A Crack in Everything

Summary

Dateline NBC Podcast Summary: "A Crack in Everything"

Title: A Crack in Everything
Host: NBC News
Release Date: December 24, 2024
Description: This episode delves into the harrowing true-crime story of Brad Jennings, whose conviction for the murder of his wife Lisa Jennings was later overturned. The narrative explores the complexities of the case, investigative oversights, and the enduring impact on the Jennings family.

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Introduction

The episode opens with serene imagery of the Jennings family during the 2006 Christmas Eve, setting the stage for the ensuing tragedy. Keith Morrison narrates the scene, emphasizing the facade of a happy family disrupted by hidden tensions.

[00:58] Amanda Jennings: "I see her laying there. My dad is kneeling. That was the first time I'd ever seen him cry."

The Incident

On Christmas Eve 2006, in Buffalo, Missouri, Lisa Jennings was found dead in her bedroom. Initially, her death was ruled a suicide by local authorities, despite Brad Jennings' distress and the family's doubts.

• Family Dynamics:
  The Jennings household, while outwardly stable, was marred by frequent arguments and underlying issues. Brad Jennings ran the family farm and a used car dealership, while Lisa worked at a local internet company.

[01:05] Marsha Jennings: "They had a tumultuous marriage."
[05:39] Amanda Jennings: "We would do lots of things, go on vacation a lot, go out and eat. I mean, my dad made pretty good money, so we were good on that end."

Aftermath and Rising Suspicion

Lisa's sudden death left the family reeling. Initial police reports indicated suicide, supported by gunshot residue (GSR) tests showing Lisa's right hand had residue, while Brad and Lacey did not.

• Community Reaction:
  The small-town nature of Buffalo meant the news spread quickly, but doubts lingered among family members.

[11:04] Paul Bryan: "Nothing made sense to me that night. Yeah, I had heard statements, you know, that she was troubled about reaching 40."

Investigative Flaws

Detective Dan Nash, the lead investigator, was brought into scrutiny when inconsistencies emerged. Notably, the GSR tests on Brad's bathrobe were never properly reported or documented, raising questions about the thoroughness of the investigation.

[19:09] Brad Jennings: "He was either grossly negligent or he suppressed it deliberately."

The Trial

In July 2007, Brad Jennings was apprehended and charged with Lisa's murder. The trial was swift, lasting just over two hours, culminating in a guilty verdict.

• Prosecution's Case:
  The prosecution argued that Lisa's alleged affair and her intent to leave Brad were motives for murder. They presented blood spatter analysis, albeit from an inexperienced expert, Dan Nash, who mistakenly testified as a blood spatter expert.

[25:35] Shawn Jennings: "So the prosecutor says it's a logical inference from the facts of the case that Mr. Jennings, after he shot his wife, before he called 911, he washed his hands and washed his forearms and blood."

• Defense's Shortcomings:
  The defense failed to highlight critical evidence such as Lisa's previous suicide attempts or missing GSR results, which could have exonerated Brad.

[27:13] Shawn Jennings: "If they had tested that."

Conviction and Sentencing

Brad Jennings was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The family remained steadfast in their belief of his innocence, feeling abandoned by the justice system.

[31:12] Paul Bryan: "Not even once."
[31:14] Amanda Jennings: "If you know him even, like, at all, he's just not that kind of a person."

The Appeal and Overturned Conviction

Years of relentless pursuit by Brad's sister, Marsha Jennings, and private investigator Dwight McNeil uncovered significant investigative oversights. Critical missing evidence, such as the unreported GSR test results, undermined the original verdict.

• Breakthrough Evidence:
  Marsha discovered two canisters labeled "robe," confirming that GSR tests were conducted but the results were withheld. Expert analysis later proved the absence of GSR on Brad's bathrobe and hands.

[35:24] Marsha Jennings: "And I had to go through the rest of those boxes Like I was still looking for something else and act like it wasn't a big deal. And I was ecstatic."

• Judicial Response:
  In November 2017, nearly 11 years after the incident, Brad's conviction was overturned due to the suppression of exculpatory evidence, marking the first such positive outcome in his case.

[42:26] Brad Jennings: "My first reaction was to go right to the last paragraph and see what the result was."

• Release:
  Brad was released from prison the day after the ruling, reuniting with his supportive family while facing continued skepticism from some relatives.

[42:47] Paul Bryan: "It's the first time that we had had a positive outcome. It was wonderful."
[43:35] Lester Holt: "Yeah."

Family and Community Impact

The ordeal left the Jennings family fractured. While Brad, Marsha, and some members staunchly believe in his innocence, others like Lisa's sister Sean and daughter Lacey remain unconvinced.

[45:04] Paul Bryan: "I have a kid now. He missed that."
[45:37] Paul Bryan: "I knew Brad was innocent. The only thing I've ever wanted was for finally everyone to hear the truth."

