← Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
Gaudreau Deaths DUI Defense & Guthrie DNA Under Microscope
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- [00:00]
Peter Valentin
Predator.
- [00:01]
Patrick Fagan
Badlands now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
- [00:06]
Donna Rotuno
Here you're not the predator, you're the prey.
- [00:09]
Patrick Fagan
Prey, prey, prey, prey. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning and breathtaking. Many have come here, none have survived. Badlands now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney. Rated PG 13.
- [00:30]
Donna Rotuno
Hello and welcome to Crime and Justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. Today we're going to be talking about the Goudreau brothers, the brothers who were killed by a drunk driver in New Jersey. We will also be talking about the lack of DNA evidence in the Nancy Guthrie case and what does that mean for the investigation moving forward. Also, we'll talk about why I am in New York today and not in my home studio in Chicago. We're here listening to what's happening with the Clinton depositions regarding Jeffrey Epstein. So a lot to get to today. Thanks for joining me. Let me bring in my first guest, Patrick Fagan. Patrick, thank you for joining me, Donna.
- [01:16]
Patrick Fagan
This is awesome. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited.
- [01:19]
Donna Rotuno
So, so glad to be here with you and I. We could spend the whole half an hour talking about sports, but we won't because we'll get into our coffee, criminal justice circumstances here. But I love to have you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you got into criminal defense work.
- [01:36]
Patrick Fagan
Geez, 26 years I've been doing this. Passed the bar exam in 2001, July of 2001, working like a dog ever since. You know, started with you, pretty close. Starting with you. The first four years we worked in a small firm together, branched out on my own, and I've been fighting cases. I was just telling Peter I picked up a case in Champaign county yesterday. It's my 30th county in Illinois that I've been in. Successfully defended somewhere over 100 felony criminal cases at the trial division. So it's my life's work. I've been doing my whole life, and it's been great.
- [02:10]
Donna Rotuno
And all those sporting events you go to on the weekends with your kids, which is awesome.
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Patrick Fagan
Yeah. Well, it's all those sporting events now.
- [02:16]
Donna Rotuno
That's right. Well, I'm so happy to have you. I wanted speaking of sporting events, let's talk about hockey and our wonderful USA Gold medal winners, the men's and women's side. But let's specifically talk about Johnny Gujaro and his brother, who were killed by a drunk driver in New Jersey. This case got so much attention because of just the utter sheer sadness that went along with it. Johnny and his brother were riding their bikes along a road for their sister's wedding. And it was the day before the wedding and they were out together, the whole family was celebrating. And they get hit by a driver in a truck who admitted to having drinks at the time of the arrest. Five or six drinks, he said. And then at the time, the blood alcohol level came back to.087, which is above the legal limit in New Jersey. Now, the lawyer's contention is they had an expert come in. The expert has done testing on that blood. They had only tested the plasma portion of the blood. And now in, in testing the full blood sample, the blood sample comes back to 0.75, which puts it back below the legal limit for the blood alcohol content. So although that sounds really scientific and it is a little bit, let's talk about how that affects a criminal case. When it comes to a DUI case that involves a reckless homicide or a death versus just an accident, that would be awfully sad. So let's talk about the differences there a little bit.
- [03:47]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, just echoing your thoughts on the case. I remember when I first heard about it too, it was just a horrific, horrific set of circumstances. Almost, almost too difficult to imagine. I think it happened too. I think they were going to, I think. Wasn't their sister getting married the next night unfathomable? Yeah, I think there, it definitely involves a different set of circumstances when you, you're dealing with a death case. Right. If it was just your standard run of the mill misdemeanor dui, this thing would probably be worked out. Right. For a reckless driving in one court date. There's a lot of other factors here, you know, and simply because the chemical test runs less than the proposed legal limit doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't, you know, under the influence or impaired. Furthermore, I think important in this case is the fact that, you know, it's a death case. And one of the big factors I think in this case is going to be causation. I haven't heard what the defense arguments are yet, but I think not only do you have to prove that he was impaired, but you have to prove that that impairment was approximate cause of the death. And then you start to ask real questions about what was the contributing negligence or the contributing recklessness of the alleged victims in this case.
