file, was when I found the
information about the computer. In fact, it was on page
four because I'm up all night doing legal work, and
so i had my lighte on and I'm flipping the
page and I saw it, and I'm just I started
talking to myself. Really, I'm like, oh, this is what
I've been talking about all along.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
The state had not only the computer, but they also
had the analysis of the computers that was done by
the state's computer experts, which concluded that these searches had
not been done on these computers, and that was not
disclosed to the defense. So it completely proves that Sherry
was lying and they deliberately presented false evidence. Then they
(34:57):
had the jury instructed that he was the one that
hid the evidence.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
So the very next morning I called Justin Brown to
let him know what I filed in there and when
we started filing it from there, that was in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
They also discovered Michael Bradley's initial interview in which he
corroborated Brandon's alibi, as well as that they at one
point had had video of the road leading up to
Jody's home which could have identified the actual killer, but
mysteriously it somehow went missing.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
So there were so many things that were exculpatory that
the jury should have heard about but didn't hear about,
and instead were fed this false bill of lies about
silencers and computer searches and destruction of evidence that not
only wasn't true, but the opposite was true. It was
the government that was hiding the evidence and they did
(35:47):
it to secure this false conviction against Brandon, and Justin Brown,
who was Brandon's attorney at that time, did an excellent
job presenting it. At the post conviction level. Judge Silkworth
granted the post conviction relief based up upon your Brady violation,
which the court concluded that it was significant enough to
vacate the conviction and remand for a new trial.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And since twenty sixteen, the state has tied them up
on appeal rather than allow the new trial to go forward.
And in that time, Beth and Donna Fairman, as well
as a team from the powerhouse law firm Scadden, have
fought to maintain that twenty sixteen new trial motion all
the way to most recently the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
At that level, Brandon was represented by some excellent lawyers
from Scadden who did an outstanding job, and basically a
three judge panel concluded that he's entitled to a new trial.
And so that's where we are right now. I am
looking forward to representing him at his trial or Donna Fairman,
(36:48):
and I think that he has waited way too long
for justice to happen here.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
So here we are in February twenty twenty five, as
the state has a few more delay tactics to still try, because,
after all, what the hell are they going to present
at a new trial? Michael Bradley, Sherry Carter, I mean,
multiple DNA profiles found on a bond, maybe, I mean
I can't with this shit. But before I actually lose
(37:18):
my shit, let's go to closing arguments, where, first of all,
I want to thank both of you for joining us today.
So now I'm going to turn off my microphone, leave
my headphones on and kick back in my chair and
just listen to anything else you want to share. So Elizabeth,
you go first. Then just sort of hand the microphone
(37:39):
off the brand and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
I think that he has been the victim of a
grievous injustice, that the system has failed him time and
time again. I am, however, grateful to the courts that
saw things as they should have and granted him a
new trial, and I feel confident that jury hearing actual
evidence rather than evidence that was manufactured twisted around, we'll
(38:05):
see that he's an innocent man and we'll find him
not guilty when he goes to.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Tryal thank you for having us on here and giving
us the opportunity to have this conversation, because with how
everything has gone here, you see that the way that
things that are spoken about from one point of view
are not necessarily what it really is, and so you
have so many lies and false things that will put
(38:30):
into the trial. You know, Yeah, people I know on
the street that don't know the truth about the situation
and will repeat stuff that's on the news because they
don't understand that the news is just getting stuff from
the police, and so you have stuff going to family members, kids,
all of that stuff that are being said that clearly
aren't true, and there's no way for these people to
get in the actual information. So I do believe that
(38:52):
this is a very important outlet. And for me clearly
sitting in here, I understand that this isn't what I
want to be here, but I also know that certain
positive things still occur. What you have to look for,
you have to understand what is wanted from you, what
is needed from you, And so that's why, like I
said earlier, I try to help in any way I
(39:13):
can with anyone because you never know why God has
allowed you to be in a certain situation. But if
you don't try to do the things that he wants
to do, then there's no positive that's going to come
from it, and then you're just looking at everything from
such a negative point of view. And so I know
that at some point, when it's the proper time, I'll
be out of here. But while I'm in here, I'm
(39:34):
going to continue to try to help people because I've