Conclusion

"A Crack in Everything" highlights the profound miscarriages within the criminal justice system, emphasizing the critical importance of thorough investigations and the peril of overlooked evidence. The Jennings family's relentless pursuit of truth underscores the human cost of judicial errors and the enduring quest for justice.

[45:53] Brad Jennings: "That's all for now."

Host Closure:
Lester Holt wraps up the episode, leaving listeners reflecting on the intricate layers of truth and deception that can unravel in the face of tragedy.

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the pivotal moments and emotional undertones of the "A Crack in Everything" episode, providing a clear and engaging narrative of Brad Jennings' journey from conviction to exoneration.

Transcript

[Lester Holt]

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[Amanda Jennings]

I see her laying there. My dad is kneeling. That was the first time I'd ever seen him cry.

[Marsha Jennings]

They had a tumultuous marriage.

[Amanda Jennings]

There'd be yelling and slamming doors.

[Shawn Jennings]

It's initially ruled a suicide. Her sister went to the Missouri State Highway Patrol to express their belief that this, in fact, was a murder.

[Brad Jennings]

She had been having an affair with her boss. It was obvious there was something that just wasn't right.

[Paul Bryan]

The only thing I've ever wanted was for everyone to hear the truth.

[Brad Jennings]

I thought they made one of the worst mistakes I'd ever heard of.

[Paul Bryan]

I told him I would fight with everything I had in me. That's the promise I made to him.

[Brad Jennings]

I'm Lester Holt and this is dateline.

[Lester Holt]

Here's Keith Morrison with a crack in everything. It was his secret that started it, a secret gift. It was Christmas Eve in the year 2006, a little farm not far from a little town called Buffalo. Buffalo, Missouri. And on that farm, in the fine new house Brad and Lisa Jennings had built for their family, the stockings were hung, the children were snug in their beds, and Lisa was sitting up very late, drinking wine and crying. Meaning? Well, who knew? But for one thing, with Lisa in the way, Brad couldn't sneak that secret of his into her stocking, which is what started it, the flaring argument, the slamming doors, the sudden silence before Amanda woke up to the sound of her dad on 911.

[Amanda Jennings]

And he's very hysterical. You know, he's crying. Can't really say anything other than get here quick. Get here quick. I heard that two or three times.

[Lester Holt]

Such a complicated tale with its secrets and lies and shifting loyalties. And here of all places, this throwback to an idealized past.

[Paul Bryan]

We hunted mushrooms. We Picked up walnuts.

[Lester Holt]

They were inseparable children, Brad and his older sister Marsha.

[Paul Bryan]

He was my playmate. We depended on each other.

[Lester Holt]

Marcia became a nurse. Brad ran the farm, the center of their family, since 1853. That Christmas 2006, Brad and Lisa had been married 18 mostly happy years.

[Amanda Jennings]

We had a fairly good life.

[Lester Holt]

There were three kids. Amanda, 16 that Christmas Eve. Dallas, who was 11 then. Lacey, Lisa's daughter from a first marriage, was 19 and had just moved into her own place in town. And as Amanda said, life was fairly good.

[Amanda Jennings]

We would do lots of things, go on vacation a lot, go out and eat. I mean, my dad made pretty good money, so we were good on that end.

[Paul Bryan]

Seemed like a very good and stable environment.

[Lester Holt]

Brad loved cars, especially classic muscle cars and extra, specially the 1970 Chevelle Supersport he'd so carefully restored.

[Paul Bryan]

By the time he was 12, he was redoing motors and helping put motors in and out of different vehicles.

[Lester Holt]

So Brad opened a used car dealership. He was a great people person and I guess that's what you have to be when you deal cars and stuff. And their mom, Lisa, very pretty.

[Amanda Jennings]

She could be really happy and like sort of like the life of the party kind of person.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah, really fun being in. Well, Brad ran the farm in his car business. Lisa worked at a local Internet company.

[Paul Bryan]

She was really good at it and.

[Amanda Jennings]

She became like their top employee at home.

[Lester Holt]

Lisa was the mom who actually liked video games with Dallas, mostly video games and movies. We had a big projector screen that we would put on the wall and like watch movies. Really big. Did it seem like a happy household overall? Yeah, but of course there is, as Leonard Cohen used to sing, a crack in everything. And in the Jennings house, those were the sudden blow ups when the mood went dark and the kids scattered.

[Amanda Jennings]

They would fight maybe once every couple weeks or something. Mostly later in the evening at night after they'd been drinking, there'd be yelling and maybe slamming doors, things like that, but just. Just arguing about anything. Nothing.

[Lester Holt]

I never really thought too much about it anyway. Now it was that calamitous Christmas Eve 2006. As always, there'd been a happy dinner celebration with Brad's side of the family.

[Amanda Jennings]

Christmas Eve we would go to my grandma's there in town and then back home.

[Lester Holt]

Games and stocking, stuffing and of course.

[Amanda Jennings]

Wake up real early and open all the presents.

[Lester Holt]

Lisa had no idea that Brad had bought her a $3,500 diamond ring, got the kids to help him pick it out back from grandma's he waited for his chance to hide it in her stocking. But Lisa kept fiddling on the computer and the kids were playing a board game. I think it was Monopoly.

