Dennis Murphy (2:20)

I'm delighted to hear that.

Blaine Alexander (2:21)

Yeah. No, no, no. This one was very interesting. I mean, just from the start, when you talk about the notion of somebody driving along in the dark and then they see headlights behind them, and you're kind of thinking, okay, is this just a weird driver, or am I in some sort of serious trouble? I think that's something that all of us can relate to.

Dennis Murphy (2:40)

And Blaine is especially chilling because this young woman is on her cell phone talking to her boyfriend. She's coming home from work. She's about to hang it up for the night, and she says, I see lights behind me. I'm being tailed.

Blaine Alexander (2:51)

Yeah.

Dennis Murphy (2:52)

And, you know, which is the hair on the back of your neck.

Blaine Alexander (2:54)

Well, I mean, I think the thing, too, that that makes it even more frightening. Just from a woman's perspective. You kind of think, okay, if I'm on the phone with somebody, if I'm driving home or, you know, it's late at night, I'll be on the phone with my husband. I'm talking to him. It's fine. She was. She was on the phone with. With her fiance and still reassured in.

Dennis Murphy (3:11)

The cocoon of her little car there, almost home. She was in her driveway.

Blaine Alexander (3:15)

I was really moved by your interview with, With Brandi's mother.

Dennis Murphy (3:19)

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Blaine Alexander (3:20)

Because I. Oh, God, I just felt terrible for her, especially the detail of she being right so close and being right there in her driveway and her saying that she sat there and looked and couldn't do anything. She was just watching all of this happen. Right. As investigators were kind of processing the.

Dennis Murphy (3:37)

Scene, she's seeing the police lights at the end of her driveway, and her daughter's a minute from being inside her house, safe and sound. And she can't hurry justice along either, Blaine. I mean, this woman has to wait years and years for some kind of result who did this to my baby? And they just weren't getting answers. They all knew who did it, but they couldn't bring him to ground.

Blaine Alexander (3:57)

I found myself just. I wanted to hear as much as I could from her, both from the feeling of losing a child. At the end, we learned that she, you know, they took in the grandchild, of course.

Dennis Murphy (4:08)

Yeah.

Blaine Alexander (4:09)

But then just kind of this wait for justice and what that looked like. How was she dealing with all of that?

Dennis Murphy (4:15)

I mean, I remember her face. There was just this mask of grief, you know, that had become her default. And, I mean, how do you put into words, you got me in the other chair saying, how do you feel about that? What's happened? How do you feel about justice? And there are no good answers for her. I mean, she's mainly mourning the loss of her daughter.

Blaine Alexander (4:38)

So let's talk about the two people that wind up becoming the focus of this investigation. Brandi's soon to be ex husband, her estranged husband who lives off in Alaska, and then his friend from the gym, Sirius Underwood.

Dennis Murphy (4:52)

I mean, people talk about being thick as thieves and that's what these two guys were because they were actually in their alter egos. They were stick up guys. They'd put on masks and put a gun in somebody's face and grab the money and run. In addition to being, you know, admired people on campus where they worked, friends in the gym, thick as thieves.

Blaine Alexander (5:13)

You know, I have to say that I've never heard of a story like this where there's no money exchanging hands, there's no insurance money. It's not a quid pro quo. It's not, if you kill my soon to be ex wife, I'll do something for you. It's just that's what dudes do for dudes. Was the quote.

Dennis Murphy (5:31)

Wasn't that a great line? That's what dudes do for dudes.

Blaine Alexander (5:34)

That's.

Dennis Murphy (5:35)

And I sort of, you know, as, as a dude, I sort of get that you do things for your dude. Can I pick you up at the airport? It's going to give you a run back from the auto shop when you do your drop. That's what dudes do.

Blaine Alexander (5:45)

Perhaps. Yeah.

Dennis Murphy (5:47)

And as you said, there's absolutely no evidence that any money changed hands. It's not like, I'll give you my routing number. Here's a, here's a gym bag full of cash. That never happened, but it was what dudes do for dudes.

Blaine Alexander (5:58)

A big reveal to me came kind of toward the end when you said Josh was heavily dependent on steroids. That he was, as the investigator said, he was roided out of his mind. Right.

Dennis Murphy (6:08)

And so he's a major gym rat.

Blaine Alexander (6:10)

Major gym rat. I loved the line that you had that said after time in jail, his kind of muscles had deflated like spent balloons.

