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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to postmortem. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Natalie Morales filling in as host today to speak with Ann Marie Green about her report on the murder of Jocelyn peters. So on March 24, 2016, Jocelyn's boyfriend, Cornelius Green called the St. Louis Police Department to report that Jocelyn had been shot in her apartment. Now, this story features details that I have never encountered in another 48 Hours episode, including a key suspect eating pages out of a notebook and fragments of a potato that were found at the crime scene. We're going to discuss all of that and more, but first, Ann Marie Green, thanks for joining us, Natalie.
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B
It's always great to be here. And you know, I always like doing postmortem with you, so it's fantastic.
- [00:58]
A
Thank you. I love doing it with you as well. And this one is such an intriguing case. I mean, I gotta remind our viewers first though, if you haven't watched or listened to our 48 Hours episode, Jocelyn Peters and the Notebook, just go check it out right now, then come back for a conversation. Jocelyn peters was a 30 year old beloved elementary school teacher. She was in a relationship with a school principal, Cornelius Green, for five years. In fact, they were expecting a child together. Jocelyn was seven months pregnant when she was was killed in her home. Well, now investigators did find a shell casing on the floor. No weapon though was recovered. Jocelyn's phone was also missing. And they did find something else that was really bizarre. Ann Marie.
- [01:44]
B
They did. They found potato fragments in the bedroom. And what they really believe is that it was used as a silencer. And it's not just the potato fragments in the bedroom. As you saw in the Hour, Jocelyn was really kind of focused on her health and she chronic everything she ate throughout this pregnancy. Potatoes not on the list, but there's a big bag of potatoes in the house later on. What you find out is that Cornelius and Jocelyn went shopping shortly before she was killed. And one of the things they bought was potatoes. And the reason that it's kind of so important is it gives you an indication of the level of pre planning for this. Right. She just didn't just happen to have potatoes. This. There was something very, very deliberate about purchasing those potatoes that day.
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A
And, and potatoes as a silencer, I mean, I had never even heard of that before. Where did that idea even come from?
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B
I mean, when I first heard of it, it reminded me of some like 1940s, like talkie gangster movie or did they call them talkies? Yeah, you know what I mean? But it probably worked because no one in the apartment heard the gunshot. Right. But also, it's actually, you know, come up in movies and television before. In fact, they ment movie during the trial, the 1992 film South Central. They use a silencer, a potato, as a silencer.
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A
And I know the lead detective on the case actually did a demo for you. I mean, this had to be extremely dangerous, by the way.
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C
Right.
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B
I did not appreciate how dangerous it was until he sort of showed me how it would work. Cause I think in my mind, I just thought, oh, you just stick the potato on the end, right? But you can't. Or you have a gun sort of full of potato, so you have to kind of hold it. So you can imagine, Natalie, you're holding this gun, and at the end of the gun where the bullet is coming out, you're holding a potato. If you move your hand in any direction by mistake, you're going to shoot your hand off. It's extremely dangerous.
- [03:45]
A
Does not sound like a good idea at all. Well, police quickly zeroed in on Jocelyn's boyfriend at the time, Cornelius Green, after surveillance cameras picked up images of a white sedan that appeared to look like the car that he drove. That was a Kia Optima. That was around 3am that the surveillance cameras picked up that image. Turns out, though, Cornelius had an alibi. He was in Chicago at the time that Jocelyn was murdered. But we learn that he had loaned his car to his friend named Philip Cutler.
- [04:20]
B
Now, before I get into, you know, how we find out about that, I should talk about his trip to Chicago. He visited friends of his. A couple 48 hours did reach out to them. They were not interested in participating in this process. According to the prosecution, he was there for a couple of days, and they did think it was sort of a little odd and that his behavior was a little odd during that time. You know, it's a quick turnaround. He comes right back. But how we learn that he's lent his car is because while he's sitting in the interrogation room in the police station, he. He makes a phone call. And he calls Cutler and asks Cutler to pick up the car. And the cameras are rolling. And we have all this video, video and audio.