[Amanda Jennings]

We just played downstairs for a while and then eventually went up to our rooms.

[Lester Holt]

It was well after midnight when they heard the raised voices downstairs.

[Amanda Jennings]

I heard the, you know, the yelling and everything. Just a normal fight like they would always have.

[Lester Holt]

And then a door slammed, which meant that Brad had gone out to his workshop to cool down. But Lacy, home for the holiday, was furious. Another fight, and this one on Christmas Eve, no less. And as usual, over some stupid little thing, she was done.

[Amanda Jennings]

And so my sister decided to go downstairs and get into it with her. I think one of the last things I remember my mom even saying was something like, I would never disrespect my parents that way.

[Lester Holt]

Lacey was just fed up, was she?

[Amanda Jennings]

Yeah, she just couldn't believe they'd fight on Christmas.

[Lester Holt]

Then more door slamming and Lacey was out of there.

[Amanda Jennings]

She went back to her house in Buffalo.

[Lester Holt]

So by the time she left, your dad was outside in the workshop, although you didn't really know where he was, right?

[Amanda Jennings]

Well, he was outside. He does that a lot. He'll go outside and go out to shop.

[Lester Holt]

So Amanda sighed and closed her eyes and drifted off. And then sometime after 1:30am, that loud frantic sound. Her father. On 91 1, she ran downstairs to her parents bedroom.

[Amanda Jennings]

I opened the door and, you know, I see her laying there and my dad is kneeling next to her. And as soon as I had opened the door, he gets up and kind of pulls me out of the room and he's hugging me and crying.

[Lester Holt]

Their mother was dead. Of that there was no doubt. But how and why and who, when.

[Brad Jennings]

We come back, what had happened in that bedroom?

[Paul Bryan]

I thought there'd been an accident.

[Lester Holt]

The truth would be much worse. Did you have any inkling, any suspicion that Brad might have had something to do with this? Dallas Jennings was only 11 that awful Christmas morning in 2006, the morning he lost his mother. And it's probably a blessing that something in his brain has blocked the memory. A lot of it's a blur to me. Amanda, 16 at the time, remembers every dreadful detail.

[Amanda Jennings]

Just shocking. Obviously very upset, but didn't know what to do, you know. Yeah, it was very hard.

[Lester Holt]

And the ambulance arrived and the policemen.

[Amanda Jennings]

They all arrived and we had to leave the house so they could do all our work. And so we went outside and waited in my truck because it was cold.

[Lester Holt]

Out, just huddled together in there.

[Amanda Jennings]

Did you talk Much just shock and mostly silence. I remember Dallas kept saying she was going to be okay. He didn't really know what had happened because he didn't see her or nothing. And no one was really saying what happened. And my dad was just sitting over in the passenger seat just a mess. And that was the first time I'd ever seen him cry.

[Lester Holt]

News of this sort spreads very fast, but often in confused or incomplete or fuzzy bits. So when Brad's sister Marcia heard something.

[Paul Bryan]

Happened at the farm, I didn't realize the gravity of it. I thought there'd been an accident and she was on the way to the hospital.

[Lester Holt]

It was anything but an accident. Lisa was gone, dead at 39, killed by a bullet at close range to the head. Brad told local sheriff's deputies how he argued with Lisa, then went out to his workshop to cool off. And when he came back in maybe 20 minutes later, he found her on the bedroom floor, his handgun nearby. So deputies tested Lisa's hands for gunshot residue. They did the same with Brad and Lacy, that to tell them who fired the gun. And Lisa's right hand tested positive for. For gunshot residue. Brad and Lacey came out negative, meaning it seemed to the coroner that Lisa, for reasons unknown, must have killed herself. Did it make sense to you that she would commit suicide?

[Paul Bryan]

Nothing made sense to me that night. Yeah, I had heard statements, you know, that she was troubled about reaching 40. She had had cosmetic surgery. Could be a red flag.

[Lester Holt]

Brad and Lisa's brother in law, Paul Bryan, was stricken. What did they miss?

[Brad Jennings]

All the kids loved. And Lisa, she was just fun.

[Lester Holt]

Lisa had seemed so together. She loved family events, loved having kids around.

[Brad Jennings]

There was never a time that Lisa did not want the kids to spend the night or to stay and she might end up with five or six different children that under her roof.

[Lester Holt]

It was fine with her.

[Brad Jennings]

Yeah, she loved it.

[Lester Holt]

But now this accommodating, fun loving woman was dead. It was all very shocking.

[Brad Jennings]

And it's not like you've had a long illness or something to get prepared. This was just sudden.

[Lester Holt]

And yeah, the idea that she would commit suicide so abruptly and violently like.

[Brad Jennings]

That, that wasn't something that would be expected. No.

[Lester Holt]

But of course, the alternative was really quite unthinkable. Did you have any inkling, any suspicion that Brad might have had something to do with this?