always done that, and so just try to keep the
positive mindset while continuing to fight for great really for justice,
for the truth. My kids, my family, They're the most
important thing to you, and so to be able to
get home to them and give the in person support
that I should have been able to give to them
(39:54):
their whole lives up and locked up for the most
part of their whole lives, and so I just pray
that happened soon.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(40:25):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
Hey, everybody, it's senior producer Connor Hall with more case
updates and behind the scenes insights. And this week we're
talking about Charles Brandon Martin and the intersection of two
forces in the post conviction litigation world, Brady v. Maryland
and the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, otherwise
(00:25):
known as EDPUTT. The latter puts restrictions on post conviction proceedings,
most notably limiting the power of federal courts to disturb
state court rulings to only in cases where the rulings
are contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly decided
federal law, which can happen in the application of the
(00:47):
precedent set in Brady v. Maryland. The landmarks Supreme Court
ruling that forbids hiding exculpatory evidence from defendants, prosecutors favor
pastime am right anyway, So when a state appellate court
is deciding whether a Brady violation has occurred, two standards
must be met. Was the evidence of innocence not disclosed
to the defense before trial? And would it have made
(01:09):
a difference for the verdict? And disputes arise over the
subjectivity and human error that can creep into these decisions,
so when such disputes are first settled by a state court,
the matter can be raised again in federal court, at
which point the state court decision can be disturbed only
if that ruling is contrary to or an unreasonable application
(01:31):
of the standard set out by Brady v. Maryland That
no fair minded jurist could rule in the same way
in light of the previously undisclosed evidence. So it's an
incredibly high standard which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
felt was met in Brandon's case. To refresh you on
Brandon's case, without getting too deep into the weeds, we
have this gatoray bottle near the scene of an attempted murder,
(01:54):
and it's got a mix of duct and medical tapes
and opening at either end, some ashes, and some hares,
three DNA profiles, one of which was the victims, and
none of which were definitively Brandon's. And an investigator opined
that it might be a makeshift silencer, just like he
had seen in a Steven Segall movie. Not kidding, and
(02:18):
without any testing to prove that theory, the state relied
on witness testimony instead that Brandon had done an Internet
search to learn how to make such a silencer before
covering his tracks by getting rid of that computer. But
years later it's discovered that the state knew that wasn't
the case. They knew Brandon hadn't destroyed the evidence, how
(02:42):
because they had it and had done forensic analysis pre
trial and determined that no such Internet search had ever
occurred with not only that computer, but four others. Yet
they presented that false narrative through witness testimony that they
knew was a lie. Meanwhile, others have always said that
the gatorade bottle was used for smoking weed, So this
(03:04):
impedes the witness in question as well as undermine the
silencer theory and whether or not this gatorade bottle and
subsequent DNA testing had any meaning to the case at all.
All that is left in this case after that Brady
violation is a ballistics test that said the bullet fragments
at the scene could have been produced by firearms made
(03:25):
by one of sixteen manufacturers, one of sixteen manufacturers from
whom Brandon and who knows who else had purchased firearms.
And then there's the alleged motive, which was dispelled by
both the victim and Brandon's wife at trial. Lastly, there's
a witness who claims that he saw Brandon and a
would be co conspirator who got acquitted by the way.
(03:47):
This witness said that he saw them making something with
a gatorade bottle prior to the shooting, then admitted on
the stand that he was testifying this way to protect
his sister, who was likely involved. So first a steam
appellate court ruled that this was a material Brady violation.
Then a higher state court reversed that decision. Brandon's team
(04:08):
then filed a federal habeas petition, which received two rulings
in their favor before reaching the justices of the United
States Supreme Court or maybe one of their lackeys from
the Federalist Society, and they ruled that the federal courts
misapplied EDBA and that a fair minded jurist could have
still come to the same verdict based on the remaining evidence.
(04:31):
And I'd like you all to listen to our coverage
and decide for yourselves if you think they got it right.
That instead of getting a new trial or dismissing his
charges altogether, that the state never had to answer for
fabricating a false narrative, a false narrative that was even
raised during jury instruction. How destruction of evidence can constitute
(04:53):
a consciousness of guilt? Does this ruling set a precedent
that allows such tactics? It wasn't our system already permissive
enough to prosecutors. While we're free to ponder the nature
of this system, Brandon and so many others like him
are living through it. I recently had a chance to
speak with him. I mean, god, he was only free
(05:15):
for like ten months. First time I spoke to him
in early twenty twenty five, he was still in prison.