- [05:19]
Donna Rotuno
Well, I know they're going to talk about the bad driving. I think that there was a witness, there was another vehicle on the road that was driving slower because of the two brothers on the bikes. And then the truck that was driven by the person charged in this case, the truck was driving recklessly and sort of trying to avoid this other car. So I think there's going to be an element of bad driving as well. But in terms of the DUI aspect, you know, it's interesting because most states, and New Jersey is one of them, have statutes that allow for you to charge DUIs, and then in combination with the death, obviously a reckless homicide or, you know, a manslaughter, you can charge those cases. But there's usually some type of a, you know, factor that sort of gives you an idea of the level of impairment. And if a state has a number that they consider to be an impairment. Right. Most states are either 0.10 or.08. And they. They lowered that to 0.08 in a lot of jurisdictions many years ago. When you look at that number and you can argue as the defense, yes, he had alcohol in his system, but it wasn't so much to impair him in this circumstance. Right. If the state of New Jersey says, this is how we determine whether you're under the influence of alcohol. There's also, you know, there's other charges because if somebody doesn't blow. Right. Or doesn't. Doesn't provide blood, blood samples, you can charge someone with dui, but when you charge them with the dui, you have these signs of impairment. But now that you actually have the blood, I think the argument for the defense, of course, is going to be he doesn't reach that marker. So, yes, it's unfortunate that this was an accident and the accident caused death, but is it this more heightened situation? So, I mean, it's. It's an interesting case for lawyers to debate because I think there's actually good arguments on the defense side, regardless of how awfully sad this is.
- [07:17]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah, No, I mean, any. Anytime the.
- [07:19]
Peter Valentin
The.
- [07:20]
Patrick Fagan
The legal limits or the. The blood test or if it was a breathalyzer test comes under the legal limit, that's obviously a good sign for the defense.
- [07:27]
Peter Valentin
Yeah.
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Patrick Fagan
I mean, you and I go back, you know, try and misdemeanor DUI cases. If it came in under the legal limit, that case is over.
- [07:35]
Donna Rotuno
Right.
- [07:36]
Patrick Fagan
You know, I mean, they just now. But of course, that doesn't necessarily. It's not this positive of the case. You can still prove a DUI even if the person comes under the legal limit.08 through other factors. You know, I'm sure there's field sobriety tests. There's obviously the way they were driving. There's admissions. I know in this particular case, the driver made admissions to both drinking and some reckless driving. So there's other ways you can prove the case. And I'm certain in this case that the, the chemical test, the blood test coming under the legal limit, will not be dispositive in this case. And then, you know, to be a long story short, I don't see this motion that the defense has filed within the last couple days getting off the ground and the matter being dismissed on their motion.
- [08:19]
Donna Rotuno
Well, even if it is dismissed. Right. Even if the judge says, you know what, I'm going to toss the indictment, because what the defense is contending is the grant. The grand jury would not have come back with an indictment but for this information that he was above the legal limit. So, I mean, what's the remedy? Okay, the case gets dismissed and they go re indict him.
- [08:36]
Patrick Fagan
So, yeah, they would get another, they would get another indictment by tomorrow.
- [08:40]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah. And so, you know, what are you really winning? And that would be the conversation you and I would have with the client. We would say, well, what are you winning? You're winning nothing. And just the sentiment around this case, you know, the, the totality of the circumstances here. I mean, this, this guy should have been an Olympic, an Olympic gold medalist. And now, you know, the family has to go to court and worry about, you know, the punishment for the person who caused their death. It's just really, it's awful set of circumstances to be on the defense side and have to come up with an argument that combats all that.
- [09:14]
Patrick Fagan
It's timing is very unique, I would agree with you. You see on Sunday morning, them parading around his children, his jersey, and just this epic moment. And now, you know, you have this legal wrangling just days later. It's, it's not, it's unfortunate timing for the defense, to say the least.
- [09:29]
Donna Rotuno
It is. And I probably would have either held off on it or, you know, tried to do it before. And remember, Johnny's wife was pregnant, Meredith was pregnant at the time of his death, and the baby was born several months later. So I mean, this is just, you know, just keep adding. When you think of something that can't be worse, there's, you know, one more factor here that just makes it so much worse. I mean, you add the components of the baby do and the wedding happening the next day, and not only do you as parents lose one son, but you lose two. I mean, it's just, it, it goes from bad to worse every time you, every time you talk about it in terms of the driver statements to the police after the crash. Right. He admits, I had five or six drinks. That's damaging.