[Brad Jennings]

I had none. Brad called me on Christmas morning and you could tell he was still terribly distraught. So that morning I came over and he told me the whole story. And no, no, it never crossed my mind.

[Lester Holt]

In fact, after all the lab test results were in. The Dallas county sheriff and coroner and prosecutor all officially ruled Lisa's death suicide. The local newspaper, the Buffalo Reflex, quoted the prosecutor who said, there is zero evidence to show otherwise. So you had no sense anyway, no reason to think it was anything other than what the coroner and the sheriff said it was.

[Paul Bryan]

Absolutely not.

[Lester Holt]

But there were others in the family and they were not so sure.

[Shawn Jennings]

Coming up, she went to the Missouri State Highway Patrol to express their belief that this, in fact, was a murder.

[Lester Holt]

And an investigator's prime suspect. Brad Jennings.

[Brad Jennings]

He started asking me questions about Brad. He goes, what did Jennings say to you about his wife having an affair?

[Lester Holt]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Brad Jennings]

He just kept saying, why, Dale? Why did she do this? He was a mess.

[Lester Holt]

All those guns you see in the background there. Dale owns Buffalo's only gun and pawn shop. So when Lisa's death was declared to be suicide and the sheriff returned Brad's gun, the one that killed her, Brad.

[Brad Jennings]

Called Dale and he said, I don't really want the gun back.

[Lester Holt]

I can't imagine why you would.

[Brad Jennings]

He said, do you want it? I said, yeah, I do. I cleaned it up, just put it in the safe and forgot about it.

[Lester Holt]

And the family tried to move on and didn't pay much attention when Lacey began saying odd things.

[Amanda Jennings]

You know, when mom was murdered, blah, blah, blah, murdered.

[Lester Holt]

Not that it was anything like an accusation or aggressive or unfriendly.

[Amanda Jennings]

She didn't act any different with that. She still came around. He still helped her.

[Lester Holt]

But sometimes the smaller your town, the less you know about what your neighbors are saying behind your back. Nothing in your face, nothing like that.

[Paul Bryan]

It was way more subtle than that.

[Lester Holt]

How do you mean?

[Paul Bryan]

Probably everyone else was talking about it, but they didn't talk to us about it.

[Lester Holt]

No, they didn't. But Lisa's younger sister Sean was talking.

[Shawn Jennings]

She saw Iraqi marriage, and her sister would not be a person that would have committed suicide.

[Lester Holt]

This is Steve Pokan, writes a column in the Springfield News Leader called Poking around, which he did, and discovered that Lisa's sister Sean got busy. Soon after that deadly Christmas morning in.

[Shawn Jennings]

Early January, she went to the office of the Missouri State Highway Patrol to express their belief that this in fact, was a murder she lucked into.

[Lester Holt]

A highly experienced detective named Dan Nash.

[Shawn Jennings]

Longtime investigator who's been involved in several high profile murder cases in the the Ozarks.

[Lester Holt]

And when Sergeant Nash took one look at that file, something forensic seemed off. He was inclined to agree with Shawn. Didn't look like suicide at all.

[Shawn Jennings]

He was just struck by the fact that if Lisa Jennings had shot herself using her right hand, that there would be more blowback from that wound than one drop of blood.

[Lester Holt]

Three months after that Christmas Eve, investigator Nash drove over to Brad's farm, told him he was looking at the case.

[Shawn Jennings]

Again, and wanted the bathrobe that Mr. Jennings was wearing that night, the robe.

[Lester Holt]

He had on when he said he found Lisa dead and held her in his arms. Why three months later, would a bathrobe be of any use at all? Surely it had been cleaned or something after this event.

[Shawn Jennings]

Apparently, it had not. Oh, Mr. Jennings had spent little time going back into that bedroom from where, from his perspective, his wife had taken her life.

[Lester Holt]

So Brad gave Nash the black bathrobe and sure enough, still had blood on it. So they ran some tests and kept in touch with Brad.

[Shawn Jennings]

He was questioned a couple of times.

[Lester Holt]

Then a month later, this was April now, the sheriff came to call at Dale Potter's gun and pawn.

[Brad Jennings]

Then he says, I'm here to see the Jennings gun.

[Lester Holt]

Then a few weeks after that, a guy in a T shirt and khakis.

[Brad Jennings]

Walked in, told me he was a sergeant with a Missouri state highway patrol. And he said, I'm here to investigate the murder of Lisa Jennings. I said, what are you talking about, murder? It was in the paper, you know, it was ruled a suicide. And he said, no, he killed her.

[Lester Holt]

That wasn't all.

[Brad Jennings]

And he goes, what did Jennings say to you about his wife having an affair? I said, he never said a word to me about his wife having an affair. Why? Was she? And he said, yes, and we can prove it. I said, well, that explains a lot. He said, you mean why he killed her? And I said, no. I said, why she did this? I said, maybe everything caught up with her, you know?