Shortly after that he was released, awaiting a new trial
or maybe even dismissal of charges. Until this ruling, Brandon's
next move is filing for parole. Perhaps someone on the
board is listening right now, Maybe they can answer these questions.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
On October twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, a pregnant
woman named Jody Lynn Torek answered a knot at her
front door and survived a gunshot, but tragically, her pregnancy
was terminated and police found what they believed to be
a makeshift silencer in her home. Then theorized that one
(06:00):
of the potential bothers. A married man named Charles Brandon
Martin had constructed the alleged silencer and arranged the attack,
despite a bunch of holes in this theory, including that
this alleged silencer may have actually been a bomb. One
alleged witness claimed that Brandon had searched the Internet for
ways to construct the silencer before disposing of the computer,
(06:22):
sending him away for life. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
back to wrongful conviction, where we're going to go to Maryland,
just outside of DC, where a pregnant woman survived a
(06:45):
gunshot wound that ended her pregnancy, and then a tangled
web of lovers, law enforcement and various ulterior motives led
to the prosecution of not one but two innocent men,
while other compelling suspect were ignored, and one of the
two men caught up in that miserable web joins us
from a Maryland correction facility, Charles Brandon Martin, but he
(07:09):
just goes by Brandon, So Brandon, welcome to ronfel conviction.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
And joining him to help tell this harrowing story. His attorney,
Elizabeth Frianzoso, who goes by Beth and will represent him
along with Donna Ferriman at a new trial if the
state ever stops delaying it. So Beth, welcome, thank you
for having us. And while this case is really more
of a Maryland story, Brandon's story began in DC and
(07:36):
it revolved heavily around basketball.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I grew up in the DC area. I went to Tomatha
High School, finished up the Saint Stephen Saint AGAs High
School in Alexandria. Before college, i've studied social science and
ath apology and sociology. The University of Pittsburgh unished Johnstown
and I started coaching and in basketball, and actually when
I was in college, started coaching at the high school
(07:59):
at ten in the summers. Then I had got a
job at Alleghany College in Pittsburgh. So I actually didn't
move to Maryland until two thousand and four with my
ex wife, who was my girlfriend at the times when
I had the head coaching job at the college and
Southern Maryland. Right after my first son was born.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
The two young parents moved back to be closer to
their support systems understandably, and then they got married and
it wasn't long before their second child was born, and
it appears that Brandon enjoyed fatherhood.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
With the job I had and everything, I was able
to make my schedule around the kids, and so I
was basically the primary caregiver for our kids while I
was there. I mean, I spent more hours for day
with the kids than anybody, from the second they woke
up all the way through the night time. But that's
the most important thing to me with those kids. I mean,
that's the hardest part for me right now, is being
away from the kids.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
As time went by, the marital arrangement changed and Brandon
moved out, but they both remained committed to amicably co parenting.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
He and his wife had separated, Pad Moore of just
a co parenting roommate type thing. His wife was aware
that he'd had relationships with other women, go somewhere else
in the evening, and he'd come home, go to the
kids sports games, and participate with the kids. He was
always a really active dad to.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Try to keep everything the same for the kids since
they were still young. I would get back to the
house in the morning before they woke up so that
they didn't notice anything different, which explained me and my
ex wife. We knew what the situation was.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
And while living within this new arrangement, Brandon had three
more kids, including another son with his wife, but staying
single it was just a better fit for him setting
a casual expectation with any of his intimate partners, which
included three women at the time of this incident, Sherry Carter,
Maggie McFadden, and the victim in this case, Jody Lynn Torrick.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
They tried to make it sound like I was in
committed relationships with all these people, and you know, with Jody,
we probably had only been around each other probably eight times.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
She was actually dating someone else by the name of Emmanuel,
and they were actually more boyfriend girlfriend. Jody became pregnant.
It was uncertain who the father was, and Brandon was
very respectful of her making whatever decision that she wanted to,
which could include either having an abortion or keeping the baby,
and he agreed that if the baby was his, he
(10:17):
would support the baby. I think Emmanuel was not thrilled
that she was pregnant and didn't know who the father was,
so the state tried to paint this out to Brandon
being angry that she was pregnant and wanting to kill
her so that way he wouldn't have to pay child support,
but it simply wasn't true not to mention that there
was a whole host of other people that did have
(10:37):
some type of motive.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
And this appears to have included one of Brandon's other
intimate partners, Maggie McFadden, who had allegedly threatened other women
with gun violence, including Sharry Carter, which brings us to
October twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, when Jody Lyn
Torrik was at home talking to a friend on the phone.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
She was two months pregnant at the time. Talking on
the phone to her friend around three o'clock in the afternoon,
and someone knocked on her front door saying they were
a salesman, and then she ended the call. Blair tried
to call her back a few times, Jody never picked
up the phone, so she got worried and she called
Jody's roommate, Jessica. Jody also worked for Jessica. Blair requested
(11:19):
that Jessica leave work and check on Jody. So Jessica
finds Jody lying there unconscious with a gunshot wound, and
she calls nine to one one. The police come to
the scene. At that point, Jody's lying in the doorway,
She's still breathing, and she was hospitalized for quite some
time for serious injuries.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
A three eighty caliber bullet and casing were collected from
where she was found, and then across the living room
from there police found a curious looking Gatorie bottle. The
mouth was wrapped in layers of duct tape and medical
tape which formed a rectangular opening, and then on the
bottom there was a hole covered an ash and soot,
(12:01):
and the lead detective from ann Arundel County, Richard Allman,
thought that that was a makeshift silencer.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
There was no expert testimony whatsoever about gatorade bottles or
other bottles being made into silencers. Detective Richard Alvin testified
it reminded him of a makeshift silencer he'd seen in
a steven Sagall movie.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
But rather than ordering chemical analysis to prove that theory,
it just became an accepted fact, and there were a
few hairs stuck in the tape and the contraption was
saved for DNA testing and hair microscopy. Meanwhile, they spoke
with Jody's roommate, Jessica Higgs.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
During the interview, Jessica used the very crass racist language.