- [10:12]
Patrick Fagan
Yes.
- [10:13]
Donna Rotuno
And as a defense attorney, there's really not a lot of ways that you're going to get that statement tossed out, unless it was made in a circumstance where the police are asking him questions, but before reading his Miranda rights. But if they just come up to the car and he says, I had five or six drinks, that statement's coming in.
- [10:32]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah. I mean, and as a defenser, you try to explain it away, you try to minimize it, but as they've said, as judges have looked me in the eye, told me several times, your words have significant legal impact. And that's why, you know, you haggle like crazy to try to get statements like that from being admitted. Because if they're admitted, it's, it's. It is very problematic for whoever the fact finder is, whether it's a judge or a jury.
- [10:55]
Donna Rotuno
No doubt. Yeah. And no matter. And I'll put this out as a disclaimer and a disclosure. No matter how sad these cases are and no matter how horrifying it is, the defense and the defendant still have the right to due process, and the law should still apply. So if the law was not followed, if there is a reason that a case should be dismissed, then it should be, you know, regardless of the circumstances, because that has to take precedence. I mean, we see it in Luigi Mangione. Right. I mean, I'm sure most people think. Except his crazy supporters, but most people think Luigi Mangione deserves the death penalty, which he's not going to get. Because, frankly, the judges, I think, made the right decision based on the law. We may not like it, but if you look at the law, the law was pretty clear in. In that situation. And even the judge said this is a. A decision made with, I think, the word she. It was torturous or turmoil or whatever word she used. It was fraught with difficulty. But, you know, that's their job. Sometimes you have to make the tough calls.
- [12:00]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah. I mean, as far as that case, I'm in the same boat as you. The evidence appears overwhelming. There's still a long way to go between here and there, here being where we sit right now and there being when they give the case to the jury after a trial. But based on everything I've heard, the evidence seems overwhelming. I think, frankly, the government's biggest concern right now, or I think probably one of the major concern, is during the jury selection process, can we keep one wackadoo from, from sneaking through and, and, you know, essentially cutting him loose on the case based on their own creation of justifiable homicide because of whatever he. He. Because. Because he works for. For profit insurance company.
- [12:41]
Donna Rotuno
Yes.
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Patrick Fagan
I honestly think that's probably the biggest concern of the government.
- [12:44]
Donna Rotuno
Sure. 100%. We talk, I talked about it with Will Kane on his show about this OJ Effect. Right. Like, do you have to worry about the, the jury where they just kind of disregard the evidence and they make decisions based on other things which could happen in a case like this in New Jersey with this drunk driver? Because the, the sentiment and the emotional side of this is so strong that you could just get jurors that are like, I'm convicting this guy, regardless of what they say because of how awful and terrible this case is.
- [13:16]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah, no doubt. And, and in my experience, and I'll say this for when you have a murder case or a dead body case, I, I think the beyond a reasonable doubt standard is often forgotten. And I think. And I think jurors are sitting there, and if they think that this person did it, if they really believe in the heart of hearts this person did it, the beyond a reasonable doubt stuff is, no, no, I'm convicting this guy.
- [13:37]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah.
- [13:37]
Patrick Fagan
And I think that's something that as defense attorneys really have to battle through, and I think that will be a factor in that case for sure.
- [13:43]
Peter Valentin
No doubt.
- [13:44]
Donna Rotuno
And when you look at this case again, and we talk about the alcohol component. Right. If the alcohol component is not there. Right. If this is just a regular person that was going to the grocery store that didn't have a drop of alcohol and was driving down the road and either didn't see them or got cut off by a car and caused a crash that killed them, you know, that doesn't necessarily become a criminal case.
- [14:10]
Patrick Fagan
No.
- [14:11]
Peter Valentin
Right.
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Donna Rotuno
It just becomes a tragedy that somebody has to live with the rest of their life. So, you know, this, this is what they are trying to do as the defense, of course, is to remove any of the obstacles that make it a circumstance that, that rise to the level of, of this criminal nature.
- [14:27]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah, yeah. DUI death cases, you know, are tough. They really are. Because obviously you have this situation which you have these horrible situation. People dead generally have a prosecutor's office that's under some pressure to, to get a pretty stiff sentence. Yet, as you know, it lacks the, the, the dark heart, malice that's so often a part of criminal cases in which you're asking for a significant amount of time. Right?
