August 1, 2021 • 68 mins
Welcome back to Victimology!
I am joined by John Palmer to discuss the tragic case surrounding the passing of his beautiful wife, Katie Palmer. Katie was struck by a vehicle while walking on April 21, 2020. The man that hit her, Cory Foster, has a 20 year history of vehicular crime, including DWI, PI, Fleeing Arrest, Reckless Driving, Speeding...the list continues on. He has somehow gotten away with a slap on the wrist every time by our County Law Enforcement.
Join John and I as we discuss the circumstances surrounding Katie's untimely death and corruption in Grayson county.
PLEASE go and follow JUSTICE FOR KATIE PALMER ON:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justiceforkatiepalmer
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/justiceforkatiepalmer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/for_palmer
Website:https://justiceforkatiepalmer.com/
Want a chance to win a signed copy of Dr. Engel's book?
Enter the contest here - the winner will be chosen next week!
https://form.jotform.com/212057969530056
Visit theoracl3network.com to check out other awesome indie shows!
Please make sure to like and follow Victimology on social media as well as subscribing to Victimology on your favorite podcast platform.
Victimology is always accepting case suggestions, please reach out via email or social media.
I am joined by John Palmer to discuss the tragic case surrounding the passing of his beautiful wife, Katie Palmer. Katie was struck by a vehicle while walking on April 21, 2020. The man that hit her, Cory Foster, has a 20 year history of vehicular crime, including DWI, PI, Fleeing Arrest, Reckless Driving, Speeding...the list continues on. He has somehow gotten away with a slap on the wrist every time by our County Law Enforcement.
Join John and I as we discuss the circumstances surrounding Katie's untimely death and corruption in Grayson county.
PLEASE go and follow JUSTICE FOR KATIE PALMER ON:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justiceforkatiepalmer
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/justiceforkatiepalmer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/for_palmer
Website:https://justiceforkatiepalmer.com/
Want a chance to win a signed copy of Dr. Engel's book?
Enter the contest here - the winner will be chosen next week!
https://form.jotform.com/212057969530056
Visit theoracl3network.com to check out other awesome indie shows!
Please make sure to like and follow Victimology on social media as well as subscribing to Victimology on your favorite podcast platform.
Victimology is always accepting case suggestions, please reach out via email or social media.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Due to the graphic nature and contentof this podcast, listener discretion is advised.
(01:11):
Hello and welcome back to Victimology.I'm your host, Melissa Lee.
I hope everyone out there in podcastland is doing just swell and please tell
me you all are continuing to washyour hands for the love of God.
Happy August everyone. I hope everyoneis staying safe and following your local guidelines
(01:37):
as far as COVID goes, andlike I said, please continue to wash
your hands. I decided we're goingto go one more week for the Power
of Truth giveaway. If you wantto enter the contest down below, make
sure to follow the link, fillout your name and email, and make
sure to liken share on Facebook.And I'm going to actually for those of
(01:59):
you who share the post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, you'll actually get
a second entry in for the giveaway, so make sure to do that.
And now we'll take our mandatory adbreak. See you guys in a few
minutes. Welcome back everyone, Thanksfor joining me again. Now on this
week's episode, I am joined bya husband who is seeking out justice for
(02:23):
his late wife. I don't wantto give too much information away, but
without further ado this is my episodewith John Palmer discussing justice for Katie Palmer.
(02:50):
All right, so with me onthis week's episode. I am joined
by John Palmer. John, thankyou so much for joining me on this
week's episode of Victimology. Melissa,thank you for having me. So,
John, let's kind of start talkingabout your wife, Katie. Can you
tell me a little bit about whoKatie was as a person. Katie was
(03:10):
a great person. Katie was thebest of us. Katie loved her family,
adored our children. She was agreat wife, fantastic mother, loved
her mom, loved her dad,loved family. Everything she did she put
(03:32):
other people first, and you don'treally come across people like that. She
was a lover of nature and science. She taught science and STEM at the
local middle school here in Dennison andloved teaching and loved her students. She
(03:55):
was fantastic in all aspects. Doyou have a favorite memory of Katie?
The one thing that I remember orthat I'll that I'll always remember about Katie
and I And I've said this numeroustimes, Melissa. She she had this
laugh, and the laugh could fillthe room. And she always had the
(04:23):
loudest laugh and the most distinguished alaugh. You would definitely hear her before
you saw her, and that thatwas just a running joke, whether it
be you know, I'm meeting herat a restaurant, we already have friends
there looking for her. Obviously,we just have to listen, and you
(04:45):
would, you would hear she alwayslaughed at the most inappropriate times in movies,
and I was that a loud laugh, And then she started laughing more
because again, no laughed at themost inappropriate time in a movie when it
was quiet. She was just fantasticto be around. We started to travel.
(05:06):
We had reached a point where wewere able to go to Europe twice.
The memories that we made made thereor I mean, I'll obviously remember
those the rest of my life.She was adventurous when it came to traveling.
Always wanted to go see and exploreand experience new things. One thing
(05:29):
I will always I always fall backto. I was deployed to Africa,
and she was pregnant with our firstchild, Bella, and she had Bella
three weeks before I got home,and obviously couldn't be there because I was
(05:53):
was deployed. But listen to itover the phone, and she was so
strong. M She went through thelast six months of pregnancy without me being
there, but again with the fullsupport of her family, who is absolutely
amazing. There, great great people. I was a nervous wreck on the
(06:15):
phone, you know, an oceanaway, and she was calm. Listen
to her, and the last thingshe says was, um, I'm gonna
have our baby and got quiet.The next thing I've heard was was bella
(06:36):
screaming. M man. She wasstrong. She was very strong, which
just shows shows you the both bothsides of Katie Palmer, that that loud
laugh and strength. It sounds likeshe was just an amazing person all around,
(07:00):
a beautiful person. Yes, ma'am, I'm I'm I'm a little biased,
but I would completely agree. Soif you're ready, let's go ahead
and talk about the day the accidenthappened. So how did how did that
day start? That day started?I woke up in the morning, I
(07:20):
went to go work out in ourbackyard, and she had told me the
night before that if I was goingto go walk that she would go with
me, which kind of blew offbecause you know, she said that numerous
times before. But she was reallynot a morning person. So I went
out to the backyard I worked out. Remember coming in around seven fifteen or
(07:45):
so. I had sent her atext. We have a little outbuilding where
I have some some weights, soI sent sent her text message, you
know, just hey, let's go, let's go walk. Didn't hear anything.
Walked in the house, woke herup and just asked her, hey,
you know, are you you're readyto go walk? And she looked
at me and she's like, yeah, I'm not going. And I said,
come on, let's go. Yousaid you were you were going to
(08:07):
go, and then um, shesaid okay. And that was the first
time she ever walked with me inthe morning, first and last. So
she got up and we started walkingdown Glenwood Drive, which is the street
that we live on. Walked towardsthe golf course. There was some do
(08:28):
on the ground. We were goingto walk on the golf course, but
she didn't want to. She didn'twant to get her legs wet. She
had to log into teach students online. This is obviously in the kind of
the height of COVID where all thestudents were distance learning, and I believe
she had to log in at liketen or ten thirty. She said that
(08:52):
after we got through walking, shewas going to go laid down for an
hour or so. So we decidednot to walk on the golf course.
Kept walking down Glenwood Drive, wentup near I believe it's Golf Walk Circle,
which is the subdivision behind the golfcourse, and she says she wanted
to show me some killdeer, whichare birds that nest on the ground.
(09:16):
So we stopped. We couldn't seeany. We looked across this this field
they have some undeveloped lots, lookedout. They didn't see any, and
I said, well, hey,let's go. Let's go, you know,
look on the lots to see ifwe see any. She said,
now, let's just go ahead andturn back around. And said, oh
okay. So we turned back aroundand we were walking on the edge of
(09:37):
the roadway, right near the roadroadway, and as we were walking back,
that's when we got hit. Sowe were walking on the correct side
of the road, facing on comingtraffic, and it was very surreal.
(10:00):
I remember Katie saying something and kindof looking over her left shoulder and smiling
at me. And we didn't evenhear the truck which had crossed over the
roadway and hit us both. Melissa, I couldn't tell you what the impact
(10:20):
felt like, because the next thingI know, I'm flying through the air
at what seemed to really high rateof speed. I could see his silver
truck was just about going the samespeed as I was. I saw it
for half a second, and thenI hit the ground and rolled. It
(10:45):
came to a stop, and Iknew I'd been hit. I got up
to my hands and knees, andit felt like I had a ratchet around
my midsection that was just being tightened. I couldn't stand up, and that's
when I saw Katie. She waslaying on her on her left side,
(11:11):
somewhat propped up by her left elbow. She let out this this horrible moan,
and I couldn't stand up and walkedto her. I had to crawl
over to her later down on herback. She was almost as if she
(11:37):
was paralyzed in that spot. Ilaid her down, and at that time,
Corey Foster it was a man thathit us both. He had yelled
out something to the effect of,oh my god, I'm sorry, John.
(11:58):
I didn't know it was y'all.He identified us from his truck to
where we ended up, to whereKatie ended up, and I crawled over
to her. She wasn't breathing.I was begging for her to breathe.
And then one of our neighbors showedup. This woman pulled her car over,
(12:20):
came running over to Katie. Iimagine, to be honest with you,
I never even looked at this neighborat all. I was so fixed
on Katie. I just kept onhearing this woman's voice telling us both it
was gonna be okay, She's gonnabe fine. So I was yelling for
somebody to call mine one one,Please call mine one one. I was
(12:45):
begging for Katie to breathe, pleasebreathe, please breathe. And it seemed
like minutes went by, but I'msure it was only, you know,
thirty seconds. And then she letout this this gasp, and she was
having a very hard time breathing.It was small, labored breathing about every
(13:07):
fifteen seconds. And I thought,man, she's breathing great. You know,
still yelling for somebody to call minenine one one. Somebody needs to
go get my kids. And thenthat's when I noticed that Katie was staring
straight up at the sky, andshe wasn't blinking, and it's begging for
(13:33):
her to blink. I was tryingto trying to make her blink with you
know, my hands. I wastrying to close close her eyes and see
if she'd opened the back up.But her eyes were fixed and she was
staring straight up at the sky.I knew that was a bad, bad
sign. I think with that moanthat moaned that I that I mentioned,
(13:54):
I believe that was her. Ibelieve that. I believe that was her
dying there. I believe she shepassed there and her body was shutting down,
and I was there um holding herhand, telling her everything was going
(14:16):
to be fine, and uh thatshe she had to pull through for for
us. So the ambulance arrived.I mean, it seemed it seemed like
forever, but I would imagine itwas, you know, less than seven
(14:41):
or eight minutes. We we livedoutside the city limits, and those those
guys got there fast. But whenyou're going through an experience where you know
you're watching your soulmate die again,I believe she she had already pass asked
to believe there was just her bodyshutting down with the labor breathing those guys
(15:05):
got there quick. They started towork on Katie, and I remember immediately,
oh god, maybe two or threeminutes after they got there, I
remember them stating that they needed amedical evac helicopter unseen. They asked me
if I had been hit, andI told them I had, and then
(15:28):
they loaded me onto a gurney andinto an ambulance. And that was the
last time I saw Katie that thatday. The next time I saw her
was when the next day I wasdriven to Plano, said my final good
goodbyes to her. So you knewthe driver. I knew Cory Foster,
(15:56):
a partner of mine that I thatI work with. We would always go
eat Maybe one day a week,we'd go to there's a restaurant in town
that has a sports bar section,and we'd always go in there to eat
lunch because you had multiple TVs.We'd get a coke and a hamburger.