She used the N word and stated she did not
like black people, that she didn't like that Jody had
black men in and out of the house, and that
she didn't like or didn't trust Brandon because he's black.
She basically came up with this unfounded, baseless theory that
(12:59):
all it must have been Brandon because he was in
some way pissed off that she was pregnant and didn't
want to have an abortion.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
The police theorized that this married man wanted Jody dead
to hide his infidelity and potential extramarital child. So Anne
Arundel County police coordinated with Charles County to pay a
visit to Brandon and his wife.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Oh yeah, the next day they were accusing me when
I was at home with the kids and I see
a shruck parked in front of my driveway, like blocking
my driveway, tended windows, and I actually ended up calling
the police because I'm afraid I'm at home with the
kids and I'm thinking somebody wants to try to rob
me something. They said they were going to send someone over,
which clearly they didn't because they knew who it was
(13:43):
and so the original interaction with them was when I
found out that she had actually been shot.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Without knowing the time of the shooting, Brandon told them
where he was the day before, at Maggie macfadden's house
speaking with her brother Frank Bradley about rehab from about
one point thirty to four point thirty PM, thereby making
him unavailable for him to have shot Jody.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
And then in the meantime, the police were actually speaking
to my wife at the time, and they made her
meet them at like a mattress warehouse or something like
that on the way home from her job. So they
had her basically alone talking to her, and so I'm
trying to call her and can't reach her. They wouldn't
let her pick the phone up when I'm calling now.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Unaware of the marital arrangement that upended their theory, they
may have hoped to upset her with the news of
an extra marital affair and child, perhaps gaining the state's witness,
but to no avail. They were told about Brandon's other
intimate partners, which brought them to Sherry Carter, as well
as Maggie McFadden and her brothers Frank, Dennis and Michael Bradley,
all of whom corroborated Brandon's alibi. But instead of rethinking
(15:05):
their theory in the face of this new evidence, they
persisted with Brandon while trying to again aggravate his wife.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
When they had originally asked about searching the house and
searching the car and all that stuff, we didn't have
any issue with that. That was fine, But instead of
going on the schedule that we had agreed upon, they
waited until they knew I was going to be gone
from the work, and they came over the house when
she was there with the kids, and so just trying
to upset her, messing the house up, slashing bags open
that could have just been unzipped, and just making a
(15:34):
mess of the place, doing the best they could to
try to upset her in any way, hoping that I
had done something and she was going to fell on me,
but there was nothing to do.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
In addition to information, they may have been looking for
a three eighty caliber pistol or some other incriminating evidence,
but all they turned up was a text exchange between
Brandon and Jodie.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
If you look at the text messages, it just says
what time do you work? To which she responded, I'm off.
Brandon said hello at five level, which was two hours
after the shooting. He sent another message, I got some
stuff with the kids to about seven o'clock, so any
time later, how much did you need, suggesting that they
had talked over the phone or something, So why they
(16:13):
suggested that was in some way nefarious or him trying
to ascertain if she was home alone. In fact, it
suggests one that they were just having a normal conversation
about him providing her something that she needed and scheduling it.