Dennis Murphy (6:18)

Now, I'm not an expert on steroids, Blaine, but I think one of the consequences might be that you don't start thinking straight.

Blaine Alexander (6:25)

Well, aggression, aggression, aggression, aggression. That's a big consequence of it. Right? And that's one of the. As soon as I heard you say steroids in there, that's what I thought of This, I think the real mystery in all of this was serious Sirius Underwood. He was almost this like Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, like character.

Dennis Murphy (6:44)

Exactly.

Blaine Alexander (6:44)

Right, right.

Dennis Murphy (6:46)

I mean, he was, he was the poster boy at his college. You know, he was the one that showed new students around. He was on the. All the. In the literature, as this is an example of what we are at Zayn State College, when he wasn't posing for photos and helping little old ladies across the street, he was putting a gun in somebody's face and grabbing their bag and their money.

Blaine Alexander (7:05)

What a strange switch. Do you think that it was the thrill for him?

Dennis Murphy (7:08)

You know, they had a. They were engaged in a wave of robberies in the, in that part of Ohio. And I think, I don't know what that is, the adrenaline of that or whatever, or the, the mind state that, wow, we are bad guys. It somehow spilled over into this becoming a killer. Because Underwood went out on his own. I mean, he was the one following that car. He took it upon himself to do what a dude's got to do for a dude.

Blaine Alexander (7:33)

And the ease with which he suggested it was also really chilling to me. It wasn't like they worked up to it and, oh, what should we do? It was just like, I don't know, let's get rid of her. I mean, they're just like, hey, let's go get a pizza. That was very stunning. When we get back, we've got more from Josh Daniel's interview with police and more of the conversation Dennis had with Wendy Sirius girlfriend, who says she still can't believe that he committed murder.

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Blaine Alexander (9:32)

Let's talk about Zanesville, Ohio. I was very interested in this location because one, I. I have to admit, I'd not heard of Zanesville, Ohio. Been to a number of places in Ohio, but not Zanesville.

Dennis Murphy (9:43)

That's been always been the fun part of this job, Blaine, is going to places you would never, ever buy a ticket for. But there you are, all of a sudden, you're in Zanesville, Ohio, and what's it about? Well, it was. It was one of the first capitals of the state of Ohio, you know, back in mid 19th century, and there was a prosperous pottery industry that took place. The local clays were conducive to making really quality pottery. What really put them on the mat. And I had to be reminded of this. There was a news story involving Zanesville in, I'm going to say, 2010, 2011. It was very strange. There was a guy who had a backyard exotic animal farm, private. He had Bengal tigers and grizzly bears and wolves, and they were all in his backyard.

Blaine Alexander (10:30)

Oh, wow.

Dennis Murphy (10:31)

And he decided that he was going to exit life. And before he killed himself, he released all the animals in Zanesville. So they're wandering around tigers and bears, and the guys in law enforcement had to get at their long guns and kill these. They ended up killing 48 exotic animals.

Blaine Alexander (10:51)

Oh, my gosh.

Dennis Murphy (10:51)

It really took a toll, you know, I mean, these are big uniformed guys with badges and guns and weapons, and it still affected them to have to go out and shoot Bengal tigers to keep their town safe. They said then, and it makes sense. They really didn't have a choice. They had no way of rounding them up. So the escaped animals of Zanesville is one of the first things you find when you look up the place.

Blaine Alexander (11:12)

Wow. I vaguely remember that story, actually, now that you say that. I do. I remember hearing about that. But I've got to say, Dennis, as an aside, every time I do a talking dateline, with you, I always learn something new.

Dennis Murphy (11:21)

And I appreciate that's today's factoid, Blaine.

Blaine Alexander (11:24)

It's a great factoid. It's a great factoid which brings more intrigue to the town of Zanesville, Ohio. I mean, almost from the beginning, there are different characters within Zanesville. I mean, I think that long kind of road that Brandi was driving on, that was just a, that seemed like a creepy, a desolate type of place. The other place that seemed to be kind of like a focal point or a gathering point in this was the college where they all were, the local college there in Zanesville. I thought that it was so interesting that that's what brought this kind of cast of characters together in so many ways that they intersected there.

Dennis Murphy (11:59)

Yeah, Zane State and everybody would be very proud to have a community college of that reputation in their town. And yet it was also this strange where the currents of this awful event went through.

Blaine Alexander (12:11)

Of course, speaking of the people that we met there, Wendy, this is Sirius girlfriend. I've been waiting to talk to you about her because, my goodness, Wendy, I had a special sense of sympathy for.