And one of my neighbors was upthere at the bar area because we had
(16:21):
just moved in, and he introducedhimself, and he also introduced us to
Corey Foster, who was sitting atthe bar there and turns out was a
regular, if not daily, everyother day, so I had said Hi
to him, and then you know, we'd see him in there, I'd
(16:44):
say hi. He even asked usone time for a quote. We have
a fire and security alarmed company.He asked us for a quote on his
house, and my partner had oneof my partner's say going out there to
quote quote his house, and hecalled Corey twice in the morning. From
what he told me, Cory wasso out of it, I guess from
(17:04):
the night before he never remembered mypartner calling him that. That was my
extent of Corey Foster that and gotto realize that he was the guy that
sped up and down our street inhis massive truck and I've yelled at him
before to slow slow down. Ourstreet is roughly about half a mile long.
(17:30):
It's pretty much a straight shot,and some people treated as a drag
strip. Corey was one of them. Yeah, that was my extent of
any relationship with Corey Foster. That'sall. H So, you both had
been hit in this horrible, horribleaccident. So after the MTS arrived,
(17:52):
do the police show up? Theydid, and we've released the bodycam footage.
Now. DPS arrived on scene thirtyminutes after we were hit. Okay,
thirty minutes after, and there wasno accountability for those thirty minutes for
(18:14):
what Corey Foster's actions were. ButDPS, which is the Department of Public
Safety, since we are outside ofthe city limits, they were the responding
agency. So again, approximately thirtyminutes later, Tarif Alcatebe with the Texas
Department of Public Safety arrived on scene. I don't know have have you had
(18:37):
a chance to look at the bodycamera footage? Not yet? No,
okay, I would encourage you to. Okay. Tarif Alcatebe arrived on scene.
He walked over to the MTS andfirst image you see a katie.
She's in a guarney and there's anEMT that is hand pumping oxygen into her,
(19:03):
helping her body breathe. The MedicalEvac helicopter was landing as Tariff arrived
on scene, so Medical Evac basicallybeat DPS on scene within I believe ten
minutes. He was speaking with CoreyFoster. He had gone from Katie.
(19:27):
He went to me. I wasvery aware of the situations. I could
answer all of his questions, toldhim exactly where we were, asked him
why this driver crossed over the roadway. Why was he driving on the wrong
side of the road. Terry's responseto me was I'll go take care of
(19:51):
them, okay, which he did. Then he goes over to Corey and
within a about two minutes as beingwith Corey Foster, if not sooner,
the trooper starts to ask Corey aboutdrinking and tells Corey that he can smell
alcohol on his breath, again,not coming from his body, coming from
(20:15):
his breath strong. He did saythat there was a strong presence of alcohol.
There was a strong alcoholic odor comingfrom his breath. Corey's story changed
so many times. He told theofficer he had four or five whiskies throughout
the day and that he stopped drinkingat seven, but then seven turned to
(20:37):
eight, eight turned to nine,and then he didn't know when he stopped.
So there was a field sobriety testthat was administered by DPS by Trooper
alcatib and at this point, melessa, this is fifty minutes after my wife
(20:59):
and I were hit, fifty minutesafter wow. So DPS performs the horizontal
gaze test and you cannot see CoreyFoster's eyes at all in the body camera
footage, which I have been toldby other troopers that that's that's common,
just with the way where the bodycamera sits. Tariff is not tall in
(21:23):
stature, He's short, and uh, Corey, I believe it's like five
ten. You know, there's noway with Tariff being short that that body
camera would probably pick up his eyes, which he didn't. So he performs
a horizontal gaze test and then hehas Corey stand on one leg for thirty
(21:45):
seconds. Corey starts shaking horribly abouttwenty seconds into it and then falls falls
over. Prior to that test,he had walked a straight line again fifth
fifty minutes after and smelling very stronglyof alcohol. So going back to that
(22:07):
last test where he stood up onone leg after he started shaking uncontrollably and
fell over, you know, onboth both feet, he started a laugh
and I just said, you know, man, I'm wearing my my my
work boots. Now, mind you, this is the only well, this
is one of two times that heshowed emotion throughout this entire day. Never
(22:32):
once did he ask how Katie was. Never once did he ask how I
was. Started laughing and said,oh it was you know, it's my
it's my work, boots. They'rethey're on level, okay, At which
point to Reef asks him if youdo a PBT. I'm not sure if
he asked him, but he toldhim this is this is what what we're
(22:52):
gonna do. We're gonna do aPBT test and have have you blow?
Well, the troopers have told methat, hey, you know, if
somebody passes a field sobriety tests,then you know, really no need to
do a p PPT. Tariff performeda PPT fifty minutes after, allegedly Corey
(23:14):
Foster blew a point zero six fiftyminutes after. I say allegedly because Tariff
never shows the scorer of the PPTinto the body camera, never been told
by troopers that it's pretty common foryou to show the score. So blows
a point zero six. And thenlet's Corey know that you know he's below
(23:41):
the limit, you know, buthe finds it hard to believe that,
you know, he stopped drinking.When he said he stopped drinking and blew
a point zero six. His wordsto Corey was, man, you must
have been drinking a whole lot lastlast night. At that point, Tariff
may two calls to supervisors that fromwhat I've been told, those supervisors should
(24:04):
have been unseen or at least one. Tarif, a ten plus year veteran,
caused his supervisors twice about the situation, never asked them if he should
take Corey in to get a bloodtest, which was odd to me,
which means that I believe they mighthave been talking on the other side,
(24:29):
telling Tariff maybe what to do,but ultimately its Tree's decision. And I
do not understand why an officer withas much experience as tif Alcatib has would
not see that a man who justcrossed over the roadway and hit two people
(24:51):
smelled strongly of alcohol fifteen minutes laterblew a point zero six and you don't
take him in to get blood.That's that's disturbing M and there is no
excuse for it. I do notunderstand why Threif would not have taken Cory
(25:15):
into get blood. M Later on, um, you know, after Tariff
told Cory that everything was going tobe okay, his mom was on scene.
He told Cory to go tell hismom everything was going to be just
fine. The breaker shows up.Tarif very apologetically tells Corey that they're going
(25:40):
to have to take his truck.You know, they're they're gonna have to
pull the there's a little black boxon the truck if they're going to go
have to take taken in. Youknow, he was very apologetic on any
inconvenience that you know, he wouldcause Corey. The truck had been locked
the whole the whole time. Coryhad a cup that Tree fast to see
(26:03):
what was in the cup, andat this point there are two other DPS
officers with Tariff wants to see what'sin the cup. He takes the cup,
he smells it and gives it backto Corey. That should have been
taken as evidence. That should havebeen tested to see if there's any alcohol
in it at all. Should havedone that didn't. He tells Corey he
can get whatever he wants out ofhis truck, and believe, for about
(26:26):
ten twelve seconds, Tariff turns hisback, starts talking to the other troopers
and Corey rummages through his vehicle takesitems out of his truck, which I
believe would be a violation. Ontop of that, Corey Foster had two
loaded handguns in his car as well. If you do your math, if
(26:49):
you blew a point zero six fiftyminutes after killing somebody, probably had a
point zero eight at the time thatyou killed this person, which would make
it a crime. Also, havingtwo loaded firearms in your possession when you're
legally intoxicated and driving would be alsoa crime. So Cory skated out of
(27:11):
that just because of the incompetence oftreef Alcity that day. Tree Fast Cory
if he had any weapons in thecar. He said he in fact in
at which point three fast if theywere loaded, and Corey's response was,
well, they wouldn't do much goodif they. If they weren't, there
(27:32):
was laughter. Three Fast Cory tohand him both loaded weapons. What police
officer do you know would tell asuspect that it's okay to go ahead and
reach into your vehicle to hand metwo loaded weapons. This is just getting
(27:52):
crazier, crazier and crazier, whichlets you know that there was some familiarity
there. I was going to ask, were they friends? Did they know
each other? Did they Well,we got pictures of the Fosters and the
Alcatib's parting together on Halloween and Christmasthe year before, so three or four
(28:17):
months prior to this happening. Yeah, they were at social events together.
Believe the wives used to work together. Alcatib told his supervisors that he knew
of Corey. Well, if youlook at the pictures that we've put on
the Justice for Katie Palmer site,those are pretty familiar pictures. I mean
you, Terre's wife is basically sittingin Corey's lap at this party on a
(28:41):
Halloween both wives or arm in arm. Fast forward a month later to actually
two months later, they're at aHalloween party, they're arm in arm and
a pardon me, they're at aChristmas party arm in arm. So there
was familiarity there their apps. Thereabsolutely was absolutely which Tarif should have stepped
(29:06):
away and should have led. Anotherofficer performed the investigation, which going back
to not getting blood. Another trooperon Seene asked, pardon me, asked
Tariff if he was going to getCorey's blood. Tariff, and this is
hole on the body camera footage.Treff walked up to one of the other
(29:29):
officers and said he PBT to pointzero six, meaning that he blew a
point zero six and up in abreathalyzer, to which the other officer asked
Tariff are you getting blood, towhich Tariff responded, no, not going
to all that was from the nightbefore. It doesn't matter when you consumed
(29:52):
alcohol. You have it in yoursystem. Right, you crossed over the
roadway, you hit two people killed, one put one in the ICU,
smelt strongly of alcohol. Doesn't matterwhen you consumed it. And two just
dive a little bit deeper into that. Tariff made that statement that well was
(30:15):
from last night. But then againin one of the phone conversations he had
with his supervisor, he stated thathe wasn't really buying Corey's story of when
he stopped drinking. So everything thatoccurred that day from a DPS investigation standpoint,
(30:41):
was executed horribly. This trooper dideverything wrong, didn't take enough pictures
for the recreation which DPS did notperform a recreation of this Grayson County.
(31:02):
The DA's office had had to hirea third party to recreate the wreck.
And the issue that the third partythat I was told third party had a
lot of issues trying to recreate thisbecause one of the report that DPS handed
in was awful according to our districtAttorney, Brett Smith, and two there
(31:25):
weren't enough pictures. When I hadmy first meeting with the prosecutor that presented
our case in front of the grandjury. He actually I had mentioned some
pictures that Katie's aunt took the dayafter, and he asked for him because
again, the evidence they were givenby the by the DPS officer was lacking
(31:47):
and was just horrible. So thatwas the foundation of their case and it
was built upon the horrible job thatDPS did that that that day awful.