- [14:51]
Donna Rotuno
Yes.
- [14:52]
Patrick Fagan
I mean, I Think we've advanced far enough as a society to where we recognize that the DUI isn't just a accident. Now you're making a conscious choice, whether it's before you started drinking or after you started drinking, to get behind the wheel of a car. But it's still. It does lack a certain malice that's present in so many criminal cases that you and I have dealt with over the years that there is an uneasy feeling sometimes when, you know you're asking for 18, 20, 25 years for what's ultimately an accident. So I think that's a spectrum.
- [15:19]
Donna Rotuno
I think the maximum here is like 60 or 70 or so. It's a huge number. But to your point, you know, I think that the prosecutors had offered like 30 or 35. And I think the judge has talked to the parties and said, you should really try to work this out. I think the defense did present a counteroffer to the state, so we'll see what happens. And, you know, the argument that the state uses every time. Cause you're right about nobody gets in their car, whether they've been drinking or not, thinking, I'm going to go out and kill someone. Right. Like, that's not. That's not the way these cases usually come down. And so this is a circumstance where, you know, this happens. It's awful. It's sad. And the prosecutors say that car. The minute you had one drink, you knew that car was a weapon. Right. That's the argument they always make. They turn the car into the weapon, and you got behind the wheel of that car, which is basically like having a loaded gun in your hand. And that's the argument that they always make to try to resonate with with the jury. You know, we'll see.
- [16:15]
Patrick Fagan
No, and I. And I both get that argument. I do. But I also disagree with it for the reason I said before. And, you know, if we could talk for. We could talk for. For hours about this and then ultimately kind of come to some resolution. If we were the judges to think what this thing would be worth if he was ultimately convicted, the number would be less than 35 for me.
- [16:33]
Donna Rotuno
Agree.
- [16:34]
Patrick Fagan
Be more than one.
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Peter Valentin
Probably.
- [16:35]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah. In a lot of jurisdictions, I think if you have multiple. And I don't know exactly what the factors are that make it that huge number, but in. In most places, if you have multiple deaths, I think it's like 6 to 30 or 6 to 60. Maybe 6 to 60 in some jurisdictions. So, you know, obviously most people don't get the maximum if they don't have Prior background. So, you know, like you said, that number is high.
- [17:03]
Patrick Fagan
That's the other thing you keep forgetting, though, too. There's two bodies, you know, and, you
- [17:07]
Donna Rotuno
know, again, there's no value that you can place on those lives and what they would have contributed to society. And no matter what that court does, they're never coming home. And no matter what the punishment is, no matter how this guy feels that he can get out of this, if there's a technicality, you still have to live with the fact that you killed two people, that not only two people in general, but two people with immense opportunity and immense talent and people that had a lot to give back to the world. So this is just. And children without their father. And we could go on and on and on about how. How awful it is. So do you think we'll most likely see a plea here?
- [17:49]
Patrick Fagan
You know, it all depends on how motivated the, the parties are to, To. To get it done.
- [17:54]
Peter Valentin
Right.
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Patrick Fagan
What's, what's going to be the. How motivated is the state to give them something reasonable? Right. As long as they, They're. They're pushed on by victims, the press, and they're offering numbers like 35, it's not going to get worked out.
- [18:09]
Peter Valentin
Right.
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Patrick Fagan
But I, you know, any case, not just, not just a case like this, but any case, the negotiation is a number of things. From the defense perspective, how beatable is the case? What's the maximum penalty if I lose? What's the minimum penalty? What's the realistic penalty? You put that all into a stew and you make a determination. Yeah. On this case, just on the face of it, I don't know a lot about the case. Again, there's a long way from here to there. I would think this is the type of case that could potentially be worked out if they come to some reasonable rationale.
- [18:39]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah, I think so, too. It has to be reasonable, because if it's not reasonable, you might as well go to trial. Right. You, you know, if you, if you have no other choice but to roll the dice, you roll them.
- [18:47]
Patrick Fagan
So, yeah, I always say if you're, if you're offering me the maximum, you're not offering me a choice.
- [18:51]
Donna Rotuno
That's right. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. Peter Valentin. Peter, how are you?
- [18:59]
Peter Valentin
I'm well. Thanks for having me, Donna.