- [05:06]
A
So I guess he just forgot that in those interrogation rooms, the cameras are always rolling. So he also called his wife and I. Yes, we're talking about his wife. Cause he was still married at the time to his wife, Stephanie, and talked about his car keys and asked her to then meet Cutler. Now, police bring Cutler in, that's when we see another bizarre thing happen on Camera? Yeah.
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B
He was caught on camera eating pages from his notebook.
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D
Hmm.
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B
So from what I gather, you know, Philip Cutler is brought to this room, but he's not told why he's there. An officer at one point comes to the door, opens the door, and that's when Philip Cutler says, do you know how long. How long I'm gonna be here? And the officer says, well, it's a homicide investigation. So, you know, I'm paraphrasing. These things take time. It is after that that he starts flipping through his notebook and stuffs these pieces in his mouth.
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A
And I guess investigators at the time did not see that. That video in real time as we saw it as the viewers.
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B
You're right. You know, these. I guess I didn't really kind of realize this, but once you're in this room, the cameras are rolling, there's audio, there's sound. But, you know, the officers are. The investigators are, you know, getting their questions together, getting their paperwork together. They're not watching the entire time. And so when they go back into the room, they didn't know to ask him about these papers until much later.
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A
What did they think when they saw that?
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B
Just like the rest of us, they wanted to know what was on, you know, those papers? I know. Later on, Cutler argued that what was on those papers, it was like the phone number to, like, a guy that he bought marijuana from. But what. What we do know is once he realized it was a homicide investigation, he felt the need to get rid of those pages.
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A
Well, Cutler also claimed he did not know Jocelyn Peters, but he did provide police with a key piece of information that would become crucial. And that was his phone number.
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B
Yeah, exactly. And then later on, Cornelius gives them access to his actual phone. And so then what you see as they go through the phone and then they have the phone number is a really important series of text messages between the two. Right. And I'm just gonna read out what's said. Greene asks Cutler, when are you coming here? Cutler says, when do you want me to come there? Spring break, March 18th to the 22nd, the week of March 20th is what Greene says. Cutler says, okay, that will work. You gotta remember, like, you know, Cutler lives in Oklahoma. These guys are friends from when they were little kids, but they're not hanging out together on a regular basis. Cutler then says, you gonna be sending the package? Now, investigators are like, what package? What. What are they looking for? And they look at every possible way that a package could be sent from St. Louis to Oklahoma and go through all the lists, could it be ups? Could it be the Postal Service until they find a package that was delivered to Cutler? Of course they don't know what's in it, but they know it's got the dimensions of maybe a letter or something a little heavier.
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A
Well, it turns out that package contained about $2,500 and Cutler had signed for it. Cutler's phone location, by the way, was also placed at the scene of the crime. And that's when, after all of that is put together, he is then arrested.
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B
Right.
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A
Well, let's talk about Cornelius Green. Now, Jocelyn's friend called him in the Hour a monster. And he's worst kind of monster because he presents to be something else. I mean, that really struck me hearing that language. Because on paper, he's a school principal. He seems to have everything going for him. But we learn everything else around him is just all a facade.
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B
Right, Anne Marie, the best word, Natalie. I literally was about to say facade. It's all image, no substance. I mean, I think he was a good principal. People seem to like him as a principal. The prosecutor described him as an enigma because he has no criminal record. There isn't sort of a history of violence or any of that. And yes, we learned that he was married. He also had a daughter, too.
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A
Do we know if his. His wife was aware at all about Jocelyn? Vice and vice versa?
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B
He didn't. Had not been living with his wife and child for several years, according to Jocelyn's family. He told Jocelyn that they were legally separated. His wife, now ex wife, she filed for divorce later. Stephanie knew about Jocelyn, but thought that they had broken up. But here's the thing. There were so many other women. I wanna share a little clip from the prosecutor, Tiffany Becker, about what she has to say about all of this.
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C
We know that he was involved sexually not only with his ex wife, off and on, obviously, Jocelyn, but then he had a relationship with another woman. She believed that she was going to marry him and that they were going to get a house and build a family together. And there were multiple other individuals we identified during the examination of his text messages that showed he was juggling all of these relationships at that time.