Corey had told DPS that his windshieldwas fogged up and he couldn't see.
(32:13):
He ended up telling the trooper thathe couldn't see as soon as he left
his driveway, that is three tenthsof a mile. He admittedly drove blind
three tenths of a mile. Hecould have been driving on the wrong side
the whole time. He had noclue where he was or what was approaching
(32:34):
him. And this trooper, whenspeaking with his supervisors, was making every
excuse for Corey Foster. Well itwas foggy, you know, I really
couldn't see when I was dri drivinghere, and well you know when he
comes up over over this hill,there's there's a depression in the road from
(32:55):
his house to where he hit us, where it down and then when you
come over this depression in the road, I guess the sun hits you.
I mean, that's an environmental factor. Every driver has to deal with that.
You you can't blame son or afoggy windshield on while you crossed over
(33:16):
the roadway while you were driving onthe wrong side of the road, and
why you hit two people, that'snot that's not an excuse. That's negligence.
You were negligent in what you weredoing. And compound that with the
fact that you did have a pointzero six fifty minutes after you killed up
a person. You made those choices, right. I've driven that route from
(33:40):
his house to where we were hit. It's thirty eight seconds going thirty three
miles an hour. Well, Iwent between thirty and thirty five miles an
hour, because the recreation report hadstated that he was going between thirty three
and forty three miles per hour.Well, it's a thirty thirty mile hour
speed limit. So we went atthe low end at thirty three seconds,
(34:04):
pardon me, at thirty three milesper hour. And again it was thirty
eight seconds. So he drove blindfor thirty eight seconds impaired and then crossed
over the road roadway, drove blind, and then told state troopers that he
probably shouldn't have drove Wow. Insteadof loading Corey Foster up for the multiple
(34:27):
infractions of just you know again,driving on the wrong side of the road,
driving without due care, not maintainingproper control of your vehicle, taking
him to jail for that, orwriting him to take it, or taking
him to a hospital for a bloodtest, the state trooper a family friend,
let him take his weapons is loadedweapons with him and drove him home.
(34:55):
Oh my goodness, drove him home. I'm literally speechless by that.
Oh it. There is no excuseto that. There is none. Tariff
alcateibe. In my opinion, newCorey was impaired, showed Corey the PBT,
(35:19):
did not show it to his bodycam, which he probably let Corey
know that he was doing him afavor, minimized the wreck the entire time
to his superiors, which one ofthose superiors should have been on site,
and they were not. If yougo to the Justice for Katie Palmer page,
(35:42):
you'll see pictures of his truck.The whole front left drive driver's side
is just it's there's a massive amountof damage to it, and that was
from my wife's body wrapping around thevehicle. And then you can see the
dent with her hair where her headhit the hood. You know, I
would would implore you to look atthat that picture and then if you can
(36:07):
look at that picture and tell methat she just whacked her head, which
is what the DPS officer told hissupervisors. Minimized it. Not that she
was thrown seventy feet, not thatshe was hit so hard that she got
knocked out of her shoes. Weboth did. But oh, vehicle hitter
(36:30):
and she just whacked her head good, I believe, verbatim is what he
said. Completely minimized the situation.And a day later on the phone told
me, well, you know,Corey Foster's an alcoholic, right, No,
I had no clue, but thatofficer did. That officer knew Cory.
(36:54):
He just didn't know of him.He knew him, he knew his
his background. Let's go into Corey'sbackground. Also, over thirty years,
he's had fifteen to twenty different runins with law enforcement, ranging from reckless
(37:15):
driving, unlawful possession of a firearm. I believe is one multiple speeding tickets
and multiple public intoxication offenses, whichin taxes, you know, a public
in talks a majority of the timeis going to be a plea bargain dui.
(37:37):
So he had a history of this, and I've said it before in
other interviews. This county has beencomplicit in allowing Corey Foster to continue on
his reckless behavior without any consequences atall. None. This county has been
(37:58):
complicit. Where Corey gets in trouble, Corey hires a lawyer, Corey pays
the fine. Corey does whatever hewants to do. Nobody has held this
man accountable. And this is thedirect result when you don't hold somebody accountable,
they feel like they can do whateverthey want to. And what happened
(38:21):
was Corey Foster acting as he alwaysdid, which is reckless. In his
reckless behavior resulted in the death ofmy life. And there's been no accountability
and no justice for Katie Palmer atall. We met with a district attorney.
(38:45):
Actually before that, my mother inlaw had called up there. I
had talked to the DA, youknow, weeks after this happened, and
I did talk to Brett Smith.He told me that Kerry ash More more
than likely was going to be theprosecutor that was going to present this case
(39:07):
in front of the grand jury,and that you know, he didn't have
much info on it, but they'llthey'll look into it. The next two
phone calls I got from Brett withthe result of a phone call that he
had with my mother in law,Ronda Nail, who was Katie's mom,
had been about seven weeks and shewanted answers. She wanted to know what
(39:31):
was going on to two months hadpassed nothing. We hadn't heard a thing.
We thought that they were just goingto write this off as an accident,
which it wasn't. This was anincident, wasn't an accident. She
got ahold of Brett Smith's cell phone. It was on Facebook. She called
(39:52):
him and he was angry that shecalled his personal cell phone, which was
public. If you don't want yournumber called, don't don't make it public.
Asked him what was going on.He told her he had no clue
who Katie Palmer was and you shouldnever contact a public official on cell phone
(40:13):
and this is not how this goes, and basically blew her off. Well,
Melissa, let me ask you aquestion. I don't know if you
have kids, I do not.Yeah, you have somebody that means everything
to you. Okay, that person'skilled. You call somebody who's supposed to
(40:35):
be your advocate. Right, goingto put the man that hurt killed this
person. It's going to bring himto justice. Right. And when you
contact this person, they tell youthey have no clue who your loved one
is. They don't know anything aboutthe case. That would probably make you
(41:00):
angry. Would it would? Absolutely? Absolutely? Seven weeks later, as
private citizens, we don't have aplatform. There's not there's not a platform
that we can you know, goon the DA whenever he wants to.
He can get a camera crew fromthe local news station on the night nightly
(41:20):
news. He can release a statementthat will be you know, blasted all
over media. The disc attorney hasa platform. We don't. So we
do have so social media, soRonda put their exchange on so social media.
Katie was loved, she has shehad a big family, lots of
(41:42):
friends, She was very well respectedin this community. And people heard that.
People did not like that at all. His office got flooded with phone
calls and emails, to which pointhe called me after everybody else had contacted
me and said that he was absolutelyhorrible on the phone, was very short,
(42:02):
very curt. As an elected official, you would think that you would
be a little bit more aware ofthe situation, but Bret's not. Bret's
in it for Brett. So hecalled me two times after I had spoke
of him initially, and it wasn'tabout our case. It was about social
(42:24):
media and how he was being portrayed. And in fact, I apologize to
him on the phone that he feltlike he was getting treated wrong as a
victim. Myself, I apologize tothe Grayson County District Attorney for how he
(42:46):
felt he was being misrepresented in thiswhole situation. That's how strong of a
leader our district attorney is. Soeventually we had a meeting setup to discuss
the case. Katie's mother, RondaNail, Katie's father Tony Tipton, and
(43:07):
Katie's brother, Logan Nail went withme to go meet with Brett Smith,
and there were two other prosecutors there. Just like the last two interactions I
had with Brett, the meeting startedout with he told us that he did
not like our attorney, which ourattorney, Britton Brooks used to work in
(43:28):
the disc attorney's office and campaigned againstBrett Smith for the district attorney job party
for the district attorney's position. Therewas no election. County commissioners appointed Brett
Smith district attorney without their being anelection. There was some some sort of
weird by law where Preston County wasallowed allowed to do that. So Grayson
(43:51):
County hand picked their their guy,Brett Smith. But you know, again,
both attorney's, both prosecutors had campaignedhard against one one another. Brett
Smith has an accent grind against myattorney, Britain Brooks, which has been
a friend of mine. We wentto college together for over I mean,
you know, twenty years ago,so i've i've I've known Britain. I
(44:13):
think Britain's a fantastic person. Katie'sbest friend, Nicole Garza is Britain's paralegal.
And Melissa. That's who I choseto represent us. You know,
I chose two people that I admireand that were our friends, and I
(44:36):
knew that they would put our bestinterests ahead of everything else. Trust is
trust is everything. But again therelationship between Brett and Britain is very strained.
And one of the first things hetold us is that he did not
like our attorney, which is mindblowing because Britain on the civil side,
(45:00):
Brett's on the criminal side. Thetwo have one has nothing to do with
the with the other. Britain wasvery vocal in the beginning about Brett Smith
prosecuting Corey Foster for killing Katie Palmer. And I believe that if um,
you know, Brittain hadn't had madethat that statement, I believe this probably
(45:22):
would have been swept under the rug. So we met, and then he
went off on social media yet againsaid he did not appreciate how basically he
did not appreciate how we've handled thissituation. Which didn't know there was a
playbook on how families are supposed toreact to the sudden and tragic death of
(45:46):
a loved loved one. There's notat all, No, there's no cookie
cutter form of grief. The absolutelyis not. I stand behind everything that
I've that I've said. I've standbehind every single action that we've we've taken,
and if I had this to doover again, there's not one thing
that I would have would have changedat all. As the meeting went on,
(46:12):
it got a little less tense.There was exchanges back and forth.
Brett overtalked Rhonda the entire time wasbeing put in in a spot where you
are basically an advocate for the forthe victim and trying to bring justice to
that that family. To talk theway he did to her was unacceptable.
(46:40):
At one point he told us tocall off our jihad against him, which
was I guess a joke to him. He was the only one that left
in the room. The other twoprosecutors looked away, and I sat there
amazed that a man in his spotwould try to make light of this situation.
(47:02):
I think it was a very veryoffensive thing to say as well.
Absolutely, I mean that's just inappropriate. We left that meeting and we thought
that, you know, we mightget justice. I met with Carrie Ashmore
who was the prosecutor, and MasonYoung, who was who's Carrie's assistant prosecutor.
(47:27):
A couple of times. Brett Smithin that meeting and Ashmore both have
told me that well, Brett Smithtold me mistakes were made, pardon me,
missteps were made by the DPS bynot drawing blood. So Brett Smith
right there, right then and theretold me that DPS mishandled this, and
(47:53):
then he also told me that thereport was very lacking, pictures, narrative,
just the whole whole report. Itwas a very it was not a
very good job, and that's whatthey had to work work with. Which
is the last thing that you wantto hear going into a distric attorney's office
(48:14):
is that, Hey, this trooper, you know, did a horrible job.
He told us that, you know, he would tell us. He
said that he would say this behindclosed doors only and that he would never
never say it in public about lawenforcement. You know that they did a
bad, bad job, which youknow, that's not That's not the kind
(48:36):
of leadership this county needs. Ithink everybody needs to be held accountable.