- [19:01]
Donna Rotuno
So, Peter, good to meet you.
- [19:02]
Peter Valentin
Patrick.
- [19:03]
Donna Rotuno
You guys are great. I'm so happy to have you both today. Peter, tell me a little bit about what you do in New Haven.
- [19:09]
Peter Valentin
Thanks. So I'm the chair of the forensic Science department at the University of New Haven, one of the largest forensic science programs in the country. I have an unusual background, and not only a forensic scientist, but I was actually a detective with the Connecticut State Police prior to becoming an academic here at the university. So I kind of COVID things from beginning to end, if you will.
- [19:29]
Donna Rotuno
That's an amazing perspective to have because I think it really as both. Well, I was a prosecutor before I was a defense attorney. I think it gives a perspective that's different. I've had family and law enforcement, and I think seeing things from more than one side is extremely beneficial in these cases.
- [19:47]
Peter Valentin
It does. And then the work that I do now as a reconstructionist and as a person who evaluates cases, being able to follow it from the 911 calls or, you know, when, in this case, when the family calls all the way through to the forensic lab results, you really do get to see where cases come together and sometimes where cases fall apart.
- [20:06]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah, that is so true. And speaking of, you know, cases needing to come together, Nancy Guthrie is one of them. And this has now gone on to, what are we on day 20 something? 25? 26? No more than that? 29. This is really sad that we just do not know more, have more. And, you know, I get it. Law enforcement doesn't have to tell the public anything, but this is one of those cases that is being talked about whether they tell us things or not. And there just hasn't been much movement. Talk to me where we are with the DNA, how the DNA has been handled up to this point. Is there hope that this IGG technology that came through in Coburger could potentially help us here? Walk me through what's been going on so far.
- [20:54]
Peter Valentin
So the challenge with using investigative genetic genealogy, as great of a tool as it is, is that we don't know, or at least we don't know publicly whether or not we have any DNA that we can say with any degree of certainty belongs to the perpetrator. Right, right. We have discarded gloves, and everybody talked about it last week, gloves that were found two miles away from, from Ms. Guthrie's home. Now, in any other investigation, something found two miles away would never even be considered as relevant physical evidence. But in this case, it was. Now, I don't know why that was. Perhaps there was something about it that really caught the investigators attention. We've come to find out that, you know, more than 16 pairs of gloves or 16 gloves were found in. You know, first of all, that's. That's poor crime scene management, but that's That's a story. That's a different story. But there was something about these gloves that caught the investigators attention and they were sent to be tested. But there's nothing to say that that connects back to the scene itself. So even if you did investigate a genetic genealogy, how do you know that that information that you develop connects somebody to the Guthrie missing persons case? Right? Or let's just say it's a missing persons case still, let's, let's be optimistic about this. What you need is you need a profile that you can say for sure was a person inside the home, ideally from a biological fluid, which is probably not what you have here, because that certainly would have been prioritized and dealt with by now. But in the. See, here's the difference with the Coburger case, right? You had the DNA profile that was taken off the knife sheath, right? Now, that knife sheath is clearly brought to the scene. It correlates with the, the weapon that was used, and it connects Coburger back to the scene, right? Indirectly.
- [22:45]
Donna Rotuno
It was left at the scene. It wasn't left two miles away from the scene. Right?
- [22:48]
Peter Valentin
Right. So you have all. Now, now, mind you, these are all inferences that we're drawing, but they're so easy to draw, right? You had this item that wasn't there before. You have this DNA profile that you're able to get from it. It connects back to his father. The father has a son, and the son's located 20 minutes away from, from the crime scene. So these leaps that we're making logically are so, so small that we get right back to where we need to be here. We can't do that. We don't have that DNA profile. We don't have, or at least, you know, we don't know publicly that there's that DNA profile that we can say for certain is from inside that house and belongs to the perpetrator. Now, what I, what we have heard is that they've collected DNA and they've tried to eliminate some of those unknown DNA profiles by getting buccal swabs from, you know, people who have been inside the home. Family, workers, friends. The problem there is you can never really close that door. You can never say for sure that we have gotten known samples to account for every unknown DNA profile. And why? Because DNA is so easily transferred now, because the testing is so sensitive that I could shake hands with Patrick and I could take Patrick's DNA to a place that Patrick has never been to before.
- [24:08]
Donna Rotuno
Right?
