September 16, 2025 • 47 mins
Matt Murphy is a former Homicide prosecutor and current legal analyst for ABC News. He spent more than two decades assigned to the Sexual Assault and Homicide Units of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, where he tried some of the most compelling murder cases in America. During his long tenure in Homicide, he prosecuted cold cases, famous serial killers, no-body murders, and many more. Now in private practice, he regularly appears as a legal analyst on national television shows, including 20/20, Good Morning America, and various programs on Hulu. He is a mainstay on iCrime with Elizabeth Vargas and her evening news program, where he offers his insight on murder cases across the country.
For more information, visit his website https://www.thebookofmurder.com/ or on IG at / mattmurphylaw
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mysterious-circumstances--5479817/support.
For more information, visit his website https://www.thebookofmurder.com/ or on IG at / mattmurphylaw
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mysterious-circumstances--5479817/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This podcast contains adult content. Some of the themes or
topics may.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Include information on murder, kidnapping, torture, dismemberment, maybe some demonic content.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
With information on positions and paranormal activity.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This podcast will also include explicit.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Horrible, and foul, socially unacceptable, totally uninhibited adult themes language.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
So if you're easily offended, if you're easily triggered.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Then I highly suggest you turn this off now on.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
If not, just keep.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
In mind parental discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
All right, Welcome to Mysterious Circumstances podcast. I have a
great interview for everybody today. As you know, I am
into crime as well with my various other podcasts and
the teamwork that we do on the side. Today I'm
joined by Matt Murphy and he is a former homicide
a prosecutor and current legal analyst for ABC News. Spent
(01:12):
over twenty years assigned to the sexual assault homicide units
of Orange County District Attorney's Office. You tried a lot
of murder cases. I mean, you've prosecuted cold cases, serial killers,
no body murders, which we're gonna I definitely want to
touch on that. Now you're into private practice, and you
appear as a legal analyst on national television shows including
(01:36):
twenty twenty, Good Morning America, various other programs on Hulu.
I am one hundred percent sure I can go on
reading for like twenty minutes about the stuff that you
do and have done. But Matt Murphy, welcome to the
podcast and it is a pleasure to have you on today.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You've written a.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Book called The Book of Murder, A Prosecutor's Journey through
Love and Death, where you talk on a lot of
those various topics, and I'm excited to come out. It
comes out on September seventeenth. I will have all of
that in the description of the video for the listeners
and the watchers.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Like I said, happy to have you on.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And how did you get into wanting to be a
prosecutor into crime? What was the path that led you there?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, you know, it's probably a combination of a bunch
of different things. I grew up in la in the seventies.
So there's a great line in The Princess Bride, you
know when Enigo moy Toya comes and he's like, you know,
he has this big moment of revenge and it's you know,
the bad guy. The six Figure band said, you have
an overdeveloped sense of justice. It's going to get you
(02:41):
in trouble some days. And you know, I think that
I had my first fight I ever got in as
a little kid on the playground. It was actually a
kid named Danny Berman who was being picked on by
another kid whose name I'll lead out. And I was
ten years old, and I do not know what came
over me, but I just couldn't take anywhere and I
(03:03):
ran over and I punched the bigger kid right right
in the mug. And in a way, I suppose I've
kind of been doing that ever since. And I mean
and physically he was bigger. I wound up instantly regretting it.
You know, I've gotten in quite a few scraps over
the years where it's kind of been the same thing
where I got running in and throw the punch to
try to help the guy that's getting picked on, and
(03:23):
wind up, you know, probably getting the brunt of the
beating myself sometimes. But I'm a California kid. I grew
up in LA and I went to Santa Barbara CSP
for undergrad and lived near the beach, and then I
lived on the beach, and I've been surfing my whole life.
So I sort of stumbled my way into law school
down in San Diego, and I had the way it
(03:45):
works in law school is your first year you just
concentrate on surviving, and then the second year you at
the beginning you interview for a clerkship for your second
law school summer. And I had three groups kind of
that I was interested in that were interested in me.
There's a big high flute planiff's firm in Orange County
(04:05):
that wanted to bring me in and make lots of money.
And then there's the FBI. I did a series of
interviews with them, and I really liked them, and they
liked me back at least the recruiter did. But back then,
the way the FBI operated is if you joined the FBI,
you couldn't be you couldn't work in the town you
grew up in, where you went to college, or where
(04:25):
you went to law school, which for me took out
southern California, which back then was the only place I
wanted to live because that's where you could work and serve.
So and my third option was the Orange County DA's office.
I wound up working for a woman named Kathy Harper
there who brought me into the It was the Ritzen
Appeals Unit in this clerkship, but it was her whole
(04:46):
background of sexual assault, and I knew by the end
of my first day that's what I wanted to do.
And I originally had a three year plan that I
was going to be a DA, learned how to try
cases over the course of three years, and then go
into big law and make big money, and that was
the plan. And then twenty six years later, there I was,
and you know, the senior DA and homicide where I've
(05:07):
been for seventeen years and spent.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Four in sexual assault before that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, my three year ten turned into twenty six before
I finally I left in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
So that's sort of my story.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
What was it that was so gratifying for you or
satisfying as you'd say, that made you want to stay
and just be like, you know what this is, this
is what I want to do, this is what I'm
here for.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, at the end of the day, you know a
lot of these cases, and certainly not all, but as
a prosecutor, you know what you encounter over and over again,
is you encounter that playground bully over and over again.
You know, a lot of criminal defendants are good people
who have made mistakes, and you know, you work those
cases out through the system, and you know you've give
(05:47):
them second chances and you make sure that you know,
they get back on the right track. And that's kind
of that's a substantial part of your job as a prosecutor.
But a lot of those guys, especially when you get
into sexual assault and homicide.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
They're just there's big bullies.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
In a way, it sort of called to me in
a way that it did that my my fourth grade self.
Another part of it is it's just what they don't
tell you is when you you start trying cases, it
can be just so darn you know fun, you know
to do these things.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I you know, you were.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I got to work with great police officers, and you know,
when you get to homicide. Every homicide case is like
a three dimensional puzzle and you're walking in and you're
just you're putting the pieces together, you know, and sometimes
it's a two piece puzzle and the bushes down the
street and it doesn't take very much. But some of
them are you know, some of the cases we did
were decades old cold cases that we dust off the
(06:40):
old boxes and put them together. And I it's almost
like a calling, you know. I just I found it.
It sort of found me, and I didn't I didn't
really want to do anything else for a better part
of three decades.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
In the early part of your career.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Was there a case that you tried where you thought
there was just no hope for the for the defendant
or anything like that, and then they later on surprised
you and you were they ended up turning their life around,
turning out to be a better person. Has that ever
occurred to where you were like genuinely surprised, Like, holy cow, man,
this guy really did.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Where you see that quite a bit. You don't see
it enough, but you see it. You see it a
little bit. At least you is in the gang unit,
you can you can get these every once in a while.
You get some little pooh butt gangster who is going
down the wrong track who figures it out, you know.
And I saw a few of those where you get
a when I was in juvenile court, because they started
(07:39):
out in misdemeanors and they do a juvenile rotation where
you're just doing juvenile crime and probably half of those
are little gangsters.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
And what the goal is in juvenile.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Court is to try to rehabilitate, to try to get
them on the right track as a kid before it's
too late.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And every once in a while.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
You'd see you'd see a kid figure it out and
decide that, you know, prison or death was not the
road he wanted to take. And they you know, I
saw a few that got out of it and wound up.
You know, they would come in for what are called
progress reviews when they're on probation, and they would back
in those days, it was very fashionable for the gangsters
to shave their heads, and you know this, this young
(08:19):
little guy would come in with his you know, dressed
in the gang stuff with the hair, you know, shaved,
and you know, some fourteen year old rules in like that.
And then you know, a few years later, sometimes probation
and that that philosophy really works, and you'd see some
of these kids, like I said, not enough. You'd see
some of them come in and they'd grown their hair
out and they're dressed in like a polo and they're
(08:40):
you know, they're respectful to the judge and a lot
of those guys, you know, would join the military and.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
They got out of it. There's a lot that.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Don't and go down that road, and you know, they're fascinating.
I got to see some commentary on the Tupac Shakur
shooting in Las Vegas, you know, and a lesser known
part of that that nobody really talks about is they
have all these videos of the fight that happened in
the casino that led up to it. And it's black
and white and kind of grainy, but you got two
(09:10):
cars full of guys, you know, you got Sugar Night
and two punch Core in wine, and then you got
the guy that was ultimately charged in that, and he
had three other three other guys in the car with him,
and then you have all these guys on the video
and here we are, thirty years later or however long ago,
two punch crews murdered and they file charges. And so
I got brought intoducing commentary. When you do when you
(09:31):
look at the witnesses and that everybody else in the bars,
they're all dead, They're all killed in drive bys. They're
all like guys that embraced the gang world of the
of the nineteen nineties, and they're they're all either in
prison or dead, and it's just it's a really interesting
I think the most interesting part about that case. And
so so I did see some kids that got off
(09:52):
that train and those that didn't predictably went right into
they'd get killed. And I saw quite a few of
those two where they're there's some kid that I would
have been involved in his case as a juvenile. And
then when you get into homicide years later, it's like
I remember, yah, and he's dead. You know, he's the
victim and a homicide that you kick over the gang
unit because it's a gang murder, and you see that
(10:15):
that that unfortunately you see that story repeated over and
over again. That's really a that's a bankrupt lifestyle that
goes nowhere.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I couldn't agree with you more on that one. During
your tenure as a prosecutor, we did bring up nobody cases.
I am super curious about this and how is I
don't want to say the step by step procedure, but
how do you go about trying those differently than a
(10:41):
regular murder case with a body, and how do you
get a conviction?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So it's a it's a fascinating thing, all right. So
I was mentored by a man named Lou Rosenbloom, who
is he walks the earth of God to me, to
this to this day. And he was a fantastic prosecutor
back in his day. Tried sixty seven murders as a
line prosecutor, sixty seven murder cases, and he won them all.