Brett Smith holds people accountable every day, sends people to prison, right,
But when it comes to this onetrooper will not hold him accountable at all,
won't for glaring, glaring mis steps. So this case was presented to
(49:07):
a grand jury. Grand jury inTexas should consist of twelve jurors. One
juror called in sick that day,which to me, I believe there's four
alternates on a jury. I'm notsure why they didn't call in another juror
(49:27):
and carry Ashmore, the prosecutor whopresents these in front of the grand jury
could not give me an answer whythat didn't didn't happen. He just said
he didn't know. So we hadeleven jurors. One juror recused himself,
said that he recused himself. Iassumed that he knew either Corey or I.
(49:52):
I don't know, and so thatleads us down to ten. You
have to have nine votes in orderfor a case to be build, be
true build. So right there wewent from having to get seventy five percent
of the jurors to the DPS officerprovided testimony, the third party that they
(50:22):
hired provided testimony, and I providedtestimony as well. Then they still deliberated,
and the whole thing was about threehours. Came back as being no
build that the grand jury didn't finddidn't think there was enough evidence to move
forward with a trial. Wow,which you know, again we were two
(50:53):
jurors short. Come to later findout that the final report that was completed
by this third party, who dida great job on the report. It's
very thorough. The grand jury wason August nineteenth, okay. This report
(51:15):
when it was finalized was dated Augusttwenty fifth, six days after the grand
jury never saw that report. Thegrain jury never watched the full body camera
footage. What I don't know.We also got pictures. So our grand
(51:37):
jury hearing was on a Tuesday.Right that Sunday, assistant disc attorney Kerry
Ashmore, who presented my case infront of the grand jury, and assistant
disc attorney Nathan Young had a poolparty over at Kerry Ashmore's house. Kerry
Ashmore is also married to Kelly Ashmore, who is the district clerk. They
(52:00):
had a pool party and they hadin a paneled grand juror who sat on
our grand jury at the party.Oh my goodness, which to me is
a major ethical violation that seems likea major conflict of interest. It does.
And a week or two before Ashmorewent to this juror's business, posted
(52:22):
on Facebook about what a great businessthis person has. And you know how
you know this, You know,great person, great business, had had
a great time. So he wentto this person's business knew knowing that they're
in a panel grand jur it shouldbe another ethical infraction there. You're supposed
(52:43):
to stay away from these jurs thatyou're presenting these cases too. Our disc
Attorney's office, I guess, doesnot believe that ethically there's anything wrong with
that. I have sent three lettersto the disc attorney asking for clarification on
this, even providing him with apicture of what happened, and I've heard
(53:04):
nothing. Nothing. Grayson County playsby a different set set of rules,
so at this point, what happens, I mean, are you able to
go to a higher court for somethinglike this. We're gonna do everything we
can. We're going to exhaust everyavenue. I talked to Kerry Ashmore on
the phone some time after the grandjury did not indict Corey Foster for killing
(53:31):
Katie Palmer, and I told himthat I was going to shed light on
what happened, and he just blewme off, said, you know,
okay, kind of you. Yougotta do what you gotta do, and
if you find any more evidence,let us let us know. Which the
(53:52):
disc Attorney's office, you know,they didn't talk to any of their first
responders that were on seeing all themts and firefighters that were there thirty minutes
prior to DPA showing up, didnot talk to a single one of them
didn't get sworn affidavits from the peoplethat were on scene. My neighbor,
(54:12):
the one that showed up that waswith me why Katie passed away, never
got an affidavit from from her ortook an official statement. They talked to
her. I had to call herup and we met out on scene with
Kerry Ashmore. Never got an officialstatement from her. There's also a neighbor
that heard the impact and identified Coreyfrom his kitchen window, which was hundreds
(54:39):
of feet away. So the claimthat there was you know, fog that
morning that was so dense that Coreycouldn't see, you know, that's that's
not true. You know this thisthis man, this man identified him from
hundreds of feet away. And thewoman that that stopped and sat with me
(55:00):
until the paramedics got got there,she identified Corey Foster in his truck from
hundreds of feet feet away as well. If the District Attorney's office wanted an
indictment, they would have got anindictment. I mean, that's that's common
knowledge. I believe that they didnot seek an indictment and did not try
(55:23):
hard to get an indictment because theydidn't want to show what horrible of a
job treef Falconte did did that day. I mean, if this had gone
gone to trial, they put threefalconte up there. Who is there,
you know, who is an expertwitness of theirs, who gets utilized a
(55:45):
lot in their courts if it wasbrought out there in public in a court
setting, and some defense attorney justripped apart everything that alcat did did that
day, or if it was broughtto light in you know, a court
setting, what Alcatebe did not takingpictures, not marking the scene. He
(56:07):
didn't mark the scene at all.Nothing did not mark the scene, didn't
take adequate pictures, he did notinterview any witness on on scene, and
didn't get a blood test. DA'soffice is protecting Tree Alkatib, They absolutely
(56:30):
are. They don't want him himexposed because if he gets exposed for doing
his friend of solid what happens toall all the other cases where he's he's
been a expert witness. I mean, his credibility gets get shot. So
I believe that's that's one one reasonI also believe that our disc attorney has
(56:54):
such disdain for my civil attorney BritainBrooks that you know, felt felt as
if Corey Foster was charged that itwould be a win for Britain because again,
in the very beginning, Britain wasvery vocal on getting this man prosecuted.
(57:20):
Brett took offense to it. SoI believe Brett Smith thinks that if
Cory Foster gets indicted, then that'sa win for for Britain, and it's
not. It's a win. Noone wins, I mean no one.
No one wins in a in asituation like like this at all. There
there there is no winning. We'veall lost. I've I've lost a wife,
(57:45):
I've lost a soulmate. My kidshave lost their mother. Her parents
have lost a daughter, you know, her three brothers and sisters have lost
their oldest sister. No one wins, right, there is no winner in
this situation, There is not.All we want is justice, justice for
(58:05):
me. Is Corey going to trial, that's justice. Never once if we
asked for him just to be lockedup, never said that. I want
Corey Foster to go to trial.I want this brought up in a public
hearing and brought before an impartial,in full grand jury, which I haven't
(58:32):
gotten that I believe Brett Smith hasdisdained for our family as well. We've
been very vocal against him, veryvocal as any family would. He failed
us, Brett Smith, Carrie Ashmore, Nathan Young failed us, failed,
(58:53):
failed our family horribly. Corey Fostershould have already been in joh by now,
or should be preparing for a criminaltrial after he killed Katie. He
was back up at the bar.He was back up at the same bar
(59:15):
that I used to see him atwhen we when we would go eat lunch,
back up at the bar, drinking, still with the dent from my
wife's head, in his hood,drinking and still driving past our house.
He drives past my house at leastthree or four times a day. He
(59:38):
lives on the same same same road. You you tell me how how hard
that that would be. Knowing thatthe man that killed your wife, the
mother of your children, will notbe held accountable in a chrom little court
(01:00:00):
for reasons unbeknownst to you, andyou have to see him drive past past
your house daily daily and he's free. In my wife's dead doesn't make any
sense at all. It never will. So John, let me ask you,
(01:00:27):
how can listeners help receive justice?For Katie. I would ask that
they join the Justice for Katie Palmerfacebook group. We are actively pursuing other
avenues to get this back in frontof a grand jury. Any support that
(01:00:49):
your listeners could provide to us byjoining this group. We will have calls
to action soon. We are stillreceiving evidence. I mean it's a it's
a year later, over a yearlater, and there's still evidence that we
have not gotten that we are waitingon. There will be a call to
action. Corey Foster needs to goback in front of a grand jury to
(01:01:15):
reef Alcity needs to lose his job. He doesn't need to be in law
law enforcement at all. Brett Smithneeds to step down. Kerry Ashmore and
Nathan Young should not be prosecutors inGrayson County just for their ethical violations.
(01:01:36):
If that happened in our case infront of a grand jury, how many
other times has this happened? Iknow I've been thinking about that this entire
time we've been talking. Who elsehas been affected by the incompetence? There's
no impartiality at all if we haveprosecutors that are parting within panel grand jurors
(01:01:59):
and a prosecutor walks into a courtroomand tells the grand jury, Hey,
you need to go ahead and indictthis this guy. Oh man, that's
man. That's carry It's a guythat I hang out with and girl burgers
with and drink beer with. Ohyeah, sure we'll do it. Where's
the impartiality? There is none.There's absolutely none. This man, the
(01:02:28):
power he wields is tremendous. Imean, this is the lead prosecutor we
have in Grayson County. He putspeople away for decades, whether it's a
you know, drug offense or amurder offense or whatever offense. And there
are people that deserve to be putaway. But you know what we all
deserve. We all deserve impartiality.And through his actions, he has not
(01:02:52):
been in parcel at all. Andit it was showcased right there with that
one picture. And that's just theone picture that was on social media.
How many other times does this happen. It's not acceptable at all. If
I had a family member that wasgoing in front of a grand jury or
(01:03:14):
going in front of a criminal courtjury, I would want to make sure
that it was as neutral as possible. I don't know how long that's been
going on here, but I'll saythis, I'm going to do everything I
can to make sure it doesn't happenagain. And if that means shedding light
(01:03:34):
on this to the detriment of ourfamily getting justice for Katie, then I
just don't want this to happen toanother family. I don't whether it's the
whether it's a DPS officer on scenenot doing his job and going out of
(01:03:57):
his way to make sure that afamily friend you know, gets a break
and gets a ride home, orif it's the disc Attorney's office not doing
their job, not being impartial.I don't want this to happen to another
family. And I know there's thingsthat I've brought out and shed light on
that have burned every bridge with ourfamily and the Grayson County disc Attorney's office.
(01:04:25):
But I didn't have a choice.We didn't have a choice. We
can't stand by and let this continuebecause unless you stand up, then there
will be no change at all.Everything that I do, I know that
(01:04:45):
it's not going to bring her back. Nothing I do will bring her back.
I mean i've first week or tooafter she died. I mean I
was I was sitting in front ofour house looking at the at the direction
(01:05:11):
that you know we went walking.I could visualize her walking back. M.
You know that's the that's the games. That's your you know, brain
and heart play. Your brain knowsthat, um, you know someone's gone,
but your heart never never let's go. Yeah, I know that.
(01:05:35):
You know again that what we've putout there, what we've said, what
what we've done again, the differentdifferent things we've shed light on again,
that's burned a bridge with the discattorney's office. And I know that she's
not going to come back. ButI don't want this or I don't want
(01:05:55):
anything like what we've gone through tohappen to another family. And I'm not
going to stop as anyone else wouldn'tif they were in my shoes, you
know, right Well, John,thank you so much for joining me on
this week's episode. I truly,truly hope and pray for justice for Katie
(01:06:18):
and that it will be served soon. Thank you once again, a huge
thank you to John Palmer for joiningme on this week's episode of the podcast.