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B
Somehow he was successful with the ladies. He absolutely was really good at showing different people, I guess, a different face.
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A
Yeah. And just to think about Jocelyn, I mean, she's seven months pregnant, thinking that eventually she might marry the guy, that all she wants is to set up a house with him and to, you know, really just have a solid relationship and start for her.
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B
Baby girl, I should say, Natalie, one of the things that Jocelyn's family said to us is that they felt that he was successful at juggling all these women because he deliberately chose women who were career oriented and they would be too busy to be going through his text messages asking them, who's this girl? That they were just like, really focus driven women. So they were not going to be checking up on him to see what he was up to. And so we got away with a lot.
- [11:45]
A
Welcome back. All right, well, let's talk about how Cornelius Green allegedly stole $2,700 from his own school's dance team. That shows you the kind of desperation and the level of, you know, depravity that he was. He was capable of.
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B
Yeah, I mean, he didn't have the money to send to Philip Cutler. So, you know, the allegation is that he stole it from his own school. Nicole Conaway, the principal at Jocelyn's school, said he literally stole from children to pay for killing his own child. So the way he was caught is they were kind of holding this money in a box in a room, basically like a big closet or whatever. Not. It wasn't in a bank account. According to police reports, someone saw him. Him go in, and he was just one of a couple of people who went into the room. But when the police were called to do the investigation, they're questioning the teacher who is saying, I don't. This money's gone. He's right there. That's her boss. It's very difficult for her to say, well, the only other person that went into the room was this guy, my boss. So it's this very kind of uncomfortable situation. But eventually he is identified as the person who stole the money. I should say he was arrested, but those charges were later dismissed after Cornelius pleaded guilty to the federal charges. Right. First he was charged at the state level, but then everything moved over to the federal court. So then those theft charges were dismissed.
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A
And I just keep going back to $2,500. I mean, that was how he. How much he valued Jocelyn's life. It's just horrendous.
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B
I absolutely. And not just her life, but, you know, you have a child that's coming. And the lead detective, Mark Biondolino, I talked to him about it. He thought it was absolutely disgusting. And that guy, you know, he spent a career doing homicide in St. Louis, so he's seen a lot of things. Biondolino actually said that he seems, like, more upset about being charged with a theft than what ended up happening two months later, which was him being charged with murder.
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A
And going back to. I mean, what was the motive in all of this?
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B
Well, you know, prosecutors and investigators think that the motive was the pregnancy. He already had a child with his wife. He did not want to have another child. He just didn't want the financial responsibility. And you can see that almost, you know, from the beginning of the pregnancy with Jocelyn, he starts to Google searches to figure out ways to terminate this pregnancy. This is heartbreaking in so many different ways. But when you talk to Jocelyn's friends and family, she would have been fine. She loved children. She had a good job. You know, if he wanted to be an idiot about this, she would have gone on with her life. So that's. Yeah, it's terrible.
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A
And what was the nature of Jocelyn and Cornelius relationship then at the time of the murder? Because we hear they go on this cruise together, and it seems like things are okay.
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B
I think, like, the only red flag before that cruise that her friends and family talked about, we mentioned it in the hour, is she was, like, ready to build, right? So she's like, time, you know, get out of this apartment. Let's move into a house. And he was all enthusiastic about searching for houses, but then he always found, like, a reason why this house just wasn't perfect. And it was starting to feel deliberate. Not that he was picky, not that he wanted nothing but the best, but it just started to feel like he really was using it as a stall tactic. But on the. The cruise, Jocelyn's aunt says he looked distracted. And by then, I mean, based on the text messages, he's already planned this whole thing out. Right. Jocelyn is not gonna see another birthday.
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A
Just horrific, you know, just thinking if she had possibly moved out just a little bit earlier. Cause I know she was making plans to do that.
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B
Yes. She comes from an amazing family. They are so supportive of each other. And her mom, Lacey, Jocelyn's old bedroom, already she saved money. She improved the bathroom in the house. Like, the plan was, Jocelyn, you come move in, and then you will be surrounded by a village, and this child will have all the love and support that they need.