It's impossible. I was in the he did it in
(11:08):
twelve years. I was in the unit for seventeen and
I only tried fifty three. In my book, I have
fifty two. But my paralego called me a couple of
days ago and told me I'd forgotten one that we did.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
So Lou told me.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
When I was in homicide, when I got my first nobody,
he said, the jury can always see the soulier victim
reflected in the eyes of those who loved them, and
let that one sink in for a second. Is so
I mean classic, Lou, because it's so deep and profound.
So what's different about nobody cases is that the element
for every murder is that a human being was killed.
(11:43):
So it's all fifty states. The prosecutor must prove a
human being is killed. So that's an afterthought in most cases. Right,
you've got human being was killed, and you've got a
dead body on the on the floor, or in the ditch,
or in the parking lot, wherever it is, and that
element is satisfied unless there's no body, in which.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Case you have to prove that there's a death. And
in order to prove the death, you have this.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Strange advantage that a lot of prosecutors and detectives don't realize.
On nobody cases, you basically you get to prove that
the person is dead. So you get to call the person,
but your victim's grandma to say he never would have
missed my Christmas that I had from every year, and
you get to call or his best friend say never
(12:29):
would have missed the big game, and or his girlfriend
to say he never would have left his dog.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
You know. And what you do in nobody.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Case is the jury then gets an idea of who
your victim was as a person, and you don't get
to do that on a regular murder. It's just you
have a dead body. The character of the victim is
rarely an issue, but to prove that they're dead, it
adds this whole new dimension that the jury actually gets
to understand the profound loss of this person. Being murdered,
(12:58):
you know, because they you know, the best friend is
going to cry, and the mom is going to cry,
and the grandma's going to cry. They're going to they
will see on a visceral sense the emotional impact that
these people are suffering as a result of the murder.
And it's you know, it's a completely different dynamic. And
I you know, at first, I thought, how how the
hell do we do these? And then when you do
(13:19):
a couple, it's like, this is its own type of case.
I wound up prosecuting five nobody jury trials. You know,
a lot of prosecutors haven't done one, and they don't understand.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
That you really.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Like, there's a case. I think it's North Carolina, the
Heather Elvis case. There was a man who's basically having
an affair. She was a food server at a place
called the Tilted Kill and she disappeared. They never recovered
her body, and they wound up prosecuting this man and
his wife for kidnapping. But I you know, it's one
of those things I'm doing commentary and I'm shouting at
(13:52):
the TV because I think that they should be charged
for murder, and I think a jury would have no
trouble convicting them of the murder of Heather Elvis, having
done five of them myself. So they're fascinating type of case.
And there's it brings in different evidentiary considerations and yes,
but I'll tell you what you get it you get
a decent judge that's willing to let you put your
(14:13):
case on and they're a lot more compelling than a
lot of people think.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, I was super curious about the evidentiary like procedures,
how you're going to go about it and everything. So
I know in one of the cases that I've worked
on recently, we talked a little bit about it. All
we had was a piece of liver about the size
of a golf ball and half a jawbone.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That was literally it of the entire body.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
But through that we did find out she was you know,
higher percentage of being murdered than dying of smoke inhalation.
How hard is it to compile that evidence to prove
a murder.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Well, you know, you got some jurisdictions that have just
never done a no body case, so they you're up
against a I would imagine for people that are just
out there, some of the families with me love ones
you're up against almost like a wall of inexperience, you know,
and they and you know like I mean, you're telling
me liver and java on, like I would love to
(15:11):
have had that much evidence to prove the death of
some of my some of my victims, because a lot
of times in southern California, you know, it's a general
rule if you can get a body out into the
Pacific Ocean, not into some back bay like Lacy Peterson
or something stupid like Scott Peterson did and he did,
or you get the body out into a shallow grave
in the Mohave Desert. As a general you're never going
(15:33):
to recover those law enforcements, never finding those bodies. Even
with cell phone pings, you don't find those. But you
can have a lot of other compelling evidence that somebody's dead.
But my god, if you've got body parts that you
can match to DNA, there's an a juror in the
world that isn't going to think that the peace of
a liver isn't going to lead to somebody's death.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
And some woman isn't.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Going around there with no jaw and amnesia like that.
That poor woman in your case is clearly dead. And
so but you know, I don't know that case. Maybe
they just maybe they were perfectly comfortable with the idea
that she was dead. They just weren't comfortable with who
did it. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
It was a yeah, it was a fire, and it
was it was essentially originally blamed on either accidental or
self inflicted.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And we're like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
After we got the tax coology report and medical examiners
report and all that, it's like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
She was dead before the fire started.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So that's basically what thrust us forward in the prosecutors
off like okay, you guys are serious.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
It's like yeah, but yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Couldn't imagine just trying to put all those pieces of
evidence together that aren't there, you know, and just going
along proving it. That's that's pretty wild. And I noticed
you did bring up Scott Peterson.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Is that one.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Is that one of those cases that you just get
completely just utterly annoyed with, or do you see a
lot of false information spread around to where you're like
just stop, just stop.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
One of the things that kind of did get me
a little bit on that. I mean, I know his
defense word is again named Mark errago. So I know
very well. I really like Mark, I consider my friend
of mine. I did some cases with Mark over the years,
and I always got along with them very well. So
he was I followed that case pretty closely at the time,
and Scott Pearson did it.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Guys, he's convicted of it, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I mean, I've heard all this stuff, like you know,
there's a cult down the street, and you know, I'm sorry,
But when there's two reasonable interpretations, that always goes to
the defendant. When there's one reasonable interpretation and one interpretation
of evidence that is insanely convoluted and makes no sense,
you know who is at Arkham's razor? I think the
(17:43):
famous ancient philosopher. So the simplest explanation is usually the
correct one. But like that's that is your generic run
of the middle domestic violence, murder, he's having an affair.
All the pieces, just everything about that. It's so average.
It's been all that. The media just jumped all over
that because she was missing, she was pregnant, and you know,
(18:04):
and it's horrific in its own right. But I mean,
I when they when when everybody announced great fanfare that
the Innocence Project of La was coming in, so I
got a dealt with them too. After after you know,
it's like, so, you know, like I really so that,
you know, I just they've worked on some of my cases,
and they've never been right in my experience, my my
(18:26):
personal experience.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
In fact, they've been wrong every single time.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
So so it's like, oh, wow, the the La Innocence Project,
It's like, how does that change.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Any of the evidence in that case?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
I that jury did the right thing in my view,
you know, and it's not my case. Maybe maybe there's
something I don't know that happened in that but I
followed that pretty close at the time. There's no I
have I personally have no doubt, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So, what are some of the hardships that you've had
to go through prosecuting a case, whether it be just
in upt law enforcement or just straight up on on
any level to where you just.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You know, are you freaking kidding me?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Like?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
How is this reality right now?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Well? I got to work with great cops. I was
very lucky.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I had the cities in Newport Beach Coast, in massil Laguna,
and Irvine, and every one of those are really well
funded professional law enforcement organizations and for detectives when they
come up through the ranks, you know, to get to
doing homicide cases. They are they tend to be smarter
than your average bear. You know, they're not They're not.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Just patrol cops.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
These are very cerebral smart people that are detectives because
they have a passion for it and they were called
to it, you know what I mean. So it's they're
not flunkies at least. The ones that I dealt with
were great. So as far as my the the officers
I got to work with, they were, and I'm.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Biased here, the best of the best.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So I never had I never had a lot of
frustration with my with my cops. A case that really
did frustrate me a bit was the dating game killer
guy Namedrodney o'calla. He was active in the sixties and seventies.
You know, he had a genius level like you kind
of your classic American serial killer, and he kidnapped, him
almost murdered an eight year old girl named Tali Shapiro
(20:13):
in Hollywood in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
So he she's walking to school.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
He's like the original don't take rides from Stranger's guy, right,
and he convinces her to get in the car and
then he drives her to his place. And there's a
good samaritan who saw this, who back in nineteen sixty eight,
long before the year of cell phones, went to a
payphone called it in and a police officer, officer Camacho,
his first day back from the Watts Riots, this guy,
(20:39):
and he talked about a hero police officer. He was
shot in Vietnam and then he came back and then
he was shot in the Watts Riots. So he is
it's his first day back at work and he gets
this welfare check, you know, check on little girl in
the house. And he goes there and I'm sure enough
he interrupts rape and murder of the sol late year
old call runs out the back naked and you've got
(21:03):
dying little girl in the kitchen and you got naked
bad guy running out the back, and it's like, what
do you do? And he did the right thing. He
saved the little girl and she was in a coma
for thirty two days as soon she barely made it.
And it's just because he acted when he did.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
But I'll Koala got out.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
To New York and he changed his name and several
years later, they track him down working at an all
girls sleep boay camp in Vermont, and later we learned
that he murdered at least five people in New York
certainly I think two more in Vermont that we know of.
There's one in Wyoming. Anyway, he gets extrighted and gets
(21:44):
a life sentence in the state of California, and he
was paroled after thirty four months. And so he gets
paroled in nineteen seventy four after his parole, depending on
which detective and which estimate you know, conservatively he killed.
I mean he could at least three people that we
know of after that for sure, probably six more his suspect.
(22:05):
And when you look at how prolific he was, and
then the fact that he was allowed to drive across country,
including a murder in Wyoming that we know of for
sure that where he was charged on he probably killed
one hundred people after his release and they could have
kept him. And so that's one that when you deal
with the families on a case like that. So we
prosecuted him for five I you know, you deal with
(22:29):
these poor people, and you know a lot of serial
killers will target sex workers, right because it's you know,
they they they'll agree to go down the dark alley,
and though because of the nature of that profession, they
put themselves in very vulnerable positions with men, which going
back to Jack the Ripper and probably long before him,
prostitutes back then where the they're the victim of choice
(22:50):
because you can get away with them. That hasn't changed much.
But all Kala wasn't doing that right now. Kala was
He would follow women at home from bars. So he
he murdered. Among his victims twelve year old Robin Samso
from Huntington Beach, who's a girl that took a ride
on a way to ballet Lesson again talked to her
into his car. There was a legal secretary named Charlotte
(23:11):
Lamb in Santa Monica, Georgia Wick said, who was a
pediatric cancer nurse. He murdered her in Malibu, JITL. Parento,
who was a computer programmer. So he was murdering the
women that we all know and love in our personal lives,
you know, and none of them should have died. And
that's one that haunts me.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
To this day. It is so frustrating, especially.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
As California now is making a hard left turn into
things like early release and therapy for these guys, and
I'm here to tell you it does not work when
it comes to sex offenders. You can give all the
therapy in the world and give them all the help.