[Lester Holt]

Meaning, thought Dale. Something about the affair pushed her over the edge. Then Dale offered the sergeant a little family history.

[Brad Jennings]

I said, you do know, don't you, that her dad killed himself? And he goes, you're full of crap. He said, her dad's alive and he lives at Wendyville. I said, no, you're full of crap. Her stepdad lives at Wendyville. Her real dad killed himself out in Kansas years ago.

[Lester Holt]

Another family Suicide, an affair. Just where was this affair investigation going?

[Brad Jennings]

Coming up, a determined detective, he looked at me and told me straight up, I've never been wrong.

[Lester Holt]

And a confused friend. What'd you think?

[Brad Jennings]

I thought they made one of the worst mistakes I'd ever heard of.

[Lester Holt]

Probably everybody in Buffalo, Missouri knew that Brad Jennings, the apparently grieving husband, was now a murder suspect. Everybody waiting for something to happen. And in July 2007, seven months after Lisa's death, it did.

[Brad Jennings]

Got about a mile from his house and two or three highway patrol sergeants and the sheriff stopped him and arrested him. Took him to the county jail.

[Lester Holt]

What'd you think?

[Brad Jennings]

I thought they made one of the worst mistakes I'd ever heard of.

[Paul Bryan]

Later we were told there were people around that knew it was going to happen.

[Lester Holt]

People like Lisa's sister Sean, who went to the highway patrol in the first place, and Lisa's daughter from her first marriage, Lacey. We asked for interviews. They declined.

[Amanda Jennings]

When my dad got arrested, Lacey and Sean showed up at the house to pick me in Dallas up. And then my grandma showed up as well to pick us up. And my aunt and my grandma kind of got into it.

[Lester Holt]

It sounds to me like that is sort of the moment when the family broke apart.

[Amanda Jennings]

That's when it really blew open. That's when, you know, Lacey quit coming around and everything just fell apart.

[Lester Holt]

That evening, Brad's brother in law, Paul, who's married to Lisa's other sister, said he met with the highway patrol sergeant who led the investigation.

[Brad Jennings]

And I asked the one patrol officer if he'd ever been wrong, that there was a small part of me that wished or hopes that he is correct, because if not, he's going to run a lot of people's lives. And he looked at me and told me straight up, I've never been wrong.

[Lester Holt]

Never been wrong. Never been wrong was this investigator Dan Nash.

[Brad Jennings]

It was Brad.

[Lester Holt]

Posted a million dollar bond and was allowed to remain free until his trial. Brad's attorney said the state had no case.

[Paul Bryan]

And every time that I spoke with him, he said it couldn't go to trial. He didn't say it wouldn't. He said it couldn't.

[Lester Holt]

Was still saying that The Friday before the trial was to begin in August.

[Paul Bryan]

2009, he said, we'll go in there Monday morning and we'll see what motions are flying around.

[Lester Holt]

But by midday Monday, the jury was picked and the trial began. How shocking was that?

[Paul Bryan]

It was very shocking. And we hadn't been there an hour till I was getting sick to my stomach just Listening. Prosecution was just running rampant with it.

[Lester Holt]

That is saying terrible things about Brad.

[Paul Bryan]

And I was wanting to jump up.

[Lester Holt]

And object because to Marcia, it seemed like Brad's attorney, Daryl Deputy, wasn't objecting at all.

[Paul Bryan]

Mr. Deputy wouldn't say anything in Brad's defense.

[Lester Holt]

What was it like to be you sitting back there watching that?

[Paul Bryan]

It was the most miserable time of my life and I didn't know what I could do. I wanted to stop it and I didn't know how. And Mr. Deputy would say, it's all going to come together here and don't worry about it.

[Lester Holt]

Maybe the attorney was thinking of the gunshot residue or gsr. Remember, they found GSR on Lisa's right hand, but not on Brad's hands, implying that Lisa shot herself. The prosecutor had an explanation.

[Shawn Jennings]

So the prosecutor says it's a logical inference from the facts of the case that Mr. Jennings, after he shot his wife, before he called 911, he washed his hands and washed his forearms and blood.

[Lester Holt]

Evidence Investigator Nash was the expert the state put up. And he said that in his expert opinion, the way the spatter hit the wall and Brad's black bathrobe and Lisa's hand, it left no doubt that Brad fired the fatal shot. But why would he do such a thing? An age old reason, said the prosecutor. Lisa wanted out.

[Shawn Jennings]

The prosecution at trial wanted to show that she was intent on leaving him. And she had an application at an apartment complex where Lacey had lived.

[Lester Holt]

Lisa wouldn't end her life, said the state, because she was busy improving. She'd bought nice clothes, had recently had cosmetic surgery.

[Shawn Jennings]

The state presented witnesses that said she was in good spirits. And it's unlikely that someone who has cosmetic surgery and is feeling good about themselves would take their lives.

[Lester Holt]

The defense didn't mention that Lisa's father took his own life or that she herself attempted suicide back in high school. No secret in town back then. And nobody brought up the rumor that Lisa was having an affair. But one curious thing did come up. The defense attorney in his closing argument made a rather fascinating point about the bathrobe Brad was wearing when Lisa was shot.