Something John and I did not geta chance to discuss was the passing
(01:06:38):
of House Bill five fifty eight,which would actually require any driver who caused
a serious bodily injury or kills pedestrianto have their blood screened for drugs or
alcohol. And this bill goes intoeffect September first of this year, which
is a pretty big deal. Andthe fact that it passed by partisan I
mean, like that's amazing. Ifyou want to learn more about Katie case,
(01:07:00):
go ahead and follow Justice for KatiePalmer on Facebook, Twitter. There's
a Facebook group and John is justa really amazing person, just really seeking
out justice for his wife. Soyou know, and keep an eye on
those posts. You never know ifthere's going to be like a petition or
something like that that we can allsupport. Well, guys, that about
(01:07:26):
does it for this week's episode.I'm Melissa Lee and this has been Victimology.
Victimology is partnered with Umorical Network.Make sure to subscribe to Victimology on
your favorite podcast platform like can followVictimology on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
(01:07:48):
And if you like what we do, please consider giving Victimology a five
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Due to the graphic nature and contentof this podcast, listener discretion is advised.
(01:11):
Hello and welcome back to Victimology.I'm your host, Melissa Lee.
I hope everyone out there in podcastland is doing just swell and please tell
me you all are continuing to washyour hands for the love of God.
Happy August everyone. I hope everyoneis staying safe and following your local guidelines
(01:37):
as far as COVID goes, andlike I said, please continue to wash
your hands. I decided we're goingto go one more week for the Power
of Truth giveaway. If you wantto enter the contest down below, make
sure to follow the link, fillout your name and email, and make
sure to liken share on Facebook.And I'm going to actually for those of
(01:59):
you who share the post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, you'll actually get
a second entry in for the giveaway, so make sure to do that.
And now we'll take our mandatory adbreak. See you guys in a few
minutes. Welcome back everyone, Thanksfor joining me again. Now on this
week's episode, I am joined bya husband who is seeking out justice for
(02:23):
his late wife. I don't wantto give too much information away, but
without further ado this is my episodewith John Palmer discussing justice for Katie Palmer.
(02:50):
All right, so with me onthis week's episode. I am joined
by John Palmer. John, thankyou so much for joining me on this
week's episode of Victimology. Melissa,thank you for having me. So,
John, let's kind of start talkingabout your wife, Katie. Can you
tell me a little bit about whoKatie was as a person. Katie was
(03:10):
a great person. Katie was thebest of us. Katie loved her family,
adored our children. She was agreat wife, fantastic mother, loved
her mom, loved her dad,loved family. Everything she did she put
(03:32):
other people first, and you don'treally come across people like that. She
was a lover of nature and science. She taught science and STEM at the
local middle school here in Dennison andloved teaching and loved her students. She
(03:55):
was fantastic in all aspects. Doyou have a favorite memory of Katie?
The one thing that I remember orthat I'll that I'll always remember about Katie
and I And I've said this numeroustimes, Melissa. She she had this
laugh, and the laugh could fillthe room. And she always had the
(04:23):
loudest laugh and the most distinguished alaugh. You would definitely hear her before
you saw her, and that thatwas just a running joke, whether it
be you know, I'm meeting herat a restaurant, we already have friends
there looking for her. Obviously,we just have to listen, and you
(04:45):
would, you would hear she alwayslaughed at the most inappropriate times in movies,
and I was that a loud laugh, And then she started laughing more
because again, no laughed at themost inappropriate time in a movie when it
was quiet. She was just fantasticto be around. We started to travel.
(05:06):
We had reached a point where wewere able to go to Europe twice.
The memories that we made made thereor I mean, I'll obviously remember
those the rest of my life.She was adventurous when it came to traveling.
Always wanted to go see and exploreand experience new things. One thing
(05:29):
I will always I always fall backto. I was deployed to Africa,
and she was pregnant with our firstchild, Bella, and she had Bella
three weeks before I got home,and obviously couldn't be there because I was
(05:53):
was deployed. But listen to itover the phone, and she was so
strong. M She went through thelast six months of pregnancy without me being
there, but again with the fullsupport of her family, who is absolutely
amazing. There, great great people. I was a nervous wreck on the
(06:15):
phone, you know, an oceanaway, and she was calm. Listen
to her, and the last thingshe says was, um, I'm gonna
have our baby and got quiet.The next thing I've heard was was bella
(06:36):
screaming. M man. She wasstrong. She was very strong, which
just shows shows you the both bothsides of Katie Palmer, that that loud
laugh and strength. It sounds likeshe was just an amazing person all around,
(07:00):
a beautiful person. Yes, ma'am, I'm I'm I'm a little biased,
but I would completely agree. Soif you're ready, let's go ahead
and talk about the day the accidenthappened. So how did how did that
day start? That day started?I woke up in the morning, I
(07:20):
went to go work out in ourbackyard, and she had told me the
night before that if I was goingto go walk that she would go with
me, which kind of blew offbecause you know, she said that numerous
times before. But she was reallynot a morning person. So I went
out to the backyard I worked out. Remember coming in around seven fifteen or
(07:45):
so. I had sent her atext. We have a little outbuilding where
I have some some weights, soI sent sent her text message, you
know, just hey, let's go, let's go walk. Didn't hear anything.
Walked in the house, woke herup and just asked her, hey,
you know, are you you're readyto go walk? And she looked
at me and she's like, yeah, I'm not going. And I said,
come on, let's go. Yousaid you were you were going to
(08:07):
go, and then um, shesaid okay. And that was the first
time she ever walked with me inthe morning, first and last. So
she got up and we started walkingdown Glenwood Drive, which is the street
that we live on. Walked towardsthe golf course. There was some do
(08:28):
on the ground. We were goingto walk on the golf course, but
she didn't want to. She didn'twant to get her legs wet. She
had to log into teach students online. This is obviously in the kind of
the height of COVID where all thestudents were distance learning, and I believe
she had to log in at liketen or ten thirty. She said that
(08:52):
after we got through walking, shewas going to go laid down for an
hour or so. So we decidednot to walk on the golf course.
Kept walking down Glenwood Drive, wentup near I believe it's Golf Walk Circle,
which is the subdivision behind the golfcourse, and she says she wanted
to show me some killdeer, whichare birds that nest on the ground.
(09:16):
So we stopped. We couldn't seeany. We looked across this this field
they have some undeveloped lots, lookedout. They didn't see any, and
I said, well, hey,let's go. Let's go, you know,
look on the lots to see ifwe see any. She said,
now, let's just go ahead andturn back around. And said, oh
okay. So we turned back aroundand we were walking on the edge of
(09:37):
the roadway, right near the roadroadway, and as we were walking back,
that's when we got hit. Sowe were walking on the correct side
of the road, facing on comingtraffic, and it was very surreal.
(10:00):
I remember Katie saying something and kindof looking over her left shoulder and smiling
at me. And we didn't evenhear the truck which had crossed over the
roadway and hit us both. Melissa, I couldn't tell you what the impact
(10:20):
felt like, because the next thingI know, I'm flying through the air
at what seemed to really high rateof speed. I could see his silver
truck was just about going the samespeed as I was. I saw it
for half a second, and thenI hit the ground and rolled. It
(10:45):
came to a stop, and Iknew I'd been hit. I got up
to my hands and knees, andit felt like I had a ratchet around
my midsection that was just being tightened. I couldn't stand up, and that's
when I saw Katie. She waslaying on her on her left side,
(11:11):
somewhat propped up by her left elbow. She let out this this horrible moan,
and I couldn't stand up and walkedto her. I had to crawl
over to her later down on herback. She was almost as if she
(11:37):
was paralyzed in that spot. Ilaid her down, and at that time,
Corey Foster it was a man thathit us both. He had yelled
out something to the effect of,oh my god, I'm sorry, John.
(11:58):
I didn't know it was y'all.He identified us from his truck to
where we ended up, to whereKatie ended up, and I crawled over
to her. She wasn't breathing.I was begging for her to breathe.
And then one of our neighbors showedup. This woman pulled her car over,
(12:20):
came running over to Katie. Iimagine, to be honest with you,
I never even looked at this neighborat all. I was so fixed
on Katie. I just kept onhearing this woman's voice telling us both it
was gonna be okay, She's gonnabe fine. So I was yelling for
somebody to call mine one one,Please call mine one one. I was
(12:45):
begging for Katie to breathe, pleasebreathe, please breathe. And it seemed
like minutes went by, but I'msure it was only, you know,
thirty seconds. And then she letout this this gasp, and she was
having a very hard time breathing.It was small, labored breathing about every
(13:07):
fifteen seconds. And I thought,man, she's breathing great. You know,
still yelling for somebody to call minenine one one. Somebody needs to
go get my kids. And thenthat's when I noticed that Katie was staring
straight up at the sky, andshe wasn't blinking, and it's begging for
(13:33):
her to blink. I was tryingto trying to make her blink with you
know, my hands. I wastrying to close close her eyes and see
if she'd opened the back up.But her eyes were fixed and she was
staring straight up at the sky.I knew that was a bad, bad
sign. I think with that moanthat moaned that I that I mentioned,
(13:54):
I believe that was her. Ibelieve that. I believe that was her
dying there. I believe she shepassed there and her body was shutting down,
and I was there um holding herhand, telling her everything was going
(14:16):
to be fine, and uh thatshe she had to pull through for for
us. So the ambulance arrived.I mean, it seemed it seemed like
forever, but I would imagine itwas, you know, less than seven
(14:41):
or eight minutes. We we livedoutside the city limits, and those those
guys got there fast. But whenyou're going through an experience where you know
you're watching your soulmate die again,I believe she she had already pass asked
to believe there was just her bodyshutting down with the labor breathing those guys
(15:05):
got there quick. They started towork on Katie, and I remember immediately,
oh god, maybe two or threeminutes after they got there, I
remember them stating that they needed amedical evac helicopter unseen. They asked me
if I had been hit, andI told them I had, and then
(15:28):
they loaded me onto a gurney andinto an ambulance. And that was the
last time I saw Katie that thatday. The next time I saw her
was when the next day I wasdriven to Plano, said my final good
goodbyes to her. So you knewthe driver. I knew Cory Foster,
(15:56):
a partner of mine that I thatI work with. We would always go
eat Maybe one day a week,we'd go to there's a restaurant in town
that has a sports bar section,and we'd always go in there to eat
lunch because you had multiple TVs.We'd get a coke and a hamburger.
And one of my neighbors was upthere at the bar area because we had
(16:21):
just moved in, and he introducedhimself, and he also introduced us to
Corey Foster, who was sitting atthe bar there and turns out was a
regular, if not daily, everyother day, so I had said Hi
to him, and then you know, we'd see him in there, I'd
(16:44):
say hi. He even asked usone time for a quote. We have
a fire and security alarmed company.He asked us for a quote on his
house, and my partner had oneof my partner's say going out there to
quote quote his house, and hecalled Corey twice in the morning. From
what he told me, Cory wasso out of it, I guess from
(17:04):
the night before he never remembered mypartner calling him that. That was my
extent of Corey Foster that and gotto realize that he was the guy that
sped up and down our street inhis massive truck and I've yelled at him
before to slow slow down. Ourstreet is roughly about half a mile long.