There quotes that you could come up with. It's as
long as they draw her up, they're going to want
to kill people and or rape them or do both.
(23:54):
It was so predictable, and it was so avoidable, and
it just caused so much suffering for the families of
those poor victims, and that one breaks my heart, and
that breaks my heart to this day.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It is absolutely refreshing to hear somebody just put it
plain out there. I mean, I'm pretty sure most people
can agree with exactly what you said, Like there's at
some point, you know, there's no rehabilitation, you know, that's
what it is.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I'll even take this step for the for elected officials,
they have a moral responsibility to the innocent people of
their community to do everything they can to prevent predators
like ridneyl Call from being released. And it's I don't
understand the political push that has sympathy for these people.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
This is a guy who agreed sadistically tortured his victims
to death like that, and the images are too in
my mind, are too graphic to share with you about what.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
He did to these poor women, and because it's you know,
back in the eighteen eighties, there's a German psychiatrist in
doctor von Ebbing, who is a contemporary of Sigmund Freud,
and he wrote a whole book about about serial killers
and he called them sadistic lust murderers, and that which
is that term I think is a lot more accurate
than serial killer, because serial killer just you're essentially just
(25:10):
counting a number of victims. That gets into what they're
really all about, like the Ted Bundy's and Jeffrey Dahmers,
the BTK killer, Gilgo Beach killer, Rex Huerman if you know,
he's presumed innocent right now, but you know, there's a
sadism and a tortuit element to a lot.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Of what zerial killers do.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
And elected officials have a moral and legal obligation to
protective constituents from those guys. Look, there's a DA in
Los Angeles County name George Gascon who has come in
so hard on releasing murderers and child molesters and rapists
from California State Prison that as far as I'm concerned
that man has blood on his hands by doing that,
(25:48):
and and I I'll debate any of them anytime anywhere.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
I know these laws.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I worked these cases professionally for almost two decades, and
I think that they have a duty and they are
failing when they don't do it.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The amount of stress and frustration in your daily life
through those twenty years was probably insane. Man, What would
you say if you had to pick one case was
the hardest to get a conviction on?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And why well, I had one. I went up against
my old mentor Reloop. So the guy who won sixty
seven murders in a row is the best trialer I've
ever seen. We had a cold case in Orange County.
It was a girl named Kathy Torres, and I shouldn't
say girls, a young woman. She was twenty two and
(26:34):
she was She had her boyfriend Sam Lopez, and she
disappeared for about a week. She was later found in
the trunk of her car, and we had there was
no evidence in the car indicating that Sam was there,
but we did have some friends Governance indicating that it
might have been his cousin Javier, who he said he
was there that night, and anyway, the case was submitted
(26:56):
back in ninety four and it was refused for lack
of evidence. Then I was submitted again in nineteen ninety five,
refused for lack of evidence. And I think it was
even submitted again, submitted multiple times for review by the homstudy.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
In it, and they kept refusing it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And then you know, a new detective came in and
I was one of the cold case stupanies then, and
he brought it back and it was just really, really
tough because I was going up against the best trial
yer I'd ever seen and he had left the office
and came in as a defense lawyer. You know, that
one was really tough because it had been rejected a
bunch of times. The case was fifteen years old when
(27:32):
we filed it, and I figured, you know, there's absolute
zero doubt in my mind that he committed this murder.
We roll with a couple of really good detectives, my
old investigator, Larry Montgomery and another guy named Darren Wyatt,
and we put that together for the family, trying to
bring some justice to them, and we convicted him of
a first of your murder, and that one was probably
(27:53):
the toughest trial I did just because Lou was so good,
you know, just tactically. This is a man who taught
me to proscute murder cases, and here I am defending him,
and we rolled into that trial. I think we were combined.
I did that later in my time. So we did
sixty seven. I think we were up to about one
hundred and four murders between the two of us, and
(28:14):
neither of us had ever lost a trial at that point,
a bahamicide trial.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
So one of us was.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Walking out with a with a W and one of
us is going to walk out with hell. Fortunately Lou
walked out with the with the loss on that one,
and we get I really feel like we got to
the degree that California allaw would allow we rechieve justice
for that family on that case.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's good to hear, and that's a pretty awesome story. Actually,
when it comes to circumstantial evidence, at what point do
you say, okay, we have enough, we can you know,
take this to either a grandjury or start prosecution or
start the process. Because I don't know what that limit is.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I mean, I've been.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Involved with cases where they're just like it's not enough,
it's not enough, it's not enough.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's like how much do you need? Man?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, so it's a great question.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So the you know, when it comes to filing cases,
there is a very subjective element and essentially the filing
standard for prosecutors you must believe one hundred percent person
did it.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
You can have no doubt.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
And the second part is you must believe that there's
enough admissible evidence you have a reasonable likelihood of convincing
a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Okay, So there's a
lot of subjective gray in there. And when I first
started in the homstud unit, I didn't have the skill
set that I that I had when I left, you know,
fifty three murder trials later. You know, you it's like
(29:41):
anything else. It's like golf or whatever you're into, Like
you get better over time and then that so that
equation really changes over time the more skill you get,
like like that no body thing like a case that
I would have been reluctant to file before I had
done one. After doing five, it's like I know exactly
what to look for, I know exactly what the jury
is going to respond to and get You get a
(30:03):
gut for that sort of thing. And without that sort
of experience.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
It's it's a little bit tough.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So circumstantial evidence is one of those things. There's a
myth out there and we've all seen it on TV
a million times where it's Starsky and Hutch or you know,
Cagnate and Lacey or top It or Crockett and Tubs,
whoever that the crime fighting duo that we have. You
can be that man Rob and whatever, you know, where
they go into their to their boss and they sit
(30:28):
down and they the boss yells at them and says,
this case is all circumstantial.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Bring us something we can use.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And it's a TV trope, it's so common, and there's
this myth out there that's circumstantial evidence somehow bad evidence
or less valuable. And the truth is the law treats
circumstantial evidence the same way it does direct evenence. Direct
evidence is just a person comes into court and says,
I saw that person do that thing on that date.
That's what direct evidence is. Circumstantial evidence is pretty much
(30:57):
everything else.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Circumstantial elevenance is fingerprints at a crime scene or on
a murder weapon or DNA.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
All of that is.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Technically circumstantial evidence. So you know the question is is
it persuasive enough. You know a lot of jurors are
surprised to learn that that circumstantial evidence is to be
afforded just as much weight under the law as direct
of and it's an in fact, for my money, having
done you know, one hundred and thirty three jury trials.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
If you give me.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Some drunk guy in a bar who says I saw
this guy do that, and then this guy do that
versus DNA on a legending instrument or something like that,
I'll take this circumstantial evidence ten out of ten times
because it doesn't lie, it doesn't exaggerate, you don't have
to work around its schedule, it doesn't forget, and it's
only going to tell one story. Now, sometimes there's two
(31:44):
reasonable interpretations to that, in which case, you know, the
jury or the DA has to go with the presumption
of innocence. But you know, circumstantial evidence also can add up,
you know, and especially when you get it from different
sources and there's different forms of it. You know, I
reached a point in my career where I even preferred doing.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Those cases because you.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
You know, it is what it is, and you know,
I had a Mike McLoughlin case out a Newport. That
was another cool case we did. We followed it fifteen
years later. This is a essentially it's his story. It's
the it's the plot line of Body Heat with that
old movie with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner and any
anybody who hasn't seen that, it's worth a watch.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
It's phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I think it's Mickey Rourke's first role when he was
still handsome, before you got all, before he did his
face whatever he did. I think boxing and plastic surgery.
I don't know, but but he's an amazing actor. But
there's that isn't a great movie, and it's it's one
of the oldest plot lines. And that's a redone noir
film from the I think the thirties, and it is
essentially beautiful young woman meets very wealthy older man and
(32:49):
wants his stuff, so she conspires to murder him for
life insurance or her spot on the will or whatever.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
It may be.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
And that was essentially the plot to that real case
out of Newport. And it was a woman who named
Nannette Johnston who got in and she had a NFL
former NFL player for the New England Patriots. Named Eric Naposki,
and he injured his way out of the NFL, and
he's working as a personal trainer and essentially broke. And
he met her in Irvine and she started sleeping with
(33:21):
him behind her real boyfriend's back. Next thing, you know,
Bill went off and gets shot six times in his
kitchen in Newport Beach, in his beautiful home in Newport.
So they got away with that for fifteen years, and
then we dusted that off, really thinking we were going
to get a DNA hit on.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
You know, he left the killer left the key stuck
in the door and.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Another one on the mat, and that were expended shellcasings
all over the kitchen. I figured forensic technology would have
caught up to that, and we didn't have any anything.
And I didn't know this at the time, but I
learned it like expended shellcases that come out of a firearm.
All the DNA burns off that because it's so hot,
and the keys were actually made of brass, and brass
(34:01):
will destroy biological material as a which is really interesting.
I didn't I didn't know that's why a lot of
door handles are brass. Because they learned that, you know,
back in the olden times that somebody figured out that
brass and aditionally, being pre people tend to get sick
less around brass. And it's because it will eventually destroy
biological material, which is what DNA is, right, So we
(34:22):
didn't get any hits on that, but we when we
started looking through it, man, it was just a new
set of eyes, you know, it was so fascinating. There's
so many compelling pieces to that puzzle. And then I
had a couple of real good investigators that actually did
discover some new evidence, so we were able to we
had enough to get over that homp. But the judge
(34:43):
at sentencing, he made a comment and I don't want
to paraphrase it too much, and of course this is
on the record, so the defense knows about it, but
it was something along the lines of this is a
circumstantial case, but this is an overwhelmingly convincing circumstantial case,
and I have no doubt you did it, and you
did that you made those comment.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
It's a sentence sing. We convicted both of them, and they.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Both received left out possibility pool in California State prison
and hopefully we'll never get out, although my crazy home
state never know seems to be held then on releasing
everybody they can, they say, so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That's what it's what I keep here. Unfortunately, let's talk
about your book. What made you decide to write this
and what kind of stuff can readers expect in there?