[Shawn Jennings]

The defense attorney in his closing argument said, they had that thing for two years. I don't know why they didn't test it for gunshot residue, but they didn't. So we could wrap this up in a heartbeat whether he did it or not. If they had tested that.

[Lester Holt]

Now that was interesting and a very good point. After all, if they found residue on the bathrobe, it would certainly point right at Brad. But the Moment passed, case went to the jury, and two hours and 24 minutes later, they found Brad guilty of murder. And where else would this happen? They let him go home one last night before the second sentencing began the following day.

[Paul Bryan]

And the next morning he asked me to drive him back. And I think that's one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.

[Lester Holt]

Did you want to just say, let's go somewhere else, Brad. Let's just drive to Mexico or something?

[Paul Bryan]

No, that's not who we are. And I told him that I would fight with everything I had in me to correct it.

[Lester Holt]

But what could one lone woman do? No legal training, no contacts, no pull. What Indeed.

[Brad Jennings]

Coming up, a search for the truth. It was obvious there was something that just wasn't right.

[Lester Holt]

And miss missing evidence.

[Marsha Jennings]

I took the photo, I texted it to Dwight and just said, jackpot.

[Lester Holt]

When DATELINE continues. Do you like podcasts, music and audiobooks? Because when you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, you get all three in one app. Imagine listening to your favorite podcasts and music on the go to work, school, the gym, or better yet, vacation. Now imagine being on vacation with your favorite audiobook from Audible and then listening to a new one every month from a huge selection of popular titles. That sounds like a pretty good vacation, right? Audible is now included on Amazon Music Unlimited. Download the Amazon Music app now to start listening Terms. Apply Apple Card is the perfect card.

[Dwight McNeil]

For your holiday shopping.

[Lester Holt]

You can apply on your iPhone in.

[Dwight McNeil]

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[Lester Holt]

You may know me as Mike Ross.

[Paul Bryan]

On the TV series Suits.

[Dwight McNeil]

And I'm Sarah Rafferty and I play Donna Paulson on Suits.

[Lester Holt]

And we have a podcast called Sidebar where every week we watch and discuss.

[Paul Bryan]

An episode of the show.

[Dwight McNeil]

Because here's the thing, neither of us have really watched it.

[Lester Holt]

That's true.

[Dwight McNeil]

At least until now. So we're going to cover all nine seasons, share behind the scenes stories, and talk to our co stars and friends like Gina Torres and Aaron Korsch. So look, if you love Suits, Amazing.

[Lester Holt]

This podcast is for you.

[Dwight McNeil]

And if you've never watched Suits, also Amazing, you can join us and we'll watch it together.

[Paul Bryan]

I think we're gonna have a lot of fun.

[Dwight McNeil]

Listen to sidebar wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to follow the.

[Lester Holt]

Show so you never miss an episode. The day after Brad Jennings was convicted of murdering his wife Lisa, he dutifully returned to court for sentencing. He got 25 years, and they led him away on a day that would have been otherwise auspicious. That was my first day of high school. Did either of you ever think maybe he did kill her?

[Paul Bryan]

Not even once.

[Amanda Jennings]

If you know him even, like, at all, he's just not that kind of a person.

[Lester Holt]

True, said Brad's big sister, Marcia. So she decided she had to do everything she could to help him. Wasn't easy because he had two kids who needed to be cared for. He had payments that had to be made on the house, on the farm, on the cars. He had a business that had to be wrapped up. And he had this huge problem of having been convicted of a crime you didn't think he committed. So what does a person do in a situation like that?

[Paul Bryan]

I had no idea. I didn't even know where to start.

[Lester Holt]

But she knew she needed a better income, so she found a job that paid more but required constant travel.

[Paul Bryan]

Come home on Thursday night and leave Sunday.

[Lester Holt]

And in the time you were home, you'd wash your clothes, say hi to the kids, go into the prison, see Brad, and get back on the plane again.

[Paul Bryan]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

The first appeal claimed Brad had inadequate representation to trial.

[Paul Bryan]

I thought that was a no brainer.

[Lester Holt]

But it failed. Appeals court didn't agree. And Brad's trial lawyer, Daryl Deputy, said he served Brad well. Anyway, Marsha hired more attorneys, but I.

[Paul Bryan]

Couldn'T get them to talk to me. I couldn't get them to answer a question. I couldn't get them to call me back.

[Lester Holt]

Did they send you a bill?

[Paul Bryan]

Absolutely. I've got lots of bills.

[Lester Holt]

This went on for months. Years. She heard about a private investigator named Dwight McNeil, but her then attorney told her, don't call him.

[Paul Bryan]

So I sat on it for a little bit and I was having a really bad day and I called and Dwight picked up the phone and I just started crying because it'd been so long that since anyone I called answered me.

[Lester Holt]

And he did listen, but I told.