- [24:09]
Peter Valentin
And so we would never know to Get Patrick's known DNA, because Patrick never had a reason to be where I transferred his DNA to. So we're trying to close the door that really can't be closed here. And that's what makes this a lot more difficult than it and it was in the past.
- [24:24]
Donna Rotuno
And I think the only hope in a case like this is you hope that it potentially points you in a direction, which doesn't mean that's the person who committed the crime, but maybe it gives you some lead, which they don't even seem to have a lot of those. And even if you're talking about people who have access to the house or had access, whose DNA should have been there, does that necessarily mean that those people weren't involved? Unless you're able to say, okay, they had alibis or they were here, you know, so it's. It's really. It doesn't really help include or exclude?
- [24:58]
Peter Valentin
Frankly, no. And really, the way that I would look at this investigatively is that I would like to find the same unknown DNA profile in two disconnected places. Because now we've. I can't say we've eliminated coincidence, but we've certainly made it hard to explain how your DNA is on a glove found two miles away, for instance, and your DNA is found in the living room or on the hose outside of the house.
- [25:29]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah. Or if Nancy's DNA was on the glove they found two miles away, then you know that. That's a different story.
- [25:37]
Peter Valentin
Oh, now, if that were true. Now, if we had. If we had Ms. Guthrie's DNA on an item outside of the house, and there was another unknown profile found on that, that item is immediately the most probative item of evidence in this case, bar none.
- [25:51]
Donna Rotuno
Sure.
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Peter Valentin
I'm. I'm feel very comfortable saying that they don't have that yet because that. That would immediately become the most important item they have.
- [25:58]
Donna Rotuno
And. And we would obviously know that if that was the case, I think, at this point. So now that we know that the sheriff's office sent those black gloves that we both. I never thought anything was coming from those either, but they sent those black gloves down to Florida, and now, you know, they. They didn't send them to Quantico, and then they had the codis. Nothing came through in codis. Now that they've done that, now that we have really not heard whether or not they're getting anything from igg, are there any other options left when it comes to DNA for items that they've already collected?
- [26:34]
Peter Valentin
Well, it really depends on how many items they collected. Now, this is where we get back to how did they consider the scene when they first had possession of it? And this is where, you know, the first misstep you make is the one that sometimes dooms your case to going cold or sometimes, you know, in other situations, to becoming a wrongful conviction. And the analogy that I'll use in a situation like this is that, you know, when people get lost and they make that first wrong turn, they don't realize they've made a wrong turn. They keep driving, and at some point later, they realize they don't know where they are. Right. So you not understanding what this case was about at the very beginning, you don't recognize that there's still so many investigative leads that need to be followed up on, and those eventually dry up, but by the time they dry up and you realize, oh, my goodness, we've got nothing left to do. We're days, weeks into this, and now it's very hard to change course because all the opportunities you had to go in that other direction are gone. Whatever evidence you could have seized isn't, Is not. Isn't available to you anymore. And so the challenge is with cases like this is to entertain multiple, what we'll say scientifically hypotheses. Right. Multiple scenarios at the same time, but not favoring any one of them. So in a situation like this, let's say, is this cartel related, Is this a home invasion? Is the family involved? Right. Those are three scenarios, right? There is this a neighbor? There's four. You work all of those with the same level of interest or the same level of scrutiny. And what will happen is the physical evidence and the investigative leads will support one, and the other 3, 4, 5, 6 will eventually wither away for lack of information. That's how you're supposed to do this. But that kind of runs counter to what we think of because we think of detectives as running on hunches. You know, my gut tells me I should do this or that.
- [28:40]
Donna Rotuno
That's probably the worst thing, right?
- [28:42]
Peter Valentin
It really is. I mean, you know, hey, we all have them. And, you know, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have them myself, but you can't run on those to the exclusion of pursuing things objectively.
- [28:54]
Donna Rotuno
Right.
- [28:55]
Peter Valentin
And if there's a fault here, it's did they. Did they push one version or one scenario too hard and leave other options behind and not consider them?
- [29:06]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah, and I would think that that's probably true. Unless, you know, they. They have been. We don't know. And they've come up with zero all across the board. And so I guess we just don't know. And then when we hear this term cold case, is this a cold case? I mean, obviously it means that there's nothing happening. There's no new information. At what point? I mean, there's still a lot of tips coming in here. At what point is something truly considered a cold case?