Speaker 3 (35:25):
So what this is is it's kind of it's part memoir,
you knows, it's essentially my time in homicide.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
So I went in.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I got moved out of sexual assault into homicide, and
I didn't know anything about murder cases, you know, And
I in fact, most of what I learned about homicide
I knew from just watching true crime, you know. And
so I walked in there and I kind of take
the reader through my education. Like for the writing out
call case, for example, I thought, you know, serial killers
(35:55):
were all like the character Buffalo Bill from Silence of
the Lamps, right like I saw. I've seen Silent to
the Lambs. I know what a serial killer is, and
in fact, they're they're very different than that.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
They are.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
They are the guy in front of you on line
at Starbucks. They are your neighbor, they're the people that
they're the guy that you would last expect would be
a serial killer. And that's one of the things that
are fascinating about them.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
So I walk the reader through that, and I walk
the reader through you know.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
We've all heard terms like first Grew murder, second Green murder,
and I'd explained it so many times to jurors over
the years that I thought I'd take the reader through
the same thing, like breaking down these concepts. We're all
familiar with it, but what does it actually mean? How
does it actually work? So it's I hope it's educational.
And then I talk about the forensics of DNA evidence,
(36:41):
you know, like I have a section on that where
I explain how DNA works and in a forensic context
and really so if I can understand DNA forensically, trust
me anybody who can understand DNA fansically.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
So I sort of I take them through that.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I try to educate people, and then I walk them
through my journey, you know, and some of the behind
the scenes stuff that goes into an Orange County it's
a vertical system, so a lot of the vast majority
really of prosecutoral offices. You'll it's an assembly line concept
where the police investigate and then they put it on
one DA's desk who reviews it for filing, who hands
(37:17):
it to another day to do the preliminary hearing or
the indictment, and then it goes to another somebody else
to try it, And so each person has a role,
and Orange County does it that way until you get
into the specialized units like sexual assault or homicide. In homicide,
the way it works being vertical, you get assigned those cities.
Whatever cities you're signed, you're signed of police officers, you're
(37:38):
a full time investigator in the unit, and then you
go to the scenes. You actually start the night of
the murder or the afternoon of the murder. You're there
with your detectives, and then there with you all the
way through the process. So you're there with the lead
detective that night, reviewing search warrants and making sure that
the constitution rights to any suspect are scrupulously honored. And
(38:00):
then the lead detective you were there with at three
in the morning is sitting next to you at the end,
through the whole trial and at sentencing there they are
and you go through this together, and it's a team
concept where you're there on the ground.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
And you it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
So we would go to our own crime scene, so
I walk the reader through like the introduction is my
first I take him through my first murder scene. And
What's going on in my stony, crazy brain as I'm
as I'm watching this, you know, like I I'd seen
I think two dead bodies at that point in my life.
You know, I'm thirty three years old. I've been to
(38:36):
a funeral and I saw a woman get hit by
a bus. And so I go into this and we've
all seen that scene on TV, you know where you
know the new guy, what does he do? You know,
like the new guy of the emergenciny right, They always puke, right,
So I'm thinking this must be a real thing. I've
been in the unit for one week at this point,
or bear, not even a week. This was my first week.
So I get the call out and I go in
(38:58):
and so I walk the reader through that, like I
walk in with a suit and I'm look an official.
But what is really going on in my head is
the worst imposter syndrome ever. And I'm thinking, just don't puke,
don't puke, don't puke. And I walk him through that,
and I see this guy and I you know, this
poor man had been murderings on the on the floor
of a kitchen and he's on his back and he
(39:19):
had a wallet chain and his you know, leading to
a wallet in.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
His right back pocket, but he had a folding knife
in his.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Left hand, and I'm thinking, don't puke, don't puke, don't puke.
And I opened my eyes and I look at it,
and it instantly made no sense, you know. And it's
instantly like, why would a right handed guy keep a
knife in his left hand hold the knife in his
left hand, or if he's left handed.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Why would he have his wallet in his right back pocket.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
And it was just one of those things, and it
was like and just instantly felt a weird sense of belonging.
And he had been shot a million times. And it
turns out it was a domestic violence love triangles sort
of set up, and that.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Was a wild case.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
And it was my first scene, and you know, and
I remember looking his shoes and just you know, the
thoughts in my head as I you know, I wondered,
if if you had any inkling that those be the
last shoelaces he would ever tie in his life, you know,
and he put his shoes on it. You know, I
share a bunch of that stuff like what really goes
on in your in your mind when you're Adam Mercy
and how it works like we've all seen, you.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Know that there's that yellow tape.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
What's really going on behind the scenes and the yellow tape?
And I try to walk the reader through that, and
then what I do is I take them through about
a dozen of my my more high profile cases that
I've worked on. I had, you know, the dating game Killer.
I did the Samantha Running case. Originally I was the
filing deputy on that. That was a six year old
little girl that got kidnapped, actually she was five, a
(40:40):
guy named Alejandra Avala, and that was huge national news
back from the time.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Dirty John was one of my cases.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I walked there the reader through through that and uh
even give some online dating tips some of the things
I learned from some of the relationships on that.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
And you know, there's a taxonomy of murders.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
There's you know, a child abuse murder is totally different
than like a gang murder, which is still a completely
different animal than like a seven to eleven robbery gone bad,
or you know, serial killers. Conspiracies commit murder for money.
They all result in the same thing. With a dead
human being, but the ways he get there and what
happens in the investigations end of those cases are all
(41:18):
very different. So I thought it it would be a
great thing to share some of that with people, and
for those that are interested in true crime. It's a
it's kind of a so it's part memoir, part instruction manual,
and then part just story after story of these these
really interesting murder cases that I was the you know,
I did the Scholar Daily owned case out of Newport,
(41:40):
a couple that was tied to the anchor and thrown overboard,
you know, the William McLoughlin case. Like I said, I
did the Ed Shen case that was a man who
murdered his business partner and buried him in the desert.
That was in nobody case. You know, I had the
Hussein Nairie case, which was a guy that committed a
horrific kidnapping for ransom essentially, and they sexually mutilated the
victim out of the desert and he wound up, you know,
(42:01):
he was in Iran, and we lured him out of
Iran and threw a net on him and the net
in the Czech Republic and prosecuted him. So I go
through the behind the scenes of some of these kind
of high profile murder cases and that I worked on
over the years, and I really I hope people like
it poured a lot of my heart and soul in it.
I'm no Ernest Hemingway, but it came from the heart, so.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
No, and that's that's all that matters really, And I'm
always intrigued to understand the insights as well, like what's
going on through your mind when you're seeing on seeing
all this and like you had mentioned what's going on
behind the yellow tape, right, and that that kind of
information is invaluable, and even if it's for you know,
story purpose, it's still it's still entertaining, but it's it's
(42:45):
to me, it's very insightful because like, okay, like what's
the process, what's he going to start thinking about and everything?
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yeah, so hopefully it'll be it'll be I.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Try to write it in an entertaining way, tons of
like personal observations and you know, behind the scene, these
little anecdotes and more stories.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
And then and then I walked.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
The reader through about a dozen of those murder cases
and what was really happening behind the scenes on those,
you know, it's Hyperion Avenues, that's Disney Books. It's available
on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And I teamed up
with a local bookstore and had a niche called Pages
of Bookstore. It's pages of Bookstore dot com. And they're
trying to, you know, help my vocal brick and mortar
(43:25):
sell a few and I went and did some signed
copies with them, And all of these things are up
on my website on my Instagram too, which is at
Matt Murphy Law.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
And yeah, so I really hope that people. I hope
they like it.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
A little nervous, yeah, you know, I put myself out
there a little bit on this to talk about my
childhood a bit, and you know, I know that everybody's
a critic, every well especially you know, given the nature
of what I did. You know, I tried a lot
of cases against. You know, there's I got along very
well with most defense lawyers that I tried cases against.
But there's there's one I talked about bit in the book.
(44:00):
I don't name this person, but there's one lawyer that
I wasn't able to. We didn't shake hands. At the
end of my entire career, I've tried two hundred and
fifty cases to verdict if you count my bench trials
and addition to majority trials, I've shaken the hands of
every single one of them except for one. And this
guy has a you know, he's got a He works
for a large office in uh Orange County, and I'm
(44:21):
sure his I'm sure his coworkers are gonna are going
to bash my book when it comes out. And I
stand by every word that I said in that thing,
So I'm sure there will be there will be a
little bit of review bombing. But right now it's doing
great on good Reads. We're at four point seven seven
stars out of five, you know, with for the good
Reads review, and I got a really nice write up
(44:42):
in the Neurop Post, And I've got some some awesome people
that are that are interested in Megan Kelly is gonna
is going to give me an hour and uh Assey Banfield, Nancy.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Grace, Elizabeth Vargas.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
They've all you know, been nice enough to you know,
help help get the wor out there about the books.
So hopefully hopefully people buy it, and hopefully they hopefully
they like it.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Oh, I'm sure they'll like it. And if they don't.
I tell you what.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
When I started podcasting, it was about a year in
and somebody told me never take never take criticism from
somebody you wouldn't take advice from. And that really stuck.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
Well, yeah, that's a great quote. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, it's stuck with me and it's helped. But other
than that, what do you got in the future. Are
there any current cases that you've been tracking and following?
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Oh so, yeah, I've been doing commentary for the Go
Go Beach murders here in New York m right now.
Rex Yeoman is accused. Fun fascinated by that one because
it's sort of the next stage of serial killers, I
think where he's he's committing these murders with forensic science
in mind, which is fascinating.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
And then I'm still practicing laws, so I'm still taking
on I'm very select about the cases that I take on,
but I'm defending some police officers right now, one in
particular that you know, it's a rough time for them,
you know, and and some of them really need need
to help, not all, but some certainly do.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
And uh, definitely.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
And then I'm working on a second book right now.
We're we're going out a proposal for that, which I
think I'm gonna it's almost a sequel where I'm going
to focus. I did thirteen cases that technically qualify as
serial killers, six or what I think are true blue,
and I only talk about one of them in this book.