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A
Well, unfortunately, you know, we find out, a week later, she ends up dead. So Cutler was arrested and charged with Jocelyn's murder in June of 2016. And then Greene was arrested and charged with Jocelyn's murder in October of 2016. Both men were held in the city jail for six years while they were waiting there. Then they were finally indicted on federal charges in 2022. Anne Marie, why did it take so long?
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B
I know, Natalie, we've done cases that drag on and on and on. Often it's because the defendant is working the system. They fire their lawyers. You know, something along those lines. In this case, it's just because St. Louis has such a tremendous backlog, which is, like, just bonkers to me. And eventually what ends up happening is federal prosecutors take a look at the case, and because, you know, it crosses state lines, it actually works really well as a federal case. And the thinking is that it'll be processed, it'll get to. To trial much faster. It still takes, you know, a couple more years, but it does get to trial faster.
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A
But Green, though, ended up taking a plea deal.
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B
He does. He waits until the very, very end, like right before he's gonna go to trial. But the state charges came with the death penalty. And so he ultimately decides that he's gonna take a deal with the federal case, the state charges are dropped, including that theft charge, and he agrees to certain facts in the case. Like you always do when there's a plea. Right. But his co defendant, Cutler, does not. He wants to go to trial. But I gotta tell you, he did himself no favors. Several people told us that he was literally sleeping in court. And when I asked, are you sure he wasn't just resting his eyes blinking for a very long time, he. Natalie, he was snoring, so they knew he was sleeping. So I'm sure that didn't help at all.
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A
You can imagine what the jury thinks about that, especially when you consider that, you know, here he is charged with killing a pregnant woman.
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B
Right.
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A
Seven months pregnant at the time as well.
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B
Right. So Cutler is found guilty. Philip Cutler and Cornelius Green, they're both sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the murders of Jocelyn Peters and for the murders of Michael Lee, her baby. And Cutler's appeals so far have been denied.
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A
And how did Jocelyn's family react to that verdict?
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B
So certainly there was relief. But without Cornelius going to trial, it leaves sort of a ton of unanswered questions. We're just guessing as to why he did this, why he took this most extreme route to solve what he thought was a. Was a problem. But the ripple effects continue. Today, Jocelyn's aunt learned of her murder while she was driving on the highway. To this day, she cannot drive on the highway. And Jocelyn's former principal, Nicole Conaway, could not go back into the classroom after this. Now she actually works as a consultant, so she's still in education. But, you know, looking at the faces in those classrooms reminded her too much of Jocelyn.
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A
And you gotta, you know, Consider how her mom was handling all of this as well.
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B
Yeah, she, you know, she's had some hard knocks in life in general, and she shared something that Jocelyn will leave behind. Kind of an educational legacy. And I want to play a clip.
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D
She was a type of teacher that always came very early because she had to greet each and every student every day. Education was just so important to her and the kids learning. She used to always say, the first time you travel throughout the world is reading a book. She was the presence in the room without saying one word. She was that person. She was that person.
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B
So, you know, the St. Louis School District deals with a lot of challenges in the classroom, and the kids have challenges outside the classroom that they bring into the classroom. It really takes a special person to take on this vocation. My mom is a retired school teacher. I'm just gonna say that she was an excellent teacher. And what I learned watching her was teaching is not something you do, it's who you are. And this was Jocelyn.
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A
And you can only imagine, you know, the ripple effect on the kids as well. You know, we can all remember certainly that one teacher that had that impact on our lives. I imagine Jocelyn Peters was that teacher to the kids that she'd taugh that she left a mark on them.
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B
I absolutely believe that. And it's a pity. I would have loved to have seen the impact that she would have had on that city if she was allowed to live the life that she hoped and dreamed for.
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A
Well, Annemarie, thank you once again for another great episode of 48 Hours.
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B
Thank you, Natalie, and thanks to all the teachers out there.
- [21:30]
A
If you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple podcast or Spotify. I'm back.
- [21:40]
C
I'm really back.
- [21:41]
B
School Spirits returns. Why am I here?
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D
Not dead, right?
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B
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A
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D
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D
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A
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