Dennis Murphy (12:23)

I agree. I mean, she was a student. She went back, you know, as a single mom at a certain age in life and to get a degree. And she became a spokesperson and model for Zane State along with this guy Sirius.

Blaine Alexander (12:38)

And she thinks she's.

Dennis Murphy (12:39)

And they became a couple. They became, they became, they became close. And she could not put together these stories they were telling her of this Jekyll Hyde kind of personality of her boyfriend that he could do it.

Blaine Alexander (12:51)

I mean, she rode for him until the end. She said, I, she truly did. Even after she said there's no reason. Why would he do this?

Dennis Murphy (12:58)

And it all brings you down to the. What made this guy tick? Why would he give up this woman that he had this life that he had, he was, you know, pride of the community kind of character and then become a stick up guy and a killer.

Blaine Alexander (13:12)

Yeah, let's. You spoke with her. I was fascinated by the interview. We have an extra clip though, where she kind of talks about her thoughts about all of this.

Dennis Murphy (13:21)

And you don't think he's toying with your emotions and running a cruel con on you?

Sponsor Voice (13:26)

A cruel con.

Dennis Murphy (13:27)

People will tell you that Sirius is a con man of. Con man. Oh, manipulator. Do you think he was doing that with you?

Sponsor Voice (13:35)

No. Yeah, I know it.

Blaine Alexander (13:40)

Yeah.

Sponsor Voice (13:41)

That's not even a question.

Blaine Alexander (13:43)

So you don't think the times that.

Sponsor Voice (13:45)

He lied, see, to be a cheater, you pretty well have to be a liar. Right. That kind of goes hand in hand. I'm just saying it's not fair to just, you know, say that because someone, you know, you know, was smooth or they were. What was that word you use? Charming or manipulator, whatever. You know, I think every. All of us are manipulators to some degree. Like. No, I never felt that way at all.

Dennis Murphy (14:15)

So you don't think he was out on that road that night and shot that woman to death three times, execution style?

Sponsor Voice (14:21)

I. No, I don't. I don't have a way. I'm going to be realistic. I don't have a way of knowing that, and neither do you and neither does anybody for absolutely sure.

Dennis Murphy (14:33)

So I think Wendy really had a hard time coming to grips with it. That's what I was trying to understand in the interview with her.

Blaine Alexander (14:39)

And she really, I mean, just listening to that clip, she's adamant that he did not shoot and kill Brandi Daniels, but she's also adamant that the love that they had was real. What she felt with him is real. The sweet, kind, hardworking person that he presented himself to be to her is in fact who he is. Like, she's not even willing to cross that bridge that he lied to her.

Dennis Murphy (15:00)

So she's gotta doubt her own software system, her antennas, what that tells her about the people that she deals with in her life. How could you get something like that so wrong?

Blaine Alexander (15:10)

That's a hard leap for people to make.

Dennis Murphy (15:11)

She thought she had found her guy.

Blaine Alexander (15:13)

Let's talk about the investigation. The detectives here were on a mission. I mean, I think what's unusual about this episode, it wasn't who did it, but it was why.

Dennis Murphy (15:21)

I think the undercurrent of all of this is that the two perpetrators thought that they were just way smarter than these, you know, kind of slow local cops. And they were wrong as they could be because those cops got em.

Blaine Alexander (15:33)

You know, there were. There was a line in there that I loved. You said smart investigative work with a healthy dollop of luck or a hefty dollop of luck. Yeah, and I think that's very real here.

Dennis Murphy (15:43)

The big aha moment in the case. I think Blaine was the detective who clued to the identification of the burner phone. Now, I think we all know what burner phones are. You, you buy them at the store and you use them, you throw them away and it doesn't tell much about you. They're kind of anonymous phones. And this cop did what cops do in 2010. It was a while ago. Maybe there's better technology now, but you have to go to all of the towers and ask the tower, what is this phone that's pinging on you? What is this area code? So you can imagine there's thousands and thousands of hits. And this one sharp detective said, wait a second. Right around the time of the murder, there's an oddball area code here, and I want to know what that is. And that turned out to be the burner phone. He tracked down to the place of purchase, like a week before the murder. And that really. Everything tumbled from there.

Blaine Alexander (16:33)

They got burned by the burner phones.

Dennis Murphy (16:35)

Burned by the burner phone.

Blaine Alexander (16:36)

Burned by the burner phone.