[Brad Jennings]

Her I wouldn't look at the case.

[Lester Holt]

Dwight was a former sheriff. He told her his job was catching bad guys, not getting them out of prison. But Marsha persisted, and so he agreed to see her in person.

[Brad Jennings]

I explained to her that if I concluded from my review of the file. That there was any basis at all to believe that Mr. Jennings had murdered his wife. That I would use whatever influence and whatever pressure I could to make sure he stayed in prison the rest of his life.

[Lester Holt]

You could accept a deal like that?

[Paul Bryan]

Yes. Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

So Dwight scanned the file. Just a quick look. And this was strange.

[Brad Jennings]

It was obvious there was something that just wasn't right.

[Lester Holt]

Remember what the trial attorney said about the black bathrobe? Too bad they didn't test it for gsr. Gunshot. Residential Dwight, with his years in law enforcement, lit up when he saw that they must have tested the robe.

[Brad Jennings]

That should have been tested for gsr. All the way up the right sleeve.

[Lester Holt]

Sure, if. If he fired the gun, there would have been gsr on that robe.

[Brad Jennings]

No such report existed for the testing of that sleeve of that robe in the file.

[Lester Holt]

Didn't make sense. Dwight began working with lawyer Lindsey floyd phoenix, who requested copies of all the lab reports from the highway patrol's crime lab.

[Marsha Jennings]

I got a lovely letter from them saying, here you go. Here's everything that we have. And it included every test except for the one that I was looking for.

[Lester Holt]

But it had to be there. So Lindsey went in person to the state highway patrol, and I said, I.

[Marsha Jennings]

Want to examine every piece of evidence that you have. And I brought a video camera and a cell phone camera, and I photographed every thing, Trying to be inconspicuous. I didn't want to take a chance of me finding something and it disappearing.

[Lester Holt]

And that is when she found them. Two small canisters.

[Marsha Jennings]

And inside the stubs from the gunshot residue test that were labeled robe. And I took the photo. I texted it to Dwight and just said, jackpot. And then I had to go through the rest of those boxes Like I was still looking for something else and act like it wasn't a big deal. And I was ecstatic.

[Lester Holt]

Those little stubs confirmed a gsr test had been performed on Brad's robe. But where were the results? She asked the highway patrol for them.

[Marsha Jennings]

And they didn't send them to me.

[Lester Holt]

So she wrote to them again and.

[Marsha Jennings]

Said, all right, I know they're there. I have photographs of it. I know they're there. Send me the results. And then they sent them.

[Lester Holt]

And the tests were conclusive. There was no gunshot residue on Brad's black bathrobe, Just as there wasn't any on his hands on the night Lisa died. Meaning Brad almost certainly did not fire the gun that killed Lisa. But why didn't lead investigator Dan Nash reveal that? Well, he said he never received Those results plausible?

[Marsha Jennings]

Not in a heartbeat, no. I was a prosecutor before this. My spouse is a police officer, Dwight's a police officer. We know the care that goes into building a case, and that's not a step that you skip. Dan Nash had specifically asked for that test to be done.

[Lester Holt]

So by now, Dwight was looking carefully at Dan Nash. He talked to a retired judge and.

[Brad Jennings]

He made it very clear that he had a lot of problems with Mr. Nash's reputation for truth and honesty under oath. And from there, we started interviewing former prosecutors and the number of former court personnel who expressed concerns about his reputation for truth and veracity.

[Lester Holt]

Remember how at the trial Nash was presented as a blood spatter expert? He wasn't. In fact, Nash had not even taken a basic blood stain analysis class when he investigated Lisa's death. He took a 40 hour course the following year, but was still not an expert when he testified at trial. Dwight sought out the best in the field.

[Brad Jennings]

I found two of the world's most renowned blood spatter experts.

[Lester Holt]

He sent the crime scene photos to.

[Brad Jennings]

Both of them and they both independently came to the same conclusion.

[Lester Holt]

That Dan Nash was quite simply dead wrong. One of them wrote, the blood stained evidence and the presence of gunshot residue on the right hand of Lisa Jennings are consistent with a self inflicted gunshot wound. But as any lawyer will tell you, undoing a jury's guilty verdict is well nigh impossible. So what now? Coming up, a life interrupted. He missed out on me turning 16, me getting married. I have a kid now. He missed that. Wow. He missed out on a lot. Will Brad Jennings miss even more? Dallas Jennings felt like a cheated young man, his father in prison when neither he nor Amanda believed for a minute that he killed their mother. He missed out on me turning 16, me driving for the first time, my graduation, me getting married. I have a kid now. He missed that. The birth of his first grandchild, he missed out on a lot. But Brant's sister Marsha was still determined to bring him back to that world. He was missing. And with investigator Dwight's help, she finally found a father daughter team of attorneys who seemed to understand the case. And the family.

[Brad Jennings]

These were just salt of the earth, small town country people. And they were stunned at the way the system had worked against Brad Jennings.

[Lester Holt]

First, Bob and Liz Ramsey read the trial transcript.