(17:30):
It's pretty much a straight shot,and some people treated as a drag
strip. Corey was one of them. Yeah, that was my extent of
any relationship with Corey Foster. That'sall. H So, you both had
been hit in this horrible, horribleaccident. So after the MTS arrived,
(17:52):
do the police show up? Theydid, and we've released the bodycam footage.
Now. DPS arrived on scene thirtyminutes after we were hit. Okay,
thirty minutes after, and there wasno accountability for those thirty minutes for
(18:14):
what Corey Foster's actions were. ButDPS, which is the Department of Public
Safety, since we are outside ofthe city limits, they were the responding
agency. So again, approximately thirtyminutes later, Tarif Alcatebe with the Texas
Department of Public Safety arrived on scene. I don't know have have you had
(18:37):
a chance to look at the bodycamera footage? Not yet? No,
okay, I would encourage you to. Okay. Tarif Alcatebe arrived on scene.
He walked over to the MTS andfirst image you see a katie.
She's in a guarney and there's anEMT that is hand pumping oxygen into her,
(19:03):
helping her body breathe. The MedicalEvac helicopter was landing as Tariff arrived
on scene, so Medical Evac basicallybeat DPS on scene within I believe ten
minutes. He was speaking with CoreyFoster. He had gone from Katie.
(19:27):
He went to me. I wasvery aware of the situations. I could
answer all of his questions, toldhim exactly where we were, asked him
why this driver crossed over the roadway. Why was he driving on the wrong
side of the road. Terry's responseto me was I'll go take care of
(19:51):
them, okay, which he did. Then he goes over to Corey and
within a about two minutes as beingwith Corey Foster, if not sooner,
the trooper starts to ask Corey aboutdrinking and tells Corey that he can smell
alcohol on his breath, again,not coming from his body, coming from
(20:15):
his breath strong. He did saythat there was a strong presence of alcohol.
There was a strong alcoholic odor comingfrom his breath. Corey's story changed
so many times. He told theofficer he had four or five whiskies throughout
the day and that he stopped drinkingat seven, but then seven turned to
(20:37):
eight, eight turned to nine,and then he didn't know when he stopped.
So there was a field sobriety testthat was administered by DPS by Trooper
alcatib and at this point, melessa, this is fifty minutes after my wife
(20:59):
and I were hit, fifty minutesafter wow. So DPS performs the horizontal
gaze test and you cannot see CoreyFoster's eyes at all in the body camera
footage, which I have been toldby other troopers that that's that's common,
just with the way where the bodycamera sits. Tariff is not tall in
(21:23):
stature, He's short, and uh, Corey, I believe it's like five
ten. You know, there's noway with Tariff being short that that body
camera would probably pick up his eyes, which he didn't. So he performs
a horizontal gaze test and then hehas Corey stand on one leg for thirty
(21:45):
seconds. Corey starts shaking horribly abouttwenty seconds into it and then falls falls
over. Prior to that test,he had walked a straight line again fifth
fifty minutes after and smelling very stronglyof alcohol. So going back to that
(22:07):
last test where he stood up onone leg after he started shaking uncontrollably and
fell over, you know, onboth both feet, he started a laugh
and I just said, you know, man, I'm wearing my my my
work boots. Now, mind you, this is the only well, this
is one of two times that heshowed emotion throughout this entire day. Never
(22:32):
once did he ask how Katie was. Never once did he ask how I
was. Started laughing and said,oh it was you know, it's my
it's my work, boots. They'rethey're on level, okay, At which
point to Reef asks him if youdo a PBT. I'm not sure if
he asked him, but he toldhim this is this is what what we're
(22:52):
gonna do. We're gonna do aPBT test and have have you blow?
Well, the troopers have told methat, hey, you know, if
somebody passes a field sobriety tests,then you know, really no need to
do a p PPT. Tariff performeda PPT fifty minutes after, allegedly Corey
(23:14):
Foster blew a point zero six fiftyminutes after. I say allegedly because Tariff
never shows the scorer of the PPTinto the body camera, never been told
by troopers that it's pretty common foryou to show the score. So blows
a point zero six. And thenlet's Corey know that you know he's below
(23:41):
the limit, you know, buthe finds it hard to believe that,
you know, he stopped drinking.When he said he stopped drinking and blew
a point zero six. His wordsto Corey was, man, you must
have been drinking a whole lot lastlast night. At that point, Tariff
may two calls to supervisors that fromwhat I've been told, those supervisors should
(24:04):
have been unseen or at least one. Tarif, a ten plus year veteran,
caused his supervisors twice about the situation, never asked them if he should
take Corey in to get a bloodtest, which was odd to me,
which means that I believe they mighthave been talking on the other side,
(24:29):
telling Tariff maybe what to do,but ultimately its Tree's decision. And I
do not understand why an officer withas much experience as tif Alcatib has would
not see that a man who justcrossed over the roadway and hit two people
(24:51):
smelled strongly of alcohol fifteen minutes laterblew a point zero six and you don't
take him in to get blood.That's that's disturbing M and there is no
excuse for it. I do notunderstand why Threif would not have taken Cory
(25:15):
into get blood. M Later on, um, you know, after Tariff
told Cory that everything was going tobe okay, his mom was on scene.
He told Cory to go tell hismom everything was going to be just
fine. The breaker shows up.Tarif very apologetically tells Corey that they're going
(25:40):
to have to take his truck.You know, they're they're gonna have to
pull the there's a little black boxon the truck if they're going to go
have to take taken in. Youknow, he was very apologetic on any
inconvenience that you know, he wouldcause Corey. The truck had been locked
the whole the whole time. Coryhad a cup that Tree fast to see
(26:03):
what was in the cup, andat this point there are two other DPS
officers with Tariff wants to see what'sin the cup. He takes the cup,
he smells it and gives it backto Corey. That should have been
taken as evidence. That should havebeen tested to see if there's any alcohol
in it at all. Should havedone that didn't. He tells Corey he
can get whatever he wants out ofhis truck, and believe, for about
(26:26):
ten twelve seconds, Tariff turns hisback, starts talking to the other troopers
and Corey rummages through his vehicle takesitems out of his truck, which I
believe would be a violation. Ontop of that, Corey Foster had two
loaded handguns in his car as well. If you do your math, if
(26:49):
you blew a point zero six fiftyminutes after killing somebody, probably had a
point zero eight at the time thatyou killed this person, which would make
it a crime. Also, havingtwo loaded firearms in your possession when you're
legally intoxicated and driving would be alsoa crime. So Cory skated out of
(27:11):
that just because of the incompetence oftreef Alcity that day. Tree Fast Cory
if he had any weapons in thecar. He said he in fact in
at which point three fast if theywere loaded, and Corey's response was,
well, they wouldn't do much goodif they. If they weren't, there
(27:32):
was laughter. Three Fast Cory tohand him both loaded weapons. What police
officer do you know would tell asuspect that it's okay to go ahead and
reach into your vehicle to hand metwo loaded weapons. This is just getting
(27:52):
crazier, crazier and crazier, whichlets you know that there was some familiarity
there. I was going to ask, were they friends? Did they know
each other? Did they Well,we got pictures of the Fosters and the
Alcatib's parting together on Halloween and Christmasthe year before, so three or four
(28:17):
months prior to this happening. Yeah, they were at social events together.
Believe the wives used to work together. Alcatib told his supervisors that he knew
of Corey. Well, if youlook at the pictures that we've put on
the Justice for Katie Palmer site,those are pretty familiar pictures. I mean
you, Terre's wife is basically sittingin Corey's lap at this party on a
(28:41):
Halloween both wives or arm in arm. Fast forward a month later to actually
two months later, they're at aHalloween party, they're arm in arm and
a pardon me, they're at aChristmas party arm in arm. So there
was familiarity there their apps. Thereabsolutely was absolutely which Tarif should have stepped
(29:06):
away and should have led. Anotherofficer performed the investigation, which going back
to not getting blood. Another trooperon Seene asked, pardon me, asked
Tariff if he was going to getCorey's blood. Tariff, and this is
hole on the body camera footage.Treff walked up to one of the other
(29:29):
officers and said he PBT to pointzero six, meaning that he blew a
point zero six and up in abreathalyzer, to which the other officer asked
Tariff are you getting blood, towhich Tariff responded, no, not going
to all that was from the nightbefore. It doesn't matter when you consumed
(29:52):
alcohol. You have it in yoursystem. Right, you crossed over the
roadway, you hit two people killed, one put one in the ICU,
smelt strongly of alcohol. Doesn't matterwhen you consumed it. And two just
dive a little bit deeper into that. Tariff made that statement that well was
(30:15):
from last night. But then againin one of the phone conversations he had
with his supervisor, he stated thathe wasn't really buying Corey's story of when
he stopped drinking. So everything thatoccurred that day from a DPS investigation standpoint,
(30:41):
was executed horribly. This trooper dideverything wrong, didn't take enough pictures
for the recreation which DPS did notperform a recreation of this Grayson County.
(31:02):
The DA's office had had to hirea third party to recreate the wreck.
And the issue that the third partythat I was told third party had a
lot of issues trying to recreate thisbecause one of the report that DPS handed
in was awful according to our districtAttorney, Brett Smith, and two there
(31:25):
weren't enough pictures. When I hadmy first meeting with the prosecutor that presented
our case in front of the grandjury. He actually I had mentioned some
pictures that Katie's aunt took the dayafter, and he asked for him because
again, the evidence they were givenby the by the DPS officer was lacking
(31:47):
and was just horrible. So thatwas the foundation of their case and it
was built upon the horrible job thatDPS did that that that day awful.
Corey had told DPS that his windshieldwas fogged up and he couldn't see.
(32:13):
He ended up telling the trooper thathe couldn't see as soon as he left
his driveway, that is three tenthsof a mile. He admittedly drove blind
three tenths of a mile. Hecould have been driving on the wrong side
the whole time. He had noclue where he was or what was approaching
(32:34):
him. And this trooper, whenspeaking with his supervisors, was making every
excuse for Corey Foster. Well itwas foggy, you know, I really
couldn't see when I was dri drivinghere, and well you know when he
comes up over over this hill,there's there's a depression in the road from
(32:55):
his house to where he hit us, where it down and then when you
come over this depression in the road, I guess the sun hits you.
I mean, that's an environmental factor. Every driver has to deal with that.
You you can't blame son or afoggy windshield on while you crossed over
(33:16):
the roadway while you were driving onthe wrong side of the road, and
why you hit two people, that'snot that's not an excuse. That's negligence.