So the next one I still have some meat on
the bone. So I think we're gonna We're gonna make
(46:27):
another proposal. So hopefully, hopefully people like this first one,
because then Disney will let me write a second one.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So, Matt Murphy, I cannot thank you enough for taking
the time out of your out of your busy schedule
to have this interview.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
All Right, it was great talking to you.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Likewise likewise, all right, we're talking again, Okay, yep, right
Speaker 2 (47:01):
S
This podcast contains adult content. Some of the themes or
topics may.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Include information on murder, kidnapping, torture, dismemberment, maybe some demonic content.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
With information on positions and paranormal activity.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This podcast will also include explicit.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Horrible, and foul, socially unacceptable, totally uninhibited adult themes language.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
So if you're easily offended, if you're easily triggered.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Then I highly suggest you turn this off now on.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
If not, just keep.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
In mind parental discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
All right, Welcome to Mysterious Circumstances podcast. I have a
great interview for everybody today. As you know, I am
into crime as well with my various other podcasts and
the teamwork that we do on the side. Today I'm
joined by Matt Murphy and he is a former homicide
a prosecutor and current legal analyst for ABC News. Spent
(01:12):
over twenty years assigned to the sexual assault homicide units
of Orange County District Attorney's Office. You tried a lot
of murder cases. I mean, you've prosecuted cold cases, serial killers,
no body murders, which we're gonna I definitely want to
touch on that. Now you're into private practice, and you
appear as a legal analyst on national television shows including
(01:36):
twenty twenty, Good Morning America, various other programs on Hulu.
I am one hundred percent sure I can go on
reading for like twenty minutes about the stuff that you
do and have done. But Matt Murphy, welcome to the
podcast and it is a pleasure to have you on today.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You've written a.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Book called The Book of Murder, A Prosecutor's Journey through
Love and Death, where you talk on a lot of
those various topics, and I'm excited to come out. It
comes out on September seventeenth. I will have all of
that in the description of the video for the listeners
and the watchers.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Like I said, happy to have you on.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And how did you get into wanting to be a
prosecutor into crime? What was the path that led you there?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, you know, it's probably a combination of a bunch
of different things. I grew up in la in the seventies.
So there's a great line in The Princess Bride, you
know when Enigo moy Toya comes and he's like, you know,
he has this big moment of revenge and it's you know,
the bad guy. The six Figure band said, you have
an overdeveloped sense of justice. It's going to get you
(02:41):
in trouble some days. And you know, I think that
I had my first fight I ever got in as
a little kid on the playground. It was actually a
kid named Danny Berman who was being picked on by
another kid whose name I'll lead out. And I was
ten years old, and I do not know what came
over me, but I just couldn't take anywhere and I
(03:03):
ran over and I punched the bigger kid right right
in the mug. And in a way, I suppose I've
kind of been doing that ever since. And I mean
and physically he was bigger. I wound up instantly regretting it.
You know, I've gotten in quite a few scraps over
the years where it's kind of been the same thing
where I got running in and throw the punch to
try to help the guy that's getting picked on, and
(03:23):
wind up, you know, probably getting the brunt of the
beating myself sometimes. But I'm a California kid. I grew
up in LA and I went to Santa Barbara CSP
for undergrad and lived near the beach, and then I
lived on the beach, and I've been surfing my whole life.
So I sort of stumbled my way into law school
down in San Diego, and I had the way it
(03:45):
works in law school is your first year you just
concentrate on surviving, and then the second year you at
the beginning you interview for a clerkship for your second
law school summer. And I had three groups kind of
that I was interested in that were interested in me.
There's a big high flute planiff's firm in Orange County
(04:05):
that wanted to bring me in and make lots of money.
And then there's the FBI. I did a series of
interviews with them, and I really liked them, and they
liked me back at least the recruiter did. But back then,
the way the FBI operated is if you joined the FBI,
you couldn't be you couldn't work in the town you
grew up in, where you went to college, or where
(04:25):
you went to law school, which for me took out
southern California, which back then was the only place I
wanted to live because that's where you could work and serve.
So and my third option was the Orange County DA's office.
I wound up working for a woman named Kathy Harper
there who brought me into the It was the Ritzen
Appeals Unit in this clerkship, but it was her whole
(04:46):
background of sexual assault, and I knew by the end
of my first day that's what I wanted to do.
And I originally had a three year plan that I
was going to be a DA, learned how to try
cases over the course of three years, and then go
into big law and make big money, and that was
the plan. And then twenty six years later, there I was,
and you know, the senior DA and homicide where I've
(05:07):
been for seventeen years and spent.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Four in sexual assault before that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, my three year ten turned into twenty six before
I finally I left in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
So that's sort of my story.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
What was it that was so gratifying for you or
satisfying as you'd say, that made you want to stay
and just be like, you know what this is, this
is what I want to do, this is what I'm
here for.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, at the end of the day, you know a
lot of these cases, and certainly not all, but as
a prosecutor, you know what you encounter over and over again,
is you encounter that playground bully over and over again.
You know, a lot of criminal defendants are good people
who have made mistakes, and you know, you work those
cases out through the system, and you know you've give
(05:47):
them second chances and you make sure that you know,
they get back on the right track. And that's kind
of that's a substantial part of your job as a prosecutor.
But a lot of those guys, especially when you get
into sexual assault and homicide.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
They're just there's big bullies.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
In a way, it sort of called to me in
a way that it did that my my fourth grade self.
Another part of it is it's just what they don't
tell you is when you you start trying cases, it
can be just so darn you know fun, you know
to do these things.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I you know, you were.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I got to work with great police officers, and you know,
when you get to homicide. Every homicide case is like
a three dimensional puzzle and you're walking in and you're
just you're putting the pieces together, you know, and sometimes
it's a two piece puzzle and the bushes down the
street and it doesn't take very much. But some of
them are you know, some of the cases we did
were decades old cold cases that we dust off the
(06:40):
old boxes and put them together. And I it's almost
like a calling, you know. I just I found it.
It sort of found me, and I didn't I didn't
really want to do anything else for a better part
of three decades.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
In the early part of your career.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Was there a case that you tried where you thought
there was just no hope for the for the defendant
or anything like that, and then they later on surprised
you and you were they ended up turning their life around,
turning out to be a better person. Has that ever
occurred to where you were like genuinely surprised, Like, holy cow, man,
this guy really did.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Where you see that quite a bit. You don't see
it enough, but you see it. You see it a
little bit. At least you is in the gang unit,
you can you can get these every once in a while.
You get some little pooh butt gangster who is going
down the wrong track who figures it out, you know.
And I saw a few of those where you get
a when I was in juvenile court, because they started
(07:39):
out in misdemeanors and they do a juvenile rotation where
you're just doing juvenile crime and probably half of those
are little gangsters.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
And what the goal is in juvenile.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Court is to try to rehabilitate, to try to get
them on the right track as a kid before it's
too late.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And every once in a while.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
You'd see you'd see a kid figure it out and
decide that, you know, prison or death was not the
road he wanted to take. And they you know, I
saw a few that got out of it and wound up.
You know, they would come in for what are called
progress reviews when they're on probation, and they would back
in those days, it was very fashionable for the gangsters
to shave their heads, and you know this, this young
(08:19):
little guy would come in with his you know, dressed
in the gang stuff with the hair, you know, shaved,
and you know, some fourteen year old rules in like that.
And then you know, a few years later, sometimes probation
and that that philosophy really works, and you'd see some
of these kids, like I said, not enough. You'd see
some of them come in and they'd grown their hair
out and they're dressed in like a polo and they're
(08:40):
you know, they're respectful to the judge and a lot
of those guys, you know, would join the military and.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
They got out of it. There's a lot that.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Don't and go down that road, and you know, they're fascinating.
I got to see some commentary on the Tupac Shakur
shooting in Las Vegas, you know, and a lesser known
part of that that nobody really talks about is they
have all these videos of the fight that happened in
the casino that led up to it. And it's black
and white and kind of grainy, but you got two
(09:10):
cars full of guys, you know, you got Sugar Night
and two punch Core in wine, and then you got
the guy that was ultimately charged in that, and he
had three other three other guys in the car with him,
and then you have all these guys on the video
and here we are, thirty years later or however long ago,
two punch crews murdered and they file charges. And so
I got brought intoducing commentary. When you do when you
(09:31):
look at the witnesses and that everybody else in the bars,
they're all dead, They're all killed in drive bys. They're
all like guys that embraced the gang world of the
of the nineteen nineties, and they're they're all either in
prison or dead, and it's just it's a really interesting
I think the most interesting part about that case. And
so so I did see some kids that got off
(09:52):
that train and those that didn't predictably went right into
they'd get killed. And I saw quite a few of
those two where they're there's some kid that I would
have been involved in his case as a juvenile. And
then when you get into homicide years later, it's like
I remember, yah, and he's dead. You know, he's the
victim and a homicide that you kick over the gang
unit because it's a gang murder, and you see that
(10:15):
that that unfortunately you see that story repeated over and
over again. That's really a that's a bankrupt lifestyle that
goes nowhere.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I couldn't agree with you more on that one. During
your tenure as a prosecutor, we did bring up nobody cases.
I am super curious about this and how is I
don't want to say the step by step procedure, but
how do you go about trying those differently than a
(10:41):
regular murder case with a body, and how do you
get a conviction?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So it's a it's a fascinating thing, all right. So
I was mentored by a man named Lou Rosenbloom, who
is he walks the earth of God to me, to
this to this day. And he was a fantastic prosecutor
back in his day. Tried sixty seven murders as a
line prosecutor, sixty seven murder cases, and he won them all.
It's impossible. I was in the he did it in
(11:08):
twelve years. I was in the unit for seventeen and
I only tried fifty three. In my book, I have
fifty two. But my paralego called me a couple of
days ago and told me I'd forgotten one that we did.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
So Lou told me.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
When I was in homicide, when I got my first nobody,
he said, the jury can always see the soulier victim
reflected in the eyes of those who loved them, and
let that one sink in for a second. Is so
I mean classic, Lou, because it's so deep and profound.
So what's different about nobody cases is that the element
for every murder is that a human being was killed.