Dennis Murphy (16:37)

I mean, people talk about clearing their phone and they. One of the guys did a reset on his phone and thought he was clean. But my sense of dealing with technology is you're never, ever really clean. Something is out there to be found.

Blaine Alexander (16:51)

I think that our faithful Dateline viewers and listeners know that if you delete something, it's not deleted. If you clear a picture, it's not clear. Like if it's been on your phone, if it's been on this at some point, it's still there.

Dennis Murphy (17:02)

It'll track you.

Blaine Alexander (17:03)

It'll track you. I loved how we have this point where we know that Josh and Sirius are behind it, we know what's going on, and then it's who is going to crack first?

Dennis Murphy (17:12)

Who are we going to sweat? Who's going to give it up?

Blaine Alexander (17:14)

Yes, exactly.

Dennis Murphy (17:15)

They have him in their separate areas for questioning. One guy has to break and is going to get a deal. As they always say, there's only one deal here. There's only one ticket for an easier way out. And which one of them is going to pick it off the table? Well, it turned out to be Josh. Josh was the weak link here.

Blaine Alexander (17:34)

He really was. What do you think it was that made him break first?

Dennis Murphy (17:39)

I don't think he was that strong a character. They sweated him and I think he.

Blaine Alexander (17:42)

Gave it up pretty quickly because it was his one. The idea didn't hatch from his mind, it came from Sirius. So the biggest X to solve for here was the motive. There was talk about whether or not Brandi knew about their robbery scheme and was going to maybe tell authorities. What do we think that was the case?

Dennis Murphy (17:59)

I think there's more than a whisper of that here. Blaine. You could see where Sirius would have a motive to not only help his friend to do what a dude's got to do for a guy who has an inconvenient woman in his life, but that, you know, she might actually snitch them out, that she knew some of the things. So as long as she was alive, he serious was at risk.

Blaine Alexander (18:19)

You know, he really was. We talked about Josh and his confession. He took a plea deal, but he had to reveal the details of the crime to, you know, to the extent that he could. He talks with investigators, and we have some extra. An extra clip from his admission and whether or not Brandi knew about Josh's side hustle with Sirius. Let's take a listen to that.

Dennis Murphy (18:40)

I think Sirius was really, really concerned when me and Brandy split up as far as what had I relayed to her, what had I told her? So he was afraid that when you two broke up, she had knowledge of some of your. Well, he knew that some of the things you guys did, he wanted to eliminate. Well, because I would brag to Brandi, I never really elaborated onto her, what I was doing. She's not stupid. But I would come home with this money, and to me and her, we didn't have anything. So me coming home with this mutual amount of money, it was exciting, you know, and she would be happy.

Blaine Alexander (19:23)

You know, every time we do episodes like this, Dennis, I always just think what trust one must have to enter into a relationship with somebody that you don't know, that you don't. If you don't know their background, I mean it. And that's obviously the underpinning of love and a relationship.

Dennis Murphy (19:40)

But, Blaine, there's the thought of the day, you know, how do you open yourself up and extend yourself to somebody? Anybody?

Blaine Alexander (19:48)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, even. Even if. Let's say, even if things had changed and she wasn't killed, you're still married to and have a child with an armed robber. Like somebody who goes to the gym and picks up a crime buddy and, you know, starts this kind of, like, string of crime. How do you know if that's in somebody or not? Right.

Dennis Murphy (20:06)

You're right. When you go into a relationship, when you say okay, I mean, do you hire a detective to check him out? I don't think so.

Blaine Alexander (20:15)

If you watch a lot of Dateline, you probably do.

Dennis Murphy (20:17)

Probably.

Blaine Alexander (20:17)

You do. You probably do. You probably do. Love advice from Blaine and Dennis. Up next, we're answering your questions from social media.

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Blaine Alexander (21:58)

That's T H U M A Co Pandora. You know I have to ask. You took the trip up to Alaska.

Dennis Murphy (22:08)

That was some of the catnip here. You know. Kenan, the producer said, Murphy, I got a story. We're going to have to go to Alaska. We have to go to Alaska.

Blaine Alexander (22:15)

Oh, on sign me up. I know exactly we're there. Tell me about that trip. I'm curious one I saw your, your range of coats. It was clearly cold up there.

Dennis Murphy (22:24)

Oh man, I got so much grief for that parker that I had blamed. You know, I I live in Florida and we got palm trees, we don't have any glaciers, we don't have any mountains and we don't have much in the way of temperatures more than 70 degrees any time of year.