And the fact that he was completely clueless as to
the fact that she'd been shot because he's texting her
(16:33):
two hours after.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yet inexplicably, this was later present at as evidence of guilt. Meanwhile,
a month out from the shooting, Jody regained consciousness, but
she had no memory of the shooting, and she couldn't
identify the shooter.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
She could remember I think what happened up to the
day of the shooting in her life generally, and she
gained her memory for future events, but did not remember
anything about being shot.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Well, they interviewed Jody when she first got home. He
let them know that I've never asked her to get
a hors. I think she said he never told me
to do anything associated with it. Then they come the
trial still saying that was going on when she actually
told them that before.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So they chose to ignore the victim and Brandon's wife
about the motive or lack thereof, as well as his
corroborated alibi, and they obtained a warrant to collect strands
of Brandon's hair for comparison to the gatorade bottle. Again,
no testing was done to determine if this crazy Stephen
Sigall movie silence or theory held any water. I mean,
my first thought was that this contraption was found outside
(17:37):
of the immediate crime scene, and it sounds like a
let's face, it sounds like a homemade bomb.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I think he might be pretty spot on there.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And that also, I guess what would explain why there
may have been some burnt residue in it. That's what
happens to marijuana when you smoke it. Also, whither it
would have been a little bit of a tape around it,
and there was a multiple DNA profile not ruling out
out either Jody or Brandon. And I think the fact
that Jody's and Brandon's and who knows who else is
(18:06):
might have been on it because it was a mixed
profile would be consistent with that being what this gatorade
bottle was used for. And so essentially that there's nothing
about the DNA that would suggest that he did anything
nefarious with this gatorade bottle. But yet, because Detective Albin
had seen this interesting steven Sagall movie, he decided to
make that the theory of the state's case that it was
(18:28):
a silencer.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
So with Jessica Biggs theory which had been debunked by
Jody and Brandon's wife, followed by an innocuous text exchange,
and then Brandon's hair found on what was probably a
bond considering Jody wasn't excluded either. I mean, how many
shooting victims handle the silencer that's used on them. Nevertheless,
(18:52):
they arrested Brandon.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
It was a surprise. I was actually on my way
taking the kids to practice when we would hit into
the car, getting the kids in the car, and they
pull up with all the police and all this stuff
in arrestment.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
He was arrested on March thirtieth, two thousand and nine,
then bonded out, which started a fight over pre trialed
attention that tied up his lawyers and had Brandon in
and out of jail while they worked to build support
for the silencer theory, starting with Sharry Carter.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Brandon had a computer because he was a coach at
the College of Southern Maryland, so he had his work
laptop at home, and she got upset with him and
made up a story that he was searching all these
things on the computer about making silencers out of bottles,
and then she testified the computer had been destroyed, and
(19:39):
the police testimony was such that they did not have
the computer.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
But we later found out that they definitely fucking did,
and that a forensic search of this particular computer and
others belonging to Brandon had disproved Scherry's story. And in
light of that tidbit, do we believe that other potentially
exculpatory evidence was just simply somehow lost.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
They lost street camera footage that would have showed if
Brandon had driven towards Jodie's house that day, or for
that matter, specifically who drove toward the house that day.
They lost part of a recording of a police interview
in which Maggie's brother Michael Bradley basically endorsed brandon sallibi,
which directly conflicted with Michael Bradley's trial testimony.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
During his initial interview, Michael Bradley corroborated Brandon's alibi statement
that he was at their house on the afternoon of
the shooting, but in November two thousand and nine, in
exchange for immunity and other favors, Michael Bradley changed that story,
adding in a new name, Jerry Burks.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Bradley testified that it was him, Frank, Jerry Burks, Brandon.
They were smoking marijuana in the house. He was intoxicated,
that he saw Frank take medical tape to the kitchen.
He saw Brandon and Frank go up to Maggie McFadden's room,
Frank coming down and retrieving a gatorade bottle, and then
Brandon and Jerry Burkes left the house.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Bradley said they left around two pm, and then the
pair allegedly returned and asked Frank to discard of a bag.
But where did this Jerry Burke's guy come from.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
He was a friend of Maggie's brother, and I believe
a friend of Maggie, and just my feeling of it
is that he sort of was in the same situation
as me where they're alleged he did something that he
probably didn't actually do.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
I think that they were hoping in some way that
Jerry would turn on Brandon, but he didn't.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And we'll get into Michael Bradley's reasons for throwing Jerry
Burkes under the bus in a bit. But they used
his statement and Jerry Carter's lives to bring Jerry Burkes
into the fold. But Burkes called their bluff refusing to
give a statement about how Brandon allegedly hired him to
shoot Jody using this alleged silencer.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
He maintained his innocence, he was trying by a jury,
he was acquitted, And it really does seem that after
Jerry was found not guilty, they really ramped up the
prosecution of Brandon. The judge didn't even allow the fact
that Jerry was acquitted to be heard by the jury
in Brandon's case.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
By this time, Brandon had been re arrested on a
false assault allegation, and even that same judge didn't find
the charge credible.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
They had a witness basically lie and say that I
had assaulted them. Now it came up doing a hearing
that it was a false statement, and the judge explained
that even though I don't believe that it occurred, I'm
going to hold you because trial is two weeks away.