(11:43):
So it's all fifty states. The prosecutor must prove a
human being is killed. So that's an afterthought in most cases. Right,
you've got human being was killed, and you've got a
dead body on the on the floor, or in the ditch,
or in the parking lot, wherever it is, and that
element is satisfied unless there's no body, in which.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Case you have to prove that there's a death. And
in order to prove the death, you have this.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Strange advantage that a lot of prosecutors and detectives don't realize.
On nobody cases, you basically you get to prove that
the person is dead. So you get to call the person,
but your victim's grandma to say he never would have
missed my Christmas that I had from every year, and
you get to call or his best friend say never
(12:29):
would have missed the big game, and or his girlfriend
to say he never would have left his dog.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
You know. And what you do in nobody.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Case is the jury then gets an idea of who
your victim was as a person, and you don't get
to do that on a regular murder. It's just you
have a dead body. The character of the victim is
rarely an issue, but to prove that they're dead, it
adds this whole new dimension that the jury actually gets
to understand the profound loss of this person. Being murdered,
(12:58):
you know, because they you know, the best friend is
going to cry, and the mom is going to cry,
and the grandma's going to cry. They're going to they
will see on a visceral sense the emotional impact that
these people are suffering as a result of the murder.
And it's you know, it's a completely different dynamic. And
I you know, at first, I thought, how how the
hell do we do these? And then when you do
(13:19):
a couple, it's like, this is its own type of case.
I wound up prosecuting five nobody jury trials. You know,
a lot of prosecutors haven't done one, and they don't understand.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
That you really.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Like, there's a case. I think it's North Carolina, the
Heather Elvis case. There was a man who's basically having
an affair. She was a food server at a place
called the Tilted Kill and she disappeared. They never recovered
her body, and they wound up prosecuting this man and
his wife for kidnapping. But I you know, it's one
of those things I'm doing commentary and I'm shouting at
(13:52):
the TV because I think that they should be charged
for murder, and I think a jury would have no
trouble convicting them of the murder of Heather Elvis, having
done five of them myself. So they're fascinating type of case.
And there's it brings in different evidentiary considerations and yes,
but I'll tell you what you get it you get
a decent judge that's willing to let you put your
(14:13):
case on and they're a lot more compelling than a
lot of people think.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, I was super curious about the evidentiary like procedures,
how you're going to go about it and everything. So
I know in one of the cases that I've worked
on recently, we talked a little bit about it. All
we had was a piece of liver about the size
of a golf ball and half a jawbone.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That was literally it of the entire body.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
But through that we did find out she was you know,
higher percentage of being murdered than dying of smoke inhalation.
How hard is it to compile that evidence to prove
a murder.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Well, you know, you got some jurisdictions that have just
never done a no body case, so they you're up
against a I would imagine for people that are just
out there, some of the families with me love ones
you're up against almost like a wall of inexperience, you know,
and they and you know like I mean, you're telling
me liver and java on, like I would love to
(15:11):
have had that much evidence to prove the death of
some of my some of my victims, because a lot
of times in southern California, you know, it's a general
rule if you can get a body out into the
Pacific Ocean, not into some back bay like Lacy Peterson
or something stupid like Scott Peterson did and he did,
or you get the body out into a shallow grave
in the Mohave Desert. As a general you're never going
(15:33):
to recover those law enforcements, never finding those bodies. Even
with cell phone pings, you don't find those. But you
can have a lot of other compelling evidence that somebody's dead.
But my god, if you've got body parts that you
can match to DNA, there's an a juror in the
world that isn't going to think that the peace of
a liver isn't going to lead to somebody's death.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
And some woman isn't.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Going around there with no jaw and amnesia like that.
That poor woman in your case is clearly dead. And
so but you know, I don't know that case. Maybe
they just maybe they were perfectly comfortable with the idea
that she was dead. They just weren't comfortable with who
did it. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
It was a yeah, it was a fire, and it
was it was essentially originally blamed on either accidental or
self inflicted.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And we're like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
After we got the tax coology report and medical examiners
report and all that, it's like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
She was dead before the fire started.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So that's basically what thrust us forward in the prosecutors
off like okay, you guys are serious.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
It's like yeah, but yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Couldn't imagine just trying to put all those pieces of
evidence together that aren't there, you know, and just going
along proving it. That's that's pretty wild. And I noticed
you did bring up Scott Peterson.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Is that one.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Is that one of those cases that you just get
completely just utterly annoyed with, or do you see a
lot of false information spread around to where you're like
just stop, just stop.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
One of the things that kind of did get me
a little bit on that. I mean, I know his
defense word is again named Mark errago. So I know
very well. I really like Mark, I consider my friend
of mine. I did some cases with Mark over the years,
and I always got along with them very well. So
he was I followed that case pretty closely at the time,
and Scott Pearson did it.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Guys, he's convicted of it, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I mean, I've heard all this stuff, like you know,
there's a cult down the street, and you know, I'm sorry,
But when there's two reasonable interpretations, that always goes to
the defendant. When there's one reasonable interpretation and one interpretation
of evidence that is insanely convoluted and makes no sense,
you know who is at Arkham's razor? I think the
(17:43):
famous ancient philosopher. So the simplest explanation is usually the
correct one. But like that's that is your generic run
of the middle domestic violence, murder, he's having an affair.
All the pieces, just everything about that. It's so average.
It's been all that. The media just jumped all over
that because she was missing, she was pregnant, and you know,
(18:04):
and it's horrific in its own right. But I mean,
I when they when when everybody announced great fanfare that
the Innocence Project of La was coming in, so I
got a dealt with them too. After after you know,
it's like, so, you know, like I really so that,
you know, I just they've worked on some of my cases,
and they've never been right in my experience, my my
(18:26):
personal experience.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
In fact, they've been wrong every single time.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
So so it's like, oh, wow, the the La Innocence Project,
It's like, how does that change.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Any of the evidence in that case?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
I that jury did the right thing in my view,
you know, and it's not my case. Maybe maybe there's
something I don't know that happened in that but I
followed that pretty close at the time. There's no I
have I personally have no doubt, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So, what are some of the hardships that you've had
to go through prosecuting a case, whether it be just
in upt law enforcement or just straight up on on
any level to where you just.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You know, are you freaking kidding me?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Like?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
How is this reality right now?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Well? I got to work with great cops. I was
very lucky.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I had the cities in Newport Beach Coast, in massil Laguna,
and Irvine, and every one of those are really well
funded professional law enforcement organizations and for detectives when they
come up through the ranks, you know, to get to
doing homicide cases. They are they tend to be smarter
than your average bear. You know, they're not They're not.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Just patrol cops.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
These are very cerebral smart people that are detectives because
they have a passion for it and they were called
to it, you know what I mean. So it's they're
not flunkies at least. The ones that I dealt with
were great. So as far as my the the officers
I got to work with, they were, and I'm.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Biased here, the best of the best.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So I never had I never had a lot of
frustration with my with my cops. A case that really
did frustrate me a bit was the dating game killer
guy Namedrodney o'calla. He was active in the sixties and seventies.
You know, he had a genius level like you kind
of your classic American serial killer, and he kidnapped, him
almost murdered an eight year old girl named Tali Shapiro
(20:13):
in Hollywood in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
So he she's walking to school.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
He's like the original don't take rides from Stranger's guy, right,
and he convinces her to get in the car and
then he drives her to his place. And there's a
good samaritan who saw this, who back in nineteen sixty eight,
long before the year of cell phones, went to a
payphone called it in and a police officer, officer Camacho,
his first day back from the Watts Riots, this guy,
(20:39):
and he talked about a hero police officer. He was
shot in Vietnam and then he came back and then
he was shot in the Watts Riots. So he is
it's his first day back at work and he gets
this welfare check, you know, check on little girl in
the house. And he goes there and I'm sure enough
he interrupts rape and murder of the sol late year
old call runs out the back naked and you've got
(21:03):
dying little girl in the kitchen and you got naked
bad guy running out the back, and it's like, what
do you do? And he did the right thing. He
saved the little girl and she was in a coma
for thirty two days as soon she barely made it.
And it's just because he acted when he did.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
But I'll Koala got out.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
To New York and he changed his name and several
years later, they track him down working at an all
girls sleep boay camp in Vermont, and later we learned
that he murdered at least five people in New York
certainly I think two more in Vermont that we know of.
There's one in Wyoming. Anyway, he gets extrighted and gets
(21:44):
a life sentence in the state of California, and he
was paroled after thirty four months. And so he gets
paroled in nineteen seventy four after his parole, depending on
which detective and which estimate you know, conservatively he killed.
I mean he could at least three people that we
know of after that for sure, probably six more his suspect.
(22:05):
And when you look at how prolific he was, and
then the fact that he was allowed to drive across country,
including a murder in Wyoming that we know of for
sure that where he was charged on he probably killed
one hundred people after his release and they could have
kept him. And so that's one that when you deal
with the families on a case like that. So we
prosecuted him for five I you know, you deal with
(22:29):
these poor people, and you know a lot of serial
killers will target sex workers, right because it's you know,
they they they'll agree to go down the dark alley,
and though because of the nature of that profession, they
put themselves in very vulnerable positions with men, which going
back to Jack the Ripper and probably long before him,
prostitutes back then where the they're the victim of choice
(22:50):
because you can get away with them. That hasn't changed much.
But all Kala wasn't doing that right now. Kala was
He would follow women at home from bars. So he
he murdered. Among his victims twelve year old Robin Samso
from Huntington Beach, who's a girl that took a ride
on a way to ballet Lesson again talked to her
into his car. There was a legal secretary named Charlotte
(23:11):
Lamb in Santa Monica, Georgia Wick said, who was a
pediatric cancer nurse. He murdered her in Malibu, JITL. Parento,
who was a computer programmer. So he was murdering the
women that we all know and love in our personal lives,
you know, and none of them should have died. And
that's one that haunts me.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
To this day. It is so frustrating, especially.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
As California now is making a hard left turn into
things like early release and therapy for these guys, and
I'm here to tell you it does not work when
it comes to sex offenders. You can give all the
therapy in the world and give them all the help.
There quotes that you could come up with. It's as
long as they draw her up, they're going to want
to kill people and or rape them or do both.