Blaine Alexander (22:38)

Sure.

Dennis Murphy (22:39)

So. So Keenan the producer says, look, we we're going to go to Alaska. And thin blooded me, I've got. I looked on the last hanger in the back of my closet and there was this old park that I got because 30 years before Blaine I used to work in London and one of the usual stops on the beat was Moscow where it really was cold.

Blaine Alexander (22:56)

Yes.

Dennis Murphy (22:56)

So I said man, I gotta get a coat for this thing. And I found this parka looking deal, you know, and that had been sitting for years in my closet and when they said Alaska, okay, you're it. That coat is on.

Blaine Alexander (23:09)

That was your 30 year old, more than 30 year old Moscow coat.

Dennis Murphy (23:13)

That's true.

Blaine Alexander (23:14)

That's amazing.

Dennis Murphy (23:15)

That's true. But I thought it sort of looked like Alaska. I turned out I was wrong. Cause the court of public opinion said, get that coat off that guy. You know.

Blaine Alexander (23:22)

Well, I just thought I said, my friend is so cold, take Dennis home, send him back to Florida. He is cold. I remember, I looked it up.

Dennis Murphy (23:29)

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Blaine. But if anybody hasn't been to Alaska, they should put it on their things to do list. Cause it is a great, wonderful, exciting place.

Blaine Alexander (23:38)

I would love to go. Well, as you can imagine, we had a lot of thoughts about this from some of our listeners and some of our viewers. And there are a couple of social media questions I want to throw your way. Ann Webb Jones wrote on Facebook, still a lot of questions unanswered. Like what kind of gang were they in? How many people were in this gang that robbed all these places in town? And they never had any ideas of these people before she was murdered?

Dennis Murphy (24:09)

Yeah, I mean, they were busting guys. They were known to law enforcement, you know, in several counties there. But they never did really get a handle on them. I mean, they were the guys with the mask, with the gun. And the surveillance picture would show these horrible scenes of putting a pistol in a woman's face and grabbing her stuff and going, but they didn't know who they were. And it went on and on and on and on. Could you fault law enforcement on that end of the story? Not the murder investigation so much, but trying to crack that crime wave. Maybe they didn't come to terms with it. They didn't get them.

Sponsor Voice (24:38)

Yeah.

Blaine Alexander (24:39)

Yeah. It is interesting to see how that escalated. And then went to this. Another comment on Sirius name Martin Sanchez Jr. On Facebook wrote Sirius Underwood. Is this a Harry Potter character?

Dennis Murphy (24:54)

Blaine, I'm too old for Harry Potter. I did read the first book, but that whole kind of thing went past me. But is there a character named Sirius in Harry Potter?

Blaine Alexander (25:03)

Serious? Yes, there is. There is a. There is a curious Sirius Black from Harry Potter. I have to say the extent of my knowledge comes from my little sister shout out to Blake. She was a huge Harry Potter fan and so everything that I know about the Potter series came from her. But I know enough to just kind of piece together. Like I know some of the names of characters and I did think of Sirius. Yes.

Dennis Murphy (25:21)

And I like to do crosswords and every now and then they throw a ringer at me, like, who is the, you know, at Hogwarts Hall? Who is. And I know there's a guy named Snape in there because it always comes up in the crossword. That's all I know.

Blaine Alexander (25:31)

There we go. All right. Well, for all the Harry Potter fans out there, I'm sure they got a special kick out of this episode. This was a fascinating one, Dennis. I really appreciate it. I appreciate the conversation. And just sending all the love to Brandy's family because that was a difficult one, too.

Dennis Murphy (25:47)

Yeah. Because it comes back down to the families and we are putting these shows on television and maybe entertaining people. But at the core of it, I mean, there's a horrible experience that happened to real, live people. A real life crime.

Blaine Alexander (26:00)

Absolutely. Well, Dennis, my friend, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me.

Dennis Murphy (26:04)

Always. Great. Blaine, lovely to see you.

Blaine Alexander (26:06)

You, too. And that is it for talking DATELINE this week. Remember, if you have any questions for us about Dateline, you can always reach us 247 on social media, DatelinenBC. Or you can pick up the phone. You can leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. And of course, we'll see you Fridays on DATELINE on NBC. Thanks so much for listening.

Sponsor Voice (26:34)

At Capella University, we believe accessible education can make a difference. That's why we offer scholarship opportunities to all eligible students. Un futuro diferente esta mas cerca de lo que cres con Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.