You were negligent in what you weredoing. And compound that with the
fact that you did have a pointzero six fifty minutes after you killed up
a person. You made those choices, right. I've driven that route from
(33:40):
his house to where we were hit. It's thirty eight seconds going thirty three
miles an hour. Well, Iwent between thirty and thirty five miles an
hour, because the recreation report hadstated that he was going between thirty three
and forty three miles per hour.Well, it's a thirty thirty mile hour
speed limit. So we went atthe low end at thirty three seconds,
(34:04):
pardon me, at thirty three milesper hour. And again it was thirty
eight seconds. So he drove blindfor thirty eight seconds impaired and then crossed
over the road roadway, drove blind, and then told state troopers that he
probably shouldn't have drove Wow. Insteadof loading Corey Foster up for the multiple
(34:27):
infractions of just you know again,driving on the wrong side of the road,
driving without due care, not maintainingproper control of your vehicle, taking
him to jail for that, orwriting him to take it, or taking
him to a hospital for a bloodtest, the state trooper a family friend,
let him take his weapons is loadedweapons with him and drove him home.
(34:55):
Oh my goodness, drove him home. I'm literally speechless by that.
Oh it. There is no excuseto that. There is none. Tariff
alcateibe. In my opinion, newCorey was impaired, showed Corey the PBT,
(35:19):
did not show it to his bodycam, which he probably let Corey
know that he was doing him afavor, minimized the wreck the entire time
to his superiors, which one ofthose superiors should have been on site,
and they were not. If yougo to the Justice for Katie Palmer page,
(35:42):
you'll see pictures of his truck.The whole front left drive driver's side
is just it's there's a massive amountof damage to it, and that was
from my wife's body wrapping around thevehicle. And then you can see the
dent with her hair where her headhit the hood. You know, I
would would implore you to look atthat that picture and then if you can
(36:07):
look at that picture and tell methat she just whacked her head, which
is what the DPS officer told hissupervisors. Minimized it. Not that she
was thrown seventy feet, not thatshe was hit so hard that she got
knocked out of her shoes. Weboth did. But oh, vehicle hitter
(36:30):
and she just whacked her head good, I believe, verbatim is what he
said. Completely minimized the situation.And a day later on the phone told
me, well, you know,Corey Foster's an alcoholic, right, No,
I had no clue, but thatofficer did. That officer knew Cory.
(36:54):
He just didn't know of him.He knew him, he knew his
his background. Let's go into Corey'sbackground. Also, over thirty years,
he's had fifteen to twenty different runins with law enforcement, ranging from reckless
(37:15):
driving, unlawful possession of a firearm. I believe is one multiple speeding tickets
and multiple public intoxication offenses, whichin taxes, you know, a public
in talks a majority of the timeis going to be a plea bargain dui.
(37:37):
So he had a history of this, and I've said it before in
other interviews. This county has beencomplicit in allowing Corey Foster to continue on
his reckless behavior without any consequences atall. None. This county has been
(37:58):
complicit. Where Corey gets in trouble, Corey hires a lawyer, Corey pays
the fine. Corey does whatever hewants to do. Nobody has held this
man accountable. And this is thedirect result when you don't hold somebody accountable,
they feel like they can do whateverthey want to. And what happened
(38:21):
was Corey Foster acting as he alwaysdid, which is reckless. In his
reckless behavior resulted in the death ofmy life. And there's been no accountability
and no justice for Katie Palmer atall. We met with a district attorney.
(38:45):
Actually before that, my mother inlaw had called up there. I
had talked to the DA, youknow, weeks after this happened, and
I did talk to Brett Smith.He told me that Kerry ash More more
than likely was going to be theprosecutor that was going to present this case
(39:07):
in front of the grand jury,and that you know, he didn't have
much info on it, but they'llthey'll look into it. The next two
phone calls I got from Brett withthe result of a phone call that he
had with my mother in law,Ronda Nail, who was Katie's mom,
had been about seven weeks and shewanted answers. She wanted to know what
(39:31):
was going on to two months hadpassed nothing. We hadn't heard a thing.
We thought that they were just goingto write this off as an accident,
which it wasn't. This was anincident, wasn't an accident. She
got ahold of Brett Smith's cell phone. It was on Facebook. She called
(39:52):
him and he was angry that shecalled his personal cell phone, which was
public. If you don't want yournumber called, don't don't make it public.
Asked him what was going on.He told her he had no clue
who Katie Palmer was and you shouldnever contact a public official on cell phone
(40:13):
and this is not how this goes, and basically blew her off. Well,
Melissa, let me ask you aquestion. I don't know if you
have kids, I do not.Yeah, you have somebody that means everything
to you. Okay, that person'skilled. You call somebody who's supposed to
(40:35):
be your advocate. Right, goingto put the man that hurt killed this
person. It's going to bring himto justice. Right. And when you
contact this person, they tell youthey have no clue who your loved one
is. They don't know anything aboutthe case. That would probably make you
(41:00):
angry. Would it would? Absolutely? Absolutely? Seven weeks later, as
private citizens, we don't have aplatform. There's not there's not a platform
that we can you know, goon the DA whenever he wants to.
He can get a camera crew fromthe local news station on the night nightly
(41:20):
news. He can release a statementthat will be you know, blasted all
over media. The disc attorney hasa platform. We don't. So we
do have so social media, soRonda put their exchange on so social media.
Katie was loved, she has shehad a big family, lots of
(41:42):
friends, She was very well respectedin this community. And people heard that.
People did not like that at all. His office got flooded with phone
calls and emails, to which pointhe called me after everybody else had contacted
me and said that he was absolutelyhorrible on the phone, was very short,
(42:02):
very curt. As an elected official, you would think that you would
be a little bit more aware ofthe situation, but Bret's not. Bret's
in it for Brett. So hecalled me two times after I had spoke
of him initially, and it wasn'tabout our case. It was about social
(42:24):
media and how he was being portrayed. And in fact, I apologize to
him on the phone that he feltlike he was getting treated wrong as a
victim. Myself, I apologize tothe Grayson County District Attorney for how he
(42:46):
felt he was being misrepresented in thiswhole situation. That's how strong of a
leader our district attorney is. Soeventually we had a meeting setup to discuss
the case. Katie's mother, RondaNail, Katie's father Tony Tipton, and
(43:07):
Katie's brother, Logan Nail went withme to go meet with Brett Smith,
and there were two other prosecutors there. Just like the last two interactions I
had with Brett, the meeting startedout with he told us that he did
not like our attorney, which ourattorney, Britton Brooks used to work in
(43:28):
the disc attorney's office and campaigned againstBrett Smith for the district attorney job party
for the district attorney's position. Therewas no election. County commissioners appointed Brett
Smith district attorney without their being anelection. There was some some sort of
weird by law where Preston County wasallowed allowed to do that. So Grayson
(43:51):
County hand picked their their guy,Brett Smith. But you know, again,
both attorney's, both prosecutors had campaignedhard against one one another. Brett
Smith has an accent grind against myattorney, Britain Brooks, which has been
a friend of mine. We wentto college together for over I mean,
you know, twenty years ago,so i've i've I've known Britain. I
(44:13):
think Britain's a fantastic person. Katie'sbest friend, Nicole Garza is Britain's paralegal.
And Melissa. That's who I choseto represent us. You know,
I chose two people that I admireand that were our friends, and I
(44:36):
knew that they would put our bestinterests ahead of everything else. Trust is
trust is everything. But again therelationship between Brett and Britain is very strained.
And one of the first things hetold us is that he did not
like our attorney, which is mindblowing because Britain on the civil side,
(45:00):
Brett's on the criminal side. Thetwo have one has nothing to do with
the with the other. Britain wasvery vocal in the beginning about Brett Smith
prosecuting Corey Foster for killing Katie Palmer. And I believe that if um,
you know, Brittain hadn't had madethat that statement, I believe this probably
(45:22):
would have been swept under the rug. So we met, and then he
went off on social media yet againsaid he did not appreciate how basically he
did not appreciate how we've handled thissituation. Which didn't know there was a
playbook on how families are supposed toreact to the sudden and tragic death of
(45:46):
a loved loved one. There's notat all, No, there's no cookie
cutter form of grief. The absolutelyis not. I stand behind everything that
I've that I've said. I've standbehind every single action that we've we've taken,
and if I had this to doover again, there's not one thing
that I would have would have changedat all. As the meeting went on,
(46:12):
it got a little less tense.There was exchanges back and forth.
Brett overtalked Rhonda the entire time wasbeing put in in a spot where you
are basically an advocate for the forthe victim and trying to bring justice to
that that family. To talk theway he did to her was unacceptable.
(46:40):
At one point he told us tocall off our jihad against him, which
was I guess a joke to him. He was the only one that left
in the room. The other twoprosecutors looked away, and I sat there
amazed that a man in his spotwould try to make light of this situation.
(47:02):
I think it was a very veryoffensive thing to say as well.
Absolutely, I mean that's just inappropriate. We left that meeting and we thought
that, you know, we mightget justice. I met with Carrie Ashmore
who was the prosecutor, and MasonYoung, who was who's Carrie's assistant prosecutor.
(47:27):
A couple of times. Brett Smithin that meeting and Ashmore both have
told me that well, Brett Smithtold me mistakes were made, pardon me,
missteps were made by the DPS bynot drawing blood. So Brett Smith
right there, right then and theretold me that DPS mishandled this, and
(47:53):
then he also told me that thereport was very lacking, pictures, narrative,
just the whole whole report. Itwas a very it was not a
very good job, and that's whatthey had to work work with. Which
is the last thing that you wantto hear going into a distric attorney's office
(48:14):
is that, Hey, this trooper, you know, did a horrible job.
He told us that, you know, he would tell us. He
said that he would say this behindclosed doors only and that he would never
never say it in public about lawenforcement. You know that they did a
bad, bad job, which youknow, that's not That's not the kind
(48:36):
of leadership this county needs. Ithink everybody needs to be held accountable.
Brett Smith holds people accountable every day, sends people to prison, right,
But when it comes to this onetrooper will not hold him accountable at all,
won't for glaring, glaring mis steps. So this case was presented to
(49:07):
a grand jury. Grand jury inTexas should consist of twelve jurors. One
juror called in sick that day,which to me, I believe there's four
alternates on a jury. I'm notsure why they didn't call in another juror
(49:27):
and carry Ashmore, the prosecutor whopresents these in front of the grand jury
could not give me an answer whythat didn't didn't happen. He just said
he didn't know. So we hadeleven jurors. One juror recused himself,
said that he recused himself. Iassumed that he knew either Corey or I.