(23:54):
It was so predictable, and it was so avoidable, and
it just caused so much suffering for the families of
those poor victims, and that one breaks my heart, and
that breaks my heart to this day.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It is absolutely refreshing to hear somebody just put it
plain out there. I mean, I'm pretty sure most people
can agree with exactly what you said, Like there's at
some point, you know, there's no rehabilitation, you know, that's
what it is.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I'll even take this step for the for elected officials,
they have a moral responsibility to the innocent people of
their community to do everything they can to prevent predators
like ridneyl Call from being released. And it's I don't
understand the political push that has sympathy for these people.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
This is a guy who agreed sadistically tortured his victims
to death like that, and the images are too in
my mind, are too graphic to share with you about what.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
He did to these poor women, and because it's you know,
back in the eighteen eighties, there's a German psychiatrist in
doctor von Ebbing, who is a contemporary of Sigmund Freud,
and he wrote a whole book about about serial killers
and he called them sadistic lust murderers, and that which
is that term I think is a lot more accurate
than serial killer, because serial killer just you're essentially just
(25:10):
counting a number of victims. That gets into what they're
really all about, like the Ted Bundy's and Jeffrey Dahmers,
the BTK killer, Gilgo Beach killer, Rex Huerman if you know,
he's presumed innocent right now, but you know, there's a
sadism and a tortuit element to a lot.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Of what zerial killers do.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
And elected officials have a moral and legal obligation to
protective constituents from those guys. Look, there's a DA in
Los Angeles County name George Gascon who has come in
so hard on releasing murderers and child molesters and rapists
from California State Prison that as far as I'm concerned
that man has blood on his hands by doing that,
(25:48):
and and I I'll debate any of them anytime anywhere.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
I know these laws.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I worked these cases professionally for almost two decades, and
I think that they have a duty and they are
failing when they don't do it.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The amount of stress and frustration in your daily life
through those twenty years was probably insane. Man, What would
you say if you had to pick one case was
the hardest to get a conviction on?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And why well, I had one. I went up against
my old mentor Reloop. So the guy who won sixty
seven murders in a row is the best trialer I've
ever seen. We had a cold case in Orange County.
It was a girl named Kathy Torres, and I shouldn't
say girls, a young woman. She was twenty two and
(26:34):
she was She had her boyfriend Sam Lopez, and she
disappeared for about a week. She was later found in
the trunk of her car, and we had there was
no evidence in the car indicating that Sam was there,
but we did have some friends Governance indicating that it
might have been his cousin Javier, who he said he
was there that night, and anyway, the case was submitted
(26:56):
back in ninety four and it was refused for lack
of evidence. Then I was submitted again in nineteen ninety five,
refused for lack of evidence. And I think it was
even submitted again, submitted multiple times for review by the homstudy.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
In it, and they kept refusing it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And then you know, a new detective came in and
I was one of the cold case stupanies then, and
he brought it back and it was just really, really
tough because I was going up against the best trial
yer I'd ever seen and he had left the office
and came in as a defense lawyer. You know, that
one was really tough because it had been rejected a
bunch of times. The case was fifteen years old when
(27:32):
we filed it, and I figured, you know, there's absolute
zero doubt in my mind that he committed this murder.
We roll with a couple of really good detectives, my
old investigator, Larry Montgomery and another guy named Darren Wyatt,
and we put that together for the family, trying to
bring some justice to them, and we convicted him of
a first of your murder, and that one was probably
(27:53):
the toughest trial I did just because Lou was so good,
you know, just tactically. This is a man who taught
me to proscute murder cases, and here I am defending him,
and we rolled into that trial. I think we were combined.
I did that later in my time. So we did
sixty seven. I think we were up to about one
hundred and four murders between the two of us, and
(28:14):
neither of us had ever lost a trial at that point,
a bahamicide trial.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
So one of us was.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Walking out with a with a W and one of
us is going to walk out with hell. Fortunately Lou
walked out with the with the loss on that one,
and we get I really feel like we got to
the degree that California allaw would allow we rechieve justice
for that family on that case.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's good to hear, and that's a pretty awesome story. Actually,
when it comes to circumstantial evidence, at what point do
you say, okay, we have enough, we can you know,
take this to either a grandjury or start prosecution or
start the process. Because I don't know what that limit is.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I mean, I've been.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Involved with cases where they're just like it's not enough,
it's not enough, it's not enough.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's like how much do you need? Man?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, so it's a great question.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So the you know, when it comes to filing cases,
there is a very subjective element and essentially the filing
standard for prosecutors you must believe one hundred percent person
did it.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
You can have no doubt.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
And the second part is you must believe that there's
enough admissible evidence you have a reasonable likelihood of convincing
a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Okay, So there's a
lot of subjective gray in there. And when I first
started in the homstud unit, I didn't have the skill
set that I that I had when I left, you know,
fifty three murder trials later. You know, you it's like
(29:41):
anything else. It's like golf or whatever you're into, Like
you get better over time and then that so that
equation really changes over time the more skill you get,
like like that no body thing like a case that
I would have been reluctant to file before I had
done one. After doing five, it's like I know exactly
what to look for, I know exactly what the jury
is going to respond to and get You get a
(30:03):
gut for that sort of thing. And without that sort
of experience.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
It's it's a little bit tough.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So circumstantial evidence is one of those things. There's a
myth out there and we've all seen it on TV
a million times where it's Starsky and Hutch or you know,
Cagnate and Lacey or top It or Crockett and Tubs,
whoever that the crime fighting duo that we have. You
can be that man Rob and whatever, you know, where
they go into their to their boss and they sit
(30:28):
down and they the boss yells at them and says,
this case is all circumstantial.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Bring us something we can use.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And it's a TV trope, it's so common, and there's
this myth out there that's circumstantial evidence somehow bad evidence
or less valuable. And the truth is the law treats
circumstantial evidence the same way it does direct evenence. Direct
evidence is just a person comes into court and says,
I saw that person do that thing on that date.
That's what direct evidence is. Circumstantial evidence is pretty much
(30:57):
everything else.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Circumstantial elevenance is fingerprints at a crime scene or on
a murder weapon or DNA.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
All of that is.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Technically circumstantial evidence. So you know the question is is
it persuasive enough. You know a lot of jurors are
surprised to learn that that circumstantial evidence is to be
afforded just as much weight under the law as direct
of and it's an in fact, for my money, having
done you know, one hundred and thirty three jury trials.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
If you give me.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Some drunk guy in a bar who says I saw
this guy do that, and then this guy do that
versus DNA on a legending instrument or something like that,
I'll take this circumstantial evidence ten out of ten times
because it doesn't lie, it doesn't exaggerate, you don't have
to work around its schedule, it doesn't forget, and it's
only going to tell one story. Now, sometimes there's two
(31:44):
reasonable interpretations to that, in which case, you know, the
jury or the DA has to go with the presumption
of innocence. But you know, circumstantial evidence also can add up,
you know, and especially when you get it from different
sources and there's different forms of it. You know, I
reached a point in my career where I even preferred doing.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Those cases because you.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
You know, it is what it is, and you know,
I had a Mike McLoughlin case out a Newport. That
was another cool case we did. We followed it fifteen
years later. This is a essentially it's his story. It's
the it's the plot line of Body Heat with that
old movie with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner and any
anybody who hasn't seen that, it's worth a watch.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
It's phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I think it's Mickey Rourke's first role when he was
still handsome, before you got all, before he did his
face whatever he did. I think boxing and plastic surgery.
I don't know, but but he's an amazing actor. But
there's that isn't a great movie, and it's it's one
of the oldest plot lines. And that's a redone noir
film from the I think the thirties, and it is
essentially beautiful young woman meets very wealthy older man and
(32:49):
wants his stuff, so she conspires to murder him for
life insurance or her spot on the will or whatever.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
It may be.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
And that was essentially the plot to that real case
out of Newport. And it was a woman who named
Nannette Johnston who got in and she had a NFL
former NFL player for the New England Patriots. Named Eric Naposki,
and he injured his way out of the NFL, and
he's working as a personal trainer and essentially broke. And
he met her in Irvine and she started sleeping with
(33:21):
him behind her real boyfriend's back. Next thing, you know,
Bill went off and gets shot six times in his
kitchen in Newport Beach, in his beautiful home in Newport.
So they got away with that for fifteen years, and
then we dusted that off, really thinking we were going
to get a DNA hit on.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
You know, he left the killer left the key stuck
in the door and.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Another one on the mat, and that were expended shellcasings
all over the kitchen. I figured forensic technology would have
caught up to that, and we didn't have any anything.
And I didn't know this at the time, but I
learned it like expended shellcases that come out of a firearm.
All the DNA burns off that because it's so hot,
and the keys were actually made of brass, and brass
(34:01):
will destroy biological material as a which is really interesting.
I didn't I didn't know that's why a lot of
door handles are brass. Because they learned that, you know,
back in the olden times that somebody figured out that
brass and aditionally, being pre people tend to get sick
less around brass. And it's because it will eventually destroy
biological material, which is what DNA is, right, So we
(34:22):
didn't get any hits on that, but we when we
started looking through it, man, it was just a new
set of eyes, you know, it was so fascinating. There's
so many compelling pieces to that puzzle. And then I
had a couple of real good investigators that actually did
discover some new evidence, so we were able to we
had enough to get over that homp. But the judge
(34:43):
at sentencing, he made a comment and I don't want
to paraphrase it too much, and of course this is
on the record, so the defense knows about it, but
it was something along the lines of this is a
circumstantial case, but this is an overwhelmingly convincing circumstantial case,
and I have no doubt you did it, and you
did that you made those comment.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
It's a sentence sing. We convicted both of them, and they.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Both received left out possibility pool in California State prison
and hopefully we'll never get out, although my crazy home
state never know seems to be held then on releasing
everybody they can, they say, so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That's what it's what I keep here. Unfortunately, let's talk
about your book. What made you decide to write this
and what kind of stuff can readers expect in there?