[Brad Jennings]

The first thing that jumped out at me is I don't recall seeing a defense attorney do so little for his client in my 38 years of practicing law.

[Lester Holt]

Oh, come on. Not the worst, surely.

[Brad Jennings]

It was certainly one of the worst.

[Lester Holt]

But what also jumped out was the work of that highway patrol investigator, Dan Nash. Confronted about the unrevealed gunshot residue test that might exonerate Brad, Nash said he never saw the report, said it never made it to his desk.

[Marsha Jennings]

If that test had been positive, would it have been lost in a fax machine?

[Brad Jennings]

It's just incomprehensible that he wouldn't follow up and say, hey, what happened to my gunshot residue test that I ordered? Well, he was either grossly negligent or he suppressed it deliberately.

[Lester Holt]

No question about it. The issue of that unrevealed GSR test was huge.

[Brad Jennings]

I thought, it's a classic Brady violation. It's the kind of evidence that makes a difference in a trial.

[Lester Holt]

So they elected to shoot for the moon. Their one chance to overturn the jury verdict. A habeas but petition that claimed withheld evidence could have changed the result of the trial.

[Brad Jennings]

I don't promise anything to a client other than I'll give you my best shot. And all I told him was, this gives you a shot.

[Lester Holt]

Vanishingly few such petitions ever go anywhere. Still, they filed and waited, and against all odds were granted a hearing.

[Paul Bryan]

We were very excited, yeah, but cautious. It was almost like this little dim light at the end of a tunnel.

[Lester Holt]

This was the hearing in November 2017, almost 11 years after that terrible Christmas Eve here. Brad's attorneys revealed the GSR result that suggested his innocence. And the experts blood spatter findings that did the same. And witnesses who questioned the honesty of Detective Nash.

[Marsha Jennings]

I think that his credibility was put at issue for the entire hearing.

[Lester Holt]

Lawyers from the Missouri Attorney General's office were there too, and told the judge that what the defense came up with would not have changed the guilty verdict. The case was so strong. We wanted to hear from the attorney general's office, from Sergeant Dan Nash and the highway patrol and all. All declined our requests. And then months went by and they all had to wait for the judge until February 8, 2018. Finally, a ruling.

[Brad Jennings]

My first reaction was to go right to the last paragraph and see what the result was. And the last sentence of his order is at a minimum. The suppression of the gunshot residue test undermines confidence in that verdict.

[Lester Holt]

Conviction overturned.

[Paul Bryan]

It's the first time that we had had a positive outcome. It was wonderful.

[Lester Holt]

The state is fighting that decision. But the very next day, on the judge's order, Brad Jennings walked out of after eight and a half years and into the arms of people who never for a minute gave up on him.

[Marsha Jennings]

It's the kind of stuff that you dream about in law school. And I firmly believe that Brad is innocent. So to walk him out was one of the greatest honors of my life. Like, I'll never forget that day.

[Paul Bryan]

It was just unbelievable. We had all waited so long for it and wondered if it was ever gonna happen.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah.

[Paul Bryan]

But it was one of the best days of my life.

[Amanda Jennings]

It was really awesome to see him walk out, you know, that was knowing that he was gonna come home with us. That was amazing.

[Lester Holt]

That ride home had to be quite something, huh?

[Amanda Jennings]

It was.

[Lester Holt]

That was weird. It was the first time my dad's ever seen me drive.

[Amanda Jennings]

Yep.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah, I drove him home. Brad Jennings was a man of few words when he met us a few weeks later, as if he was still afraid to believe it and let go. And he knows the state has an option to retry him.

[Brad Jennings]

But if we go to trial again.

[Lester Holt]

I think we can win. But we talked a bit about that Christmas Eve and the mystery of what so upset Lisa.

[Brad Jennings]

She was crying, that's one thing. I asked her why she was crying.

[Lester Holt]

And she couldn't tell you. Didn't want to tell you didn't want.

[Brad Jennings]

To talk, didn't want to say anything.

[Lester Holt]

Wasn't till years later he said that he learned she'd been having an affair with her boss. And that man had just broken it off. Meaning she was also out of a job. You know, she had told me she.

[Brad Jennings]

Wasn'T coming back to work the day before this.

[Lester Holt]

He didn't understand it then, but now. Maybe that was an answer to his long ago question. Why did she end her own life? Once he might have confronted the other man. Now, nothing to be done.

[Brad Jennings]

I don't even know where he's at now that business closed down.

[Lester Holt]

Now the once closed family is badly split. Lisa's sister Sean and daughter Lacey still believed Brad is guilty. So for now, it's just like starting over again, though, you know, I mean. And he clings to his kids and his sister, his mom, and those who believe in him. To his ancestral farm and his other longtime love, the old Chevelle.

[Paul Bryan]

I knew Brad was innocent. The only thing I've ever wanted was for finally everyone to hear the truth.

[Brad Jennings]

That's all for now.

[Lester Holt]

I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

[Dwight McNeil]

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