(49:52):
I don't know, and so thatleads us down to ten. You
have to have nine votes in orderfor a case to be build, be
true build. So right there wewent from having to get seventy five percent
of the jurors to the DPS officerprovided testimony, the third party that they
(50:22):
hired provided testimony, and I providedtestimony as well. Then they still deliberated,
and the whole thing was about threehours. Came back as being no
build that the grand jury didn't finddidn't think there was enough evidence to move
forward with a trial. Wow,which you know, again we were two
(50:53):
jurors short. Come to later findout that the final report that was completed
by this third party, who dida great job on the report. It's
very thorough. The grand jury wason August nineteenth, okay. This report
(51:15):
when it was finalized was dated Augusttwenty fifth, six days after the grand
jury never saw that report. Thegrain jury never watched the full body camera
footage. What I don't know.We also got pictures. So our grand
(51:37):
jury hearing was on a Tuesday.Right that Sunday, assistant disc attorney Kerry
Ashmore, who presented my case infront of the grand jury, and assistant
disc attorney Nathan Young had a poolparty over at Kerry Ashmore's house. Kerry
Ashmore is also married to Kelly Ashmore, who is the district clerk. They
(52:00):
had a pool party and they hadin a paneled grand juror who sat on
our grand jury at the party.Oh my goodness, which to me is
a major ethical violation that seems likea major conflict of interest. It does.
And a week or two before Ashmorewent to this juror's business, posted
(52:22):
on Facebook about what a great businessthis person has. And you know how
you know this, You know,great person, great business, had had
a great time. So he wentto this person's business knew knowing that they're
in a panel grand jur it shouldbe another ethical infraction there. You're supposed
(52:43):
to stay away from these jurs thatyou're presenting these cases too. Our disc
Attorney's office, I guess, doesnot believe that ethically there's anything wrong with
that. I have sent three lettersto the disc attorney asking for clarification on
this, even providing him with apicture of what happened, and I've heard
(53:04):
nothing. Nothing. Grayson County playsby a different set set of rules,
so at this point, what happens, I mean, are you able to
go to a higher court for somethinglike this. We're gonna do everything we
can. We're going to exhaust everyavenue. I talked to Kerry Ashmore on
the phone some time after the grandjury did not indict Corey Foster for killing
(53:31):
Katie Palmer, and I told himthat I was going to shed light on
what happened, and he just blewme off, said, you know,
okay, kind of you. Yougotta do what you gotta do, and
if you find any more evidence,let us let us know. Which the
(53:52):
disc Attorney's office, you know,they didn't talk to any of their first
responders that were on seeing all themts and firefighters that were there thirty minutes
prior to DPA showing up, didnot talk to a single one of them
didn't get sworn affidavits from the peoplethat were on scene. My neighbor,
(54:12):
the one that showed up that waswith me why Katie passed away, never
got an affidavit from from her ortook an official statement. They talked to
her. I had to call herup and we met out on scene with
Kerry Ashmore. Never got an officialstatement from her. There's also a neighbor
that heard the impact and identified Coreyfrom his kitchen window, which was hundreds
(54:39):
of feet away. So the claimthat there was you know, fog that
morning that was so dense that Coreycouldn't see, you know, that's that's
not true. You know this thisthis man, this man identified him from
hundreds of feet away. And thewoman that that stopped and sat with me
(55:00):
until the paramedics got got there,she identified Corey Foster in his truck from
hundreds of feet feet away as well. If the District Attorney's office wanted an
indictment, they would have got anindictment. I mean, that's that's common
knowledge. I believe that they didnot seek an indictment and did not try
(55:23):
hard to get an indictment because theydidn't want to show what horrible of a
job treef Falconte did did that day. I mean, if this had gone
gone to trial, they put threefalconte up there. Who is there,
you know, who is an expertwitness of theirs, who gets utilized a
(55:45):
lot in their courts if it wasbrought out there in public in a court
setting, and some defense attorney justripped apart everything that alcat did did that
day, or if it was broughtto light in you know, a court
setting, what Alcatebe did not takingpictures, not marking the scene. He
(56:07):
didn't mark the scene at all.Nothing did not mark the scene, didn't
take adequate pictures, he did notinterview any witness on on scene, and
didn't get a blood test. DA'soffice is protecting Tree Alkatib, They absolutely
(56:30):
are. They don't want him himexposed because if he gets exposed for doing
his friend of solid what happens toall all the other cases where he's he's
been a expert witness. I mean, his credibility gets get shot. So
I believe that's that's one one reasonI also believe that our disc attorney has
(56:54):
such disdain for my civil attorney BritainBrooks that you know, felt felt as
if Corey Foster was charged that itwould be a win for Britain because again,
in the very beginning, Britain wasvery vocal on getting this man prosecuted.
(57:20):
Brett took offense to it. SoI believe Brett Smith thinks that if
Cory Foster gets indicted, then that'sa win for for Britain, and it's
not. It's a win. Noone wins, I mean no one.
No one wins in a in asituation like like this at all. There
there there is no winning. We'veall lost. I've I've lost a wife,
(57:45):
I've lost a soulmate. My kidshave lost their mother. Her parents
have lost a daughter, you know, her three brothers and sisters have lost
their oldest sister. No one wins, right, there is no winner in
this situation, There is not.All we want is justice, justice for
(58:05):
me. Is Corey going to trial, that's justice. Never once if we
asked for him just to be lockedup, never said that. I want
Corey Foster to go to trial.I want this brought up in a public
hearing and brought before an impartial,in full grand jury, which I haven't
(58:32):
gotten that I believe Brett Smith hasdisdained for our family as well. We've
been very vocal against him, veryvocal as any family would. He failed
us, Brett Smith, Carrie Ashmore, Nathan Young failed us, failed,
(58:53):
failed our family horribly. Corey Fostershould have already been in joh by now,
or should be preparing for a criminaltrial after he killed Katie. He
was back up at the bar.He was back up at the same bar
(59:15):
that I used to see him atwhen we when we would go eat lunch,
back up at the bar, drinking, still with the dent from my
wife's head, in his hood,drinking and still driving past our house.
He drives past my house at leastthree or four times a day. He
(59:38):
lives on the same same same road. You you tell me how how hard
that that would be. Knowing thatthe man that killed your wife, the
mother of your children, will notbe held accountable in a chrom little court
(01:00:00):
for reasons unbeknownst to you, andyou have to see him drive past past
your house daily daily and he's free. In my wife's dead doesn't make any
sense at all. It never will. So John, let me ask you,
(01:00:27):
how can listeners help receive justice?For Katie. I would ask that
they join the Justice for Katie Palmerfacebook group. We are actively pursuing other
avenues to get this back in frontof a grand jury. Any support that
(01:00:49):
your listeners could provide to us byjoining this group. We will have calls
to action soon. We are stillreceiving evidence. I mean it's a it's
a year later, over a yearlater, and there's still evidence that we
have not gotten that we are waitingon. There will be a call to
action. Corey Foster needs to goback in front of a grand jury to
(01:01:15):
reef Alcity needs to lose his job. He doesn't need to be in law
law enforcement at all. Brett Smithneeds to step down. Kerry Ashmore and
Nathan Young should not be prosecutors inGrayson County just for their ethical violations.
(01:01:36):
If that happened in our case infront of a grand jury, how many
other times has this happened? Iknow I've been thinking about that this entire
time we've been talking. Who elsehas been affected by the incompetence? There's
no impartiality at all if we haveprosecutors that are parting within panel grand jurors
(01:01:59):
and a prosecutor walks into a courtroomand tells the grand jury, Hey,
you need to go ahead and indictthis this guy. Oh man, that's
man. That's carry It's a guythat I hang out with and girl burgers
with and drink beer with. Ohyeah, sure we'll do it. Where's
the impartiality? There is none.There's absolutely none. This man, the
(01:02:28):
power he wields is tremendous. Imean, this is the lead prosecutor we
have in Grayson County. He putspeople away for decades, whether it's a
you know, drug offense or amurder offense or whatever offense. And there
are people that deserve to be putaway. But you know what we all
deserve. We all deserve impartiality.And through his actions, he has not
(01:02:52):
been in parcel at all. Andit it was showcased right there with that
one picture. And that's just theone picture that was on social media.
How many other times does this happen. It's not acceptable at all. If
I had a family member that wasgoing in front of a grand jury or
(01:03:14):
going in front of a criminal courtjury, I would want to make sure
that it was as neutral as possible. I don't know how long that's been
going on here, but I'll saythis, I'm going to do everything I
can to make sure it doesn't happenagain. And if that means shedding light
(01:03:34):
on this to the detriment of ourfamily getting justice for Katie, then I
just don't want this to happen toanother family. I don't whether it's the
whether it's a DPS officer on scenenot doing his job and going out of
(01:03:57):
his way to make sure that afamily friend you know, gets a break
and gets a ride home, orif it's the disc Attorney's office not doing
their job, not being impartial.I don't want this to happen to another
family. And I know there's thingsthat I've brought out and shed light on
that have burned every bridge with ourfamily and the Grayson County disc Attorney's office.
(01:04:25):
But I didn't have a choice.We didn't have a choice. We
can't stand by and let this continuebecause unless you stand up, then there
will be no change at all.Everything that I do, I know that
(01:04:45):
it's not going to bring her back. Nothing I do will bring her back.
I mean i've first week or tooafter she died. I mean I
was I was sitting in front ofour house looking at the at the direction
(01:05:11):
that you know we went walking.I could visualize her walking back. M.
You know that's the that's the games. That's your you know, brain
and heart play. Your brain knowsthat, um, you know someone's gone,
but your heart never never let's go. Yeah, I know that.
(01:05:35):
You know again that what we've putout there, what we've said, what
what we've done again, the differentdifferent things we've shed light on again,
that's burned a bridge with the discattorney's office. And I know that she's
not going to come back. ButI don't want this or I don't want
(01:05:55):
anything like what we've gone through tohappen to another family. And I'm not
going to stop as anyone else wouldn'tif they were in my shoes, you
know, right Well, John,thank you so much for joining me on
this week's episode. I truly,truly hope and pray for justice for Katie
(01:06:18):
and that it will be served soon. Thank you once again, a huge
thank you to John Palmer for joiningme on this week's episode of the podcast.
Something John and I did not geta chance to discuss was the passing
(01:06:38):
of House Bill five fifty eight,which would actually require any driver who caused
a serious bodily injury or kills pedestrianto have their blood screened for drugs or
alcohol. And this bill goes intoeffect September first of this year, which
is a pretty big deal. Andthe fact that it passed by partisan I
mean, like that's amazing. Ifyou want to learn more about Katie case,
(01:07:00):
go ahead and follow Justice for KatiePalmer on Facebook, Twitter. There's
a Facebook group and John is justa really amazing person, just really seeking
out justice for his wife. Soyou know, and keep an eye on
those posts. You never know ifthere's going to be like a petition or
something like that that we can allsupport. Well, guys, that about
(01:07:26):
does it for this week's episode.I'm Melissa Lee and this has been Victimology.
Victimology is partnered with Umorical Network.Make sure to subscribe to Victimology on
your favorite podcast platform like can followVictimology on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
(01:07:48):
And if you like what we do, please consider giving Victimology a five
star review on iTunes. Victimology isalways accepting case suggestions. Please reach out
via social media or email Victimology podat gmail dot com.
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