Then the trial gets postponed for a good deal of time,
and they still kept me in there.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Trial was postponed until April twenty ten. Meanwhile, the media
was regurgitating whatever the state fed them.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
They asked the possible jurors, who has read or seen
anything about this case on tvor in the newspapers, because
they're trying to out by every single person stands up,
you know, so right then you're like okay. And the
issue with that is that the way the media is
used by the police and the States is that they'll
go to the media and they'll say that this person
(23:13):
was the rest of goodness and this and so on
the news in the newspaper, they'll put your face in
there and said you allegedly did this, and no one's
listening to the allegedly, and no one is thinking about
the fact that it might not be true. And so
everybody stands up, and the next part of the vaivier
is asking them that they can still be fair and impartial,
(23:33):
so everybody sits back down.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
TROLD began on April twenty seven, twenty ten, with the victim,
Jody Lynn Toros.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
She testified that she did not remember anything as far
as what happened on that day, that she and Brandon
had a sexual relationship, and that she was pregnant, and
she also had a relationship with another man named Emmanuel,
and that she was uncertain who the father was, and
that she and Brandon had some discussions about abortion and
(24:01):
she told him that she wished to keep her baby,
and there was no testimony that he in any way
was threatening to her or anything of the like, but.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The state doesn't have to prove motive. And they also
presented the innocuous text thread with a straight base and
said that it was evidence of guilt. And then they
moved on to the alleged silencer, you know, the bong
silencer theory, and they put on medical experts that tied
Brandon's DNA to this gatorade bottle. The first one testified
(24:32):
that one hair was human, the other was from a cat,
and then an expert in mitochondrial DNA, doctor Terry Melton,
took the stand.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Doctor Terry Melton testified, what mitochondrial DNA could show that
someone is from the same maternal lineage, but it can
never say for sure that this hair absolutely for sure
came from this person. Doctor Melton testified she could rule
out ninety nine point ninety four percent of North Americans,
and during cross examination she acknowledged that left roughly one
(25:03):
hundred and eighty thousand Americans and thirty thousand people in
Maryland with that same mitochondrial DNA profile.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So in plain English, it's a big fat nothing burger.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And they called Sarah Chenoweth, the forensic chemist who testified
about DNA and said it included DNA from at least
three individuals, which also would be consistent with it being
a bong. It says at least one male and one female.
She did roll out three other people submitted for comparison,
didn't roll out Brandon, didn't rule out Jody. Plus, we're
(25:37):
not suggesting that his DNA necessarily wasn't on the bottle
that they all used as a bong. But even if
there was a hair that could have possibly been Brandon's, well,
when people pass around a bong, their hair might get
on it. So I don't think that's really neither here
nor there, So that was it. There was no expert
testimony about silencers, how they're constructed. They could have tested
(25:59):
it trying to figure what was that little bit of
ash in the bottom was at marijuana or was it gunshot?
Resident they didn't bother to do it because they didn't
seem to think it was important.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
The state hired three biological evidence experts to testify about
a contraption that they hadn't even proved was involved with
the shooting. Instead, they relied on Sherry Carter and Michael Bradley,
the latter of whom Michael told his news story about
Jerry Burks, but he kind of fell apart on cross examination.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
On cross examination, he was questioned about the fact that
he received immunity from prosecution from Jody Tourok's shooting in
exchange for his testimony, and that he also received a
benefit in his obstruction of justice charges in New Jersey,
and he admitted that those charges stemmed from him lying
to the police. So he's a person who's approven liar
(26:48):
to the point where he actually was charged with obstruction
because of it. And then he admitted he only testified
because Maggie McFadden asked him to because she was involved
in the attempted murder.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yes, Bradley testified that his sister directly asked him for
protection because she was involved. And then the state's other
star witness, Sherry Carter, also implicated Maggie McFadden.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Cherry testified that Maggie McFadden was threatening Sherry, among others,
on social media, was emailing her employer, and that Maggie
actually made a statement that she had someone shot and
the description of that statement sounded an awful lot like
she was talking about Jodi. She also had made comments
(27:34):
that she liked to fight and beat people up, and
she had shot people before. She was so volatile the
state decided not even to call her as a witness.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