- [29:34]
Peter Valentin
So it depends on who you consult with. What defines a cold case? There's no investigative leads in six months and three weeks or so. You know, you can define some arbitrary, you know, date or time period where there's no investigative activity, but what I'll say is that every time you keep adding to the reward, you're going to get new leads. And you could say that that keeps the case from getting cold. But how viable are these new leads that are coming in? So investigators are busy, but are they really investigating things that have potential value as far as this case is concerned? I can't. I don't know. Perhaps there's a tipping point where the amount of money is so high that the person who does know something, because clearly somebody knows something who isn't saying something, they finally do, you know, offer that bit of information that breaks this thing open. This case isn't cold yet, but, you know, finding that that bit of relevant information from those thousands and thousands of leads that, you know, really amount to nothing is. Is just such arduous work. And. And there's no way to easily go through it and parse out which is good and which is bad. You all need trained eyes on all of them.
- [30:54]
Donna Rotuno
And Peter, if you're advising the FBI about what to do, what do you tell them to do next?
- [31:01]
Peter Valentin
So this is one of those cases where. And they don't happen very often where you want to prioritize the. The analysis of physical evidence. A lot of times, forensic evidence is really the lagging indicator of what you understand investigatively. You know, you submit evidence and you're waiting weeks and months, months and maybe sometimes even years to get results. And by the time you get those results, they're confirming things you already knew or the things you've already developed. And in a case like this, you're actually waiting for the forensic evidence to tell you which way to go. And so I. And. And this is. This is maybe what even happened just within the last day or two that a new group of investigators came to the house. And what I would suggest is that you go into that house with the best people in each discipline in forensics, go into that house and scrutinize that house looking for the trace evidence that must exist or hopefully still exists, because if people went into that home and we believe they did right to. To take her from that house, there must be evidence of their presence in that home. Where is it? What is that evidence? We need to find it. And now it's not going to be, because otherwise we would have found it. It's not going to be the obvious DNA profile somewhere. It's not going to be the obvious latent fingerprint. It's probably some of the things that we've probably not used as much. Right. The hair, the fibers, the other kinds of trace evidence. But we've got to start cobbling together all the forensic evidence we have at our disposal to move this case forward, because otherwise it might not other move forward.
- [32:47]
Donna Rotuno
And you know, Peter, this is a. Obviously a high profile case, given the fact that it has received the attention that it has given the fact that Nancy is the daughter of Savannah Guthrie. So does that make it any different? People ask me all the time about cases I have that are in the news, and clients will say, oh, you know, you're on a case that's more important than mine. No, no case is more important than any other. Somebody else decided to put a camera in my face. And so that's kind of how I feel about these cases that become, quote, unquote, high profile. Like, yes, they're high profile for the world that knows about them. But does law enforcement really handle these things any differently than they would any other crime that comes across their desk?
- [33:29]
Peter Valentin
You know, Donna, the way that you described it is exactly what my experience was like at the scene level, at the investigative level. We handled these cases exactly the same way. And I don't think any of us ever really understood why one case got attention and one didn't. Sometimes there are demographic issues. Sometimes it was a slow news day. We never really understood why one got attention and one didn't. But what I can say is that, you know, when. When there is intense media scrutiny, a lot of times unforced errors occur.
- [34:05]
Donna Rotuno
Yes. Because there's too much.
- [34:07]
Peter Valentin
Every case I've ever looked at, too
- [34:08]
Donna Rotuno
much of a push to try to try to resolve, try to move quicker. Yeah.
- [34:13]
Peter Valentin
Yep. And in every case I've looked at since, you know, and I've. And I've watched it, you know, from my perspective here in academia, you know, as I try to teach the next generation of investigators and forensic scientists. The more scrutiny there is, the more pressure there is, the more unforced errors occur and ultimately the more challenging it makes that eventual prosecution.
- [34:34]
Donna Rotuno
Yeah, I got some really interesting questions on my social media today regarding DNA, and one of them I thought was very intuitive and interesting. And it came to me from someone on Instagram and he asked about the sheriff's decision to send the DNA to Florida and not to send it to the FBI lab. And had he made a decision to not send it to Florida, as he has said he has done, and they've used this lab for 30 years, would that open up any scrutiny on past cases regarding that Florida lab? Would somebody come forward and say, well, why didn't you use the lab? Did you not trust the lab? And I thought that was an interesting question to ask rather than just say, why not send it to Virginia?