Speaker 3 (35:25):
So what this is is it's kind of it's part memoir,
you knows, it's essentially my time in homicide.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
So I went in.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I got moved out of sexual assault into homicide, and
I didn't know anything about murder cases, you know, And
I in fact, most of what I learned about homicide
I knew from just watching true crime, you know. And
so I walked in there and I kind of take
the reader through my education. Like for the writing out
call case, for example, I thought, you know, serial killers
(35:55):
were all like the character Buffalo Bill from Silence of
the Lamps, right like I saw. I've seen Silent to
the Lambs. I know what a serial killer is, and
in fact, they're they're very different than that.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
They are.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
They are the guy in front of you on line
at Starbucks. They are your neighbor, they're the people that
they're the guy that you would last expect would be
a serial killer. And that's one of the things that
are fascinating about them.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
So I walk the reader through that, and I walk
the reader through you know.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
We've all heard terms like first Grew murder, second Green murder,
and I'd explained it so many times to jurors over
the years that I thought I'd take the reader through
the same thing, like breaking down these concepts. We're all
familiar with it, but what does it actually mean? How
does it actually work? So it's I hope it's educational.
And then I talk about the forensics of DNA evidence,
(36:41):
you know, like I have a section on that where
I explain how DNA works and in a forensic context
and really so if I can understand DNA forensically, trust
me anybody who can understand DNA fansically.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
So I sort of I take them through that.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I try to educate people, and then I walk them
through my journey, you know, and some of the behind
the scenes stuff that goes into an Orange County it's
a vertical system, so a lot of the vast majority
really of prosecutoral offices. You'll it's an assembly line concept
where the police investigate and then they put it on
one DA's desk who reviews it for filing, who hands
(37:17):
it to another day to do the preliminary hearing or
the indictment, and then it goes to another somebody else
to try it, And so each person has a role,
and Orange County does it that way until you get
into the specialized units like sexual assault or homicide. In homicide,
the way it works being vertical, you get assigned those cities.
Whatever cities you're signed, you're signed of police officers, you're
(37:38):
a full time investigator in the unit, and then you
go to the scenes. You actually start the night of
the murder or the afternoon of the murder. You're there
with your detectives, and then there with you all the
way through the process. So you're there with the lead
detective that night, reviewing search warrants and making sure that
the constitution rights to any suspect are scrupulously honored. And
(38:00):
then the lead detective you were there with at three
in the morning is sitting next to you at the end,
through the whole trial and at sentencing there they are
and you go through this together, and it's a team
concept where you're there on the ground.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
And you it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
So we would go to our own crime scene, so
I walk the reader through like the introduction is my
first I take him through my first murder scene. And
What's going on in my stony, crazy brain as I'm
as I'm watching this, you know, like I I'd seen
I think two dead bodies at that point in my life.
You know, I'm thirty three years old. I've been to
(38:36):
a funeral and I saw a woman get hit by
a bus. And so I go into this and we've
all seen that scene on TV, you know where you
know the new guy, what does he do? You know,
like the new guy of the emergenciny right, They always puke, right,
So I'm thinking this must be a real thing. I've
been in the unit for one week at this point,
or bear, not even a week. This was my first week.
So I get the call out and I go in
(38:58):
and so I walk the reader through that, like I
walk in with a suit and I'm look an official.
But what is really going on in my head is
the worst imposter syndrome ever. And I'm thinking, just don't puke,
don't puke, don't puke. And I walk him through that,
and I see this guy and I you know, this
poor man had been murderings on the on the floor
of a kitchen and he's on his back and he
(39:19):
had a wallet chain and his you know, leading to
a wallet in.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
His right back pocket, but he had a folding knife
in his.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Left hand, and I'm thinking, don't puke, don't puke, don't puke.
And I opened my eyes and I look at it,
and it instantly made no sense, you know. And it's
instantly like, why would a right handed guy keep a
knife in his left hand hold the knife in his
left hand, or if he's left handed.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Why would he have his wallet in his right back pocket.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
And it was just one of those things, and it
was like and just instantly felt a weird sense of belonging.
And he had been shot a million times. And it
turns out it was a domestic violence love triangles sort
of set up, and that.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Was a wild case.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
And it was my first scene, and you know, and
I remember looking his shoes and just you know, the
thoughts in my head as I you know, I wondered,
if if you had any inkling that those be the
last shoelaces he would ever tie in his life, you know,
and he put his shoes on it. You know, I
share a bunch of that stuff like what really goes
on in your in your mind when you're Adam Mercy
and how it works like we've all seen, you.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Know that there's that yellow tape.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
What's really going on behind the scenes and the yellow tape?
And I try to walk the reader through that, and
then what I do is I take them through about
a dozen of my my more high profile cases that
I've worked on. I had, you know, the dating game Killer.
I did the Samantha Running case. Originally I was the
filing deputy on that. That was a six year old
little girl that got kidnapped, actually she was five, a
(40:40):
guy named Alejandra Avala, and that was huge national news
back from the time.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Dirty John was one of my cases.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I walked there the reader through through that and uh
even give some online dating tips some of the things
I learned from some of the relationships on that.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
And you know, there's a taxonomy of murders.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
There's you know, a child abuse murder is totally different
than like a gang murder, which is still a completely
different animal than like a seven to eleven robbery gone bad,
or you know, serial killers. Conspiracies commit murder for money.
They all result in the same thing. With a dead
human being, but the ways he get there and what
happens in the investigations end of those cases are all
(41:18):
very different. So I thought it it would be a
great thing to share some of that with people, and
for those that are interested in true crime. It's a
it's kind of a so it's part memoir, part instruction manual,
and then part just story after story of these these
really interesting murder cases that I was the you know,
I did the Scholar Daily owned case out of Newport,
(41:40):
a couple that was tied to the anchor and thrown overboard,
you know, the William McLoughlin case. Like I said, I
did the Ed Shen case that was a man who
murdered his business partner and buried him in the desert.
That was in nobody case. You know, I had the
Hussein Nairie case, which was a guy that committed a
horrific kidnapping for ransom essentially, and they sexually mutilated the
victim out of the desert and he wound up, you know,
(42:01):
he was in Iran, and we lured him out of
Iran and threw a net on him and the net
in the Czech Republic and prosecuted him. So I go
through the behind the scenes of some of these kind
of high profile murder cases and that I worked on
over the years, and I really I hope people like
it poured a lot of my heart and soul in it.
I'm no Ernest Hemingway, but it came from the heart, so.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
No, and that's that's all that matters really, And I'm
always intrigued to understand the insights as well, like what's
going on through your mind when you're seeing on seeing
all this and like you had mentioned what's going on
behind the yellow tape, right, and that that kind of
information is invaluable, and even if it's for you know,
story purpose, it's still it's still entertaining, but it's it's
(42:45):
to me, it's very insightful because like, okay, like what's
the process, what's he going to start thinking about and everything?
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yeah, so hopefully it'll be it'll be I.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Try to write it in an entertaining way, tons of
like personal observations and you know, behind the scene, these
little anecdotes and more stories.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
And then and then I walked.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
The reader through about a dozen of those murder cases
and what was really happening behind the scenes on those,
you know, it's Hyperion Avenues, that's Disney Books. It's available
on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And I teamed up
with a local bookstore and had a niche called Pages
of Bookstore. It's pages of Bookstore dot com. And they're
trying to, you know, help my vocal brick and mortar
(43:25):
sell a few and I went and did some signed
copies with them, And all of these things are up
on my website on my Instagram too, which is at
Matt Murphy Law.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
And yeah, so I really hope that people. I hope
they like it.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
A little nervous, yeah, you know, I put myself out
there a little bit on this to talk about my
childhood a bit, and you know, I know that everybody's
a critic, every well especially you know, given the nature
of what I did. You know, I tried a lot
of cases against. You know, there's I got along very
well with most defense lawyers that I tried cases against.
But there's there's one I talked about bit in the book.
(44:00):
I don't name this person, but there's one lawyer that
I wasn't able to. We didn't shake hands. At the
end of my entire career, I've tried two hundred and
fifty cases to verdict if you count my bench trials
and addition to majority trials, I've shaken the hands of
every single one of them except for one. And this
guy has a you know, he's got a He works
for a large office in uh Orange County, and I'm
(44:21):
sure his I'm sure his coworkers are gonna are going
to bash my book when it comes out. And I
stand by every word that I said in that thing,
So I'm sure there will be there will be a
little bit of review bombing. But right now it's doing
great on good Reads. We're at four point seven seven
stars out of five, you know, with for the good
Reads review, and I got a really nice write up
(44:42):
in the Neurop Post, And I've got some some awesome people
that are that are interested in Megan Kelly is gonna
is going to give me an hour and uh Assey Banfield, Nancy.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Grace, Elizabeth Vargas.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
They've all you know, been nice enough to you know,
help help get the wor out there about the books.
So hopefully hopefully people buy it, and hopefully they hopefully
they like it.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Oh, I'm sure they'll like it. And if they don't.
I tell you what.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
When I started podcasting, it was about a year in
and somebody told me never take never take criticism from
somebody you wouldn't take advice from. And that really stuck.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
Well, yeah, that's a great quote. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, it's stuck with me and it's helped. But other
than that, what do you got in the future. Are
there any current cases that you've been tracking and following?
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Oh so, yeah, I've been doing commentary for the Go
Go Beach murders here in New York m right now.
Rex Yeoman is accused. Fun fascinated by that one because
it's sort of the next stage of serial killers, I
think where he's he's committing these murders with forensic science
in mind, which is fascinating.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
And then I'm still practicing laws, so I'm still taking
on I'm very select about the cases that I take on,
but I'm defending some police officers right now, one in
particular that you know, it's a rough time for them,
you know, and and some of them really need need
to help, not all, but some certainly do.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
And uh, definitely.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
And then I'm working on a second book right now.
We're we're going out a proposal for that, which I
think I'm gonna it's almost a sequel where I'm going
to focus. I did thirteen cases that technically qualify as
serial killers, six or what I think are true blue,
and I only talk about one of them in this book.
So the next one I still have some meat on
the bone. So I think we're gonna We're gonna make
(46:27):
another proposal. So hopefully, hopefully people like this first one,
because then Disney will let me write a second one.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So, Matt Murphy, I cannot thank you enough for taking
the time out of your out of your busy schedule
to have this interview.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
All Right, it was great talking to you.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Likewise likewise, all right, we're talking again, Okay, yep, right
Speaker 2 (47:01):
S
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