The state then found themselves trying to throw the court
off of Maggie McFadden's scent.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
It was completely just twisted. It was backwards, basically saying
that the McFadden theory was far fetched because her aggressive
behavior would draw attention to her as a suspect, and
it was not logical that someone who's that flamboyantly aggressive
would have been responsible for trying to shoot someone mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, okay, but this wasn't Maggie McFadden's trial, and that's
not all that Sherry Carter said.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Cherry testified that she'd been in a relationship with Brandon
for three years, that he had a computer at his house,
and that it was his work computer from the College
of Southern Maryland, and it had a lot of restrictive settings,
so he wouldn't be able to modify system files or
download software without an administrator password. And so she then
(28:36):
testifies that we did this, and he did that, and
he looked up silencers, and then he said he got
rid of the computer because they'd looked up so many
crazy things on the internet in her apartment that if
it got searched, he didn't want it found. So she
says that, and she said she'd seen Brandon with a
handgun in September and October, and her testimony was unimpeached.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And had Brandon's trial attorney known that this computer was
not only in the state's possession, but also that it
had been forensically analyzed and no such searches had been detected,
then he too would have known that Sharry Carter had
perjured herself and that the state knowingly had presented false evidence,
but without that knowledge well trial counsel they did the
(29:19):
best they could.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
A lot of the case was made on cross examination. Basically,
the argument was that the bottle was not a silencer,
but it was a boon that the DNA did not
indicate that he had any role in constructing a silencer
or anything like that, and that Jody's DNA was found
on it again that would corroborate the idea of it
being a boonk and that the state's theory about the
silencer failed to explain the presence of Jody's DNA. But
(29:43):
there was also a lot of references to who else
might have had a motive. Here you have Emmanuel Quarterly,
who's the other boyfriend of Jody. Then you have Maggie
McFadden who was all over the place threatening people, confessing
to shootings, alluding that it was Jody, and the fact
that she's directing her brothers what to do and how
(30:04):
to talk to the police. And then Maggie McFadden's friend
Steve Burnett, lied to the police about his whereabouts and
was never able to explain what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Plus, Brandon's wife testified about their arrangement and how she
knew that he had children with other women, So he
would not have been motivated to kill Jody for keeping
the baby.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Without this whole computer thing trying to tie him up
to this bong that they claim was a silencer, and
have no forensic evidence whatsoever. They really didn't have anything
of a case. The only couple witnesses they had were
really alternate suspects. Sherry Carter. This was, I would say,
the butt four witness. That was not for this witness,
he wouldn't have been convicted. And she testified the computer
(30:47):
had been destroyed. The jury instruction, I'll read it verbatim.
You have heard evidence that the defendant removed a computer
from the house of Sherry Carter. Concealment of evidence is
not enough by itself to establish guilt, but may be
considered as evidence of guilt. Concealment of evidence may be
motivated by a variety of factors, some of which are
fully consistent with innocence. You must first decide whether the
(31:10):
defendant concealed any evidence in this case. If you find
that the defendant concealed evidence in this case, then you
must decide whether that conduct shows a consciousness of guilt. Crucially,
this instruction allowed the jury to infer guilt from Brandon's
alleged decision to get rid of the laptop due to
search history, and the only basis for the instruction was
(31:32):
Sherry Carter's testimony. So essentially the instruction was that if
he concealed evidence that could be used as consciousness of guilt.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
You know, I don't have a criminal records. I've never
been through anything like this, and.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
So you still have some faith consystem that if you
didn't do something, you're not going to Even with all
the stuff that state was trying to make up going brown,
no one that took the thing actually.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Said I did. So I did still have hope. I
didn't think that it was going to end up the
way it did. So they simply at North France, which
(32:21):
is the highest security level prison in Maryland, which is
actually I believe it was the Ultra Max or something
like that. I think they have a superstructure show about
the prison, which this is like a one on once
they would call it twenty three and one when you're
in yourself about twenty three hours a day, and so yeah,
so I've been up here basically ever since the prison
(32:42):
being what it is, there's things that are normalized here
that should not be normal. I don't even remember the
amount of people that's been killed stuff in here anymore.
People being murdered in here is not even spoke about it.