- [35:20]
Peter Valentin
Yeah, that's an interesting question. But, you know, that lab has a great reputation in the forensic community and a lot of agencies around the country use them in one capacity or another. And the same accrediting body that would accredit a governmental forensic laboratory would accredit them as well. So we're all meeting the same standards, whether we're public or private. So, you know, that line of inquiry, if you will, would be easy to kind of, you know, push back on. But, you know, from a public perspective, I could see why that would come up for sure.
- [35:54]
Donna Rotuno
Peter, thank you. Your expertise is so helpful in these cases. You really helped me understand some of the things moving forward here. And we hope that they will continue to find information that will help lead to the discovery and or rescue of Nancy Guthrie. Thank you so much for your time. You've been great.
- [36:11]
Peter Valentin
It's been my pleasure.
- [36:12]
Donna Rotuno
Thank you. All right, Patrick, I have one hard question left for you. As I said, I am in New York today because we've been following the testimony of Hillary Clinton and tomorrow Bill Clinton in the depositions regarding Jeffrey Epstein and his business dealings and his influence in politics. Tomorrow, Bill gets on the hot seat and has to ask, has to answer questions. If you were asking questions in that deposition, what would you ask the former president?
- [36:42]
Patrick Fagan
Well, at the fear of being reductive, I would want to know everything. You know, I mean, obviously my interpretation of the Epstein stuff is this is a guy that clearly did a pretty good job of ingratiating himself with normal society. Normal high society. Right. So at what point did the normal non criminal contact end and the criminal contact in which you knew stuff or participated in stuff that you shouldn't have
- [37:10]
Donna Rotuno
been participating in or gave them information?
- [37:13]
Peter Valentin
Right.
- [37:14]
Patrick Fagan
And, and obviously, if you're, if you're. If you're one of the lawyers that that's questioning him, you have access to a lot of information. Some of this stuff is going back to the maybe the 80s, right. 90s. I mean, this is not something that happened last week. This is not something in which you have, you know, digital footprint for like we would if this happened within the last 6, 12, 18, 24 months. So I'm assuming they're armed with a lot of information, and I would want to lock him into some sort of answers on everything that I know. And I know that's kind of a reductive answer, but I think it's important to ask him about everything. That would be my position.
- [37:55]
Donna Rotuno
And, you know, I have gotten the title over the years of the anti MeToo lawyer and the lawyer that tried to take down MeToo. Do you think that this Epstein craze is the new hashtag MeToo?
- [38:11]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah, in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways it is. It's all so ugly and disturbing. Yeah, I think it is. I think a lot of the MeToo might have gone a little too far, and maybe we're creating controversies where they weren't really there. Based on the information we're getting back on this, at least so far, it feels like there was. I have to admit, there's a lot more there than I thought there was going to be.
- [38:39]
Donna Rotuno
Well, and remember, you know, we're talking about children, which is a whole different, you know, people that don't have an ability to consent, which was much different than the Me Too cases. Right. The MeToo cases. A lot of it came out of Hollywood, and a lot of it came out of, you know, pay for play and quid pro quo situations, which are much different than what we're dealing with, with, with Epstein. But given the fact that it has gotten such bipartisan support and agreement here, I do think that what we're seeing is. Is pretty mind boggling. And a lot of the questions that have never been answered about Epstein will continue to swirl in the air. And we will spend time looking at all of these issues as we move forward. Patrick, you are awesome. I was a baby lawyer with you and it's so fun to be doing. Yeah.
- [39:25]
Peter Valentin
Back in the days.
- [39:26]
Patrick Fagan
You're Stuart Goldberg's office. 0506. I can't believe 20 something years has gone by.
- [39:32]
Donna Rotuno
Isn't it crazy? Well, it has been a pleasure to have you take the ride with me my entire career. And thank you so much for being here with me today. You're amazing.
- [39:41]
Patrick Fagan
Yeah. Pleasure's been mine. Thank you. I'll come back anytime.
- [39:45]
Donna Rotuno
I'm Donna Rotuno. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Crime and Justice. Remember to send us your thoughts and your theories. We want to hear from you. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube or anywhere you get your podcasts. See you next time.