It's like it's something that people say in passion now
because it happened so often, Like the man who was
murdered by the Russian authors that was caught on the
(33:03):
body camera recently, people and outrage about it, which they
should be, but that happens daily like that. It just
because it finally was gone video.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And of course he's talking about Robert Brooks, the man
who was murdered on video, brutally murdered by a group
of New York State Correction officers. Now, Robert, what can
we say? Rest in peace? And to his point, from
what we hear during these interviews, that kind of thing
(33:34):
is all too common behind the walls, and that makes
post conviction litigation all that more urgent because every day
is life and death. And Brandon tapped into his scholastic
background in the law library.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The only thing I really do is read the law,
read the Bible, and once I got confident in my
legal abilities, as far as filing briefs and things of
that nature. In the past seven years, I think I've
helped about twenty guys get positive results in cases with
all this that that's them going home, getting admitted in
the drug program, getting time cut, finding information similar to mine.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So let's get back to Brandon's case.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
I had filed a public information next, and once I
finally got the police file, was when I found the
information about the computer. In fact, it was on page
four because I'm up all night doing legal work, and
so i had my lighte on and I'm flipping the
page and I saw it, and I'm just I started
talking to myself. Really, I'm like, oh, this is what
I've been talking about all along.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
The state had not only the computer, but they also
had the analysis of the computers that was done by
the state's computer experts, which concluded that these searches had
not been done on these computers, and that was not
disclosed to the defense. So it completely proves that Sherry
was lying and they deliberately presented false evidence. Then they
(34:57):
had the jury instructed that he was the one that
hid the evidence.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
So the very next morning I called Justin Brown to
let him know what I filed in there and when
we started filing it from there, that was in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
They also discovered Michael Bradley's initial interview in which he
corroborated Brandon's alibi, as well as that they at one
point had had video of the road leading up to
Jody's home which could have identified the actual killer, but
mysteriously it somehow went missing.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
So there were so many things that were exculpatory that
the jury should have heard about but didn't hear about,
and instead were fed this false bill of lies about
silencers and computer searches and destruction of evidence that not
only wasn't true, but the opposite was true. It was
the government that was hiding the evidence and they did
(35:47):
it to secure this false conviction against Brandon, and Justin Brown,
who was Brandon's attorney at that time, did an excellent
job presenting it. At the post conviction level. Judge Silkworth
granted the post conviction relief based up upon your Brady violation,
which the court concluded that it was significant enough to
vacate the conviction and remand for a new trial.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And since twenty sixteen, the state has tied them up
on appeal rather than allow the new trial to go forward.
And in that time, Beth and Donna Fairman, as well
as a team from the powerhouse law firm Scadden, have
fought to maintain that twenty sixteen new trial motion all
the way to most recently the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
At that level, Brandon was represented by some excellent lawyers
from Scadden who did an outstanding job, and basically a
three judge panel concluded that he's entitled to a new trial.
And so that's where we are right now. I am
looking forward to representing him at his trial or Donna Fairman,
(36:48):
and I think that he has waited way too long
for justice to happen here.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
So here we are in February twenty twenty five, as
the state has a few more delay tactics to still try, because,
after all, what the hell are they going to present
at a new trial? Michael Bradley, Sherry Carter, I mean,
multiple DNA profiles found on a bond, maybe, I mean
I can't with this shit. But before I actually lose
(37:18):
my shit, let's go to closing arguments, where, first of all,
I want to thank both of you for joining us today.
So now I'm going to turn off my microphone, leave
my headphones on and kick back in my chair and
just listen to anything else you want to share. So Elizabeth,
you go first. Then just sort of hand the microphone
(37:39):
off the brand and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
I think that he has been the victim of a
grievous injustice, that the system has failed him time and
time again. I am, however, grateful to the courts that
saw things as they should have and granted him a
new trial, and I feel confident that jury hearing actual
evidence rather than evidence that was manufactured twisted around, we'll
(38:05):
see that he's an innocent man and we'll find him
not guilty when he goes to.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Tryal thank you for having us on here and giving
us the opportunity to have this conversation, because with how
everything has gone here, you see that the way that
things that are spoken about from one point of view
are not necessarily what it really is, and so you
have so many lies and false things that will put
(38:30):
into the trial. You know, Yeah, people I know on
the street that don't know the truth about the situation
and will repeat stuff that's on the news because they
don't understand that the news is just getting stuff from
the police, and so you have stuff going to family members, kids,
all of that stuff that are being said that clearly
aren't true, and there's no way for these people to
get in the actual information. So I do believe that
(38:52):
this is a very important outlet. And for me clearly
sitting in here, I understand that this isn't what I
want to be here, but I also know that certain
positive things still occur. What you have to look for,
you have to understand what is wanted from you, what
is needed from you, And so that's why, like I
said earlier, I try to help in any way I
(39:13):
can with anyone because you never know why God has
allowed you to be in a certain situation. But if
you don't try to do the things that he wants
to do, then there's no positive that's going to come
from it, and then you're just looking at everything from
such a negative point of view. And so I know
that at some point, when it's the proper time, I'll
be out of here. But while I'm in here, I'm
(39:34):
going to continue to try to help people because I've
always done that, and so just try to keep the
positive mindset while continuing to fight for great really for justice,
for the truth. My kids, my family, They're the most
important thing to you, and so to be able to
get home to them and give the in person support
that I should have been able to give to them
(39:54):
their whole lives up and locked up for the most
part of their whole lives, and so I just pray
that happened soon.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(40:25):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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